Upon this Father Woodlock comments :—

This is Catholic doctrine, but Dr. Darwell Stone has not learnt it from the Anglican Church formularies or from the great Anglican Divines. It is not found in Anglican theology till comparatively late years. Newman testifies that even the Tractarians of his Anglican days did not believe themselves to offer the kind of Sacrifice described above when they celebrated the Anglican Communion Service.

Thus from quite modest beginnings the Catholic movement in the Church of England has not only developed quantitatively but qualitatively. The movement has not only won the support of a considerable body of influential, enthusiastic, and efficiently organized clergy, but has become indistinguishable from the sacramentalism of the Roman Church. Perhaps the growth has been inevitable.

When Tractarianism went out into the streets and lanes of the city, the necessity of appeals to the eye became obvious, and the inner logic of Catholicism gradually broke down all the barriers which the Tractarians had honestly meant to keep between High Anglicanism and Popery. The Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation could not be preached in an English church, but it could be implied, and imparted more effectually, by symbolism borrowed from the Latin rite. The extreme Romanizing faction, dragging the main body of High Churchmen reluctantly after it, has now established a purely Latin sect within the Church of England.*

As the admirably lucid passage from Dr. Darwell Stone, already quoted, indicates, the Catholic doctrine of the Mass involves two beliefs, closely inter-related. First, that the Body and Blood of Christ are actually present, under the veils of bread and wine, upon the altar. Second, that the priest offers this Body and Blood as a propitiatory offering to God the Father for the sins of the world.

As is well known, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is an explanation, in terms of the scholastic philosophy, as to how the Body and Blood of Christ are actually present upon the altar. The doctrine depends on the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident. Essence or substance is that which makes a thing what it is-its inner reality. Accident or quality is that which inheres in substance, which is its substratum. A substance may remain the same whilst its accidents, or qualities, change.

*Dr. Inge," The Church in the World,” p. 14.

Thus at the Mass the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ: the accidents or qualities (appearance, taste, and so on) remain unchanged. Thus Christ's Body and Blood are really, or "substantially," present, and can be offered by the officiant priest to God.

These twin Catholic doctrines of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass were each made the subject of an Article by those who drew up the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England.

Of the first of the two beliefs the 28th Article speaks as follows:

Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. Of the second of the two beliefs the 31st Article speaks as follows:

The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual: and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.

The attitude of the English Reformers was not however merely negative; for each of the two beliefs which they rejected they substituted a different belief. First, with regard to the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ upon the altar: they nowhere state that any such presence exists. It is true, the Catechism declares that the Body and Blood of Christ "are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper"; but, says the 28th Article, this is "only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." The Reformers in fact recognized as strongly as possible the fact of the presence of Christ in the Communion, but associated that presence with a participation on the part of the faithful in the bread and wine. No presence, apart from communion, is a formula which expresses their view. For example, the Elizabethan divine, Hooker, in discussing the question whether the Body and Blood of Christ are externally seated in the consecrated elements, declared that "the bread and cup are His body and blood, because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation in

His body and blood ensueth." His final conclusion was that "the real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament." Cranmer went so far as to say that as there is no real presence in the water of Baptism, so there is none in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. But he nevertheless held, as Hooker did later, that " although Christ be not corporally in the bread and wine . . . He is effectually present and effectually worketh, not in the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them, to whom He giveth His own Flesh spiritually to feed upon."

With regard to the second Catholic belief, that of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which they rejected vigorously and absolutely, Cranmer calling it" abominable and detestable," they substituted the belief that the faithful, in the Communion, offer themselves to God, as the prayer of Oblation in the Communion Office indicates: "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee. . . . And although we be unworthy through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences."

Thus it is evident that the Reformers definitely and clearly rejected the two Catholic doctrines: (1) of the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ on the altar (apart from any participation by the faithful in the consecrated bread and wine), and (2) of the sacrifice to God of that Body and Blood, i.e., the Sacrifice of the Mass. For these two doctrines they substituted two others, essentially different: (1) the doctrine that the believer by his faith received the Body and Blood of Christ" after an heavenly and spiritual manner," when receiving the elements; and (2) that the faithful offer themselves, their souls and bodies, to God as a reasonable sacrifice.

