thought and action. It is perfectly easy to learn to use dogmas and by so doing to find their rich significance. When the dogma of the Trinity has led us to fruitful prayer to each of the three divine Persons, when the dogma of the Incarnation has led us to the realisation of our privileges as the children of God, when the dogma of the forgiveness of sins has led us to the joy of complete absolution, we shall cease to regard dogmas as offences, and seek to find through their guidance increasing fulness of spiritual experi

ence.

VII

PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

HE Book of Common Prayer which is put into our hands by the Church is at once the law of our worship and of our belief. When the question is raised, What does the American Church teach? the obvious source to which we turn for an answer is the Prayer Book. And yet it is true that we find many men using the Prayer Book and professing loyalty to it, who yet differ radically in their teaching. How are we to determine who is right?

In other words, what are the principles of interpretation which are to be applied in determining the meaning of the Prayer Book? No document whatever is self-interpretative. A law may be drawn up with the greatest possible care, and yet when it is put in operation there will arise differences of interpretation, and we only know what the meaning of the law is after it has been passed upon by the highest court. Similarly, there must be some principle by the application of which we

may ascertain the meaning of the formularies of our worship and faith.

We cannot leave them to be interpreted by the individual private judgment. That is the blunder that the Protestant reformers made at the time of the Reformation and which their descendants have perpetuated. The Holy Scriptures interpreted by the individual land us in chaos. Protestant Christendom is the sufficient record of the failure of that theory. Even those holding the theory found themselves unable to live up to it. Luther and Calvin and Knox were as intent on impressing their interpretation of the Scriptures on others as were the popes, whereas, on their announced principles, they ought to have had no quarrel with the popes or with each other, but simply to have said, “Your interpretation holds for you, of course, as mine holds for me." Private judgment ought not to mean Luther's judgment or Calvin's judgment, but any man's judgment. Why should Luther have been so intent on making other men accept his doctrine of justification by faith only? A doctrine arrived at by private judgment can hardly be taught with any force. It remains a private opinion.

That is equally true of the Anglican formularies. We must have external standards to which to refer them. What standards are there?

It has been proposed to test them by comparison with the writings of Anglican theologians contemporary with their formulation. Learned gentlemen have spent much time in collecting passages from the writings of the reformers of the Tudor period. They say, "This is what Cranmer and Ridley believed about the ministry and the sacraments, and this, therefore, is what the formal documents of the Church must be held to mean." It seems to me that a good deal of time has been wasted by the partisans of different theological schools in constructing catenae of passages from Tudor and Stuart divines to rule the interpretation of the Prayer Book. Such catenae have their value; but it is the value of illustrating the vogue of a given interpretation rather than that of determining the interpretation itself. Passages proving that Tudor bishops did not believe in their orders or in the real Presence are of use in determining the orthodoxy of the individual bishop, if any one at this late date is interested in that, but they prove nothing at all as to the meaning of the Prayer Book. And that for this reason: that the Church of England when at the Reformation it put forth its revised Prayer Book, and other doctrinal statements, did not appeal to the opinions of contemporary bishops and theologians, but did appeal to the Holy Scriptures

interpreted by the tradition of the Church; that is, by the doctrinal decrees of the conciliar period and the writings of the Fathers of the undivided Church. This appeal was made explicitly over and over again in the course of the Reformation legislation. It is made in the matter of orders in the Preface to the Ordinal. We there read: "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church,- Bishops, Priests and Deacons." The principle here stated may be generalized to apply to all doctrinal statements. Our reply then to those who collect passages from the Reformers as the standard of the interpretation of the Prayer Book is that we do not in the least care what they teach so far as that purpose is concerned. The Church to which we owe allegiance does not appeal to them. We regret that the demonstration shows them to have been in error, but we have no intention of following them therein.

The appeal of the Anglican Reformation, then, is, in the first place, to the Bible. A doctrine to be of faith must be a part of the revelation contained in Holy Scripture. If it is not, it may be as true as you like, but it cannot be binding on the conscience with the obligation of faith. In