CHRISTIAN UNITY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 86, 10 April 1924, Page 11

CHRISTIAN UNITY

THE MALINES CONVERSATIONS

SIR W. JOYNSON-HICKS AS CRITIC

CARDINAL MERCIER'S LETTER.

(moil OtIK OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 14th February. In his address, in the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbuy, the Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned cer-. lain correspondence which, had taken place on the subject of the conversations at Malines. The letters passed between 'Sir William Joynson-Hicks and the Primate. These have now been issued for publication. Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, in the course of his first letter/wrote : "Are we to suppose that your Grace regards (^persons' holding the views of Lord Halifax, Bishop Frere, Bishop Gore, and Dr. Kidd as the only or the ..truest representatives of the position of the English" Church? If so, that position must indeed have changed. Why, for instance, -was'not the Bishop of Durham, or Bishop Chevasse, or the late venerated Dean of Canterbury nominated ? If, as your Grace assures us, there is no thought of weakening the position taken up by the great Anglican : theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Lord Halifax, Bishop Frere, and- Bishop Gore are not the persons one would naturally think of as maintaining it. - ■ "These approaches to Rome, however, have another than the merely academic interest in which \your Grace wishes us to regard them. They have a direct practical bearing upon the Revision of the Prayer Book, which is now approaching its final stage, for,they furnish an intelligible explanation of the attempts which have been made with no little success to assimilate our fervices to'those of the Roman Church, and they fully justify the action which I, in conmonwith others, have from time to jtime taken in regard to Revision. If we are to have some of 'the principal elements of Roman ceremonial introduced into our Prayer Book because certain people desire theta, there will be no consistent reason why we ■ should refuse ■when the demand is made to bring in ;the_ Roman doctrines which they symbolise. And if the English Church i« to have Roman ceremonial and doctrine :there will be little justification t for refusing to admit the Roman claims. . . . The best and most direct path along 'iwhich we may approach the question of -Christian unity is in the way'of reunion nvith our separated brethren at v home, and it is the strongest condema.uion of ■^efforts of this kind to'secure union with jßome that not only are they: absolutely ifutile, 'for Rome never yields a tittle, but that their success would rln,troy all hope of reunion with our brethren." of the Free; Churches.-' ARCHBISHOP'S REPLY. .In the course of his reply the Archbishop said : "You, as I gather, would :ule as out of consideration any , idea.. that we should contemplate the ' possibility' of a' United Church of Christ on enrth. For you deem it to be clear-that the distinctive teaching, of the Church oll>ome is immutable. -If it is once admitted.'that certain,' distinctive doctrines oE'''.that Church are falsified by their lack of Scriptural foundation, an opion which I presume we all hold, w,e Must, according to your view, as you deem them to be immutable, leave it so, and tr.W'no steps, except perhaps, as private individuals,, to understand better the position which Roman Catholics take or to explain to them our own. .. . I do •not believe it to be our Lord's will that I should say, 'We will discuss- cur differences with those Protestant' treologians to whom our doctrines seem mistaken. We will discuss them' v.:t'i theo-' logians of the Eastern Churches, but we ; will not, evenwhen encouraged tri di so, discuss them^ with the theologians belonging to the Church of Rome. The . members of that Church, nre > died out, unless,, prior to any conversation on the subject, they_begin-,by admitting tbeir errors and withdrawing* from tl.o-posi-tion for which they contend.'. . "I would venture to uige yi.u to U.ke a larger and, as I think/a More frithful view;, of the purpose of- Our Lord, and of our right to seek the help of God, the Holy Spirit in promoting a v,'der and deeper, fellowship of Christians - upon earth. . . Pray dismiss any! apprehensions you may entertain- as to 'negotiations,' which have not even been attempted, or as to our belittling'of the doctrines and teaching of the Church of England in their definiteuess, their .sobriety, andi their loyalty to our-lhing Lord." ' "ROME IS IMMUTABLE." In response, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks ■ wrote : "Forgive me if I.express my regret that you did not: see your way to deal with what I think were the important questions.raised in my letter. ', . The ynain difference which I trace in your letter from my own views is. that I 'egard the: position 'and claims of the Chprch of Rome as immutable, and you apparently hold the views that they may, under the pressure of the arguments adduced by.Lord Halifax and his colleagues, change in the direction of those held by the Church of England since the Reformation.' I stand,'and I hope our Church sands, firmly on the Reformation Settlement; without \ the purification of- our doctrines and ceremonies then effected there would surely be no reason why we should not have remained an integral part of the Roman Church, and I submit that there can be no possible reunion with a Reformed and Protestant Church unless and until Rome undergoes a similar change to that which we effected in the sixteenth century." In a postscript, Sir W. JoynsonHicks added : "Since writing this letter I have seen the Press extracts from Cardinal Mercier's pastoral letter on the subject-, of the recent, conversations. If these extracts are correct—viz., 'that on the main essential questions, such as the primacy of »the Pope, Rome will not sacrifice to a senseless desire,for reuion at. any price a single article of " its creed, and that the main motives were to secure a reunion of all Catholics, and then exercise direct action on all members of the High Church party 'to bring them back to Rome'—if, as I say, this is correct, I have little to add, as'l assume you will npt agree'-'with me that Rome is immutable arid that the episodo of the conversations is now" closed." CARDINAL MERCIER'S LETTER. The full' text of Cardinal Mercier's leter appeared in "The Church times". "Our disagreement," says the Cardinal, in the course of his letter, "on several fundamental points was notorious; we all knew that. But we also knew that if truth has its rights, charity has its duties; we thought that, perhaps, by means of open-hearted converse, and the intimate conviction that in a vast conflict centuries old all the wrongs were not on one side, we might break" down fffeconcepUons, dispel ambiguities, and

smooth the way along which loyal souls, aided by grace, might discover, if it-pleased-God, or recover the truth." In a moving passage he' tells how the hearts of the men assembled on the two sides warmed to each other with the discovery . that they were, closer than they knew. It was, he adds : "Probably the first time for four centuries, as one of his guests remarked, that men of learning—Protestant and Catholics—have been able to converse with complete frankness for hours and hours concerning the gravest matters which intellectually divide them, without the cordiality of their relations being disturbed for one moment or their confidence in the future being shaken. No doubt ths warming of hearts towards one another is not unity in faith, but it certainly prepares the way. Men, especially groups of.men, who have been total strangers for years, living in an atmosphere loaded'with distrnst, if not antagonism, rooted in the depths of their conscience by a tradition four centuries old, are ill-prepared to admit the arguments, however strong, with which their opponents wish to con-1 vince them." In a long and eloquent section of the Pastoral, the Cardinal justifies the con-' versations on the grounds of brotherly love and Christian hospitality. He quotes the Council of Trent and' various Papal encyclicals in support of his action. "Not for the whole world would I that one of our separated brethren should have the right to say. that he' knocked trustfully at the door of a Roman Catholic bishop and that thin Roman Catholic bishop refused to open it. _ He does not, however, disguise his view of what reunion means. "If it be," he says, "God's purpose that one day our brothers, severed from us since the days of Luther, Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, should\e-en,tflr the Church, it will be the lot of an elite to show the way."