the Pope, down to the beginning of the sixteenth century;"'* pretending, at the same time, by fictions still grosser than the former, to trace the steps by which this jurisdiction was obtained. "From William the First (he says) the Pope obtained the privilege of sending legates." Were not then Fugatius and Duvionus, by whom the British Church was really founded in the second century, legates from Pope Eleutherius, if we may believe Usher among other historians? + Were not St. Germanus and Lupus legates from Pope Celestine (who also sent S. S. Paladius and Patrick, the former to convert the Scots, the latter the Irish), to extirpate the Pelagian heresy in Britain? And does not the Bishop's favourite author Giraldus Cambrensis derive the Metropolitical dignity of his see of St. David's from the authority of the former of these legates, in his (Giraldus) conference with Pope Lucius ?§ "From Henry I. (says Dr. Burgess) the Pope obtained the donation and investiture of Bishoprics; from Stephen, the appellant jurisdiction; from Henry II., the exemption of Clerical persons from Lay power."|| By way of bringing these points to a speedy * P. 3. † Antiquitates Eccl. Brit. ad. An. 176. Ex Antiq. Registr. Landas, Anglia Sacra, P. ii. p. 669. issue, I would ask his Lordship: Does not Diceto, and the other ancient writers contained in Anglia Sacra; does not the modern Richardson, in his notes on Godwin De Præsulibus, shew that each of our Primates received his investiture, that is, his jurisdiction, immediately fro:n the Pope? Was not the right of appeal to Rome from all other churches confirmed by the council of Sardica, at which our British Prelates were present ?* And did not S. Wilfred, of York, exercise this right of appeal to Rome, against Theodore A. B., of Canterbury + With respect to Clerical-immunities, every child knows that the object of Henry II., in his contest with S. Thomas à Becket, was to abolish these, not to establish them. The Prelate goes on to state, that Henry VIII. abolished the Pope's jurisdiction, but "left the doctrine and usages of the Church unreformed till the accession of Edward VI. It was then (adds the Prelate, but how falsely has been proved) and in the reign of Elizabeth, that the ancient faith and worship of the primitive Church were restored. But the Roman Catholics continued to frequent the Church of England, and to join in its services till the year 1580, when Parsons the Jesuit, and his associate missionaries, entirely put a stop to their conformity. THIS * St. Athan. in Apol. 2. WAS THE GREAT SCHISM of the sixteenth century; the real separation between the two Churches, not of the Church of England from that of Rome, but of the Roman Catholics from the Church of England."* Here, then, Dear Sir, we hear the great secret concerning THE GRAND SCHISM of the sixteenth century, disclosed, which, without the Bishop's information, no human being could ever have found out! This GRAND SCHISM, which is the professed subject of the Bishop's last publication, consisted in nothing more than in the practice of a few nameless Catholics, who, to save themselves from the fines, imprisonment, and other penalties of Elizabeth's persecuting reign, practised occasional conformity,† as many Dissenters have always done, and as many Churchmen have also done when the reigning * P. 4. It is to be observed, that those Catholic conformists never had an idea of renouncing their own religion, by being present against their will, at the service of a different religion. So far from this, we are assured by Sanderus, that they always took care to hear Mass at home, before they went to the parish church; and, what will appear extraordinary, the officiating clergyman on both the occasions was frequently the self-same man: De Schismate Anglic., p. 274. The unlawfulness and hypocrisy of the compliance in question was decided upon in a Committee of the Council of Trent, and was strongly opposed and condemned in print by Cardinal Allen and other Catholic Divines, before Parsons became a Catholic.-Dodd's Ch. Hist. p. ii› p. 24, p. 44. power stood against them. In fact, if the Catholics were schismatics, for not conforming to the religion of the State, confirmed by Parliament in the reigns of Edward, Elizabeth, and James I., then the Episcopal Churchmen, who stood out against Presbyterianism and the Directory, being the Religion of the State in the succeeding reign, were Schismatics; then also Protestants of all sorts were Schismatics who refused obedience to the Catholic Religion and government in Mary's reign. Finally, then, both Catholics and Protestants were Schismatics in her father, Henry's reign; the former for withstanding the Act of Supremacy, the latter for withstanding that of the Six Articles! The author will not follow His Lordship further in his perplexed and miry road, but will meet him at the termination of it. The Bishop acquaints Lord Kenyon and the public, at the CONCLUSION of his letter, that "the Church of Rome considers all Churches which are not in communion with her, that is, not under the jurisdiction of the Pope, and not professing the Articles of Pope Pius's Creed, as heretical and null, as having no orders, no ministry, no sacraments.* The Bishops and Ministers, therefore, of such churches, and the congregations that communi * For these assertions, Dr. Burgess quotes Ward, Challoner, and Gandolphy; not one of whom says any such thing. E cate with them, the Church of Rome asserts, are all involved in the damnable sin of sacrilege. Now all this, Dear Sir, is perfectly false, and implies gross ignorance of the theological matters treated of. Every Catholic knows that an individual, and even a whole Church, may be out of the communion of his Church, and not even profess Pope Pius's Creed without being heretical; and that even an heretical Church does not lose its Grders, its Ministry, or its Sacraments, by losing the true faith. It is notorious that the Catholic Church acknowledges the Orders and all the Seven Sacraments of the Greeks, the Russians, the Armenians, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, the Cophts, and the Abyssinians, as being no less valid than her own. Nor would she hesitate to acknowledge the Orders of the Church of England, could it be proved that the Apostate Friar Barlow, the alleged consecrator of A. B. Matthew Parker (by whom the other Protestant Bishops *The Prelate marks the words in italics, as a quotation, but does not mention the author's name. He may be safely challenged to produce any Catholic writer, who expresses himself so loosely and inaccurately. N. B. The Bishop of St. David's quotes Mr. Charles Butler's Historical Memoirs, Vol. I., as attributing the English Schism to the Pope, not to Henry VIII. See Grand Schism, p. 50. It is to be hoped that His Lordship has misunderstood the Councillor: at all events, as the latter's opinion is not of the smallest weight on theological subjects, the author leaves the matter in question to be settled between them. |