BOOKS.
WILBERFORCE'S INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH AUTHORITY.* EVERY religion, so long as it is confined to purely spiritual in- fluences, is rightly free from state interference, whether taking the form of internal regulation or external checks. As soon as a reli- gion passes beyond this merely spiritual condition—as soon as it begins to mingle the things of Cmsar with the things of God—this right ceases, because the Church invariably calls upon the State for aid to protect the property it has begun to accumulate, to settle disputes among the religionists themselves, to recognize their own rules as far as regards titles and gradations, or at least the worldly advantages which are to attend upon them. The Quakers, in their religious capacity, as closely resemble the primitive simplicity and clerical poverty of Apostolic times as well can be. They have not an endowed priesthood or a separate caste of clergymen, and their religious edifices and properties are of small value. Yet the Quakers in England called upon the State to admit a change in its marriage ceremony and its form of oath,—a demand which certainly gave the State a right to inquire into their doctrines, and to pass judgment upon them, so far as granting or refusing was judgment. It may be said, however, by the seeeders from the Church of Scotland, and by that party in the Church of England which ob- jects to the State control through the Royal prerogative, that the interference alluded to is not the control they mean. That is the right claimed by the State to decide upon questions of doctrine, and to subject the Church, in questions springing from doctrine or discipline, to the control of the law. The first objection would not be strictly accurate. Practically, the State does not determine matters of doctrine. In the celebrated Gorham case, the State did not pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of bap- tismal regeneration— did not consider the question—but merely decided that men holding the same opinions as Mr. Gorham had held benefices in the Established Church, and therefore he was not disentitled to induction. As regards the second, it must be borne in mind that England is a Protestant monarchy : "Whoever shall hereafter come to the possession of the crown shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established." And though this is no proof logically of the inherent right of the English State to control the English Church, since the Church may have been mistaken or corrupt, yet it is right for the State to uphold and for the Church to keep to the terms of the compact. The Church, or rather the Churchmen, cannot claim unlimited power, (for they might carry the Establishment over to Popery,) or repudiate connexion with the State, while they retain the power, influence, and advan- tages which that connexion bestows. Those powers and benefits are many and great. The Bishops are Peers of the realm, with the direct secular power and the indirect secular advantages which such a position bestows. The Universities are de facto in the hands of the Church, with all the wealth and patronage attached to them, the privilege of educating all whom they care to educate, and the prestige that such a power creates. There is besides all the temporal property of the Church, with the many lucrative situa- tions which clergymen of the Establishment are alone qualified to fill, as the law now stands. Does any rational being imagine that the State in the nineteenth century will allow a body of men, not as aclass remarkable for moderation or liberality, to possess all those powers independently of the Government, with the additional power of setting up a Parliament and Government of their own ? Such an imperium in imperio would revive all the anarchical disputes of the middle ages, if it did no worse. If the Church of England desires Apostolical freedom, it must, so far as the State is in ques- tion, return to Apostolical simplicity, and, like the Secession Church of Scotland, withdraw from the temporal power and the temporal gains.
This Mr. Robert Wilberforce has undoubtedly done ; and he is entitled to the credit which follows the renunciation of worldly advantages for conscience-sake. This credit, however, would be greater were his case quite free from the suspicion of making a popular question like the Royal Supremacy an excuse for an escape. Whatever his ideas of discipline may be, in doctrine he is a Romanist; and, holding the opinions he promulgates in this volume, he should manfully have avowed them as his reason for quitting the English Church, and as manfully gone over to the Romish. Indeed, he might have saved himself the trouble of compiling this volume had he simply avowed his belief. It is ridiculous to suppose that a man would acknowledge the "Royal supremacy" who believes in the primacy and supremacy of the Pope, not as a matter of convention, or convenience, or as providential in the sense in which all governing events may be considered provi- dential, but as the successor of St. Peter, chief of the Apostles, to whom was expressly committed the headship of the Church with the power of the keys ; and who, moreover, among other similar dogmas, looks upon the inspiration of the Scriptures as not sup- ported by any internal proof of that inspiration, or 'proveable by human reason, but resting upon the acknowledgment of the Church, if indeed it may not be logically inferred that the Church —always meaning the Romish Church—was not necessary to sanc- tion the inspiration. With the function to establish Scriptural truth is conjoined the power to preserve doctrinal truth, and to
• An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority; or Reasons for Recalling nry Subscription to the Royal Supremacir. By the Rev. R. I. Wilberforce, M.A. Pilblished by Longman and Co.
settle differences among the faithful hi other words, the Church is infallible, though it may not be easy to settle where the infalli- bility- resides.
