Breaking with the Past Part 2

The new Ordinal did in regard to the ancient Catholic Pontifical what the Communion service had done for the Missal. Having first swept away all the minor Orders and the Subdiaconate, the new form carefully and systematically excluded every word that could be interpreted to mean that the candidate was ordained to be a sacrificing priest. For the most part the new rite was a new composition, drawn up to meet the doctrinal views as to the Holy Eucharist of the English Reformers of advanced Lutheran principles. One of the few pa.s.sages of the Pontifical preserved in the Ordinal were the words, "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye shall forgive," etc, which accompanied the Imposition of Hands after the ordination in the ancient rite and conferred "the power of the Keys." In the new rite this subordinate form became the substantial form of the new Ordination service, although in it there was for a hundred years, until 1662, no mention of the Order conferred. There can be hardly any doubt that this omission came about by the adoption of the old form by the compilers of the new Ordinal. In the case of the Catholic Pontifical no such specific mention was called for, as when used in that to convey jurisdiction, the priest was already ordained and had co-celebrated with the Bishop.

Once more I repeat that I am not here concerned with any discussion as to whether the new Ordinal was better or worse than the ancient Pontifical. I desire merely to bring out the facts and to make it clear that the service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordination service in a doctrinal point of view go together. They are the expression of a change, of a serious organic change from the ancient teachings of the Faith, as expressed in the Missal and Pontifical. The Prayer Book and the Ordinal of Edward VI were the serious expression of the deliberate alteration in the Eucharistic teachings of the official heads of the Church in England at this time. They const.i.tuted a break, clear, sharp and decisive with the past. There can be no doubt of this in view of the facts. The change may have been for good or for ill, but it can hardly be denied that it was made, and made not by accident but of set purpose. It was a deliberate breach in the continuity of teaching as to the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s, which had existed in the Church in England from the earliest days of Christianity; and the new teaching found its expression in the new formularies. [1]

[1] The subsequent history of the Anglican Church shows that even the need of Episcopal ordination was not considered absolutely necessary for the administration of the Sacraments in that Communion. It was not, indeed, until 1662 that it was legally necessary for a beneficed clergyman to have been so ordained. Bishop Hooker himself admitted the ministration and received the Communion from the hands of Saravia who was a Calvinistic minister. The truth of this position is upheld by the present Anglican Bishop of Durham in a letter to the London _Times_ of Dec. 13, 1913. He cites as witnesses: "Bancroft, who carried his colleagues, including Andrews, with him in consecrating Presbyterian ministers Bishops for Scotland in 1609; Andrews, who claims 'our government to be by Divine right, yet it follows not that a Church cannot stand without it': Ussher, who says (to Du Moulin), after a solemn a.s.sertion of the greatness of Episcopacy, that he is prepared, to receive the Blessed Sacrament at the hand of the French ministers if he were at Charenton' . . . and Cosin, a.s.serting in his Will his 'union of soul with all the orthodox,' 'which I desire chiefly to be understood of Protestants and the best Reformed Churches.'"

There can be no doubt as to what the ardent Reformers, who had the matter in hand, intended to do. The press teemed with books of ribald denunciation of the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s and the Orders of the ancient Catholic rite were derided in such terms as "greasy and stinking"

Orders. Moreover, the destruction of the altars obviously emphasised the change which had taken place. The abolition of the Sacrifice and the Sacrificing priesthood made them obsolete and unnecessary. Bishop Ridley, a reforming prelate of the most uncompromising type, directed the Churchwardens of London to pull down the popish altars and to procure in their place "the form of a table" in order "more and more to turn the simple from the old superst.i.tious opinions of the popish Ma.s.s."

The subst.i.tute for the Catholic altars was to be "after the form of an honest table decently covered," and was to be placed anywhere in the chancel or choir, as was found most convenient. At St. Paul's, London, for example, various experiments were made both as to the best position of the table and as to how best the minister could stand at it. Four years later Bishop White of Winchester taunted Ridley about this. "When your table was const.i.tuted," he said, "you could never be content in placing the same, now east, now north, now one way, now another, until it pleased G.o.d of His goodness to place it clean out of the Church."

