Our Lady Saint Mary

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

OF LOYALTY

O God, who causes us to rejoice in recalling the joys of the conception, the nativity, the annunciation, the visitation, the purification, and the assumption of the blessed and glorious virgin Mary; grant to us so worthily to devote ourselves to her praise and service, that we may be conscious of her presence and assistance in all our necessities and straits, and especially in the hour of death, and that after death we may be found worthy, through her and in her, to rejoice in heaven with thee. Through &c.

SARUM MISSAL.

 

he dream of the Middle Ages was of one Christian society of which the Church should be the embodiment of the spiritual, and the State of the temporal interests. As there is one humanity united to God in Incarnate God, all its interests should be capable of unification in institutions which should be based on that which is essential in humanity, and not on that which is accidental: men should be united because they are human and Christian, and not divided because of diversity of blood or color or language. The dream proved impossible of realization, and the struggle for human unity went to pieces on the rocks of the rapidly developing nationalism of the later Middle Ages.

The Reformation was the triumph of nationalism and the defeat of Catholic idealism. It resulted in a shattered Christendom in which the interests of local and homogeneous groups became supreme over the purely human interests. In state and Church alike patriotism has tended more and more to become dominant over the interests that are supralocal and universal. The last few years have seen an intensification of localism. We have seen bitter scorn heaped on the few who have labored for internationalism in thought and feeling. We have seen the attempt of labor at internationalism utterly break down under the pressure of patriotic motive. We are finding that the same concentration on immediate and local interests is an insuperable bar to the realization of an ideal of internationalism which would effectively deal with questions arising between nations and put an end to war. The Church failed to establish a spiritual internationalism; the indications are that it will be long before humanitarian idealists will be able to effect a union among nations still infected with patriotic motive, such as shall bring about a subordination of local and immediate interests to the interests of humanity as such. That the general interests are also in the end the local interests is still far from the vision of the patriot.

What the growth of nationalities with its consequent rise of international jealousies and hostilities has effected in civil society, has been brought about in matters spiritual by the divisions of Christendom. The various bodies into which Christendom has been split up are infected with the same sort of localism as infects the state. They dwell with pride upon their own peculiarities, and treat with suspicion if not with contempt the peculiarities of other bodies. The effort to induce the members of any body of Christians to appreciate what belongs to others, or to try to construe Christianity in terms of a true Catholicity, is almost hopeless. All attempts at the restoration of the visible unity of the Church have been wrecked, and seem destined for long to be wrecked, on the rocks of local pride and local interests. The motives which in secular affairs lead a man to put, not only his body and his goods, as he ought, at the disposal of his country; but also induce him to surrender his mind to the prevailing party and shout, "My country, right or wrong," in matters ecclesiastical lead him to cry, "My Church, right or wrong." It is only by transcending this localism that we can hope for progress in Church or State--can hope to conquer the wars and fightings among our members that make peace impossible.

This infection of localism is not peculiar to any body of Christians. The Oriental Churches have been largely state-bound for centuries, and, in addition, have been mentally immobile. The Roman Church with its claims to exclusive ownership of the Christian Religion has lost the vision it once had and subordinated the Catholic interests of the Church to the local interests of the Papacy. The fragments of Protestantism are too small any longer to claim the universalism claimed by the East and West, and perforce acknowledge 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.

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."

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 the Church is "catholic, that is to say, not limited to any one place or region of the world, but is in every place universally through the world where it pleaseth God to call people to him in the profession of Christ's name and faith, be it in Europe, Africa, or Asia....