"In later times, it has been disputed Whether that guidance Which the Holy Ghost bestows upon the Church finds its final expression in the de- cisions of the Bishop of Rome or in those of a General Council. The dif- ference is not so wide as has sometimes been imagined; for those who claim this power for the Pope, do not claim it for him as an individual, but when exercising that function of primate which implies the correlative action of the whole spiritual body ; and those, again, who attribute this power to Bishops in Council, do not suppose that it belongs to Bishops separately, but only as making up that spiritual Body of Christ, which im- plies the cooperation of the chief Bishop and centre of unity. In one point, however, all parties who admit the existence of an universal Church coin- cide—that those things which are agreed upon by its whole body, in con- junction with its chief Bishop, must proceed ,frem the guidance of that directing Spirit which was promised to guide it into all truth. And such, then, must be the admission of the authority of St. Peter's successor, which was made by the General Councils of the ancient Church. For those Coun- cils were accepted as a legitimate expression of its mind by the Catholic body throughout the world; and its faith has ever since been determined by their decisions. Those who accept their conclusions, therefore, in re- spect to the Church's faith, cannot consistently reject them in respect to the Church's constitution.
"This circumstance, then, shows the Papal Supremacy to stand on a good ground ; but the passages adduced show that it stands after all on the same ground as the Primacy. Its influence is not referred to any commission given to it by the Church, nor to the importance of the city in which it had its residence, but to that inheritance from the chief Apostles whereby Peter still speaks by the voice of his successor."
These doctrines, and more of a similar though subordinate kind, enforced by Mr. Wilberforce, are evidently Romish. Some, though held by Romanists, are also avowed by the Tractarian members of the Church of England, as well as by High Churchmen, at least with more or less of modification. Such are the necessity of a visible catholic church to preserve the truth, and to transmit sacra- mental grace, as well as the constant directing presence of the Holy Ghost—in other words, the Apostolical succession, a miraculous operation in baptism and what is popularly called the sacrament, without which, duly administered, salvation may be reached by spe- cial grace but not by covenant, with the consequent supernatural power of the priesthood. This last, however, is a matter of deduc- tion flowing from the general premises ; Mr. Wilberforce himself not touching upon any order below a bishop. Bishops, in his view, are the true representatives of the Apostles, possessing individually the power of transmitting grace, collectively of preserving truth; Newman's theory of development being called upon to explain certain historical facts, such as that of one council differing from another. Bishops, too, are the right and appointed governors of the Church in their own dioceses, as metropolitans and patriarchs in their patriarchies rightly rule ever bishops ; the Pope being the head of all.
These views, with various ramifications, are inculcated in eleven chapters ; the first three of which are devoted to an exposition of the nature of the Church and of Church authority, and to the establishment of the dogma that the Church hath authority in matters of faith. Three chapters expound the author's conclusions upon episcopal and metropolitan or patriarchal church government. Five, indeed part of six chapters, are occupied with the Pope, his powers, primacy, and supremacy. The remaining four chapters— the volume consisting of fifteen—treat of the authority of the English Church ; in which its Tudor origin and the weak points of "subscription," from the High Church view, are not badly handled; though Mr. Wilberforce need not have taken nearly half a century to have found out the weakness.
In a literary sense, the book is able, but its merit is not of the very highest order. Mr. Robert Wilberforce has some of the family attractiveness of manner ; but he wants the vivacity of his father, the half-poetical feeling and unctuous richness of his brother Samuel. Neither has he the learning of the Bishop of Ox- ford ; for although the questions in the volume have been handled so often that new facts cannot be produced, and originality on that point is hardly to be looked for, Mr. Robert Wilberforce does not show a mind saturated with patristic lore. In some cases his ar- guments are weak enough. He shows a general judgment in not founding his views upon particular passages of Scripture, hut upon the nature and obvious necessity of the case as developed gradually ; for it was not the purpose of Scripture to establish church government, but the Church., This line of argument has the disadvantage, however, of not commanding the assent of those who appeal to Scripture. Indeed, the book seems altogether less designed for Protestant readers than for that class to whom Father Newman addressed the "Lectures on certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in submitting to the Catholic Church." It is a frequent charge against the Romanists, that they substi- tute Saints and the Virgin Mary for Christ, and put aside Scrip- ture for tradition. It has further been charged upon the Romish Church that it makes men infidels whom conscientious inquiry induces to reject the Papal claims. The following pas sage certainly tends in that direction ; for no German Rationalist , or American Unitarian of the new school ever placed the Scriptures on lower grounds than the ex-Archdeacon does. "The opponents of Church authority are unreasonable in demanding more distinct Scriptural warrants; for what Scriptural warrant have they for that which they would substitute in the Church's place—the New Testament? In the New Testament itself we have no statement either of its contents or its inspiration. The Scripture which is spoken of to Timothy is the Old Testament, in which he had been instructed ; of the inspiration of the New we have no assertion in Holy Writ. Neither can it be shown respecting all its books that they were either written or sanctioned by individuals who poa- Begged miraculous power. And were this otherwise, it would still require to be shown that these particular books, and every part of them, partook of the
inapiration of their authors. For the claim to inspiration cannot extend to every word which was ever spoken or written by an Apostle. It must surely be limited to those things which concerned religion, or in which doctrine was expressed. We need some one, then to assure us that those Apostolic writings which have been preserved partake of this character, and are to be received as a record of eternal truth. And to what can we refer for such guidance, but to the Church, by which the sacred books were admitted into the canon of Scripture, and commended to the belief of her members ?
