THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CLEARED FROM THE CHARGE OF SCHISM. (continued 4)

"Gregory to the Emperor Mauritius."^[139] ... "But since it is not my cause, but God's, and since not I only, but the whole Church, is thrown into confusion, since sacred laws, since venerable synods, since the very commands even of our Lord Jesus Christ are disturbed by the invention of this haughty and pompous language, let the most pious Emperor lance the wound, &c.... For to all who know the Gospel, it is manifest that the charge of the whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle Peter, chief of all the Apostles. For to him is said, Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep. To him is said, Behold, Satan hath desired to sift you, &c. To him is said, Thou art Peter, &c. Lo he hath received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing is given to him, the care of the whole Church is committed to him, and the Primacy, and yet he is not called Universal Apostle. And that holy man, my fellow-priest, John, endeavours to be called Universal Bishop.... Do I, in this matter, most pious Lord, defend my own cause? is it a private injury that I pursue? the cause of Almighty God, the cause of the universal Church. Who is he, who, in violation of the statutes of the Gospel, in violation of the decrees of Canons, presumes to usurp a new name to himself? Would that he who desires to be called universal may exist himself without diminution to others!... If, then, any one claims to himself that name in that Church, as in the judgment of all good men he has done, the whole Church (which God forbid!) falls from its place, when he who is called Universal falls. But far from Christian hearts be that blasphemous name, in which the honour of all Priests is taken away, while it is madly arrogated by one to himself! Certainly, to do honour to the blessed Peter, chief of the Apostles, this was offered to the Roman Pontiff by the venerable Synod of Chalcedon. But no one of them ever consented to use this singular appellation, that all Priests might not be deprived of their due honour by something peculiar being given to one. How is it, then, that we seek not the glory of this name, though offered us, yet another presumes to claim it, though not offered?"

John had been succeeded by Cyriacus at Constantinople: and he writes further,^[140] "Gregory to Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch.... I thought it not worth while on account of a profane appellation to delay receiving the synodical letter of our Brother and Fellow-Priest Cyriacus, that I might not disturb the unity of the holy Church: nevertheless, I have made a point of admonishing him respecting that same superstitious and haughty appellation, saying that he could not have peace with me unless he corrected the pride of the aforesaid expression, which the first Apostate invented. But you should not call this cause of no importance; because, if we bear this patiently, we corrupt the faith of the whole Church. For you know how many, not only heretics, but even heresiarchs, have come forth from the Church of Constantinople. And, not to speak of the injury done to your honour, if one Bishop be called Universal, the whole Church tumbles to pieces, if that one, being universal, falls.^[141] But far be such folly, far be such trifling, from my ears. But I trust in the Almighty Lord, that what He hath promised, He will quickly perform: every one that exalteth himself shall be abased." In another most interesting letter he communicates to the Bishop of Alexandria, that "while the nation of the English, placed in a corner of the world, was remaining up to this time in unbelief, worshipping stocks and stones, by the help of your prayers I determined that I ought to send over to it a monk of my monastery, by the blessing of God, to preach there. After permission from me, he has been made a Bishop by the Bishops of Germany, and, assisted by their kindness, reached the aforesaid nation at the end of the world; and even at this present moment I have received accounts of his safety and labours; for either he, or those who have gone over with him, are distinguished among that nation by so great miracles, that they seem to imitate the powers of Apostles by the signs which they show forth. On this last feast of the Lord's Nativity more than ten thousand English are reported to have been baptized by this our brother and fellow-bishop, which I mention that you may know what you are doing among the people of Alexandria by your voice, and in the ends of the world by your prayers."^[142]—"Your Blessedness has also taken pains to tell me that you no longer write to certain persons those proud names, which have sprung from the root of vanity, and you address me, saying, as you commanded, which word command I beg you to remove from my ears, because I know who I am, and who you are. For in rank you are my Brother, in character my Father. I did not, therefore, command, but took pains to point out what I thought advantageous. I do not, however, find that your Blessedness was willing altogether to observe the very thing I pressed upon you. For I said that you should not write any such thing either to me or to any one else, and lo! in the heading of your letter, directed to me, the very person who forbad it, you set that haughty appellation, calling me Universal Pope. Which I beg your Holiness, who are most agreeable to me, to do no more, because whatever is given to another more than reason requires is so much taken away from yourself. It is not in appellations, but in character, that I wish to advance. Nor do I consider that an honour by which I acknowledge that my brethren lose their own. For my honour is the honour of the Universal Church. My honour is the unimpaired vigour of my brethren. Then am I truly honoured, when the true honour is not denied to each one in his degree. For if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be, Universal. But this God forbid. Away with words which inflate vanity, and wound charity. Indeed, in the holy Synod of Chalcedon, and by the Fathers subsequently, your Holiness knows this was offered to my predecessors. Yet none of them chose ever to use this term; that, while in this world they entertained affection for the honour of all Priests, in the hands of Almighty God they might guard their own."

As to what Gregory says about the Council of Chalcedon offering this title, Thomassin says,^[143] "It authorized at least by its silence the title of Ecumenical (Patriarch), which was given to Pope Leo in several requests there read." It appears these requests really were the complaints of two Alexandrian Deacons against Dioscorus.^[144] How very different it was to pass over without reprobating a title bestowed in documents which came before it, from itself conferring that title, is plain at once. In just the same way it had been given at the Latrocinium to Dioscorus. However, the title Ecumenical has been constantly since, and is now, borne by the Patriarch of Constantinople; no doubt a very innocent meaning may be given to it. The remarkable thing is, that Gregory has pointed out in such precise unmistakeable language a certain power and claim, which he inferred, rightly or wrongly, would be set up on this title Ecumenical, and which he pronounces to be a corruption of the whole constitution of the Church.

Perhaps, however, the most remarkable passage remains yet to be quoted. It is in a letter to the Patriarch John himself. "Consider, I pray you, that by this rash presumption the peace of the whole Church is disturbed, and the grace, poured out upon all in common, contradicted. And in this, indeed, you yourself will be able to increase just so much as you purpose in your own mind; and become so much the greater, as you restrain yourself from usurping a proud and foolish name. And you profit in the degree that you do not study to arrogate to yourself by derogating from your brethren. Therefore, most dear brother, with all your heart love humility, by which the harmony of all the brethren and the unity of the holy universal Church, may be preserved. Surely the Apostle Paul, hearing some say, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, exclaimed, in exceeding horror at this rending of the Lord's Body, by which His members attached themselves, as it were, to other heads, saying, Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? If he then rejected the members of the Lord's Body being subjected to certain heads, as it were, besides Christ, and that even to Apostles themselves, as leaders of parts, what will you say to Christ, who is, as you know, the Head of the Universal Church, in the examination of the last judgement,—you, who endeavour to subject to yourself under the name of Universal, all His members? Who, I say, in this perverse name, is set forth for imitation but he, who despised the legions of angels joined as companions to himself, and endeavoured to rise to a height unapproached by all, that he might seem to be subject to none, and be alone superior to all. Who also said, 'I will ascend into heaven: I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, on the sides of the North. I will ascend above the height of the clouds: I will be like the Most High.'

