just as all other sections of the Church in early centuries grew and received Apostolic Succession. The moment it became capable of continuing itself by the possession of an extended episcopate, that moment dated its independent existence. II. The Reformation in England Distinct from the Continental Reformation The distinction to be kept in mind constantly in studying the history of men and movements is that accidental and superficial resemblances do not constitute fundamental identity. A house of stone and a house of wood skillfully painted to present the appearance of wood cannot be readily distinguished at a glance. There is such a trick as historical camouflage. It has been and is still being employed both by papal and protestant antagonists of English Catholicity, and nowhere with more subtlety than in introducing confusion on the subject of the English Reformation as contrasted with movements on the continent of Europe, approximately contemporaneous, but intrinsically different. The accidental resemblances between the Lutheran and Calvinistic revolts on the one hand and the readjustments in internal and external relationships of the National Church in England on the other hand are found in the remote cause common to both, the antagonism into which both were brought towards the same usurped authority, and the historic hostility which has been perpetuated. The common cause was the corruption of the Church system of the day notably as growing out of the assumption and pretensions of the papal theory and claims. The antagonism was towards any system that disturbed the balance between the individual and the corporate rights as contained and safeguarded in the true doctrine of the Church. The historic hostility resulting was against any attempt to fasten again upon the Church the yoke of papal or State autocracy in matters of religion. The essential differences which constitute radical dissociation between the two movements are discovered by a study of the purpose, methods and results, immediate and remote. The purpose of the English movement was to readjust what had become disarranged in the complex parts of the Church's machinery. Such parts were the relations between the National Church and the State, the National Church and the other sections of the Western Church, and the relations between the Church and the individual. The method employed is to allow the Divine Mechanic Himself to adjust the mechanism which the human agent has misused — to let the Church reform itself by the Holy Ghost within it and in virtue of its being a Divine society. That is the method which on a large and on a small scale has accomplished desirable results repeatedly throughout the Church's career. The results secured were of a nature to commend themselves in the long run- the preservation of the full system of the Church, in Ministry, Sacraments, Creeds, and Worship; the restoration in practice of that which had always been constitutionally recognized, viz. the nationality of the Church, its position as an independent part of the Catholic Church, in no way in allegiance to the Bishop of Rome, and its independence of the State except so far as its temporal possessions and its right relation to the moral well-being of the life of the nation required that Church and State mutually cooperate. Disagreeable personal questions and tyrannical usurpers did introduce unhappy conditions, but the main movement went on steadfastly, not digressing deliberately from the plan for reform without loss of essentials. On the other hand, the continental reformers found themselves throwing away what they did not altogether wish to lose, because they were arrogating to themselves the wisdom and power to reform by human means a Divine society. Episcopate, priesthood, every form of corporate authority, sacraments, worship all had to be surrendered at last. Once lost, revovery of these is all but impossible. When too late to stay the process of throwing overboard the things desirable along with those that are undesirable, the theory has to be found that argues against the value and utility of the lost possessions. So Luther and Calvin, having lost the episcopate and all that depends upon it, evolve their theory of presbyterian government. Having lost the heart of worship, because they have set at naught the Holy Spirit, one of whose offices is to secure the Presence of Christ in His Church, they substitute subjective enthusiasms and cold intellectualism. Having selected certain attributes of God on which unbalanced emphasis is laid, unconvincing and repellent schemes of salvation, such as justification by faith only and arbitrary election, are set forth as satisfactory. Inevitably, as the centuries elapse, the bald poverty of continental protestantism is exposed, the richness and variety of the Church revealed. The essential divergences of three centuries ago have worked themselves out with relentless completeness at the present day. One consideration must be noticed which helps to account for the popular failure to make the proper discrimination on the part of those who cling to the fallacy of identity between the continental and English movements. English life was influenced and infected to an important degree by the perversions of doctrine rife on the continent, particularly Calvinism. The unlovely phenomenon of puritanism thus