The Henson Journals

[517]

Monday, December 6th, 1915.

490th day

Compston went off by the 8.30 a.m. express to London: & General Gaisford returned to Harrogate by the 10.30 a.m. train to York. I spent the morning in reading through Jewel's famous 'Apology'. If any book could be held to express with authority the mind of the Elizabethan Reformers, surely this must be the one. Nowhere is the essential identity of the Reformation at home & abroad more clearly assented. He never so much as alludes to the validity of Orders as secured by the Apostolical Succession of the English clergy. On the contrary he ridicules the Pope's claim to be S. Peter's successor: & lays down the far–reaching principle: "God's grace is promised to a good mind, and to one that feareth God, not unto sees and successions." Is it conceivable that he would have written in that way if he had shared the modern Anglican valuation of the episcopal succession? He definitely denies that the Power of the Keys is exercised in "private confessions" such as "the common massing of priests" had been accustomed to hear: & identifies the "Keys" with "the Word of God". The clergy "bind & loose" when they preach the Word, sanctioning from its teaching some actions, & disallowing others. He exhibits no concern whatever for "continuity": he is concerned with justifying from the remotest Christian antiquity the violent breach with the medieval Church, which had been effected. He is content to repel the insulting suggestion that he has no right to call himself Bishop of Salisbury by pointing to the facts: "Our bishops are made in form & order, as they have ever been, by free election of the chapter: by consecration of the Abp. and other three bishops: & by the admission of the prince": and then he hastens to emphasize the famous Tertullianic aphorism – "Ubi tres ecclesia est, licet laici". "God's name be blessed for ever! We want neither church nor priesthood, nor any kind of sacrifice, that Christ hath left unto His faithful".

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