William Goode's "The Divine Rule Of Faith And Practice" in three volumes, produced between 1842-1853. "The Preface to the Second Edition," pp. xxxi-xli. We publish the second preface to the second edition, 12 years after the first edition, in search of updates by Goode on the development of Tractarianism. Tractarianism was emerging, but given their practice of "reserve" or "economy," that is, the self-conscious practice of "secrecy" that Newman found in second century Christianity (to avoid imperial persecutions), it was hard at first to connect the dots. Goode refers to the Tractarian duplicities in 1853. Other Reformed and Evangelical Anglicans have pointed this up as well, but little is now about the secretive and duplictous behaviours of the Tractarians.
This is a most thorough refutation of the Roman notion that the Bible cannot stand as the sufficient source of saving truth. The massive case is developed from the early church fathers down to the romanizing Oxford Movement of Goode’s own day.
We believe this work stands alongside the benchmarks of Chemnitz and Gerhard in the Lutheran faith; also William Whitaker and John Jewel in the Anglican tradition; also, Louis Gaussen and B.B. Warfield in the Reformed tradition.
This has collateral, practical and pastoral implications. 1) The canonicity, inspiration, authority, sovereignty, sufficiency, and perspicuity of Scriptures, in light of charismania, extra-canonical revelations (TBN, 700 Club, and associated enthusiasts). 2) The continuuing inconsistencies between Reformed, Confessional, Evangelical Anglicanism and the Tractarianism in the ACNA, to wit, Bp. Jack Iker avering Tract XC and the disavowal of Reformed thinking. Anglo-Catholicism has no place in authentic Anglicanism. 3) Women's ordination and relativization of the text to religious pluralism. 4) The serious flirtations of contemporary evangelicalism with false and mysticist entities, e.g. Emergent Church, etc. 5) The role of the Bible in reading, home life, education, and pulpit exposition. 6) The influx of expatriates from non-liturgical traditions without exposure to the classical English Reformed faith and their "evangelical" enthusiasm for Anglicanism without information and with their vulnerabilities. I have seen this often...new joins falling for Anglo-Catholicism like "reformed drunks" with little background in the issue. I have one such sop in mind, but there are more. I have no use for it. Bob Duncan, ACNA, will not discipline these modern Tractarians. Nor will the double-dealing REC Bishops. 7) The absence of a genuinely consistent and authentic Reformed and Protestant voice in doctrine, worship and piety, in the Anglican way.
Goode's 3 volumes were the salvoes the Tractarians and Anglo-Catholics never answered.
Volume One is free and downloadable at:
http://www.archive.org/stream/divinerulefaith01goodgoog/divinerulefaith01goodgoog_djvu.txt
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Since the first edition of this work was published, the true nature and tendency of Tractarianism have been so fully proved, that it seems hardly necessary here to address any further warnings to the Reader on that point. But no one can view the present state of our Church without feeling, that, notwithstanding the Romish character of the movement, and the large secession it has caused from our ranks in the direction of Rome, it has produced an efifect upon our Church, the consequences of
which are likely to be at least of long duration and serious moment.
When the conflict commenced by the publication of the " Tracts for the Times," the almost total neglect of theological studies had left the great mass of the Clergy an easy prey to the most superficial writers on the subject of theology. Almost any representation of the doctrines of the Fathers, and even
of our own great divines of former times, might be made with comparative impunity, for few knew, or cared to know, what they were. The state of things among us was precisely such as enables a few earnest men of settled purpose and strong will, especially if not over scrupulous in the means used for the attainment of their end, to stamp upon the prevailing tone of the theology of a Church, almost any character they please. And largely have the Tractators availed themselves of the facilities afforded them by these and other circumstance, which a future historian may havei less difficulty than a contemporaneous one in specifying, to carry on their schemes for 'unprotestantizing " our Church.
I have already noticed, however, in the Preface to the first edition of this work, the various causes which conspired to aid the efforts of the Tractators at the commencement of their course, in the promotion of their designs; and among them, one, — adverted to in pp. xxiii, xxiv, — which I
acknowledge with thankfulness has long ceased to exist, I mean that spirit of hostility to the Church, which grew out of the peculiar political circumstances of the period. We have reason to be grateful to the good providence of God, that amidst all the drawbacks which the manifold practical abuses
and corruptions existing in our Church present to the confidence and affection of the people, the spirit of active hostility exhibited on the part of some, at the period alluded to, has either subsided
or become innocuous, and the alienation of mind existing in others has issued in the work, not of destruction, but of conservative reform.
