USA > Virginia > Ecclesiastical law and discipline. A charge to the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal church of Virginia > Part 3
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In the Laodicean canons, passed in 367, it is decreed that Christians ought not to use wanton dancing at their wed- dings, but to have a modest dinner and supper. That they of the priesthood and clergy (those called the clergy being inferior officers in the Church, as singers, readers, etc.,) ought not to gaze on fine shows at weddings or other feasts, but before the musicians enter to rise up and retreat. " That they of the priesthood and clergy, or even the laity, ought not to club together for great eating and drinking bouts." These latter were probably among those things which St. Paul denominated "revelings, banquetings, etc." In the African code of 418 it is ordered, "Let not the sons of clergymen (that is of the inferior ministers of the sanctu- ary,) manage public shows, nor even be spectators of them; and it has always been enjoined on all Christians, that they go not where blasphemy is used." "That clergymen do not go to victualling houses to eat or drink, but only upon necessity on their travels." These places were doubtless much abused, as many in these days are. " That reconcili- ation (that is admission to the communion,) be not denied to actors or stage players, or apostates on their conversion." All such persons were by canon excluded on account of their profession. "That if any one desire to forsake any ludicrous exercise, and become a Christian, no one be al- lowed to tempt or force him to such exercise." It seems
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that to become a Christian, involved the necessity of forsak- ing such things. All parents and older Christians should think of this in relation to their children and the younger ones of the Church.
THE TRULLAN CANONS OF 683.
These forbid making lascivious pictures-acting of farces -baiting beasts with dogs -- dancing on the stage-the lewd festivities on the Kalends- attending feasts in honor of the god Pan-the public mystic dancings, both of men and women-tragical and comical masks-that either sex wear the habit of the other-also the bacchanalian feasts; on pain of deposition to the clergy and excommunication to the laity. Those called apostolical canons, and which are of doubtful date, being by some ascribed to the second century, say, " Let the Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, who spends his time in dice or drinking, either desist, or be deposed, the sub-deacon, reader, singer or layman, be excommunicated."
TESTIMONIES OF BINGHAM AND CAVE.
The following passages from Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, and Cave's Primitive Christianity, will add force to these canons and to the remarks preceding and accompanying them. Mr. Bingham, in various places of his sixth volume, refers to the ancient canons as forbid- ding the public shows, games, theatres, dancings, etc., and says that they were condemned for two reasons :- 1st, be- cause they were against the spirit of the second and seventh commandments, which forbid all encouragement of idola- try, and all impurity; both of which attended these exhibi- tions. 2ndly. Because they were the very works of the devil, and the pomps and vanities of the world, which they renounced at their baptism as ministering to the sinful lusts of the flesh. "All who had any concern in the exercise or management of these unlawful sports, and all frequenters of
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them, were obliged either to quit these practices, or be liable to excommunication, so long as they continued to follow them, not only because a great deal of impurity and cruelty was committed in them, but also because they contributed to the maintenance of idolatry, which was an appendage to them .. All these were comprised in the pomp and service of the devil, which every Christian had renounced at his baptism."-vol. vii, p. 191. Even the holding such offices under the civil government, where the heathen had rule, as required them to have anything to do with such things, was forbidden; or if the offices were accepted, those holding them were debarred communion during the term of office. The plea of curiosity, he says, was not allowed as sufficient ex- cuse for witnessing a heathen sacrifice; a servant, however, attending his master on duty was excused. Bingham also shows that the writing or reading of lascivious books and plays was forbidden, and mentions an instance of a Bishop who wrote one, and was deprived of his office because he would not recant it. He shows, in like manner, that im- modest apparel and decoration were forbidden to Christians. In vol. iii, we have a particular account of the baptismal