Forbes on Article XXXIV: Of the Traditions of the Church

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” Of the Traditions of the Church.

” IT is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like ; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s man ners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and

ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, arid be ordained and approved of common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that oifendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate, and woundeth the con sciences of weak brethren.

” Every particular and national Church hath autho rity to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church, ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.”

THE word ’ tradition/ in the sense in which the Article means it to be taken, is synonymous with the term con suetudo, meaning such a custom as is produced by the simultaneous and frequent action of the greater part of a community. It is divided into consuetudo facti and consuetudo juris. The first, which leads to the second, is the repeated use of the community to do anything, without the obligation of so repeating it. The second is a right constituted by such repeated acts. And this consuetudo juris, inasmuch as it tends to the introduc tion of new law, is, as it were, a second sort of law.

Taken generally, custom admits of a threefold di vision : —

1. Custom prceter legem, which is also called consti tutive law, is that which is found in those cases which are not defined by common law. It has the force of law, but to its obligation it is necessary that it should be introduced by an entire people, or, at least, the wiser

and greater part of it, with the intention of really bind ing itself thereby. Hence customs of devotion, (such as bowing at the Gloria,} are not of obligation. In this sort of custom prescription is a necessary element.

2. Custom secundum legem is, that we suppose a pre- existent law, and either reduce it to practice, or, if it be doubtful, interpret it. It is important as confirming and strengthening existent law, and securing its being enforced.

Custom contra legem is that, by which the written law has either never been in use, or if in use has been abrogated by a contrary use. It cannot prevail against divine or natural right or law. No custom can abrogate the necessity of fasting, or the laws against perjury. But every positive human law, whether civil or canoni cal, may be abrogated by a contrary custom, so that that custom be 1. reasonable, and 2. possess sufficient legitimate prescription.

1. The first condition implies that it shall not op pose divine or natural law, nor be reprobated by the Canon Law ; that it gives no occasion or licence to sin, and that it has no injurious effect on the public wel fare. No custom can be pleaded that infringes on these.

2. Legitimate prescription must be a long time. In the Canon Law ten years is prescription ; in the English Common Law sixty years; in the Scots Law forty years ; in America twenty years are necessary. In civil matters a tacit abrogation on the part of the civil authority is implied by the toleration of the

custom, therefore an exact rigorous time is not insisted on in civil matters a.

Tradition, then, or custom, being in this manner the subject of time and action, the Article says rightly that it has at all times been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s manners. It adds the solemn caution, that by these fluctuations nothing be ordained against God’s Word. That paramount authority of Holy Scripture which is so remarkable a characteristic of the XXXIX Articles, and which the Church of England inherited from the great teachers of the Middle Ages, supplies the limit to the diversity of the traditions of the Church.

It is the same with regard to her ceremonies. While the action of the Holy Ghost within the body of Christ will be ever suggesting to her new forms of devotion and edifying rites, and these will be profoundly modi fied by climate, by the history of thought, and by the degree of civilization, there will ever be a check upon the revolution of the expression of the devotion of the Church in an ultimate appeal to God’s Word, not only as the earliest historic record of Christianity and the first link in the golden chain of Catholic tradition, but also as a document possessing such authority as no other claims, or has had conceded to it.

The in-dwelling of God the Holy Ghost will illumine the minds of the different nations without destroying their national characteristics, and therefore we shall

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not be surprised to find many marked peculiarities in the services and ceremonies of the different Churches throughout the world. The tone of the services of the Greek Church is markedly different from that of those of the Westerns ; and even among the Westerns, in the more limited field of variation, strong points of indi viduality have been conserved. The prevalence of direct prayer to our Lord in the Mozarabic rite pre serves the recollection of the struggle with Arianism in Spain. The Ectense in the Milanese rite are no doubtful indications of the originally Oriental source of the Ambrosian Office. The great predominance of vernacular hymns in the Church of Germany testifies to an endeavour to supply that national demand for affective hymnody, which Luther, at the time of the Re formation, used with such mighty effect ; as in such in stances as are recorded in history, where a whole con gregation, celebrating the Services after the fashion of their fathers, would suddenly burst forth into one of the German hymns of the new learning. As a matter of fact, we know from history that this was the case, and the following quotation from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen exhibits to us the fact, that the diversities of ceremonies mentioned in the Article have been from the beginning.

