GORE'S "CHURCH AND MINISTRY."*
IT is not too much to say that this book lays the whole of the English public which is interested in theological—nay, in religious matters, under deep obligation. The great influence of the High Church party on the ecclesiastical and spiritual life of our own country in our own day, is a fact patent to all who have eyes to see, and many reasons combine to convince us that this influence is increasing, and is likely to increase still further. It is becoming more and more a popular move- ment, while at the same time it has enlisted in its cause young men who need not fear comparison with the younger members of any other theological party for intellectual gifts, for competent learning, for ability to keep abreast with the best thought and knowledge of the time. It seems to have out- lived the danger which threatened at one time to make it a mere resting-place on the way to Rome ; it has profited by the difficulties into which the Vatican definitions have thrown the Papal Church ; it has contrived to assimilate some at least of the best elements in the Protestant spirit, and for this among other reasons, has overcome much of the popular prejudice which once assailed it. Yet hitherto little or nothing has been done for the scientific exposition of Anglicanism in its dis- tinctive features. Men like Dr. Liddon and the late Dr. Mozley have devoted themselves in the main to the defence of dogmas which are the common heritage of all the orthodox Churches. The one has signalised himself as the champion of Our Lord's divinity, the other by expounding the theory of miracles. A learned account of the argument for Anglicanism as a hierarchical and sacerdotal system was still a desideratum ; and this Mr. Gore has supplied, with an accuracy of historical knowledge, with a sobriety of judgment, and an elevation of moral tone which are beyond praise. The style is worthy of the matter ; it is clear and attractive ; there is no trace of mannerism or affectation, no attempt to substitute rhetoric for argument; no word is wasted, and the author never for one moment forgets the courtesy which is due to his opponents. If he lacks the bold originality of Dr. Hatch, he is undoubtedly far more cautious in his statements of fact and in his inferences, while in matters of detail he has repeatedly set Dr. Hatch right. He begins, indeed, with important assumptions—in particular, he takes for granted that the New Testament writings are authentic and trustworthy documents—but pre- suppositions of this kind are in such a case unavoidable, and Dr. Hatch's work really implies similar assumptions of an opposite nature. The rest of this article will be devoted chiefly to setting forth some of the objections which might be raised by those who cannot regard Mr. Gore's reasoning as altogether cogent. But on that very account we are anxious to begin with a frank acknowledgment of the lofty qualities which the book exhibits.
Mr. Gore, then, defends that extreme form of Anglicanism which looks upon Bishops who can trace their consecration in unbroken line to the Apostles of Christ as essential to the very existence of a Church ; and he is compelled, if we under- stand him rightly, to " unchurch Presbyterian bodies," and to declare them " outside the pale of the Covenant." True, he says a good deal to modify this judgment and qualify its harsher aspect; but his admissions are apparently neither more nor less than those by which modern Roman Catholics soften their theory of exclusive salvation. He begins by asserting the hierarchical constitution of the Church, and he appeals to the authority of Iremeus, who wrote about A.D. 190. Here assuredly he is on safe ground. Not only does Irenams reiterate throughout his conception of the Church as one body subject to espisoopal government : not only does he constantly describe Bishops as the successors of the Apostles, from whom they have received the full tradition of the truth : not only does he maintain the sufficiency of this episcopal tradition
• The Ministry of the Christian Church. By Charles Gore, M.A., Principal of the Pusey Rouse, Follow of Trinity College, Oxford, &c. London : Rivingtous. to "refute all heresies" but he claims for the Bishops a charisma veritatis, an official grace which makes them the unfailing guardians of the truth, and its champions against error. So much is plain to any attentive reader of Irennus, and it is the merit of Ziegler, who is far removed from any sympathy with the hierarchical system, to have brought out with special force this point in the theology of the saint. So far, we are all at one. We doubt, however, whether Mr. Gore has made it equally clear that Tremens did not go beyond the general teaching of his own time, let alone the teaching of preceding ages. If Irenmus may be fairly taken as a witness for the doctrine of Gaul and Asia Minor, Clement of Alexandria is not a whit the less entitled to speak for the Church which he adorned, and the catechetical school over which he presided. Now, Clement, though he is familiar with a threefold ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, without a dream of dis- turbing it, does not make the perfect tradition of the truth depend on any Church organisation. He looks, as Mr. Gore himself is constrained to admit, for " a Church within a Church " (p. 136), for " the Church of the spiritually en- lightened :" his "spirit had within it dangerous elements of Gnosticism." Surely this in itself is enough to warn us against the mistake of imagining that any one teacher at the close of the second century can be taken as the spokesman of the Church at large. Even after the formation of the old Catholic Church, the Christian doctrine continued to a large extent -in a fluid state, and we are not justified in transferring the opinions of one Father or Church to another. Sometimes we find the differences expressed so clearly that no possibility of confusion is left. For example, the Alexandrian school welcomed the heathen philosophers as brethren. Ireniens and Tertullian rejected them as aliens ; and this is no mere accidental variation. To the early Alexandrian, Christianity was a divine philosophy