John Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe from 1823-1833, represented a distinct Old High-Church form of Anglicanism right before the start of the Oxford Movement. He was arguably a direct forerunner of the movement.1 It is often remarked that the Oxford Movement invented the concept of the via media, the idea that the Church of England paves a middle way between Roman Catholic and Ultra-Protestant extremes. Yet, when looking at a little-known work by Bishop Jebb on the peculiar character of the Church of England, it is clear that the Tractarians were merely continuing his line of thought, and didn’t invent something new. Newman in his tract Via Media. No. I. identifies the via media as a state of moderation that the Church of England took, which distinguishes it from the extremes of the Genevans and the Romanists. This concept may apply to various aspects of the Anglican church, one of the most important being the role of private judgment and authority. William Josiah Irons, an ally of the Oxford Movement, calls the via media the “middle state between individual authority and infallible definitions.”2 This is where Bishop Jebb comes in. Jebb, on the subject of the rule of faith and authority, argues that the middle way, or “middle course,” is found with the rule of St Vincent of Lerins, i.e. the idea that we are to hold on to that which has been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. Jebb argues that the Protestants of the Continent “have not so much as pretended to revere antiquity,” and have, in their strict use of the Bible alone, lost deference to the Church. Although this may not apply to all of the Continental Protestants, particularly in the earlier stages of the Reformation, it seems that by the 19th century, a large contingent had become almost hostile to the authority of the Church. This was certainly the case for the dissenting Protestant groups in England. As for the Church of Rome, Jebb argues that its magisterium supersedes all use of private judgment, and has also removed the possibility of subjecting the supposed consent of the current age to the consent of all previous ages, in contradiction to St Vincent’s rule. It appears that “instead of revering antiquity,” the Church of Rome “has idolized herself.” In response to both of these extremes, Jebb says that “The Church of England, alone, has adopted a middle course… treading in the same hallowed footsteps, with Vincentius, and the Catholic bishops, and the ancient Fathers; proceeding as far as they proceeded, and stopping where they stopped.” This is remarkably similar to what many of the Tractarians argued; in fact, John Henry Overton noted that this work “might really almost have appeared as one of the Tracts for the Times.”3 Unlike many conceptions, the via media isn’t an all-inclusive path that allows many different ideas and forms of Christianity to co-exist, but rather it refers to a “position of isolation,”4 as Arthur West Haddan put it, where two extremes are rejected, and a moderate alternative is followed. The position of isolation in this case is the firm adherence to St Vincent’s rule against the novelties of the Romanists and the Ultra-Protestants.

Below is an excerpt from the last paragraphs of Jebb’s work on the peculiar character of the Church of England, which is appended to his Sermons on Subjects Chiefly Practical (link here).

It now remains, with all possible brevity, to recapitulate the leading topics of this discussion.

The great mass of Protestant communities sends each individual to the Bible alone: thence to collect, as it may happen, truth or falsehood, by his own interpretation, or misinterpretation; and there, to measure the most weighty and mysterious truths, by the least peculiar and appropriate passages of sacred Scripture.

The Church of Rome sends her children neither to the Bible alone, nor to tradition alone, nor yet, to the Bible and tradition conjointly, but to an infallible living expositor: which expositor sometimes limits, and sometimes extends, and sometimes contradicts, both the written word, and the language of Christian antiquity.

The Church of England steers a middle course. She reveres the Scripture: she respects tradition. She encourages investigation: but she checks presumption. She bows to the authority of ages: but she owns no living master upon earth. She rejects, alike, the wild extravagance of unauthorized opinion, and the tame subjection of compulsory belief. Where the Scripture clearly and freely speaks, she receives its dictates, as the voice of God. When Scripture is either not clear or explicit; or when it may demand expansion and illustration, she refers her sons, to an authoritative standard of interpretation; but a standard, which it is their privilege to apply for themselves. And when Scripture is altogether silent, she provides a supplemental guidance: but a guidance, neither fluctuating nor arbitrary; the same in all times, and under all circumstances; which no private interest can warp, and no temporary prejudice can lead astray. Thus, her appeal is made to past ages, against every possible error of the present. Thus, though the great mass of Christendom, and even though the vast majority of our own national church, were to depart from the purity of Christian faith and practice, yet, no well-taught member of that church, needs hesitate or tremble. His path is plain. It is not, merely, his own judgment; it is not, by any means, the dictatorial mandate of an ecclesiastical director, which is to silence his scruples, and dissolve his doubts. His resort is, that concurrent, universal, and undeviating sense of pious antiquity, which he has been instructed, and should be encouraged, to embrace, to follow, and revere.

William Palmer’s Treatise of the Church of Christ was arguably the most extensive and most learned treatise on ecclesiology of the 19th century. It was, as Richard William Church said, “an honour to English theology and learning; in point of plan and structure we have few books like it.”1 It could be said that Palmer was part of a conservative faction of the Oxford Movement, one that was cautious of innovation or “new ideas.” John Henry Overton described this group as “essentially conservative; they did not share the dissatisfaction with the Church as it was, which was so strongly felt by Keble, Newman, and Froude; they only desired to see it freed from what they regarded as the oppression of the State.”2 Palmer’s involvement in the Oxford Movement lessened over time, and he found himself in tension with some of the more extreme figures of the movement, such as Mr. Ward, an editor of the British Critic, who was an explicit Romaniser. Palmer briefly addresses the Eucharist in volume one of his Treatise on the Church of Christ (see here), where he explicates a moderate form of the doctrine of the real objective presence. Edward Pusey wrote that Palmer’s doctrine “so fully expresses my own belief,” with the exception that “in the case ‘of the wicked, who are totally devoid of true and living faith,’ God withdraws the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ.”3 Therefore, regarding Christ’s objective presence, the Tractarians were all in agreement, yet on the topic of whether the wicked eat Christ’s body and blood, there was some disagreement. Palmer’s view that Christ is there to be received, but that not all will receive Him, seems reminiscent of what William Laud and many of his school have said on this topic—that not only is Christ spiritually eaten by the worthy receiver through faith, but that He is there.4 Palmer’s summary of the Anglican view of the Eucharist is below.

This catholic and apostolic church has always avoided any attempt to determine too minutely the mode of the true presence in the holy eucharist. Guided by Scripture, she establishes only those truths which Scripture reveals, and leaves the subject in that mystery, with which God for his wise purposes has invested it. Her doctrine concerning the true presence appears to be limited to the following points:—

Taking as her immoveable foundation the words of Jesus Christ: “This is my body... This is my blood, of the new covenant;” and “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life;” she believes, that the body or flesh, and the blood of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Redeemer of the world, both God and man, united indivisibly in one person, are verily and indeed given to, taken, eaten, and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper, under the outward sign or form of bread (and wine), which is, on this account, the “partaking or communion of the body and blood of Christ.” She believes that the eucharist is not the sign of an absent body, and that those who partake of it receive not merely the figure, or shadow, or sign of Christ's body, but the reality itself. And as Christ's divine and human natures are inseparably united, so she believes that we receive in the eucharist, not only the flesh and blood of Christ, but Christ himself, both God and man.

Resting on these words, “The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” and again, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine;” she holds that the nature of the bread and wine continues after consecration, and therefore rejects transubstantiation, or “the change of the substance” which supposes the nature of bread entirely to cease by consecration.

As a necessary consequence of the preceding truths, and admonished by Christ himself, “It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life;” she holds that the presence (and therefore the eating) of Christ's body and blood, though true, is altogether “heavenly and spiritual,” of a kind which is inexplicable by any carnal or earthly experience or imagination: even as the Sonship of the Eternal Word of God, and His incarnation, and the procession of the Holy Spirit, are immeasurable by human understandings.

Believing according to the Scriptures, that Christ ascended in his natural body into heaven, and shall only come from thence at the end of the world; she rejects, for this reason, as well as the last, any such real presence of Christ's body and blood as is “corporal” or organical, that is, according to the known and earthly mode of existence of a body.

