II. But this admission would not necessarily involve the

further admission that the Presbyter John was the author of the Second and Third Epistles ascribed to the Apostle. All that can be advanced in favour of the Presbyter’s authorship is stated by Ebrard (Einleitung); the ordinary belief being de- fended by Liicke, Huther, Wordsworth, Alford and Westcott. Among reasons for it are the following :—
i. The argument from style. The differences upon which Ebrard lays such stress may fairly be accounted for by the distinct character and object of the two Epistles; while their general type of language and thought is unmistakeably Johan- nean. Bretschneider denied that the Apostle had written any one of the three Epistles. Yet he had no doubt of the fact that all three had been written by a single author.
ii. Church-tradition. (2) The great authority, in this matter especially, of St. Ire- neus; Her. i. 16. 3; ΠΙ. 16. 8. (See Alford.) Neither St. Treneus nor Polycrates had ever heard, it would ap- pear, of the Presbyter John, which shews at least that he cannot have been an eminent person in the Church.
(8) That of Clement and Dionysius of Alexandria (see Alford); Aurelius, quoted by St. Cyprian in Conc. Carth.; St. Jerome, cf. Ep. 2 ad Paulinum, Ep. ad Evagrium.
(y) On the other hand, Origen was doubtful about the authorship as about many other things. (Eus. vi. 25.) The two Epistles are not even mentioned by Tertullian or Theodoret. They were rejected, together with the other Catholic Epistles, by Theodore of Mopsuestia.
(8) The late reception of the two Epistles into the canon of so many Churches may be accounted for, according to Ebrard, by (1) their private character; (2) the fact
Note G. The Worship of Fesus Christ. 531
that one was addressed to a woman; (3) the amount of matter in them common to the first Epistle (?). The verdict of the Muratorian Fragm. is doubtful. The Peschito probably did not contain either. Eusebius reckons them among the Antilegomena; yet his own opinion appears in Dem. Ev. iii. 5. (See Alford.)
iii. Nothing against the apostolic authorship can be inferred from the title ὁ πρεσβύτερος. St. Paul calls himself ὁ πρεσβύτης (Philem. 9): and St. Peter ὁ συμπρεσβύτερος (1 Pet. v. 1): Probably ‘the Presbyter’ John did not assume the title until after the death of the Apostle. St. John may have used it in his private correspondence, either to hint at his age, or as a formal title the force of which was at once recognized and admitted. Surely the Presbyter would have added to ὁ mpeo- Birepos, his name ᾿Ιωάννης. An Apostle could afford to omit _his name. The authority too, of which the writer of the third Epistle is conscious in his reference to Diotrephes, seems incon- sistent with the supposition of a non-apostolical authorship.
NOTE G, on Lecture VII.
The worship of Jesus Christ as prescribed by the Authorized Services of the Church of England.
A. In a letter to the Editor of the ‘Times,’ dated August 9, and published in that journal on September 26, 1866, Dr. Colenso writes as follows :—
‘I have drawn attention to the fact that out of 180 collects and prayers contained in the Prayer-book, only three or four at most are addressed to our Lord, the others being all addressed through Christ to Almighty God. I have said that there are also ejaculations in the Litany and elsewhere addressed to Christ. But I have shewn that the whole spirit and the general practice of our Liturgy manifestly tend to discourage such wor- ship and prayer, instead of making it the “ foundation-stone ” of common worship.’
‘It appears,’ Dr. Colenso further observes, ‘that the practice in question is not based on any Scriptural or Apostolical authority, but is the development of a later age, and has very greatly increased within the Church of England during the last century, beyond what (as the Prayer-book shews) was the rule at the time of the Reformation—chiefly, as 1 believe, through the use of unauthorized hymns.’
Min 2
532 Note G. The Worship of Fesus Christ
1. Now here it is to be observed, first of all, that prayer to our Lord is either right or wrong. If it is right, if Jesus Christ does indeed hear and answer prayer, and prayer to Him is agreeable to the Divine Will, then three or four hundred collects addressed to Him (supposing the use of them not to imply a lack of devotion to the Eternal Father and to the Holy Spirit) are quite as justifiable as three or four. If such prayer is wrong, if Jesus Christ does not hear it, and it is opposed to the real Will of God, then a single ejaculation, a single Christe Eleison, - carries with it the whole weight of a wrongful act of worship, and is immoral, as involving a violation of the rights of God.
Dr. Colenso says that prayer to Jesus Christ is ‘not based on Scriptural or Apostolical authority, but is the development of a later age.’ He does not mean to assert that ‘development’ is a sufficient justification of a Christian doctrine or practice; since he is assigning a reason for the discouragement which he feels it to be his duty to offer to the practice of prayer to our Lord. But, if his reason be valid, ought it not to make any one such prayer utterly out of the question? It is not easy to understand the principle upon which, after admitting that ‘three or four Collects’ in the Prayer-book are addressed to our Lord, Dr. Colenso adds, ‘I am prepared to use the Liturgy of the Church of England as it stands.’
To a clear mind, unembarrassed by the difficulties of an unten- able position, this painful inconsistency would be impossible. Either Jesus Christ is God or He is not; there is no third alternative. If He is God, then natural piety makes prayer to Him inevitable: to call Him God is to call Him adorable. If He is not God, then one-tenth part of the worship which the Church of England in her authorized formularies offers to Him is just as idolatrous as a hundred litanies, such as ours, would be. Dr. Colenso would not explain his use of ‘ Christ, have mercy upon us’ as Roman Catholics explain an ‘Ora pro nobis.’ If one such ‘ejaculation’ is right, then prayer to our Lord for an hour together is right also. In short, it is not a question of more or fewer prayers to Christ; the question is, Can we rightly worship Him at all?
