Transcribed from the 1868 Church Press Company (Limited) edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
REMARKS
UPON THE
FIRST REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON RITUAL,
IN CONNECTION WITH THE INTEGRITY OF THE
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
A Lecture
DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRIGHTON BRANCH
OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH UNION, NOV. 27, 1867,
(F. BARCHARD, ESQ. IN THE CHAIR,)
BY
THE REV. M. W. MAYOW, M. A.
INCUMBENT OF ST. MARY’S, WEST BROMPTON,
AND LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.
CHURCH PRESS COMPANY (LIMITED),
13, BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND, LONDON,
AND G. WAKELING, ROYAL LIBRARY, BRIGHTON.
1868.
It is right to state that the Brighton Branch of the English Church Union kindly requested leave to publish the following Lecture. It may be well to add that it was likewise delivered at Bradford and Leeds.
REMARKS UPON THE FIRST REPORT OF THE
ROYAL COMMISSION ON RITUAL, Etc.
The Executive of the Brighton Branch of the English Church Union, through you, sir, their Chairman, have, too rashly, I fear, as well as too kindly, supposed that I might have something to say upon the above subject which may repay this assemblage of Churchmen for their trouble in coming here this evening. It is certainly not for me to say you have deluded them, but rather, without wasting time in apology, to do my best to save (if it may be so) your credit and my own; and, what is of more consequence, to throw some light upon the very important matter to which my remarks are to be directed. At any rate, the great importance of the subject itself and the imminent likelihood of some action being taken to disarrange or subvert the present standing of the Church of England by an alteration in her Book of Common Prayer will ensure your deep interest, and, I do not doubt, secure me an indulgent hearing; whilst the very large and influential, and,—I think it will be on all hands allowed,—most successful meeting held last week in London, gives an additional reason for strengthening, if it may be so, the action then taken by diffusing as widely as possible information as to the dangers apprehended, and the means of resistance to be used in order to preserve its integrity.
It is a trite saying just now that there is a great crisis in Church affairs; but I think it must be allowed to be not less true than trite, even after making all allowance for the magnitude with which the time present always invests things present. In secular and material warfare it may be that sometimes an underrating difficulties, a blindness to the peril, is the very cause and means of safety or success. But in assaults like the present, where the battle-field is the Law and Order of the Church, where the contest is carried on not with sword or spear, but with the keen weapons of intellectual and moral contention, where very much turns and must turn upon the enlistment of public opinion upon this side or that; where prejudice, and ridicule, and sneer, and scoff, appealing constantly to the irreverence and perverseness of the evil side of human nature, backed up in large measure, as might be expected, by a licentious and unbelieving press, adapting itself to a licentious and unbelieving age; where these things are the daily engines of assault, there would seem to be no safety in shutting our eyes to the danger, merely hoping that all “will come some strange way right at last.” Especially when the assault is made upon doctrine, either directly or indirectly, (for if it be upon ceremonial representing doctrine it is indirectly upon doctrine itself,) when it takes the form of assault upon the integrity of the Prayer Book, and the Catholic status of the Church of England in connection with it, we must be wise, and wary, and far-seeing to the utmost of our vision, if we would duly organize our defence and fight well the battle for God’s Church and Gods Truth. We must indeed try not to exaggerate anything, but we must also endeavour not to underrate any real danger which exists, and especially not suffer our citadel to be undermined, whilst we are merely regarding a plausible or fair surface.