Resting on the divine promise, “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life,” she regards it as the more pious and probable opinion, that the wicked, those who are totally devoid of true and living faith, do not partake of the holy flesh of Christ in the eucharist, God withdrawing from them so “divine” a gift, and not permitting his enemies to partake of it. And hence she holds, that such a faith is “the means by which the body of Christ is received and eaten,” “a necessary instrument in all these holy ceremonies;” because it is the essential qualification on our parts, without which that body is not received; and because “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the apostles, and supported by their authority, she believes that “the blessing,” or “consecration” of the bread and wine is not without effect, but that it operates a real change: for when the sacrament is thus perfected, she regards it as so “divine a thing,” so “heavenly a food,” that we must not “presume” to approach it with unprepared minds, and that sinners, although they only partake of the bread and wine, partake of them to their own condemnation, because they impiously disregard the Lord's body, which is truly present in that sacrament. Hence it is that the church believing firmly in the real presence of the “precious and blessed body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” speaks of the eucharist as “high and holy mysteries,” exhorts us to consider the “dignity of that holy mystery,” that “heavenly feast,” that “holy table,” “the banquet of that most heavenly food,” even “the King of kings’ table.”

Such is the simple, the sublime, and, what is more, the true and scriptural doctrine of our catholic and apostolic church—a doctrine which cannot be accused of heresy except from ignorance or uncharitableness.

Bishop Overall’s short manuscript on predestination is a rather helpful work which highlights the moderate approach of the Church of England to the questions of predestination in the early 17th century. Robert Sanderson noted that this manuscript had been ‘widely circulated among learned men.’1 On the topic of sufficient grace, Archbishop Ussher was recorded to have said, “Bishop Overall was in the right, and I am of his mind.”2 This manuscript was originally written in Latin, an English translation can be found in William Goode’s work, The Doctrine of the Church of England to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of Infants, which is the translation being used for this post.

There are five Articles controverted in Belgium.

1. Concerning the Divine Predestination.

2. Concerning the Death of Christ.

3. Concerning Free Will and Grace.

4. Concerning the mode of the operation of Divine grace.

5. Concerning the perseverance of believers.

Respecting which the Remonstrants or Arminians, and the Contra-remonstrants or Puritans, defend opposite tenets; between which our Church much more correctly (as it appears to me) holds the middle path.

1. Concerning the Divine predestination.

First, the Remonstrants maintain a general Decree of predestination, and conditional upon faith, according to the general Evangelical promise of the salvation of all men on account of Christ having died for them, if through the word and the Holy Spirit aiding it they believe in him with a lively and persevering faith. [The Remonstrants maintain] secondly, a special and absolute Decree, arising from the foreknowledge of faith, respecting the salvation of those men in particular of whom God foresaw that they would through grace believe; and on the other hand the damnation of those of whom He foresaw that they would remain in sin impenitent and unbelieving. And this is the judgment of the ancient Fathers, before Augustine, and of many after him, of many also of the Papists, the Lutherans, and many others.

In the second place, the Contra-remonstrants, excluding a general and conditional Decree, maintain an exclusive particular and absolute Decree respecting certain individuals selected out of the human race to have faith and perseverance bestowed upon them, and to be saved, for the sake of the death of Christ, suffered for them only, through the efficacious and irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit, enjoyed by them alone; all the rest being rejected and condemned by an absolute Decree. And this is the view of Zuingle, Calvin, and the Puritans, unknown to all the ancient Fathers, even to Augustine and his followers, rejected by most of [one MS. reads, all] the Papists, all the Lutherans, and many others.

In the third place, our Church, holding a middle path, JOINS a particular absolute Decree, not arising from the foreknowledge of human faith or will, but from the purpose of the Divine will and grace, respecting the liberation and salvation of those whom God hath chosen in Christ, with a general and conditional will, or a general Evangelical promise; teaching that the Divine promises are so to be embraced by us as they are generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and that that will of God is to be followed by us which we have clearly revealed in the word; namely, that God gave his Son for the world or the whole human race; that Christ offered himself a sacrifice for all the sins of the whole world; that Christ redeemed the whole human race; that Christ ordered the Gospel to be preached to all; that God wills and commands all to hear Christ, and believe in him, and that he has set forth grace and salvation for all in him; and that this is an infallible truth in which there can be no error. Otherwise that the Apostles and other ministers of the Gospel preaching this are false witnesses of God, and make God a liar, &c.; and this opinion agrees with the opinion of Augustine, as it is explained by Prosper and Fulgentius. It is the more common opinion of the Church since Augustine. And these two things agree very well together, that God in the first place proposed salvation in Christ to all, if they believed, and common and sufficient grace, in the means divinely ordained, if men were not wanting to the word of God and the Holy Spirit: Then, secondly, that He might help human infirmity, and that the salvation of men might be more certain, that he thought good to add a special grace, more efficacious and abundant, to be communicated to whom He pleased, by which not only they might be able to believe or obey, if so inclined, but also actually be inclined, believe, obey and persevere, according to the saying of Augustine, The God and Lord of all has so ordered the life of angels and men, that in it he might first show what their free will could do, then what the blessing of his grace and the communication of righteousness could do.

2. Concerning the Death of Christ.

In like manner concerning the death of Christ undergone for men, there are three opinions. The first, that Christ died for all men, and by his death redeemed the whole human race, with a general and conditional intention on the part of God of giving salvation to all for the sake of Christ's death, on the condition of faith dependent on the free co-operation of men under grace. The second, contrary to the first, that Christ did not die for all men, &c., and did not redeem the whole human race, &c., and that God did not in any way or under any condition purpose or intend to give salvation or grace for the sake of Christ to any others than to the elect alone. The third, while it grants the death of Christ for all men, and the conditional intention of God respecting the general grace of the Evangelical promise, adds the special intention of God concerning the application of the benefit of the death of Christ, through more abundant and efficacious grace, persevere in a true and lively faith, that at length they are brought to eternal life.

3. Concerning Free Will and Grace.

Concerning Free Will and Grace, all agree that the Free Will can do nothing good without grace prævenient, accompanying, and following after, so that grace may hold the beginning, the middle, and the end, both in conversion, and faith, and every good work. But they differ in this, that—The first opinion lays it down, that influential grace is so joined with the word heard, understood, and meditated upon, that to all willing to do that, it is in some degree common. The second maintains that grace is proper and peculiar to the elect alone, and does not admit that it is in any way common to all. The third joins together both kinds of grace, so acknowledging a common and sufficient grace connected with the word, as to maintain also a special and efficacious grace, leading with certainty to salvation, peculiar to those whom God has chosen in Christ of his own gracious good pleasure.

4. On the mode of the operation of Divine Grace.

The first opinion lays it down, that grace so works in man, as not to take away the liberty of the human will, but to preserve it; that man is so enabled by grace to believe and obey, as that he is able also by his free will to resist grace. The second opinion maintains the irresistible operation of grace, so that wherever it is, it unalterably inclines and leads the mind to assent and obedience. The third teaches that men are so influenced and moved by grace, that they both can follow the grace that calls and moves, if they apply themselves to it, and also can resist the Divine call and influence by their Free Will, and too often do resist; but it adds, that God, when he wills, and to whom he wills, gives grace so abundant, powerful, or suitable, or in some other way efficacious, that although the will is able to resist it, on account of its liberty, yet it does not resist, but certainly and infallibly complies; and that God so acts with those whom he has chosen in Christ, so far as is necessary for their salvation.

5. Concerning the perseverance of believers.

The first opinion maintains, that all believers are so aided by Divine grace, that they are able to persevere, if they are disposed to apply proper care, and that they can also by negligence and security fall from faith and grace. The second maintains, that no believers can so fall from faith and Divine grace as to fall back into the state of damnation, or perish; but that those who have once believed, always so persevere in faith and grace, that at length they all reach salvation. The third maintains, with Augustine, that believers may, through the infirmity of the flesh and temptations, go back from grace and faith, or even fall from them. But it adds, that those believers who are called according to God's purpose, and who are firmly grounded in a lively faith, cannot either totally or finally fall or perish, but, by a special and efficacious grace, so persevere in a true and lively faith, that at length they are brought to eternal life.

This is part two in the series, Anglo-Catholicism, Theological Labels, and the Caroline Divines. Click here for part one.

It may be argued that the Anglo-Catholic movement hasn’t preserved the theology or the ethos of the Caroline divines, and therefore there needs to be a revival of Old High-churchmanship or Classical Anglicanism. I agree that the ethos and the principles of the Caroline divines need to be revived in the modern Anglican context, although I think that generally this can be done within the Anglo-Catholic movement and party. It is clear that within the Anglo-Catholic movement, there has always been diversity of opinion, from the time of the Tractarians to the early 20th century. There have been some who have firmly stuck to the Anglican patrimony and heritage and some who have been sympathetic to Rome.