Such a movement, however, as that made by the authors of the ' Tracts for the Times,'' and their adherents, involving great and important principles, if it once attains a hold upon the public mind, has a course to run, longer or shorter according to circumstances, which nothing can wholly prevent. It ought
not, therefore, to be a matter for surprise, that the effect produced by the writings and labors of the Tractarian party, however erroneous and opposed to the genuine doctrine of our Church, has been of a deep, extensive, and lasting kind. Rather ought we to be prepared to view it as but the commencement of a struggle, which will be long continued, for the re-establishment in our Church of those principles and practices which she repudiated at the Reformation.
It is impossible for one who reads with any degree of attention the history of our Church since that period, not to remark, how, at various subsequent times, retrograde principles have been at work, modifying the views put forth by all our great divines of the Reformation era, gradually altering the current tone of our theology, and even, as at the period of the Restoration, when a few Laudian divines were in the ascendant, tampering, as far as the circumstances of the times would permit, with our public Formularies.
He who seeks a proof of this, may find it exhibited in a very remarkable way, by taking the works of any number of the bishops and divines of leading station in our Church for the first fifty years after its settlement on its present basis, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and comparing them with those of the same number of persons in a similar position at any period since the time of Laud. Few, I believe, have any notion of the difference of the theological atmosphere (so to speak) in which such a person would find himself in the two cases. And it would be a curious subject of inquiry, how many of the (so called) High Churchmen of the present day would have had even a locus standi left them in our Church, if the views held by the former as the doctrines of our Church, and as established by the Formularies they themselves drew up, had been made the standard by which those Formularies were to be interpreted. To that precise standard, I for my part have no desire that those who minister in our Church should be limited. But surely there are bounds, within which the interpretation given to those Formularies, by those who are admitted to the ministerial office in our Church on the condition of their belief in the doctrines there laid down, ought to be found. And if there are any, they are certainly such as to exclude an Anii-Protestant interpretation of Protestant Articles.
It may be right on the part of those who are the genuine doctrinal successors of our Reformers, to overlook the change in the position assigned in our Church for the last two centuries to the doctrines they hold, and to leave even the ascendancy of views scarcely tolerated in our Church for many years after the Reformation, without a protest, to God's providential dispensations. But when those views reach a point at which they become almost identical with those of Rome itself, then surely it becomes the duty of such as desire to preserve to their country the blessings of the Reformation, to call public attention to the dangers to which our Church is exposed.
That such is the case at the present time, few will be disposed to deny. And among the signs of the times indicating the nature of the theology which is being pressed upon our Church, even in some places of the highest authority the subject of this work leads me more particularly to notice the last Charge
of the Bishop of Oxford. In that address to his clergy his Lordship touches upon a subject of undoubtedly great importance, and one which demands the attention of all who have a regard for the souls of men, namely, "our danger from the spirit of infidelity," (pp. 80 et seq.) But in his description
of the mode in which this spirit is manifested, and more especially of the way in which it is to be encountered, we meet with an enunciation of views and principles painfully divergent from those upon which our Protestant Church stands. He tells us, that " the one thing which it resists is authority : it would '' PLACE EVERY SINGLE SOUL IN DIRECT AND INDEPENDENT COMMUNION WITH THE CREATIVE Spirit of whose nature he partakes, and to whom alone he is responsible. So far as Christianity promotes this, it is to be encouraged ; but it is not, " they urge, to be borne, that any dogma should be enforced on such seekers after truth by any external authority as essential to salvation, or in itself necessarily true; or any medium' interposed between their spirits and the Universal Father, In their first stage, therefore, these principles begin commonly by resisting the authority of the Church, as that which meets them most immediately ; they proceed to raise questions as to the "inspiration of some parts of Holy Scripture; they end by denying altogether its authority, and leaving their victim with an entire unbelief as to the objective truth of any spiritual " agency beyond those of the one Great Spirit of the Universe, "and his own soul as an emanation from Him, seeking reunion with Him." And he refers to the history of the author of " The Phases of Faith," as given by himself, in illustration of these remarks ; and assures us, that " he has marked down 'with the utmost accuracy the logical sequence of every one
'of his steps, from an ardent love of Evangelical truth, combined " with a denial of all spiritual authority save in the letter of the" Written Word, down to its close, in a mystical but universal " scepticism" (pp. 80, 81.) So that his Lordship supposes, that if a man begins with "an ardent love of Evangelical truth,"
but denies all spiritual authority but that of tbe Holy Scriptures ''the logical sequence" will be ''a mystical but universal scepticism." " It is with this spirit," the Right Rev. Prelate tells us, ''in unnumbered degrees, forms, and combinations, that we have to struggle ;" and he assures us, that it ''can be " successfully resisted amongst ourselves only by a full and "faithful maintenance of the teaching and authority of our
"Church." (p. 81.)
