The Anglican Principle as to Truth¶
It is important that we should have a clear understanding of the principle of the English Church as to the truth or rule of faith, as that principle was asserted at the Reformation.
i¶
Some Protestant sects regard the Bible as the source from which every one may draw his own conclusions as to the truth. What has been held in all ages by the greatest teachers counts for little, if anything, in the way of authority. According to this view, every man becomes his own interpreter of the Bible, which so used may cease to be the word of God, and may become the word of man. The necessary result of such private interpretation of the Scriptures is, that an endless variety of explanations may be given as to the meaning of God’s word. This is one form of error concerning the ascertaining of the truth.
Roman Catholics are bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent. This Council declares that “the truth is contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions, and that it receives and venerates with an equal feeling of piety and reverence all the books of the Old and New Testaments … and also the traditions relating as well to faith as to morals, as having, either from the word of Christ himself or the dictation of the Holy Ghost, been preserved by continuous succession in the Catholic Church.”[1] Thus the tendency of the Roman Church is to allow that an article of faith may rest upon Church teaching alone, apart from Scripture basis. The modern Roman Church has also committed itself to a theory of development, which leaves the way open to continual additions to “the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.”[2] This idea of development has gained ground chiefly since the Reformation. During the last century, we have witnessed the addition of two new doctrines to the Catholic creed. We refer to the doctrines of ‘the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ and the ‘Infallibility of the Pope,’ belief in which has been made necessary to salvation, or to communion in the Roman Catholic Church.
If Protestants have relied upon the private interpretation of Scripture at the expense of tradition, Roman Catholics have relied upon tradition at the expense of Scripture.
It is abundantly clear that neither the Protestant nor the modern Roman Catholic principle as to the truth, of which we have spoken, is that of the Church in its earliest days. They are both novelties unknown for centuries, and fraught with great dangers, as experience and history testify. They are novelties from which, we may thankfully feel, the English Church, its real principle being understood, is delivered.
ii¶
What then is the principle of the English Church as to the groundwork or rule of faith? What is the Anglican standard in regard to the truth? We reply, — that of the ancient and undivided Church, namely that, —
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ARE THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN QUESTIONS RELATING TO CATHOLIC TRUTH, THE CHURCH BEING THE INTERPRETER OF THOSE SCRIPTURES, AND THAT TOO IN THE SENSE IN WHICH THE FATHERS HAVE GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD THEM.
This is the groundwork of the celebrated rule of Vincent of Lerins;—” The Canon of Scripture is perfect, and most abundantly of itself sufficient for all things.” But “since the Scripture being of itself so deep and profound, all men do not understand it in one and the same sense, but divers men, diversely, this man and that man, this way and that way, expound and interpret the sayings thereof, so that to one’s thinking, so many men, so many opinions almost may be gathered out of them … for the avoiding of error, the prophets and apostles must be expounded according to the rule of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense.”[3]
This principle of the primitive Church is stated more simply by Dr. Pusey,—“What is matter of faith must be capable of being proved out of Holy Scripture; yet that, not according to the private sense of individuals, but according to the uniform teaching of the Church.”[4] Thus Holy Scripture and Catholic tradition are joint and mutually corrective sources of the faith. The faith was delivered to the saints, and given to the Church, before the New Testament was written ; yet the whole faith so given was, by God’s providence, afterwards contained in Scripture. The Church received her faith before she received her Scriptures, yet the whole of the faith so received can be proved by Scripture.[5] When the Christian revelation was written down and accepted by the Church, the Church became its interpreter, being constituted by God for this purpose, and being aided by the Holy Spirit in fulfilling it.
It will be seen that the Catholic principle, as we have stated it, is the safeguard against the results of the two erroneous methods of arriving at the truth, stated at the beginning of this chapter.
iii¶
To this Catholic principle, the English Church committed herself unreservedly at the time of the Reformation : to this principle, our great divines appealed all through Reformation times: to this principle, the English Church appeals to-day. In the words of Dr. Pusey “The Church of England has, from the Reformation, held implicitly, in purpose of heart, all which the ancient Church ever held.”[6] That this is the Anglican position, is abundantly evident. Amongst such evidence, we may quote the canon of Convocation which imposed subscription to the Articles upon the clergy, in Elizabeth’s reign. This canon directs preachers “to be careful that they never teach ought in a sermon, to be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected out of the same doctrine.” Together with Holy Scripture, the Church of England preserves and teaches the three Creeds, —the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Creed of St. Athanasius. The ground upon which she bids us accept them, is, that “they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.”[7] It is a striking proof of our claim to orthodoxy, that we alone, of the whole Catholic Church, recite the Athanasian Creed in the public services of the Church. This Creed commences with the assertion, that “whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.”
The English Church also recognizes the authority of the undisputed General Councils.[8] It was in these Councils that all the great heresies were rejected, and the main truths of the Catholic faith asserted.
If this be our principle as to the truth, it may be asked,—How is it that there exists such diversity of teaching amongst us? There is no doubt a good deal of diversity on certain points, not so much touching the main doctrines of the Creed (e.g., the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, or the Divinity of the Holy Spirit), as on matters of practice, and the mode of carrying out our services, and the meaning given to some of our usages. This is to some extent unavoidable, seeing that in a great body of teachers there will be variety of thought and feeling. Judging by St. Paul’s Epistles, we see that in the apostles’ times, there was a good deal of disagreement, and this upon important points, which often greatly troubled the minds of the apostles. Much of the diversity of teaching in our midst is due to the fact, that men teach in the Church’s name that which is not her doctrine. Amongst ourselves there is great unwillingness to carry authority too far, so as to crush the individual energies of earnest men. Often truth comes out the more clearly by allowing these differences to appear; and we are warned by our Lord against too great exercise of discipline, “lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.”[9]
“To believe the Scripture and the Creeds in the sense of the ancient Primitive Church, to receive the four great General Councils so much magnified by antiquity, to believe all points of doctrine, generally received as fundamental in the Church of Christ, is a faith in which to live and die cannot but give salvation.”—Archbishop Laud, Conference with Fisher, xxxviii. 1.