SECESSIONS TO ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 20, 6 September 1889, Page 20

SECESSIONS TO ROME.

WHY (asks the Whitehall Review) do Ritualists, and perhaps some people who are not Ritualists, join the Church of Home ? This question may perhaps suggest itself to thinking people when they read from time to time, as they did last week, of a batch of Anglican clergymen being received into the Roman fold.

One reason often given is that such persons are dissatisfied with the evidence given for the validity of Anglican orders. Of course the Boman and the Eastern Churches treat these orders aa null and void, or, to Bay the least, as doubtful, which comes to the same thing for no one can exercise doubtful orders. But suppose a man doubts his English orders, be is not on that account bound to become a Boman Catholic. He may join the Greek Church, as a certain Mr. Batherley did come years ago ; he may become a Dutch Jansenist.or an Old Catholic, or join the order of the Corporate Reunion. In all these (except the last) he will certainly find valid orders, and perhaps in the last also, although, it being more or less a secret society, it is not possible to speak with accuracy of its tenets or operations. Perhaps, however, one reason why High Aoglicans become Boman Catholics is as follows : They have lived in a Catholic atmosphere ; they have, if they are priests, said Mass, heard confessions, and done what every Roman Catholic priest does every day : the outward ritual of vestments, candles, incense, and other adjuncts symbolical of the " beauty of holiness," is quite familiar to them, so familiar that it is on record bow Roman Catholics have been sometimes led to mistake an Anglican high celebration for a Boman Mass at least until they heard the celebrant say " Thou shall not steal," in plain English, when they incontinently left the building, not from' any dislike to the Ten Commandments, but eimply because these are uot recited in the Roman service, and so the mistake became evident • what more, thenjdoes the Ritualist want ? What are the difficulties which, considering that he has in his own belief valid orders and ■acraments, rise up and cause him to have misgivings as regards his position in the Church of England ? 4.x. T^ ce J c . Me ' Mwe lDink . two points on which the minds of the thoughtful and educated High Anglican may be somewhat exercised These two are truth and authority ; with regard to the former, the Anglican— as, of course, the Roman Catholic— holds that the Church is the Divine teacher. To "Go and teach all nations "is her mission. But here comes in difficulty No 1, as follows. It cannot be denied that, whatever her formularies say, the Church of England at the present time, by her living voices of prelates and priests, teaches contradictories. In one church you find the whole sacramental system as taught by the Boman Church more or lees accurately preached and proclaimed, and the symbolic ritual practised aa exemplifying to eye and ear these verities. Within a ■tone s throw you find another church where all these points of doctrine and practice are proclaimed to be pernicious and soul-destroy-ing ; while in a third there is Broad Church toleration of, or indifference to, all or any dogma, if not a denial of what is common to the belief of High and Low Church people. Take the teaching of Bshop JLing, of Lincoln— he says it is the doctrine of the Church of England ; on the other hand Bishop Byle, of Liverpool, will say that most, if not all, of what is considered orthodox in Lincoln, is but a

fond thing, vainly invented and a damnable deceit. Now both them bishops cannot be right ; one or other mnit be in error: yet both are bubops of the same Church. Take, again, Archdeacon Farrar and the Universalist school. They teach on the ■abject of eternal punishment what both Bishop King and Bishop Byle would oerkainly deny to be true. And so, again, there are hundreds of the clergy who agree to a certain extent with both the prelates Above named— a bit here and a bit there— «nd, perhaps, at the tame time manage to believe, with the Umversalists, what both these bishops deny. If God be a Ood of truth this state of things is, to say the least, perplexing. Then there is difficulty No. 2. Assuming, ac beforeVthe validity of the orders, wbenoe comes the permission to exercise the powers conferred by these orders f A judge, a magistrate, a bishop, can exercise their powers in certain places only. But the Anglican dewy nte their powers anywhere and everywhere, not only without leave of the bishops, but in spite often of episoopal disapproval. When missions and retreats are given in the dioeeee (say) of Liverpool by High Church clergy of the diocese (tay) of Lincoln, does Bishop Byle sanction these missioners in saying Mass and hearing edtofessiomf And does Bishop King sanction their intrusion upon a diocese whose overseer distinctly reprobates the doctrine thsy preach and the practices, as of confession, e.g., which they advocate 1 Is it not a euriou anomaly to find ministers of the same Church not only contradicting each other, but invading episcopal territory and pronouncing the bishop of the same territory to be in heresy T For if the missioners or cooduotore of " Quiet Days" are right in their aacramental teach* ing, Bishop Byle must be quite wrong in his expositions and explications of the Christian religion. And then comes a further question : Not only, Who is right ? Not only, Who is wrong t but— Who ii to decide I

We have purposely touched the fringe of the nutter only, bat have Mid enough to show what are the point* which, aa we believe, lead many of the Anglican clergy of the advanced school to reoonsider their position.

If contradictories are taught in, and tolerated by, the same communion, then that communion does not teach tbe truth, or at least holds that there is no particular truth to teach, and that, after all, the important things are morality and a good life, without bothering about trifles. But unless tbe Broad Church view be taken, whioh allows cheerful and hearty services with flowers and hymns in the present, and no hell in tbe future, thwe will always be the leakage from the Anglican Church of those who come to see that truth is not a trifle, that contradictories cannot be truth, and that without authority and obedience to some Christian umpire (who is, say the Boman Catholics, the Pope), religion most become simply a matter of self-pleasing, of private judgment, and of likes and dislikes.