To disabuse them of this error, which, by preventing collective life, prevents also collective growth, it is necessary to show them that their extracted scheme of theological doctrine is not really the gospel; and that at any rate, therefore, it is not worth their while to separate themselves, and to frustrate the hope of growth in common, merely for this scheme's sake. And even if it were true, as they allege, that the national and historic Churches of Christendom do equally with Puritanism hold this scheme, or main parts of it, still it would be to Puritanism, and not to the historic Churches, that in showing the invalidity and unscripturalness of this scheme we should address ourselves, because the Puritan Churches found their very existence on it, and the historic Churches do not. And not founding their existence on it, nor falling into separatism for it, the historic Churches have a collective life which is very considerable, and a power of growth, even in respect of the very scheme of doctrine in question, supposing them to hold it, far greater than any which the Puritan Churches show, but which would be yet greater and more fruitful still, if the historic Churches combined the large and admirable contingent of Puritanism with their own forces. Therefore, as we have said, it is out of no sort of malice or ill-will, but from esteem for their fine qualities and from desire for their help, that we have addressed ourselves to the Puritans. We propose to complete now our dealings with this subject by showing how, as a matter of fact, the Church of England (which is the historic Church practically in question so far as Puritanism is concerned) seems to us to have displayed with respect to those very tenets which we have criticised, and for which we are said to have unfairly made Puritanism alone responsible, a continual power of growth which has been wanting to the Puritan congregations. This we propose to show first; and we will show secondly, how, from the very theory of a historic or national Church, the probability of this greater power of growth seems to follow, that we may try and commend that theory a little more to the thoughts and favour of our Puritan friends.
The two great Puritan doctrines which we have criticised at such length are the doctrines of predestination and justification. Of the aggressive and militant Puritanism of our people, predestination has, almost up to the present day, been the favourite and distinguishing doctrine; it was the doctrine which Puritan flocks greedily sought, which Puritan ministers powerfully preached, and called others carnal gospellers for not preaching. This Geneva doctrine accompanied the Geneva discipline. Puritanism's first great wish and endeavour was to establish both the one and the other absolutely in the Church of England, and it became nonconforming because it failed. Now, it is well known that the High Church divines of the seventeenth century were Arminian, that the Church of England was the stronghold of Arminianism, and that Arminianism is, as we have said, an effort of man's practical good sense to get rid of what is shocking to it in Calvinism. But what is not so well known, and what is eminently worthy of remark, is the constant pressure applied by Puritanism upon the Church of England, to put the Calvinistic doctrine more distinctly into her formularies, and to tie her up more strictly to this doctrine; the constant resistance offered by the Church of England, and the large degree in which Nonconformity is really due to this cause.
Everybody knows how far Nonconformity is due to the Church of England's rigour in imposing an explicit declaration of adherence to her formularies. But only a few, who have searched out the matter, know how far Nonconformity is due, also, to the Church of England's invincible reluctance to narrow her large and loose formularies to the strict Calvinistic sense dear to Puritanism. Yet this is what the record of conferences shows at least as signally as it shows the domineering spirit of the High Church clergy; but our current political histories, written always with an anti-ecclesiastical bias, which is natural enough, inasmuch as the Church party was not the party of civil liberty, leaves this singularly out of sight. Yet there is a very catena of testimonies to prove it; to show us, from Elizabeth's reign to Charles the Second's, Calvinism, as a power both within and without the Church of England, trying to get decisive command of her formularies; and the Church of England, with the instinct of a body meant to live and grow, and averse to fetter and engage its future, steadily resisting.
The Lambeth Articles of 1595 exhibit Calvinism potent in the Church of England herself, and among the bishops of the Church. True; but could it establish itself there? No; the Lambeth Articles were recalled and suppressed, and Archbishop Whitgift was threatened with the penalties of a præmunire for having published them. Again, it was usual from 1552 onwards to print in the English Bibles a catechism asserting the Calvinistic doctrine of absolute election and reprobation. In the first Bibles of the authorised version this catechism appeared; but it was removed in 1615. Yet the Puritans had met James the First, at his accession in 1603, with the petition that there may be an uniformity of doctrine prescribed; meaning an uniformity in this sense of strict Calvinism. Thus from the very commencement the Church, as regards doctrine, was for opening; Puritanism was for narrowing.
