The Henson Journals

[125]

Monday, September 25th, 1922.

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I wrote to Captn Barker declining to intervene in the matter of his marriage in church. I wrote also to Canon Stack.

Romans writes to accept S. Mark's, Millfield. I spent much time in reading Hales. What an admirable sanity pervades his writing! How virile & persistent is his demand that every Christian shall exercise his private judgment on Religion! How sternly he sweeps aside the sophistries by which private judgment has been belittled & disallowed! Chillingworth and Hales have a very similar style.

Brigstocke arrived at lunch time, and afterwards walked with me in the park. He is restless at Horden: complains that he has no leisure to read anything: says that his health is again showing signs of collapse: and generally shows the White Flag! This is really annoying, for he is irreplaceable.

I wrote to Marion: and then fell to reading Hales's account of the Synod of Dort. It is very good reading. The clever young Englishman – he was 34 – was half amused, half disgusted by the proceedings. The humourless Dutch fanaticks, as unscrupulous as the Jesuits and not half so clever, were indeed a sufficiently ludicrous spectacle to satisfy the most sardonic temperament. Probably we owe to the educative influence of his experiences at Dort the tolerant wisdom & good–natured sanity which make John Hales's writings, though so petty in bulk, so precious in quality.

[126]

September 25th, 1922.

Dear Canon Stack,

I am obliged to you for your letter, which gives me sufficient reason for deciding that I could not rightly intervene in the case of Captn Barker's proposed marriage.

It must not be forgotten in dealing with the very delicate & difficult questions connected with marriage in modern society that the Church of England has no other legal system than that which belongs to its national establishment.

On no Catholic principle, I apprehend, could the right to refuse admission to Holy Communion be regarded as belonging to a parish priest. The extent of his power is indicated in the Rubrick which lays down the disqualifications for Communion, & authorizes the Curate to warn off the disqualified, & then "within 14 days after at the farthest" to report his action to the Ordinary, i.e. the Bishop, with whom responsibility in this matter rests.

I do not think it would be reasonable, or equitable, nor can I believe it could be according to the Mind of Christ, that the Holy Sacrament should be refused to a duly–qualified Christian, desirous of receiving It, on no other ground than that of remarriage after divorce. The difference between guilt and innocence cannot be simply ignored: nor can the Words of Christ in S. Matthew's Gospel be allowed no weight.

[127]

The Lambeth Conference of 1888 expressed its mind thus:–

Resolution 4(C).

That recognising the fact that there always has been a difference of opinion on the question whether Our Lord meant to forbid marriage to the innocent party in a divorce for adultery, the Conference recommends that the Clergy should not be instructed to refuse the Sacraments or other privileges of the Church to those who, under civil sanction, are thus married.

That resolution, as far as I know, still expresses the mind of the Anglican Episcopate as a whole. Individual bishops would be stricter or laxer, but the 'common mind' decides thus.

With kind regards,

I am, sincerely yours,

Herbert Dunelm:

The 'Achilles heel' of the Establishment is the Marriage Law. We aree living 'on sufferance'. The clergy trample on the rights of their parishioners in the name of a fictitious "Law of the Church" which has no existence outside their own sacerdotalized imaginations. The scandals of the Divorce Court are so frequent & so gross, that they go far to excuse the fanatical obstinacy of the incumbents!

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