2. Dr. Colenso maintains that ‘the whole spirit and the general practice of our Liturgy manifestly tend to discourage’ prayer to our Lord.
What is meant by the ‘ whole spirit’ of our Liturgy? If this expression is intended to describe some sublimated essence, altogether distinct from the actual words of the Prayer-book,
in the Services of the Church of England. 533
it is of course very difficult to say what it may or may not ‘tend’ to ‘discourage.’ But if the ‘whole spirit’ of a document be its intellectual drift and purpose as gathered: from its actual words, and from the history of its formation, then we may say that Dr. Colenso’s assertion is entirely opposed to the facts of the case.
(a) The devotional addresses to our Lord Jesus Christ alone in the Church Service are as follows :—
Daily Service, Morning and Evening— Verses of the Te Deum . . : . . 16
‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ ° : : 2 Prayer of St. Chrysostom . . : oy ee Litany— Invocation, ‘O God the Son’. ᾿ 5 ἢ I ‘Remember not, Lord’. . A : : I Deprecations : : ‘ ‘ ξ ; 5 Obsecrations ὶ . : : 2 ‘In all time of our Pabuiation ‘ ° : I Petitions ὁ ° : : 21 ‘Son of God, we hesaeeli Thee,’ etc. ° 4 I *O Lamb of God, That,’ etc. . ° ° ὃ 2 «Ὁ Christ, hear us’. : Ἶ : ‘ I ‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ . : I Preces, ‘From our enemies’ . : Η : 10 Prayer of St. Chrysostom . ° . . Ι Collects— Third Sunday in Advent . ὃ Ξ 3 Ι St. Stephen’s Day. . ὃ : . ᾿ First Sunday in Lent . . . . . Ι
Communion Office— Of the three parts of the Gloria in Excelsis ὁ 2
Solemnization of Matrimony— ‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ . . δ I
Visitation of the Sick—
‘Remember not, Lord’ ὃ 5 . . I ‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ Ὁ Saviour of the world, Who by Thy Cross’.
_
534 Note G. The Worship of Fesus Christ
Burial of the Dead— ‘In the midst of life, ete. . ‘ : : I
‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ . 5 . I Churching of Women—_
‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ . ὅς a Commination—
‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ . : : I Prayers to be used at Sea—
*O blessed Saviour, That didst gave”. . I
‘Christ, have mercy upon us’ , . : I
«Ὁ Christ, hear us’ : ; ὃ . ὃ I 83
—_—
(8) Devotional addresses to our Lord conjointly with the Eternal Father and the Holy Ghost :—
Daily Morning and Evening Services, not including
the Psalms—Gloria Patri at least . . 6 Athanasian Creed—Gloria Patri . . . ς I Litany—
‘O Holy, Blessed, and Glorious ἀρ αχ δ ς I Gloria Patri : . . . : I Collect for Trinity Sunday . . . . 3 1
Communion Office—
Preface for Trinity Sunday . : : ἦ I
Ter Sanctus . 1 . . : I Matrimony—Gloria Patri. . . . . I Visitation of the Sick—Gloria Patri ° . . Ι Burial of the Dead—Gloria Patri at least, Churching of Women—Gloria Patri " I Commination—Gloria Patri . . . . Ι Psalter—Gloria Patri . . . 2 Ι
Prayers to be used at Sea—
Gloria Patri. — . ° 4 ‘God the Father, God the Son,’ ete. ° : I
in the Services of the Church of England. 535
Besides this, there are at the end of Collects seven ascriptions of Glory, addressed to Christ our Lord with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In one Collect (Ordering of Deacons) such an ascription is addressed to Christ alone.
(y) It should further be added, that in each of the Ordina- tion Services the whole of that large part of the Litany which is addressed to our Lord is repeated, with the exception of the Prayer of St. Chrysostom; while in the Doxology, twice repeated, at the end of the Veni Creator, Christ is praised with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Nor should the solemn Bene- dictions in the name of the Three Blessed Persons which occur in the Communion, the Confirmation, and the Marriage Services, be forgotten in estimating the devotional attitude of the Church towards our Lord. For a view of the real amount of change in the Prayer-book which would be necessary in order to expel
from it the worship of our Lord, see ‘The Book of Common
Prayer of the Church of England adapted for general use in other Protestant Churches’; London, William Pickering, 1852. This compilation appears to have been the work of a Socinian, as those Protestant Dissenters who believe in the Godhead of our Lord would regard most of its ‘adaptations’ as shocking to their dearest convictions.
(δ) Of the Collects for Sundays or Holy-days now addressed to the Father, only two (those for the Fourth Sunday in Advent and Sunday after Ascension) were, in the old Ritual, prayers to Christ. Yet of these, it happens that the former was, in its original form, as it stood in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, ad- dressed to the Father (Muratori, Lit. Rom. i. 680): and the latter was not originally a Collect, but an antiphon for the second vespers of the Ascension, which Ven. Bede sang shortly before his death. Another prayer, beginning ‘ Hear us,’ in the Visita- tion Office, was a prayer to our Lord until 1661. On the other hand, of the three Collects now addressed to our Lord, that for the First Sunday in Lent dates from 1549, that for the Third Sunday in Advent from 1661, while that for St. Stephen’s Day, originally a prayer to the Father, became a prayer to the Son in 1549, and was enlarged and intensified, as such, in 166r. The Office for Use at Sea, containing i ha to Christ, also belongs to 1661.
