if* Shelf. PRINCETON, N. J. BX 958 .C4 A42 1866 Allies, T. W. 1813-1903, The see of St. Peter ^. ./ THE SEE OF ST. PETER THE ROCK OF THE CHURCH, THE SOURCE OF JURISDICTiaK ;V^ A«- AND ■t'^y "^' y\^ ' <, THE CENTRE OF TJNITY.V BT THO^IAS WILLIAJ^I "allies, M.A. Venitc, fratres, si vtiltis ut inscramini in vite. Dolor est, cum vos videmns prfecisos ita jacere. Numerate SacoKlotes vel ab ipsa Petri Sede, Et in ordine illo patrum quis cui succossit videtc ; Ipsa est PETRA, quam non vincunt superb* inferonun porta3. S. August. Psalm, cont. pari. Dona.H. LONDON : BURNS, LAMBERT, AND GATES, 17 & 18 Portman Street and 03 Paternoster Row. MDCCCLXVI. By the same Autlior, THE FOEJ^IATION OF CHRISTENDOM. 8vo, 12.S. Bl^.Ol' TO HIS HOLINESS POPE PIUS THE NINTH IS MOST HUMBLY OFFERED THIS EDITION OF A WORK WHICH ON ITS FIRST APPEARANCE HAD THE HONOUR OF BEING TRANSLATED AND CIRCULATED BY HIS ORDER. LONEOX, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1S65. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface to the Third Edition 1 An incorrect statement of Dr. Pusey in his Eirenicon . 1 The personal part of his statement refuted ... 2 The material part of it considered 3 Analysis of the book called The Church of England cleared from the Charge of Schism 4 The whole question stated to lie in the point whether the Papal Supremacy be of divine right or not ... 4 Claims of the early Roman Pontiffs 5 Of S. Leo the Great G Summary of his conduct as illustrating his words . . 9 The Chm-ch's acceptance and ratification of his claims by the mouth of the Council of Chalcedon ... 10 Conclusion that the Roman Primacy is of divine right drawn in the book 13 Statement of the Church of England's defence, that this Primacy had been changed into a Monarchy . , 14 The whole question of doctrine at the same time reserved . 17 A union with Protestant heresies would destroy her . . 18 And, equally, an indifferent holding or denying of CathoHc truths 19 The book thus grounds the defence of the Church of Eng- land on two points, — the corruption of the Roman Pri- macy into a Monarchy, and the ignoring, or rather impUcit denial of, the Royal Supremacy . . .21 What two years did with this defence .... 22 VI CONTENTS. PAGE The immense power of the Eoyal Supremacy brought out by the Gorham judgment 22 Statement of it by the author in 1850 .... 23 The 37th Article, Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions, and the Act 1 Eliz. c. i. viewed as a whole .... 23 The Power of Order not assumed by the Eoyal Supremacy 26 The Papal Supremacy is so assumed, which consists in acts of Jurisdiction, and not in acts of Order ... 27 Necessity of considering Order and Jurisdiction . . 28 (o) The Power of Order 28 This Power, as strictly considered, decUned by Queen Eli- zabeth 31 (Z>) The Power of Jurisdiction twofold . . .31 I. Jurisdiction in foro externo, — its existence proved by Scripture, by the use of it in Scripture, by the history of the Church 32 This Power distinct from that of temporal government, 1. in its end ; 2. in its origin ; 3. in its subjects . . 34 This Power annexed to the crown by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth 35 Testimony from Bishop Gibson and Dr. Cardwell to this effect 36 Hooker's statement of the Royal Supremacy ... 37 Difference between the Regale of earlier times and other countries, and the Supremacy established by Elizabeth 38 It was not the mere abolition of appeals abroad . . 39 Historical carrying out of Elizabeth's idea in. — 1. Parker's consecration 40 2. Suspension of Abp. Grindal by Queen Elizabeth . 44 3. Suspension of Abp. Abbot by Charles I. . .44 4. Absolution of Abp. Abbot by James I. . . .45 5. Deposition of Abp. Sancroft, and modern acts of the crown and parliament 46 II. Jurisdiction in foro intemo 47 Power of the keys belonging to Order in its essence, to Jurisdiction in its exercise .... 47 CONTEXTS. Vii PAGE Bearing of the Royal Supremacy on this power . 50 The Royal Supremacy based on two grounds — 1. The denial that the Church of Christ is one mystical Body .51 2. The denial that there is a proper priesthood in the Church, and so a special power to govern it . 52 Result of the Royal Supremacy to make all acts springing from s^Diritual jurisdiction in the Church of England null and invalid 53 And to make the civil power the supreme judge of doctrine 54 The positive standing-ground of the author in. defending the Church of England swept away by the Royal Su- premacy 5-i His negative ground for not being a Catholic removed in the second book, The See of St. Peter .... 55 Analysis of this book, and of its answer to the first . . 55 The main position of this book corroborated by the outcry against the establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy . 57 Dr. Pusey's judgment on the effect of the Gorham decision in 1850 58 His Eirenicon the exact contradiction of this judgment . 50 The derivation of the power of spiritual jurisdiction from the nation the formal and permanent act of schism and heresy GO The Truth and Office of the Church of England to ex- hibit to the whole world what are the results of such a principle . . . G2 VUl CONTENTS. FAGB Introductiox. Effect of the Civil Supremacy in the Church of England on the writer's convictions and conduct, and on his pre- vious defence of that Church .... 65-74 SECT, I. The Primacy of S. Peter an existing Power ... 75 II. The Scriptural Proof of the Primacy .... 89 III. The End and Office of the Primacy . . . .113 IV. The Power of the Primacy 129 V. The Church's Witness to the Primacy .... 152 1. A general Supremacy in the Eoman See over the whole Church ; a Supremacy exactly the same in principle with that which is now claimed . 158 2. The grounding of this Supremacy on the attribu- tion of Matt. xvi. 18, Luke xxii. 31, and John . xxi. 15, in a special sense to the Pope as suc- cessor of S. Peter 179 3. The original derivation of Episcopal Jurisdiction from the person of Peter, and its perpetual fountain in the See of Rome as representing him 179 4. The Papal Supremacy over the East acknowledged by its own rulers and Councils before the sepa- ration 202 5. The Pope's attitude to Councils as indicating his rank 210 6. His confirmation of Councils .... 212 7. The necessity of Communion with the Pope . 216 VI. S. Peter's Primacy, and the Royal Supremacy . . 222 VII. The effects of S. Peter's Primacy, and of the Royal Supremacy 238 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION A LETTER TO DR. PUSEY. In a book lately published by you, entitled Tlie Truth and Offi.ce of the English Church, you do me the honour to make frequent citations from a work of mine, published when I was a clerg}Tnan of the Church of England ; and in a note at page 237 you remark, "In quoting tliis book (^Allies' Church of Emjland cleared from Schism) I would say that his second work, after that, in despau' of the Eng- lish Chiu'ch on the Gorham judgment, he left the Church of England, is no real answer to this, which he A^Tote not as a partisan, but as the fruit of investigations, as to whose issue lie was indifferent." Here are statements, both of fact and of opinion, Avhich it seems to me challenge a reply, and which I do not feel incHned to pass over without one. And first, there is an error of fact, on which a state- ment of opinion is grounded. Not the first book only, but both the works in question — T7ie Church of England cleared from Schis7n, and TJie See of S. Peter the Hock of the Church, the Source of Jurisdiction, and the Centre of Unifij — Avere B 2 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. written and published by me as a clergyman of tlie Clinrcli of England. The preface of the second closes with the words, " My last act as an Anglican, and my last duty to Anglicanism, is to set forth, as I do in the following pam- phlet, what has induced me to leave it." The conclusions to which I came, as the result of five years' study and prayer, in the second book, were so powerful as to force me to give up my living, to leave the communion in which I had been born and bred, and in which all my hopes of prosperity in this world lay, to become a layman in the Catholic Chui'ch, and in middle years to begin life anew. This work you describe as the work of a partisan. Of the former work — the result of two years and a half of study and prayer, the immediate effect of which was that I felt myself enabled to continue where I was in the Church of England — you say that it was "the fruit of investigations, as to Avhose issue he was indifferent." I should like you to explain what ground you have for saj-ing that in the one case I wTote a book which was " the fruit of investigations to whose issue I was indifferent," when the result was that by means of those investigations I was enabled to retain what to most men is not indifferent, their position in the religious com- munion in which they are born and bred, their profession, and a competent rank and provision in support of it; while in the other case I wrote a book " as a partisan," the im- mediate result of which was that all these advantages had to be sacrificed. Did you simply mean that when I seemed to defend the Church of England, this was " the fruit of investigations to which I was indifferent;" but that when, PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 6 after double the time, labour, tliought, and prayer, I felt I could defend her no lono;er, I A\Tote " as a partisan" ? To wTite as a partisan is, I suppose, to -smte not as one -who regards truth before all things, but something else more precious than the truth. ^Yh.Sit ground have you for saying that this something acted upon me in the second case and not in the first ? I ventm'e to think and to assert that I wrote both the first and second book with equal honesty ; I WTOte neither as a partisan, but for the satisfaction of my own conscience. The first, which you term " the fruit of investigations, as to whose issue I was indifferent," carried w^th it no sacrifice ; the second, which you term the work " of a partisan," carried with it a great one : but both were the fruit of investigations, not to which I was indifferent — for that in both cases was impossible — but in which I was determined tlmt no consequences to myself should prevent me from setting forth what I believed to be the truth. Having said so much on the personal question, with regard to vour statement that I wTote the second book " as a partisan," I now tui*n to the more important point, which, however, you seem to ground on this statement of yours, namely, that my second book is no real answer to the first. Now, you make this assertion to those who ai'c probably unacquainted vdth both books, one of wliicli was published so long ago as, the first edition in 1846, the second in 1848, and the other in 1850. It is requisite, therefore, that I should give a short analysis of the ai'gument in both cases ; and this, I think, will make it clear whether or no the second book is an answer to the first. 4 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. The book, then, called The Church of England cleared from the Charge of Schism hy the Decrees of the Seven Ecu- menical Councils and the Traditions of the Fathers, consists of two parts ; one, the exhibition of the Roman Primacy ; the other, a defence of the Church of England. I will take each in its order :. 1. I began by saying, The AATiter of the following pages is more and more con- vinced that the Avliole question between the Eoman Church and ourselves, as well as the Eastern Church, turns upon the Papal Supremacy, as at present claimed, being of divine right, or not. If it he, then have we nothing else to do, on peril of salvation, but submit ourselves to the authority of Eome ; and better were it to do so before we meet the attack, which is close at hand, of an enemy who bears equal hatred to ourselves and to Eome ; the predicted " lawless one," the Logos, reason, or private judg- ment of apostate humanity rising u\) against the Divine Logos, incarnate in His Church. Having thus laid down that the question "whether the Roman Primacy be of divine right or not, is the hinge upon which all tiunis, I say in p. 19, when speaking of the Primacy, as sllO\^^l at the Council of Nica^a: This precedence or prerogative of Eome, to whatever extent it reached, was certainly, not'withstandmg the famous 28th canon of Chalcedon, not either claimed or granted, es|)ecially in the West, merely because Eome was the imperial city. It was explicitly claimed by the Bishop of Eome himself, and as freely conceded by others to him, as in a special sense successor of S. Peter. Prom the earliest times that the Church comes before us as an organised body, the germ at least of this preeminence is observable. Prom the very first the Eoman Pontiff seems pos- sessed hhnself, as from a living tradition wliicli had thoroughly PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 5 penetrated the local Eoman Churcli, with a consciousness of some peculiar influence he was to exercise on the whole Church. This consciousness does not shoAV itself here and there in the line of Eoman Pontiffs, hut one and all, whatever their indivi- dual characters might be, seem to have imbibed it from the atmosjDhere which they breathed. S. Victor and S. Stephen, S. Innocent, S. Leo the Great, and S. Gregory, are quite of one mind here. That they Avere the successors of S. Peter, who himself sat and ruled and spoke in their person, was as strongly felt, and as consistently declared, by those Pontiffs who preceded the time of Constantine, and who had continually to pay Avith theii" blood the })rice of that high preeminence, as by those who followed the conversion of the empire when the honour of their post was not accompanied by so much danger. I am speaking noAV, be it remembered, of the feeling 'wliich jpossessed them. The feeling of their brother Bishops concerning them may have been less definite, as was natural ; but, at least, even those who most opposed any arbitrary stretch of authority on their part, as S. C^'^prian, fully admitted that they sat in the See of Peter, and ordinarily treated them A^dth the greatest deference. This is written so very legibly upon the records of antiquity, that I am persuaded any one, Avho is even very slightly acquainted with them, cannot "svith sincerity dispute it. Going on rather more than a hundred years, I come to S. Leo the Great, and of him I say, p. 248, that liis Long and able Pontificate will afford us the best means of judg- ing what the legitimate power of the Roman See was, and hoAV it tended to the preservation and unity of the whole Chmxh. He hved at an important crisis, when the barbarous tribes of the J^orth were about to burst over the Empire and the Church ; the system of which, had it not been consolidated by lumself, his immediate predecessors and successors, might have been dis- solved and broken up into fragments, I will first show, by a few qiiotations, that S. Leo had no slight sense of his own duty and dignity among his brother Bishops. We will then see 6 PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. how liis actions, and the way m Avhich they Avere received by others, supported his Avords. I tlien quote the following from a sermon of his on the anniversary of his consecration : " Althongh, then, beloved, our piartaking in that gift be a great subject for common joy, yet it Avere a better and more excellent cause of rejoicing, if ye rest not in the consideration of our hu- mility ; more profitable and more Avorthy by far it is to raise the mind's eye unto the contemplation of the most blessed Apostle Peter's glory, and to celebrate this day chiefly in the honour of him, Avho was Avatered Avith streams so copious from the very Fountain of all graces, that Avhile nothing has passed to others Avithout his participation, yet he received many special priAoleges of his OAvn. The Word made flesh aheady dAvelt in us, and Christ had given up Himself Avhole to restore the race of man. Wisdom had left nothing unordered ; poAver left nothing difiS.- cult. Elements Avere obeying, spirits ministermg, angels serving ; it was impossible that Mystery could fail of its effect, in which the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead itself AA^as at once working. And yet out of the loliole loorld Peter alone is cliosen to jpi'Gside over the calling of all the Gentiles, and over all the Apostles, and the collected Fathers of the Church; so that though there he among the peojjle of God many p)Tiests and many shepherds, yet Peter i-ides all by personal commission, xohom Christ also ndes hy sovereign power. Beloved, it is a great and wonderful participation of His oivn2)ower tvhich the Divine con- descendence gave to this man; and if He willed that other riders shoidd enjoy aught together icith him, yet never did He give, save through him, what He denied not to others. In fine, the Lord asks all the Apostles what men think of Him ; and they ansAver in common so long as they set forth the doubtfulness of human ignorance. But Avhen Avhat the disciples think is re- quired, he AA'ho is first in ApostoHc dignity is first also in con- fession of the Lord. And Avhen he had said, ' Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,' Jesus ansAvered him, ' Blessed art PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 7 thou,> Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood liath not re- vealed it to thee, but INIy Father, which is in Heaven;' that is, Thou art blessed, because My Father hath taught thee ; not opinion which is of the earth deceived thee, but heavenly inspu-ation instructed thee; and not flesh and blood hath 3ho\vn ]\Ie to thee, but He, whose only-begotten Son I am. And I, saith He, say unto thee, that is, as My Father hath manifested to thee My Godhead, so I, too, make Icnown to thee, thine o^vvn preeminence. For thou art Peter; that is, whilst I am the inmiutable Eock, I, the corner-stone, who make both one, I, the foundation beside which no one can lay another ; yet thou also art a rock, because hij My virtue tliou art edahVished, so that luhatever is Mbie by sovereign poicer is to thee hy ^participation common toWi Me. And upon tliis rock I Avill build My Chiu-ch, and the gates of hell sliall not prevail agamst it : on tliis strength, saith He, I Avill build an eternal temple, and My Church, Avhich m its height shall reach the heaven, shall rise upon the firmness of tliis faith. This con- fession the gates of heU shall not restrain, nor the chains of death fetter; for that voice is the voice of Ufe. And as it raises those Avho confess it xinto heavenly places, so it phmges those who deny it into helL Wherefore it is said to most blessed Peter, ' I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' Tlie privilege of this power did indeed pass to the other Apostles, and the order of tbis decree reached to all the rulers of the Church, but not without piu'pose what is in- tended for all is put into the hands of one. For therefore is this intrusted to Peter singly, because all the rulers of the Church are invested with the figure of Peter. The privilege, therefore, of Peter remaineth, wheresoever judgment is passed according to his equity. Kor can severity or indulgence be excessive, where notlung is bound, nothing loosed, save what blessed Peter either bindeth or looseth. But at the approach of His passion, which would disturb the firnuiess of His disciples, the Lord 8 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. saitli, ' Simon, Simon, beliold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; hut I have j^rayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, that ye enter not into temptation.' The danger from the temptation of fear was common to all the Apostles, and they equally needed the help of Divine protection, since the devil desired to dismay, to make a wreck of all ; and yet the Lord takes care of Peter in particular and asks specially for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the rest would he more certain, if the mind of their chief were not overcome. So then in Peter the strength of all is j^rotccted, and the help of Divine grace is so ordered, that the stahilitg, which through Christ is given to ■ Peter, througli Peter is conveyed to the Apostles. " Since, therefore, beloved, we see such a protection divinely granted to us, reasonably and justly do Ave rejoice in the merits and dignity of our Chief, rendering thanks to the Eternal King, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, for having given so great a power to him whom He made chief of the Avhole Church, that if any thing, even in our time, by us be rightly done and rightly ordered, it is to be ascribed to his Avorking, to his guidance, unto whom it was said, — ' And thou, wlien thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren :' and to Avhom the Lord, after His resurrection, in answer to the triple jDrofession of eternal love, thrice said with mystical intent, 'Peed My sheep.' And this, beyond a doubt, the pious shepherd does even noAV, and fulfils the charge of his Lord ; strengthening us Avitli his exhortations, and not ceasing to pray for us, that avb may be overcome by no temptation. But if, as we must believe, he everj Avhere dis- charges this affectionate guardianship to all the people of God, hoAV much more aatII he condescend to grant his help unto us his children, among A\diom on the sacred couch of his blessed repose he resteth in the same flesh in AvMch he ruled. To liim, therefore, let us ascrilDB this anniversary day of us liis servant, and this festiA^al, by whose advocacy Ave have been thought worthy to share his seat itself, the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ helping us in all things, "Who liveth and reigneth Avith God the Pather and the Holy Spirit "for ever and ever." PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 9 These being the icords of S. Leo the Great as to his ova\ office, I give, in p. 252, the follo^Ying smnniaiy of his actions : xi PontiiF so deeply and religiously impressed with the pre- rogatives of S. Peter's successor, Avas likely to he energetic in discharging his duties. In truth, we behold S. Leo set on a watch-tower, and directing his gaze over the whole Church : over his own West more especially, but over the East too, if need be. He can judge Alexandria, Antioch, and Constan- tmople, as well as Eugubium, and is as ready too. Wherever Canons are broken, ancient customs disregarded, encroachments attempted, where Bishops are neglectful, or Metropolitans t}Tan- nical, where heresy is imjjuted to Patriarchs ; in short, wherever a stone in the whole sacred building is bemg loosened, or threatens to fall, there is he at hand to repair and restore, to warn, to protect, and to pimish. In p. 275, I say: The question then at issue is, whether the Bishop of Rome be the first of the Patriarchs, and first Bishop of the whole ■world, the liead of the ApostoHc college, and holding among them the place which Peter held; all wliich I fi-eely acknowledge as the testunony of antiipiity. At p. 270, I had already said : I am fidly prepared to admit that the Primacy of the Roman See, even among the Patriarchs, Avas a real thing ; not a mere title of honour. On reading over now S. Leo's statement of his oavii Primacy, as quoted from my book above, I cannot forbear remarking that Comit de Maistre would be quite satisfied so to express the office and prerogatives of the Holy Fatlier, and I feel that our present Holy Father Avould desire no 10 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. better exponent of the rights and poAvers of the Apostolic See than his great predecessor gives in the passage quoted. But how did his own contemporaries receive it ? Did they protest that he was assuming a power never given to his see ? Did they dechire that, in terming himself the special successor of S. Peter, who lived and reigned in his see, he was introducing a new and unknown idea? In pp. 298-302, 1 give the synodical letter of the Ecumenical Council of Chaicedon to this same Pope. Be it remem- bered that it was a Council composed of all the great prelates of the East, the Roman legates, who presided in the name of the Pope, being the only Westerns present ; that it is one of the fom' Comicils which the Anglican Church still professes to receive as Ecumenical; that, therefore, if there be any occasion in all the eighteen cen- turies on Avhich the whole Chiu'ch, according to Anglican principles, may be said to have spoken, it is by the voice of this Comicil. I quote then again from my book what this Council said spontaneously to Pope S. Leo, on the very subjects on which, above, w^e have seen him speaking himself. First, p. 298, they call the Pope specially the successor of S. Peter, and, as such, the maintainer of the deposit of doctrine descending from Christ, and their leader (apxn'yoq) unto good. " Our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue "with joy : grace has fitted this prophecy to us, by whom the restora- tioH of piety has been accomplished. For what can be higher matter of concern for joy than the Faith 1 or motive for brighter pleasure than the knowledge of the Lord, which the Saviour PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 11 Himself delivered iiiito us from above for our salvation, when He said, ' Go ye, and make discijjles all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of. the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all tilings "whatsoever T have commanded you.' Tliis knowledge descending to us like a golden chain from the command of Him who established it, thou hast kept through- out, heing set forth to all men as the interpreter of the voice of the blessed Peter, and draiclng upon all the hlessvng of his faith. Whence we also, enjoying the advantage of tliee as our leader unto good, have exhibited the inheritance of the truth to the children of the Church, not teacliing each by himself in a corner, but making known the confession of the Faith vdth. one Spirit, with one accord and agreement." Speaking of themselves as assembled in Ecimienical Council, they say the Pope presided over them, as the Head over tlie members. " For if where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He said He would be in the midst of them, how intimately showed He Himself to five hvmdred and twenty priests, who preferred the declaration of their confession in Him before both theu' country and their toil ! Amongst icliom thou as a head over the memhers didst jJTeside, in the persons of those Avho held thy place, showing thy good-will." They speak of the Pope as the one to whom the guard- ianship of Ilis vine was intrusted by the SaAioiu' ; sa^-ing of Dioscorus, the deposed Archbishop of Alexandria, that he, " Besides all this turned his madness even against the very one intrusted by the Saviour witlt the guardianship of the vine, thy Holiness we mean." They term themselves the Holy Father's children : " We have judged well-timed the confirmation of this honour to it" (the rank of the Second See to the Church of Constanti- nople), " by the Ecumenical Coiuicil, and have ratified it Avith 12 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. confidence, as if it had been begim by tliy Holiness, who art ever ready to cherish them : helng mvare that every success of the children is reckoned to the parents loho own them'''' (I should have translated, who make it, the success, theh o"vvn). " We therefore entreat that you would honour our decision with your suffrage likewise : as ice have introduced agreement with the head {-fj KefpaXTj) in good things, so let youT Highness (?) Kopvcpij Tots ■n-aialv) fulfil to your children u'hat is fitting y Lastly, they leave to him the confirmation of their acts : " We have left the whole force of the acts to you, that you may cqjprove of us, confirming and assenting to lohcd we have done'^ After giving this letter in full, I say, p. 302 : He who rejects the Primacy of the Pope, with this letter of the Council of Chalcedon before Mm, must be jDrepared to give up the witness of antiquity, and to reject the authority of the Cathohc Church. In p. 491, summing up the whole seven centuries, I say : History, then, teaches us that, as a fact, the Primacy of Eome has always existed ; and reverence would suggest that what has always been admitted by the Clim^ch of Christ, His Bride, Avas intended and foreordered by Him, Avith those whose voice she speaks. Li p. 313, I had said : The Primacy, being itself of divine institution, might yet have greater or smaller privileges attached to it by the Canons of Counchs or tacit consent of Bishops. And again, in p. 315 : In truth it by no means follows that because the Primacy is of divine institution, therefore all the privileges which are claimed under cover of the Prunacy are likemse of Divine institution. Here then is a summary of the contents of my book, which you say that I wrote, " not as a partisan, but as the PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 13 fruit of investigations, as to whose issue I was indifferent," on the main subject upon which it treats, the Roman Primacy. I began by stating that all turned upon the point whether it was of cUvine institution or not, and I came to the conclusion, that it is of divine institution, so borne witness to by antiquity, .and the authority of the Church, especially as assembled at the fourth Ecumenical Covmcil, which may be said to sum up and embody the liistory of the preceding foui' Imndi-ed years, and to interpret and harmonise the whole evolution of the Papacy in that time, and thus to corroborate its exercise by S. Leo, that (p. 302) " he Avho rejects the Primacy of the Pope, vdth this letter of the Council of Chalcedon before him, must be prepared to give up the witness of antiquity, and to reject the authority of the Catholic Chui'ch ;" to which I add, in p. 491, that "he who believes in the Church as the Bride of Christ must believe that what has always been admitted by her was intended and foreordered by Him, with whose voice she speaks." What then was the defence of the Chm'ch of England which, in the midst of such statements concerning the Roman Primacy, I set up? It is thus stated in p. 366 : That during this period (the first six centuries) the Bishop of Rome was recognised to be first Bishop of the whole Church, of XQjj great influence, successor of S. Peter, and standing in the same relation to his brethren the Bishops that S. Peter stood in to his brother Apostles; this, on the whole, I beheveto be the testimony of the first six centuries, such as a person not wilfuUy l)Hnd, and who was not content to take the witness of a Father when it suited his purpose and passed it by when it did not, 14 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. would draw from Ecclesiastical dociiiaeuts. I have set it forth to the hest of my ahility, as well where it seemed to tell against the j)resent position of the Church of England, as in those many points in which it suj^ports her. "What then is our defence on her part against the charge of schism ? It is simply this. That no one can now he in the Communion of Eome without admitting this very thing which Pope Gregory declares to he blasphemous and antichristian, and derogatory to the honour of every Priest. This is the veiy head and front of om' offending, that we refuse to allow that the Pope is Universal Eishop. If the charge were, that Ave refuse to stand in the same relation to the Pope that S. Augustine of Canterhury stood in to this very S. Gregory, that we refuse to regard and honour the successor of S. Gregory with the same honour with which oixr Archhishops, as soon as they were seated in the govern- ment of their Church, and were no longer merely Missionaries but Primates, regarded the occupant of S. Peter's See, I think both the separation tlu^ee 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 elaj^sed between 596 and 1534, the j)ower 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 Vicar of the Prsefectus Prtetorio 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 Avell as West ; in fact, the " Solus Sacerdos," the " Universus Episcopus," contemplated by S. Gregory. There is a world-wide difference between the ancient signatm'e of the Popes, " Episcoj^us Catholicae Ecclesias Urbis Eomcos," and that of Pope Pius at the Coimcil of Trent, " Ego Pius Catholicse Ec- clesise Episcopus." It has been no longer left in the choice of PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 15 any to accept his Prlmacij, without accepting his Monarclnj, which those who profess to follow antiquity must helieve that the Eishops of jSicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, Augustine and Chrysostom, the West and the East, would have rejected Avith the horror shown by S. 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 hy S. Peter and the ApostoHc College, and, during the times of the seven Ecumenical Councils at least, as the Bishop of liome is seen to exercise the Primacy of S. Peter, so his brother Bishops stand to him as the College of Apostles stood to S. Peter ; instead of this, which is the Church's di\ane hierarchy, instituted hy Christ Him.self, the actual Eoman Chiu'ch is governed by one Bishop who has an Apostolical independent power, whilst all the rest, who should be his bretliren, are merely his delegates, receiving from his hand the investitiu-e of such privileges as they still retain. If S. Gregory did not mean tliis by the terms " Solus Sacerdos," " Universus Episcopus," what did he mean 1 That the Pope should be the only Priest who offered sacrifice, or the only Bisliop who ordained, confirmed, &c., is j)hysically impossible. Xor did the title of the Bishops of Constantinople tend to this : but to claim to themselves jims- diction over the coiJrdinate 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 inlierently 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 en- dure almost any degi-ee of usurpation, provided only it be not antichristian, 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 EngHsh, and the Eastern Churcli, but IG PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. tlie Eoman also, lies fettered and powerless before the might of the world, and hleeding internally at every pore. How shall a divided Church meet and overcome the philosophical nnhehef of these last times ? or, the one condition to which victory is attached being broken, crash the deadliest attack of the old enemy 1 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 S. Gregory's words, can be forced upon us, on pain of our salvation, who have the original succession of the ancient Bishops of tliis reahn, if any such there be, and the old Patriarchal constitution, " sioa tanfum si hoiia norint." I gTound our present position simply on the appeal to tradition and the decrees of all the Ecumenical Councils. Again, at p. 446 : If it be true that the Pope is Monarch of the Church, which is the present Papal theory, the Chiu'ch of England is in schism. If it be not true, she is at least clear of that fatal mark. All that is reciuhed for her position is the maintenance of that ISTicene Constitution, Avhich we have heard S. Leo solemnly declare was to last to the end of the "U^orld, viz. that every Pro\'ince of the Church be governed by its OAvn Bishops under its own Metropolitan. And Avho then but will deshe that the successor of S. Peter should hold S. Peter's place 1 "Will the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the Archbishop of Moscow, or the Primate of Canterbury, so much as think of assuming it 1 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 Eome require of us that honour and power which he possessed at the Synod of Chalcedon, that, and not a totaUy cUferent one tcnde?' the same name, and we shall be in scliism when we do not yield it. At jDresent we have no farther separated from hun than to fall back on the constitution of the Chm-ch of the Mart}T.'S and the Fathers. PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 17 But with regard to this defence it is further stated tliat the whole question of doctrine is resers'ed. I quote the concluding pages (pp. 505-8) : As our defence against the charge of scliisni rests upon the witness of the ancient Church, thus fully corrohoratcd by the Eastern Cofumunion, so our whole safety hes 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 cmsorily 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 oiu^ safety to repel one single charge : but this charge was the most pressing, the njost specious, and one which requires to be disposed of before the mind can with equa- nuuity enter upon any other. My conclusion is, that upon the strictest Church principles, — in other words, upon those prin- ciples which all Christendom, in its undivided state, recognised for eight hundred years, Avhich may be seen in the Canons and Decrees of the seven Ecumenical Councils, and more at large in the actions and writings of the Fathers, — our present position is tenable at least till the convocation of a really Eciunenical Council. The Chiu-ch of England has never rejected the Com- munion of the Western, and still less that of the Eastern Chm-ch : neither has the Eastern Church pronounced against her. She has only exercised the right of being governed by her own Bishops and ]\fetropolitans. There is, indeed, much peril of her being forced from this, her true position. I cannot con- ceive any course which woidd so thoroughly quench the awak- ened hopes of the Church's most faithfid 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 Avhich, if at all, the Church of Christ must be restored, — not in that great system which first subdued and then impregnated wuth C 18 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. fresh life the old Eoman Emphe, delaying a fall which nothing could avert, and which lastly built up out of those misshapen ruins all the Christian polities of Europe, — not in that tinie- honoined and universal fabric of doctrine to wliich our OAvn Prayer-book bears -witness, but in the Avild, inconsistent, trea- cherous symjjathies of a Protestantism, which the history of three hundred years in many various countries has proved to be dead to the heart's core. FareAvell, indeed, to any true defence of the Church of England, any hope of her being built up once more to an Apcstohcal beauty and glory, of recovering her lost discipHne and intercommunion mth Christendom, if she is by any act of her rulers, or any decree of her own, to be mixed up Avith the folloAvers of Luther, Calvin, or Zuingle : Avith those who have neither love, nor vuiity, nor dogmatic truth, nor Sa- craments, 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 Pro- testantism lies throughout Europe and America a great disjointed mass, in all the putridity of dissolution, " Monstrum liorrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen adcvqjtum,'''' judicially l)linded, so that it cannot perceive Christ dwelling in His Church, while she grows to the measure of the statm'e of the perfect man, and maldng her members and ministers His organs — who would think of joining to it a living Church 1 Have we gone through so much experience in vain ? Have we seen it develop into Socinianism at Geneva, and utter unbelief in Germany, ancf a host of sects in England and America, whose name is Legion, and who seem to be agreed in nothing else but in the deidal of Sacramental grace and visible unity ; and all this at the last hour, in the very tm^ning-point of our destiny, to seek alliance with those who have no other point of imion but common resistance to the tabernacle of God among men ? A PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 19 persuasion that nothing short of the very existence of the Church of England is at stake, that one step into the Avrong will hx her character and her prospects for ever, compels one to say that certain acts and tendencies of late have struck dismay into those Avho desire above all things to love and resi^ect their spiritual mother. If the Jerusalem Bishopric, the still-born offspring of an illicit connection, " Cui non risere parentes," be the commencement of a course of amalgamation with the Lu- theran or Calvinistic heresy, avIio that values the authority of the ancient undivided Chru'ch Avill not feel his allegiance to oiu' own branch of it fearfully shaken 1 " I>Iay that measure utterly fail and come to naught, and be as though it had never been !" The time for silence is past. There is such a thing as ^^ propter vitam vivendam j^erdere causas." It must be said publicly that such a coiu'se will lead infallibly to a schism, which will bury the Church of England in its ruins. If she is to become a mere liu-king-place for omnigenous latitudinarianism ; if first princi- ples of the Faith, such as baptismal regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or denied withiu her pale, — though if not God's very truths, they are most fearful blasphe- mies, — the sooner she is swept away the better. There is no mean between her being " a wall daubed ■v^'ith imtempered mor- tar," or the city of the living God. I speak as one who has every thing commonly valuable to man depending on this de- cision ; moreover, as a Priest in that Conununion, Avliose consti- tution, violently suspended by an Enemy for one hundred and thuiy years, yet requires that every one of her acts, which biad her as a whole, should be assented to by her Priesthood in representation, as well as by her Episcopacy. To suffer it to be an open question, a matter of doubt, which he who wills may hold, and he who Avills may deny, Avhether or no grace is at- tached to the acts of the Church, whether or no she has the power and presence of her Lord, whether or no the Body of Clu'ist is really offered on her altars, is a course as intrinsically 20 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. dishonest and contemptible, as in its effects it nmst "be disas- trous. ■\Vlaat house with such a rent in it can stand against the first wind that blows ? The true position of the Church of England is far other than this. She claimed of old to maintain the Faith of the East and West : her security lies in setting it forth in all its purity, in all its completeness. It is not hy dis- sembling, hut hy exliihiting the truth in its entire cycle, that she must prevail : not hy enduring a secret and dishonest com- promise between contradictory principles, but by maintaining THE FAITH, that shc must fix the hearts of her children, and draw to her those of her opponents. In a negation, in an un- reality, no heart can rest. For one rule of life, and no more, hath God given, that which His Apostles preached and planted in all lands : and one bosom only is there in which His cliildren may live in charity and die in peace, that of the Holy Church Catholic. In the hour of need no other support can we find, but that we belong to her who is the Bride of her Lord, the Body whose Head is m Heaven, which grows through aU tunes and climes unto the measure of the stature of the perfect man to be revealed in eternity. One temple only is there which gathers in its vast embrace, its long-drawn aisles and central shrine, the worship of all human hearts : which symboKses even in its outward form the life of all Uving beings, and the hope of man — the most Holy Trinity and the Cross — God in Imnself, and God become man, his Saviour, liis Food, and his Eeward — the temple of the Church Catholic. Thrice blessed would he be, who was allowed by the laboiu* of his hands, the toil of his mind, or the cost of his blood, to restore one stone Avhich had been displaced in that divine structure. More blessed yet it were to remove a wall which the Enemy has been allowed to draw within the divine enclosure, defacing its fair proportions, and obscxuing its sacred symbolism ; to join together hearts, which, outwardly divided, feed on the same eternal verity of God made man, and only require the knowledge of each other, of their reciprocal aims and hopes, to be united in outward confes- sion as in inward belief, and to embrace in a never-ending charity. PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 21 It will be seen from the above that, while attesting all throngh my book the existence from the most ancient times of the Roman Primacy, and even calling it of divine institution, while pointing to its exercise by the gi'eat Popes, S. Leo in the middle of the fifth, and S. Gregory at the end of the sixth centmy, as the ideal of the Chui'ch's constitution, I gromid a defence of the Church of England on two points : first, a supposed corruption of this Primacy, whatever it was, into a monarchy, the nature of which cor- ruption, however, is nowhere distinctly specified ; (with this subject I deal most fully in the second book, that on the See of S. Peter, which follows this letter, and especially in the preface to it, and in the sixth and seventh chapters ;) and secondly, an ignoring, or rather an implicit denial of the royal supremacy in the Church of England. I assume the Anglican Bishops to be in possession of those original episcopal powers, which I imagined that the Papacy had taken away from the Bishops of the Roman Church : I see not how a system, wliich is not a true development of the ancient Patriarchal constitution, but its antagonist, can be forced upon us, on jDain of our salvation, who liave 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 (p. 368). This eo;reo;ious en'or of imaginino; that the constitution & in o o of the Anglican Church was the old Patriarchal constitu- tion forms the subject of the pamphlet which I am about to quote. My Avork was published in i'ebruary 1848. Let us 22 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. see Avhat the lapse of two years did wirii the two props which I had set up for the Anghcan Church. Li February 1850, a trial in the Court of Arches, as to whether a beneficed clergyman of the Church of Eng- land might deny the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, had brought out the Royal Supremacy, as the real ruler and supreme governor, as in fact, mutatis mutandis, the Cathedra Petri of Anglicanism. In years before this, from the end of 1845, Avhen I went to you for advice and consolation under chfficulties, and when, as I am constrained to say, your mode of advis- incf and consolino; was to "uncork a foo'-bottle in one's face," your custom was to deny altogether that ugly fact of the Royal Supremacy. I well remember therefore the as- tonishment with which in that month of February 1850 I turned over, in Gibson's Codex, the legal proofs of the Papal Supremacy having been transferred to the civil power. The effect which this discovery had upon me is detailed in a jjamphlet which I then published, and of which I sent you a copy, entitled The Royal Supremacy viewed in reference to the tioo Spiritual Powers of Order and Jurisdiction. As pamphlets quickly pass aw\ay, and as the contents of this are exactly to the point on which I am dwelling;, that is, how far I myself answered what I had written in behalf of the Church of England, I think I cannot do better than cite a portion of this short treatise. The Eoyal Supremacy in causes ecclesiastical has by the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter been brought before the PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 23 minds of all cliurclimen as an object of engrossing interest. And this is true in two points of view. "VYlietlier we regard the power claimed by the croAVii to judge as a final court of appeal, in causes most purely spiritual, or whether we look at the deci- sion itself recently given, the Eoyal Supremacy may be said to be now affectmg the spiritual condition before God of every member of the AngHcan Church. This being the case — that is, the Catholicity of a Avhole Communion, and by consequence the salvation of the souls belonging to it, being at issue, — I feel it impossible to deal with the subject in a controversial spuit. I must not advocate a cause, but simply state the truth. I must not turn away my eyes from certain parts of the subject, because they are disagreeable, nay, in the highest degree oppressive to my convictions and feelings as a Christian. All that I have to deal with is the truth, the actual state of things, and the poet's praise is the highest here, " nothing extenuate, set down naught in mahce" — for to make things appear better than they are, because the reality is very trying, very agitating to tender or to doubtful minds, because one would wish things otherwise, because as a cpiestion of common Christian right, of English liberty, they ought to be otherwise, — tliis is, I think, in a matter of such moment, playing with souls. First, then, as to wliat the Roj^al Supremacy really is, I say Kothing can be plainer than the meanmg of the acts of Pai*- liament ; nor are the articles and canons ambiguous, when it is considered that ihej/olloio these acts of Parliament in time, and have reference to them in their subject matter. For instance, the 37th Article says, " The Queen's ^lajesty hath the chief jDOwer in this realm of England, and other her dominions, unto whom the chief government of all estates of this reahn, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain ; and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction. " Wliere we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the chief go- 24 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. vemment, hj Avhich titles we imderstand tlie minds of some slanderous folks to he offended, we give not to onr Princes the ministering either of God's "Word or of the Sacraments, the which thing the injimctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth onr Queen do most plamly testify; but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all states and degrees committed to their charge by God, whe- ther they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers. The Bishop of Eome hath no jurisdiction in this Eeahn of England." ^ow, supposmg that question may arise as to the nature and extent of this " chief government" here asserted, so far as the article itself goes, yet it refers to two other documents in expla- natioji of its own meaning, viz. to the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, and, in them, to a certain oath imposed by a certain act of Parliament. Let us see whether these two authorities leave us in any doubt as to tlie meaning of the article. The injunctions run thus :* " The Queen's JMajesty being informed that in certain places of the realm simdry of her native subjects, being called to eccle- siastical ministry of the Church, be by sinister persuasion and perverse construction induced to find some scruple m the form of an oath which by an act of the last Parhament is prescribed to be required of divers persons for the recognition of theu' alle- giance to her Majesty, wloich certainly never was meant, nor by any equity of words or good sense can be thereof gathered; would that all her loving subjects should understand that nothing was, is, or shall be meant or intended by the same oath to have any other dutj^, allegiance, or bond requii'ecl by the same oath, tJian was adcnoidedgecl to he due to the most nolle lungs of famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, her Majesties father, or King Edicard the Sixth, her Majestie^s brother. " And fiu'ther, her Majesty forbiddeth all manner her sub- * Gibson, i. 54. PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 