"Subordinate only and auxiliary to God's Word": Bishop Mant's 1842 Visitation Charge and the sufficiency of Scripture

Resuming the series of weekly posts from the responses to Tract XC by Old High bishops in the visitation charges of the early 1840s, today we turn to the 1842 visitation charge of Richard Mant, Bishop of Down and Connor: The Laws of the Church: The Churchman's Guard Against Romanism and Puritanism. 

As with the charges of Bagot of Oxford and Phillpotts of Exeter, the point of these extracts is not to focus on the rejection of Tract XC but, rather, on how these charges provide a rich seam of Old High teaching.

This first extract from Mant's charge demonstrates how the Old High tradition robustly reaffirmed Article VI and the sufficiency of Scripture, significantly distinguishing Old High thought from the increased willingness in Tractarian circles to reject Article VI's affirmation and exalt the authority of 'tradition'.

Also noteworthy is the quotation from Burnet's commentary on the Articles, another indicator of how the latitudinarian Burnet was regarded by the Old High tradition as an authoritative commentator on the Articles - contrary to the reception his work first received from High Church sources amidst the 'rage of party'. In other words, here is another reminder of how the Old High tradition was quite different from the radical High Church populism of the era of Sacheverell. 

Mant demonstrates the renewed confidence of the Old High tradition in the Formularies and in the Protestant identity of Anglicanism, in the face of the Tractarian attempt to reinterpret Anglicanism apart from its historic Protestantism and as Newman prepared to abandon Anglicanism.

Be it then our first caution, not to deviate from our national Church, by adopting any guide to faith or practice, other than that which the Church herself acknowledges and prescribes. To elevate tradition into an authority, independent of and paramount to the written Word of God, was the fatal error on which the Romish Church made shipwreck; to reduce tradition to its secondary station, and to value it as subordinate only and auxiliary to God's Word, contained in Holy Scripture, was the first step to our religious reformation. Holy Scripture, with respect to matters of faith, is pronounced by the Church to "contain all things necessary to salvation;" and with respect to practice, in the decreeing of rites and ceremonies, she pronounces it to be "not lawful for her to ordain anything, that is contrary to God's Word written."

The Church, indeed, cherishes and professes a high respect for the sentiments of the ancient doctors and bishops of the early Church, as best qualified, by their opportunities of time and place, to illustrate and aid the true interpretation of the written Word of God; and as embodying the sentiments of those ancient doctors, she has regarded with special veneration the decrees of the first four General Councils, those of Nice, of Constantinople, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. But whilst she protests that "things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared  that they be taken out of Holy Scripture," so she receives them only upon the ground of their ordinances being of scriptural origin.

Thus in the Council of Nice it was decided, that the Son is truly God, of the same substance with the Father; in that of Constantinople, that the Holy Ghost also is truly God; in the Council of Ephesus the divine nature was affirmed to be truly united in Christ to the human, and with it to constitute one person; and in the Council of Chalcedon both natures were affirmed to remain distinct, and that the human nature was not swallowed up in the divine. But why does the Church receive these decrees of the four Councils? Is it upon the authority of the decrees themselves? Surely not; but because they have their foundation in Holy Writ. "These truths," as Bishop Burnet says, "we find in the Scriptures, and therefore we believe them: we reverence those Councils for the sake of their doctrine; but do not believe the doctrine for the authority of the Councils.”

Thus again, with respect to the Athanasian Creed, which is a practical application of these decrees, setting forth that the Son and Holy Ghost, who are each truly God, are in the unity of the Godhead justly the objects of divine worship. But here also the Church maintains this position, not because the Athanasian Creed asserts it, but because the creed may be "proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture, and therefore ought to be thoroughly received and believed."