” Different customs prevail in many Churches where the same doctrines are received. There are, for in stance, many cities in Syria which possess but one Bishop between them ; whereas, in other nations, a Bishop is appointed even over a village, as I have my-

self observed in Arabia and in Cyprus, and among the Novatians and Montanists of Phrygia. Again, there are but seven Deacons at Rome, answering precisely to the number ordained by the Apostles, of whom Stephen was the first martyr, whereas in other Churches the number of Deacons is unlimited. At Rome, Alleluia is sung once annually, namely, on the first day of the Festival of the Passover ; so that it is a common thing among the Romans to swear by the fact of hearing or singing this hymn. In this city the people are not taught by the Bishop, nor by any one in the church. At Alexandria the Bishop alone teaches the people ; and it is said that this custom has prevailed there ever since the days of Arius, who, though but a Presbyter, broached a new doctrine. Another custom also pre vails at Alexandria, which I have never witnessed nor heard of elsewhere, and this is, that when the Gospel is read, the Bishop does not rise from his seat. The Archdeacon alone reads the Gospel in this city, whereas in some places it is read by the Deacons, and in others only by the Presbyters ; while in many Churches it is read on stated days by the Bishops ; as, for instance, at Constantinople, on the first day of the Festival of the Resurrection. In some Churches the interval called Quadragesima, which occurs before this festival, and is devoted by the people to fasting, is made to consist of six weeks; and this is the case in Illyria and the Western regions, in Lybia, throughout Egypt, and in Palestine : whereas it is made to comprise seven weeks at Constantinople, and in the neighbouring provinces,

as far as Phoenicia. In some Churches the people fast three alternate weeks, during the space of six or seven weeks, whereas in others they fast continuously during the three weeks immediately preceding the festival. Some people, as the Montanists, only fast two weeks. Assemblies are not held in all Churches on the same day, or upon the same occasions. The people of Con stantinople and of several other cities assemble to gether on the Sabbath as well as on the next day, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alex andria. There are several cities and villages in Egypt where, contrary to the usages established elsewhere, the people meet together on Sabbath evenings, and, although they have dined previously, partake of the mysteries. The same prayers and Psalms are not re cited, nor the same passages read on the same occa sions, in all Churches b.”

The tendency of modern Church legislation is in the direction of uniformity of worship. In our own Church the necessities of the time make the mainte nance of the Prayer-book in its integrity a sacred duty. In Scotland an influential school have done what they could to get rid of the national Office for the Celebra tion of the Holy Communion. In France the Ultra montane party have toiled sedulously to expel the local and Diocesan Breviaries, and to substitute the Roman Office. There is something to be said for this substi tution : perhaps there is more to be said for the reten tion of the older forms. As union is strength, so, no

b Sozomen, ” Ecclesiastical History,” bk. vii. c. 19.

doubt, a vast wide-spread uniformity of rite will tend to stereotype and strengthen those ideas, of which that rite is the type and watchword. On the other hand, much beauty, the evidence of much thought, must be lost by the abandonment of any service which has gained a real hold upon a people. It is unwise in any sense to weaken the antiquarian and sentimental value of any rite, and, above all, there may be deep theo logical reasons which, having suggested and main tamed the peculiar practice, it were wrong to contro vert. Perhaps, to sum up, it may be said that by uni formity of rite, strength and concentrated energy are gained at the expense of that passive power which un broken tradition ever gives, and of that sense of large ness and freedom which is so important an element and so conducive to the health and action of the Body of Christ.

The next clause in the Article is a caution against those persons, who, of their private judgment, openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church.

The order of the words is observable. The evils arising from such infringement are stated to be 1. “of fending against the common order of the Church; 2. hurting the authority of the Magistrate ; 3. wound ing the consciences of the weak brethren.” The autho rity of the Church in these matters, although not in volving any matter of faith (for the Article is treating only of Adiaphom), is placed first ; and then only injury done to the authority of the Magistrate. For since, according to ancient custom, the Magistrate gave