Beyond this the altar-stones, which by solemn rites and the unction of Holy Oil had been consecrated to G.o.d for the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s, and upon which the Body and Blood of Christ had been offered daily for the living and the dead, were not only pulled down, cast out of the church and defaced, but were out of derision and contempt set in the floor or the doorway that the pa.s.ser-by might tread them under foot; or were turned to other still more debased uses. To us Catholics the consecrated altar, with its relics of the saints and the memories of its hallowed consecration, is the most sacred thing, set apart to G.o.d's service, together with the chalice and the paten in which and upon which the mystery of the sacramental renewal of Christ's Pa.s.sion is effected by the words of the priest. It was this hallowed stone which was treated with disdain and dishonour. To those who would have us think that the whole of the changes made at the time of the Reformation were mere protests, against what they please to call the abuse of the Ma.s.s, in the multiplication of Ma.s.ses for the living and the dead, the fact of the contemptuous and wholesale destruction of the ancient altars and the subst.i.tution of a moveable table, should be sufficient to show that it was no abuse that was thought of, or aimed at, but the abolition of the Sacrifice altogether.

But there were other indications that this abolition of the Ma.s.s and priesthood was the set policy of the men in power at this time. A more advanced Calvinist than even Ridley urged the party forward on the down grade of Catholic doctrine. In 1550 John Hooper was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, but refused it, partly because of the mention of Saints in the New Ordinal, but mainly because of the vestments, which he would be called upon to wear and which he regarded as aaronic abominations. "You have got rid of the Ma.s.s," he said, "then rid yourselves of the feathers of the Ma.s.s also." Later, however, when in doctrinal principle Cranmer and others had advanced further in the direction of Calvin, Hooper was consecrated according to the new Ordinal on his own terms. The Ma.s.s was gone; the priesthood had pa.s.sed away; the altars were pulled down in the sanctuaries; the consecrated stones were broken and dishonoured, and why should not the Vestments--Aaronic abominations--indicative of the sacrificial character of the priest be dispensed with also?

The time was propitious for Cranmer to take measures for the final destruction of the old order. Since the imposition of the First Book of Common Prayer he had had time to grow out of his previous Lutheranism and had come under the spell of Calvin and his adherents in Geneva. The Reformer had written to Cranmer a personal letter urging him to be more active and hasten on the movement of Reform. The Archbishop of Canterbury had replied begging Calvin to ply King Edward with letters urging him to eradicate the last vestiges of the old superst.i.tion. This was the spirit which presided at the composition of the Second Book of Edward VI. It was issued in 1552, and before this commissions were dispatched throughout the country to seize in the King's name all church plate and vestments.

I have already spoken a word about this final recension of the Liturgy of Edward VI. It is here sufficient to say that it was Calvinistic in its conception and doctrine. In the First Prayer Book there was some slight outward resemblance to the Ma.s.s. This was swept away, and, to use the expression of one who lived at the time, this new liturgy "had made a very hay of the Ma.s.s." Of the ancient _Canon_, which the Apostolic See had possessed from the earliest ages and had kept inviolate, nothing was allowed to survive, even as to form. Great Popes like St. Leo and St.

Gregory had inserted a few words into this inheritance of the Church with fear and reverence. Such men would have considered it sacrilegious and impious to alter or reject any part of it. Cranmer and his followers felt no such scruples. They first mutilated it and altered it to their heart's content and finally got rid of nearly every word of it altogether. The outcome of their work may be studied in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to-day, where the Communion Service is substantially that of the Book of 1552.

IV

IV

THE CHURCH BY LAW ESTABLISHED

BEARING in mind what the Catholic teaching was and is in regard to the Supremacy of the Pope, the Holy Ma.s.s and the sacrificial character of the priesthood, we can understand how far away from these teachings the legislation of King Edward's reign had carried England. To our Catholic forefathers in the beginning of the 16th Century, as to us to-day, the Pope was the Supreme Head of the Christian Church and the foundation of Christian unity. The Ma.s.s was the great Christian Sacrifice in which the bread and wine were substantially changed into the very Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord. The priest at his Ordination was given a sacrificial character, expressed clearly in the rite, empowering him to offer up the Eucharistic Sacrifice upon the Christian altar. In the second quarter of the 16th Century all these points of belief were changed by a small but determined band of English Reformers.

