Bicknell on Article XX: Of the Authority of the Church

Catholicity of the Church is therefore a goal that is set before us to be attained by prayer and effort. We need greater missionary zeal. We need greater earnestness and humility in searching for and welcoming new or forgotten truths. Only so will the Church be truly Catholic, and all nations will find in her Gospel that for which they are seeking.

(d) The Church is apostolic. Not only is she derived by historical descent from the twelve Apostles, but she exists to carry on the work for which they were sent forth. She represents Christ to the world. She is built upon the foundation of the Apostles (Eph. 21929, Mt. 1618, Rev. 2114), since they were, so to speak, the first stones laid in her building. Her faith is derived from their preaching (Jn. 172°). Every single Christian community was either founded by an Apostle or goes back to one so founded. The ministry of the Church hands down the commission given to the Apostles. Thus, so far as she is faithful to her mission the Church is apostolic in her aim, her teaching and her ministry. She fails to be apostolic when she ceases to represent Christ.

On the doctrine of the Church see also: Gore, The Mission of the Church. Scott-Holland, God’s City.

Lock, Lua Mundi, Art. 9.

W. Temple, The Church in Foundations. Swete, Holy Catholic Church. Parti.

Of the Authority of the Church.

The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and Authority in contro- versies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scrip- ture that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Sal- vation.

De Ecclesiae auctoritate.

Habet Keclesia ritus sive caeremonias statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctori- tatem ; quamvis Ecclesiae non licet quicquam _instituere, quod verbo Dei scripto ad- versetur, nec unum Scripturae locum sic exponere potest, ut alteri contradicat. Quare licet Keclesia sit divinorum libro- rum testis et conservatrix, attamen ut adversus eos nihil decernere, ita praeter illos nihil credendum de necessitate salutis debet obtrudere.

Except for the opening clause (The Church… faith) this was taken

from the 42 Articles.

The opening clause first appears in the Latin

edition of 1563 and was probably added by the authority of the Queen. It was ratified by Convocation in 1571, if not earlier, and so the whole

Article possesses equal authority.

Its object is to define the authority of the Church against (i) Puritans who minimized it, in matters of ceremonial ; (ii) Papists who exaggerated it, in matters of doctrine.

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§ 1. Before we can discuss the nature and extent of theauthority

of the Church, we must form some idea of what we mean by

‘authority.’ * The ultimate ground of all human authority lies in the social nature of man. The laws of the State represent, in idea at least, the general welfare of the community. The individual submits to them even at his personal inconvenience, as re- presenting the will of the society, whose life and benefits he shares. The same is true when we turn to smaller societies. Ideally the rules are framed in the interests of the whole society, to forward the carrying out of the purpose for which the society exists. As contrasted with the will of the individual member, they stand for the welfare and the wisdom of a wider whole. There should be no conflict between authority and freedom. The individual can only realize himself through social life. The true well-being of any society should include the well-being of each and all of its members.

When we turn to questions not of conduct and practice but of belief and knowledge, the same distinction holds good. All knowledge of what is true must be based on experience, my own or that of others. I know that a thing is true either because I have seen it for myself or because someone else, whom I can trust, has seen it and told me. That is to say, my knowledge may be either first hand or based on the authority of another. In this case clearly ‘ authority ’ represents an experience wider than my own, whether it be the experience of a single teacher or a body of experts or the community at large. The possibility of knowledge resting not on personal investigation but on authority depends upon the sharing of a common human nature. We assume that what is true, is true for all minds. These prin- ciples hold good when we consider the place of authority in matters of faith. The child accepts on the authority of his parents certain statements about God, our Lord, the Bible and soon. He says his prayers because he is told to do so. A child’s religion must begin by being second-hand, based not on experi- ence but on authority. As he grows, he begins to verify for himself what he has been taught. This verification is not only

• The idea of the Latin word ‘ auctoritas ’ from which ‘ authority ’ is derived, may best be rendered by ‘weight.’ A command or an opinion comes to us with more or less authority according to the ‘ weight,’ moral or intellectual, of those who issue it.

intellectual but moral and spiritual. He learns the reasons for the beliefs that he has accepted on authority. He studies Scripture and is taught the nature and value of the evidence contained in it. Side by side with this there should be a growth in the personal knowledge of our Lord. He comes to know that Jesus Christ is a Saviour, because he has proved Him to be so. He prays, no longer because he is told to, but because he has found the value and power of prayer. So, too, the orderly system of Christian doctrine awakens a response not only in the mind but in the heart and will. The great Christian truths shine largely by their own light. This progressive verification of the Christian faith by the individual is a very complex process, It must vary enormously both in thoroughness and extent according to the education and capacities and opportunities of the particular person. There will always remain large tracts of Christian truth that no one individual can fully explore for himself. For his belief about these he will necessarily be dependent on the authority of the Church. This authority, as we have seen, represents primarily the collective and corporate experience of all Christians, not only the living but the departed. In believing what the Church teaches, we are only acting as we act in all other spheres of practical life, artistic and intellectual. Everywhere the individual must start from the common stock of knowledge. He must largely be dependent upon his teachers. All through his limitations and eccentricities need to be supple- mented and corrected by the corporate mind of the community.

