CHAPTER II

THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Charles and

CHARLES at once showed that he placed the utmost confidence in Laud. Within a fortnight of his father's death he requested a list of the most eminent divines the Puritans. to be prepared for him that he might from among them select his chaplains and those whom he should consider worthy of promotion. Laud drew up the list and Buckingham gave it to Charles. Each name was marked with the letter O or P. Of Puritans Charles had a very clear opinion. He looked upon them, says Clarendon, "as a very dangerous and seditious people, who would, under pretence of conscience, which kept them from submitting to the spiritual jurisdiction, take the first opportunity they could find, or make, to withdraw themselves from his temporal jurisdiction, and therefore his Majesty caused these people to be watched, and provided against with the utmost vigilance." It was not likely that he would promote any of the clergy who held their views. He would clearly give his favour to the Orthodox.

This was soon put to the test. The Roman controversy advanced a stage in the first year of Charles's reign.

controversy.

It

passed from the study of theologians into the arena The Roman of public life. The earlier contentions between English and Romanist writers have been dealt with in Volume V. of this history, and the names with which we have now to deal have already been referred to. But the details belong so definitely to the reign of Charles I. and are so closely connected with his chief ecclesiastical adviser that they must be spoken of more fully here.

8

CHAP. II

LAUD AND FISHER

9

The fame of Laud himself had largely been won by a contest with a Romanist, while King James was still on the throne, in May 1622.

Fisher.

Laud's conference with Fisher was, like many of the controversies of the time, caused by a pressing personal case of conscience. The Countess of Buckingham, Laud's conmother of the brilliant George Villiers, had prob- ference with ably already been converted to Romanisın, by one Percy, or Fisher, a very notable Jesuit; she had been followed by her son's wife, and the duke himself seemed very likely to be lost to the English Church. Conferences at first took place, by Buckingham's wish or the king's command, between Dr. Francis White, Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and Fisher. After two meetings had been held, the king desired Laud, then Bishop of St. David's, to take part in the discussion. Fisher printed his account of the conferenceand White also: and Laud at last was compelled to do the same. Reply and retort followed, and eventually in 1639— seventeen years after the conference had taken place-Laud found it necessary to publish a complete record of the proceedings. The form of the book makes it irksome reading nowadays. Sentence by sentence Fisher's book is taken, and dissected, and answered. Such a method has the advantage of completeness, but it can hardly fail to be extremely tedious. It is difficult to collect and marshal the arguments: it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

Some account of the contents of this famous book must be given before the principles upon which Laud conducted this, his most important controversy, are stated, Points of the as a necessary introduction to the special contests controversy.

which followed.

The points round which the battle was fought were chiefly : (1) The Apostolic succession as the guarantee of the infallibility of the Faith in the Church: the Jesuit claimed that this guarantee could be found only in Rome.

(2) The Roman claim that "the Roman Church only, and such others as agree with it in faith, hath true Divine, infallible faith, necessary to salvation."

(3) The Roman statement that the faith had never been changed by the Roman Church.

The chief point was what was meant by the infallibility of the Church. The ground was very different from that of the Puritan contention. It was admitted by both sides that there is a continual and visible Church: but the meaning of its infallibility was in question.

First, there was the familiar Roman claim that the Fathers recognised the Roman Church as infallible. Here it is little more than a question of translation. St. Cyprian and St. Jerome and St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril and Rufinus— what did they mean in some passages quoted? Laud had no difficulty, we should say, in showing that none of them thought of any permanent infallibility in the Roman Church or bishops. And to that point he returns when the arguments are summed up at the end of the controversy. There is no Scriptural or primitive warrant for an infallible pope. A Jesuit attacking Laud's book some years later appears to have conceded this point, for he says, "Catholic faith (in this particular) only obliges us to maintain that the pope is infallible when he defines with a general council."