renunciation, from various authors. One of the forms, ac- cording to St. Ambrose, was, "I renounce the devil and his works, the world and its luxury and pleasures." Another, according to St. Jerome, was, " I renounce thee Satan, and thy pomp, and thy vices, and thy world." Sometimes, he says, " the games and shows, which were part of the devil's pomp, were expressly mentioned in this form of renuncia- tion," as it is in Salvian: " I renounce the devil, his pomps, and his shows, and his works;" and this was after idolatry was removed from the public shows. The same form sub- stantially has continued to this day in the Christian Church, and is meant to condemn substantially the same vain, lewd and improper things. If not, then is it an unmeaning ser- vice. Moreover, the ancients always traced it to the time of
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St. Peter, who speaks of "the answer of a good conscience towards God " as being the saving thing in baptism. At the time, however, that idolatry ceased, though lewdness still remained in their public entertainments, the Church had become degenerate, discipline was relaxed, though the can- ons were the same; and in many instances, the only opposi- tion made to worldly conformity, was the faithful denuncia- tion of these things by those Bishops, priests and laymen, who themselves continued faithful. Some such there ever have been, making an uninterrupted stream of testimony on the part of the Church against these things. In proof that very many of the early Christians were, from principle and in practice, opposed to such things, though discipline was needful to restrain many, especially when all catechumens and all the baptized, who then also became communicants, though infants, were to be governed, I adduce a few pas- sages from Cave's History of the Early Christians. After speaking of the simplicity of their manners, dress and enter- tainments, he says, "Nor were they more studious of pleas- ures and recreations abroad, than they were of fineness and bravery at home. They went not to public feasts, nor fre- quented the public shows, that were made for the disport and entertainment of the people, and this was so notorious, that the heathen charged it upon them as part of their crime." Observe how he, in Minutius Felix, draws it up: " The Romans (says he) govern and enjoy the world, while you in the meantime are careful and mopish, abstaining even from lawful pleasures; you visit not the shows, nor are present at the pomps, nor frequent the public feasts; you abhor the holy games, the sacrificial meats and drinks, crown not your heads with garlands, nor perfume your bodies with sweet odours,-a ghastly, fearful and miserable people." To which it is replied, "that they could not be present at such places without affronting their modesty, and offering a distaste and horror to their minds;" that at their
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baptism they had solemnly engaged "to renounce the devil and all his works, pomps and pleasures; that is, says St. Cyril, the sights and sports of the theatre, and such like vanities." It appears then, that the primitive Church, after the example of the apostles, specified not merely the grosser vices about which there was no dispute, but also certain pleasurable ones, for which some have always pleaded. It appears also, that after the example of the apostolic rulers and law-givers, she often concluded the specification with some general terms, "such like," &c., comprehending offences of the same class.
We shall find also, that, as has already been hinted at, the young, the very young, were the subjects of discipline, the nurture of the Lord, as enjoined in the Old and New Testaments. Even before they were baptized, if Jewish or Gentile children, they might at an early age become cate- chumens and come under the discipline of the Church. At what age those who were baptized in infancy were held re- sponsible, as older communicants were, is not specified, for it was impossible to say when they become responsible be- fore God. In answer to that question, we find one of the canons of Timothy, Bishop of Alexandria, thus deciding: "According to every one's capacity and understanding-to one at ten, to another when older." The discipline of children was chiefly placed in the hands of parents. One of the canons of the African Church commands that " Bish- ops and clergy do not emancipate their children, so as to permit them to live at their own discretion, until they be well assured of their good government of themselves." That is a canon which should be repeated from age to age in every Church, for the benefit of all parents. In none is it more needed than in our day, especially in reference to all worldly indulgences, as to which the children are allowed to dictate to the parents.
