Chapter 11

The Oxford Movement claimed to be, and was, a revival of the principles of Anglo-Catholicism, which had not been left without witness for any long period since the Reformation. The continuity is certain, as is the continuity of the Ritualism of our day with the Tractarianism of seventy years ago; but the development has been rapid, especially in the last thirty years. Those who can remember the High Churchmen of Pusey's generation, or their disciples who in many country parsonages preserved the faith of their Tractarian teachers whole and undefiled, must be struck by the divergence between the principles which they then heard passionately maintained, and those which the younger generation, who use their name and enjoy their credit, avow to be their own.

In the Tractarians the Nonjurors seemed to have come to life again, and one might easily find enthusiastic Jacobites among them. Unlike their successors, they showed no sympathy with political Radicalism. Their love for and loyalty to the English Church, which found melodious expression in Keble's poetry, were intense. They were not hostile to Evangelicalism within the Church, until the ultra-Protestant party declared war against them; but they viewed Dissent with scorn and abhorrence. They would gladly have excluded Nonconformists from any status in the Universities, and opposed any measures intended to conciliate their prejudices or remove their disabilities. Archdeacon Denison, in his sturdy opposition to the 'conscience clause' in Church schools, was a typical representative of the old High Church party. But still more bitter was their animosity against religious Liberalism. Even after the feud with the Evangelicals had developed into open war, Pusey was ready to join with Lord Shaftesbury and his party in united anathemas against the authors of 'Essays and Reviews.' The beginnings of Old Testament criticism evoked an outburst of fury almost unparalleled. When Bishop Gray, of Cape Town, solemnly 'excommunicated' Bishop Colenso, of Natal, and enjoined the faithful to 'treat him as a heathen man and a publican,' for exposing the unhistorical character of portions of the Pentateuch, he became a hero with the whole High Church party, and even the more liberal among the bishops were cowed by the tempest of feeling which the case aroused. In the same period, many Oxford men can remember Bishop Wilberforce's attack upon Darwinism, and, somewhat later, Dean Burgon's University sermon which ended with the stirring peroration: Leave me my ancestors in Paradise, and I leave you yours in the Zoological Gardens!' From the same pulpit Liddon, a little before his death, uttered a pathetic remonstrance against the course which his younger disciples were taking about inspiration and tradition.

Reverence for tradition was a very prominent feature in the theology of the older generation. They spent an immense amount of time, learning, and ingenuity in establishing a _catena_ of patristic and orthodox authority for their principles, reaching back to the earliest times, and handed down in this country by a series of Anglo-Catholic divines. This unbroken tradition was conceived of as purely static, a 'mechanical unpacking,' as Father Tyrrell puts it, of the doctrine once delivered to the Apostles. The Church, according to their theory, was supernaturally guided by the Holy Ghost, and its decisions were consequently infallible, as long as the Church remained undivided. Thus the earlier General Councils, before the schism between East and West, may not be appealed against, and the Creeds drawn up by them can never be revised. Since the great schism, the infallible inspiration of the Church has been in abeyance, like an old English peerage when a peer leaves two or more daughters and no sons. This fantastic theory condemns all later developments, and leaves the Church under the weight of the dead hand. On the question of the Establishment the party was divided, some of its members attaching great value to the union of Church and State, while others made claims for the Church, in the matter of self-government, which were hardly compatible with Establishment. Their bond of union was their conviction of 'the necessity of impressing on people that the Church was more than a merely human institution; that it had privileges, sacraments, a ministry, ordained by Christ Himself; that it was a matter of highest obligation to remain united to the Church.'[25]

As compared with their successors, the Tractarians were academic and learned; they preached thoughtful and carefully prepared sermons; they cared little for ecclesiastical millinery, and often acquiesced in very simple and 'backward' ceremonial. Their theory of the Church, their personal piety and self-discipline, were of a thoroughly medieval type, as may be seen from certain chapters in the life of Pusey. They fought the battle of Anglo-Catholicism, at Oxford and elsewhere, with a whole-hearted conviction that knew no misgivings or scruples. Oxford has not forgotten the election, as late as 1862, of an orthodox naval officer to a chair of history for which Freeman was a candidate.