In order to do justice to the spirit of ie Reformers of the sixteenth century on this subject, two facts should be noted :
1. Prayers to our Lord abound in the semi-authorized Primers which were put out at that period. In Edward the Sixth’s
536 NolteG. The Worship of Fesus Chrest
Primer of 1553 there are sixteen. In Elizabeth’s Primer of 1559 there are twenty-two. In one portion of the Preces Pri- vatee of 1564 there are twenty-one. In the ‘Christian Prayers’ of 1578 there are fifty-five.
2. On the other hand, from all of these manuals, as from the public services of the Church, all addresses to any created being were rigorously excluded. And one effect of the expulsion of antiphons and hymns addressed to the Blessed Virgin and other Saints from the Liturgy of the Church of England, has been to throw the praises, prayers, and adorations, which the Church of England publicly addresses to our Lord Jesus Christ, into a sharper prominence than belonged to such prayers in pre- Reformation times, or than belongs to them now in the Church of Rome.
The old Puritanism would have shrunk with horror from the discouragement of prayer to our Lord. Witness the speech of Sir E. Dering in the Long Parliament of 1641, after an order of the House of Commons forbidding men to bow at the Name of Jesus :— :
‘Was it ever heard before, that any men of any religion, in any age, did ever cut short or abridge any worship, upon any occasion, to their God? Take heed, Sir, and let us all take heed, whither we are going. If Christ be Jesus, if Jesus be God, all reverence, exterior as well as interior, is too little for Him. I hope we are not going up the back stairs to Socinianism |’ (Southey, Book of the Church, p. 462.)
* * *
* -
B. The worship of Christ our Lord in the Litany has lately been explained by a very popular and accomplished writer, upon principles, which, if they could be admitted, would deny to it the significance assigned to it in these Lectures. After com- menting on the historical origin of Litany-worship in the fifth century, and on the ccmpilation of our own Litany at the Reformation, Dean Stanley observes that the Litany forms the most remarkable exception to the ordinary practice of the Church, in respect of addressing prayers to God the Father. The Dean then proceeds :—
‘It is not perhaps certain that all the petitions are addressed to Christ our Saviour>; but, at any rate, a large portion are so
- oe Litany,’ by the Dean of Westminster. In ‘Good Words’ for July, 1868, p. 423.
b We sc thee to hear us, O Lord,’ is in the older Litanies addressed
to God (Martene, iii. 52), and so it would seem to be in some of the petitions
in the Services of the Church of England. 537
addressed. It stands in this respect almost isolated amidst the rest of the Prayer Book. Now, what is the reason—what is the defence for this? Many excellent persons have at times felt a scruple at such a deviation from the precepts of Scripture and from the practice of ancient Christendom. What are we to say to explain it? The explanation is to be sought in the original circumstances under which the litany was introduced. When the soul is overwhelmed with difficulties and distresses, like those which caused the French Christians in the fifth cen- tury to utter their piteous supplications to God—it seems to be placed in a different posture from that of common life. The invisible world is brought much nearer—the language, the feelings of the heart become more impassioned, more vehement, more urgent. The inhabitants, so to speak, of the world of ‘spirits seem to become present to our spirits; the words of common intercourse seem unequal to convey the thoughts which are labouring to express themselves. As in poetry, so in sorrow, and for a similar reason, our ordinary forms of speech are changed. So it was in the two exceptions which occur in the New Testament. When Stephen was in the midst of his enemies, and no help for him left on earth, then “the heavens were opened; and he saw the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,” and thus seeing Him, he addressed his petition straight to Him—“ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,—Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” When St. Paul was deeply oppressed by the thorn in the flesh, then again his Lord ap- peared to him (we know not how), and then to Him, present to the eye whether of the body or the spirit (as on the road to Damascus), the Apostle addressed the threefold supplication, “Let this depart from me,” and the answer, in like manner, to the ear of the body or spirit, was direct—“ My grace is suffi- cient for thee.” So is it in the Litany. Those who wrote it, and we who use it, stand for the moment in the place of Stephen and Paul. We knock, as it were, more earnestly at the gates of heaven—we “thrice beseech the Lord ”—and the veil is for a moment withdrawn, and the Son of Man is there standing to receive our prayer. In that rude time, when the Litany was first introduced, they who used it would fain have drawn back the veil further still. It was in the Litanies of the Middle Ages that we first find the invocations not only of Christ our in the English Litany. But perhaps the most natural interpretation is to
regard the whole as addressed to Christ.” Note by Dean Stanley in ‘Good Words.’
538 Note G. The Worship of Fesus Christ
Saviour, but of those earthly saints who have departed with Him into that other world. These we have now, with a wise caution, ceased to address. But the feeling which induced men to call upon them is the same in kind as that which runs through this exceptional service; namely, the endeavour, under the pressure of strong emotion and heavy calamity, to bring ourselves more nearly into the presence of the Invisible. Christ apd the saints at such times seemed to come out like stars, which in the daylight cannot be seen, but in the darkness of the night were visible. The saints, like falling stars or passing meteors, have again receded into the darkness. We by increased reflection have been brought to feel that of them and of their state we know not enough to justify this invocation of their help. But Christ, the Lord and King of the Saints, still re- mains—the Bright and Morning Star, more visible than all the rest, more bright and more cheering, as the darkness of the night becomes deeper, as the cold becomes more and more chill.
