Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His Life — John Shaqi
Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His LifeBaker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Religion
Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul: With a Memoir of His Life
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius)
Baker, Francis A. (Francis Aloysius), 1820-1865; Catholic Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 19th century
The first class alone can be relied on as devoted adherents of
Anglicanism, and they only hold a strong polemical position
against the claim of the Roman See to unconditional submission.
The other class have their minds and their hearts open to all
Catholic influences. They advance continually nearer and nearer
in belief and sympathy to the great Catholic body, and great
numbers of them pass over to the Catholic communion. Hence we
find that almost all the bishops and dignitaries who have joined
in the Oxford Movement have belonged decidedly to the first
class, and have always tried to hold the second class in check.
{37}
The few who have belonged to the second class, such as Bishop
Ives and the Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, have eventually
found allegiance to the Anglican Church incompatible with the
paramount claims of the Church Catholic, and have openly
renounced it.
But while it is evident that the position of decided and
determined hostility to Rome is absolutely necessary, as Mr.
Newman long ago remarked, to High Church Anglicanism, it is
equally evident that it is the most narrow, inconsistent, and
inconsequent position taken by any class of Protestants. It cuts
them off from all real sympathy and community of feeling with the
great Catholic body; and although there may be a pretence of
sympathy with the Oriental Church, it is a mere pretence, and a
most illogical and baseless one. It cuts them off equally from
all the rest of Protestant Christendom. Yet, it is only the
Catholic and Greek Churches which offer a solid and substantial
basis for those doctrinal and hierarchical principles which make
their only distinctive character; and it is only the Protestant
portion of their Church, and its close intellectual, social,
political, moral, and religious alliance with the other
Protestant Churches, which gives them any standing, influence, or
power in the world. A man of liberal, enlarged, and Christian
temper of mind, cannot live in such narrow limits or breathe such
a confined air. He must have communion with something greater
than the Protestant Episcopal Church. If he regards the great
Catholic Church as essentially corrupt, he must sympathize with
the Protestant Reformation. If the ground which, as I shall
presently show, the High Church bishops maintain, is correct,
then the continental Protestants were bound to come out when they
did and form new churches. Where were they to get bishops? How
were they to preserve the continuity of organization and the
apostolic succession? The Church of England did not admonish them
of the necessity of doing so. She did not proffer them episcopal
ordination.
{38}
But she made common cause with them, and supported them in their
revolt, invited them over to England, and gave them places in the
English Church, sent delegates to their great Calvinistic Synod
of Dort, and in other ways lent them sanction and countenance,
without breathing a hint that she was a whit better than they.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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