The foregoing clearly indicates that the Reformers had a pretty definite doctrinal standpoint, as against the Roman Church, and this undoubtedly was the case. Yet, though their convictions were definite, their policy was conciliatory towards all schools of thought, save of the definitely Roman type; it was one of comprehensiveness. The Elizabethan settlement was intended to accommodate as many types of belief as possible within the national Church. Its ideal was one of doctrinal latitude.

This latitude, however, was to be combined with strict liturgical uniformity. Before the Reformation great liturgical variety prevailed in the English Church; but the Reformers substituted national uniformity for diocesan variety.

Henceforth throughout the whole of England all the services were to be exactly the same. Moreover, they were all to be in the English tongue; they were all to be read or said audibly; and a copy of all the services, printed in a single handy volume and sold at a low price by Royal Command, enabled the laity to tell whether they were duly receiving what was provided for them. By this means the Church Services were not only popularized, but the conduct of them was put under the supervision of the laity, who had the right to complain (or present" their clergyman) if this order was not duly observed. Moreover, to ensure national uniformity and check liturgical corruption the bishops were deprived of their old liturgical rights, which were now limited to enforcing the Book of Common Prayer and to interpreting doubtful or conflicting rubrics.*

Thus the policy inspiring the settlement was one of doctrinal latitude and liturgical uniformity. It is owing to this statesmanlike policy, so hateful to doctrinal purists on the one hand, and to liturgical law-breakers on the other, that the Church of England, down to the present day, has contrived to harbour" three religions under one roof."

The fact seems to be that if you can secure liturgical uniformity, doctrinal uniformity tends to follow. But if liturgical uniformity is broken to any serious extent, serious doctrinal differences begin to develop. If, during the nineteenth century, it had been practicable to enforce liturgical uniformity, we should not have witnessed the infiltrations of Roman doctrine, repudiated in the most definite terms by the English Reformers. However, the doctrines are now present, and the liturgical practices logically involved by them constitute a most serious administrative problem. Nor do those who hold these doctrines ask merely for toleration; they claim, as we have seen, to voice the historic witness of the English Church, and denounce in the most unsparing and extravagant terms those who disagree with them. For example, in the singular outburst at St. Paul's Cathedral on October 16th, Dr. Barnes was publicly denounced for "false and heretical teaching," and for having "denied and poured contempt upon

*Dr. Major, in The Modern Churchman for December, 1927, p. 525.

the doctrines and Sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church." And the presence in the Cathedral of a bishop who had been criticizing views repudiated by the Reformers in the strongest terms (and, indeed stigmatized by them in language which our tenderer controversial methods would hardly employ) was characterized as "an indignity to Almighty God and a scandal and offence to the faithful."

The presence of a strongly organized and aggressive party, whose avowed object it is to restore Roman doctrine and cultus to the Church of England, constitutes a grave administrative problem. Extreme Anglo-Catholics claim openly to have the Mass in their churches, and teach beliefs about it which were quite clearly rejected by the Reformers who framed the Prayer Book. Lord Halifax says: "I defy anyone to see any difference between Mass, as said in my parish church at Hickleton (with the acquiescence of ecclesiastical authority), and Mass as one might hear it in any village church in France."*

As is generally known, the bishops for some years past have become weary of a situation which had passed beyond their control. To secure some remedy for the systematic insubordination with which they were faced, a Royal Commission on Church Order was appointed in 1906, which reported in favour of Prayer Book revision. As a consequence a new Prayer Book was prepared, which it was proposed to authorize in addition to the existing Book, and which may be regarded in the light of an administrative measure to restore liturgical discipline in the Church 1 of England. This new Book makes large concessions to the AngloCatholics, but forbids those liturgical practices which are specially dependent for their existence upon Roman doctrines of the Mass. The new rubrics are well-intentioned; but if liturgical disorder was to be eliminated, it was clear that the new Book would have to be firmly administered, even to the extent of depriving liturgical law-breakers of their benefices. Misgivings about the possible disciplinary ineffectiveness of the Book arose from the knowledge that the more extreme of the liturgical law-breakers are such on principle: "they are banded together to introduce Catholic (ie., Roman Catholic) practices and beliefs into the

*In his "Further Considerations on behalf of Reunion," p. 9. Quoted by Woodlock, Op. cit.