RITUAL AND INTOLERANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17408, 22 May 1928, Page 9

RITUAL AND INTOLERANCE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In addition to the excellent replies of “Carpenter” and “Catholicus" to Mr John Warren, perhaps a somewhat fuller reply may not be superfluous. Briefly Mr Warren’s contentions were: —“That the practices complained of as ‘Romish’ are indeed but the legal though disused practice of the Church of England,” this contention being supported by the statement that (a) “the pre-Reformation Church was an Anglican Church identical in doctrine with the Anglican Church of to-day;” (hat (b) “the new Church was, evolved from the Reformation,” and that (c) “to revive preReformation and First Prayer Book practice is but to revise the dis-used practices of our Anglican Church.” If the Anglo-Catholic (so-called) appeals to history, as Mr Warren has done, it would appear from all that is authoritative that he hasn’t a leg to stand on. Rather than find that there “never was a Papal Church of England” we find that the Church in England w r as before the Reformation but the Western Church of Rome, and that therefore to plead for a Restored Church along the lines of the preReformatiOn Church is to plead not for doctrines Anglo-Catholic but Roman Catholic. Mr Warren asks us to discriminate between that which is Roman and that which is Catholic, but we shall find, unless we go back to the first five centuries, which is a period previous to the arrival of Christianity in England, that there can be no question of “discrimination” in our search, seeing that the whole fabric of ritual, doctrine and order of the Church in England was part and parcel of the doctrine and ritual and order of Rome. As a matter of fact, the Sarum use, w f hich was the Mass service used most extensively in England’s churches for some centuries before the Reformation, was simply the form of the Roman Liturgy used in England. The mass service as conducted for centuries in St. Payl’s Cathedral and Westminster and in every parish throughout England was identical in doctrine, ritual, intention and object with that conducted in St. Peter’s, Rome. It was in Latin; it had the identical form and teaching of the Mass service, and this form and teaching it must be remembered was not that left by Christ and Ilis apostles, but that introduced in the early centuries by Tertullian and Cyprian. It was largely owing to the masterful mind of Cyprian that there was substituted for the simpler Christian teaching of the primitive Church, founded upon the synagogue system of prayer, praise, preaching and reading of the Word, the stately fabric of Roman sacerdotalism. It was in Cyprian’s time that the transfer of the Jewish system of priest, sacrifice and altar to the Christian Church furnished those terms and standards that culminated in after centuries with the spectacular service of the Mass, which had its centre in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and its ritual in the ceremonial offering the sacrifice on the incense wreathed altar. While the formulated doctrine of transubstantiation was not adopted at the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, the practical acceptance of the theory of re-pre-sentation, transmutation and the offering of the oblation, which by the recital of the Words of Institution became there and then the actual Body of Christ, was universal throughout the Western Church, and in ever-in-creasing volume, complexity of ceremonial, crossing's and hissings and genuflections, incense and candles and prayers for the dead, invocation of its saints and prostrations continuous and Mariolatory with extraordinary developments of intercession and offering, became more and more the prominent features of the service of the Mass, displacing the original service of the Lord’s Supper with its two great features —a memorial feast and a communion. For, from the time Augustus landed in Kent, or most positively from the time of the dominance of Archbishop Theodore, 697, in every true sense of the word the Roman .Mass was celebrated in every church of the Church of England until 154 g. d here was but one Rope, one bishop, one priest—the Pope, bishop and priest of the Holy Church of Rome. This is history; if any doubt it, let him read. lu doctrine, discipline and orders the Church of England was one with the Church of Rome. .As far as worship was concerned there was not ally dillerence, save as in various minor matters, between the different dioceses in England and the Holy Roman Catholic Church, of which the Rope was the visible head. For during the Middle Ages the only idea of Die Church of Christ was its one-ness and visibility. The idea of an independent national church, owing no allegiance to the earthly head of the Church, the occupant of Peter's See, was utterly inconceivable. The re--! I a lion of the Church of England be-! fore the Reformation to the Church ; of Rome was identical in every re- | sped with the Roman Catholic Church ■

T ’ # in the Dominion of New Zealand today and the - Roman See. (See history.) How, then, within this Roman Catholic Church did the first glimmerings of the Reformation come in? The story of its arise in the hearts of the people is the story of the Greek Testament. The story of the new learning, of the light of the Gospel coming with power upon the “intelligensia” of the day; the wonderful story of the Open Bible, too long for this letter, but one which every Protestant should know by heart. And it will I be seen to be a story of progress.

