ANGLICAN PRAYER BOOK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19939, 7 May 1928, Page 11

ANGLICAN PRAYER BOOK

REVISION IN NEW ZEALAND.

"THE RUBICON CROSSED."

LESSONS FROM ENGLAND. "It seeins we have crossed the Rubicon and it is likely we will have our own New Zealand Prayer Book," said Canon Percival James, in St. Mary's Cathedral last evening, referring to the recent unanimous decision of the General Synod with regard to the fundamental clauses of the constitution of the Anglican Church in New Zealand.

The Synod, he said, has made its own mind clear, and would seek legal enactment to put the matter beyond dispute, that the New Zealand Church could make her own revision of the formularies, under the most ample safeguards to prevent any departure from the doctrinal standard of the Book of Common Prayer. "I am' sure we will not decide to adopt in toto the English revision," said Canon James, "even if that book survives the ordeal of the House of Commons, which is doubtful. Other branches of the Anglican Church have their own prayer books—in Scotland, Ireland, Canada, South Africa and the United States—and doubtless other provinces of the Church will make .their own revisions. I believe it is not only good, but even necessary, that the genius of New Zealand Anglicanism should find expression in a distinc-, tively New Zealand prayer book."

Party Strife Deplored. If the Church should undertake the task of revision, the essential condition of success was that party strife should be kept out of it. Unfortunately in England two things had been intermingled which sliould have been kept distinct. These two were the noncontroversial revision of a sixteenthcentury book to adapt it to the needs of the twentieth century, and the question of ecclesiastical discipline. "Since the days oi' Selwyn," the preacher continued, "the traditional type of churchmanship of the great mass of churchfolk in New Zealand has been a sturdy, definite, middle-way Anglicanism, thoroughly loyal to the Book of Common Prayer. I will not deny that we have had our extremists; but they have done less harm here than elsewhere.

"If we compare ourselves with the Church in England, or nearer at hand, in some of the Australian dioceses, we must need feel thankful for our comparative freedom from party strife and bitterness. If we are to leave our Church more ready than we found her to face the problems of a new age, we claim to be allowed to advance without the crippling handicap of internal strife and faction.

"Signs are not wanting that party bitterness is creeping into our household. To crush these ugly beginnings, it is time for the great mass of central Church people in New Zealand to declare quite plainly that they have no room here for the emissaries of those extremists in England who, while remaining in the Church, treat Anglicanism as it has existed since the Reformation with open scorn. " Extremists of Two Types." "They repudiate the Anglican tradition in which people have been brought up in New Zealand; their sympathies and loyalties are Latin, not Anglican. They aim at a crude revival of the Mass and the confessional; and a progressive Romanising of our services by the introduction of medieval superstitions and idolatrous rites.

"Nor is there room in the Anglican Church in New Zealand for extremists of the opposite type, who disgrace the name of Protestant, making it stand for a negative, barren repudiation of everything that might enrich the corporate worship of the Church and quicken the spiritual life of her members. There are no worse enemies of our Church than people of this narrow, persecuting temper, who are always: watchful for some pretext for raising that favouite cry of ignorant fanaticism, "No Popery." Such people have little sympathy with Anglicanism ; they are no more loyal to its tradition than the opposite extremists, for they deny the comprehensiveness which is one of the noblest elements in our heritage." Canon James urged bis bearers to take the advice of Dean Vaughan, "Don't let anyone put a label on you." They should not. be called "K igh Churchmen," or "Low Churchmen," he said. It was enough to be New Zealand Churchmen, lovnl to the best traditions of the Church.