Part 2

But there is one other result of a return to the First Book which is of supreme importance, though I have not yet seen any notice of it in the recent discussion, viz., that by returning to the First Book we should get behind the date of the Articles. The Articles were not drawn up till the year A.D. 1552, so that by adopting the First Book we should go back to a date at which the Articles did not exist, at which, in fact, the Church of England had drawn up no formal dogmatic protest against the errors of Rome. The Reformation began with the reform of the Liturgy, before there was any authoritative statement of distinctive truth, and when the minds of men were passing through a rapid transition. To this transition period the First Book belongs; and if we were to decide on adopting the Liturgy of the transition there would be a manifest inconsistency in combining with it those definite statements of truth which were carefully drawn up afterwards when the great gulf was past, and the work of the Reformation in essential points complete.

With all these facts before us, it is impossible to mistake the character of the proposal made. Whether we look at the history or the contents of the book, we are brought to the same conclusion. It is not a proposal to improve our Prayer Book or to adapt it to the special demands of the day. It is a proposal to depart from the Prayer Book altogether, and to return to the transition state through which the Church of England passed in the transition days of the Reformation. The First Book of Edward bore just the same relationship to the Use of Sarum that Basingstoke does to the city of Salisbury. The Reformers halted awhile there on the up line, but they could not rest, so they soon left it to complete their journey. We are now invited to return there; but is there any thinking man who can suppose for one moment that we are intended to remain there, when we have the public avowal of the undenied preference for “the unreformed liturgies” and the Use of Sarum? Is it not perfectly clear that the attraction to the First Book is simply this, that it is a station for the express train on the direct down line to Sarum?

And now, how will this proposal be received? or rather, how will it be received by that large body of men who wish to be considered “High Churchmen,” and who mean by that expression that they entertain a loyal, loving, and faithful allegiance to the grand old Church of England, into which they were received at their baptism, and of which those who are clergymen have been its appointed officers ever since their ordination? Will they, or will they not, be prepared for this new departure? Are they prepared to abandon all the historical loyalty of their party; to give up their beloved Prayer Book as “meagre” and “open to grave objections;” to throw overboard their Articles and the latter part of their Catechism; and to go boldly back to the period of transition, when much, we fully admit, was improved, but nothing defined; when great things were done, but when much still remained to be done; and when nothing was matured or consolidated as we now have it in our Articles and Liturgy? If they are prepared for such a movement, it will certainly be a new phase in the character of the historical, loyal, and influential High Churchmanship of England.

E. HOARE.

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FOOTNOTES.

{8} “History of the Church of England,” § 744.

{10} There was a passage, for example, quoted in the _Guardian_ of December 6th, 1882, in which Gardiner is reported to have said: “Willeth children to be taught that they receive with their bodily mouth the body and blood of Christ, which I allege, because it will appear it is a teaching set forth among us of late, as hath been also and is by the Book of Common Prayer, being the most true Catholic doctrine of the substance of the sacrament in that is there so Catholicity spoken of.” I do not say that Gardiner was right in this statement, but I do say that if there was anything to justify his assertion, it was most desirable that as soon as possible it should be removed.

{11} _Guardian_, Oct. 11. I observe that the words “As regards the Communion Office” have been added in the authorised report.