This conception of ‘ authority’ does not in the least impair the unconditional authority that we feel to belong to a revelation made by God or to the teaching of our Lord. Since God is perfect Wisdom and perfect Truth, to refuse belief in any truth that He has revealed would be not only presumptuous but unreasonable. The real difficulty is to prove the genuineness and accuracy of what is claimed to be a revelation from God.* We believe Christ to have possessed a perfect insight into the things of God and to have expressed the truth that He saw, not

. CHURCH’S AUTHORITY IN DOCTRINE 315

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only in His teaching but in His conduct. Since divine truth cannot change, His revelation cannot become out of date. At the same time we notice our Lord’s use of authority. He did not enjoin belief in His teaching under severe penalties. Rather He left it to make its appeal to the conscience and reason of men, backing it by the example of a perfect human life. That is, He encouraged men to verify its truth from their own experience.

See Rawlinson, ‘‘ The Principle of Authority,” in Foundations, pp.

§ 2. We may now turn to the authority of the Church on questions of order and doctrine.

The distinction between the, two is well drawn in Art. XX. ‘ The Church has power to decree (ius statuendi) Rates or Ceremonies and authority (auctoritatem) in controversies of faith.’ * That is to say, the Church’s power in matters of ‘ rites and ceremonies ’ is legislative. She has power to decree new ones, to modify or abolish old ones and to enforce obedience upon her members. Her power in such matters is legislative, the power to make laws, as Parliament makes laws for all Englishmen. This power is limited only by Scripture. ‘Jt as not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written.’ That is to say, there is to be nothing in such rites or ceremonies that is forbidden by Scripture or expressive of teaching that is contrary to Scripture. We might give as instance the use of some sub- stance other than water in Baptism or the introduction of the worship of Angels into public services. The claim here made for the Church is only the claim that any society would make for itself, to manage its own affairs, so far as is consistent with its own first principles. This right is implied in the teaching of Christ. ‘Whatsoever ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ (Mt. 1818, cp. Mt. 161%). To ‘bind’ and to ‘loose ’ meant in current Jewish speech to ‘declare forbidden’ and

• It is assumed that ‘the Church’ spoken of in this Article is the whole Body, the Church universal. The problems raised by the divisions of the Church and by the existence of national churches are dealt with later. The general principles that govern the life and action of the Church are stated first. The application of them to present conditions can only be made when they have already been stated.

to ‘declare allowed.’ Christ was only bestowing upon the new Israel the same authority that He recognized in the old. ‘The Scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat: all things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe’ (Mt. 237%). We find the Church putting this power into practice. St. Paul in 1 Cor. gives quite definite regulations for the conduct of divine worship. Men are to pray and prophesy with their heads uncovered, women with their heads covered (11*°). There are to be rules about speaking with tongues and prophesy- ing (146 ff.) and the conduct of women (144, cp. 1 Tim. 2%). Since we possess bodies as well as souls, our worship is bound to clothe itself in at least a minimum of outward form. Common worship, if it is to be orderly, needs some regulation, whether this be by definite rules or by the growth of recognized custom. The aim is, ‘ Let all things be done decently and in order ’ (1 Cor. 144°), Rites and ceremonies at their best and highest are the expression of reverence and devotion in the presence of God. Modern psychology tells us that the attitude of our bodies has a far greater influence on the vigour and attention of our minds and the concentration of our wills than might be supposed. The danger in the case both of churches and individuals is that the outward acts in which devotion was embodied in times of special fervour and spiritual zeal may survive as a hollow form when the spirit of devotion has declined, and so may become a hindrance rather than a help to true and spiritual worship, a substitute for, rather than a realization of heartfelt service. But as members of a society, in questions of public worship we are bound to yield obedience to the common rule. If we dislike a custom or a ceremony we may agitate in all lawful ways for its alteration, but till it is altered it is our duty to submit for the sake of unity. Such submission is a part of the self-subordination that unity imvolves. This power of the Church is, as we have seen, limited by Scripture, and so long as the Church is governed by the Spirit of Christ, she will use it with all due consideration for tender consciences and for the manifold varieties of human nature. The Puritans demanded that the Church should enforce no rite or ceremony,f however

harmless in itself, unless it received positive support from Scripture. They objected to, eg. god-parents or the ring in marriage, as not being commanded in the Bible. The Article is aimed at them. Their objection rested on a misapprehension of the purpose of Scripture, which was given not to be a hand- book of ceremonial but an instructor in moral and spiritual truth. They took a purely individualistic view of the Christian life. If the Church is faithful to Scripture, she may be trusted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to work out for herself in each age that system of common worship which is best able to express her devotion and her obedience, and she can claim from her members their loyal adherence to it. St. Paul’s final rebuke to the discontented members of the Church of Corinth is ‘If any man seemeth to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God’ (1 Cor. 1179).

§ 3. In matters of faith the case is different. The Church exists to propagate certain beliefs. As we have seen, all that she teaches is centred in Christ, and her message is sufficiently set forth in Scripture. Hence, in all her teaching she must be faithful to the message that she was founded to proclaim. Her primary function is that of witness. She is to bear witness before the world to the truth. Christianity claims to be the absolute religion. Christ is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In Him God’s revelation is final and complete. Hence, the Church’s duty is to ‘guard the deposit’ (1 Tim. 67°). Her members are to ‘contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints’ (Jude 3, cp. 2 Jn. 2). Her aim is to protect her beliefs from diminution or from accretion (cp. 2 Jn. 9). In any merely human system of truth such changes are necessary and beneficial. Obsolete ideas are discarded : new ideas are incorporated in the light of fresh discoveries. But no part of the divine revelation can ever become out of date, nor does it need to be supplemented from outside. Hence the place assigned to Scripture. ‘ Although the Church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ: yet… besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.’ As

in the sixteenth century and the two terms were constantly used as synony- mous: ¢.g. in the Acts of Uniformity, or title page of the Prayer Book. … The confusion of language is still a common one, and cannot be defended.’ Proctor and Frere, p. 17,

keeper of holy writ, she is responsible for preserving her sacred. writings entire and free from contamination, and for handing them on to future generations. As witness, she cannot alter or add to the truth: she is the servant and not the mistress of her message.