As to the spirit and manner of exercising discipline in the
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primitive Church we shall see that the rule of our Lord and the apostles was followed. The danger of unworthy com- muning was continually set forth. Private admonition, except in cases not admitting of it, was first resorted to. Then the lesser excommunication, or temporary separation. Then the greater excommunication. The ministers were enjoined to use great prudence and tenderness. In one of the 'Trullan canons it is written: "They who have the power of binding and loosing, and are intrusted with the principal pastorship, must consider the quality of the of- fence, and the disposition of the penitent, and temper the spiritual medicine according to St. Basil's rule, viz: where rigor will not do, use as much tenderness as the practice of the Church will allow of." Nor were the private members of the Church entirely subject to the will of one individual, without any right of appeal. The dioceses were then so numerous and so small, that the Bishops exercised all disci- pline in the first place; but by the Nicene canon, in every province, the Bishops of the same met together twice a year " that examination might be made whether any had been excommunicated by the too great severity or rashness of the Bishop." Afterwards we find a canon in one of the Churches, appointing a council of three Bishops for this purpose, that the others might not be taken so much from their dioceses.
We have thus considered the main features of the primi- tive discipline, which we doubt not was honestly designed to carry out the principles and follow the example of God's government of the Jewish and of the apostolic Church. We say nothing of the penitentiary discipline, by which certain offences were punished, by more or less of exclusion from the very temples of religion for a term, sometimes a long term of years. This appears to us the most unac- countable and indefensible of all parts of it, one which we must suppose originated in error, and led to much worse
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error. It was thus, perhaps, they thought to fulfill the words, that "sinners should not stand in the congregation of the righteous." The public confession of sins before the congregation to which such blessings were promised through prayer and absolution, was found to produce great evil, by leading some to confess acts unknown to others, and the disclosure of which was calculated to promote strife and scandal. It was therefore abandoned. Such disclosures were forbidden. Open and notorious evil living, a term much used since, and specifying rather the publicity than the nature and degree of the transgression, was the only sinning to be punished. Still the desire for priestly absolu- tion was then so strong, that it soon led to private auricular confession, with its absolution, in which the most secret sins might be disclosed to the confessor, and absolved on such terms as he should dictate, without the public scandal and many evils of public confessions. Private confession and absolution, with the penance enjoined, soon took the place of primitive discipline, and helped, with other things, to complete the corruption of the Church, and prepare the way for the great apostacy of Mahomet, which, if it had not ministered so much to the corrupt propensities of our nature, and opposed itself so entirely to the monastic system, might have swept away yet more of professing Christendom. A flood of licentiousness now poured itself over the Church of God. The Sabbath day was reduced to half its period; so far as even the form of religion was concerned, the remainder being devoted to sports and games, largely par- taking of the spirit of those which the early Church had condemned on all days. At length came on the Reforma- tion, whose voice was as thunder, in denouncing the entire perversion of the apostolic and primitive institution of disci- pline both as to ministers and people. As we have already said, the claim of the Romish Church, to be even a part of the Church of Christ, came now to be questioned by many,
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not more for her want of sound doctrine, than for the ab- sence of all godly discipline and the prevalence of most corrupt manners. One only exception was there to this general corruption. The Church in the wilderness, the persecuted Waldenses, and those included in that name, alone presented any thing like a pure Church of God. Simple manners, holy 'living and a pure faith, were kept amongst them by means of the free use of the sacred scrip- tures, the right understanding and use of the sacraments, and a godly discipline.
