LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 299, 11 September 1908, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

. — « , LIC.HT WANTED. Sir, —As you manifest so raucli 1 interest in the peoplo of the Dominion, will you kindly . insert the following with a view to obtaining more light 011 a dangerous and objcctionablo road? Of all tho "lovers' walks" in ' Wellington, there is none so popular as tho - one from the tram terminus to Balina Bay, j liosenoath. And, as many , of the couples liko to have a rest upon the rocks and grass quite close to the road, discussing matters of vital importance, it is only right they should have more light. ' Others, too, who wish to enjoy the walk, do not like to intrude unexpectedly. Neither is it pleasant for residents who are obliged to pass. If lamps were continued to the junction of Balina Bay and tho East Parade, embracing a thickly-populated district, it would bo a . boon for residents. Our venerable representative often walks that way, and will probably be pleased to be reminded of the old nursery rhyme (only altered to suit the times): Whene'er I take my walks abroad, How few of lamps I see; How shall I answer for the trust The people placed in me? —I am, etc., H. CORRICK. Roseneath. an appeal to suburbia. Sir, —"Fair js our lot and goodly our heritage!" So says the poet, but he is not a dweller amongst us poor strenuous ones. Had he been his poetic spirit would surely havo died within him. As he gazed around he would see so little to please, and ho would have longed with an eager longing for what? He would have longed, as many • others do, to see a desiro among the peoplo of to-day to help to beautify their surroundings, lucre is so much that chills the heart and so little that charms that it becomes our duty to ourselves and to one another to help i each other in every conceivable way. i It would be impossible to do anything to i relieve the barrenness of tho city, "Tho Ugly [ Duckling of tho Pacific," but in her suburbs i lies a magnificent opportunity. Each has its peculiar charm, which is only half realised by tho inhabitants. _ Kliandallah, the Hutt, W adestowu, Maranui, Seatouu, and Karaka • Bay, all exquisitely beautiful before the ud- , vent of the white man, but scenes that once helped to bring peaceful and contented plea- ' sure to the heart now are threatened with obliteration by gruesome exhibitions of human [ ignorance and avarice. One appeals to and pleads with another | who may be about to raise a roof whereby ' to cover tho head of himself and his, to see to it that his house, however small, is his "Home" in the truest meaning of the word: ' that ho may feel on entering his portal | after tho day's work is o'er that thrill of satisfaction and prido in this his homo which. [ goes so far to tlie making of a-happy one. . The laying out of what is called a garden city requires preconceived existence, which is ' impossible in already budding townships, but so much might be done were the authorativc , bodies to set an example and .lend a help. ■ ing hand to encourage those who are un- ' doubtedly evincing a, strong desiro to im- ; prove their surroundings—especially tho character of their dwellings.—! am, etc., September 1, 1903. A SOWER. CHURCH UNION. Sir,—l am sorry indeed that my previous | letter ruffled tho feelings of your correspondent, "Phylax," but.l simply stated a few facts of history, every ono of which can he supported by documentary evidence. As he has not attempted to disprove them, for reckless donial is not argument, I shall not troublo myself with his remarks except to remind him that tho Prefaco'of tho Book of Common Prayer was compiled only in IG62— i.e., more than 100 years after the now Church was established. It rather strengthens than disproves my contention, as anyone cau seo who roads it' carefully. It is- with genuino pleasure that I turn to the letter from Mr. Milligan. Hero we have a gentleman who can write without the slightest sign of tempel-, and who puts his case fairly. Ho seems .to call into doubt my. ■ assertion that tho bishops of the old Church in England refused to havo anything to do with the ordering of Queen Elizabeth's now bishops, and that I rely upon the "Nag's Head" fa.blo to prove that tho historic episcSpal succession was broken. By no means. No authority nowadays quotes that fable, and-1 am quite as well awaro a3 Mr.. '■Milligan of the entry in the Lambeth Register showing that Parker was consecrated bv Bishop Barlow and others. But I am also awaro of certain events immediately preceding that ceremony. After Parker had been appointed by Queen' Elizabeth as her first Archbishop of Canterbury, a Royal Commission to consecrate him was issued to certain of tho old bishops, but none of those occupying the old sees could bo induced to act, so a new Commission had to be issued on December 6, 1559, to Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff, and to several unattached prelates without sees, authorising them or any four of them to confirm tho election of and consecrate Matthew ■ Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury. Kitchin deliberately and firmly refused to act, though lie had been the only ono of the canonical bishops of the time to take tho oath of supremacy. So tho ceremony was performed, as Mr. Milligan states by Barlow, Scorry, Coverdalo, and Hodgkins, /who in tho previous reign had been deprived and some of them excommunicated for their heresy and unquestionable lives. Now; had these men, or even one of them, consecrated Parker according to tho ancient ordinal in use in England for centuries and throughout the Catholic world down to tho present day, no doubt could bo cast on Anglican orders from a Catholic point of view the ceremony might have been uncanonical and illegal, even