DR. MAGEE ON THE MOTIVE OF RITUALISM.
MHE Bishop of Peterborough delivered on Tuesday at North- ampton a very interesting commentary on the motive of the recent Ritualistic movement. He ascribed it, and without doubt with a good deal of truth, to the antagonism which the extreme materialistic philosophy of the day has excited in men whose life and duties, if they are to mean anything, should mean a personal testimony to the supernatural truths for which, in their own belief, they are witnesses. Now, no doubt nothing could be in one sense a more open and defiant encounter with materialism on its own ground than the parade of the symbols of a high sacra- mental teaching in opposition to it. That men who accept such
doctrines as true should feel that they far more truly represent "the Church militant" when they flaunt them in the face of an un- believing world, and meet the irreverent and rebellious atoms of the physicists with the elaborate worship of the consecrated elements and the mystery which that worship implies, is intelligible enough. And as Dr. Magee justly says, there is something to excite our sympathy in this bold encounter with materialism on its own chosen ground, this valiant attack on the foolishness of atheism by the foolishness of superstition,—though those who hold it, of course, believe the latter to be not superstition, but the "foolish- ness of the Cross." But then, as Dr. Magee very justly observes, there may be much to excite our sympathy in a cause which is, nevertheless, a mistaken and dangerous one. When outworks are built round a fort, they may either lend, observes Dr. Magee, additional strength to the defenders, or they may be like the buildings which spring up round it in time of peace, and which in time of war lend cover to the assailants, instead of diminishing the difficulties of the garrison. The whole question is whether or not this high sacramental doctrine be what Dr. Newman, in his essay on "Development," called. a "preservative addition" to the essential teaching of Christianity, or rather one which, instead of preserving and tending to illustrate the teaching of Christ, under- mines and obscures it. Dr. Magee holds with us, thab it is the latter, not the former ; that it tends to make the symbol independent of the reality symbolised, and so presents to the assailants of the Christian faith a very weak point, which they may seize without difficulty and make the basis of new attacks. And he holds, moreover, that though it is the excesses of naturalism which have chiefly produced these excesses of supernaturalism as the rejoinder to them, and not the excesses of supernaturalism which gave rise to the excesses of naturalism,—yet excess on either side has a tendency to foster excess on the other, so that a great deal more distrust and disbelief of Christian principles will be caused by the extravagances in which they appear to result, than of new interest and conviction. In this the Bishop of Peterborough is certainly in the right. Indeed, as not uncommonly happens in these cases, it appears to us that the extreme view on one side is, in some respects, nearer to the extreme view on the other side which it professes to combat than to the view which stands between them. The theory which entrenches itself in con- secrated matter as the best and only stronghold for resisting the encroachments of materialism, contains in itself a ten- dency,—to which the Ritualists personally, not unfrequently, lend a sanction,—to give up to the world, as if it pro- perly belonged to the world, and not to God, the whole earthly sphere, except so far as this has come under the wayward blessing of the priest. The difference between the sacramental principle as it seems to us that it is found in Christ's teach- ing, and the sacramental principle as it is found in Ritualis- tic teaching, is this,—that in the teaching of Christ, the Sacra- ments are typical and representative acts, teaching us by example that divine influence is latent in all common things, which common things they declare to be consecrated, even though we may fully realise it only when we fix our minds upon the divine origin of that consecration ; while, in the teaching of the Ritualists, the sacraments teach us, not by example, but by contrast,—not by the divine life which they discern in ordi- nary acts, but rather by the deadness which they spread over everything that is not in the technical sense sacramental, and by the monopoly of that life which they claim for the minute circle of ceremonial devotion. The Christian view of sacraments makes them important because it makes them representative of earthly life at its best,—because it makes them expressly honour food and labour as full of divine strength. The Ritualistic view makes them important because it makes them the single and exceptional points of contact between Earth and Heaven,—the points at which man may escape from the conditions of his ordinary life to those of a better existence, from which, for the most part, he is otherwise excluded. In the teaching of the former, sacramental acts only declare what all similar acts might be and may one day become ; in the teaching of the latter, sacramental acts differ in kind from all others, and cannot raise other acts up to their level except by invoking over them the same ceremonial formula of technical consecration. Now, it is surely easy enough to see that, as the Bishop of Peterborough says, you are not likely to vanquish unbelief by exaggerating the miraculous elements in your belief. The Roman Church has tried that and failed. The " additions " were found not to be "preservative," but endangering to that which went before them. Extremes will meet. It is much easier to pass to unbelief from the belief that very few and minute regions of life
