The Henson Journals

[41]

Monday, July 12th, 1920.

"No ideal of Unity can satisfy us which fails in range or in quality, i.e. which leaves outside the visible Church any genuine disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, or which sets before the world a partial or distorted conception of Christian fellowship. Whether the attainment of that ideal would imply the organisation of the visible Church as a single polity is a point which neither the New Testament nor the experience of the Christian society enables us to determine."

"The true parallel to the spiritual society of Christ's Church is not a single government however effective & extended, but the human race itself. The Church is ultimately equivalent to redeemed humanity, & the nature of its unity will have its analogue in the unity of mankind.

"History is continually revising the definition of the Catholic Church. We are called to recognize the teaching of History (i.e. the Mind of the Spirit disclosed in Christian experience), & to extend our definition of the Catholic Church until it covers the facts."

The Christian Ministry of the Word & Sacraments is a Dominical institution, & must be integral to the idea of visible unity: but its specific form, whether papal, episcopal, presbyterian, or any other, is certainly not ordained by Christ, & is seen in Christian History to have varied from time to time.

[42]

"It must be evident that we cannot anticipate the final verdict of History: we can but determine our course by such guidance as we actually possess at present. In view of the antiquity, persistence, elasticity, wide acceptance, & practical utility of episcopacy, it would seem obvious that, in so far as the unity of the Visible Church shall in the future express itself in the adoption of a single polity, that polity must be episcopal. Since no Dominical institution, or clear Apostolic appointment, or universal acceptance can be pleaded for the Episcopal polity, it is evident that its final prevalence must be based on plain grounds of expediency. It must prevail by title of its superior efficiency.

"It must, however, be borne always in mind that a United Church need not be organized as a single polity. Visible union is consistent with variety of polities, though its maintenance may be facilitated by the adoption of one form of government, & it is hard to see how variety of polity is consistent with visible unity in the same area."

I attended the Committee on International Relations in the morning, & the Reunion Committee in the afternoon. In the course of the proceedings, I read the answers which I had prepared to Lang's four questions. (The gist of my reply is quoted above). Lang, in summing up the discussion, was more hostile than he had led me to expect.

[43]

I drove to the Athenaeum, & must have left the letter from the French Huguenots in the car. This is unfortunate, as the document was important. It came from the "Conféderation Protestante de France", & was signed by the President & Secretary. It stated the chaplaincy church at Wiesbaden had been asked for in order that it might be used for the religious services of the French Protestant Officers & Soldiers. The Chaplain (Freege) had refused on the ground that he had offered it to the Roman Catholics, & was awaiting their answer. He went on to explain that the Church being consecrated for Catholic worship could not be used by non–Catholics, & that there were other places which the French Protestants might use. I replied that I had showed the letters to the Bishop of London within whose jurisdiction the chaplaincy at Wiesbaden was situated: that his Lordship authorized me to say that he wd not himself have refused the use of the church to the French Protestants, but that, since the Roman Catholics were now using it, he wd not interfere. I added an expression of my own deep disapproval of the tone & temper of the Chaplain's letter. "I recall the close & frequent intercourse of the Church of England with the French Protestant Church in former times, & I desire nothing more earnestly than the restoration of fellowship between them." This was the gist of my letter to the President.

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