SEC. VII .- DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
The history of our mother Church is so closely connected with that of our own, that it must be both interesting and useful to study it well. The history of its discipline is a painful, though not unprofitable one. Whatever may have been the case with the Church on the continent, the cir- cumstances attending the reformation of that of England were peculiarly unfavorable to the establishment of a pure discipline either for clergy or people. In the mysterious providence of God, a most licentious king, Henry VIII, was used as the chief instrument for casting off the Papal yoke, and establishing religious independence in Great Britain. Availing himself of his position and means, he not only retained the title of Defender of the Faith, given him by the Pope, but made himself Supreme Head of the Church, transmitting the same to his successors on the throne. By the second canon of the Church of England, it is declared that the king of England is what godly kings among the Jews and Christian Emperors in the primitive Church were: "Supreme defenders of the faith, etc," and any who denied it were excommunicated. Henry not only assumed these titles, but exercised the authority con- veyed by them. He busied himself in all that was done, and exercised his royal veto at pleasure. Cranmer and all
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his valiant host were obliged to yield to him in many things. To excommunicate him for his evil ways was impossible, as it has been thus to do with any of his successors. The State became supreme. Its chief officers, the heads of colleges, fellows and undergraduates, were ex officio com- municants, whatever their characters might be. The king and Parliament had a veto on all the acts of the convocation, while convocations existed, and must confirm their acts in order to their validity. Bishops instead of being chosen, as in the better days of the Church, by ministers and people, were appointed by the crown. The ancient synods com- posed of the Bishop and his Presbyters and certain laymen, which met once or twice a year to confer about the Church and its discipline in each diocese, were laid aside, and a much less effective system substituted. The Reformers mourned over this defect in the Reformation, longed and hoped for better days. Cranmer himself drew up a system which was published, but never adopted. A lamentation for this evil was introduced into one of the services of the Church of England. In her commination office she speaks of a certain godly discipline of the primitive Church, and wishes it might be restored. Whether one part, especially referred to, could, with advantage, be restored or not, still we see in this declaration her desire for godly discipline and confession, that therein she was wanting. Certain meas- ures were proposed and attempted in place thereof, but Bishop Pilkington mourns over the inefficiency of the same, and says, all granted that discipline was necessary, and desired to have it; that which was proposed, however, was like a spider's web, so gentle that the rich would not care for it, but would live as they list; that the laws and the officers appointed to execute them would be despised; " that there were few able men to be found who would dare to wrestle with the rich in correction." In this connection he alludes to the case of Ambrose and Theodosius, the
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latter, though an Emperor, being suspended from the com- munion by the former for some great crime. Concerning which, the Bishop says: " And how humbly he obeyed it; but whether was more to be praised he that durst do it, or the other that would obey it, I cannot tell." He carefully, however, distinguishes this from those acts of excommuni- cation by proud Popes, exercising their authority for far other purposes .* That the early Reformers condemned those sins of every class which the fathers did, and that they brought them to the same test, viz: the moral law, understood in its spirit as well as letter, and to the baptismal renunciations, is most evident from their writings which have come down to us .; As to the grosser sins none will doubt; as to some others, let the following suffice. Thomas Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, says, that the seventh commandment forbids, among other things, reading of amorous books, idle jesting, vain pastimes, idleness, ban- quetings, evil company, as provocations to lust: because St. Paul says, "let no filthy communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying." " Notable," he says, "is the saying of Tobias' wife: I have not kept company with those who have spent their time in
* Archbishop Sandys says :- "The rod is as necessary in the hands of the pastor as the staff." He presses the duty of discipline on both civil and religious rulers, after the ex- ample of Nehemiah, who blamed the rulers for certain things which grieved him sore, because they dishonored God-also after the example of Christ, who drove quite out of the temple those who profaned it. He condemns Baron, a dissolute and careless high priest, who permitted the inferior priests to frequent games and heathenish exercises to the disgrace of their calling.
It is a well known fact, that in all the Catechisms, whether in the Episcopal or other Churches of the Reformation, and they abounded, the moral law was so expounded as, under the seventh commandment, to forbid all things which directly or indirectly tempted to adultery. So, indeed, do all faithful explanations of it. How could any other be given with our Lord's sermon on the mount before us? Even our own very brief Cate- chism explains it as enjoining "temperance, soberness and chastity." All explanations also of the baptismal vows in Episcopal Catechisms have pursued the same method, bring- ing the same sins under their condemnation. Bishop Hooper, in his explanation, says of fne and improper dressing, that there may be "an adultery of apparel." None more decided on this subject than Archb.shop Cranmer on the seventh commandment.
