The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Here, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies.
The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are
determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them,
disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the _articles_
and liturgy.
{40}
The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist
that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or
use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the
articles which form their real confession of faith should be
imposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a
crisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must
come a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving
the field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is
not the first crisis which has occurred in the history of
Anglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank
cartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found
that nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants
will retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than
ever. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in
the direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body
will quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church
which claims (according to some of its members--the Pan-Anglican
Synod, for example) to be a _part_ of the Catholic Church,
is not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and
one is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful
diagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following
conclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore,
before their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all
points of the controversy, while, before the Christian world,
their opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The
Episcopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever
war against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in
both liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only
reasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that
they who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system
properly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with
it. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial
observer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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