25 jects to give ear or credit to such perverse and malicious persons, wliich most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notifie to lier lo-\-ing subjects, how by words of the said oath it may be col- lected, that the Kings oi- Queens of this realm, possessors of the croicn, may chaJJenge authoritij and 2^ower of ministry of divine service in the Church, wherehi her said subjects be much abused by such evil-disposed persons. For certainly her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any authority than that was chal- lenged and lately nscd by the said noble Kings, of famous me- mory, King Henry the Eighth and King Edward the Sixth, which is and was of ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this realm ; that is, under God, to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born Avithin these her realms, domi- nions, and countries, of what estate, either ecclesiastical or tem- poral, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them. And if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said oath shall accept the same oath with tliis interpretation, sense, or meaning, her jNlajesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf as her good and obedient subjects, and shaU acquit them of all mamier of penalties contained m the said act against such as shall peremptorily or obsthiately refuse to take the same oath." The oath here mentioned to be taken by all ecclesiastical persons and temporal officers runs as follows in the Act 1 Eliz. c. 1, which imposes it, sect. 19: " I do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Queen's Higliness is the only supreme Governor of this realm, and of all other her Higlmess's dommions and countries, as well in all S})iritual or Ecclesiastical tilings or causes as Temporal ; and that no foreigii Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Jmisdiction, Power, Superiority, Preeminence, or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Sphitual, within this realm ; and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign Jiuisdictions, Powers, Superiorities, and Authorities, and do promise that from lienceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance unto the Queen's Highness, her heirs and la^^-fid sue- 26 PKEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. cessors, and to my ])otver slmll assist and defend all Jurisdic- tions, Privileges, Preeminences, and Authorities granted or he- longing unto the Qneen^s Higlmess, her heirs and successors, or united and annexed to the imperial croion of this realm." This same act, in sect. 1 7, runs thus : " And that also it may hkewise please yoiu' Highness that it may he estahlished and enacted hy the authority aforesaid, that such Jurisdictions, Privileges, Sicperiorities, and Preeminences, Spiritual and Ecclesiastical, as hy any spiritucd or ecclesiastical power or cmthority hath heretofore heen or may laivfuUy he exer- cised or used for the visitcdion of the ecclesiasticcd state and persons, and for reformcdion, order, and correction of the same, and of all mamier of errors, heresies, schisms, ahuses, offences, contempts, and eno7'mities, shcdl for ever, hy cmthority of this p)resent Parlia- ment, he united and annexed to the impericd crown of this recdm." Bishop Gibson, from whose Codex I quote this act, puts "beside of this section, as its summary, " Such sjiiritual jurisdic- tion, as hath heretofore been exercised, shall be for ever annexed to the cro"UTi." And his heading of the page is, " Supreme Head of the Church of England, Papal and Eegal." I should think that no man living, of competent knowledge and fairness of mind, looking at these three dociunents ; first, the article referring to certain injmictions, then the injunctions referring to and interpreting an oath, which oath is contained in an Act of Parliament enacting further provisions in elucidation of it, which the oath records and embraces, and bearing in mind that the article was accepted and enacted by the Church after the injunctions and the act of ParHament, would fail to draw the conclusion, that both article and injunctions, and act of Parliament, concurred in annexing to the Crown whatever spiri- tual jurisdiction had before been possessed by the Pope. And I think it is equally clear, from the words of the article, and of Queen Elizabeth's injunctions, that the authority and preeminence thus annexed to the crown belonged to the power of Jurisdiction, and not to the power of Order. " Her Majesty forbiddeth to give ear or credit, that the kings or queens PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 27 of this realm, possessors of the crown, may challonp,e authority and poAver of ministry of divine service in the churcli." The change, therefore, did not touch any tiling which be- longed to the mere power of Order. !N'evertheless the Supremacy thus transferred from the Pope to the Sovereign was the full Papal Supremacy ; for that in which the Pope differs from any other priest or any other bishop is not a power of Order, but a power of Jurisdiction. This is stated very lucidly by one of the greatest Eoman theologians thus : " The pontifical power is, as it Avere, the primal example of all spiritual poAver of jurisdiction ; for no one Avill deny that that is a true spiritual poAA-er of actiA'e jurisdic- tion, nay, in that order the highest AAdiich can exist in mere men. ISToAV that poAvcr is not given to the Pontiff by any consecration, but by election, and the bare grant of God ; for Avhen He said to Peter, Feed JMy sheep, He impressed on liim no neAv consecra- tion or character, but gaA^e him a mere poAver of jurisdiction. So too the Pope, when rightly elected, is immediately true Pope as to such power, and as to that receives no consecration ; nay, if not already a bishop or a priest, he must be afterwards consecrated or cA'en ordained, and nevertheless in the mean time Jie can exercise all acts of mere external jurisdiction. Therefore, in the same manner the proper poAver of jurisdiction is granted to other bishops by election, or simple concession, not by consecration, for the principle is the same, not only because the episcopal poAver is but a certain participation of the papal poAver, but likeAA'ise because, as in the appointment of the Pope to apply to him matter (for the exercise of his jurisdiction) is nothing else but to make the AA'hole Church subject to him, and to make it subject to him is nothing else but to giA'c to him a true and iicav power over it ; so, Avhen a see is given to one only consecrated bishop before, matter (for jurisdiction) is applied to him no otherAA'ise than that certain ]Dersons become liis subjects AA'liich before they Avere not ; nor do they become his subjects saA'C by giving hun a ncAv poAver as a superior altogether distinct from the poAvor of Order or from consecration. Lastly, because, lilce us acts of pontifical 28 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. jurisdiction, as such, are not acts of order or consecration, nor iloio from it, so neither are acts of episcojxd jurisdiction ; and a like argument may te drawn from the jurisdiction of the Apostles, as -will be clear to any one who considers it " (Suarez, de Legihus, lib. iv. c. 4). I consider, therefore, tliat the whole subject of the Eoyal Supremacy, of its nature, of its Imiits, its bearing on the spui- tual condition of the church subject to it, and on the adminis- tration of certain sacramental acts of the highest importance as well to the external government of such a church as to the salvation of individual souls, cannot be understood without a previous understanding of the distinction between the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction, and of the acts severally belonging to them ; which I will therefore endeavoiu- briefly to call to remembrance. Spiritual power is manifold, yet it is usual to divide it into the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction. (a) The power of Order may be briefly defined as a certam moral faculty directed to the religious worship of God, either by the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, or by the administra- tion or dispensation of the sacraments instituted for the sanctifi- cation of the faithfid, or by any other ceremonies wliicli may fitly accompany "the holy sacrifice, or the sacraments. Or it may be set forth thus, a little more at length. In the mystical Body of Christ spiritual grace is conferred under the sacrament of visible things. And, as every action should bear a proportion to the agent, the dispensing of such sacraments should take place by visible men possessing a spiritual power. For the institution and virtue of sacraments derive theu" source from Christ, of whom the Apostle said, " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washmg of Avater by the word." So too in the last Supper, Christ gave the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, and instituted it to be repeated ; and these are the chief sacraments : as, then, Christ was about to withdraw His corporal presence from the Church, it was necessary to make PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 29 others His ministers, to dispense tlio sacraments to the faithful, as the Apostle says, " Let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." Thence it ■was that He committed to His disciples the consecration of His Eody and Blood, saying, "Do this in remembrance of 'Me." He gives to them likewise a jiower of remitting sins, according to John XX. 23, " Wliose sins ye remit, they are remitted." Also He laid upon them the charge of teaching and baptising, saying (Matt, xxviii. 19), " Go ye, and teach all nations, baptising them." Kow the mmister stands in such a relation to liis Lord as the instrument to the cliief agent. For just as the instrument is moved by the agent to effectuate any thing, so is the minister moved by liis Lord's command to execute. And the instrument should bear a proportion to the agent : whence the ministers of Clnist too must be conformed to Him. ISTow Christ, as the Lord, -WTought our salvation by His proper authority and vu'tue, in that He was God and man : in that He was man suffering for oiu" redemption ; in that He was God, His passion being salutary to us. So then must the ministers of Christ be men, and par- take somewhat of His Divinity according to a certain spiritual power : since the instrument participates in someAvhat of the virtue of the principal agent. Of this power it is that the Apostle says, " The power which God hath given me to edifica- tion and not to destruction." Xor can we say that such a power was so given to Christ's disciples, as not to be derived through them unto others : for it was given to them for the edification of the Church, as the Apostle has just said. Therefore this power should be perpe- tuated, so long as the Church must be edified. And this must continue after the death of Clirist's disciples unto the end of the world. Spiritual power therefore was given to Christ's disciples, to devolve through them on others : so that the Lord addressed His disciples as representing the rest of the faithful when He said (^Mark xiii. 37), " "VVliat I say unto you, I say mito all ;" and again to His Apostles He said, " Lo, I am with you alway, unto the end of the world." 30 PREFACE TO THE THIED EDITION. Inasimicli, then, as tliis spiritual power is derived from Cluist into the ministers of the Chm'ch, and spuitual effects derived into tis from Clirist are set forth under certain sensible signs, it Avas fitting that tliis spiritual j)ower should he delivered to men under certain sensible signs. Such are certain forms of words, certain determinate acts, such as the imposition of hands, the giving of a book, &c. which belongs to the execution of S|)U'itual power. But whenever any spiritual tiring is given under a bodily sign, tliis may be called a sacrament, l^o^v it is plain that in the bestowal of spiritual power a certain sacrament takes place, AvMch is called the sacrament of Order. And it be- seems God's bounteousness, when He confers on any one power to work any effect, to confer likewise such things without wliich the effect cannot suitably be ^vrought. iNow the administration of sacraments, which is the end of spiritual power, is not suit- ably -sATTOught unless the ministrant is helped thereto by divine grace; and so in tliis sacrament, as in the rest, grace is con- ferred. 'Now as the end of the power of Order is the dispensation of sacraments, and of these the noblest and most perfect is the sacrament of the Eucharist, the power of Order should be con- sidered chiefly in reference to this sacrament, every thing being named from its end. Moreover it seems to belong to the same excellence to give a certain perfection, and to prepare the ma- terial to receive it,* just as fire has power to transfuse its own form into something else, and to disp»ose the material to receive that form. The power of Order, then, reaching to this, to make the sacrament of the Body of Christ, and to dehver it to the faithful, that power should reach likewise to rendering the faith- ful apt and fitting to the perception of tliis sacrament. And a Cliristian is rendered thus apt and fitting, in that he is free from sin : for otherwise he cannot be spiritually united to Christ, to whom he is joined sacramentally in receiving tliis sacrament. So, then, the power of Order must reach to remission of sins by the dispensation of those sacraments whose end is the remission of sin ; and these are baptism and rej^eiitance. Thence it was PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 31 that the Lord gave also the i^ower of reinittmg sins to the Apostles, to whom He committecl the consecratiou of His Body. JS'ow this power is understood by the keys, of wliich the Lord said to Peter, " I will give to thee the keys of the kmgdom of heaven." For the heaven is opened or shut to any one in that he is subject to, or cleansed from, sin : and so the use of these keys is said to be to bind and loose, that is, fi'oiu sins. It would seem, then, that as all grace and pardon in the mystical Body flow from its Head, it is in essence the same power by which a Priest can consecrate, and bind and loose, if he has jimsdiction ; nor does it differ, save in the mode of its application to different effects. And this double power makes up the character of Order, which is indelible. Kow I conceive that the Eoyal Supremacy did not assume to itself any thing that belongs stricthj to the power of Order, and tliis is the value of Queen Elizabeth's disclaimer in her in- junctions, and of those in the thu'ty -seventh article, there called " the ministering of God's word, and of the sacraments." And so again of Bishop Andre wes, " IS^eque vero id agit rex, ne patitur quidem, ut sibi potestas sit, vel incensimi adolendi cum Ozia, A^ei arcam attrectandi cum Oza, quod vos toties tarn odiose incul- catis, vestrum illud (quod ad Primatum Pontificium proprie per- tinere dicitis), docendi munus, vel dubia legis explicandl, non assumit : non vel condones habendi, vel rei sacras prceeundi, vel sacramenta celebrandi ; non vel personas sacrandi, vel res ; non vel clavium jus, vel censuraj. Verbo dicam : nihil ille sibi, nihil nos illi fas putamus attingere, qure ad sacerdotale munus spec- tant, seu potestatem ordinls conseqiaudiu:" I said above, which belongs strictly to the power of Order, for as the power of the keys cannot be exercised without jimsdiction, we sliall see pre- sently what effect the assumption of supreme jiu'isdiction by the civil authority has on that poAver. (h) The second spiritual power above mentioned, that of Jmisdiction, is iisually divided into interior and exterior : so called, not because both are not exercised by sensible and out- ward acts, for both having to deal with men in respect of other 32 PREFACE TO THE THIED EDITION. men must necessarily he exercised ty external acts. But they are so called because one has reference to the sacramental forum, which helongs only to the conscience, and the inward good of souls, and therefore is named interior jurisdiction. ISTow of this I Avill speak fm-ther presently. I. But the other poAver has reference to the government of the Church in the external forum, hy means of judgments, penal- ties, and whatever else is necessary for the right constitution and government of a human commonwealth. And this is called the power of exterior jurisdiction. To this belongs the directive jDower of enacting laws obligatory on the conscience, which ex- ists in the Church : and to this likewise coercive power, and therefore it is also called the power of the contentious forum. Its principle is, that every well-ordered commonwealth needs a power of jurisdiction, as well directive as coercive, in order that it be suitably governed ; and that is clear of itself, even by the light of nature ; but Christ set up His Chiu-ch as one Body poKtic, to be ruled and governed by men, as is plain from the Gospel and the Church's OAvn tradition^ and from the Creed, " I believe in One Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church." There is, then, in this Church a peculiar poAver for ruling and governing it. This may be proved, first, hy Scrijjture. As in om' Lord's words to St. Peter, " I give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ;" and John xxi., " Feed My sheep ;" and again to the Apostles, " He who heareth you, heareth Me ; and he Avho despiseth you, despiseth Me :" and again, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." l!^ow Christ was sent not only as a teacher, but as a legislator and a governor, as the Psalm prophesied of Him, " I will give to Thee the heathen for Tliine inheritance ; Thou shalt rule them Avith a rod of iron." Therefore He sent His Apostles likeAvise Avith a sufficient participation of that piower. For the reign and ride of Christ in the Chiu-ch militant Avere not to ter- minate Avith His mortal life, or Anth His visible and corporal presence on earth, but to last for ever, as Avas foretold : " The Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 33 He shall reign for ever." Tlierefore it was necessary that Ho should leave on earth a power holding His place, by wliich this spiritual regimen might continue. Secondly, this power is proved hy its tise. For the first act of this power which is read of in Scripture -seems to have been the Apostolic decree in Acts xv., " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay on you no further burden than these necessary things : to abstain," &c. For here two human canoni- cal precepts are contained : one imposing this burden as neces- sary • the other declarative, that from that time nothing else of the ceremonial law of Moses should be observed as necessary. And presently it is said of Paid and Timothy, that " they de- livered them the decrees to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders." St. Paul, in his Epistles, often mentions tliis poAver : as when he says, " The power which the Lord gave him to edification, and not to destruction ;" and so again, " Will ye that I come to you "udth a rod?" Por a rod signifies the power of government, which, in that it is dii-ective, is called " a sceptre of right" (Psahn xlv.) ; and in that it is corrective, is called " a rod of iron" (Psahn ii.). Thus St. Augustine explains it, saying in the former place, " ' A sceptre of right,' which rideth men. Approach that sceptre ; let Christ be your ICing : let Hun rule you with that sceptre, lest He crush you, Por that is an inflexible rod." And in the latter, " A rod of iron is inflexible justice." " Some He rules, others He crushes : the spiritual He ruleth, the carnal He crusheth." Such, then, was the rod of St. Paul, of which a share was given him by Christ ; and he uses that rod of iron where he says, "I, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already . . Avith the power of our Lord Jesus Christ . . to deliver such an one to Satan." But of the " sceptre of right" St. Paul speaks in Acts XX. : " Take heed . . to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the church of God." And to the faitliful ho says, " Obey them that have the rule over you, and be subject unto them." And again he says, "Against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or tlu-ee wit- D 34 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. nesses," Avhere lie supposes in tlie CliLU'cli a proper judgment and tribunal. And, thirdly, that power Avliicli is shown thus in Scripture as begun, is continued on in History through all ages of the Church in diocesan, archiepiscopal, and primatial governments, in provincial and general councils, and borne witness to every where by the Church's rulers and "miters. And the principle of all this is manifest, that the Church is one mystical body of Christ, one divinely-constituted kingdom. Ifow a kingdom cannot be maintained without a power to rule it, in proportion to it. Thus, as one out of a multitude, St. Epiphanius says (torn. i. p. 118), " For the throne of David, and the royal seat, is the priesthood in the holy Church, which dig- nity, hotli royal and high-jyriestly, the Lord having joined toge- ther in one, hath bestowed it on His holy Church, translating unto it the tlxrone of David, which faileth not for ever." This power is spiritual and supernatural, requiring indeed and presupposing orders, but not given in them indelibly as theh' character, for it is capable of uicrease or diminution in individuals, and exists in different degrees m those who have the same rank of orders. It can also be taken away, and given again, which is not the case with any power given by conse- •cration. l^ow, from all that has been said, it is plain that this spi- ritual power of government is quite distinct from the temporal. And that, first, and chiefly, in its e7id ; for the end of the tem- poral power is to preserve the peace and honom^ of the common- wealth, as St. Paul says, bidding us pray for kmgs, " that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godlmess and ho- nesty." Wliereas the end of the ecclesiastical power is the attainment of eternal salvation, as St. Paul says, " for the per- fecting of the saints," and, " Obey them that have the rule over you ; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account." Another difference is in its origin, uiasmuch as the tem- poral power derives its origin from God as the author of nature, PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 35 tlirough the medium of natural reason, and so, considered in itself, is of natural right ; but in so far as it is seated in a king or in a parliament, it is of human right. "Whereas the ecclesias- tical power is of positive Divine right, and the special promise and grant of Christ. " I will give to thee the keys." " Feed My sheep." " As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." For as the end to which this power is directed, and the acts and means by which it subsists, arc above natural and human strength, so must the power itself have its origin above human or natural right. In fact, these powers differ, as the material and spiritual, the natural and supernatural, the eaitlily and heavenly. Once more : not only in their end and origin do they differ, but in their suhjeds ; the one being, kings and other rulers of the temporal state ; the others, the rulers in God's Church, ac- cording to the gradations of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This may be proved by the authority of Scriptm-e. For this spiritual power, derived fi'om the direct and special grant of Christ, is not found, in the !Xew Testament, given to those persons who Avere temporal kings ; and is given to *Peter, and the rest of the Apostles ; is found to be used by St. Paul, and other bishops. For before there were in the Church temporal kings, there were therein pastors with true spiritual jurisdiction to ride the Church ; therefore this power does not of itself depend on the royal power, nor is joined with it by any power of it. Such is then the right of spiritual jurisdiction belonging to the rulers of the Church, by the positive grant of Christ, with wliich they were invested in different degrees according to tlieii- liierarchical rank, and of which the highest and most complete example, to say the least, was seen in the See of St. Peter, tlirough an uninteiTupted succession of fifteen centuries do"\\Ti to the time of Henry VIII. That See, as the source and centre of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, then received appeals from the whole Church ; and by a necessary consequence it was the Supreme Judge of doctrine ; for it is impossible in practice to dissever supremacy of jurisdiction from carrjiug "vnth it the supreme 36 PREFACE TO THE THIRlJ EDITION. judgment of doctrine. Did then Henry VIII., Edward YL, and Elizabetli deny this power of spiritual jurisdiction to exist in the Chiu'ch 1 By no means. Did they think it undesirable, and therefore to he abandoned by the Church 1 As little. They so fully admitted it, and so entirely liked it, that they seized upon it, and annexed it to the imperial crown of their realm. That which in end, in origin, and in subjects, Avas entirely dis- tinct from the civil power, that which sprung from the gift of Clnist to St. Peter and the apostolic body, they appropriated as an engine of temporal government. They would have their crown supreme not onl^' in temporal matters, as it had always been, but in spiritual also : have both the human and the divine power flow forth from their own j)ersons. I can well understand the extreme unwillingness of Church- men to admit the real state of things as existing in fact among us : viz. that the civil power is made the root and som'ce of spiritual jurisdiction. To all those who have been brought up in, or who have attained to, any knowledge of the Church's spiritual constitution, or of its liistory dming the fifteen hmidred years preceding this claim, to all again who believe that there is one visible Church, not in name, but in reality, and that it is one divine imperimu, I will not ask what this claim must appear, either by the light of reason, or by that of Eevelation. !N"evertheless, all la\A^^ers are agreed that such, so far as law goes, is the actual constitution of the Church of England. Bishop Gibson, more than a hundred years ago, interpreting the 37th article, says of it : '"The Queen hath the chief power and government. Ecclesiastical and Civil, which is not to be extended to ministering in the Chiu'ch, hut only to ecclesiastical juris- diction.^^ "What the Queen's Supremacy is in civil matters, we all know. All courts of justice are held in her name ; all laws derive their force from her confirmation ; the Supremacy means, that she is the source of civil power. So must it he likcAvise in spiritual matters, always excej)ting what belongs strictly to the power of Order, which Elizabeth expressly declined, — she is the source of the Church's jurisdiction in foro exteriori. And Dr. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 37 Cardwell, in tlie year 1839, says : "It -would ajDpear from the principal act of Queen Mary (1 and 2 Philip and jMary, c. 8), and the statutes repealed by it, that the Pojie's jurisdiction in England Avas comprised under the five following heads : 1. He was acknowledged as cliief Bishop of the Christian Church, Avith authority to reform and redress heresies, errors, and abuses within the same. 2. To him belonged the institution or con- firmation of Bishops elect. 3. He could grant to clergjmien licenses of non-residence, and permission to hold more than one benefice. 4. He dispensed in the canonical impediments of matrimony. 5. He received appeals from the spiritual courts." So that the Supremacy of the croAVii in this resj)ect may be summed up in the words of Hooker, after the following manner : " There is requii-ed an imiversal power which reacheth over all, importing supreme authority of government over all courts, all judges, all causes ; the operation of which power is as well to strengthen, maintain, and uphold particular jiuisdictions, which haply might else be of small effect, as also to remedy that wliich they are not able to help, and to redress that wherein they at any time do othenvise than they ought to do. This poicer beinr; some time in the Bishop of Rome, who by sinister practices had di'awn it into his hands, was for just considerations liij pnhlic consent annexed unto tlie king's royal scat and crotvn. Prom whence the authors of reformation would translate it into their iiational assemblies or synods ; which synods are the only help which they think lawful to use against such evils in the Church as particular jurisdictions are not sufficient to redress. In which case our laws have provided that the king's supereminent autho- rity and power sliaU serve : as, namely, when the whole ecclesi- astical state, or the principal persons therein, do need visitation and reformation ; when in any part of the Church errors, here- sies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, enormities are groAvir, wliich men in their several jurisdictions either do not or can- not help : lohatsoever any sjjiritual authority or j^otver (such as legates from the See of Eoine would exercise) hath done or might heretofore have done for the remedy of those evils in lawful 38 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. sort (that is to say, without the violation of the law of God, or nature, in the deed done), as mtich in every degree our laws have fully granted that the Mug for ever may do, not only hy setting ecclesiastical synods on work, that the thhig may be their act and the king their motion unto it, hut hy commissioners few or many, ■loho having the king^s letter's j^cdent may on the virtue thereof exe- cute the premises as agents in the right not of their own peculiar and ordinary, Ind of his sujpereminent power'''' (Hooker, vol. iii. p. 543). The difference hetween the regale as exercised hy the earher or later J^orman princes, and that supremacy which was settled on the crown in 1559, is a difference not of degree hut of kind. There are a vast nuniher of mixed causes in which the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction may seem to come in contact, and in which^ unless wisely and considerately wielded, they will clash. Here such princes as Edward I. and Edward III. would be jealous of their temporal authority being infringed — but that they claimed to themseh'tes supremacy of spiritual jurisdiction might about as reasonably be contended as that St. Louis in France did so, whose jealous care of his temporal prerogative is equally well knoAvn, and who yet has been canonised by the Eoman Church. The same prerogative in spiritual matters which was claimed in right of their crown by Henry VIII. and EHzabeth, belonged, so far as it was legitimate, to the crowns of France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and all the princes of Europe. "Which of them has ever been accused of annexing to his throne a spiritual supremacy 1 Louis XIV. pushed to their furthest extent what are called the Galhcan liberties ; but will any one say that he claimed to give to his Bishops their spiritual juris- diction, or to be the supreme judge of doctrine ? Is there not the greatest possible difference between the occasional clashing of two powers, one founded in men's belief and opinion on the special grant of Christ, and the other strong in material force and representing the natural right of society to govern itself, ■wherein the latter would often commit acts of injustice on the former ; between such a state of things, I say, on the one side, under which fall the acts of our owa ante-reformation princes, PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 39 and of the Frencli, Spanish, and Portuguese kings, and the German emperors in all times ; and on the other side, the settled and undisputed combination of the two powers of jurisdiction, civil and spiritual, in one head 1 The latter has been taken to be the true account of the state of things among ourselves by all continental "writers from the beginnmg to the present day. And all our history bears witness that this is a correct judgment. Does such a state of tilings allow the existence of the Church of Christ at all as one spiritual empire all over the earth 1 Or does it make it " only the ministry 'which the secular power uses for teaching such religious doctrines, duties, and observ- ances as the State from time to time shall choose"? I suppose the answer to this question will carry with it the answer to another, Is it Christian or Antichristian ? Had the intent been simply to take away a foreign Court of Appeal, and to make all spiritual causes determinable in this country, the obvious way would have been to allow no appeal from the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury', as Primate of all England, Tliis would in effect have made him a Patriarch, so far as British rule was concerned : but the civil power Avas as far as possible from having any such intent : it coveted and it seized the supreme spiritual jurisdiction, — the whole Papal Supremacy, — for itself For it will be seen that this supremacy, as defined above by Dr. Cardwell, from Dr. Lingard, consisted in functions all springing from the power of Jurisdiction, and not fi'om the power of Order. Kor in the world's history hitherto has any idea been more thorouglily worked out in act, and carried forth into every pos- sible consequence, than the idea of the ci\il power being the source of spiritual jurisdiction in the Church of England. Since 1559, this may be caUed the basis on which all the relations of the State to the Church have been settled. The first act of the State to the nascent communion typified and summed up in a wonderful and prophetic way the Avholo regimen for three hun- dred years. Our actual Episcopate is derived from Parker : it possesses whatever jurisdiction he had, neither more nor less. 40 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. The following is Mr. Lems's account : I am not aware that any facts which he has stated are incorrect — and if not, I am sure they are so important that they ought not to be skh-Jced, hut an answer given to them, if an answer can he found. " The Cathohc Bishops, at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, were deprived of their Sees for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, the Bishop of LlandafF excepted : to him, therefore, with certain other Bishops, the Queen issued a Commission to confirm the election of Parker, and to consecrate liim to be Archbishop of Canterbury. " The first of these prelates, that is, the Bishop of Llandaff, and the last. Bale, Bishop of Ossory, are described as in actual possession of their sees. The others were such as had been deprived of their bishoprics, and had not yet obtained pos- session of any, or were suffragans, and consequently had no jurisdiction in the province of Canterbury, but such as was delegated to them, from time to time, by those whose suffragans they were. The deprived prelates were now elected to bishop- rics, except one ; but their election had not been confirmed, consequently they had no jurisdiction of their own. When the day appointed for the confirmation of Parker was come, the Bishops who appeared to perform the ceremonial were. Barlow, Bishop elect of Chichester; Story, elect of Hereford; Cover- dale, formerly Bishop of Exeter ; and John, suffragan of Bed- ford : not one of these Bishops was in actual possession of his See, and the suflragan of Bedford depended for his authority on the allowance or commission of his superior. " The Queen, therefore, in her Commission to these prelates inserted this unusual clause : " ' Supplentes nihilominus, suprema authoritate nostra regia, ex mero motu ac certa scientia nostris, si quid aut in his, qu£e juxta mandatum nostrum prajdictum per vos fient, aut in vobis aut vestrum aliquo, conditione, statu, facultate vestris ad prte- missa perficienda desit aut deerit eorum, quaj per statuta hujus regni, aut per leges ecclesiasticas in hac parte requiruntur, aut ne- cessaria sunt, temporis ratione et rerum necessitate id postulante.' PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 41 " To tliis clause in their Commission the prelates make par- ticular reference in the sentence of confirmation. The election of ' the venerable man, Mr. Matthew Parker, we confirm,' they say, ' by the supreme authority of the said most serene lady, our Queen, committed unto us in this behalf: supplymg by the supreme royal authority, of the Queen's mere motion and certain knowledge, delegated to us, all defects in this election, as well in those things done by us, and proceeded with according to the commandment given us, or that are or shall be in ourselves, or in the condition, state, or capacity, of any one of us for this performance' (Brandi. 3. 202). Parker was consecrated December 17, 1559, by Barlow, assisted by Scory, John of Bedford, and Miles Coverdale. Barlow and Scory were after- wards confirmed in theu" respective bishoprics by Parker, whom they had confirmed hi his before, and Coverdale never resumed his episcopal functions. Supposing that the consecrators of Parker were themselves Bishops, validly ordained, Parker's con- secration was good, so far as the episcoixd cliaracter is concerned. It appears, however, that his consecrators had no authority to consecrate him from any Bishop in the actual use of his jm'is- diction : wliich makes the act defective in the point of authorltrj. They had no more right to consecrate an Archbishop of Canter- bury than they had to consecrate one for Milan. In their orwa. right they had none : by delegation from ecclesiastical superiors they had none. But they proceeded to confirm Parker's election by virtue of the Queen's A\T.'it ; and whatever authority they received thereby, that they conferred on liim, they had none other : and so they leave it on record that they confirmed their future metropolitan imder a civil "WTit, liy which their service and condition were made available, and their clear deficiencies duly supplied. " AMiatsoever authority to govern Christian men was received by Parker, that authority,, and no more, has he transmitted to his successors ; it is now shared by the living Bishops of the Anglican Church, and whatever it be, it was derived" (i. c. so far as the question of jurisdiction is concerned) " fi-om the ci^il 42 PEEFACE TO THE THIED EDITION. power, which he seems to have acknowledged in his act of homage, as we saw before. This consecration was questioned, and douhts were made ahout it, and the following consecrations, whose validity depends upon it. In order to allay people's per- plexities, an act of parliament was passed, 8 Eliz. c. 1, to pro- nounce ' That aU acts and things heretofore had, made or done by any person or persons in or about any consecration, confirma- tion, or investing of any person or persons elected to the office or dignity of any Archbishop or Bishop within this realm, or within any other the Queen's Majesty's dominions or countries, by virtue of the Queen's Majesty's letters patent or commission, since the beginning of her Majesty's reign, be, and shall be by authority of this present parliament, declared, judged and deemed, at and from every of the several times of the doing thereof, good and perfect to all respects and purposes ; any mat- ter or thing that can or may be objected to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.' " If it be witliin the power of the civil authority to give strength or completeness to what is or ought to be divine, then the confirmation and consecration of Parker cannot be questioned. " The legislative body of the kingdom has not only decided that the consecrations made according to the form of ordination pubhshed in the reign of King Edward VI. shall be good, but has also given some reasons for its sentence. These reasons are, that Henry VIII. had ' the supreme power, jurisdiction, order, rule, and authority over the estate ecclesiastical,' and that this same power was ' annexed to the imperial crown of this realm,' with wliich Queen Elizabeth was ' lawfully invested,' who, hav- ing in her Majesty's ' order and disposition all the said jurisdic- tions, powers, and authorities over the estate ecclesiastical and temporal,' had caused divers men to be made bishops. That she had ' further, for the avoiding of aU. ambiguities and questions that might be objected against the lawful confirmations, invest- ing, and consecrations of the said archbishops and bishops,' not only used such words and sentences as were accustomed to be used in the reigns of her father and brother, ' but also hath used PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 43 and put in her Majesty's letters patent divers other general icords and sentences, "whereby her Highness, hy her siq^reme power and authority, hath dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imper- fection or disability that can or may in any wise be objected against the same.' Here we have the meaning of that singular clause to which Barlow and his assistants made such carefid. reference. The canonical difficidties to Parker's confirmation were removed by a dispensation from the civil power." Mr. Lewis's next remark seems much to be noted : " Before tlie consecration of Parker, the EngHsh prelates might perhaps have insisted on their original jurisdiction, and, disregarding the statutes, claimed their authority, because they had been duly confirmed by prelates who had entered canonically into their respective sees. But in this case, there is no shadow of eccle- siastical rule; the confirming bishops were unconfirmed them- selves for eleven days after Parker's confirmation ; and on the day of his consecration were not certain that even their election to their bishoprics woiild be allowed by the Queen. They con- secrated Parker, December 1 7 ; but the royal assent to their election was not given till next day. This confirmation of Parker was made by those who had no authority to make it; they were ^nthoiit any recognised jurisdiction. Let it be allowed that he (Barlow) had been duly consecrated ; still he was dis- abled from executing his functions : he and his colleagues had no jurisdiction. — On the supposition that they Avere true bishops, they had power to administer the sacraments, but in no par- ticular place, nor to any particular persons ; they were bishops, but they had no subjects : all acts of juristliction performed by them under these circumstances would be indl — all acts of their order irregular. Supposing them to be true bishops, nay, to have been consecrated by the Supreme Pontiff himself, and under no canonical disabihties, they could not confer orders, wliich should be valid in respect of execution : as they had no jurisdiction themselves, they could confer none upon Parker, and that defect must still inhere in Parker's successors ; time cannot cure it. Original sin is not done away with by our dis- 44 PEEFACE TO THE THIKD EDITION. tancc from Adam, biit by baptism. This defect of jurisdiction ill the original consecration cannot be supplied by length, of time — quod ab initio nullum est, tractu temporis non convalescit" {Notes on tlie Royal Supremacy, p. 70-6). 2. And as Archbishop Parker's jm-isdiction was an emanation from that annexed to the Crown, so the Crown thought fit, about eighteen years later, to withdraw his jurisdiction from Parker's successor, Grindal. This prelate was not as zealous as the Queen wished him to be against the Puritans, so she sus- pended him. In vain did twelve of liis suffragan bishops peti- tion the Queen for his restoration, in a Latin letter still extant, wherein they assure her Majesty of their undoubted loyalty, by the ftict that they should not be allowed to sm-vive her a single day. " ifos, quos ecclesice gubernationi jproifecisti, cum a tua maj estate discesserimus, nihil habemus humanum, quod speremus vel ad unum diem posse imminentem cervicibus et capi- tibus nostris calamitatem avertere" (CardAvell, Annals, i. 391). In vain Convocation pleaded for him ; he remained for years suspended, and had at last prepared liis resignation, when death carried him off. 3. This, it may be said, was heat of Tudor blood ; but then Charles I., under Laud's guidance, suspended Archbishop Abbot in like fashion. He issued " a commission to sequester Archbishop Abbot from aU his ecclesiastical offices and jurisdiction." It ran thus : " Charles, by the grace of God, &c. Know ye that we, repos- ing special trust and confidence in your approved "wisdoms, learn- ing, and integrity, have nominated, authorised, and appointed, and do by these presents nominate, authorise, and appoint you, the said George Lord Bishop of London, Eichard Lord Bishop of Durham, John Lord Bishop of Rochester, Jolm Lord Bishop of Oxford, and William Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, or any four, tln-ee, or two of you, to do, execute, and perform all and every those acts, matters, and things, any way touching or con- cerning the power, jurisdiction, or authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury in causes or matters ecclesiastical, as amply, fuUy, and effectually, to all intents and purposes, as the said Arch- PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 45 bishop might have done. And we do herehy command you, and every of yon, to attend, perform, and execute tliis our royal pleasiu-e in and touching the premises, until we shall declare our vnll and pleasure to the contrary. And Ave do further hereby ■will and command the said Archbishop of Canterbury quietly and without interrujition to permit and suffer you, the said George, &c., any foiu", tliree, or two of you, to execute and per- form this our commission, according to our royal pleasiu'e thereby signified" (Cardwell, Annals, ii. 165-8). 4. But the most i;emarkable act perhaps of the royal supremacy extant, is the absolving this same Archbishop Abbot, at a former period, from the canonical irregidarity of having killed a man by accident when hunting at Bramzill Park. " The occurrence and its consequences were announced by the Lord Keeper Wil- liams" (then Bishop of Lincoln, afterAvards Archbishop of Yorlc) *' to the Duke of Buckingham in the foUoAving manner : ' His Grace, upon tliis accident, is by the common laAV of England to forfeit all his estate unto his Majesty ; and by the canon laAv, which is in force A\dth us, irregular ipso facto, and so suspended from all ecclesiastical function, until he be again restored by his superior ; wMcli, I take it, is the King's Majesty, in this rank and order of ecclesiastical jurisdictions.^ " " The King," says Bishop Hacket, " saAv that Avhether the person of the Archbishop Avere tainted by this act or not, j'et his metropoHtical function was unsettled in many men's opinions ; he heard that the acts of spiritual com'ts Avere unsped, and came to no end, tiU sentence were pronounced one Avay or other h// the siijjreine autliority. Therefore a commission was directed from his ]\Lajesty to ten persons, to meet together for tliis purpose about the beginning of October." The result of their deliberations aa\t,s, that the King appointed a commission of bishops, AndrcAves being one of them, and by their means " assoiled the Archbishop from all irregu- larity, scandal, or infamation, pronouncing hun to be capable to use all metropolitical authority" (CardAvoll, Annals, ii. 136). The royal decree runs : " De gratia nostra sjieciali, et ex auctori- tatc nostra regia suprema et ecclesiastica qua fungimur, — plenam 46 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. concedimiis faciiltatem et potestatem per prsesentes, — qiiatenus — cum prisefato reverendissimo patre superomni et omnimodo juris vel facti defectu, censura, sive poena aliqua canonica et ecclesi- astica, prsesertim vero irregularitate omni, sen irregularitatis nota, (si qufe forsitan rations prfBmissorum contracta fuit, vel quibusdam contracta esse videantur,) utque in susceptis ordinibus et juiis- dictionibus secundum concreditam sibi ratione ordinis et arcbi- episcopatus sui potestatem libera ministrare, frui, exercere, et gaudere valeat, ad majorum cautelam dispensetis." Collier (ix. 378), who observes in loco, " By this instriiment, tbe canons, in case tbere was need, are overruled and dispensed with. The force of Abbot's character was revived, and he is fully restored to the exercise of his functions. This is a wonderful rehef from the Crown ; and supposes a patriarchal at least, if not a papal authority, vested in the King." (vol. vii. 418.) 5. What boots it, after this, to mention the deposition of Archbishop Bancroft by Queen Mary II., or the numberless acts of ijiodern times erecting bishoprics, altering the jurisdictions of existing bishoprics, naming commissions to which supreme ec- clesiastical jurisdiction over the whole Church for certain pur- poses is given, appointing a supreme court for heresy, and in one case, Avhich is without a parallel, assigning Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and Abyssinia to be the limits of the " spiritual jurisdiction" of a certain bishop. These acts in former times were not reputed tyrannical, at least the Church herself never complained of them, and they have been borne very patiently in the present day, until at last the supreme ecclesiastical com-t — deriving its juris- diction from the civil power — ^has thought fit to annul an arti- cle of the creed. There is then no other way of interpreting the acts of three hundred years, manifold as they are, and yet stamped with one aspect, but this, that they have indeed their proper rationale, which is, that the supremacy of spiritual juris- diction over the Chiu-ch, by many Cliristians supposed to have been conferred by our Lord on St. Peter and his successors, has, so far as regards the British dominions, been transferred by Act of Parliament, or, as others say, in virtue of a prerogative always PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 47 latent in the cro"v\Ti — tliongh -why in this rather than in other croAvns does not appear — to the sovereign for the time being of these realms. II. Let us now proceed to say a few words on the other divi- sion of the power of spiritual Jurisdiction, that in foro interno. Jurisdiction in foro interno is the lawful use of the power of remitting sins upon confession of them. This power itself, as we have seen above, is part of the power of Order, which theo- logians divide into two, that which is over the true Body of Christ to consecrate it, and that whicli is over the mystical Body of Christ for the sanctilication of the faithful and their deliverance from sin. But though this jiower is in itself a part of Order, and of the sacerdotal character, Avhich is indelible, as being given by conse- cration, yet the lawful exercise of this power belongs to Jurisdic- tion. For, by the words used at the consecration of a priest, "Ee- ceive the Holy Ghost ; whose sins thou dost remit, they are re- mitted, and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained," a true power is given of itself, and in its own order, sufficient to remit the sins of those put under liim, Avhen he has them ; but by these words jurisdiction or subjects are not given. The power, in its own nature, stretches to the absolution of all, and therefore these words of our Lord, repeated by the bishop in his person, are so indeterminate and universal ; but the use of that power is limited according to the jurisdiction possessed by the priest, and this must come by a further grant from his superior. We are in practice very familiar ■ndth this distinction ; e.g. a man is ordained a priest by a bishop, and from that tune forth he is as much a priest as any one can be, yet he can perfonn no priestly act involving spiritual jurisdiction, without cure of souls, delegated to him either permanently, or at least during the per- formance of that act. A bishop who had resigned a colonial see was lately resident in a country parish, yet, though superior in power of Order to the parish-priest, he could perform no one act in that parish involving Jurisdiction save by the permission of the parish-priest. 