(a) But controversy forced upon the Church a new function. She was called on to play the part not only of witness but of judge. She had to decide between conflicting interpretations of her message and to say no to false speculations. We saw that Article V1 left open the important question, who was to decide in case of dispute what Scripture does teach on any given subject. Art. XX supplies the answer. ‘The Church hath… authority wn controversies of faith.’ This authority is an extension of her function of witness. It is judicial, not legislative. It differs from her power to decree rites and ceremonies. A judge has not authority to make laws, but only to determine what the law is and to apply it to the particular case before him. So the Church has no authority to decree new doctrines, but simply to declare what the truth is and always has been. The Church’s judgment in controversies of faith is primarily one of recognition. She judges an opinion true or false because it agrees with or differs from a pre-existent standard. She bears witness that this teaching is or is not in harmony with the message that she lives to proclaim.

The difference between the legislative power of the Church in the case of rites and ceremonies and her judicial authority in matters of faith is well illustrated by the decrees of the Council of Nicaea as quoted by Athanasius. The Council had before them a question of church order, the date of keeping Easter, and also a doctrinal question, namely, the teaching of Arius. ‘With reference to Easter,’ he says, ‘such and such things were determined (do&e and at such a date), for at that time it was determined that all should obey a certain rule; but with reference to the faith they wrote not “such and such things were determined” but “this the Catholic Church believes,” and they added immediately the statement of their faith, to show that their judgment was not new but apostolic, and that what they wrote was not any discovery of theirs, but was what the Apostle taught.’* In other words, the Church is not the

organ of a new and growing revelation but a witness and interpreter of a revelation once given.

(6) Are we then to say that there is no development in the Church’s teaching and in the knowledge of divine truth? The answer to this question turns on what we mean by develop- ment. If by development we mean the addition of new doctrines implying a positive increase in the content of divine revelation : if such development requires that the Church should be con- sidered not simply as a witness to the faith once given, but as the organ of a fresh revelation from God, then we deny that there is any development in this sense, and we claim in support of our denial both Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers. Nothing is clearer than that the Church in early days did not claim any power of adding to the faith: novelty was a sign of heresy. At her synods and councils she sought to declare not some new truth but what the Church had always and everywhere believed. As St. Vincent of Lerins wrote *: ‘We within the Catholic Church are to take great care that we hold that which hath been believed everywhere, always and by all men (semper, ubique, ab ommbus)…and that we shall do, if we follow universality, antiquity and consent. Universality we shall follow, if we confess that one faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses: antiquity, if we depart in no wise from those truths, which it is plain our holy forefathers held: and consent, if in this antiquity itself we follow the definitions and sentences of all or practically all the priests and doctors to- gether.’ As we shall see, the early writers found in the apostolic succession of the ministry a guarantee of the continuity of apos- tolic doctrine. The Fathers are never tired of referring men back to Scripture as the touchstone of genuine Christian teaching.

On the other hand we do admit development in another sense. There is a progressive understanding of the faith delivered to the saints. The truth does not grow, but we grow into it. The revelation has been there all the time, but we had not eyes to see all that it means and we are only slowly coming to compre- hend its full beauty and significance. And this development of our knowledge takes place in two chief ways.

(i) Through controversy the Church is compelled to mark off certain lines of teaching as false, and therefore asserts the opposite

teaching to be true. ‘So what was before implicit in her belief, becomes explicit. No new truth is added, but she comes to a clearer consciousness of what she believed all the time.- Just as nothing does more to clear up our minds on a subject than being obliged to answer questions on it, so the Church, through being cross-questioned about the belief to which she bore witness, came to a more thorough comprehension of its meaning. In this sense the Athanasian Creed is the development of the teaching of the Gospels and St. Paul. It is an instance of what St. Vincent expresses thus: * ‘When she was roused by the novelties of heretics, the Catholic Church, by the decrees of Councils, has ever affected this and nothing more—that she should consign to posterity in the security of a formal document, what she had received from her ancestors by mere tradition, summarizing great matters in a few words, and generally, with a view to greater clearness, stamping with the speciality of a new term an article of the faith which was not new.’ The technical lan- guage is indeed new, but St. Paul would have no difficulty in accepting the theology of the Athanasian Creed, if it were explained to him. We may say that there is a development in the statement of truth but not in the substance of it. St. Peter’s knowledge of the Catholic faith included all that the Church teaches to-day.

(11) Secondly, not only words but ideas and modes of thought change. Accordingly the faith has to be interpreted to each age in the language of that age. Our mental vocabulary has been enormously enlarged by the growth of science and psy- chology, etc. Conceptions like ‘evolution,’ ‘natural selection ’ and the like were unknown to our forefathers. Our whole idea of personality has been deepened by modern research. If we take up and read a book written a hundred years ago we feel as if we were moving in a different world. So the faith, if it is to be intelligible to our age, must be translated into terms of current thought. As Bishop Westcott wrote: + ‘ As the circum- stances of men and nations change materially, intellectually, morally, the life will find a fresh and corresponding expression. We cannot believe what was believed in another age by re- peating the formulas which were then current. The greatest words change in meaning. The formulas remain to us a precious

heritage, but they require to be interpreted. Each age has to apprehend vitally the Incarnation and the Ascension of Christ.’ So there is development in this sense, development of expression. The essence of the faith to which the Church bears witness is not changed, but the form in which it is presented does change. Further, new circumstances arise and call for a new application of the old truths. Each age has its own problems, social, moral and religious, and turns to Christ to find the remedy for its distress. So new depths of meaning are called out which hitherto had lain unnoticed or obscured. No new Gospel is proclaimed, but the old Gospel is applied to new conditions, and so new aspects of it are disclosed. It is one of the glories of the Christian faith that it contains an answer for every human need. Here again there is a development of truth, a fuller entering into the wisdom of God, a wider sympathy with the mind of Christ, through practical obedience to the faith once for all revealed. In these senses we do allow development of truth. What was implicit becomes explicit : truths are not changed but translated into new forms so as to correspond to new needs, intellectual, moral, and practical.