"For what are all your brethren, the Bishops of the Universal Church, but the stars of heaven? Whose life and language together shine amid the sins and errors of men, as among the shades of night. And while you seek to set yourself over these by a proud term, and to tread under foot their name, in comparison with your own, what else do you say, but 'I will ascend into the heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.' Are not all the Bishops clouds, who rain down the words of their preaching, and shine with the light of good works? And while your brotherhood despises them, and endeavours to put them under you, what else do you say but this, which is said by the old enemy: 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds?' And when I see all these things with sorrow, and fear the secret judgments of God, my tears increase, my heart contains not my groans, that that most holy man, the Lord John, of such abstinence and humility, seduced the persuasion of those about him, hath proceeded to such pride, that in longing after a perverse name, he endeavours to be like him, who, desiring in his pride to be as God, lost even the grace of that likeness to God which had been given him; and so forfeited true blessedness, because he sought false glory. Surely Peter, the first of the Apostles, a member of the holy universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, what else are they but the heads of particular communities? and yet all are members under one head. And to comprehend all in one brief expression, the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the body of the Lord, are disposed among members of the Church, and no one ever wished to be called Universal. Let, then, your Holiness acknowledge how great is your pride, who seek to be called by that name, by which no one has presumed to be called who was really holy."^[145]

Now had these passages occurred in the writings of some ancient saint, who was generally opposed to the authority of the Roman See, had they belonged to a Patriarch of Antioch, or Constantinople, jealous of his own rights, they would surely have had their weight, as testimonies to a fact, not mere opinions of the speaker. They would have borne witness to no such thing as they reprobate having, till then, been allowed or thought of. Or, had they been isolated statements, not borne out by contemporaneous or antecedent documents, but standing alone, uncontradicted indeed, but unsupported, they would still have told. How, then, are we to express their weight, or the full assurance of faith which they give us, as being the deliberate, oft-repeated, official statements of a Pope, than whom there never was one more vigorous in defending or in exercising the rights of his See? As being supported and borne out, and in every possible way corroborated by the facts of history, the decrees of Councils, the innumerable testimonies of all parts of the world, the everyday life of the living, breathing Church for six hundred years? In an early work, Mr. Newman had said, "What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic Truth, is this, that St. Peter, and his successors, were and are universal Bishops; that they have the whole of Christendom for their own diocese, in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have not."

In his last work he has retracted, saying, "Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered Catholic, it must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the very first: but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the Apostolic succession in the Episcopal order has not the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic truth."^[146]

Now these words of Mr. Newman seem to imply that the expressions of Fathers, or the decrees of Councils, look towards this presumed Catholic truth, tend to it, and finally admit it, as a truth which they had been all along implicitly holding, or unconsciously living upon, and at last recognised and expressed. On the contrary, to my apprehension, they hold another view about the See of Rome, and express it again and again. It is not a point on which there is variation or inconsistency among them. I have as clear a conviction as one can well have that St. Augustine did not hold the Papal theory. I think the words that I have quoted from him prove this. Moreover, the Fathers generally express a view about other Bishops which is utterly incompatible with this theory as now received, which by no process of development can be made to agree with it. And I confess that I am unable to understand the meaning of words, if this so-called "Catholic truth" of the Pope being the universal Bishop, is not distinctly considered in these passages of St. Gregory, formally repudiated for himself as well as for others, and the very notion declared to be, in any case whatsoever, that of the Pope being specially named, blasphemous and antichristian. Could heretics say any thing of the kind against the doctrine of the Apostolical succession, out of the first six centuries, they would have an advantage against the Church, which, thank God, they are far from possessing.

And it is of no small importance that we have here speaking a Pope, one to whom twelve centuries have given the name of Great, one who, with St. Leo, stands forth out of the ancient line of St. Peter's heirs as an especially legislative mind. Every Catholic is bound to take his words without suspicion. Now St. Gregory asserts, as we have seen, the right of his See to call any Bishop to account, even the four Patriarchs, in case of a violation of the Canons; declaring at the same time that, when the Canons are kept, the meanest Bishop is his equal in the estimation of humility. Even while arguing against this title he says, "To all who know the Gospel is manifest that the charge of the whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle Peter,"—"and yet he is not called Universal Apostle;" but this title, he asserts, and the theory implied in it, is devilish, an imitation of Satan, an anticipation of Antichrist. What else can we conclude but that which so many other documents prove, that this Primacy over the whole Church, the ancient and undoubted privilege of the Bishop of Rome, was something quite different from what he is here reprobating? For St. Gregory, least of all men, was so blind as to use arguments which might be retorted with full force against himself. And yet, any one reading these words of his, and not knowing whence they came, would suppose they were written by a professed opponent of the present Papal claims. For in these letters St. Gregory acknowledges all the Patriarchs as co-ordinate with himself, acknowledges our Lord to be sole Head of the Church, declares the title of Universal Bishop blasphemous and Antichristian, expressly on the ground that it is a wrong done to the Universal Church, to every Bishop and Priest: "If one is universal, it remains that you are not Bishops;" declares, moreover, that St. Peter himself is only a member of the Universal Church, as St. Paul, St. John, St. Andrew, were other members, the heads of different communities. This may be said to be the precise logical contradictory of De Maistre's assertion, that "the Pope" is "the Church," in which he assuredly only expresses the Papal idea. Rarely, indeed, is it that any controversy, appealing to ancient times, can have a testimony on all its details so distinct, and specific, and authoritative as this: and yet it may be said no more than to crown the testimony of the six centuries going before it. That during this period the Bishop of Rome was recognised to be first Bishop of the whole Church, of very great influence, successor of St. Peter, and standing in the same relation to his brethren the Bishops that St. Peter stood in to his brother Apostles; this, on the whole, I believe to be the testimony of the first six centuries, such as a person, not wilfully blind, and who was not content to take the witness of a Father when it suited his purpose and pass it by when it did not, would draw from ecclesiastical documents. I have set it forth to the best of my ability, as well where it seemed to tell against the present position of the Church of England, as in those many points in which it supports her.

What then is our defence on her part against the charge of schism? It is simply this. That no one can now be in the communion of Rome without admitting this very thing which Pope Gregory declares to be blasphemous and anti-Christian, and derogatory to the honour of every Priest. This is the very head and front of our offending, that we refuse to allow that the Pope is Universal Bishop. If the charge were that we refuse to stand in the same relation to the Pope that St. Augustin of Canterbury stood in to this very St. Gregory, that we refuse to regard and honour the successor of St. Gregory with the same honour with which our Archbishops, as soon as they were seated in the government of their Church, and were no longer merely Missionaries but Primates, regarded the occupant of St. Peter's See, I think both the separation three hundred years ago, and the present continuance of it on our part, would, so far as this question of schism is concerned, be utterly indefensible. But this is not the point. It may indeed be, and frequently is, so stated by unfair opponents. The real point is, that, during the nine hundred years which elapsed between 596 and 1534 the power of the Pope, and his relation to the Bishops in his communion, had essentially altered: had been, in fact, placed upon another basis. That from being first Bishop of the Church, and Patriarch, originally of the ten provinces under the Præfectus Prætorii of Italy, then of France, Spain, Africa, and the West generally, he had claimed to be the source and channel of grace to all Bishops, the fountain-head of jurisdiction to the whole world, East as well as West; in fact, the 'Solus Sacerdos,' the 'Universus Episcopus,' contemplated by St. Gregory. There is a worldwide difference between the ancient signature of the Popes, 'Episcopus Catholicæ Ecclesiæ Urbis Romæ,' and that of Pope Pius at the Council of Trent, 'Ego Pius Catholicæ Ecclesiæ Episcopus.' It has been no longer left in the choice of any to accept his Primacy, without accepting his Monarchy, which those who profess to follow antiquity must believe that the Bishops of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, Augustin and Chrysostom, the West and the East, would have rejected with the horror shown by St. Gregory at the first dawning of such an idea. And, whereas Holy Scripture and antiquity present us with one accordant view of the Universal Church governed by St. Peter and the Apostolic College, and, during the first six centuries at least, as the Bishop of Rome is seen to exercise the Primacy of St. Peter, so his brother-Bishops stand to him as the College of Apostles stood to St. Peter: instead of this, which is the Church's divine hierarchy, instituted by Christ Himself, the actual Roman Church is governed by one Bishop who has an apostolical independent power, whilst all the rest, who should be his brethren, are merely his delegates, receiving from his hand the investiture of such privileges as they still retain. If St. Gregory did not mean this by the terms 'Solus Sacerdos,' 'Universus Episcopus,' what did he mean? That the Pope should be the only Priest who offered sacrifice, or the only Bishop who ordained, confirmed, &c. is physically impossible. Nor did the title of the Bishops of Constantinople tend to this: but to claim to themselves jurisdiction over the co-ordinate Patriarchs of the East, as the Popes have since done over the Bishops of the whole world. We have no need to consider what is the amount of this difficulty to Roman Catholics themselves: the same Providence which has placed them under that obedience, has placed us outside of it. Our cause, indeed, cannot be different now from what it was at the commencement of the separation. If inherently indefensible then, it is so now. But if then 'severe but just,' the lapse of three centuries in our separate state may materially affect our relative duties. I affirm my conviction, that it is better to endure almost any degree of usurpation, provided only it be not anti-Christian, than to make a schism: for the state of schism is a frustration of the purposes of the Lord's Incarnation; and through this, not only the English, and the Eastern Church, but the Roman also, lies fettered and powerless before the might of the world, and bleeding internally at every pore. How shall a divided Church meet and overcome the philosophical unbelief of these last times? or, the one condition to which victory is attached being broken, crush the deadliest attack of the old enemy? But the schism is made; let those answer for it before Christ's tribunal who made it. Now that it is made, I see not how a system, which is not a true development of the ancient Patriarchal constitution, but its antagonist, according to St. Gregory's words, can be forced upon us, on pain of our salvation, who have the original succession of the ancient Bishops of this realm, if any such there be, and the old Patriarchal constitution, 'sua tantum si bona norint.' I ground our present position simply on the appeal to tradition and the first six centuries.