The errors 66

From a general denial of the pope's infallibility Laud passed to a particular assertion of the errors of the Roman Church and bishops in special points-in the 'worship of images, and in altering Christ's inof Rome. stitution in the Blessed Sacrament, by taking away the cup from the people, and divers other particulars." But first he examined the position of the Greek Church as a permanent witness against the exclusive claim of Rome. "They [the Greeks] continue a true Church in the main substance to and at this day." The Filioque controversy is discussed with a clearness and accuracy that is none too common. "That divers learned men were of opinion that a Filio et per Filium, in the sense of the Greek Church, was but a question in modo loquendi, "in manner of speech, and therefore not fundamental, is evident." "You," he says, turning to his Jesuit antagonist, "You may make them no Church (as Bellarmine doth), and so deny them salvation, which cannot be had out of the true Church; but I for my part dare not do So. And Rome in this particular should be more moderate,

II

LAUD ANd fisher

II

if it be but because this article, Filioque, was added to the Creed by herself. And it is hard to add and anathematise too. It ought to be no easy thing to condemn a man in foundation of faith; much less a Church; least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek, especially so as to make them no Church. Heaven's gates were not so easily shut against multitudes, when St. Peter wore the keys at his own girdle." Here again Laud showed his keen insight into really vital points: the permanence of the Orthodox Eastern Church is a standing refutation of the exclusive claim of Rome. From this arose a discussion as to what were fundamentals of the faith: Laud said "the Articles of the Creed." Here occurs the curious passage in which Laud appears to maintain the actual descent of our Blessed Lord mentals of into "the lowest pit of hell and place of the damned,” and not merely into the limbus patrum, or into Hades— appears only, for it cannot be said that he clearly states the opinion, since he declares that "the Church of England takes the words as they are in the Creed, and believes them without further dispute, and in that sense which the ancient primitive Fathers of the Church agreed in." And this leads naturally to the discussion of the liberty which the Church allows. Here England, says Laud, stands boldly free and tolerant, where Rome is rigid and bitter.

The funda

the faith.

"She comes far short of the Church of Rome's severity, whose anathemas are not only for Thirty-nine Articles but for very many more- —above one hundred in matter of doctrine— and that in many points as far remote from the foundation; though to the far greater rack of men's consciences, they must be all made fundamental, if that Church have once determined them whereas the Church of England never declared that every one of her Articles are fundamental in the faith. For it is one thing to say, No one of them is superstitious or erroneous; and quite another to say, Every one of them is fundamental, and that in every part of it, to all men's belief. Besides, the Church of England prescribes only to her own children, and by those Articles provides but for her own. peaceable consent in those doctrines of truth. But the Church of Rome severely imposes her doctrine upon the whole world, under pain of damnation."

The positive Articles of the English Church claim all to be founded on Holy Scripture—the negative to be refutations of doctrines not so founded. But how, says the The position of Holy Jesuit, do you know Scripture to be Scripture? Scripture. Laud will not answer “solely by the tradition of the Church,” but rather—(1) the unanimous and constant witness of the Church; (2) the internal light and testimony which Scripture gives to itself; (3) the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the souls of men; (4) natural reason considering the books. These together give evidence which may commend itself to any thoughtful and earnest inquirer. Reason, indeed, is the bulwark not the slave of religion. "For though I set the mysteries of faith above reason, which is their proper place, yet I would have no man think they contradict reason or the principles thereof. No, sure: for reason by her own light can discover how firmly the principles of religion are true; but all the light she hath will never be able to find them false."

Evidence

This question of evidence for the Scripture is argued at great length; Hooker is cited and defended, tradition is weighed, and the Roman claims for it all examined: yet Laud maintains his position, that the supremacy of the Bible rests upon cumulative not particular proof. "The key that lets men and into the Scriptures, even to this knowledge of them, that they are the Word of God, is the tradition of the Church but when they are in, they hear Christ Himself immediately speaking in Scripture to the faithful; and 'His sheep' do not only 'hear' but know 'His voice.' Perhaps in few parts of his treatise is Laud more clear and trenchant and rational than he is here, or more strictly theological. Faith and reason have never perhaps more clearly had their claims vindicated and their limits admitted. The terseness of the language is the fit symbol of the accuracy and condensation of the thought.

"Though the evidence of these supernatural truths, which Divinity teaches, appears not so manifest as that of the natural; yet they are in themselves much more sure and infallible than they. For they proceed immediately from God Himself, that Heavenly Wisdom, which being the foundation of ours, must needs infinitely precede ours, both in nature and