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THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL.

I.-IN RELATION TO THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT.

By the Reb. W. M. Statham.

I PURPOSE to treat in three papers of the relation which the great Catholic Revival sustains to the Protestant Establishment, the Roman Church, and the Nonconformity of England. Catholic Revivalists are now a power in this country; they have their Mission Houses and Mission Priests, their weekly periodicals, and their daily celebrations. They are no small clique of sentimental mediævalists; they are astute, earnest, self-denying, active men! No stone is too small for them to pick up; they are not above the smaller duties of their vocation; and, in one word—they mean it. They will run any gauntlet-public opinion-ritual commission-diocesan displeasure -so they reach the goal it matters not to them.

Such a phenomenon as this Revival demands to be understood. It should be looked at not in a loose, general way, but in its relations to the Church in which it rises up, to the Romish Church, with which it claims close clanship, and to ourselves, the Nonconformist bodies of England. In this paper let us treat of the first of these theses -the relation of the Catholic Revival to the Established Church of this realm.

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but only the occasion of the Reformation in England, which had been caused by the circulation of the Scriptures, the work of Wickliff at home, and the Reformation movement abroad. Now, in the comprehensive character of the Catholic Revival, it is natural to think that many causes generally diverse would operate, and that these causes would be both near and remote. In those which lie nearest one can see working the mystical temperaments of such minds as Newman's and Manning's--the love of ritual, which is to a great extent inherent in humanity-and the reaction which is sure, in all mundane affairs, sooner or later to set in. Amongst the remote causes we may see the great priestly element which has never been cast out of the Prayer-book, which has always fascinated a large class of clerical minds, and which has enough germlife in it to blossom out, under favourable conditions, into a full-blown sacerdotalism.

Whilst we say this, however, we distinctly deny that it could ever fairly blossom into full-blown Romanism without completely subverting and setting aside the manifestly Evangelical side of the Church of England constitution. Let us therefore look historically at the Prayer-book, that we may have safe data on which to found our considerations.

The reign which had mainly to do with the constitution of the English Church was that of Edward VI. Short as that reign was, there were in it fifty

distinct issues of the Scriptures, and necessarily a much larger enlightenment of the public thought than in the later years of Henry VIII.

It was in 1534 that King, Lords, and Parliament assembled, cast away the Roman supremacy, and it was then that the English monasteries were abolished. But it must be historically noted that Henry left many institutions of the Romish Church untouched; he commanded the observance under the death penalty of celibacy, monastic vows, auricular confession, low mass, transubstantiation, and the withholding of the cup.

When Henry died his son Edward was but six years of age. In the council which conducted the Government during his minority, sat Edward's maternal uncle the Duke of Somerset, and the celebrated Archbishop Cran

mer.

Somerset set his heart on the head post, and he became Protector of England. He meant to govern; so ascending the chariot of state, he at first humoured the restive horses till he got them well in hand. One of his main desires was the formation of an Anglican Church, in which effort Cranmer's genius and prudence were of course called in. Church ceremonial and service had necessarily in Henry's days been of a very transitional kind; they were now about to be constituted according to a book of common prayer. The preparation of the book sanctioned by Parliament was confirmed by Parliament in the second year of Edward VI., A.D. 1549. Cranmer was astute and wise enough to invite over thirteen eminent divines from the Continent to assist in preparing the book. On On the authority of Wheatley we may say, "the object of the compilers was to set forth the old forms freed from all that

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it is equally true, that the service still retained prayers for the dead, that the form of exorcism and anointing in baptism was still to be used, that the wine was to be mixed with water, and that the Romish vestments, such as the alb, tunicle, and cope, were to be retained. A pretty considerable residuum this of Catholic rock, on which in after times to re-erect a Catholic Church!

But to history again. It was in 1552 that the second Prayer-book of Edward VI. was approved by Parliament, and it bears plentiful internal marks that the spirit of the Reformation had greatly grown. In fact, so sweeping was the change that the whole of the Romish forms I have referred to were done away, some additions were made to the beautiful prayers, and the ministers were emphatically directed "neither to use alb, vestment, nor cope, but should have and wear a surplice only." In order, too, that the very semblance of transubstantiation doctrine should be done away, these words at the Communion were to be omitted-" The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for Thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," and the following words only were to be used

-so simple and evangelical-" Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart, with faith and thanksgiving.'

