RITUALISTS
93
RITUALISTS
is probably to be found in their varying conceptions
of the authority to which they profess allegiance.
Giving up the appeal to the Prayer Book as a final
rule, the extreme party find a substitute for the
Living Voice in the consensus of the Churches which
now make up Catholic Christendom — that is prac-
tically speaking in the agreement of Canterbury,
Rome, and Moscow — if Moscow may be taken as the
representative of a number of eastern communions
which do not in doctrinal matters differ greatly from
one another. Where these bodies are agreed either
explicitly or by silence, there, according to the theory
of this advanced school, is the revealed faith of Chris-
tendom; where these bodies differ among themselves,
there we have matters of private opinion which do not
necessarily command the assent of the individual.
It is difficult perhaps for anyone who has not been brought up in a High Church atmosphere to under- stand how such a principle can be applied, and how Ritualists can profess to distinguish between beliefs which are de fide and those which are merely specula- tive. To the outsider it would seem that the Church of Canterbury has quite clearly rejected such doc- trines as the Real Presence, the invocation of saints, and the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. But the Ritualist has all his life been taught to interpret the Thirty-Nine Articles in a "Catholic" sense. When the Articles say that transubstantiation is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, he is satisfied to believe that some misconception of tran- substantiation was condemned, not the doctrine as defined a little later by the Council of Trent. When the Articles speak of "the sacrifices of Masses — for the quick and the dead" as "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits", he understands that this repudiation was only dire(;ted against certain popular "Romish errors about the multiplication of the effe(!t3 of such Masses, not against the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice in itself. Again the state- ment that "tlie Romish doctrine concerning . . . In- vocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented", for him amounts to no more than a rejection of cer- tain abuses of extreme romanizers who went perilously near to idolatry. In this way the Church of England is exonerated from the ajiparent repudiation of these Catholic beliefs, and the i)resumption stands that she accepts all Catholic doctrine which she does not ex- plicitly reject. Hence as Rome and Moscow and Canterbury (in the manner just explained) profess the three beliefs above specified, such beliefs are to be regarded as part of the revealed faith of Christendom. On the other hand such points as papal infallibility, indulgences, and the proc^ession of the Holy Ghost, which are admittedly reje(!ted by one or more of the three great branches of the Catholic Chiu-ch, have not the authority of the Living Voice behind them. They may be true, but it cannot be shown that they form part of the Revelation, the acceptance of which is obligatory upon all good Christians.
With this fundamental view are connected many other of the strange anomalies in the modern Ritualist position. To begin with, those who so think, feel bound to no particular reverence for the Church of their baptism or for the bishops that represent her. By her negative attitude to so many points of Catholic doctrine she has paltered with the truth. She has by God's Providence retained the bare essentials of Cathohcity and preserved the canonical succession of her bishops. Hence English Catholics are bound to be in communion with her and to receive the sacra- ments from her ministers, but they are free to criticize and up to a certain point to disobey. On the other hand the Ritualist believes that each Anglican bishop possesses jurisdiction, and that this jurisdiction, par- ticularly in the matter of confessions, is conferred upon every clergyman in virtue of his ordination. Further the same jurisdiction inherent in the canon-
ically appointed bishop of the diocese requires that
English Catholics should be in communion with him,
and renders it gravely sinful for them to hear Mass in
the churches of the "Italian Mission" — so the Ritual-
ist is prone to designate the Churches professing obe-
dience to Rome. This participation in ahen services is
a schismatical act in England, while on the other hand
on the Continent, an "English Cathohc" is bound to
respect the jurisdiction of the local ordinary by hear-
ing Mass according to the Roman Rite, and it becomes
an equally schismatical act to attend the services of
any English Church.
The weak points in this theory of the extreme Rit- uaUst party do not need insisting upon. Apart from the difficulty of reconciling this view of the supposed "Catholic" teaching of the Established Church with the hard facts of history and with the wording of the Articles, apart also from the circumstance that nothing was ever heard of any such theory until about twenty- five years ago, there is a logical contradiction about the whole assumption which it seems impossible to evade. The most fundamental doctrine of all in this system (for all the other beliefs depend upon it) is pre- cisely the principle that the Living Voice is constituted by the consensus of the Churches, but this is itself a doctrine which Rome and Moscow explicitly reject and which the Church of England at best professes only negatively and imperfectly. Therefore by the very test which the Ritualists themselves invoke, this principle falls to the ground or at any rate becomes a matter of opinion which binds no man in conscience.
The real strength of Ritualism and the secret of the steady advance, which even in its extreme forms it still continues to make, hes in its sacramental doctrine and in the true devotion and self-sacrifice which in so many cises follow as a consequence from this more spiritual teaching. The revival of the celibate and ascetic ideal, more particularly in the communities of men and women living under religious vows and con- secrated to prayer and works of charity, tends strongly in the same direction. It is the Ritualist clergy who more than any other body in the English Church have thrown themselves heart and soul into the effort to spiritualize the lives of the poor in the slums and to introduce a higher standard into the missionary work among the heathen. Whatever there may be of affectation and artificiality in the logical position of the Ritualists, the entire sincerity, the real self-denial, and the apostolic spirit of a large proportion of both the clergy and laity belonging to this party form the greatest asset of which Anglicanism now disposes, (For those aspects of Ritualism which touch upon Anglican Orders and Reunion, see Anglican Orders and Union of Christendom.)
For a concise Catholic view of Ritualism at the present day, more particularly in its relations to the other parties in the Church of England, see Benson, Non-Catholic Denominations (London, 1910). An excellent historical sketch of the movement may be found in Thureau-Danoin, La renaissance catholique en Angle- terre au XIX' «i^cie (Paris, 1901-8), especially in the third volume. The most important Anglican account is probably Wabre-Cornish, History of the English Church in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1910), especially Part II; a good summary ia also provided by Holland in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York, 1910), s. v. Ritualism.
The best materials for the history of the movement may be found in the Blue Books issued by the various royal commissions more especially the Report and the four accompanying volumes of minutes of evidence printed for the royal commission on ec- clesiastical discipline in 190fi. The letters and other documents published in such complete biographies as those of Pusey, Bishop S. Wilberforce, Archbishop Tait, Bishop Wilkinson, Archbishop Benson, Lord Shaftesbury, Charles Lowder, and others, are also very useful. See also Spencer Jones, England and the Holy See iLondon,1902);M\LLOCK, Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption {Lon- don, 190S) ; MacColl, The Royal Commission and the Ornaments Rubric (London, 1906); Moves, Aspects of Anglicanism (London, 1906); Dolling, Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum (London, 1898); MacColl, Lawlessness, Sacerdotalism and Ritualism (London, 1875); Roscoe, The Bishop of Lincoln's Case (London, 1891); Sanday, The Catholic Movement and the Archbishop's Decision (Lon- don, 1899) ; ToMLiNSON, Historical Grounds of the Lambeth Judg- ment (London, 1891), and in general The Reunion Magazine and the now extinct Church Review. HERBERT ThURSTON.