48 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Or, again, the analogy of temporal government will illus- trate tliis law of tlie divine commonwealth. A man holds the ranlv of captain in the naA^, as another does that of priest ; but as the former does not therefore hold a right to command any- particular ship, or seaman, Avithout a special commission thereto, which may continue or he withdra\\Ti, mthout affecting his rank as captain, so neither has the latter authority to exercise the power of the keys over this or that person unless he has legitimate jurisdiction, i. e. the office of a spiritual superior, over him. Even the material key can only open its proj)er lock, nor can any active virtue take effect save on its j^roper matter. [N'ow a person is made the proper matter of the power of Order hy means of Jurisdiction, and so no one can use the keys upon one over whom he has no jurisdiction. According to all this, for absolution from sin after sacra- mental confession a two-fold power is required, the power of Order and the power of Jiu-isdiction. The first is equally in all jmests ; hut not the second, Avhich descends from superiors to inferiors, and must be used according to the limitation imj)osed by the superior. And there is another most important distinction between acts flowing from Order and acts flowing from Jurisdiction. Acts flowing from Order, though done ■wrongly and illicitly, are yet, when done, valid ; but acts flowing from jiu'isdiction, if done upon those over whom the doer has no jurisdiction, are abso- lutely invalid and mdl. So that all absolution pronounced by a priest over a person not spiritually subject to him, is utterly without force. And a person cannot make himself subject to another at his own will, for this power descends from above, and does not ascend from below. Let us see the effect of this. A bishop has jurisdiction over his own diocese : he imj)arts a portion of that jvirisdiction to every priest to whom he gives the cure of souls ; and in that cure of souls are comprised all means necessary for their well- being, of Avhich the hearing confessions and giving absolution is assuredly one. Consequently all parish-priests may be said PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 49 to hare ordinary jurisdiction for this purpose over their own Jiock, but not over others. Again, a bisliop may delegate such power of using the keys to any priest over any, or over all, persons in his diocese ; for, they being his own spiritual subjects, he can impart a portion of the pastoral care over them to any person duly qualified, i. e. by sacerdotal orders, Avhom he pleases. But in defaidt of either ordinary or delegated jurisdiction, a priest cannot, by the mere power of Order, hear confession and give absolution ; and if he does so, his absolution AviU be 7mU and void. These are not rules and principles of the modern Church, or of the "Western Church, merely, but of the ancient and the Cathohc Chiu'ch. For many hundred years this power of abso- lution seems to have been exercised immediately l)y the bishop, or by priests living in common with him, and under his imme- diate superintendence. And when, in process of time, the bishop communicated a part of his pastoral charge to priests living at a distance from him, this law of jurisdiction was universally observed. ^STow all power wliich cannot issue into act save on the pre- supposition of certain rules depends on the power which makes those rules. Jjut the priest cannot absolve and bind unless the jurisdiction of a superior in him be presupposed, by which those whom he absolves are subject to him. But he may consecrate any matter determinated to that end by Christ, nor is any thing more for this required of the necessity of the sacrament. But one exception there is to this necessity of jiirisdiction, by the universal practice of the Church from the beginning, or rather in this particular case the practice has given the jurisdic- tion, viz. that any priest may absolve any penitent from any sin in articulo mortis. All this doctrine may be summed up thus : All spiritual power of the sacerdotal character is given together mth a cer- tain consecration, and therefore the keys are given with Order ; but the use of the keys requires its proper matter, which is a E 50 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. people made subject by jurisdiction, and therefore one before lie has jurisdiction has the keys, but has not the act of using them. A consequence of this is, that while in all scliismatics, here- tics, excommunicated, suspended, or degraded persons, the power of the keys remains as to its essence, yet the iise of the keys is barred through defect of matter. For, the use of the keys re- quiring superiority in the user over him on whom it is used, the proper matter on which the iise of the keys is exercised is a spiritual subject ; and since it is through the order of the Church that one is subject to another, therefore a former subject may be subtracted from his obedience by those Avho have the rule in the Chiu-ch. "Wlience, as the Chiirch deprives heretics, schismatics, and such like, by withdrawing their subjects, either simply or partially, so far as they are deprived they cannot have the use of the keys. And now for the bearing of the Eoyal Supremacy on all this. We have seen how it seized upon and appropriated the fall Papal Supremacy as to jurisdiction in foro externo ; did it also lay claim to jurisdiction in foro interno 1 My belief is, that it troubled itself very little about the matter, and, considering it as depending on the power of Order, which it is, and on that alone, which it is not, was -willing enough that, so long as the whole outward jurisdiction was allowed to flow fi'om itself, the inward might accompany those whom it selected for its agents. I suppose, moreover, that for fifty years after EHzabeth's ac- cession sacramental confession Avas very little practised in the Church of England ; by some dmes cV elite, Uke Hooker's, per- haps, but never by the mass of Christ's poor. Wlien, in the times of James and Charles, our divines had risen to higher notions of the Church and its functions, they supposed this power of inward spiritual jurisdiction to reside in bishops and priests. But in the mean time a certain consequence had not been heeded. The supreme power which bestoAvs one part of juris- diction bestows the other likewise. Thus, if the civil power take a county from one see and give it to another, not only the PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 51 power of external jurisdiction but that of internal likewise is thus attempted to be conveyed from one person to another — one bishop to another. For the parish-priests derive their jurisdiction from the bishop, and the bishop from the power that gave him such a county for a part of his see ; and if that power have by the law of Gotl and the grant of Christ no autliority to convey spiritual jurisdiction at all to the bishop, it %viU follow that all spiritual acts involving jurisdiction done in such county are null and void. Looking tlierefore at Clmst's kingdom as a real thing, not a state creation, not an engine of temporal government, not a toy for statesmen to play with, nor a treasury from wliich they are to draw rewards for their followers (0, shame and un- speakable disgrace that such things can be said, and so truly said, that the mere saj^ing them sounds lilce a libel on existing powers !) ; looking at Clirist's Church once more as His kingdom, not of this world but in it, nothing less than inextricable confu- sion, than the rendering dubious all spiritual powers most neces- sary for the soid's good, than the reducing minds in proportion as they are tender and conscientious into the uttermost doubt, about all holy things, — can arise from the claim of the civil power any where to be the source of spiritual jurisdiction. That claim — let us as Englishmen, as Cliristians, think of it well — exists now — and in past time has existed in one com- munion only on the face of the earth calling itself Christian, viz. the Anglican Church, and on the part of one sovereign only calling himself Christian, the sovereign named the Defender of the Faith. Let us see the two main grounds on which it is based. 1. It is based on the denial that the Church of Christ is one mystical body — one simple kuigdom dispersed tlu-oughout the whole world, governed by spiritual officers, who derive their title and their power so to govern from the express grant of our Lord to liis Apostles. Instead of this it mixes up the Church of Christ, in each nation where it may be locally situate, with the order and 52 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. jurisdiction of temporal government : yet these are two tilings in their end, tlieir origin, and tlieir subjects essentially distinct, as has been shown. The highest notion of the Church to which it rises would seem to be that of the synagogue under the old law. Xow the Jewish Church was national only, and therefore no standard for a Catholic Church ; and again, it was typical, both its kings and its priests preiiguring in their office and functions our Lord — so that to argue from the power of godly kings in Israel to the like power of godly kings in the Chinch of Christ, would be, as has well been said, to overlook the fact that our Lord has come in the flesh, and has taken up into His own Person both the priesthood of Aaron and the royal power of David, and derived forth from that Person, for the government of His Church, a new power embracing both. 2. It is based on the further similar denial that there is no proper priesthood in the Church of Christ, and therefore no ^lecial power to govern it, beyond that wliich is in the civil magistrate, or in any community, by right of nature, for tlie pre- servation of order. It seems indeed, but only seems, to escape from this by urging the distinction between actions requiring the power of Order, and those requiring only Jurisdiction. It is said that the sovereign may exercise every act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction by himself, and has, unto this, supreme power, and so that this is sufficient for hun to hold a spiritual primacy, though he cannot exercise of himself the other actions which require a power of Order. But this is especially opposed to Christ's in- stitution ; for it was His will that the Church should be ruled by those whom He made the chief ministers of the word of God and of the sacraments, that is by bishops, in whom the power of Order exists in excellency. Moreover it is sufficiently absurd for the Church's supreme governor not to be able to exercise in his own person the chief acts which are dhected not only to the worship of God, but to the sanctification of the faithfid. For in civil government inferior magistrates can do nothing in respect PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 53 to thiit which their power has for its end, which the sovereign cannot do in higlier degree in order to the same end. ]\Iuch more then in the Christian commonwealth, ecclesiastical power, •v^hether of Order or Jurisdiction, being directed to a spiritual end and the sanctification of souls, these tAVO powers ought to he so arranged in reference to each other as to be joined in the supremo head of the Church in all their perfection and excellency. If these are the grounds, what are the results ? I have supposed throughout that the orders of the Church of England are vaHd, and untouched by the operation of the Eoyal Supremacy — for this is another and a very difficult question, and I wish to take only what is indubitable — ^but if unto the right use of Orders valid Jiuisdiction is requu'ed, for the Arch- bishop as Primate, for the Bishop as Diocesan, for the parish- priest as incumbent, for sinful souls who need absolving, for anxious souls who need comforting, and for God's blessing on all acts of Christian ministry, — and if acts flo-wdng from jimsdic- tion, but done without jurisdiction, which as much hy the Word of God as Tjy the tradition of the Church comes from the grant of Christ and not from the temporal poAver — if such acts are aljso- lutely null and invalid, I leave for others to trace in this respect the result of the Royal Supremacy on the Church of England. One other result must be briefly mentioned. Supremacy of spiritual jurisdiction carries with it necessarily the right and the bui'den of supreme judgment as to doctrine. The act of 1 Eliz. c. 1, mentiQns the power of naming commissioners to judge of heresies — those Avho judge of heresies must define truth: and Hooker is careful to say after mentioning heresy, " whatever any spu'itual authority or power hath done or might heretofore have done for the remedy of these evils in lawful sort, as much in every degree our laws have fully gTanted that the king for ever may do, not only by setting ecclesiastical synods on work, that the thing may be their act and the king their motion unto it, but by the commissioners few or many, who having the king's letters patent may in the virtue thereof execute the premises as agent, in the right not of their own peculiar and ordinary but 54 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. of liis supereminent power." Thus the sovereign is not boiuid to act by synod or convocation — why should he? It was the very idea of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth to put the Supremacy in his single person — his confirmation alone gives their force to canon or dogma, according to this idea. In short the clavis potentice and the clavis scientiaj — the universal power of govern- ment in Clirist's Church, the power to rule, to distribute, suspend or restore jurisdiction, and the power to define verities of the faith and to interpret holy Scripture — this power, with liberty to exercise it "by commissioners few or many," and, it may be added, lay or clerical, believers or unbelievers, has descended by act of Parliament, or a prerogative inherent in their cro"UTi and quite unique in the history of the world, together with their ample temporal dominion, on the shoulders of the kings and queens of England. But what is the effect of this on the status of the Chm'ch of England 1 It is that the actual bond of her existence — her cha- racteristic as a religious communion — that which makes her a whole — is the right of the civil power, now lately exercised, to be the supreme judge of her doctrine. Thus the supposed patriarchal constitution, on the pos- session of which I had rested for the defence of the Cluu-ch of England, was turned at once into a supremacy of the civil power, which throughout the pamphlet just cited I prove to be anticliristian. And so my Defence as a posi- tive standing-gi'ound had been completely swept away by the revelation of that ci\'il supremacy w hich the Gorham judgment exhibited in action. For as soon as it was made clear that what held the Church of England together, that is, the derivation of spiritual jmisdiction from the civil power, was an anticliristian principle, and this thesis I established in the tract above quoted, what was there left PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. OD to defend ? However, I took ever}' precaution against a mistake which was in my power. I pubhshed this pamphlet in March 1850, and sent a copy of it to yourself, and a number of friends, among wliom were two judges, with the intent that if I had misinterpi'eted the civil supremacy over the Cliurch of England, you or they would set me right. From no one did I receive publicly or privately any intimation that I had mistaken its character or exagge- rated its import. Six months later I came to a final con- clusion, and gave as my reason for it the book entitled The See of St. Peter the Mock of the Church, the Source of Jurisdiction, and the Centime of Unity. In the preface to this book I (kaw out the connection between my past •VNTitings and the definitive action then taken, and after referring to the immense importance of the civil supre- macy, as constituting in fact the Church of England to be what it is, I proceed to deal with that which, negatively, had prevented my being a Catholic. And I think that in it I went over the whole ground of my first book, and plucked out every root of error contained in it. For the book treats of the Primacy, in the first section, as an exist- ing power ; in the second, as based upon the express war- rant of Scripture; in the third, it defines the end and office of the Primacy ; in the foiu'th, sketches in what its power consists ; in the fifth, it gives the Church's witness to the Primacy, ranged under seven heads, which are, (1) a General Supremacy of the Roman See o\qv the whole Church — a Supremacy exactly the same in principle with that which is now claimed; (2) the grouuthng of this 56 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. Supremacy on the attribution of Matt. xvi. 18, Luke xxii. 31, and John xxi. 15, in a special sense to the Pope, as successor of St. Peter ; (3) the original derivation of Epis- copal Jurisdiction from the person of Peter, and its perpe- tual fountain in the See of Rome, as representing him ; (4) the Papal Supremacy over the East, acknowledged by its own rulers and councils before the separation ; (5) the Poj)e's attitude to Councils, as indicating his rank; (6) his confirmation of Councils; (7) the necessity of communion with the Pope. The testimonies cited under these seven heads answer incidentally all the historical objections and difficulties which are scattered through the first book. This answer, though incidental, is radical, be- cause it cuts away the very root on which such objections grow. For instance, the objection which most constantly occurred in the first book, which ran indeed all through it, so as to form the main point of aggression on the claim of Rome, is a supposed antagonism between the idea of Primacy and Supremacy. The second book shows by a large induction of testimonies, occupying twenty pages, that the idea of Primacy and Supremacy is exactly the same; that the Supremacy now claimed and allowed is exactly identical with the Primacy as exercised by St. Leo at the Council of Chalcedon, which the first book set forth as the ideal of the Church's true constitution. Again, the first book had dwelt much on the denial of the Supremacy by the Eastern Church; the second shows how entirely the Papal Supremacy over the East had been acknow- ledged by the rulers and councils of the East before the PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 57 separation. And let the positive proof for the Primacy or Supremacy given in these five sections be fairly con- sidered, and I think it \\dll be fomid that no great institu- tion existing in the "world stands upon a firmer basis, or has less alleged against it. The two concluding sections contrast the action of the Primacy of St. Peter in the Cathohc Church with the action of the Eoyal Supremacy in the Anglican Chm'ch, and the effects of the one mth the effects of the other. And here I must repeat, what I have already said, that the Primacy, as set forth in the first five sections, had entu'ely cut away the standing-ground which I had imagined for the Chm'ch of England, namely, that it was governed in accordance with the Council of Nicoaa, by its own Bishops and ^Metropolitans, allowing the successor of St. Peter to hold St. Peter's place. But in these two sections this sup- posed standing-ground itself is shown to be most opposed to the real fact; the Reformation having transferred the Papal Supremacy to the civil power in England, so that its national Church, so far from yielding to St. Peter's See the original honour given by the Saxon Archbishops, had a distinct existence only in and by virtue of denying that honour, and of rendering it instead to the civil power. It may further be observed that the conduct of Bishops, clerg}', and people, on occasion of the establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in 1850, in the same month in which my second book appeared, sufficiently attested how uni- versally they accepted the supremacy of the civil power, how entu'ely they felt it to be the antagonist of the Pri- 58 PEEFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. macy of the Papal See, and how utterly preposterous and contrary to facts had been the defence invented for the Church of England in my first book. In the Gorham decision not only is that civil power exhibited as exercising supreme spiritual jurisdiction, but, by a singular concurrence, it exercises it for the purpose of legalising the grossest heresy. Its attitude was — " My chil- dren, here are two great parties among you, of clergy and of laity; the one holding baptismal regeneration, as the key of the whole sacramental system ; the other denying it, as incompatible vnth. the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Now, I cannot afford to lose either of you : toge- ther you make me up : for three hundred years you have gone on, the one holding this doctrine, the other denying it. Pray go on so still. If you don't, I shall go to pieces. Let Mr. Gorham go back to his living ; and let him, and all who hold with him, deny baptismal regeneration and the sacramental system. Let all you others, who hold both, preach and teach them as you have done before. I am strong enough to contain you both, and far too weak to lose either." And this was the national Chm'cli of a people who count truth and honesty to be the distinctive marks of the national character. What you thought concerning this decision at the time, I find recorded in the following propositions, which bear your name attached to them : "To admit the lawfulness of holding an exposition of an article of the Creed contradictory of the essential meaning, is in truth and in fact to abandon that article ;" PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 59 and "inasmucli as the Faith is one, and rests upon one principle of authority, the conscious, deliberate, and wailful abandonment of the essential meaning of an article of the Creed destroys the Divine foundation upon which alone the entire Faith is propounded by the Church;" and "any portion of the Church which does so abandon the essential meaning of an article of the Creed, forfeits not only the Catholic doctrine in that article, but also the office and authority to witness and to teach as a member of the universal Church." So you stated in the year 1850. You have since been, for fifteen years, a Presbyter, a Dignitary, and a Royal Professor in the Church which has so done ; and now you come forward with the exact contradictory of these pro- positions in behalf of the Church which has so done, that is, with a book entitled Tlie Truth and Offi.ce of the Eng- lish Church. Now, in the year 1848, in the book which you quote as " the fruit of investigations, as to whose issue I was indifferent," I wrote, "if the Church of England is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous latitudi- narianism; if first principles of the Faith, such as bap- tismal regeneration and priestly absolution, may be indif- ferently held or denied mthin her pale — though if not God's very truths, they are most fearful blasphemies — the sooner she is swept away the better." In the year 1850 this very thing came to pass : and I felt that my defence of her in that book had crumbled into dust. In obedience to my principles, therefore, I left her communion : have you in obedience to yours stayed in it ? Which of us, 60 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. I ask, lias written, and wliicli of us has acted, "as a partisan" ? And here one may say a word respectmg your book coming forth after these fifteen years as a professed Eirenicon, which, but for the name and for the letter you have since Amtten to a Catholic paper, every one would have taken for a petard. You state in page 44, "How the Church of England can be said formally to deny the indissoluble unity of the Church I know not ;" as if you had never heard of the Royal Supremacy, from which the Church of England dates its origin as a distinct body, in obedience to which every man in order to become a minister of hers must take an oath recognising as lodged in the ci\dl power that same Supremacy, which, as well in the Chm'ch of England when Catholic, before its origin as a distinct body, as in every other province of the Catholic ChmTh, had Ijeen centred in the Apostolic See of St. Peter. It is the transference of this Supremacy to the Crown, that is, the nation, which every lawyer will tell you is the law of the Chm-ch of England, and has been so since the act of Elizabeth above cited, which constitutes the formal and the permament act of schism and heresy; and which, farther, makes the Church of England in its very root and basis antichristian ; which sets up the Church of England, not accidentally, but in essence, as the enemy and rival, wherever she exists, of the Church of Christ. I believe, indeed, that many of her children are quite un- conscious of then' mother's history. They laiow nothing of the bill of divorce which she gave to her Husband ; PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Gl they know nothing of that ocean of blood through wliich she waded in order to become the paramour of the State. But their ignorance does not remove or alter the testimony of history ; nor does the lapse of three centuries validate the original basis on which the Anglican Church stands. Her actual title to any spmtual jurisdiction at all rests on the grant of the State mentioned in that original document of Elizabeth above cited, by which out of her supreme royal authority she supplied whatever was wanting accord- ing to Ecclesiastical Law, and confirmed Parker in his see. She gave Parker his jurisdiction as Bishop, just as the crown gave it to Dr. Longley. Never did heathen emperor of old present to the Christian mart}T a claim more baseless or more antichristian than this ; to which not only has the Church of England submitted, but to which she actually owes whatever unity she possesses in that mass of most hete- rogeneous subjects — if it be not fitter to call them masters — Avho live Mathin her pale : those who believe in and those who disbelieve sacraments ; those who believe in the inspiration of Scripture, and those who disbelieve it. For this veiy thing, this supremacy of the ci^^l power, in and by which she was set up, in and by which she continues to be, she has made herself drunk with the blood of martyrs, beginning with More and Fisher : by means of this — repre- senting it as treason to deny it — she maintained a system of persecution, so cunningly devised and so pertinaciously canned out, as to surpass at least in malignant ingenuity even the persecution of the first three centuries. For re- fusing this mark of the Beast our priests were tortured and 62 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. executed, our nobles and gentry impoverished, imprisoned, deprived of their most sacred rights, while our people were juggled out of their belief; and by such a tyranny, ruth- lessly prolonged through two centimes, the Catholic Faith was well-nigh banished from England, the Church whose root and charter was this civil supremacy looking on applauding, and entering into the possessions and rank of the Church despoiled. And after all this you now come forward and tell us that the Chm-ch which did this was part of the Church that suffered it ; and that, as li\dng upon the same sacraments, they both possessed the same divine life of Christ. Surely, in speaking of the " Truth and Office of the English Chm'ch," you have omitted that which marks her out cUstinctively among all past and pre- sent communities calling themselves Christian. She was to bear witness to a gi'eat Truth ; she was to perform a great Office. The Truth to which she was to bear witness was, that to derive the spiritual power of jui'isdiction in the Church of Christ from the civil power of the nation in which it lives was an antichristian heresy ; and the Office which she had to perform was to show during three hun- dred years to what depths of spiritual degradation, to what dissolution of the faith, to what destruction of discipline, to what utter anarchy and extreme passionateness of divi- sion in those who remained within her, to what fertility of minutely-parcelling schism in those who left her, such a principle, made the root of an institution, would lead. She has marvellously illustrated this Truth ; she has excellently executed this Office. How many of her ministers, how many PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 63 of her laity, avouIcI receive the doctrinal statements of your book ? How many would receive and agree in any definite statement of faith at all ? But if in the United Chui'ch of England and Ireland there arc as many opi- nions about the Christian faith as there are individuals, there is but one Royal Supremacy. When doctrines are disputed within her, the same authority which sits as a Board of Trade will pronounce as a Board of Doctrine ; and she has to receive the solution in the judgment of a creedless council, delivered by an unbelieving chan- cellor,* and you have to protest and accept the judgment. * This Court is in its constitution in exact accordance -with the ori- ginal statute 25 Henry VIII. c. 19, which consummated the schism, and by -vvhicli the ecclesiastical causes of the Church and Realm of England ■were governed and decided from the days of King Henry (except that it was repealed in looi and revived in 1559) to those of William the Fourth. It runs thus : " IV. And for lack of justice at or in any of the courts of the Archbishops of this realm, or in any of the king's domi- nions, it shall be lawful for the parties grieved to appeal to the king's majesty in the king's Court of Chancery ; and that upon every such appeal a commission shall be directed under the Great Seal to such per- sons as shall be named by the king's highness, his heirs or successors, like as in case of appeal from the Admiral's Court, to hear and defi- nitively determine such appeals, and the causes concerning the same. ■WTiich commissioners, so by the king's highness, his heirs or successors, to be named or appointed, shall have full power and authority to hear and definitively determine every such appeal, with the causes and all cir- cumstances concerning the same : And that such judgment or sentence as the said commissioners shall make and decree, in and upon any such appeal, shall be good and effectual and also definitive ; and no further appeals to be had or made from the said commissioners for the same." This statute was pointed out to you by Mr. Maskcll in 1850, who says iu a note : " Considering the nature of the subject, this business-like, com- monplace manner of disposing of the little details of the new arrange- ments is really deserving of our admiration : ' like as in case of appeal from the Admiral's Court.' Could any thing be better ?" The Court of Privy Council succeeded by the act of "William IV. to this Court of Dele- 64 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Her Truth and her Office are before us. It has been a grand iUustration carried out on a large scale and during a long period. No Eirenicon will ever reach the force of this Polemicon; be assured the Church of God has registered the experience in her archives, and "udll not forget it. DecemUr 21, 1865. gates. When you ask for a change in the constitution of this Court, you are asking in fact to iinclo the Reformation. Antichristian no doubt the constitution of the Court is ; your error is in refusing to see that it has always been bo, and that it makes the Church of England what it is. IXTRODUCTION. Some years ago the writer, already in great distress of mind at tlie liistorical and actual position of the Anglican Church, at the statements of her formularies, at the want of shape and principle in her practice, and, above all, at her general character and temperament as a communion which seemed to him thoroughly alien from the spirit of the ancient Fathers, betook himself to the special con- sideration of one point, — the Primacy of the Roman See, — which he thought more calculated than any other to lead him to a sure conclusion. He was then, as he is now, "con\'inced that the whole question between the Roman Clnu'ch and ourselves, as well as the Eastern Church, turns upon the Papal Supremacy, as at present claimed, being of divine right, or not. If it he, then have we no- thing else to do but submit ourselves to the authority of Home ; and better it were to do so before we meet the attack, which is close at hand, of an enemy who bears equal hatred to ourselves and Rome ; — the predicted Law- less One, the Logos, reason, or private judgment of apos- tate humanity rising up against the Divine Logos, incar- nate in His Church." The writer, moreover, then professed, that " he took up F 6Q INTRODUCTION. this inquiiy for the pui'pose of satisfymg his OAvn mind;" that " had he found the Councils and Fathers of the Church, before the di\dsion of the East and West, bearing ■witness to the Roman Supremacy, as at present claimed, instead of against it, he sliould have felt hound to obey them ;" and that " as a Priest of the Church Catholic in England he desires to hold, and to the best of his ability will teach, all doc- trine which the undivided Church always held."* He made these professions in the simplicity, it is true, but likewise in the sincerity of his heart; and he made them publicly before God and man. Now, the conclusion to which he was at that time led by the study of antiquity was, that a Primacyf of di\ine institution had indeed been given to the See of Peter, but that the degree to which it had been pressed in later times formed an excuse for those communions which, lohile they maintained the Catholic faith lohole and entire, were de facto severed from it. Thus he made these professions when he thought that they led him to one conclusion ; but he is equally bound to redeem them now that in the com'se of years they have led him to another. For though his study of the question terminated for * The CImrch of England cleared from the Oiarge of Schism, Adver- tisement. f This is admitted in p. 313, p. 315, and pp. 490, 491 of the second edition of the above-mentioned work. The author ought to have seen what it involved ; for no abuse, even could such be proved to exist, would warrant men in rejecting what is of divine institution. This was once put to him in a very forcible way by a much-valued friend : " If God has instituted Baptism, men would not be justified in rejecting it, even if the Church were to administer it with spittle." INTRODUCTIOX. C7 the moment at tliis point, yet the Supremacy claimed by S. Peter's See over the whole Church was a subject never out of his thoughts. And in the mean time what he saw of the actual state of the Roman Communion in other lands, of the principles on which it was based, and of the fruits which it produced, deeply moved and affected liim. That Communion seemed in full j)ossession of the great sacerdotal and sacramental system for which earnest An- glicans were vainly struggling, as well as of that religious unity the name of which in an Anglican mouth somided like a mockery, amid the deep contradictions, both as to principles and as to practice, which are equally tolerated and supported by the Estabhshment ; when just at this moment that one only doctrine of all those mooted at the Eefonnation, which had appeared to him to be as unques- tionably taught, at least by the formularies of the Anglican Church, as by the ancient Chm'cli — the doctrine of Bap- tismal Regeneration — was brought before the tribunal of the Com't of iVrches, and thence carried, by appeal, to the Queen in Council. This fact first brought home to the writer the real natm'e of the Royal Supremacy. Up to that time, with- out ha\ing accurately looked into that power, he had sup- posed it to be practically indeed a great tyranny over the Chm'ch subject to it, but in principle only " a supreme civil power over all persons and causes in temporal things, and over the temporal accidents of spiritual things."* But the * So stated in the circular put forth by Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, and Dr. Mill. 68 INTRODUCTION. more he considered it in its origin, and with reference to the power which it supplanted and succeeded, and in its exercise during three hundred years, and in its whole tone and demeanour to the communion over which it was " su- preme governor," the more painfully he became convinced that such a hmitation, desirable as it might be to quiet the consciences of churchmen, was as a fact quite untenable. He felt that at his Anglican ordination as Deacon and as Priest, and subsequently, he had taken an oath of obe- dience to a power the nature and bearing of which he did not then at all comprehend — a power which, the mo- ment he came to comprehend it, seemed to be utterly opposed to every principle which he held dear as a Churchman, and to contradict as much the relation of the Chm'ch to the State which is set forth in the Holy Scriptures as the teaching of the Fathers and the acts of General Councils, — a power which had no parallel in all historical Christianity up to the very time of its enactment, and which not merely enthralled, but destroyed, the con- tinuous life of the Church. For he found that Supremacy of the civil power to consist in a supreme jurisdiction over the Establishment in matters both of faith and of disci- pline, and in the derivation of Episcopal mission and juris- diction — not as to their origin indeed, but as to their exer- cise — from the Crown or the nation. The ^vriter at once felt that he must repudiate either that Supremacy or every notion of the Clim'ch ; that is, the one divinely-constituted Society to which the possession of the truth is guaranteed, and which has a continuous mission from our Lord for the INTRODUCTION. G9 spiritual government of souls and the building up that humanity which He redeemed " to the measure of the stature of the perfect man." The Royal Supremacy and the Church of God are two ideas absolutely incompatible and contradictory. But my heart, my soul, my conscience, and no less my reason, every power and principle within me, were longing, sighing, thirsting for the Church of God, " the pillar and the ground of the truth." Any decision to which the Queen in Council might come was miimportant in my sight, in comparison to the fact that the Queen in Council had the power of deciding in matters of doctrine. Thus I felt before the decision came out ; but when it came out there was added a sense of shame, of degrada- tion, and of infamy, which had never before oppressed me, in that I belonged to a communion of which the supreme triliunal, when called upon to declare whether, by its exist- ing rule of doctrine, infants were or were not regenerated by God in holy Baptism, decided neither that they were nor that they were not, but that the Clergy might believe and teach either one or the other, or both indifferently. And I felt thus because any error and any heresy are innocent and innocuous compared to the tenet that error and heresy are indifferent ; and any legal decision, however erroneous, is honourable compared to that which pronounces it equally lawful to believe and teach that God the Holy Ghost is given, and that He is not gi\'cn, to a child by a certam act. 70 INTEODUCTION. Nor can I regard the institution of Mr. G orham by the Court, and at the fiat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, under the decree of her ISIajesty as Supreme Governor of the Anghcan Church, to be any thing else but a pubHc profession that the Anghcan Church is founded on the most dishonest compromise — one which involves the denial of the whole Christian faith and the practical establishment of unlimited Latitudinarianism.* And yet I could not but acknowledge that the power which makes this decision is one fully competent to make * Because, " to admit the lawfulness of holding an exposition of an Article of the Creed, contradictory of the essential meaning of that Article, is in truth and in fact to abandon that Article ;" and " inas- much as the Faith is one, and rests upon one pi-inciple of authority, the conscious, deliberate, and wilful abandonment of the essential meaning of an Article of the Creed destroys the divine foundation upon which alone the entire Faith is propounded by the Church ;" and " any por- tion of the Church, which does so abandon the essential meaning of an Article of the Creed, forfeits not only the Catholic doctrine in that Article, but also the office and authority to witness and teach as a member of the Universal Church." Propositions signed by thirteen most distinguished names : H. E. Manning, M.A., ArcMcacon of Chichester. Egbert J. Wilberforce, M.A., Archdeacon of the East Hiding. Thomas Thorp, B.D., Archdeacon of Bristol. W. H. Mill, D.D., Eegius Professor of Hehren', Cambridge. E. B. PusET, D.D., Begins Professor of Heir ew, Oxford. John Keble, M.A., Vicar of Ilursley. W. DODSWORTH, M.A., Perpetual Curate of Christ Church, St. Pancras. W. J. E. Bennett, M.A., Perpetual Curate of St. PauVs, Knights- hridge, H. W. WiLBERFOECE, M.A., ^^,car of East Farleigh. John C. Talbot, M.A,, Barrister-at-law. EiCHARD Cavendish, M.A. Edward Badeley, M.A. Barrister-at-laiv. James R. Hope, D.C.L., Barrister-at-law. INTRODUCTION. 71 it. It is that power to which the AiigHcan Church first submitted itself in 1534, and finally in 1559. It is the power under which it has lived three hundred years, and by whose gi'ant it holds all its property. It is the power to which, dm'ing all that time, its Clergy have sworn obe- dience, as " Supreme Governor ;" and the natui'e of Suj^re- macy is, that what is subject to it cannot call it in question. It is the poMcr which not only nominates, but institutes, Bishops ; erects, divides, alters, and extinguishes bishoprics ; causes Convocation to be summoned, or not to be smii- moned ; to transact, or not to transact business ; confinns, or does not confirm its acts ; and, in short, the power which constitutes the distinctive character of the Anglican Com- munion, as to its government, making it to differ both from the Catholic Church and all Protestant sects. Lastly, it is the power which alone makes it a whole, the Cathedra Petri of Anglicanism. For all these reasons, it is a power which binds the Anglican Church, its Clergy, and its Laity, as a whole and as mdividuals ; and accordingly a power by the rightness or ^^■rongness of whose decision in matters of faith the con- science of every one in tliat communion, and liis state before God, is touched. Now, to svibmit to this particular decision, I must resign every principle of faith as a Christian, as well as every feehng of honour as a freeman ; — I would as soon sacrifice to Jupiter, or worship Buddlia, or again, take my faith from the civil power; — and to remain in the Anglican Com- munion is to submit to it. 72 INTEODUCTION. But in the mean time the nearer consideration of the Eoyal Supremacy had opened my mind to comprehend the nature of its great antagonist, the Primacy of S. Peter's See. For, as has been said, the former consists in supre- macy of jurisdiction, whether viewed as deciding in the last resort upon doctrine, and this as well legislatively, by giving license to summon convocation, and by confirming its acts, as judicially, in matters of appeal ; or as gi\^ng mission and authority to exercise their powers to all Bishops. Now, it was plain that such a supremacy must exist somewhere in every system. And immediately there followed the question. What is that somewhere in the Church Catholic ? I could not even imagine any answer, save that it was S. Peter's Chair. And then I saw that the contest in Church history really lay not between Ultra- montane and Galilean opinions, but between the liberty, independence, and spirituality of Christ's Chm-ch on the one hand, or on its being made a servile instrmnent of State government on the other: between a divine and a human Chiu'ch. And now I went over agam the testi- monies of antiquity which I had before put together, and many others besides ; and I found that one or two confu- sions and incoherencies of mind — especially the not under- standing accm'ately the distinction between the power of Order and the power of Jurisdiction, and their consequences — had alone prevented my seeing, not merely a Primacy of divine institution, but how full, complete, and overwhelm- ing was the testimony of the Church before the division of the East and West to the Supremacy of S. Peter's See, as INTRODUCTION. 73 at present claimed^ the veiy same, and no other. I had it proved to me by the e\idence of unnumbered witnesses, that the charge of such Supremacy being originated by the false decretals of Isidore Mercator was a most groundless, I fear also, a most malignant and treacherous imputation. And, moreover, I felt convinced that those who deny the Papal Supremacy must, if they are honest men, cease to study history, or at least begin their acquaintance with Clnis- tianity at the sixteenth centmy. Also that they must be content with a dead Church, and no Creed. ^Ylien I had come to this conclusion, it became a matter of absolute necessity and conscience to act upon it, to resign my office and function of teaching in the Anglican Church, and not only so, but to leave that communion itself, in which, so far from being able " to hold and teach all doc- trine which the undivided Church always held," I could no longer teach, save as an "open question" (from which degradation may God preserve me I), that very primary- doctrine Avhich stands at the commencement of the spiritual life. I leave therefore the Anglican Communion, not simply because it is involved in heresy* by the decision of Her • * See Archdeacon Manning's last pamphlet : " If there be, therefore, such a thing as material heresy, it is the doctrine which has now received the sanction of the law" (p. 43). But the Anglican Episcopate has met upon this doctrine, considered, and done iwthing ; and so, as a whole, accepts it ; nor has the Church, as a n-holc, rejected it ; only individuals have protested, and this in a far smaller number than those who have acquiesced in it. What is wanting to make it, as respects the com- munion itself, not only material, but formal heresy? Since this was written in 1850, the Convocation so often appealed to by chuixhrnen has been allowed repeatedly to meet, but has never 74 INTRODUCTION. Majesty in Council, but because that Royal Supremacy, in virtue of which Her Majesty decides at all in matters of doctrine, is a power utterly incompatible with the existence of the Church of God, and because Anghcanism, as a whole, has not only tampered with and corrupted the entire body of doctrine which concerns the Church and the Sacraments, but, as a living system, is based upon the denial of that Primacy of S. Peter's See to which I find Holy Scripture and the Church of the East and West bearing witness ; and which I believe, on their authority, to have been established by Christ Himself as the Kock and immovable foundation of His Church, her safeguard from heresy and dissolution. My last act as an Anglican, and my last duty to Angli- canism, is to set forth, as I do in the following pages, what has induced me to leave it. ventured, if indeed it desired, to take any step towards reversing the Gorliani decision. No doubt it is conscious both that such an attempt would not have the smallest chance of success, and also, that if it did succeed, it would pull the Anglican Establishment to i^ieces. But its silence after meeting has made the Establishment's accei)tance of the decision full and complete, Note to Third Edition. SECTION I. THE PRIMACY OF S. PETER AN EXISTING PO^VTilR. Christi.vxity is now more than eighteen hundred years old ; and when we look around we find it planted, and more or less flourishine:, amono; all the nations of the earth which are conspicuous for their power, their knowledge, and their civilisation. This common term Christianity distinguishes them broadly, but decisively, from all other nations outside of its pale. But a second glance makes it necessary to analyse this term itself; for it shows a great variety of differences in the religious belief and spiritual government of those whom w^e have thus classed together. About two- thirds in number of all calling themselves Christians are closely united under one head, whom they beheve to be of Divine institution — namely, the Bishop of Rome, the suc- cessor of S. Peter — and in one belief and one communion, of which that Bishop is the special bond. Of the remain- ing third part, two-thirds, again, profess a belief very nearly, save in one point, identical with the former, but distinguished in that they do not now acknowledge the Bishop of Rome as the bond of their unity, though they freely admit that he once stood at the head of that patri- archal system of government which they still maintain. These form the Oriental communion, embracing the Greek 76 THE PRIMACY OF S. PETEK and Russian Churches. Of other Eastern sects it is not necessary here to speak. The rest, forming the other third of this latter third, or one-ninth, numerically, of all Chris- tians, may be classed together as the Protestant, or Anglo- German phase of Christianity. Most deeply opposed, in many of their tenets, and in then' whole tone of thinking and feeling, to the last-mentioned communion, they yet agree with it in rejecting the headship of S. Peter's suc- cessor, and indeed are wont to add every contumelious epithet which language can supply to the claim of authority which he puts forth and exercises. Not, however, that this Anglo-German Christianity is united itself as to its spiritual government, or even as to its belief. For whereas in England, and partly in America, it is governed by Bishops, in Prussia and Scotland, and again in the United States, it has thrown off such control. Nor, again, that its component portions have one creed, for it has been found impossible to draw up articles of belief to which they could all agree. Nevertheless, this Anglo-German Christianity may be called one mass, for it broke off, or at least was severed, at the same time, from the great communion first mentioned, which still acknowledges the headship of S. Peter's successor. And with many minor diversities and gradations it has in common certain fundamental prin- ciples ; such as the entire rejection, in some portions of it, and in others the attenuation, of the doctrine of Sacra- mental Grace, and in all, the maiming of that great sacra- mental system to which all the rest of Christianity adheres ; and again, which is a part of the above, a denial that the AN EXISTING PO^VEE. 77 spiritual government of the Church is lodged l^y a divine succession in certain persons. This idea, in some of its portions, as in Prussia, and in the Protestant sects of America, is utterly rejected; in others, as the Anglican Church, made an open question, it bemg notorious that part of its clergy consider such a notion a corruption of Christianity, while part as warmly maintain it to be neces- saiy for the Church's existence. Again, all are united in rejecting the Roman view of the great mystery of the Real Presence, and of that reverence to Saints, which flows forth from it, such as the ascription of miraculous effects to their relics, and of such prevailing power in their intercessions that they may lawfully and profitably be asked to pray for VIS. Perhaps this peculiarity of mind may be summed up in its most remarkable instance. For whereas that before- mentioned great Roman Communion, and no less the Eastern, is distinguished by a very special and wholly sin- gular love and reverence towards the most Blessed Vu'gin INIary, as the mother of God our Saviour; whereas all hearts within it are so penetrated with the thought of her di^•ine maternity, that they cannot behold om* Lord in His infancy, without seeing Him borne in His mother's arms ; nor gaze upon Him suffering on the cross, without the thought of His mother transfixed with sorrow at His feet, so that He and she are indivisibly bound together, on Earth in the days of His flesh, in Heaven at the right hand of God, and the mystery of our redemption, completely accom- plished in Him, yet enfolds her as the instrument of His incarnation, has an oflice and a function for her ; whereas 78 THE PRIMACY OF S. PETER these are daily liouseliold thoughts, and the dearest of all sympathies, in minds of the Roman and the Eastern Com- munion, the Anglo-German phase of Christianity is quite united in looking upon this reverence and love to the Blessed Virgin as dangerous, and tending to idolatry, and derogatory to our Lord. On the whole, then, we may set down the actually ex- isting Christianity as divided into three great portions : the Roman Catholic, miited in government and belief, and comprehending two-thirds of the whole ; The Oriental with the Russian, and the sects pai'ted from it ; The Protestant, or Anglo-German. At this moment, then, a variety of nations, having the most various worldly interests, and the most distinct na- tional, moral, and political character, are united in acknow- ledging, as the head of their religion, the successor of S. Peter, the Bishop of Rome. And after all the divisions and conflicts of Christianity within itself, two-thirds of all professing it are still of one mind, and more than one hun- dred and sixty millions of souls, by the confession of an adversary, see, in the divine framework of the visible Church which holds them together, one mainspring and motive power, controlling and harmonising all the rest : in the circle which embraces them and the world, one centre, S. Peter's See, the throne of the Fisherman, built by the Carpenter^s Son. The Anglican Church professes a belief in Episcopacy ; it is not miworthy of its attention, that of about eleven AN EXISTING POWER. 