REVIEW.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 36, 5 January 1894, Page 4

REVIEW.

The Origin of the Church of England. Three lectures by tbe Archbishop of Melbourne. Thomas E. Verga. Melbourne. Bomb few months since the Bight Bey Dr Goe, Protestant Biehop of Melbourne, in delivering an address, made a claim that the existing Church of England, or the Anglican Church ap, wi h a sacrifice of correctness to convenience, and to avoid a lengthened form if expression, it ii commonly called, is possessed of aposto ical succession, and the representative of the primitive Church of thecountrj. The Archbishop of Melbourne characterised Dr Goe's c'aim as a " histoiical joke," and tbe matter gave rise to a good deal of controveisy. Tb« upshot has been the publication by the Archbithop of tbe lectures now before us, which were delivered in nply to Dr Goe and other speakers who had made the claim in question. As published tbe lectures contain matter omitted in their delivery for want of time, which, we are told, is either embodied in the text or added by way of notes. The claim referred to, as our readers are no doubt aware, i* one that, in the Ohurcb of England, distinguishes tbe High Church party, and which is not made, which, in fact, is rejected by the Low Chuich party. The Low Church men would doubtless acknowledge their identity with the Christians of an early British Church, but it must be a Church independent not only of Rome, but of ihe apostolical succession, and of the nature of a Noncomformist Beet. Paley, indeed, who but for his famous uwUpbor of tbe pigeons would in all probability himself have been a bishop, com pi red the early Christians to the Methodists of his day. Tuis claim of continuity, bowever, if it has not altogether arisen within tbe last few years, has at least within that time become more definite, and progressively prominent. Tbat those who undertook to bring about the change in tbe ecclesiastical condition of England had any such pretensions for the Church they meant to found may be denied. Tbe Archbishop of Melbourne quotes testimony that seems conclusively to prove their contemptuous rejection cf any such claim if it had ever

tivrly unimportant, the fact remaining, as clearly proved by the Archbishop, that the Church referred to was in doctrinal agreement and in communion with Rome, which necessarily implies the character of the missionaries. Tne third lecture concludes, and concludes with brilliant success, the argument for the connection between Homn and Britain. It deals also with the period of the Reformation, leaving no more to be said as to the nature of that movement — a movement which was no happy and comparatively easy tia sition from a worse state of things to a better, no return, within the ancient lines, and with unbroken traditions and associations, to purer doctrines and more simple practices— but a violent change and overthrow of what had existed from antiquity, and a setting up, not in its place, for that was impossible, but instead of it, of that which was new and strange. As also briefly, but fully and clearly, shown by the Archbishop, the Reformation in England created an abyss between the past and the f v ure wb cb could not be bridged. All pretences to carry across it a line of continuity are palpably absurd. The remnants of the British Church, indeed, as the Archbishop states, were absorbed into the Church established among tbe Anglo-Saxons by Si Augustine, because, in trutb, both Churches were branches of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and in communion with the See of Rome. But between the Church established in England before tbe Reformation and tbat which was afterwards established there, no amalgamation could take place. There was no common to them. The one arose under tbe fostering car* of Rome and by the gr«ce of God. The other was tbe creature of a bad king, aided by tools who were, if possible, worse than he was, and the work was perfected by a like-minded queen. Striking passages in the lecture of tbe Archbishop are those in which his Grace st ows how the so-called reform was forced upon the people of England— passage?, moreover, especially worthy of note since adherents of the change are constant in their assertion that the country welcomed it gladly. But throughout these lectures abound with passages of great force and interest. We bad already known the Archbishop of Melbourne as a writer who was endowed with a singular faculty of condensation, combined with lightnest of touch

and elegance of style. In these lectures this ia very lemarkableBcenes and men of the olden times, taints and scholars, and monasteries and missions, or, later on, martyrs and their persecutors, are brought before us with a power that is admirably graphic and comprehensive. We have a chapter of ecclesiastical history covering nuny centnries and embracing momentous and various events, within the compass of a small-aized pamphlet. Scholarship, again, we expect from the illustrious writer, and varied learning, but the minute and extensive acquaintance shown by him with the works of non-Catho-lic historians and other non-Catholic writers, is still astonishing. His Grace, besides, gives evidence of a -irtue, by no means general, that of a capacity for himself acting on the rula he prescribes for all. Controversy, he tells up, in the opening of his first lecture, should be conducted with " studied moderation of tone, and a delicate regard for the feeling! of others." And, indeed, front beginning to end of his Grace 1 ! lectures there is not a word of his that could wound the most aeniitive feeling!. The urbanity which Mr Matthew Arnold marks aa a note of exceptional merit Ia the writings of Cardinal Newman distinguishes also those of Archbishop Carr. Finally, his Graca give! it ai bii opinion that controversy ia only advisable on occasions on which the silence of Catholics might be taken for their acquiescence in ♦' error or misrepresentation." Is it uncharitable on our part if we, at least, feel tempted to wish that such occasions may not uofrequently arise, if that be the condition on which alone the Archbishop of Melbourne will favour us with tuoh publications as that to which we have now alluded f AH of us must read these lectures with pleasure and profit, and it is difficult to see how the points they deal with can any loafer be looked on by anyone as capable of dispute.