Friday, August 19, 2011

Thoughts on Article of Religion XXV


...The so-called 'corrupt following of the Apostles' refers to the abuse of the minor or lesser five sacraments in the medieval Western Church: these sacraments were elevated and sacralised by Our Lord and the Apostles to be specific means of grace, but the Church in the West in later ages altered their original use and administration.

For example, the Sacrament of the Unction of the Sick is clearly intended by Our Lord and the New Testament authors to be administered to anyone who is ill and in need of spiritual and physical healing. But the Church of the later Middle Ages restricted Unction of the Sick to the dying alone, in extremis, so that it was transmogrified into 'Extreme Unction,' or a sacrament available only to those at the point of death, contrary to the biblical and patristic tradition.

The Sacrament of Penance was originally given to be a healing balm and a remedy for sin, the 'second plank after shipwreck,' a restoration to baptismal grace and a therapeutic cure and healing ministry of Absolution offered to those suffering from the consequences of grievous sin. But the medieval Church changed Penance into a series of actions performed according to Church law in a legalistic and penal sense, based on a code of justice, judgement and penalty, satisfactions for sins. The performance of penitential actions gradually obscured the heart of the sacrament: the grace of forgiveness and reconciliation with God and the Church. What was originally sacramental, ministerial and pastoral became juridical, judicial, legal.

Another example is the Sacrament of Holy Orders, which from the time of the Scriptures and the Primitive Church has been open to married men and in which state men also could marry after ordination, but which was later restricted to celibate men only in the Western Church.

Again, Confirmation had all but disappeared in several countries and regions within the ambit of the Western Church and had certainly fallen into desuetude in many Dioceses. Often, it was administered only rarely and sporadically, and without due preparation or catechesis.

The point of Article XXV is that the renewed catholic Church of England recovered the biblical, ancient, orthodox and patristic use of these sacraments in their proper place according to the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostolic Tradition. The practice and usage of these sacraments demanded reformation and restoration to their original ministrations, and so they received such due treatment when the Church of England was herself reformed. Once again, the Anglican Church historically claims no faith, doctrine or order of her own, only those of the Primitive and Undivided Catholic Church of the first ages. In Anglicanism, the ecclesiastical sacraments were reinstated, refurbished and revitalised according to the practice of the Church in the first millennium.

The phrase 'states of life' refers to those sacraments which are ordained by God for a particular vocation in the Christian journey, Holy Orders or Matrimony, or both, or for particular needs at specific stages of Christian formation and growth, such as Confirmation or Penance. The minor sacraments are means of grace, but again, are not necessary for the salvation for all or for everyone universally. Baptism and Eucharist are necessary for the salvation of all men where they may be had: Holy Orders or Unction of the Sick, for instance, are not. Some sacraments are only necessary for those especially called to them. God calls men and women to particular states of life and provides sacramental grace to equip and empower those called to a particular vocation...

1 comment:

Rev. Daniel McLain Hixon said...

In the United Methodist Articles of Religion, this is Article XVI. The tone you suggest is certainly more affirming of the lesser sacraments than what I get from simply reading the article, which at its most positive point simply allows that the 5 lesser rites "partly are states of life allowed in Scripture."

I like your approach to "unpackinging" the meaning of "partly grown out of the corrupt following of the Apostles" as you point out specific abuses that could be corrected without abandoning the rite altogether. Are you indebted to Newman's "Tract 90" at this point?

Also, I wonder how you would address the distinction between saying that these rites are "Those five commonly called sacraments" and yet "are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel..."

Do you see a distinction between "Dominical" and "ecclesial" sacraments here? Being more on the high-church end of Methodism, I like to refer to the 5 as "rites with a sacramental character and a biblical precendent" rather than as Sacraments themselves.

Archbishop Donald Arden

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