aspects of it. We are not limited by the teaching of one man, however admirable. The Church of England is undoubtedly comprehensive. Is this a serious defect or a real gain?

I cannot but think that, especially in view of the discussions and the hopes of the present time, it will not be inappropriate if I devote my primary visitation charge to reviewing the history and purpose of the Church of England, to discussing its doctrine, its worship, and organization, to considering its relation to other religious bodies, and to attempting to outline its mission in the world.

CHAPTER I

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

We cannot describe accurately the Church of England unless we have first a clear idea of the Christian and Catholic Church of which it claims to be a part. I shall therefore devote the first section of my charge to the subject of the Christian Church.1

A belief in the Christian Church in some form or other has been a part of the teaching of almost all branches of Christianity. The only body which seems to be entirely without such a belief is the Quakers. But, although all have held some belief, it has taken very varied forms. Some have laid stress mainly on its being a visible organized society, and have attempted to define with accuracy the limits of that society; others have laid stress on the invisible Church, and have placed its unity in the mystical body of those who are true servants of Jesus Christ and are united by the spiritual bond of their life in Christ. These two conceptions have been combined in different ways. I propose first of all to ask what was the purpose of Christ; then to consider what have been the different forms that the Christian Church has presented; and, thirdly, to attempt to answer the question where it may be found.

What was our Lord's intention and purpose? Did He intend to combine His followers in a society? And did He give any directions as to what form that society should take ?

We have to begin with an express declaration ascribed to Him-words spoken to St. Peter on a very memorable

1 A good deal that is contained in this first section is based on what I have written in The Doctrine of the Church and Christian Reunion (London: John Murray. 1920). The evidence for much that I say here may be found in that work.

occasion. When St. Peter had definitely, on behalf of the disciples, confessed his belief that his Master was the Messiah, Jesus said to him: "And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The first difficulty we have with these words is that doubts have been expressed as to their genuineness; it has been maintained that they were added to the narrative at some later period-as late as the second century, it has been said—in the interests of party movements in the early Church. I have never been able to accept that solution. The opinion that we must form on a question such as this must depend partly on our general position with regard to questions of criticism. Now, all my studies have convinced me that the great bulk of the words ascribed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels must be genuine. They could not have come at a later date. They represent something which is behind the teaching of the Christian Church. Nor does the fact that these words occur only in the Gospel of St. Matthew interfere with that opinion. As far as I am able to judge, much of what is most characteristic and most far-reaching in its influence among the sayings of our Lord is reported by St. Matthew alone. Whether all these words were necessarily spoken at the same time is a more difficult question, as it is undoubtedly the habit of St. Matthew to group together sayings of our Lord derived from different sources, and belonging to different occasions according to their subject-matter.

I see no reason on general grounds to doubt the authenticity of these words. Nor on particular grounds are there any reasons, apart from a priori theories as to what our Lord ought to have said. It must be recognized that much of what is called criticism consists in first constructing a theory of what ought to have been the teaching of 1 Matt. xvi. 18, 19.

THE PROMISE TO ST. PETER

5

Jesus, and then cutting out or rewriting such portions of the Gospel teaching as conflict with that reconstruction. This method is called by its adherents scientific. It is, of course, nothing of the sort.

There are various criteria by which we may judge the genuineness of a passage. One is language. Now, all the language of this passage is markedly Jewish in character. The address Simon Bar Jonah must have come from one who spoke in Aramaic. "Flesh and blood" is a normal Hebrew expression. So is " My Father which is in heaven." The metaphors of building the Church, of the gates of Hades, of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, are all Jewish. The phrase "binding and loosing" was regularly used of the authority of the Rabbis, and may be contrasted with the language of St. John's Gospel: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained," which are probably a later paraphrase. Then the word ecclesia. with its Hebrew and Aramaic equivalents, was used in the Old Testament of the Congregation of the Saints— that is, of the Assembly of Israel in its ideal aspect. So far as language goes, the passage must belong to the more primitive sections of the Gospel.2

Then as regards subject-matter. The position ascribed to St. Peter is in accordance with all our other evidence. In all lists of the Apostles he is put first and called "first." He is the leader of the Apostolic body. He becomes the leader of the Christian community after the death of Jesus. The natural deduction is that he held that position because he had been given it by his Master, and that these words record the commission. The perverted view is that this passage was forged in order to create or justify that position.

It is, of course, the use that is made of this passage to support the claims of the Church of Rome which has caused much of this criticism, and it is necessary, there

1 See p. 10.

2 For illustrations of the language of this passage from Jewish sources, see Dalman, Words of Jesus (E. T.), p. 213.

fore, for us to determine what is the position that the promise of our Lord gave to St. Peter. At any rate, the suggestion that the passage was interpolated to support Roman claims is absurd, because it was already in the Gospels, and had, indeed, been commented upon and studied before these claims existed.

What is the position, then, that the promise gives to St. Peter? The answer must be one which is purely personal. Our Lord had selected him at the beginning of His ministry to be the leader of the Apostles. He now announces that he it is on whom He will build up the congregation of the Messiah, the new Israel. He did not desire, nor do the words imply that He desired, to confer any authority on any successor of St. Peter; nor were they originally taken in the Christian Church to have had any such meaning. For the correct way in which these words should be interpreted, I would refer you to the Dissertation on St. Peter at Rome which may be found in the second volume of Bishop Lightfoot's edition of Clement of Rome.1 There are three main points to notice. The first is that the early Patristic commentators have no notion that these words implied that any particular position or authority was to be ascribed to St. Peter, or to any successor of his, much less to the Roman Church. Take the following passage of Origen:

"But if we also, like Peter, say, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, flesh and blood not having revealed it to us, but the Spirit from heaven having illumined our hearts, we become as Peter, and it would be said to us by the Word, Thou art Peter, and so forth. For every disciple of Christ is a rock, from which all they that partake of the spiritual rock which follows did drink; and upon every such rock the whole doctrine of the Church and the polity in accordance therewith is built. But if thou supposest that the whole Church is built by God on that one Peter alone, what wouldest thou say concerning John the son of Thunder, or any one of the Apostles? Otherwise shall we dare to say that against

1 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, vol. i.; Clement of Rome, vol. ii., p. 481; St. Peter in Rome.