‘We justly acquiesce in the practice of our Reformed Church, which has excluded those lesser mediators. But this one remarkable exception of the Litany in favour of addressing our prayers to the one great Divine Mediator may be surely allowed, if we remember that it is an exception, and understand the grounds on which it is made. In the rest of the Prayer Book we follow the ancient rule, and our Saviour’s express command, by addressing our Father only. Here in the Litany, when we express our most urgent needs, we may well deviate from that general rule, and invite the ever-present aid of Jesus Christ, at once the Son of Man and Son of God¢,’
1. Now, first of all, it cannot be admitted that any ‘defence’ or ‘explanation’ of the worship of our Lord in the Litany ought to be required by any person who sincerely believes in Christ’s Godhead ; while as to those who do not believe in it, the Dean’s explanation does not touch the real point of their objec- tion. If ‘many excellent persons have at times felt a scruple at such a deviation from the precepts of Scripture and from the practice of ancient Christendom,’ they ought to have been told that their scruple was based on a misapprehension. As to Scripture, every precept in the Gospel on the subject is in har- mony with and governed by the primal law: ‘Thou shalt wor- ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’ This precept is at once positive and negative: it prescribes the
© ‘Good Words,’ p. 432.
itis taal sk alls Ais es a
in the Services of the Church of England. 539
adoration of God, and it excludes the adoration of beings ex- ternal to the Godhead. The one practical question then is whether Jesus Christ is internal to the Divine Essence, or a created being outside It. Ifthe former, then not merely may we adore Him: we must. If the latter, then no poetry, no feeling, can relax the rule: we dare not. If Christ is God, the Litany does not require an apology. If He is only a creature, it does not admit of one.
And as concerns ‘the practice of the ancient Church’ the scruple in question is very unnecessary. Certainly, in the greatest public act of Christian worship, the Eucharist, the rule was, as defined at Carthage, to address prayer to the Father. This rule however resulted from the specific belief of the ancient Church respecting the Eucharist, namely, that it was a sacrificial presentation of Christ, once for all sacrificed on Calvary, to the Eternal Father. The rule did not govern ancient Christian practice in respect of non-Eucharistic prayer. The Litanies of the fifth century did but repeat and expand devotions which had long been ancient and popular; such as were the Kyrie Eleison and the Gloria in Excelsis ;—both of them containing prayers to Christ our Lord, and both ultimately finding their way into the Eucharistic Service. Prayer to our Lord had long been the natural resource of the Christian soul. Not to repeat examples which have been cited in the text of these lectures, let two be instanced which shew that prayer to Christ did not first become popular in the ancient Church, when, under the pressure of public calamities, Bishop Mamertus instituted Litanies in the diocese of Vienne. Such prayer was already the common and ancient practice of Christendom. A century earlier St. Athan- asius is vindicating his loyalty to Constantius: ‘I had only to say,’ he observes, ‘Let us pray for the safety of the most religious Emperor, Constantius Augustus; and all the people immediately cried with one voice, “O Christ, send Thy help to Constantius.” And they continued praying for some time.’ (Apol. ad Constant. ὃ 10.) Again, St. Augustine is describing a spontaneous burst of fervid prayer from the Christian multitude —They exclaimed, ‘Exaudi Christe, Augustino vita:’ and he adds—‘ dictum est sexties decies.’ (Ep. 213.) These great fathers would no more have thought that prayer to our Lord had to be justified before well-informed Christians, than they would have hoped to justify it, let us say, to intelligent but unconverted Jews.
2. Dean Stanley’s ‘explanation’ of the worship of our Lord
540 Note G. The Worship of Fesus Christ
in the Litany refers it to ‘difficulties and distresses like those which caused the French Christians in the fifth century to utter their piteous supplications to God.’ He traces it back to the passion, the vehemence, the urgency of a great sorrow; to ‘the eudeavour, under the pressure of strong emotion and heavy calamity, to bring ourselves more nearly into the presence of the Invisible. Now there is no doubt that calamities, whether public or private, do very greatly enlarge and intensify the life of prayer in Christian souls. Scripture teaches us, in various ways, that this is one of the providentially-intended results of such calamities; and upon no point is Scripture more in har- mony with experience. But sorrow, of itself, does not make the prayers which it multiplies or intensifies either lawful or availing. Sorrow may quicken the instincts of superstition not less than those of revealed truth. Sorrow, as such, is not a revelation; it does not ensure progress in truth; it may bring a Christian more sensibly into God’s Presence; it may throw pagan multitudes at the feet of a debasing and odious idol. Whether the practices which it leads us, in our agony, to adopt, are wholesome and defensible, must be determined independently of it. Ifa practice is indefensible, on grounds of faith or grounds of reason, sorrow cannot consecrate it. If it was in any sense or degree wrong to pray to Jesus Christ, St. Stephen’s dying agony, and St. Paul’s mental dis- tress under the thorn in the flesh, could not justify their prayers to Him; if they were right in praying to Him then, they were right in praying to Him, as we know St. Paul did pray to Him, at other times. If the prayers to our Lord in the Litany were really a ‘deviation from the precepts of Scrip- ture and from the practice of ancient Christendom,’ then neither the difficulties and distresses of Southern France in the fifth century, nor the ‘extremity of perplexity? which men felt at the convulsions of the Reformation-period, nor any public or private sorrows or emotions of modern times, can avail to justify such a ‘deviation.’ It is indeed natural for Christians in times of sorrow to appeal in prayer to our Lord’s Human sympathies, more earnestly than in the brighter hours of life. But assuredly if such prayers to Christ are wrong, no amount of mental agony can make them right; and whether they are right or wrong is a point to be determined by Christ’s having or not having any solid right to receive human adoration, and any real capacity of
4 «Good Words,’ p. 421.
3 Bias.
in the Services of the Church of England. 541
hearing and answering the cries of His worshippers. If this right and this capacity are once established, the duty of ador- ing Jesus Christ is placed on a basis which does not admit of our restricting it to times of sorrow. If they are not established, human sorrow cannot really affect the unseen realities, and St. Stephen and St. Paul did but beat the air.