"For this reason it is that to quote Scripture in behalf of the Church's authority is in a certain degree to argue in a circle; for how can we accept the inspiration of Scripture save on the authority of the Church ? But if this be so, why are Scriptural proofs of the Church &authority adduced at all, as they have beent in the present chapter ? The answer is twofold: 1st, We may quote Scripture in proof of the Church's authority, by employing it merely as an ancient record, and independently of its claims as the inspired volume ; 2dly, It has weight as an argumentum ad hominem with those by whom its inspiration is admitted.
"let. The basis of our belief is the mission of Our Blessed Lord and of His Apostles. Respecting this mission our informant is human testimony. The statements of the Apostles and Evangelists form the first link in the chain of evidence. Independently of that claim to attention which their writings possess, through that divine inspiration of which the Church assures us, they have weight as early documents. For why should we not quote St. Matthew or St. Paul, as well as St. Ireincua or Tertullian, when we are in- quiring into the nature of an institution which they saw, and with which they were connected ? " 2dly. There may be those who admit the inspiration of Scripture without perceiving its dependence on the authority of the Church. Since their con- clusion is correct though their premises are fallacious, we may employ that which they know as a means of instructing them in that which they do not know. Though to prove Church authority on Scriptural testimony is seen to be insufficient by those who discern that the inspiration of Scripture rests on the authority of the Church, yet it may be a means of instructing those by whom this relation is not appreciated. Fuller information, indeed, will show them that the Church came first and Scripture afterwards : so that Scripture could not be originally employed for the establishment of that on which it was itself dependent. This will be found rather to confirm than derogate from the authority of the sacred volume ; for inspiration belongs not to books, but to their authors - and no system of verbal inspiration has been devised which will stand the test of philosophical inquiry.'
Again, in an illustrative passage, where an inquirer of the first century is supposed to be seeking after truth, and dissatisfied with the authority of the Church, or rather of the persons to whom he has applied— "Such considerations would seem to justify an inquirer in submitting himself without opposition to the decision of the Church. But suppose him .possessed with a strong feeling of the necessity of exercising his individual judgment, and resolved to estimate for himself how far the Church was faithful to the doctrine of its founder. There may have been those already who had that intense jealousy of a priesthood which is prevalent in the present day, and who were ready to suspect that the corruptions of the Church began, as is often alleged, even under the Apostles. In this case the ordinary appeal is from the judgment of the Church to the text of Scrip- ture. Now the Apostles must no doubt have written letters on ordinary subjects, with which such an inquirer might possibly meet. Ought he to receive these as inspired ? and if not, why should he attach that character to St. Paul's letters to Philemon, Timothy, and Titus ? This question would surely need an authoritative answer ; and where could he look for ail answer save to the Church ? Nor would the difficulty be leas, if he con- fined himself to the Gospels. St. John's Gospel we may suppose either not -to have been yet written' or not to be known ; and that of St. Matthew, even if it was translated into Greek by himself, as is not improbable, would not .find its way very early into the West. For it was confessedly written in their own language for his countrymen in Palestine. There remain, then, the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke. But why should such an inquirer As we suppose accept their authority ? Nothing is more common than to meet with those who profess deference for the Apostles, because they could prove their inspiration by their miracles, but who make it a point of con- 'science to reject any inferior authority, and to exercise their own unbiased judgment on the words of inspiration. But St. Mark and St. Luke were not Apostles ; neither of them are known to have wrought miracles; and those, therefore who were inclined to reject the authority of the Church,
because it might i misrepresent the Apostles, would be equally ready to reject then Evangelists, because they might misrepresent Our Lord. On what, then, does the authority of these Gospels stand, save on the judgment of the Church, by which they have been admitted into the canon of Scripture ? "
Strange, that a professional scholar and casuist cannot see that if the Church be necessary to establish the inspiration of Scripture, something must be necessary to establish the inspiration of the Church. There must be a beginning.
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