79 hundred Bishops now in the world (admitting the claim of one hundred of Anglican descent) eight hundred own allegiance to the Pope. If a General Council could sit, there would be no doubt on wliich side the vast majority would be. K nations could represent the Church, as at the Council of Constance, there would be as httle uncertainty in the result. Such is the aspect of things in the present day; but Christianity numbers more than eighteen hundred years. " Remember the days of old : consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee : thy elders, and they will tell thee." Of eighteen huncbed years let us go back tlu'ee hundred and fifty, from 1850 to 1500. - Wliere is the Anglo-German phase of Christianity? What nations did it number ? "V\^iat powers of the world did it set in motion? It was yet to come. Its principles, indeed, had lui'ked in the restless mind of Wickliffe ; had seemed, and but seemed, to expire in the ashes of Huse. It Avas darkly and mistily agitating unquiet thoughts in England and Germany, flying, like a bird of ill omen, round the proud towers of the Church of God, or festering in corners of corruption over high powers misused. But in fixed shape and consistency, as yet it was not. That which now claims to be the pure and reformed Church had no existence. The Anglo-Saxon mind had been formed and grown up under the control of S. Peter's See : and the country of Luther still with one voice reverenced that 80 THE PRmACY OF S. PETER Winfricl, wlio, from the island won to the cross by S. Gregory, went forth to his successor, begged his apostoHc blessing, and planted in Mayence the crosier which he had received from Kome. The Chm-ches of Gennany and England owed to the Papal See their whole organisation, and had subsisted, the one for eight hundred, the other for nine hundred years, under that fostering power. The claim which Germany and England now reject was then written on every page of the ecclesiastical legislation of those comitries. Their first Metropolitans had received their jm'isdiction from the Pope ; the diocese of every Ger- man and English Bishop had been defined by the Pope ; the institution of every Bishop to his see had been received from the Pope, and at the most awful moment of his life, every spiritual ruler had sworn that he would uphold the See of S. Peter, and its occupant, " principem episcopalis coronge." * Go back but three centuries and a half, and this ninth part of Christianity — this busy, pi'}"ing, restless mind, which criticises every thing and believes nothing; pulls down, but never builds up ; analyses the principle of life, and by the dissection kills it — ^which treats the Holy Scrip- ture as the ploughboy treated the watch, pulls it to pieces to look at its mechanism, and then wonders that it mil not go ; which grudges to men even the Apostles' Creed, and will not let them hold that there is one baptism for the remission of sins, but on condition that they communicate with those who deny it; this spirit, which, in its most * Edict of the Emperor Valentinian, A.n. 445. AN EXISTING POWER. 81 advanced development, casts Christianity itself into the alembic, and makes it come out a volatile essence of pan- theism — in one word, Protestantism, was not. Thus those who most bitterly reject the Papal Supre- macy as an usiu'pation of late times are found themselves to have begun to exist ages after the supposed corruption which they denounce. But there are older, more consistent, more dignified deniers of the Pope's claim than those who date from the Keformation. To meet these, let us go back, instead of three hundred and fifty, a thousand years. In the year 850, not only Italy, and Spain, and Gaul, and Britain, and Germany, but the Roman Empire of the east, the Patriarchs of Con- stantinople, Alexandi'ia, Antioch, Jerusalem, and then' sub- ject Bishops and people, acknowledged S. Peter's successor, without a doubt and Avithout a murmur, as " chief pastor of the Church which is mider Heaven."* I shall have occa- sion to bring forward presently testimonies from the highest authorities among them, and from their Bishops assembled in Ecumenical Council ; testimonies of the complete obedi- ence which they yielded to the Pope's Supremacy, as well in matters of faith as of discipline. But in 850 modern Europe was at least in part consti- tuted — the foundations of present legislation had been laid — some thrones, still existing, had been raised ; the north had cast forth its hordes whom the Church was moulding o * S. Theodore Studites, Abbot of Constantinople. Baronius, A.D. 809, n. 14. G 82 THE PKIMACY OF S. PETER into empires, and out of freemen making legislators : Charlemagne had been crowned Emperor of the Romans before S. Peter's shrine, by the hands of S. Peter's suc- cessor, and Alfred was just about to receive his first educa- tion at Rome under S. Leo the Fourth. Let us go back another five hundred years, into that old Roman civilisation, when the children of Constantino sat on his throne, and Athanasius was being tried for his faith. A General Council is assembled at Sardica, a.d. 347, and it recognises S. Peter's successor as in full, time-honoured possession of his supreme power. It directs, not as a new thing, nor as the recognition of a new power, but what was " best and most fitting," as being in accordance with all ancient usage, that all Bishops, in case of difficulty, " should refer to the head, that is, the See of the Apostle Peter." And the first Council in which the whole Church was represented, the Nicene Council, famous to all ages, stated, not as granting a favour, but bearing Avitness to a fact, and acknowledging a poAver existing from the very first, with- out attempting to define it — for indeed that power was neither derived from its gift, nor subject to its control — " the Roman Church always had the Primacy."* * That is, as quoted by the Papal Legates at the Council of Chal- cedon. If it be objected that the Greek copies do not begin the 6th canon, which is the one in question, with this heading, as was observed by the Archdeacon of Constantinople at the Council of Chalcedon, yet at the same time neither he nor any one else denied the fact that the Nicene Council acknowledged this Primacy of Home ; nay, the 29th canon of the Council of Chalcedon, which the Greek party was at the time trying to pass, and which the Popes would never ratify, recognised the Primacy of Kome at least de facto ; nor was there any one in that Council who even pretended that it had arisen between A.D. 325 and AN EXISTING PQ-VVER. 83 If, then, two-tliirds of all existing Christians acknowledge still the Pope's Supremacy, and if the countries forming the remaining third did formerly, and that for many hmidred years, acknowledge it, certainly it can fairly claim the right of a poicer in possession ; it can throw the burden of proof on those who deny it. And this is a consideration of some importance. A power now exists in most active and manifold operation at the very centre of the Chm'ch of Christ — a supreme, controlling, harmonising, conservative, unitive, defining power, in that mighty empire of thought which our Lord has set up. Who put it there? It answers : Our Lord Himself. And it points to a great number of proofs, bearing witness to its existence, in the histoiy of eighteen hundred years. Now these proofs are of very various cogency. No one of them perhaps defines, or could define, the whole range of the power ; but one exhibits it in this particular, and another in that : for in- stance, one ancient saint declares " that it is necessaiy that every Church should agree with the Roman, on account of its superiority of headship ;" another, that " unity begins from it ;" a third, that " where Peter is, there is the Church ;" a fourth, that " the headship of the Apostolic See has always flourished in it."* Now it is plain that A,D. 451. Whatever, therefore, be the true reading of the much-debated 6th canon of the Nicene Council, which seems not even yet to be settled, 80 much, at least, is clear, that the Primacy of Rome was admitted to be recognised by it, which is all that is asserted in the text. Xote to Second Edition. * 1. S. Irenanis ; 2. S. Cyprian ; 3. S. Ambrose ; 4. S.Augustine. Note to Second Edition. 84 THE PEIMACY OF S. PETER these expressions want a key. And such is supphecl by the present existence of that power. The fair and candid mind will see in them much more even than they at first sight convey : for it was not the purpose of the Avriters at the moment to define the power to which they were alluding, any more than those living under the supremacy of the British monarchy, in any casual mention of it, would do otherwise than refer to it as an existing thing. If such attributes, then, of the Roman See, separately mentioned by different Fathers, all fit into, and are explained by, an existing power, and, when put together, here one and there another, exhibit, more or less, such a power, it is fair so to interpret them, and to infer that the power which we now see existed then. For attaining the truth, it is most neces- sary to begin by studying it under right conditions. In interpreting expressions there is often a great difference between what they must and what they 7nay mean : now an existing power has a right, in such cases as these, that they should be interpreted in its favour. For consider what a phenomenon, wholly without a parallel, this power, as at present existing, exhibits. Not merely is it older than all the monarchies of Eu- rope ; little is it to say that it has watched over their first rudiments, fostered their growth, assisted their develop- ment, maintained their matui'ity ; it has been further up- held by a deep belief, shared in common by many various nations, older in each of them than their existence as na- tions, and continuing on through the lapse of ages, while almost every thing else in those nations has changed ; not AN EXISTING PCSVER. 85 only does it rule, claiming an equal and paternal sway over all, in spite of tlieii- various jealousies, their national an- tagonism, or tlieir diverse temperament, so that German and Italian, who love not each other, Pole and Spaniard, who are so dissimilar, have yet in their faith a common Father; but, moreover, every circumstance of the world has altered, and society gone round its whole cycle, from a coiTupt heathen civilisation, through a wild barbarism conflicting ■^^'ith Christianity, into wdse and venerable poli- ties built upon the Church, and having its life infused into their own, Avliile all throughout a line of old men has been on the banks of the Tiber, ruling this huge and many- membered Christian Commonwealth, not by the arm of the flesh, but by the word of the Spirit. Nations fought and conquered, or were subdued ; populations were changed, and races engrafted. German and Italian, Frank and Gaul, Goth and Iberian, Saxon and Briton, Slavonian and Hun, were dashed together. There were centuries of bitter wrong — the pangs of Europe hastening to the birth. But a presiding spirit was there too, and brooded over all — a spirit of unity, order, and love. At last the d;u*kness broke, and it was found that these wild nations, one and all, recognised the keys of Peter, and felt the sword of Paul. An omen of this victory had appeared in early times. S. Leo set forth the true doctrine of the Licarna- tion ; the Church listened, and was saved from a heresy already half imposed upon her by the ci\al power of the Eastern empire. The Western empire trembled at the approach of Attila, and the same Leo went forth to meet 86 THE PRIMACY OF S. PETER the barbarian, who was awed by the simple majesty of liis presence, and the power of God in the person of His chief minister. Fourteen hundred years have passed, and Leo's suc- cessor still sits upon his throne ; hundreds of bishops, and millions of faithful, still believe that his voice sets forth and protects the true faith in every emergent heresy ; and that wild force which Attila wielded has been tamed to the dominion of law, in that long course of intervening ages, by the power which Leo represented. Yet, great as was liis influence as head of the Church, still incomparably greater now is the authority of his successor amongst the nations of the earth, after all defections, amid all the unbelief of these latter times, when "many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased," and perilous powers are in motion and combination, — powers which seek to sub- stitute the human intellect, with the arts and commodities of life springing from it, for the grace of God healing the nations, and the truth which He has committed to the guardianship of His mystical Body. Manners, races, empires, have changed and passed away, but what S. Prosper sung in 431 is as true now : " Sedes Roma Petri, qufe pastoralis honoris Facta cai3ut mundo, quicquid non possidet armis Religione tenet." S. Augustine, at the end of the fourth century, pointed to the line of Bishops descenduig from the very seat of Peter, to whom the Lord intrusted His sheep to be fed, as hold- AN EXISTIXG PO-VATER. 87 ing liiin in the Catholic Church. It was a cogent argu- ment then ; but what is it now, when fourteen centuries and a half have added more than two hunth'ed successors to that chair, and more than forty generations have en- cu'cled it with their homage ? Is it possible for an usurjmtion to subsist under such conditions ? Will many viuious nations agree that the head of their religion should be external to themselves? Will the members of these various and jealous nations, M'ho are equal in their episcopal power, allow a brother to arrange then- precedence, control their actions, terminate their disputes, rule them as one flock, and that for fifteen centuries together? Or where shall we seek the foundation of such a power? The Chm'ch bears witness to it, but did not create it. Councils acknowledge it, but it is before comi- cils. The first of them said : " The Eoman Church always had the Primacy." Wlio is sufficient to create such an institution, and to maintain it? to take a common pebble that lay at his feet, and build on it a pyramid that should last for ever ; on which for evermore the rain should descend, the floods fall, and the winds blow, and all the power of the evil one be exerted in vain? One alone, surely. So this authority itself declares. So the Church itself witnesses. So unnumbered saints from ajje to ase proclaim. That One wdio said, " Let there be light," and " This is ^ly Body," said also, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Chm'ch, and the gates of HeU shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the 88 PKIMACY OF S. PETER AN EXISTING TOWEK. keys of tlie kingdom of Heaven ; and whatsoever tliou slialt bind on Eartli shall be bound in Heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Eartli shall be loosed in Heaven." But of this w^e must speak more in detail. SECTION II. TILE SCKIPTUEAL PROOF OF THE PRBIACY. " In our life," said S. Bernard, " we seem to do, so far as our owai purpose is concerned, many tilings by chance, and many by necessity ; but Clu-ist, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, could be subject to neither of these. For what necessity could force God's Power, or what should God's Wisdom do by chance? Wherefore all things whatsoever He spake, whatsoever He did, whatsoever He suffered, doubt not to have proceeded from His ■v\dll, full of mysteries, full of salvation."* If such thoughts are becoming in respect of all the words which God spake on earth in the days of His flesh, they apply with peculiar force to those few and short sen- tences wherein He summed up the authority which He was conferring on His Apostles for the mstitution and edification of His Chm'cli. They are creative words, full of power, stretching tlu*ough all time, each one in itself a prophecy, a mu'acle, and a manifold mysteiy. Assm-edly, therefore, not without a special meaning were some things said to all the Apostles in common, and some to S. Peter alone. * In Festo AscenBionis, Serm. iv. 90 THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF TO THE APOSTLES. Let US distinguish these. And, further, let us distinguish the promz'se from the fulfilment. Now there was one single promise^ respecting the go- vernment of His Church, made by our Lord to S. Peter singly, and another made to all the Apostles together, in- cluding Peter. They have a close connection with each other, and the better to see their force let us put them in parallel columns : TO PETER. " 1. I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this Eock I will build My Church, " 2. And the gates of Hell shall not prevail a- gainst it. " 3. And I will give mi- to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, " 4. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on Eai'th shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven." "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bomid in Heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven." Here it will be observed that four things are first promised to Peter alone, the fourth of which is afterwards promised to the Apostles together, including Peter. OF THE PRIMACY. 91 And the fulfilment of tliis fouilh promise is made like- ^^•isc to all the Apostles together, thus : " Peace be unto you : as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. " And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose- soever sms ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." The other passages which express powers given to the Apostles in common are these : 1 Cor. xi. 23-25 : " The Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread ; and when He had given thanlvs, He brake it, and said. Take, eat : this is My Body, which is given for you : this do in remembrance of Me. After the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped, saj-ing : This cup is the new testament in My Blood : this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me^'' See also Luke xxu. 19. ]\Iatt. xxviii. 18-20 : " Jesus came and spake unto them, saying : All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in Eaith. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptismg them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all things what- soever I have commanded you: and, lo, I •am with you alway, even mito the end of the world. Ainen." Mark xvi. 15 ; " And He said unto them : Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every crea- tm-e." Luke xxiv. 49 : " And, behold, I send the promise of 92 THE SCRIPTURAX PROOF My Father upon you : but tarry ye in the city of Jeru- salem imtil ye be endued with power from on high." Acts i. 4, 5, 8: " Being assembled together vdth them, He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me. For John truly baptised with water ; but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. " Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." We have seen that three out of four promises made to Peter singly were not made to the other Apostles, and two remarkable passages remain, which belong to Peter only. Om' Lord, wdien all the Apostles were around Him, at the time of His passion, singling out Peter, said to him : " Simon, Simon, behold Satan hatli desu"ed to have you^ that he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee ; and thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy hrethrenJ' And after He had delivered His commission to the Apostles assembled together, and sent them, as He was sent from the Father, bestowing on them the power to forgive sins, all which involved their Apostolate, He took an occasion, when Peter, James, and John, His most favoured disciples, and four others, were, together, to ad- dress S. Peter singly in very memorable words. John xxi. 15 : " So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter : OF THE PRIMACY. 93 Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these ? He saith unto Him : Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him: Feed My hunbs (Bo(tk6 ra apvia fxov). " He saith to him again the second time : Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? He saith unto him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him : Feed My sheep" (Uoifxaive to. 7rpo|3ara fxov). " He saith unto him the third time : Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time : Lovest thou j\Ie ? And he said unto Him : Lord, Thou knowest all things : Thoti knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him : Feed My sheep" (Boo-ke ra Trpo^aTo. juou). These are all the passages, respecting their ovm office and functions, spoken either to the Apostles in common, or to Peter singly ; very few out of which to construct the government of the universal Church, were the Constructor less than God, but sufficient for Him whose word creates. Let us now sum up the powers conveyed in them : first those given to the Apostles in common ; then those pecu- liar to Peter. Of those given to the Apostles in common, the follow- ing are ordinary, that is, requisite for the perpetual govern- ment of the Chm'ch : 1. Offering the holy Sacrifice — " This do {tovto iroLUTi, hoc facite, the sacrificial words) in remembrance of Me." In other words, Power over the natural Body of Christ. 2. Forgiving sins, in the Sacrament of Penance — 94 THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF "Whosesoever sins ye remit," &c. That is, Power over the mystical Body of Christ. Tliese make up the Priesthood. 3. Baptising — " Baptising them," &c. 4. Teaching and administering all other Sacraments and rites, and enjoining obedience to them — "Teaching them to observe all things," &c. 5. Liflicting and removing cen- f " TVliatsoever sures — -| ye shall bind," 6. Binding by laws — L &c. 7. The presence of Christ -with them in this office to the end — " Lo, I am with you alway." These involve the Episcopate. The follomng are extraordinary , making up, in fact, the Apostolate, as distinguished from the Episcopate : 8. Immediate institution by Christ — "As My Father hath sent Me," &c. 9. Universal mission — " Go ye into all the world." Now all these powers S. Peter shared in common Avith the other Apostles, and therefore in all these they were equal ; but the following are peculiar to himself : 1. He is made the Rock, or foundation of the Church, next after Christ, and singly — " Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church." 2. To the Church, thus founded on him, pei'petual continuance and victory are guaranteed — "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." 3. The keys of the kingdom of Heaven, that is, the symbol of supreme power, the mastership over the Lord's OF THE PRIMACY. 95 House, the guardianship of the Lord's City, are committed to him alone — " To thee vdll I give the keys of the king- dom of Heaven." 4. The power of binding and loosing sins, of inflicting and removing censures, of enacting spiritual laws, given to him elsewhere ivith the Apostles, is here given to him singly — "And whatsoever thou shalt bind," &c. 5. The power of confinning his brethren, because his own faith should never fail. 6. The supreme pastorship of all Christ's flock is be- stowed on him — " Feed My lambs — be shepherd over My sheep — feed My sheep." Thus, comparing together what was given to the Apos- tles in common, and what was given to Peter singly, we find that : 1. He received many things alone — they nothing with- out him. 2. His powers can be exercised only by one — theirs by many. 3. His powers include theirs — not theirs his. 4. The ordinary government of the Church, promised and prefigured in the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, con- veyed and summed up in "Feed My sheep," that is, the pastoral office — radiates from his person ; the Episcopate is folded up in the Primacy. Moreover, as to the continuance and descent of these powers, the same principle which leads all Churchmen to believe that the ordinary powers bestowed on the Apostles in common for the good of the Church are continued on to 96 THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF those wlio govern the Church for ever, leads also to the belief that the power bestowed on Peter likewise for the good of the Church continues on to his successors in like manner. Indeed, part of the promise is express on this head, assigning perpetual continuance to the Church founded on Peter. Further, we learn in what respects the Apostles were equal to Peter, and in what he was superior to them. They were equal in the powers of the Episcopate ; They were equal also in those of the Apostolate, super- added to the former, that is, immediate institution by Christ, and universal mission ; They were inferior to him in one point only, which made up his Primacy, namely, that they must exercise all these powers in union Avith him, and in dependence on him : he had singly what they had collectively with him. He had promised and engaged to him, first and alone, the supreme government, a portion of which was afterwards promised to them with him; and after the Apostolate, granted to them all in common, he had the supervision of all intrusted to him alone. For even they were committed to his charge in the words, " Feed My sheep." And so ha alone was the doorkeeper; he alone the shepherd of the fold ; he alone the rock on which even they, as well as all other Christians, were built; in one word, he was their head, and so his Primacy is an essential part, nay, the cro"wn and completion of the divine government of the Chm-ch ; for the Body without a Head is no Body. Thus were they all doctors of the whole world, as S. OF THE PRDIACY. 97 C}Til and S. Chrysostom tell us, yet under one, the leader of the band. They could, and did, exercise jurisdiction, erect Bishops, and plant Churches, in all parts of the world, but it was in union with Peter, and in obedience to him. His Primacy, then, consisted not in a superiority of order, but in a superiority oi jurisdiction. After the departure of the Apostles, this superiority of jiu'isdiction in the Primacy would be seen more clearly. For they communicated to none that universal mission which they themselves received from Christ, the Bishops whom they ordained havmg only a restricted field in which they exercised their powers ; and it is manifest that our Lord in person instituted no Bishops after them. Thus these two privileges of the Apostolate, universal mission, and imme- diate institution by Christ, dropped. But S. Peter's Pri- macy, being distinct from his Apostolate, continued on. There was one still necessary to bear the keys of the king- dom of Heaven, and to feed all the sheep of the Lord's flock. That power, first promised, and last given, to Peter, the crown and key-stone of the arch, that which makes the whole Church one flock, was an universal Episcopate. Thus the Primacy is jurisdictional, with regard to all Bi- shops, as it was with regard to the Apostles; and two powers emerge, of divine institution, for the government of the Church to the end of time — the Primacy and the Episcopate. And the power thus given to Peter singly, in promise^ that he shovild be the rock, the foundation of the Church, H 9s THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF never to be moved from its place, the bearer of tlie keys, binding and loosing all in heaven and earth, in fulfilment^ that he should be the one shepherd charged with the care of all the sheep, — this jiower is, of its own nature, supreme. It embraces the whole flock, as well as the different sheep ; the Church collectively, as well as its members distributively. It reaches to every need which can arise. Once grasp its true nature, and you see that it cannot be limited by any power over which it is appointed itself to rule. Yet is it tempered by that one condition laid upon it by our Lord at its institution, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these ?" more than James, and more than John. This superior love is indeed needed by him who wields such a power in a Idngdom built upon that loA^e which sacrificed itself for the world ; and that power itself is given for edi- fication and not for destruction, but for that very reason is supreme, and answerable to Him alone who created it, and willed it to represent His Person upon earth. All came from the Person of God the Word incarnate ; all, therefore, is upheld from above, and not from below. All proceeded from One ; all is concentrated in One. The Father is supreme, but he is a Father. Now, in all this I have hitherto gone on the mere words of Scriptm-e, which are so plain, so coherent, so decisive, that I cannot imagine a candid mmd dra's^dng any other conclusion from them.* * Tlie writer has been censured by members of that party in the Anglican Cliurch to which he formerly belonged, for saying that " he cannot conceive any candid mind drawing any other conclusion" from these texts, as if he had in so sajang condemhed himself for not having OF THE PRIMACY. 99 It is another argument, and no less a trath, that this ■vnew alone supplies a key to all antiquity. Thus alone does the history of the Church become intelligible. A power of divine institution, deposited from the beginning within it, is seen to grow with its growth, to be the root on which it is planted, and the spring of its organisation ; to enfold in itself, and develop from itself, all other powers, imparting force to each, and hamiony to all. And now I will select, out of ancient and modern times, the testimony of two great Bishops to this interpretation of Holy Scripture. One shall be the representative of the Fathers, the other of the present Church. More than fourteen hundred years ago, the great Pope Leo, in -the midst of an assembly of Bishops, collected from all Italy to commemorate the anniversaiy of his pontificate, thus exliibited the mind of the Chm'ch in the middle of the fifth centur}^ respecting the See of Peter : " Although, then, beloved, our partaking in that gift (of unity) be a great subject for common joy, yet it were a better and more excellent course of rejoicing, if ye rest not formerly drawn such conclusion from these very texts. But in jioint of fact a modern contradictory tradition, inculcating as a first jjrincij)le of hcUcfthat the Primacy of S. Peter, as continued in the Pojjc, is a cor- ruption of CJiriKtianity, had then possession of his mind, as it has pos- session of so many Protestant minds at present, and prevented his even studying what was said in Holy Writ with regard to this particular sub- ject. Such a tradition makes a mind incapable of exercising candour, however much it may desire to do so. Though Protestants profess to go by the r)ible alone, probably not one Protestant in a million has ever attempted to judge dispassionately of what is said in Scripture to Peter and to the other Apostles as to their power of governing the Church. It was already a ruled point in their minds. {Kote to Second Edition.) 100 THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF in the consideration of our humility; more j)rofitable and more worthy by far it is to raise the mind's eye unto the contemplation of the most blessed Apostle Peter's glory, and to celebrate this day chiefly in the honour of him who was loaterecl loiili streams so copious from the very fountain of all graces, that lohile nothing has passed to others ivithout his pai^- ticipation, yet he received many special privileges of his own. The Word made flesh already was dwelling in us, and Christ had given up Himself whole to restore the race of man. Nothing was unordered to His wisdom; nothing diflicult to His power. Elements were obeying, spirits ministering, angels serving ; it was impossible that mystery could fail of its effect, in which the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead itself was at once working. And yet out of the whole world Peter alone is chosen to p)reside over the call- ing of all the Gentiles, and over cdl the Apostles and the col- lected Fathers of the Church; so that, though there he among the people of God many pnests and many shepherds, yet Peter rules all hy immediate commission, whom Christ also rules by sovereign power. Beloved, it is a great and wonderful parti- cipation of His oicn poiver which the Divine condescendence gave to this man; and if He willed that other rulers should enjoy aught together loith him, yet never did He give, save through him, what He denied not to others. In fine, the Lord asks all the Apostles what men think of Him ; and they an- swer in common so long as they set forth the doubtfulness of human ignorance. But when what the disciples think is required, he who is first in ApostoHc dignity is first also in confession of the Lord. And when he had said : ' Thou OF THE PRmACY. 101 art Christ, the Son of the linng' God,' Jesus answered liim: ^ BIessedar t_tliou, Simon Bar-Jon a, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father which is in Heaven :' — ^that is, Thou art blessed, because My Father hath taught thee ; nor hath opinion of the earth deceived thee, but inspiration from Heaven instructed thee ; and not flesh and blood hath shown ^le to thee, but He whose only- begotten Son I am. ' And I,' saitli He, ' say unto thee,' — that is, as JSIy Father hath manifested to thee ISIy Godhead, so I too make known unto thee thine own preeminence, — * For thou art Peter,' that is, whilst I am the immutable Rock ; I the Corner-Stone who make both one ; I the Foundation beside which no one can lay another ; yet thou also art a Hod; because hy My virtue thou art firmly planted^ so that whatever is peculiar to Me hy power ^ is to thee hy par- ticipation common icith Me, — ' and upon this Rock I will build ^ly Clim'ch, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it;' — on this strength, saith He, I will build an eternal temple, and My Church, which in its height shall reach the Heaven, shall rise upon the firmness of this faith. " This confession the gates of Hell shall not restrain, nor the chains of death fetter ; for that voice is the voice of life. And as it raises those Avho confess it inito heavenly places, so it plunges those who deny it into Hell. Where- fore it is said to most blessed Peter : * I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and Avhatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.' The ( 102 THE SCRIPTTJEAL PROOF privilege of this poicer did indeed jjass on to the other Apostles, and the order of this decree spread out to all the rulers of the Church, hut not icithout purpose ichat is intended for all is put into the hands of one. For therefore is this intrusted to Peter singularly, because all the riders of the Church are invested ivith the figure of Peter. Tlie privilege, therefore, of Peter remainetli, wheresoever judgment is passed according to his equity. Nor can severity or indulgence be excessive, where nothing is bound, nothing loosed, save what blessed Peter either bindeth or looseth. Again, as that Passion di'ew on which was about to shake the firmness of His disciples, the Lord saith : ' Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; and when thou art con- verted, confirm thy brethren, that ye enter not into tempt- ation.' The danger from the temptation of fear was com- mon to all the Apostles, and they equally needed the help of Divine protection, since the devil desired to dismay, to make a wTeck of all : and yet the Lord takes care of Peter in particidar, and asks specially for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the rest xvould he more certain, if the mind of their chief were not overcome. So then in Peter the strength of all is fortified, and the help of Divine grace is so ordered tJiat the stahility ivhich through Christ is given to Peter, through Peter is conveyed to the Ajyostles. " Since then, beloved, we see such a protection divinely granted to us, reasonably and justly do we rejoice in the merits and dignity of our chief, rendering thanks to the Eternal King, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, for OF THE PRDIACY. 103 having given so great a I'^ower to him ichom He made chief of the whole Church, that if any thing, even in our time, by us be rightly done and rightly ordered, it is to be ascribed to his working, to his guidance, unto whom it was said: 'And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren ;' and to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, in answer to the triple profession of eternal love, thrice said, with mystical intent : ' Feed jSIy sheep.' And this, be}ond a doubt, the pious shepherd does even now, and fulfils the charge of his Lord, confirming us with his exhor- tations, and not ceasing to pray for us, that Ave may be overcome by no temptation. But if, as we must beheve, he every where discharges this affectionate guardianship to all the people of God, how much more will he condescend to grant his help unto us his childi-en, among whom, on the sacred couch of his blessed repose, he resteth in the same flesh in Avliich he ruled ? To him, therefore, let us ascribe this anniversary day of us his servant, and this festival, by whose advocacy we have been thought worthy to share liis seat itself, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ helping us in all things, who liveth and reigneth with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever."* I defer to a later place the proof how exactly all this accords with the doctrine of S. Augustine, and the Fathers who preceded liim. Kow let us pass on through twelve centmies to another scene, where a Bishop, at the comt of a sovereign intoxi- cated with power, and most jealous of his temporal rights as * S. Leo, Scnu. iv. torn. i. pp. lo-19. 104 THE SCRIPTURAL PROOF sovereign, set forth to the GalHcan Episcopate solemnly as- sembled the doctrines to be gathered from these words of Scripture. " Listen : this is the mysteiy of Catholic unity, and the immortal principle of the Church's beauty. True beauty comes from health ; what makes the Chui'ch strong, makes her fair : her unity makes her fair, her unity makes her strong. United from within by the Holy Spirit, she has besides a common bond of her outward communion, and must remain united by a government in which the authority of Jesus Christ is represented. Thus one unity guards the other, and, under the seal of ecclesiastical government, the unity of the spirit is preserved. Wliat is this government ? What is its form ? Let us say nothing of om'selves ; let us open the Gospel ; the Lamb has opened the seals of that sacred book, and the tradition of the Church has explained aU. " We shall find in the Gospel that Jesus Christ, willing to commence the mysteiy of unity in His Clim-ch, among all His disciples chose twelve ; but that, willing to consummate the mystery of unity in the same Church, among the twelve He chose one. * He called His disciples,' says the Gospel ; here are all ; ^ and among them He chose twelve.' Here is a £rst separation, and the Apostles chosen. ^And these are the names of the twelve Apostles : the first, Simon, who is called Peter.' Here, in a second separation, S. Peter is set at the head, and called for that reason by the name of Peter, * which Jesus Chiist,' says S. Mark, ' had given him,' in order to prepare, as you mil see, the work OF THE PRIMACY. 105 which He was proposing, to raise all His builduig on that stone. " All this is yet but a commencement of the mystery of unity. Jesus Christ, in beginning it, still spoke to many : ' Go ye, preach ye ; I send you ;' but when He w^ould put the last hand to the mystery of unity. He speaks no longer to many : He marks out Peter personally, and by the new name which He has given him. It is One w^ho speaks to one : Jesus Christ the Son of God to Simon son of Jonas ; Jesus Christ, who is the true Stone, strong of Himself, to Simon, who is only the stone by the strength which Jesus Christ imparts to him. It is to him that Christ speaks, and in speaking acts on him, and stamps upon him His ova\ immovableness. *And I,' He says, *say mito thee, Thou art Peter; and,' He adds, ' upon tliis rock I will build ISiy Church, and,' He concludes, 'the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.' To prepare him for that honoui' Jesus Christ, who knows that faith in Himself is the foundation of His Church, inspires Peter ■vrith a faith worthy to be the foundation of that admirable building, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the li^^ng God.' By that bold preaching of the faith he draws to himself the inviolable promise which makes him the foundation of the Church. The word of Jesus Christ, who out of nothing makes what pleases Him, gives this strength to a mortal. Sa^/ not, think not, that this ministry/ of S. Peter terminates iciih him : that which is to serve for support to an eternal Church can never have an end. Peter will live in his successors. Peter will always speak in his chaii'. This 106 THE SCKIPTUKAL PROOF is what tlie Fathers say. This is what six-hundred and thirty Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon confirm. " But consider briefly what follows — Jesus Christ pur- sues His design; and, after having said to Peter, the eternal preacher of the faith, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,' He adds : ' And I will gi^-e to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.' Thou, who hast the prerogative of preacliing the faith, thou shalt have likewise the keys which mark the authority of govern- ment : ' Wliat thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven : and what thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.' All is subjected to these keys : all, my brethren, Icings and nations, pastors and flocks : we declare it with joy, for we love unity, and hold obedience to be our glory. It is Peter who is ordered first to love more than all the other Apostles, and then 'to feed,' and govern all, both 'the lambs and the sheep,' the young ones, and the mothers, and the pastors themselves : pastors in i^egard to the people, and slieep in regard to Peter; in him they honour Jesus Christ, confessing like"wise that with reason greater love is asked of him, forasmuch as he has a greater dignity with a greater charge ; and that among us, under the discipline of a Master such as ours, according to his word it must be, that the first be as He, by charity the servant of all. " Thus S. Peter appears the first in all things : the first to confess the faith ; the first in the obligation to exercise love ; the first of all the Apostles who saw Jesus Christ risen, as he w^as to be the first witness of it before all the people ; the first when the number of the Apostles OF THE PEIMACY. 107 was to be filled up ; the first who coufinned the faith hj a miracle ; the first to convert the Jev/s ; the first to receive the Gentiles ; the first every where. " You have seen this unity in the Holy See, would you see it in the whole episcopal order and college ? Still it is in S. Peter that it must appear, and still in these words : * ^Yllatsoever thou shalt bind shall be bound ; whatsoever thou shalt loose shall be loosed.' All the Popes and all the Holy Fathers have taught it with a common consent. Yes, my brethren, these great words, in which you have seen so clearly the Primacy of S. Peter, have set up Bi- shops, since the force of their ministry consists in binding or loosing those who believe or believe not their word. Thus this di-s-ine power of binding and loosing is a necessary anncxment, and, as it were, the final seal of the preach- ing which Jesus Christ has intrusted to them ; and you see, in passing, the whole order of ecclesiastical jm'isdiction. Therefore, the same who said to Peter : ' Whatsoever thou shalt bind shall be bound ; whatsoever thou shalt loose shall be loosed,' has said the same thing to all the Apostles, and has said to them, moreover: ' "NAliosesoever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they shall be retained.' What is to bind, but to retain ? Wliat to loose, but to remit ? And the same who gives to Peter this power, gives it also with His own mouth to all the Apostles : ' As My Father hath sent ^le, so,' says He, ' send I you.' A power better established, or a mission more immediate, cannot be seen. So He breathes equally on all. Ori all He diffuses the same Spirit with 108 THE SCKIPTUEAL PROOF that breath, in saying : ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost/ and the rest that we have quoted. " It teas, then, clearly the design of Jesus Christ to put first in one alone, ivhat afterioards He Tneaiit to put in several; hut the sequence does not reverse the beginning, nor the first lose his place. Tliat first ivord, ' Whatsoever thou shalt hind^ said to one alone, has already ranged under his power each one of those to tchom shall be said, ' Whatsoever ye shall remit; for the promises of Jesus Christ, as well as His gifts, are ivithout repentance; and lohat is once given indefinitely and universally is irrevocable : besides, that poioer given to several carries its restriction in its division, whilst p>ower given to one alone, and over all, and without exception, carries with it plenitude, and, not having to be divided with any other, it has no bounds save those ichich its terms convey. " Thus the mystery is understood : all receive the same power, and all from the same source; but not all in the same degree, nor vnth. the same extent; for Jesus Christ communicates Himself in such measm'e as pleases Him, and always in the manner most suitable to esta- blish the unity of His Church. This is why He begins with the first, and in that first He forms the whole, and Himself develops in order what He has put in one. *And Peter,' says S. Augustine, ^who in the honour of his primacy represented the whole Church,'* receives also the first, and the only one at first, the keys which should afterwards be communicated to all the rest,t in order that we may learn, according to the doctrine of a * S. Augustine. t S. Optatus. OF TIIE PKIMACY. 109 holy Bishop of the Gallican Church,* that the ecclesiastical authority, first established in the person of one alone, has only been diffused on the condition of being always brought back to the principle of its unity, and that all those who shall have to exercise it ought to hold themselves insepar- ably united to the same chair. " Tliis is that Roman chair so celebrated by the Fathers, which they have vied with each other in exalting as ' the chiefship of the Apostolic See ;'t ' the superior chief ship ;'f ' the som'ce of unity ;'§ ' that most holy throne which has the headship over all the Chm'ches of the world ;'|| ' the head of the Episcopate, the chiefship of the universal Church ;'1F ' the head of pastoral honour to the world ;'** ' the head of the members ;'tt ' the single chair, in which all keep unity .'|f In these words you hear S. Optatus, S. Augustine, S. C}'prian, S. L'enaius, S. Prosper, S. Avitus, S. Theodoret, the Council of Chalcedon, and the rest; Africa, Gaul, Greece, Asia, the East and the West together." §§ Xow, when S. Leo pubhcly in such an midoubting manner set forth from Holy Scripture itself the peculiar privileges of S. Peter's See, did he go beyond the minds of his hearers and the behef of his age ? So far from it, that the Eastern Church, ever most jealous in this respect, assembled in a council of more than six huncbed Bishops, of which two only, the Pope's own legates, were from the * CiEsarius of Aries to Pope Symmachus. f ^' August. Ep. 43. J S. Ireiiifus, iii. 3. § S. C'yp. Ep. 73. 11 Theodoret, Ep. UG. ^ S. Avitus ad Faust. ** S. Prosper de Ingrat. ff Council of Chalcedon to S. Leo. Xt ^- Optat. 2 cout. Parm. §§ Bossuet, Sermou sur rUuite. 110 THE SCEIPTUEAL PROOF West, of its owTi accord, and In the solemn act of a synodal letter, addresses this very S. Leo in terms equivalent to his own, which are even unintelligible save upon the prin- ciples of S. Leo's discourse.