Not that there is any abrupt break in the testimony of history there; but it is necessary to put a limit somewhere. Otherwise the seventh century supplies us with the remarkable fact of Pope Honorius condemned, by the sixth Ecumenical Council in 681, as having connived at and favoured the Monothelite heresy, condemned more than forty years after his death; a fact which utterly destroys the new dogma of the infallibility of the one Roman Pontiff by himself; and which Bellarmine and Baronius can only meet by attempting to prove that the acts of the sixth Council have been falsified, though they had been received for genuine by the seventh and eighth Councils, and for nine hundred years; and the letter of St. Leo, immediately after that Council, falsified also, in which he condemns the Monothelites, and amongst them Honorius, "who did not adorn this Apostolical See with the doctrine handed down from the Apostles, but endeavoured to subvert the undefiled faith by a profane tradition." The condemnation of the Council runs as follows:—"Having examined the letters of Sergius of Constantinople to Cyrus, and the answer of Honorius to Sergius, and having found them to be repugnant to the doctrine of the Apostles, and to the opinion of all the Fathers, in execrating their impious dogmas, we judge that their very names ought to be banished from the Holy Church of God; we declare them to be smitten with anathema; and, together with them, we judge that Honorius, formerly Pope of ancient Rome, be anathematized, since we find, in his letter to Sergius, that he follows in all respects his error, and authorizes his impious doctrine."^[147]

It appears, likewise, that as the letter of St. Cyril was read and approved in the third Council, and that of Pope St. Leo in the fourth, so that of Pope St. Agathon was read and approved in the sixth, and that of Pope Adrian the First in the seventh, A.D. 787. But here it may be well to give Bossuet's summary. "This tradition" (i.e. that the supreme authority in the Church resides in the consent of the Bishops) "we have seen to come down from the Apostles, and descend to the first eight General Councils; which eight General Councils are the foundation of the whole Christian doctrine and discipline, of which the Church venerates the first four, in St. Gregory's words, no less than the four Gospels. Nor is less reverence due to the rest, as, guided by the same Spirit, they have a like authority. Which eight Councils, with a great and unanimous consent, have placed the final power of giving decisions in nothing else but in the consent of the Fathers. Of which the six last have legitimately examined the sentence of the Roman Pontiff even given upon Faith, and that with the approval of the Apostolic See, the question being put in this form, as we read in the Acts—'Are these decrees right, or not?'

"But we have seen that the judgment of a General Council never was so reconsidered, but that all immediately yielded obedience to it. Nor was a new inquiry ever granted to anyone after that examination, but punishment threatened. Thus acted Constantine; thus Marcian; thus Cœlestine; thus Leo; thus all the rest, as we have seen in the Acts. The Christian world hath acknowledged this to be certain and indubitable.

"To this we may add the testimony of the admirable Pope St. Gelasius: 'A good and truly Christian Council once held, neither can nor ought to be unsettled by the repetition of a new Council.' And again: 'There is no cause why a good Council should be reconsidered by another Council, lest the mere reconsideration should detract from the strength of its decrees.' Thus what has received the final and certain judgment of the Church, is not to be reconsidered; for that judgment of the Holy Spirit is reversed, whenever it is reconsidered by a fresh judgment. But the judgment put forth by a Roman Pontiff is such, that it has been reconsidered. It is not therefore that ultimate and final judgment of the Church.

"Nor is that sentence of Gregory the Great less clear, comparing the four General Councils to the four Gospels, with the reason given; 'Because being decreed by universal consent, whoever presumes either to loose what they bind, or bind what they loose, destroys not them but himself.'

"So then our question is terminated by the tradition of the ancient Councils and Fathers. All should consent to the power of the Roman Pontiff, as explained according to the decree of the Council of Florence, after the practice of General Councils. The vast difference between the judgment of a Council and of a Pontiff is evident, since after that of the Council no question remains, but only the obedience of the mind brought into captivity; but that of the Pontiff is upon examination approved, room being given to object,—which was to be proved."^[148]

Here the real question at issue is, whether the Bishop of Rome be First Bishop, or Monarch, of the Church. Now, I have endeavoured to delineate, from the Fathers and from Councils, what the true Primacy of the Roman See is. What is now required from us to admit as terms of communion is—"That the ordinary jurisdiction of Bishops descends immediately from the Pope;" "the government of the Church is monarchical, therefore all authority resides in one, and from him is derived unto the rest;" "there is a great difference between the succession to Peter and that to the rest of the Apostles; for the Roman Pontiff properly succeeds Peter not as Apostle, but as ordinary Pastor of the whole Church; and therefore the Roman Pontiff has jurisdiction from Him from whom Peter had it: but Bishops do not properly succeed the Apostles, as the Apostles were not ordinary, but extraordinary, and, as it were, delegated Pastors, to whom there is no succession. Bishops, however, are said to succeed the Apostles, not properly in that manner in which one Bishop succeeds another, and one king another, but in another way, which is two-fold. First, in respect of the holy Order of the Episcopate; secondly, from a certain resemblance and proportion: that is, as when Christ lived on earth, the twelve Apostles were the first under Christ, then the seventy-two Disciples: so now the Bishops are first under the Roman Pontiff, after them Priests, then Deacons, &c. But it is proved that Bishops succeed to the Apostles so, and not otherwise; for they have no part of the true Apostolic authority. Apostles could preach in the whole world, and found Churches ... this cannot Bishops." ... "Bishops succeed to the Apostles in the same manner as Priests to the seventy-two Disciples."^[149] Again: "But, if the Supreme Pontiff be compared with the rest of the Bishops, he is deservedly said to possess the plenitude of power, because the rest have fixed regions over which they preside, and also a fixed power; but he is set over the whole Christian world, and possesses, in its completeness and plenitude, that power which Christ left on earth for the good of the Church."^[150] He proceeds to prove this by those passages of Scripture:—'Thou art Peter,' &c.; 'Feed my sheep,' &c.; which we have seen St. Augustin explaining as said to St. Peter in the person of the Church, while he expressly denies that they are said to him merely as an individual. "These keys not one man but the unity of the Church received:" "he was not the only one among the Disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep," &c. What Bellarmine here says, is, assuredly, both the true Roman view, and moreover absolutely necessary to justify that Church in the attitude she assumes and the measures she authorizes towards other parts of the Church. And if it be the ancient Catholic doctrine, it does justify her. That it is not the ancient doctrine, I think I have already shown; but let us hear what Bossuet says of it. "One objection of theirs remains to be explained, that Bishops borrow their power and jurisdiction from the Roman Pontiff, and therefore, although united with him in an Ecumenical Council, can do nothing against the root and source of their own authority, but are only present as his Counsellors; and that the force of the decree, as well in matters of faith as in other matters, lies in the power of the Roman Pontiff. Which fiction falls of itself to the ground, even from this, that it was unheard of in the early ages, and began to be introduced into theology in the thirteenth century; that is, after men preferred generally to act upon philosophical reasonings, and those very bad, before consulting the Fathers.^[151]

