There can be no doubt that what the Convocation considered to stand not with this foundation, they lopped off and pulled down: what, therefore, they left, of what was in their time so taught, is to be so taught still; and remains as the dogmatic teaching of the Church of England.
“Again, we have,” (continues Mr. Badeley, for I know not how to omit these links in his argument, so much are they to the purpose of my own,) “we have, in the directions given to the bishops by the lords of the council in the year 1582, with a view to their disputations with the Jesuits and seminary priests, a similar rule laid down. ‘If the latter shall show any ground of Scripture’ (says this order in council), ‘and wrest it to their sense, you shall call for the interpretation of the old doctors, such as were before Gregory I., for that in his time began the first claim of the supremacy, &c.’ So that in these we have public directions by authority as to the rule to which parties are to conform,—there is that of Convocation with reference to the clergy in their preaching, and there is this of the council with reference to public controversies and disputations; and therefore there is plenty of authority, as I conceive, for appealing to the early Church, for the Church and State both send us to the same source. No doubt it was the case in all the disputations which were held about the period of the Reformation, to appeal to primitive doctrine and tradition. In one of the statutes of Elizabeth (stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1), there is a direction as to what is to be regarded as heresy, and that is to be judged by the authority of the first four general councils, or any of them, and any other general councils which declare it heresy in the words of Scripture. [66a] We come, therefore,” (thus Mr. Badeley concludes this part of his argument) “under such sanction to the ancient Church, and to primitive and Catholic tradition, and I think we shall see beyond question that these prove the doctrine of baptism, &c.” [66b]
What Mr. Badeley cites for the special purpose of his particular case, I conceive holds good, and may be asserted precisely in the same way for the whole range of doctrine which our Church maintains; and with this persuasion it is that I have so largely cited passages from his most lucid speech. This part of his argument, though of course limited in its application by him to the special circumstances in which he stood, and the case then before the Privy Council, is evidently not exclusive; and I think proves thus much at least satisfactorily; that the Church of England at the reformation never intended for a moment to shut out previous doctrine, (though she might not actually mention and repeat it,) any more than she could have intended to shut out previous history. Whatever may have been said of her, or for her, since, the idea that she was then a new Church; making a beginning for herself, creating herself, as it were, and her doctrine; not being joined to the whole early Church, and not acknowledging her own previous existence, was evidently not only never in her mind, but the exact contradictory was so entirely an essential part of her life and being, that it is everywhere felt and assumed, and the only wonder is, it is as much stated as it is.
I have just said that Mr. Badeley advances these proofs of the character of our Church as to dogmatic teaching for one particular purpose, and in order to support one specific doctrine—baptismal regeneration. To that subject he confines himself in the application of what he had said, and, of course, most properly; because such only was the subject-matter in the appeal on which he was pleading; such the doctrine which, on behalf of his client, the Bishop of Exeter, he was bound to clear. But what I venture to say generally, from all these considerations and proofs as advanced by Mr. Badeley, is this,—that his mode of meeting the attack on the Catholic doctrine of baptism is precisely the just mode, and the right mode for us to meet any assault upon the faith of the Church of England; because those considerations of the nature of her rule of faith, and those proofs of her appeal to antiquity, and to the unrepealed dogmas of preceding ages, connecting herself with them, and showing her mind to retain the same teaching, are general, and apply not merely to baptism, or to any one doctrine, but to all our doctrines. And this defence, as it appears to me, is not only legitimate but sufficient: at any rate sufficient until specific exceptions are made and particular defects named, and proofs given, (if they may be,) of a contradictory teaching, by reference to the later authoritative expression of our Church’s mind; a position however which, as I shall presently show, you do not yourself assert. One thing further I would here observe before I proceed; that this line of argument and mode of defence of the Catholic doctrine of baptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with this particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to show the Church does not and never will acquiesce in the decision of that court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been authoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all that it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case. The court cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side, however it may disregard them. The court is not sitting to try the arguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I suppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not gain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound. What may be justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not accepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an implication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is nothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness; nothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again arise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same, and, much more, before another tribunal, being weighed, being allowed, and being successful. [69]