Then came, in 1604, the Hampton Court Conference. Here, as usual, political historians reproach the Church with having conceded so little. These historians, as we have said, think solely of the Puritans as the religious party favourable to civil liberty, and on that account desire the preponderance of Puritanism in its disputes with the Church. But, as regards freedom of thought and truth of ideas, what was it that the Church was pressed by Puritanism to concede, and what was the character and tendency of the Church's refusal? The first Puritan petition at this Conference was 'that the doctrine of the Church might be preserved in purity according to God's Word.' That is, according to the Calvinistic interpretation put upon God's Word by Calvin and the Puritans after him; an interpretation which we have shown to be erroneous and unscriptural. This Calvinistic doctrine of predestination the Puritans wanted to plant hard and fast in the Church's formularies, and the Church resisted. The Puritan foreman complained of the loose wording of the Thirty-nine Articles because it allowed an escape from the strict doctrine of Calvinism, and moved that the Lambeth Articles, strictly Calvinistic, might be inserted into the Book of Articles. The Bishops resisted, and here are the words of their spokesman, the Bishop of London. 'The Bishop of London answered, that too many in those days, neglecting holiness of life, laid all their religion upon predestination,—"If I shall be saved, I shall be saved," which he termed a desperate doctrine, showing it to be contrary to good divinity, which teaches us to reason rather ascendendo than descendendo, thus: "I live in obedience to God, in love with my neighbour, I follow my vocation, &c., therefore I trust that God hath elected me and predestinated me to salvation;" not thus, which is the usual course of argument: "God hath predestinated and chosen me to life, therefore, though I sin never so grievously, I shall not be damned, for whom he once loveth he loveth to the end."' Who will deny that this resistance of the Church to the Puritans, who, laying all their religion upon predestination, wanted to make the Church do the same, was as favourable to growth of thought and to sound philosophy, as it was consonant to good sense?
We have already, in the foregoing treatise, quoted from the complaints against the Church by the Committee of Divines appointed by the House of Lords in 1641, when Puritanism was strongly in the ascendent. Some in the Church teach, say the Puritan complainers, 'that good works are concauses with faith in the act of justification; some have oppugned the certitude of salvation; some have maintained that the Lord's day is kept merely by ecclesiastical constitution; some have defended the whole gross substance of Arminianism, that the act of conversion depends upon the concurrence of men's free will; some have denied original sin; some have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate doctrine, that late repentance,—that is, upon the last bed of sickness,—is unfruitful, at least, to reconcile the penitent to God.' What we insist upon is, that the growth and movement of thought, on religious matters, are here shown to be in the Church; and that on these two cardinal doctrines of predestination and justification, with which we are accused of unfairly saddling Puritanism alone, Puritanism did really want to make the national religion hinge, while the Church did not, but resisted.
The resistance of the Church was at that time vanquished, not by importing strict Calvinism into the Prayer Book, but by casting out the Prayer Book altogether. By ordinance in 1645, the use of the Prayer Book, which for churches had already been forbidden, was forbidden also for all private places and families; all copies to be found in churches were to be delivered up, and heavy penalties were imposed on persons retaining them.