And he proceeds to quote, as an exemplification of this spirit. Dr. Arnold's teaching on the subject of the Church, contrasting with it what he considers the true doctrine, namely, that "we" are under an appointed spiritual economy, in which human " instruments and outward acts are made the channels of Divine grace; that we are in a spiritual kingdom, which has its appointed officers, through whom God works ;" (p. 88 ;) in short, that we derive all spiritual gifts and graces through ordinances ministered by the clergy of the Apostolic Succession; " the constitution of the Church" " securing for men" " access
to God ;" (p. 81 ;) and " the Church " being dwelt in by the "Spirit of Grod, and so becoming an instrument whereby, through " appointed channels, the gifts of the Spirit are ministered to "men." (p. 85.)
To any one who has but an ordinary acquaintance with such subjects, the views and principles pervading these remarks are too manifest to need one word to point out their seriously anti-
Protestant character. But, being written more particularly against those who deny the inspiration of parts of Holy Scripture, and maintain some kindred errors, they may not, in the case of many readers, attract the attention they deserve. But the system here advocated is scarcely one step removed from
Romanism. So far as concerns the views of Dr. Arnold or others here alluded to, this is not the place to discuss them, but to the system here put forward as their opponent it is necessary to direct attention, as it is in fact the Tractarian system developed to its full proportions ; and if such a system ever prevails in our Church, it will not be long before she will again be absorbed in the Romish Apostasy. The great fundamental principles upon which Popciy rests are precisely those here advocated, namely, (1) the interposition of a mediating priest through whose ministrations alone we can hold communion with God,
and the consequent denial of the soul's'' direct and independent communion" with Him, (2) the denial of the supremacy of '' the written word" to the consciences of individuals, and the setting up of another " spiritual authority" in " the teaching and authority of the Church," that is, the clergy, superior to
it ; and (3) the making the laity of the Church dependent upon the clergy for all spiritual gifts and graces.
As it respects the first and last of these points, I must content myself here with thus pointing them out to the reader's notice. But as it respects the second, which is intimately connected with the subject of this work, there is one remark which I cannot but offer, and that is, that it is a doctrine which, what-
ever may be its character in other respects, is at least utterly subversive of the very foundation upon which the Reformed Church of England stands. With the doctrine of the Supremacy of Holy Scripture to the consciences of individuals, and the right of private judgment in contradistinction to '' the authority
of the Church," she stands or falls. For, her Reformation was effected by comparatively a few individuals acting against the authority of the Church both of the East and West, and going back (as one of her most illustrious Reformers, Bishop Jewel, tells us) to the word of God, to draw from it the pure doctrine of the Gospel of Christ. The faith of almost the whole Catholic Church was at the time, and had been for centuries, opposed to that which she established as the foundation upon which she
was built up. And that which alone enabled her to effect her Reformation was, the gracious providence of God inclining the Civil Power to aid a minority of the clergy and laity in re-establishing a Scriptural faith in the place of the corrupt system of Rome. The very ground, therefore, upon which our Church
stands, is that of the right of private judgment ; and the question it exactly corresponds with the thesis recently offered to be maintained by against Dr. Gaussen at Geneva, which was this, — " The
supernatural faith necessary to salvation has for foundation and for rule, not the Bible submitted to private judgment, or interpreted by the reason of eacli individual, which is the foundation of all heresies, and the source of all errors, but the infallible authority of the Church as interpreter."
