The Henson Journals
Sun 25 August 1929
Volume 48, Pages 279 to 281
[279]
13th Sunday after Trinity, August 25th, 1929.
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I went to St Anne's Church with Ella, and received the Holy Communion. Blackett, the curate, officiated. He has a loud voice, & rather too unctuous a manner: but the service was that appointed in the Prayer–book, &, save that the Elements were ministered with one recitation of the formula to every two communicants, there were no vagaries. Considering the fewness of the communicants this ̭innovatioṋ seemed to be superfluous.
[symbol] I spent the morning in writing a long letter to Temple, criticizing some passages in his Presidential Address, & taking occasion to tell him how meanly I think of the precious 'Pastoral Letter', which he and his southern brother have recently issued. This with infinite labour, I copied into my letter–book, & then despatched. Then I walked round the Park in the evening light which suffuses everything with a placid melancholy glory. As I walked I reflected on the Letter to a Clergyman on his appointment to a benefice, which I think it might be serviceable to publish in the next 'Bishoprick'.
[280]
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["]The Church of England is a national Church, which can only mean a representative Church, representing, as far as possible, the forms of religious belief existing in the country. When its constitution was framed, English Protestants were divided into two widely different sections, the one leaning in most things towards Catholicism, while the other was substantially Puritan. The Church was intended to comprise them both. The Prayer Book was a compromise framed for the purpose of comprehension & peace. Ambiguities of expression were intentionally introduced into it and its double origin is clearly reflected in the continuing tendencies of its parts. The Church was designed to be a State Church, including the whole nation, governed by the national legislature, & disposing of vast revenues for national purposes. It may reasonably, therefore be concluded that those who interpret its formularies in the widest & most comprehensive sense compatible with honesty are acting most faithfully [281] [symbol] to the spirit of its founders.["]
Lecky. Hist: of England iii. 26.
Lecky is stating the conception of the Church which prevailed in the XVIIIth century, & which certainly was his own. It remains the conception of the average educated Englishman. Only with some very important reservations can it be allowed to express the truth. The Church of England on any showing is 1) a Church, and 2) a Christian Church: & these two characters most condition our understanding of the crucial adjective, 'national'. Whatever is properly connoted by the Catholic Church and ̭by̭ the Christian Religion belongs to the Church of England. So far its 'representative' character must needs be limited. There is much "religious belief existing in the country" which is both purely individualistic, and frankly non–Christian. A 'national church' cannot represent this. Puritans ̭& Quakers̭ repudiated the claims of the Church Unitarians, the claims of the Christian Religion. Neither have been tolerable or tolerated within the National Church. The limits of legitimate interpretation of the Anglican formularies are hereby indicated plainly enough.