* They acknowledge him as sittmg in the place of Peter ; " the interpreter to all of the voice of the blessed Peter ;" they declare that " he presided over them as the head over the members ;" they ask for his consent to their acts, " because every success of the chil- dren is reckoned to the parents who own it ;" they tell him that " he is mtrusted by the Sa\dour with the guardianship of the vineyard," and that, " shining himself m the full light of Apostolic radiance, he had, with habitual regard, often extended this likewise to the Church of Constanti- nople, inasmuch as he could afford, ^vithout grudging, to impart his own blessings to his kindred ;" they pray him, as "they had introduced agreement with the head in good things, so let the head fulfil to the children what is fitting ;" and finally they say that the whole force of then' acts will depend on his confirmation. I see not that the most Adg-orous defender of S. Peter's rights has ever claimed for him greater power than S. Leo exercised at the Council of Chalcedon, or greater than here, of its own accord, the Council attributes to him. On the same basis of Holy Scriptm^e the Council of Lateran, a.d. 1215, sets its decree: "The Roman Church, h^ the disposition of the Lord, holds the chiefship of ordinary power over all the rest, as being the mother and mistress of all the faithful of Christ."t * Mansi, \'i. 147-155. t Ibid. xsii. 090. OF THE PEIMACY. Ill At the Council of Lyons, a.d. 1274, the Greeks were a(hnittecl to communion, confessing that " the holy Roman Church holds a supreme and full primacy and headship over the whole Catholic Church, which she truly and humbly acknowledges to have received from the Lord Himself, in the person of blessed Peter, the prince or head of the Apostles, whose successor is the Roman Pontiff, with plenitude of power."* And the Council of Florence declares, that "the holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold a primacy ever the whole world ; and that the Roman Pontiff himself is successor of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and true Vicar of Christ, and Head of the whole Church, and is Father and Doctor of all Christians ; and that to him, in the pei'son of blessed Peter, full power was delivered by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, to rule, and to govern the universal Church, as also is contained in the acts of Ecu- menical Councils, and in the sacred canons."t Surely the definition of these three later Councils, to which, in their day, the Chiu'ch of England was bound, and from obedience to which I have never been able to learn in what way she has been delivered, asserts no more either than the words of om' Lord Himself in the Holy Scripture, or than those of the Council of Chalcedon, in the middle of the fifth century, to which the Church of England still professes obedience. Nor can I sec how any honest mind can draw from oiu* Lord's words and acts any other meaning than that set * Mansi, xxiv. 71. t I^i^^- ^"^-^i- 1031. 112 SCRIPTUKAL PROOF OF THE PRIMACY. forth by S. Leo in the fifth century, and by Bossuet in the seventeenth century. This, then, is the testimony of the Holy Scripture, and this the interpretation of the Chm^ch, respecting the Eoman Primacy. If, through eighteen hundred years, two things alone have remained unshaken, the Clnristian Faith and the Apostolic See, perhaps it is because he who confessed, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was forth-\vith made the Kock, against which every storm should strike in vain. SECTION III. THE END AND OFFICE OF THE PRI3IACY. ' " Holy Fatlier, keep through Thme own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified tlu'ough the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us : that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest !Me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as We are one : I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Tliou hast loved Me."* " The promises of Jesus Christ, as well as His gifts, arc without repentance ;"t and the prayers of Jesus Christ are ever accomplished. In this most sacred of all prayers. He tells us the pur- pose of His mission into the w^orld : " I have finished the * John xvii. f Bossuet, Sermon sur I'Unitfi. I 114 THE END AND OFFICE work which Thou gavest Me to do :" and that work, to set up in the world, and out of the world, but not of the world, an miity, of which the model and prototype is, the unity of the Most Holy Trinity : " that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us ;" and a visible imity, for its effect should be, " that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." Our Lord is praying for His Chui'ch, and in so doing He sets it before us in its double unity, — the unity of the Body, and the unity of the Spirit ; its unity as one visible society, and its unity as one spiritual system : unities which may be in thought distinguished and considered separately, but which in fact involve each other, and are inseparable. " There is one Body, and one Spirit," even as there is " one Lord," who is in two natm-es, of which the human has a body, and the divine is pm'e spirit; and "one faith," in that same Christ, the Son of the living God. And now let us refer back the nature of each of these unities to its great model and exemplar, the Most Holy Trinity. I. First, as to the unity of the Body. AYliat is that unity wherein the Father and the Son are one ? It is an unity of essence and of origin. The Father is God, and the Son is God, and yet there are not two Gods, because the Godhead of the Son is derived from the Father; nor are there three, though the Holy Sjiuit is equally God, because His Godhead proceeds from the same fountain of Deity in the Father, through the Son. What is the unity of the Church as a visible society — or THE TRIMACY. 115 that one holy Catholic Church in which we all so often profess our belief? It is an unity of essence and of origin in its government, the one indivisible Episcopate. " Epis- copatus unus, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur." Our Lord, in His prayer, deduces all from His own mission ; " as Thou hast sent Me into < the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." The foun- tain of this \'isible unity, the root of this divine society, the som'ce of all power to govern it, was in that di\ine Person to whom Peter said : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." l^^lo by His answer communi- cated — for His promises, like His gifts, are ■\^-ithout repent- ance — to the speaker that fountain, that root, and that power : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Clnu'ch, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it ; and I M-ill give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven." Here our Lord marked out one man as the head, after Himself, of that visible miity, which He had come into the ^^'orld to set up. And when the work of redemp- tion was complete. He conferred on that same man the power which He had here promised ; " Simon, son of Jonas, feed My sheep." So S. Augustine, inheriting the doctrine of S. C}'prian, tells us: "He saith. to Peter, in icliose sinale person He casts the mould of Ills Church : Peter, lovest thou Mel"* Our Lord, throughout His Gospel, calls that one visible society a kingdom, — this is he to whom He gave its keys ; and one fold, — this is its shepherd; and a family, — this * Serm. cxlvii. c. 2. 116 THE END AND OITICB is the elder brother to whom He said : Confirm thy bre- thren ; and a household, — this is " the faithful and wise steward," whom the Lord hath made ruler over it ; Solo- mon calls it an army, — this is its general; and S. Paul a body, — this is, after Christ, its head. For it was to remain, from the Lord's first coming to His second, a kingdom, a fold, a family, a household, an army, and a body; all which are visible miities. How, then, should it not have a visible head to all these ? How should not he, to whom the Lord departing said, "Feed My sheep," continue in the person of his successors to feed them for ever, till the great Shepherd should appear at His manifestation ? This is what General Councils have exclaimed : " Peter hath spoken by Leo,"* " Peter hath spoken by Agatho." This is what the whole line of Saints has believed, and in this faith has lived and died : " Blessed Peter, who in his o^^ai see lives and rules, grants to those who seek it the truth of the faith."t What is that which makes a kingdom one ? — the deri- vation of all jmnsdiction from its sovereign ; or an army one ? — the concentration of all authority in its general ; or a household one, but the rule of its master ? or a body one, but the perpetual influence of its head? or what unites the countless sheep of the visible Church in one fold here on earth, but the one shepherd, who represents the Lord ? Two sovereigns, two generals with supreme power, two * The Council of Chalcedon, and the Sixth Council, in C80. t S. Peter Chrysologus to the heretic Eutyches. OF THE PRIMACY. 117 masters, two heads, two shepherds, destroy altogether the idea of these respective unities. But our Lord takes us higher than these. He prays that " they may be one, as We are." Now two or more sources of deity would make two or more gods. So two or more sources of power in His Church, viewed as a visible society, would make two or more Churches. But He willed that Church to be one for ever, and He made it one by the unity of source in its pei'petual government. He set up one indivisible Episcopate, which had not its like in things of Earth, and found its exemplar only in the divine essence ; in that unity of three Persons which con- sists in having one som'ce of deity. The ancient Saint, wlio speaks of "one Episcopate, a part of which is held by each A\'ithout division of the whole," is in that same place setting forth precisely tliis unity of the Church, as springing from one som'ce. He asks why men are deceived ; and he answers, because " they do not retmni to the ongbi of truth, nor seek the head." In that case there " would not be need of arguments." What is this origin ? who this head ? he goes on. The Lord says to Peter: "Thou art Peter," &c. On his single person He builds His Church. This person of Peter he points out as the source of many rays, the root of a tree spreading into many branches, the fountain-head of countless streams fertilising the earth. Yet in all these " unity is preserved in the origin." It is evident that so long as the unity abides, the origin must abide too ; he is contemplating an ever-springing source of an ever-li\'ing power. And he 118 THE END XKD OFFICE then refers to the Holy Trinity as the t}"pe of this : " The Lord says : I and the Father are one. And, again, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is "WTitten : And these tln'ee are one. And does any body believe that this unity, coming from the divine solidity, cohering by means of heavenly sacramentSj^ can possibhj be divided in the Church, and divorced by the collision of wills ?" So Pope S}Tnmachus (a.d. 500) says : " After the manner of the Trinity, whose power is one and indivisible, there is one Episcopate in diverse prelates." God the Father is the soiu-ce of this power In the Godhead, and S. Peter's chair of this unity in the Episcopate. S. Cyprian and S. Symmachus are equally setting forth this prayer of our Lord. Let the Church be extended to any degi'ee in the num- ber of her Bishops, yet she is one, and they are one, in " the unity of origin ;" not merely in that Peter icas one ^' from whom the very Episcopate and all the authority of this title sprung ;"* but in that Peter is still one, and that now, in the nineteenth century, just as when S. Leo said it in the fifth : " If any thing, even in our time, by us be rightly done and rightly ordered, it is to be ascribed to his working, to his guidance, unto whom it was said : ' And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren :' and to whom the Lord, after His resmTection, in answer to the triple profession of eternal love, tlu'ice said Avith mystical Intent : ' Feed My sheep.' And this, beyond a doubt, the pious shepherd does even now, and fulfils the charge of his Lord." * S, Innocent to the Council of Milevi. OF THE PKDLA.CY. 119 Li truth, we are living men, with living souls, and we need a living Church, and not a dead one. Those who can bear that the Body of Christ should be corrupt, may also endure that it once was alive, but is now dead; or that it once was one, but is now three. All these three notions can indeed only be expressed by an honest word which arose in a dishonest time; — they are a sliam, and they who put them forward do not at the bottom believe either in the one Body or in the one Spirit ; for it is evident that the one Body perishes when the one Spirit ceases to animate it. What will it help the wandering soul, to tell it, there was once a teacher sent from God, but he has ceased to bear God's commission ? Or the ^vrecked mariner, there was once a ship, which rode the waves bravely, but it is not now ■s^-ithin yom* reach ? And what will it help one who is longing, aching, perishing, for the truth, to answer, there once was a Chiu'ch, " the pillar and ground of the tnith," and so it remained, as long as it was undivided, that is, for many hundred years ; but it is divided now, and therefore is now no longer the pillar and ground of the trath ; but stay where you are, and hold all which that Chm'cli held, and you will be safe ? Tliis is Anglicanism. Was it for this that our Lord prayed, " that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us : that the Avorld may beheve that Thou hast sent Me" ? Or does S. Peter still sit in his one chair ? Is he still the li\ang source of a living Episcopate? Docs he still 120 THE END AND OFFICE proclaim, with the voice of the one universal Church : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" ? Does he still hear in answer : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not j)revail against it" ? This is Catholicism. " Peter," says S. Augustine, " represented the very universality and unity of the ChmTh." * And this Epis- copate, which has its living source in the person of Peter's successor, and its centre in his chair, which is thus derived from him, and perpetually carried back to him, can and does embrace the whole earth, extends unto all nations, for no difference of race or speech is " foreign" to the house- hold of saints, makes all languages one, for it has the Pentecostal gift, and this is sm^ely miiversality ; and yet is gathered up, directed, influenced, held together, by one, a Bishop himself, and having a particular flock, a Bishop of Bishops, and having an universal one, and tliis is surely unity. The whole Episcopate is morticed into that rock of Peter, by which it is one and immovable. Separate a portion of it from that rock, and it is no longer "one Episcopate, a part of which is held by each witliout division of the whole." That division mars all. With unity strength, and with strength courage, departs, and the spring of its power is gone ; it no longer stands in one place ; its foot- ing is lost ; the powers of the world set their feet on its neck ; and for that one voice, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God," which is the voice of the Kock, it is * Serm. 295. OF THE PRDIACY. 121 mucli if it do not ciy when the world accuses it, " I know not the man." To " One Body and one Spuit, one Lord and one Faith," what is added? — "One Baptism." And by tliose Avho do not stand on Peter's Eock this one Bap- tism for the remission of sins will be declaimed a difficult and mysterious doctrine, understood by pious minds in different ways, and therefore not to be imposed on any. To make God's truth an open question is to deny the Lord when you are accused of being His disciple. But impart that one and true Episcopate to as many as you Avill, its voice will be one and its power one, its rule equal, its com'age unswervmg, because the "miity of its origin" is one, and "the Cathohc Chm*ch tlu'oughout all the world vnR be one bridal chamber of Christ."* The end and office of the Primacy, therefore, m respect to the Church as a visible society, is the maintenance of unity, Avliich is upheld now and tlu'ough all time, and in all countries, as it was in the upper chamber of Jerusalem, because the source of its organisation is one. II. But this miity is itself subsen'ient to a higher one : that most sacred Body of the Lord, beside His reasonable Soul, is inhabited by the eternal Spirit of His Godliead ; and this. His mystical Body, has too its Sph'it, — the Spirit Ox" truth, leading it into all truth. This outward frame- work has a system of cHvine teaching conunitted to it, a perpetual deposit. Of this too the Lord said : " The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them ; that * Decree of Pope Gelasius and seventy Bishops, A.D. 494, determining the Canon of Scripture. Mansi, viii. 147. 122 THE END AXT> OFFICE they may be one, even as We are one : I in them, and Thoii in Me, that they may be made perfect in one,, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." How are the Father and the Son one? — ^By the Holy Spirit, which is their love. How is the Church one? — By that Holy Spirit dwelling in her. How is the voice of that Spirit made kno'vvn'? — ^By that same organ of visible unity ; by that Rock which cries, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the li^dng God :" by him who perpetually con- firms his brethren ; by him who is charged that he love more than all, because he has the charge of the whole flock. Peter calls his brethren together, Peter asks their counsel, Peter collects their suflPrages, Peter confirms their voice. In so doing, he represents their universality ; or, again, as the one chief shepherd, as the one keeper of the door and holder of the keys, as having in himself the power to bind and to loose all, even the whole number of his brethren, whether collected, or distributed in their several pastures, he pronounces himself, and in so doing he represents their unity. United with a general comicil, he shows to the world that the Church is miiversal ; from liis own watch-tower, the loftiest of all, he proclaims to that same Avorld that she is one.* AVliere Peter speaks, you have one faith, one homo- geneous and harmonious system of teaching — sacraments which embrace the whole spiritual life from the cradle to the srave. He teaches that infants are received into God's kingdom by the laver of regeneration in Baptism, nor are * This thought is from De Maistre ; I forget the reference. OF THE PEDIACY. 123 his disciples shocked at his voice ; because he likewise teaches them, that if those who have received this divine gift sin, they can only recover it by penance : they must enter afresh into that kingdom out of AA'hich they have wantonly cast themselves, by the second baptism of tears, and the plank which remains for the shipAATCcked : where Peter's voice is not heard, the doctrine of Baptism is either taught without the doctrine of penance, and then it be- comes at once a stumblincj-block, or it is not taught at all, and the whole sacramental system is overtlu'o^\^l. He teaches, moreover, that om* Lord has established a real ministry for the forgiveness of sins, and bestowed on men a real power to consecrate His Body, the som'ce of un- speakable blessings to men, the inexhaustible fountain of sanctity, the spring of superhuman love. This it is which enables him to ask of those who listen to his teaching the surrender of their dearest affections, and the life of angels upon earth. And he teaches this, not in an ambiguous, hesitating manner, as one rather ashamed of his message, who would rather insinuate than state what he had to say; but he is plain-spoken in his premises, bold and consistent in his deductions. From the Divinity of our Lord's Person he infers, that the Lord's Mother has an office and a function in His kingdom of love : from the reality of His Eucharistic Pre- sence He proclaims that Saints live and reign Avith Him, hear prayers, and work miracles. The world listens, and sneers, and cavils, and disbelieves, is affronted, abuses, persecutes ; but the elect are converted and saved. 124 THE END AND OFFICE Go to those who once acknowledged Peter as their Doctor and Teacher, who left him in possession of his full inheritance, and you will find this consistent and harmo- nious system mainly held indeed, but somehow afflicted with sterility, a " Church in petrifaction," as some one has called it. Go to those who left Peter denouncing him as a cor- rupter of God's truth, as Antichrist sitting in Christ's seat, and you find this Divine system broken into fragments : some holding one part, and some another, all exaggeratmg what they have, and depreciating what they have not, and misunderstanding the whole. There is no longer any agreement, no longer the shadow of one faith. The dis- sentients broke into numberless bodies, and have been breaking off more and more ever since : they set out with acknowledging an authority, which they put in themselves, but they finish with denying that there is any, and pro- claiming as their indefeasible right the Hberty to judge Scripture for themselves, and to deduce from it what seems good to such private judgment : a corollary to which in a tolerant and luxurious age like our o-\^ti, is this, that every one has indeed a right to his own opinion, but that no one should impose such opinion on his neighbour ; and thus all truth is got rid of. Or if there be one part of those dissentients in whom from the beginning there was more worldly policy than sincerity of belief, however erroneous; if there was one province of Christ's mystical kingdom, on which Csesar had cast longing eyes, and said in his heart: "Give me OF THE PRIMACY. 125 but the sceptre of Christ, and I shall be omnipotent:" think you that worldly law and Ctesar's policy have had power to arrest the do^vnward descent, to maintain the one inheritance of faith, to set it forth in its simplicity and purity? Alas! what do you find? — ambiguous formu- laries, studiously so dra-wn up to be signed in different senses by those who minister at the same altar : a system so ill compacted, that those who believe in sacraments are tonnented by one half which they engage to maintain, and those who disbelieve them have to drag their consciences as to the other half; and these two parties, opposed in every principle of their belief, this bundle of Luthero- Calvinist heresies stifling Catholic truths, held together by a civil law, and by the anxiety of a State, — which has no conscience of its own, and looks on all dogma with sheer indifference, — to wield a weapon of great influence, a sys- tem based on worldly comfort and outward respectability, instead of the pure unearthly aims, the keen faith, and self-denj-ing life, of the one Bride of Christ. Can this be that of which our Lord spake? — "that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." What, on the other hand, is the belief which has been from the first at the very heart of the Church, which has inspirited her members from age to age to stand against the world, to disregard its frowns, to think a life well spent in maintaining a point of doctrine, and death endured in behalf of any part of her teaching, a martjTdom ? "VVliat 126 THE END AKD OFFICE else but that tliere is one faith lodged within her, which it is her very function to guard, set forth, and apply, to xm- fold from the germ to the full and perfect fruit, to draw from the pregnant sentences and short intimations of Holy Writ, to harmonise and arrange, distribute and portion out, so that man, woman, and child, may find in it their stay, that Saints may grow up mider its nurture, and its fruit be for the healing of the nations ? And, what is part and parcel of this behef, that as our Lord's presence was with Peter and his brethren, in those first days, and throvighout their ministry, so it would be evermore. The Comforter, whom He had promised, was not to be given for one gene- ration, or one centmy, or two or four, and then to be with- drawn, but for ever. He could not fail the body in which He dwelt, while Peter presided over it in person ; as little could He fail, in the fifth century, when one of Peter's successors presided in his place; as little in the ninth, or the twelfth, or the fifteenth ; as little in the nineteenth, or in any to come. Fo7' to suppose His failmg is to ignore the whole idea on which the Church is built : it is to turn the mystical body of Christ into a school of philosophy, a branch of learning. Had it been so, the Lower Empire would have corrupted it, the Barbarians have swept it away with sword and flame, the Reformation have torn it to pieces, and Voltaire laughed it out of the world. Not a Council which ever sat, not a Father who ever wrote, not a martyr who ever suffered, but believed in a perpetual illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit dwellmg in the Church of God to the end of time. Without it OF THE PRIMACY. 127 Councils and Fathers would not have existed, and still less martyrs. Men do not suffer for opinions, but for faitli. And now, as age after age went on, as the Church bui'st the limits of the Koman Empire, and added nation after nation to her sway, as she passed the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, what power within her was to hold together that wide system of teaching worked out into such mani- fold detail ? What power to eject from her bosom heresy after heresy, which by the will of God was to arise and tiy her, winnow the wheat, and scatter the chaff? That same power which guarded and maintained the unity and uni- versality of her outward framework became the voice of the Holy Spirit within her, defining and ordering her faith. Her Episcopate did not break into fragments within each separate nation, and constitute systems of government coextensive with their several sovereignties, because the perpetual fountain of the one Episcopate had its spring and plenitude in S. Peter's See, and every in- dividual who held a part of it held it ivithout division of the wJiole : and her faith remained one, homogeneous, and complete, because it was the faith of Peter, which could not fail, because the one Shepherd led the whole flock into the same pastures, because as Peter had spoken by Leo and spoken by Agatho, so likewise he spoke by Innocent and by Pius ; so he gathers the voices of his brethren now lifted from eight hundred provinces to one throne, weighs them in his wisdom, and gives them a single expression and an universal potency. He who breaks from the Body of the Universal Pastor commits schism; he who disre- 128 END AND OFFICE OF THE PRIMACY. gards the voice of the Universal Pastor falls into heresy. S. Celestine judged Nestorius, and S. Leo jvidged Eu- tyclies; and their heresies were cast out of the Church, and carried with them the whole sacramental system of the Church, and an indisputable Episcopal Succession; they laid hold of nations, and lasted for centuries ; their heresies might seem to men of the world subtle metaphy- sical misconceptions. I doubt not that six of the most learned lawyers, of the most unimpeachable integrity, wliich England could produce, would pronounce that both were " open questions," and might be innocently held ; and that men's " consciences must be set on hair-triggers," to fight about such things. But nevertheless two Popes judged those heresies, and God has judged them too ; their pres- tige is past away ; no civil power finds it worth while any longer to live upon them. But the Church of God goes on still upon her course ; the voice of Peter still lives within her. She is still one in her outward framework, one in her inward belief; she still claims to be obeyed and trusted, because the See of Peter is within her, and the presence which cannot fail, the power which enmiciates truths, and make Saints, has its organ in that voice, and abides by that rock. SECTION lY. THE rOWER OF THE PRIMACY. We have seen that the end for which our Lord instituted tlie Primacy was the maintenance of unity in His mystical Body, its twofold unity of a great visible society, and . a great spiritual system of beHef ; in other words, of com- munion, and of faith. From His owai divine Person as the God-^Ian, the \dsible society, and the faith which ani- mates it, sprang ; and He estabhshed unity both in the one and in the other for ever, by appointing one from age to age to represent that Person, and in that capacity to be the eve»-springing source of all power to govern the society, the ever-Uving voice which gives expression to its belief. The man so selected was S. Peter ; and what S. Peter was m the Apostohc Body, every successor of his has been, is, and shall be to the end of time in the " One Episcoj^ate, in which a part is held by each loithout division of the whoUr The end for which the Primacy was instituted guides us, then, to the natm'e of its j^oiccr, which is, a jui'isdiction universal, immediate, and supreme. How was this conveyed ? In a manner quite in accord- ance with other acts of our Lord and ■with His teaching. 130 THE POWEK OF THE PRIIMACY. Is He not wont to gather np all His dispensations in a few words of profound depth and meaning, which perhaps it will require ages to develop ? Wliat are His parables but so many picttires, which convey to us, each without crowding, and in space incredibly small, the natm'e of His kingdom, the working of His grace, the fortunes of His Church? It would seem as if He delighted to repeat in language, the poor vehicle of human thought, the miracles which He works in natm'e, when He paints on the retina of the eye a boundless and varied landscape, every object in its due pro- portion, every colour and form preserved, on a point of space so minute. In the most ancient of all prophecies He summed up the wdiole of His revelation to man, all that He Himself was to do, and much that yet remains to be imfolded, at " the restitution of all things," when He declared that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. All subsequent prophecy was but the mif olding of this. So in the creation of His mystical Body He set forth in a word the person of its ruler, and the natm'e of its perpe- tual government. He spoke to Peter once in promise : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Chm'ch, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it ; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven," And once in performance : " Feed My lambs : be shep- herd over ^ly sheep : feed My sheep." It was the voice of the Creator, summing up His work THE rOWEK OF TILE PRIMACY. 131 in a word, for hence tlie whole organisation of His Church has sprung. Age after age was to bring to light more and more the force of these words. Time has not }'et exliausted the first prophecy, nor has it told us all which is contamed in His words to Peter. But thus from the first the Primacy contained the Epis- copate ; and the privileges of Metropolitans, Primates, and Patriai'chs, are but emanations from the fountain-head, which sends forth larger or lesser streams as the case may require, but remains itself full. The Priest is the centre of unity, both as to communion and faith, in his parish ; the Bishop in his diocese ; but he who heard " Feed My sheep," in the Avhole Episcopate ; which he represents and carries in his person, which sprang forth originally from that person, and is now maintained in it. Is this a new belief? Nay, it is the doctrine of all antiquity, the onlt/ view which ancient Saints give ws of the government of Christ's Church ; the only view which mil give connection and harmony to the facts of Ecclesi- astical histoiy. This is what S. Cj'prian meant when he called S. Peter's chair " the root and womb of the Catholic Church."* Or let us take the public letters of the most ancient Popes which have come do\Mi to us, — documents incom- parably more authoritative than the words of any particular Father, because, though signed by the Pope alone, they * Ep. io to Pope Cornelius. 132 THE POWER OF THE PEIMACY. were the acts of his Council likewise, transmitted to Pri- mates of provinces, by them to be commmiicated to Bishops, and received as having the force of laws. Pope Boniface I., a.d. 422, to whom S. Augustine de- dicated one of his works, thus writes to the Bishops of Thessaly : " The formation of the Universal Church at its birth took its beginning from the honour of blessed Peter, in whose per- son its regimen and sum consists. For from his fountain the stream of Ecclesiastical discipline jloived forth into all Churches, as the culture of o^eligion progressively advanced. The precepts of the Nicene Council bear witness to nothing else : so that it ventured not to appoint any thing over him, seeing that nothing could possibly be conferred above his deserts : moreover, it knew that every thing had been granted to him by the word of the Lord. Certain, therefore, is it that this Church is to the Churches diffused throughout the whole world, as it zvere, the head of its oion members ; from which whosoever cuts himself off , becomes expelled from the Cliristian religion, as he has begun not to be in the one compact structure (compages*). " For this purpose the Apostolic See holds the headship, that it may receive the lawful complaints of all." At the beguming of the fifth centmy, the Pope speaks of what was ancient, recognised, and indisputable, based on the words of Holy Writ, and acknowledged by the first great General Council. Let us take another passage, which points out the dif- * Coustant. Ep. Eom. Pontific. p. 1037. THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. 133 ference bet\veen Order and Jurisdiction in the members of the Apostolic college itself, and so in the Episcopal Body- since ; for, on the right miderstanding of this distinction, and of the consequences which flow from it, depends the understanding of the whole constitution of the Church as a visible society; and a misconception, an incoherence here, will confuse the whole vision, and make a man, with the best intentions, unable to locate, or estimate, the strongest proofs brought before him. S. Leo was deri\ang a part of his own universal Primacy to the Bishop of Thessalonica ; that is, he was gi\"ing him, over and above his proper powers as Bishop of the indivi- dual see of Thessalonica, a power to represent the Pope, constituting him, in fact, a Patriarch over the ten Metro- politans of eastern Elyricum, including Greece ; just as the Bishop of Alexandria was over Eg}-pt, and the Bishop of Antiocli over the East, that is, the province called Oriens. These are S. Leo's own words : " As my predecessors to your predecessors, so have I, following the example of those gone before, committed to your affection my charge of govern- ment ; that you, imitating our gentleness, might relieve the care^ which tve, in virtue of our headship, by divine insti- tution, owe to all Churches, and might in some degree dis- charge our personal visitation to provinces far distant from us. * * * * * For we have intinsted your affection to represent us on this condition, that you are called to a j^art of our solicitude, but not to the fulness of our power. ***** Biit if, in a matter which you believe fit to be considered and decided on with your 134 THE PO"\YER OF THE PRIM ACT. brethren, tlieir sentence differs from yours, let every tiling be referred to us on the authority of the Acts, that all doubtfulness may be removed, and we may decree what pleaseth God. ***** p^^, fj^g comjjactness of our unity cannot remain Jirm, unless the hond of charity xoeald us into an inseparable whole; because, 'as we have many members in one Body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one Body in Christ, and every one members one of another.' For it is the con- nection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connection, as it requires mianimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among Bishops. For, though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction : since even among the most blessed Apostles, as there uxis a likeness of honour, so teas there a certain distinction of jjoioer ; and, the election of all being equal, ijreeminence over the rest loas given to one. From ivhich type the distinction also between Bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, but that in every province there should be one, whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren ; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through lohom the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing any ivhere disagree from its head" S. Leo wrote this five years before the fom'th General Council, w-hich called him, as we have seen, " head over the members," and "father of the childi'en," and "in- THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. 135 trusted with the care of the Lord's vineyard." It is impos- sible for expressions more perfectly to tally than those of the Council of the Pope. Let us consider what S. Leo tells us here. Firsty he observes that while the Apostles were equal as to all power of Order, that is, as to the whole Sacerdotium, as to what is conferred by consecration, yet as to how they should exercise this power, m what places, and under what conditions, they were put under one, viz. S. Peter. And thus, even though they were sent into all the world by our Lord Himself, yet that mission was to be exercised under the preeminence of one. This means, in other words, that S. Peter's superiority consisted in his Jiu'isdiction over them, exactly as S. Jerome says : " Among the twelve one is chosen out, that by the appointment of a head the oppor- tunity for schism might be taken away." Secondly^ " from this t}pe the distinction between Bi- shops has arisen," namely, that while all were equal as to the Sacerdotimn (as the same S. Jerome says, " wherever a Bishop is, be it at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constan- tinople, or Khegium, or Alexandria, or Tana?, he is of the same rank, the same ^^''^^sthood"), the jurisdiction of one differs in extent from that of another, as is self-evident in the cases of Rome, and Constantinople, and Alexandria: but likewise, to complete the type, there is a jurisdiction extending equally over all ; there is one Peter among the Apostles, and there is Peter's successor too among the Bi- shops. This he goes on to say. For, — Tldrdly, there is the Bishop over the Diocese, the Me- 136 THE POWER OF THE PEIMACY. tropolitan over the Province, the Primate, or Patriarch, over the Patriarchate, — but all this for one end, — "in which the regimen and sum," as Pope Boniface observes, *^ consists," — namely, that " through them the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing any where disagree from its head." Now here, in the Apostolic, and in the Episcopal Body, in the original " Forma," and in the " Compages" which sprung from it, there are two powers, and no more, of divine institution : — the Primacy of Peter, and the co-Episcopate of the Apostles ; the Primacy of Peter's successor, and the co-Episcopate of his brethren. All that is between, Metropolitical, Primatial, or Patri- archal arrangements, are only of ecclesiastical growth, and therefore subject to diminution, or increase, or alteration ; they do but " relieve the care which, in virtue of his head- ship, by divine institution, the Universal Primate owes to all Chiu'ches." The power of this Primate suffers no dimi- nution from their existence ; they are not set up against him, but under him ; not to loithdraio " the care which, in virtue of his headsliip, he owes to all Churches," but to " relieve it." Cu'cumstances may make it expedient that under him metropohtical powers should be concentrated for whole pro- vinces in single hands, which should accordingly confirm their subject Bishops, or even Archbishops. Circumstances again may make it expedient that the Universal Primate should directly and immediately give institution to all Bishops. THE POWER OF THE PRDIACY. 137 But in the one case, equally as in the other, he is supreme. If the Patriarch is accused, he hears, judges, absolves, or condemns him. If his ordination is objected to, he confirms or annuls it; if his faith is doubted, he clears or he deprives Imn. If he is tp'annical, his subject Bishops appeal to the One Head, and are righted. In the earliest times, when near three centuries of per- secution were to try the rising Church, it was expedient, for various reasons, that powers belonging in their fulness to the universal Primate should be imparted, in a large degree, to others under him: yet, to mark plainly the soiir-ce of these powers, in both cases the mission proceeded from S. Peter. To Alexandria, the second city of the Roman empire, he sent his disciple ^lark, \rii\\ patriarchal powers ; at Antioch, the third city, he had sat himself for seven years, and \rith it he left a portion of his preeminence. But the fuhiess and supremacy of that power which his Lord had given to him, for the unity of the mystical Body, he deposited at Rome. In the first four centuries no See possessed patri- archal powers but the three Sees of Peter. Wliy did no Apostle leave his Apostolic jurisdiction to any Church ? S. Paul had founded Ephesus, and S. John had exercised his Apostolic power over it, and all the pro\'uice of Asia, after Peter's death, but the Bishop of Ephesus held only an inferior rank. Constantinople rose to patriarchal rank only by the overbearing domination of the Greek Emperors, and Jerusalem out of respect to the Lord's city in the fifth centiu^\ The intense jealousy of every thing Western, which is 138 THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. apparent in the Greek mind from the beginning, and after many minor schisms burst out into fatal violence in the time of Photius, is another reason why great powers were given to the Sees of Alexandria and Antioch in the first ages. But if the Pope, in the " greater causes," called them to account, his supremacy is undoubted. In later times it has been thought expedient that powers, which at their commencement were emanations from S. Peter's Primacy, as we have seen in the case of Thessalonica, should return to his See, and that the Head of the whole body should directly " confirm his brethren." Many reasons, doubtless, there were for this, — for in- stance, would not the very strong nationality which cha- racterises modern times have broken up the Chm'ch into fragments, had the chief Bishop of each nation possessed patriarchal powers, wdiereas the strong arm of the Roman empu'e had moulded into one many oj)posite races, though it could not overcome the inherent antagonism of the Greek to the Latin ? Would not, again, the violent jealousy of the civil power have forced its own subjects in each nation to surrender the free exercise of their spiritual rights, but for that bond of divine institution by which our Lord fast- ened them to the See of S. Peter ? Alas for the hapless Church which has broken that bond ! Statesmen without a creed will ride over it rough-shod, and law)^ers decide points of faith, having power to agonise the conscience, as " in case of appeal from the Admiral's Com't." Thus in the middle of the fifth century the universal THE POWER OF THE PEIMACY. 139 supremacy of S. Peter's See, as to the government of the Churcli's visible society, was publicly stated, both by Pope and by General Council, and lies at the basis of the whole structure of the Churcli's discipline in the preceding cen- turies. In its essence it was exactly the same, in its extent neither more nor less than it is now : for it was given by our Lord at the bu'th of the Church, and all other and inferior powers were sealed iip in it. But Avas this Supremacy equally indisputable in matters of faith ? Here Ave might answer," that he Avho is the source of jurisdiction mitst likewise be the supreme judge of doc- trine : for the one gi'eat and visible society lives by and on its faith, and he Avho maintains unity in its outward frame- Avork must likcAvise guard that belief, and preserve pure the soul AA'hich animates the body. Moreover, so often as outward communion is impenlled by a breach of faith, the question of faith is inextricably mixed up Avith the question of communion, and one decision determines both. The claim of spiritual jurisdiction will crush any poAver, saA'e that which Christ has made to bear it. Or, again, aa^c might say that, as a fact, Ave OAve the true doctrine of the Incarnation, under God, to this same S. Leo. The Eastern Church, partly OA'erborne by the civil poAver, AA'hose chief minister Avas a friend of the heresiarch, and partly sick of a deep inward taint Avhich it never had strength to throAV off, had gone into the heresy of Eutyches; legitimately assem- bled in a General Council, it had actually accepted his doc- trine. S. Leo annulled the Council ; S. Leo condemned the doctrine. He caused to assemble once more in a larger 140 THE POWEE OF THE PRIMACY. Council that East which through centuries was swayed backward and forward by the \vill of its princes, caused six hundred Bishoj)s to receive his letter, word for word, in which the true faith was authoritatively defined, and so was the means of keeping them for four centuries, as it were in spite of themselves, in the unity of the Church. But we -will turn to another controversy — one of the most subtle which has ever distressed the Chui'ch — one which harassed S. Augustine for many a year. Whither, after all his labours, ^^Titings, and prayers, in the Pelagian controversy, did he turn for its final solution? To S. Peter's chair. Two African Councils had condemned Pelagius, and their decrees, drawn up by S. Augustine, were sent for approval to Pope Innocent I., together with another letter from S. Augustine himself and some friends, in which he says : " We do not pour back om' streamlet for the purpose of increasing your great fountain, but in this, not however a slight temptation of the time (whence may He deliver us, to whom we cry. Lead us not into tempta- tion !), we wish it to be decided by you whetlier our stream, Jiowever small, Jlows forth from that same head of rivers whence comes your oion abundance ; and by your answers to be consoled respecting our common participation of one grace."* In reply, a.d. 416, S. Innocent praises the Council of Carthage, that "in inquiring concerning these matters, which it behoves to be treated with all care by Bishops, and especially by a true, just, and Catholic Council, observing * Epist. p. 177. THE POWER OF THE PEIJIACY. 141 the precedents of ancient tradition, and mindful of ec- clesiastical discipline, you have confirmed the strength of our religion not less noAV in consulting us, than by somid reason before you pronounced sentence, inasmuch as you approved of reference being made to our judgment, know- ing what is due to the Apostolic See, since all we who are placed in this position desire to foUow the Apostle himself, from ichom the very Episcopate and all the authority of this title sprung. Follo^^^[ng whom we know as well how to condemn the evil as to approve the good. And tliis too, that, guarding, according to the duty of Bishops, the insti- tutions of the Fathers, ye resolve that these regulations should not be trodden under foot, which they, wi p)ursuance of no human hut a Divine sentence^ have decreed ; viz. that ichatever was being earned on, although in the most distant and remote provinces, should not be terminated before it was brought to the knowledge of this See ; by the full authority of which the just sentence should be confirmed, and that thence all other Churches might denve what they should order, whom they should absolve, ichom, as being bemired with ineffaceable pollution, the stream that is worthy only of pure bodies should avoid; so that from their piarent source all waters should flow, and through the different regions of the whole loorld the pure streams of the fountain well forth iincorrupted.''''* Here we have S. Innocent affirming, (1) that questions respecting the Faith had always been referred to the judg- ment of the Holy See: (2) that this tradition rested on Scripture, that is on the prerogatives gi'anted by our * Coustant, Ep, Eom. Pontif. p. 8GS. 142 THE PO^VER OF THE PRIMACY. Saviour to S. Peter : (3) that decisions emanating from the Holy See were not liable to any error, " that the pure streams of the fountain should well forth vmcorrupted :" (4) that all the Chm-ches of the world had ever been bomid to conform to them, " that thence all other Churches might derive what they should order," &c.* To the Council of Numidia S. Innocent says : " There- fore do ye diligently and becomingly consult the secrets of the Apostolical honom* (that honour, I mean, on which, beside those things that are without, the care of all the Churches attends), as to what judgment is to be passed on doubtful matters, following, in sooth, the prescription of the ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has ever been preserved in the whole world. But this I pass by, for I am sm'e your prudence is aware of it : for how could you by your actions have confirmed this, save as knowing that throughout all provinces answers are ever emanating as from the Apostolic fountain to inquirers? Especially so often as a matter of faith is under discussion, I conceive that all om' brethren and fellow-Bishops can only refer to Peter, that is, the source of their own name and honour, just as your affection hath now referred, for what may benefit all Churches in common throughout the whole world. For the inventors of evils must necessarily become more cau- tious, when they see that at the reference of a double synod they have been severed from Ecclesiastical Commu- nion by our sentence. Therefore your charity will enjoy a double advantage ; for you will have at once the satisfac- * Petit Didier, in loc. THE PO"\VER OF THE PRLSLiCY. 143 tion of having observed the canons, and the -svhole Avorld ■will have the use of what you have gamed : for who among Catholics will choose any longer to hold discourse with the adversaries of Christ?" Here we may observe, besides what was said above, (1) that nothing concerning faith was held for decided, before it was carried to the See of S. Peter, and had received the Pope's sentence : (2) that before his sentence the determination of particular Councils only held good pro\-isionally, — " what judgment is to be passed on doubt- ful matters :" (3) that such determination only had the force of a consultation or relation as to a difficulty, made to the Pope before his OAvn sentence, — " at the relation," he says, " of a double synod :" (4) that the Pope's sen- tence, by Avhich he confirmed Comicils, was a final judg- ment, excluding the condemned from the Church's Com- munion, " when they see that they have been severed from Ecclesiastical Communion by our sentence :" (5) that Bishops, as well as the faithful in general, always sub- mitted themselves to such a decree. "AMio among Ca- tholics will choose any longer to hold discourse ■with the adversaries of Clu'ist ?"* S. Innocent the Third could have said no more about the powers of liis See ; what does S. Augustine observe upon it ? " lie answered to all as w'as right, and as it became the prelate of the ApostoHcal See."t And as to the effect of his answer, there are famous words of S. Augustme, * Petit DicUer, in loc, f Epist. 18G. 144 THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. which have passed into a proverb : " Ahready two Councils on this matter have been sent to the ApostoHc See ; replies from whence have also been received. The cause is ter- minated; would that the eiTor may presently terminate likewise !"