became a factor in English religious life. Thus a foreign element, which the wholesome AngloSaxon temperament shrinks back from accepting, has made an effort to get recognition as indigenous to our Christianity and has seriously troubled the balance and normal health of our spiritual life thereby. History makes clear that two methods have been adopted to get rid of the incubus, by throwing away vital, supernatural Christianity altogether and thus ridding oneself of an intolerable burden. The other method is to throw oneself heart and soul into the full, joyous hopefulness of the Church's life here and now. Therein will be found no place for the alien principles of puritanism. III. Fallacies Concerning All that has been said in these lectures has been intended as a guide and key to studying and gaining an insight into the Church as it now presents itself before the world. The constructive study of history has for its main purpose the providing of a back-ground for the work and problems of the Church in its advancing career. Religious bodies that have no past or only a brief independent history, such as the Methodists or the bodies that split off from the Church in the sixteenth century, must innovate and experiment. Each innovation and experiment has proved costly, resulting as a rule in the loss of a portion that attaches or refuses to attach itself to the new order. The Anglo-Catholic Communion has a history covering the entire course of the English race in the island kingdom and its extensions. It is not an experiment. Not a problem arises that calls for innovation, only the adaptation and full use of all that the Church possesses in its treasures of catholicity. To the historical student the following comment of Bishop Creighton on certain common allegations respecting the National Church of England and so applicable to our own Communion, is suggestive. "We tend, I think, to make too many apologies for the supposed defects of the Church of England, its want of discipline, its absence of positive definition on many points, its large latitude of opinion. To me it seems that the Church of England is the only religious organization which faces the world as it is, which recognizes the actual facts, and works for God in God's own way. . The Church of England is rigid in maintaining necessary truth, and is careful to draw the line between what is necessary and what is matter for expediency. The aspirations and ideas of the present in politics, in science, in thought, have no terrors for the Church of England, for its hold of vital truth has never been encumbered by the rubbish of falling scaffoldings and tottering buttresses, which threaten to drag the main building into ruin. The Church of England faces the world as it is, knowing that the world-spirit is strong and operative in many forms, resolute in maintaining God's truth. But, it draws a clear line between God's truth and man's means of expressing it, however noble and beautiful they may be. God's truth set forth in accordance with primitive practice, that is the position of the English Church." Let us voice certain criticisms which conceal illusive and deceptive conceptions of the Church at the present time, In the first place, it is frequently pointed out with truth that we do not present the aspect of a perfect Church in a sound and healthy condition, and the inference is drawn that therefore our Communion cannot belong to the Holy Catholic Church. That allegation is as old as the sect of the Pharisees in the Jewish religion, as bitterly made as in the history of those mischievous impugners of the Church of Augustine's day, the puritan Donatists, and of the earlier times of Cyprian of Carthage when the Montanists held aloof from the Church because its members were not "pure" according to the theory. It has been familiar in English religion from the days of fanatical Cromwell's puritan Independents. Where are these third and fifth and seventeenth century separatists in present-day religion? Have they persisted and lived and accomplished wonders? No, they have disappeared, and the Catholic Church lives. The truth is that the Church and the individual alike are by their human elements imperfect, but " are complete in Him." The Church upon earth will always present this aspect of imperfection. It is the completion of the Church of human membership when it united to its Perfect Head in His purifying and perfecting Life. The heavenly Jerusalem is adorned as a Bride for her husband and the Spirit consummates the union. "We should expect," says a devout writer of keen spiritual insight, "never to find all things to satisfy us in any ecclesiastical arrangement; people who find or imagine such pretty perfection anywhere may soon be worshipping a limited created ideal which is not God, but something that hides Him from them." Honestly and humbly we may confess that we do not find the Threefold Ministry working without short-comings, nor our liturgy "incomparable," nor our parishes unworldly, nor all our communicants deeply spiritual and flawless. Nothing works out entirely to our satisfaction. But that is quite different from admitting that our Church is not adequate to meet every situation and need. The failure to do so lies not upon the Divine side of the Church but upon its human side. Imperfection admitted is the opposite of self-sufficiency. |