"Naked signs and figures": High Church Augustinians against the Arminians
Quoting from Socinian confessions and catechisms, Nevin describes them as turning the Lord's Supper "into a naked commemoration of Christ's benefits". Similarly, "with the rise of Arminianism in the following century, in the bosom of the Reformed Church, we find a similar undervaluation of the sacraments". He quotes from the Remonstrant theologian Philipp van Limborch:
They operate upon us as signs, that represent to our mind the thing whose signs they are. Nor should any other efficacy be sought in them.
Here, then, amongst the Socinians and Arminians, we find "the modern Puritan view of the Lord's Supper", a view which is "constitutionally rationalistic".
This genealogy, however, was not original to Nevin. It is also to be found in the 18th century High Church theologian Daniel Waterland's A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity (1737):
It must however be owned, that apologies have been since made for Zuinglius, as for one that erred in expression rather than in real meaning, or that corrected his sentiments on second thoughts. And it is certain that his friends and followers, within awhile, came into the old and true notion of spiritual benefits, and left the low notion of naked signs and figures to the Anabaptists of those times; where they rested, till again revived by the Socinians, who afterwards handed them down to the Remonstrants.
He continues with his critique of Remonstrant Eucharistic teaching:
... the Zuinglian Sacramentarians, old Anabaptists, Socinians, and Remonstrants, who will not admit of any medium between local corporal presence, and no presence at all as to beneficial effects, no medium between the natural body itself, and mere signs and figures.
There is an obvious significance in an influential 18th century High Church theologian identifying a low (i.e. rationalistic) view of the Eucharist with Arminian teaching. It challenges the lazy use of 'Arminian' regarding the High Church tradition and - in conjunction with Waterland's view that Calvin's Eucharistic theology was "true in the main" - reinforces aspects of Stephen Hampton's interpretation of an influential stream in post-Restoration Anglicanism, an "unexpected alliance of Reformed theological system with High Church liturgical tastes", including the richness of a Reformed Eucharistic theology of spiritual feeding and mystical union.
Or, to put it another way, a High Church Augustinianism.
(The quotations are from Chapter VII, 'Concerning Sacramental or Symbolical Feeding in the Eucharist'.)
I like Waterland’s term Remonstrant better than “Arminian.” Yes, within the Anglican conversation, the stream of latitudinarianism that issued from the Remonstrants has commonly been called Arminianism. But today there is more of an interest in Jacob Arminius and “Classical Arminianism.” Since a big theme of this blog is to protest against the way in which solid doctrines and movements in the church have been displaced by misleading, co-opting labels… it would be nice not to do this to Arminius, whose more robust reformed (yet not TULIP) orthodoxy with an Augustinian strain may have some real value to Anglicanism and to this blog’s project. I’m not sure how you feel about Wesleyanism, but there’s another signal case where the meaningful “Arminianism” is (despite Wesley’a ignorance of Arminius’ works) quite far from the Remonstrantism that sometimes goes under the name.
ReplyDeleteI think that is probably a fair comment. What makes me hesitate is that Arminius probably cannot easily be separated from the Remonstrant movement and that scepticism about his work and just how Augustinian it could claim to be was very significant in the ecclesia Anglicana, including in the antecedents of the High Church tradition. But, that said, your point is taken: I should have used Waterland's "Remonstrant" rather than 'Arminian'.
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