A change of tone was already noticeable, according to Dean Church, soon after Newman's secession. Many High Churchmen, in speaking of the English Church, became apologetic or patronising or lukewarm. Progressive members of the party professed a distaste for the name Anglican, and wished to be styled Catholics pure and simple. The same men began to speak of their opponents in the Church as Protestants; no longer as ultra-Protestants. Other changes soon manifested themselves. The archaeological side of the movement lost its interest; the appeal to antiquity became only a convenient argument to defend practices adopted on quite other grounds. The _epigoni_ of the Catholic revival are not learned; they know even less of the Fathers than of their Bibles. Their chief literature consists of a weekly penny newspaper, which reflects only too well their prejudices and aspirations. On the other hand, they are far busier than the older generation. The movement has become democratic; it has passed from the quadrangles of Oxford to the streets and lanes of our great cities, where hundreds of devoted clergymen are working zealously, without care for remuneration or thought of recognition, among the poorest of the populace. Of late years, the more energetic section of the party has not only abandoned the 'Church and King' Toryism of the old High Church party, but has plunged into socialism. The Mirfield community is said to be strongly imbued with collectivist ideas; and the Christian Social Union, which is chiefly supported by High Churchmen, tends to become more and more a Union of Christian Socialists, instead of being, as was intended by its founders, a non-political association for the study of social duties and problems in the light of the Sermon on the Mount. This attitude is partly the result of a close acquaintance with the sufferings of the urban proletariat, which moves the priests who minister among them to a generous sympathy with their lot; and, partly, it may be, to an unavowed calculation that an alliance with the most rapidly growing political party may in time to come be useful to the Church. Their methods of teaching are also more democratic, though many of them make the fatal mistake of despising preaching. They rely partly on what they call 'definite Catholic teaching,' including frequent exhortations to the practice of confession; and partly on appeals to the eye, by symbolic ritual and elaborate ceremonial. Their more ornate services are often admirably performed from a spectacular point of view, and are far superior to most Roman Catholic functions in reverence, beauty, and good taste. The extreme section of the party is contemptuously lawless, not only repudiating the authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but flouting the bishops with studied insolence. A glaring instance is to be found in the correspondence between Mr. Athelstan Riley and the Bishop of Oxford, which followed the Report of the Royal Commission on ritual practices.

Doctrinally, the modern Ritualist is prepared to surrender the old theory of inspiration. He takes, indeed, but little interest in the Bible; his oracle is not the Book, but 'the Church.' What he means by the Church it is not easy to say. The old Anglican theory of the infallible undivided Church is not repudiated by him, but does not appeal to minds which look forward much more than backward; he is not yet, except in a few instances, disposed to accept the modern Roman Church as the arbiter of doctrine; and the English Church has no living voice to which he pays the slightest respect. The 'tradition of Western Catholicism' is a phrase which has a meaning for him, and he probably hopes for a reunion, at some distant date, of the Anglican Church with a reformed Rome. It is therefore essential, in his opinion, that no alteration shall take place in the formularies which we share with Rome; the Bible may be thrown to the critics, but the Creeds are inviolable. The Thirty-nine Articles he passes by with silent disdain. They are, he thinks not unjustly, a document to which no one, High, Low, or Broad, can now subscribe without mental reservations.

The theory of development in doctrine, which, in its latest application by 'Modernists' like Loisy and Tyrell, is now agitating the Roman Church, is exciting interest in a few of the more thoughtful Anglo-Catholics; but the majority are blind to the difficulties for which the theory of two kinds of truth is a desperate remedy. Nor is it likely, perhaps, that the plain Englishman will ever allow that an ostensibly historical proposition may be false as a matter of fact, but true for faith.

This party in the Church has a lay Pope, who represents the opinions of the more enterprising among the rank and file, and is president of their society, the English Church Union. It has the ably conducted weekly newspaper above referred to, and it has the general sympathy and support of the strongest man in the English Church, Charles Gore, Bishop of Birmingham. This prelate, partly by his personal qualities--his eloquence, high-minded disinterestedness, and splendid generosity, and partly by knowing exactly what he wants, and having full courage of his opinions, has at present an influence in the Anglican Church which is probably far greater than that of any other man. It is therefore a matter of public interest to ascertain what his views and intentions are, as an ecclesiastical statesman and reformer, and as a theologian.

Bishop Gore exercised a strong influence over the younger men at Oxford before the publication of 'Lux Mundi.' But it was his editorship of this book, and his contribution to it, which first brought his name into prominence as a leader of religious thought. The religious public, with rather more penetration than usual, fastened on the pages about inspiration, and the limitations of Christ's human knowledge, which are from the editor's own pen, as the most significant part of the book. The authors are believed to have been annoyed by the disproportionate attention paid to this short section. But in truth these pages indicated a new departure among the High Church party, a change more important than the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, which was being made smoother for the religious public by the brilliant writings of Aubrey Moore. The acceptance of the verdict of modern criticism as to the authorship of the 110th Psalm, in the face of the recorded testimony of Christ that it was written by David, was a concession to 'Modernism' which staggered the old-fashioned High Churchman. Liddon did not conceal his distress that such doctrine should have come out of the Pusey House. But the manifesto was well timed; it enabled the younger men to go forward more freely, and sacrificed nothing that was in any way essential to the Anglo-Catholic position. Since the appearance of 'Lux Mundi,' the High Church clergy have been able without fear to avow their belief in the scientific theories associated with Darwin's name, and their rejection of the rigid doctrine of verbal inspiration, while the Evangelicals, who have not been emancipated by their leaders, labour under the reproach of extreme obscurantism in their attitude towards Biblical studies.