The Romanising party within the Oxford Movement largely converted with Newman or after the Gorham controversy, although some remained, and in the subsequent movement of Ritualism, many saw a “semi-Romanising” party, with some explicit Romanisers. It is true that there has been a Romanising segment of Anglo-Catholics since the Oxford Movement, although this isn’t inherent to the movement. An interesting case can be seen in William Palmer, who was initially involved with the Tractarians but became less fond of the movement due to certain perceived Romanising tendencies, as well as Pusey’s toleration of the “semi-Romanising” Ritualists. Palmer represents very much the conservative part of the broader 19th-century Catholic Revival, yet even he eventually admits in the 1880s that the Ritualist movement, in hindsight, wasn’t as damaging as he initially thought. He says: “I should myself have often been in favour of a sterner and more direct policy towards all who shared in semi-Romanizing and Ritualistic opinions, and whom Pusey conciliated; but my own opinions were proved to be faulty by the result; for by mild methods the Church has been saved from further disruption, and retains all the energies which a different mode of proceeding might have lost. And I also see that in proportion as time has proceeded, extreme and indefensible opinions have been gradually eliminated; that the Church has reaped the benefit of all which have been left; and that the truth has been gradually finding its level and assuming the ascendency,—in a word that the true principles of the Church of England have been more carefully studied, and more generally adopted; so that, in the long-run, the hope which I originally entertained that truth would eventually find its level in England has been happily verified to a great degree.”1 Palmer also says that the greatest work against Roman Catholicism in the 19th century was by the Ritualist Richard Frederick Littledale.2 Although the Ritualists may have been quite extreme in some cases, they didn’t damage the Anglican church overall with their implementation of Catholic ritual; in fact I would argue they revived a necessary part of Church life which needed to be revived since the Laudian movement.

I cannot speak well of the Ritualist influence entirely, as I believe it also has contributed to certain dispositions in Anglo-Catholics to be careless with how they approach the Anglican patrimony and liturgy. Regarding liturgy, it seems that initially many of the Ritualists and their followers ignored (I do not believe it was necessarily deliberate) the English traditions of the Book of Common Prayer, the 1603 Canons, the Ornament’s Rubric, and the custom of the Caroline divines, in favour of Roman ceremonial and usages. E.G.P. Wyatt argues in his tract, English or Roman Use?: “When the Church Revival started on its way in the last century, our own English traditions as to the conduct of Divine Worship and Ceremonial had been to a large extent forgotten. When it was desired to carry out the directions of the Prayer Book more exactly, and still more, when it was found necessary to supplement them owing to their giving insufficient guidance, it was thought that the easiest way to ascertain the pre-Reformation customs of the English Church was to imitate what was done in the Roman Church of the present day, as it was assumed that they must be, more or less, identical. The habit of consulting the custom of the Roman Church seems to have grown, and to have resulted, in many cases, not merely in supplementing the directions of the Prayer Book where necessary, but in adopting the Roman customs as a whole, and adapting the Prayer Book services to them as far as possible, in some cases directly overriding the rubrics in the Prayer Book.”3 I find that this was a weakness in the approach of some within the Ritualist and Anglo-Catholic movement. Yet, it isn’t grounds for rejecting the Anglo-Catholic movement or the developments of the Catholic Revival entirely. There were proponents of the English Use and Prayer-book Catholicism who advocated that the authoritative traditions and customs of the English Church were to be used with the Book of Common Prayer, and most of the ceremonial advancements of the Ritualist movement could be retained insofar as it accords with the Ornament’s Rubric. I will not delve extensively into this topic here, although there are multiple works that I suggest for those who are interested in this topic.4 The ultimate point this example aimed to illustrate is that within the Anglo-Catholic movement, you had those who advocated for following Roman custom and those who advocated for following Anglican custom. It could be argued that the English Use was an instance of reviving the principles of Caroline divinity against certain excesses in the Ritualist or Anglo-Catholic party, even though the English Use itself was an Anglo-Catholic movement.

Theologically, the Anglo-Catholic movement has advanced in certain instances away from the Caroline divines and from the Tractarians. A common example may be an unequivocal belief in transubstantiation, or a full acceptance of the Council of Trent. In such cases, it is necessary to revive the principles of the Caroline divines and the Tractarians to ensure that there is a solid foundation to stand on, as Anglo-Catholicism without the Caroline divines cannot stand. For Anglo-Catholicism to continue, it must embrace the stream of divinity that it originally aimed to preserve. Haddan argues “that if (as it seems) the only way of even hoping to bring about a reunion with other Churches be to revive in our own Church a living belief in her own Divine office and powers, in the reality of her Sacraments, in the Divine authority of her Creeds, in the authority and right office of her ministers, then the surest method of defeating such a result is the revival in her of errors long since rejected, and of practices deliberately laid aside. To be simply like Rome will not satisfy Rome, even could it be right to be like her where she is wrong. And to identify in men's minds the cause of Church authority and of dogmatic belief with Rome as she is, can only disgust and alienate intelligent and honest minds from the truth itself. In this present age they who will preserve faith must needs keep faith unburdened by accretions of error, and free to fight her battle with all the advantages of a good cause and of sound reason. We have held our position now for three centuries. And though it is not the position any Church would choose (for it is a position of isolation, although involuntarily so), yet it is not to be surrendered unadvisedly, or without any other changes in those who have isolated us than such as aggravate the unhappy facts that compelled isolation. And certainly, on the abstract merits of the controversy, reasons have yet to be produced sufficient to set aside the teaching of the old, and manly, and massive school of our great English divines.”5 I find that this quote excellently summarises the state of things. For the revival of the sacramental life of the Church in Anglicanism to continue, we must also be wary of adopting error from Rome unnecessarily. Muddying the purity that Anglo-Catholicism provides at its best in order to become more like Rome is counteractive. Rome will not accept an Anglican that is Roman in every way but isn’t in formal communion with the Pope. Unfortunately, as Haddan says, the approach of the Caroline divines may be a “position of isolation,” yet it is the only way to achieve the Catholic purity that the English Church has always sought.

The Romanising approach also unnecessarily causes more confusion in understanding Anglican identity, which is a major crisis in the current day. One of the possible causes of this modern confusion may stem from the idea that the Anglican formularies aren’t binding on Anglicans today. Some Anglo-Catholics argue that these formularies should be seen primarily as historical documents that illustrate what the English Church believed for only a time in her existence, and therefore modern Anglicans are free to dissent from them. Ultimately, this approach is not necessary as the Anglican patrimony has a strong Catholic interpretation of the formularies, and therefore, there is no need to ultimately reject them, although I may understand why some Anglo-Catholics feel the inclination to do so. It must then be emphasised that Rome is not more “Catholic” than our divines, yet this doesn’t preclude certain grievances that a true devoted son of the Anglican church may have with his own church. Archbishop Laud was very much distressed with the state of the Church of England throughout his life, and the Genevan spirit that had taken parts of the church captive needed to be rooted out. He was eventually martyred for his efforts, yet he always remained loyal to the English Church, as he said in his final speech: “I was born and baptized in the bosom of the Church of England, as it stands yet established by law; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that profession of the Protestant religion here established I come now to die.”6

A figure that represents this approach of Anglo-Catholicism well is Vernon Staley, whose theological manual The Catholic Religion is arguably the most popular Anglo-Catholic theological manual that has been published. His approach was rather moderate but still firmly Anglo-Catholic. He was an advocate for the English Use and had a strong reverence for the Book of Common Prayer and the Caroline divines, and therefore represented the via media in its true and authentic form. Staley may not have been perfect in all of his theology, yet he shows that the Anglo-Catholic movement of the late 19th to early 20th century still had a strong contingent that remained loyal and firm in their Anglican identity. Therefore, I find it reasonable to conclude that through the likes of Staley, the stream of Caroline divinity continued and has continued down to the present day, and it wouldn’t be wise to ignore these great divines that have handed down this faith to us, though they may be relatively modern.