* We need no more to tell us what S. Augustine meant by that "Headship, which," he says, "had ever flourished in the Apostolic See."t It involves, we see, the necessity that all other Churches should agree in faith with it, as having deposited in itself the root of the Apostolic con- fession, concerning the two natures of our Lord, to which the promise was given by our Lord, that the Church should be built upon it. S. Augustme and S. Lmocent express the one true faith under S. Cyprian's image of the fountain, who in the same most remarkable passage where he sets forth the " one Episcopate, of which each holds a part without division of the whole," says, "as from one fountain numberless rivers flow, widely as their number may be diff'used in broad abundance, yet unity is preserved in the som'ce ; — one still is the head, and the origin one." The power, therefore, which was to maintain unity of faith and of communion, does so, and can only do so, by having, both in matters concerning faith and in those concerning communion, a coactive jmisdiction, miiversal, •immediate, and supreme. And in the fifth centmy this power is seen in undisputed operation, referring back to our Lord's institution as its som'ce, and to all preceding ao-es of the Church for its exercise, and no one charges it * Tom. V. p. 645. f Epist. 43. THE POWER OF THE PRIM.VCY. 145 vdih usurjiation. And here I must go forward a thousand years, to the date of the Council of Constance, for the purpose of quoting one who was the soul of that Comicil, and the originator of what are called Gallican opinions, who yet, as will be seen, expresses exactly the same doc- trine as S. Innocent and S. Leo above, respecting the rela- tion between the Papacy and the Episcopate. " The Papal dignity was instituted by Christ, super- naturally and immediately, as holding a monarcliical and royal primacy in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, according to which miique and supreme chgnity the Chvirch militant is called one mider Christ : which dignity whosoever pre- sumes to impugn or diminish, or reduce to the level of any particular dignity, if he does this obstmately, is a heretic, a schismatic, impious and sacrilegious. For he falls into a heresy so often expressly condemned from the ver}- begin- ning of the Chui'ch to this day, as well by Clu'ist's institu- tion of the headship of Peter over the other Apostles, as by the tradition of the whole Church, in its sacred declara- tions and General Coimcils." And again : " The Episcopal rank in the Church as to its primary confemng was given immediately by Christ to the Apostles first, as the papal rank to Peter. Tlie Episcopal rank had in tlic Apostles and their successors the use or exercise of its own power, subject to Peter, as Pope, and his successors, as he Jiady and they have, the fontal plenitude of Episcopal authority. "Wherefore, as concerns such things, those of minor rank, that is, having cm'e of souls, are subject to Bishops, by whom the use of their power is at times restricted, or L 146 THE POWER OF THE PEIMACY. stopped, and so it is not to be doubted can be done by the Pope, in respect to superior dignitaries, for certain and reasonable causes." And again he says : " Of which power (of jurisdiction) the plenitude resides in the supreme Pontiff, and is in him entire potentially ; but is derived to others in degrees, ac- cording to the legitimate determination of that fontal and prime power."* The Chancellor Gerson is here only expressmg what had been the mibroken belief down to his own times, until the great Western schism originated a long train of disasters wliicli have not yet ceased to agitate Christendom. But before I pass from this subject, let me say a word on what is meant by spiritual jurisdiction. It is a term of law as well as of theology, and it is desirable to clear up any ambiguity which may attend its use, if unexplained. Eveiy Churchman, then, believes that a Priest, at his ordination, receives certain spiritual powers ; and, agam, a Bishop, at his consecration, certain others : these are called powers of order ; they are the same in all Priests and in aU Bishops respectively. As regards these, S. Peter had no superiority over his brethren in the Apostolate, and the Pope has none over his bretlu:en in the Episcopate. As regards these, one Bishop does not excel another Bishop, nor one Priest another Priest. In the whole of the present subject- matter these powers of order do not come into question. * Gerson de Statibus Ecclesiasticis, consid. 1, and De Statu Prajla- torum, consid. 2 and 3, and De Potest. Ligaudi et Solvendi. The last quoted by Ballerini THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. 147 But "svlien a Priest lias been ordained, where and how, in what place, and mider what conditions and restrictions, is he to exercise the powers so given hini ? All these points the Bishop determines by assigning to him a particular flock under himself ; that is, he gives him mission ; but he does not therefore cease to be the immediate pastor himself of that flock, over whom he sets another as subordinate pastor. And when a Bishop has been consecrated, who deter- mines where and how, in what place, and under what con- ditions he is to exercise the powers which he has received ? That is, who gives the Bishop mission ? who appoints such and such a person to fill such and such a particular diocese ? This power to give mission is pm'ely spiritual, eminently and in the highest degree a gift of our Lord ; and upon it depend for their exercise all poAvers whatever which our Lord has committed to His Church for the salvation of souls, and the building of His mystical body. Will any honest mind, ^nll any one who loves his Saviour, any one who has the spirit of a freeman in his soul, endure that this power of mission should be seized upon and appropriated by the civil Government of a State ? But what is the Catholic answer to the question, "Who gives the Bishop mission ?" I vnW give it in the words of an author to whom I am under creat obligations. " Episcopal jimsdiction cannot be given, save by the Pope alone or by the whole Episcopal body united with the Pope. Let us go to the origin of things. The power 148 THE POWEE OF THE PRIMACY. to govern populations in order to their eternal salvation, to instruct tliem, to oblige them to obedience, to bind them by spiritual penalties, in a word, ecclesiastical jmisdiction, was certainly given by Jesus Christ, nor in its origin could it be given by any other than by Him. We are speaking of men united in one society for the spiritual end of eternal salvation, which society is called the Chm'ch; we are speaking of flocks purchased by the supreme and eternal Shepherd at the priceless cost of His own blood. We are speaking of a kingdom which is sf spiritual kingdom of His own acquiring, recovered from the power of darkness by the victory of the cross and the glorious triumph over Hell. Lastly, we are speaking of populations which the Divine Father has bestowed on His Son made man, giving to Him all power over them. Now, to whom did Jesus Clirist con- descend to imj)art this power ? To S. Peter alone before any other ; next to all the Apostles, comprising therein S. Peter marked out to be, and made, their head. We read not in the word of God, written or handed down, and it is certain that Jesus Christ gave not of Himself immediately to any other this power. The sacred text notes expressly, that when Jesus Christ conferred the power of governing His Church, there were only present the eleven Apostles, and He directed His words only to them. The Evange- list S. Matthew notices the remarkable circumstance that Jesus Christ commanded the eleven Apostles to go into Galilee to a place apart, where He appeared, and gave them their mission to instruct and baptise all nations. Accordingly, the power to govern the Church, wliich in THE POAVER OF THE PRIMACY. 149 due propagation of the Episcopate was communicated from hand to liand to others, and has been perpetuated unto us, was by Jesus Christ, before He ascended into Heaven, given to the eleven Apostles only, and could not be con- ferred on others, save by one of the Apostles, who alone had it immediately from Jesus Christ. Bislioj)s, considered as individuals, do not succeed to the Apostles in the fulness and universality of the Episcopate. There is only the Eoman Pontiff, successor of S. Peter, and the whole Episcopal body with the Roman Pontiff at its head suc- ceeding to the Apostolic College, which possess the Episco- pate in all its fulness, universality, and sovereignty, as it was instituted by Jesus Christ. Accordingly, there is only the Eoman Pontiff, and the whole Episcopal body, which has for subjects all Christians, and which extends its jurisdic- tion over the whole Church. Hence by necessary conse- quence it follows, that the Roman Pontiff alone, or the whole Episcopal body, can assign subjects to be governed, and confer Episcopal jurisdiction. Eveiy one else who at- tempts to do this over subjects not his own, does an act essentially, and of its own intrinsic nature, null and void, since no one gives icJiat he has not got."* I will add another passage which seems calculated spe- cially to meet Anglican misconceptions of Church govern- ment : " Jesus Clu'ist did not divide His flock into so many portions, nor the world into so many dioceses, assigning one to John, one to Andrew, one to Matthew, &c. JSe conferred the Episcopate on S. Peter in all its fulness and * Bolgeni, L'Episcopato, c. vii. s. 81. 150 THE PO"\VEE OF THE PRIMACY. sovereignty, and thus He conferred it too on cdl the Apostolic College, that is, presided over hrj S. Peter ; each Apostle had a full and universal foioer in the ichole Church, hut with sidjordination to S. Peter. The Apostles were the first to make a di\'ision of nations and dioceses, according as the seed of God's Word bore fruit, and the Christian rehgion acquired followers through all the earth. Of the Bishops created by the Apostles, some were not fixed to any people or determinate place, but were sent hither and thither according as the need of Christians required. These Bi- shops acted by an authority delegated from the Apostles, therefore they received it immediately from the Apostles, who had received it from Jesus Christ. Others aa;ain were settled in a determinate see, and had assigned a determinate territory to govern ; these had a fixed and ordinaiy juris- diction, but it is plain that they received it immediately from the Apostles, who constituted them Bishoj)s rather in one place than in another, rather over one peojDle than over another. The disciples of the Apostles j)ursued the same method in the fm-ther propagation of the Episcopate ; and by the multiplication of Bishops dioceses became more and more restricted, and the jvu'isdiction of each Bishop was reduced to more confined limits. It is, then, plain that this jurisdiction was conferred immediately by those who instituted the Bishops, and assigned them to this or that determinate people ; and as these institutors acted ac- cording to the instructions and the discipline received from the Apostles, so in origin the jm'isdiction descended from the Apostles, and from S. Peter, who had received it im- THE POWER OF THE PRIMACY. 151 mediately from Jesus Christ. Thus the streams, however multiphed in their course, as S. Cyprian says, parting themseh-es to irrigate tliis or that plot, and springing one from the other, if you mount upwards, still are found all parted from one fountain, which gave to them the first waters and the first impulse to their movement."* Let us only add to this, that he who received the charge, " Feed My sheep," did not cease to he their proper pastor, because he divided them among himself and his brethren, any more than the Bishop, when he commits a portion of his flock to a Priest under him, ceases to be his proper pastor ; and as that commission was to last for ever, forasmuch as it included all others in itself, and to have a pei'petual succession, because the Chm'ch founded on him who held it was never to ftiil, so liis successor ceased not to have a full and proper power "to feed, to rule, and to govern the Universal Church."t He therefore it is, as the head of the whole Church, and representing it, who gave mission in ancient times to the Sees of Rome, Alexandi'ia, and Antioch, and to all others descending from them ; and he in modem times who gives mission to all Bishops directly jfrom his own person ; in both cases the fountain-head dwelt in himself undi- minished; and this is that universal, immediate, and su- preme jurisdiction, which is the proper natm-e of the Primacy. * Bolgeni, L'Episcopato, s. 94. t Definition of the Council of Florence. SECTION Y. THE church's witness TO THE PEIMACY. We have now then considered the Primacy of S. Peter's See as a power in present possession, acknowledged by many various nations, continued on by a most wonderful provi- dence of God, wholly Avithout a parallel, for eighteen himdred years, unchanged while every thing else around has changed again and again, that is, empires, races, man- ners, ci\alisation, literatm'e, the centre of political power, the centre of moral gravity ; a power still existing, which has seen all the monarcliies of Europe arise as children around it, and all the nations of Em'ope come to its feet for instruction; and which therefore presents itself with eveiy claim to consideration which a power can have; with a right, moreover, to interpret in its own favom', if indeed that be needful, expressions in ancient authors con- cerning it, which refer to its headship, without defining it. We have seen, moreover, that this power is based, not on any grant of the Church of God, not on any conces- sions of its Bishops from age to age, but on the express words of the Fomider of that Church, words so remark- able that they prove themselves to be His who spake as never man spake, in that while they convey the supreme THE church's witness TO THE PRDIACY. 153 power which is to rule and guide that Church for ever, to be seated at its heart, and to move its hands, they enfold in themselves the living germ from which all its organisa- tion has sprung. In them a root is planted by the Maker of all things, which contams potentially the tree with all its wide-spreading branches, down to the minutest leaf of its vast and varied foliage. Thirdly, the end and object for which this central power is created has been set forth ; that unity of faith and of communion, that builcUng up of the Mystical Body to the measure of the statm'e of the perfect man, which is a primary purpose of our Lord's Licarnation, and points to a gloiy only to be revealed at the "restitution of all things." Fourthly, the nature of this power has been explained as consisting in an universal, immediate, and supreme jimsdiction over the whole Church ; such as the very words of institution themselves convey, and such as is im- peratively demanded to fidfil the pui*pose for which the Lord created the power ; nay, for which He Himself be- came incarnate. One thing only remains, to show that the Church has borne witness, throughout her existence, to a power wliich she chd not create, the secret of her own imion, vigour, and strength. This has only been done in a few instances at present, though these are among the most decisive which antiquity supplies. But I proceed to give abmidant proof to every candid mind of what I have heretofore laid do\Nii. 154 THE chukch's avitness The Primitive Church, during nearly tliree centuries, in which it Avas exposed to continual persecution, was never assembled in a General Council. Dm'ing that time it was governed by its one Episcopate, cast into the shape which it had received from the moulding hand of S. Peter himself, at the head of the Apostolic College. That Apostle, in his own lifetime, established three primatial Sees, of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, — the mother Churches of three gi-eat patriarchates, which, as Church after Church was propagated from them, and received its Bishop, yet retained over them a parent's right of correc- tion and inspection. Of these, the two latter, the Sees of Alexandi'ia and Antioch, were subordinate to the See of Rome, to whose Bishop their Bishops were accountable for the purity of their faith, and the due government of their Church. The records of these three first centuries have in a large degTee joerished ; but we see standing out of them certain facts, which cannot be accounted for but by the Roman Primacy, \dz., that the Bishop of Rome, and he alone, claims a control over ^the Churches of the whole Avorld, threatening to sever from his commmiion (and sometimes carrying that threat into execution) such as do not maintain the purity of that faith which he is charged to watch over, and the rules of that communion which had come down from the Apostles. The well-known instances of S. Clement -svriting to the Chm'cli of Corinth to heal its divisions, in the very lifetime of S. John, of S. Vic- tor censuring the Asiatic, and S. Stephen the African Churches, and of S. Dionysius receiving an apology for TO THE PRDIACY. 155 liis faith from his namesake, the Bishop? of Alexandria, are sufficient proofs of this. The force of the fact Hes in this, that the Bishop of Rome, and he alone, claims, as need may arise, a control over all ; but no one claims a control over him. But as soon as the ages of persecution ai'e past, as soon as the Church Catholic is allowed to develop free action as one corporate whole, and to exert the powers which God had planted within her, S. Peter is found on the throne of the Roman Pontiffs, superintending, maintaining, con- solidating her outward framework and her inward faith. In the year 325, at the great Nicene Council, the pre- eminent authority of the Bishops of Rome, Alexandi'ia, and Antioch, is acknowledged, the former of these being referred to as a ty^Q to sanction a claim of the latter over liis subject Bishops, and it is stated that "the Roman Church always had the primacy." The Bishop of Cor- duba, in Spain, apparently at once Papal Legate and Imperial Commissioner, and Vitus and Vincentius, Legates of S. Sylvester, presided over the Council ; and " it was determined that all these things should be sent to Syl- vester, Bishop of the city of Rome,"* for his confirmation, which only could make the Council ecumenical, as may be seen even from the fact that of three hmidred and eighteen Bishops twenty-two alone belonged to Em'ope. In the year 347, a great Council was held at Sardica, intended to be ecumenical. It was presided over by the * Codex Canonum Sedis Apostolicac, S. Leo, torn. iii. p. 4G, edit. Bal- lerini. 156 THE chukch's witness same Bishop of Corduba, and in its Synodical letter to Pope Julius, tells liim, " for this will seem the best, and by far the most fitting, if the Lord's Bishops make reference from all the provinces to the headj that is, the See of the Apostle Peter.''''* Thus these two great and most ancient Councils do not in the least define the nature of that Primacy which they refer to as an existing fact from the beginning in the Church. So true is that which was stated by a Roman Council of seventy Bishops, under Pope Gelasius, in the year 494, which, after naming the canon of Scripture, the present Koman canon, says, " Next to all these Scriptures of the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, on which the Catholic Church by the grace of God is founded, this too we think should be remarked, that though all the Cathohc Churches throughout the world be but one bridal-cham- ber of Christ, yet the holy Eoman Catholic and Apostolic Church has been preferred to the rest by no decrees of a Council, but has obtained the Primacy by the voice in the Gospel of GUI' Lord and Saviour Himself, saying : ' Thou art Peter,' &c. "To whom was given also the society of the most blessed Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, who on one and the same day suffering a glorious death with Peter in the city of Rome, under C^sar Nero, was crowned ; and they alike consecrated to Christ the Lord the above-named holy Roman Chm^ch, and as such set it above all the cities in the whole world by their presence and venerable triumph. * Mansi, iii, 40. TO THE PRBIACY. 157 "First, therefore, is the Roman Church, the See of Peter the Apostle, 'not having spot, or wrinkle, or any- such thing.' "But second is the Sec consecrated at Alexanchia, in the name of blessed Peter, by Mark, his disciple and Evangelist, -who was sent by Peter the Apostle into Eg^-pt, taught the word of truth, and consummated a glorious mart-yTdom. " And third is the See held in honour at Antioch in the name of the same most blessed Apostle Peter, because that he dwelt there before he came to Rome, and there first the name of the new people of the Christians arose."* I now, then, proceed to bring ■s^atnesses to the seven following points, which I hope to prove in order : I. A general supremacy in the Roman See over the w^hole Church ; a supremacy exactly the same in principle with that which is now claimed. II. The grounding of this supremacy on the attribution of Matt. x\-i. 18, Luke xxii. 31, and John xxi. 15, in a special sense to the Pope, as successor of S. Peter. m. The original derivation of Episcopal Jurisdiction from the person of Peter, and its perpetual fountain in the See of Rome as representing him. IV. The Papal supremacy over the East, acknowledged by its own nilers and Councils before the separation. V. The Pope's attitude to Councils, as indicating his rank. VI. His confirmation of Councils. * Mansi, viii. 149, 158 THE church's witness VII. The necessity of communion "with the Pope. In so wide a field I can but select the more eminent proofs ; but they will be enough to convince all who are capable of conviction. I. And first, as to general supremacy, I will take the testimony of the great Ecumenical Councils from the third in the year 431, to the eighth in the year 869, for these were all composed of Eastern Bishops, the Papal Legates being often the only, or nearly the only. Westerns present ; besides, therefore, their intrinsic authority, they supply a proof that what was stated before them without contradic- tion, and by them, in favour of the great Western See, was quite indisputable. If any could have disputed it, they would : for " they were all held in the East, by Bishops of the East, under the influence of the Emperors of the East."* The third Council was held at Ephesus in 431, to judge Nestorius, Airhbishop of Constantinople. It was presided over by S. Cyril of Alexandria, by a special commission from Pope Celestine, and besides was attended by three Papal Legates'. The following are some of their proceed- ings in the Council : " Arcadius, Bishop and Legate of the Roman Church, said: 'Let your Blessedness order to be read to you the letters of holy Pope Celestine, Bishop of the Apostolic See, and to be named ^^•ith all veneration, which have been brought by us, by which your Blessedness will be able to learn xuliat care he hears for all the Churches.'' "f * Guizot, Civilisation en France, 12 leQon. t Mansi, iv. 1282. TO THE PRIMACY. 159 In these letters is said : " We have directed, according to our soHcitude, our lioly brethren and fellow-Priests, men of one mind with us and well approved, Arcadius and Projectus, Bishops, and Philip our Presb\i;er, who shall be present at your acts, and shall carry into effect ivhat tee have before determined ; assent to whom we doubt not will be accorded by your Holiness."* This means that the Pope had ah'eady condemned Nestorius, and deposed him, unless he retracted ; which throws light on the following sentences of the Council on him: " Compelled by the sacred canons and the letter of our most holy father and fellow-minister, Celestine, Bishop of the Roman Church, we have with tears come of necessity to this painful sentence against him."t Farther on — "Philip, Presb^-ter and Legate of the Apostolic See, said : * We return thanks to the holy and venerable Council, that the letters of om* holy Pope havuig been read to you, you have joined yourselves as holy mem- bers to a holy head. For your Blessedness is not ignorant that the blessed Apostle Peter is head of the whole faith, and of the Apostles likewise.' "J And again, after hearing the acts against Nestorius read, the same says : " It is doubtful to no one, but rather knoion to all ages, that holy and most blessed Peter, j^nnce and head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received from our Lord Jesus Christ, * Coustant. Ep. Eom. Pont. HC2. f Mansi, iv. 1211. X Mansi, iv. 1290. 160 THE church's witness Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, the heys of the Jcmgdom of Heaven, and that the poioer of loosing and binding sins was given to him ; loho to this very time and for ever lives, and exercises judgment in his successors. And so our most blessed Pojdb Celestine the Bishop, his successor in due order, and holding his place, has sent to this holy Council us to represent him."* S. Cyril, having heard this declaration of the Legate, moved that he and the other Legates, "since they had fulfilled what was ordered thetti'' by Pope Celestine, should set their hands to the deposition of Nestorius, " and the holy Council said : Liasmuch as Arcadius and Projectus, Legates, and Philip, Presbyter and Legate of the Apostolic See, have said what is fitting, it follows that they should also subscribe and confirm the acts." S. Cyril, most zealous of all men for the rights of the Eastern Church, saw nothing strange in what is here said of the Pope, In the year 451 the great Council of Chalcedon was called to censm^e the heresy of Eutyches. S. Leo had, in a letter to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, laid down the true faith ; and he speaks in the following letter to the Council of the obedience which he expected to be rendered to his decision. "In these brethren, Paschasinus and Lucentius, Bi- shops, Boniface and Basil, Presbyters, who have been sent from the Apostolic See, let yom' Brotherhood deem me to preside over the Council, my presence not being dis- * Mansi, iv. 1290. TO THE PRIMACY. IGl joined from you, for I am there in my representatives, and long since have not been wanting in setting forth the Cathohc Faith : for you cannot be ignorant what from ancient tradition we hold, and so cannot doubt what we desu'e. "Wherefore, most dear brethren, rejecting altogether the boldness of disputing against the faith inspired from above, let the vain -unbelief of those who are in error be quiet, nor venture to defend what may not be believed; inas- much as, according to the authonties of the Gospel, the loords of the Prophets, and the Apostolic doctrine, it has been' most fully and clearly declared, in the letter ice have sent to the Bishop Flavian of happy memory, ivhat is the ptious and sincere confession concerning the mystery of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ^* Diosconts, Ai'chbishop of Alexandria, and president of the Comicil at Ephesus two years before, had taken his place among the Bishops ; but at the very opening of the Coimcil, Paschasinus, legate of the Apostolic See, said: ""We have in our hands the commands of the most blessed and A})ostolic man. Pope of the city of Rome, ivhich is the head of all Churches, in which his Apostleship has thought good to order that Dioscorus should not sit in the Coimcil, but be introduced to make his defence." And Lucentius, another legate, gives the reason : " He must give an ac- count of the judgment he passed ; inasmuch as, not having the right to judge, he j)resumed, and dared to hold a Council loithout the authority of the Apostolic See, ivhich never ivas laivful, never has been done.^^i * S. Leo, Ep. 93. f Mansi, vi, 579, 582. M 1(32 THE chukch's witness And Dioscorus takes liis seat as a criminal. The condemnation of Dioscorus is afterwards passed in the following terms by the Pope's legates : " Paschasinus, — and Lncentius, — and Boniface, — pronounced. Leo, most holj and blessed Archbishop of great and elder Rome, hy us, and hy this holy Co^incil, iogetlier ivith the most blessed Apostle Peter, who is the Hock and ground of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the right faith, hath stripped him as well of the rank of Bishop, as also hath severed hird fi'om all sacerdotal ministry."* All assent to this. Moreover, the Council subscribes to ever}' particle of S. Leo's letter. I have already given above the substance of their letter to him. No stronger terms can be found to ex- press the Supremacy, than those there voluntarily tendered to him. Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople, humbly assures him, as the Council had done, " that all the force of the acts and their confirmation had been reserved to the autho- rity of your Blessedness."! Notwithstanding, S. Leo con- firms their decrees only as to matters of faith, and refuses the canon about the See of Constantinople. Thus the full Papal Supremacy is set forth in these two Councils, held at the most flourishing period of the ancient Church ; and not onl}^ so, but it is recognised as existing from the beginning, and founded on the preroga- tives given by our Lord to Peter, whose person is viewed * Mansi, vi. 1047. t S. Leo, Ep. 132. TO THE PEniACY. 163 as continued on in his successors ; and the grant of infalli- bihty, deposited in the Chm'ch, is not obscurely declared to be seated in the person of her chief. The two opposed heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches had distracted the East for more than two centuries after the Council of Chalcedon. At length, in the year 680, the sixth General Council meets at Constantinople, to censure the ]\Ionothelite error, the last refinement of Grecian sub- tlety upon the gi'osser form of Eutyches. The Roman empire of the West had long fallen ; the political estrange- ment between the two parts of Christendom much in- creased. But the acknowledgment of the Pope's headship is as definite as ever. Pope Agatlio \ATites thus to the Emperor : "Peter, who, by a triple commendation received the spu'itual sheep of the Church from the Redeemer of all Himself, to be fed by him ; mider whose safeguard this his Apostolical Church hath never tm-ned aside from the path of truth to any error whatsoever; whose authority, as of the Prince of all the Apostles, the whole Catholic Chm'ch at all times, and the universal Councils faithfully embrac- ing, have in all respects followed."* His letter is read in the Comicil, and approved ; and it answers him thus : " Greatest diseases requu'e stronger remedies, as you know, O most Blessed ; and therefore Christ, our true God, the Virtue truly Creator and Governor of all things, hath given us a wise physician, your Holiness, hououi'cd of God ; * Mansi, xi. 239. 164 THE church's witness who firmly repellest the contagious plague of heresy by the antidotes of orthodoxy, and impartest the strength of health to the members of the Church. And therefore Ave willingly leave what should be done to you, as Prelate of the first See of the Universal Church, standing on the firm rock of faith, havin,g read tln'ough the letter of a true confession sent by your Paternal Blessedness to our most religious Emperor; which ive recognise as divinely loritten from the supreme head of the Apostles.^''* A hundred years later, in 789, Pope Hadrian writes to Taraslus, the newly-elected Patriarch of Constantinople, a letter, which is read in the seventh General Council, and expressly approved and accepted both by the Ai-chbishop and the Council. He begins by speaking of " the pastoral care with which it befits us to feed the people of God ;" goes on to say, that only the correctness of faith in Taraslus allowed him to overlook the irregularity of his promotion from a la^-man ; and then, after quoting " Thou art Peter," adds, " whose See is conspicuous, as holding primacy over the whole world, and is the head of all the Churches of God. Whence the same blessed Apostle Peter, by the charge of the Lord feeding the Church, hath left nothing out of his range, but always hath held and holds the head- ship. To which, If your Holiness desires to adhere, and with a pure and uncorrupt mind, In the sincerity of your heart, studies to keep the sacred and orthodox mould of doctrine delivered by our Apostolic See,"t &c. This seventh Council, rejecting a former great Council * Mansi, si. 683. t Ibid. sii. 1077-1084. TO THE PRIMACY. 165 of some hundred Bishops, held thirty years before at Con- stantinople, from being general, says : " How was it great and universal ? for it had not the countenance of the Roman Pope of that time, nor of the Bishops who are about him, nor by his legates, nor by an encyclical letter, as the law of Councils requires^* But far more remarkable yet are the proceedmgs of the eighth Comicil, in 869, as if Pro\'idence had willed that before the Greek scliism was accomplished, the strongest J30ssible testimony against itself, and for that authority which it would be led in self-defence to deny, should be borne by the Patriarchs and Bishops of the East. At the beginning of the Council, the Papal Legates require that every Bishop should sign and deliver to them for transmission to the Pope a profession of faith, similar in its chief parts to that which had been sent more than three hundred years before from Pope Hormisdas to the Patriarch of Constantinople, after the schism of Acacius, on signing which the Patriarch and all the Bishops of the East were readmitted to communion. The Legates are obeyed. The profession nins thus : " Because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ can- not be passed by, who says : * Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Cliurch,' these words ai*e proved by the real effect which has followed ; because in the Apos- tolic See the CathoHc religion has ever been kept immacu- late, and holy doctrine celebrated there. Wherefore, by no means desiring to be separated from its faith and doc- * Mansi, xiii. 207. 166 • THE church's witness trine, and following in all tilings tlie constitutions of the Fathers, and chiefly of the holy Prelates of the Apostolic See, we anathematise all heresies. . . . Condemning, par- ticularly, Photius and Gregory of Syracuse, parricidesy that is, ifho have not feared to put out their tongue against their Spiritual Father. Since, following in all things the Apostolic See, and observing in all thmgs its constitu- tions, we hope that we may be w^orthy to be in one commmiion, which the Apostolic See sets forth, in ichich is the complete and true solidity of the Christian religion. But this my profession I (such a Bishop) have A^^.itten wdth my own hand, and delivered to thee, most holy Hadrian, Supreme Pontiff and Universal Pope."* The following letter of S. Ignatius, Patriarch of Con- stantinople, to Pope Nicholas, was also read and approved in the Council. It begins : " Of the wounds and sores of human members art has produced many physicians; of whom one has treated this disease, and another that, using in their experience ampu- tation or cure. But of these, which are in the members of our Saviour Christ and God, the Head of us all, and of His spouse the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Supreme Chief and most powerful Word, Orderer, and Healer, and Master, the God of all, hath produced one singular, pre- eminent, and most Catholic Physician, your fraternal Holi- ness and paternal Goodness. Wherefore He said to Peter, the great and supreme Apostle : ' Thou art Peter,' &c. And again : ' I will give to thee the keys,' &Q.. For such * Mansi, svi. 27. TO THE PROIACY. 107 blessed words He did not, surely, according to a sort of lot, cii'cumscribe and define to the prince of the Apostles alone, but transmitted by him to all who, after him, accord- ing to him, were to be made supreme pastors, and most divine and sacred Pontiffs of olden Eome. And therefore, from of old and the ancient times, when heresies and con- tradictions have arisen, many of those who preceded there your Holiness and supreme Paternity, have many times been made the pluckers-up and destroyers of evil tares, and of sick members, plague-struck and incurable : being, that is, successors of the prince of the Apostles, and imitating his zeal in the faith, according to Christ : and now in our times your Holiness hath worthily exercised the power given to you by Christ."* This letter also of Pope Nicholas to the Emperor Mi- chael was read and approved in the Council. " That headship of divine power, which the IMaker of all things has bestowed on His elect Apostles, He hath, by estabHshing its solidity on the unshaken faith of Peter, prince of the Apostles, made his see preeminent, yea, the first. For, by the word of the Lord it was said to him, ' Thou art Peter,' &c. IMoreover, Peter so entirely ceases not to maintain for his own people the structm'e of the Universal Church unshaken and rooted in the strength of faith, from the firmness of the Eock, which is Christ, tliat he hastens to reform by the rule of right faith the madness of the wandering. For, according to the faithful mainte- nance of the Apostolical tradition, as yourselves know, the * Mansi, xvi. 47. 168 THE church's witness holy Fathers have often met, by whom it has both been resolved and observed, that without the consent of the Eoman See and the Eoman Pontiff no emergent delibera- tion should be terminated."* To Photius himself Pope Nicholas says, as read in the Council, after setting forth the Primacy in like terms : " Because the whole number of believers seeks doctrine, and asks for the integrity of the faith, and those who are worthy solicit the deliverance from crimes from this holy Eo- man Chm'ch, which is the head of all Churches, it behoves us, to whom it is intrusted, to be anxious, and the more fervently to be set on watch over the Lord's flock," &c.t And this letter of the same Pope to the Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops, subject to the See of Constan- tinople, is also read in the Council. "Wlierefore, because, as yom' wisdom know^s, we are bound by the care of all Christ's sheep, holding through the abundance of heavenly grace his place, to whom is especially said by God, ' Feed My sheep ;' and, again, 'And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy bre- thren ;' we could not so dissimulate or neglect, but that we should \'isit our sheep dispersed and scattered, and confirm in the faith and good conduct our brethren and neigh- bours."! Lastly, in its second Canon, the Council itself enacts : " Obey those set over you, and be subject to them, for they watch for yom' souls, as those that shall give account : thus Paul, the great Apostle, commands. Therefore^ hold- * Mansi, xvi, 59. f Ibid. xvi. CO. % Ibid. sri. 101. TO THE PRrMiVCY. 1G9 ing most blessed Pope Nicholas for the organ of the Holy Spirit, as too, most holy Pope Hadrian, his successor, we decree and approve that all things, which by them at differ- ent times have been set forth and promulged s}Tiodically, as Avell for the defence of the Chiu-ch of Constantinople as for the expulsion of Photius, be kept and maintained."* And in the twenty-first Canon it forbids even a General Council "boldly to give sentence against the supreme Pontiffs of elder Rome."t And here, indeed, one might stop ; for supremacy as to government, and infallibility as to faith, have been, in these extracts of the ancient Councils, again and again set forth as belono-ino; to the See of Rome. AVhat more can be asked ? S. Ambrose, in the year 390, at the head of his Coun- cil of Bishops, thus thanked Pope Suicius for condemning the heretic Jovinian, and transmitting his condemnation to all Churches : " We recognise in the letter of your HoH- ness the watchfulness of the good shepherd, who carefidly guards the door committed to you, and with pious solici- tude defends Christ's fold, worthy whom the Lord's sheep may hear and follow. — And so Jovinian, Auxentius, &c., ^hom your Holiness has condemned, know to be con- demned by us likewise, according to your judgment."^ The Decretal Letters of the Popes of the first three centm'ies have perished; but with Siricius, in the year 384, a complete series of them commences. They are the public acts of the Church's Chief Bishop, in his ordinary * Mansi, xvi. IGO. f Il'iJ- ^vi. 174. % Bnd. iii. GG4. 170 THE church's witness government, written to Bishops all over the world, and accepted as laws by them to whom they were WTitten. A learned writer, wdio has comjDiled the most ancient, says of them : " Out of so many Pontiffs singular for their learn- ing and holiness, whom I will not say to charge, but even to suspect, of arrogance or pride, were rash in the highest degree, not one will be found who does not believe that this prerogative has been conferred on himself or his Church, to be the head of the whole Church. On the other hand, among so many great Churches of the Cliris- tian world, fomided by the Apostles or their successors, not one wdll be found whose Prelate was so ambitious as to ventm-e to call liimself head of the whole Church."* Let us see how this appears in all the demeanour and language of these ancient Popes : how exactly the power which is claimed and exercised now was claimed and exer- cised at the end of the fourth centuiy, and from that time forward, not as a new thing, but as existing from the first, by our Lord's institution, and as in full and undisputed operation. Siricius, a.d. 385, to the Bishop of Tarragona, in Spain, says : " We bear the bm'dens of all who labour, or rather, the blessed Apostle Peter bears these in us, who in all things, as we trust, protects and defends us, the heirs of his administration." And, "you have made reference to the Eoman Church, that is, the head of your hody^^ His successor, Anastasius, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, A.D. 400, condemning the opinions of Origen : * Coustant. Pref. p. iii. f Ibid. pp. 624, 637. TO THE mniACY. 171 " Certainly I shall not be wanting in care to gnard the faith of the Gospel in respect to my populations, and so far as I am aljle to hold intercourse, by letters, with the parts of my body over the different countries of the earth."* His successor, Innocent, two letters from whom, so highly praised by S. Augustine, I have given above, speaks, A.D. 410, to the Bishop of Nocera, " as referring to us, that iSf the head and apex of the Episcopates^ Pope Celestine, in 430, ■\^Tites to the Clergy and people of Constantinople, harassed by the heresy of Nestorius : " When I am about to speak to those who make up the Church, let the Apostle's words furnish me with a begin- ning : * beside all those things which are \^'ithout my daily pressure of toil, the care of all the Chm-ches.' So we too, though at a gi'cat distance, when we learnt that our members were being rent by perverse doctrine, m our pateiiial solici- tude burning us for you, were kindled at the fire which was scorching others : although among the Churchfes of God, which every where make up one bridal-chamber of Christ, nothing be distant, nothing can be accounted as foreign. Since, therefore, you are our boicels," &c.J His successor Xystus, annomicing his election to S. Cyril, says : " God hath deigned to call us to the supreme height of the Priesthood."§ Pope Zosimus, successor of S. Innocent, and two years after the letters quoted above from him, ■^•rites thus in 418, to Aurelius, Primate of Africa, and the Council of Carthage : * Coustant. p. 728. t ^'i"^!- P- ^1<^- t Ibid. p. 1131, § Ibid. p. 1231. 172 THE church's witness " Although the tradition of the Fathers has assigned so great an authority to the Apostohc See, that no one may venture to call in question its judgment, and has maintained this always by its canons and rules, and though ecclesiastical discipline, as shown in the current of its laws, pays the reverence which it owes to the name of Peter, from loJiom likewise itself descends : for canonical antiquity, by the judg- ment of all, hath ^villed the power of this Apostle to be so great, from the very promise of Christ our God, that he can loose what is bomid, and bind what is loosed ; and an equal power is given to those who enjoy, ^Adth his consent, the inheritance of his See ; for he has a care as well for all Chm'ches, as especially for this, where he sat : nor does he jjennit any blast to shake a privilege or a sentence to which he has given the form and immovable foundation of his own name, and which, without danger to themselves, none may rashly attack : Peter then, being a head of such au- thority, and the zeal of all our ancestors having further confirmed this, so that the Roman Chm'ch is established by all human as well as divine laws and discipline — whose place you are not ignorant that we rule, and hold the power of his name — rather, most dear brethren, you know it, and as Bishops are bound to laiow it ; such then, I say, being our authority, that no one can question our sentence, we have done nothing which we have not of our own accord referred in our letters to your knowledge."* But the ci\dl power of that day agreed \ni\\ the Pope in its estimate of his riMits. The followino; is the edict of * Coustant. p. 974, TO THE PEniACY. 173 tlic Emperor Valentinian, given when S. Leo met with opposition from Hilaiy of Aries, in 445. " Since therefore the merit of S. Peter, who is the chief of the Episcopal coronet, and the dignity of tlie Roman city, moreover the authority of a sacred Synod, have con- firmed the Primacy of the Apostolic See, that presumption may not endeavour to attempt any thing unlawful contraiy to the authority of that See ; for then at length the peace of the Churches will every where be preserved, if the whole (^imivei'sitas) acknowledge its ruler. Tliese rules haA-ino- been kept inviolably hitherto, &c. We decree, by this perpetual command, that no Galilean Bishops, nor those of the other provinces, may attempt to do any thing contrary to ancient custom without the authority of the venerable man, the Pope of the Eternal City ; but let tliem all deem that a law, whatsoever the authority of the Apostolic See hath sanc- tioned or may sanctiori."* In the year 499, Pope S^mimachus was unjustly accused on a charge of immorality. The Bishops of Italy, whom kino- Theodoric wished to tiy him, told the king, " that the person who was attacked ought himself to have called the Council, knowing that to his See in the first place the ranh or chief- ship of the Apostle Peter, and then the authonty of venerable Councils following out the Lord^s command, had committed a power withoict its like in the Chui'ches : nor would a pre- cedent be easily found to show, that in a similar matter the Prelate of the aforementioned See had been subject to the judgment of his inferiors."t Even when the Pope sanc- * Baronius, Ann, iio. f Mansi, viii, 2i8. 174 THE church's witness tioned the Council, they refused to tiy him, pronounc- ing him, " so far as regards men discharged and free, because the whole matter has been left to the di\'ine judg- ment." Yet jealous as they had been of the Pope's rights, the Bishops of Gaul were in alarm at the very thought of his being tried. Their feelings were expressed, in the name of all by the most illustrious of their number, S. A\-itus of Vienne, who, in a letter to the Roman Senators, Faustus and S\Tnmaclius, says : " We were in a state of anxiety and alarm about the cause of the Roman Church, inasmuch as we felt that our order ivas endangered hy an attack iqyon its head." Again, fm'ther on, " Wliat license for accusation against the headship of the Universal Church ought to be allowed 1" And, " As a Roman Senator and a Christian Bishop, I conjure you that the state of the Church be not less precious to you than that of the Commonwealth. If you judge the matter with yom' profound consideration, not merely is that cause which was examined at Rome to be contemplated, but as, if in the case of other Bishops any danger be incurred, it can be repaired, so if the Pope of the City he jout in question, not a single Bisliop, hut the Episcopate itself loill apjDear to he in danger. He who rules the LorcVs fold will render an account how he administers the care of the lambs intrusted to him ; but it belongs not to the flock to alarm its own shepherd, but to the Judge. "\\nierefore restore to us, if it be not yet restored, concord in om' chief."* * Mansi, viii. 293. TO THE PRniACY. 175 No medisBval Saint, as it seems, understood the Pope's office and universal charge better than S. A-\itus. Ennodlus, afterwards Bishop of Ticinum, \ATote a de- fence of this Council, which was so approved as to be put among the Apostolical decrees : in this he says : " God per- chance has wdlled to terminate the causes of other men by means of men ; but the Prelate of that See He hath resen-ed, without question, to His own judgment. It is His wall that the successors of the blessed Apostle Peter should owe their innocence to Heaven alone, and should manifest a pure conscience to the inquisition of the most severe Judge. Do you answer, such will be the condition of all souls in that scrutiny ? I retort, that to one was said : ' Thou art Peter,' &c. And again, that by the voice of holy Pontiffs, the dignity of his See has been made vene- rable in the whole world, since all the faithful every loliere are submitted to it, and it is marked out as the head of the ichole Body"* The same S. Avitus, writing a few years later to Pope HoiTnisdas, says : " "V^Hiilst you see that it is suitable to the state of religion, and to the full rules of the Cathohc faith, that the evei^ioatchfid care of your exhortation should inform the flock committed to you throughout all the memhers of the Universal Church. As to the devotion of all Gaul, I ^^'ill promise that all are watching for your sentence respecting the state of the faith."t And to Senarius, Count of the Patrimony of Theodoric : " You know that it is one of the laws regarduig Councils, * Mansi, viii. 284. f Ibid. viii. 408. 176 THE chukch's witness that in things which pertain to the state of the Church, if any douht arises, ice should, as obedient memhers, recur to tlie supreme Bishop of the Roman Church, as to our head.^^* Wlien Pope Silverius, by a succession of intrigues, had been banished from Rome, under Justinian, in the year 538, he came to Patara, the Bishop of which city went to the Emperor, " and called to witness the judgment of God respecting the expulsion of the Bishop of so great a See, saying that there were in this world many kings, but not one, as that Pope is, over the Church of the whole world."t No one, so far as I know, has ever accused the great Pope Gregory of usurpation, least of all should an English- man. He "wrote to the Emperor of the day : " To all who know the Gospel, it is manifest that the charge of the whole Church was intrusted 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 j^ower of binding and loosing is given to him, the care of the ivhole Church is com- mitted to him and the Primacy, and yet he is not called Uni- versal Apostle."! S. Gregory well knew that in his o-\vn simple title, " Gregory, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God," every thing was conveyed ; he was preeminently the Bishop, and needed not the titles Ecumenical Patriarch, or Universal Apostle, to set forth his charge of Supreme Shep- * Gallandi, x. 726. f Baronius, Anna!. 538. 13, from Liberatus Diaconus. i S. Greg. Ep. lib. v. 20. TO THE PRIMACY. 