"But to this innovation is opposed, first, what is related in the Acts of the Apostles respecting that Council of Apostles, which the letter of St. Cœlestine to the Council of Ephesus, and the proceedings of the fifth Ecumenical Council, proved to be as it were repeated and represented in all other Councils. But if any one says that, in this Council, the Apostles were not set by Christ to be true judges, but to be the counsellors of Peter, he is too ridiculous.^[152]

"Secondly, is opposed that fact which we have proved, that the decrees and judgments of Roman Pontiffs de fide were suspended by the convocation of an Ecumenical Council, were reconsidered by its authority, and were only approved and confirmed after examination made and judgment given. Which things undoubtedly prove that they sat there not as counsellors of the Pope, but as judges of Papal decrees.

"And they must indeed be legitimately called together, that they may not meet tumultuously; but, when once called together, they judge by the authority of the Holy Spirit, not of the Pope: they pronounce anathemas, not by authority of the Pope, but of Christ; and we have seen this so often pressed upon us by the Acts, that we are weary of repeating it.

"Add to this that expression of the first Council of Arles to St. Sylvester: 'Had you judged together with us, our assembly had exulted with greater joy:' and in the very heading of the Council to the same Sylvester: 'What we have decreed with common consent, we signify to your charity.' Relying then on this authority of their Priesthood, they judge concerning most important matters; that is, the observation of the Lord's passover, that it may be kept on one day all over the world: concerning the non-iteration of Baptism, and the discipline of the Churches. Instances of this kind occur everywhere. But it is a known fact, that even by particular Councils, where the Pope presided, his decrees, even when present, were examined and confirmed by consent; the Fathers equally with him judged, decreed, defined, and we have seen this a thousand times written on the Acts.

"But in a matter so clear, they have only one thing to object drawn out of antiquity, the saying of St. Innocent, 'that Peter is the author of the Episcopal name and honour.'^[153] And again,^[154] 'whence the Episcopate itself and all the authority of that name sprung.' And of St. Leo,^[155] 'If he willed that anything should be enjoyed by the other heads (that is, the Apostles) in common with him (Peter), he never gave save through Peter whatever he denied not to the rest.' And elsewhere also, 'that Christ granted to the rest of the Apostles the ministry of preaching on this condition, that he poured into them, as into the whole body, his gifts from Peter, as from the head.'^[156] Whence also came that expression of Optatus of Milevi: 'For the good of unity, the blessed Peter was thought worthy to be preferred to all the Apostles, and alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to be imparted to the rest,'^[157]—and that of Gregory of Nyssa, 'Through Peter He gave to the Bishops the keys of heavenly honours.'^[158] And that of St. Cæsarius of Arles to Pope Symmachus: 'As from the person of the blessed Apostle Peter the Episcopate takes its beginning, so is it necessary that by suitable rules of discipline your Holiness should plainly show to every Church what they ought to observe.'^[159]

"If they push these and such like expressions to the utmost, they will come to assert that the Apostles were appointed by Peter, not by Christ, or by Christ through Peter, but not by Him immediately and in person: as if any other but Christ called the Apostles, sent them, and endued them with heavenly power by the infusion of His Spirit; and Peter and not Christ said: 'Go ye, teach, preach, baptize, receive, and, as My Father sent me, even so send I you.'

"I am aware that John of Turrecremata, and a few others, thinking that the words now quoted of St. Leo and others cannot be defended by them sufficiently, unless the Apostles also received their jurisdiction from St. Peter, have been hurried away even into this folly, against the most manifest truth of the Gospel. Which fiction Bellarmine himself has confuted.

"But this being the greatest absurdity, it will appear that what follows is the teaching of the Fathers quoted.

"First; the episcopal authority and jurisdiction is contained in the keys, and in the power of binding and loosing, which is clear of itself.

"Secondly; it is evident from the Gospel History that Peter was the first in whom that power was shown forth and appointed. For, although Christ said to all the Apostles, 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' (John xx. 22,) and 'whatsoever ye bind,' &c., 'whatsoever ye loose,' &c. (Matt, xviii. 18); yet, what He said to Peter had gone before, 'I will give to thee the keys,' &c. (Matt. xvi. 19).

"Thirdly; both these two, that is, both what was said to Peter and what was said to the Apostles, proceed equally from Christ: for He who said to Peter, 'I will give to thee,' and 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind,' said also to the Apostles, 'Receive ye,' and 'Whatsoever ye shall bind.'

"Fourthly; that is therefore true which Optatus says of Peter: 'For the good of unity, he alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to be imparted to the rest.' For, in truth, these which were given to Peter in the 16th Matt. were to be imparted afterwards to the Apostles, Matt. 18th, and John 20th, but to be imparted not by Peter, but by Christ, as is clear.

"Fifthly; that also is true which Cæsarius says, 'The Episcopate takes its beginning from Peter:' he being the first in whom, through the ministry of binding and loosing, the Episcopal power was shown forth, begun, entrusted.'

"Sixthly; hence, also, is true what Innocent says,—'that the Episcopate, and all the authority of that name, sprung from Peter,' because he, first of all, was appointed or set forth as Bishop.

"Seventhly; for this cause, Peter is called by the same Innocent the author of the Episcopate; not that he instituted it,—not that the Apostles received the power of binding and loosing from him,—for the Scriptures everywhere exclaim against this; but that from him was made the beginning of establishing that power among men, and of appointing or marking out the Episcopate.

"Eighthly; to make this clearer, and that it may be easily perceived what means that expression, 'through Peter,' which we read in Leo, we must review the tradition of the ancient Church, drawn from the Scriptures themselves.

"It is plain, then, that when the Lord asked the Apostles, 'Whom say men that I, the Son of Man, am?' Peter, the chief of all, answered in the person of all, 'Thou art the Christ:' and afterwards Christ said to Peter, thus representing them, 'I will give to thee,'—'Whatsoever thou shalt bind:' by which it appears that in these words, not Peter only, but in Peter, their chief, and answering for all, all the Apostles and their successors were endued with the Episcopal power and jurisdiction.

"All which Augustin includes when he writes, 'All being asked, Peter alone answered, Thou art Christ, and to him is said, I will give to thee, &c., as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing, the case really being, that he said that singly for all, and received this together with all, as representing unity.'^[160] Than which nothing can be clearer."

He then quotes passages from St. Cyprian and St. Augustin, which I have already brought; adding, "In Peter, therefore, singly, Cyprian acknowledges that all Bishops were instituted, and not without reason; the Episcopate, as he everywhere attests, being one in the whole world, was instituted in one. And this was done to establish 'the origin of unity beginning from one,' as he says.

"But most of all does Augustin set forth and inculcate the common tradition. For, not content with having said that once in the place above mentioned, he is very full in setting forth this view of that doctrine. Hence he says, 'In Peter was the sacrament of the Church;'" and other passages I have already quoted. "Whence, everywhere in his books against the Donatists, he says, 'The keys are given to Unity.'