Under such sanction then it is that we claim the Catholic teaching of the universal Church, and the teaching of the Church of England prior to the reformation as our dogmatic teaching still, in all points save where it may be shewn (if it may) to be since plainly and expressly contradicted or repealed. And let us observe, more particularly, to what this principle will reach. Mr. Badeley’s beautifully connected statement has given as many grounds to think we know the Church’s mind upon the matter: it has also touched upon the injunction of the State looking in the same direction: (to this point, however, I shall have occasion to return). But I say at once, observe to how much doctrine this principle will take us; how much, at the very outset, it will claim and secure for us. Surely, every matter of faith embraced in the first four general councils is retained; for no one I presume will dare to say that the Church of England at the Reformation repealed, or intended to repeal, any single article, canon, or doctrine of those four councils. “Yea, even as it were a thing unreasonable,” says Hooker, “if in civil affairs the king (albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing by their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home, in prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force throughout the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms dependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian religion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought, if either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any respect hath to that which of old time had been reverently thought of throughout the world, and wherein there is no law of God which forceth us to swerve from the way wherein so many and so holy ages have gone. Wherefore, not without good consideration, the very law itself hath provided,” he continues, quoting the section of the same act of parliament (1 Eliz. c. 1, § 36,) already referred to by Mr. Badeley, “‘that judges ecclesiastical appointed under the king’s commission shall not adjudge for heresy any thing but that which heretofore hath been so adjudged by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general councils, or by some other general council wherein the same hath been declared heresy by the express words of the said canonical Scriptures, or as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the convocation.’ By which words of the law,” Hooker adds as his comment, “who doth not plainly see how that in one branch of proceeding by virtue of the king’s supreme authority, the credit which these four general councils have throughout all churches evermore had, was judged by the makers of the foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be mentioned in that case as a requisite part of the rule wherewith dominion was to be limited.” [71]
The admission, then, of the decrees of these four general councils, which I see not how any man can dispute to be admitted and received by the reformed Church of England, will surely give us a certain large, definite, important body of theology from and by which to teach our people; not perhaps all that we may want, explicitly set forth, however implicitly contained, because it was of course not until “emergent heresies” pressed upon the Church that she saw, or could see, in what direction her declaratory acts required to be put forth. But certainly in the adoption of these councils and their decrees, the Church of England both indicates her love and reverence for antiquity; and clears herself from all suspicion of attempting to begin “a new thing” at the reformation; as well as establishes a wide and satisfactory basis, on which to rest her further teaching. Can you yourself deny that so far we build upon a good and sure foundation? Or will you say that, after all this is but a semblance? that whatever the ecclesiastical appearance or tendency of these matters may have been, the erastian current swept them practically away? Will you say? “Even if I grant you the first four general councils, yet this is all; and this is insufficient; at the reformation, whatever her own wish, the Church was so grievously oppressed by the civil power (as she is now) that all the further links connecting her with the doctrine held previously to 1540 were snapped asunder: the enormous jurisdiction claimed by, and conceded to, and used by, King Henry VIII. swept away that Catholicity which you are bent to shew, and which the Church herself might have been glad to keep.” Will you say? “Whatever may be the vague expressions of some at that time or afterwards appealing to antiquity, yet look at the acts of Parliament of that date, and you will see all this is a delusion, and no real adherence to the prior doctrine is sustainable.” Even this charge I am not afraid to meet. I promised to return in order to consider a little more fully the secular recognition, at the least, non-condemnation of the principle, that whatever previous teaching is “not plainly, openly, and dogmatically contradicted” at the reformation or since, remains to us; and I will endeavour to fulfil my pledge. I think I shall be able to show, that whatever claims of an erastian nature might be made or might be conceded in the sixteenth century (I am not arguing how great they were), yet they did not reach to the point, and were not used to the end, you now suppose, but in God’s good providence over us, left your own principle of 1848 still untouched. By whatever constraint or chance it may seem to man’s eye to have occurred,—with whatever view, or by whatever mind devised, there is something where we should least have expected to find it, in the famous statute called “The Submission of the Clergy,” so much and often lately brought under notice (25 Henry VIII. c. 19), which, if it do not expressly prove the point in hand in favour of the Catholicity of the English Church, yet at any rate, to my mind, much supports it; and, at the very least, shows that the law of that day leaves the matter as it found it; and therefore does not militate against the position of our Church as it stands and is maintained in Mr. Badeley’s statement, nor exclude any of the general arguments from abstract reasoning on the point. “Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? unto Cæsar shalt thou go.”
