By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
XIV.—Union-mongers in England.
For well over a century much has been spoken and written in this country about church Unions, and now that a further step has been taken, as can be seen by the recently issued Report on Reunions Between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, it is, by no means, out of place to take a brief survey of church unions and attempts to bring about church unions in the past. We have seen already how the Stuart kings took upon themselves to be the apostles of church unity by endeavouring to abolish Presbyterianism and set up an Episcopal Church government throughout the kingdom. In this they failed and lost their Throne, and never again were they to have the power to shed the blood of martyrs in our native land. It is well-known to every student of history that their ultimate aim was to bring the whole land under the heel of the Papacy, and that Roman Catholic influence was at work in the Royal Palace during the whole of the period they occupied the throne of the United Kingdom. Walter Walsh, in his book, Jesuits in Great Britain, brings documentary evidence to show that Anne of Denmark, the wife of King James I of England, was secretly a Papist for at least 20 years before she died; that Charles II was a disguised Romanist throughout his whole reign and for at least four years before he ascended the British Throne. That James II was openly a Roman Catholic before he ever became king is so well-known that it would be almost superfluous to mention it. This Royal influence left its mark on generations to come and there seems to be no doubt that it, and the very partial work of reformation from Popery in the Church of England were the chief causes why men rose up in that Church who, after doing their utmost to bring their Church into communion with the Church of Rome, went over to Rome and were appointed to positions of influence. They also left a leaven of Romanism in the Church of England which has caused matters to go from bad to worse in that Church to the present day.
The Tractarian, or Oxford Movement, began about 1833 by J. H. Newman, E. B. Pusey, and others, and became a matter of public knowledge by the publication of a series of ninety tracts for the Times. Of the Tractarians, Bishop E. A. Knox says, after referring to some of the most noted preachers of the Scottish Church, “Not only were the Tractarians without any such revivalist preachers, without even the equivalent of the great Lacondaire in France, but as time went on they raised the suspicion that they desired freedom from the State in order to return to the bondage of Rome. Against that suspicion, which gained ground with each fresh issue of the Tracts, neither the marvellous gift of spiritual insight that dwelt in Newman, nor the compelling attraction of Keble’s verse, nor the ascetic and devotional intensity of Pusey availed them anything. Scotland, though she had her Chalmers and McCheyne—and Chalmers was a prince of orators—had not the intellectual and devotional genius which were arrayed on the side of the Tractarians. But assuredly ‘the Crown-rights of the Redeemer’ were better worth fighting for than ‘the Apostolic Succession of the English Hierarchy,’ and the liberty to serve Christ was more attractive than prostration at the feet of St. Peter.”
The Tractarian Movement, p. 127-128. In 1877 the Order of Corporate Reunion came to light and subsequently a magazine, known as the Reunion Magazine, began to be published under its auspices. In this year it issued a Pastoral in which the reign of Edward VI is described as “a period of wild confusion,” and the writers declare “the riot, blasphemy, and general wickedness of the Great Rebellion, the Revolution of 1688, was the beginning of yet more serious trouble for the Established Church. “This Ritualistic Movement in the Church of England could have no other end in view but union with the Church of Rome, as is clearly shown by the following extract from an address in 1867 to the Bishops assembled at the first Lambeth Conference. “We are mindful of efforts made in former time by English and foreign Bishops and theologians to effect, by mutual explanations on either side, a reconciliation between the Roman and Anglican Communions. And, considering the intimate and visible union which existed between the Church of England and the rest of Western Christendom, we earnestly entreat your lordships seriously to consider the best means of renewing like endeavours; and to adopt such measures as may, under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, be effectual in REMOVING THE BARRIERS which now divide the Western Branch of the Catholic Church.”—Secret History of the Oxford Movement (Walter Walsh), p. 324. Mr. Walsh has the following comment on the foregoing: “Those barriers were set up by our Reformers nearly 350 years ago and for good and sufficient reasons. They are as much needed now as ever, for Rome has not improved, but has rather grown worse, since the Reformation.” This shows clearly that the aim of the Oxford Movement was but the revival of the Stuarts’ attempt to come to terms with the Church of Rome. The address in question was signed by no fewer than 1212 clergymen in the Church of England, showing the large number in that Church who were anxious for reconciliation with Rome.