Cp. Gore, Bampton Lectures, Lect IV. Quick, Hssays in Orthodoxy, introduction.

(c) Here we find ourselves face to face with one of the burning questions of the day. How are we to distinguish between legitimate development and illegitimate ? Where can we draw the line between the reinterpretation of the old facts and the addition of new facts? It is hard to separate the fact from its interpretation or to decide at what point the attempt to express old doctrines in modern language passes into the assertion of something new and strange. All of us agree that the Church must present her teaching to the men of to-day in such a form that it may make its greatest appeal to them. Every endeavour to do this must claim our sympathy. But it is fatally easy in any such endeavour, while attempting to translate the faith into up-to-date terms, either to add to it or to diminish it. In the light of this problem we must consider (2) The Roman doctrine of development, (8) Modernism.

(a) The Church of Rome claims to be the Catholic Church. As such it claims that its whole body of teaching is and has always been both infallibly true and also identical in substance with

the teaching of the Apostles. This position obviously needs defence. It is by no means apparent that the Church of the Apostles or of the Fathers believed in, let us say, the Treasury of Merit, or the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, or the Infallibility of the Pope—to select three conspicuous instances of modern Roman teaching. The defence that the Church of Rome would prefer is that these doctrines are based on Scripture. The earlier Roman controversialists attempted to prove their position from Scripture with indifferent success. Isolated texts torn from their context and not always accurately translated are not formidable arguments. Modern scholarship and the growth of the historic sense have rendered the attempt even more hopeless. A second line of defence was to lay down that such doctrines as could not be proved from Scripture were part of an apostolic tradition handed down in secret. This secret primitive tradition was viewed as an independent witness to the truth. As we saw, any such view is contrary to patristic teaching, which unanimously held that Scripture contained a sufficient account of the divine revelation in Christ. Further, in early days this reliance on secret tradition was the weapon not of orthodoxy but of heresy.* It was the Gnostics not the Church who fell back on such authority. Writers such as Tertullian and Irenaeus insist that there is not and never has been any concealed element in the Gospel of Christ. Accordingly a third line of defence has to be attempted. Most modern Roman writers, though not all, would maintain that the teaching of the Roman Church to-day is a development but still the true and legitimate development of the teaching of the Apostles. Cardinal Newman could write, ‘Every Catholic holds that the Christian dogmas were in the Church from the time of the Apostles; that they were ever in their substance what they are now; that they existed before the formulas were publicly adopted in which as time went on they were defined and recorded.’ + In other words, even the most modern dogmas were in some sense implicit in the primitive belief. Newman himself could write about the Vatican Council, that imposed the dogma of Papal infallibility, before it had given its decision, that if the definition should be

• Tracts, Theol. and Eccl. p. 287, quoted Gore, R.C. Claims, p. 39.

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made, it would turn out to be a part of the original deposit. of belief.* Newman himself was responsible for placing the doctrine of development on a new basis. One modern Roman line of argument may be summed up as follows: A seed contains within itself a principle of growth. An acorn, for instance, has within it the potentiality of becoming an oak. Under suitable conditions by a gradual process of development this potentiality is realized: each stage of growth is determined by the law of its nature until it culminates in the full-grown oak-tree. So Christian doctrine started as a germ, containing within itself the power of growth. It was planted in the Church in order to grow. Through centuries of Christian life it has grown. Partly through controversy, partly by the arguments of theologians, partly by the Church’s study of her message, the germ of apostolic doctrine has developed into the full modern doctrinal system of the Church of Rome. Every stage of development has been determined by the stage before and led on to the stage that followed. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church has been inspired to see and welcome the growth in truth, and in due time to proclaim it as a new dogma, an essential part of her teaching. So the dogmas of the Church of Rome to-day are the necessary evolution of the teaching of the Apostles, At first sight we may indeed be struck by the difference between the elaborate formularies of to-day and the simplicity of the belief of earlier ages. The connexion between is no more obvious at first sight than that between the oak and the acorn. But the study of Church history will show us how the faith of the Apostles passed stage by stage into the faith of the Church of Rome to-day. There was no break in the process of development. By the Holy Spirit the Church was infallibly led on from step to step, until the latest discovery of divine truth made at the last Vatican Council was added to the formal Creed of the Church. |

For modern Roman teaching see: Wilhelm and Scannell, vol. i. p. 107 ff.

This view of development is an admirable defence of the Roman system of doctrine—probably the only possible defence to-day. But it is open to criticism on two main grounds.