Even Ridley and Cranmer did not sec the vision in its perfection all at once. Through those two first Prayer Books can be traced a travail and a changing, a beginning in a book at first Romish because of the upbringing of all engaged upon it, then gradually and always changing in the one direction, and that scriplurally and spiritually, unlit its final deliverance in the Second Prayer. Book, passed by solemn Parliament and Convocation in the year 1552. The lines upon which the changes were made will be seen on a comparison of the first Prayer Book of 1549, v hicll was admittedly a failure, being unsatisfactory to the Papists and not altogether satisfactory to Reformers with the second Book of 1552. The first Book had been secured with difficulty and was disregarded by the majority. No new edition of it was printed, and after that year no copy of it was printed. In April, 1552, the very Parliament which passed it rescinded it, ( illegalised it under penalties and substituted for it the second Prayer Book. In the-year 1552, that is only three years after, it was made an offence not only to read the first Prayer Book but to be present and hear it read. Following I give a list of practices prescribed for use by the first Prayer Book and entirely abolished by the second and never revived by any Prayer Book since: Intercession of Angels, Agnes Dei, Wafer Bread, Prayer of ) Sacrifice before Communion. Auricular ) Confession, Prayers for the Dead, Sign J of the Cross (excepting in baptism), Reservation of the Elements, Com- ) munion at Burials, Permitted Genullee- j tions, Ritual Vestments, the word Altar changed to Table, Eastward position, j Real Presence in the elements. Alt i these things were present in the first i Prayer Book. All are made illegal | under penalty by the second Prayer I Book, and are absent from the PrayerBook as it remains- with us to-day. It is these illegalities which have been gradually restored to the Church in England by the activities of the Factarians, and it is to make legal these irregular practices that the new Prayer Book under present discussion has been compiled. The Anglo-Catholics plead for a return to the early Church; but unfortunately they do not go back far enough. Let us return by all means, but let us go back, as Cranmer sought to do, to it as it was when Christ left it, not as it had become under the paganism of the Romans, the ignorance and superstition of the dark middle ages and the dominance of the Popes. In conclusion Mr Warren says, -‘I would like to ask my evangelical friends these questions: “If the use of ritual in public worship is adventitious and unacceptable to God why did He order in minute detail the most elaborate ceremonial ever known when Moses put up the tabenacle in the wilderness? Also why did Christ use ritualistic symbol in performance, why did He not condemn the use of ritual in the temple?” I would answer all these questions by asking Mr Warren one otner: "Why is it they use symbolic language in the East to-day. if Mr Warren or any of us wont into one of the tents of Kedar to-morrow morning wc should probably be greeted with the following: “Oh thou son of the morning, thou more slender than the reed, may thy shadow never decrease; drink with us of the 'milk of goats, may it be unto thee a strength like unto that of the hc-goais upon Mount Gilead, where balm still llowelh and where she putteth forth sweetness from the rocks.” And after being there for awnile he would grow used to this sort of thing. He would be able to interpret it as meant. The Eastern mind deals in that coinage, only the Western sticks at the sign and makes -magic of if. It is the literal Western interpretation of the Eastern symbolic idea which has given us the Romish Mass, the sacrificial altar, saoredotalism and the doctrine of 'Transubslantiation. But leaving aside this aspect of the case, .tiie good or evil of ritual being a controversial point never of final settlement to all members of the Church at one time, is if not a fact that we are forgetting one of the chief attributes of the Church of England and one talked a good deal of at present, that of ils breadth? The Anglican Church is broad enough to embrace all sections of thought, “high,” "medium” and "low” being frequently staled. 1 think I am right when 1 say that the general feeling of the diocese at present is certainly not "high"; in fact, contrary to Mr Warren's persuasion that a small section of evangelicals are trying to "dictate” to a large body of “restorers,” 1 would suggest that the boot is on the other foot. While allowing for many wiio, like Mr Warren, can attend the Cathedral, there is an even number who, like myself, find the Communion service so hurried as to be almost unintelligible, so frequent as to be almost vainly repetitious, and the continual changes of vestments during the service so disturbing that beauty and dignity are not secured but lost. But the proper channel of appeal is our

Bishop; and the proper point from which to defend our Church against mistakes is within the Church herself. Attend her services more regularly, Lake a lively interest in all her activities, then our feeling being as it is—a sturdy, healthy one, not a morbid and bickering one—will not our Bishop and clergy, feeling Hie temper of their flock, restore to us the service in a manner in which we can most agreeably worship. Then, may it not be possible that the colonial Church in its colonial way, for the very reason of its youth and characteristic worship, will bring as its contribution something valuable to the round fulness of the Church of the World.—l am, etc., DOROTHY BROOKE. *