according to English law, but it would have been valid. But it is a matter of history that these men, not only did not themselves believe in orders in tho Catholic historic sense, but they used a now form of ordination, that was first introduced m the reign of Edward VI, and repealed in that of Mary, and which has always been held invalid by Catholics, Orientals, etc. Hero, then, was the historic succession broken' With regard to the Greek Church, it does not matter how friendly individual Greeks may be socially and otherwise with Anglicans, tho fact remains indisputable that tho Greek Church does not acknowledge the validity of Anglican orders. Their custom is always to reordain absolutely any Anglican clergyman who wishes to minister in the Greek Church. I can give Mr. Milligan specific instances if he wishes for them Mr. Milligan doubts whether the Anglican Church as at present constituted was originally established and now ruled and governed by tho civil power. But that this is so admits of no denial. The change of religion in 1059 was made by Queen and Parliament: the church had nothing to do with it. In fact, it protested vigorously against the new order of things. The bishops and abbots did so in the House of Lords when the now legislation was brought before it The Convocation of Clergy met in London on January 24, 1559, under the presidency of tho Bishop of London, and they drew up several resolutions, one being that they behoved tho Roinau Pontiff to be tho head of tho church and vicar of Christ. All the members of the Convocation signed tlicso outspoken resolutions, and they were sent to Parliament, which, ignored them. Shortly afterwards tho leading clergy, all tho bishops and several of the dignitaries,. were put in prison to get rid. of inconvenient opposition. Who now appoints tho Archbishop of Canterbury? - The British Cabinet, which may bo and is composed of all and no religions Catholics .and infidels included. What is the final court of appeal of tho' Anelican Church? Tho Privy Council. The' effort of the legislation under Henry. 'VIII, revived by Elizabeth and confirmed in subsequent reigns, has been, as Lord Campbell pointed out in his famous Gorham judgment in April, 1850, "to locate in tho Crown all that decisive jurisdiction which before the Reformation had beon_ exercised by tho Pope." If this does not make tho Anglican Church a purely State institution, what then does? As Macaulay said years ago, "it is as much a department of State as .the Court of Common Pleas." These surely are. weighty facts which. Mr. -.Milligan would do well to ! considoi;. • Ho'seems .to be fair-minded and aiixious to' get at, tho truth of things. Per- ! haps he may ill,time come to see, as many ; . others, 'liko Nowmcm, Mauning, and Benson ' havo scoUi that a branch theory that is

repudiated by tho principal branches, or a province theory which is unknown to tho other provinces, and a continuity' theory of which more than twelve thousand documents in the Record Office and the Vatican Library ■ aro the overwhelming refutation, cannot .afford sure ground of support for the earnest ■ Christian.—lam, etc.," ' '' • | A GENUINE CATHOLIC. DR. TUDOR JONES AND THE DOCTRINE i OF THE ATONEMENT. ; Sir, —The Rev. Isaac Jolly, of Palmcrston ■ North, is greatly mistaken if ho thinks that i certain superlative adjectives, of. his are suffi- . ciont as judgments on the issue.at stake. To go back to tho origin of things, I find ill your report of my sermon tho following sentence: —"The problem of God was completely ignored by them (i.e., by the upholders of tTio Catechisms and Confessions of Faith). We can bo grateful thut these theories bad given room to moro ethical and religious theories. Jesus, the unique figure of Christendom, had pointed out to us tho greatest truth of all—that the path of self-denial was tho path of self-realisation." Tho crucial point is that traditional theology as it is presented in tho "Standards" of the Presbyterian Church cannot to-day he an adequate representation of tho great spiritual truth I have enumerated above from your report of my sermon. There is a gulf which cannot be bridged here by Mr. Jolly and his creeds. And lam goiug to nail his statements to this main issue. All the men he quotes endeavour to express this spiritual reality of the life and death of Christ in its relationship to God and man, .but they do not endeavour on tho same grounds as Mr. Jolly and his traditional frionds. I have previously pointed out that even the men named by Mr. Jolly are aware of the'need of a re-statement of tho theology of the past, and are aware that before this is possible factors must enter into this' restatement which aro not to bo found in tho Catechisms and Creeds. If Mr. Jolly does not know of this work he is not competent, to express an opinion on tho subject,- and bad-tempered adjectives will not make up for it. Ho.ought to know that many of; the terms in the creeds of his. church have disappeared altogether from current theological and religious thought, and 4he few that remain have had a new—a moro modern —meaning given to them. If ho. is ignorant of this fact, too, it is time that ho should_ visit Britain, .France, Germany, and America to realise that it.is so. . .The day ought to have passed when any man can be with merely saying that he believes as other great men do until .he .is.