As Canon of Westminster, and then as Bishop of Worcester, and of Birmingham, Dr. Gore has written and spoken much, and has defined his position more closely in relation to Anglo-Catholicism, to Church Reform, and to the social question. It will be convenient to take these three heads separately.

This Bishop regards the excesses of the Ritualists as a deplorable but probably inevitable incident in a great movement. He quotes Newman's remonstrance against some hot-headed members of his adopted Church, who, 'having done their best to set the house on fire, leave to others the task of extinguishing the flames.'[26] But he reminds us that there has always been 'intemperate zeal' in the Church, from the time of St. Paul's letters to the Church at Corinth to our own day. 'It must needs be that offences come,' wherever persons of limited wisdom are very much in earnest. The remedy for extravagance is to give fair scope for the legitimate principle. In the case of the so-called Ritualist movement, the inspiring principle or motive is easily found. It is the idea of a visible Church, exercising lawful authority over its members.

This is the key to Bishop Gore's whole position. It rests on the conviction that Jesus Christ founded, and meant to found, a visible Church, an organised society. It is reasonable, the Bishop says, to suppose that He did intend this, for it is only by becoming embodied in the convictions of a society, and informing its actions, that ideas have reality and power. Christianity could never have lived if there had been no Christian Church. And, from the first, Christians believed that this society, the Catholic Church, was not left to organise itself on any model which from time to time might seem to promise the best results, but was instituted from above, as a Divine ordinance, by the authority of Christ Himself.[27] The witness of the early Christian writers is unanimous that the conception of a visible Church was a prominent feature in the Christianity of the sub-apostolic age, and it is plain that the civil power suspected the Christians just because they were so well organised. The Roman Empire was accustomed to tolerate superstitions, but it was part of her policy to repress _collegia illicita_. The witness of the New Testament points in the same direction. Jesus Christ committed His message, not to writing, but to a 'little flock' of devoted adherents. He instituted the two great sacraments (Bishop Gore will admit no uncertainty on this point) to be a token of membership and a bond of brotherhood. He instituted a _civitas Dei_ which was to be wide enough to embrace all, but which makes for itself an exclusive claim. The 'heaven' of the first century was a city, a new Jerusalem; Christians are spoken of by St. Paul as citizens of a heavenly commonwealth. The distinction between the universal invisible Church and particular visible Churches is 'utterly unscriptural,' and was overthrown long ago by William Law in his controversy with Hoadly.

As for the 'Apostolical Succession,' Dr. Gore thinks that its principle is more important than the form in which it is embodied. The succession would not be broken if all the presbyters in the Church governed as a college of bishops; and if something of this kind actually happened for a time in the early Church no argument against the Apostolical Succession can be based thereon.[28] The principle is that no ministry is valid which is assumed, which a man takes upon himself, or which is delegated to him from below. That this theory is Sacerdotalism in a sense may be admitted. But it does not imply a _vicarious_ priesthood, only a representative one. It does not deny the priesthood which belongs to the Church as a whole. The true sacerdotalism means that Christianity is the life of an organised society, in which a graduated body of ordained ministers is made the instrument of unity. It is no doubt true that in such a Church unspiritual men are made to mediate spiritual gifts, but happily we may distinguish character and office. Nor must we be deterred from asserting our convictions by the indignant protests which we are sure to hear, that we are 'unchurching' the non-episcopal bodies,[29] We do not assert that God is tied to His covenant, but only that we are so.

Dr. Gore has no difficulty in proving that the sacerdotal theory of the Christian ministry took shape at an early date, and has been consistently maintained in the Catholic Church from ancient times to our own day. It is much more difficult to trace it back to the Apostolic age, even if, with Dr. Gore, we accept as certain the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, which is still _sub judice_. The 'Didache' is a stumbling-block to those who wish to find Catholic practice in the century after our Lord's death; but that document is dismissed as composed by a Jewish Christian for a Jewish Christian community. After the second century, the apologists for the priesthood are in smooth waters.

