\ \
 
 "^ 
 
 CLAIMS 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BISHOP 
 
 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND VALID 
 ORDERS DISPROVED : 
 
 WITH VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS OF CATHOLIC FAITH 
 
 NUMEROUS CHARGES AGAINST THE CHURCH 
 
 HOLY 
 
 CORRECTED AND REFUTED. 
 
 BY 
 
 S. V. RYAN, BISHOP OF BUFFALO. 
 u 
 
 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 BUFFALO: 
 
 CATHOLIC PUBLICATION COMPANY. 
 1880. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA. CAUFi
 
 Copyright, 1880, 
 
 -.- - 
 BUFFALO CATHOLIC PUBLICATION COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved, 
 
 STCELSIOR ELECTROTYPE FOUNDRY, 
 WEST SENECA, N. Y.
 
 CLAIMS 
 
 OF v 
 
 A PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BISHOP 
 
 TO 
 
 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND VALID 
 ORDERS DISPROVED: 
 
 BY 
 
 S. V. RYAN, BISHOP OF BUFFALO. 
 PART I.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE i 
 
 II. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL TO THE CHRISTIAN 
 CHURCH IT is NOT FOUND EITHER IN THE ANGLICAN 
 CHURCH, AS-BY-LAW ESTABLISHED, OR THE PROTESTANT 
 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA 19 
 
 III. COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER THE TEST OF LEGITI- 
 MATE SUCCESSION 26 
 
 IV. PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN SUCCESSION RE- 
 PUDIATED. 40 
 
 V. WAS MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED ? . . 49 
 
 VI. THE LAMBETH REGISTER 73 
 
 VII. WAS BARLOW EVER CONSECRATED BISHOP ? . . .92 
 VIII. FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO BOLSTER UP OR SUPPLY FOR BAR- 
 LOW'S DEFICIENT OR DOUBTFUL CONSECRATION. . . IO1 
 
 IX. THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL NOT THE SAME AS THE ROMAN 
 PONTIFICAL INVALIDITY OF FORM OF CONSECRATION RE- 
 VISED BY EDWARD VI in 
 
 X. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE EDWARIIINE ORDINAL, 
 CONTINUED 130 
 
 XI. DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND THE 
 ORDINAL OF EDWARD, CONTINUED. . . . .146 
 
 XII. CONCLUSION. if>9
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN the year 1874, a number of Catholic gentlemen ctf 
 Buffalo requested me in writing, to deliver a lecture at 
 my earliest convenience, in behalf of the numerous poor of 
 the city, and at the same time suggested the subject of the 
 lecture in these terms : " We take the liberty to suggest as 
 your subject, a review of a sermon delivered on the 315* 
 ultimo, at Erie, by Dr. Coxe, on the occasion of the conse- 
 cration of a missionary bishop and published in the " Cont- 
 nierdal Advertiser" of this city a copy of which we herein 
 enclose a sermon which, it appears to us, strangely mixes 
 up Catholic truth, with gross abuse of the Catholic Church; 
 sound, time-honored Catholic principles with the most un- 
 warrantable assumption." Acceding to their request I wrote 
 to the gentlemen: " I have read the sermon of Dr. A. Cleve- 
 land Coxe, to which you refer, and indeed I concur with 
 you in characterizing it as a strange medley of truth and 
 falsehood; of sound, solid arguments, eloquently and forci- 
 bly put, in favor of principles which must lead any man 
 holding them, who is logical and consistent, into the fold of. 
 the Catholic Church, and evidences of an unaccountable 
 hatred, and a spirit of spitefulness towards the only Church 
 that really upholds and carries out these principles. His 
 sermon I will take as the text of my lecture ; the time and 
 place I leave to yourselves to designate." The lecture was 
 delivered in St. Joseph's Cathedral, Feb. 22, 1874, and 
 afterwards printed in pamphlet form by the ' 'Buffalo Catholic 
 Publication Co." and the "Catholic WorlS" noticing it in the 
 
 iii
 
 i v PREFA CE. 
 
 May number of 1874, was kind enough to say: "In his 
 temperate but severe criticism, Bishop Ryan has made an 
 end of his (Dr. Coxe's) claims to possess episcopal character 
 and mission, and has refuted him out of his own mouth. 
 We trust that this able and valuable pamphlet will not be 
 permitted to go into oblivion, as pamphlets are wont to 
 do, but be carefully preserved and made use of by clergymen 
 and others, which have to deal with Episcopalians search- 
 ing after the true Church, of whom there are so many in 
 these days." Some time afterwards there was published 
 here in Buffalo a small brochure entitled: " Catholics and 
 Roman Catholics, by an Old Catholic, being a review of the 
 lecture lately delivered in Buffalo by Rt. Rev. Dr. Ryan, 
 etc., etc., etc., "in the " Advertisement" of which we read : 
 " Though I here subjoin my name, as author of this review, 
 two reasons have influenced me to withhold it from the 
 title page. First, I desire to avoid all appearance of personal 
 controversy, and second, I wish to make prominent my 
 position as an Old Catholic, for my criticisms are based 
 on ancient Catholicity." (A. Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of 
 Western New York.) This review of our lecture, we ia 
 turn reviewed in a consecutive series of articles, contributed 
 to "Tfa Catholic Union," respecting the wished-for incognito 
 of the Rt. Rev. Divine, addressing ourselves to " Old 
 Catholic," and confining ourselves, as much as possible, to 
 the chief point of the controversy, his claims to Apostolical 
 succession. A promise made at that time to friends, who 
 urged the matter on us, and to whose judgment and wishes we 
 thought we should defer, having a little leisure on our hands, 
 during the past winter, we determined to fulfil by giving to the 
 public, in a revised and somewhat altered form, the sub- 
 stance of those articles. Our reviewer charged us with 
 making a personal and unwarranted assault on him, and 
 now we beg to say, that we spoke and wrote purely in the 
 interest of truth, and in this publication we have endeavored
 
 PREFA CE. V 
 
 to discard all personal allusions, changing words and 
 phrases so as, whenever possible, to avoid giving cause of 
 complaint on this score, and if our language is sometimes 
 strong, or if it has at times the appearance of want of courtesy, 
 I think all unbiassed readers will acknowledge that the 
 fault is not on our side. We love truth and must defend 
 it. We know the doctrines of the Church, and must repel 
 false and erroneous charges, we must resent having our- 
 selves and our holy faith belied and travestied, apparently 
 for the purpose of creating and confirming prejudice 
 against the Catholic Church, and keeping honest and 
 religious minds in ignorance and error regarding her. We 
 really care little personally, as far as we ourselves are con- 
 cerned, to be called an ignoramus, to whom the elements of 
 history must be taught, but when we are told, or rather 
 when our respected non-Catholic fellow-citizens are told, 
 that we are authorized by our Church to resort to the 
 tactics of lying, and even to violate the sanctity of an oath, 
 whenever the good of the Church conflicti with keeping it, 
 we confess to a feeling of resentment. We smile com- 
 placently, when it is intimated that our " ignorance is of that 
 kind, which the Old Catholics of Germany assure us is 
 common among otherwise accomplished men, who have re- 
 ceived their education in Roman Catholic seminaries," 
 but when our own saints and doctors are misquoted, when 
 canons of early councils are falsified and distorted, when the 
 early Fathers of the Church are cited to affirm the very re- 
 verse of their teachings, and all to obscure the truth and 
 injure the true Church, can any one wonder that we feel 
 occasionally a little indignant ? 
 
 We have no personal quarrel with our neighbor and we 
 have never mentioned him or his communion, in lecture or 
 the press, except to refute some false charge made against 
 ourselves or our Church, or repel some slanderous aspersion 
 on what is dearer to us than life itself, our holy faith. He
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 does us great wrong then, when he tells the public that 
 " many Roman Catholics seemed to be restrained by no 
 laws of courtesy," and that this "comes of the oath which 
 is exacted of Roman Catholic prelates at their consecra- 
 tion." This oath, and especially, the term persequar, has 
 been so often fully vindicated and explained, that I will 
 only say that in translating it as found in the Roman Ponti- 
 fical, / will persecute, he does violence to sound philological 
 interpretation, just as he violates consistency, when a little 
 further on, in a passage which he approvingly cites from 
 St. Yin-cent of Lerins, he translates the very same words in a 
 quite different way. " It is necessary," says St. Vincent, 
 quoted by Old Catholic, " for all Catholics who study to 
 prove themselves legitimate sons of Mother Church to stick 
 fast to the holy faith of the holy fathers and to abide in it; 
 but to detest, abhor, pursue &&& banish all profane novelties 
 of the profane." Ut profanos vero profanorum novitates 
 detestentur, horrescant, insectentur, persequantur. (xxxiii. 
 commonitor, II.) Yet, although what he rightly regards in 
 St. Yincent, as righteous zeal for the holy faith of the 
 fathers in pursuing and banishing profane novelties and 
 errors against faith, he characterizes in us as an intolerant 
 vow, and gives a rendering of the good old Latin verb to 
 suit the sentiments he chooses to impute in either case, 
 still we assure him that we do not wish to be discourteous to 
 any one, much less to persecute or assault brethren and 
 fellow-citizens, differing from us in religious faith. Though 
 in all candor, we must confess that we have seen from him 
 precious little of that " loving spirit of our own Church," 
 of which he speaks, but have known him, in the language of 
 the writer in the " Catholic World" above referred to, as "A 
 prelate, conspicuous for arrogance and reckless assertion, 
 and for his vituperative and defamatory assaults on the 
 Catholic Church," and though we have perhaps, in self-de- 
 fence, been sometimes forced to call attention to those unlov-
 
 PREFACE. VU 
 
 able features in the character of our Old Catholic reviewer, 
 and point to evidence of grossly false statements regarding the 
 Church and her teaching, it was always with reluctance 
 that we used language that might appear to savor of personal- 
 ity, for in truth before God, we have no personal feeling 
 against the gentleman. If then we now publish these articles 
 in a more substantial form, it is because many whose judg- 
 ment we respect have insisted on our doing so, affirming 
 that they are calculated to do much good, especially with 
 those who have some idea of Church authority, Church 
 government, "a divine commission coming down from the 
 Apostles," a divinely appointed ministry, with powers to 
 perpetuate itself and thus bring down through the ages a 
 succession of faithful witnesses to the Christian revela- 
 tion, incorruptible guardians of the precious deposit of 
 faith once committed to the saints. No one sincerely be- 
 lieving in a Church thus organized and thus to be perpet- 
 uated can, we think, read the following pages without being 
 convinced, how utterly absurd it is to look for such a min- 
 istry, such a succession in the Anglican establishment, and 
 if not there, then as the venerable Dr. Ives remarked, most 
 assuredly not in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the 
 United States. 
 
 I need hardly tell my readers, that in this work they will 
 find very little of my own. I have even made it a point 
 whenever possible to rest my statements and conclusions on 
 the authority of others, and have not hesitated to quote 
 freely and verbatim from Catholic authors. In this perhaps, 
 I may have done some service to the Catholic student, by 
 making accessible to him authorities which unfortunately 
 in some cases, are either out of print or very rare. I need 
 not name here again the authors from which I have so unstint- 
 ingly borrowed, as I mention them all in the course of the 
 work. I fear that certain repetitions of subjects and argu- 
 ments may savor somewhat of s'erial contributions where it
 
 Vlii PREFACE. 
 
 is necessary to show in each article the general scope of 
 the argument, and its bearing on the whole, yet if this does 
 not detract from the force and conclusiveness of my argu- 
 ments, I make little account of a defect of this kind in a 
 work, which in a literary or artistic point of view, has, I fear, 
 many more serious short-comings. The first part is entirely 
 independent of the second, and constitutes a whole with- 
 out it, and I was only induced to write the second part, when 
 I found our reviewer by so many false references and mis- 
 statements of Catholic doctrine mystifying, misleading and 
 prejudicing his readers against the Catholic Church and her 
 claims as the true spouse and mystical body of Christ, 
 coming down from the Apostles, absolutely one in faith, 
 divine in her origin, imperishable in her structure, infallible 
 in her teaching, identically the self-same in her sacraments, 
 in her orders, in her government, " yesterday, to-day and 
 the same forever." Yet, I think the dogmatic and historical 
 points treated in the second part will be found interesting 
 and instructive, and here, too, the only credit I take to my- 
 self is that of bringing under our view, matters sometimes 
 of profound interest and serious controversy, scattered 
 over the wide range of Church history. Just here, I am re- 
 minded of one other point on which I have not touched, 
 and which is made much of in the advertisement to Old 
 Catholic's brochure, and often elsewhere. 
 
 I beg then my reader's forbearance, while I quote again : 
 "Learned in what is Roman, they (accomplished men, who 
 have received their education in Roman Catholic semin- 
 aries), are left mere children ,in all that is Catholic. Of the 
 ancient Catholic constitutions they know nothing, because 
 they are not even permitted to learn that such constitutions 
 exist. The brilliant von Schulte, who was so long the 
 favorite canonist of the Pope himself, has inflicted a deep 
 wound upon the Papacy,' by joining the ' Old Catholics ;' 
 and he is reported to have said that he was honestly en-
 
 PREFA CE. i x 
 
 slaved to the Vatican, till he woke up to the fact that the 
 whole system he had been supporting is based upon the 
 forged decretals and other spurious documents, which he 
 had always been taught to accept as genuine. This dis- 
 covery and the exposure of these facts, by Dollinger and 
 his associates has lighted a spirit of Reformation in Germany, 
 which is extending to other countries of Europe, and will 
 not long be kept down in America." I have given this pas- 
 sage at so great length to show the pabulum on which " Old 
 Catholic" babes are fed, and I need hardly attempt to 
 analyze it. I feel confident, that if our episcopal prelate 
 wrote to-day, he would not assume the title and role of an 
 " Old Catholic," or base so many bright hopes on a move- 
 ment that has, in the short space of a few years, proved a 
 most miserable failure, second only perhaps to the later 
 disgraceful collapse of the so-called " Independent Ameri- 
 can Catholic Church." Started under brightest auspices, a 
 powerful German Empire to back it, an imperious imperial 
 chancellor its foster father, the prestige of whose name, 
 Bismarck, imparted to it, even at its birth, prominence, and 
 eclat, what has it ever been ? what has it ever done ' what 
 is it now ? not a single bishop would teach the polluted 
 thing begotten in sacrilege, disobedience and despotism, a 
 few priests mostly of disreputable antecedents and a hand- 
 ful of worldly, self-styled liberal laymen, from the begin- 
 ning it languished; its life is now well-nigh extinct. Never 
 since the beginning of the Church's history, even in the 
 early days of the Nicene, Ephesian or Constantinopolitan 
 councils, were there such unanimity in the episcopate, such 
 loyalty in the clergy, such firmness, independence and 
 genuine Catholic spirit in the laity, and this the "Old 
 Catholic" movement has made evident and emphasized. 
 What a fearful wound then, the brilliant von Schulte has 
 inflicted on the Papacy by joining the "Old Catholics!" 
 But who has told our enthusiastic convert to "Old Catho-
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 licism" that he was so long the favorite canonist of the 
 Pope himself ? If von Schulte ever said, "what he is re- 
 ported to have said," in the above passage, we certainly pity 
 him. Enslaved to the Vatican until he woke up to the fact 
 that the whole system of the Papacy was based on forged 
 decretals and ether spurious documents ' What are these 
 other spurious documents ? The forged decretals we know, 
 every school-boy knows, or may know just what they are, 
 their character and value. Our ecclesiastical students find 
 all about their history, their origin, and their author in the 
 text books put into their hands, and the unprofessional lay- 
 man may obtain full and accurate information concerning 
 this Isidorian collection of canons and decretals in " Apple- 
 ton" s American Cyclopedia," under the titles : ''Canon Law" 
 and "Decretals." To suppose then that the brilliant von 
 Schulte was imposed on by the spurious Isidore Mercator 
 or Peccator and thus enslaved to the Vatican, is simply 
 ridiculous. Time was, when simple minds could easily be 
 deceived by unauthentic or spurious documents, provided 
 the doctrine taught and the laws promulgated were not 
 strange or novel, provided no innovation was broached that 
 conflicted with the well-known faith and traditions of the 
 Church. People did not care, or were not able to closely 
 scrutinize the foundations or authorities on which they were 
 made to rest. But in our day, in this nineteenth century, 
 there is no excuse for the brilliant von Schult- or any other 
 churchman, who allows himself to be duped by a literary 
 adventurer of the ninth century 
 
 We can now go back of the decretals, search the original 
 documents, and it is precisely the doing of this which has 
 brought men of research and patristic learning, to believe 
 in the Papacy and all the authoritative teaching of the 
 holy Catholic Church. To say nothing of Newman and 
 Manning and a host of other really learned and conscien- 
 tious Anglicans, Dr. Ives in our own country, an eminently
 
 PREFACE. Xi 
 
 able and amiable prelate of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, goes back in his research to the very foundation of 
 the Papacy, and quotes from genuine original documents the 
 testimony of the earliest Fathers in support of the same. 
 Dr. James Kent Stone does the same in his " Invitation 
 Heeded," and I will conclude this point, by quoting his pun- 
 gent remarks regarding these forgeries : 
 
 "Another indication of the real antiquity of the Papal 
 claim to supremacy is the frantic assertion, that the Papacy 
 has attempted to antedate its assumptions by the use of 
 forgeries. I can hardly help treating contemptuously this 
 unscholarly talk about the pseudo-decretals, being weak 
 enough to take satisfaction that I so far suspected its trivial 
 character, as never to indulge in it myself. Let it suffice 
 then to remark: i. That the Isidorian collection of canons 
 was certainly not made at Rome, wherever else it may have 
 had its origin ; and that it was not compiled in the interest 
 of the Popes; 1 but as Guizot says, 'to serve the bishops 
 against the metropolitans and temporal sovereigns.' 2. 
 That the materials used in its composition were not new, 
 but old, being mostly taken from early Papal rescripts, and 
 synodal decrees and the writings of the Fathers. In an 
 uncritical age the counterfeits escaped detection and came 
 into gradual use, as being in accordance with a long es- 
 tablished and recognized system. In a word, the imposture 
 grew out of the supremacy, not the supremacy out of the 
 imposture. 3. That the pious fraud was exposed and repro- 
 bated centuries ago. All the world knows, or ought to 
 know, that a Catholic would no more think of grounding 
 the Papal supremacy on the compilation of Mercator, than 
 would a Scotchman of vindicating his national literature 
 by appealing to the Ossianic poems, or the good merchants 
 of Bristol, of proving the ancient respectability of their 
 city from the contents of ' Canyng's coffre.' The forged 
 decretals may be matter for curious and learned investi-
 
 XJi PREFA CE. 
 
 gation, but they are certainly ruled out of the debate be- 
 tween Catholics and Protestants, as has been often shown. 
 If Protestants expect ever to capture the citadel of the 
 Papacy, it is time for them to stop playing Chinese antics 
 before an old mound, which was never used for military 
 purposes, and which nobody dreams of defending." It is 
 then, assuredly, not very creditable to a brilliant man to be 
 so easily duped, and so long and shamefully enslaved 
 to the Vatican. But what, may we ask, are those ancient 
 Catholic constitutions of whose very existence we are not 
 permitted to have any knowledge ? Will not some kind 
 friend, or zealous "Old Catholic" enlighten us, and tell us 
 where we can get a glimpse at them ? We promise to in- 
 troduce the study of them into our excellent and flourishing 
 seminary at Suspension Bridge, and it shall no longer be 
 said that this kind of ignorance is common among those edu- 
 cated at Roman Catholic seminaries. But pleasantry aside, we 
 firmly believe that what is not known and taught about the 
 Church of Christ and her constitutions in our Catholic sem- 
 inaries is not worth knowing, and after the divine constitution 
 of the Church embodied in the revealed Word of God, the 
 Church of Christ has no constitutions, ancient or modern, 
 but such as have been framed and indited by Popes in re- 
 scripts, bulls, decretals, etc., or found in canonical enact- 
 ments and ecclesiastical laws formulated by the bishops of 
 the Church in diocesan synods, provincial, national, plenary 
 or oecumenical councils, confirmed and approved by the 
 supreme authority of the Sovereign Pontiffs, the Popes of 
 Rome, Peter and his successors in the Holy See. 
 
 4, STEPHEN VINCENT RYAN, 
 
 Bishop of Buffalo. 
 
 Buffalo, Feast of the" Help of Christians, May 2^th, A. D. 
 1880.
 
 C LAI M S 
 
 OF 
 
 A PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BISHOP 
 
 TO 
 
 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND VALID 
 ORDERS DISPROVED. 
 
 I. 
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 IN the early part of the year 1874, at the request of 
 a number of Catholic gentlemen of Buffalo, I deliv- 
 ered a lecture in our Cathedral in reply to a sermon 
 preached by Dr. Coxe, at Erie, Pa., on occasion of the 
 consecration of John Franklin Spaulding, D. D., and 
 published in full in one of our city papers. The 
 leading points of the " Sermon" and " Reply," may be 
 gathered from the following extracts: 
 
 " If a corporation of men still exists on the earth, 
 bearing that identical commission given by Christ to 
 his Apostles after his resurrection, by historical trans- 
 mission, their existence as such a corporation of wit- 
 nesses is irrefragable proof of the fact that Christ rose. 
 Now, nobody can deny that from the time of Pontius
 
 2 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 Pilate until now a continuous line of men has been 
 found in divers parts of the world, perpetuated by the 
 laying on of hands of those who were before them."- 
 (The Corporate Witness. A Sermon by A. Cleveland 
 Coxc, preached Dec. 31 st, 1873, in St. Paul's Church, 
 Erie, Pa.} 
 
 This is perfectly true; this is orthodox Catholic doc- 
 trine. It is plain from sacred Scripture, and known 
 to every Catholic child instructed in the rudiments of 
 Christian Doctrine that the risen Saviour organized 
 a ministry, instituted a commission that was to be 
 perpetuated to the end of time ; but that Dr. Coxe, or 
 the ministers and bishops of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of the United States bear that identical Apos- 
 tolical commission by historical transmission, the 
 learned divine does not prove, or even attempt to 
 prove ; and whilst nobody can deny that from the 
 time of Pontius Pilate until now a continuous line of 
 men has been found perpetuated by the laying on of 
 hands and the empowering of the Holy Ghost; that 
 the line comes down continuous and unbroken from 
 the Apostles to the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of 
 Western New York, we, with the immense mass of 
 Christians, beg most respectfully to question nay, em- 
 phatically to deny. Apostolical succession, we aver, 
 is one of the leading doctrines of the Christian Church ; 
 but we hold it to be a gratuitous assumption that the 
 Protestant Episcopal communion is that Church, or can 
 prove her identity with that Church by uninterrupted 
 succession from the Apostles. It will not do to say : 
 " We are profoundly convinced of the reality of our 
 Apostolic commission," iorwe can, with equal positive- 
 ness and depth of conviction aver, you have not the
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 3 
 
 slightest claim to it ; you cannot prove your title. If 
 you cannot prove it satisfactorily, incontrovertibly and 
 beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt, is it not tri- 
 fling with men, is it not a mocking of God, this pre- 
 tended empowering under the" same charter and same 
 promises" as " the original Apostles ?" And until we 
 have this clear and incontestible and convincing proof, 
 may we not rally the Protestant Episcopalian as he 
 did his Methodist Episcopal brother, when John Wesley 
 attempted to consecrate Coke a bishop : 
 
 " Our John on Coke his hands has laid, 
 But who laid hands on him?" 
 
 (Bishop Ryaris Reply, delivered in St. Joseph's Cathe- 
 dral, Buffalo, Feb. 22, 1874.) 
 
 "The Apostolic ministry is sent forth geographically 
 around the circumference of the globe, chronologically 
 to the end of time. So far, and so long, 'ye shall be 
 witnesses,' but who shall be witnesses? Ye, Apostles. 
 Is there anything in Scripture more clear, then, than 
 the perpetuity of the Apostolic office? Those whom 
 our Lord thus addressed personally were not to bear 
 their personal witness here in our part of the earth, 
 yet, said the Master, 'ye shall be witnesses unto me, 
 unto the uttermost part of the earth.' Again, they 
 were not to survive the ordinary limit of human life, 
 yet, he says, ' Lo ! I am with you always, even to the 
 end of the world.' Could any language be more ex- 
 plicit ? We assert that the Apostolic order and office 
 still exist. No ingenuity can make void this evidence 
 that our Lord designed to perpetuate its corporate 
 identity until his coming again." (The Corporate 
 Witness?) 
 
 Here we again tread Catholic ground. With this
 
 4 ZR1GIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 doctrine, this line of argument, and even this language, 
 barring perhaps some peculiarity of style and phrase- 
 ology, you, my Catholic friends, are familiar. You have 
 often heard it before from this pulpit. Neither the 
 doctrine nor the argument is new, and I quote it at 
 such length only to exhibit the strange, and, to me, in- 
 explicable phenomenon, so often displayed, especially 
 among our estimable and cultivated Episcopal brethren, 
 of a man holding principles and professing doctrines 
 that must, if logically followed up, inevitably land him 
 in the Catholic Church ; yet, turning his back upon her, 
 closing his eyes to the light of reason, his intellect to 
 the plainest truths of revelation, the most evident 
 declarations of sacred Scripture. 
 
 Of course, the Apostolic order and office still exist; 
 of course, our Lord designed to perpetuate its cor- 
 porate identity till his coming again. His divine word 
 is pledged for it ; his veracity is at stake ; his Godhead 
 and divine mission guarantee it : As the Father sent 
 me, I also send you;" "Go teach all nations; I am 
 with you all days till the end of time." But neither 
 Christ our Lord nor his revealed word declare that. the 
 Apostlic order and office exist in the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church, or are transmitted by the mutilated, and 
 oft modified form of consecration used in the Anglican 
 or Protestant Episcopal ordination service. Nowhere 
 in Scripture are we told that this corporate identity 
 was designed to be perpetuated or reproduced in a 
 communion that had no existence until some fifteen 
 hundred years after the Apostolic age. Here again is 
 a grave assumption, which we cannot take on credit; 
 we demand proof ; we find bare assertion ; grand but 
 unproven claims. But hold ! yes, here is an attempt
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 5 
 
 at proving legitimate descent from the Apostles, by 
 way of illustration, in answer to the objection that 
 'the original Apostles were extraordinary in their gifts 
 and functions and hence in the nature of things could 
 have no successors." The preacher very justly argues : 
 " The first President of this Republic had extraordi- 
 nary functions and relations in his high office ; it was 
 his. to plant, to lay foundations, to be the father of his 
 country. In all these things he can have no successor. 
 Such were his extraordinary and personal distinctions. 
 Do we argue, therefore, that the American Presidents 
 are not the successors of Washington?" The illustra- 
 tion is excellent, the argument unanswerable in the 
 motith of a Catholic bishop, who holds his commission 
 immediately from a Pontiff who traces his succession 
 in unbroken line to the Apostles a Catholic bishop 
 deriving his orders and his mission, his authority, right 
 to rule and govern the Church over which the Holy 
 Ghost hath placed hirn a bishop, by the personal and 
 direct authorization of the legitimate successor of him 
 to whom Christ committed the care of his whole flock, 
 and who can furnish the clearest historical evidence of 
 his legitimate descent. Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses 
 S. Grant can claim to be successors of Washington. 
 Could Jefferson Davis do the same ? who rebelled against 
 the old legitimate government and set. up an establish- 
 ment of his own. He declared that the powers at 
 Washington had violated the constitution and broken 
 the compact between the States, just the plea made by 
 the reformers to justify their revolt against the author- 
 ity of the See of Rome. 
 