If the Psalter teaches us any one great lesson with respect to sorrow, it is that we should be driven by it to renounce all merely human aids and hopes, and to cling more trustfully, exclusively, perseveringly, to God as the true help and shield and strength of souls. And the Christian Bishop of the fifth century was not, we may be sure, unmindful of the teaching of David, or rather he was not notoriously false to it. The whole Church of his day, as the Church before him, adored Jesus Christ as Very God, and the Litanies of Vienne only elaborated into a new form a devotion which was based not on the panic of certain rural Christians, but on the broad and assured faith of Christendom.
3. But the Dean’s expressions respecting the relation of the adoration of our Lord to the cultus of the saints in pre- Reformation times, present the most serious difficulties of this perplexing passage. In times of sorrow, he says, ‘Christ and the saints seemed to come out like stars, which in the daylight cannot be seen, but in the darkness of the night were visible.’ The saints ‘have again receded into the darkness.’ ‘We by increased reflection have been brought to feel that of them and of their state we know not enough to justify this invocation of their help. But Christ, the Lord and King of the Saints, still remains’....‘ We justly acquiesce in the practice of our re- formed Church, which has excluded these lesser mediators. But this one remarkable exception of the Litany in favour of addressing our prayers to the one great Divine Mediator may be surely allowed, if we remember that it is an exception, and understand the grounds on which it is made.’
This language seems to imply that the prayers to our Lord in the Litany are, in principle, identical with the prayers which in medieval times have been, and in Roman Catholic countries still are, addressed to the saints. There is indeed some confu- sion in speaking of the retention of prayer to the one great Divine Mediator as constituting a ‘remarkable exception’ to the proscription of prayers to the saints. For if the Great Mediator is ‘Divine,’ in the natural sense of being personally God, and not only in the sense in which good men are said to be ‘divine,’
542 NoteG. The Worship of Fesus Christ.
as possessing in a high, the highest known degree, some moral qualities of God; then the word ‘exception’ is inapplicable to the case before us. If, on the contrary, Christ is not truly God, then, no doubt, the retention of worship addressed to Him is a ‘remarkable exception’ to the expulsion of all other ‘ worship’ of the kind from the Prayer-book of the English Church. But it will hardly be contended that the English Reformers retained the old prayers to Christ our Lord, and added new ones of their own, on such a ground as this. Had they done so, they would have been false to a principle to which they professed a devoted loyalty, and by means of which, so to speak, they made their way;—the principle of restricting all prayer to God. They notoriously believed the adoration of Christ to be identical with, inseparable from, the adoration of God; to be guarded, justified, enforced by the first two commandments of the deca- logue, just as truly as is the ador:tion of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost, ‘Who with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped and glorifiedi’ And, whatever may be said of the language used in popular Roman Catholic devotions to the saints, it is certain that no Roman Catholic divine would for one instant coordinate in word or thought the adoration paid to Jesus, with the ‘relative honour’ paid to His glorified servants. In short, neither Roman Catholic nor Reformer re- garded the adoration of Christ retained in our Prayer-book, as an ‘exception’ to the general proscription at the Reformation of the cultus of the saints. Had the Reformers done so, they would have had to reconstruct, not the Litany, but the Nicene Creed; they must also have re-written the second Article in a Socinian sense, and altered a clause of the twenty-second. Had the Roman Catholics done so, they would certainly have availed themselves of a vantage ground which would have en- abled them to deal with the Reformation as with a manifest revolt against the most fundamental truths of the Christian revela- tion. Whether the Roman invocations of the saints did or did not in any way wrong the Divine Prerogatives, was a point upon which the Reformers and their opponents differed seriously; but they were perfectly agreed in justifying such language as that of our Litany by referring it to a truth which they held at least with equal earnestness;—the truth that Jesus Christ is God.
If, in Origen’s phrase, ‘caro Domini honorem Deitatis asgu-
© Nicene Creed.
ΠΥ ΝΡ ee oe
PAPE Gee on eee he
oe Te ee
ne Ta TG at iy aaa ha 2 sy
oe
Note 47. Ἵ Cardinal de Turrecremata’s work. 543
mit ;’ if, as a consequence of the Hypostatic Union, our Lord’s Manhood rightly and necessarily shares in the adoration offered to Deity, this is because His Divine Person is ultimately and in reality, the object adored. ‘O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us miserable sinners. ‘O Lamb of God, That takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. In either case it is Christ’s Eternal Person which claims our adoration; that Person, with Which His Manhood is now for ever joined, as an attribute of It. And Christ’s Person is adored, for precisely the same reason as that which leads us to adore the Father; nor could such adoration be offered to any created personality whatever, without repudiating altogether the first, the most sacred, prerogative of Deity.
NOTE H, on Lecture VII.
Cardinal de Turrecremata’s work on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin.
The only copy of this work which I have seen is in the Mazarine Library at Paris, where it is numbered 12144. Its full title is, ‘Zractatus de Veritate Conceptionis Beatissime Virginis, pro facienda relatione coram patribus Concilit Ba- sileensis, Anno Dni. M.CCCC.XXX.VII. Mense Julio. De mandato Sedis Apostolice Legatorum, eidem sacro Concilio presidentium compilatus. Per Reverendum Pairem, Fratrem Joannem de Turrecremata, sacre Theologie professorem, ordinis Predicatorum, tune sacri apostolict Palatii Magistrum, Posted Lilustrissimum et Reverendissinum δ΄. R. Ecelesie Cardinalem Episcopum Portuensem, nunc primo impressus. Rome apud Antonium Bladum Asulanum, M.D XLIVII?