177 lierd. S. Gregory, like all his predecessors and all liis successors, was well assured that the Rock was that single point of the Church which could never be moved. " Who is ignorant," says he, " that the holy Church is established on the firmness of the chief of the Apostles, who in his name expressed the firmness of his mind, being called Peter from the Rock?"* This is again attested by an Eastern, S. ^laximus. Abbot of Constantinople, aftenvards martp-ed for the faith. He says in a certain letter concerning PpThus, Patriarch of Constantinople, a chief of the ^lonothelites, about G50 : " If he would neither be a heretic, nor be considered one, let him not satisfy this or that person, for this is super- fluous and irrational ; since just as when one is scandalised by him, all are scandalised ; so when one is satisfied, all beyond a doubt are satisfied too. Let him hasten before all to satisfy the Roman See. That done, all will eveiy where, with one accord, hold him pious and orthodox. For he merely talks idly when he thinks of persuading and im- posing on suchlike as me, and does not satisfy and implore the most blessed Pope of the most holy Roman Chm'cli, that is, the Apostolic See, which from the very Incarnate Word of God, hut also from all holy Councils, according to the sacred canons and rules has received and holds in all l^ersons, and for all things, empire, authonty, and power to hind and to loose, over the universal holy Churches of God, ichich are in all the world. For ichen this binds and looses, so also does the Word in Heaven, icho rules the celestial vir- * S. Greg. Ep. lib. yii. 40. N 178 THE CHUKCH's WITISTESS tues.'"* And just before, "Who anathematises the Roman See, that is, the Catholic Church." Once more let us take another Eastern, S. Theodore, Abbot of the Studium at Constantinople, who, in the year 809, wi'ites : " To the most holy and supreme Father of Fathers, my Lord Leo, Apostolic Pope : " Since on the gi-eat Peter, Christ our God, after the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, conferred also the dignity of the pastoral Headshi]), to Peter surely, or his successor, whatever innovation is made in the Catholic Chui'ch by those who en* from the truth mu.st be referred. — Save us, Ai'ch-pastor of the Church which is under Heaven. "f Now, from these testimonies it will be seen that the nature of the supremacy which they set forth is, a charge of the whole flock of om' Lord Jesus Christ, reaching there- fore to every need of the flock, not intruding on the par- ticular duties of any subordinate pastorship, but embracing, regulating, and maintaining all, so that the same great Pontiff Gregory observes : " As to what he says that he is subject to the Apostolical See, / know not what Bishop is not subject to it, if any fault he found in Bishops. But when no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of humility .-"I who also charges his defensor in Sicily not to meddle with the jurisdiction of Bishops ; and censuring an act of disobedience in another Bishop, tells him: "Had either of the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have been passed over without the * Mansi, x. 692, f Baronius, Annal. 809, 14. % S. Greg. Ep. lib. ix. 59. TO THE PRIMACY. 179 most grievous scandal."* Aiid this charge necessarily in- cludes guardianship of the faith, and therefore the supreme judgment in causes touching it, and, by consequence, the gift of not being deceived in that judgment. It is a cbeam to imagine any other or lesser Primacy than this, which alone coukl maintain miity. n. With regard to the second point, almost every testi- mony hitherto adduced grounds the Primacy on one or other, or all, of the three sapngs of our Lord to Peter, who is invariably regarded as continued on, and livhig in liis successors. And this brings me to the thh'd point. III. The orduiary government of the Church is perpe- tually referred back to Peter, as the great type of the Bishop ; in fact, the first Bishop himself, and of the whole flock, and so the root and origin of the Episcopate ; but as liis person was to be continued on through all his succes- sors, and the Episcopate to be an ever-subsistmg power, so he is viewed as a U^■ing root ever upbearing the tree, and a fountain ever casting forth its stream. Let us see this idea, possessing^ as it did in truth, the early Fathers, caiTied out from their liints and intimations into more and more perfect consciousness, till it is evolved by the complete reason and the fervent lo^e of a S. Thomas and a S. Bouaventure. First, Teitullian m the second ccntmy : " For if thou thinkest the Heaven yet shut, remember that the Lord has left the keys of it to Peter, and tliroiujli 1dm to the Churchn * S. Greg. Ep. lib. ii. 52. f Scorpiace, 10. 180 THE chuech's witness The whole mind of S. Cyprian seems penetrated with this thought. Thus he says : " This will be" (that is, falling away from the Church into heresy and schism), " most dear brethren, so long as there is no regard to tJie source of truth, no looking to the head, nor keeping to the doctrine of our Heavenly Master. If any one consider and weigh this, he will not need length of com- ment or argument. It is easy to offer proofs to a faithful mind, because in that case the truth may be quickly stated. The Lord saith unto Peter : ^ I say unto thee,' saith He, * that thou art Peter,' &c. To him again, after His resurrec- tion. He says, ' Feed My sheep.' Upon him, being one, He 'builds His Church ; and though He gives to all the apostles an equal power, and says, ' As My Father hath sent Me, ■even so I send you,' &c. ; yet in order to manifest unity He has, by His own authority, so placed the source of the same imity as to begin from one. Certainly the other Apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power; hut a commencement is made from uniti/, that the Church may be set before us as one ; which one Chm'ch in the Song of Songs doth the Holy Spirit de- sign and name in the person of om' Lord : ' My Dove, My Spotless One, is but one ; she is the only one of her mother; elect of her that bare her.' He who holds not this miity of the Chm'ch, does he think that he holds the faith? He who strives against and resists the Chui'ch, is he assured that he is m the Church ? For the blessed Apostle Paul teaches this same thing, and manifests the sacrament of unity, thus speaking : ' There is one Body and one Spirit, TO THE PRIMACY. 181 even as yc arc called in one hope of yom* calling; one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God.' This luiity finnly sliould we hold and maintain, especially we Bishops pre- siding in the Church, in order that we may approve the Episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the Brotherhood by folsehood ; no one corrupt the truth of our faith by a faithless treachery. The Episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without division of the ichole. The Church too is one, though she be spread abroad, and multiplies mth the increase of her progeny. Even as the sun has rays many, yet one light ; and the tree boughs many, yet its strength is one, seated in the deep-lodged root ; and as, when many streams flow doAvn from one source, though a multiplicity of waters seem to be diffused from its broad overflowing abundance, unity is preserved m the source itself. Part a ray of the sun from its orb, and its imity forbids this division of light ; break a branch from the tree, once broken it can bud no more ; cut the stream from its fountain, the remnant -will be dried up. " Thus the Chm-ch, flooded -with the light of the Lord, puts forth her rays through the whole world, yet vdi\\ one light, which is spread upon all places, while its unity of Body is not infringed. She stretches forth her branches over the universal Earth, in the riches of plenty, and pours abroad her bountiful and onward streams ; yet there is one Head, one Source, one Mother, abmidant in the results of her fruitfulness." Now in this famous passage no one can doubt that Cyprian is setting forth the Church Cathohc, and his very 182 THE church's witness drift is to prove against heresy and schism that she is one, and not only undivided, but indivisible. What, then, is the counterpart in his mind to the images of the sun's orb, the tree's root, the fomitain, the head, and the mother? Wliat, but the person and See of Peter, with which he began ? It is easy, lie says, to offer proofs to faith, be- cause the truth is quickly stated. What truth ? Peter's Primacy, and Universal Pastorship.* And to this he refers ao-ain and again : " Peter thus speaks, upon tvJiom the Church loas to be built, teaching in the name of the Church.''''^ " Peter, whom first the Lord chose, upon whom He built His Chmxh."t " Peter, upon whom the Chm'ch was fomided by God's condescendence.' ' § " One Church founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter in the origin and principle of unity."|| " The 'Lord to Peter first, upon whom He built tlie Church, ayid from whom He instituted and set forth the origin of unity, gave that power, that what he had ' loosed on Earth should be loosed in Heaven.' "IT " God is one, and Christ one, and the Church one, and one the chair founded upon the rock by the Lord's voice.''''** To Pope Cornelius, of himself, " we know that we exliorted them to acknowledge and to hold by the root and the ivomb of the Catholic Church J^ And to the same : * De Unitate Ecclesias, 3. t Ep. 69. J Ep. 71. § De Bono Patientia;. |1 Ep. 70. f Ep. 73. ** Ep. 40. TO THE PEDIACY. 183 " Tlicy dare to set sail and to cany letters to the Chair of Peter, and that principal Chui-ch from which the Unity of the Priesthood took its origin."* " Our Lord speaks in the Gospel, when He is ordering the honour of the Bishop, and the principle of His Churchy and says to Peter : ' I say unto thee,' &c. F7vm tJiis, through the changes of times and successions, the ordina- tion of Bishops, and the principle of the Church, descends, so that the Church is constituted upon Bishops."! The thought of S. C}q)rian is elucidated a little later by »S. Optatus. Ai'guing with a Donatist adversarj^, he obsers'es : " You cannot deny that you know that the Chair of Peter Jirst of all was fixed in the city of Konie, in which Peter, the head of all the Apostles, sat ; whence too he was named Cephas ; in wldch single chair unity was to he ob- served hy all, so that the rest of the Apostles should not each maintain a chair to themselves ; and that forthicith he should he a schismatic and a sinner icho against that singular chair set up another^X And again : " For the good of unity, blessed Peter both deserved to be preferred to all the Apostles, and alone received tlie keys of the hingdom of Heaven, which should afterwards he com- municated to tJie rest."^ S. Pacian, of Spain, to another Donatist, about the same time : * Ep. 45 and 55. f Ep. 27. X S. Opt. cont. Parm. lib. ii. c. C. § Ibid. lib. vii. c. 3. 184 THE chuech's witness " He spake to one, that from one He might shape out unity. S. Ambrose is possessed with the same view. Speak- ing in the name of the Council of Aquileia, assembled from almost all the provinces of the West, to the Emperor Gratian, he says : " Yom' Clemency was to be entreated not to suffer the Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world, and that sacred faith of the Apostles, to be thrown into disturbance. For thence^ as from a foun- tain - heady the rights of venerable communion flow unto aiir\ Meaning, I suppose, that no other particular Church has a right to demand communion with other Churches, unless itself communicate with the Roman Church.| Speaking of the passage, " Thou art Peter," he says : " Because, therefore, Christ, by His o^vn authority, gave the Mngdom, could He not confirm this man's faith? whom when He calls the rock, He indicates the foundation of the Church ?"§ And again : " This is that Peter to whom He said : ' Thou art Peter,' &c. Therefore, lohere Peter is^ there is the Church : where the Church is, there is no death, but eternal life."|| Peter and the Church are viewed as existing together ; and the presence of Peter so li\'ing in his successors in- dicates the Church : and is the foundation, not once, but * S. Pacian, Third Letter to Sempronian, 26. t Mansi, torn. iv. G22. J See Ballerini, De Vi ac Eatione Primatus, c. 13. § De Fide, lib. iv. 5, II In Psal. si. TO THE PRIMACY. 185 for ever. As long as the building lasts, the foundation supports it. At the same time, A.D. 386, Pope Siricius -wi'ote to the Bishops of Africa : " Of Peter, through whom both the Apostolate and Episcopate in Christ took its begin- ning."* In like manner S. Jerome : " But you say the Chm-ch is fomided upon Peter ; although in another place tliis self-same thing takes place upon all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the kinfjdom of Heaven, and the str-eneih of the Clnu'ch is consolidated equally upon them : nevertheless, for this reason out of the twelve one is selected^ that hi/ the ap- pointment of a Head the occasion of schisju maij he taken awaij.^''^ K a head -was necessary for Apostles, how much more for Bishops ! So S. Jerome thought, when he cried from the patriarchate of Antioch to Pope Damasus : " I speak with the successor of the fisherman, and the disciple of the cross. I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am associated in commmiion with thy Blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. WHioso shall eat the Lamb outside that house is profane. Whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth : that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist." J And now we are brought to that great Saint who is among the Fathers what Paul is among the Apostles, and * Coustant. p, CjI. f Against Jovinian, torn. ii. 279. X To Damasus, Ep, 15. 186 THE church's witness S. Thomas among Doctors. Does lie recognise S. Peter as the root of Church governmentj and as continuing on in his successors? It would be quite enough to refer to his strong ap- proval of those letters of Pope Innocent, given above, ■which set forth this idea so plainly. But he speaks in his o^^^l person : " I am held," he said to a Manichsean, "in the Catho- lic Church by the consent of nations and of races : by authority, begun in miracles, nurtured in hope, attaining its growth in charity, established in antiquity. I am held by the succession of Bishops down to the present Episco- pate from the very See of Peter the Apostle, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, intrusted His sheep to be fed. Lastly, I am held by the very name of Catholic."* Now the force of this third reason lay in the wiiver- sality and in the continuance of S. Peter's pastorsliip. And to another Manicha^an : " Shall we then hesitate to hide oui'selves in the bosom of that Chiu'ch, which, even by the confession of the human race, hath obtained possession of s^ipreme authority from the Apostolic See, by the succession of Bishops, while heretics in vain have been howling round her, and have been condemned partly by the judgment of the very people, partly by the weight of councils, partly also by the majesty of miracles ?"t But to the Donatists, who enjoyed, and that "without the anxiety of a doubt, the ApostoKcal succession, with the * Tom. viii. 153. f De UtiUt. Cred. 17. TO THE rRnL\CY. 187 full sacramental system of the Cliurcli, as well as her faith, save the pomt of their schism, he. cries out : "You know what the Catholic Church is, and what that is cut q^ from the vine; if there are any among you cautious, let them come; let them find life in the root. Come, brethren, if you wish to be engi-afted in the vine : a grief it is when we see you \ying thus cut off. Kumher the Bishops even frotn the very seat of Peter : and see every succession in that line of Fathers : that is, the Rock, which the 2yroud gates of Hell prevail not against^* Beyond a doubt, then, S. Augustine viewed Peter as continuing on in his successors. But what was his special office as Primate ? " He saitli to Peter, in whose single -person He casts the moidd of his Church: 'Peter, lovest thou Me?'"! " In single Peter the unity of all pastors icas figured out^^% "For Peter himself, to Avhom He intrusted His sheep as to another self, He willed to make one ivith Himself, that so He might intrust His sheep to liim : that He might be the Head, the other hear the figure of the Body, that is, the Churchy^ " Peter it was who answered, ' Thou art the Clirist, the Son of the living God.' One for many he gave the answer ^ being tlie oneness in the ma???/. || " That one Apostle, that is Peter, first and chief in the order of Apostles, in whom the Chiu'ch was figured."1F * Psalm, in Donatistas, torn. ix. 7. f Senii. cxxx^-ii. 3, torn. v. CG4. X Senu. cxlvii. c. 2, p. 702. § !Seim. xlvi. p. 240. II Senn. Ixxvi. p. 415. f Ibid, p. 41G g. 188 THE church's witjshess "Which Church the Apostle Peter in virtue of the Primacy of his Apostolate represented, being tlie type of its nniversalit >/.'"* " It is said to him, * I vdll give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven,' as if he alone had received the power of binding and loosing ; the case really being that he singly said that in the name of all, and received this together with ally as o'epresenting unity itself; therefore one in the name of all, because he is the unity in aZ/."t "The Lord Jesus chose out His disciples before His Passion, as ye know, whom He named Apostles. Amongst these Peter alo7ie almost every where loas thought xvortliy to represent the whole Church. On account of that very repre- senting of the whole Chm^ch, which he alone bore, he was thought worthy to hear: 'I aa^U give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.' For these keys not one man, but the unity of the Church received. Here, therefore, the superiority of Peter is set forth, because he represented the very universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him : I give to thee, what was given to all. Deservedly also, after His resurrection, the Lord delivered His sheep to Peter himself to feed; for he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep, but when Christ speaks to one, unity is commended: and to Peter above all, because Peter is the first among the Apostles.''^ It would be hard to express the Papal idea more exactly than in these words : " Peter, who is the mould of the * Tom. iii. pars ii. 822. f Tom. iii. pars ii. 800. J Serm. ccxcv. TO THE PRIMACY. 189 Church," "in wlioin the unity of all pastors is figured," ^* who bears the figm-e of the Body, that is, the Church," " the oneness in the many," " the tjqje of universality and of unity," and as such " receiving the keys together with all." But before lea^dng the African Church let us look for- ward to the year 646, when we find it in a body Amtmg thus to Pope Theodore : " To the most blessed Lord, raised to the height of the Apostolic throne, the holy Father of Fathers, and the Pon- tiff supreme over all prelates. Pope Theodore, Columbus, Bishop of the first See of the Comicil of Numicha, and Stephen, Bishop of the first See of the Byzacene Council, and Reparatus, Bishop of the first See of the Comicil of ^lam'itania, and all the Bishops of the three above-men- tioned Councils of the province of Africa. " No one can doubt that there is in the Apostolic See a great unfailing fountain, pouring forth icafers for all Chris- tians, whence rich streams proceed, hountifulhj irrigating the u-hole Christian icorld. To this, in honour, of the most blessed Peter, the decrees of the Fathers have assigned all peculiar reverence, in inquiring into the things of God, which should eveiy where be carefully examined, but spe- cially by the apostolic head of the prelates himself, whose sohcitude of old it is to condemn the evil and to approve the good. For by ancient rules it has been established that Avhatever was being carried on," &c.j* and then they pro- ceed to incorporate that very answer given in 416 by Pope Innocent to the Council of Carthage, which I have cited * Mansi, x. 919. 190 THE chuech's witness above, wliicli we have seen S. Augustine approving, and whicli sets fortli the powers of the Apostolic See, as the Kving fountain of the Church. Meanwhile let us glance at the view which the Greek Fathers have of the person and office of Peter. Origen speaks " of the sum of authority being delivered to Peter as to feeding the sheep, and the Church being founded upon him, as upon the Earths* Gregory of Nyssa : " Through Peier He gave to Bi- shops the key of celestial honours."! His brother, S. Basil: "He that, through the supe- riority of his faith, received upon himself the building of the Chui'ch ;" and, " Blessed Peter, selected before all the Apostles, alone receiving more testimonies and blessings than the rest, that was intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of Heaven."^ Gregory of Nazianzum : " Do you see, of Christ's dis- ciples, all being Hfted uj) high, and worthy of the election, one is called the Roch, and is intrusted with the foundations of the Churchr^ S. Chrysostom, out of many jDassages : " One intrusted by Christ with the flock," — "himself put in charge of all," — " Christ put into his hands the presidency of the Universal Church," — "He put mto the hands of a mortal man power over all things in Heaven when He gave him the keys." * In Eom. lib. v. torn. iv. 568. ■f De Castigat. torn, ii, 746, J Adv. Eunom, ii, torn. i. 240, and torn. ii. 221 . § Orat, sxxii. torn. i. 591. TO THE PRDIACY. 191 Now the great Eastern Councils, in the next genera- tion to these Fathers, acknowledge the Pope as sitting in Peter's seat. I have already quoted* a remarkable letter of Pope Bonifiice, in the year 422, which fully sets forth the idea we are tracing; and another of S. Leo; but I add the follo-snng : " To our most beloved brethren, all the Bishops through- out the province of Vienne, Leo, Bishop of Rome. "The Lord hath willed that the mysteiy of tliis gift (of announcing the Gospel) should belong to the office of all the Apostles, on the condition of its heinr/ chiefly seated in tlie most blessed Peter, first of all the Apostles : and from hinij as it were from tlie Head, it is His pleasure that His gifts should flow into the whole Body, that ichoever dares to recede from tJie Hock of Peter may know that he has no j^art in the divine mystery. For him hath He assumed into tJie parti- cipation of His indivisible unity, and icilled that He sJiould he named ichat He Himself is, saying : ' Thou art Peter, and upon this Kock I vdW build !My Chui'ch,' that the rearing of the eternal temple by the ivonderful gift of the grace of God might consist in the solidity of Peter, strengthening with this firmness His Church, that neither the rashness of men might attempt it, nor the gates of Hell prevail against it."t The Empress Galla PlacicKa, about the same time, 450, writes to the Emperor Theodosius : " Let your Clemency give order that the trath of the faith of the Catholic religion be kept immaculate : that ♦ See above, sect. 4. f S, Leo, Ep. 10, 192 THE church's witness according to the form and definition of the ApostoKc See, which "\ve also equally venerate as of especial dignity, Flavian remaining in the rank of his priesthood wholly unharmed, judgment be issued by the Council of the Apos- tolic See, in which he first, who was worthy to receive the heavenly keys, ordered the chiefship of the Episcopate to be."* This was to support the single authority of S. Leo against the regularly called Ecumenical Council of Ephesus, in 449. In the year 490 Pope Felix III. writes to the Emperor Zeno, praising the newly-elected Patriarch Flavita, for " referring the commencement of his dignity to the See of the blessed Apostle Peter;" and speaks of his letter, in which he ^^dshed to be " supported by that power, from ichich, at the desire of Christ, the full grace of all Pontiffs is derived.''''^ Pope Gelasius, in 492, speaks of the See of Peter, " through zchich the dignity of all Bishops has ever been strengthened and confirmed^ and for which, by the all-pre- vailing and peculiar judgment of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers, its most ancient honour xoas maintained. Inasmuch as they remembered the sentence of the Lord." He then quotes the three passages, and goes on, " Why, then, is the Lord's discom-se so often directed to Peter? Were not then the other holy and blessed Apostles endued with similar virtue ? Wlio would venture to assert this ? But 'that by the appointment of a head the occasion of * S. Leo, Ep. 56. f Mansi, vii. 1098. TO THE PRIMACY. 193 schism might be removed,' and tliat the Body of Christ might be sho^vn to be of one compactness, meeting m one head by the most glorious bond of affection, and that the Chm-ch, which should be faithfully believed, might be one, and one the house of the one Lord and one Redeemer, in Avhich we should be nourished of one Bread and one Cup. Wherefore, as I have said, our ancestors, those re- verend masters of the Churches, being full of the charity of Christ, sent to tliat See in which Peter the Apostle had sat the commencement of their Episcopate, ashing from thence the strongest confirmation of their own solidity. In order that hy this sight it may be evident to all that the Church of Christ is really in all respects one and indissoluhle, which, lorought together hy the bond of concord, and the tvondrous contexture of charity, is shown to he that rohe of Chnst, single and undivided throughout, ichich not even the very soldiers icho cimcified the Lord dared to partV* Li a fragment of a letter of the Pope Vigilius, in 538, we have : "To no one well- or ill-informed is it doubtful that the Roman Church is the foundation and the mould of the Churches, from which no one of right belief is ignorant that all Cliurches have derived their beginning. Since, though the election of all the Apostles was equal, yet a preeminence over the rest was granted to blessed Peter, whence he is also called Cephas, being the head and begin- ning of all the Apostles : and what hath gone before in the head must follow in the members. "V\lierefore the holy * Mansi, viii. 75. 194 THE church's witness Eoman Church, through his merit consecrated by the Lord's voice, and estabhshed by the authority of the holy Fathers, hokls the Primacy over all Churches, to which as well the highest concerns of Bishops, their causes, and complaints, as the greater questions of the Churches, are ever to be referred, as to the head. For he who knows himself to be set over others should not object to one being placed over himself. For the Church itself, which is the first, .has bestowed its authority on the rest of the ChmT.hes with this condition, that they be called to a part of its solicitude, not to the fulness of its power. Wlience the causes of all Bishops who appeal to the ApostoHc See, and the proceedings in all greater causes, are known to be reserved to that holy See; especially as in all these its decision must always be awaited : and if any Bishop attempts to resist this course, let him know that he will give account to that holy See, not without endangering his own rank."* It is natm-al that the governing power should speak more fully of itself, but other Bishops express just the same idea. Thus S. Cgesarius, A.D. 502, Archbishop of Aries, addi'essing a series of questions to Pope Symmachus, speaks of the Eoman See as the original fountam, and therefore the continual guardian of the Church's laws. " J.S from the person of the blessed Apostle Peter the Episcopate takes its beginning, so it Is necessary that yom' Holiness should plainly show by competent rules to the different Churches what they are to observe."t * Mansi, ix. 33. t Il^i'l. viii. 211. TO THE rnniACY. 105 And John, Archbishop of Ravenna, speaks to S. Gre- gory of " that most holy See which transmits its lights to the universal Church.''''* xYnd Stephen, Metropohtan of Larissa, in 531, petitions Pope Boniface for help, reminding him that "Peter, the Father and Doctor of your holy Church, and of the whole world, when the Lord said to him the third time, ' Lovest thou Me? feed My sheep,' Jirst delivered to you his coin- mission, and then through you bestowed it on all the holy Churches throughout the tcorld"1i In tliis faith our o^ni Bede was nurtm'ed, who says : " For this blessed Peter, in a special way, received the keys , of the kingdom of Heaven, and the Jieadship of judicial power, that all believers throughout the world may under- stand, that whosoever in any way separate themselves from the unity of his faith or of his society, such are not able to be absolved from the bonds of their sins, nor to enter the threshold of the heaveyily ]cingdom.''''X Tlie great Ai'chbishop Ilincmar, the most ^"igorous de- fender of the rights of the Episcopate in the ninth century, says : " In that See the Lord presiding as on His o-vmi throne examines the acts of others, and dispenses all wonderfully as from His own seat." And again : "Catholic Bishops, we decree and judge all things according to the sacred canons and the decrees of the * S. Greg. Ep. lib. iii. 57. t Mansi, viii. 741. X Homily ou S. Peter. 196 THE church's witness Pontiffs of tlie Apostolic See : the Apostolic See, and the Catholic Church, in our persons, that are created Bishops in the stead of Apostles, as in ordering coorders, and in decreeing canonically decrees together, and in judging judges together with us. And -sve who execute the sacred canons and the decrees of the Pontiffs of the Roman See, under the judgment of the Apostolic Eock itself, in this nothing else but supporters of those who judge with justice, and executors of righteous judgments, pay obedience to the Holy Spirit, who hath spoken through them, and to the Apostolic See, from ivJiich the stream of religion, and of ecclesiastical orders and canonical judgment, has flowed forthr* And in the same age, a.d. 847, wTites " the Emperor Lothaire to our most holy spiritual Father, Leo, Supreme Pontiff, and Universal Pope." " The supernal disposition hath therefore mlled the Apostolic See to hold the Primacy of the Chm'ches, which See, through the most blessed Apostle Peter, in the whole world, on wdiichever side the Christian religion is diffused, is the head and foundation of sanctity, that in whatsoever causes, questions, or matters, the necessity of the Church might advise, all should recur as to the standard of o'eligion, and the fountain-head of equity.''^ Lastly, Pope Gregory IV., in 830, whites to all Bishops : " We enjoin not any thing new in om' present orders, but confirm those things which seem of old allowed : as no one * Hincmar, quoted by Thomassin, Disc, de I'Eglise, part i. lib. i. c. 5. t Mausi, xiv. 884. TO THE PRIMACY. 197 doubts, that not merely any pontifical question, but every matter of holy religion, ought to be refen'ed to the Apos- tolic See as the head of the Cluu'ches, and thence to take its ride ivhence it derived its hefjinning^ that the head of the insti- tution seem not to he left ont, the sanction of ichose authoritij all Bishops should hold, xcho desire not to he torn from the solidity of tlie Apostolic Roch, on tchich Christ has huilt the Uiiiversal Church.''^* And here, before the termination of the ancient disci- pline, and the separation of the East, and before the in- troduction of the false decretals, I conclude this line of Avitnesses, adding only the testimony, four hmidred years later, of the two great schoolmen, who in this assuredly, as in a multitude of other instances, have only set forth in their full light principles Avhich had worked from the be- ginning in the Church. It is the same belief, implicit in S. Augustine, explicit in S. Thomas ; faith but uses reason as her handmaid in the latter to explain what she saw with dii'ect vision in both. " It is plain that the supreme power of government over the faithful belongs to the Episcopal dignity. But like\\-ise, " 1. That though populations are distinguished into different dioceses and cities, yet as there is one Church, so there must be one Christian people. As, therefore, in the spiritual population of one Chm'ch, one Bishop is required to be the Head of the whole population, so in the whole Christian people one is required to be the Head of the whole Church. * Mansi, xiv. 517, 198 THE ciiuncn's witkess " 2. Also, for tlie unity of the Church it is required that all the faithful agree in faith. But concerning points of faith it happens that questions are raised. Now the Church "vvoidd be divided by a diversity of opinions, unless it were preserved in unity by the sentence of one. So then it is demanded for the preservation of the Church's unity that there be one to preside over the whole Church. Now it is plain that Christ is not wanting in necessary things to the Church which He loved, and for which He shed His blood, since even of the synagogue it is said by the Lord, * What more ought I to have done for My vineyard, which I have not done?' (Isa. v. 4.) We cannot therefore doubt that one, by the ordering of Christ, presides over the whole Clnu'ch. " 3. Further, no one can doubt that the regimen of the Church is best ordered, inasmuch as it is disposed by Him through I'Vniiom kings reign, and princes decree justice" (Prov. A-iii. 15) : now it is the best regimen of the multitude to be governed by one, which is plain from the end of government, namely, tranquillity : for that, and the unity of the subjects, is the end of the ruler. Now one is a more congruent cause of unity than many. Thus it is plain that the regimen of the Church is so disposed that one presides over the whole. " 4. Moreover, the Church militant is drawn by likeness from the Church triumphant, whence John in the Apoca- lypse saw Jerusalem descending from Heaven, and ISIoses was told to make all things according to the pattern shown to him in the Mount. Now in the Clim'ch trimnphant One TO THE PRIMACY. 199 presides, who presides also over the wliole universe, tliat is, God : as it is said (Rev. xxi. 3) : ' They shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God.' Therefore, also, in the Church militant there is one who j)resides over all. This is what is said in Hosea i. 11 : 'Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head ;' and the Lord says, in John x. 16 : ' There shall be one fold, and one shepherd.' "But should any one object that Christ is the One Head and One Shepherd, Who is the One Bridegroom of the One Chm'cli, it is not a sufficient ansicer. For it is plain that Christ Himself performs the Chui'ch's Sacraments : for He it is Who baptises. He Who remits sins. He is the true Priest Who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by Wliose virtue His body is daily consecrated on the Altar : and yet, because He was not at present to be corporally with all the faithful. He hath chosen ministers by whom He dispenses the aforenamed to the faithful. Therefore, by the same reason, because He was about to withdraw from the Church His coi'poral presence, it was beho^ing that He should commit to some one the charge of the Uni- versal Church in His place. Hence it is that He said to Peter, before His ascension : ' Feed J^Iy sheep :' and before His passion : ' Thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren :' and to him alone He promised : ' I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven,' that the j^oicer of the keys might he j)ointed out as to he derived througli him to others J for tlie preservation of the Church'' s unity. 200 THE church's witness "But it cannot be said that, although He gave this dignity to Peter, yet it is not derived through him to others. For it is plain that Christ so set up His Church that it should last for ever, according to that of Isaiah ix. 7 : ' He shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with jus- tice from henceforth for ever.' Plain, therefore, is it that He set up in their ministry those who then were, in such a way that their power should be derived unto their suc- cessors for the good of the Church unto the end of the world ; especially as He says Himself : ' Lo, I am with you alway to the end of the world.' " But by this is excluded the presumptuous error of certain persons, who endeavour to withdraw themselves from obedience and subjugation to Peter, by not recognis- ing his successor, the lioman Pontiff, as Pastor of the Universal Church."* S. Bonaventure adds to this all that is needed : " Om* Lord Jesus Christ, Creator and Governor of all things, when He was about to ascend into Heaven, in- trusted His Holy Church to His Apostles, for its govern- ment and diffusion, principally to the blessed Apostle Peter, to whom He said specially three times, concerning the uni- versal flock of the faithful : ' Feed My sheep.' But that the Universal Chm'ch might be governed in a more ordered manner, the holy Apostles arranged it into Patriarchates, Primacies, Archbishoprics, Bishoprics" (he means the thing, not the namesj for these are later), "Parishes, and * S. Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles, iv. 7G. TO THE PRIMACY. 201 other canonical distinctions : that, inasmuch as hy one or by few the individual faithful could not be fitly provided ydih all things necessary to salvation, many might be called to a participation of this care, according to their several limitations, for the good of souls ; and, in proportion to the extent of pastoral care, each one of them too received a certain power of authority, the fulness of ecclesiastical power dwelling in the Apostolic See of the Roman Church, in which the Apostle Peter, Prince of the Apostles, spe- cially sat, and left there to his successors the same power. " But threefold is the fulness of this power, \'iz. in that the Supreme Pontiff himself alone has the whole fulness of authority which Christ bestowed on His Church, and that he has it ever?/ xuhere in all Churches as in his own special See of Rome, and that from him all authority ^omjs unto all inferiors throughout the Universal Church, as it is competent for each to participate in it, as in Heaven all the gloiy of the Saints flows from the veiy fountain of all good, Jesus Christ, though each share it in different degrees according to their capacity."* The sum of all this is, what age after age is bringing out with more and more distinctness, that the visibility and unity of the Church depend on the Supreme Pontiff ; those who reject him maintain neither One Body nor One Spirit. And it surely adds very greatly to the force of the pre- ceding argument, that on the other side no intelligible view as to the origin and maintenance of mission and jm'is- diction in the Church can even be presented to the mind. * S. Bonaventure, Cur Fratres Minores pr.xdicent, torn. vii. 3G6. 202 THE chuech's witness You search in vain for any antagonist system which will hold together, which will bear to be thought upon, and not run up into confusion and anarchy. Wliat is this, after all, ]jut saying, that a Body requires a Head, and a "visible Body a visible Head ? IV. I now come to the fom'th point, that the Papal Supremacy over the East was acknowledged by its own rulers and Councils before the separation. This indeed is already fully involved in the first and second points, but I add a few more special proofs. The first which I shall brino; would seem to render all others needless. In the year 519 was terminated a schism of thirty-seven years, brought about by the wickedness of Acacius, formerly Patriarch of Constantinople, who, vdth. the whole civil power of the Greek Emperor to back liim, had communicated with heretics, interfered with the suc- cession of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and caused unnumbered evils to the Eastern Church. By the advice of Acacius, the Emperor Zeno had put forth a decree, called the Henoticon, or preserver of peace, which made it an open question to hold or deny the faith of the Council of Chalcedon ; and he forced the Bishops throughout his empire to sign this. The alleged purpose was to keep both parties, the Eutychean heretics and the CathoHcs, in the Church. Acacius, for his misdeeds, had been solemnly deposed and excommunicated by Pope Felix ; but he was supported by the Emperor in possession of the See of Con- stantinople, and other Patriarchs succeeded him ; and the whole East became severed from the West, save that great TO THE PRIMACY. 203 numbers in all parts adhered to the Koman communion in spite of persecution. At length, in the year 519, peace was restored on these terms : That the Patriarch John, of Constantinople, and all the Bishops subject to him, should sign a formular}', dictated by Pope Hormisdas, in which they professed obedience in all things to the See of Eome, acknowledged in it a primacy by gift of our Lord, which involved perpetual purity of faith and necessity of com- munion with that See, and anathematised by name then' o\ra Patriarch Acacius, and all A\ho had followed liim. I have given the form in the proceedings of the eighth Coun- cil, where it was used again. The Patriarch John sets forth the one chair of the Episcopate, saying : " I declare the See of the Apostle Peter, and that of the Imperial City (Constantinople), to be one See ; promising for the futm'e that those severed from the communion of the Catholic Church, that is, not agi'eeing in all things with the Apos- tolic See, shall not have their names recited at the sacred mysteries."* Submission more complete can hardly be imagined. In the year 536 the Emperor Justinian signed the same fonnidar}', and presented it to Pope Agapetus, to clear him- self from the imputation of favom'ing the heresy of Anthi- mus. Patriarch of Constantinople, whom that Pope had just deposed. He says in it : " Wherefore following in all things the Apostolic See, we set forth what has been ordained by it. And Ave profess that these things shall be kept without fail, and Avill order that all Bishops shall do according to * Mausi, viii. 4,"jl. 204 THE church's witness the tenor of that formulary : the Patriarchs to your Holi- ness, and the Metropolitans to the Patriarchs, and the rest to their own Metropolitans : that in all things oiu' Holy Catholic Church may have its proper solidity T* How could the Emperor Justinian express more plainly his belief that the Apostolic See was the rock of the Catholic faith, which indeed is said expressly at the beginning of the formulary ? About the year 650, Pope S.Martin exercises his power of universal jurisdiction by constituting John, Bishop of Philadelphia, his Vicar in the East, " that you may coiTect the things which are wanting, and appoint Bishops, Pres- byters, and Deacons in every city of those which are sub- ject to the See both of Jerusalem and of Antioch; we charging you to do this in every way, in virtue of the Apostolic authority which was given us by the Lord in the person of most holy Peter, prince of the Apostles; on account of the necessities of our time, and the pressure of the nations."! All that I have laid down under the third point is re- quired to justify this exercise of authority. Again, Pope Gelasius asks why Acacias, Patriarch of Constantinople, " had not been diligent to give in accounts to the Apostolic See, from which he knew that the care of those regions'' (the East in general) " had been delegated to Umrx The follo-svinc; are cases of the confirmation of Eastern Patriarchs by the Roman See : * Mansi, viii. 857. f Ibid. x. 806. % Ibid. viii. 61. TO THE PRIMACY. 205 Pope Celestine confinns Maximianus in the See of Con- stantinople, after the deposition of Nestorius, A.D. 432. He writes to him : " Take the hehn of the ship well knoAm to you, and direct it, as we know that you have learnt from }'our predecessors."* The same Pope having ^^Titten to the Bishops of Alex- andi-ia, Antioch, and Thessalonica, authorising the trans- lation of Bishops, provided it were for the general good, Proclus was transferred from Cyzicus to the Patriarchal Chair of Constantinople.! Pope Simplicius (a.d. 482) in his letter to Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, says that nothing was want- ing to a new Patiiarch of Alexandi'ia, " save that he might receive that establishment in his See which he desired hy the assent of our Apostolic rule.''t And of the Patriarch of Antioch : " Having embraced, in the bosom of the Apos- tolic See, the Episcojiate of our brother and fellow-bishop Calendion, we take into the number of our fellowship, through the gi'ace of Christ our God, in the union of our order (collegii), the prelate of so great a city." ]Maximus, Patriarch of Antioch, had been iiTcgularly appointed by Dioscorus, at the Robbers' Council of Ephe- sus, 449 ; but he is confirmed in his See by S. Leo, at the Council of Chalcedon. " Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople, spoke. We decree that nothmg done in that called a Council shall * Coustant, 120G. t Socrates, Hist. vii. 39, 40. Thomassin, Discipline de I'Eglise, part ii. lib. ii. c. 61. X Mansi, vii. 991, 992. 206 THE church's witness hold good, except concerning most holy Maximns, Bishop of the great city of Antioch ; since most holy Leo, Arch- bishop of Rome, by receiving him into communion, hath judged that he should govern the Church at Antioch ; which prescription I too, following, have approved, and all the present holy Council."* The following refer to appeals : Pope Boniface I. (a.d. 422), writing to the Bishops of Thessaly, thus sets forth cases of subjection to his See, which had occurred in the preceding century : " The care of the Universal Chui'ch, laid upon him, attends the blessed Apostle Peter, by the Lord's decree ; which indeed, by the witness of the Gospel, he knows to be founded on himself; nor can his honour ever be free from anxieties, since it is certain that the supreme authority (summam rerum) depends on his deliberation. Wliich things cany my mind even to the regions of the East, which by the force of our soHcitude we in a manner behold ... As the occasion needs it, we must prove by instances that the greatest Eastern Churches, in important matters, which reqmred greater discussion, have always consulted the Eoman See, and, as often as need arose, asked its help. Athanasius and Peter, of holy memory. Bishops of the Church of Alexandria, asked the help of this See. When the Church of Antioch had been in trouble a long time, so that there was continual passing to and fro for this, first under Meletius, afterwards under Flavian, it is notorious that the Apostolic See Was consulted. By whose authority, * Mansi, vii. 258. TO THE PRDIACT. 207 after many things done by oiu* Cliurcli, ever}' one knows tliat Fla\'ian received the gi'ace of communion, Avhich he liad gone without for e^-er, liad not -writings gone from hence respecting it. The Emperor Theodosius, of mercifid memoiy, considering the ordination of Nectarius to want ratification, because it was not according to our rule" (on account of his being a la}Tnan), " sent an embassy of Councillors and Bishops, and solicited a letter of commu- nion to be regularly despatched to him from the Roman See, to confirm his Episcopate. A short time since, that is, under my predecessor Innocent, of blessed memory, the Pontiffs of the Eastern Chm'ches, grieving at their sevei- ance from the Communion of blessed Peter, asked by their Legates for reconciliation, as voiu' Charitv remembers."* This agrees with what the Greek historian Sozomen tells us, that " the Bishop of the Romans having inquired into the accusations against each" (S. Athanasius, Paul Bishop of Constantinople, Marcellus of Anc\Ta, and x\s- clepas of Gaza), " when he found them all agreeing with the doctrine of the Nicene Synod, admitted them to com- iminion as agreeivg tcith him. And inasmnch as the care of all belonged to him on account of the rank of his See, he restored to each his ChurchJ'^^ Pope S. Gregor}' hears an appeal of an Abbot, John of Constantinople, from the Patriarch John, reverses his sentence, and compels him to receive the Abbot back.J About the year 500, the Bishops of the East, suffering mider the schism of Acacius, address Pope Symmachus for * Coustant. 1039, f Hist. iii. c. viii. J Ep. lib. vi. 24. 208 THE chuech's witness relief, begging him to talve tliem to his communion. They say that they supplicate him not on account of the loss of one sheep, having just quoted the parable of the Good Shepherd, but for almost three parts of the world. " But do thou, as an affectionate father among children, behold- ing us perishing by the prevarication of om' Father Aca- cius, not delay : who art daily taught by the sacred doctor Peter to feed the sheep of Christ intrusted to thee through- out the whole habitable world, gathered together, not by force, but of their o^vn accord."* A few years later, on a like occasion, Pope Hormisdas (a.d. 514) is addressed by about two hundred Ai'chiman- drites, Presbyters, and Deacons of Syria. " To the most holy and blessed Patriarch of the whole Earth, Hormisdas, holding the See of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, the entreaty and supplication of the humble Archi- mandrites and other Monks of the province of Second Syria. " Since Christ our God has ajjpointed you Chief Pastor^ and Teacher^ and Physician of soulsy we beseech you, there- fore, most blessed Father, to arise, and justly condole loith the Body torn to pieces^ for ye are the Head of all, and avenge the Faith despised, the Canons trodden under foot, the Fathers blasphemed. The flock itself comes forward to recognise its own Shepherd in you its true Pastor and Doctor, to whom the care of the sheep is intrusted for their salvation."t The following are from a Metropolitan of Cyprus, and a Patriarch suffering under the Monothelites (a.d. 643). * Mansi, viii. 221. f Ibid. Viii. 428. I TO THE PRIMACY. 209 " To the most blessed Father of Fathers, Archbishop and Universal Patriarch, Theodore, Sergius, the humble Bishop, health in the Lord. " Christ om* God hath established thy Apostolic See, O Sacred Head, as a divinely-fixed immovable fomidation, Avhereon the ftiith is brightly inscribed. For ' Thou art Peter,' as the Divine Word truly pronounced, and on thy foundation the pillars of the Chui'ch are fixed. Into thy hands He put the keys of the Heavens, and pronomiced tliat thou shouldst bind and loose in Earth and Heaven Avith power."* The petition of Stephen, Bishop of Dora, first member of the Synod of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, read in the Lateran Council of Pope Martin (a.d. 649). " Wlio shall give us the mngs of a dove, that we may fly and report this to your supreme See, which rules and is set over all, that the wound may be entirely healed ? For this the great Peter, the Head of the Apostles, has been wont to do with power from of old, by his Apostolical or Canonical authority ; since manifestly not only was he alone beside all thought worthy to be intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, to open and to shut these, Avorthily to the believing, but justly to those unbelieving the Gospel of Grace. Not to say that he first was set in charge to feed the sheep of the whole Catholic Church ; for He says : ' Peter, lovest thou Me ? Feed My sheep.' And again, in a manner special and peculiar to himself, having a stronger fixith than all in om' Lord, and un- * Mansi, x. 913. P 210 THE church's witness changeable, to convert and confirm his spiritual partners and brethren, when tossed by doubt, having had power and sacerdotal authority providentially committed to him by the very God for our sakes Incarnate. Which knowing, Sophronius, of blessed memory, Patriarch of the holy city of Clmst our God, — ^placed me on Holy Calvar)", — and there bound me with indissoluble bonds, saying: 'Thou shalt give account to our God, Who on this sacred spot was willingly sacrificed in the flesh for us, at His glorious and dreadful appearing, when He shall judge the living and the dead, if thou delay and neglect His Faith endan- gered : though I, as thou knowest, cannot do this person- ally, for the inroad of the Saracens, which has burst on us for our sins. Go tlien toitli all speed from one end of the eartli to the other, till thou come to the Apostolic See, lohere the foundations of the true faith are laid. Not once, not twice, but many times accurately make known to the holy men there Avhat has been stirred up among us, and cease not earnestly entreating and requesting, till out of then' Apostolic wisdom they bring judgment unto \'ictory."