The Henson Journals

[135]

9th Sunday after Trinity, July 29th, 1923.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. John communicated. He is a good lad, and I am so far concerned for him as to getting anxious about his future. At best, there is not much of a career in domestic service, for the movement of society is against the private wealth which presupposes, and there are many signs of popular dislike of any employment which seems to imply social inequality. But John is 17, and his time of choice is running out. Yet alternatives to domestic service are not easy to find.

I left the Castle after breakfast & motored to Coniscliffe, where I read the lessons & preached in the parish church of St Edwin, an interesting building in the early English style with a good tower and spire, a Norman doorway adorned with birds' beaks like Iffley, & the house of the chantry–priest used as the vestry. In the congregation were Sir Alfred Palmer & Captain Apperley. I lunched with Mr Pease at Carlbury. Then I went to Denton, & preached in the little church which was well filled. After service I had tea with old Mr Apter the parson, & then called at Walworth Castle. I got back to the Castle about 6 p.m.

The Rev. R. C. George, has been Vicar of Coniscliffe for 17 years. He was ordained as long ago as 1883. I noticed with pleasure that his book–shelves contained many good modern books. He is unmarried.

[136]

Children's clothes ought to be made of the biggest, because afterwards their bodies will grow up to their garments. Thus the Articles of this English protestant church in the infancy thereof, they thought good to draw up in general terms, forseeing that posterity would grow up to fill the same: I mean these holy men did prudently prediscover that differences in judgments would unavoidably happen in the church, & were loath to unchurch any, and drive them off from an ecclesiastical communion for such petty differences; which made them pen the Articles in comprehensive words, to take in all who, differing in the branches, meet in the root of the same religion……………

It is observable that these Articles came forth much about the time wherein the Decrees of the Council of Trent were published, truth and falsehood starting in some sort of both together, though the former will surely carry away the victory at long running: many of which Decrees begin with lying, and all conclude with cursing, thundering anathemas against all dissenters: whilst these our Articles, like the still voice, only plainly express the positive truth.

Fuller 'The Church History of Great Britain' Bk.IX

(vol. iv. p. 317. Oxford 1845) published. 1655

[137]

Inge is reported to have said that "the Church of England is a compromise", and his words will certainly be widely used as providing some kind of a justification for "Anglo–Catholicism". But neither he, nor any other considering man acquainted with the history and law of the Church of England could admit the plea. Every English clergyman declares his belief in "the doctrine of the C. of E. as set forth in the Thirty nine Articles & the Book of Common Prayer". Whatever compromise there is must be expressed in these documents, & cannot possibly extend to specific contradictions of them. The Anglican standards express a moderate form of "the Protestant Religion", or, as the phrase has stood in the Coronation Oath since the Revolution, "the Protestant Reformed religion". Bp. Stubbs says that says that 'the word (Protestant) was simply meant to denote the denial of 'the Roman claims', but nothing is more certain than that 'the Roman claims' were understood alike in the XVIth and the XVIIth century, "to extend far beyond the specific point , how far the Papal Supremacy extended. The claims of the Pope form the subject of a single clause in a single article, the 37th. "Of the Civil magistrate"– "The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England". Under Henry VIII the extent of the Papal claim was the main issue: under Elizabeth the doctrine of the Mass. The whole High Church party – & thus the true reason for the popularity of the Prayer Bk of 1549 – desires to go behind Elizabeth to Henry VIII i.e., to ignore the doctrinal & liturgical reformation.

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