The Anglo-Catholic movement initially was a conservative movement that merely referred to the idea that one believed the Church of England had a valid claim as a true Catholic Church. The Caroline divines, therefore, were Anglo-Catholics. In the 19th century, Anglo-Catholicism initially entailed a recognition of the Church of England’s formularies and theologians as authoritative and Catholic. It required a devotion to the teaching of the Caroline divines as the standard exposition of Anglican faith and practice, which was being revived in the great Catholic Revival of the 19th century. The Anglo-Catholic party was a rather moderate party in hindsight, and although there has been a Romanising contingent in it since the Oxford Movement that has evolved and advanced over time, there is also the most glorious expression of the Christian faith found in that part of the movement which has remained loyal to its own patrimony and tradition.

I have been reflecting recently on the various labels and parties within Anglicanism, and what true Anglo-Catholicism should look like. I have written this article in light of my recent article, The Via Media and the Caroline Divines, in which I came to the conclusion that the via media approach of the Caroline divines and Tractarians is the ideal form of Anglicanism, or Anglo-Catholicism. A problem that may arise in the modern state of Anglicanism is that it can be quite hard to “fit in” with one stream. If someone were to ask me “What kind of Anglican are you?”, I would probably struggle to give a definite answer. If I were to say “Anglo-Catholic,” it could give the impression that I don’t care for the historic Anglican tradition or patrimony, and am just seeking to imitate Rome in a supposed pursuit for Catholicity. Another option instead of Anglo-Catholicism could be “Classical Anglicanism” or to be “Old High Church.” This position has many strengths, although it may indicate a rejection of much of the theological, liturgical, musical and architectural development of the 19th century and the Catholic revival within the Church of England. “High Church” seems to be generally a good answer, but it may be a bit broad.

I find that I can point to divines that I aim to imitate and have a great reverence for, such as Lancelot Andrewes, Richard Hooker, William Laud, John Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, Anthony Sparrow, George Bull, and also many of those who were instrumental in the Catholic revival of the 19th century, such as Edward Pusey, William Palmer (not the one who converted to Rome), Michael Ferrebee Sadler, James Bowling Mozley, and countless others. It appears that within this stream of divines, there is a consistent pattern—that being a true devotion to the Church of England. All of these theologians were true sons of the English Church, and although they may have had certain grievances with the church at some points, they nevertheless remained loyal to the faith that was handed down to them from previous generations.

In the 19th century, those who were loyal to the Anglican patrimony yet also contributed to the great Catholic revival would call themselves “Anglo-Catholic.” When John Henry Newman was still a loyal member of the Church of England, he called Anglo-Catholicism “the religion of Andrews, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson”.1 As I pointed out in my article on the via media, these were all 17th and 18th-century divines who represented a moderate approach to theology, avoiding the extremes of both Rome and the Ultra-Protestants. Also, the 19th-century Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology consisted of republications of 16th-18th century Anglican divinity, specifically those from a high-church persuasion. When Anglo-Catholicism is defined along these lines, I am a firm Anglo-Catholic.

As we can see, the term “Anglo-Catholic” had a relatively different usage during the 19th century than it does now. George Ayliffe Poole identifies the Anglo-Catholics as the party that succeeded bishop John Jebb, an 18th-century to early 19th-century high-church divine in Ireland who was a fairly monumental influence on the members of the Catholic revival.2 Poole explains that the Anglo-Catholics believe that “the church indeed hath power to decree ceremonies, and to determine in matters of controversy,—but that to the English churchman the church of England is for such matters The Church; and that he must go to the records of the church universal not to condemn his own holy mother, but to support and confirm her authority; and to prove, not to question, her teaching.”3 Poole himself identified as an Anglo-Catholic, that being a member of the Catholic Church in the particular communion of the Church of England, and a believer in its right as a valid and authoritative teaching body. He wasn’t fully aligned with the Oxford Movement (although he still agreed with most of the Tracts), yet this didn’t stop him from adopting the Anglo-Catholic label. Poole’s definition of Anglo-Catholicism presupposes a loyalty to the Anglican tradition and patrimony, which would therefore mean that to be an Anglo-Catholic is to be a loyal member of the Anglican church, following the footsteps of the great divines of the past.

To summarise before continuing: Anglo-Catholicism under this paradigm refers to the idea that Anglicanism is a true part of the visible Church that Jesus Christ instituted. The Anglican church then has its own jurisdiction and authority, and this authority is that of a local or particular church in matters of faith and practice. It means there is a loyalty that is due to the patrimony of this church; both the Catholic patrimony of the undivided Church, and the Anglican patrimony, found especially in the school of the Caroline divines and their successors. There is also due a submission to the declarations of the Catholic Church (i.e. the creeds and councils) and the formularies of the Anglican church (the 39 Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, etc.).

In more recent times, Anglo-Catholicism has sometimes been viewed as “Roman Catholicism without the Pope.” A lot of Anglo-Catholics don’t care for the Anglican patrimony, or they do only insofar as they can justify their existence by appealing to it. A similar approach is taken by the extreme Evangelical Anglicans, which is at its worst in places like Sydney, where being an Anglican is a secondary identity, and being “Evangelical” is primary. This sort of Evangelical Anglicanism doesn’t care much for the Anglican patrimony, apart from the vague idea of the English reformation being “Protestant” and “Reformed.” I find that both of the approaches of an extreme Anglo-Catholicism and an extreme Evangelicalism that don’t care for their own church’s patrimony are incoherent and untenable options.

There has been a recent trend in Anglicans identifying as “Old High Church,” which seems to be a way to escape the current chaos in the Anglican identity crisis. This appeal to the Old High tradition is seen as a way to bypass all of the confusion that was caused during and after the 19th century, and can give us a more solid and stable body of divinity to look to. Personally I am sympathetic toward this option. It allows you to point to something concrete as your tradition, which is necessary in these days of uncertainty especially. A small problem with this route is that very few people are strict Old High churchmen, as that would require rejecting most of the 19th-century developments in not only liturgy but also music, ceremonial and architecture. What a lot of people mean by “Old High Church” is high church, but not Anglo-Catholic, or, high church without the 19th-century theological innovations of Tractarianism. This is where I think this approach really falls short.

The first problem is that the Oxford Movement, as well as the broader Catholic Revival (these two things are distinct!), didn’t innovate on any major point of doctrine that the Caroline divines or their successors believed. Tract 90 is an extreme example that is often pointed to, yet most of the tract is rather moderate, although the most controversial part lies in his exposition of Article 22 (Of Purgatory). My intent in this article isn’t to justify Tract 90, although even those high churchmen who were very much anti-Roman and conservative in their approach to Anglican theology, such as Arthur Philip Perceval, didn’t condemn and throw away the Oxford Movement because of this tract, even though he had some disagreements with it.4

By analysing the Oxford Movement as whole, one can see that it was a revival of Caroline divinity, hence why Tracts 27 and 28 were a republication of major sections of John Cosin’s History of Popish Transubstantiation, Tracts 37, 39, 44, 46, etc. were excerpts taken from Thomas Wilson’s works, Tract 64 was an excerpt from George Bull, Tract 72 was an excerpt from James Ussher, and there were multiple extended quote mines from 16th to 18th century divinity on topics such as the Eucharistic sacrifice, baptismal regeneration, etc. The Tracts of the Anglican Fathers series, which was a 19th-century series of tracts that reprinted sections of works from 16th to 18th century Anglican divines, had explicitly Tractarian editors, such as William Josiah Irons and John Fuller Russell.5 Russell also published an excellent work called The Judgment of the Anglican Church… on the Sufficiency of Holy Scripture, and the Authority of the Holy Catholic Church in Matters of Faith, which contains a large florilegium of quotes from the Anglican divines and an introduction explaining the historic Anglican view on the subject of Scripture, tradition and councils. It is evident that a major part of the Oxford Movement was a resourcement of earlier Anglican divinity in a time when such was becoming foreign to the English mind. Topics such as Apostolic succession and the Eucharistic sacrifice, both of which were extremely prevalent in earlier Anglican divinity, had begun to leave the public consciousness. John Henry Overton records that someone “wrote to a newspaper pointing out a misprint in one of the tracts: it had spoken of the ‘Eucharistic sacrifice,’ which of course was a printer's error for the ‘Eucharistic sacrament!’”6 It is clear that a revival needed to happen.

