"The same articles of religion": on the illusion of a separate Episcopalian Eucharistic theology
On the Lord's presence:
The consistent theme of Scottish Episcopalian writers during these decades was not how they represented a different stream of sacramental theology. Their emphasis, rather, was on how Scottish Episcopalianism shared the same sacramental theology as the English Church. William Skinner – later Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus – commenced his 1807 defense of the Scottish liturgy with such a declaration:
"The Episcopal Church in Scotland having adopted the same articles of religion with the United Church of England and Ireland, one would have thought, that even the suspicion of a difference, in the principles of the two Churches, would have been for ever laid to sleep".
In the work he quotes Alexander Jolly, who was consecrated to the Scottish episcopate in 1797:
"In adopting, therefore, the Articles of the United Church of England and Ireland, as the Articles of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, we of that Church must be candidly understood, as not thinking any expression in these Articles with regard to the Lord’s Supper, in the least inimical to our practice at the altar, in the use of the Scotch Communion Office".
The standard Eucharistic theology of English High Churchmen such as Daniel Waterland, Charles Daubeny, and Vicesimus Knox (whom we have already encountered) are quoted by Skinner throughout the work. Daubeny is cited to defend the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Scottish Liturgy against suggesting that it implies “the transubstantiating doctrine of the Romish Church”:
"In this sense the consecrated bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in figure, or by representation. They continue bread and wine in their nature; they become the body and blood of Christ in signification".
There is in the Scottish Liturgy, Skinner contends, "nothing that supposes a corporal presence, either by way of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or of infusion". Instead, Scottish Episcopalianism is in agreement with the Eucharistic doctrine of the English Church:
"[S]he finds the Church of England as now constituted, in her Liturgy, in her Articles, in her Homilies, in her Canons, and by the writings of many of her best and truest sons, professing the same devout regard, the same inviolate respect, which she herself professes, for primitive practice and for the Lord’s Supper".
The High Church tradition within Episcopalianism in the early United States similarly offered no alternative Eucharistic doctrine to that understood to be the teaching of the English Church. Samuel Seabury stated the bread and wine in the Sacrament become "representative" of the Lord’s Body and Blood "in virtue and efficacy to all worthy receivers". Similarly, Henry Hobart in an 1819 Charge, lamented that transubstantiation was "a literal construction of language evidently figurative," invoked the witness of "the martyrs of the Church of England", and declared that the purpose of the Communion Office was "to bless the bread and wine, to be symbols of the body, and blood of Christ". He continued:
"[A]s symbols and memorials of the body and blood of Christ; assuring to those who worthily receive them all the blessings of his meritorious cross and passion".
As Nockles notes, "the genuine Nonjuring tradition in Scottish episcopalianism" was not a proto-Tractarian Eucharistic doctrine "of an objective presence". Instead, it – and High Church Episcopalianism in the early United States – adhered to a "virtualist doctrine" which was an essentially Reformed Eucharistic understanding: "In asserting a ‘heavenly’ Real Presence, the advocates of receptionism were at one with virtualists". There was, in other words, no alternative Episcopalian stream, standing apart from the Eucharistic teaching of late Georgian High Church tradition.
And on the the relationship between the Eucharist and the Lord's Sacrifice:
It is again worth noting that Episcopalianism in Scotland and the United States offered no different or distinctive understanding of this aspect of the Eucharist, despite the oblation of the consecrated bread and wine being part of the Communion liturgy of both churches. Skinner defended the oblation in the Scottish Liturgy on the grounds that Waterland and other English High Church figures "though they are not fond of admitting any material-sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist, do yet plainly admit of a feast upon a sacrifice". (He also quotes Daubney: "The first Christians had no idea of the Holy Eucharist being a proper propitiatory sacrifice".) In similar fashion, Seabury explained the oblation in the American rite as preparing for the elements to be “distributed among the Communicants as a feast upon the sacrifice". The oblation in both rites, then, was understood in the term characteristic of English Eucharistic doctrine, the feast upon the Sacrifice.
Thanks for this link. I loved the reference to "Anglican fool's gold". I don't have all the scholarly background that you do, but I have read some English writers (Cranmer - 16thC, Mede - 17thC, Warerland - 18thC, and Vogan - 19thC) as well as some of the Scottish writers that formed part of my former rector's PhD (Bishop Forbes - 17thC, Bishop Alexander Jolly and George Hay Forbes - both 19thC). I would agree with your conclusion at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe later Scottish writers repudiate Roman ideas very forcefully, as do the English writers, but Jolly is explicit that he is not enunciating a different theology to the earlier English writers, and in the preface to this book he cites a long list of them in support. George Hay Forbes was a 19thC patristics scholar in Fife (Rector of Burntisland) and interacted extensively with the writings of Pusey and other Tractarians (which included his own brother, who was Bishop of Brechin), concluding robustly against them. In passsing he also concludes against some specifically Lutheran ideas, as I recall.
Where the Scottish writers did differ from the English is in preferring the Scottish Communion Office over the 1662 English Office. My own conclusion is that this preference was not based on a different eucharistic theology, but a wish to see some things made explicit in the Scottish Office that could already be reasonably considered implicit in 1662. In addition, the Scots also argued that the resulting Scottish Office guarded against Tridentine Roman error even more faithfully than 1662. The downside was a lengthy and wordy Scottish Office that was superficially rather different to 1662. As a result it was viewed with suspicion by some, and misunderstood by others.
Neil, many thanks for your comment and insightful summary of early 19th century Scottish Episcopalian eucharistic theology. Your point about the Scottish Communion Office being perceived as guarding against Tridentine teaching is well made: the sense that this Communion Office embodied older, patristic notions of offering and invocation contrary to Tridentine norms. That is a rich line of thought that needs to be introduced more regularly into discussions which promote the idea of a separate Scottish Episcopalian eucharistic theology.
DeleteBrian.