(i) It assumes the very point that needs proof, namely, that the Church has been infallibly guided at every stage by the Holy Spirit and has never fallen into error. We do indeed allow that modern Roman doctrine is a development of apostolic teaching and that we can trace that development step by step during the Church’s history. Further, we allow that we cannot, as it were, take a knife and say ‘up to this point the develop- ment is sound; here error begins.’ But we maintain that all development is not necessarily healthy development. Cancer isa growth, but it is an unhealthy growth. Because Roman teaching has as a matter of history developed in a certain direction, that is no proof that it is a right direction or the only direction. Lutheranism and Calvinism are in some sense developments of apostolic teaching. But we do not accept them on that account. We see that they are one-sided and need pruning. It is possible that the development of Roman theology may be no less one-sided and no less in need of pruning. The whole Roman argument from development presupposes that the Church of Rome both has the monopoly of the guidance of the Holy Spirit and also has been completely faithful to that guidance. We are not prepared to concede that either of these presup- positions is true. We claim to test the development of Roman doctrine and see whether it is healthy and whether indeed from its very nature it is not inconsistent with the Christian faith.

Cp. Mozley, The Theory of Development.

(ui) A second and equally serious argument is that this view too often tends to confuse logical and organic development.* Roman theologians as a rule try to show that their doctrines are a logical development of apostolic doctrine, and when this begins to fail, they insensibly pass over to organic development and metaphors borrowed from it. But logical development and organic development are two entirely different things. Truth grows in quite a different way from an acorn. Truth develops in one of two ways. Hither new facts come within our experience ; we receive a positive increase of information. Or by the use of thought our minds draw out by closer examina- tion or by analysis what is implicitly contained in our present

• Newman guarded himself against falling into this error. His followers have not always done so.

: CHURCH’S AUTHORITY IN DOCTRINE 325 £

knowledge. The books of Euclid are the best illustration of this last method?of growth. But an organism does not grow by such means. An oak is not logically implicit in the acorn. We cannot deduce from a seed what will emerge from it. If Christian truth is to grow it must develop in accordance with the laws that govern knowledge and not those that govern acorns. If the Church of Rome to-day knows more about divine truth than the Church of the Apostles, such increase in knowledge must have come either from the receiving of additional in- formation, 7.e. by an additional revelation from God, or else from closer study of the apostolic faith and the thinking out of all that is contained in it. Again, this idea of the belief of the Church as an ‘organism’ treats the ‘belief’ as a thing with a life of its own, divorced from the minds that hold it. The mind develops its own ideas, the ideas do not develop themselves. We cannot abstract the idea of development of doctrine from the life of the Church taken as a whole, and the Church consists of men and women, in whose lives thought is only one element. The whole idea of the ‘ organic’ development of doctrine is perfectly logical and perfectly consistent in the abstract, but it does not correspond with the facts of life and leaves out large and essential parts of human experience.

So we refuse to accept such doctrines as those of the Treasury of Merit or the Immaculate Conception or Papal Infallibility as true developments of Christian truth. They cannot be proved from Scripture. There is no evidence that they formed part of the belief of the Church in early times. Nor can they be logically deduced from apostolic teaching. Human logic is only valid when it has a complete and adequate knowledge of the facts from which it argues, but when it deals with divine truths about which our knowledge is limited, its conclusions are at best precarious. Logic is most triumphant in dealing with abstract or mathematical statements, in the form ‘all A is B.’ When we know the symbols A and B, we know at once all that there is to be known about them. They are the pure creation of the human mind. But we cannot detect in advance by logic the course of human history or the conduct of our friends. So to argue that our Lord’s sinlessness and the holiness of the Blessed Virgin imply that she must have been conceived free from all taint of original sin, and to state this as a new dogma,

that of ‘the Immaculate Conception’ is to strain logic. Such an argument would only be valid if we knew all about original sin and heredity and the manner of the Incarnation. Further, since the Blessed Virgin is a historical person we are justified in asking for historical evidence that she either claimed to be sinless or made the impression of sinlessness on others. In Scripture there are indications that at times she lacked the complete and immediate sympathy with our Lord’s purposes which would be evidence of entire sinlessness. She is rebuked by Him once (Jn. 24) and even takes part in an attempt to restrain Him from His ministry (Mk. 371 44 31 ff,.).* In the Acts, after the first chapter, she disappears. The whole idea of the ‘ Immaculate Conception’ is the natural outcome of the place that she has come to hold in modern Roman devotions, not of the place that she held during her life on earth. Logic cannot create new facts, and the Roman doctrine needs such for its defence. We claim, then, that Roman developments of doctrine are not on the same level as the earlier developments of doctrine, such as we admit in the case of the formal statement of the doctrines of the In- carnation and the Trinity. They imply an addition from outside to the deposit of faith, and so demand in the last resort a fresh revelation. At best they are but pious opinions which grew up in the Church as the private beliefs of individuals and schools, and afterwards were exalted into dogmas. We fall back upon the test of Scripture as interpreted by the universal Church and by such a test they stand condemned.

On the Immaculate Conception see : Bigg, Wayside Sketches, pp. 187-188.

For general criticism of the Roman position see : Chandler, Cult of the Passing Moment, iii. § 1. Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads, cc. i.-vi.

(8) Modernism is in itself, as the name implies, only the attempt to be modern—to re-state the Christian faith in modern language, in accordance with modern knowledge and modern modes of thought. Such attempts in themselves are wholly laudable : the only question is whether, in the desire to give an up-to-date presentation of the Catholic faith, some essential elements may not be omitted or ignored. Certain teachers, in their wish to make Christianity modern, have failed to keep Christianity

Christian. So the term ‘Modernism ’ denotes a tendency rather than a definite school of thought or body of teaching. It has been used in the most varied senses, favourable and unfavour- able. A Modernist may suggest to one mind a man who is doubtful whether the book of Genesis came straight from the hand of Moses, to another mind a man who has dissolved the Christian faith into a beautiful legend. At the same time there are certain definite positions to which the name Modernism is usually applied, and with these we will deal.*