Arthur West Haddan, a notable theologian who was also involved with the Tractarian movement, wrote an important essay on the Caroline divines,7 which I pointed to in my article on the via media. Haddan’s approach cannot be pointed to as novel. His main point is that the Caroline divines (strictly speaking, these divines were during the time of Charles I and II, although Haddan extends the golden age of this divinity from the late 16th century to early 18th century) represent a continuous and authoritative body of divinity that Anglicans ought to look to. The Restoration Settlement and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was extremely influenced by the Caroline Divines, such as Cosin, Sancroft, Sparrow, Thorndike, and others. It may be said that they effectively reinstituted Anglicanism after the interregnum period, meaning that modern Anglicanism is really a product of these divines. No other party has maintained a continuous presence and influence over the Church of England like this party did, and it didn’t die in the 17th century; in fact, it continued into the 19th century. This stream of divinity emphasised certain important theological points, such as the sacraments as means of grace, the divinely ordained episcopate, Apostolic succession, works as necessary for final salvation (although justification is meritoriously caused by Christ alone), and most importantly the prominent place of the Church fathers and Ecumenical councils as authoritative interpreters of holy Scripture.

Haddan argues that the fact that this “school of opinion has held possession of the Church for three centuries is assuredly a strong reason why that school should retain its place until very good grounds indeed have been produced for displacing it. And if to that school can be traced so much of what strength and goodness the Church can boast, that reason is all the stronger. Church feeling rallied round it at the time of the great Oxford movement.”8 The school of the Caroline divines has been a continuous stream within the Church of England that ought not to be displaced or ignored, as, unfortunately, some of the extreme Anglo-Catholics have a tendency of doing. Initially, the Oxford Movement and the Catholic Revival was a continuation of this stream, and there was not an abandonment of the Caroline principles in this revival; rather, it cemented them into the life of the Church. The advocates for the Old High-church position generally don’t seem to embrace this. Caroline divinity didn’t die at the beginning of the 19th century, it continued into the 20th and 21st centuries. It appears that if one is to ignore the 19th-century Catholic Revival for a historical project of reviving the Old High tradition, he grants that the stream of Caroline divinity, which has been the foundation and rock of the English Church for the past 400-500 years, died in the 19th century. The alternative is to embrace that the principles of the Caroline divines lived on through the 19th-century Catholic Revival and into the 20th and 21st centuries.

As we are in Holy Week, preparing for the celebration of our Lord’s blessed Passion and Resurrection, I have decided to post an excerpt from Thomas Bilson’s work on the atonement, The Effect of Certain Sermons Touching the Full Redemption of Mankind by the Death and Blood of Christ Jesus. This work was originally published in 1599, although a portion of it was republished in the 19th-century Tracts of the Anglican Fathers series. A link will be posted below for those who would like to read the entire tract.1

The merit of Christ's suffering must be simply infinite, that it may work two things for us—to wit, redeem us from Satan, and reconcile us unto God; clear us from hell, and bring us to heaven; and in either respect it must be infinite. "The wages of sin is death," both of body and soul, here and for ever. With the Judge of the world is no unrighteousness; he, therefore, punisheth no man without cause, or above desert. Since the revenge of each man's sin is eternal, that is, infinite in time, the weight of each man's sin must needs be infinite, as being rewarded with everlasting death. It may seem much, to carnal men, that God should requite sin with ever-during revenge; but if we seriously bethink ourselves what it is for earth and ashes to wax proud against God, and, after so manifold and abundant blessings, to cast off his yoke, and readily, yea greedily, to prefer every vanity and fancy before his heavenly truth and glory, we shall presently perceive how just cause God hath infinitely to hate our uncleanness, and eternally to pursue the pride, contempt, and rebellion of wicked and wilful men against his Divine Majesty. Howsoever we digest it, it is a thing determined with God, and no doubt balanced in his upright and sincere judgment. "The soul that sinneth, that soul shall die." (Ezek. xviii.) Death and life are both eternal; that is, infinite in length, though not in weight; in durance, though not in degree and sense of joy or pain. Then, in either respect, to countervail our deliverance from hell, and our inheritance in heaven, the merit of Christ's suffering must be infinite; an infinite purchase cannot be made but with an infinite price.

For this infinite price, whither shall we seek? to the pains of hell, or to the powers of heaven? The pains of hell are neither meritorious nor infinite. What thanks with God to be separated from God? And the soul being alienated from God, what other part of man can merit his favour? "If any man fall away, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." (Heb. x.) Hell pains, therefore, are accursed, not accepted of God; and he that suffereth them is hated, and no way beloved. "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv.) As they are not meritorious, no more are they infinite—I mean in weight—but they must everlastingly be suffered before they can be infinite; for not only devils, but men of all sorts shall suffer them, who cannot endure any infinite sense of pain. All creatures are finite, both in force to do and strength to suffer; infinite is as much as God himself hath; and, therefore, God alone is infinite: so that neither hell-fire is of infinite force to punish, nor men nor angels of infinite strength to suffer; but the vengeance of sin continueth for ever, by reason no creature is able to bear an infinite weight of punishment. Since, then, the pains of hell have neither worth nor weight sufficient in themselves to satisfy the anger and procure the favour of God, we must seek to heaven, even to God himself, for the true ransom for our sins and redemption of our souls; which we nowhere find but in the person of Christ Jesus, who, being true God, took our nature unto him, and by the infinite price of his blood bought us from the power of hell, and brought us unto God: for neither the virtues of Christ's human soul, though they were many, nor the sufferings of his flesh, though they were painful, are simply infinite till we look to his person, and then shall we find that God vouchsafed "with his own blood to purchase his Church" (Acts xx.) and that "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son when we were his enemies." (Rom. v.) Bernard, expressing the infinite merit of Christ's death and passion, saith, "Incomprehensibilis (Deus voluit) comprehendi, summus humilari, potentissimus despici, pulcherrimus deformari, sapientissimus ut jumentum fieri, immortalis mori, ut compendio absolvam, Deus fieri (voluit) vermiculus; quid excelsius Deo? quid inferius vermiculo?" (Bernard de Passion, cap. xvii.)—The Incomprehensible (God would) be comprehended, the highest humbled, the most mighty despised, the most beautiful deformed, the most wise be like a beast, the immortal (would) suffer death; to speak all in few words, God would become a worm: what is higher than God?—what is baser than a worm?—If between the Creator and the best of his creatures there be an infinite distance, what think ye, then, was there betwixt the throne of God in heaven and the cross of Christ on earth? Even an infinite distance, and so infinite that neither men nor angels can comprehend it. The ground of our salvation, then, is the obedience, humility, and charity of the Son of God, yielding himself not only to serve in our stead, but to die for our sins; for when he was equal with God in nature, power, and glory, he refused not to take the shape of a servant upon him, and to humble himself to the death of the cross; not only obeying his Father's will, which we had despised, but abiding his hand for the chastisement of our peace. The Apostle noteth these three virtues in the person of Christ—"Let the same affection (of love) be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, emptied and humbled himself, and became obedient to the death, even to the death of the cross." (Philip. ii.) By his humility, obedience, and charity, he purged the pride, rebellion, and self-love, which our first father shewed when he fell, and we all express in our sins; and, therefore, as we all died in Adam's transgression, so we are all justified, that is, absolved from our sins, and received into favour, by the obedience of Christ.