"The sum, then, is this. The Apostles and Pastors of Churches being both one and many,—one, in ecclesiastical communion, as they feed one flock; many, being distributed through the whole world, and having allotted to them each their own part of the one flock; therefore, power was given to them by a two-fold ratification of Christ: first, that they may be one, in Peter their chief, bearing the figure and the person of unity, to which has reference that saying in the singular number, 'I will give to thee,' and 'Whatsoever thou shall bind,' &c.: secondly, that they may be many, to which that has reference in the plural number, 'Receive ye,' and 'Whatsoever ye shall bind:' but both, personally and immediately from Christ; since He who said, 'I will give to thee,' as to one, also said, 'Receive ye,' as to many: nevertheless, that saying came first, in which power is given to all, in that they are one: because Christ willed that unity, most of all, should be recommended in His Church.

"By this all is made clear; not only Bishops, but also Apostles, have received the keys and the power from Christ, in Peter, and, in their manner, through Peter, who, in the name of all, received that for all, as bearing the figure and the person of all."

He then shows that this tradition had gone down even to his own times: "This holy and apostolic doctrine of the Episcopal jurisdiction and power proceeding immediately from, and instituted by, Christ, the Gallic Church hath most zealously retained." "Therefore,^[161] that very late invention, that Bishops receive their jurisdiction from the Pope, and are, as it were, vicars of him, ought to be banished from Christian schools, as unheard of for twelve centuries."

It is precisely "this very late invention" which is urged against the Church of England. Unless this be true, her position in itself, supposing her to be clear of heresy, with which, at present, I have nothing to do, is impregnable.

Such is the most Catholic interpretation by which Bossuet sets in harmony with the teaching of all antiquity a few expressions, which are all that I have been able to find that are even capable of being forced into accordance with the present Papal system, and which, as soon as they are so forced, contradict the whole history of Councils, and the whole life of the most illustrious Fathers.

Now there is no doubt that Bellarmine's doctrine is the true logical development of the Papal Theory; it alone has consistency and completeness; it alone is the adequate expression of that prodigious power which was allowed to enthrone itself in the Church during the middle ages; it would fain account for it and justify it. Grant but its postulate, that the Pope is the sole vicar of Christ, and all which it requires must follow. On the other hand, that school which ranks Bossuet at its head, and which sought to limit, in some degree, by the Canons the power of the Roman Pontiff, and maintained that Bishops were, jure divino, successors of the Apostles, in a real, not in a fictitious sense, however well-founded in what it maintained on the one side, was certainly inconsistent. It gave either too much or too little to the Roman See;—too much, if its own declarations about the succession of Bishops and the authority of General Councils be true, and founded in antiquity, as we believe; too little, if the Pope be indeed the only Vicar of Christ on earth, and the supreme Ruler of His Church; for then these maxims put their partisans very nearly into the position of rebels, and, in truth, brought the Gallican Church to the brink of a schism, in 1682. However this may be, that school is extinct; the ultramontane theory alone has now life and vigour in the Roman Church. It seems to absorb into itself all earnest and self-denying minds, while the other is left to that treacherous conservatism which would use the Church of Christ as a system of police, for the security of worldly interests. What the ultramontane theory is, we see from Bellarmine. It proclaims that the government of the Church is a monarchy, concentrating in one person all the powers bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles. In this the student of history is bound to declare that it stands in point-blank contradiction to the decrees of General Councils, to the sentiments of the Fathers, and the whole practice of the Church for the first six hundred years; for much longer indeed than this, but this is enough. Well may Bossuet ask, "if the infallible authority of the Roman Pontiff is of force by itself before the consent of the Church,—to what purpose was it that Bishops should be summoned from the farthest regions of the earth, at the cost of such fatigues and expense, and Churches be deprived of their Pastors, if the whole power resided in the Roman Pontiff? If what he believed or taught was immediately the supreme and irrevocable law, why did he not himself pronounce sentence? Or if he pronounced it, why are Bishops called together and wearied out, to do again what is already done, and to pass a judgment on the supreme judgment of the Church? Would not this be fruitless? But all Christians have imbibed with their faith the conviction, that, in important dissensions, the whole Church ought to be convoked and heard. All therefore understand that the certain, deliberate, and complete declaration of the truth is seated not in the Pope alone, but in the Church spread everywhere."^[162] "This too is certain, that when General Councils have been holden, the sentence of the Roman Pontiff has generally preceded them; for undoubtedly Celestine, Leo, Agatho, Gregory the Second, Adrian the First, had pronounced sentence, when the third, fourth, sixth, seventh Councils were held. What was desired therefore was, not a Council for the Pontiff about to give judgment, but, after he had given judgment, the force of a certain and insuperable authority."

In fact, on this theory, as we have seen above, St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, St. Hilary of Arles, the African Bishops in 426, the Fathers of Chalcedon in 451, in passing their famous 28th Canon, the Fathers of Ephesus in 431, in passing their 8th, the Fathers of Constantinople in 381, in passing their 2d and 3d Canons, and in the synodal letter addressed to the Pope and the Western Bishops, the Fathers of Nicea, in passing their 6th, nay, all ancient Councils whatever, in all their form and mode of proceeding, were the most audacious of rebels. But what are we to say about the language of St. Gregory? Did he then betray those rights of St. Peter, which he held dearer than his life? When he wrote to Eulogius of Alexandria, "If your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be—universal. But this God forbid:" are we to receive Thomassin's explanation, that he meant, as Patriarch, he was not universal, but, as Pope, he was, all the time? or when he says to the same, "in rank you are my brother, in character my father," was Eulogius at the same time, as Bellarmine will have it, merely his deputy? "In the beginning, Peter set up the Patriarch of Alexandria, and of Antioch, who, receiving authority from the Pontiff (of Rome), presided over almost all Asia and Africa, and could create Archbishops, who could afterwards create Bishops."^[163] And this, it appears, is the key which is to be applied to the whole history of the early Church. Those Bishops, Metropolitans, Exarchs, and Patriarchs, throughout the East, who had such a conviction of the Apostolic authority residing in themselves as governors of the Church, who showed it in every Council in which they sat, who expressed it so freely in their writings and letters: St. Augustin, again, in the West, himself a host, who speaks of a cause decided by the Roman Pontiff being reheard, of "the wholesome authority of General Councils," who assents to St. Cyprian's proposition, that "every Bishop can no more be judged by another, than he himself can judge another," with the single limitation, "certainly, I imagine, in those questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely settled;" who, in a question of disputed succession, which more than any other required such a tribunal as the Papal, had it existed, appeals not to the authority of the Roman See, but to the testimony of the whole Church spread everywhere, not mentioning that See pre-eminently; or when he does mention "the See of Peter, in which Anastasius now sits," mentioning likewise "the See of James, in which John now sits:"—all these were nothing more, at the same time, than the Pope's delegates, and received through him their jurisdiction.

Can a claim be true which is driven to shifts such as this for its maintenance? Or can the truth of Christianity and the unity of the Church rest upon a falsehood? Is infidelity itself in such "a hopeful position,"^[164] as regards Christianity, that it is really come to this, that we must either receive a plain and manifest usurpation, or be cast out of the house and kingdom of God? That we must reject the witness and history of the first six hundred years of the Church's life on the one hand, or be plunged into the abyss of infidelity on the other? If it be true that the Pope is Monarch of the Church, which is the present Papal theory, the Church of England is in schism. If it be not true, she is at least clear of that fatal mark. All that is required for her position is the maintenance of that Nicene Constitution which we have heard St. Leo solemnly declare was to last to the end of the world, viz. that every province of the Church be governed by its own Bishops under its own Metropolitan. And who then but will desire that the successor of St. Peter should hold St. Peter's place? Will the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the Archbishop of Moscow, or the Primate of Canterbury, so much as think of assuming it? Be this our answer when we are accused of not really holding that article of the Creed "one Catholic and Apostolic Church." Let the Bishop of Rome require of us that honour and power which he possessed at the Synod of Chalcedon, that, and not a totally different one under the same name, and we shall be in schism when we do not yield it. At present we have no farther separated from him than to fall back on the constitution of the Church of the Martyrs and the Fathers.