For a few years, on the death of Edward VI, Mary restored the old religion; the papal supremacy and jurisdiction was again acknowledged; the altars were once more set up; the ancient liturgy of the Ma.s.s was read again from the old missals; priests were again ordained according to the rite in the Catholic Pontifical, and the ordinations of those who had received orders under the Edwardine Ordinal were rejected. I pa.s.s over the reign of Queen Mary, which came to an end with her death in November, 1558. I am dealing with Catholic beliefs contrasted with the principles of the Reformation, and in this brief reign of Queen Mary the country returned to union with Rome, and all that this implied.

Of this reign, however, I may be allowed perhaps to add the verdict of the late Dr. James Gairdner, a non-Catholic historian, than whom no one has a greater right to speak with authority. "History has been cruel to her (Mary's) memory. The horrid epithet 'b.l.o.o.d.y,' bestowed so unscrupulously alike on her and on Bonner and Gardiner and the bishops generally, had at least a plausible justification in her case from the severities to which she gave her sanction. . . . Among the victims, no doubt, there were many true heroes and really honest men, but many of them also would have been persecutors if they had had their way. Most of them retained the belief in a Catholic Church but rejected the Ma.s.s and held by the services authorised in Edward VI.'s reign. But of course this meant complete rejection of an older authority--higher according to the time-honoured theory than that of any king or Parliament--which had never been openly set aside until that generation."

With Queen Mary's premature death religious difficulties revived. At first it was not generally known whether her successor, Elizabeth, would remain staunch to the old religion or favour the new, although there were suspicions that she was inclined to the latter. She was welcomed as sovereign by all parties, Catholic as well as Protestant, and no one now I believe credits the silly story that she was forced into the arms of the Reformers by the refusal of the Pope to recognise her as lawful Queen.

Almost from the first it was easy to conjecture which way lay her inclination. By the advice of Cecil, her chief adviser, she formed a secret cabinet within a cabinet, which occupied itself with a project for "the alteration of religion," as it is called in the doc.u.ment still extant. Those "now in the Pope's religion" were to be got rid of, and by process of law all were to be made to "abjure the Pope of Rome and conform themselves to the new alterations." What these "alterations" in the form of religion signified is not doubtful. They meant the reintroduction of the liturgical reforms of Edward's reign, including the abolition of the Catholic missal and Ordinal.

One of the first measures proposed to Parliament at the beginning of the new reign was the Act of Royal Supremacy. Its object was of course to do away with the Spiritual Supremacy of the Pope and subst.i.tute that of the Crown, and a stringent oath admitting this was to be required of all holding any office in the State. By this, every adherent of the old faith was deliberately excluded from any and every position in the Church or State.

At this time ten of the English Sees were vacant and the brunt of the battle for the preservation of the old religion fell upon the diminished number of Bishops in the House of Lords. Their hands were, however, strengthened greatly by a solemn p.r.o.nouncement made by the clergy in Convocation, wherein they declared their entire belief in the Catholic, as opposed to the Reformed teaching of the existence of the "natural body of Christ" under the "species of bread and wine" in "the Sacrament of the Altar, by virtue of the word of Christ, spoken by the priest."

They declared also their belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and in the Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s, and at the same time affirmed "that to Blessed Peter and to his lawful successors in the Apostolic See, as Vicars of Christ, has been given the supreme power of feeding and ruling the Church of Christ upon Earth and of confirming their brethren." The English universities at this time also made the same declaration. Thus, when change of religion and the readoption of the principles of the Reformed Churches of Germany which had ruled in the days of Edward VI.

was in the air, the unfettered Church in England, the bishops, clergy and the teaching bodies boldly declared for the old catholic faith of the Holy Eucharist, the Ma.s.s and the Supremacy of the Pope.