Yea, the obedience of Christ did in far higher degree please God the Father, than the rebellion of Adam did displease him; for there the vassal rebelled, here the equal obeyed; there earth presumed to be like unto God, here God vouchsafed to be the lowest among men; there the creature neglected his Maker, here the Creator so loved his enemies, even his persecutors, that he took the burthen from their shoulders and laid it on his own, contentedly giving his life for them who cruelly took his life from him: to conclude, those were the sins of men, these are the virtues of God, which do infinitely countervail the other; and, for that cause, the justice of God is far better satisfied with the obedience of Christ, than with the vengeance it might justly have executed on the sins of men: "for God hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezek. xxxiii.) neither doth he delight in man's destruction; but with the obedience of his Son he is well pleased, and therein even his soul delighteth. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt. iii.) "Lo, my chosen, my soul taketh pleasure in him." (Isaiah xlii.) In which words God doth not only note the natural love betwixt his Son and himself, but he giveth full approbation of his obedience, as being thereby thoroughly satisfied for the sin of man. By Christ's obedience, I do not mean the holiness of his life or performance of the law, but the obedience of the person unto death, even the death of the cross, which was voluntarily offered by him, not necessarily imposed on him, above and besides the law, and no way required in the law: for it could be no duty to God or man, but only mercy and pity towards us, that caused the Son of God to take our mortal and weak flesh unto him, and therein and thereby to pay the ransom of our sins, and to purchase eternal life for us. He must be a Saviour—no debtor; a Redeemer—no prisoner; Lord of all, even when he humbled himself to be the servant of all. His divine glory, power, and majesty, make his sufferings to be of infinite force and value. And from his dignity and unity of person, which is the main pillar of our redemption, if we cast our eyes on any other cause, or devise any new help to strengthen the merits of Christ, we dishonour and disable his divinity, as if the Son of God were not a full and sufficient price to ransom the bodies and souls of all mankind.

On this foundation do the Scriptures build the whole frame of man's redemption. "God purchased his Church (saith Paul) with his own blood." (Acts xx.) God, noting the dignity; his own, the unity of his person; and both importing a price far worthier than the thing purchased. "God spared not his own Son, but gave him for us all." (Rom. viii.) In that he was the Son of God, all nations are counted unto him (or in balance with him) "less than nothing, and vanity." (Isaiah xl.) In that he was given for us, the ransom excelleth the prisoner as much as God doth man. "We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son." (Rom. v.) Marvel we to see Christ's death of that power and price with God, that it appeased his wrath when he was angry with us, as with his enemies; whenas his own Son, being equal with him in the form of God, he humbled himself to the death of the cross for our sakes? Fairer or fuller causes of our redemption we need not ask, the Holy Ghost doth not express, God cannot have. If the Son of God be not able with his blood to redeem us, we must give over all hope, and despair; for heaven cannot yield us a greater value, and the earth hath none like. Wherefore, if any man be disposed to seal his own condemnation with his own heart, let him distrust the merits of Christ's death; but all that will be saved must acknowledge the infinite price of his death and blood above our worth; and we must learn, being sinful and wretched creatures, not to amend the words of God in the mystery of our redemption, but suffer him that is truth to be the guider of our faith, and not, by figures, to frustrate all that is written in the word of God touching our salvation, purchased by the death and blood of Christ Jesus.

Within the modern Anglican context, it is commonly said that Anglicanism is the via media, that being “the middle way” between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. It may be argued that, with Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne, a middle way between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism was deliberately pursued, and this Elizabethan settlement maintained a wide latitude of beliefs to encompass these different groups. This is why Anglicanism is so diverse, because historically we have encompassed a wide range of beliefs as part of the via media. Notably, in more recent times, there has been pushback against this narrative as being a Tractarian myth from the more Reformed voices within Anglicanism. Some argue that the Elizabethan settlement really was just a via media between Wittenberg and Geneva (i.e. Lutheranism and Calvinism), or that it was really just another Calvinistic Reformed church in England.1 The opposers of the commonly held via media narrative usually point out how the 39 Articles and the important theologians of the 16th century, such as Cranmer, Latimer, Jewel, etc., were thoroughly Protestant and Reformed, and therefore were not in the middle way between Rome and Protestantism, but were strongly situated in Protestantism itself.

Now, I agree that if this is how the debate is framed, then the via media narrative is ridiculous and should be called out as a myth. Although the key problem is that the Tractarian narrative wasn’t that Anglicanism is an all-encompassing via media between Protestantism and Romanism. The initial concept of the via media was quite a modest and moderate claim. Newman writes in Tract 38 of the Tracts for the Times, named Via Media, “Be assured of this—no party will be more opposed to our doctrine, if it ever prospers and makes noise, than that of Rome. This has been proved before now. In the seventeenth century the theology of the body of the English Church was substantially the same as ours is; and it experienced the full hostility of the Papacy. It was the true via media; Rome sought to block up that way as fiercely as the Puritans. History tells us this.”2 Here we see three things: 1) An appeal to the body of divinity of the 17th century, more specifically the Tractarians would appeal to the Caroline divines of the 17th century. 2) This body of divinity incurred the hostility of the Roman Catholics and the Puritans. 3) This body of divinity is substantially the same as what the Tractarians were aiming to argue for.

From these three points, we see something much different to what has generally been conceived as the via media. This via media is in opposition to both Rome and Puritanism or “popular Protestantism,” and doesn’t appeal so much to an ultra-diverse Elizabethan settlement as it does to the moderate approach of the Caroline divines in the 17th century. Newman in the introduction to his Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church again identifies Anglicanism as this via media, or in the specific context, a moderate approach toward the topic private judgement which is neither Roman nor Puritan. He identifies it as “the religion of Andrews, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson”,3 who were all 17th and 18th century high-church divines. William Josiah Irons, defending the Anglican view of authority, identified it as the “middle state between individual authority and infallible definitions.”4 Irons also says that the modern Anglican writers “illustrate from their standard Divines the true Doctrine of their Church, as occupying a middle position between Roman and Latitudinarian extremes.”5 This is in reference to the same context of church authority.

To summarise before proceeding: The via media primarily refers to the idea of placing the Scriptures and the ancient fathers as the primary standard of our faith. The Caroline divines of the 17th century best represented this principle and followed the faith and practice of the ancient fathers in opposition to the novel doctrines and movements of their time. The Roman Catholics and the Ultra-Protestants (or in the 17th century the Puritans) both went to their respective extremes and veered away from the ancient fathers and the Scriptures. The truth therefore lies in a more moderate path between both extremes, i.e. the via media.

As noted, the concept of the via media is closely tied to the theology of the Caroline divines. I would argue that when arguing for Anglicanism as the via media, you are effectively arguing that the Caroline divines embody the true form of Anglicanism, and therefore are a theological authority in themselves. They are the only school, as Arthur West Haddan notes, that “has so found a natural home in Church formularies, has become so firmly rooted in the hearts of Churchmen, has so thoroughly created Church theology, as to have lived on hitherto through all vicissitudes of politics, or society, or thought; and not to have revived only, but to have made progress, after each temporary eclipse. Its ‘catenæ’ begin with Elizabeth's reign, and spread on continuously until the present day; although at times, as in the dreary latter years of last century, the torch is handed on by a rarer chain of bearers.”6 The divinity of the Caroline divines is a continuous stream, that has continued from the Elizabethan settlement in divines such as Hooker, Bilson, Bancroft and Saravia through to the Caroline period in 17th century, where its most notable members arose, and into the 18th and 19th centuries. This school is the only one to “survive all changes.” It didn’t die in the 19th century, it was in fact revived. As Haddan says, “Church feeling rallied round it at the time of the great Oxford movement.”7

I find that Haddan’s essay, English Divines of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, argues quite effectively for this standard body of divines that define Anglicanism. He also relates this to the via media, where he writes, “Taken as a whole, there is between them [the Caroline divines] a broad but marked consent, and a clear line of positive statement, in main doctrines, so that we all know what is meant by the old Church divines. The well-known boast of ‘moderation’ and ‘via media,’ which is almost their proverbial character, is not a merely negative phrase. It marks a line, adopted upon principle, but which happens to present itself to onlookers as lying between opposite tendencies, such as grow into extremes on either side—the κάλον in essence and definition, the μέσον only materially and externally,—and a line therefore not to be slighted, as some now slight it, as though it were one of timid and dishonest compromise, which admits enough of principle to confute itself, yet shrinks from bold utterance of that principle honestly held to the uttermost.”8

I will now appeal to a few of these divines in support of this principle of the via media. Firstly the fact that these divines would write treatises against both the Roman Catholics and the Puritans is the most obvious example. One of the greatest Anglican works against Puritanism was The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity written by Richard Hooker. Around ten years later, Richard Field wrote Of the Church, one of the greatest Anglican works against Roman Catholicism.

William Forbes, bishop of Edinburgh, exemplifies the via media throughout his work A Fair and Calm Consideration, where his ultimate goal is to appeal to the moderate Roman Catholics and the moderate Protestants to find a middle state wherein the doctrine of holy Scripture and the ancient fathers is best expressed on various subjects. I find that this quote sufficiently summarises his ethos: “May God grant that avoiding every extreme we may all seek in love for pious truth, which very often lies in the via media.”9

On the subject of Church government, John Overall, bishop of Norwich, writes in his Convocation Book of 1606: “the mean betwixt both the said extremes [Papalism and Presbyterianism] is the truth, and to be embraced”10—that is, the divinely instituted episcopate.