But, it may be said, is the Catholic Church unanimous on the one hand, and the Anglican communion, restricted to one small province, left alone in her protest on the other? Did not she, whom they would call "the already decrepit rebel of three hundred years," submit from 596 to 1534 to that very authority which she now denies? It would be quite beyond my present limits to trace, as I had first purposed, the Roman Bishop's power from that point at which it stood when St. Gregory sent our Apostle Augustin into England, to that point which it had reached in the thirteenth century, and which it strove to maintain in the sixteenth. I can only now very briefly point out a few of the steps in that most wonderful rise. The two centuries, then, which succeeded St. Gregory, were even more favourable to this growth than those which went before. While the confusion and violence of secular governments by the breaking in and settlement of the various northern tribes were greater than ever,—while the ecclesiastical constitution was all that yet held together the scattered portions of the shattered Western empire—the single Apostolical See of the West, whose Bishop was in constant correspondence with the spiritual rulers of these various countries, whose voice was ever and anon heard striving to win and soften into mercy and justice those temporal rulers, would be, as it were, "a light shining in a dark place." The Bishops, everywhere miserably afflicted by their own sovereigns, found a stay and support in one beyond the reach of the feudal lord's violence. The benefit they thus derived from the Roman Patriarch was so great, that they would be disposed to overlook the gradual change which was ensuing in the relation between themselves and him, the deference which was deepening into subjection. Or, if here and there, what Leo would have called "a presumptuous spirit," such as Hincmar of Rheims, or our own Grossetête, in after times, set himself against the stream, it would all be in vain. However good his cause might be, if he did not yield, he would be beaten down like St. Hilary of Arles. Moreover, as the great heresy of Mahomet invaded and hemmed in three of the Patriarchal Sees of the East, their counterpoise to the originally great influence of the Roman See was removed. Political separation from the East, and the difficulty of communication, would of themselves greatly tend to this result. To this must be added the great increase of power which the house of Charlemagne, for their own political purposes, bestowed on the Roman See; it was worth while building up a popedom for an imperial crown. De Maistre says, "The Popes reign since the ninth century at least."^[165] But it is a somewhat naïve confession, "The French had the singular honour, one of which they have not been at all sufficiently proud, of having set up, humanly, the Catholic Church in the world, by raising its august head to the rank indispensably due to his divine functions; and without which he would only have been a Patriarch of Constantinople, miserable puppet of Christian sultans, and Musulman autocrats." Just, too, when it was most difficult to detect imposture, and to refer to the acts of ancient Councils, that singular counterfeit of the false decretals made its appearance, which so wonderfully helped the Roman Patriarchs in consolidating the manifold structure of their authority. This, indeed, assailed the Bishops of the West by their most reverential feelings, and added to the force of a great present authority, almost always beneficially exercised, the weight of what seemed an Apostolical tradition. Besides these causes, the Popes found in the several monastic orders throughout Europe the most unceasing and energetic pioneers of their power. From the very first there appears to have existed a desire to exchange the present superintendence of the local Bishop for the distant authority of the Pope. The great orders, indeed, were themselves so many suspensions of the Episcopal system. With reason do the statues of their founders adorn the nave of St. Peter's, not only as witnesses of the Church's exuberant life, but as those whose hands, more than any others, have helped to rear that colossal central power, of which that fane is the visible symbol. Thus the Papal structure was so gradually built upon the Patriarchal, that no one age could accurately mark where the one ended and the other began, but all may see the finished work. It requires no microscopic eye to distinguish the authority of St. Leo or St. Gregory from that of St. Innocent the Third. The poet spake of a phantom what is true of a great reality:—

That power, for which the heroic and saintly Hildebrand died in exile,^[166] if exile there could be to him who received the heathen for his inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession; for which our own St. Anselm, forced against his will to the Primacy, stood unquailing in the path of the Red King, most furious, if not the worst, of that savage race, whose demon wrath seemed to justify the fable of their origin; for which St. Bernard, the last of the Fathers in age, but equal to the first in glory, wrote and laboured, and wore himself out with vigils, and wrought miracles; for which our own St. Thomas shed that noble blood, which sanctifies yet our primatial Church, an earnest of restoration and freedom to come; that power, for which St. Francis, the spouse of holy poverty, so long neglected since her First Husband ascended up on high, and St. Dominic—

and one greater yet, the warrior saint, Ignatius, raised their myriads of every age and of both sexes, armed in that triple mail of poverty, chastity, and obedience, "of whom the world was not worthy;"—that power, to which have borne witness so many saintly Bishops, poor in the midst of poverty, and humble in the exercise of more than royal power,—so many scholars, marvellously learned,—so many, prodigal of labour and blood, who are now counted among the noble army of martyrs,—so many holy women, who have hidden themselves under the robe of the first of all saints, and followed the Virgin of virgins in their degree;—that power is, indeed, the most wondrous creation which history can record, and one to which I am not ashamed to confess that I should bow with unmingled reverence, had not truth a yet stronger claim upon me, and did not the voice of the early Church, its Fathers, Councils, and Martyrs, sound distinctly in my ears another language. Still, human and divine, ambition and Providence, are so mingled there, that I would not utter a word more than truth requires. I should even be compelled to give up the strongest individual conviction, acknowledging the weakness and liability to err of any private judgment; acknowledging, moreover, that a single province of the Church, if opposed to all the rest, is certain to be in error, were it not that, besides the voice of antiquity, we have witnesses the most legitimate, the most time-honoured, the most unswerving in their testimony,—witnesses who take away from our opponents their proudest claim,—nay, a claim which, if real, would be irresistible,—that of being, by themselves, the Catholic Church.