 The argument, then, that is conclusive in the Catho- 
 lic Church, from the fact that every Catholic layman
 
 6 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 knows that the pastor who ministers to him and teaches 
 him has his orders and authority by the laying on of 
 hands and the grace of ordination from a superior 
 pastor or bishop of a diocese, who, in turn, is directly 
 authorized and commissioned by the Pope, or the 
 supreme pastor, the supreme head of Christ's Church 
 on earth, who again comes down from Peter by one 
 continuous unbroken chain, of which we can count 
 every link from Pius to Peter, is absolutely without 
 force in a Church which has thrown off the authority 
 of Rome, and cannot trace its lineage to the Apostles. 
 This succession of chief pastors is the main, if not the 
 only guarantee, as well of our Apostolical commission 
 as of the Apostolicity of your faith and doctrine. It 
 is to the chair of Peter and the regular succession of 
 incumbents in that time-honored and divinely-guarded 
 See, that the early fathers and saints and doctors, in 
 every age, appealed, against unauthorized teachers and 
 the innovations of heretics, and rebellious schismatics. 
 Thus St. Augustine confounds the Donatists : " Come 
 to us, brethren (he writes), if you wish to be engrafted 
 in the vine. We are afflicted at seeing you cut off 
 from its trunk. Count over the bishops in the very 
 See of Peter, and behold in that list of fathers how one 
 succeeded to the other. This is the rock against which 
 the proud 'gates of hell do not prevail.' >! Again he 
 says: "I am kept in this Church by the succession of 
 prelates from St. Peter, to whom the Lord committed 
 the care of his sheep, down to the present bishop." 
 (This, was, remember, in the 5th century.) And St. 
 Optatus, against the same heretics, enumerates all the 
 Popes from St. Peter to the then reigning Pontiff, 
 Siricius ; " with whom we and all the world," he says,
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 7 
 
 "are united in communion. Do you, now, Donatists, 
 give the history of your episcopal ministry." Tertul- 
 lian, before, did the same, and challenged the heretics 
 of his time to produce the origin of their Church, to dis- 
 play the succession of their bishops, so that the first 
 of them may appear to have been ordained by an 
 Apostolic man who persevered in their communion ; 
 and giving a list of the Pontiffs in the Roman see he 
 says ; " Let the heretics feign anything like this." St. 
 Irenaeus, illustrious bishop of Lyons, disciple of St. 
 Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of St. John the 
 Apostle, names all the Popes to St. Eleutherius, then 
 living, and says, " it would be tedious to enumerate the 
 succession of bishops in the different churches; we 
 refer you to that greatest, most ancient and universally 
 known Church founded at Rome by St. Peter ancf St. 
 Paul, and which has been preserved there through the 
 succession of its bishops down to the present time." 
 St. Jerome knew no other sure way of settling the 
 disputed rights of bishops, and writes to Pope Damasus 
 in regard to the heated controversy between St. Mele- 
 tius and Paulinus, rival claimants of the see of Antioch : 
 
 "I am joined in communion with your Holiness; 
 that is, with the chair of Peter ; upon that rock I know 
 the Church is built. I do not know Vitalis; I do not 
 communicate with Miletius; Paulinus is a stranger to 
 me. Whoever is united to the chair of Peter, he is 
 mine." 
 
 So, also, St. Athanasius, "whose illustrious name is 
 dishonored by being coupled with the " Reformers," 
 appeals to the Pope against the heretical intruders into 
 his see of Alexandria, and the violence to which he 
 \yas subjected by the imperial power, and is protected
 
 g ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 in his episcopal character, and his episcopal rights 
 vindicated by Pope Julius I., who wrote thus in the 
 year 342 to the Eastern bishops, who sustained by the 
 power of the State, had driven Athanasius from his see : 
 
 " Know you not that the canonical rule was to recur 
 first to our authority, and that the decisions must pro- 
 ceed from it? Such is the tradition that we have re- 
 ceived from the blessed Apostle Peter, and I believe 
 it to be so universally acknowledged, that I should not 
 recall it here if these deplorable circumstances did not 
 constrain me to proclaim it." 
 
 I dwell so long on this point, although a little beside 
 my purpose, because it shows us a Pope in 342 very 
 similar to our own Pope in 1874, as to this claim and 
 exercise of jurisdiction over the whole Church East 
 and West, and it shows us the great Athanasius ap- 
 pealing to the Pope against the Emperor's violence and 
 his servile, heretical, courtly bishops to be anywhere 
 but in the same boat with the martyred " reformers," 
 who denied the authority of the Pope, acknowledged 
 the spiritual supremacy of the king, and were by his 
 authority intruded into the sees of lawful prelates. 
 
 " Christ said we should'have such witnesses that they 
 should bear their testimony till the consummation of 
 ages. We believe his promises, we accept them in their 
 plain meaning. And as they are able to demonstrate 
 that their commission is identical with that which was 
 left upon the Mount of Olives, your bishops claim, 
 however unworthy, to be \he successors of the Apos- 
 tles." (The Corporate Witness.} 
 
 Now here again we demur, and deny in fotothe whole 
 claim of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of America and the bishops of their mother
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. g 
 
 Church of England to Apostolical succession, or that 
 the Apostolical commission has been preserved and 
 transmitted in their communion, or sect, or church, as 
 you may be pleased to call it, for the reasons which I 
 will now give, as briefly and summarily as possible. 
 
 If the bishops of the American Protestant Episcopal 
 Church have this apostolical succession, or this com- 
 mission identical with that which Christ our Lord gave 
 his Apostles, they derive it from the established Church 
 of England, which they recognize as the mother 
 Church ; but if the Anglican bishops have no title to 
 this claim, they cannot give it to others. There is 
 an old axiom, Nemo dat quod non habct. Now, the 
 Anglican Church has no .part in the Apostolical com- 
 mission, unless it can trace its orders and its mission 
 regularly from the Apostles through the Catholic 
 bishops. But this it can hardly consistently attempt 
 to do, as it declared in one of its Homilies the Catholic 
 Church to have been "drowned in abominable idolatry, 
 most detested of God and damnable to man, for the 
 space of eight hundred years," and in one of the 
 thirty-nine articles " that all the Apostolical sees erred 
 in matters of faith." Could Matthew Parker, the first 
 Anglican bishop, whilst denying the authority of the 
 Pope, and in open revolt against the Apostolical See, 
 claim to hold his authority and his commission from 
 the Church whose corruptions he denounced, and not 
 one of whose bishops would impose hands on him ? In 
 the early Church, bishops appealed for their legitimacy, 
 for their rights and power, for their Apostolical suc- 
 cession, to the Roman Pontiff; his see was styled 
 eminently and emphatically the Apostolical Sec; he was 
 the trunk to which all the branches should be united.
 
 10 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 But the Church of England revolted against his au- 
 thority, severed itself from his communion, renounced 
 it on account of its " idolatry," and was denounced by 
 it, in turn, as heretical. 
 
 It is a universally admitted principle of Church 
 government, recognized here in our own country by the 
 practice of every Church, and by decisions of the courts 
 of justice, that a clergyman from whom authority is 
 withdrawn according to the rules and laws of the 
 Church to which he may have been attached, who is no 
 longer recognized as a minister by his proper ecclesi- 
 astical superior, can no longer claim to act for that 
 Church ; his ministrations are not regarded, his minis- 
 terial functions are no longer lawful. (I wonder if 
 Bishop Cheney is recognized as a legitimate bishop and 
 successor of the Apostles by Bishop Coxe? We know 
 not what action the Episcopal body may have taken 
 in this matter, but we do know that he cannot be so 
 recognized, unless at the cost of consistency, authority 
 and unity.) 
 
 We also know from the history of the Christian 
 Church in all ages, that when a bishop or a priest, or 
 bishops and priests, revolted against the Church in 
 which they were ordained and commissioned, they were 
 by the very fact deprived of all authority to act in the 
 name and by the authority of the Church ; they were 
 silenced or suspended, deprived of their faculties and 
 deposed from their sees. This was the case with the 
 early heretics, the Donatists, Eutychians, the Arians, 
 and others, who had validly ordained bishops; but 
 surely no orthodox Anglican or Episcopalian will aver 
 that these heretical bishops were successors of the 
 Apostles. Something more than valid ordination or
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. H 
 
 the laying on of hands is necessary to perpetuate the 
 Apostolical commission. On these principles, held and 
 acted on by all religious denominations in the govern- 
 ment of their respective societies, we maintain that 
 Matthew Parker, first Anglican bishop, even if validly 
 ordained by the laying on of hands, with due form of 
 prayers and solemnities, and a lawful ordainer, could 
 not transmit jurisdiction, or a share of Apostolical 
 commission, or right to minister in the Church, because 
 he himself did not possess it. 
 
 But we absolutely deny the validity of his consecra- 
 tion, and thus strike at the very root of all pretensions 
 in the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal Church of 
 America to Apostolical succession. We can only sum- 
 marily state the grounds of our positive unconditional 
 denial. It is very doubtful, and can never be proved 
 that he was ever consecrated at all, or that there was 
 anything more than the farce of the " Nag's Head." 
 The Lambeth Register is probably a forgery. Even if 
 it be genuine, and the consecration took place as as- 
 serted, at the hands of Barlow, an apostate monk, it is 
 very doubtful that Barlow himself was ever consecrated, 
 or ever anything more than a bishop elect. Even if 
 Barlow was a regularly consecrated bishop, and went 
 through the form of consecrating Parker, the form used, 
 namely, that devised, as the act has it, by Edward, was 
 notoriously insufficient and invalid, so that acts of Par- 
 liament were deemed necessary to supply defects, in 
 this wise: 
 
 "And all persons that have been or shall be made, 
 ordered or consecrated archbishops, bishops, priests, 
 ministers of God's Word and sacraments, or deacons, 
 after the form and order prescribed, be in very deed,
 
 12 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 and also by authority hereof, declared and enacted to 
 be, and shall be archbishops, bishops, priests, ministers, 
 and deacons, and rightly made, ordered, and conse- 
 crated." 
 
 Thus there is some ground for styling them " Parlia- 
 ment bishops," as they were commonly styled; and at 
 least it is evident that there was doubt as to the validity 
 of the form devised by Edward, to which this statute 
 of Elizabeth (1566) refers. In Harding's controversy 
 with the Anglican Bishop Jewel, he asks: "You bear 
 yourself as the legitimate bishop of Salisbury, but how 
 can you prove your vocation? Who hath laid hands 
 on you ; how, and by whom were you consecrated ?" 
 and, in reply to the declaration of the latter, that he 
 was consecrated by Parker, Harding subjoins, " How, I 
 pray you, was your archbishop himself consecrated ? 
 Your metropolitan, who should give authority to all 
 your consecrations, had himself no lawful consecration. 
 There were, indeed, some lawful bishops in the king- 
 dom who either were not required to impose hands on 
 you, or who. being required, refused to do so." And 
 again, rallying him on the statute of Parliament making 
 good and valid defective forms of consecration: "If 
 you will needs have your matters seem to depend of 
 your Parliament, let us not be blamed, if we call it a 
 Parliament religion, Parliament gospel, Parliament 
 faith." 
 
 Learned divines from the very beginning reproached 
 the bishops of the establishment with invalidity of 
 their orders. Sanders, regius professor of canon law 
 at Oxford, in the time of Elizabeth, says : " For being 
 destitute of all lawful ordination, they were constrained 
 to crave the assistance of the secular power, by au-
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. I3 
 
 thority whereof, if anything were done amiss and not 
 according to the prescript of the law, or omitted and 
 left undone in the former inauguration, it might be 
 pardoned them, and that after they had enjoyed the 
 episcopal office and chair many years without any 
 episcopal consecration." Bristow, another divine of 
 the same period, who died in 1582, says: " In England 
 the King, yea the Queen, may give their letters patent 
 to whom they will, and they thenceforward may bear 
 themselves as bishops and may begin to ordain minis- 
 ters." And of Parker and others who had been 
 Catholic priests, he says, "they were deemed, without 
 a new ordination, to be not only priests, but bishops and 
 archbishops, either by virtue of the royal letters, or by 
 a certain ridiculous consecration of those who had re- 
 ceived no power to consecrate, except what the Queen 
 had given them." Whatever opinion we may form as 
 to the question whether Parker was consecrated at 
 Lambeth or not, and as to whether Barlow, his pre- 
 tended consecrator, was a bishop or not (for these are 
 matters of opinion to be determined by historical re- 
 search), yet it is absolutely certain, that, on account of 
 the form used, Anglican, and consequently Protestant 
 Episcopal, orders are vitiated and invalidated ; and 
 hence, though the Church has acknowledged the 
 validity of ordination in the Greek Church, and even 
 the validity of the consecration of the Jansenist bishops 
 of Holland, and, in fact, of all who preserved the regular 
 ancient form, yet she never would recognize as bishops 
 or priests, those ordained by the forms devised by , 
 Edward VI.; and Dr. Milner expresses the mind of 
 the Catholic Church when he says, " that the form used 
 in the English Church previous to 1662 is just as proper
 
 I 4 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 for the ceremony of confirming, or laying hands on 
 children, as it is for conferring the powers of the epis- 
 copacy." The Church established by law seems to 
 have felt this herself, for, in that year (1662), just one 
 hundred and three years too late to save Anglican 
 orders, convocation changed the form, evidently with 
 the aim of supplying the defect pointed out by Catho- 
 lic divines. Macaulay, in his history of England, af- 
 firms that, in 1661 Episcopal ordination was for the first 
 time made an indispensable condition for Church 
 preferment." Lord Macaulay is, indeed, a brilliant 
 essayist, but rather an unreliable historian, and his 
 statements, unless corroborated by other testimony, we 
 would hardly trust ; yet we know from other sources 
 that then, as now, the Church of England and its 
 daughter in America might be said to hold anything 
 and everything on this point of Apostolical succession, 
 or the transmission of episcopal powers by the laying 
 on of hands. 
 
 Let us see the opinions of some of the early re- 
 formers. Let us see how Cranmer himself, the model 
 reformer, according to Dr. Coxe, viewed this matter. 
 Cranmer says: " In the New Testament he that is ap- 
 pointed to be a bishop or a priest needeth no consecra- 
 tion, by the Scripture, for election, or appointing there- 
 to, is sufficient." Again: " Bishops and priests were no 
 two things, but one office in the beginning of Christ's 
 religion." Again: "A bishop may make a priest, by 
 the Scripture, and so may princes, and governors, also, 
 and that by the authority of God." Burnet, in his his- 
 tory of the Reformation, tells us: "Cranmer had, at this 
 time, some particular opinions concerning ecclesiastical 
 offices that they were delivered from the king as other
 
 ORIGIN OF OVR LITTLE TREATISE. ^ 
 
 civil offices were, and that ordination was not indispen- 
 sably necessary, and was only a ceremony that might 
 be used or laid aside, and that authority was delivered 
 to churchmen only by the king's commission." In 
 his address to Henry, in connection with the other 
 mean, servile English bishops to whom the noble and 
 venerable Fisher of Rochester was an illustrious excep- 
 tion, Cranmer said : "All jurisdiction, civil and ecclesi- 
 astical, flowed from the king, and that they exercised 
 it only at the king's courtesy." Courayer, himself an 
 apostate, the ablest defender of Anglican orders and 
 Apostolical succession, says: "Cranmer and Barlow, two 
 of the prelates appointed to reform the public liturgy 
 and form of ordination, were notoriously erroneous in 
 the matter of orders, and it is but too apparent that 
 the chief aim of these divines and prelates was to ex- 
 tinguish episcopacy." The same author says of Barlow: 
 "Among many errors which he was accused of spread- 
 ing, he was charged with having maintained this prop- 
 osition ' that if the King's Grace, being the supreme 
 head of the Church, did choose, denominate and elect 
 any layman to be a bishop, he so chosen should be as 
 good a bishop as he is, or the best in England.' ' I will 
 conclude this point with the forcible words of Dr. 
 Milner : 
 
 " The acknowledgment of a royal ecclesiastical su- 
 premacy ' in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things and 
 causes/ (oath of supremacy as when the question is 
 who shall preach, baptize, etc., and who shall not, what 
 is sound doctrine, and what is not) is decidedly a re- 
 nunciation of Christ's commission given to his Apos- 
 tles, and preserved by their successors in the Catholic 
 Apostolic Church. Hence it clearly appears that there
 
 i6 ORIGIN OF OCR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 is and can be no Apostolical succession of ministry in 
 the established Church more than in the other congre- 
 gations or societies of Protestants. All their preaching 
 and ministering in their several degrees is performed 
 by mere human authority. On the other hand, not a 
 sermon is preached, nor a child baptized, nor a peni- 
 tent absolved, nor a priest ordained, nor a bishop con- 
 secrated throughout the whole extent of the Catholic 
 Church, without the minister of such function being 
 able to show his authority from Christ for what he 
 does, in the commission of Christ to his Apostles 
 'All power in Heaven and earth is given to me; go 
 ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them, etc.,' 
 Matt, xxviii. 19, and without being able to prove his 
 claim to that commission of Christ by producing the 
 table of his uninterrupted succession from the Apos- 
 tles." > 
 
 You are then perfectly right, Dr. Coxe ; the Apostolic 
 ministry was to be perpetuated by transmission of the 
 commission given by Christ to his Apostles; but it is 
 and can be perpetuated only in the Catholic Church, 
 and by the unbroken line of pontiffs in the only 
 Apostolic See that has had such an uninterrupted suc- 
 cession, the See of Rome ; and whosoever believes in 
 the existence of such a historic transmission, must, if 
 logical, acknowledge in Pius a successor of Peter, and 
 in the Pope a primacy of jurisdiction, supreme author- 
 ity to guide and govern the universal Church, to com- 
 mission and qualify witnesses, to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth must, in one word, become a Catholic. 
 We thank, however, the outspoken bishop for this 
 enunciation of an essential principle of Christian faith, 
 for this recognition of an essential mark of the true
 
 ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. ij 
 
 Church, this strong testimony to the divine character, 
 constitution and organization of the Christian ministry, 
 and in all earnestness and Christian charity, we ask him 
 and our many estimable Episcopalian friends in Buffalo 
 to investigate for themselves this interesting subject, 
 without bias or prejudice to examine the records of 
 the Christian Church, and to prove to themselves their 
 claims to come down from the Apostles ; to trace their 
 hierarchy to the Apostolic age, so that with undoubt- 
 ing certainty and absolute conviction of their reason 
 they may consistently hold their communion, their 
 Church, to be identical in ministry, in orders and mis- 
 sion, with the Apostolic Church. 
 
 Does truthful history warrant such a belief ? On the 
 contrary, does not history show to any unbiassed 
 reader, that the Church of England started with Henry 
 VIII. making himself the head of the Church and 
 source of all its authority and jurisdiction, modifying the 
 Church discipline to meet this most unapostolical and 
 unwarrantable pretension, and thus forcibly and miser- 
 ably tearing away the English Church from the parent 
 stock, .forcing her into rebellion, cutting off all com- 
 munication with the main trunk and seat and source 
 of Apostolical jurisdiction, the only see in the whole 
 of Christendom through which it is any way possible 
 to trace Apostolical succession ? Bishop Ryan s Reply 
 to the Corporate Witness. 
 
 To this reply. Dr. Coxe published a rejoinder, " Catho- 
 lics and Roman Catholics, by an old Catholic" which in 
 turn was reviewed in a series of articles in the " Catho- 
 lic Union" published in Buffalo. The substance of 
 these articles we are now induced to republish in a 
 more permanent form, in the hope that the discussion
 
 jg ORIGIN OF OUR LITTLE TREATISE. 
 
 of the question of Apostolical succession may prove 
 interesting and instructive, especially to our worthy 
 and esteemed Episcopalian friends, who believe with 
 Dr. Coxe that, " from the time of Pontius Pilate until 
 now, a continuous line of men has been found perpetu- 
 ated by the laying on of hands and the empowering of 
 the Holy Ghost," and who, in good faith, and with un- 
 questioning docility, accept the claims of their bishops 
 to be successors of the Apostles, with " commissions 
 identical with that left on the Mount of Olives." As 
 this is no personal controversy, but one on which we 
 enter solely in the interest of Truth, and with a view 
 of promoting the salvation of souls, we shall refrain as 
 much as possible from personal allusions, and as we 
 purpose to confine ourselves to the question of Apos- 
 tolical succession, we will allow ourselves to be carried 
 away by side issues, or to the discussion of other mat- 
 ters, only in as far as they may have a bearing on the 
 question at issue, or may be forced on us.
 
 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL. 
 
 II. 
 
 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL TO '.iiE CHRIS- 
 TIAN CHURCH IT IS NOT FOUND EITHER IN THE 
 ANGLICAN CHURCH, AS-BY-LAW-ESTABLISHED, OR 
 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA. 
 
 WE deny then in toto that Apostolical succession 
 has been preserved or transmitted in the Protes- 
 tant Episcopal Church of America, or in the Anglican 
 establishment. Let it, moreover, be borne in mind that 
 there can be here no question as to Apostolical succes- 
 sion being an essential doctrine of the Christian Church. 
 It is well demonstrated from Holy Writ, that our Lord 
 founded a corporate order of witnesses, who should be 
 an extension of Himself, a prolonging of His personal 
 mission, and nobody can deny that from the time of 
 Pontius Pilate until now, a continuous line of men has 
 been found in divers parts of the world, perpetuated by 
 the laying on of hands of those who were before them. 
 It is evident from sacred Scripture, it is known to all 
 who read their Bible, that the risen Saviour organized 
 a ministry, a body of teachers, and sent them to teach 
 all nations, promising tc be with them to the end of 
 ages, and hence their commission was to continue, they 
 were to be perpetuated to the end of ages. Continu- 
 ous and unbroken succession from the Apostles is, then,
 
 2Q APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL 
 
 unquestionably, a fundamental doctrine, an essential 
 note of the Christian Church. We are willing to allow 
 that, " only in the perpetuated historic identity of the 
 Apostolic commission can we find monumental evidence 
 of the fact of the resurrection," and consequently of 
 the truth of Christianity; and again: "the canon of 
 Scripture itself depends on it ; you cannot prove your 
 Bible authentic without it." Only those who can satis- 
 factorily and certainly trace the historic identity of 
 their ministry with, and their legitimate descent from, 
 the Apostles, can have any certainty of the reality of 
 the resurrection, of the truth of Christianity, of the 
 canonicity and authenticity of the sacred Scriptures. 
 But this identity and Apostolic succession, confessedly 
 essential to. the true Church of Christ, the Episcopal 
 Church cannot show, and therefore the Episcopal 
 Church cannot prove herself the true Church of Christ. 
 Nay, more, only in the Catholic Church, in communion 
 with the See of Rome, the Apostolical See, can this 
 identity be found and clearly demonstrated, and there- 
 fore all who hold this identity, this succession from the 
 Apostles as a necessary characteristic, and distinc- 
 tive mark of the Christian Church, must, if logical and 
 consistent, go over to Rome, towards which their faces 
 are plainly set. Woe betide them if they look back. 
 Unfortunately, Lots wife is not a solitary instance of 
 the terrible judgment awaiting those who close their 
 eyes to the light of truth, and harden their hearts to 
 the inspirations of grace, who through undue attach- 
 ment to the things of earth, or over-much affection to 
 family and friends, love of lucre or pride of intellect, 
 through want of moral courage to bear the poverty 
 and humility of the cross, stifle the voice of conscience
 
 TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 2 \ 
 
 halt in their search for truth, and turn back when on 
 the very point of escaping from the Babel of confusion. 
 Many such in our experience we have met, monuments 
 of the justice of God, beacons of warning to those who 
 close their hearts to grace, their eyes to truth, real 
 pillars of salt, their lives produce only dead sea fruit; 
 notwithstanding outside deceitful appearances they 
 are filled with ashes and wormwood. 
 
