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Handout #234 |
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Ritualism, popery and the opposition |
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One expression of the extreme Protestant
reaction to Anglo-Catholicism was a work by Walter Walsh entitled The
Secret History of the Oxford Movement, which sold well and ran into many
editions. Here Walsh gives good British reasons for opposing both Ritualism
and Popery:
Popery is an enemy to National Prosperity ... Looking abroad throughout the whole world, we find that Popery degrades the nations, instead of raising them to a higher level. The Ritualists cannot point to a single Roman Catholic country which is even on a level with, much less superior to, Protestant countries. On the contrary, Popery has dragged down Spain from her proud eminence, to be the most degraded and poverty-stricken nation in Europe, excepting Turkey. It has kept the South American republics and nations in a state of degradation, immorality and ignorance deplorable to behold. Would any Englishman wish this Protestant country to become what the Papal States were under the temporal rule of Pope Pius IX? Would English working men wish to exchange wages with their brethren in any Roman Catholic country in the world? ...Before we listen with pleasure to the Reunion with Rome plans of the Ritualists, let us calmly consider the facts, not only of history, but of the everyday life around us. When we contrast Popish countries with Protestant lands, can we doubt any longer which religion most promotes National Prosperity? ... Common sense can answer these questions in only one way. Protestantism and National Prosperity go together, like Siamese twins ... And let it not be said that this is an argument which Christians should ignore, for has not the Word of God taught us that true 'Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come( 1Timothy iv. 8) ? Walsh, 1899 edn, 362-3. |
