"Fresh causes of dissension": Bishop Bagot's 1842 Visitation Charge and the beginnings of ritualism

Continuing the new series of weekly posts on visitation charges of Old High bishops in the immediate aftermath of the Tract XC controversy, we again turn to the 1842 Visitation Charge of Richard Bagot, Bishop of Oxford. Here Bagot warns against the early indications of ritualism, "the revival of obsolete practices", as harmful to the Church's peace and undermining its episcopal constitution. It was, unfortunately, a warning which would not be heeded:

I am happy to say that, so far as the Parochial Clergy are concerned, the caution which I felt it my duty to give at my last Visitation with respect to the revival of obsolete practices, which were calculated to give offence, without any adequate advantage resulting, has been, so far as I have been able to ascertain, attended to. Of course questions about vestments and matters of a similar description, cannot be raised without much higher principles being involved. It was not a contest whether the red rose or the white were the fairer flower, which in a former age deluged our land with blood. These were but the outward badges of the strife of political opinions within. Still, in the present state of the Church, when there are already such miserable divisions among us with respect to the essentials of Religion, it does seem to me worse than folly in those who so far allow their zeal to master their judgment, as to go out of their way to create fresh causes of dissension, by giving undue importance to things indifferent, and even of questionable value. And besides, those, who profess to be guided by Catholic principles should remember that one of the first principles of Catholicism is άνευ του επισκόπου μηδέν πράσσειν*, to do nothing without Episcopal sanction.

*From the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Trallians (2): "without the bishop you should do nothing".

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