has reminded us, is a purely insular and
provincial attitude in relation to doctrines which have not been
formally set forth by Anglican authority. The Anglican Church has tried
its best to impress upon us that there is no such thing as an Anglican
Religion; there is but one Religion--the Religion of God's Catholic
Church. What we are to seek to know is not the mind "of the Anglican
reformers," or the mind "of the Caroline divines," but the mind of the
Catholic Church. Wherever we shall find that mind expressed, though in
terms unfamiliar to us, we are bound to treat it with respect. We are to
seek to know the truth that the truth may make us free--from all pride
and prejudice, as well as from heresy and blasphemy. And we shall best
come at this mind in its widest meaning by the study of the writings of
the saints of all ages and of all parts of the Church. It may fairly be
inferred that those who have attained great perfection in the Catholic
life have achieved it by the application of Catholic truth to every
day living.
III. The members of the Anglican Church have the same freedom as other
Catholics in the matter of theological speculation. What was done at the
Reformation was not final in the sense that we are never to believe or
to teach anything that is not found in Anglican formularies. The fact
that a certain doctrine like that of the Invocation of Saints was
omitted from the Anglican formularies is not fatal to its practice. The
grounds of its omission in practice may or may not have been well
judged. But the theory of it was never denied, it is indeed contained in
the Creeds themselves, and change in circumstances may justify its
revival in practice.
Moreover, the theology of the Christian Church is not a body of static
doctrine, but is the expression of the ceaseless meditation of the
saints upon the truths revealed to us by God. To suppose that any age
whatever has exhausted the meaning of the Revealed Truth would be
absurd. It is inexhaustible. So long as the mind of the Church is
pondering it, it brings out from it things old and new. Among ourselves
it is perhaps at present more desirable that we should bring out the old
things than seek to find the new. The historic circumstances of the
Anglican Church have been such as to lead to the practical disuse of
much that is of great spiritual value in the treasury of the Church. It
is largely in the attempt to bring into use the riches that have been
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