Let it never, then, be forgotten, that any argument which would prove the Church of England to be in schism would condemn likewise the Eastern and Russian Church. It is not the Catholic Church against a revolted province, as our adversaries would have us believe; it is the one Patriarch of the West, with his Bishops, against the four Patriarchs of the East, with theirs, and that great and, as yet, unbroken phalanx of the North, which Constantinople won to the faith of old, and which now promises to beat back the tide of heresy and infidelity from the beleaguered Sees of the East. On this point of schism, at least, they bear witness with us. The causes, adverted to above, which were so influential in exalting the great fabric of Roman power in the West, did not act upon the East,—nay, acted in the inverse direction. The See of Constantinople still remains where the Council of Chalcedon placed it, where the Emperor Justinian recognised it to be, the second See of the world: and it has ever since refused to admit that Rome was first in any sense in which itself was not second. This may serve to set in a clear light the vast difference between the legitimate power of the First See, and the claim to give jurisdiction to all Bishops. The systems, of which these are expressions, are in truth antagonistic. Constantinople maintains still that constitution of the whole Church which St. Gregory accused its Bishops of undermining. The evil which he foresaw has come from his own successors: "the cause of Almighty God, the cause of the Universal Church," the privileges and rights of Bishops and Priests, as against one "Universal Pope," are borne witness to now, as they have ever been, by the immutable East. Here, at least, are no sympathies with the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century: the Synod of Bethlehem has anathematised Luther and Calvin as decidedly as the Council of Trent. Here was no Henry the Eighth fixing his supremacy on a reluctant Church by the axe, the gibbet, the stake, and laws of premunire and forfeiture: no State using that Church as a cat's-paw for three hundred years, and ready now to offer it up a holocaust to the demon of liberalism. Here is the ancient Patriarchal system, the thrones of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, subsisting still. Here is the same body of doctrine, the same seven sacraments, the same Real Presence, the same mighty sacramental and sacerdotal system, which Latitudinarian and Evangelical, statesman and heretic, dread while they hate, as being indeed the visible presence of Christ in a fallen world,—the residence of a spiritual power which controls and torments the worldling, while it disproves and falsifies the heretic. Here is all that the Roman Catholic claims as tokens of the truth for himself: but there is one thing more, the same protest that we make against the monarchical, as distinct from the patriarchal, power, the same appeal back to early Councils, and the unambiguous voice of those who cannot be silenced or corrupted, the Fathers of the Church. In the Fathers of the undivided Church, the East and the North and the West, so long severed, meet: we are not alone, who have with us, on the very point which divides us from our Mother Church, the still unbroken line of successors from St. Athanasius and St. Chrysostom. There is no break in the descent or in the doctrine of the Eastern Churches. There is the same dogmatic, the same hierarchical fabric, subsisting now as when St. Gregory addressed Anastasius of Antioch, and Eulogius of Alexandria. It may suit the purposes of unfair Roman controversialists to brand them as schismatics, and overcome, by calling them a name, their own most formidable opponents: but history cannot be so overcome. They have never admitted the Papal sway, any more than the Fathers who passed the 28th Canon of Chalcedon: they have, indeed, admitted the Roman Primacy, as those same Fathers admitted it; for the very system, for which they are witnesses, is not complete without the Bishop of Rome stands at the head of it: the due honour of Rome is involved in the due honour of Constantinople; and, we may add, the due honour of Canterbury: the same temper, the same persons, who reject the one, hate the other. What we say they never have admitted is, that which has really worked the disunion of the Universal Church, as St. Gregory foretold it would, the doctrine which is the centre of the present Papal system, which alone makes all its parts cohere, and justifies all its acts, and triumphs over all appeal to argument, and all testimonies of antiquity, viz., that, "the Pope is set over the whole Christian world, and possesses in its completeness and plenitude that power which Christ left on earth for the good of the Church."^[168] They have never for a moment admitted that the Bishops of the Universal Church were the Pope's delegates, and received their jurisdiction from him. We fight, it must be admitted, at some disadvantage with our opponents. The long subjection which our Church yielded to Rome, the manifold obligations under which we lie to her, the complete unsettling of the ecclesiastical and doctrinal system in the sixteenth century, the horrible vices of those who effected the change, the connection with those whose doctrine has now worked itself out into Socinianism, infidelity, and anarchy, the inability we have ever since been under of shaking ourselves completely clear of them, the thoroughly unsatisfactory position of the state towards us, as a Church, at present,—all these things are against us,—all these things tell on the mind which really lives and dwells on antiquity, and looks to the pure Apostolic Church. Still, though they weaken, they do not overcome our cause. But from all these objections the witness of the Eastern Churches is free. They were never subject to Rome, but to their own Patriarchs; they derived not their Christianity from her: the Priesthood, and the pure unbloody sacrifice, and the power to bind and to loose, remain undisputed among them: the Eastern mind cannot conceive a Church without them. They have received no reformation from those whose lives were a scandal to all Christian men: they are not mixed up with the Lutheran or Calvinistic heresy: nor has Erastianism eaten out their life. Yet, if we are schismatics, so are they, and on the same ground. Moreover the Roman Church has again and again treated with them as parts of the true Church. It is only in comparatively modern times, that as the hope of re-union became fainter, the line of denying their being members of the One Body has been taken up. I have seen even so late as the time of Clement the Eighth a letter of that Pope to the Czar, in which he treats him as already belonging to the Church. Moreover the Eastern Church has put forth the best and most convincing sign of Catholicity, life: to her, since her separation from Rome, and to this particular attention must be claimed, is due the most remarkable conversion of a great nation to the Faith which has taken place in the last eight hundred years—Russia with her Bishops, her clergy, her monasteries, her convents, her Christian people, her ancient discipline, her completely organised Church system, her whole country won from Paganism by the preaching of Monks and Missionary Bishops, is a witness to the Greek Church (which who shall gainsay?) that she is a true member of the One Body. The Patriarch of Constantinople exercised that charge which the Council of Chalcedon gave him, and ordained Bishops among the barbarians, and the Spirit of God blessed their labours, and the whole North became his spiritual offspring. Rome cannot show, since she has been divided from the East, a conversion on so large a scale, so complete, so permanent. And on that great mass she has hitherto made no impression. It is a complete refutation of her claim to be by herself Catholic, that there exists out of her communion a Body of Apostolic descent and government, with the same doctrinal system as her own, with the ascetic principle as strongly developed, with the same claim to miracles,—with all, in fact, which characterises a Church; a Body, moreover, so large, that, supposing the non-existence of the Roman Communion, the promises of God in Scripture to His Church might be supposed to be fulfilled in that Body.^[169] And this Body, like ourselves, denies that particular Roman claim, for which Rome would have us and them to be schismatic. And it has denied it not merely for three hundred years, but from the time that it has been advanced. Truly all that was deficient on our side seems made up by the Greek Church. And this living and continuous witness of a thousand years is to be added to that most decisive and unambiguous voice of the whole undivided ancient Church.

I have, throughout these remarks, considered the Church of Christ to be what, at the Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, she so manifestly appeared, one organic whole; a Body, with One Head, and many members; as St. Gregory says, Peter, and Paul, and Andrew, and John; a kingdom with One Sovereign, and rulers, an Apostolic College appointed by that Head, with a direct commission from Himself. I believe that no other idea about the Church prevailed up to St. Gregory's time. It follows that all so-called national churches, unless they be subordinate to the law of this kingdom, are so many infringements of the great primary law of unity, in that they set up a member instead of the Body. St. Paul, in the 12th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, has clearly set forth such, and no less, to be the unity of Christ's Body. Certainly it is a difficulty, that we must admit this essential law to be at present broken. But I do not think it fair to argue against a provisional and temporary state, such as that of the Church of England is confessed to be—which, too, has been forced upon her—as if it were a normal state, one that we have chosen, a theory of unity that we put forth over against the ancient theory, or the present Roman one. Nay, thousands and ten thousands feel, the whole rising mind of the Church feels, that we are torn "from Faith's ancient home," that we groan within ourselves, waiting until God in his good time restore a visible unity to His Church, till the East and the West and the South be one again in the mind of Christ. Who but must view it as a token of that future blessing, that public prayers have been offered up in France and Italy for such a consummation? Let us begin to pray for each other, and we must end by being one. Let us, too, pray that the clouds of error and prejudice, the intense blind jealousy on one side, the cruel and disingenuous temper on the other, may be subdued by the Spirit of God, who in some great and blessed Pentecost shall draw long alienated hearts together, and mould them into a union closer than has ever been, against an attack the last and most terrible of the foretold enemy, the tokens of whose coming are at hand.

