Anglican Church of the United States

“ It is clear to those who have eyes to see such things that God is bestowing special graces upon the English people in our day, and that the hope is not without solid foundation which looks forward to the time when England shall again take rank among the Catholic nations.
The evidences of a movement towards the Catholic Church are still clearer and more general in the United States. There is less prejudice and hostility against the church in the United States than in England, and hence her progress is much greater. ”

“ Who can undertake to say how far religion now influences the inner life of the American people? Outwardly life in the United States, in the Eastern States at least, is still religious. Churches are well maintained, congregations are full, offertories are liberal. It is still respectable to be a church-goer. Anglicanism, partly from its connection with the English hierarchy, is fashionable among the wealthy in cities. We note, however, that in all pulpits there is a tendency to glide from the spiritual into the social, if not into the material ”

“ These texts were dictated to inspired writers by the Spirit of God, and it would only be a fragmentary Christianity made out of the fragments of the truths; it would simply be a religion of human institution, and no truth which comes from man can be the matter of our faith."
But some Protestants; for instance, the Anglicans, think that they approach very near to the Catholic Church: They will tell you that their prayers and ceremonies are like many prayers and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, that their creed is the Apostles' Creed. But, in principle, they are very far off. ”

“ This doctrine has been made of faith in the Roman communion, but has not yet ecumenical acceptance, and therefore may be doubted without sin by members of the Greek or Anglican Churches. What we need to avoid, as the Lambeth Conference has reminded us, is a purely insular and provincial attitude in relation to doctrines which have not been formally set forth by Anglican authority. The Anglican Church has tried its best to impress upon us that there is no such thing as an Anglican Religion; there is but one Religion--the Religion of God's Catholic Church. ”

“ The Protestant Episcopal Churches of England and the United States pay no attention whatever to any claim of jurisdiction by the Catholic Church in any part of the world, but seek to thrust themselves in and make converts wherever they can. In order to justify this attitude, and at the same time to profess Catholic principles, it is necessary to maintain that the entire Roman communion is schismatical and heretical, and the Protestant Episcopal Church is the true and only Catholic Church, at least in Western Christendom. ”

“ In the United States, particularly, the Catholic episcopate has been very active in providing for the most fundamental spiritual needs of their flocks—churches for religious services, priests for the administration of sacraments, schools for the preservation of the revealed Christian faith, orphanages for the little waifs and castaways of society. Whether short or long, the periods of government of these Church rulers have never been idle nor marked by self-indulgence. Almost every one has left some monument of faith as a contribution to the general good of Catholicism. ”

“ It was founded in 1844 in opposition to the Tractarian movement, and embodies the distinctively evangelical elements of the Reformation. It preserves and maintains to the letter all that is Protestant and evangelical in the liturgy and services of the Anglican church, while its free constitution and revised formularies meet the needs of members of that communion who resent sacerdotal and ritualistic tendencies. ”

“ Moreover, High-Church Anglicans are avowedly bent on improving their church; their church is not their guide or their mother, but rather an institution which has so far fulfilled its purpose but imperfectly, and which, by a judicious process of reformation, they hope to assimilate to an ideal existing in their own minds. ”

“ Even to the conscientious Anglican himself, though he regards the members of other bodies as in schism, Christian fellowship with individuals in those other bodies is still possible; and certainly those who reject the Anglican view of the ministry can regard the Anglican Church as a genuine and very noble member in the body of Christ. ”

“ The strength and the weakness of the Anglican Church lie in the fact that it is not the best representative of any well-defined type of Christianity. It is not strictly a Protestant body; for Protestantism is the democracy of religion, and the Church of England retains a hierarchical organisation, with an order of priests who claim a divine commission not conferred upon them by the congregation. ”

“ We recognise fully and cordially rejoice in the progress of belief which the thinkers and writers of the Anglican Church have practically secured, in spite of their bonds. There is no little truth, to our shame be it spoken, in the boast which is often on their lips, that the progress of theology in our generation is due far more largely to the labours of Anglican than of Nonconformist divines. ”

“ The Anglican Church retains only the Biblical symbolism of “the blessing of the hand.” Presbyterians and other Protestant churches have abandoned the use, except the Lutherans. We need not here trace the history of Christian worship, in daily services (Acts ii. 46) , or on the Lord’s Day (Acts xx. 7) , meeting for the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. xi. 17-34) , or for mutual edification in prayer, praise and prophecy (1 Cor. xiv.) . These things represent the ideal of Christendom. In the words of an eminent Roman Catholic scholar, Monsignor Duchesne, “Faith unites, theology often separates.” ”

“ The Anglican theory of an inspired but occasionally corrupt and lying church is just as well supported as the Anglican's faith in the Trinity. What right have the members of the Alliance to decide that this dogma is a matter of faith, and that other is only a matter of opinion? All the contradictory doctrines, they tell us, are found in the Bible. Who has the right to decide which are binding upon the conscience, and which are open to individual choice ”

“ In fact, no one acquainted with the state of this kingdom and the disposition of the people could entertain a different opinion; but, in spite of all, he hoped that, with your majesty's assistance, the great enterprise would be successful. The Presbyterians and other dissenters are still more averse to the Anglican Church than to the Catholic. All that these sectaries want is the free exercise of their own form of worship; and provided they get that—and his majesty purposes to give it them—they will not oppose his change of religion. ”