 As to the value to be attached to assertions like 
 these: "The succession in the Church of England is 
 more demonstrably canonical and regular, in all par- 
 ticulars, than any other succession in Christendom," 
 or " It may be shown that nobody competent to form 
 an opinion, and who has taken the pains to investigate 
 the matter, has ever professed a doubt concerning 
 Anglican succession;" our readers will be able to judge 
 presently. Apostolical succession requires, as those 
 making the above assertions admit, something more 
 than valid ordination. We may admit not only the 
 fact, but also the validity of a bishop's consecration, 
 and yet deny him, even though validly consecrated, 
 any participation in the divine commission given by 
 Christ to His Apostles, any claim to Apostolical suc- 
 cession. Valid ordination is essential to, but insuffi- 
 cient for, legitimate succession. In the whole history 
 of the Christian Church, there is nothing more evident 
 than this, that when a bishop or priest, or bishops and 
 priests, revolted against ecclesiastical authority, or con- 
 tumaciously erred against faith, they were silenced, sus- 
 pended, deprived of their faculties, deposed from their 
 sees. The Church, which had commissioned them and 
 given them authority, jurisdiction, a right to teach, and 
 assigned them a mission in which to exercise their
 
 22 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL 
 
 ministry, simply revoked their 'commission, recalled her 
 grant of powers, and annulled all license to act for her, in 
 her name, or by her authority. Thus she acted towards 
 the validly ordained and rightly consecrated heretical 
 Donatist, Eutychian and Arian bishops ; and who 
 among our orthodox Anglicans or Episcopalians will 
 recognize such excommunicated, deposed and deprived 
 heretical bishops as successors of the Apostles. She 
 holds the same principles to-day; schismatical and 
 heretical bishops such as the bishops of the Greek 
 Church, the Jansenist bishops of Holland, and even 
 Reinkens, the itinerant Old Catholic bishop of Germany, 
 even if validly ordained, have no share in the Apos- 
 tolical commission, have no jurisdiction, they are not 
 sent, and how shall they preach? They are thus cut 
 off from communion with the Church, broken off from 
 the chain of Apostolical succession. Again, it is equally 
 certain, and the history of the Church from the days 
 of the Apostles bears witness, that bishops appealed 
 in proof of their legitimacy, their right and authority 
 to take and hold and govern their respective sees, to 
 the See of Rome, the See of Peter, because from the 
 very beginning of the Church the bishops of the whole 
 Christian world acknowledged the primacy of the See 
 of Peter, the universal jurisdiction and supreme au- 
 thority of the successors of Peter, whom Christ Him- 
 self commissioned to feed and govern his whole flock. 
 This primacy of jurisdiction was necessary to maintain 
 in unity of faith, a Church destined to spread over and 
 embrace the habitable globe, from ocean to ocean, and 
 from pole to pole. This supreme authority vested in 
 the Apostolic See, not by the canons, but by the Lord 
 Jesus Himself in founding His Church, the bishops in
 
 TO THE CHRIS T1A N CH URCH. 2 3 
 
 every age admitted, and none perhaps more unequiv- 
 ocally than the great Bossuet, whom " Old Catholic" 
 loves to quote. " All," says the eloquent bishop of 
 Meaux, " are subject to the keys of Peter, kings and 
 people, prelates and priests ; we own it with joy, for 
 we love unity, and glory in obedience." 
 
 Communion with the See of Rome, recognition of 
 spiritual supremacy, and primacy of jurisdiction in the 
 See of Peter, was not only the test of orthodoxy, but 
 the proof of legitimacy and the guaranty of Apos- 
 tolic succession. Now the Anglican bishops in the 
 time of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth dis- 
 owned all allegiance in spiritual matters to the Sovereign 
 Pontiffs, revolted against Peter's authority, and re- 
 nounced his spiritual supremacy, and thus was brought 
 about that change in the religious system "under 
 which," says Rev. Mr. Waterworth, in his historical 
 lectures on the Reformation, " our forefathers during 
 more than a thousand years lived and died. It was 
 Henry's lustful revenge and rapacity that removed the 
 key-stone of the arch, the principle of unity, by which 
 under one head appointed by Jesus Christ, there was 
 formed of all the nations and kingdoms of the earth, 
 one Catholic or universal kingdom, believing in one 
 Lord, one faith, one'baptism, and one Church." 
 
 The historian, Dr. Heylin, in the preface to his" His- 
 tory of the Reformation," acknowledges "that Henry, 
 finding the Pope the greatest obstacle to his desires, 
 divested him by degrees of that supremacy, which had 
 been challenged and enjoyed by his predecessors for 
 some ages past, and finally extinguished his authority 
 in the realm of England." The king's authority was 
 substituted for the Pope's, the king's spiritual suprem-
 
 24 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION ESSENTIAL 
 
 acy, and not the Pope's, was now invoked, and the 
 king was declared to be the fountain of all jurisdiction, 
 both temporal and spiritual. In the oath of supremacy 
 exacted from all archbishops and bishops in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, the prelates were obliged to swear that 
 their right and mission to preach and to minister were 
 derived from the civil power only, and before conse- 
 cration the bishop elect was made to " acknowledge 
 and confess that he holds his bishopric as well in 
 spirituals as temporals from her alone, and the crown 
 royal." Not from the Apostles, then, to whom it was 
 said "go and teach all nations," etc., but from a vin- 
 dictive, lustful king, a sickly boy, and a bad woman, 
 do the Anglican bishops derive their commission and 
 jurisdiction, and very correctly does Dr. Milner, whom 
 no one acquainted with the man or his writings would 
 call ignorant, argue that " the acknowledgment of 
 royal ecclesiastical supremacy ' in all spriritual and ec- 
 clesiastical things or causes' is decidedly a renunciation 
 of Christ's commission given to His Apostles, and pre- 
 served by their successors in the Catholic Apostolic 
 Church." Hence it clearly appears that there is, and 
 can be, no Apostolical succession of ministry in the 
 established Church. 
 
 The line of Apostolical succession in the Church of 
 England was then broken in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 the breach widened under Edward VI., the rupture 
 partially healed under Mary, was re-opened under 
 Elizabeth, when the chain reaching from Augustine 
 and through him from the Apostles (for he was sent 
 and commissioned by Pope Gregory), down to Cardinal 
 Pole, was ruthlessly and hopelessly severed by Parker's 
 intrusion into the See of Canterbury. Parker held his
 
 TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 2 $ 
 
 commission, and acknowledged on oath that he held 
 his commission and jurisdiction, his right and authority 
 to preach, teach, and administer sacraments from the 
 crown, from her majesty, and her majesty's pliant 
 Parliament.
 
 2 6 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OP PETER 
 
 III. 
 
 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER THE TEST OF 
 LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION. 
 
 A RBITRARY and tyrannical rulers, aided by servile 
 *X Parliaments, and an intimidated clergy, dissevered 
 the Church of England from what was known through- 
 out Christendom, East and West, as emphatically and 
 pre-eminently the Apostolic See, the See of Rome, the 
 only See to which it is possible to-day for the Chris- 
 tian Church to appeal, to prove with certainty her 
 Apostolical origin, to attest the historic transmission 
 of the Apostolic commission, to vouch for the corporate 
 identity of her bishops with the original witnesses. To 
 this Roman See, centre and source of unity, because 
 vested with supreme authority and universal jurisdic- 
 tion, and to the unbroken succession of Sovereign 
 Pontiffs, in the same, the primitive Church, the early 
 fathers, saints and doctors ever appealed against un- 
 authorized teachers, innovating heretics, and rebellious 
 schismatics. Whosoever were not united to the chair 
 of Peter, were not regarded as successors of the Apos- 
 tles ; nay, by the fact of their not belonging to that 
 leading succession, they were, as St. Irenaeus tells us, 
 to be suspected as heretics and schismatics. A bishop, 
 then, even when rightly ordained or validly consecrated, 
 if he apostatize from the faith, rebel against the recog-
 
 THE TEST OF LEGIT1MA TE SUCCESSION. 27 
 
 nized authority of the Church, and be cut off from her 
 communion, cannot pretend to any share in the com- 
 mission which comes down by historical transmission 
 from the Apostles ; hence, though Matthew Parker suc- 
 ceeded Warham and Pole in the See of Canterbury, 
 even allowing that he were actually and validly conse- 
 crated, would no more be a successor of the Apostles 
 than Jeff. Davis was a successor of Washington. This 
 Dr. Kenrick thus expresses: "As well might Crom- 
 well be considered one of the Stuart kings of England, 
 or Napoleon Bonaparte one of the Bourbon race, as 
 Matthew Parker, even if validly ordained be regarded 
 as a link added to the chain of Catholic archbishops 
 of Canterbury, reaching down from St. Augustine to 
 Cardinal Pole, in whom that illustrious series of Pon- 
 tiffs finally ceased." 
 
 We moreover assert that full communion with the 
 See of Rome was the test of orthodoxy and legitimacy, 
 not only in the primitive Church, but was the test of 
 the orthodoxy and legitimacy of the bishops of Eng- 
 land, down to the time of Henry VIII. To the testi- 
 mony already adduced from Rev. Mr. Waterworth, and 
 Dr. Heylin, in his " History of the Reformation," we 
 will only add the following. Dodd, in his " Church 
 History of England," quotes a remarkable speech which 
 some, says the historian, ascribe to Bishop Fisher. 
 " Whoever the person was, he takes the liberty to 
 say that the cause (the royal supremacy) was of the 
 greatest consequence, that he could wish the king were 
 capable of that power he aimed at ; that it was an at- 
 tempt directly opposite to the practice of the English 
 nation, in all former ages ; that it was depriving the 
 ecclesiastical body of a spiritual head, much more
 
 2 8 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PL TER . 
 
 necessary than in temporal affairs; that no spiritual 
 jurisdiction was ever looked upon as valid, without the 
 approbation of the See of Rome ; that the See of Rome 
 was the centre of unity, by whose authority heresy had 
 always been suppressed, and princes reconciled by 
 submitting to her decisions and arbitration ; in fine, 
 Rome was a kind of court of chancery to all nations 
 that professed Christianity; and those that were 
 divided from her, would be like branches cut off from 
 the tree of life." 
 
 Please to mark well the words that the "attempt of 
 Henry was directly opposite to the practice of the English 
 nation in all former ages ; that no spiritual jurisdiction 
 was looked upon as valid without approbation of the See 
 of Rome, and that those divided from Rome would be like 
 branches cut off from the tree of lifer 
 
 This certainly does not tally with what the claimant 
 of Anglican succession asserts on this subject : "Henry s 
 supremacy was based on ancient rights of the crown which 
 he merely re-assumed /" and, "gradually by unlawful en- 
 croachment the Papacy was formed in Western Europe, 
 and so, gradually, its usurpation extended to England." 
 And again : " Queen Mary, the bloody, created the 
 Roman hierarchy by taw, while Henry VIII. never did 
 anything of the kind ; but merely continued the Church 
 as he found it," and "to suppose that Elizabeth estab- 
 lished the Church of England in any sense other than 
 that in which it was the law of the land under the 
 Plantagenets and the Papacy, is a very ignorant mis- 
 take," etc., etc. We must remark that in refuting these 
 assertions, made with all the recklessness, effrontery, 
 and disregard to historic truth, usual with certain 
 parties, we do little more than condense and summarize
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION. 
 
 2 9 
 
 the facts of history touching this matter, admirably 
 brought together by the learned Cardinal Wiseman, 
 whom, no doubt, these gentlemen would write down an 
 ignoramus, who has either never investigated the mat- 
 ter, or is incompetent to form an opinion. 
 
 Venerable Bede informs us that Pope Eleutherius sent 
 over missionaries to the Britons, and converted them. 
 And when the Pelagian heresy had infested the Island, 
 Pope Celestine sent St. Germanus to correct and 
 purify it. A Pope then, not a king, commissioned the 
 missionaries and bishops of the early British Church. 
 Again, that slaves might become sons, that Angli might 
 be made Angeli, Pope St. Gregory sent Augustine 
 from his monastery on the Caelian hill, who reconverted 
 the Island under the Anglo-Saxons, and established the 
 legitimate succession of the Episcopacy, which con- 
 tinued until the encroachments and usurpations of spir- 
 itual supremacy by Henry, and his worthy daughter 
 Elizabeth. Is it with a design to mislead, that we are 
 told . " When the Patriarch Gregory, Bishop of Rome," 
 (though the same writer says, it was impossible for 
 the Pope to assert even a patriarchal authority over 
 England) sent Augustine to convert the Saxons, the 
 missionary found there an existing British Church 
 dating from the Apostolic times." He might as well 
 have added from the Venerable Bede, to whom he re- 
 fers, that it was, as we said above, a Pope of Rome 
 who gave authority, mission and jurisdiction to the 
 bishops of the British Church. Again we are told, 
 " Augustine was consecrated first archbishop of Can- 
 terbury by Gallican bishops." 
 
 Dr. Newman even before his conversion says in one 
 of his essays, " Disingenuousness is a characteristic of
 
 30 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER 
 
 heresy." It evidently is a marked feature of some con- 
 troversialists. By the Pope's authority, Augustine, a 
 priest and monk, with his monk companions, goes to 
 evangelize the Saxons ; by command of the same 
 Pope Gregory, Augustine was consecrated a bishop 
 by Virgilius, the primate of Aries, but Virgilius had no 
 authority to send him to England, he could give him no 
 jurisdiction over that island. Virgilius could only do 
 what every validly ordained bishop can do to-day, 
 confer the episcopal powers of order, but not of jurisdic- 
 tion ; only the Pope could assign a mission, impart jur- 
 isdiction or authority to exercise those powers, within a 
 given territory. To Virgilius himself the same Pope 
 had granted the pallium, the badge of the archiepis- 
 copal dignity, giving him authority over all the 
 bishops of Gaul. " Because," says St. Gregory, " it is 
 plain to all whence the holy faith came forth in the 
 regions of Gaul ; when your Fraternity 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 Fraternity to represent us, 
 in the churches which are in the kingdom of our most 
 excellent son Childebert, according to ancient custom, 
 which has God for its author." But Gregory, not Vir- 
 gilius, constituted Augustine archbishop of London, 
 sending him the /tf//z#;#, authorizing him to consecrate 
 twelve suffragans. 
 
 The see was afterwards by the authority of the Pope 
 transferred from London to Canterbury. By the di- 
 rection of the Pope, the archbishop of York was to 
 be subject to Augustine during his lifetime, and after- 
 wards the two metropolitans were to be independent, 
 and have precedence according to seniority of conse-
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION. 31 
 
 cration. Afterwards Pope Honorius I. sends the 
 pallium to the two archbishops with special powers to 
 either, to name the other's'successor, " i 'n virtue of the 
 authority of the Holy See, in consideration of the great 
 distance which separates England from Rome." 
 
 Pope Adrian created the bishop of Lichfield a pri- 
 mate, subjecting to him many of the suffragans of 
 Canterbury. Pope Leo III', rescinded his predecessor's 
 decree, and restored to Canterbury its former suffra- 
 gans. Long and heated were the contests for super- 
 iority, between Canterbury and York, and to the Pope 
 the rival claimants appeal, to determine the disputed 
 prerogatives, and their alternate triumphs were due to 
 decisions of the Pope in favor of one or the other. St. 
 Bernard tells us in his life of St. Malachi, archbishop 
 of Armagh, that he (St. Malachi) undertook a journey 
 to Rome to obtain the pallium for himself, and for a 
 new archiepiscopal see, the erection whereof he de- 
 sired to have confirmed by the Holy See. From all 
 this it is plain that the Holy See did from the begin- 
 ning order the hierarchy of the Church of England, 
 transfer, divide, and otherwise vary the jurisdiction of 
 metropolitans. Among other examples occurring, after 
 Augustine and his immediate successors appointed in 
 virtue of authority from the Apostolic See, Venerable 
 Bede informs us that Wigard was sent to Rome by 
 Egbert, king of Kent, and Oswi of Northumbria, to be 
 consecrated by Pope Vitalianus, and the reason given 
 by the two monarchs for wishing to have the archbishop 
 consecrated at Rome was "Quia Romano, csset CatJio- 
 lica et Apostolica ccclesia" Because the Roman was the 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church. Although the clergy com- 
 plained and grew sometimes restive on account of papal
 
 32 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF ROME 
 
 provisions, whereby the court of Rome filled vacant 
 benefices with strangers ; until the time of Henry VIII., 
 we never read of any denial of the Pope's authority to 
 confirm archbishops, or of his jurisdiction over them ; 
 he had ever a legate in England who took precedence 
 and passed judgment in their causes, and until the time 
 of Henry VIII., the privileges and rights of the Holy 
 See were never impugned or disputed, recent declara- 
 tions to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 The conclusion so pertinent to our argument, which 
 the eminent and learned Cardinal Wiseman logically 
 forces from the mouth of Anglicans fond of appeal- 
 ing to ancient canons and customs and privileges 
 of patriarchal sees, is "That the bishops now ex- 
 isting in England, even supposing the validity of 
 their orders, were instituted and appointed, the Bishop 
 of Rome not only not consentient, but repugnant 
 thereto, and vehemently condemning the same as an 
 infringement of his immemorial rights, secured to him 
 by canons and customs become ancient, though they 
 hold authority by law, have not, and never have had, 
 since the Reformation, any ecclesiastical, hierarchical 
 or Apostolical succession, authority or jurisdiction what- 
 ever, in matters religious or spiritual ; that they are 
 not the inheritors or successors of those who held the 
 sees until that time ; that, consequently, they are in 
 the eyes of the Church Catholic, intruders, usurpers and 
 illegitimate holders of the same." The above will be 
 a sufficient answer to the extravagant assertion, that 
 the supremacy of Henry was nothing novel, but based 
 on the ancient rights of the crown, and that the Church 
 of England was never a Roman Catholic Church. Let 
 us hear what the Church of England herself has to say
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION. 
 
 33 
 
 on this point. In the year 1534, Parliament, under 
 orders from a despotic king, declared that the Bishop 
 of Rome had no jurisdiction over the Church of Eng- 
 land, and that the king was rightfully her supreme 
 head. In the year 1536 the Church of England, in con- 
 vocation at York, declared : " We think the king's 
 highness, nor any temporal man, may not be the head 
 of the Church by the laws of God, * ' * and we think 
 by the law of the Church, general councils, interpreta- 
 tions of approved doctors, and consent of Christian 
 people, the Pope of Rome hath been taken for the head 
 of the Church and Vicar of Christ, and so ougJit to be 
 taken." Again, in the first year of Elizabeth's reign, 
 both houses of convocation, and the two Universities, 
 declared it to be the faith of the Church of England : 
 *' That the supreme power of feeding and governing 
 the militant Church of Christ and confirming their 
 brethren is given to Peter, the Apostle, and his lawful 
 successors in the See Apostolic, as unto the vicars of 
 Christ." 
 
 Our readers may perhaps like to hear what Henry 
 himself says on this subject, in his defence of the 
 Sacraments against Martin Luther : " Luther cannot 
 deny but that all the faithful Christian Churches, at 
 this day, do acknowledge and reverence the holy See 
 of Rome as their mother and primate. * * * And 
 if this acknowledgment is grounded neither on divine 
 nor human right, how hath it taken so great and gen- 
 eral root ? how was it admitted so universally by all 
 Christendom? how began it? how came it to be so 
 great? yea, and the Greek Church also, though the 
 empire was passed to that part, we shall find that she 
 acknowledged the primacy of the same Roman Church.
 
 34 
 
 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER 
 
 * * * Whereas Luther so impudently doth affirm 
 that the Pope hath his primacy by no right, neither 
 divine nor human, but only by force and tyranny, I do 
 wonder how the mad fellow could hope to find his 
 readers so simple, or blockish as to believe that the 
 Bishop of Rome, being a priest, unarmed, alone, with- 
 out temporal force, or right, either divine or human 
 (as he supposed) should be able to get authority over 
 so many bishops his equals throughout so many dif- 
 ferent nations. * .* * Or that so many people, cities, 
 kingdoms, commonwealths, provinces and nations 
 would be so prodigal of their own liberty, as to sub- 
 ject themselves to a foreign priest (as now so many 
 ages they have done), or to give him such authority 
 over themselves, if he had no right thereunto at all." 
 Perhaps, too, it might be interesting to recall what Dr. 
 Lingard says in regard to this assumption by Henry 
 of spiritual supremacy. " Henry had now obtained 
 the great object of his ambition. His supremacy in 
 religious matters had been established by act of Par- 
 liament. * * * Still the extent of his ecclesiastical 
 pretensions remained subject to doubt and dissension. 
 That he intended to exclude the authority hitherto 
 exercised by the Pontiffs, was sufficiently evident. 
 fr * Henry himself did not clearly explain, perhaps 
 he knew not how to explain, his own sentiments. If 
 on the one hand, he was willing to push his ecclesias- 
 tical prerogative to its utmost limits, on the other he 
 was checked by the contrary tendency of those princi- 
 ples, which he had published and maintained in his 
 treatise against Luther." But he did push this pre- 
 tended prerogative of the crown to extreme limits, 
 when he made Cromwell his vicar-general, allowed
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION. 
 
 35 
 
 him precedence as such before all the lords spiritual 
 and temporal, not only made him sit in Parliament 
 before the archbishop of Canterbury, but made him 
 supersede that prelate in the presidency of the convo- 
 cation. The degradation of the bishops was, however, 
 not yet deep enough. It was resolved to extort from 
 them a practical acknowledgment that they derived 
 no authority from Christ, but were merely the occa- 
 sional delegates of the crown. He suspended the 
 powers of all the Ordinaries of the realm, and by 
 making them petition for the restoration of the same, 
 made them acknowledge the crown to be the real foun- 
 tain of spiritual jurisdiction. When they submitted 
 with abject servility, and petitioned for the restoration 
 of their suspended powers, a commission was issued to 
 each bishop separately, authorizing him during the 
 king's pleasure, and as the king's deputy, to ordain, 
 etc. The same assumption and arbitrary exercise of 
 the prerogative of the crown, and spiritual supremacy 
 were continued under Edward and Elizabeth, with this 
 .difference, that under Henry the bishops, brow-beaten, 
 intimidated and demoralized, yielded, with the excep- 
 tion of the heroic bishop of Rochester, and thus in 
 some sense appeared to lend the sanction of the Church 
 to Henry's tyrannical usurpations, whereas under Eliza- 
 beth they atoned for their pusillanimity and cowardice, 
 redeemed the honor of the episcopacy, and, with the 
 solitary exception of Kitchen of Llandaff, spurned 
 the oath of supremacy, and without even- one excep- 
 tion they refused to be made the tools of the royal 
 popess by conferring a fraudulent illegitimate conse- 
 cration on her appointees. 
 
 All this we have detailed so lengthily to show that
 
 36 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER 
 
 in the Church of England (and the same may be shown 
 of every Church in Christendom), from her earliest Es- 
 tablishment, and especially since the introduction of 
 Christianity among the Saxons by St. Augustine, down 
 through every age, even to the time of Henry and 
 Elizabeth, the supremacy of the Pope in things spiritual 
 was acknowledged. The Pope exercised jurisdiction 
 over the island, 'and the bishops, archbishops and 
 primates, down to Parker's illegitimate intrusion by the 
 civil power, held their commissions from the Apostolic 
 See, and thus were linked on to the unbroken Apostolic 
 chain, the legitimate succession of their bishops thus 
 coming down from the Apostles. 
 
 How clearly and conclusively is this shown by Arch- 
 bishop Heath of York, in the eloquent and forcible 
 speech, which he delivered in the House of Lords, 
 against the spiritual supremacy of the crown in the 
 year 1559. His able speech may be found in full in 
 "Dodd's Church History of England ; Appendix 
 35.," from which we quote the following extracts : 
 
 " By relinquishing and forsaking the Church or See of 
 Rome, we must forsake and fly, first, from all general 
 councils; secondly, from all canonical and ecclesiasti- 
 cal laws of the Church of Christ ; thirdly, from the judg- 
 ment of all other Christian princes ; fourthly, and lastly, 
 we must forsake and fly from the holy unity of Christ's 
 Church. * * * First, touching the general councils, I 
 shall name unto you these" four: the Nicene Council, 
 the Constantinopolitan Council, the Ephesine, and the 
 Chalcedon. * * * At the Nicene Council, the first of 
 the four, the bishops did write their epistle to Sylves- 
 ter, then Bishop of Rome, that their decrees then made, 
 might be confirmed by his authority. At the council
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMA TE SUCCESSION. 
 
 37 
 
 kept at Constantinople, all the bishops there were obe- 
 dient to Damasus, then Bishop of Rome. * * * At the 
 Ephesine Council, Nestorius, the heretic, was con- 
 demned by Celestine,, the Bishop of Rome, he being 
 chief judge there. At the Chalcedon Council, all the 
 bishops there assembled, did write their humble sub- 
 mission unto Leo, then Bishop of Rome ; wherein they 
 did acknowledge him there, to be their chief head, six 
 hundred and thirty bishops of them. Therefore to 
 deny the See Apostolic and its authority, were to con- 
 temn and set at naught, the authority and decrees of 
 these noble councils. * * * Fourthly, and lastly, we 
 must (by forsaking the See of Rome) forsake and fly 
 from the holy unity of Christ's Church, seeing that St. 
 Cyprian, that holy martyr and great clerk, doth say that 
 the unity of the Church of Christ doth depend upon 
 Peter's authority, and his successor's. * * * And by 
 this our forsaking and flying from the unity of the 
 Church of Rome, this inconveniency, among many, 
 must consequently follow: that either we must grant 
 the Church of Rome to be the true Church of God, or 
 else a malignant Church. If you answer that it is a 
 true Church of God, where Jesus Christ is truly taught 
 and his sacraments rightly administered, how can we 
 disburthen ourselves of our forsaking and flying from 
 that Church, which we do acknowledge to be of God? 
 
 O 
 
 If you answer that the Church of Rome is not of God, 
 but a malignant Church, then it will follow that we, 
 the inhabitants of this realm, have not as yet received 
 any benefit of Christ ; seeing we have received no 
 gospel, or other doctrine, nor no other sacraments, 
 but what was sent to us from the Church of Rome- 
 first, in King Lucius, his days, at whose humble epistle,
 
 ^8 COMMUNION WITH THE SEE OF PETER 
 
 the holy martyr Eleutherius, then Bishop of Rome, did 
 send into this realm two holy monks, Fugatius and 
 Damianus, by whose doctrine and preaching we were 
 first brought to the knowledge of the faith of Jesus 
 Christ, of his holy gospel and his most holy sacraments; 
 then, secondly, holy St. Gregory, being Bishop of Rome, 
 did send into this realm two other holy monks, St. 
 Augustine, called the Apostle of England, and Meletius, 
 to preach the self-same faith planted here, in this realm 
 in the days of King Lucius; thirdly, and last of all, 
 Paul III.,*being Bishop of Rome, did send hither the 
 Lord Cardinal Pole, his grace (by birth a nobleman of 
 this land), his legate to restore us unto the same faith, 
 which the martyr, St. Eleutherius, and St. Gregory, 
 had planted here many years before. If, therefore, the 
 Church of Rome be not of God, but a false and malig- 
 nant Church, then have we been deceived all this while ; 
 seeing the gospel, the doctrine, the faith and the sacra- 
 ments must be of the same nature as that Church is 
 from whence it and they came." 
 
 This disposes of the ludicrous assertion, made with 
 so much apparent self-complacency and assurance, that : 
 " The first archbishop of Canterbury was consecrated 
 at Aries, in France (597) and thus introduced the Eph- 
 esine succession from St. John, through Irenaeus and 
 Photinus." This assertion is moreover too childish for 
 any one who pretends to know anything about primi- 
 tive Christianity. Must we teach again the first ele- 
 ments of Christian Doctrine, the first principles of 
 Church organizatien, and government? must we repeat 
 the plain distinction between orders and mission ? must 
 we go about proving what has already been acknowl- 
 edged, what the Episcopal Church teaches and acts 
 
 Julius III., he doubtless meant.
 
 THE TEST OF LEGITIMA TE SUCCESSION. 
 