a civil sanction to customs, or “the common order of the Church/’ then, to infringe that, to which he had lent this sanction, was to lower his authority also. The wont of giving such civil sanction to the laws of the Church dates back to the earliest times of the converted Empire. To “confirm” the decrees of a Council became a technical term. The fathers of the second General Council wrote to Theodosius ; ” We pray your Clemency, that you will confirm with the writing of your Piety the decree of the Council, so that, as you honoured the Church by the letters which convoked it, you may set your seal to the con clusion which we have decreed c.” The fathers of the Council of Ephesus applied to the younger Theodosius, that ” the things set forth by the (Ecumenical and holy Council for the confirmation of godliness against Nestorius and his impious doctrine, may have their own strength, being corroborated by the assent and approbation of your Piety d.” The Emperor Marcian speaks of ” confirming the holy Synod” [of Chalcedon] “by the decree of our Clemency6;” and the fathers, in their Synodical Epistle to St. Leo, speak of the Emperor’s having ” confirmed by a law the judg ment of your Piety.” Justinian directed the Patriarch Mennas to send to the Metropolitans of his diocese ” what had been decreed by the Chief Priests and confirmed by the Empire.” Constantino Pogonatus

c Epist. Syn. Cone. Const, ad Theodos. d Cone. Eph., Art. 5. e Cone. Chalc., Art. 6.

confirmed by his “sacred edicts f” the sixth Council against the Monothelites ; and “the decree of the Synod and the Emperor’s edict” was spoken of by Leo II. ” as a two-edged sword of the Spirit, by which that error was stricken through.” Of particular Coun cils, the first Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, applied to King Clovis, that “if what we have ordained is ap proved to be right by” his “judgment also, the con sent of so great a king and lord may, with the greater authority, confirm the sentence of so many priests.” The recitation of the Mcene Creed, as settled by the Council of Constantinople, before the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, was decreed in the third Council of Toledo, A.D. 589, at the suggestion of King Recared, and ” corroborated” by him. Three days’ litanies in Advent, by which “every Christian soul should make humble amends to the Lord of heaven,” were decreed in the fifth Council of Toledo, A.D. 636, at the exhortation of King Suintilla, and, as well as the sixth Council, A.D. 638, were ” confirmed” by him. Ecclesiastical regulations as to benefices, sus pension of any negligent Bishop, the appointment of three rogation -days in every month, were enacted by the sixteenth and seventeenth Councils, A.D. 693, 694, at the suggestion of King Egiza, and confirmed by him. The Council of Aries, Mayence, Rheims, Tours, Chalons, were held by Bishops at the command of Charlemagne for the correction of the condition of the

Church, A.D. 813. ” The Bishops sought the remedies of the evil in Holy Scripture and the Canons.” The Councils of Mayence and Aries expressly submitted them to Charlemagne for revision ; the Councils of Chalons and Tours state, that “the Canons made in each Synod were collated before the Emperor in the General Council at Aix, when they were confirmed, so as to have the force of law. Justinian, in his Novella Constitutiones, and Charlemagne, in his Capi- tulare, embodied the ancient Canons, to which they gave the force of law. Lothaire carried on the work of his grandfather, and formed a Capitulare, “to be kept as a law by all the lieges of the Holy Church of God, or of ourselves in the kingdom of Italy.” Pope Leo IV. bound himself to observe “those capitula and precepts of Lothaire and his predecessors in all things £.” A minute collation of our Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical and civil laws, shews that the kings gave a civil authority to what had been previously enacted by the Bishops. It is, then, in accordance with ancient precedent, that the Article gives a secondary but real place to the sanction of the Civil Magistrate. The civil power usurped, cajoled, bribed, corrupted, op pressed; but the principle, implied by the Article, that the Civil Magistrate could give a civil sanction to the law of the Church, which, if given, was to be respected, was consistent with ancient precedents. “Every particular or national Church hath autho-

• C. de Capitulis, dist. 10, ap. Gratian. The above is epitomised from Dr. Pusey on the Royal Supremacy, §§ ii., xiv., xv., xvii.

rity to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church.”