“ As one who is not guiltless of such attempts, and as one who is becoming accustomed to be charged with novelty in teaching, and disloyalty in practice to that which is undoubtedly and historically Anglican, I have been compelled to ask myself, "What is loyalty to the Anglican Church? Is there, in fact, some peculiar and limited form of Christianity to which I owe allegiance?" I had got accustomed to think of myself as a Catholic Christian whose lot was cast in a certain province of the Catholic Church which was administratively separated from other parts of that Church. ”

“ I believe that Christ is especially anxious to teach us the truth to-day after all these centuries of strife, and I am convinced that so far as the Anglican Church is concerned that there is a wonderful measure of agreement between all her members concerning the doctrine of the Holy Communion when they heed the advice of our great theologian, the judicious Hooker, and "the more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the Sacrament and less to dispute of the manner how." ”

“ Is it not self-evident that the Reformation is responsible for the production of every sect and every error which has sprung up in England in these three hundred years, and of all which cover the face of the land at this day? It is usual to hear Anglicans lament the multiplication of religious error. But what is the productive cause of all? Is it not Anglicanism itself which, by appealing from the voice of the Church throughout the world, has set the example to its own people of appealing from the voice of a local and provincial authority? ”

“ This is the land of sects. An Englishman is a free man, and goes to Heaven by any road he pleases.
But although anybody may serve God after his own fashion, their true religion, the one in which fortunes are made, is the Episcopal sect, called the Anglican Church, or, simply and pre-eminently, the Church. No office can be held in England or Ireland except by faithful Anglicans; a circumstance which has led to the conversion of many Noncomformists.
The Anglican clergy have retained many Catholic ceremonies, 278 above all that of receiving tithes with a most scrupulous attention. ”

“ The bishops therefore, we infer, have just as much power as the people choose to give them, and we see no reason why the congregations should not enlarge and restrict that power at pleasure—make a new constitution, if they wish, every year, and treat their prelates as the savage treats his idol, which he sets upon an altar for worship in the morning, and if things go not well with him, kicks into the kennel at night. Indeed, since the foundation of the Anglican Church the episcopate has always been treated with scant ceremony. ”

“ A very important feature in the revival of the last thirty years is the foundation of religious houses in the Church of England. There are now upwards of thirty Anglican convents, in which women lead a life of seclusion and devote themselves to the practice of works of charity and piety; they are in many cases bound by vows and live in obedience to authority. A few communities of men also exist. These Anglican religious call themselves monks and nuns, and wear a dress unlike that of secular persons. ”

“ The effect of his policy was to narrow the bounds of the church, but within the limits that he assigned it he made the Anglican establishment a stubbornly powerful and homogeneous organisation which proved capable a few years later of maintaining its existence against what seemed to be overwhelming odds. ”

“ And next I cannot deny, what must be ever a very sore point with Anglicans, that, if any Anglican comes to me after careful thought and prayer, and with deliberate purpose, and says, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, and that your Church and yours alone is it, and I demand admittance into it," it would be the greatest of sins in me to reject such a man, as being a distinct contravention of our Lord's maxim, "Freely ye have received, freely give." ”

“ Anglicans having destroyed, as far as their influence extends, the whole authority of the living church, they affect, since they must obey something, to reserve all their obedience for what they call the primitive church. ”

“ The exposition of this intrinsic conformity between revealed and rational principles forms for them a part of the requisite moral demonstration of the credibility of the Christian revelation. Nor is it altogether without reason that they require this. They are obliged to learn a great deal which a High-Church Anglican has already received from his early education. They have the same incapacity of apprehending correctly the most fundamental Catholic verities which the Anglican has of apprehending certain specific dogmas. ”

“ It is not surprising that with so many differing shades of opinion within the bosom of the Anglican Church it should, in the earlier half of the century, have lost its grip upon not only the people at large, but upon many of its higher intellects. ”

“ There remain to be considered the Anglican Establishment—this being the church to which belongs the writer who accuses the Catholic Church of having changed in faith, and deprived her children of their moral and mental freedom—and the newest sect of all, namely, the so-called Old Catholics, owing to the same writer’s admiration of those who figure in its ranks. ”

“ The distinguishing feature of Anglicanism is that it allows the largest amount of personal liberty, both as regards opinion and also as regards the use of Catholic traditions, which is permitted by an ecclesiastical body in the world. The Anglican Church claims and exercises very little authority at all. Each individual Bishop has a considerable discretionary power, and some allow a far wider liberty of action than others. In all cases, divergences of doctrine and practice are dealt with by personal influence, tact, and compromise, and force majeure is invoked as little as possible. ”

“ The clergy naturally are most positive in the assertion that their orders are valid; as the nature and the necessity of jurisdiction are alike unknown to the ordinary Anglican mind, the matter seems pretty clear. The laity in the Anglican body are not in any very definite manner bound by the Prayer-book or by any of the authorized documents of that body; there is nothing anomalous in the idea of Anglican lay people, especially women, going to confession without even asking themselves whether the practice is in accordance with the mind of the communion to which they belong. ”

“ Nor is the Anglican theory about the Catholic Church a more impossible absurdity than what they profess to believe, and apparently do believe, about their own, although they do not state their belief in the bare and unambiguous manner in which we will state it for them. ”

“ All of Christianity which survives in Anglicanism would be perfected by the restoration of the truths which have been lost, and the whole would be fixed and perpetuated by the evidence of divine certainty and the voice of a divine Teacher. No Catholic desires to see the Church of England swept away by an infidel revolution, such as that of 1789 in France. ”