MoAmy+

The more things change.

Easter, 1914.
Charles Gore,
via Project Canterbury.

"I cannot resist the impression that the Church of England, in particular, has a bad time ahead of it. I think its perils are largely due to its refusal of recent years--a refusal manifested in all classes, movements, and grades of office amongst us--to think clearly about principles. As you know, I have grieved almost all of you by refusing to join in the opposition to Disestablishment, whether in Wales or England. I think that Disestablishment, more than anything else, would throw us upon our principles. I doubt whether anything else will do so effectively. But I should hope that those who do not agree with me about this will agree with me on the necessity, which is urgent in other fields than those which I have been treating above--in the region, for example, of the marriage question--that we should reflect upon and stand by and insist upon those fundamentals of faith and practice by which alone we can hope to hold together, and within those limits exercise the largest toleration of one another, "endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and believing that, through whatever purging trials, our part of the Church has its special vocation for the future and in the whole world."

Sound familiar? You'd think we'd be better at this stuff by now.

PS, Remember how you always wondered what antidisestablishmentarianism meant? Please see above.
And, there's still a row about it.
My brother and I always preferred floccinaucinihilipilification.

The Would-Be Feast of the Wesleys

#8 in John Wesley's "Reasons Against the Separation from the Church of England (1758)":

"Because to form the Plan of a New Church would require infinite Time and Care, (which might be far more profitably bestowed) with much more Wisdom and greater Depth and Extensiveness of Thought, than any of us are Masters of."

Emphasis mine.

" The Unity Declaration "

Project Canterbury offers this sermon (1894) by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Underwood Dudley, 2nd bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky.

"Adaptation there must be, and adaptation there can be, because adaptation there has been. Sometimes in visions of the night, to the soul weary with the din of controversy--controversy in general about matters of mere opinion--weary with the thought of disaster caused by division, of the slow progress of the Kingdom because of the lack of unity of movement, of the waste and weakness in the administration of Christian truth by reason of the jealous maintenance of opinions as principles, of practices and methods as the very essentials of the Gospel--to such a soul comes the vision of reunion, even here in America, of different administrations by the same Spirit, and in one Body."