 39 
 
 upon, viz. : that something more than a valid conse- 
 cration is necessary to confer jurisdiction, a share in 
 the commission and apostolate instituted by Christ to 
 evangelize the nations and convert the world? Aries 
 could consecrate, only Rome* could send Augustine 
 with Apostolic authority to England, to preach the 
 faith and transmit Apostolic succession to the English 
 hierarchy.
 
 40 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN 
 
 IV. 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN SUCCESSION 
 REPUDIATED. 
 
 WE cannot, perhaps, offer anything on the subject 
 of the pretended legitimacy, jurisdiction, and con- 
 sequently Apostolic succession of the Protestant Episco- 
 pal prelates of the United States, more conclusive and 
 clear than the earnest words of the lamented and estim- 
 able Dr. Ives, late bishop of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in North Carolina : " The real character of the 
 Episcopal authority and mission of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in America must depend upon the 
 character of the source from which they are derived. 
 
 " So that any defect which the Mother Church of 
 England may have inherited from the system of Eliza- 
 beth, seemed to me clearly entailed upon the daughter 
 in the United States. 
 
 " Now then, I entreat my old friends to allow me to 
 call to their minds that view of the mission and juris- 
 diction of the English Church, as established by Eliza- 
 beth, which destroyed my confidence in her claim to 
 my submission. I asked myself not as a Catholic, 
 not as a controversialist but as one deeply anxious to 
 know the will of God, and to know, if possible, that 
 that will would sustain me in my Protestant position 
 I asked myself, who sent Archbishop Parker? 'For 
 how can he preach except he be sent ?' Who put the
 
 SUCCESSION REPUDIATED. 4I 
 
 Gospel into his hand? told him what it contained? 
 what was the depositum of faith and sacraments and 
 worship of the ' one, holy, Catholic Church' com- 
 mitted to him, and commissioned him to teach that 
 faith, dispense those sacraments, and conduct that 
 worship, and, when death should come to terminate 
 his Apostolic work, to hand on that ' depositum to the 
 successors of the Apostles yet to arise ? I made this 
 appeal to my conscience again and again. ' Who 
 thus sent the first archbishop of Elizabeth, gave him 
 his mission to act in this or that way for God ?' 
 
 " When Elizabeth ascended the throne, I saw two 
 powers only, who even claimed the right of spiritual 
 jurisdiction of England, and thence the right of giving 
 mission to exercise ' the office of a bishop in the Church 
 of God !' the Pope and the queen ! The Pope sus- 
 tained in his authority by the whole Church in England ; 
 the queen sustained by her Parliament only. The 
 Church, therefore, in England, could not have com- 
 missioned and sent this archbishop. She was utterly 
 against him. Against him in her faith, her sacraments, 
 her worship, her judgment, her authority ! she stood 
 forth, with the successor of St. Peter at her head, pro- 
 fessing the Catholic faith, dispensing the Catholic 
 sacraments, and enforcing the Catholic ritual, and re- 
 quiring all who went out under her authority to defend 
 this faith, guard these sacraments, and observe this 
 ritual ! The archbishop of Elizabeth appears, in defi- 
 ance of the successor of St. Peter, professedly bearing 
 another faith, other sacraments, and commissioned under 
 another ritual ! Who sent him ? Whence derived he 
 the authority to execute the office of a bishop in the 
 mystical body of Christ the one, holy, and Apostolic
 
 42 PRO TEST ANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN 
 
 Church. Really, I could discern no authority earlier 
 than the queen and Parliament of England ! Arid, 
 therefore, that my own commission to act for Christ 
 had its origin in man /" 
 
 Convinced by such conclusive and unanswerable 
 arguments, drawn from a profound and conscientious 
 study of the whole question in all its aspects and 
 bearings, with the pages of Church history lying open 
 before them, and the doctrine and canons and usages 
 of the early Christian Church thoroughly sifted and 
 scrutinized, many of the purest, most gifted and 
 scholarly minds in the Anglican establishment in Eng- 
 land, and the Episcopal Church in America have not 
 only doubted the Anglican succession, but finding it 
 to be a myth, have laid down their lucrative livings, to 
 enter the Catholic Church as simple laymen, and re- 
 ceived orders in the Church from bishops possessing 
 Apostolic succession, or else, like Dr. Ives, have lived 
 and died in the ranks of the laity, in the midst of the 
 world, shining out as bright exemplars of heroic 
 Christian virtue. Such in England are the Mannings, 
 the Newmans, the Wilberforces, the Fabers, the Allies, 
 and many others ; those in our own country we will 
 forbear to me-ntion ; they are too well known, men 
 whose massive intellectual build, comprehensive, culti- 
 vated minds, logical acumen, vast and varied learning 
 overshadow and completely dwarf, in our opinion, at 
 least, those who have the hardihood to assert that no 
 one competent to form an opinion, and who has taken the 
 pains to investigate the matter, has ever professed a doubt 
 concerning the Anglican succession, and that it is more 
 d'emonstrabfy canonical and regular in all particulars 
 than any other succession in Christendom.
 
 SUC&ESSION REPUDIATED. 43 
 
 No one has doubted the Anglican succession ! ! 
 The whole Catholic Church doubts it, or rather posi- 
 tively denies it, the Greek Church disowns it, the Prot- 
 estant world ridicules the pretension, the whole of 
 Christendom outside the Anglican a'nd American 
 Episcopal Church denies and rejects the unwarrantable 
 claim. Yet outside of that comparatively small com- 
 munion there must be some thoughtful men, compe- 
 tent to form an opinion. Nay, on this point, as well as 
 every other fundamental Christian tenet, there is divi- 
 sion, even in the- little body of the Anglican Church 
 herself, and I am sure I need not reiterate that in the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in America, many not 
 only doubt it, but scout the very notion. An Angli- 
 can bishop, not many years ago, preaching on a solemn 
 public occasion at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, de- 
 nied it in strongest language, and the only reprimand 
 he received was, that he was not asked to print 
 his sermon ! Where were the Apostolic witnesses of 
 the faith? were they all sleeping sentinels on the 
 watch towers of Sion? no one to give the alarm? no 
 one to protest ? If Apostolical succession can be thus 
 publicly denied by a bishop of the Church of England, 
 are we not justified in placing credence in what a 
 learned English writer, now happily a Catholic, author 
 among other genial productions of " My Clerical 
 Friends," which we would advise our Episcopal readers 
 to peruse thoughtfully, says: "The mass of our coun- 
 try-men have so little esteem for the doctrines of the 
 Christian priesthood and the Apostolical succession 
 that they can hardly be persuaded to treat them seri- 
 ously." The same thoughtful writer, who certainly 
 Iris thoroughly studied and dispassionately investigated
 
 44 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN 
 
 the matter, though perhaps some would declare him 
 incompetent to form an opinion, again says : " The 
 modern English assertors of Apostolical succession 
 know that the men who formed the Church of England 
 
 o 
 
 and composed both its ritual and its theology, detested 
 the very doctrines which ///ryhave learned to approve, 
 and would have destroyed even that semblance of a 
 hierarchy which they have preserved, if the Tudor 
 sovereigns would have suffered them to do so." Nay, 
 even Hooker, so often quoted as authority, did actually 
 teach that, it was quite possible to do- without bishops ; 
 that there may be sometimes very just and sufficient rea- 
 son to allow ordination made without a bishop, when, for- 
 sooth, the exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the 
 usual ways of the Church, or when the Church must needs 
 have some ordained, and neither hath, nor can have a bishop 
 to ordain. The terse and well-informed English writer 
 above referred to says of Hooker, " No one knew better 
 than he that the first link in the Anglican hierarchy 
 was forged, not by an Apostle or Patriarch, but by the 
 masculine hand of Elizabeth Tudor, and therefore too 
 prudent to expose the new hierarchy to a strain which 
 it could not bear, he thought it good policy to say, 
 ' We are not simply without exception to urge a lineal 
 descent from the Apostles by continued succession 
 of bishops in every effectual ordination.' In life he 
 had denied the Apostolical succession whenever 
 the ' exigence of neccessity' made it superfluous, 
 in death he uttered a still more energetic protest 
 against it, without any necessity at all, by sending 
 for, not an Anglican minister, but Saravia, who had 
 never received or pretended to receive Episcopal or- 
 dination." Not only then Cranmer and Barlow, but
 
 SUCCESSION KEPUDIA TED. 
 
 45 
 
 even the favorite Hooker ("wise in his generation and 
 rightly styled by posterity, the judicious Hooker") 
 thought lightly of Apostolical succession in the Angli- 
 can Church, which, nevertheless, we are told was never 
 doubted by any one capable of forming an opinion, 
 and rests on the same evidence as the Scripture itself. 
 But the reason given as an apology for the low views of 
 these Reformers concerning the episcopate is too 
 amusing: " How could they have known better while 
 they were under the Papacy. Popes had taught them 
 that bishops were only presbyters, in order to magnify 
 themselves as the only and universal bishops." This 
 we pronounce a positive and unqualified falsehood, but 
 granting that, " such was the common teaching of 
 school divines before the Reformation," how does it 
 help the Anglican's case ? 
 
 Anglicans themselves admit that a church in schism 
 forfeits all right to the lawful exercise of hierarchical 
 powers or jurisdiction ; that bishops of a schismatical 
 communion could not lawfully, though they might 
 validly, exercise ecclesiastical functions ; could net be 
 admitted to a voice in a general council, or communi- 
 cate with other bishops, until they retract their errors 
 or schismatical principles, and then when returning to 
 the unity of the Church, they should be formally rec- 
 ognized by ecclesiastical authority and reinstated in 
 their sees, or removed to others, or else remain sus- 
 pended. Anglicans themselves admit that Apostolical 
 succession cannot exist outside the true Church of God, 
 and St. Augustine most positively declares that even 
 those who maintained the integrity of faith, but fell 
 from unity, were outside the pale of the Church. 
 "You are with us," he says, "in baptism, in the creed,
 
 46 PRO TEST ANT EPISCOPAL AND ANGLICAN 
 
 in the other sacraments of the Lord, but in the spirit 
 of unity, in the bond of peace in fine in the Catholic 
 Church itself you are not with us." But like the 
 Donatists and early heretics, Anglicans and Episcopa- 
 lians justify their separation from the Church, their 
 breach of unity, by urging the corruptions of the 
 Church, the usurpations of the papacy. " England in 
 rejecting a usurping papacy fell back on. her ancient 
 Catholic rights, and began to renew and to regain, as 
 her old law, all her primitive relations with all the 
 Apostolic Sees." But they forget that one of the pleas 
 for setting up a new establishment was that " all the 
 Apostolic Sees had erred in faith." " England," we are 
 told, " is not in communion with Pius IX., for his new 
 dogma rends him from communion with all his own 
 predecessors and with all antiquity." But at her very 
 setting out in life, the Church of England had solemnly 
 declared that for upwards of eight hundred years the 
 whole Church was sunk in damnable idolatry. 
 
 We may paraphrase the answer given to a similar 
 charge of the Donatists by the early doctors, thus : 
 " Either the Church was so corrupted as to be no 
 longer the Church of Christ, or it was not; if it was, 
 then the promises of Christ had failed, and His Church 
 had ceased, the gates of hell had prevailed, He was no 
 longer with His Church, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy 
 Ghost, no longer dwelt with her ; there is then no suc- 
 cession, no historical transmission of powers from the 
 Apostles. But if the Church was still the Church of 
 'Christ, if Christ's promises did not fail, and if His 
 plighted word was made good, that He should be with 
 those whom He sent to the end of ages, then those 
 who went out from her on pretence that she had erred
 
 SUCCESSION REPUDIA TED. 
 
 47 
 
 and had become corrupt, and that the corruptions of 
 the Church rendered it impossible for them to remain 
 in communion with her, simply condemn themselves, 
 and render their claim to succession from the Apostles 
 preposterous in the extreme. If their charge of apos- 
 tacy and idolatry be true, how are they going to make 
 connection with the pure primitive Church? how over- 
 leap that fearful chasm of upwards of eight hundred 
 years of abominable corruptions, idolatry, heresy and 
 crime? how stretch the chain of succession across that 
 foul and reeking abyss ? Why Pius IX. has by one new 
 error " rent his communion with all antiquity, and 
 Bishop Ryan, by the errors of his Church since the 
 Vatican Council, or even since the Council of Trent, has 
 lost all right to the name of Catholic, all claim to 
 Apostolical succession," how then could the Anglican 
 Church, after eight hundred years of such dreadful 
 crimes and errors in even every Apostolic See, have 
 been able to recover and transmit legitimate descent 
 down to the reformers ? 
 
 This, says a spicy English writer, is "as if a man 
 should contend proudly fora pedigree derived through 
 countless generations of felons. What ! call the whole 
 Catholic priesthood the spawn of Antichrist, and then 
 attempt to prove that your orders are manifestly 
 divine because you can trace them to that source ; 
 revile the whole Catholic Church as ' the harlot of 
 Babylon,' as twenty generations of Anglican bishops and 
 clergy did, and then claim her as your mother ; sepa- 
 rate from the Catholic Church on the ground that she 
 was ' Antichristian,' and claim to be the legitimate des- 
 cendants of Antichrist ?" 
 
 But if the Church did not thus err, apostatize, adul-
 
 48 ANGLICAN SUCCESSION REP UDIA TED. 
 
 terate the pure truths of Christianity, and become anti- 
 christian, which most certainly she did not, for to as- 
 sert that she did, in the face of Christ's own plighted 
 word, " that the gates of hell should not prevail against 
 her," " that He himself would be with her all days," 
 " that the Holy Spirit should abide with her forever, 
 and teach her all truth," is blasphemous impiety ; then 
 the Reformers broke off from the Church of Christ, 
 severed the bonds of unity, and as schismatics and 
 heretics the reformed bishops never had, as we said 
 before, with Cardinal Wiseman, "any ecclesiastical, 
 hierarchical or Apostolical succession, authority, or 
 jurisdiction whatever, and are in the eyes of the 
 Church illegitimate intruders and usurpers."
 
 MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED? 
 
 49 
 
 V. 
 
 WAS MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED? 
 
 IF Parker was not validly consecrated, the chain of 
 Apostolical succession in the Anglican Church, and, 
 in consequence, in the Episcopal Church of America, is 
 broken, the very first link is wanting, for as Water- 
 worth remarks, " The episcopal sees, and, eventually, 
 the cures throughout England, were supplied by men 
 ordained and consecrated by Parker, and if Parker 
 were not a consecrated bishop, then neither were the 
 Anglican clergy and prelacy episcopally ordained nor 
 consecrated." To realize more fully how the whole 
 episcopate of the Anglican Church hangs on the valid- 
 ity of Parker's consecration, and how true it is that he 
 is the connecting link between the old and new hier- 
 archy of England, we must remember that at the time 
 of Parker's real or supposed consecration, December 
 1 7th, 1559, there was but one lawful titular bishop 
 throughout the realm ; every see but one, that of 
 Llandaff, was vacant. Dr. Heylin, a Protestant histor- 
 ian, informs us that there were no more than fifteen 
 living of that sacred order, and that they all, but Kitchen 
 of Llandaff, whom another Protestant historian calls the 
 calamity of his see, refused the oath of supremacy, and 
 \vere in consequence deprived of their sees. There were 
 twenty-six sees within the realm ; two of them were 
 archbishoprics. Of these, one archbishopric, that of
 
 5Q W'J S ^/--/ 7^ THE IV PA RKER CONSE CRA TED ? 
 
 Canterbury, and nine episcopal sees were vacant by 
 denth ; the other archbishop and bishops, Dr. Heylin 
 says. " being called in the beginning of July, 1559, by 
 certain of the lords of the council commissionated 
 thereunto in due form of law, were then and there re- 
 quired to take the oath of supremacy according to the 
 law made in that behalf. Kitchen of Llandaff alone 
 takes it. * * * By all the rest it was refused." 
 After giving the names of every Catholic prelate in 
 the realm who refused, they were not, he says, all de- 
 prived until the end of September. '' But now," he 
 continues, " they had hardened one another to a reso- 
 lution of standing out unto the last, and were there- 
 upon deprived of their several bishoprics, as the law 
 required. A punishment which came not on them all 
 at once, some of them being borne withal (in hope of 
 their conformity and submission) till the end of Sep- 
 tember." " The civil power," says Waterworth, " armed 
 with the oath of supremacy, had destroyed the hierarchy 
 of the Church. The Parliament had thrown down, but 
 how was it to build up ? Was the queen or the gov- 
 ernment to use the same authority which had un- 
 bishoped the Church, to create a hierarchy." 
 
 This scrap of English history lets in a world of light 
 on the cradle of the Anglican establishment, and shows 
 thit its legal title, "the Church of England by law and 
 Parliament established," belies the claim to Apostolical 
 crigin, stamps it as a royal foundation, and shows, more- 
 over, ho\y ridiculous and absurd the pretence, that at 
 the Reformation a return was made to ancient rules, 
 and that the Church of England only fell back on her 
 ancient rights. " Let those who pretend such rever- 
 ence for ancient canons show," as Cardinal Wiseman
 
 WA S MA T THE W . PA RKER CONSE CRA TED? c i 
 
 replies to the assertion, that: " On the accession of 
 Queen Elizabeth, the true successors of the Apostles 
 in the English Church were reinstated in their rights," 
 " the canons whereby the deprivation of bishops, and 
 the appointment of new ones by letters missive, are 
 granted to the civil rulers. If they allow the authority 
 of Elizabeth to act as she did, then let them be con- 
 sistent and admit that of Mary to act similarly ; and 
 moreover, let them give us their warrant for such 
 authority, in the ancient Church to which they appeal. 
 If they consider it to have been usurpation in Eliza- 
 beth, ' of the iron hand and of the iron maw,' as some 
 of them have called her, then is their entire hierarchy 
 based upon an unjustifiable and tyrannical act of power, 
 and they who compose it are intruders." Who deposed, 
 the same learned cardinal asks, these sixteen bishops, 
 that then formed the hierarchy of the English Church? 
 who reinstated the others? and who were reinstated? 
 We will await reply to these queries, and in the mean- 
 time, we beg to call the attention of that impartial 
 secular authority who thinks "that there is a perfect 
 legal and historical identity, so to speak, of person, 
 between the Church of England before the Reforma- 
 tion, and the Church of England after the Reforma- 
 tion," to the historical fact that in the beginning of the 
 month of December, 1559, the Church of England had 
 but one lawful, canonically instituted bishop, and he 
 died in 1563, without attempting to canonically fill the 
 vacant sees or provide for the transmission of the 
 episcopal order, or the legitimate succession of any cor- 
 porate witness to the identity of the faith and Church 
 of England, nay, absolutely refusing to lend himself to 
 every attempt to keep up such identity and transmit
 
 5 2 *VA .V MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 
 
 such episcopal succession. "The supremacy of the 
 Pope had been rejected ; in the queen had been in- 
 vested the supreme government of the Church." We 
 quote again Rev. Mr. Wat.er\vorth : " Every bond be- 
 tween the crown and the hierarchy had been broken. 
 England is without a hierarchy, and even if the chain 
 of episcopal succession could be preserved unbroken, 
 what hand could unite the severed link of episcopal 
 jurisdiction? But something must be done ; it was an 
 emergency in which ordinary difficulties, if they could 
 not be removed, must be beaten down or passed over; 
 and though the more observing and learned might 
 note the flaw in the episcopal blazonry, the glitter of 
 that dignity, and the actual possession of sees,- to 
 which authority had for centuries been attached, would 
 no doubt conceal the defect from the eyes of the mul- 
 titude." 
 
 Parker was elected to fill the vacant see of Canter- 
 bury, August ist, 1559, b ut wno was to consecrate 
 him ? The bishops of the realm were obstinate. They 
 were not to be brow-beaten or intimidated ; the oath 
 of supremacy had been tendered and refused, the Eng- 
 lish episcopate had retrieved its honor, redeemed it- 
 self from the degrading cowardice and mean servility 
 shown in Henry's reign : many had already been de- 
 posed, and c ent to the Fleet. Some, as Heylin notes. 
 " were borne withal in hope of their conformity and 
 submission until the end of September." It was all 
 important to the Reformers to have Parker consecrated 
 by some Catholic prelates in order to maintain a sem- 
 blance at least of episcopal succession and identity 
 with the old Church. The severity exercised towards 
 some would, it was hoped, have its influence on the
 
 WAS MA TTHEW PARKER COA'SECRA TED? 
 
 53 
 
 others, and make them more pliant and submissive to 
 the queen's commands. A commission was con- 
 sequently issued on the gth of September to Tonstall 
 of Durham, Bourne of Bath and Wells, Pole of Peter- 
 borough, and Kitchen of LlandafT, and to these were 
 joined Barlow and Scorey, returned refugees, legally de- 
 prived underthe previous reign, who not being then 
 elected to any see were simply styled bishops. This 
 commission failed ; doubtless because the Catholic 
 bishops refused to become participcs criminis by assis- 
 ting to consecrate Parker. Mackintosh, in his " His- 
 tory of England," says : " These prelates, who must 
 have considered such an act a profanation, conscien- 
 tiously refused." Canon Estcourt remarks, " It is dif- 
 ficult now to understand how any one could expect 
 that a commission would be executed which bore so 
 gross an insult on the face of it. Not merely to require 
 them to consecrate a married priest, notoriously sus- 
 pected of heresy, but to join with them two suspended 
 excommunicated ecclesiastics, calling themselves 
 bishops, relapsed heretics, and apostate religious, was 
 sufficient of itself to prevent the execution of the 
 mandate." Shortly after, and most probably in con- 
 sequence or in punishment of this refusal, Tonstall, 
 Bourne and Pole were deprived, leaving, as we before 
 mentioned, only one see in the whole realm, with a 
 legitimate incumbent, one legal titular bishop in the 
 whole English Church, Kitchen of LlandafT, and he, 
 presumably, because, it was hoped, as he had owned 
 the queen's supremacy, he would yet yield obedience 
 to her commands and consecrate her newly appointed 
 archbishop. This brief chapter in the history of the 
 Anglican establishment v, e deem important, as showing
 
 54 WA $ MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 
 
 the straits to which the queen and Parliament were 
 reduced to secure a legitimate episcopate in the 
 nascent royal establishment, and how long and pain- 
 fully Elizabeth and her ministers travailed in giving 
 birth to the new hierarchy. It may also help us to 
 understand the importance attached to question of 
 fact, and the legitimacy and validity of the consecra- 
 tion of the first of the new-born Church, the first link 
 in a new line of prelates, the parent stock to which the 
 clergy of the Anglican and Episcopal Churches must 
 trace their pedigree, and from which alone they can 
 prove their legitimacy, their mission, or orders. One 
 attempt to get a lawful bishop for the Reformed 
 Church, to weld on to the old, venerable chain of 
 Apostolical succession, in the see of Canterbury, this 
 new link forged by the masculine hand of a Tudor 
 queen, to engraft this suckling scion of royalty on 
 the original Catholic stock, from which alone it could 
 draw sap, vitality, fecundity, failed, proved an utter 
 abortion. Whether the next attempt succeeded better 
 we will examine presently. 
 
 We come now to the facts regarding Parker's con- 
 secration and the validity of the act, but we wish it 
 distinctly understood that this is a secondary question, 
 as far as the Catholic Church and her doctrine are con- 
 cerned, for on the principles on which the primitive 
 Church has always acted, and which are so clearly and 
 distinctly enunciated by her in the early and Apostolic 
 ages, and which are in fact recognized by Anglicans 
 and acted on by all religious denominations, the An- 
 glican Church, and therefore the Episcopal Church of 
 America, have, and can have, no connecting link with 
 the Apostolic Church, no Apostolic succession. This
 
 WAS MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED? 
 
 55 
 
 being the case, we need go no further, to disprove the 
 claim of Anglican succession. But we are willing to 
 go further, and absolutely deny the validity of Parker's 
 consecration, and thus " strike at the very root of all 
 pretensions in the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of America to Apostolical succession." Pre- 
 mising again, what we have already said, that the val- 
 idity of consecration and the Apostolical succession of 
 the Anglican bishops are quite different questions, we 
 will now carefully and dispassionately examine and dis- 
 cuss the vexed question of the validity of Parker's con- 
 secration, a question of vital importance to Anglican 
 orders, a question of life or death to the Episcopate 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. For 
 though Catholics may refute and disprove Anglican and 
 Episcopalian pretensions to Apostolical succession, 
 even conceding valid consecration of their bishops, the 
 case of the latter is hopeless, their position untenable, 
 unless they can prove to a demonstration, and show be- 
 yond the shadow of reasonable doubt, that the first 
 Anglican bishops under Elizabeth were actually and 
 validly consecrated. 
 
 All the Catholic bishops, as we have seen, refused 
 to participate in the sacrilege, refused to lay hands on 
 the would-be prelate ; and now in the whole realm 
 there is but one bishop with jurisdiction, but one 
 bishop holding a see, and him, Camden styles the 
 calamity of his see. Surely, then, the succession is in 
 imminent peril ; 'tis a critical juncture for the royal 
 establishment of the English Church. How was the 
 crisis got over? We are naturally a little curious on 
 this subject, and we can well imagine the state of 
 suspense and anxiety of those whose whole religious
 
 t;6 WAS MAJTHE IV PARKER CvA'SECRA TED? 
 
 system, orders, mission, prelacy and priesthood hang 
 in the balance, depend on the satisfactory solution of 
 the question, Was Parker validly consecrated? For 
 Anglicanism and Episcopalianism the issue is life or 
 death. Our strenuous advocate of Anglican succession 
 concedes as much, for although he demurs somewhat 
 to the assertion that if Parker was not consecrated, and 
 validly consecrated, the Anglican succession fails, yet he 
 is willing to let it be assumed, " for if Parker was not 
 duly consecrated, it is certain no bishop in Christendom 
 can prove his orders." This is a strange proposition. 
 What does it mean ? surely all the bishops in Christen- 
 dom do not derive their orders from Parker. All the 
 Anglican and Protestant Episcopal prelates do, and it 
 may most truly be said, that if Parker was not duly 
 consecrated, it is certain no bishop in the Anglican 
 Church or Episcopal Church can prove his orders, or 
 rather, that there is no such thing as a bishop in these 
 denominations. This we assert, notwithstanding the 
 puerile claim made by some Anglican writers, that the 
 apostate De Dominis, or a pretended Irish archbishop 
 assisting at a consecration of some Anglican bishop in 
 the i /th century \vould suffice to restore the broken 
 line of succession in the Anglican Church. Can they 
 really be serious in making such assertions, or is it not 
 trifling with the intelligence and conscience of those 
 who look up to them for instruction in Christian faith 
 and church organism ? 
 