The conclusion is that 'the various presbyterian and congregationalist organisations, in dispensing with the episcopal succession, violated a fundamental law of the Church's life.'[30] 'A ministry not episcopally received is invalid, that is to say, it falls outside the conditions of covenanted security, and cannot justify its existence in terms of the covenant.'[31] The Anglican Church is not asking for the cause to be decided all her own way; for she has much to do to recall herself to her true principles. 'God's promise to Judah was that she should remember her ways and should be ashamed, when she should receive her sisters Samaria and Sodom, and that He would give them to her for daughters, but not by her covenant.'[32] The 'covenant' which the Church is to be content to forgo in order to recover Samaria and _Sodom_ (the 'Free Churches' can hardly be expected to relish this method of opening negotiations) is apparently the covenant between Church and State. 'In the future the Anglican Church must be content to act as, first of all, part and parcel of the Catholic Church, ruled by her laws, empowered by her spirit.' The bishops are to be ready to maintain, at all cost, the inherent spiritual independence which belongs to their office.

Such a theory of the essentials of a true Church necessarily requires, as a corollary, a refutation of the Roman Catholic theory of orders, which reduces the Anglican clergy to the same level as the ministers of schismatical sects. Bishop Gore answers the objection that the Roman Church is the logical expression of his theory of the ministry, by saying that Roman Catholicism is not the development of the whole of the Church, but only of a part of it; and moreover, that spiritually it does not represent the whole of Christianity as it finds expression in the first Christian age or in the New Testament.[33] The Roman Church is a one-sided outgrowth of the religion of Christ--a development of those qualities in Christianity with which the Latin genius has special affinity. It has committed itself to unhistorical doctrines, involving a deficient appreciation of the intellectual and moral claim of truth to be valued for its own sake no less than for its results. Much of its teaching can only be explained as the result of an 'over-reckless accommodation to the unregenerate natural instincts in religion.'[34] The fact that the largest section of Christendom has become what Rome now is, is no proof that theirs is the line of true development. We can see this clearly enough if we consider the case of Buddhism. The main existing developments of Buddhism are a mere travesty of the spirit of Sakya Muni.[35] In this way Dr. Gore anticipates and rejects the argument since then put forward by Loisy, and other Liberal Catholic apologists, that history has proved Roman Catholicism to be the proper development of Christ's religion. In short, the Anglican Church, which indisputably possesses the Apostolic Succession, has no reason to go humbly to Borne to obtain recognition of her Orders.

So far, in reviewing Bishop Gore's published opinions, we are on familiar High Anglican ground. But what is the Bishop's seat of authority in doctrine? He has shown himself willing, within limits, to apply critical methods to Holy Scripture. He has very little respect for the infallible Pope. And he would be the last to trust to private judgment--the _testimonium Spiritus Sancti_ as understood by some Protestants. Where, then, is the ultimate Court of Appeal? Bishop Gore finds it in the two earliest of the three Creeds, 'in which Catholic consent is especially expressed;' and in a half apologetic manner he adds that this Catholic basis has been 'generally understood' to imply 'an unrealisable but not therefore unreal appeal to a General Council.'[36] No revision, therefore, of the Church's doctrinal formularies can be made except by the authority of a court which can never, by any possibility, be summoned! The unique sanctity and obligation which Bishop Gore considers to attach to the Creeds have been asserted by him again and again with a vehemence which proves that he regards the matter as of vital importance. 'There must be no compromise as regards the Creeds.... If those who live in an atmosphere of intellectual criticism become incapable of such sincere public profession of belief as the Creed contains, the Church must look to recruit her ministry from classes still capable of a more simple and unhesitating faith.'[37] And, again, in his most recent book: 'I have taken occasion before now to make it evident that, as far as I can secure it, I will admit no one into this diocese, or into Holy Orders, to minister for the congregation, who does not _ex animo_ believe the Creeds.'[38] Dr. Gore has not spared to stigmatise as morally dishonest those who desire to serve the Church as its ministers while harbouring doubts about the physical miracle known as the Virgin Birth, and one of his clergy was a few years ago induced to resign his living by an aspersion of this kind, to which the Bishop gave publicity in the daily press.

Now it has been generally supposed that the Anglican clergy are bound to declare their adhesion not only to the Creeds, but to the Thirty-nine Articles, and to the infallible truth of Holy Scripture. Bishop Gore, however, holds that when a new deacon, on the day of his ordination, solemnly declares that he 'assents to the Thirty-nine Articles,' and that he 'believes the doctrine therein set forth to be agreeable to the word of God,' he 'can no longer fairly be regarded as bound to particular phrases or expressions in the Articles.'[39] And further, when the same new deacon expresses his 'unfeigned belief in all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,' 'that expression of belief can be fairly and justly made by anyone who believes heartily that the Bible, as a whole, records and contains the message of God to man in all its stages of delivery and that each one of the books contains some element or aspect of this revelation.'[40]