Such was the second Prayer-book of Edward, and had it reigned supreme in the after years, the Catholic revivalists would have had only very remote grounds to rest upon. It would have been seen that the Reformation in doctrine was gradual, and all sincere men would have felt that it were unjust in the extreme to make the infancy of a church the state to which it should return-it would be old age returning to infancy indeed!

We come, however, to the Elizabethan era, concerning which I have not found in current Anti-Ritualistic literature the case put as strongly in favour of the Catholic position as it seems to me historically it is. After Queen Elizabeth's accession, A.D. 1558, a commission was appointed to review the liturgies of King Edward's reign, and to prepare from them a book of common prayer. Alas! that our still called, by Churchmen especially, good Queen Bess, should have made such a blunder as to whisper through Cecil to the divines engaged in the book to favour the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. In Dr. Vaughan's most admirable and scholarly "Hand-book on Ritualism," it seems to me that in such parts as page 113 there is the statement of the case as it stands against the Anglo-Catholics rather than as it sides with them. The Committee then sitting seem to me to have been tolerably bold men, as they said they were not able in every instance to comply with Her Majesty's directions, and that they disapproved of any distinctions between the celebration of

the communion and other services; moreover, that men might communicate standing or kneeling. But those were days when royalty could be more autocratic than royalty can now. These wise and reformatory directions were withdrawn, and the Queen with her Council introduced marvellous changes, in the interval which elapsed after the Commission had finished its work, and before their work was submitted to Parliament. What were these royal alterations? It is important to note these, as some historical students in thinking of the injunction of Queen Elizabeth in 1559, the year of her accession, "that there be no other manner and form of administering the sacraments but as the Service-book doth precisely describe," forget that in this same book priests are directed to use such ornaments in the Church as were in use at the time of the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. Consequently albs with tunicles and copes, or vestments such as the gorgeous robe worn by the Romish priests at the mass, were tacitly sanctioned; although, with a glorious inconsistency, the same Injunction of Queen Elizabeth commences with, "that there be used but one apparel only, as the cope in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and the surplice in all other ministrations." It will be at once seen in the first extract from Elizabeth's Injunction that the two directions are inconsistent with each other. History, moreover, attests the fact that the prohibition of Romish vestments was repealed-that the rubric still retained in the English Liturgy was introduced-that the form of sacerdotal absolution taken from Rome, the answer of sponsors in behalf of infants, and the Apocryphal lessons were all retained-whilst one remark

able clause was eliminated from the Litany, viz., the memorable petition for deliverance from the tyranny and detestable enormiies of the Bishop of Rome.

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Thus were the stones brought together again upon which Catholicism in after years could re-erect its citadel. True, says the reader: here is the foundation of RITUAL we admit, but what concerning THE DOCTRINE which the Catholic Revivalists call the key to their whole system—THE SACRIFICE involving the whole transubstantiation theory! Why what does Bishop Burnet say? Most certainly he declares that the Queen's purpose was to bring all the people into one English Church. It was recommended to the Commission of Divines that there should be no express definition made against the corporal presence in the Sacrament." I call especial attention to this because it involves so much. Not only was there to be no definition against any special supernatural presence-called if you like the real presence-but there was to be no express definition made against the corporal presence! Surely, in the light of such historical fact, those cannot be right who argue that what Elizabeth's Prayer-book did not prescribe, it proscribed! The Catholic Revivalists have a right, as it seems to me, to deny that proposition in toto. It is in harmony with this that the other facts of history stand side by side I mean such statements as that made by Mr. Le Geyt, in his sermon "Union and Disunion." "Do you know that two popes, Pius IV. and Paul IV. were willing to confirm the English Prayer-book, and SO to declare their acceptance of English baptism, orders, absolution, conse

