The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1898.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 38, 21 January 1898, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1898.

THE NEW REFORM

ANY of our readers have probably heard of the Argyleshire elder who, when asked how his local kirk was getting along, replied : " Aweel, we had four hundred members. Then we had a divis ; on, an' there were only two hundred left. Next, we had a disruption, an' only ten were left. Then we had

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a heresy trial, an noo there s only me an ma brither Duncan ; an' 1 hae great doots o' Duncan's orthodoxy." This story is probably much overdrawn. Nevertheless, it roughly points out some stages in the everwidening circles of division which have left Great Britain a land of hostile pulpits and waiving creeds. Such a condition of things is the natural outcome of the principle on which the religious revolution of the sixteenth century hung : the substitution of the anarchical principle of private judgment for the living voice of an infallible authority. Anglican Protestantism has altered its colours like the chameleon since the days of Cranmeu. But the most marked and significant of all its whirling changes is that which had

its source in the Oxford Movement of sixty years ago. The movement arose, at least indirectly, from the coldness and lack of all true life in the Church of England. It was furthered by a reactionary piety, such as had previously stirred the Establishment in the days of John Wesley — who, like the men of the Oxford Movement, had been heir to the High Church doctrines of Laud and Sancroft and the Non-jurors. Newman and his compeers of the thirties sought for authority in the formularies of English divines ; then in the Fathers. Many of them were content with shreds and patches of Catholic teaching and ritual. Some of them — and thousands through them — found the true source of doctrine and discipline, not in weak and fickle private judgment, but in the voice of an infallible teaching authority.

The New Reform has been variously styled the Ritualistic movement, the Roman movement, etc. Its direct action and immediate tendencies are to get rid of the bald Protestantism of the Establishment: to "undo the work of the Reformation," as Dean Farrar puts it ; and to introduce into the Anglican State Church a large body of Catholic doctrines, devotions, and ceremonies. There is plenty of physical life and "go" in the New Reform. It has caught up in its swirl a considerable and steadily growing section of both the laity and the clergy. Even the Episcopal bench has not been altogether proof against the desire of making right-about-turn towards Rome. The movement has opened a fresh line of cleavage, which is fast carrying large bodies of Anglicans farther and ever farther apart from the cardinal principles of the sixteenth century Reform. Associations rich in money and in talent are devoted to the Romeward movement. The Church Times is their chief organ in the Press. They are steadily issuing a whole literature of defence and defiance, and devotional works, some of which — like The Catholic Church and Tho Penitent's Manual — are a strange blending of friendship for, and antagonism to. Catholic belief and sentiment, while others are to all iutents and purposes reprints of books that are being thumbed and dog's-eared by our people all over the world.

Lord Palmerston has said that "man is by nature a lighting animal." This quality has been brought into singular activity by the New Reform. It has many points of agreement both with the Protestantism from which it is breaking away, and with the Catholicism towards which it tends. But it has also many points of friction with both extremes ; and the result has been a long sustained war of wits which has enriched our literature with many notable works of research. It must not, however, be imagined that the New Reform is a homogeneous movement. No section of the Anglican Church has been more blighted by the original sin of the sixteenth century revolt— divisions and sects. The great problem is : How far to go towards Rome in doctrine, ritual, and devotion ? It oilers boundless possibilities for family jars. Each settles the question for himself, with, of course, an unlimited right of revising his decision. This leads naturally to a constant shifting of anchorage. Our Ritualist friends recognise the principle of authority in a way, but each is, in effect, a final court of appeal to himself ; and thus the New Reform is a seething cauldron of conflicting opinions, which cover every ground from a Papal primacy of honour and a Real Presence, down to the cut of a Gothic chasuble. Looking out over the breaks, dissensions, and varieties of the Romeward movement, the scandalised Anglican may well ask in dismay Pilate's question : " What, then, is the truth ?" For the seamless robe of Christ is no more to be sought in the New Reform than in the old Protestantism from which it is breaking away. *.« * * * *

"When the Greek array broke from Domoko, they were disorganised, disordered, and helpless. It was a veritable ,sauvo gui ])eut ; but, none the less, it was a retreat. And the New Reform, despite its hopeless divisions, is in effect a retreat from the sixteenth century principle, and a movement towards Rome. It has assimilated almost every distinctive doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church — -the Real Presence, indulgences, prayers and " Masses " for the dead, lighted candles, vestments, incense, Benediction, rosary, prayers to the saints, etc. The Pope would be allowed a primacy of honour and a harmless precedence at

councils, or in processions and deliberations — they stop short at only the one doctrine, which teaches the necessity of submission to the See of St. Peter. Even the word " Protestant "—the official title of the Anglican Church— smells rank as assafoetida in the nostrils of our Ritualistic friends. They claim, instead, the title " Catholic," or apply to themselves the puzzling term " Anglo-Catholic.'" The Reformation is by many of them set down as a schism ; by others — the upholders of the Continuity theory — as a period at which nothing in particular took place.

Catholics cannot view the main lines of the New Reform with other than a friendly and prayerful interest. The movement is, undoubtedly, being used by many with hostile intent — to supply, within walls of the Establishment, the growing desire for Catholic doctrines and usages, and thus prevent "secessions to Rome." But many connected with it are men of good-will, who labour consciously for the fulfilment of the Saviour's prophecy that there shall be "one fold and one Shepherd." In the meantime the movement has effected much good. It is killing off the old hereditary dread of Rome : it is no longer an article of faith that the Pope is the Man of Sin, and the Church the Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse. The people are familiarised with doctrines such as those of purgatory, indulgences, the Real Presence, and with such practices as absolution and prayer to the saints, which to the old-fashioned Protestant were as whiffs from the pit of Tophet. Barriers are thus being broken down, conversions made more easy, and our Ritualist friends are " preparing the ways of the Lord " for many who are wandering outside the fold. It has led many a footstep into the right path since the days when Newman " went over to Rome."