Outspoken Essays by William Ralph Inge

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The Church of England, then, can justify its existence as English
Christianity, and in no other way. It began its separate career with a
series of (doubtless) illogical compromises, in the belief that there is
an underlying unity, though not uniformity, in the religion as well as
in the character of the English people, which would be strong enough to
hold a national Church together. The dissenters from the Reformation
settlement were numerically insignificant, and their existence was not
regarded as a peril to the Church, for it was recognised that in a free
country absolute agreement cannot be secured. The Roman Catholics, after
some futile persecution, were allowed to remain loyal to their old
allegiance in spiritual matters, while the Independents and similar
bodies were anarchical on principle, and upheld the 'dissidence of
Dissent' as a thing desirable in itself. But the defection of the
Wesleyan Methodists was another matter. This was a blow to the Church of
England as irreparable as the loss of Northern Europe to the Papacy. It
finally upset the balance of parties in the Church, by detaching from it
the larger number of the Evangelicals, particularly in the tradesman
class. It gave a great stimulus to Nonconformity, which now became for
the first time an important factor in the national life. Till the
Wesleyan secession, the Nonconformists in England had been a feeble
folk. From a return made to the Crown in 1700, it appeared that the
Dissenters numbered about one in twenty of the population. Now they are
as numerous as the Anglicans. Their prestige has also been largely
augmented by their dominating position in the United States, where the
Episcopal Church, long viewed with disfavour as tainted with British
sympathies, has never recovered its lost ground, and is a comparatively
small, though wealthy and influential sect. Within the Anglican
communion, the inevitable religious revival of the nineteenth century
began on Evangelical lines, but soon took a form determined by other
influences than those which covered England with the ostentatiously
hideous chapels of the Wesleyans. The extent of the revival has indeed
been much exaggerated by the numerous apologists of the Catholic
movement. The undoubted increase of professional zeal, activity, and
efficiency among the clergy has been taken as proof of a corresponding
access of enthusiasm among the laity, for which there is not much
evidence. In spite of slovenly services and an easy standard of clerical
duty, the observances of religion held a larger place in the average
English home before the Oxford Movement than is often supposed, larger,
indeed, than they do now, when family prayers and Bible reading have
been abandoned in most households.

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.

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