The aim of the Tracts for the Times was to indoctrinate the laity with Roman Catholic theology as a preliminary to any active and public efforts to make the Church of England Roman Catholic. It is true that Newman denied this in Tracts 38 and 41 but the Romish tendency of the Tractarian Movement was plainly manifested in Tract 80 by Isaac Williams on Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge, in which he maintained, among other things, that the Bible should not be promiscuously circulated. This showed the Tractarian Movement without its mask and in a short while some of its leading spirits, such as Newman, Faber, and, at a later period, Manning, despairing of attaining their object by remaining in the Church of England, went publicly over to the Church of Rome, two of them, that is, Newman and Manning, subsequently getting a cardinal’s hat. The dregs of Popery left in the Church of England at the Reformation, keeping up in it a similarity to the Church of Rome, made it an easier prey to the Tractarian Union-mongers, and although some of the leaders of that movement went over to Rome, yet they originated a party in the Church of England which, in our day, is large and influential, and known as Anglo-Catholics, whose whole aim is union with Rome. It is well-known that now there is no difference between the practice and mode of worship in many Church of England congregations and their neighbours who are of the Church of Rome.
This re-union with Rome, which the Anglo-Catholic party in the Church of England are seeking with all their power to bring about, can only be attained to by yielding to one condition, that is, complete and unqualified submission to the Pope. Is the Anglo-Catholic party going to accept that condition? To all appearances they will stop at nothing to attain their cherished goal. The solemn ordination vows of their clergy, their Articles of Faith as that is set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles, and the law of the land requiring the Church of England to be a Protestant Church, are all as if they were non-existent to these advocates of union with Rome. The late J. W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, writing in 1881, says of the movement of union with Rome, “There underlies this entire movement a spirit of utter insubordination, of lawlessness—an unchristian ‘refusal’ to obey legitimate authority which must convince any observer that NO COURT which could be devised would prove satisfactory—to the LAW-BREAKERS. Not only do clergymen fail to render to Episcopal authority that submission which is involved in the idea of Episcopacy, but obedience has been avowedly refused to the highest Judicial INTERPRETATIONS of the Church and Realm. When our clergy, who at the most solemn moment of their lives, pledged themselves reverently to ‘obey their Ordinary,’ repudiate their most solemn obligation and sacred pledge, it is clearly not the constitution of ‘The Courts’ which is at fault, but the depraved Conscience and the perverted Will. . . . The sacredness of a pledge solemnly given seems to be no longer realised. Equivocation of the most pitiful description is freely resorted to. Things have come to a grave pass indeed with any religious body when evidence is afforded of their general disregard for truth.” It is this Church, whose bishops condone such lawlessness, with which the union-mongers in Scotland are seeking to unite, and in bringing about their desired Union are prepared to throw overboard all that was dear to our martyred forefathers.
What are the people of Scotland to gain by this proposed union? They are to receive Anglican-ordained bishops, who are to re-ordain all the existing ministers of the Church of Scotland, and ordain every candidate for the ministry in order to bring them into the myth of Apostolic Succession. Such bishops would be the “constant Moderators” of Presbyteries, lording it over their brethren, thus doing away with the parity of ministers recognised in the Presbyterian Church. They would also be the spokesmen of their Presbyteries to the community, and no matter how much their effusions would be at variance with Scripture, no Presbytery could interfere. This would ensure that in a generation or two the whole Church would be dominated by Anglo-Catholics and be prepared to enter into the Church of Rome on the terms of complete and unqualified submission already referred to. Viewing the history of Unions in the Christian Church it is worthy of note that those who were anxious for union, for the sake of union, were quite prepared to cast away, bit by bit, in doctrine and practice, those things by which they were distinguished from other branches of the Christian Church, in order to bring them into uniformity with those with whom they sought union, until all the barriers were removed. Too often the removal of these barriers mean unfaithfulness to fundamental doctrines, found prominent in the Word of God, and brought clearly to light through the contentions and sufferings of past generations, and, in defence of which, many sealed their testimony with their blood. All right-hearted men will conclude that Union brought about by such a sacrifice of faithful witnessing, and a casting away of principles which were dear to men and women who are now in Heaven, is bought at too dear a price, and those who cast them away forget that the Lord who bestowed such great and precious privileges on men will require an account as to what they did with such privileges. The removal of these barriers is very evident as regards the Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England, for, apart from any attitude which the State may take up, nothing now stands between them and union with Rome but the acknowledging of the Pope as their head. The same process of casting away principles is going on in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and has been going on for many years, in order to bring about union with the Episcopal Church of England.
The Anglo-Catholics have, however, found in the connection between the Church and State, or, rather, in the case of the Church of England, the dominating of the Church by the State, a check upon their activities. This was plainly demonstrated in the case of the revised Prayer Book with its Romanising trend. They would, in all probability, have succeeded in introducing it and doing away with the Prayer Book which had done service for centuries, only for Parliament. This has made them more anxious than ever to break the connection between Church and State, with the end in view of getting as much liberty as possible in order to bring the Church of England into line with the Church of Rome, and thus reduce the nation to the slavery and darkness of Pre-Reformation times.