The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-10-30 00:00:00

Ecclesiastical intelligence.

PROROGATION Or CONVOCATION. —The Convocation
of Prelates and Clergy of the Protioett of Canterbury
wail on Friday morning prorogued until Wednesday, the
21s1 of November.

RlTUaLialf.—Tlie letters of 8.0.0. in the large type
of the Tine..a areeleiting • sensation on. subject, unfitted
for • mere newspaper. We therefore present some
entreats merely, in place of giving the documents entire,
and that only from their poasossing • certain degree of
local interest. "The eceleastic•l jargon of the new party
owes little to prayer-book or bible. Like turf language,
it is caviare to the external world. It is a thing of
postures and prioteraft, ceremonies, mysteries,
doctrines sacramental amalgamated with fashions vest-
' mental; it ins thing of days and season,, furniture;
, forting, and feasting', of music and architecture.
hymnals, °hurt+ ornamentation, and decoration, accords
• day.. o • • • • • • • • • • • "The
time, Sir, is in my opinion come when the laity of the
I land, +lto are Protestants in any degree, should decide
1 whether their Church—the clergy are bet its ministers
—is to stand on the old truths or be refashioned to suit
this new school ; whether they will be content to be
ruled by • priesthood who claim that they should
interpret the Bible by the Prayer-book, and the later
according to their pretty interpretation, or make a stand
for private judgment in the matter of Scripture, •
commoneense acceptation of the Prayer-hook, as
it bas been accepted by their immediate fore-
fathers. As to any reliance on the authority or the
good intentions of the Bishops, it is leaning on • reed.
The Bench stands committed to the movement by its
long sufferance, its weak opposition, it. but too frequent
connivance, not very rare approval. lam quite satisfied
in my own mind that the Bench, sea whole, Ims never
for one moment contemplated any real opposition to the
movement, There is but too much evidence that in the
corking of some of the so ieties with which most if not
all the fiend% are connected, and in carrying out some
of the foreign and colonial work of the Church, which
al.o has so much epilienpel patronage, a tendency to
ritualism is more likely to qualify a eanhiste for em-
ployment than the recerse." • • • • • • • • •
Ambitious of great spiritual power, utterly opposed to
earthly authority, aiming at the rot of union which
make the priest of all lands powerful over all people;
starting on its new independent life, with the prestige
of. kind of persecution; such &Church, independent of
Pope and Bing, has a fair field for trying the question
—whether, in a day in which men think more for them.
'eke. than they ever did, are aa jealous of ecclesiastical
as of political dogmea—in a day when even Romanians
in shaken to it. centre, and Romish discipline has hid
to yield to Royal mandate, Ragland will view with
anything but compassionate contempt the *detain' to
build up • permanent ecolesiastisal system out of
material which disfigured tbe Church from •hiek it was
taken, and has no one bond of union than that of a
common, allrprevading belief in it. own self suflaiency. '
1