Modernism starts from the desire to get back behind all dog- matic statements to the actual experience which those who first used them were attempting to describe. It claims that such dogmatic statements are to be accepted only so far as they can be verified from the present experience of the Church, and are to be interpreted in accordance with that experience. On this view the Modernist is not concerned to deny development in doctrine or to maintain that the latest Roman dogma can be deduced from the teaching of the Apostles. Rather he says, that all doctrinal statements are only the attempts of each age to express the fulness of its own spiritual life in language proper to itself. Such are not to be taken as literal clear-cut statements of fact, but are symbolic statements, true in their own way, but not true in the same sense as mathematical statements or statements of historic facts are true. All alike are inadequate. Each generation must endeavour to get back to the common spiritual experience and to express its meaning anew in accordance with the current terms and ideas of the day. It is from this standpoint that we must view the doctrinal statements of the New Testament. No one can dispute that the Church of those days enjoyed a very real and vivid religious experience, connected with the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians were conscious of a new insight into divine truth and a new energy of thought and action springing from a quickened vision of God. This experience they tried to portray and explain, using the only language at their disposal, the phrases and formulae.of their own age. These in process of

• ‘Modernism ’ should, strictly speaking, be limited to the movement in the Roman Catholic Church led ‘by Loisy. Tyrrell, etc. In its critical assertions it comes curiously near Liberal Protestantism. But its nature and purpose are very different.

time became obsolete, and the Church was obliged to find new language in which to describe?all that this Christian life meant to herself. This new language again in time became old and proved inadequate and was duly supplanted by a fresh dogmatic statement couched in the ideas and phrases of a later age. This process of development has continued down to to-day. The common experience of the Christian Church abides, but its intellectual expression has changed and must change as knowledge grows and new ideas become current.

In this spirit the Modernist approaches the Creeds of the Church. In so far as he identifies himself with the life of the Catholic Church through all the ages, he claims to be in sympathy with all for which the Creeds stand. But he claims, none the less, to interpret them in accordance with his own mental outlook. Taken as literal statements of fact they belong, he would say, to past ages, but taken as symbolic of spiritual truth they find a response in present Christian experience which is its own verification. Take, let us say, the statement of the Virgin Birth. If taken as a literal statement of historic fact, it becomes a question for literary and historical criticism, but if taken as representative of spiritual truth it awakens at once a response in the Christian consciousness. Whether Jesus of Nazareth was in actual fact born of a Virgin does not matter and cannot be proved, all that matters is to hold fast the spiritual truth enshrined in the statement, namely, the uniqueness and purity of the life and teaching of Jesus. So, again, it is irrelevant to the highest type of Christian faith to trouble about the details of the Resurrection or to discuss whether the appearances were more than a series of visions; the sole important truth for faith is that life is stronger than death, and this truth was admirably symbolized by the series of Resurrection narratives that we owe to early Christians. So, too, the question of the person and teaching of the historic Jesus of Nazareth is of quite secondary importance. We are to fix our attention on the Spirit of Christ at work in ourselves and in the Church. In the story of His life and death we find the highest ideal of humanity portrayed, but how far that story is historical we need not ask. Its spiritual truth and value are guaranteed by its appeal to the highest in us, and are in no way dependent on the accuracy of any documents. The miracles found in the New Testament are the endeavour

on the part of simple folk of the first century to express, in accord- ance with the spirit of their own age, the incomparable power of goodness. With some exceptions they have no parallel within our experience, but their value lies not in their actual occurrence, as too many have supposed, but in their representation of the new and healing life that comes from God. So with the decisions of Councils and the later dogmas of the Church. These at. best have a protective value. They bear witness to the inner life of the Church and are to be understood, as it were, from inside. We are to find their counterpart within our own religious life. Accordingly, spiritual religion is independent alike of historical facts and of doctrinal statements. As such it is raised above all possible objections whether from the side of historical criti- cism or physical science. It moves on a different plane. The proof of its validity is to be sought in the continuous experience of religious men. Such religion will and must clothe itself in dogmatic formulas, borrowing language from the things of earth. But the truth of such formulas depends solely upon their value for the religious life. Faith is essentially independent of all of them. Faith created them and faith can and must reinterpret them in accordance with its own inward vision. This is briefly the general position of the Modernist held with more or less consistency by different teachers.

Up to a point Modernism invites our sympathy. At least it is alive to the importance of keeping doctrine in the closest touch with life. Orthodoxy, Catholic and Protestant alike, is always tempted to regard doctrines as abstract statements of truth on a level with mathematical propositions or assertions of historical fact, revealed ready-made from Heaven and appre- hended by the intellect. There has been a real danger that the appeal of Christian truth not to the mind only but to the conscience and affections should be ignored. Take, for stance, the Old Testament. This has been made to live again for us in recent years. We have come to regard it no longer as a mechani- cally dictated volume of supernatural truth, equally inspired in all its parts, but rather as record of human experience. We look within and we find portrayed the doubts and strivings of the human soul and the Spirit of God at work illuminating the hearts and minds of men as they wrestled with the problems of life. We search our own hearts and there we find similar

doubts and strivings, and we feel that God is dealing with us as He dealt with them. Their experience awakens an echo in us. Modernism approaches Christian doctrine in this same spirit, regarding it as worked out in the lives of men. It can only have its full meaning for those who, as it were, know it from inside. Again, we cannot but sympathize with the attempts of Roman Catholic Modernists to free themselves from the vast and ever-increasing system of dogmatic utterances that are binding on members of the Church of Rome. This growth of infallible utterances on all manner of subjects is the inevitable fruit of the Roman theory of development of doctrine. The

original revelation has been developed by the teachers of the Church, and especially the Pope,so as to cover questions of science

and criticism. Successive Popes have declared certain opinions

binding upon all good Catholics which every educated man in Kurope knows to be false. Yet the theory of an ‘infallible’

Church prevents these errors from being openly repudiated.