Of tbe justice of her charge of heterodoxy against so large a portion of Christendom she leaves to the judgment of the great day. When, therefore, her ministers advocate the doctrine of "the authority of the Church" over the consciences of men, they are in fact subverting the very foundations on which their Church is built. And if they succeed in impressing their doctrines on the minds of men, the necessary consequence, in the case of well-informed persons of ingenuous and independent minds, is a conviction, that the Reformed Church of England is built upon a foundation that will not stand the test of investgation. And the result of such a conviction is obvious. This is now, alas ! no mere theoretical speculation. We have seen the operation of the doctrine in producing the conviction, and the result to which that conviction has led, in a way that can leave no doubt what is the legitimate consequence of such a tenet.
The effects upon our Church, and the country at large, in various ways, from the spread of such views within her communion, are of no trivial moment, even to the mere politician. But the political dangers of Popery having been supposed to cease with the death of the last Popish Pretender, the doctrine
maintained by the clergy has been to the State a matter of comparative indifference. How far prudently so, time will jhow. It is not a matter of little moment to any State what are the doctrines and principles taught by the clergy. The history of those countries in which Romanism has been predominant, espe-
cially Ireland, is a sufficient proof of the effect of its principles upon the general condition and interests of any community in which it holds sway.
It only remains for me to give some account of the present edition of this work. As it respects, then, the entire substance of the work, the doctrine maintained, and all the arguments of any importance by which it was defended, the present edition will be found altogether to correspond with the last. Further
reading and observation have only confirmed me in the views advocated, and led me more and more to feel their importance, and their consonancy with the doctrine of our Church. In fact, the more consideration I give to the matter, the more difficult I find it to understand how any one can reconcile subscription to our Formularies with the system of doctrine put forth by the Tractarian party, and the deeper the conviction, that if that system is allowed to prevail in our Church, its days, as a Protestant Church, are numbered.
But while the work, so far, remains the same, I have carefully revised it throughout ; and the remarks made on the former edition, and the progress of the controversy, have led me to make various additions in different parts, including a final chapter containing a few general remarks on the whole
subject. Among the additions will be found a new section, at the end of Chapter v., pointing out the remarkable testimony afforded to the correctness of the view here maintained of the famous Canon of Vincent of Lerins, by Mr. Newman's total abandonment of the position originally taken up by him, and
here opposed, respecting it. The notion of Primitive Catholic Consent, ascertained by the application of the Vincentian Canon, being a sure guide to the truth and part of the Rule of faith, —which he originally advocated with such unbounded confidence, —has been exchanged by him for the doctrine of Development.
In this edition, also, most of the quotations from the Fathers have been again collated with the originals, and a few more added. But it seemed needless much to increase their number. The same may be said of the quotations from the divines of our own Church. They might easily have been increased fifty or a hundred-fold from the writings of the most eminent bishops and doctors of our Church. But it would have been only a useless trial of the patience of the reader. And the Tractators certainly
cannot object to have their views tested by a selection of the most eminent and able of the witnesses they have themselves chosen.