We come to the occasion where the Church is thought to have most decisively shown her unyieldingness,—the Savoy Conference in 1661, after King Charles the Second's restoration. The question was, what alterations were to be made in the Prayer Book, so as to enable the Puritans to use it as well as the Church party. Having in view doctrine and free development of thought, we say again it was the Puritans who were for narrowing, it was the Churchmen who were for keeping open. Their heads full of these tenets of predestination, original sin, and justification, which we are accused of charging upon them exclusively and unfairly, the Puritans complain that the Church Liturgy seems very defective,—why? Because 'the systems of doctrine of a church should summarily comprehend all such doctrines as are necessary to be believed,' and the liturgy does not set down these explicitly enough. For instance, 'the Confession,' they say, 'is very defective, not clearly expressing original sin. The Catechism is defective as to many necessary doctrines of our religion, some even of the essentials of Christianity not being mentioned except in the Creed, and there not so explicit as ought to be in a catechism.' And what is the answer of the bishops? It is the answer of people with an instinct that this definition and explicitness demanded by the Puritans are incompatible with the conditions of life of a historic church. 'The Church,' they say, 'hath been careful to put nothing into the Liturgy but that which is either evidently the Word of God, or what hath been generally received in the Catholic Church. The Catechism is not intended as a whole body of divinity.' The Puritans had requested that 'the Church prayers might contain nothing questioned by pious, learned, and orthodox persons.' Seizing on this expression, wherein is contained the ground of that separatism for opinions which we hold to be so fatal not only to Church life but also to the natural growth of religious thought, the bishops ask, and in the very language of good sense: 'Who are pious, learned, and orthodox persons? Are we to take for such all who shall confidently affirm themselves to be such? If by orthodox be meant those who adhere to Scripture and the Catholic consent of antiquity, we do not yet know that any part of our Liturgy has been questioned by such. It was the wisdom of our reformers to draw up such a liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except against. Persons want the book to be altered for their own satisfaction.'
This allegation respecting the character of the Liturgy is undoubtedly true, for the Puritans themselves expressly admitted its truth, and urged this as a reason for altering the Liturgy. It is in consonance with what is so often said, and truly said, of the Thirty-nine Articles, that they are articles of peace. This, indeed, makes the Articles scientifically worthless. Metaphysical propositions, such as they in the main are, drawn up with a studied design for their being vague and loose, can have no metaphysical value. But no one then thought of doing without metaphysical articles; so to make them articles of peace showed a true conception of the conditions of life and growth in a church. The readiness to put a lax sense on subscription is a proof of the same disposition of mind. Chillingworth's judgment about the meaning of subscription is well known. 'For the Church of England, I am persuaded that the constant doctrine of it is so pure and orthodox, that whosoever believes it and lives according to it, undoubtedly he shall be saved; and that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturb the peace or renounce the communion of it. This, in my opinion, is all that is intended by subscription.' And Laud, a very different man from Chillingworth, held on this point a like opinion with him.
Certainly the Church of England was in no humour, at the time of the Savoy Conference, to deal tenderly with the Puritans. It was too much disposed to show to the Puritans the same sort of tenderness which the Puritans had shown to the Church. The nation, moreover, was nearly as ill-disposed as the Church to the Puritans; and this proves well what the narrowness and tyrannousness of Puritanism dominant had really been. But the Church undoubtedly said and did to Puritanism after the Restoration much that was harsh and bitter, and therefore inexcusable in a Christian church. Examples of Churchmen so speaking and dealing may be found in the transactions of 1661; but perhaps the most offensive example of a Churchman of this kind, and who deserves therefore to be studied, is a certain Dr. Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Dean of Gloucester, who was put forward to thwart Tillotson's projects of comprehension in 1689. A certain number of Dr. Janes there have always been in the Church. There are a certain number of them in the Church now, and there always will be a certain number of them. No Church could exist with many of them; but one should have a sample or two of them always before one's mind, and remember how to the excluded party a few, and those the worst, of their excluders, are always apt to stand for the whole, in order to comprehend the full bitterness and resentment of Puritanism against the Church of England. Else one would be inclined to say, after attentively and impartially observing the two parties, that the persistence of the Church in pressing for conformity arose, not as the political historians would have it, from the lust of haughty ecclesiastics for dominion and for imposing their law on the vanquished, but from a real sense that their formularies were made so large and open, and the sense put upon subscription to them was so indulgent, that any reasonable man could honestly conform; and that it was perverseness and determination to impose their special ideas on the Church, and to narrow the Church's latitude, which made the Puritans stand out.