The question, what constitutes nationality, is one of those which at this moment is perplexing the poli ticians of Europe, and has been the great pretext under which the Revolutionists of this century have advocated their designs. The present state of the world is to be upset, because the political circumstances of past ages Lave bound together divers races under one form of government. It is said that government is essentially conterminous with nationality ; and yet it is very diffi cult to say in what nationality consists. It cannot con sist in unity of race ; for the most perfect polity that ever existed, the ancient Roman Empire, was an aggre gate of many ; and the form of the American Republic, which the necessities of the nineteenth century in the Western hemisphere have evolved, includes the emi grated subjects of almost every European state and their descendants. It cannot be a question of language ; for we see the same language prevailing in monarchies and republics, the conditions of which make fusion and iden tification impossible. We are therefore driven back upon history, and the only definition of a nation which will satisfy rigorous criticism, is a polity organized under one supreme head, constituted of such individuals as, from the circumstances of past history, by conquest, marriage, or treaty, have been united into one con crete whole. From this definition it will be seen that unity of religion can no longer enter into the essence of a nation. It was not so at the time of the framing

of the Articles. The Eastern Empire broadly em braced the Eastern Church. The Armenian religion was, above all, the symbol of a passionate nationality ; while in the West the great Latin Church ruled the wills and consciences of Roman and Teuton. Then came the Reformation. The old habits of order, the ignorance of the political possibility of toleration, sug gested to the reforming Kings of Germany and their Theologians no other basis but nationalism as the foundation of the new Creeds. Having no Episcopate, and regarding all Christians as equally Priests, they had no unity except in the person of the Sovereign. The Sovereign was their Bishop. And, therefore, we are struck in the history of the continental Reformation with the amount of the personal influence of the indi vidual potentates, the difficulties which the preachers had in dealing with the civil authority, and generally with a confusion of ideas as to the relative spheres of Church and State. We have seen Lutheranism and Calvinism, if not chemically combined, at least blended into a new Evangelical Church at the will of an en ergetic Sovereign.

In England this tendency prevailed, but under dif ferent conditions. It was held in check by the ex istence of a spiritual body, which Henry was obliged to own, and through which his successors hoped to rule. The fact that she was an island tended greatly to insularity of thought. In one sense the Reforma tion was only the final act in a long struggle be tween the Regale and Pontificate, which, with dif-

ferent successes at different times, had been fought out since the days of William the Conqueror.

Many things contributed to an Anti-Italian feeling. The English kings carefully nursed it. The bitter recollections of the national humiliation in the reign of King John, which, but for its consequences, would have died away, as all past things do, was kept alive and aggravated by the continued exactions of the Roman Curia h, and the conferring of English benefices upon Italians, who knew not the language of the people, nor the face of their flock *. These often died

h The complaints in Matthew Paris are well known. The expression of a Pope that England was ” an inexhaustible well,” became unhappily notorious. The reputed venality of the Roman Court was admitted by Honorius III. (M. Paris, A. 1226). John Andrew mentions, that at the Council of Vienne a commutation was spoken of (of which he himself approved), whereby the Pope and Cardinals should have one-twentieth of the clerical revenues of all Europe, in lieu of tenths, first-fruits, &c., payments to legates and nuncios. (Comm. in Deer. Greg., i. tit. 32. c. 15.)

1 The Epistola Universitatis regni Anglice, addressed to Pope Innocent IV., at the Council of Lyons, says that ” beside the aforesaid subsidies [to the Pope], the Italians (of whom there is now an infinite number), are now enriched by churches belonging to the patronage of the reli gious, who are called their Rectors,” the Italians ” taking no cure of souls, neither knowing their sheep, nor known by them ; using no hos pitality nor almsgiving (as the statutes of the Church prescribe), but only exporting the income out of the kingdom, impoverishing the king dom not slightly, and seizing its revenues.” ” The Italians, deriving in England more than 60,000 marks annually (besides other sources of income), derive from the kingdom a larger revenue in bare money than the king himself.” (In Matth. Paris, p. 666.) These complaints were repeated after the Council in letters from the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his suffragans, the Abbots, the Universitas Anglia. (See in Brown.jfa.se. rer. exp. etfug., ii. 420, sqq.)

at Rome, and their places were filled up with other Italians, before the patrons knew of the vacancy k. Sagacious minds foresaw impending evil l. The Eng lish kings made political capital of these grievances in the way of strengthening the realm, by exciting indignation against all foreign interference, and espe cially all foreign taxation. Henry VIII. dexterously seized the weak points of the Roman Court, professing to relieve his people from the evils involved by ap peals to Home, and the money-demands of its Court. He would take off the yoke of Rome, in order to make way for, and make fast his own.

There could be no doubt that in his resistance to the Roman Court, Henry VIII. at first carried with him the great mass of the English people, and it was only when men began to see whither events were irre-

k Ibid.