 Does it not seem puerile trifling to assert that "the 
 Pope sent Archbishop Bedini to America to remedy 
 the first defective succession?" and again, " the succes- 
 sion communicated to us, in two instances, by De 
 Dominis, archbishop of Spolato in Delmatia, in the
 
 WAS MA TTll/: IV PARKER CONSECRA TED? 
 
 57 
 
 seventeenth century, transmits of itself, a better and 
 more valid succession than the Nuncio Bedini conferred 
 on Dr. Bayley, the present Roman Catholic metro- 
 politan.'' To Catholics this is simply ludicrous. In the 
 year 1853, three new sees were regularly and canonically 
 erected in the province of New York, viz. : Newark, N. J., 
 Burlington, Vt., and Brooklyn, N. Y., and Bishops 
 Bayley, De Goesbriand and Loughlin were regularly and 
 canonically appointed by the Holy See to fill the same. 
 The usual rescript for the consecration, empowering any 
 duly consecrated bishop in communion with the Holy 
 See to consecrate them, was forwarded to the metropoli- 
 tan, Archbishop Hughes, of New York. Availing him- 
 self of the presence of the illustrious Archbishop Bedini, 
 who happened to be in New York, having come to this 
 country on a special mission having absolutely no 
 reference to the consecration of bishops or the intro- 
 ducing of a new succession, Archbishop Hughes re- 
 quested him to officiate at the consecration of the new 
 bishops, much in the same way as Dr. Brownell had 
 commissioned Dr. De Lancey to act for him in the case 
 of Dr. Coxe's promotion to the see of Western New 
 York. Yet this, we are gravely told, was all designed 
 by the Pope to introduce a new succession, and remedy a 
 defective one, when every one knows that the Pope had 
 nothing to do with the matter, and presumably knew 
 nothing of the nuncio officiating and consecrating 
 until after the consecration had actually taken place. 
 And so little idea had the American hierarchy of 
 any need of an amended succession to be derived from 
 this illustrious prelate that although since the year 
 1853, many new bishops have been consecrated in the 
 United States, and among them the present bishop of
 
 58 IP-IS MA TTHEIV PARKER CONSECRA TED? 
 
 Buffalo, until very recently not one of the bishops con- 
 secrated by Mons. Bedini was called upon to transmit 
 the new succession. In the year 1 873, indeed Archbishop 
 Bayley, as metropolitan of the see of Baltimore, to which 
 he- had been transferred from Newark in 1872, did con- 
 secrate Bishop Gross of Savannah, so that we must con- 
 gratulate our esteemed friend and brother of Savannah 
 that he has at length resurrected the amended succes- 
 sion, after it had lain dead or dormant for nearly twenty 
 years. 
 
 Yet with characteristic hardihood we are referred to 
 the Civilta Catolica as authority for this absurd and 
 puerile statement. The Civilta Catolica, an able and 
 generally very correct periodical, edited by Jesuits, 
 naturally took notice of the very solemn ceremony 
 which took place in the Cathedral of New York, but 
 that it gives any ground for these inferences and 
 absurd assertions that the first consecration was so de- 
 fective that the Pope tried to mend it by a second succes- 
 sion, or that by the second or Bedini consecration a second 
 Roman Catholic succession started in New York, we 
 absolutely deny. But when a church dignitary out- 
 rages common decency by echoing the gross calumnies 
 of infidel revolutionists, and maligns the character of 
 one of the most amiable, gentle and gentlemanly 
 of men, an illustrious and estimable prelate, now gone 
 to his reward, by calling him a butcJicr and virtual 
 murderer, and when those publicly and triumphantly re- 
 futed charges and lying assertions against the character, 
 forsooth, from which the second Roman Catholic succes- 
 sion started in New York, are rehashed and served up 
 manifestly for the purpose of damaging and vilifying 
 t'.ie Catholic episcopate, may we not retort in his own
 
 w 'AS MATTHEW PAKKER CONSECRATED* 
 
 59 
 
 language, and ask, -where is tJic morality of throwing out 
 such monstrous, not blunders, but downright falsehoods, 
 in assaulting the spiritual character of others ? 
 
 But to return. Was Matthew Parker, then, ever 
 validly consecrated ? What was the issue of subsequent 
 attempts after the first failure? 
 
 This, as we have seen, is the all-important question 
 for our Anglican friends. On its solution hangs the 
 fate of the whole Anglican system, for on Parker's 
 valid consecration depends the validity of orders in 
 the Anglican Church ; and without valid orders there 
 can be no shadow of a claim to Apostolical succession, 
 or legitimate descent from the Apostles, or corporate 
 identity with the primitive Church of Christ. Please 
 to remember, dear readers, what we have already de- 
 monstrated, that this question, so vital to Anglicanism 
 and Episcopalianism and to all their vaunted claims, 
 is of little consequence to the Catholic Church, and 
 in no wise affects the Catholic argument against 
 the pretensions and claims made by them to Apos- 
 tolical succession, or identity with the Church of the 
 Apostles. We discuss this question, then, not through 
 any necessity to make good our argument, or to refute 
 their claims, but to meet them in their last trench, 
 and entirely cut the ground from beneath their feet ; 
 to take away the last shadow of a claim to Apos- 
 tolicity. To prove this, without going over the whole 
 ground again, to show that, even with valid orders, 
 they have no mission, no legitimate authority to teach, 
 because they themselves are not sent, it is only neces- 
 sary to remember that there was in the whole realm 
 of England only one legitimate bishop, occupying a 
 see, exercising a jurisdiction, and he refused to par-
 
 60 WA S MA T THE IV PA RKER CONSE CRA TED ? 
 
 ticipate in the ceremony of Parker's consecration. 
 Not one of those who are said to have consecrated 
 him, and who are named in the Lambeth Register, had 
 any jurisdiction. Barlow, Scorey, Coverdale, and 
 Hodgkins are designated without any title, even in the 
 register, and such, of them as were afterwards con- 
 firmed and appointed to sees, were so confirmed 
 by Parker himself, showing that they had no juris- 
 diction until after Parker's consecration, and could 
 give none, nemo dat quod non Jiabct. But how could 
 Parker give to them, or any others, what no one gave 
 to him ? What a miserable subterfuge, then, it is. to 
 trace through Bauchier, Neville, and Chicheley, suc- 
 cession to a Roman Pontiff, when nobody denies that 
 the Church of England had valid orders and legiti- 
 mate succession, down to the time of the Reformation. 
 In the see of Canterbury from Augustine, sent, con- 
 firmed and commissioned by Gregory, down to Cardi- 
 nal Pole, sent, commissioned and legitimately appointed 
 to that venerable archiepiscopal see, by the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, Julius III., there was a continuous line, an un- 
 broken succession of corporate witnesses, succesors of 
 the Apostles. The whole difficulty, then, is in Parker's 
 succession. How has he been linked on to the chain 
 coming down from the Apostles? No Catholic bishop 
 would consecrate him, no bishop exercising, or pos- 
 sessing authority, mission, jurisdiction, or a see, would 
 lay hands on him ; there is not only no concurrence 
 of the sovereign Pontiff, of the Patriarch, which con- 
 currence the canons of the Council of Nice make 
 essential to a canonical consecration ; there is not only 
 no confirmation of a metropolitan, or approbation of 
 the bishops of the province, nay, the pretended conse-
 
 WAS MAT THE W PA RKER CONSE CRA TED ? 6 1 
 
 cration was in direct opposition to the Sovereign Pontiff 
 and every legitimate bishop in the realm ; so that the at- 
 tempt to preserve Episcopal succession violates every 
 precedent, and every canonical regulation of the 
 Christian Church, and as Rev. Mr. Waterworth, whose 
 valuable lectures we have freely used and made our 
 own, says, the new bishops of the Anglican establish- 
 ment separated themselves, not only in faith, from the 
 episcopacy of Christendom, -but broke through those 
 ordinances which their predecessors had for centuries 
 regarded as Apostolical, authoritative and binding. 
 This, moreover, shows how consistent they are in 
 their appeals to the canons and the ancient councils, 
 when in order to get an archbishop, or the first link in 
 the new episcopal chain, they had to violate all ec- 
 clesiastical law, run counter to Apostolical precedents, 
 and cast to the winds the canons of Nice. Yet, though 
 they have hopelessly lost Apostolical succession, they 
 have valid orders, if Parker was validly consecrated. 
 
 Before this can be positively, and with certainty 
 asserted, it must be proved beyond the possibility of 
 doubt or cavil, (i), that the consecration of Lambeth 
 chapel actually took place, and as the chief proof of this 
 is the Lambeth register, its authenticity, or genuineness 
 must be demonstrated ; (2), that Barlow was him- v ':f 
 consecrated ; and (3), that he used a valid form in 
 Parker's consecration. The learned Dr. Kenrick, in his 
 exhaustive treatise on Anglican ordinations, to which 
 we have before referred, and from which we have 
 freely borrowed, states the whole question so intelli- 
 gently and clearly, that we make no apology for the 
 length of the following quotation : 
 
 " Matthew Parker was chosen to be the first Protes-
 
 62 WAS MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 
 
 tant archbishop of Canterbury. It is not pretended 
 that he was consecrated by any of the Catholic bishops. 
 According to the advocates of Anglican orders, he 
 received episcopal consecration from Barlow, who had 
 been made bishop by Henry VIII., and who, on this 
 occasion, is said to have used the form of ordination 
 known as King Edward's form, in whose reign it had 
 been introduced. 
 
 " With regard to this important fact, there are three 
 questions all of which must be satisfactorily answered 
 in the affirmative, before those who trace their orders 
 to Matthew Parker can conclude that they are validly 
 ordained. First, Was Parker, truly consecrated by 
 Barlow, in the manner declared ? Second, Was Barlow 
 himself consecrated ? Third, Was King Edward's form 
 a valid form ? 
 
 "If these three questions can be satisfactorily an- 
 swered, then the ordinations of the English Church are 
 valid ; its bishops have the same episcopal character as 
 the Catholic bishops ; its ministers are priests, equally 
 as those who minister at Catholic altars ; in a word, the 
 ecclesiastical hierarchy has been preserved in the Eng- 
 lish Church, although, of course, being separated from 
 the communion of the Catholic Church, they are with- 
 ered branches, through which the vivifying sap of Apos- 
 tolical jurisdiction does not circulate, and which, con- 
 sequently, instead of bearing fruit, impede the rays of 
 light and grace from reaching the deluded people that 
 repose under their scanty shade. 
 
 " But if a single one of the above three facts be dis- 
 proved ; if a single one of them be not absolutely cer- 
 tain, although somewhat probable ; if positive and 
 unsuspicious testimony be not at hand whereby
 
 WAS MA TTI1E W PARKER CONSECRA TED? 63 
 
 all three can be established ; then the validity of 
 the Anglican ordinations is either positively dis- 
 proved, or not absolutely certain ; and consequently, 
 there can be no obligation to listen to men, who can- 
 not prove that they have received a participation of 
 the Apostolic ministry, whereby they are empowered 
 to preach the Gospel, and minister at the altar. Noth- 
 ing short of certainty on this point, can, in such a case, 
 justify priest or people in admitting the validity of 
 such ordinations." 
 
 Parker's and Barlow's consecration are questions of 
 fact, and not of doctrine, questions of history, matters 
 of opinion to be determined by historical research, 
 and on such evidence as would suffice in any other 
 question or fact of history. " But whatever opinion 
 we may form on either or both these questions it is 
 absolutely certain that, on account of the form said 
 to be used in the consecration of Parker, that devised 
 by Edward VI., Anglican, and consequently Protestant 
 Episcopal orders, are vitiated and invalidated." This, 
 after all, is the only important point: Anglican orders 
 are invalid on account of the invalidity of the form 
 invented by Cranmer, or, as the act has it, dcriscd 
 by Edward VI., and used, if any was used, or if 
 there was anything more than the Nag's Head farce, in 
 the consecration of Parker. To this point we would 
 prefer to confine ourselves, as it would simplify the 
 whole controversy, as Canon Raynal intimates in his 
 admirable little treatise on " The Ordinal of Edward 
 VI.," to concede " that Barlow was a true bishop, and 
 that he consecrated Parker on the seventeenth of De- 
 cember, 1559." There is no necessity for us, and can 
 be little advantage in fvllowinfj Drs. Mason, Lee. and 
 
 O
 
 64 WA S MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 
 
 other Anglican writers, in their laborious attempts to 
 prove the reality of Barlow's and Parker's consecra- 
 tion. With them failure to prove either is fatal to 
 their cause, whilst the most complete and satisfactory 
 demonstration of both will avail absolutely nothing 
 towards the solution of the real question at issue, for 
 without a valid form no sacrament can be conferred, 
 and if the form used in the consecration of the first 
 Anglican bishop, on wiiom confessedly the Anglican 
 hierarchy depends, from whom Anglican orders are ad- 
 mitted to be derived, was radically defective or invalid, 
 then there are no orders, no priesthood, no hierarchy in 
 the Anglican or Episcopal Church. We feel then that 
 it is only to entangle and complicate matters, to discuss 
 these historical questions, which, from the nature of the 
 subject and the contradictory testimonies of opposing 
 and interested witnesses, can never be satisfactorily and 
 conclusively settled. Yet as such stress has been laid 
 on these comparatively unimportant points, and so 
 much cavil over some statements, we must turn aside 
 again from the main issue, and after correcting some 
 misrepresentations, we shall' briefly notice some of the 
 grounds on which Parker's consecration and the Lam- 
 beth Register and Barlow's episcopal character have 
 been questioned or impugned ; grounds which, even if 
 they fail to persuade, will hardly fail to convince the 
 reader that it grates harshly on believing ears, nay, 
 sounds almost like blasphemy, to assert that " the canon 
 of Scripture rests on no better evidence" than the con- 
 secration of Barlow or Parker. And yet this, by im- 
 plication, at least, is asserted by those who assume 
 that the succession in the Church of England " rests on 
 the sime kind of proof by which we receive the canon
 
 WAS MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED? 65 
 
 of holy Scripture." We maintain that even if the 
 Lambeth Register be genuine, and the consecration of 
 Parker took place, as asserted, at the hands of Barlow, 
 an apostate monk, it is very doubtful that Barlow 
 himself was ever consecrated, or anything more than 
 bishop elect. And even if Barlow was a regularly con- 
 secrated bishop, and went through the form of con- 
 secrating Parker, the form used, viz.: that devised, as the 
 act has it, by Edward, was notoriously insufficient and 
 invalid. 
 
 But what will you, what can you think, of the honesty, 
 or truthfulness, or morality, of any person who quoting 
 freely from Dr. Lingard, and presumably with Dr. Lin- 
 gard before him, makes that author testify to the validity 
 of Parker's consecration! " Dr. Lingard," we are told, 
 " shows that this act of itself proves the consecration 
 of Parker to have been in all respects regular and 
 validly performed, according to the reformed Ordinal." 
 Now, Dr. Lingard in the very correspondence referred 
 to, expressly says, that he confines himself to the fact 
 of Parker's consecration, but whether it was valid or 
 invalid was a question with which, as a writer of his- 
 tory, he had no concern. Dr. Lingard, like many other 
 Catholic writers, investigated the fact of Parker's con- 
 secration, and hesitated not to acknowledge his belief 
 therein, but Dr. Lingard did not, and no Catholic can, 
 without rashness, acknowledge its validity. 
 
 Though Dr. Lingard, and some other respectable 
 Catholic authors concede the reality of Parker's con- 
 secration, and believe Barlow was a bishop, and ac- 
 knowledge the Lambeth Register as a genuine docu- 
 ment ; and although we, for argument's sake, and to 
 eliminate unimportant side issues, that serve only to
 
 66 WAS MA TTHEW PARKER CONSECRA TED? 
 
 complicate, embarrass, and obscure the main question, 
 would prefer to concede the same, yet in order to 
 prove that " somebody has not cruelly imposed on 
 us, in the matter of the Nag's Head fable," and that 
 " all respectable Roman Catholics do not dismiss the 
 story of the ' Xag's Head' with contempt," we shall 
 cite names as respectable, perhaps, as even those of 
 Dr. Lingard, and the Anglican defenders of the Lam- 
 beth consecration : and authorities, perhaps, as grave 
 and trustworthy as those produced by them, disowning 
 and disproving, or what in our case is equivalent to 
 that, seriously questioning, and throwing grave doubts 
 upon, (i), the fact of Parker's consecration at Lam- 
 beth ; (2), the register on which the proof mainly 
 rests ; (3), and especially on Barlow's o\\ : consecration. 
 Yet we do not pretend to settle these questions ; proofs 
 pro and con, must be weighed, and each one must 
 decide for himself; to us, and to our argument, and 
 our cause, the decision is immaterial, for we hold, and 
 think we can prove, that even conceding all these 
 points, the consecration of Parker was certainly invalid, 
 for reasons to be given hereafter, showing that a legi- 
 timate, and recognized sacramental form, as well as a 
 due intention in the minister, are requisite for the 
 valid administration of orders. 
 
 Now, as to the Nag's Head story, which we are 
 told, "all respectable Catholic writers dismiss with 
 contempt," Dr. Kenrick, "a respectable prelate," ad- 
 duces quite an array of respectable Catholic names, 
 not only not dismissing the story with contempt, but 
 vouching for its truth. We are indeed told that 
 the late Hugh Davey Evans, a profound and learned 
 ornament of the Maryland bar, ". has not left a shred
 
 WA S MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 6/ 
 
 of Dr. Kenrick's cause untwisted or unrent," but 
 we beg to be excused for not accepting this bare 
 assertion, for, although we have not been able to pro- 
 cure a copy of Mr. Evans' able essay, we have seen the 
 second edition of Dr. Kenrick's valuable work, revised 
 and augmented, in which he replies to Mr. Evans' criti- 
 cisms, in a most masterly manner, and we still find 
 untwisted and unrent, intact and unimpaired, every sub- 
 stantial link, every strand in his chain of unanswerable 
 arguments against the " Validity of Anglican Ordina- 
 tions and Anglican claims to Apostolical succession." 
 We may, moreover, unhesitatingly affirm that the pe- 
 rusal of Mr. Evans' essay will not " force on any can- 
 did mind the conviction that so respectable a man as 
 Dr. Kenrick could hardly have undertaken such a 
 task, except under some compulsion of superiors to 
 which, as in the later matter of infallibility, he pros- 
 tituted his own convictions, under the remorseless dic- 
 tation of Jesuits." We are satisfied, in the second 
 place, that no profound and learned ornament of the 
 Maryland bar, or any otJier bar, in fact very few besides 
 the writer whom we are reviewing, would have the im- 
 pertinence to charge a respectable prelate, a high-toned 
 gentleman, with such cringing servility and baseness 
 of soul, as to prostitute his talents, at the dictation of 
 any man, or set of men, to disseminate error, or write 
 in any cause against his own convictions. We are satis- 
 fied, in the third place, that the independence of charac- 
 ter, uncompromising firmness, and stubborn self-asser- 
 tion born of conscious intellectual endowments, which 
 may at times carry a man to extremes, or at least make 
 him appear to occupy a false position, and which, unless 
 safe-guarded by genuine humility, and rare Christian
 
 68 WA S MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED ? 
 
 piety, may be perilous to faith, are at the same time 
 surest guarantees against sycophancy, and'servile pros- 
 titution of talents or mean pandering to human power. 
 Such characteristics belong to those who rebel 
 against a divine authority, or refuse submission to a 
 divinely authorized and infallible teacher. 
 
 An " Old Catholic" bishop, like Reinkens, may pro- 
 fess absolute dependence on, and unreserved submis- 
 sion to civil rulers, and the will, and good pleasure of 
 those in power, for the hireling, whose own the sheep are 
 not, fleeth when the wolf cometh to snatch, and scatter, 
 and devour the sheep, because lie is a hireling, and Jiath 
 no care for the sheep ; as an able eloquent Catholic 
 deputy in the Reichsrath said, commenting on Rein- 
 kens's first would-be charge to an unknown, and unde- 
 termined flock ; but the Catholic prelate will not betray 
 his trust, or compromise his conscience, or degrade his 
 manhood, at the bidding or dictation of any man, or 
 any merely human authority, whilst he freely submits 
 to God, and vindicates his God-given freedom and 
 manhood, by the most implicit and unreserved sub- 
 mission of himself, his intellect, and will, to the au- 
 thority and law of God. Some cannot understand 
 this, and hence, whilst they wonder at our not accepting 
 the dictum of our own Catholic historian, Dr. Lingard, 
 they are indignant and even abusive, because a Catho- 
 lic bishop acknowledges an infallible Church, and an 
 infallible Pope, and bows a willing and cheerful obedi- 
 ence to the decisions of an infallible oecumenical 
 council. We are moreover satisfied, that howsoever 
 a lawyer may, by special pleading, assail the arguments 
 of Dr. Kenrick, or differ with him, in regard to the 
 true interpretation and force of legal documents, or
 
 WAS MATTHEW PARKER CONSECRATED? 6g 
 
 demur to some of his principles or criteria for deter- 
 mining what records are genuine, and what spurious, 
 or even controvert some of his particular conclusions, 
 yet any unbiassed man, who reads his " Anglican Or- 
 dinations," and ponders seriously his replies to objec- 
 . tions urged by Anglicans against the so-called Nag's 
 Head fabrication, and his answer, paragraph by para- 
 "graph, to Dr. Lingard's arguments, must admit that he 
 has vindicated, as he proposed to do, the old English 
 Catholic divines, who, according to Dr. Husenbeth, 
 for, at least, upwards of ttvo centuries, regarded the 
 Nag 's Head consecration as a fact, the certainty of which 
 was sustained by stubborn evidence, from the charge of 
 blind credulity, or a determined will to deny the best 
 authenticated facts. He did not undertake he tells 
 us himself, and we say the same for ourselves " to es- 
 tablish the truth of the Nag's Head consecration ; but 
 merely to examine whether it be so. entirely destitute 
 of probability or proof, as has been pretended ; and 
 whether the vindicators of Catholic faith, who publicly 
 avowed their belief in its reality, at a period when they 
 had better opportunities of ascertaining the truth 
 than we now can possibly be supposed to have, were 
 imposed on by an absurd tale." 
 
 Among those distinguished divines is Dr. Talbot, 
 
 o o 
 
 archbishop of Dublin, who in a treatise on "The Nul- 
 lity of the Prelate clergy in England," says : " It is 
 now a century of years since the Nag's Head, story 
 happened. It has constantly been related, and cred- 
 ited by wise men, as certain truth, ever since the year 
 1559 (the year it was acted in): it was never contra- 
 dicted by any, until it was imagined by our adversa- 
 ries that the new registers (Mason's), might contest
 
 70 WAS MA TTHE W PARKER CONSECRA TED? 
 
 with our ancient tradition, and make the Nag's Head 
 story seem improbable in the year 1613, of which no 
 man doubted, for the space of fifty-two years before. 
 The Catholic bishops and doctors of Queen Mary's time 
 were sober and wise men; they believed the story; 
 and recounted it to Parsons, Fitzherbert, Dr. Kellison, 
 Holivvood, Dr. Champney, Fitzsimmons, etc. Parsons, 
 believed it, Fitzherbert and the rest above named, 
 gave so much credit to it, that they .published it in 
 print." We find in an appendix to "Dodd's Church 
 History of England," a dissertation containing a sum- 
 mary of the arguments employed to support both sides 
 of the controversy concerning the Nag's Head ordina- 
 tion. Dodd cites Dr. Champney, who, after a lengthy 
 account of the whole transaction, how they met at the 
 Nag's Head ; how the old man Kitchen of Llandaff, 
 feigning blindness, refused to consecrate ; how they 
 then turned upon him as an old fool who imagined 
 that they could not be bishops unless gr eased \ how 
 Scorey took the Bible, and laying it on their shoulders 
 and saying, "take authority to preach the word of God 
 sincerely," they rose up bishops, concludes thus : "This 
 whole narration, without adding or detracting any 
 word pertaining to the substance of the matter, I have 
 heard, oftener than once, of Mr. Thomas Bluet, a grave 
 learned, and judicious priest; he having received it of 
 Mr. Neal, a man of good sort and imputation. 
 Again, Mr. Bluet had other good means to be informed 
 of this matter, being a long time prisoner with Dr. 
 Watson, bishop of Lincoln, and divers other men of 
 mark, of the ancient clergy, in whose time, and in 
 whose sight, as a man may say, this matter was done. 
 Of this narration there are, I think, as many witnesses
 
 WAS M ATI 'HE IV PA RKER CONSE CRA TED ? 7 x 
 
 yet living, as there are priests remaining alive, that 
 have been prisoners w'ith Mr. Bluet, in Wisbeach 
 Castle ; where I also heard it of him." The historian 
 then gives the names and dates, and works of the 
 authors, who have handed down to posterity and pub- 
 lished the Nag's Head consecration ; and referring to 
 Dr. Talbot's " Nullity of the Prelate clergy," anno 1659, 
 he says: "Wherein the learned author produces sev- 
 eral proofs, in confirmation of the account given by 
 Champney." Again, after giving the opposite views of 
 writers of the Church of England at considerable 
 length, he subjoins: "It would exceed my designed 
 brevity to make a distinct reply to these exceptions 
 Protestant writers have made against the Nag's Head 
 story. But Dr. Talbot, the Catholic archbishop of 
 Dublin, having considered them very fully and learn- 
 edly, in his treatise on the Nullity, etc., I remit the 
 reader to that work, where he may be more fully in- 
 formed of all the particulars belonging to this contro- 
 versy." " From which," says Rev. Mr. Tierney, F.R.S., 
 F.S.A., "it is evident that Dodd was inclined to favor 
 the story of the Nag's Head consecration," though he 
 (Mr. Tierney) felt compelled to adopt the opposite 
 opinion. Champney, in his treatise, DC vocatione minis- 
 trorum, positively asserts: "That not only Catholics of 
 unquestionable integrity, who were eye-witnesses of 
 the affair, testify to the solemn meeting at the Nag's 
 Head ; but also John Stowe, that most famous chrono- 
 grapher of England, a professor of the reformed re- 
 ligion, is witness of the same, who diligently inquired 
 into all circumstances of this action, though he feared 
 to relate them in his chronicle." It is evident that Dr. 
 Milner, F.S.A., who is not an ignorant man, nor one
 
 72 WA S MA T THE W PA RKER CONSE CRA TED ? 
 
 that would write hastily, or. without consideration, on 
 so important a subject, as Dr. Lingard charges, had no 
 faith in the Lambeth consecration ; and with these 
 names, and these authorities, may we not venture to 
 hold an opinion concerning an historical fact contrary 
 to that of Dr. Lingard, able and reliable though he be, 
 as a Catholic historian, especially when, as Dr. Kenrick 
 remarks: "The arguments brought forward by him on 
 this subject were derived from authorities, the authen- 
 ticity of which had been long and publicly questioned, 
 and he was urging the objections which Courayer had, 
 more than a century ago, put forward, and which had 
 been triumphantly refuted at the time by the learned 
 Hardouin, and in the celebrated work of Father Le 
 Quien." But enough, and more than enough, about 
 the Nag's Head. We must hasten to conclude what we 
 have to say on the Lambeth Register, and the conse- 
 cration of Barlow, so as to come to what we regard as 
 the point on which the whole question of the validity 
 of Anglican and Episcopalian orders hinge, viz.: the 
 invalid form devised by Edward VI., including the 
 probable absence of due intention in the consecrating 
 would-be prelates. 