- aware of the totality of their points of view. That these great .men use the same terms .as Mr. Jolly does does not prove that they mean tho same thing by them. But Mr. Jolly seems to be satisfied .with the name, and does hot seem to trouble what the name connotes. "He believes as they do," ' naming in tliis connection Principals Garvie and Forsyth. If he does, my. contention all along is that he does not believe then in tho Catechisms and Confessions. These men 1 don't believe in the creeds of Mr. Jolly's church. As Mr. Jolly has brought forward, quotations, a thing which is never very satisfactory; for I prefer to understand tho points of vioiv of tho men than to give a few quota-, tions from them, yet I follow his example, and ask your readers if these two men would be allowed in tho Prosbyterian ministry of New Zealsnd at all. Yet Mr. Jolly believes as they do, and is allowed not only to remain but to attack a man who is 'honest enough (Rev. Gibson Smith) to : say exactly what ho believes. It is not Mr. Gibson Smith who ought to bo. pcTsecut-ed for his honesty but tho Rev. Isaac Jolly for his ambiguities and equivocations.: Let your readers mark some of the beliefs of the.men s of whom Mr. Jolly says that ho bolieves as they So.' It will not bo difficult for any reader who has not received even a theological training to percoive a fundamental difference between the conclusions of these men and those of tho Rev. Isaac Jolly as upholder of theological constructions which are (]ead, and ought to have been bjiried übefomv, now. @arvie • in- his'- latestr'book,'-"Stildies in the Inner Life of Jr-sur," (1D07), .speaks :is follows :—wWithout any-Hcsitfttinii r or'reservation does the'writer reject the accretions which in course of timo have been added to the simple fact recorded in tho Gospels, tho Immaculate Conception of tho. Virgin herself. The Gospel narratives, taken in the plain sense, teach that Jesus was the first-born of Mary, that she and Joseph afterwards lived together in wedlock, and that thero were other children in tho home. Thero is no reason why we should seek to forco an unnatural sense on thoir language (pp. 95-96 of the book quoted above). "To claim equality with God is not an ideal for man, and Jesus would havo,severed himself from tho race with which he identifies Himself as Son of Man had Ho meant that when He called Himself the Soil of God'' (p. 314). "Tho writer shrinks from speculation on these high themes, ho may venturo one step-further and conjecture that tho temporal iienosis in. the Incarnation is made possible by, nay, is due to, the eternal Kenosis in tho. nature of God." This, I may inform Mr. Jolly, is something parallel to Plato's "Doctrino of Ideas," and is a problem for us to-day. It is nono other than: the problem to account for consciousness. But let Dr. Garvio speak further, for his words have not yet reached some in-Palmcrston North': "To impart the metaphysics of .the creeds into tho consciousness or Jesus is not only an error, but a wrong. . It makes tho appreciation of Jesus as tho meek and lowly in hoart impossible" (same book, 1907 . p: 314). Even tho pro-existence of Jesus is regarded by Dr. Garvio in the same manner as the preexistcnce of every human being. This again is Plato's Doctrine of Ideas, which is-totally different from the conversations that took place between tho Father and the Son in Eternity; ' Dr. Garvie knows that we can know nothing of what happened before Time was.' But the Catechisms and Confessions know everything—they give you a'full'account of the conversations which took place in Heaven before the world was created. Where is Mr. Jolly now? Is there no difference, Mr.' Jolly, in Dr. Garvic's synthesis' and that of your ready-made "Standards" here ? Let us pass on tb another point in Dr. Garvie's book, which shows that ho does not live in the same world, as, that of the Catechisms and Confessions at all. "Still less can we regard the virgin birth as affording any justification for the monstrous theory of Augustino 'that children possess original sin becauso their parents have procreated them in lust,' and that 'Christ has sinlessness becauso he was not born of marriage.' It is blasphemy against God, who is responsible for the .existence of sex, and tho continuation of. life by the union of tho sexes. It is a libel on man, in whom the sexual impulse does not need to sink to sensual passion, but may soar to moral love.. It is necessary so emphatically to repudiato the superstitions _ in dealing with tho subject, as it- is to be feared many aro prejudiced against the simplo fact, because it has so often been presented along with these parasitic growth" (same book p. 96). How. does this squaro with the Catechisims and Confessions? Yet Mr. Jolly says he believes as they do. Your readers will know what to say of his wholo attitude.- It- is the attitude that has brought the church into disrepute. Dr. Forsyth takes tho same position exactly as Dr.. Garvie, and Mr. Jolly says he beliovcs as they do. Dr. Forsyth throws on one sido election, predestination, eternal damnation, and other props , which constitute the Catechisims and Confessions. Listen to tho essence of Christianity by Dr. Forsyth"Christ in .His saving act is identical with man s last reality of moral expcrienco." "Too much, of our theology,is speculation instead of ovangehcal .thought. It is thinking out a gospel, or it is pious phantasy, fruit tinned and sweetened, instead of fresh from the tree of life' ("Hibbert Journal," July, 1906). What is this tinned fruit? The Catechisms < and Confessions of the Rev. Isaac Jolly, of ' Palmcrston North. Let this be -tho final qnotatioiijifrom Forsyth from tho same number of tho "Hibbert Journal" :—"Theologies, , clulrchcf!, Biblicisms, and pietisms; much as they havo helped have herb arrested or dc- , fleeted tho moral power of tho Gospel. The , burden of an elaborate',corpus:. of''doctrine j (whero are you, Mr. Jolly?)-is. greater than tho gain from its positiveneas; of. definition."Let this sufßco. this time, and let us wait for the defence of'.tlio. Standards froiji ,tho i Rev. Isaac Jolly or for a statement that ho has ceased to believe in them!.—l am, etc., j Soptombor 5. ; W. TUDOR JONES. ' <