So clearly did John Keble see that the attempt to alter that one rubric on ornaments was a matter of most vital importance to Sacramental doctrine. And if he spoke thus when the plan referred to was but in its infancy, and the danger more remote, need anyone be told what he would advise now? Truly, “he being dead yet speaketh.” Who is there that will not hear? [43b]
He adds this yet further, well worthy of our most heartfelt contemplation:—“And if we look beyond our own country, as surely we are bound to do, certain it is that such a decree” (i.e., an Act of Parliament altering the rubric), “not only submitted to but promoted and solicited by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, would effectually quench, for the time at least, all the fond hopes of reunion among Christians which just now appear to be dawning on us in various quarters. For, undoubtedly of all doctrines, that of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the one on which in the eyes both of East and West our Catholicity would appear most questionable. A hair’s-breadth more of wavering on that point would seem to them, I fear, an entire forfeiture of our position.” Oh, how noble and catholic an aspiration after a reunion with East and West, and how just an appreciation of what would vitally affect, adversely, the hope and prospect of it! How different from the narrow sectarianism which would boast of our isolation, and, cavilling at everything, can see only an overture to Rome in an “Eirenicon” to Christendom. O that our Convocations may hear and heed such warning words, and stand firm, whatever trial comes! Let me hope, let me pray, that all true Churchmen, Ritualists or not, will here throw themselves into the gap, and raise a bulwark against tampering with our Prayer Book. The outwork may be the rubric on ornaments, but, “as theologians know,” it is the Creed which is really at stake, through an altered Book of Common Prayer. We must defend the outwork to defend the citadel. We must one and all make our voice heard against change here, either directly or indirectly, either explicitly or implicitly, either by Convocation or by Parliament, or by both together. Better our Convocations were silenced again for a hundred years, if any minister of the Crown would venture to silence them (which I shall not believe until I see it), than that they should lend themselves to alter our Prayer Book and impair its catholicity. But to strengthen the hands of all who have power or influence herein, we must be prompt, energetic, valiant, wise. Believe me it is not a question of shapes or colours. It is not a question of supporting the Ritualists, though incidentally their position may be supported. But it is the question of not losing one jot or tittle of what God’s providence has given us. And to preserve what we have is essential to our work at home and to our place in Christendom. We cannot afford to give away our birthright. We cannot afford to be diverted by any bye enquiries or cavils. The real question is the preservation intact in its integrity of our Book of Common Prayer, and with it of Catholic doctrine and truth among us.
I have used the term—our place in Christendom. Let me add a word or two more upon this. English Churchmen, I fear, are too apt to overlook that we are but a small part of the Church Universal, and that our aspirations should ever be that “the unhappy divisions” which now prevail in it may be healed, and the Church again be one (according to our Blessed Lord’s Prayer), that indeed “the world may believe that God hath sent Him.”
Now, with this feeling and this hope in our hearts, we must never allow ourselves to forget that there is such a thing as an Œcumenical Council of Christendom, and whatever the difficulties may be in the way of its assembling, I believe to it all true hearts should turn. Certainly, for myself, I can say that this, as the great remedy for all our troubles and distractions, and “not for ours only,” but for those of Christendom at large, has been constantly present to my mind for many years. That God in His mercy, and in His own good time, would grant us a true General Council to ease and compose our differences, and to restore the unity of Christendom,—and, if it come, grant us all the due mind of submission to it,—has been for nearly or quite a quarter of a century, a portion of my daily prayer; and I think there is no ground to decry the petition as either fanciful or wrong. At least we have the warrant of some of great name among us who have not thought so. “That I might live to see the reunion of Christendom,” says Archbishop Bramhall, “is a thing for which I shall always bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . Howsoever it be,” he adds, “I submit myself and my poor endeavours first to the judgment of the Catholic Œcumenical essential Church, which, if some of late days have endeavoured to hiss out of the schools, as a fancy, I cannot help it. From the beginning it was not so. . . . Likewise I submit myself to the representative Church—that is, a free General Council, or so general as can be procured; and until then to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a National English Synod.” [45]
It may be supposed, indeed, that a general or Œcumenical Council is at present hopeless, and therefore that all mention or thought of an appeal to it is out of place; but I do not think this, for two reasons—first, that there are certain points of doctrine which have been so definitely ruled by General Councils and consent of Christendom that we know upon them there could be no diverse judgment; and, secondly, that I see no cause to despair of another such Council in God’s good time being called together. Even in the meanwhile the thought of, and habitual mental reference to, such a Council is neither impertinent nor unpractical; for the remembrance and sense of its authority, and the even mental submission of the will to its rule, has the strongest tendency to keep a man wholly catholic in heart and act. An English Churchman should live in the thought and in the hope of the voice of Christendom being again uttered with no uncertain sound as to matters of perplexity and doubt. Even “though it tarry, he will wait for it,” and in the meanwhile the thought of it will bear its fruit. Thus, whatever he does, and is obliged to do, without the actual presence of such a guide, will be done, not on the mere impulse of his own will, or the bent of his own mind, but always in relation to what Christendom has definitely ruled, and in implicit submission to what she will again say when she may meet once more in a free and General Council. Anyone so living, trusting, believing, acting, will never be a schismatic, and cannot be a heretic. But I do believe we shall never, till we get to look out of ourselves to Christendom at large; never, till we remember our due place in it; never, till we are ready to accept its decrees (when God sees Christendom fit to give them); never till then, shall we be in that right mind and heart which is waiting duly for the Bridegroom’s call.
I am quite prepared to have such remarks called visionary and unreal, and all dependance upon, nay, all reference to, the Universal Church, unpractical and absurd. But none of these things move me, and I am (though, I trust, no fanatic) yet hopeful of the help of God for those who will try to help themselves. As I have said, I cannot think the expectation of a General Council is chimerical. I cannot believe, if it come, it will be useless. We have no right, of course, to expect any supernatural interposition or handwriting visibly on the wall to direct us in our difficulties. But I have faith enough in miracles, if that be one, to believe that God may grant us the miracle of Christendom again in Council, and make it the means to heal all our distempers and bind up all our wounds. Of this faith and this hope no man shall deprive me by the mere calculations of human policy, or by the perverse promptings of an uncatholic despair. But let us all watch and pray, and work with the help of God, to preserve our true catholic heritage and place, lest, when it meet, it should meet to condemn us. But this we will never believe can come upon us until we see, which God forbid, our Church faithless to God and to herself in the face of Christendom.
Our immediate work, our present duty, is indeed on a narrower scale and in a smaller sphere, yet not without an eye to these further consequences. It is to maintain our catholic status; and in order to this, to make it plain to all, friends and foes alike, that we will stand by our Prayer Book, and never consent to alter in an uncatholic direction one jot or tittle of that which it contains.
FINIS.
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