The English Church and Rome
THE little difference that remains to-day between the worship that is seen in the English Established Church and that of Rome, is the subject of comment by a London religious journal, which says:— A Royal Commission, with Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in the Chair, has been appointed to “inquire into the alleged prevalence of breaches and neglect of the law relating to the conduct of divine service in the Church of England, and to consider the existing powers and procedure applicable to such irregularities, and make such recommendations as they thought fit.” The Rev. W. E. Bowen has published the result of an inquiry into the services conducted in ninety-one different churches. In most cases he found Romish ceremonies, many of them of an advanced order. Mr. Bowen has also purchased and examined thirty ritualistic manuals now in circulation. His investigations have convinced him that the following Roman Catholic innovations have made their way into the English church: “children’s masses; the reservation of the sacrament, with subsequent acts of adoration; the use of devotions and secret prayers from the Roman Catholic missal; the recommendation of confession as an habitual practice; masses for the dead, and the absolution of the dead; the doctrine of purgatory; the invocation of saints; the use of litanies and other devotions to the Virgin Mary; the doctrine of the immaculate conception.” Between Romanism and rationalism, how much is left to English Protestantism?