1 The above letters to the Pope end with heavy prognostications. The Abbots close theirs, ” Let your Holiness provide that the kingdom and priesthood be no wise divided ; for if the English Church should be brought to ruin, a division being made between the kingdom and priest hood, both people and priest may groan, and the ruin of many follow without delay.” “The peers, clergy, and people” end theirs, “unless the things aforesaid be speedily corrected by you, let your Holiness hold for certain, that it may with reason be feared, that such peril will impend both on the Roman Church and on the King, as cannot easily be remedied.” (See further in Eirenicon, pp. 80 — 82.)

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, quoted “the vulgar proverb,” “who wishes all loses all.” “The Roman Church claims to itself all things (universa), whence it is to be feared that it will lose all things ; for as Solomon says, ’ Whoso squeezeth vehemently, draweth blood/ An ex ample of which is in the Church of the Greeks, which is said, on this ground, to have departed from the obedience of the Roman Church.” (de modo eel. gen. Cone., p. ii. tit. 7.)

G84 ARTICLE XXX1Y.

sistibly dragging them, that the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the Lincolnshire and Exeter Rebellions, exhibited the continued existence of the opposite spirit. When the breach with Rome was effected, on no other ground could the Reformation be justified and defended but on that of nationalism ; and putting out of the question the Celtic populations of Ireland and Wales, the unity of race that generally prevailed through the island, and the separation by the sea from all other kingdoms save that of Scotland, enabled the experiment to be tried under the most favourable circumstances.

It now remains to be seen how far the principle of nationalism may be extended into things of religion. Obviously, nationalism must in no ways affect the faith. The faith is one everywhere, and in all times. But what is claimed in the Article is only that every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies, or rites of the Church, ordained only by man’s authority : and to this pro position every one must give his assent. It had for its example the national Churches under the Empire ; Africa, Spain, (perhaps Portugal,) and Gaul, each used their own code; as the Greeks had before the Coun cil of Mce.

The passage just quoted from Sozomen, which in so few words brings strikingly before us the variations of practice in things non-essential in the Early Church, is confirmed by the Great Council of Nicaea itself”1, where it says, ” Let the ancient customs prevail ;” and

m Can. vi.

antiquity shews us that from the beginning, even in regard to the administration of the very Sacraments themselves, there were variations of form : and if such was the case with regard to these, how much more is this permissible in such inferior matters as discipline, ceremonies, and whatever else tends to edification ! Yariations have taken place both with times and places, and the same Churches have not always ob served the same rites.

To any one who studies the structure of the present service-books of the Church of England, it will be evident that, while this principle was admitted in some cases to a degree with which we do not sympathize, there was a wise adherence to what had gone before. The old forms in spirit remained the same, except where they were actually and advisedly altered, and thus the identification of the Church before and after the Reformation, where it was possible, was vigorously maintained.

This principle is fully admitted by the great founder, under Christ, of the present English Church. St. Gregory the Great, writing to St. Augustine of Can terbury, who had requested information how he was to act, that wise and sagacious Pontiff writes : — ” But it pleases me, that whatsoever you have found either in the Church of Rome, or of those of Gaul, or in any Church whatever, which would please Almighty God better, you would carefully select ; and into the Church of England, which at present is new in the faith, intro duce by your instruction and care the most exalted

things you have been able to collect from many Churches ; for we must love not things for places, but places for things. Out of each Church, therefore, choose those things which are religious, pious, and right; and these, collected, as it were, in a bundle, deposit in the minds of the English for their prac tice.” In this he followed the well-known example of St. Ambrose, as quoted by St. Augustine in the 54th Letter to Januarius. Indeed, the diverse forms for the administration of the ordinances of religion, such as Absolution and Extreme Unction, as illustrated in the Greek and Latin Churches, and, again, in the rites of the Eastern heretics, as well as those forms which were in use in the Middle Ages in Western Europe, are sufficient confirmation of the truth of the position laid down in the Article, that grace is not absolutely tied to one form of sacramental words, and that, a for tiori, with regard to the ordinary forms of prayer, a large latitude may be conceded. In fact, at the Council of Florence, a Canon was made in the exact sense of this very Article, that every one should observe the rites

Notes

• Ep. Const. Pog. ad Leon.