apprehended by intellectual and spiritual men ; it gave in completeness a body of truth which had been partially recognised before Christ came. To the adherents of ecclesiastical tradition, Christianity was a revela- tion which completed the imperfect one granted to the Jewish Church, but which had scarcely any connection with the anticipations of the Pagan world. Again, just as we find in Clement " a priesthood of the intellect" over against the hierarchy of episcopal succession in IrenEeus, so the Montanists, as Dr. Sanday has pointed out, were really conservative in advocating " a priesthood of enthusiasm." They maintained the old and Apostolic view that the Church was under the immediate government of the Spirit, and that it was " the Prophets," not the Bishops, who had pre-eminent authority to teach. Mr. Gore argues with perfect justice that the parti- cular changes which the Montanist prophets made were new; but this leaves the fact that the principle of government by those who had the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, was old, quite untouched. If we pass from the close of the second century to the Church of an earlier date, the contrast is still more marked. There is no trace of a hierarchy in Justin. He speaks of the congregation and its " president " and its deacons; but he betrays no acquaintance with a hierarchy which pre- serves the deposit of the faith. Even Ignatius falls far short of the standard which we find in Tremens, or even in Tertullian. To him, the Bishop is the supreme officer in the individual congregation ; but he never speaks of Bishops as the successors of the Apostles, and though he is the first Christian writer who uses the words " Catholic Church," he means, as Bishop Lightfoot has shown, the Church in general as distinguished from the Church in a particular place, and never reaches the idea of one great corporation united by the tie of common government. It would be easy to strengthen our contention by carrying the investigation into the New Testament itself, which, as a rule, presupposes the speedy advent of Christ, and therefore never alludes to successors of the Apostles. All that we have said is consistent with the belief that the hierarchy arose in the providence of God, and that epis- copacy began to be under the very eye and with the approval of St. John, the last of the Apostles. But we feel some scep- ticism about the historical method which supplements the silence of one by the utterances of another Father, and inter- prets the writings of an earlier by those of a later age. It is the habit of later Fathers to profess with entire honesty that they do but communicate the teaching they have received from their predecessors. Yet Mr. Gore admits that they misunder- stood the age previous to their own on important points. St.
Irenseus was admittedly wrong about Our Lord's age, about Our Lord's teaching on the Millennium, though on both points he appeals to the tradition of the elders. He failed utterly to understand the New Testament use of the terms " presbyter " and " bishop." These instances (and they might easily be multiplied) show how needful it is to sift tradition, and to avoid taking the assertions of the early Fathers on trust.
We can but briefly touch on gaps in Mr. Gore's argument which, as it seems to us, are still more serious. We have read and re-read his discussion of the question, but we fail to see that he meets the grave difficulty that Jerome, while acknow- ledging episcopal authority, thought that mere presbyters could validly ordain other presbyters, if authorised to do so by the custom of the Church, and that this view of his obtained recognition for a long time in Western Christendom. So, too, for centuries uncertainty prevailed in East and West on the validity of heretical ordinations, which looks as if the Church were gradually feeling its way to a settled theory, instead of having been in possession of such a theory from the outset. And did the Church believe from the beginning in a special order of sacrificing priests P The New Testament speaks of all Christians as priests; so do the writers of the sub-Apostolic age. True, as Mr. Gore insists, the same language is held by mediaeval writers who undoubtedly acknowledged a priesthood in the narrower sense. But then, the difference is that the early writers habitually mention the general, and never allude to the special priesthood. It is certain, moreover, that Origen advises private confession (p. 155) ; but where does he advise private confession to a priest P Tertullian lays it down as an accepted principle that laymen may, in case of emergency, " offer " the Eucharistic gifts ; and it is beside the purpose to urge that these words occur in a Montanist treatise, because Tertullian implies that the principle was universally admitted. Finally, when we speak of the Eucharistic sacrifice, we should clearly understand what this sacrifice means. It was agreed from very early times, that the Eucharist was in some sense a sacrifice. It was a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and the gifts of bread and wine were offered to God. Moreover, early writers, and, indeed, St. Paul himself, exclude the Zwinglian theory. They hold that the bread and wine which are blessed in the name of the congregation, bring the recipient into mystical union with the body and blood of Christ. But we can see no proof that the Church of the first two centuries maintained that Christ in his human nature was actually present on the altar, and offered by the priest in sacrifice to God. A careful examination of the Ignatian Epistles lends no countenance to such a view, and Tertullian, when he interprets the words, " This is my body," as equivalent to "This is the figure of my body," virtually denies it. At a later date, Origen describes the faithful Christian as perpetually feeding on the body and blood of Christ by faith and love. All this is in perfect harmony with the sacramental teaching of the older Anglican divines, but it is hard to reconcile with the more definite sacerdotalism which Mr. Gore has advocated with so much learning and acumen.
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