But, the power was again in the hands of those who desired the "alteration of religion," as it was called, and this was effected mainly by three acts of Parliament. By the first, the tenths on Ecclesiastical property were given over to the crown; by the second, the Supremacy of the sovereign in matters ecclesiastical was reaffirmed; and the third, the Act of Uniformity authorised and imposed under serious penalties the Reformed Prayer Book of Edward VI. in place of the ancient Catholic Missal and Pontifical. The Bishops in the House of Lords fought these measures step by step and unanimously voted against them. With a few unimportant modifications the new Eucharist office was that of the second Book of Common Prayer of 1552--the Book, from which every vestige of the ma.s.s in its essential parts had been removed. After a struggle, in which by some means the defenders of the old religion delayed the pa.s.sage of the measure, it was pa.s.sed by a majority of only three votes, and without the support of one single spiritual peer. To a man the Bishops of the Church opposed the Bill. The famous speeches of Bishop Scot and of Abbot f.e.c.kenham, in which they challenged history to produce a single instance where the bishops of any church were not consulted and listened to in so momentous a change, were the last const.i.tutional efforts of the Church of England to prevent the innovations in matters of religion being imposed by Parliament upon the consciences of those who regarded them as heretical. The very narrow majority, which carried this religious revolution, makes it more than likely that their arguments had weight. There can be no reasonable doubt that had ten episcopal sees not been vacant at this time the intentions of the Government would have been defeated, at least for a time, and the new Liturgy would not then have been imposed upon all by an act of Parliament. As it was, the Elizabethan settlement of religion--as it is called--rested obviously on the infallibility of the odd three votes of the majority.

It was now that the "Act of Uniformity in Religion" came to be enforced.

By it the Tudor maxim _Cujus regio ejus religio_--that must be the religion of a kingdom, which is the religion of the ruler--was carried out in practice. The form of religion authorised by the Queen and the Parliamentary majority was the only one allowed. The consciences of individuals were disregarded, and just as in the days of the persecuting pagan Emperors Christians were compelled by force to throw incense on the altars of the pagan G.o.ds, so now with equal disregard for freedom of conscience Catholics--those who refused to accept the Elizabethan settlement of religion--were forced by fines, imprisonment and other penalties, to attend the new services in their parish churches. They became known as "Recusants" for refusing to be present at the Communion Service of the English Prayer Book, which had again taken the place of the Holy Ma.s.s.

Then, too, began a systematic attempt to stamp out the old religion. The priesthood was proscribed, and priests were hunted down and exiled for offering up the Holy Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s; and, during the centuries of persecution, which began with the reign of Queen Elizabeth, hundreds of priests and others were put to death for the sole crime of having said or having been present at the Ma.s.s. In the well-known phrase of one of the present English cabinet ministers: "It was the Ma.s.s that mattered,"

and the real struggle was for this all along the line. To the Catholic, who realised all that the Ma.s.s meant,--how it was the centre of his religion and the sublime Christian Sacrifice, it was a point of honour and conscience to imperil fortune and even life for so sacred a heritage. To the Protestant in those days the Ma.s.s was a fable and dangerous deceit, and with Luther he desired above all things to root out this superst.i.tion from the land; and so, as there could be no Ma.s.s without a Ma.s.s-priest, all the efforts of those in power were directed towards extirpating all those who continued in spite of the laws to exercise their ministry, and to prevent others coming from abroad to continue their work, when they either perished on the scaffold, or worn out by the long continued persecution and constant searches for them, pa.s.sed away in their hiding places. In England and in Ireland the record of this terrible time makes us wonder how it was possible that any remnant of the old religion could have survived.

Cecil, who was the master brain directing the policy of Queen Elizabeth, had counted upon the gradual extinction of the old Marian priesthood and the consequent eradication of the old Faith from the hearts of a people left without priest or teacher or Sacraments. From 1580 the coming of the Jesuits and seminary priests from abroad, to keep the light of the Faith alive if possible, in spite of fines and the rack and gallows, made it clear to the all-powerful minister that he had miscalculated the effect of his repressive policy. From that time the persecution began in earnest.

