THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY AND THE ANTI-RITUALISTS.

North Otago Times, Volume VIII, Issue 202, 30 April 1867, Page 3

THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY AND THE ANTI-RITUALISTS.

The following " protest" against the supposed ritualistic tendencies of the Bishop of Salisbury has just been presented to his Lordship, signed by 500 of the "clergy, magistrates, gentlemen, yeomen, and others of the diocese " : — To the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Salisbury. — We, the undersigned, having read with the greatest regret the answer of your Lordship to Lord S. GK Osborne's letter, in which you state that clergymen of the Established Church have had committed to them the same powers which the priests of the rest of the Catholic Church, both in the East and West, have ever claimed as their inheritance, and feeling that such views essentially tend to the Romish practice of confession and absolution, and false doctrine, and considering the efforts which are now making by a certain party in our Church to bring back the ceremonial and ritualistic rites of the Romish Church into our Reformed Protestant Church, do hereby solemnly protest against such views, from whatever quarter they may arise, and do signify our determination, by the help of God, to stand firm against any opinions or practices which are too evidently loading to Romanism, and entirely subverting the great doctrines of the Established Church, as defined in her Thirty-Nine Articles, and deduced from the Word of God.