Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and EducationAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847: Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and Education
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
France -- Church history -- 19th century; Italy -- Church history -- 19th century
Perhaps this contrast might be carried farther, but it is an
unpleasant task to show how Anglicanism (meaning by that expression
not the real system of the prayer-book, but that which has practically
forced its way to a great extent into the pale of the English Church,)
is gold largely mingled with earthly alloy. A divine work is at
present interfered with by commixture of an heretical element, leaving
us only a fervent hope and prayer, that by the long suffering mercy of
God a seed may still remain, which in due time by most unambiguous
works of love shall prove its identity with the ancient Church of the
Island of Saints, and become one fold under one Shepherd.
"Christ only, of God's messengers to man,
Finished the work of grace which He began.
List, Christian warrior, thou whose soul is fain
To rid thy mother of her present chain;--
Christ will unloose His Church; yea, even now
Begins the work, and thou
Shalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save,
Thy lot shall be the grave."
The work of educating the French clergy is largely in the hands of the
Congregation of S. Sulpice, a celibate body of course, and whose
members are not paid, but merely clothed and boarded. They necessarily
teach one uniform dogma, that is, within that sufficiently wide range
of doctrine on which the Church has set her immutable seal. More than
this, they impress one uniform sacerdotal mould and type, and
exercise one discipline on all committed to them. It results, of
course, that all who go forth from them, passing through their various
public and private scrutinies, are trained and practised combatants to
the extent to which their teaching goes. More yet than this; a severe
ascetic and self-denying character is from the beginning attached to
the sacerdotal life; they take the Apostle literally, "no man that
warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;" parents who
consent to their children entering into the priesthood think and speak
of it as "a sacrifice;" those who look forward to it have it so set
before them, and can count the cost before they take the first step.
Few situations to which they can afterwards be called require the
exercise of greater self-denial than has been expected from them from
the first. Does not this point out to us the quarter from which a
reform among ourselves must proceed? Surely before the laity can
become sound churchmen, the priesthood must be _uniformly taught_;
"the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law
at his mouth." But High Church and Low Church, not to mention the
interminable shapes of distinction in individual minds between and
beyond them, are utterly incompatible with each other. After the dogma
of the Trinity they part company. Until then the Anglican Church
teaches her priests an uniform dogma, and moulds them in a
severe and uniform discipline, she cannot hope for any other fate,
than that her bosom should be rent with interminable heresies and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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