I turn to the Submissio Cleri—the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. The first section recites that several canons have been made in time past prejudicial to the king’s prerogative as well as to the laws and statutes of the realm; and thereupon refers to the petition of the clergy that the king’s highness with two-and-thirty commissioners may examine, confirm, or abolish such canons, ordinances, and constitutions. It provides also that henceforth the clergy shall not enact or promulge any constitutions or ordinances without the king’s assent; and that convocations “alway shall be assembled by authority of the king’s writ.” The second section empowers the king to name the two-and-thirty commissioners, and makes provision for the supply of the said number in case of the death of any of them. It also further prescribes their duties. Then after sundry enactments in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sections as to the courts and modes of appeal, and “the restraint of appeals” to Rome, the seventh section contains a proviso, thus stated, and commented upon by Lord Coke, in his fourth Institute: “But by the said act of 25 Henry VIII. their jurisdiction and power” (i.e. the clergy’s in convocation) “is much limited and straitened concerning the making new canons; for they must have both licence to make them, and after they be made, the royal assent to allow them, before they be put in execution. But in the end of that act there is an express proviso that such canons as were made before that act, which be not contrariant nor repugnant to the king’s prerogative, the laws statutes or customes of the realm, should be still used and executed as they were before the making of that act.” [75] This is Lord Coke’s comment, and it is much to be noted that he should stop where he does in citing the words of the proviso; because, as thus given, no one would entertain a doubt that all previous canons and ordinances, so far from being abrogated, were by this very act specially confirmed, except just in so far as they might be found contrariant or repugnant to the king’s prerogative, or the laws of the realm. It is manifest, too, that this is no oversight (lawyers will smile even at the supposition) on the part of Lord Coke, but that such indeed is his reading of the proviso; for he immediately applies it to a matter which he wishes to show was not binding in law before that time, to bar it, as it were, from claiming under the powers of that very act, which evidently it could not do, unless that proviso were understood to confirm precedent canons. “But before that time,” he continues, “a disme” (i.e. a tenth) “granted by the clergy at the convocation, did not binde the clergy before the king’s royal assent.” The argument of Lord Coke in this place appears to determine the point, that he so read the proviso, as to make it absolutely confirmatory, even under the terms of this very act “for the submission of the clergy and restraint of appeals,” of all “canons, constitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial being already made, which be not contrariant or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customes of this realm, nor to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal,” and that these should, as the proviso directs, “now still be used and executed as they were afore the making of this act.” I repeat that this view of the force of the said proviso, and this method of quoting it, is certainly remarkable—remarkable because there are further words in the latter part of the section appearing to qualify the sense, which yet are wholly passed over by Lord Coke, not merely in his quotation, but actually in his argument. I mean that his argument touching the previous power of the clergy to grant a disme, implies his belief that the general previous powers of the canon law still prevailed and this, (whether he considered the said disme to infringe the king’s prerogative or not) shews that the remaining apparently qualifying words of the proviso are by him advisedly set aside. Nevertheless, I will here add them, lest, in spite of such authority for the omission, I should be, or seem to be, acting unfairly, and not making the most of the adverse argument. The words I allude to are these: “The previous canons, constitutions, &c. shall now still be used and executed as they were afore the making of this act, till such time as they be viewed, searched or otherwise ordered and determined by the said two-and-thirty persons, or the more part of them, according to the tenor, form, and effect of this present act.” [76] It would no doubt appear from these words, as well as from Section 2 of the act, that there was an intention at that period of reviewing the whole body of the canon law, with a view to the obliteration of everything in the previous enactments which might appear to those commissioners unsound or inconvenient. This design, however, was never carried into effect. I know not how to regard it as other than a special mark of God’s great mercy and gracious goodness to this branch of his Church that it was frustrated. Perhaps it is not quite clear that the powers of these commissioners were intended directly to touch doctrine, or to reach beyond the abolition of canons and constitutions appearing to be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm, though I think the terms employed embrace a wider field, and at any rate in the temper of that day, might very probably have been understood and used to a wider purpose. “Great and manifold” indeed would have been the perils attendant on so sweeping a reformation of all the previous doctrine and discipline received by the English Church; and not without a trembling thankfulness as well as, to my mind, a heart-felt acknowledgment of the divine mercy, are we to think of our escape from so great a danger. To have had only so much of the laws and usages, doctrine and discipline of the primitive Church, or of the distinctive teaching of our own Church previous to the passing of this act, as such a board of commissioners might have thought good to leave us, would indeed have been to be put to the utmost hazard as to the measure of dogmatic teaching left us at all, and to the greatest risk of our being cut off from Catholic antiquity altogether. Of course even then, the mere act of parliament, and its authority to the commission could not have effected this. The Church might, theoretically at any rate, have broken from the bondage, and severing her connexion with the State at whatever cost, have preserved her purity and freedom. [78a] But, considering how little likely any such resistance appears to have been, if that commission’s work had been carried out, we may well thank “the Lord our defence,” that