 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 73 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 HAVING now sufficiently discussed the historical 
 question of Parker's consecration, and shown 
 that it was questioned and positively denied by re- 
 spectable, learned, and distinguished writers and divines, 
 and that from the year 15 59 until 1613 the first bishops of 
 the reformed Church had been repeatedly taunted with 
 the Nag's Head story, without any attempt being made, 
 for upwards of fifty years, to produce any documentary 
 evidence of a regular consecration, or any public refer- 
 ence to the Lambeth Register, we must now, as briefly 
 as possible, examine the authenticity of this Register 
 on which Anglicans mainly, if not entirely, rest their 
 proof of Parker's consecration at Lambeth ; to whom, 
 consequently, clearest evidence of its authenticity is 
 of paramount importance. 
 
 We must again, however, remind our readers that 
 this is a historical question, not materially affecting 
 the main issue of Anglican succession or Anglican 
 orders, so that, whether, after a careful weighing of 
 authorities and documentary evidence we regard the 
 Register as authentic, or spurious, we must not, as 
 Canon Raynal warns us. "attach undue importance to 
 a mere historical fact, and overlook the main point of 
 the controversy, viz. : the invalidity of the forms in-
 
 74 
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 vented by Cranmer and inserted into the Rite, which 
 is said to have been used at the consecration of Parker." 
 Dr. Lingard and other Catholic writers may declare 
 "they see no reason for pronouncing the Register a 
 forgery," whilst disavowing any intention of deciding 
 the question of the validity of the act, nay, expressly 
 and openly flouting Anglican claims to valid orders or 
 a legitimate episcopacy. For ourselves, we would not 
 even stop to consider this point at all, were it not to 
 convince certain writers that the charge of forgery is 
 not a desperate artifice gotten up by Jesuits to im- 
 pugn the Anglican succession, and to show that, not- 
 withstanding the " proverbial purity of law and legal pro- 
 cesses in England, and the care taken of public records 
 and facts made historical in printed pages, and thrown 
 open to the eyes and inquiries of the most intelligent and 
 truth-loving nation of the world" the public records are 
 not above suspicion, or to be accepted with unques- 
 tioning credulity, that forgery was not uncommon, and 
 that the Lambeth Register, if not a forgery, is at least 
 a very suspicious document, and that, as Canon Est- 
 court admits, " there are grave doubts with regard to 
 the authenticity of the Register itself, as an original 
 and contemporaneous document, or record of the facts 
 as they occurred." This Register, then publicly re- 
 ferred to for the first time, in a work published in the 
 year 1613, by Francis Mason, chaplain of Abbot, arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, testifies that Matthew Parker was 
 consecrated on the i/th of December, 1559, by Barlow, 
 Scorey, Coverdale and Hodgkins. It was at once de- 
 nounced as a fabrication by Catholic writers. Fitz- 
 herbert. " a man of great learning and holy life," hear- 
 ing with astonishment that one Mr. Mason was at-
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 75 
 
 tempting to prove the consecration of the first Protest- 
 ant bishops in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by a 
 register testifying that four bishops consecrated Mr. 
 Parker, writes : " This is not a new quarrel, lately 
 raised, but vehemently urged, divers times heretofore, 
 by Catholics many years ago, yea, in the very begin- 
 ning of the queen's reign, as namely, by the learned 
 Doctors Harding and Stapleton, against Mr. Jewel and 
 Mr. Horn, urging them to show how and by whom 
 they were made bishops." And he continues : "What 
 trow ye was answered thereto ? Were there any bishops 
 named who consecrated them ? Were there any wit- 
 nesses alleged of their consecration ? Was Mr. Mason's 
 register, or any authentic document, produced either 
 by Jewel or Horn?" 
 
 Kellison, with a like feeling of wonderment at the in- 
 explicable silence of the Protestant clergy, during 
 more than half a century, during which they were re- 
 peatedly and tauntingly told that their bishops, 
 Parker, Horn, etc., had not been consecrated, thus ex- 
 pressed himself: "But as for your registers, I know 
 not whence you have exhumed them ; they are at 
 least on many accounts suspected by us. For, first, 
 when in the beginning of the new Church of England, 
 it was objected that these ministers and bishops were 
 neither truly nor lawfully ordained, they would have 
 easily silenced them (those objecting), and yet they 
 dared not bring forward those acts or refer to them. 
 This much increases our suspicion that they were so 
 late produced after having remained hid so long; al- 
 though they had been so often called for by our doc- 
 tors." With the learned and critical author of " An- 
 glican Ordinations," from whom we have borrowed the
 
 76 THE LA MBE TH RE CIS TER. 
 
 above extracts, slightly abbreviated, we repeat: 
 " Whatever explanation may be given of the non-pro- 
 duction of the Register before the year 1613, it is evident 
 that the fact is calculated to awaken suspicion ; and, 
 therefore, those Catholic divines who called its authen- 
 ticity into question, may have been influenced by other 
 motives than those assigned by their adversaries." 
 ''The authenticity of the Lambeth or Parker's Regis- 
 ter," says Rev. Mr. Waterworth, in a note to his sixth 
 historical lecture, "has been ever since the time of 
 James I. matter of dispute. This is not the place to 
 enter into any details on the question ; and I will 
 merely add, that not having met with,- or discovered 
 any solid reasons for denying its genuineness, I shall 
 appeal to it in the text as a document, which, though 
 I see no reason to believe it spurious, others may not 
 choose to admit as evidence." To this his American 
 editor appends the following note : 
 
 " The author of these valuable Lectures, with that 
 spirit of liberality which distinguishes his work, has 
 followed, in the text, the view most javorable to the 
 Anglican ordinations. His authorities will be found 
 below. With every wish to be equally impartial, we 
 confess that, to our mind, the authenticity of the 
 Lambeth, or Parker's Register is more than suspicious 
 its fabrication is next to a certainty. To discuss the 
 subject in a brief note is not our intention : it would 
 moreover be foreign from the character of these Lec- 
 tures, intended, as they are, to be historical and not 
 controversial. Viewing the question, then, merely as a 
 debated point of history, the following are some of 
 the heads of argument which have led us to the con- 
 clusion that the Lambeth Register cannot be admitted
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 77 
 
 as evidence of Parker's consecration, and that the 
 Anglican ordinations are null. 
 
 " 1st. The Anglican ordinations were contested from 
 the very infancy of the established Church, and by 
 several of the most distinguished of the Catholic 
 writers that the i6th century^roduced. The very title 
 of Mason's work, published in 1613, himself a Protes- 
 tant, places this fact beyond a doubt. 
 
 " 2d. Fifty-three years passed away between the sup- 
 posed consecration of Parker, and the first public 
 reference by Mason to the Lambeth Register. If the 
 Register existed before, why were the Protestant 
 clergy silent for half a century, amid the taunts of their 
 Catholic adversaries that these ministers and bishops, 
 although mitred, were not truly nor lawfully ordained? 
 This silence, considering the importance of the ques- 
 tion, and the religious excitement of the times, is al- 
 most conclusive evidence that no such register then 
 existed. 
 
 " 3d. Had Parker been consecrated in the chapel at 
 Lambeth, according to the form prescribed by the 
 ritual of Edward VI., and as described in the Register 
 itself, the affair must have been notorious. How then, 
 again, shall we account for the repeated public denial, 
 not only of the validity, but of the fact of his consecra- 
 tion, by the earliest Catholic writers, and for the sus- 
 picious silence of Protestants ? 
 
 " 4th. It is not true that the Protestants appealed to 
 the Register, on the first publication by Sacrobosco. 
 in 1603, of the story of Parker's consecration, etc., at 
 the Nag's Head tavern. It was only ten years after- 
 wards, in 1613, that the world was informed of the 
 existence of such a document.
 
 78 THE LAMBE TH REGISTER. 
 
 " 5th. Had the Register been referred to before had 
 its existence been a matter of public notoriety, would 
 six bishops, with Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, at 
 their head, have thought it worth their time to assem- 
 ble, for the purpose of showing it to a few Catholic 
 priests, brought from their prisons to look at it? and 
 when from their prisons they asked for a second look at 
 the Register, why was it refused them ? Was it, indeed, 
 from fear they might destroy the document ? their 
 manacles might have been easily tightened. To us 
 this so-called "examination' is almost proot positive 
 that the Register was a forgery. 
 
 " 6th. The wording of the record in the Register is 
 suspicious, in as much as it is different from that of all 
 the entries that precede and follow it : its circumstan- 
 tiality, so uncalled for in such documents, is scarcely 
 less suspicious. 
 
 " 7th. Mason was chaplain to the archbishop of Can- 
 terbury ; as such, it was both in his power to falsify the 
 records at Lambeth, and his interest to do so ; two cir- 
 cumstances, considering the temper of those times, 
 which greatly invalidate his evidence ; especially when 
 such evidence was so long and so vainly called for, be- 
 fore, by the Catholic writers. 
 
 " Goodwin's work, De Praesulibus Angliae, appeared 
 first in English, in 1601, and afterwards in Latin, in 161 5. 
 The first edition, published before the appearance of 
 Mason's work, says not a word about Parker's conse- 
 cration at Lambeth ; the second, published two years 
 afterwards, repeats Mason's tale. Such being the 
 case, it would be safer for Episcopalians to let 
 Goodwin pass ; his previous silence is again almost 
 conclusive evidence that he knew nothing of the Lam-
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 79 
 
 beth Register, nor of Parker's pretended consecration. 
 
 " Caiuderi s Annals also appeared in 1615, two years 
 after Mason's work: to copy Mason was no difficult 
 cask, and was tl: c most likely course to please the court 
 and his patron, James 1. 
 
 "As for the work on the antiquities of the British 
 Church, ascribed to Parker himself, it is in the same 
 predicament. anJ has altogether too much the air of 
 testimony "got up for the occasion," to outweigh 
 the serious objections, suspicions, etc., which on every 
 side beset the question of Anglican ordinations. In- 
 deed, the more we study this subject, the more decided 
 ia our conviction that the Lambeth Register of Parker's 
 consecration will find its proper place among the mass 
 of documents to which the Protestant historian, 
 Whitaker, refers in the following candid, though pain- 
 ful acknowledgement : ' Forgery I blush for the 
 honor of Protestantism, while I write it seems to have 
 been peculiar to the reformed.' " 
 
 This Protestant divine repeats the same more than 
 once in his vindication of Mary, the murdered queen 
 of Scots : " Forgery appears to have been the peculiar 
 disease of Protestantism," and again, "I look in vain 
 for <>ne of these accursed outrages of imposition among 
 the disciples of Popery." We beg, moreover, to direct 
 the attention of our friends who extol with so much 
 pride and apparent self-complacency, the stainless and 
 unimpeachable public records of England, and the 
 proverbial purity of law and legal processes of the most 
 intelligent and truth-loving nation of the ivorld, to the 
 evidence furnished by a clause in a general pardon 
 granted by James I., in the first year of his reign, that 
 public documents even in that model truth-Wing
 
 So THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 land, were not only liable to falsification, but that 
 frequent forgeries and interpolations had been per- 
 petrated in his own reign, and that of his immediate 
 predecessor: "We also pardon, remit and release by 
 these presents, to the aforesaid A. B., all and every 
 offences and transgressions, by erasing and underlining 
 of any rolls, records, briefs, warrants, recognitions or 
 other documents of ours, or any of our predecessors, 
 or progenitors whatsoever, in any court or courts of 
 ours, or of any of our predecessors, or our progenitors, 
 done or perpetrated before the aforesaid 2oth day of 
 March." But is it not playing on the ignorance or 
 credulity of his readers, when a controversialist not 
 only so boldly refers to the sacrosanct, untainted 
 English records, but says that "any flaw in the titles 
 and legislative rights of Anglican bishops, would un- 
 doubtedly have been challenged by statesmen, on ac- 
 count of the jealousy with which, for three centuries, 
 every step in the Anglican communion was watched 
 by active enemies?" thereby insinuating that no flaw 
 was found, that the titles and legislative rights of the 
 Parliament bishops were unchallenged, when he knows, 
 and the fact is patent on the open page of history 
 that at the commencement of the reign of James L. 
 after the death of Elizabeth, the tradition of the or- 
 dination made at the Nag's Head tavern in Cheapside, 
 was loudly invoked by Catholics and Presbyterians. 
 
 " The Presbyterians said that the pretended bishops 
 were mere priests like themselves, having only been 
 ordained by the imposition of Parker's hands, who him- 
 self had received it from a simple priest, Scorey, at the 
 tavern, and consequently if they had seats in Parlia- 
 ment, the Presbyterians should not be excluded from
 
 THE LA MBE TH RE CIS TER. g I 
 
 them." For the same reason the Catholics maintained 
 that, "the episcopacy and priesthood had ceased in 
 England." And he can hardly be ignorant, that among 
 the pleas put forth by Bishop Bonner, of London, in 
 answer to the indictment by Horn, for refusing the 
 oath of the queen's supremacy, was the following: 
 "That the said Mr. Robert Home, not being lawful 
 bishop of Winchester, but an usurper, intruder and 
 unlawful possessor thereof, for that, according to the 
 laws of the Catholike Churche, and the statutes and 
 ordinances of this realme, the said Mr. Robert Home 
 was not elected, consecrated, etc." Which plea of 
 Bonner, says Canon Estcourt, seems to have caused no 
 little alarm and excitement among the Anglican party ; 
 and Randolph wrote from Edinburgh to Cecil, March 
 3Oth, 1565 : " The tale is, that Bonner in his defence at 
 his arraignment said that there was never a lawful 
 bishop in England, which so astonished a great number 
 of the best learned, that yet they knew not what 
 answer to give him ; and when it was determined he 
 should have suffered, he is remitted to the place from 
 whence he came, and no more said to him." " Bonner's 
 objections," says Rev. Mr. Waterworth, "were both 
 statutable and canonical. He denied Horn's right to 
 administer the oath, because Horn had been conse- 
 crated by a form not legally 'established, and by a 
 metropolitan who was himself no bishop. And this 
 latter assertion he defended on these two grounds: 
 first, Parker was consecrated by King Edward's ordinal ; 
 and secondly, that Parker's consecrators were both 
 legally and canonically disqualified from officiating at 
 that consecration, being deprived of their benefices." 
 We call attention then, again, to the glaring reckless-
 
 82 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 ness of assertion, insincerity or ignorance, whichever 
 it may be, manifested by those maintaining that " no 
 imaginable flaw could be found in the title of the 
 Anglican bishops, that their rights as bishops were un- 
 challenged, that the law requiring the consecration of 
 bishops to be absolutely conformed to the Anglican 
 Ordinal, and the fact that in perpetuating the Anglican 
 succession, nothing was done in a corner, rendered the 
 succession in the Church of England more demonstra- 
 bly canonical and regular, in all particulars, than any 
 other succession in Christendom." This is indeed 
 amusing; and we cannot help applying to these writers 
 what Dr. Champney says of Mr. Mason : " He doth 
 well to be bold in affirming, for a good face s.ometimes 
 helpeth out an ill game." 
 
 But we are quite willing to take the Register from 
 Mr. Mason's hands, and still maintain that it is not an 
 original, trustworthy, truthful, contemporaneous record 
 of Parker's consecration. For proof of this, we refer to 
 Canon Estcourt's valuable treatise on " Anglican 
 Ordinations," which we recommend particularly to 
 those liable to be imposed on by our Buffalo defender 
 of Anglican orders, or his implicitly trusted authorities, 
 Courayer, Mason, Haddan and Lee. 
 
 We now proceed to give a brief statement of the opin- 
 ions of Catholic writers, who admit the consecration of 
 Parker, by Barlow & Qo., and the Register as genuine 1 , if 
 you will, though evidently not the original record, truth- 
 fully detailing the transaction, but a document framed 
 and cunningly devised for a purpose, to meet an exi- 
 gency, to forestall anticipated difficulties, and answer 
 Catholic objections. This short historical view may per- 
 haps throw light on some of the most salient points of
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 83 
 
 the controversy, and show how little comfort the de- 
 fenders of Anglican orders can derive from the most 
 favorable view of the question, and the most .liberal 
 interpretation of disputed records. The Princess 
 Elizabeth was proclaimed Queen of England, Novem- 
 ber 1 7th, 1558. January 1 4th was fixed for her corona- 
 tion, but Heath, the archbishop of York, and all the 
 Catholic bishops refused to crown her, or lend the 
 sanction of their presence to the ceremony, "until 
 with much ado they obtained the bishop of Carlisle 
 (Oglethorpe), the inferior almost of all the rest, to do 
 that ceremony." (Allen's answer to English justice.) 
 In the same year, 1559, tne ^ rst f Elizabeth, all the 
 bishops of the realm in convocation declared, " The 
 supreme power of feeding and governing the militant 
 Church of Christ is given to Peter, the Apostle, and 
 to his lawful successors in the See Apostolic, as unto 
 the vicars of Christ" (Heylin) ; and all except Llandaff 
 refused to take the oa-th of supremacy : " Only one 
 bishop conformed himself to the queen's commands, 
 and was continued in his place, viz. : Anthony Kitchen, 
 alias Dunstan, of Llandaff" (Fuller) ; and before the 
 end of the same year they were all deprived. (Dodd.) 
 Elizabeth and her advisers are not blind to the exigency 
 of the occasion. A hierarchy obsequious to the queen 
 and favorable to the new doctrines must be created. 
 Matthew Parker, a priest, who had been chaplain to 
 Anne Boleyn, the queen's mother, and was on terms 
 of intimacy with her chief advisers, Cecil and Bacon, 
 and who notwithstanding his priestly vow of celibacy, 
 in violation of the law of God and of the realm, 
 " that priests, after the order of priesthood, as afore, 
 may not marry, by law of God" (31 Hen. viii. cap. 14),
 
 LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 and before the act (2 and 3 Ed. vi. c. 21) legalizing the 
 marriage of the clergy had taken to himself a wife, 
 was selected by Elizabeth to be her first bishop. The 
 vacant archiepiscopal see of Canterbury was offered to 
 him, and a peremptory order from the queen decided 
 his acceptance of the proffered, but not coveted dig- 
 nity, and brought him to London in the beginning of 
 June, 1559. Although cathedral chapters had been 
 deprived in the reign of Edward VI. of the right to 
 elect their bishops, and the right of appointment of 
 -the same had been vested exclusively in the king, 
 " from henceforth no conge d'elirc, shall be granted, 
 nor election of any archbishop or bishop by the dean or 
 chapter made" (i Ed. vi. c. 2), a conge d'elire, is said 
 to have been issued to the chapter of Canterbury, 
 July 1 8th, of the same year. There was one vacancy 
 in the chapter, and of the eleven prebendaries, only 
 four, with Dean Nicholas Walton, answered the citation 
 and put in an appearance. The election was by way 
 of compromise left with the dean, whose choice, as 
 was fully understood, was the choice or nominee of the 
 queen. 
 
 This singular conge d'elire and election by the chapter 
 were deemed sufficient for Parker to assume the epis- 
 copal style and title, which he does in a letter to the 
 council, dated August 27th, 1559. F rom this date until 
 the 1 7th of December, the date assigned in the Register 
 for his consecration, there is great confusion and even 
 contradiction in the official documents. In some, the 
 full title of bishop is given to him, in others he is des- 
 ignated bishop " elect." A commission dated October 
 2Oth, is addressed to Parker, Grindal and Coxe with their 
 full titles as bishops, and on the 26th of the same
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 85 
 
 month, October, we find among the State papers an 
 official document issued by the queen, asserting that, 
 "The archbishop elect of Canterbury, and the other 
 elect bishops of London, Ely, Hereford and Chichester 
 remain unconsecrated." If any weight is attached to 
 this document, then Scorey and Barlow, the elect of 
 Hereford and Chichester, are on 26th of Ooctober, 1559, 
 unconsecrated. Yet we know that Barlow was bishop 
 elect of St. Asaph's and St. David's in Henry's reign, 
 and afterwards of Bath and Wells, though there is 
 strong reason to doubt that he was ever consecrated, 
 as we shall sec in the sequel, and Scorey was conse- 
 crated by Cranmer according to King Edward's Ordinal, 
 and unlawfully thrust into the see of Chichester, from 
 which Bishop Day had been deposed, because he re- 
 fused to exchange the altar for the communion table, 
 the sacrifice of the Mass, for the Lord's Supper. If it 
 be by mistake that Parker gets at one time his full 
 title of bishop, and afterwards is styled archbishop 
 "elect," and declared to be unconsecrated, and if, as 
 Canon Estcourt is willing to allow, it be by a clerical 
 error that Scorey, whose register of consecration is ex- 
 tant, is put on the same footing with Parker, Grindal 
 and Coxe, who are certainly unconsecrated, and Barlow, 
 of whose consecration there is great reason to doubt, 
 we at least are justified in concluding that the public 
 records of England were not so carefully kept, and so 
 trustworthy, as some would have us believe. But to 
 proceed. 
 
 The so-called election of Parker by Dean Walton 
 occurred on the 1st of August, and "on the gth of 
 September, the great seal was put to a warrant for his 
 consecration, directed to the bishops of Duresme
 
 86 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 (Tonstall), Bath and Wells (Bourne), Peterborough 
 (Pole), Llandaff (Kitchen), and to Barlow and Scorey 
 (styled only bishops, not being then elected to any 
 sees), requiring them to consecrate him." (Bennet.) 
 This commission failed, most probably because the 
 Catholic prelates, " who," as Sir Mackintosh in his " His- 
 tory ot England" owns, "must have considered such an 
 act a profanation, conscientiously refused ;" just as the 
 Catholic prebendaries of the chapter of Canterbury 
 had refused to take part in his election. We are cer- 
 tainly justified in believing Mackintosh, that the 
 Catholic prelates refused, through conscientious 
 motives, to unite with such men as Barlow and Scorey, 
 apostates from the faith and their religious vows, in 
 consecrating Parker, who himself had broken his priestly 
 vow of celibacy, and joined the so-called reformed 
 party, and who, irregularly elected, at the bidding of 
 the queen, had been forced into the episcopal dignity 
 by the civil ruler, and secular power, in contravention 
 of canon law, in defiance of all the spiritual authority 
 and ecclesiastical powers, as well of the universal 
 Church, as of the Church of England ; had been 
 named a bishop despite the Pope, despite the patriarch, 
 despite the metropolitan, despite all the laws and tra- 
 ditions of the Church hitherto held sacred. Our be- 
 lief is strengthened when we find three of these 
 four Catholic prelates suffering the penalty of their 
 non-compliance with the royal wishes in the depriva- 
 tion of their sees Tonstall before the i6th of the 
 same month of September, Pole before the nth of 
 November, and Bourne, on his refusal to take the oath, 
 tendered by 'a commission issued October i8th. 
 
 Vet, a hierarchy must be created for the royal foun-
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. %- 
 
 dation, the new or reformed Church ; Elizabeth must 
 have bishops, Parker must be consecrated. The bish- 
 ops refuse to consecrate him, and they are all, save 
 one, in consequence deprived of their sees. The law 
 requires (25 Henry, viii.) for the confirmation and con- 
 secration of an archbishop, another archbishop, or four 
 bishops within the king s dominions. Now, there is no 
 archbishop, and only one bishop, who answers the de- 
 scription of a bishop within the realm. Cecil, the chief 
 adviser of the queen, is sorely puzzled, and in a mar- 
 ginal note in his own handwriting to a state paper de 
 tailing the legal steps t'o be taken for Parker's conse- 
 cration, he states: "There is no archbishop nor IIII. 
 bishops now to be had. Whereupon, Querendum." Ac- 
 cordingly eminent canonists, four clergymen, and two 
 civilians are consulted, and in accordance with their 
 advice a second commission is issued, dated December 
 6th, " to the bishop of Llandaff ; Barlow, bishop elect 
 of Chichester ; Scorey, bishop elect of Hereford ; Cover- 
 dale, late bishop of Exeter. Hodgkins, bishop suffragan 
 of Bedford; John, suffragan of Witford ; and Bale, 
 bishop of Ossory ; that they, or any four of them, 
 should consecrate him." We may well repeat with the 
 historian Mackintosh : " Whoever considers it import- 
 ant to examine the above list, will perceive the per-' 
 plexities in which the English Church was involved by 
 a zeal to preserve unbrokeji the chain of Apostolical 
 succession." That the perplexities were grave, indeed, 
 may be inferred not only from the inspection of the 
 names and doubtful character of those -mentioned in 
 the commission, but also from the unusual and very 
 strange clause inserted by these canonists, in this com- 
 mission, with which they asserted, it could be lawfully
 
 88 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 acted on. By this clause the queen, by her supreme 
 authority, dispenses with all disabilities, and supplies 
 all irregularities and deficiencies in any of the persons 
 to whom it is addressed, arising from " their condition, 
 state or powers, from the laws of the Church, or the 
 statutes of the realm, the urgency of the time and the 
 necessity of circumstances requiring it." Here indeed 
 is a stretch of the royal supremacy and spiritual pre- 
 rogatives of the crown, but the exigency of the time de- 
 manded it. Parker must be consecrated ; a new re- 
 formed hierarchy must be created ; even though the 
 parties had no canonical rights, jurisdiction or faculties 
 to consecrate a bishop, Elizabeth surely can and does 
 supply the want ; though they may not possess the 
 condition of bishops within the realm required by the 
 law, the queen can dispense with that, nay, even if not 
 bishops at all, the royal prerogative can supply the 
 want of the episcopal character and ecclesiastical state; 
 in fine, no laws of the Church or statutes of the realm 
 must be a bar to the execution of the wishes of the 
 queen, to the establishment of an Anglican episcopate, to 
 the consecration of Parker, and the last forlorn hope 
 is ordered out at this most critical juncture to save the 
 imperilled hierarchy of the Anglican establishment. 
 Yet strange, though thus armed and fortified by. these 
 extraordinary royal powers, Kitchen, the only bishop 
 exercising jurisdiction and answering to the description 
 of a bishop within the queen's realms, and Bale of 
 Ossory, and the suffragan Telford, "either hindered 
 by sickness," says the Protestant historian Heylin, "or 
 by some other lawful impediment, were not in a con- 
 dition to attend the service." 
 