To the Tractarian answer given to the former edition of this work, in a Review written in the British Critic, by one who not long after passed over to the Church of Rome, my reply will be found in connexion with those parts of the work to which the animadversions applied, and I believe there is no point of any moment touched upon in that Review which I have not noticed. It in worthy of observatioii, that the writer of this Review, though a leading man of the party, and speaking in the Review as one
thoroughly acquainted with the writings of the Fathers and the state of things in the early Church was his own subsequent admission, very little acquainted with them. And I might add, that what the Review pretty clearly indicates as to his own views, was shortly after admitted by himself even before his departure to Rome, namely, that some of the Articles of our Church he could only subscribe in a non-natural sense, maintaining even that one of them contains an ' atrocious and most immoral sentiment.' This is the more observable, as he clearly speaks of it as a matter in which his whole party were in a similar position, and pleads in their defence, that,in his view, the party opposed to them were equally obliged to take other statements in our Formularies in a similar non-natural sense; forgetting, not
merely that his view of the matter does not bind the consciences of others, but also that, even if his charge were a just one, companionship in sin is no palliation of the fault. And in the midst of these admissions he maintains as " the key to a moral and religious knowledge," and the " leading idea" of his work, that ''careful moral discipline is the necessary foundation whereon alone Christian faith can be reared" ( Warde's Ideal of a Christian Church. Lond. 1844. Pref. p. vii.) How far, therefore, even
according to his own view of the matter, his party, while so acting, could expect to become acquainted with the true nature of the Christian faith, is a subject for his and their serious consideration; nay, whether there is not good ground for fear, according to his own principles, that, under such circumstances, it was not to be expected that they should arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
It is with sorrow and reluctance that I point the attention of the reader to such melancholy exhibitions of the self-deluding spirit in which men sometimes allow themselves to indulge. And were it only one of a few isolated cases, I should gladly have left it without notice. But, in fact, the case is one of which it is
to be feared hundreds remain among us, while but few comparatively have taken the more honest course of quitting a ministry which they can only hold upon such terms. And it is absolutely necessary that the public should be acquainted with the real views and principles of the leaders of a party which now has its ramifications through the whole length and breadth of the Church, and is aiming, accoidiug to the confession of Dr. Pusey himself at the extermination of all doctrines opposed to their system.
The sentiment with which Mr. Newman commenced his career is one which might alone serve to place us on our guard, and I must add is to my mind a sufficient, but painful, explanation of his whole subsequent course. In his work entitled, " The Arians of the Fourth Century" published in 1833, just about the period when the "Tracts" commenced advocating " the mode of arguing and teaching " '' called economical by the ancients"' he thus describes its nature, — 'The Alexandrian father [Clement] who has already been referred to, accurately describes the rules which " should guide the Christian in speaking and acting economically. " Being ever persuaded of the omnipresence of God," he says, " and ashamed to come short of the truth, he is satisfied with " the approval of God, and of his own conscience. Whatever is " in his mind, is also on his tongue ; towards those who are fit " recipients, both in speaking and living, he harmonizes his profession with his opinions. He both thinks and speaks the " truth, EXCEPT WHEN CONSIDERATION IS NECESSARY, AND *' THEN, AS A PHYSICIAN FOR THE OOOD OF HIS PATIENTS, HE '' WILL BE FALSE, OR UTTER A FALSEHOOD, AS THE SOPHISTS SAY.
" . . . Nothing, however, but his neighbour's good will lead him "to jdo this, . . . He gives himself up /or the Church/ 8m;. " (Clem. Strom, vii. 8, 9.)'' (pp. 72; 81, 82.) I leave this passage without comment in the hands of the reader.
The Reviewer greatly complains at my leaving so much the authorities I have quoted to speak for themselves, and regrets my want of "the poetical and imaginative temper " which '' is absolutely necessary in such inquiries." This defect, I confess, I have not attempted to supply. It appears to me that the less " imagination " has to do with such matters, the better. And I must assure my censor, that if he has found my array of authorities wearisome, I have found it still more so to wade through
those seas of philosophizing disquisitions in which his party delight to indulge, founded upon imaginations, the erroneousness of which a very small amount of research is sufficient to demonstrate. A discourse upon the excellence and value of 'Catholic Consent " and our duty to believe and do what "every body, always, everywhere" has believed and done, however beautiful in itself, is to my mind as uninteresting an affair as a disquisition founded on the notion that all the ancients were of precisely the same size and height. I have, therefore, dealt by others as I would wish to be dealt
by myself, and applied myself principally to the task of supplying the reader with those facts and authorities which may enable him to judge for himself on the points at issue. For instance, to meet the dream of ''Catholic consent" I have supplied the reader with passages from the Fathers directly opposed
to each other. To show what was their view as to the alleged obscurity of Scripture, I have placed before the reader abundant extracts testifying to its self-sufficiency and manifest plainness in all necessary points. And so on other points. In my humble apprehension, men really in search after the truth will prefer this mode of dealing with the matter to any poetic and imaginative ducursus on the subject, written on the supposition that "Catholic" principles must be true, and the study of the Fathers
quite unnecessary.
