REVIEW.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 33, 11 December 1896, Page 15

REVIEW.

.1 Plant Jlm^nn fur Joining the Church of llonir. By Luke Ithington, M.A. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., Limited ; Dunedin : James Braithwaite. This little work by Father Rivington is a reply to a work entitled •• Itonian Catholic Claims" by the late Canon Carter, and is piaetically also Father Ri\in;rton's " Apologia " for leaving- the Anglican Church for the Church of Home. Father Rivington's plain reason is that in the Church of Rome alone is there to be iound a supreme authority which not only teaches one doctrine but hits aKo power to entorce that teaching, and the Scriptural and patristic proofs in support of this position are stated with great fulness and clearness. Father Riving ton's position may be thus stated in the words ot St. Francis of Sales : •• If, as St. Jerome says, in the time of the Apostles one is chosen from amongst all, in order that, a head being established, occasion of schism may be taken away, how much more now. for the name reason, must there be a chief in the Church I The fold of our Lord is to last till the consummation of the world in visible unity ; the unity, then, of external government must remain in it and nobody has authority to change the form of administration, save our Lord, who established it.'' And the reasons which led him to the conclusion that the Church of Rome alone had that unity and supreme authority, may be thus, briefly summarised : First, he saw that the plain, nbnoi/s meaning of our Lord's words to St. Peter involved the institution of a Alible head to His visible Church. Secondly, there could be no reasonable doubt that in the fifth roifur// the entire Christian world held to the Papal form' of Christianity. Thirdly, he saw that in ilu Jourt/i <'< ntunj (on whose testimony all Anglicans so implicitly rely) the same belief as to the successors of St. Peter was plainly held by such saints as St. Chryso.stom, St. Ambrose and St. Cyprian. Fourthly, seeming difficulties were explicable by a thoroughly legitimate use of the principle ot development. Fifthly, the position of the Anglican body was entirely anomalous, and could only be paralleled by the history of such schismatic bodies as the Donatis'ts and the Nestorians. Having been himself a member ot the Church of England, Father Rivington has a special knowledge of its weak points, and he ruthlessly exposes the radical inconsistency ot the Anglican position. For the specific purpose of controversy with Anglicans a better little handbook than Father Rivington'd " I'lain Reason " could scarcely be found.