But the Modernist is able to say that these dogmatic utterances

are true not literally but symbolically : their value lies not in

their scientific or historical affirmations, which are those simply

of one age, but in the spiritual truth that they enshrine. Each . generation must interpret them anew in the light of its own

knowledge. In this way awkward decisions can be explained

away as passing stages in the expression of spiritual truth.

But Modernism pays too high a price for its gains. It ends by reducing Christianity to a mere religion of ideas, based on a vague sentiment. It makes all definite belief impossible.

From the first Christianity has claimed to be a historical religion, springing out of the life and teaching of a definite historical Person. The Christian has been called on to declare his belief in certain definite events, as actually having happened. The Apostles did not primarily regard themselves as the expoun- ders of new ideas disclosed by a great teacher, but as eyewitnesses of definite historic events—the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. His teaching and the example of His life had a place in their preaching, but a subordinate place. The centre of all Christian life was Jesus Christ Himself, crucified and risen. Now historic facts cannot be proved or disproved by any purely inward experience. They require historic evidence. No doubt this evidence is in its nature more complicated. than

at first sight appears. Much depends on the character of. the witnesses. We are influenced in accepting their testimony by the self-consistency of their story and its agreement with what we know from elsewhere. The reason why, for instance, we reject without hesitation otherwise excellent evidence for some of the miracles of the middle ages is that they are childish and unworthy of the character of God. The value of historical evidence can only be determined by a great number of consider- ations. Our estimate of its value will depend largely upon our own presuppositions and sympathies. But that does not alter the fact that we cannot discover historical facts without it. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for instance, which are the central articles of the faith cannot be proved or disproved by the inward religious experience of Christians. They may make a great appeal to our highest selves. We may find that by basing our lives upon them we gain assurance that they are true. But these inward feelings would not by themselves justify us in erecting them into facts of history. They may well incline us to accept the historical evidence for them, but they can never be a substitute for that evidence. We cannot create past history out of our inner conscious- ness. In other words the Modernist is false to Christianity when he makes religious experience the sole test of doctrine. Doctrines that assert historic facts need also historical evidence. Further, such events happened in one way and in only one. No amount of looking into our own souls will assist us to learn how they happened. We must depend for our information on eyewitnesses. The Modernist criterion of truth is insufficient. Again, an enormous amount of haziness is covered by the popular phrase ‘ religious experience.’ We are justified in asking ‘experience of what?’ The ultimate issue is whether the ideals and hopes of Christianity rest on a solid basis. It is a very interesting study to observe the process by which we come to hold them. Religious psychology is able to describe the laws that govern the religious emotions, but it cannot even touch the final problem, is religion in touch with anything ultimately real? are its truths true for all minds? If Jesus Christ is no more than an ideal figure in which humanitv has portrayed its highest aspirations, we are still compelled to ask how do we know that these aspirations are really the highest? If the truth of

Christianity is to be verified by an appeal to Christian experience, how are we to know that this Christian experience is a valid experience ? The Modernists can only reply that Christianity satisfies them. They have no answer to the man who retorts ‘but it makes no appeal to me.’ On the other hand the Church has always jomed together inward experience with outward fact. She has claimed that the Christ who manifests Himself in our hearts and lives, manifested Himself also in an actual human life, lived on earth, and that the test of true religious experience is to be found in the revelation of God thus given. Christian experience is thus experience of One who lived as a figure in history. The Christian revelation was given in a definite place and at a definite time. So the facts of history and the daily experience of the Christian support one another. Without such a foundation in historic fact so called ‘religious experience ’ may be no more than vague aspirations and sentiments. But historic fact is in some sense altogether independent of the merely human. There, if anywhere, we come into contact with a world that we find and do not make. In the historic Christ we have an assurance that our own best and highest ideals corre- spend with a reality not ourselves. Through Jesus Christ we are in touch with ultimate truth.

Cp. on the one side, E. Underhill, Introduction to Mysticism, c. v.

On the other, L. Johnston, Some Alternatives to Jesus Christ, cc. X.-Xill.

Also the articles on ‘Mysticism’ in J.7H.8. vols. 13 and 14 (July and Oct. 1912, and Jan. 1913).

Again, Christianity as represented by Modernists is not tradi- tional Christianity but something entirely different. In the ancient world Christianity conquered its rivals very largely because it was a religion based on certain facts of history. Christianity did not come to a world without religion: it came to a world full of religion. There was any amount of religious experience. But Christianity survived and the other creeds did not. Partly its survival was due to the fact that it combined spiritual experience with a pure and lofty morality and a strict monotheism. But one great cause of its victory was its historical character. In place of imaginary redeemers it offered to the world a Redeemer who had actually lived and died and risen again. Take, for instance, its most formidable rival, Mithraism. Mithra- ism offered men redemption and immortality. Its worshippers

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were united in a common brotherhood with sacraments and wor- ship so similar to those of Christians that the Fathers assigned them to the imitation by the Devil of Christian rites. But all the devotion, all the pious longings after God and immortality that Mithraism aroused rested on no solid basis. ‘There never was a Mithra and he never slew the bull.’* Mithraism failed largely because it rested on nothing more than ‘religious experience.’ But if Christianity conquered because it offered man a historical Saviour and a redemption wrought out by an actual death and an actual Resurrection, then we cannot set aside the historical grounds of our faith as unnecessary or optional. If the conten- tions of Modernists are true there. is really no essential difference between Christianity and Mithraism: the Christian Creed is at best only a slightly more adequate symbol of spiritual truth than the legend of Mithra killing the bull: it produces not a Saviour, but an idea of a Saviour. But only a Saviour can save,

