The Edinburgh Review JANUARY, 1928 No. 503 DR. BARNES AND THE ANGLO-CATHOLICS 1. Should Such a Faith Offend? By the BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM. Hodder & Stoughton. 1927. 2. The Eucharistic Sacrifice. By Dr. DARWELL STONE. Robert Scott. 3. The Church in the World. By Dr. INGE. Longmans, Green. 1927. 4. The Way of Modernism. By Professor BETHUNE-BAKER. Cambridge University Press. 1927. THE Catholic revival in the Church of England may be traced back to the Tractarians, who, judged by modern standards, were men of great moderation. Keble never wore vestments, or adopted advanced ritual usages; Pusey deprecated the use of vestments, as tending to clerical vanity; Newman, to the end of his career as an Anglican, consecrated at the north end of the ⚫ altar. During a period of some fifty years, that is to say before the close of the century, considerable developments had taken place. Soon after coming to London from Peterborough in 1897, Bishop Creighton observed the prevalence of certain deviations from the services prescribed in the Prayer Book. He wrote: Some of these introduce doctrines not contained in the Prayer Book, e.g., Benediction, Rosary of the Virgin, Litany of the Saints, Services for the Dead, which incorporate the Romish view of Purgatory. In the course of a letter to his clergy he wrote : There must be no confusion in the minds of the people as to the standard of worship in the Church of England, and there must be no opportunity for personal eccentricities to invade the system of the Church. No seeming advantage to the methods of teaching pursued by an individual teacher, as suited to a particular congregation, can All rights reserved. VOL. 247. NO. 503. A compensate for the harm which is done to ecclesiastical order by an infringement of these principles.* Since this period thirty years more have elapsed, and yet further developments must be registered. In June, 1924, a Declaration of Faith was presented by some three thousand Anglican clergymen, including Bishop Gore, to the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, which contained the following statements : That the signatories affirm that they hold it to be the genuine doctrine of the Anglican Church that they have received Apostolic Orders through their Bishops with the purpose that we should offer the unbloody sacrifice of the Eucharist for both the living and the departed. We hold that by consecration the bread and wine are changed and become the true Body and Blood of Christ, and we hold that Christ, thus present, is to be adored.t When presenting the Declaration, the signatories admitted that amongst us there are other voices," but declared their belief "that this document represents the historic witness of our communion both for the past and for the present." Of this teaching, Fr. Woodlock, S.J., asserts that it "does represent the PreReformation belief in England. It also represents the belief of the Catholic Church to-day. But to call it the historic witness of the Anglican Communion during the last 375 years, or to say that it is the expression of the official Anglican faith to-day, is to state what is simply not a fact." Dr. Darwell Stone, an Anglo-Catholic theologian, who undoubtedly knows more about the history of the Eucharist than any other Anglican, tells us that : The Holy Ghost acts by His Divine Power and transforms the earthly elements (the bread and wine) into the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Eucharistic Sacrifice we plead before the Father the Body and Blood of Christ, His human life made present in our midst on the altar by the Consecration. . . . We offer Him in Sacrifice to the Father. Both for the Sacrifice to the Father and for the gift to Christians there is need of the truth that at the Consecration the bread and wine are made the Body and Blood of Christ. *"Life," Vol. II, p. 298. †These words are cited from Fr. Woodlock's "The Reformation and the Eucharist," p. 42. The words in italics are the actual words of the signatories. "The Eucharistic Sacrifice," p. 29. Quoted by Woodlock. |