John Cosin, bishop of Durham, when writing on the sacrifice of the mass and the agreement between the moderate divines of both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism writes: “For let the schools have what opinions and doctrines they will, and let our new masters [the Puritans] frame themselves what divinity they list, as long as neither the one nor the other can get their fancies brought into the service of the Church, honest men may serve God with one heart and one soul, and never trouble themselves with the opinions of them both.”11

To avoid belabouring the point, I will finish quoting Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, from his Last Will and Testament where he writes: “As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith, professed by the whole Church, before the disunion of East and West; more particularly I die in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.”12 I believe that this is likely the greatest one-sentence summary of the via media ever written.

Ultimately, the argument that Anglicanism is the via media is rather moderate and historical. All it really claims is that the ethos of moderation and Catholicity which the Caroline divines embodied is the Anglican way, and that both Roman Catholicism and Ultra-Protestantism have erred in their respective extremes.

This is my first post on Substack. I’m still unsure whether I will continue to post articles on here, although recently I just felt like writing down a few thoughts on Anglican Eucharistic theology. I just want to briefly go over the sacramental “objective presence” of Christ in the Anglican divines, especially those who are commonly thought to hold to the Calvinist view. I won’t be going into the nature of the change in the Eucharistic elements, nor the relation of Christ’s presence to the proper use of the sacrament, but just Christ’s objective presence in the sacrament, or the relation of Christ’s body and blood to the consecrated bread and wine.

Firstly I should define what the sacrament consists of. The sacrament of the Eucharist consists of two parts—the earthly and the heavenly, which in this case consists of bread and wine (the earthly part) and the body and blood of Christ (the heavenly part). The earthly part is bodily and material food, whereas the heavenly part is spiritual and non-corporeal food. The body and blood of Christ are united with the bread and wine to form a sacrament.

Secondly, I will define what the “objective presence” of Christ in the sacrament means. Really all it means is that Christ, who is located in heaven, becomes present in or with the elements after a mysterious and ineffable manner, so that His body and blood may be received by the faithful in the Eucharist. We may even say that He is substantially present in the sacrament, yet I wouldn’t say that this view is consubstantiation since our divines seem to consistently reject that term. On the presence of the heavenly part of the sacrament, James Bowling Mozley writes, “Certainly the ground taken by the early Church with respect to the spiritual part of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper—the Body and Blood of our Lord—was not that that spiritual part was only an internal matter, a moral effect of the act of participation upon the mind. The Lord's Body and Blood was regarded as a reality external to the mind, even as the bread and wine was; it was considered as joined to the bread and wine, and co-existing with it in one Sacrament.”1 The heavenly part of the sacrament is therefore present after an ineffable manner prior to reception, when the elements are consecrated.

Although Christ may be present with the elements objectively, the spiritual reception of Him, which is the end of the sacrament, is subjective. Mozley adds that, “Although, then, the Body and Blood itself followed an external test of presence, as being the concomitants of the material elements, the eating of this Body and Blood followed an internal test, and was the concomitant entirely of the state of mind of the recipient of the Sacrament. Thus as food abstractedly the Lord's Body was objective, as eaten food it was subjective, and the result of the faith of the partaker.”2 When eating the sacrament, faith is seen as the means to receive the spiritual food which is already objectively present.

I will now relate this to the earlier divines. A commonly held opinion is that the earlier Anglican divines didn’t hold to the real objective presence as they instead held to the Calvinist position, which generally consists of some form of receptionism. First of all it should be noted that there are multiple schools of thought when it comes to Eucharistic theology in historic Anglicanism. I concede that there were stricter receptionists amongst the Anglican divines, such as John Jewel and Richard Hooker, though I find that the distinction between the “Jewel school” and the “Parker school” that Rev. Ben Jefferies employs in his article series3 is quite helpful. Although, unlike Rev. Jefferies, I won’t be arguing that the “Parker school” holds to the Lutheran view,4 and I will also include more figures into this school, such as Archbishop Laud. It seems commonly argued now that Laud, Andrewes, Cosin, Field, and the other divines in the same school did just hold to the reformed view, and therefore rejected the objective presence of Christ in the sacrament.

First, I will go over this school’s reading of Calvin and the Reformed churches, as they seem to think that even Calvin held to a form of objective presence. Archbishop Laud writes, “For the Calvinists, at least they which follow Calvin himself, do not only believe, that the true and real Body of Christ is received in the Eucharist; but that it is there, and that we partake of it Verè & Realiter, &c.”5 Laud says that for Calvin, Christ isn’t just received, but that He is there. I will expand more on Laud’s thoughts on this later.

Rev. Thomas Laurence, a Laudian priest, repeats similar language on this subject as he defends bowing toward the altar saying, “having an Altar here answerable to a Mercy-seat there: as also, in respect of that union between this place and his human nature, that and his divine: for, as I like not Berengarius that said, he is sensually; nor Peter Martyr, whom he that writes his life tells us he said, he is carnally, and corporally there: because I like Saint Ambrose, and Lombard, and Bucer, and Roffensis, and Harding in this respect, who advise in this argument, forbearing the determination of the manner, to clothe our fancies in general, and indefinite expressions: as I like not those that say he is bodily there, so I like not those that say his body is not there, because Christ saith 'tis there; and St. Paul saith 'tis there; and the Church of England saith 'tis there; and the Church of God ever said 'tis there; and that truly, and substantially, and essentially, as the confessions of all the reformed Churches speak: and that not only by way of representation, or commemoration, and yet without either con-, sub-, or trans-, which the ancient Church said not: by a real, and nevertheless, which the ancient Church said, a spiritual, and mystical, and supernatural presentation, and exhibition.”6

The common Laudian defence of bowing to or towards the altar is that Christ becomes really present on the altar, and therefore respect and honour ought to be shown toward the place where Christ becomes present. Rev. Laurence says that Christ “is there” on the altar, and cites Bucer for the mode of presence, and even the Reformed Churches for their belief as well. This shows that in his mind the “Refomed” view wasn’t complete or strict receptionism, as his argument wouldn’t make sense otherwise. He also mentions the Roman Catholic Thomas Harding on the mode of presence, which I won’t get into at this point, although I may write a future article on Harding’s view and its relation to Bucer and Buckeridge’s view. But for now, I think it’s clear that for the Laudians, the “Reformed” or Calvinist view doesn’t necessarily exclude a real presence of Christ on the altar, or in the elements after a mysterious manner.

Now I will go through more general statements of Christ’s presence in the elements or on the altar by this same school of divines. I will start with Lancelot Andrewes, one of the greatest and holiest divines of the Elizabethan and Jacobean church. Andrewes writes, “It cannot have escaped the notice of the Cardinal, save willingly and of set purpose, that Christ said, ‘This is My Body,’ not, after such a manner, ‘this is My Body.’ We agree with you, as regards the subject; all the controversy is about the manner. As regards the words, ‘This is,' we hold with a firm faith, that it is. As to the, ‘It is after such a manner,' viz. by the bread being transubstantiated into the Body; as to the manner whereby it comes to pass that it is by, or in, or with, or under, or by transition, there is not a single word there. And because there is not a single word, we rightly banish it far from the faith. Amongst the enquiries of the schools it may perhaps be, but we place it not among articles of faith. What Durandus is reported to have said of old, by no means displeased us; ‘The word we hear; the effect we feel; the manner we know not; the presence we believe.’ A presence, I say, we believe, and that not less true than you do.”7 It is clear that for Andrewes, Christ’s presence is strongly related to the elements. Andrewes agrees with the Roman Catholics on the real presence and that the bread is Christ’s body, but disagrees as to the mode (i.e. transubstantiation).

