On the other hand, if King James were not infallible, by what right could he then prohibit and will in matters of faith for his subjects?
His only right was this: that the Church of England had been made a powerful instrumentum regni in the hands of her sovereigns,[188] just as the Church of Russia is in the hands of her czars.
After this, observes the writer, no inconsistency ought to astonish us.
In Article XVIII. it is declared that “the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the [Lord’s] Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner”; and again, at the end of the “Order of the Ministration of the Holy Communion,” that “the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here.” How can these declarations be made to agree with the following, which is taught in the Little Catechism?—“The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.”
Again, in Article XI. we find: “That we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort”; whereas in the order for the visitation of the sick we read as follows:
“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort,” etc., etc.
“But,” asks Father Tondini, “by what strange metamorphosis can the above-quoted doctrine of justification by faith only, declared to be ‘most wholesome and very full of comfort’ while we are in good health, cease to possess the power of comforting the conscience of a sick person? And how can confession, which through life is to be considered by Anglicans as ‘grown of the corrupt following of the apostles’ (see Article XXV.), become suddenly so transfigured by the approach of death as to obtain the power of relieving a conscience ‘troubled with any weighty matter’?”
Although it may not be matter of much surprise that a church which has so carefully defined her own fallibility should have one doctrine for her children in their days of health and vigor, and another for the time of their sickness and death, still it does surprise us that a man of education like Mr. Gladstone should be so unconscious of his own extraordinary inconsistency in appealing—as he does throughout his attacks against Catholics and the Catholic Church—to “mental and moral freedom,” “logic,” “consistency of mind,” “manliness of thought,” etc., etc.
Already arise from all sides echoes of the question singularly enough asked by Mr. Gladstone himself: “Is the Church of England worth preserving?”[189]