But the Roman Catholic, who seems to escape this difficulty, and points to his communion as one organic whole, falls into another. Grant that it is one, but it is at the expense of ceasing to be Catholic: it has lost all the East and the North, and part of the West. Thus, in this choice between difficulties, it seems the least to suppose that the unity of Christendom may be for a time suspended, during which the several parts of Christ's Body retain communion with the one Head, and thence derive life, though active communion with each other is suspended. A less difficulty, I say, than to cut off, not merely our own Church, but the seventy millions of the Eastern Church, having a complete inward identity with the Roman, from the covenant of salvation, merely because that intercommunion is prevented by a claim to spiritual monarchy, which was unknown in the best ages of the Church, and has been resisted ever since it was set up. If this view be true, we should expect that the several parts, though living, would yet be languishing, and far from that healthy vigour which they ought to possess; that the Great Head would give manifold warnings of the injury done to His Body. Now, it is very remarkable that the circumstances, no less of the Latin than of the Eastern and the Anglican Church, exactly agree to this expectation. I need not speak on this point of the second and third; but I cannot help thinking that they who have suffered themselves to be driven by fearful scandals out of our bosom, who have brooded over acknowledged but unrelieved wants, till the duty of patient long-suffering has been forgotten, close their eyes to the state of France, Spain, and Italy, under what they have now learnt to call by itself the "Catholic" Church. Yet are there tokens abroad which men of less spiritual discernment might lay to heart. Does the "obscene rout" of Ronge and Czerski, bursting forth from the bosom of the Roman Church, awake no misgiving? Fearful, when viewed by Scripture and antiquity, as the state of England is, (an argument which is now being used against our communion with such effect on tender and loving minds,) he must be bold who would venture to say that the relation of the French Church to the French nation in the last century, or its relation even now, greatly as the present French Church is to be admired and sympathised with, does not offer as much ground for fearful apprehension, as much reason to dread, lest the terms on which victory is promised to the Church over the world have been essentially broken. I fear there is no doubt that two-thirds of the French capital are not Christian, in any sense of the word; and probably the proportion is as great in the larger towns. How did this state of things arise? How has nearly the whole intellect of that country become infidel? From the French Revolution, it will be answered. But how could that great Satanical outburst have ever taken place, had the Church of Christ, free from corruption, as those who have left us believe, and throned in the possession of sixteen hundred years, with its numberless religious houses, its unmarried clergy, and great episcopate, been discharging its functions, I do not say aright, but with any moderate efficiency? Surely the acts of the States General were as bad as those of Henry the Eighth; yet its members were Catholics, in full communion with the Roman See. Surely the ecclesiastical legislation of Napoleon was as uncatholic as that of a House of Commons; yet it was sanctioned by Concordat with the Pope. But if manifold corruptions did not unchurch the Gallican communion in the last century,—if the mass of a great nation, which the Church once completely possessed, but has now surrendered to active unbelief, does not invalidate her claim to be a pure communion at present, why are such things alleged as so fatal a mark against us? God forbid that one should mention such things without the deepest sorrow; but when our troubles, and difficulties, and relations with the state, and the alienated hearts of our people, and the absence of external discipline and inward guidance, and the misery of our divisions, are alleged to prove that we are out of the pale of the Church, these things ought to be weighed on the other side. There ought not to be different measures on different sides of the Channel. I forbear to speak of the state of Spain, Portugal, and much of Italy; but I imagine that the worst deeds of the Reformation were at least paralleled by what the Church has had to endure there from the hands of her own children. I believe that our own most sad corruptions have, too, their counterpart among Churches in communion with the Apostolic See.

But to conclude. As our defence against the charge of Schism rests upon the witness of the ancient Church, thus fully corroborated by the Eastern Communion, so our whole safety lies in maintaining the clear indubitable doctrine of that Church. I have avoided the whole question of doctrine in these remarks, both as leading me into a wider field than that which I am obliged to traverse so cursorily at present, and as distinct from the question of Schism, though very closely connected with it. No one can deny that it is not sufficient for our safety to repel one single charge: but this charge was the most pressing, the most specious, and one which requires to be disposed of before the mind can with equanimity enter upon any other. My conclusion is, that upon the strictest Church principles,—in other words, upon those principles which all Christendom, in its undivided state, recognised for six hundred years, which may be seen in the Canons and Decrees of Ecumenical Councils, our present position is tenable at least till the convocation of a really Ecumenical Council. The Church of England has never rejected the communion of the Western, and still less that of the Eastern Church: neither has the Eastern Church pronounced against her. She has only exercised the right of being governed by her own Bishops and Metropolitans. There is, indeed, much peril of her being forced from this, her true position,—a peril lately pointed out by the author of "The real Danger of the Church of England." I need say little where he has said so much, in language so well-timed, so moderate, and from a position which cannot be misrepresented. I will only add, that I cannot conceive any course which would so thoroughly quench the awakened hopes of the Church's most faithful children, as that her rulers, which I am loth even to imagine, at a crisis like the present, should seek support, not in the rock of the ancient Church, in which Andrewes, Laud, and Ken, took refuge of old,—not in the unbroken tradition of the East and West, by which, if at all, the Church of Christ must be restored,—not in that great system which first subdued and then impregnated with fresh life the old Roman Empire, delaying a fall which nothing could avert, and which lastly built up out of these misshapen ruins all the Christian polities of Europe,—not in that time-honoured and universal fabric of doctrine to which our own Prayer-book bears witness, but in the wild, inconsistent, treacherous sympathies of a Protestantism, which the history of three hundred years in many various countries has proved to be dead to the heart's core. Farewell, indeed, to any true defence of the Church of England, any hope of her being built up once more to an Apostolical beauty and glory, of recovering her lost discipline and intercommunion with Christendom, if she is by any act of her rulers, or any decree of her own, to be mixed up with the followers of Luther, Calvin, or Zuingle: with those who have neither love, nor unity, nor dogmatic truth, nor sacraments, nor a visible Church among themselves: who, never consistent but in the depth of error, and the secret instinct of heresy, deny regeneration in Baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation and Orders, and the power of the keys in absolution, and the Lord's Body in the Eucharist. That is the way of death: who is so mad as to enter on it? When Protestantism lies throughout Europe and America a great disjointed mass, in all the putridity of dissolution,

judicially blinded, so that it cannot perceive Christ dwelling in his Church, while she grows to the measure of the stature of the perfect man, and making her members and ministers His organs—who would think of joining to it a living Church? Have we gone through so much experience in vain? Have we seen it develop into Socinianism at Geneva, and utter unbelief in Germany, and a host of sects in England and America, whose name is Legion, and who seem to be agreed in nothing else but in the denial of sacramental grace, and visible unity; and all this at the last hour, in the very turning point of our destiny, to seek alliance with those who have no other point of union but common resistance to the tabernacle of God among men? A persuasion that nothing short of the very existence of the Church of England is at stake, that one step into the wrong will fix her character and her prospects for ever, compels one to say that certain acts and tendencies of late have struck dismay into those who desire above all things to love and respect their spiritual mother. If the Jerusalem Bishopric, promoted, (at the instance of a foreign minister, not in communion with our Church,^[170] and who has recorded in the strongest terms his objection to her apostolical episcopacy,) by two Bishops on their private responsibility, without any authority from the Church of which they are indeed most honoured, but only individual rulers, be the commencement of a course of amalgamation with the Lutheran or Calvinistic heresy, who that values the authority of the ancient undivided Church, will not feel his allegiance to our own branch fearfully shaken? The time for silence is past. There is such a thing as "propter vitam vivendi perdere causas." It must be said publicly that such a course will lead infallibly to a schism, which will bury the Church of England in its ruins. If she is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous latitudinarianism; if first principles of the faith, such as baptismal regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or denied within her pale,—though, if not God's very truths, they are most fearful blasphemies,—the sooner she is swept away the better. There is no mean between her being "a wall daubed with untempered mortar," or the city of the living God. I speak as one who has every thing commonly valuable to man depending on this decision; moreover, as a Priest in that communion, whose constitution, violently suspended by an enemy for one hundred and thirty years, yet requires that every one of her acts, which bind her as a whole, should be assented to by her Priesthood in representation, as well as by her Episcopacy. If the grace of the sacraments may be publicly denied by ministers of the Church, nay, by a Bishop ex cathedrâ, with impunity, in direct violation of the most solemn forms to which they have sworn obedience, while the assertion of Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist draws down censure on the most devoted head, the communion which endures such iniquity requires the constant uninterrupted intercession of her worthier children, that she be not finally forsaken of God, and perish at the first attack of antichrist.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.