Bishop Frederic Barker on leaving the Church

http://acl.asn.au/bishop-barker-on-leaving-the-church/

[Anglican Church League] 1 June 2009--Frederic Barker, second bishop in Sydney, addressed the Diocesan Synod in 1877 in words which are strikingly relevant today in many parts of the Anglican Communion.

‘It is quite true that an occasion may arise for the exercise of our liberty of action. If it should, I trust not to be found backward in asserting our independence of a Church which had fallen from the faith, but so long as the Church of England remains what she is, I know no reason why we should not act otherwise than as dutiful and loving members of a true branch of the one Catholic Church.

If she, like the Churches of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria should apostatise from the true faith, she would leave us. If the Ritualism which infects a portion of the Church of England became its normal condition, and that which some are striving after, to substitute the mass for the communion, was effected, and formularies and articles were so interpreted and used as to legalise false doctrine it would be time to assert our independence and to allow a body deeply tainted with Romish heresy to exclude us from its communion.’