'The undue depreciation of all the objective side of our religion': a late 19th century Old High critique of Evangelicalism
we may so exalt the idea of the Church National as to lose sight of, or even to deny, the existence of the visible Church Catholic. We may, in our recoil from the error of asserting a false centre of unity for the Catholic Church, pass into the extreme of asserting that it has no objective or historical unity whatever, and that the only unity of Christ's Church is the inward unity of the Spirit which joins individual Christians with each other and with Him. Churches being on this theory simply those external forms into which the religion of individual Christians has, as it were, accidentally crystallized, can claim, as of right, no authority over their members, who, in the freedom of the Spirit, must have the right to recast their own organization, to form themselves into entirely new bodies, as often they may think proper.
Every such body, though but of yesterday, has an equal right to the title and the authority of a Church. Nay, each individual member of such a body is on this theory quite competent in his turn to set up a new and equally true Church for himself. Thus the assertion of the independence of National Churches, unlimited by the recognition of visible Catholic unity, ends in the very "dissidence of dissent;" the stream of Catholic order and doctrine sinking at last into the sands of the merest Individualism.
Such are, as it seems to me, the logical results of the denial of the existence of the visible Church Catholic.
The visible church, its ministry, its common prayer, its Sacraments, its discipline: the Old High tradition had vigorously maintained the necessity of this for the Christian life in the face of revivalism. What is more, as Magee had demonstrated in his critique of the Ritualists, the purpose of the Reformation's renewal of the national Church and rejection of the Roman supremacy had been to restore catholic doctrine and order, not to deny "the existence of the visible Church Catholic".
This was the risk encouraged by those "Evangelical Churchmen" who encouraged "the undue exaltation of all that is purely subjective", not least in discerning no distinction between the catholic order of the Church of England and that of Dissenting communities. Here again Magee was echoing a well-established Old High conviction. Historically good relations with the non-episcopal churches of the Continent was not an invitation to affirm those in this realm who had thrown off the apostolic order of the reformed Church of England:
And though we should be far from charging those amongst us who hold this theory with aiming at the results which logically flow from it, we cannot but recognize in their history tendencies in that direction. We can see these, I think, in the depreciation of those two links with the Church Catholic which appertain most to the idea of the corporate life of the Church, viz., the Ministry and the Sacraments; in the denial of the Apostolic succession of the one and in the understating, if not the denial, of the grace and efficacy of the latter; in the undue depreciation of all the objective side of our religion, as "merely outward form and ceremony," and the undue exaltation of all that is purely subjective; in the lightly regarding the sin of Schism, provided only that the schismatic retain those particular doctrines which subjectively unite him with Evangelical Churchmen; in the fraternising with dissenting communities, as "other Churches," and holding out to them as communities, what God forbid we should deny them as individuals, the " right hand of fellowship;" in an impatience of that fulness of doctrinal statement and breadth of comprehensiveness in which consists the true doctrinal Catholicity of our Church, and in a consequent readiness to narrow within the limits of one school of thought the broad stream of Catholic doctrine which, just because it is full, must touch both its banks almost to overflowing.
Also significant here is Magee's emphasis on a "breadth of comprehensiveness" in doctrine, as opposed to a "readiness to narrow" doctrine "within the limits of one school of thought". This too echoes a long standing view amongst Church of England divines - which we might trace back to those who opposed the Lambeth Articles - that narrow doctrinal definitions which do not reflect "the broad stream of Catholic doctrine" are unnecessary and unhelpful.
Magee, in other words, is giving expression to an authentic and deeply rooted Old High vision, in which the via media was rightly understood to be the wise magisterial Reformed Catholic alternative to both Papal and Puritan claims. In previous posts discussing Magee's critique of Ritualism and advanced Anglo-catholicism, reference was made to how his views were echoing those of the Church of Ireland Declaration of 1870. This is also the case with his critique of Evangelicalism and insistence on "the objective side of our religion" within the Church Catholic:
The Church of Ireland will continue to minister the doctrine, and sacraments, and the discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded; and will maintain inviolate the three orders of bishops, priests or presbyters, and deacons in the sacred ministry.
As Magee put it, in words heard from his predecessors since the time of Hooker and repeated across the 'long 18th century':
a tendency towards Sectarianism within the Church, and towards alliance with Sectarianism outside it, warns us that our Church is exposed to dangers from ultra-Puritanism as well as from ultra-Catholicism.
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