Andrewes’ view of an objective presence of Christ in the elements is even more clear when he justifies adoring Christ in the sacrament. He says, “We believe a true Presence no less than you. The King acknowledges that Christ is truly present and truly to be adored in the Sacrament, that is the res Sacramenti, and not the Sacramentum, the earthly part, as Irenæus calls it, the visible, as Augustine… We also with Ambrose adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries; and not it, but Him who is worshipped on the altar… Nor do we eat the flesh without first adoring with Augustine. And yet we do not adore the Sacrament.”8 Andrewes says that Christ is adored in the sacrament, or the res sacramenti is adored, but the bread and wine is not.

Richard Field writes, “but touching the manner of this conversion there is great variety of opinions, yet so that all agree in this, that they understand such a mutation or change to be made, that that which before was earthly and common bread, by the words of institution, the invocation of God's name and divine virtue, is made a sacrament of the true body and blood of Christ, visibly sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, and yet after an invisible and incomprehensible manner present in the Church. And that the body and blood of Christ are in the sacrament, and exhibited and given as spiritual meat and drink for the salvation and everlasting life of them that are worthy partakers of the same.”9 According to Field Christ is present in the Church after an incomprehensible manner after the words of institution and invocation of God’s name. Field also says that “the body of Christ is present in and with the sanctified elements,”10 and that Christ’s body “is here present in mystery and sacrament &c.”11

Bishop John Overall writes, “In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper, the Body and Blood of Christ, and therefore the whole of Christ is verily and indeed present, and is verily partaken by us, and verily combined with the Sacramental signs, as being not only significative but exhibitory; so that in the Bread duly given and received the Body of Christ is given and received; in the Wine given and received, the Blood of Christ is given and received; and thus there is a communion of the whole of Christ in the communion of the Sacrament.”12 We see that Christ’s body and blood are united or “combined” with the elements so that those who receive the elements may receive “the whole of Christ.”

I would add that Overall’s view is probably expanded in Cosin’s First Series of Notes on the Book of Common Prayer,13 although either way, we can see what Cosin said on this subject before 1638.14 These Notes say, “It is confessed by all divines, that upon the words of consecration the Body and Blood of Christ is really and substantially present, and so exhibited and given to all that receive it; and all this not after a physical and sensual, but after a heavenly and invisible, and incomprehensible manner: but yet there remains this controversy among some of them, whether the Body of Christ be present only in the use of the Sacrament, and in the act of eating, and not otherwise. They that hold the affirmative, as the Lutherans, in Conf. Sax., and all Calvinists do, seem to me to depart from all antiquity, which place the presence of Christ in the virtue of the words of consecration and benediction used by the priest and not in the use of eating of the Sacrament, for they tell us that the virtue of that consecration is not lost, though the Sacrament be reserved either for sick persons or other.”15 Cosin here argues that Christ becomes substantially present upon the consecration of the elements, and that this presence isn’t just restricted to when the sacrament is eaten.

Cosin seems to shift his view over time, as can be seen in his History of Popish Transubstantiation, although I don’t think this is a major shift in doctrine, but he does emphasise more Reformed points, such as Christ’s presence in the sacrament being tied to its use. That being said, even a few years before his History was published he writes, “In our words of consecration we pronounce, that ‘this is His Body.’ In our words of distribution we say, that it is ‘the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee.’ We believe He is there really, substantially, and truly, after an incomprehensible way of being, and not after a corporal or bodily manner of existence: we profess we know not how to explicate the manner, and therefore we admit not the manner of transubstantiation, which they would now obtrude upon us as a matter of no less faith, than that Christ was the Son of the living God, and incarnate of the Blessed Virgin. We know well, (and so do they too,) that Christ said, ‘This is My Body,’—not, that after this manner it was His Body—we believe verily that it is so. But, that it is after this manner so, (that is to say, by annihilating and transubstantiating the bread into His Body,) or after any other manner, whether in, or with, or under the bread, we are not tied to believe at all.”16 Cosin in this short work basically repeats what bishop Andrewes wrote on the Eucharist. He affirms that Christ is there substantially, similar to what many other divines wrote on this subject. It appears that Cosin held that the real presence isn’t just the communicant receiving Christ’s body, but that Christ is really and substantially there upon consecration to be received.

Bishop William Forbes affirms Christ’s substantial presence in the sacrament where he writes, “The opinion of those Protestants and others seems most safe and most right, who think, nay, who most firmly believe, that the Body and Blood of Christ is truly, really, and substantially present and taken in the Eucharist, but in a way, which is incomprehensible to the human understanding, and much more, beyond the power of man to express; which is known to God alone, and not revealed to us in Scripture; a way, not indeed corporeal or by oral reception, but not by the mere under standing and simple faith either, but by another way, known (as has been said) to God alone, and to be left to His omnipotence.”17 When describing the Eucharistic sacrifice he affirms Christ’s presence on the altar as he says, “by which the ministers of the Church most humbly beseech God the Father on account of the perpetual Victim of that one only Sacrifice, Which is seated in heaven on the right hand of the Father, and in an ineffable manner present on the holy table, that He would grant that the virtue and grace of this perpetual Victim may be efficacious and salutary to His Church for all the necessities of body and soul.”18

Rev. Richard Sherlock also defends an objective presence of Christ in the sacrament, where he writes, “The Sacramental Body of Christ, is the consecrated elements of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament. This is expressly affirmed by our Lord, saying, ‘This is My Body, This is My Blood.’ Who then dare say, (as the Fathers frequently observe,) This is not His Body, but a figure of His Body only?” Sherlock adds, “He discerns not this Body of our Lord, 1, who sees not with the eye of faith, Christ really present, under the species of Bread and Wine, though he conceive not the manner thereof: who doth not with all grateful acknowledgment and divine love, and with the greatest humility and devotion, adore the infinite wisdom, power, mercy, goodness, and condescension of this Presence of our Lord; not curiously questioning, much less pragmatically defining the way and manner of His Presence, as being deeply mysterious and inconceivable.”19

Edward Kellet, another Laudian priest, defends bowing towards the east and the altar, as it is “where the memorial is of the holiest of holies, and where Christ is really, spiritually, most ineffably present at and in our Sacrament &c.”20 We see here also that Christ’s presence is extended to the elements not just to the worthy receiver.

I would like to finish quoting Archbishop Laud. Laud’s famous defence for bowing towards the altar shows his Eucharistic theology quite clearly. He says, “I doubt not, but yet it is versus Altare, towards His Altar, as the greatest place of God's residence upon earth. (I say the greatest, yea greater than the pulpit. For there it is Hoc est Corpus meum, This is my Body: but in the pulpit it is at most but Hос est Verbum meum, This is my Word. And a greater reverence (no doubt) is due to the Body, than to the Word of our Lord. And so, in relation, answerably to the Throne where His Body is usually present, than to the seat whence His Word useth to be proclaimed.”21 Similar to the other Laudian defences of bowing toward the altar, Laud justifies it by saying the altar is where Christ’s body “is usually present.”

Laud also writes in response to Bellarmine saying, “‘Whatsoever is concerning the manner and forms of speech, illud tenendum est, 'this is to be held,' That the conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and the Blood of Christ is substantial, but after a secret and ineffable manner, and not like in all things to any natural conversion whatsoever.’ Now, if he had left out ‘conversion,’ and affirmed only Christ's ‘real presence’ there, after a mysterious, and indeed an ineffable, manner, no man could have spoken better.”22 It seems that Laud is willing to grant that Christ’s body and blood is present there to be received, and not just present in the worthy receiver’s soul.

Ultimately this article aimed to demonstrate that for our Anglican divines, Christ’s objective presence in the sacrament isn’t antithetical to what they saw as Calvin’s position. This is why they may have used Calvinistic language or have affirmed Calvin’s view on the Eucharist, yet also have affirmed Christ’s mysterious yet substantial presence in the elements or on the altar. Within this school of Eucharistic theology, we can deduce that upon the consecration of the elements Christ’s body and blood become substantially present to be received in the Eucharist, and that this ineffable and mysterious presence is united with the elements of bread and wine. This means that Christ is objectively present in, or with, or around the elements to be subjectively received by the worthy communicant. There are also some more divines that I would have liked to go over, such as Edmund Guest, Thomas Bilson, Samuel Parker, etc., though to keep the article from being too long I am not able to. This article didn’t go over the nature of Christ’s ineffable presence, or the relation of Christ’s presence to the proper use of the sacrament, rather it outlined that Christ’s objective presence is agreeable to the earlier Anglican divines of the 16th and 17th centuries.

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