A new phase of this controversy arose about 1830 in connection with the issue of the Oxford Tracts (q. v.) in England. Although the days of persecution were then past, the spirit of intolerance was by no means ex- tinct, and the attempt to secure a Romanistic reaction in England and other Protestant countries was so deter- mined and so skilfully urged that a somewhat formida- ble movement towards the Romish Church was actually secured. In England scores of clergymen from the Es- tablished Church, and in the United States some dozens from the Protestant Episcopal Church, became (to em- ploy a phrase that then came into common use) perverts to Romanism, and both countries became rife with the controversy. One of the first objects of the Tractarian movement, sometimes called Puseyism, from the prom- inence of Dr. E. B. Pusey, of Oxford, as one of the Tract writers, was to reassert the importance of ordina- tion in the line of a lineal and tactual succession direct from the apostles. Assuming the prerogatives of such an ordination for themselves, they unscrupulously at- tacked the validity of all other ordinations, except those of the Greek and Roman churches, and thus with as little charity as consistencj' presumed to denounce the greater part of Protestant Christians throughout the world as irregular and schismatic, if not heretical. The eagerness with which many ministers of the Protestant Episcopal Church caught up or gave prominence to similar assumptions, and proceeded, under the stimulus from Oxford, to flaunt their claims of superiority in the face of the other Protestant churches of America, caused the controversy to be more extensively opened in this country than it had ever been before. Ministers of other churches who felt that the validity of their min- isterial character was impugned by these pretensions were not slow to accept the discussion, which, by aid of free pulpits and a free press, became very general. Ev- ery phase of the argument, from the Scriptures, from the fathers, from history, and from the nature of the case, was reopened. While in many instances the result of the discussion doubtless was to confirm the disputants and partisans on both sides in their old opinions, yet it can hardly be doubted that the effect of the discus- sion as a whole was largely to influence the public mind both of England and the United States against the pre- latical claims, and in favor of the inherent right of churches to establish their own minor ceremonies as well as their forms of Church government, subject to the cardinal principles of God's Word. In short, the principle and spirit of exclusiveness and of hierarchical pretension were effectually rebuked in a contest of their own provoking. While such principles yet have nu- merous adherents, still it cannot be questioned that they stand reprobated before the popular mind as un- sustained by scriptural precedent or precept, and un- worthy of the spirit of an enlightened age. Neverthe-
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less the mediaeval theories of ordination, both as to its magical effect, its indelible mark, and its lineal descent from tlie apostles, however polluted the line through which it has come down, still have their advocates. The Roman Catholic Church is bound by the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, while its Angli- can imitators struggle to maintain similar claims viith far less consistency. In their emergency they seek af- filiations with the Greek Church and the Old Catholics, without direct acknowledgment from either. Mean- time the logic of events is working out very important demonstrations, by showing, on the one hand, how little the truth and power of Christianity are dependent on external ceremonies, and, on the other, not only how powerless, but how misguiding, ceremonies are as a sub- stitute for divine grace in the hearts and lives of pro- fessed ministers of Christ. A survey of the active and progressive agencies of Christianity in the world shows that a very large proportion of them are sustained by churches which reject as baseless the theory that cove- nanted grace descends solely through a series of ceremo- nial ordinations. When, indeed, a comparison as to purity of life, zeal in Christian good works, and fruits following is instituted between churches practicing presbyterial ordination and those making high assump- tions of ecclesiastical prerogative, based on a line of or- dinational succession running through the worst popes of Eome, the former certainly are not found wanting. To the ordinary mind such facts are more convincing than theoretical arguments, whether based on question- able precedents or on quotations from the fathers; and the more such facts are multiplied the less need there will be of a perpetual reproduction of the arguments so often stated and restated during the last three hiuidred years. Nevertheless a knowledge of the controversy is more or less a necessity to every candidate for ordina- tion, not only as a means of satisfying his own mind, but also of being prepared for any new phase the con- troversy may assume hereafter.
The most recent phase of High-Chnrch development has won for itself the title of Ritualism (q. v.). Ritual- ists, as such, are usually identical with high pretenders to the importance of successional ordinations, but in their extreme attention to the reproduction of mediaeval ceremonies they are not followed by all who accept the theory of tactual succession. The attempts of the ritu- alistic party of the Church of England to reintroduce Roman Catholic ceremonies into the worship of Protes- tant churches has been greatly held in check by certain laws of the realm. In America similar attempts have found but little favor before an eminently practical peo- ple, who, so far as they choose Romanism at all, evi- dently prefer the system without disguises to a feeble imitation.