are lighted up by supernatural agencies, than it is to pass to it from the belief that all our life is accessible to such influences as in the few moments of conscious consecration we recognise and admit. If the oasis can never encroach upon the desert, it is by no means difficult for the desert to encroach upon the oasis,—and that is what will happen when an artificial and even exclusive ceremonial sacredness is regarded as the main refuge from a selfish and vulgar world. What Ritualists appear virtually to admit, concerning all that is not crowned with ceremonial blessings, by the very undue emphasis which they lay on ceremonial blessings, the World maintains of the whole of life, and it is much easier therefore to pass from a Ritualist into an unbeliever, than from one who recognises the divine grace in common things into an unbeliever.
The Bishop of Peterborough thus believes that Ritualism stimulates unbelief just as unbelief has stimulated Ritualism, and he expresses himself therefore "not very sanguine of the immediate future of the Church" :—" If she were to be saved from her present perils of unbelief, her deliverance would not come from vestments, lights, and incense, nor from the erroneous doctrines these were sometimes made to symbolise ; for they would never conquer materialism in philo- sophy by importing it into theology. Their deliverance would come by the uprising of some great school of Christian apolo- gists, who should silence for a time the adversaries of the super- natural, and give its friends breathing-space in which to grow calm, and wise, and moderate again. Just now there seemed no very immediate prospect of this." In this we are so far disposed to agree, that we believe both Ritualism and Scepticism to be different manifestations of the same deep spiritual unrest, and no more to be curable by each other, than the cold and hot fits of an ague are curable by each other. But whether the unrest which causes both alike is due to any source which a new school of "Christian apologists," however profound, could remove, is, we imagine, very doubtful in- deed. Not that we entertain the least doubt that intellec- tual causes are very grave elements in the prevalent un- easiness. It is at least as common to find people eager and unable to believe, as it is to find people simply indifferent about religious matters. But according to our view, this " in- ability " is not nearly so much of a purely intellectual as of a spiritual origin. The power to enter into the heart of Christian teaching has for some reason ebbed in our day, and left the bare external questions of "evidences " and "authenticity" in much greater prominence than, according to ordinary principles of human nature, they ought to be. It is not so much a great school of Christian apologists,—though they, too, may be useful,—as the restoration of sympathy with the Christian attitude of mind and thought which will restore the tranquillity for which Dr. Magee looks. " Power" is gone out of the Church of late years,—in a great measure into purely intel- lectual topics like scientific discovery, and in a great measure also into the mere distractions of a more exciting social life. What the poet says of the East, in relation to the new bustle which Roman conquests introduced, is in no sense as yet true of the West under the vibration of other intellectual and moral excitements :—
" The East bowed low before the blast, In patient, deep disdain ;
She heard the legions thunder past, Then plunged in thought again."
But that is not the case with us. We are all of us vibrating with the undulations of petty interests which keep us from truly understand- ing the deeper life to which Christian teaching appeals. Nothing can illustrate this better than the fact that even a thoughtful and able Bishop's charge should be much more occupied with the discussion of the minutiEe of the Public Worship Regulation Act, than with the far deeper theme which he introduces at the close of his Charge. The true charm, the fascination, the magical touch of Christianity on the soul, was probably hardly ever felt so little as in the present day. And till that is felt again, even the ablest school of "Christian apologists" will do little to vanquish scepticism, and make us feel the oppressive burdensomeness of superstition.
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