To this edition are added three Indices, which, it is hoped, will be a great help to those who desire to make use of the work beyond a general perusal. The first, which is an ''Index of the Works cited" I have drawn up myself; the two others have been compiled by a gentleman who is favorably known to
the public as an author ; but for them I must not be held answerable.
A singular misstatement respecting the former edition, emanating from a quarter where it must have been altogether the result of some mistake, the reader will find noticed below.
I trust I may be permitted, without being supposed to
footnote. * I allode to a passage in the Memoir of the Rev. Joniab Pratt, p. 351, where an extract is given from one of Mr. Pratt's s letters stating, respecting the worst contained in these volumes, — ' Bishop Meade of Virginia was in London last summer, and rendered Mr. Goode advice and assistance in this work." How such a misapprehension could have arisen, I know not ; and I am anxious to correct it, as if such a thing had occurred, either on the part of Bishop Meade or any other person I should have felt it a duty to have acknowledged the obligation. The truth, however, is, that not the slightest commnunication ever passed between the Bishop, or any other individual, and myself, respecting anything in the work previous to its publication. In fact, the Bishop and myself were total strangers.
arrogate any undue claims to express my thankfulness for the way in which the former edition of this work was received, and the encouragement given me to hope, that it might not be without its use in strengthening the foundation on which our belief in the incalculably important doctrine of the supremacy of Holy Scripture as the sole Divine Rule of faith and practice rests. That doctrine is at the root of Protestantism. With it Protestantism stands or falls. Any Church that surrenders that doctrine becomes the slave of a human priesthood ; and, as all experience shows, will be dragged by that priesthood, according to the natural course of human infirmity, into the depths of superstition and idolatry. It is therefore a ground for thankfulness to have been permitted in any way to do service in such a cause.
In the present day more especially, when Popery is again lifting its head among us, and an energetic and unscrupulous party in our own Church has formed a " conspiracy"' (to use their own
term) to " un-Protestantize" her, and justly regards a belief in the doctrine of the supremacy of Holy Scripture as the great obstacle to its success, it is a matter of the deepest moment to the welfare of our Church, that the public mind should be made acquainted with the proofs and evidence on which it stands, and the groundlessness of the arguments and misapplication of the testimonies by which it has been assailed. To say nothing of the mistake, now admitted by Mr. Newman, of the reference to the Fathers for"Cathohc consent,'' never surely was the blindness of party zeal more displayed, than in the Catenas put forth by the Tractarian party, for the purpose of leading the public to suppose, that their views were held by those great divines of our Church who have, in the most express and direct terms, opposed the doctrine of which they were cited as the advocates. This is one of the most painful parts of the subject ; and while it is to be feared, that by this means a large portion to each other, until he called upon me just before his return to America, for the purpose of obtaining a copy of the work so far as it was then printed ; and about three-fourths of it had then passed through the press. A letter from the
Bishop on the subject, confirming the above statement, was published shortly after the appearance of the Memoir ; but it seems unnecessary to dwell further on the point.
Of the public has been first misled and then brought to love the views into which it has been as it were, entrapped, the effect upon more ingenuous minds has been, to cause them to leave a communion which they could only adhere to through a palpable misrepresentation of the doctrines both of her Formularies and the great body of her divines. But alas ! a larger number remain, whose minds appear too much absorbed by the object they have in view, to allow them calmly to consider the nature of the means by which they are seeking to attain their end ; and we have been long ago warned by Dr. Pusey, that the struggle in owr Church will be continued, until the principles he advocates are either ejectedy or triumph and become supreme. With this warning before us, to shut our eyes to the momentous character of the conflict going on among us, and act as if the Protestant principles of our Church were exposed to no dangers, or not worth contending for, may obtain in this world the praise of moderation and its attendant privileges, and save us from much trouble and reproach, but will with difficulty be reconciled with the solemn engagements entered into by us on our undertaking the ministerial office. This is my apology, if any is needed, for the republication of this work. May He who condescends to work by the feeblest instruments make it effectual for the estabUshment of his truth, nullifying what may be erroneous, and giving His blessing to that which is consonant with his word and will.
W. GOODE.
31. Charterhouse Square,
June 21, 1853.
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