What contributed no doubt to increase the trials of the English and Irish Catholics was the embarra.s.sing excommunication p.r.o.nounced by Pope Pius V against Queen Elizabeth. It furnished the government with a weapon they were not slow to seize upon, by making it appear to the popular mind as if a political offence, if not a criminal treason, was connected with the exercise of the Catholic faith. Catholics for being Catholics were henceforth treated as traitors. For the last twenty years of this reign, with one exception, there were numerous executions for religion in England. Most of those who suffered thus were priests--Ma.s.s-priests as they were called in derision of their sacerdotal character. Thousands of men and women also were punished under the penal laws for the exercise of the old religion. Fines and imprisonment were the lot of those who refused at any price to accept the religious settlement of the sovereign--to accept the form of religion which their consciences refused. The sad records of this period show that many a Catholic family was impoverished and destroyed by the fines levied upon it. Gradually even great estates had to be sold to meet the demands of penal laws against recusancy--the refusal to attend the Protestant service. Then followed a long period of repression and ostracism. For two centuries the unfortunate papist was shut out of the life of the nation and subject to every insult and baseless accusation. One writer who lived during this period says of this system: "The experience of Elizabeth's reign had shown that the infliction of actual death roused a life-giving enthusiasm among Catholics themselves and sympathy in the witnesses of their sufferings. The penal system now introduced was the preference for gagging a man, binding him hand and foot, bandaging his eyes and imprisoning him for life, rather than killing him outright."

Everywhere throughout England and Ireland there was a stolid and heroic resistance to the imposition of the new form of State church on the part of those who remained true to the old religion. Looking back to those days of darkness and despair it seems impossible to believe that any remnant of those who would not bow their knees to Baal could survive the system by which it was hoped to crush them. And when liberty of conscience was at last accorded it was more in the spirit of compa.s.sion than in any expectation that they could revive and live again that it was given. As well might the world think that the wors.h.i.+p of Pan or of Jupiter would spring again into life as that the poor, despised, dying Catholics could expand and grow once more into a position of respect and influence, rea.s.serting and publicly upholding the principles of the Catholic Faith, for which their forefathers in England and Ireland had suffered persecution and even death.

These principles I have endeavoured to set out during the past four Sundays. Mainly there were only three, which were attacked by the upholders of the Reformation doctrines. The Papal Supremacy over the Church, the safeguard of unity of Faith, and a mark of the Church, Christ established in this world; the Christian Sacrifice--the Ma.s.s, attacked and swept away by the Reformers; and the Priesthood in its sacrificial character, which was the necessary consequence of the Eucharistic doctrine upheld by the German and English Reformers. There were of course many minor points of Catholic belief and practice which were attacked and destroyed in these days; such, for example, as devotion to the Mother of G.o.d and the Saints, and the long established custom of blessed ashes and candles and the creeping to the Cross on Good Friday. But the main lines of departure from the Catholic Faith along which the Reformation moved were the three I have indicated. A return can be contemplated only by frankly facing the issues. To-day we find men of the highest intelligence and good faith claiming to have the same Christian sacrifice and the same sacrificing priests as the Catholic Church, and they are using a Communion Service from which of set purpose every notion of Oblation and Sacrifice has been ruthlessly removed, and their ministers are ordained by an Ordinal, which designedly was composed to express the rejection of the sacrificial character of the Christian priest. The prayer for Christian Unity must go up from every heart, but if it is to be something more than sentiment, the facts must be faced frankly and with courage.

BOOKS SUGGESTED FOR READING

Short History of the Church in England. _Gasquet_.

Henry III and the Church. _Gasquet_.

Roman Law and Canon Law. _Maitland_.

Lollardy and the Reformation, 4 vols. _Gairdner_.

History of the Reformation. _Blunt_.

History of the English Church in the 16th Century. _Gairdner_.

The Eve of the Reformation. _Gasquet_.

England under the Old Religion and Other Essays. _Gasquet_.

What then happened at the Reformation (in above).

Henry VIII and the English Monasteries. _Gasquet_.

Henry VI and the Book of Common Prayer. _Gasquet and Bishop_.

What Edward VI did with the Liturgy (in England under the Old Religion).

Anglican Ordinations (in above).

Anglican Ordinations. _Canon Estcourt_.

The Pope and the Ordinal. _S. Barnes_.

The Elizabethan Religious Settlement. _H. N. Birt_.

Hamps.h.i.+re Recusants. _Gasquet_.

The Line of Cleavage (C. T. Soc.). _H. N. Birt_.

Parker Society publications.

Catholic Truth Society--various Historical Papers.

The Ecclesia Anglicana, for what does it Stand? By the Bishop of Tanzibar, and subsequent correspondence in the _London Times_, December, 1913, and January, 1914.