 Verily, perplexing difficulties thicken around poor
 
 THE LAMBETH REGISTER. 
 
 8 9 
 
 Parker's path to the episcopacy, unlooked-for obstacles 
 obstruct his way to Canterbury. The Fates, it would 
 seem, oppose his elevation to a see rendered illustri- 
 ous by a line of saintly prelates. However, she " of 
 the iron hand and iron maw" is not to be foiled ; she 
 has made up her mind to establish prelacy ; that the 
 Church of England as by law, by queen and Parliament 
 established, may have prelates, her iron will is deter- 
 mined to place Parker in the see of Canterbury, and 
 through him fill the other sees, which her despotic will 
 had made vacant. As Kitchen a second time refused 
 to become accessory to the crime and sacrilege of con- 
 secrating a bishop without canonieal warrant or ec- 
 clesiastical authority, Barlow, the next mentioned on 
 the commission, with his worthy compeers, Scorey, 
 Coverdale and Hodgkins, are said to have assembled 
 at the church of St. Mary-le-bone on the gth of De- 
 cember, to confirm Parker's election, and on Sunday, 
 i/th December, in the chapel of Lambeth house, to have 
 gone through the ceremony of his consecration accord- 
 ing to the ordinal of Edward VI., the service begin- 
 ning "about five or six o'clock in the morning." This 
 is the testimony of the Register, and as to its authen- 
 ticity and the collateral proofs and authorities adduced 
 in its support, we need say no more, though, as Mr. 
 Waterworth remarks : "they appeared about the time 
 that the forgery of documents is said to have been so 
 prevalent as to be made a source of fiscal gain. Pardons 
 were issued at a small charge and ran thus: ' Pcrdon- 
 amns falsas fabricationcs chartarum, scriptornm inon- 
 nincntonai/, ac publicationcs corum." " Though, then, 
 with the American editor of Waterworth's lectures, we 
 feel it to be "certainly somewhat perplexing, that the
 
 gO THE LAMBE TH REGISTER. 
 
 commission dated December 6th, 1559, in consequence 
 of which the consecration of December I7th took place, 
 should have no mark by which Rymer could distin- 
 guish it from a spurious document," we must again 
 remind our readers that this is a subject which they 
 must examine and decide for themselves 'on its own 
 merits, and the documentary evidence adduced. Canon 
 Estcourt hesitates not to say : " We may indeed believe 
 the alleged facts viz., of the ceremony having taken 
 place at Lambeth on the I7th of December ; of Parker 
 and the other persons named having taken their 
 several parts in it, and of the Rite in the book of 1552 
 having been followed, except in one particular to be 
 as certain as any other facts in English history. But 
 this belief will not lead us to accept the existing 
 Register as an authentic and contemporaneous record 
 of the facts as they occurred. On the contrary, there 
 are circumstances of considerable suspicion attached 
 to it." Again he says: " The other copies which 'are 
 constantly referred to as evidence in support of the 
 Register, so far from adding to its credit, rather de- 
 tract from it." He then points out the discrepancies 
 between the Register and the two principal documents, 
 usually styled copies or transcripts of the Register, 
 but which are rather original drafts, viz., that of the 
 State Paper Office, and that kept in Corpus Christi 
 College, Cambridge, and which is said have been given 
 to the college by Parker himself. The learned canon 
 proves that " the Register as it stands is a remark- 
 able departure from the usual form," and whilst at- 
 testing that Edward's ordinal was used, records an im- 
 portant deviation from its prescription. 
 
 He refers to an important document among Foxe's
 
 THE LAM BE TH REGISTER. 9 r 
 
 MSS. in the British Museum, and placing it side by 
 side in parallel columns with Parker's Register, asserts : 
 "This MS. to be in the writing of a contemporary, and 
 not an unfriendly hand, and preserved among contem- 
 porary papers, of which a part is taken exactly from 
 the Register as it stands, and another part is widely 
 different." How he accounts for this difference we 
 shall see presently, when we speak of Barlow, whom it 
 seems the early Anglicans were ashamed to acknowl- 
 edge as the consecrator of their first archbishop, the root 
 and stem of the Anglican hierarchy. In fact, as we 
 said before, it is very doubtful that Barlow himself was 
 ever consecrated, was ever anything more than bishop 
 " elect," and even if the defender of Anglican succession 
 could have an absolute certainty which after what we 
 have said he cannot have of Parker's consecration and 
 of the authenticity and trustworthiness of the Lambeth 
 Register, the validity of the consecration would still be 
 doubtful.
 
 9 2 
 
 WAS BARLOW EVER CONSECRATED BISHOP? 
 
 VII. 
 
 WAS BARLOW EVER CONSECRATED BISHOP? 
 
 TO be certain of the validity of Parker's consecra- 
 tion, we must have an absolute certainty of Bar- 
 low's episcopal character. We propose now to show 
 that his friends have not cleared up the doubts thrown 
 around Barlow's consecration, and that no positive, con- 
 clusive proofs thereof can be adduced. "All are 
 agreed," says Dr. Kenrick, " that Barlow's consecration 
 cannot be established by positive evidence, and may, at 
 most, be inferred from the circumstances of his history. 
 In other words, the fact is not certain ; but according 
 to the most sanguine advocates of English orders 
 higJily probable." We asserted in our lecture, " Even 
 if the Lambeth Register be genuine, and if the conse- 
 cration took place, as asserted, at the hands of Barlow, 
 an apostate monk, it is very doubtful whether Barlow 
 himself was ever consecrated, or ever anything more 
 than a bishop elect." In reply to which Dr. Lingard is 
 cited as testifying the direct reverse, thus: " Is there 
 any positive proof that he (Barlow) was no bishop? 
 None in the world. Why should we doubt tiie conse- 
 cration of Barlow and not that of Gardiner? I fear 
 that the only reason is this : Gardiner did not conse- 
 crate Parker, but Barlow did." This is put down as 
 directly the reverse of what we affirmed, yet we never 
 asserted or pretended that there was &Ky -positive proof
 
 WA S BARLO W E VER CONSECRA TED BISHOP '< 
 
 93 
 
 that he was no bishop. What we asserted, and re-assert 
 is, that there is no positive proof that he was a bishop, 
 or anything more than a bishop elect. This is all that 
 is necessary for our thesis, that his consecration is 
 doubtful ; doubtful, then, too, is the validity of Parker's 
 consecration, and consequently, there can be no abso- 
 lute certainty of the transmission, not only of legiti- 
 mate succession, but even of valid orders through the 
 Anglican episcopate, or the bishops of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of the United States. It is then not 
 only rash, but a mockery of truth, and an insult to an 
 intelligent public to aver and publish that, " Succes- 
 sion in the Church of England is more demonstrably 
 canonical and regular, in all particulars, than -any other 
 succession in Christendom," and we reluctantly re- 
 peat what must grate so harshly on Christian ears 
 "the canon of Scripture rests on no evidence more 
 explicit." This putting of the succession in the 
 Church of England on the same footing with holy 
 Scripture, or comparing and identi/ying the evidence 
 on which both rest, strikes us as grossly irreverent to 
 God's Holy Word, and as an unintentional indeed, but 
 most unkind and dangerous thrust at the authenticity, 
 and unimpeachable, absolutely certain, and infallible 
 authority of the inspired Scriptures. We are quite 
 willing to accept the following test of legitimate suc- 
 cession and share in the corporate witness, and apply- 
 ing it to Barlow and Parker we find them wanting. 
 "In any given case," says our Episcopalian divii; 
 bishop must be able to prove his own succession by 
 the highest moral evidence. In doing this he must 
 show that his consecrators derived their episcopal order 
 from some ancient Apostolic line. If he can do this
 
 94 
 
 WA S BARLO W E VER CONSECRA TED BISHOP? 
 
 by undoubted registers, known and read of all men 
 like other legal documents, by which the succession is 
 carried up to a period antecedent to modern contro- 
 versy," etc. 
 
 Now, let Barlow or Parker prove by undoubted 
 registers, known and read of all men, that his consecra- 
 tors derived their episcopal order from some ancient 
 Apostolic line. We challenge our Buffalo divine to apply 
 this test in Barlow's case. He knows well that this would 
 be fatal to Barlow's claims to a share in the corporate 
 witness or the episcopal character, and yet he attempts 
 to throw dust in the eyes of the public by boldly set- 
 ting forth what every Catholic would acknowledge as 
 full and ample evidence of a legitimate title, and thus 
 unfairly insinuating, without a shadow of proof, that 
 the title of the first archbishop and his consecrator 
 rests on such evidence. Again, Dr. Lingard asks : 
 '' Why should we doubt the consecration of Barlow 
 and not of Gardiner?" We answer, first, because 
 Gardiner's consecration was never questioned, whereas 
 that of Barlow was openly doubted, and denied ; and 
 secondly, because in Gardiner's case, and in every 
 other case, but Barlow's, where the register of a dio- 
 cesan bishop is wanting, collateral evidence of the 
 consecration is supplied, as Professor Stubs shows in 
 his " Registrum Anglicanum," from the diocesan 
 registers, from Rymer, or elsewhere. But in Barlow's 
 case, there is no such collateral evidence, either from 
 diocesan record, from the calendars of the Church 
 books in which the dates of the entrance and death of 
 successive bishops were kept, or from chapter books, 
 for none of these, strange as it may seem, are to be 
 found at St. David's. Dr. Lingard says again, " I fear
 
 WAS BAKLOW El'EK CON HECK A TED 
 
 95 
 
 that tJie only reason (for denying Barlow's and not 
 Gardiner's consecration) is this: Gardiner did not 
 consecrate Parker, but Barlow did." This is no doubt 
 partially true, for whether Gardiner or Cardinal Pole, 
 or " the other bishops," as Dr. Kenrick justly remarks, 
 " whose record of consecration no longer appears, 
 were, or were not, consecrated is a matter of compara- 
 tively minor importance ; but it is of most serious im- 
 portance for the Anglicans to establish, by positive 
 proof, that the man through whom they claim orders, 
 had himself received them." It is no doubt, then, true 
 that Catholics weighed and examined so carefully the 
 question of Barlow's consecration, and not finding suffi- 
 cient vouchers or positive proofs thereof, denied the 
 same, because on Barlow, as Mr. Ward declares, " must 
 be built as on a foundation, the whole episcopacy and 
 priesthood of the Church of England." Our Buffalo 
 divine will of course demur to this, for he says: " It 
 must be remembered that it is of no real consequence 
 whether Barlow was or was not a bishop, as he was 
 only one of four bishops, who laid hands, all pronounc- 
 ing together the formula of ordination." Of the 
 worth and theological soundness of this opinion we 
 will speak hereafter, but we really do not blame Angli- 
 cans for being reluctant to own Barlow as the father 
 of their hierarchy, or the laying on of his soiled hands 
 the means of communicating, the ecclesiastical spirit 
 and Apostolical commission to their Church. " Of all 
 the bishops," says an Anglican writer, " who were 
 created from the date of 1533 to the end of Edward 
 VI. 's reign, Barlow is perhaps entitled to the palm 
 for abject servility. He seems to have been a mere 
 weathercock, changing perpetually. He was retained
 
 96 WA S BAA'/. O IV E VER CONSECRA TED BISHOP '< 
 
 in the service of Anne Boleyn as early as 1530, and was 
 soon employed as an agent whom she, the king, and 
 Cromwell, might be sure of to do their pleasure. He 
 had de facto contracted a marriage in spite of his pro- 
 fessij.i as a religious." On the accession of Queen 
 Mary lie made a submission which was equivalent to a 
 recantation, resigned his see, or was deprived, and fled 
 into Germany. His sentiments regarding the neces- 
 sity of episcopal consecration we Jiave already recited, 
 but not only on this subject were his sentiments lax 
 and his expressions profane, but he was regarded by 
 his contemporaries as a clerical buffoon and scoffer at 
 holy things. Returning to England on Elizabeth's 
 accession he was by her named to the see of 
 Chichester. 
 
 It was whilst thus only bishop elect of Chichester, 
 without any jurisdiction, he is said to have consecrated 
 Parker on the lyth of December, and on the very. next 
 day he himself is confirmed and obtains episcopal 
 jurisdiction from the hands of his grateful, new-born 
 child, Matthew Parker, the episcopal fledgling of a day 
 old, whom he presented the day before to Elizabeth 
 and the English Church as the first fruit of the queen's 
 supremacy, the first begotten of a new race of bishops, 
 the first link of a new chain of corporate witnesses. 
 Verily,' the siiccession in the CJntrcJi of England is the 
 most demonstrably canonical and regular in all Christen- 
 dom ! Still his own personal unworthiness, moral deg- 
 radation, uncanonical conduct, and lack of jurisdiction 
 would not invalidate, though they would render illegiti- 
 mate and irregular his conferring of orders, if he were 
 himself a validly consecrated bishop, and with a proper 
 intention used a valid form. Was then Barlow a con-
 
 WA S BARLOW E VER CONSE CRA TED BISHOP ? 97 
 
 secrated bishop? Buffalo's divine says he was : " Bar- 
 low was consecrated bishop of St. David's in the 28th 
 year of Henry VIII." But would not the gentleman 
 be kind enough to give us the date more precisely, the 
 day and the month ? It would save us a world of trouble 
 searching through historic records and dusty folios ; be- 
 sides it would be so satisfactory and withal so con- 
 vincing. Would he not, too, condescend to tell us 
 where he was consecrated, and who were his consecrat- 
 ors? these are the tests which he himself waiving, of 
 course, the undoubted registers, which cannot be had 
 demands of every bishop in order to prove his epis- 
 copal character. But no, he will deign no reply ; 
 but simply affirms Barlow was consecrated in the 28th 
 year of Henry VIII. That must suffice ; his ipse di.vit 
 settles the question. As, then, he will not condescend 
 to gratify our now awakened curiosity, or try to satisfy 
 incredulous and inquiring minds, we must turn to 
 others, we must prosecute our inquiries regarding 
 Barlow's consecration elsewhere, in the pages of English 
 history, and in doing so, we find that we have to tread 
 our way through a mass of conflicting authorities and 
 contradictory statements. 
 
 At the outset we find that Courayer, the most earnest 
 advocate of the validity of English orders, contradicts 
 our friend, for he says, Barlow was confirmed by 
 proxy, bishop of St. Asaph, on the 23rd of February, 
 1535, and most probably consecrated in the country, by 
 virtue of the archbishop's commission : "We know for 
 certain that he was confirmed, and as it is reasonable to 
 suppose, also consecrated, yet nothing further appears 
 with regard to the see of St. Asaph." This again is 
 contradicted by a royal act, dated May 2Qth, 1536,
 
 gg IV A S BA RL OWE VEK CONSE CA'A TED BISHOP ? 
 
 allowing the chapter of St. Asaph to proceed to fill 
 the see made vacant, " by the voluntary exchange of 
 William Barlow, the last bishop elect of that place." 
 This also is confirmed by a document found in an 
 appendix to Courayer, in which it is said that, " Barlow 
 was one of the only three bishops translated to new 
 sees within the last two hundred years, without having 
 been consecrated for those to which they were first 
 elected." According to Godwin, he was consecrated on 
 the 22d of February, 1535, whilst Wharton, in his 
 " Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae," places his confirmation, 
 which naturally precedes consecration, on the 23d of 
 February, 1535. A mandate of King Henry to Cran- 
 mer, dated 22d of February, 1636, empowers him to 
 proceed to the consecration of Barlow, though accord- 
 ing to Strype, he was confirmed the I5th of Septem- 
 ber, 1535, and of course the ceremony of confirmation 
 could not take place until the royal mandate for his 
 consecration had been issued. "All these contradic- 
 tions," as Dr. Kenrick, from whom we have condensed 
 these facts, remarks, " are evidence that nothing cer- 
 tain is known of the period of Barlow's consecration." 
 Canon Estcourt, from data furnished mainly by Mr. 
 Haddon, makes it, if not certain, at least most prob- 
 able, thit Barlow resigned the see of St. Asaph be- 
 fore he was consecrated, and was elected bishop of St. 
 David's on the loth of April, 1535-6, and took posses- 
 sion of that see in person on the 1st of May. He also 
 shows from authentic original documents that he was 
 styled on the I2th of June, " the bishop elect of St. 
 Asaph, now elect of St. Davyes," and on the 3Oth, in 
 pursuance of a writ of summons issued on the 2/th of 
 April, in consequence of an exceptional and extraor-
 
 WA S BARLOW E VER CONSECRA TED BISHOP ? QQ 
 
 dinary grant of the custody of temporalities made to 
 him, not to " the said elect and confirmed," the usual 
 form, but to " the same now bishop for his life," he as- 
 sumed the style and title of bishop, and took his seat 
 in the House of Lords. Referring our readers, who 
 may wish to study this question more thoroughly, to 
 Canon Estcourt's most valuable work on, "Anglican 
 Ordinations," we will now with the learned canon sum 
 up Barlow's case. "All the a priori arguments used by 
 Bramhall and Elrington, such as the praummirc, the 
 grant of temporalities, the seat in the House of Lords, 
 are shown to be either groundless or contrary to the fact ; 
 all the dates assigned for his consecration, viz., the 
 22d of February by Godwin, the 23d of April by 
 Dr. Lee, and the iith of June by Mr. Haddon, are con- 
 tradicted by the testimony of records and the whole 
 time left for him to be consecrated in is reduced to a 
 period of nineteen days, viz., between the I2th and 
 3Oth of June, exclusive. 
 
 The author shows that Mason gave a wrong refer- 
 ence to the record attesting the extraordinary grant 
 of temporalities, and this fact does not enhance our 
 opinion of Mason's honesty nor increase our confidence 
 in registers, which it would be to his interest to tam- 
 per with and falsify. "An error in the reference would 
 be of little consequence if he had given a correct de- 
 scription of the document, or if he printed it so as to 
 show its real nature and operation, instead of passing 
 it off as the restitution usually made to a bishop after 
 consecration, and printing only so much as would not 
 betray the deception he was practising." In the docu- 
 ment found among Foxe's MSS., and referred to above 
 we discover a note concerning Barlow, Scorey, and
 
 IOo WA S BARLO W E VER CONSECRA 7^ED BISHOP? 
 
 Coverdale, which seems greatly to strengthen the opin- 
 ion that Barlow was never consecrated. The writer, 
 evidently in the confidence of the Reformers, writ- 
 ing in their favor, having access to registers, though 
 he states when and by whom the other two were 
 consecrated, is as dry and indefinite about Barlow 
 as his Buffalo defender himself, merely stating, 
 " William Barlow was consecrated in the time of 
 Henry VIII." May we not reasonably conclude that 
 he was unable to tell the date of the consecration, or 
 the names of the bishops who consecrated him? We 
 are, then, surely justified in the conclusion that, al- 
 though we cannot establish with absolute certainty 
 and by positive evidence, that Barlow was never con- 
 secrated, the probabilities are against him, and "with 
 so many circumstances of suspicion, arising from dif- 
 ferent quarters, yet pointing the same way, it is impos- 
 sible to admit the fact of his consecration without more 
 direct proof of it." It is then and must remain very 
 doubtful that Barlow was anything more than a bishop 
 elect. Anglicans and Episcopalians can never be 
 certain of their orders, not to speak of succession, un- 
 less they can have an absolute certainty of Barlow's 
 consecration, and yet it is boldly affirmed that the 
 "canon of Scripture rests on no evidence more ex- 
 plicit."
 
 BA RL W ' S DO UB TFUL CONSECRA TION. i o l 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO BOLSTER UP OR SUPPLY FOR 
 BARLOW'S DEFICIENT OR DOUBTFUL CONSECRATION. 
 
 WE will now examine what we must regard as a 
 mere subterfuge, a last and very poor shift to 
 escape the consequences of the very grave doubts con- 
 cerning Barlow's episcopal character. " It must be 
 remembered," says the Buffalo defender of Anglican 
 succession,' " that it is of no real consequence, 
 whether Barlow was or was not a bishop, as he was 
 only one of four bishops, who laid hands, all pro- 
 nouncing together the formula of consecration." In 
 this he follows the lead of such Anglican writers as 
 Mason and Bramhall, who taking it from the Register 
 that all four imposed their hands and said the words 
 of the Rite together, argue that all four were really 
 consecrators, and, therefore, it would be sufficient if 
 only one of the four had been a bishop. Mr. Haddon, 
 too, declares that Barlow presided at Parker's conse- 
 cration, but the position occupied by him does not 
 answer to that of the consecrating bishop, for all 
 joined throughout and equally, both in the imposition 
 of hands and the words. All this we learn from 
 Canon Estcourt, and it will, we think, be evident to 
 any one who weighs carefully and without prejudice, 
 all the documents and authorities he adduces, that
 
 102 FUTILE A T 'TEMPTS TO SUP PL Y FOR 
 
 " the Anglican party finding out what a mistake they 
 had made in allowing Barlow to act as consecrator," 
 tampered with the Register, " had it wholly or partially 
 rewritten so as to gloss over Barlow's being the prin- 
 cipal in the function," with a view of meeting the 
 damaging charges of laxity of faith and morals made 
 by Catholics against Barlow himself, and the doubts 
 and difficulties about his consecration. As we have 
 already remarked, in this Register produced by Mason, 
 there is a remarkable departure from the usual form. 
 In all other instances, the Register records the name, 
 either _of the archbishop or of some bishop commis- 
 sioned by him, as taking the principal part, and two 
 other bishops assisting him, but in Parker's case the 
 Register makes no mention of a consecrating bishop and 
 assistants, stating simply that all four imposed hands, 
 and said the words of the form, without saying that 
 they, or any one of them, consecrated him, or that- he 
 was consecrated by them, and Mr. Haddon himself re- 
 marks " that in other cases a distinction is made 
 between the consecrating and assisting bishops, which 
 is not made here." This exceptional form of registra- 
 tion and singular deviation from the customary style 
 of records, coupled with the fact that in the MSS. al- 
 ready referred to, and found in the British Museum, 
 Barlow is expressly named as consecrator, and the 
 others as assistants, show that if Parker's Register be 
 not an entire forgery, the original record has been falsi- 
 fied, tampered with, for a purpose. That purpose we 
 can easily conjecture from the labored attempts to sus- 
 tain the opinion which Mr. Haddon thus expresses : 
 " The absence of Barlow's consecration, if it were so, 
 would not invalidate that of Parker." An extreme
 
 BARLOW'S DOUBTFUL CONSE CKA TION. 
 
 103 
 
 and hazardous opinion, indeed, but drowning men 
 catch at straws, and the Anglicans seem ready to em- 
 brace any opinion or broach any theo'ry that may save 
 them from the alternative of resting their orders and 
 hierarchy on the doubly doubtful Barlow. 
 
 But supposing the opinion tenable, that all four were 
 consecrators, and that even if Barlow, the presiding prel- 
 ate, were not a consecrated bishop, had no episcopal 
 character, Parker would still be validly consecrated, 
 because the three others joined with Barlow in impos- 
 ing hands and reciting the form ; who are these others 
 on whom we arc forced to fall back? Scorey, Coverdale 
 and Hodgkins. Scorey and Coverdale were consecrated 
 by the form devised by Edward VI., but that form is 
 notoriously invalid and insufficient, as we shall see pres- 
 ently, and therefore they wene not bishops at all, and 
 consequently will not help Anglicanism out'' of the 
 dilemma into which Barlow has brought it. Its last re- 
 sort and only dependence are now on Hodgkins, the 
 suffragan of Bedford. But so poor is this dependence, 
 so weak and rickety this last prop, that Dr. Elrington 
 himself admits that, " if Ward could prove that Scorey 
 and Coverdale (in addition to Barlow) were not truly 
 bishops it would then follow that Parker was not a 
 bishop, and the succession of the English clergy would 
 be destroyed." Yet Hodgkins, though only a suffragan 
 and without jurisdiction, was a real bishop, having been 
 validly consecrated, with a valid Catholic form, by 
 Stokesly, bishop of London, in 1537, and hence, if the 
 Register can be relied on as detailing the real facts as 
 they occurred, and the opinion of certain Anglican 
 writers such as Mason, that all four were equally con- 
 secrators, and that it would be sufficient if only one of
 
 104 FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLY FOR 
 
 them were a bishop, can be maintained, Parker may 
 still be a bishop, though Barlow most probably, and 
 Scorey and Coverdale certainly, were not. We are, 
 however, inclined to think that any one who will take 
 the pains to examine this question, and study the con- 
 temporaneous documents now within reach, will come 
 to the conclusion that this presenting of all four as 
 equally and individually consecrators is an after- 
 thought, and that Barlow and the others using Edward's 
 ordinal followed its prescriptions, and did not devise 
 something new and exceptional. Now Edward's or- 
 dinal and the rubric of the Pontifical, and the invariable 
 and immemorial usage in England, as is evident from 
 every register extant, except Parker's, suppose and pre- 
 scribe that there shall be one consecrating bishop, and 
 two assistants. Hodgkins was then most probably pres- 
 ent, but took no part in the ceremony, just as now, 
 and at all times in the Catholic Church, prelates come 
 by their presence to add solemnity and eclat to the con- 
 secration of a brother bishop, but only the officiating 
 prelate, who really consecrates, and the two assistants, 
 take any active part in the ceremony, so that we think 
 Dr. Elrington was quite right in saying, that if Scorey 
 and Coverdale, in addition to Barlow, were no bishops, 
 then Parker was not a bishop. 
 
 Now as to the theological soundness of the opinion 
 that all are equally consecrators, certain Catholic theo- 
 logians are quoted as maintaining that the bishops 
 present are not only witnesses, but co-operators. "Onmcs 
 qui adsunt cpiscopi non tantum testcs, sed etiain co-opera- 
 tor cs cssc citra omnem dubitationis aleam assercndum est." 
 (Martene.) This by no means implies that they con- 
 secrate either separately from him or equally with him,
 
 BARLOW'S DOUBTFUL CONSECRATION. 
 
