RITUALISM AND PRIESTCRAFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1144, 15 July 1867, Page 4

RITUALISM AND PRIESTCRAFT.

(To the Editor of the New Zealand Herald.) Sir,—l beg to enclose to you for publication tho accompanying declaration respecting the Bishop of Oxford, from 200 laymen at Beading : among the signatures Auckland is represented by our old friend W.S.Graham:— The following lay declaration from two hundred male communicants of Reading, expressing want of confidence in the administration of the Bishop of Oxford, has been forwarded by Messrs. Bazett and ■Balding, of Beading To the Bight Reverend the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

My Lord, —In the year 1859, as will be recollected, by your Lordship, an address, signed by four thou- . sand lay members of the Church of England in the diocese of Oxford (including three Members of Parliament, twenty-three magistrates, and one hundred and soventy-nine churchwardens), was presented to your Lordship expressing the existence, "in the " minds of the best friends of our Church, of a "growing mistrust in consequence of the Romanizing " tendency of many of the innovations recently " introduced by C3rtain of the clergy into tho practices " and ritual of its services," and praying your Lordship " in virtue of your office to arrest the progress " of these objectionable innovations, to allay the fears " entertained, and to suppress all such causes for " further apprehension." We, the undersigned residents in Beading (being lay communicants of the Reformed Church of England as by law established, and many of whose signatures were attached to the address above referred to), not only feel that that address has failed to accomplish its wished-for results, but we are deeply impressed with tho sad conviction, shared, we believe in common with a very largo number of our fellow countrymen, that a wide-spread apostacy from Protestant truth and practice has already taken place in our land, and that in the diocese over which your Lordship so energetically presides the evil is extensively diffused and actively progressing. To your Lordship's long recognised sympathies and acts in favour of what is popularly designated the " High Church System" we do not doubt that such a lamentable result is to be greatly though not exclusively ascribed. In your Lordship's elaborate, but in our judgment singularly ambiguous and unsatisfactory, Charge of December last, you congratulate the diocese on its freedom from " .Ritualistic extravagances."

We mußt rospectfully demur to the accuracy of this statement. But even admitting the outward manifestation of Ultra-Ritualism to be comparatively rare wo are deeply persuaded that in no diocese is there greater preponderance of that doctrinal teaching of which Bitualism is nothing more than the natural fruit and expression. It is true that in the Charge referred to " extreme Bitualism " is gravely rebuked ; that Uomo is declared to be the " oldest and deadliest enemy " of the Church of England, and all attempts at union with Home are stronglj denounced, but the definition of what Bitualism really consists, or of tho doctrines from which it springs and "of which rites are the shadows," is nowhere to be found ; while in other of your Lordship's remarks you appear to rebuild the things you had just before been destroying, and to re-establish the very principles which it seemed your intention to condemn. We deem it right, therefore, publicly to give expresaion to our opinions, being satisfied that they will be re-echoed by a large number of the reflecting lay membors of tho Church of England in this diocese and elsewhere; and wishing to be aware, that instead of that "harmony" which, "to a degree rare at this time, almost everywhere," is said in your Charge to abound, wide-spread distrust and apprehension really exist. Under these circumstances, after close observation of your Lordship's episcopal career, and impelled by the deep conviction that tho present is the most important religious crisis which has come upon England since the Boformation, we feel it our bounden but painful duty respectfully yet frankly to state that we have no confidence in tho course pursued by your Lordship as our spiritual guide. Begretting the necessity for this avowal of our sentiments.—We remain, your Lordship's obedient servants,

This is the Bishop who wants to get rid of the " fetters and chains," and to impose Sacerdotalism on the Colonies and Bitualism " not in its extravaganco" in England.—Your obedieni servant, July 13,18G7. Yioiwns. [Wo havo little foar for the colonies. Society is too onlightenod horo to allow itself to becoino prieatridden.—En. N.Z.H.]