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sport, nor been partakers with them of a light behaviour." He enjoins it on young women to avoid idleness, and to be engaged in diligent employment-" not to run about unto vain spectacles, games, pastimes, plays, interludes, etc .- not to keep company with vain, light and wanton persons, whose delight is in singing, dancing, skipping, playing, etc." Extravagance and immodesty in dress also is con- demned. Speaking of Christmas festivals, he says: "These be no Christmas banquets, but Christless and devilish ban- quets. They be not feasts for Christian men, but for Gen- tiles and Ethnicks.". Again, "Use not the company of a woman who is a player and dancer, and hear her not lest thou perish through her enticing." Idleness, as leading to licentiousness, is classed under the seventh commandment. Becon also condemns sumptuous funerals as exhibiting the pomps and vanities of the world; quoting one of the fathers who said, "Our Lord arose naked from the grave and his followers ought not to desire superfluous and unprofitable cost, proud and vain charges." "Simply, not sumptuous- ly, honestly, not honorably (that is, expensively), let me be buried." It, is pleasing to observe how this sentiment was felt and acted out by the late Queen Adelaide of England. During her life she had been a most exemplary Christian, abounding in alms-deeds and good works-at her death she requested that her funeral should be conducted in the most simple manner, not with that expense and parade which she considered among the pomps and vanities that she had re- nounced at her baptism; which request was faithfully com- plied with by order of the present Queen. But the private sentiments and faithful preaching of the Reformers, did not avail to cleanse the Church of the corruption of morals and manners which had been settling upon it for ages. A large number of her clergy were either infected with Ro- manism, or ignorant and feeble. Romish manners still prevailed to a great extent, and especially those sports
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which desecrated the holy Sabbath. Many would assemble together from different parishes and spend the afternoons of the Sabbath in all kinds of merry making and games. In
the time of Edward VI, injunctions were issued against them. At different times, in successive reigns, some of the
the ministers to read the order in their Churches. The judges in the districts ordered their suppression, and directed
issue a book of sports declaring what were lawful amuse- James I, but all that could be gotten from him, was to effort for their suppression was renewed in the reign of ments, and forbidding any to go out of their own parishes to use them, allowing them to indulge in the same in the
Church yards and houses around. The sports allowed
were dancing, vaulting, archery, feasts of dedication,
Church ales, clerk ales, bid ales. The object of the feasts
and ales was to raise money to beautify the Churches, to
pay the clerk, to set up poor, decayed persons by the
money raised on such occasions. Those who provided the
feasts and sold the ale received liberal custom and reward.
The plea put in for these sports and feasts was, that it
otherwise gotten; that it increased charity to the poor, pro- brought more people to Church on those days than could be
ciling of differences. See Burns' Ecclesiastical Law, 1 and duced good feeling among the people, and led to the recon-
2 volumes. Those who opposed them, declared that they merry makings, human nature must have been very differ- if these were not the consequences of such assemblages and produced strife, bioils, intemperance and profaneness. And ent then from what it is now, or ever had been before. The attempt at suppressing them by some of the judges in
king, he renewed the order of his father as to the book of Archbishop Laud. Complaints being made of them to the their districts, was renewed in the time of Charles I and sports, and commanded that every clergyman in the king- dom should read it from the pulpit. Some refused to do it,
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and were ejected from their livings. Others read it, and then read the fourth commandment after it. This order was afterwards repealed, and laws for the better observance of the Sabbath were passed. This controversy in the time of Charles I renewed a discussion which had before been carried on, concerning the obligation of the Sabbath as a part of the moral law. It will surprise some in our day to know, that those who considered themselves the truest Churchmen went so far in opposing the strict observance of the Sabbath. There were those who were jealous of its interference with the claims of other holy days of the Church. If Archbishop Laud did not counsel the king to renew the book of sports, as has been charged upon him, it is certain that he and his adherents did oppose themselves to those who sought to promote the contrary use of that day. This may readily be accounted for in a good measure by the violence of party spirit, which was now at its height, between the Puritans and other members of the Church. That there was error on both sides in many things we doubt not; and that even as to the Sabbath the Puritans may have carried their views to an excess, while the advocates of such an use of it as the book of sports allowed, cannot be de- fended .* It is worthy of remark, that some of those in
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