SOME COMMENTS ON AN AUCKLAND CONTROVERSY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 12, 22 July 1898, Page 2

SOME COMMENTS ON AN AUCKLAND CONTROVERSY.

The correspondence columns of the Auckland Herald have furnished some food for deep reflection ever since July 2 The tomes under discussion are the evergreen ones of Ritualism and the wanmg influence of the Church of England. The controversy on Ritualism arose .out of certain 'Romanising practices in the Ang icin church at Takapuna. It was an echo of the Kensit troubles m London. The other and more serious discussion arose out of some sweeping comments made in the Herald by Rev W Beatty-who is described to us as one of the most learned, genial' and broad-minded of the Anglican clergy in Auckland-on I puV hshed statement ot the Protestant Primate (Dr. Cowie) that after 21) years labour as a bishop, 'he was never fuller of hope for the progress of the Church in the Colony.' In the course of his remarks thereupon, Rev. W. Beatty said :— ' My own firm conviction is that the Church in this Colony as regards its moral and spiritual, and as regards its financial condition is very far from what it ought to be, and what it might be We have not the ear of the nation, we are not influencing the public character, we are not purifying atfd elevating family, social commercial, political life. Some of our best citizens won't so to church some of our wor.st are in places of honour and trust in the Chunh. The bulk of the pe< pie have ceased to take us clerev seriously. They think, and some of them r.re frank enough to say that we have a part to repeat, and are comfortably housed and well paid for tlo-ng it. but we believe no more than they do only we make more pretence. . . . Tdere is not a single department in which reformation is not urgently needed. The moral tone of the Church is low. The same maxims, principles, and habits which degrade political ana commercial life, pass current in our synods our commiteees, our Boards. Nepotism, favouritism, craft shiftiness flattery of the strong, bullying of the weak, hollow 'mutual laudation reckless expenditure, foolish stinginess, perversion of trusts— all these things have gone on, and yet we are to be hopeful Ihe status and qualifications of candidates for Holy Orders have been lowered, no provision has been made that whiie a clergyman does his work he should be paid a reasonable stipend and there is no adequate supervision over the work and conduct of the clergy A parish may be rent asunder by strifes about the order of worship and there is no one in authority who has •' the time or the inclination " to etep in as judge, arbitrator, or conciliator, to heal wounded consciences and restore peace and unity, and yy t t we are to be hopeful ! ' THE CONTROVERfeY. Whatever the merits of the case, such a strong indictment was sure to lead to controversy. It has done so. and, as was to be expected, the discussion was punctuated at times by compliments which are not to be found in the pages of the Polite Letter- Writer nor on the lips of the stately Vere-de- Veres. In fairness to all conl cerned we refrained from either publishing or commenting unon Key. W. Beatty 's remarks until such time as the other side had had at least a sufficient opportunity for a statement of their case. With minor and personal matters we have nothing to do Not so, however, with the wider question of Anglican decay which follows fast upon the heels of discussion on the decline of Nonconformity, Wesleyanism, and Evangelicalism. We know by cad experience that, although a portion— and that the best— of the 'leakage ' from the Protestant denominations finds its w:.y into the Catholic Church, the greater part of it goes to swell the tide of indifferentism and agnosticism of our d»y. And we view with distress the washing away of any barrier, however feeble, which holds men together in faith and in knowledge of Christ as the Divine Redeemer of the world. Moreover, Rev. W. Beatty's references to the need of an authoritative court of appeal in matters of worship, etc., emphasise v, principle which forms the ground- work difference between us and each and all of the Reformed Churches. The controversy, as a whele, brings into strong relief the distracted state of Anglicanism in New Zealand on matters of creed and ritual, and proves that, like the parent Church in England it can contain within its tolerant bosom every variegated form ot

