REV. PERCIVAI JAMES AND THE REFORMATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 117, 17 May 1920, Page 9

REV. PERCIVAI JAMES AND THE REFORMATION.

t 'To the Editor.) Sir, —It is far from my wish to misrepresent the Rev. Percival James, and I have no desire for controversy, but his statement that I attribute to him opinions contrary to those he has publicly expressed amazes mc. I challenge any unbiassed critic to read the report of his sermon published in your contemporary of May 3 without coming to the conclusion that it is antipathetic towards the whole spirit of the reformation. He claims that it made no material difference tv the Church of England, that it left it unchanged as it had been from St. Augustine's day, and that Calvinistic, Lutheran and Zwinghlian teaching was strenuously resisted. The only alteration apparently was the dethronement of tlio pontif-king. The word "protectant" draws from him the following epithets: "ugly/ , "misleading," "unfortunate," "thoroughly mischievous." His great claim is that no essential point of faith or order separates the Anglican Church from the Eastern Church, or "the greater Church of Home." This may be his view. It is not the view of Romanist.?: still less of Nonconformists. Xot, I hold that the finest fruits of the Reformation was its liberation of the human conscience from all earthly authority. Holding this view, based on Luther's protest against Papal claims to forgive sins and his assertion of "the priesthood of all believers," was I not justified in my deduction that Mr. James desired to go behind that Protestant principle and rc-itnite with Rome? Mr. Burton, in spite of his indulgence in personalities, damages Mr. James - case. fie represents Mr. James as contending tnat "tht- dead hand"' should not be allowcii to bar the way to progress and "'form, and that mistakes were inevitable in the Reformation settlement. The forcp of this depends upon what is meant n.v "the dead hand" and by "prdgres.B." " by dead hand Mr. James means "Reformation settlement," and by "progress" he means reunion with Rome, we shall. I fear, differ. And what are the mistakes in the Reformation settlement? J "wrely seek light on Mr. James' position. Mr. Burton's further statement that » man may repudiate the name Protesi«nr without fioin? back upon the Reformation settlement" gives away Mr •lames f ,itirr case. My sermon was an atwmpt to show that Protestantism is "! tho fswncc of the Reformation, and fat anyone who repudiates it necesM-> ly repudiates the Reformation. The VY r .v hfe of nearly all the dissenting ' whi!* t p " ml * "1 ,, "' t , "- principles for which I am contending. Mr. James and tt»«UB "' t,,r,lin S tllei r faces toaras Home necessarily turn their backs "Pon Nonconformity.— I am, etc.. ALBERT THORXHILL. Lnitarian Church, Auckland.