in another mode we were delivered from the danger; and that although in the reign of King Edward VI. the two and thirty persons (at any rate one and thirty of them) were appointed, yet they never accomplished the review in question. “It is not necessary,” says Mr. Gladstone, “to discuss the wisdom or propriety of this petition of the clergy,” (i.e. to have such a commission appointed) “since the enactments passed in consequence of it never took final effect; and however material they may be as illustrating the spirit and tendencies of the day, they have not in any direct manner entered into the constitution of the English Church.” [78b] “The review of the laws ecclesiastical, indeed,” he says again in a further passage, “has no longer any effect for us, as the scheme ultimately failed of effect, and has now no legal or practical being.” [78c] It is not, indeed, that the whole act is repealed. As we well know this is not the case. It was repealed by the 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, but revived by the 1 Eliz. c. 1, so that, if it bind some things upon us now which the Church might wish otherwise, we yet have the advantage of that proviso in its last section, establishing previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England, (with the exception of such as may be contrariant to the king’s prerogative, or repugnant to the laws,) until a contingency should arise, which has never been fulfilled. That it never was fulfilled, may perhaps explain Lord Coke’s comment upon the proviso in question as an absolute assertion of the previous canon law, and his having apparently passed over as entire surplusage the, at first sight, qualifying words with which it concludes. And thus we may see there is an actual statute of the realm declaring, however unintentionally, yet really and practically, the authority, so far as statutes can declare it, of that very rule of the Church’s teaching previous to 1540, which you yourself so happily, as it seems to me, explained and enforced in 1848. Thus the very act of parliament, and the very proviso in it which threatened to be the destruction of the Catholic character of our Church, (i.e. if those commissioners had done the work contemplated,) become not only a witness in its favour, but actually declaratory by law of its connection with the Church previously existing. Henry VIII., and his act “for the submission of the clergy,” become the one,—really “Defender of the Faith,” and the other,—so far as the temporality can effect it, absolutely a charter, securing the Church’s dogmatic teaching by legally binding upon us the general body of the canons and constitutions, ordinances and synodals provincial of the previous ages. Surely we should be slow to say it is a straining of the eye of faith if herein it seems to see an accomplishment of the prophet’s word, “No weapon that is formed against Thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against Thee in judgment, Thou shalt condemn: This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord.”
I have spoken of the proviso in this act of parliament (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19) as confirming generally the canons precedent to its enactment. Of course I have not forgotten that the statute itself makes two exceptions, or rather, excepts two classes of canons and constitutions from that confirmation. 1. Such as may be “contrariant or repugnant to the laws and customes of the realm.” 2. Such as may be “to the damage or hurt of the king’s prerogative royal.” It may be well to pause a few moments, just to point out, though it is so plain it will require only to be mentioned to be allowed, that these limitations in no wise affect the argument as to the dogmatic teaching of the Church on doctrine. They point evidently to the claims of the papacy, and the powers of the supremacy. Indirectly, no doubt, the question of the supremacy may come to affect doctrine, as we plainly see at this time, but I mean that, as to previous canons upon doctrine, properly so called, these limitations of the act do not touch our assertion, that they remain as they were, except they may be shown to be plainly and openly repealed. Thus the two exceptions made have no bearing upon those great doctrinal points, whereon you and I alike desiderate dogmatic teaching; for no man will contend that the doctrine of the Church Catholic on baptism, on justification, on confirmation, on the holy eucharist, or on absolution, though carried ever so far, will in any wise clash with the king’s prerogative, (“that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself:”) nor are we asking that any doctrine shall be received which may be, if it be, repugnant to the laws and customs of the realm. All that we assert is, that where previous canons be not so, (and we fully believe those for which we contend do not come into collision with either law or prerogative at all,) and where the Church has not herself directly annulled them, there these same doctrines remain, as they have ever been received by the Church Catholic, and by the Church of England as a branch thereof;—as indeed she has, and had received them from primitive times and sources;—as she had accepted, guarded, and enforced them prior to the year 1540.
Of course in matters of law and legal construction I desire to speak with all deference and submission. Here, less than any where, should I wish to argue with over-confidence. I trust I shall not be doing so, if I sum up this part of my argument by saying, that it appears to me we are entitled to believe that the proviso in the 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 (the condition stated in the “until,” &c. never having been fulfilled), either actually asserts the force of the general body of previous canons and constitutions of the Church of England; or, at any rate, and at the very least, that it offers no bar, even secularly, to the general reasons as stated before, from common sense and the nature of things, as well as from the Church’s own appeals to previous teaching that those canons must remain in force, and that, to use again Mr. Badeley’s words: “Whatever was not altered at the period of the Reformation, remains and continues to be the doctrine and law of the Church to this day.” [82]
IV. I have said that there appears to be another confirmation of this view, from the consideration of what the Church of England would deprive herself of, if the contrary principle were to be carried out, and her existence dated only from the sixteenth century, and if it were ruled that nothing could belong to her faith and doctrine, but what was then determined and in words set down. It will not be necessary to enlarge upon this topic, but a few instances it may be well to give.