cration, and all other exercise of priestly offices? On what condition? That the supremacy of Rome should be admitted. No question, mark, of validity of sacraments, or of true succession, but only of supremacy. Do you know, also, that for the first twelve years of Elizabeth, Roman Catholics were content to worship in England after the order of the English Prayer Book? and did so until a bull excommunicated the English Sovereign and prohibited all communion." In the Convocation of clergy in 1562, a petition was presented to the Queen, signed by thirty-three names, seeking for the removal of Popish ceremonies, "that the use of copes may be taken away, that ministers be not compelled to wear such gowns and caps as the enemies of Christ's Gospel have chosen to be the special array of their priesthood." I believe that a majority of the clergy then present approved those propositions, but they were rejected by the proxies of others attached to Romish Ritualism. Neal, in his history, vol. i. p. 122, gives the issue thus:"fifty-eight votes for the removal of the Romish vestments, fifty-nine against it." Never was a cause so important in its issues lost by so narrow a majority on the wrong side. Archbishop Parker, Cranmer's Protestant successor, was not fond of the vestments. Bishop Jewel called the vestments "the habits of the stage, the relics of the Amorites." Dr. Guest, Bishop of Rochester, writes to Secretary Cecil::- "These ceremonies were no better than the devices of men, and had been abused to idolatry." Bishop Grindal called God to witness that the sin did not lie at the bishop's door that the vestments were not taken away. Bishop Pilkington is

bitter against their retention, says that all reformed Churches had cast them away with the Pope; and adds, "pious persons lamented, atheists laughed, and the papists blew the coals.' Archbishop Grindal was, perhaps, the boldest and bravest of all, for, in writing to the Queen, he informed Her Majesty that he could not offend God by sending out injunctions to suppress clergymen who opposed the ceremonies. My Lady Elizabeth, however, soon suppressed him, and by an order from the Star Chamber not only confined him to his house, but sequestered him for six months!

Supposing it to be historically true, as Neal states, "That not one of the first set of bishops, after the Reformation, approved of the habits, or argued for their continuance from Scripture, antiquity, or decency, but submitted to them out of necessity, and to keep the Church in the Queen's favour," vol. i. p. 130-384, What then? They were inserted in the Prayer-book, they were the law of the land, they were Church ordinances, although they then were distinctly opposed to the whole bench of Bishops, and to the Reformation spirit in the country. If, therefore, an argument is to be drawn from the Church judged by its own Convocations in Elizabeth's reign, I should say its spirit is anti-Catholic; if it is to be drawn from the Prayer-book and the State enactions, it is difficult to displace the Catholic Revivalists. Now let us look at the intervening era between Elizabeth and the second Act of Uniformity, imposed after the restoration of Charles II., A.D. 1660.

James I. succeeded to the throne A.D. 1603, when a petition, called the

Millenary Petition, was presented to him, signed by some 800 clergy from the English counties. They complained of groaning under a common burden of rites and ceremonies, and petitioned against vestments, the cross in baptism, the removal of the term priest, absolution, &c. And what was done? Why in the Hampton Court Conference, held in 1604, there was a determination to resist their appeal. A few trifling changes were made, and in the King's proclamation we read, "Though the doctrine and discipline of the Established Church were unexceptionable, some few explanations of passages had been yielded to," &c. He therefore admonished his subjects to conform to the Prayerbook as then published, and not to expect any further alterations. This was the monarch who told his own parliament "he acknowledged the Roman Church to be his mother Church, though defiled with some infirmities and corruptions. He wished he might be a means of uniting the Church of England and the Church of Rome." We may be very well assured, indeed, that none of the stones on which Catholicism could re-erect its temple were removed in his reign.

Surely some writers amongst us are forgetting facts, or they would not ridicule the claim of the Catholic Revivalists as they do. Why it was in 1604, that Archbishop Bancroft sternly enforced on all clergy the strict observance of festivals, the use of copes, surplices, caps, &c., according to the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. Nay, more, he obliged the clergy to re-subscribe. Is it not a fact in the story of sacrifice in this era for conscience' sake that upwards of 300 clergy were deprived,

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