The book opens with a Preface by ‘Mrater Albertus Duimius de Catharo, ordinis predicatorum, Sacre Theologie professor: et in Sapientid urbis Rome, divine speculationis interpyes,’ addressed ‘sincere veritatis amatoribus. After reviewing, chiefly in the language of Scripture itself, the grounds, nature, and obligations of the Christian faith, he proceeds :—‘ Est autem pre ceteris a sacris literis admodum aliena et Christi evangelio dissona humana queedam inventio, nostro infelici evo ita errata, ut posthabitis sacre scripture clarissimis testimoniis, spretis etiam ecclesie sanctorumque patrum veterumque ecclesie doc- torum salutaribus monitis et doctrinis, cujusdam vane devo- tionis praetextu, sanctissimam Dei genetricem virginem, celi
544 Note H. Cardinal de Turrecremata’s work
——
reginam, angelorum atque hominum dominam, propriis quibus- dam adinventis laudibus celebrare cupiens, eam non fuisse Adz peccato obnoxiam, ac perinde Christi sanguinis pretio non indiguisse, ineptiis dogmatizare presumpserit, ut hinc liceret aliquibus (qui sacris abuti consuevére) liberits vorare domos viduarum, seducereque corda simplicium longa oratione oranti- bus, existimantibusque questum esse pietatem. Quorum audacia divus Bernardus abbas, beate virgini super omnes devotissimus, acriis reprehendit dicens: Miramur satis quod visum fuerit hoc tempore quibusdam voluisse mutare colorem ecclesiz op- timum, novam inducendo celebritatem, quam ritus ecclesie nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio. Numquid patribus doctiores aut devotiores sumus? Periculosé presumimus quicquid ipsorum prudentia preterivit. Virgo regia falso non eget honore veris honorum titulis cumulata, et infulis dignitatum. Non enim indiget Deus nostro mendacio. Hanc autem fore sanctorum patrum et ecclesie luminarium doctrinam, quam Augustinus innumeraque antiquorum multi- tudo predicavit, quamque posteriores sancti doctrina et moribus probatissimi amplexati sunt, quam Thomas Aquinas sustinet, Divusque Bonaventura Minoritani ordinis, 8. R. E. Episcopus Cardinalis, fortissimé tueatur, luce clarius patere poterit, opus hoc Christiana mente legentibus. Horum autem sequacium tetigit Deus corda, ut veluti fortissimi milites Christi, sacram Scripturam in sui simplicitate et candore tuerentur et con- servarent. Inter alios autem, qui ex sacro Predicatorum ordine (patrum imitati vestigia), huic se militiee devoverunt, Reverend- issimus olim sacri Apostolici Palatii Magister, ac postea (sic exigentibus virtutum meritis) 5. R. E. Cardinalis Episcopus Portuensis, D. Joaiies de Turrecremata Hispanus, jussu et man- dato sedis apostolice, presenti relatione scripta disseruit. Opus quidem ita sincerum et christiane pietati conveniens, ut nus- quam, vel humane inventionis tenebre, vel proprie opinionis affectus appareant, sed undique evangelice veritatis candor splendere videatur. Opus inquam, summé necessarium sed hactenus rarissimum, et id quidem scriptorum inscitia in- numeris mendis respersum foedatumque, neglectu penitus habe- batur. Quietior namque erat omnium nostrum mens et animus, et hujusmodi questionibus oblitis, necessariora fidei dogmata tueri animo insederat, et temporum opportunitas exigebat. Sed immoderatior quorundam audacia, dum apud doctos et veré Theologos minoris se existimationis advertunt, vulgarem de- biliumque mentium auram jamdiu sepultis novitatibus af-
on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin. 545
fectantes, in Tridentina synodo, de hujusmodi humani conceptiis immunitate verbum facere verita non est. Quo factum est ut Reverendus pater frater Bartholomeus Spina Pisanus ordinis predicatorum, sacree Theologize professor, et sacri apostolici Palatii magister, zelo fidei accensus, opus hoc erroribus ex- purgari, typisque excussum, in publicum prodire, magno labore curaret. Accessit, (Deo favente) sanctissimi Ὁ, N. D. Pauli Pape Tertii consensus et favor.’
For these reasons, and under these auspices, the work was printed at Rome in 1547. Towards the conclusion of his pre- face, the editor contrasts the theological aim and spirit of Tur- recremata with that of his opponents in such terms as these :—
‘Non enim alio tendit ἰδία disparitas, quam ut hine sacre scripture germana veritas, et ecclesiz sanctorumque patrum et doctorum adprobata doctrina, laudatissima pietas, et vera re- ligio, illine autem quedam vulgarium affectata devotio, sacris literis et doctoribus non admodum consona, quinimo (ut qui- busdam visum est,) repugnans, et ab aliqua ecclesie con- suetudine aliena, defendatur. Hine Christi universalis re- demptio, et super alios omnes Sacre Humanitatis Ejus excellentie prerogative, illinc equalitas virginis sacratissime et pie Dei genetricis, ad Filium Dei Hominem Deum, et ἃ reatu inimicitie Dei, et naturali captivitate peccati immunitas, pro pietate de- fenduntur. 11115, quod vulgaribus, quodque muliercularum auri- bus gratum judicaverint pietatem adstruentibus; nobis e contra nil pium, nil devotum, nilque Christiana celebritate dignum existimantibus, quod non ex sacris literis auctoritatem habere comprobatur.’