Christianity from Unitarianism and Congregationalism up to moderately 'High ' Ritualism. We notice, with melancholy interest, that no serious attempt was made to impeach the statements of Rev. W. Beatty as to the loss of hold of the Anglican Church upon its followers in New Zealand. This is an old standing complaint in Eng-land. There is sad reading- thereupon in Conybeare's Essays, Ecclesiastical and Sonal (p. <)<»), in the speeches or sermons of Canon Money of Dcptf.-rd, Prebendary Harry Jones, the Bishop of Rochester, The Bitter Cry of Outcast Louden, Rev. J. S. Street (in hia Increase of Immorality, pp. 2«, 80), and sundry writers in reviews such as the Quarterly, the Contemporary, the Fortnightly, etc. Side by side with thin wo gladly acknowledge an awakening of spiritual life and charitable work, mainly through the efforts of the High Church party. They have been to the English Church of the past fifty years what the Wcslcys were to that of the last century, with this important difference, that they have familiarised millions of Anglicans wii h Catholic doctrines and modes of thought, and thus, under Providence, led many a faltering footstep to the door of the Church, and finally past it portals. A DESTROYING PRINCIPLE. Judging from the Auckland controversy, there seems to be as many different explanations of the decline of Anglican Church influence as there are writers. Seme have hit the right nail full square upon the head. The foes of the Church of England are those of her own household. She is a divided house, and we have high Authority for the statement that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The causes of division and consequent decay lie deep — they are bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of Protestantism. They are bound up in its very essence. They lie in the bed-rock principle of its constitution, namely— the substitution of a fallible individual private judgment for the infallible authority of the living Church of Christ. Such a principle makes every man and woman — and every mood of every man and woman — the final judge of what is true and false, right and wrong, in religion. By the very logic of the situation it leads necessarily to division and disintegration. The facts of history have abundantly proved that the principle of private judgment is destructive of any positive religion, or, if it comes to that, of any stable code of morals. In effect it leaves every point of doctrine and of morals unfixed, uncertain, undefined. To one, one pcint may be unacceptable ; to another, another ;to a third, both ; to a fourth, neither. So long as the principle of private judgment is preserved there can be no limit to tiiis disintegration. As a matter of history, there has been no limit. Witness Germany, for instance, where the warring sects that are bound by an iron law into what is termed the Evangelical Church, scarcely preserve even the essentials of Christian belief. Witness the breaking up of the English Establishment, of the Calvimstic Churches, and of such later outcrops as the creeds that look to Wesley as their founder. And the process still goes merrily on. Private judgment has broken up the Reformed creeds into a babel of warring sects. It has turned God's ordered revelation into a chaos. It has applied itself to the Fathers with almost equal effect ; likewise to history— as witnessed in the ' Continuity theory ' • it has whittled away at the 39 Articles till it has stripped them of their natural meaning; and has left vs 'a hundred sects battlin"--within one Church.' All this is its natural and necessary result The doctrine of private judgment is the apotheosis of doubt, the canonisation of fallibility, the glorification of divisions anl sects. Other causes may, and do, combine with it to produce religious dryrot. This must ever be the chief one. The one curious— and contradictory— feature of the antiRituahstic crusade both in England and in Auckland is the effort to compel uniformity of mere ritual within certain limits. On the face of it, this is an interference with the great Reformation principle of private judgment. It reminds one strongly of what Fontenelle wrote of pagan Rome— and his words were approved by Lecky : ' There is reason to believe that among the pagans religion was merely a matter of practice, regarding which speculative questions were matters of indifference : "do as others do, and believe whatever you like.'" ' HOW IT WORKED. T?* c right ° f P rivate judgment is regarded as the great palladium of Reformed liberty, but, as a matter of fact, the principle was never acted upon by any of the Reformers, uor is it logically followed at the present day by any one of the Protestant denominations. The Reformers saw, and the Protestant denominations of our day see, that it could not be strictly adhered to without a complete destruction of every semblance of a Church. On the other hand, they cannot abandon it without accepting the Catholic principle of authority. Here is a dilemma. The Reformers cut the Gordian knot by making private judgment begin and end with themselves. The 'glorious liberty 'of the Gospel was just theirs, and nobody else 8. Hence Articles of Religion, Confessions of Faith, etc. Each, as far as it went, was a death blow aimed at private judgment. They were intended to be bonds of union, an extinguisher of controversy. They missed their mark. Each differed from the other. Each was confessedly fallible. Each was, nevertheless, enforced from the Alps to the Arctic Circle by excommunication, exile, fines, imprisonment, torture, and death. (To the present hour we have heresy trials in the Presbyterian Church.) The Elizabethan ' settlement of religion ' and the Book of Common Prayer are an instance in point. By what right should Zwingli or Calvin or Luther or Cranmer inflict their private judgment on posterity ? Is the Book of Common Prayer— with its admittedly fallible 39 Articles— to be regarded as a fetish 1 The framers of the first Prayer-book rejected the older ritual ; the framers of the second Prayer-book rejected the first, and so on. On the Reformation principle of private judgment why should not the Anglican Church of our time, or any individual Anglican, for that matter, reject the Prayer-book now in use / Any attempt, whether by State, clergy, or Convocation, to interfere witb. their right of practical private judgment should bo regarded as an act of tyranny.