Further, Christianity claims to be a religion for all men, not only for the wise or the spiritually gifted, but also for the savage and the plain man. But a religion of ideas can only make a limited appeal. It has no message for the dull and uneducated. The average man is influenced by concrete facts. It is the actual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that come home to his heart. If Jesus Christ be pronounced to be only a shadowy figure upon whom men have projected their ideals, if His resurrection is only an allegory of spiritual truth, then the saving power of the Christian faith disappears. We have never yet met a Modern- ist kitchen-maid. If Modernism is true, then Christianity can only be the religion of a few mystics, gifted with a keen insight into the unseen world. The ordinary man is not a mystic. He has neither the ability nor the time to become one. The opposi- tion to Modernism in all its forms is not due simply to clerical prejudice or conservatism.t It arises from the conviction on the

+The blind acceptance of what is new is not always a sign of faith. An idea is not necessarily true because it is new, any more than because it is old. The attempt to contrast the ‘faith’ of Modernists with the ‘fear’ of conserva- tive Christians, begs the whole question. ‘Faith means not only trustfulness but trustworthiness, and in trustworthiness the fear of betraying trust forms an essential part. If we give to a friend a sum of money to hold in trust for our children, we do not praise the ‘‘ faith ” which invests it all in a gold-mine of dazzling’promise and doubtful existence, but rather the “fear” which clings

part of those who deal with the spiritual life of ordinary men and women, that in setting aside the historical ground of the faith, Modernists are undermining Christianity itself. If, as we saw, Modernism judges the truth of doctrines by their spiritual value, why does it shut its eyes to the spiritual value of historicity as such ? We may doubt whether Modernism could ever arise except in an atmosphere created by generations of historical Christianity. It has yet to show that it can continue to maintain itself as Christian, while denying or belittling that belief in historical facts to which it owes its birth. All the evidence at present goes to show that Modernism, unless it is balanced by a due insistence upon the historic facts of the Incarnation and the Cross, gradually declines into a misty theism.

Lastly, we hold that Modernism has overlooked the real meaning and limitations of symbolism. As we have insisted, all that lies outside our present human experience can only be represented in symbol. We can only have symbolic pictures of heaven or the descent into hell. Such symbolism varies from age to age. Further, we must allow that our human language is unable to express adequately divine truth. The words in which the Church has attempted to state the doctrine of the Trinity are admittedly inadequate. But when we come to facts of ordinary human experience, the inadequacy of human language tends to disappear. It is bemg employed for the purpose for which it was formed. This applies especially in the case of events of history. Our contention is that if Jesus Christ was born of a virgin mother, if His body was raised from the dead and the tomb left empty, human language in the first century was as adequate to express these events as it is to-day. To treat these statements as not historically but only symbolically true is in effect to treat them as untrue. It is not reinterpreta- tion but denial. It may be urged, however, that some of the Old Testament narratives which our forefathers treated as historically true, we are content to treat as only symbolical : and this change would include not only the opening chapters of Genesis and the book of Jonah, but also large parts of the

to the sober security of consols. What if the Church of England be a trustee to whom God has committed for future generations a revelation of Himself? May not some even of her institutions guarantee the safe-keeping of that trust?’ Quick, Hssays on Orthodoxy, Introduction.

historical books. In the book of Chronicles, to give an example, most students would allow that we find the ideas of a later age embodied in an imaginary narrative of past events: in other words, what is apparent history is in reality true only sym- bolically. Our reply is twofold. First, the historical evidence for much of the Old Testament history is very different from that for the facts of the Creed. In the New Testament we get documents very close in time to the events that they record. In the Old Testament much of the evidence is centuries later, and some of the writings, from the very nature of the subject-matter with which they deal, must be symbolical. The New Testament has been through the fire of criticism and its literal accuracy has become increasingly clear. Secondly, it is impossible to maintain that the literal accuracy of the Old Testament has at all times had a central place in the proclamation of the Gospel. But the historical facts of the Creed have from the first been an essential part of all apostolic preaching. The alleged comparison will not stand examination.

To sum up, we hold that the fundamental mistake of Modernism is that consciously or unconsciously it starts from an idea of development of doctrine which regards such development as the discovery of new truth. It ignores the primitive conception

Notes

• Cp. Salmon, IJnfallibility, p. 219. Speaking of the claim of the Roman Church to be the medium of new revelations which it is treason to God not to accept, he writes: “Should I account it a compliment if any one told me that he would not only believe anything I said but anything that anyone said I said ?’
• Cp. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, pp. 54-55. + It is worth noting that ‘a Rite is a service, a Ceremony is any action accom- panying it, either necessary or subsidiary to it. This distinction was obscured
• Ath. de Synodis, 5, quoted Gore, R.C. Claims, c. iii.
• Commonitorium, c. 2.
• Commonitorium, c. 23. + Westcott, Gospel of Life, p. 281.
• Cp. Tert. de Praescr. c. 25-28, who expressly repudiates the idea of a secret tradition.
• Chandler, Cult of the Passing Moment, p. 57.
• For instances of the very strong language used by the Fathers in con- demnation of her conduct, see Gieseler, Ucclesiastical History, ii. p. 35.
• Bigg, Ohurch’s Task under the Roman Empire, p.52. Cp. also Mozley, The Achievements of Christianity, c. 1.