* Y. The relation of the Roman Bishop to Councils plainly indicates his rank. Pope Celestine thus instructs the Legates whom he was sending to the Third General Council : " When, by God's help, as we believe and hope, yom' charity shall have reached the appointed place, direct all yom' comisel to our brother and fellow-Bishop C}Til" (al- ready deputed to be the Pope's Legate in this matter), * Mansi, x. 894. TO THE PRIMACY. 211 " and do -whatsoever shall be advised by him ; and ice charge yon to take care that the authority of tlie Apostolic See he maintained. If the instructions given to you tend to tliis, be present at the Council ; if it comes to a discussion, you are to judge of their sentences^ not to enter into a contest.''''* To the Council itself the Pope WTites, as we have seen, that he doubts not they will agree to what he has ordered to be executed. The Council replies to the Pope : " The zeal of your Holiness in the cause of piety, and your solicitude for the true faith, dear and pleasing to God our Saviour, are worthy of all admiration. For it is your wont, who are so great, to be well approved in all things, and to make the establish- ment of the Churches the object of your zeal."t They tell him, further, that they had reserved the ex- communication of the Patriarch John of Antioch to his judgment. In like manner S. Leo 'vsTitcs to the Council of Chalce- don, not doubting that they would accept the letter in which he had defined the true faith. Socrates and Sozomen give us the key to this language. Tlic fonner speaks of the " Ecclesiastical Canon ordering tliat the Churches should not make Canons contraiy to the sentence of the Bishop of Rome ;" and the latter says. Pope Julius wrote to the Eusebian Bishops, " that it was an hier- archical law to declare null and void wliat was done against the sentence of the Bishop of the Eomans."t * Coustant. 1152. t Hji^l- HCG, 1174. X Socr. Hist. ii. 17 ; Soz. iii. 10. 212 THE church's witkess Thus we have seen Dioscorus condemned for holding a Council without Pope Leo. And in the Seventh Council (a.d. 787), a previous one of many hundred Bishops is declared not to be Universal, because it had not the pre- sence of the Pope's Legates, " as the law of Councils re- quires." From Constantinople S. Theodore Studites writes, about 800, to Pope Leo in. : " If they, arrogating to themselves authority, have not feared to assemble an heretical Council, lulio could not as- semble even an ortliodox one loithout your recognition of it (as the custom from ancient times holds good), how much more just and even necessary were it that a la^\'fiil Council should be called by your divine Headship !"* A little later, just before the Greek schism. Pope Nicholas I. wrote to the Emperor IVIichael : " Observe that not the Nicene, nor any Council what- ever, granted any privilege whatever to the Roman Chm*ch, as knowing that in the person of Peter it had f idly received the right of all power, and the regimen of all Chrisfs sheep,''^ referring to a letter of Pope Boniface, four hmidred years earlier, which had said the like.f VI. But this point is closely connected with the next, the confirmation of Councils. And perhaps nothing shows more conclusively the imperium over all belonging to the See of S. Peter than this right. S. Jerome tells us that at the latter part of the fourth centmy the Eoman See was pei^petually referred to for its * Baronius, Anu. 809, No. 15. f Mansi, sv. 205. TO THE rRIMACY. 213 judgment on difficult matters by Comicils both of the East and West. " I Avas secretary to Damasus, Bishop of the Eoman city, and answered the s^niodical consultations of the East and West."* S. Innocent, a few years later, says that nothing was terminated without the consent of that See. But the strongest exertion of this power is, giving that ratification to General Councils, without which they do not express the voice of the Church Cathohc. And this power ■will be sufficiently proved, if some Councils, which would othenvise have been general, were not so, simply from want- ing this Papal ratification : and others, not of themselves general, became so, simply from ha\dng it. Of the former class is the Council of Ariminum in 359, attended by more than fom' hmidred Bishops, and whose formulary was signed by the Bishops of the East. Yet in the Council held by Pope Damasus at Rome ten years afterwards, it was declared that the number of Bishops assembled there could not carry force, because the agree- ment of the Roman Bishop was Avanting. And tliis has been always held since.t Yet moi*e remarkable is the case of the second Council of Ephesus, regvdarly called, attended by all the East, and by the Legates of S. Leo, but annulled by his subsequent opposition to it, and branded as the Robbers' Council. Of the latter class, a Council held at Constantinople of one hundred and fifty Bishops of the East alone, which set forth the divinity of the Holy Spirit, became the second * Ep. 123. t Synodal Letter, Mansi, iii. 458. 214 THE CHUECn S "WITNESS General Council solely by Pope Damasus accepting its decrees of faith. A Council' held by the influence of Justinian, against the wishes of Pope Vigilius, and bitterly opposed by all the West, became [the fifth General Council, because it was subsequently confirmed by Vigilius. And the|2 influence of the Popes, it is well kno-s^ai, alone induced the West to receive the seventh General Council, where indeed the Papal Legates were the only Westerns who sat. Again, observe that S. Leo annuls the second Comicil of Ephesus, but excepts the ordination of Maximus to An- tioch ; and ratifies the Council of Chalcedon, but excepts the exaltation of the See of Constantinople. And the third General Council having left to Pope Celestine the decision as to the excommunication of the Patriarch John of Antioch, Xystus, his successor, "vviites to S. Cp'il: " As to the Bishop of Antioch, and the rest, who with him wished to be partisans of Nestorius, and as to all who govern Churches contrary to the ecclesiastical discipline, we have already deterrnined this rule, that if they become wiser, and with their leader reject eveiy thing which the holy Council has rejected icith our confirmation, they are to return into their place as Bishops."* A Council at Rome, held in the year 485, WTiting to the Clergy of Constantinople, observes, with regard to the name of Pope Felix alone being appended to the decree de- * Coustant. 1238, TO THE rRBIACY. 215 posing Acacius : " As often as the Priests of the Lord are assembled within Italy for ecclesiastical matters, especially of faith, the custom is retained that the successor of the Prelates of the Apostolic See, in the person of all the Bishops of the whole of Italy, according to the care over all Churches which belongs to him, should regulate all things, for he is the head of all : as the Lord says to blessed Peter : '■ Thou art Peter,' &c. Folloioing lohich voice, the three hundred and eighteen Fathers assembled at Niccea left the confirmation and ratification of matters to the holy Roman Church, hath of ichich down to our time all successions hy the help of Christ's grace maintain."* If an assertion thus publicly made, by such an autho- rity, in the absence of any thing to contradict it, is not to be believed, veiy few facts of history are more worthy of credit. Pope Gelasius, WTiting to the Bishops of Dardania, in 495, observes : " We tnist that no true Christian is igno- rant that the appointment of every Council which the assent of the Universal Church has approved ought to be executed by no other See but the first, which both confirms every Council by its authority, and maintains them hy its continued government, in virtiie, that is, of its headship, ichich blessed Peter received indeed from the Lord's voice, but the Church, no less folloioing tluxt voice, liath ever held, and holds.^'\ Ferrandus, a well-known deacon of Carthage, -svriting in 533 to two deacons of the Chm'ch of Rome, says : " It is only the divine precepts in the canonical books, * Mansi, vii. 1140. t Ibid. viii. 51. 216 THE church's witness and the decrees of the Fathers in General Councils, which are not to be refuted, nor rejected, but maintained and embraced, according to that command of Holy Scripture : * Hear, my son, the law of thy father, and despise not the ad- vice of thy mother.' For the law of the father is conspicuous, as it seems to me, in the canonical books : the advice of the mother is contained in Universal Comicils. The Bishops, moreover, who meet there, subscribe their own statutes, that no doubt may be left by whom the discussion has been held : but, besides these, no further subscription is re- quired : for it is held to be sufficient for full confirmation, if, brought to the knowledge of the whole Church, they cause no offence or scandal to the brethren, and are ap- proved to agree with the Apostolic faith, being conjit'med hy the consent of the Apostolic See.''''* VII. And now every witness whom I have hitherto brought confirms likewise the remaining point, — the neces- sity of communion with the Pope. If his Primacy extends over the whole Church, as its controlling, regulating, main- taining, and uniting power, which supports its disciplincj and gives voice to its faith ; if this be by direct gift of our Lord, who conferred upon Peter alone that whole Episco- pate, of which others were to hold a part in communion with him and in dependence on him, and as long as this Episcopate endures, the original condition of its existence endures likewise ; if, as having that whole and complete in himself of which others have a part, he is the living source and spring of mission and jm-isdiction ; if the Eastern * Gallandi, torn. xi. 3G3. TO THE PRIMACY. 217 Cliiu'ch acknowledged such a Primacy, wlien the imperial power was proudest in her, and when the See of Kome was politically no longer subject to that imperial power ; if " the Chvu'ches may not make canons contrary to the sen- tence of the Bishop of Home ;" if his See " confirms every Comicil by its authority, and maintains them by its con- tinued government;" — how can he not be the centre of unity, so "that whoever dares recede from the rock of Peter may know that he has no part in the di\-ine mysteiy"?* Is it any wonder that every Saint is pene- trated with this idea ? that S. Ambrose cries, " Where Peter is, there is the Church:" S. Jerome, "Whoso gathereth not with thee scattereth :" S. Optatus, " He is a schismatic and a smner who against that singular chair sets up another :" S. Augustine, " Come, brethren, live in the rootf be grafted into the vijie — this is the JRockj which the proud gates of Hell prevail not against :" the whole Oriental Cluu'ch together, " Those severed from the com- munion of the Catholic Chm'ch, that is, not agi'eeing in all things with the Apostolic See, shall not have their names recited at the sacred mystei'ies :" or, again, " We follow and obey the Apostolic See ; those who coimuuni- cate "svith it, we communicate with — those condemned by it, we condemn :"t or, that the Catholic Chm'ch of old, assembled in her most numerous General Council, con- fessed the Bishop of Eome to be the organ of the Holy Sphit dwelling in her, "Leo, most holy and blessed * Socrates, Pope Gelasius, and S. Leo, all in the fifth century, t Mcunas, Patriarch of Constantinople, at his Council held in 536. 218 THE cnuRcn's witness Archbishop of great and elder Rome, hy us and ly this lioly Council together with the most blessed Apostle Peter, who is the Rock and Ground of the Catholic Church, and the Foundation of the right faith." Heresy itself, by the voice of one sprung from our own island, in S. Augustine's time spontaneously expressed this. The Briton Pelagius laid his confession of faith before Pope Innocent I. in these words : " This is the faith, most blessed Pope, which we have learnt in the Catholic Church, and which we always have held and hold. In which if any thing perchance is laid down mth somewhat of ignorance, or want of caution, we desire to be corrected by you, who hold both the faith and seat of Peter. But if this our co7ifession is approved hy the judgment of your Apostleship^ then whosoever tries to cast a blot on me will prove himself ignorant, or spiteful, or even not a Catholic, but will not prove me a heretic."* An early Father, Bishop and martyr in Gaul, but a Greek by birth, and only two steps removed from S. John, has given us the reason of all this: "With this Chui'ch (the Roman), on account of its superiority of headship, it is necessary that every Church should agree, that is, the faithful on every side, in which the tradition from the Apostles has ever been preserved by those who are on every side."t May we not, then, sum up the whole belief of the Chru'ch concerning that living power which her Lord has put at her centre in the words of one who has been called * S. August, torn. X. App. 97. f S. Irenfeus, lib. iii. 3. TO THE PRIMACY. 219 the last of the Fathers, who, at least in liis day, was loved and honom-ed by all who themselves were worthy of love and honour ? Thus speaks S. Bernard to that monk who had been his OAvn spiritual child, but was become his father, as holding the See of Peter : and in him speaks a countless multitude of Holy Doctors, Saints, and Martp's, who have had no other home, hope, or comfort, but in the Church of God, who but carried on what they had inherited, a per- petual living trathtion. Thus he interprets S. Augustine : " This is the Rock against which the proud gates of Hell prevail not." " Come, let us inquire yet more diligently who you are, that is, what person you, for a time, sustain in the Chm'ch of God. "Who are you ? a gi-eat Priest, the Supreme Pon- tiff. You are chief of the Bishops, heir of the Apostles, in primacy Abel, in government Noah, m patriarchate Abra- ham, in order Melchizedec, in dignity Aaron, in authority !Moses, in judgment Samuel, in power Peter, in miction Christ. You are he to whom the keys are delivered, to whom the sheep are intrusted. Others, indeed, there are who keep the door of Heaven, and are shepherds of flocks, but you have inherited both names above the rest, as in a more glorious, so in a different way. They have each their several flocks assigned to them, while to you singly all are intrusted as one flock. And not only of the sheep, but of all the shepherds you ai'c tlie only Shepherd. Ask you whence I prove this ? By the word of the Lord. For to whom I say, not of Bishops, but even of Apostles, were all the sheep intrusted so absolutely, and without distinction ? 220 THE church's ayitkess ' Peter, if tliou lovest Me, feed My sheep.' Which sheep ? the people of this or that city, or region, or sj)ecified em- pire ? My sheep. He saith. To whom is it not pkiin that He did not designate some, but assign all ? nothing is ex- cepted where nothing is distinguished. And perhaps the rest of his fellow-disciples were present when, by commit- ting them to one. He commended unity to all in one flock, and one shepherd, according to that ^ My dove. My beauti- ful. My perfect is but one.' Where is unity, there is perfec- tion. The other numbers have not perfection, but division, in receding from unity. Hence it is that others received each their own people, knowing the sacrament. Finally, James, who seemed to be a pillar of the Church, was con- tented with Jerusalem alone, yielding up to Peter the whole. But well was he there placed to raise up seed to his dead Brother, when that Brother was slain. For he was called the Brother of the Lord. Moreover, when the brother of the Lord gives way, what other would intrude himself on the prerogative of Peter ? " Therefore, according to your canons, others have been called to a part of yom' solicitude, but you to the fulness of power. The power of others is conferred within certain limits ; yours is extended even over those who have received power over others. Can you not, if fitting cause exist, shut Heaven to a Bishop, depose him from the Episcopate, even deliver him to Satan? Therefore does your pri\dlege stand to yovi unshaken, as well in the keys which are given you, as in the sheep which are intrusted to you. Hear another thing which no less confirms to you TO THE PRniACY. 221 your prerogative. Tlie disciples were in the ship, and the Lord appeared on the shore, and, what was cause of gi'eater dehght, in His risen Body. Peter, kno^Wng that it is the Lord, casts himself into the sea, and thus came to Him while the rest arrived in the ship. What meaneth that? It is a sign of the one only Priesthood of Peter, by which he received not one ship only, as the rest each their o\^^l, but the Avorld itself for his government. For the sea is the world, the ships Churches. Thence it is that, on another occasion, walking like the Lord on the waters, he marked himself out as the single Vicar of Christ, who should rale over not one people, but all ; since the ' many waters' are * many peoples.' Thus, while eveiy one of the rest has his o"\\ni ship, to thee the one most gi'eat ship is intrusted ; the Universal Church herself, made out of all Churches, dif- fused through the whole world."* * S, Bernard, de Consid. lib. ii, c. 8. SECTIOX YL S. PETEE's PKIMACY, and the EOYAL SUPEEjMACY. And now, what do we, as English Christians, owe to the Chair of Peter ? We owe it every tiling. If it is " the root and womb of the Cathohc Church" in general, how much more to us in particular ! Wlien Augustine, the Monk, came .into England with his band of Missionaries, did he come of himself, or was he sent ? Who gave him mission ? Who gave him spiritual jurisdiction^ Wlio empowered him to be Primate over England, and to create other Bishops ? A power is wanted for all this. ^\^ience did he get it ? Not from the Kentish king, for he was not yet ga- thered into the fold of Christ himself ; how could he send ? And had he been a sheep of the fold, how could he give mission to a shepherd ? Nor, again, was he monarch of England. How could he assign all England for a spiritual province ? Aumistine derived his mission from S. Peter's Chau\ Augustine derived his power to create other Bishops, and to assign them dioceses, from S. Peter's Chair. Augustine derived authority over them, when so cre- ated, from S. Peter's Chair. S. TETER'S rRDIACY. 223 Augustine's successors retained the authority wliich he had held by commission from S. Peter's Chair. That English Chui'ch arose, parcelhng out the island, and irrigating every plot of it with the life-giving water of the Gospel. The fountain-head was in S. Peter's Chair. As a liA-ing member, it made part of a hving Body ; and as that Body was ruled and maintained by a head, so was the member. The head was S. Peter, living also m his successors. "What part had the civil power in all this ? It alloiced the spii'itual poAver to act; it added to its actions civil authority and privileges ; it confirmed, by the sanction of temporal laws, those assignations of spiritual subjects which the spiritual power had made. But it never made these by and of itself; it never claimed to send laboui'ers into the vineyard of the Lord. It preserved and mamtained the civil jurisdiction in these mixed causes when it came into contact \vith the spiritual ; but it never claimed to originate this spii'itual jurisdiction itself, or to be supreme judge ^ or judge at all, in matters of faith.* Augustine, the Bishop, had one domain ; Ethelbert, the Iving, had another. He was Augustine's spiritual child, and temporal lord. For more than nine huncbed years this relationship continued; and as it is fomided in first principles of the * Sec this learnedly proved in the late pamjihlet of Archdeacon Man- ning, The Aj'inllate Jurisdictiott of the Craivn, a;c. 224 s. Peter's PRniACY Christian Faith, the only marvel is, that it can be needful to set it forth, as if it were doubted by any. But at least the whole ancient Church of England was built on it. Leaving his days of prayer and peace, S. Augustine went forth from that monastery on the Roman hill, \dsited and loved by how many English pilgrims, for how many hundred years ! He was sent, as yet a priest only, with mission from the Prince of the Apostles, that when the shadow of Peter passed over them, the slaves might be- come sons, and the Angli Angeli. Tliese were the words of S. Gregory : " To Augustine your ruler, whom we make your Abbot, be in all things hmnbly obedient, knowing that whatever you fulfil by his admonition will in all things profit your souls. The Al- mighty God protect you with His grace, and grant me to see the fruit of your labour in the eternal country. Since if I cannot labour with you, I may be fomid with you in the joy of your reward, for I wish to labour -with you. God preserve you safe, most beloved sons."* At the command of S. Gregory, Augustine afterwards receives consecration as Bishop from Virgilius the Primate of Aries. And this alone would prove how completely distinct is the question of jm^isdiction fi'om that of order. Virgilius had no authority whatever to send Augustine into England, but at the command of his spiritual superior he could confer upon him those j)Owers which spring from consecration, for the exercise of which S. Gregory alone * S. Greg. Ep, vi. 51. AND THE ROY^VL SUPREMACY. 225 gave liini mission. To this Bishop VirgiHus S. Gregory had before granted " the pall," that is, authority to repre- sent himself over all the Bishops of Gaul. " Because," he says, " it is plain to all ichence the Holy Faith came forth, in the regions of Gaul, when your Brotherhood asks afresh for the ancient custom of the Apostolic See, what does it, but as a good child, recur to the bosom of its mother?" "And so we grant your Brotherhood to repre- sent ourself in the Churches which are in the kingdom of our most excellent son Childebert, according to ancient custom, which has God for its author."* And so the same power which gave the Bishop of Aries authority over all the Bishops of France, committed Eng- land and its future Bishops to Augustine. Thus, in another letter, S. Gregory empowers Augustme to constitute two provinces, his own, and that of York, each with its Bishops; and he adds to him personally, "Let your Fraternity have all the Bishops of Britain subject to you, by authority of our Lord God."t In answer to a question of S. Augustine, he says, in another place: "We give you no authority over the Bishops of Gaul ; but we commit to your Fraternity the care of all British Bishops." t Thus the Anglican hierarchy sprung up under S. Gre- gory's hand: her Primacies were instituted by him, and maintained by him. Every successor of S. Augustine re- ceived afresh from every successor of Gregoiy the continu- ance of the original mission and jurisdiction. * S. Greg. Ep. lib. v. 53. f Ep. lib. xi. Co. % Lib, xi. Ep. C4. Q 226 s. Peter's primacy, Thus Boniface V. writes to Justus, the fourth Arch- bishop, A.D. 622 : " Moreover we send to your Fraternity the pall, granting also to you to celebrate the ordination of BisJiops, when need requires."* Pope Honorius sends, at the request of King Edwin, palls to the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, with permission that when one dies the sur^dvor should conse- crate another. " He may fill up his place with another Bishop hy tJiis our authority, which, as well out of regard to yom* affection as on account of the great space between us, loe are induced to concede"'\ The same Pope writes to the Archbishop Honorius, A.D. 02 6: " You ask that the authority of yom* See should be con- firmed by the privilege of our authority. Therefore, accord- ing to the old custom which your Church has kept from the times of Augustine, yoiu' predecessor, of holy memor}', by the authority of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, we grant to you, Honoi'ius, and to your successors for ever, the Primacy of all the Churches of Britain. Therefore we have ordered all the Churches and regions of England to be subjected to your jurisdiction, and in the City of Canter- bmy let the ISIetropolitical place and honour of the Archi- episcopate, and the head of all the Churches of the English people, be kept for the future."! And he prays that God would confirm with perpetual stability the Archbishop, " follomng the rule of yom' Master and Head, S. Gregory." * Mansi, torn. s. 550. f ^-'i^^- ^' 580. X Ibkl, pp. 580, 583. AND THE ROYAL SUPEEiLVCY. 227 So in the year 657 Pope Vitalian wTites to oiu' iVi'cli- blsliop Theodore : " We learn your desire for the confirmation of the dio- cese subject to you, because in all things you desire to sliine by our privilege of Apostolical authority. Wherefore we have thought good at present to commend to your most wise Holiness all tlie Churches in the island of Biitain. But now, by the authority of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to whom power was given by our Lord to bind and to loose in Heaven and in earth, we, however unworthy, holding the place of that same blessed Peter, who bears the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, grant to you, Theodore, and your successors, all that from old time was allowed, for ever to retain unimpaired, in that yom' Mctropolitical See, in the City of Canterbury."* Yet these powers might be "withdrawn or changed by him who gave them ; for we find, in the year 795, Kenulph, King of Mercia, -smting to solicit Pope Leo III. to restore to Canterbuiy that part of its province which his predeces- sor Hadrian, at the request of King Offa, had erected into an Archiepiscopal province for Lichfield. And this prayer is granted by the Pope. At the same time all the Bishops of England petition the Pope that the favour of one Ai'ch- bishop consecrating the successor of the other, which had ])een internipted by the troubles of the times, might be re- stored; and that the pall might be granted mthout going to Eome for it.f At a Coimcil held at Kome in G80, Pope Agatho had * Mansi, torn. xi. 24. t I^Jid. xiii. 900, 9S9. 228 s. Peter's primacy, ordered that each Archbishop in England, " who for the time is honoured with the pall by this Apostolic See,"* may promote and ordain the Bishops subject to him. In the same Council, Wilfred is restored to the See of York. In the year 1072, a contest arose by reason of Thomas, Archbishop of York, denying the Primacy of Canterbury over his See. A Council was held in Winton, by order of Pope Alexander, to terminate this, and Archbishop Lan- franc communicates to the Pope the result, that clear proof of his Primacy over all England had been adduced. " As the greatest strength and foundation of the whole cause," he says, " there were produced the grants and wi'itings of your predecessors, Gregory, Boniface, Honorius, Vitalian, Sergius, Gregory, and the last Leo, which from time to time, from various causes, were given or transmitted to the Prelates of the Church of Canterbury and the Kings of England."t As the Archbishop's Primacy extended over all Eng- land, and comprehended the ordaining of Bishops and cele- brating of Councils, to prove that it was granted to him and maintained by the authority of the Pope, is to prove that mission and jm'isdiction to govern the whole Church of England proceeded perpetually from S. Peter's Chair. Thus, whoever might nominate and whoever might elect Bishops, the power w^hich constituted a particular person to govern a particular diocese was derived mediately or immediately from the See of Peter : that is, this See was the perpetual fountain-head of mission and spiritual juris- * Mansi, xi. 180-183. t I^^id. sx. 23. AND THE ROYAL SUPREilACY. 229 diction. The Primacies which it had created, it likewise maintained ; and that which was originally a communica- tion of S. Peter's authority (for from him alone it comes that one Bishop is superior to another), would subsist throughout by union with S. Peter. He who is the som'ce of spiritual jm'isdiction is neces- sarily the Supreme Judge of doctrine. But that which the See of Peter was, ages before the very foundation of the See of Canterbmy, m tlie whole Churchf it seems hardly necessary to prove, that it was always in a province of the Church. Could any province of the Church determine a point concerning the faith by and of itself, the least e\'il to which that must lead would be the dismemberment of that province from the rest of the Body. For what can insure unity of faith ^^^thout sub- mission to a common head? This even our Lord did not attempt, even in a body of twelve. How can there possibly exist " one Episcopate, of which a part is held by each without division of the whole," unless there be one law for that whole Episcopate, maintained by one authority within it : as the very Samt who sets forth this idea of the Episcopate observes, " Unity is preserved in the source" ? But, as a matter of fact, for more than nine hundi'ed years the See of S. Peter was in this nation the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge, and matters of faith could be canied before it, as the comt of appeal in last resource. And, as a matter of fact, for nine hundred and sixty years sixty-nine Archbishops sat in the seat of S. Angus- 230 s. Peter's prbiacy, tine at Canterbury, by the authority of him who sent S. Augustine. But by whose authority did the seventieth sit ? who gave to Dr. Parker not his orders, not his episcopal Character, but mission, to execute the powers which belong to that character in the determinate See of Canterbury, and autJio- Tity to execute the powers of a Primate in the province of Canterbury ? To this no answer can be given but one — Queen EHza- beth gave, or at least attempted to give, that mission and that authority. Let us simply state historical facts. Queen Elizabeth at her accession found the ancient rela- tion, which for nine hundred and sixty years had subsisted between the See of S. Peter and the Church of England, restored by the act of her sister, after its disturbance by her father and brother. This relation consisted mainly in two pomts — that the Pope instituted all Bishops, and was the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge. Queen Elizabetli caused an Act of Parhament to be passed, depriving the Pope of these two powers. And this Act was passed in spite of the remonstrances of the Episco- pate, the Convocation, and the two Universities. But she did not stop there. Wlio was to possess these two powers? Somewhere they must be. She coveted them for her Crown : she took and annexed them to that Qiown. She made herself Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge by causing the appeals, which had ever been made from the AXD THE ROYAL SUrRE:\LVCY. 231 Court of the Archbishop to the Pope, to be made to the CroAMi. ^lore need not be said on this head, as all the Courts of the kingdom have just affirmed this power to exist in the Crown ; and as her Majesty, in exercise of her authority as Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge, has just reversed the sentence of the iVi'chbishop's Court, and decreed that the Clergy of the Chiu'ch have it wholly at their option to preach and teach that infants are regenerated by God in Holy Baptism, or that such a doctrine is " a soul-destro}dng heresy :" nay, as the perfection of liberty, the same clergj'- man can now at the font, in the words of the Baptismal Service, declare his belief in the former doctrine, and in the pulpit proceed to enforce the latter ! She took to herself, likewise, the power of instituting Bishops, which is of originating mission and jurisdiction ; for every Bishop of the Anglican Church has been from that time instituted by order and commission from the Crown, and by that alone. Now it has been well said, that " Sovereigns who covet spiritual authority have never dared to seize it upon the altar with their own hands : they know well that in this there is an absurdity even gi'eater than the sacrilege. Incapable as they are of being directly recognised as the source and regulators of religion, they seek to make themselves its masters by the intermediacy of some sacerdotal body enslaved to their wishes : and there, Pontiifs without mission, usurpers of the truth itself, they dole out to their people the measure of it which they think sufficient to check revolt ; they make of the Blood of Jesus Clirist an instrument of moral servitude and of political 232 s. Peter's primacy, schemes, until the clay when they are taught by terrible catastrophes that the greatest crime which sovereignty can commit against itself and against society is the meddling touch which profanes religion."* Dr. Parker was instituted by four Bishops without a diocese, who had no power whatever of theii* own to give mission to the See of Canterbury: they professed to act under Queen Elizabeth's commission. But to show how the fountain of this mission and spiritual jm'iscUction was made to reside in the Cro'^\^^, we need only refer to the law which enacted, that in case an Archbishop should refuse within a certain time to institute a Bishop at the command of the Crown, a case which in three hundred years has 7iever occurred, though Dr. Hoadley and Dr. Hampden have been among the persons instituted, the Cro^vn might issue a commission to any other Bishops of the province to institute, thus overruling the special autho- rity of the Archbishop as Archbishop. Moreover, the letters patent of every Colonial Bishop declare in the most express words that Ej)iscopal jurisdic- tion to govern such and such a diocese, which the letters patent erect, is granted by the Crown. And not only does the Crown grant this jurisdiction, but it can recall it after it has been once granted. Take the latest exercise of this power.f " The Queen has been pleased, by letters patent mider the great seal of the United Kingdom, to reconstitute the Bishopric of Quebec, and to du'ect that the same shall com- * Le P^re Lacordaire. t Loudon Gazettg. AJS^D THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 233 prise the district of Quebec, Three Kivers, and Gaspe onlrj, and be called the Bishopric of Quebec : and Her Majesty has been pleased to name and appoint the Right Kev. Father in God, George Jehoshaphat ^Mountain, Doctor of Divinity, heretofore Bishop of Montreal^ to he Bishop of the said See of Quebec. Her Majesty has also been pleased to constitute so much of the ancient diocese of Quebec as comprises the district of Montreal to be a Bishop's See and Diocese, to be called the Bishopric of Montreal, and to name and appoint the Eev. Francis Fulford, Doctor of Divinity, to be ordained and consecrated Bishop of the said See of Montreal."* All that the Archbishop has to do in such a matter is to give Episcopal consecration to a person so designated, on pain of having his goods confiscated, and his person impri- soned : lilt he does not give the diocese or the mission. Her Majesty likewise — in the exercise of Papal autho- rity — has created sundry ^letropolitans, as of Calcutta, to whom she has subjected all India ; and Sydney, to whom * Since this was wTitten, a judgment of the Vnxy Council, accepted and ratified by the Crown, in the case of Dr. Coleuso, has decided that the grant of spiritual jurisdiction from the Crown to Bishops in colonies which possess a parliamentary constitution is invalid in law. They become, therefore, Bishops without dioceses. It is stated in the papers that Dr. Selwyn and the other Anglican Bishops in New Zealand have in consequence petitioned the Queen to be allowed to return their letters- patent, Avhich professed to give them jurisdiction. Tlie papers do not state whence Dr. Selwyn and his brethren propose to get it for the future. It would seem as if the question of spiritual jurisdiction were not at all considered in the Anglican Church ; yet absolution given by a true priest without jurisdiction is invalid ; and this fact alone, without going into the question whether her priests are true priests and her Bishops true Bishops, annuls all absolutions in the Church of England. 234 S. PETERS PRIMACY, she has subjected not only Australia, but Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand. Now here let me observe two things. First, that the power to nominate for election, or to elect one to be a Bishop, is quite distinct from the power to institute or confirm, which latter is the deliverance of the spiritual jjower of government. The former privileges may be and ai'e exercised by the ci\il power ; but the latter authority must be derived from a spiritual source. Secondly, the ci^dl power may, if it so choose, give the sanction of civil law to the assignations of dioceses made by the spiritual power ; and attach a certain civil validity to the spuitual acts of Bishops instituted by spmtual power. But here the case is quite different. The diocese is made and erected, divided and altered, solely by the civil power. The spiritual jurisdiction actually possessed by a Bishop over his flock is taken away, as concerns a part of that flock, and conferred upon another. The Bishop is purely passive under this. And so particular Bishops, already supposed to be under the See of Canterbury, are without permission of that See subjected to an intermediate Metropolitan. Now the whole principle of the Anglican Reformation consists in these two things, — that the civil power is made the origin of Mission and Spiritual Jurisdiction, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge. Those who ask for these things to be altered ask that the Reformation would be pleased to undo all that it did amiss, and so restore itself to Catholic Unity. Would that they may be heard ! — but there are few signs of it. AND THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 235 And the wliole of what I have written in the preceding five sections shows that the Papal authority consists in exactly these two points. And thus it was that Queen Elizabeth took and transferred the Papal Supremacy to herself. And thus it is that authority to administer the Sacraments of oiu* Lord Jesus Christ in this or that place or district, the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, the power to bind and loose, are pretended to be given by an earthly Sovereign. Can there be found in the history of eighteen hundred years a heresy more directly antichristian than this ? It strilvcs at the very heart of the Church of God. From the bemnnin£i; the crime of being a creature and a slave of the State has been alleged against the Anglican Establishment. Is this charge true? and, if so, in what does it consist ? It is not because a communion is established; because its Bishops are nominated by the Crown and sit in Parliament; because their acts have a civil validity ; because its Clergy are civil officers, — that it can be justly called a creature or a slave of the State. All this may be innocently, may be rightly, may be most happily. But a communion is the creatm'e and the slave of the civil power when the origin of its mission and spiritual jurisdiction, and the supreme judg- ment upon its doctrine, are vested in the civil power. But to return to Queen Clizabeth. Anncd with this ci\'il law, which extinguished the supreme juiisdiction of S. Peter's See, and its institution of Bishops, and trans- ferred both these powers to the Crown, imposing an oath for their maintenance, she ordered this oath to be adminis- 230 s. Peter's primacy, tered to tlie existing Bishops. The Primacy was vacant, and sixteen members of the Episcopate alone sm^ved. Of these, fifteen refused to sever that link between their Sees and the See of Rome, which had subsisted for nine hundred and sixty years, from the very foundation of the Church; refused beside to acknowledge the transference of the two above-named spiritual powers to the Crown. In virtue of that law they were deposed. One Bishop, Kitchen of Llandaff, had the heart to accept these conditions, and continued on in his See, sur- rendering to courtiers the greater part of its endowments. But even he took no part in the confirmation or conse- cration of the new Primate. And so the ancient Episcopate, which derived its suc- cession from S. Augustine, and its mission fi'om S. Peter, became extinct in banishment, in captivity, and in duresse. The Episcopate which for well-nigh a thousand years had formed, and civilised, and blessed England in a thousand ways, and by which it was a member of the great Cliristian Body, was swept away. And a new Episcopate, deriving its mission from Queen Elizabeth, and perpetually dependent for its jurisdiction on the Crown of England, and owning in that Crown its Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge, arose. This is its origin, this the principle on which it is built, the subjection of the spiritual power to the civil in spiritual things, in faith, and in discipline. Hmnanam conati sunt facere Ecclesiam. They attempted, and they have succeeded. For myself, now that after long years of pain and distress, of thought, AND THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. 237 of inqiiiiy, and of prayer, since by the mercy of God the light has broken upon me, let me say as much as this, — for not to say it would be to conceal the strongest con- viction, neither fonned in a hurry, nor reached without great suffering, — let those who can put their trust in such a Church and such an Episcopate, those who can feel their souls safe in such a system, work in it, think for it, Amte for it, pray for it, and tmist their souls to it. But the duty which I owe to Almighty God, and the regard which I have for my salvation, compel me to declare my belief, by word and act, that it is an imposture^ all the more dan- gerous to the souls of men, to the affectionate, to the obedient, to those who beUeve that there is " one Body and one Spirit," because it pretends to be a member of the Catholic Bod}', with which it has broken the essential relation, and to possess spiritual powers which it has indeed forfeited. SECTION YII. THE EFFECTS OF S. PETER S PRIMACY, AND OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. The Primacy which our Lord set up for ever iu His Church in the person of S. Peter and his successors was so set up to maintain miity of faith and commimion. That Primacy was finally abolished in the Anglican Establishment by Queen Elizabeth, and two of the chief powers belonging to it attached to her throne, powers which cannot be separated ; — that is, to be the Source of Spiritual Jurisdiction, and the Supreme Judge of doctrine. Have the two effects intended by the Primacy of divine institution, — unity of faith and of communion, — followed in the system set up under the Eoyal Supremacy of hmnan institution ? Has the Anglican Church one faith? Has she com- munion mth the Chiu'ch Cathohc throughout the world ? As to faith, the revelation of our Lord has been of late well divided into three great branches, which indeed are sufficiently indicated by the arrangement of the Apos- tles' Creed, viz., the doctrine of the Holy Trinity; the doctrine of the Incarnation ; the doctrine of the Chm'ch. It was this latter which was assaulted at the time the Anglican Reformation was set up ; and of com'se to this latter we must mainly look to see the unity of the New EFFECTS OF S. PETER"s PRIMACY. 239 Church. Has the Anglican communion any cue consistent faith concerning the CathoHc Chui'ch, and the sacramental system, which is in fact the applying of the Incainiation to the mystical Body of Christ and the souls which belong to it ? Who will venture to say that it has, as a lohole ? I speak not of this or that party, Evangelical, Latitudina- rian, or High Church, or the Oxford movement, within it ; but does the Anglican Chm-ch, as a ivhole, deHver to men any belief as to where the Catholic Church at this moment is; whether the Eoman is pai-t of it or not; whether the Greek is part of it or not; whether Presbyterianism in Scotland is a branch of it or not ; whether it is infollible or not ; whether, if General Coimcils may err, the whole Church may err, and teach falsehood for God's truth. Each indi\idual in the Anglican Chm'cli will have liis o^m answer, or none, upon these questions. Yet all repeat : " I believe one Holy Catholic Chm-ch." How can they believe what they do not laiow any thing about ? Or again, as to the benefits of Holy Baptism ; are not the two great sections of the Establishment at daggers drawn about these — full of misconceptions even as to their o^ATi meaning? Or only conceive that a late trial had tm'ned upon the nature of the Holy Eucharist, instead of Baptism. The mind revolts at the thought of the blasphemies which would have been uttered, and the mibehef in that holy mystery wliich would have been shown.* * Since this was written, a trial respecting tlio Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist was about to take place ; but the maintainer of a sort of 240 EFFECTS OF S. PETER'S PRIMACY, Now, not to mention the effects conveyed hy Confiraia- tion, and Orders, and Sacramental Absolution, there is not a rural deanery in England whose members could meet together Avithout all or either of the above questions being an apple of discord, if flung among them. But there is one point which runs right into the heart of him who is charged with the care of souls, and day by day leaves its sting there. The Anglican Church abolished at the Eeformation that discipline of penance which existed all over the world. Wliat has she substituted for it ? Are her children to sin and sin on, for months and years toge- ther, and restore themselves when they please to the com- munion of the Church ? sin on, to the very bed of death, in trust upon God's indulgence ? Or what living bond of connection is there between the pastor and his flock in health ? How can he ever come to close quarters with the secret sins of the individual conscience? How to deal with sins committed after Baptism is a question of the utmost daily moment to the clergy. How is it ruled for them in Anglicanism ? They have each to teach souls the way to Heaven ; to teach young children, as well as to remind adults, of the privileges and duties of baptised persons ; and how to be Keal Presence pleaded that the time limited by the act for trial had elapsed, and was very glad to escape from a decision by aid of this technical objection. Truly a heroic position for one who fancied that he was asserting a doctrine which is indeed the dearest privilege of the true Church, but which it seems he was content to hold as his indivi- dual opinion, denied by as many as list of ministers and laymen in the Anglican Church. AND OF THE ROYAL SUPEEilACY. 241 restored if they sin. They have all to attend death-beds, and sinners laden with guilt : are they to hear their con- fessions, or tell them to confess to God alone? to give them absolution, or to instruct them that God alone for- gives sms, and not by His ministers ? These several parties will answer these questions in different ways. In the mean time the sinner dies ! Do Anghcan Bishops authorise auricular confession, or no ? or, if they are asked the question, put it off with an ambiguity ?* Is the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession taught or not by the Anglican Church, or is it " an open question" ? A Bishop lately denied it in strong terms, preaching on a solemn public occasion at S. Paul's Cathedral, I think before the great Missionary power of the Church ; the con- sequence was, that he was not asked to print his sermon. Yet one would think this doctrine of some importance to the beino; of a Chui'ch. Is it not universally felt that the Prayer-book looks one way, and the Articles another ? The remains of the Catho- lic spirit in the former consort ill with the flagrant virus of the Reformation in the latter. It is a great contest which is to interpret the other : but the Privy Council seems to have turned the scale in favoiu* of the Articles. Thus it appears that the whole body of doctrine which was attacked at the Reformation remains in tlie Anglican system in a state of uttermost confusion. All that it has of good is that which it derived unaltered from the Roman * These are facts which have come to the writer's knowledge. R 242 EFFECTS OF S. PETERS PEDIACY, Church : where it attempted to change, it set up nobody knows what, but something so indefinite, so ambiguous, so chameleon-like, in a word, so dishonest, that Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic claim it each for themselves. That is, a compromise was made of the whole sacramental system : and a rojal decree now comes forth that the clergj may teach contradictories about it. And is this indeed God's truth ? — did our Lord set up a Church for this, that men might be tossed about mtli every Mdnd of doctrine ? But I go no further in a subject on Avhicli one might write a volume. I only wish to show the necessary result of a fatal principle. And as to unity of communion with the rest of the Church, what has the Royal Supremacy done ? — not merely severed it, as a fact, but made it hnpossihle. Other communions are unhappily schismatical, as being de facto disjoined from the Head: but they are not built upon, and do not consecrate, the schismatical principle. Greeks or Armenians might once more accept S. Peter's Primacy to-morrow. The very Monophysites have the hierarchical 2:)rinciple in perfection, and still look up to S. ^Mark's chair, even in its degradation, as the centre of unity ; and they may one day remember that S. Mark was sent by S. Peter. But Anglicanism is founded on the very principle of denying S. Peter's Primacy, a jirincij^le of iso- lation and severance, which terminates the unity of the Church with each individual Bishop, or rather makes all alike subject, as Bishops, to the civil power. Were this carried out, there would be as many Christianities as there AND OF TILE KOY.iL SUPREMACY. 243 are Christian nations. But enough of divisions which sad- den the inmost heart, and lead it to the conclusion that there is no Chui'ch upon Earth ; for this every consistent Anglican must beheve. Is he not told that the Roman Church, the Greek Church, and the Anglican, which neither teach one creed, nor are united in one government, make up yet one Church ; that is, spiritual bodies, which excommunicate each other, make up that " one Body and one Spiiut," which has " one Lord and one Faith" ? When the individual conscience asks : What am I to believe as a matter of divine faith, on points where these authorities disagree, what answer can be given ? Accordingly, the result, to every thinking mind, of Anglicanism is, that there is at present no divine teacher upon Earth at all, whom we are bound to believe and obey. That is naked infidelity. Let me ent-reat those to consider this, who seem to have made up their minds to substitute Avhat they call " loyalty" to the Anglican Church /