The work itself is divided into thirteen parts. The first deals with the principles which are to govern the discus- sion. In the second, are considered those passages of the Old and New Testament which, as interpreted by the Gloss and by the explanations of the saints, assert that Christ alone was free in His Conception from the taint of original sin. In the third part, Holy Scripture and the Fathers are quoted to shew that all human beings without exception who descend from Adam by way of natural propagation, are conceived in original sin. The fourth part is devoted to a consideration of the attempts of opponents to set aside the inferences drawn from Rom. iii. 22, v.12; Gal. iii. 22; St. Matt. ix. 13; St. Luke xix. 10; 1 Tim. i. 15, ii. 53 2 Cor. v.14. In the fifth part, Scripture, saints, and doctors, are cited to prove that ‘the Blessed Virgin Mary
did in fact contract original sin.’ δῦ, Luke i. 47 is interpreted ND
546 Nole H. Cardinal de Turrecremata’s work.
as implying this. The subject is pursued in the sixth part; passages from St. Leo the Great, St. John of Damascus, St. Gregory, St. Anselm, Hugh of St. Victor, and especially St. Ber- nard’s Letter to the Canons of Lyons, and the deliberate deci- sion in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose doctrine had been endorsed by the University of Paris, are passed in review. Lest opposition to the doctrine should be supposed to be only a Dominican peculiarity, an appeal is made to Minorite, Augus- tinian, Carmelite, Carthusian, and Cistercian theologians. In the seventh part, the weight of ancient authority is pressed against the opinion of the ‘ modern doctors’; the conduct of the Dominican theologians is justified in detail; and the truth of their doctrine is argued, from an examination of the prerogative glories of our Lord, especially in His Conception, and from the real limits of the ‘ privileges’ commonly ascribed to the Blessed Virgin. The eighth part is an argument from the universality of our Lord’s redemption to man’s universal need of it; ‘ omnis redemptus per Christum fuit aliquando peccati servitute cap- tivus:’ while, in the ninth, our Lord’s titles of Mediator, Reconciler, Healer, Justifier, Sanctifier, Cleanser, Shepherd, and Priest of His people are successively expanded in their relation to the doctrine of the absolute universality of human sin. In the tenth, the author attacks the arguments and authorities which were cited to prove the ἃ priori position, that God ought to have preserved the Blessed Virgin from original sin; here too he criticises the Scotist theory of the reason for the Incar- nation. In the eleventh he assails in detail the arguments which were adduced to prove that the Blessed Virgin was in point of fact preserved from the taint of original sin; in the twelfth, those which were brought forward to shew that she was thus preserved by a prevenient grace of sanctification. The last part of the work recapitulates the disputed propositions ; discusses the opinion that ‘ pejus sit stare per unum instans in originali peccato quam eternaliter esse damnatum ;’ meets the allegation of miracles wrought to prove the Immaculate Concep- tion by alleging miracles wrought to disprove it; examines the bearing of the established festival of the Conception on the faith of the Church; and finally insists that between those who asserted and those who denied the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin there were not less than twenty points of difference.
At the end of the book, Turrecremata subjoins a personal explanation. He states that on presenting himself at Basle,
: a λιτὰ ps ne SOS ch ear ae ΟΝ
on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin. 547
with a view ‘ad faciendam relationem mihi injunctam,’ he was told by the Cardinal Legate who presided, that the Fathers were 80 occupied with the questions raised by the arrival of the Greeks, that he could not be heard. He remained at Basle for some months, but to no purpose. Upon the outbreak of the disagreement between the Legates of Eugenius and ‘ patres aliquos Basilee residentes, Turrecremata returned to Rome with his book. He adds with reference to the later proceedings of the Council in the matter of the Immaculate Conception : ‘Ex his apertissimé intelliget quisque doctus quod vacua et invalida sit determinatio quam in materia prefataé conceptionis beatissime virginis factam quidam aiunt post recessum meum Basilea. Invalida quidem est veritate, cum facta sit manifesté contra apeitissima sanctorum patrum ecclesiz testimonia, ac contra doctrinam expressam principalium doctorum tam divini juris quam humani, sicut ex prefato opere luce clarids videri potest.’ A further reason for this invalidity he finds in the previous departure of the papal legates and the proclamation of the transference of the Council to Bologna.
Such a work as Turrecremata’s has only to be described, and it speaks for itself. Here is an elaborate treatise of between yoo and 800 closely-printed pages; abounding in appeals to authority, the most ancient and the most modern; full of hard, scholastic argument; scarcely less full, at times, of passionate rhetoric. It shrinks from no encounter with the maintainers of the doctrine which it impugns; it traverses, with fearless con- fidence, and according to the learning and methods of its day, with exhaustive completeness, the whole field of the controversy. Whether it has been really answered or not by the arguments of Bellerini, of Perrone, of Passaglia, is not here the question. Enough to say that in the year of our Lord 1437, it represented the mind of the reigning Pope, the mind too of the Theologian who in his ‘ Apology for Eugenius IV.’ most stoutly maintained the extreme papal claims against the superiority of a General Council, as asserted at Basle. Turrecremata had no tinge of what afterwards became ‘ Gallicanism’; he was a hearty Ultra- montane, and in the confidence of the Pontiff. He, if any one, could speak on behalf of the Western Church, of its learning, of its piety, of its central authority, in the middle of the fifteenth century. And his work against the Immaculate Conception is perhaps the most remarkable of the many documents, which make any real parallel between the claims of the truth asserted at
Nicza, and those of the definition of Dec. 8, 1854, impossible. Nu 2
548 Note H, Cardinal de Turrecremata’s work
A high Roman Catholic authority has said that ‘they who ask why the Immaculate Conception has been defined in the nineteenth century, would have asked why the “ homoousion ” was defined in the fourth£.’ If they had done s0, they would have received in the fourth century an answer for which in the nineteenth they must wait in vain. In the fourth century they would have been told that the substantial truth defined at Nicaea had always been believed as a fundamental truth of the Gospel ; that those who had denied it had been accounted heretics, from the days of the Apostles downwards; that Arius was accounted a heretic, on first broaching his novel doctrine; that the cir- cumstances of the time demanded for the old unchanging truth the protection of a new definition ; but that the definition added, could add, nothing to the faith which had been held in its fulness from the first—the faith that Jesus Christ is God. In the nineteenth century they are told that the definition of the Immaculate Conception had the effect of raising to a certainty of faith that which was, before Dec. 8, 1854, only a matter of pious opinion; that those who, before that date, had denied this opinion were so far from being accounted heretics, that they were expressly protected from censure by the highest authority; that although the newly-defined truth had been taught to the Church by the Apostles themselves and had all along been latent in her mind, yet that her most representative divines and doctors had again and again, with perfect impunity, nay with the highest sanctions, expressly repudiated and condemned it.
