Our Lady Saint Mary. J. G. H. Barry
their partial character; but it is only to indulge in a more acute patriotism, and assertion of rights of division, and the supremacy of the local over the general. The Churches of the Anglican Rite are less bound, perhaps, than others. They are restless under the limitations of localism and are haunted by a vision of an unrealized Catholicity; but they are torn by internal divisions and find their attempts at movement in any direction thwarted by the pull of opposing parties.
One result of the mental attitude generated by the conditions indicated above is that any attempt to deal with subjects other than those which are authorized because they are customary, or tolerated because they are familiar, is liable to be greeted with cries of reproach and accusations of disloyalty. Such and such teachings we are told, without much effort at proof, are contrary to the teachings of the Anglican Church, or are not in harmony with that teaching, or are illegitimate attempts to bring in doctrines or practices which were definitely rejected by our fathers at the Reformation. Those who are implicated in such attempts are told that they are disturbers of the peace of the Church and are invited to go elsewhere.
As one who is not guiltless of such attempts, and as one who is becoming accustomed to be charged with novelty in teaching, and disloyalty in practice to that which is undoubtedly and historically Anglican, I have been compelled to ask myself, "What is loyalty to the Anglican Church? Is there, in fact, some peculiar and limited form of Christianity to which I owe allegiance?" I had got accustomed to think of myself as a Catholic Christian whose lot was cast in a certain province of the Catholic Church which was administratively separated from other parts of that Church. This I felt--this separation--to be unfortunate; but I was not responsible for it, and would be glad to do anything that I could to end it. I had not thought that this administrative separation from other provinces of the Catholic Church meant that I was pledged to a different religion; I had not thought of there being an Anglican Religion. I have all my life, in intention and as far as I know, accepted the whole Catholic Faith of which it is said in a Creed accepted by the Anglican Church that "except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." I do not intend to believe any other Faith than that, and I intend to believe all of that; and I have not thought of myself as other than a loyal Anglican in so doing.
But criticism has led me to go back over the whole question and ask whether there is any indication anywhere in the approved documents of the Anglican Communion of an intention at all to depart from the Faith of Christendom as it was held by the whole Catholic Church, East and West, at the time when an administrative separation from Rome was effected. Was a new faith at any time introduced? Has there at any time been any official action of the Anglican Church to limit my acceptance of the historic Faith? That many Anglican writers have denied many articles of the Catholic Faith I of course knew to be true. That some Anglican writer could be found who had denied every article of the Catholic Faith I thought quite possible. But I was not interested in the beliefs or practices of individuals. I am not at all interested in what opinions may or may not have been held by Cranmer at various stages of his career, or what opinions may be unearthed from the writings of Bale by experts in immoral literature; I am interested solely in the official utterances of the Anglican Communion.
In following out this line of investigation I have spent many weeks in the reading of many dreary documents: but fortunately documents are not important in proportion to the element of excitement they contain. I have read the documents contained in the collection of Gee and Hardy entitled "Documents Illustrative of English Church History." I have read the "Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII." I have read Cardwell's "Synodalia." And I have also read "Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be read in Churches at the time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory." I doubt whether any other extant human being has read them.
And the upshot of the whole matter is that in none of these documents have I found any expressed intention to depart from the Faith of the Catholic Church of the past as that Faith had been set forth by authority. No doubt in the Homilies there are things said which cannot be reconciled with the Faith of Catholic Christendom. But the Homilies are of no binding authority, and I have included them in my investigation only because I wanted their point of view. That is harmonious with the rest of the authoritative documents--the intention is to hold the Faith: unfortunately the knowledge of some of the writers was not as pure as their intention.
The point that I am concerned with is this: there is no intention anywhere shown in the authoritative documents of the Anglican Church to effect a change in religion, or to break with the religion which had been from the beginning taught and practised in England. The Reformation did not mean the introduction of a new religion, but was simply a declaration of governmental independence. I will quote somewhat at length from the documents for the purpose of showing that there is no indication of an intention to set up a new Church.
One or two quotations from pre-reformation documents will make clear the customary phraseology in England during the Middle Ages. King John's Ecclesiastical Charter of 1214 uses the terms "Church of England" and "English Church." The Magna Charta of 1215 grants that the "Church of England shall be free and have her rights intact, and her liberties uninjured." The Articuli Cleri of 1316 speak of the "English Church." The Second Statute of Provisors of 1390 uses the title "The Holy Church of England." "The English Church" is the form used in the Act "De Hæretico Comburendo" of 1401, as it is also in "the Remonstrance against the Legatine Powers of Cardinal Beaufort" of 1428[1].
[1] Documents in Gee & Hardy.
These quotations will suffice to show the customary way of speaking of the Church in England. If this customary way of speaking went on during and after the Reformation the inference is that there had no change taken place in the way of men's thinking about the Church; that they were unconscious of having created a new or a different Church. We know that the Protestant bodies on the Continent and the later Protestant bodies in England did change their way of thinking about the Church from that of their fathers and consequently their way of speaking of it. But the formal documents of the Church of England show no change. "The Answer of the Ordinaries" of 1532 appeals as authoritative to the "determination of Scripture and Holy Church," and to the determination of "Christ's Catholic Church." The "Conditional Restraint of Annates" of 1532 protests that the English "as well spiritual as temporal, be as obedient, devout, catholic, and humble children of God and Holy Church, as any people be within any realm christened." In the Act for "The Restraint of Appeals" of 1533, which is the act embodying the legal principle of the English Reformation, it is the "English Church" which acts. The statement in the "Act Forbidding Papal Dispensations and the Payment of Peter's Pence" of 1534 is entirely explicit as to the intention of the English authorities. It declares that nothing in this Act "shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your grace, your nobles and subjects intend, by the same, to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's Church in any things concerning the very articles of the Catholic Faith of Christendom[2]."
[2] Gee & Hardy.
These documents date from the reign of Henry VIII. In the same reign another series of authoritative documents was put forth which contains the same teaching as to the Church. "The Institution of a Christian Man" set forth in 1536, in the article on the Church has this: "I believe assuredly--that there is and hath been from the beginning of the world, and so shall endure and continue forever, one certain number, society, communion, or company of the elect and faithful people of God. … And I believe assuredly that this congregation … is, in very deed the city of heavenly Jerusalem … the holy catholic church, the temple or habitacle of God, the pure and undefiled espouse of Christ, the very mystical body of Christ," "The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man" of 1543 in treating of the faith declares that "all those things which were taught by the apostles, and have been by an whole universal consent of the church of Christ ever sith that time taught continually, ought to be received, accepted, and kept, as a perfect doctrine apostolic." It is further taught in the same document in the eighth article, that on "The Holy Catholic Church," that