It will be said that the same authority speaks at Rome which spoke at Nicea. Upon that most important question we do not here and now enter. But with a book like Turrecremata’s before us, we cannot decline the conclusion that in A.D. 325 and 1854 two entirely different things were done; unless it can be shewn that some hitherto unknown writer of the highest consideration and of unsuspected orthodoxy in the ante-Nicene period maintained against others who defended the Homoousion, and by an appeal to a vast accumulation of authorities, the precise doctrine for which Arius was condemned. That would be a real counterpart to the position of Cardinal Turrecremata in relation to the recent definition of the Immaculate Conception : as it is, the doctrinal and historical ‘parallel’ upon which some Roman Catholics and many opponents of the Christian Revelation now lay so much stress, is not sufficiently accurate
‘ The Reunion of Christendom, a Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, by Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London, Longmans, 1866, p. §1.
A oe ee
Note 7. On Two Criticisms of this Work. 549
to justify either of the opposite conclusions which it is put forward in order to recommend.
NOTE I. On Two Criticisms or THis Work. [1881.]
After this work had been revised for the second and stereo- typed edition, two notices of it, among others, appeared, under the following titles: —dAn Haamination of Canon Liddon’s Bampton Lectures on the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by a Clergyman of the Church of England. (London, Triibner); and Zhe Bible and Popular Theology: a Restatement of T'ruths and Principles, with special reference to recent works of Dr. Liddon, Lord Hatherley, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, and others; by G. Vance Smith, B.A., Ph. D., Minister of St. Saviourgate Chapel, York. (London, Longmans.)
At the time when these publications came into his hands the Lecturer had made up his mind that his book had taken its final form ; and that, if he was to deal with the great subject discussed in it again, this must be done in another work, and on a more comprehensive scale. It is unnecessary to enter on the reasons which have made such a project less and less easy of accom- plishment. Suffice it to say, that, another edition of the Bampton Lectures having been asked for, the Lecturer thinks it better no longer to defer a reconsideration of his work, in the light of these and one or two other criticisms which he has had the advantage of consulting.
While the Bampton Lecturer is under an obligation to both his critics in some matters of detail, he is unable to follow them at all generally, and for a reason which makes a full examina- tion of their criticisms superfluous. He and they disagree, not merely or chiefly in questions of detail, but as to first prin- ciples. The province of discussion is to shew either that persons who differ ought to agree, or that they cannot hope to agree. They ought to agree, if, while both parties appeal to the same premises, the true force of these premises is, for whatever reason, not apparent to one of the parties; the duty of discussion being to remove obscurities, and so to make agreement logically imperative. But they cannot agree if they are really appealing to different first principles; when this is the case, discussion can only make the inevitable disagreement conscious and pro-
550 Note 7. On Two Criticisms of this Work.
nounced, by clearing away intercepting matter which obscures the true force of the contradiction.
Now our Lord’s Divinity is a truth which we must learn from Revelation, if we are to learn it at all. Nature, measured by ex- perience, and interpreted by conscience and reason, has nothing to say to it. The first question then is, whether a Revelation has been really given, and the second where it is to be found. And if it is agreed that God has really spoken in the Jewish and Christian Revelations, and that the Bible tells us what He has said, a further question arises as to the trustworthiness of the record. Unless this trustworthiness is also recognized, it is impossible to discuss the contents of the Revelation with any hope of arriving at solid results. For any statement con- taining matter which is, for whatever reason, unwelcome to either party, may be at once challenged on @ priori grounds, and rejected ; and disputants may thus find themselves as little in possession of a common premise, as if they had not agreed that a Revelation from God had been made, or recorded at all.
This then is the issue, as between the Lecturer and his present critics. He does, and they do not, believe in the trustworthi- ness of the Bible. They believe, no doubt, in the trustworthiness of certain parts of it,—such parts of it as are in agreement with opinions which, for independent reasons, they accept. But they do not treat the Bible as a trustworthy whole; they accept or reject its statements at pleasure, or for reasons which appear to them to be sufficient; and, as a consequence, it is not enough for them if a doctrine is contained in the Bible, unless it be con- tained in those parts of the Bible which they think it right to accept.
The two writers under consideration are indeed unlike each other in more respects than one. The ‘Clergyman of the Church of England’ appears to be the better scholar; Dr. Vance Smith the more reverent and philosophical mind. Dr. Vance Smith shews his hand, and is intent upon vindicating such portions of truth as he accepts. The ‘Clergyman’s’ attitude is throughout critical ; he tells us what he considers to be the real teaching of the New Testament about our Lord’s Person, but he does not say that he believes it. Dr. Vance Smith however welcomes ‘ him as on the whole a useful ally ; he describes the ‘ Examination etc.’ as ‘a careful and effective reply to all the principal por- tions of Dr. Liddon’s Lectures, and, so far as may be judged from a cursory perusal of parts, one of the most powerful modern treatises on the Unitarian side of this controversy.’
Note I, On Two Criticisms of this Work. 551
He adds, ‘The marvel attending it is, that the author should announce himself, on his title-page, as a “Clergyman of si Church of England ®.”’