 105 
 
 but that they assist and co-operate with the conse- 
 crator, and invariably in the rubrics one is called the 
 consecrator, the others, assistants. The consecrator is 
 spoken of as effecting and completing the whole conse- 
 cration, the others as "aiding," "co-operating," "giving 
 testimony and approval." Numerous grave authori- 
 ties and learned theological writers might be adduced, 
 asserting with Filliucius, " Although there are three 
 who consecrate, one of them alone completes the con- 
 secration, even though the others pronounce the words, 
 for of one sacrament there is but one minister." We 
 are quite willing to coincide with the very modest and 
 moderate views of Canon Estcourt : " Without ventur- 
 ing to express an opinion on either side of these dis- 
 puted points that is to say, whether the assistant 
 bishops are only ' testes,' or also ' co-operatores,' and if 
 co-operatorcs in what sense they co-operate ; or whether 
 the consecrator alone is the minister of the sacrament, 
 and alone completes the consecration, or whether the 
 others are joint consecrators with him, or whether it 
 could be maintained, that all the bishops present are 
 equally and separately and individually consecrators, 
 it is obvious that in a point touching the administra- 
 tion of a sacrament, such a defect as the absence of the 
 episcopal character on the part of the principal conse- 
 crator would throw a very grave doubt on the validity 
 of the consecration. It is quite sufficient to cause the 
 doubt that various authorities should have taught that 
 'one bishop alone effects the whole consecration.'* 
 Under no possible theory, then, can the episcopal 
 character of Parker or the validity of his consecration 
 be more than doubtful on the score of his consecrators. 
 whilst on the score of the form used, as we shall sorn
 
 106 FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLY FOR 
 
 see, there was most certainly no valid consecration, even 
 on the supposition that everything was done as the 
 register supposes, and as the Anglicans themselves 
 claim. As, however, some persons are not a little exer- 
 cised over the number of bishops essential to a valid 
 consecration, and seem not able to distinguish between 
 canons of discipline, and doctrines of faith, declaring 
 Roman Catholic succession in America and Ireland 
 disfigured, and in some measure vitiated because the 
 canonical number of three bishops has been sometimes 
 wanting, whilst owning that, "without this condition, 
 the ordination may be valid, but it is irregular and 
 defective," we purpose here to lay down from Van 
 Espen the true Catholic doctrine, and the teaching and 
 practice of the Christian Church on this subject. " By 
 the canons of the Nicene and other councils the dis- 
 cipline was established, as well in the Greek as in the 
 Latin Church, that besides the ordaining bishop, two 
 others ought to attend at the consecration of a bishop, 
 and personally assist him. 
 
 " The reason of this discipline was assigned by Pope 
 Innocent I., writing in his epistle to Victricius, that 
 ' one bishop singly should not presume to ordain a 
 bishop, lest the benefice seem to be conferred by 
 stealth. For such was also the constitution defined in 
 the Nicene Council !' As if he would say the council 
 would not have a bishop to ascend furtively, or like a 
 thief into the fold of Christ, but publicly, that is to 
 say, with the universal Church, represented by the 
 bishops of the province, approving and assenting. 
 But neither by the Pope, nor by other authorities, is a 
 consecration rejected as null and invalid, if done with- 
 out the right number of bishops, but only censured as
 
 BARLOW'S DOUBTFUL CON HE CRA TION. ! 07 
 
 clandestine, and performed without legitimate ap- 
 proval; for the presence of those bishops is required, 
 not so much for the substance and validity of the con- 
 secration, as for having it well considered and ap- 
 proved. And therefore, in case of necessity, the .con- 
 secration can be given by a single bishop, since the 
 presence of three, or even of two, appears to belong to 
 discipline, and not to the substance or essence of the 
 consecration." We do not then deny that, "Ancient 
 as well as modern canons prescribe that three bishops 
 should be present at a consecration. But this is barely 
 a precept, not an essential condition, and it appears by 
 the form used in the Church of England, as well as 
 in the Catholic Church, that only one prelate is con- 
 sidered as the consecrator." (Dr. Kenrick.) We' might 
 even "introduce our friend to a Pope who lived and 
 governed the Church before the Council of Nicea, in 
 the time of the Emperor Trajan, who established this 
 discipline, and decreed that a bishop should be conse- 
 crated by not less than three bishops. This was Pope 
 St. Anacletus. But surely this Apostolical authority 
 and this venerable Catholic Church, which established 
 these wise regulations, and disciplinary canons are 
 competent to interpret them and carry them out in the 
 spirit, and for the purposes that inspired them. She 
 surely must be authorized to relax these her own laws 
 when necessity requires it, in times of persecution, or 
 in the conversion of pagan countries, and the evangeli- 
 zation of nations. And most undoubtedly in the 
 establishment of the American hierarchy, and the 
 consecration of the first bishop of the American col- 
 onies, to which our friend takes exception, there was 
 nothing hostile or repugnant to the spirit of the
 
 108 FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLY FOR 
 
 Apostolical canons or the practice of the Christian 
 Church, there was nothing done furtively or clandes- 
 tinely, or without the knowledge, approval and assent 
 of the clergy of the province and the universal Church. 
 Dr. Carroll, "a most worthy prelate," (though, by the 
 way, a Jesuit), was elected by his brethren of the 
 clergy. Their choice was approved and confirmed by 
 the Sovereign Pontiff, who in the usual form and style 
 authorized him to receive the episcopal consecration 
 from any Catholic bishop in communion with the 
 Holy See. And if there was at that period no regular 
 and canonical hierarchy in England, and if bishops 
 were scarce and convened with difficulty in that once 
 eminently Catholic island devoted to the Holy See 
 and illustrated by saintly bishops, who is to blame, 
 but the persecuting, apostate Church of England? And 
 if Dr. Walmsley, bishop of Rama in partibus infidelium, 
 and Vicar Apostolic of the district of London, cannot 
 surround the solemn ceremony of the consecration of 
 the first bishop of the American Church with all the 
 eclat and pomp of a numerous attendance of his epis- 
 copal brethren, the blame lies at the door of those who 
 sought to crush out the Catholic hierarchy by fire and 
 sword, by the most cruel and tyrannical persecution, 
 and we think Anglicans ought not to force these mem- 
 ories back upon us. The consecration was, however, 
 in all other respects most solemn, regular and canonical, 
 and no one ever dreamed of doubting its validity, or 
 the legitimacy of the succession starting from it, and 
 only a fertile and imaginative, perhaps poetical, brain 
 could invent the new succession from Archbishop 
 Bedini. 
 
 This we deem sufficient, in reply to the call m;uU
 
 BARLOW'S DO UB TF UL CONSE CRA T10N. \ 09 
 
 on us "to clear up the difficulties which hang about 
 our own orders," and the strange assertions that " no- 
 body involved in such a consecration is in a position 
 to object to the order of others." But we can hardly 
 forbear a smile, when we read " But neither the 
 Walmsley nor the Bedini ordination have (sic) any 
 validity as establishing a canonical episcopate in this 
 country. Our lawful bishops were already settled in 
 their sees, according to the Catholic constitutions, 
 having been duly elected by their dioceses, and no 
 Italian prelate whatever could give any commission 
 in this country without their consent, except in that de- 
 fiance of all canons which for many years has been 
 habitual with the Popedom." This is decidedly cool, 
 some might call it cheeky; The bishops of the Prot- 
 estant Episcopal Church are here. Then beware, Cath- 
 olics, how you intrude ! Supreme Pontiff, Bishop of 
 Rome, though the whole flock of Christ is committed 
 to thy care, " Feed my lambs, feed my sheep ;" 
 though thou art constituted to " confirm thy brethren," 
 and to sustain as a solid rock and immovable founda- 
 tion the whole Church of Christ, venture not to send 
 thy emissaries to the free land of America, where " our 
 lawful bishops have already settled their sees." How- 
 ever, the papacy has been for a long time for well 
 nigh 1900 years accustomed to disregard such insen- 
 sate pretensions, and to send its missionaries, priests 
 and prelates, in defiance of infidelity, heresy and error 
 of every kind, to plant the standard of the Cross, to 
 preach Christ crucified, to teach the faith of the gospel 
 in all lands, and this mission it will continue to fulfil to 
 the end of time. But this comes with a singularly bad 
 grace from one who it will be remembered by all our
 
 1IO BARLOWS DOUBTFUL CONSECRATION. 
 
 readers congratulated, in a note published in all our 
 papers, Reinkens on his consecration, and reached out 
 to him the hand of fellowship as an episcopal brother 
 in full standing, though Bishop Reinkens had gone all 
 the way to Holland to be consecrated by one Jansenist 
 bishop, and had come back with what might rightly be 
 called a roving commission as universal " Old Catholic" 
 bishop of Germany, or something of the kind, though 
 the Catholic bishops were already established in their 
 sees, and all refused to impose hands on him, or admit 
 him to any share in their office, dignity or charge. 
 Kaiser Wilhelm commissions him ; Prince Bismarck 
 signs his episcopal brevet ; he promises servile obedi- 
 ence to the State. This is warrant enough; no men- 
 tion of violated canons; of irregular and defective ordi- 
 nation! ,O consistency, thou art a jewel!
 
 THE &DWARDINE ORDINAL. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL NOT THE SAME AS THE 
 ROMAN PONTIFICAL INVALIDITY OF FORM OF CON- 
 SECRATION DEVISED BY EDWARD VI. 
 
 HAVING seen how vain is the attempt to make 
 Score)*,' Coverdale and Hodgkins supply for 
 Barlow's doubtful sufficiency to validly consecrate 
 Parker, \vc come now to discuss the main question is 
 the form which Barlow is said to have used in the con- 
 secration of Parker a valid form, capable of conferring 
 a valid episcopal consecration? We before affirmed 
 that whatever opinion we may form of the question of 
 fact of Parker's consecration, which, as a matter of 
 opinion and history, is to be determined by historical 
 research, " It is absolutely certain that on account 
 of the form used, Anglican, and consequently Protest- 
 ant Episcopal, orders are vitiated and invalidated." 
 Again, " Even if Barlow were a regularly consecrated 
 bishop, and went through the form of Parker's conse- 
 cration, the form used, namely, that devised, as the act 
 expresses it, by Edward, was notoriously insufficient 
 and invalid." And again, " The Church established by 
 law seems to have felt this herself, for, in the year 1662, 
 just, one hundred and three years too late to save 
 Anglican orders (Parker's consecration, according" to 
 the Lambeth Register, was in 1559), convocation
 
 1 12 THE ED WARDiNE ORDINAL NOT THE SAME 
 
 changed the form, evidently with the aim of supplying 
 the defect pointed out by Catholic divines." In reply, 
 we are told . "The Roman Pontifical differs from the 
 Ordinal by which Parker was consecrated in nothing 
 which any theologian has ever ventured to pronounce 
 essential." Now, we think it hardly worth our while 
 to waste words with any man who so boldly and un- 
 blushingly sets truth at defiance, and contradicts all 
 history. The fact is that every Catholic theologian, 
 and every Catholic writer who has treated of the sub- 
 ject, has denied the .validity of all ordinations con- 
 ferred according to the Ordinal of Edward, and surely 
 that is making an essential difference between it and 
 the Roman Pontifical. Such was the judgment of 
 Cardinal Pole, legate of the Holy See, and archbishop 
 of Canterbury, in the reign of Queen Mary, who, with 
 his sub-delegates, theologians, counsellors, and ad- 
 visers, investigated the question, when everything was 
 fresh and information easily obtained, when nobody 
 could have any interest in concealing the truth, and 
 when all must have been more than willing to recog- 
 nize orders conferred according to the new rites, if the 
 orders were valid. How much trouble would have 
 been saved ! how many won over by a favorable de- 
 cision ! None knew better than they what discontent 
 and trouble would ensue if men were to be disturbed 
 in the possession of benefices and bishoprics, to which 
 they had been promoted according to the laws of the 
 realm and forms devised by the king, and sanctioned 
 by Parliament. Yet judgment, a solemn and deliberate, 
 disinterested, impartial judgment, was then pronounced 
 against the validity of Anglican orders, and that judg- 
 ment has never been reversed. The same has been the
 
 A S THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 1 1 3 
 
 judgment of all Catholic theologians for three hundred 
 years, and the same is the judgment of the Catholic 
 Church to-day, and yet, here is a writer with some pre- 
 tensions, too, to position and respectability, and ecclesi- 
 astical knowledge, who not only insults truth and 
 candor, but also the intelligence of his readers, by as- 
 serting that the 'Roman Pontifical differs from the 
 Ordinal by which Parker was consecrated in nothing 
 which any theologian has ever ventured to pronounce 
 essential." 
 
 We might, perhaps, refer, not him, but his readers, to 
 Dr. Milner(" End of Religious Controversy"), Most Rev. 
 Francis Patrick Kenrick (" Theologia Dogmatica"), Most 
 Rev. Peter Richard Kenrick (" Anglican Ordinations"), 
 Dom Wilfrid Raynal, O.S.B. (" The Ordinal of Edward 
 VI."), E. E. Estcourt, M.A., F.S.A. (" The Question 
 of Anglican Ordinations"), as theologians whose works 
 are probably the most accessible, and who, ex professo, 
 show the essential difference between the Catholic and 
 the Anglican form of consecration, between the Roman 
 Pontifical and the Edwardine Ordinal, and learnedly 
 and conclusively demonstrate in the language of an 
 able writer in the Dublin Review for July, 1873, tnat 
 "The orders conferred by the bishops who fell into 
 heresy, and who used what is called the Edwardine Or- 
 dinal, were held invalid, absolutely null, and unto this 
 day there has been no change in the discipline of the 
 Church." But our Buffalo divine appears to contradict 
 himself, for, in speaking of the different pleas on which 
 Catholics demur to the claim of Apostolic succes- 
 sion in the Anglican Church, he says: "The more 
 decent controvertist tries to prove that the form of 
 words is defective." Who are these more decent con-
 
 1 14 THE ED WAR DINE ORDINAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 trovertists, unless theologians? And ho\v do they try 
 to prove the form defective, unless by proving the 
 Edvvardine form insufficient and invalid, and conse- 
 quently essentially different from the form of the 
 Roman Pontifical? But we are taken to task, for as- 
 serting what we have now affirmed, that Cardinal Pole 
 and the Church positively and constantly refused to 
 recognize the validity of Anglican orders, or the 
 valid consecration of bishops, ordained according to 
 the new rites devised by Edward, or the Ordinal which 
 he published and forced on the English Church, as a 
 substitute for the' old English liturgies, thus : " Dr. 
 Ryan again quarrels with history, when he asserts that 
 the Popes never recognized as bishops those ordained 
 by the Ordinal of. Edward. On the contrary, Pope 
 Paul IV., his legate, Cardinal Pole, and all the papal 
 bishops of England did this in Queen Mary's time, 
 thus barring forever such cavils as Dr. Ryan has col- 
 lected. Rome never pretended to doubt the validity 
 of the consecrations under the Reformed Ordinal till 
 she lost hope of regaining the Anglican Church." 
 
 Now, on this, as on many other points, the gentle- 
 man has been imposed upon and misled by Dr. Lee 
 who, himself following the lead of Bramhall, pretends 
 to produce " Roman Catholic testimonies to the valid- 
 ity of Anglican orders." Canon Estcourt, who has 
 entered into an elaborate and critical examination of 
 this point, tells us : " However ambiguous may be the 
 statements of Catholic divines referring to Parker's con- 
 secration, there is no doubt with regard to either their 
 opinion or their practice, when they come to deal with 
 ordinations given and received according to the form 
 annexed to the Book of Common Prayer in 1552, and
 
 A3 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 115 
 
 afterwards confirmed by the act, 8 Eliz. cap. I." 
 After producing copious extracts from Allen, who 
 states the practice of the English College at Rheims, 
 from Bristow, Parsons and the petitions presented to 
 King Jameson behalf of his Catholic subjects, which 
 declares : " Neither is the Protestant minister nor 
 bishop., coming to our Catholicke fraternity (as many 
 come of the first sort), reputed other than for mere 
 laymen without orders," and bringing the tradition of 
 the invalidity of the Edwardine orders down from the 
 time of Cardinal Pole, he makes out an interesting list 
 of Anglican ministers reconciled to the Catholic Church 
 before the year 1704, and ordained in the CathoKc 
 Church after their reconciliation. He then takes up 
 in detail Dr. Lee's list of Anglican clergymen, who, 
 after having been received into the Church, were said 
 to have declined being ordained, because they believed 
 themselves true priests, and premising that, " it is of 
 very little importance what opinions these persons 
 may have entertained on the subject, having been 
 bred up in heresy, and not having studied a course of 
 Catholic theology, nor having even imbibed Catholic 
 instincts, they were not qualified to form a sound 
 judgment on the question," he shows that Dr. Lee has 
 no foundation for many of his statements; is incorrect 
 in regard to others, and that many of the cases have 
 no bearing on the controversy, and sums up the whole 
 as follows : " On review of these several cases it may 
 be confidently asserted that there is an unbroken 
 tradition from the year 1554, to the present time, con- 
 firmed by constant practice in France and Rome as 
 well as this country (England), in accordance with 
 which Anglican orders are looked upon as absolutely
 
 THE ED WARD1NE ORDINAL NOT THE SAME 
 
 null and void ; and Anglican ministers are treated 
 simply as laymen, so that those who wish to be- 
 come priests have to be ordained unconditionally. 
 Not a single instance to the contrary can be alleged. 
 The only case in which any discussion appears to have 
 arisen, is referred to by a contemporary writer as an 
 illustration of the accustomed rule. And the state- 
 ments made of objections having been raised by 
 various converts to being ordained in the Catholic 
 Church are shown either to be contradicted by the 
 facts, or to have no theological importance, on account 
 of the persons named being unknown, or married, or 
 of an unsuitable character, or only recently converted, 
 or possessing no clear and certain testimony as to 
 their opinions on the subject." The Dublin Review, in 
 the article. already mentioned, written by one, in our 
 estimation, fully as much of a theologian as our Buffalo 
 divine, thus continues this subject : " People may dis- 
 pute if they like, but the fact remains, that in the 
 Church the Anglican orders have never been received, 
 never at any time. Besides, there never was any doubt 
 about them. The Catholics left in England after the 
 persecutions of Elizabeth, and during them, never hesi- 
 tated ; they saw with their eyes and heard with their, 
 ears, and not one of them, learned or unlearned, seems 
 to have imagined for a moment that any of the minis- 
 ters made by Parker could say Mass. It might puzzle 
 a profound theologian to say where the flaw is, but no 
 theologian, whether profound or not, has done anything 
 else but confess the flaw." Of Canon Estcourt, the 
 learned reviewer says : " He has shown by most con- 
 clusive proofs that the Anglican ordinations have, in 
 no instance, been recognized ; that the practice of the
 
 AS THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 
 
 117 
 
 Church has been uniform and constant from the days of 
 Cardinal Pole, under whose archiepiscopate the ques- 
 tion was first discussed ; it -could not have been 
 discussed before. From that day to this, the Angli- 
 can ordinations have been regarded as nullities, con- 
 veying no spiritual power whatever, and leaving the 
 recipients as much laymen as ever they were in 
 their lives." Now, what can we think of a man 
 who has the hardihood to assert publicly that no theo- 
 logian has ever ventured to question the validity of 
 orders conferred according to the Edwardine Ordinal, 
 or what is tantmount to that, namely, that the Roman 
 Pontifical differs in nothing that any theologian has ever 
 ventured to pronounce essential from the Ordinal by 
 which Parker was consecrated. What confidence can 
 we place in a writer who, with these facts staring him 
 in the face, boldly and unblushingly affirms, that 
 Rome never pretended to doubt the validity of the 
 consecrations under the reformed. Ordinal, till she lost 
 hope of regaining the Anglican Church? We cannot 
 forbear branding here another similar, deceitful, asser- 
 tion : "The Pope did not withdraw the Papists from 
 the Church of England, until the tenth year of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and till this all his adherents remained in 
 communion with their proper Church, and also in his 
 communion. This fact proves that the Anglican 
 bishops and clergy were fully recognized at Rome, so 
 long as the -Popes had any hope of regaining power 
 over them." He refers to the bull of excommunication, 
 which, he tells us, Pius V. issued against Elizabeth in 
 1570, to which he evidently attaches little importance. 
 as he is convinced of the nullity and impotence of the 
 Pope's spiritual and temporal authority, but when lu>
 
 1 1 8 THE ED WARDINE ORDINAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 talks of the Pope withdrawing the Papists from the 
 Church of England in the tenth year of Elizabeth, and 
 that, until then, his adherents remained in communion 
 with their proper Church and in his communion, he 
 talks silly nonsense, and, wishing to appeal to ignorant 
 prejudices, he simply stultifies himself. But admire at 
 least his logical acumen ! " This fact, viz. : that the 
 Pope did not withdraw the Papists from the Church of 
 England until the tenth year of Elizabeth proves that 
 the Anglican bishops and clergy were fully recognized 
 at Rome, so long as the Popes had any hope of regain- 
 ing power over them." 
 
 If you can't see it, so much the worse for you ; the 
 fault lies in your dimness of vision, or dulness of per- 
 ception, not in the argument, particularly when you 
 know that all the bishops and clergy, who acknowl- 
 edged the royal supremacy, were excommunicated in 
 the time of Henry. We wonder if the gentleman knew 
 this when he elaborated the above argument? We 
 wonder if he ever read how the bishops and the clergy 
 in Mary's reign sued for reconciliation with the Church, 
 and obtained, from the Papal legate, absolution from 
 the excommunication and spiritual censures incurred 
 by various acts of schism and heresy, during the reigns 
 of Henry and Edward, and how the whole kingdom 
 was publicly and solemnly reconciled to the Church, 
 on the 3<Dth of November, 1 5 54, by Cardinal Pole, legate 
 of the Holy See ? Yes, he must at least have had some 
 inkling of this. He must have read something of the 
 legatine powers given by the Pope to Cardinal Pole, 
 and the extraordinary faculties exercised by him, in 
 reconciling and absolving and dispensing with the 
 bishops and clergy in Mary's time, because it is from a
 
 AS THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. j ig 
 
 misunderstanding and misinterpretation of these facul- 
 ties, and the cases in which they were exercised, that 
 Bramhall, Elrington, Haddon and Lee erroneously con- 
 cluded, as he does (for he only repeats, almost ver- 
 batim, Bramhall's words), that : " King Edward's form 
 of ordination was judged valid in Queen Mary's days 
 by all Catholics, and particularly by Cardinal Pole, then 
 Apostolic legate in England, and by the then Pope, 
 Paul IV., and by all the clergy and Parliament of Eng- 
 land." We shall soon show the true meaning of the 
 powers and faculties granted to, and exercised by, the 
 legate, and that they did not, and were never meant, 
 to extend to the Edwardine clergy, and no one ordained 
 by the Edwardine form was allowed to celebrate Mass 
 or retain his benefice, unless after a new ordination. 
 "The fact is," says Canon Estcourt, "the Anglican 
 orders were completely ignored, and those who had 
 received them were, to all intents and purposes, 
 looked upon as mere laymen." 
 
 That there is, then, an essential difference between 
 the form of the Roman Pontifical, and that of the 
 Edwardine Ordinal, by which Parker is said to have 
 been consecrated, we have shown, and we named, for 
 the benefit of those wishing to know the truth, some 
 Catholic theologians who wrote expressly and pro- 
 fessedly to demonstrate a difference so essential as to 
 make one form valid, and the other invalid, and some 
 theological and popular works easily accessible giving 
 not only the opinion of their authors, but collecting 
 the testimony of a cloud of witnesses, theologians and 
 scholars, all testifying to the unbroken Catholic tradi- 
 tion of the insufficiency and invalidity of all orders 
 conferred according to the new rites devised by Edward,
 
 1 20 THE ED WARDINE ORDINAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 Cranmer, and their worthy compeers. That such has 
 been Catholic tradition and unanimous teaching of 
 theologians since the question was first mooted in the 
 reign of Mary, we confirmed from the invariable prac- 
 tice of the Ghurch in ordaining unconditionally all 
 Anglican prelates and presbyters who, returning to her 
 bosom and the faith of their fathers, wished to exer- 
 cise the holy ministry, and were found worthy to re- 
 ceive the priestly character, and discharge the duties 
 of the 'priestly office. This incontrovertible fact is 
 overwhelming evidence of the mind of the Church re- 
 garding the validity of Anglican orders, and the Or- 
 dinal by which Parker was consecrated. As, however, 
 this is a vital point, we have thought proper to add to 
 the authorities already given the testimony of Dodd, 
 the historian, found in Appendix No. 42, " Dodd's 
 Church History of England," by Canon Tierney, F.R. 
 S., F.S.A.: 
 
 " Though the consecration of bishops and priests, 
 in Henry VIII.'s reign (after the schism happened, and 
 a general interdict and excommunication was pro- 
 nounced against the whole ecclesiastical body), was 
 esteemed uncanonical, and .annulled as to jurisdiction, 
 yet all the time during the said reign, the validity of 
 these consecrations was never contested by the Catho- 
 lic party. But, in the succeeding reign of Edward VI., 
 a considerable alteration being made in doctrinal 
 points, and, among other things, a new Ordinal estab- 
 lished, their ordination was not only looked upon as 
 uncanonical, but also as invalid, upon account of the 
 errors and omissions, which declared the unsufficiency 
 of their Ordinal. The reformers not only struck out 
 the article of obedience to the See of Ronv_- uvhlcli
 
 AS THE A' OMAN PONTIFICAL. \2\ 
 
 rendered their consecration uncanonical, and deprived 
 them of all spiritual jurisdiction), but the most of them 
 renewed the error of Arius, and made no essential dif- 
 ference between the episcopal and sacerdotal character." 
 
 To these errors they added several others, which 
 were directly incompatible with a valid ordination; that, 
 ordination was not a sacrament instituted by Christ, but 
 only a mere ceremony, to appoint a ministry in relig- 
 ious performances; that, all power, both temporal and 
 spiritual, was derived from the civil government, and. 
 namely, from the king ; that, those of the episcopal 
 character could perform nothing effectually towards 
 the validity of their character, without the king's 
 mandate or letters patent ; that, those of the sacerdotal 
 character had no power to offer sacrifice,to consecrate the 
 Holy Eucharist, or to absolve from sin. This was the 
 constant belief of both the consecrators, and of those 
 that were consecrated according to the new Ordinal, 
 to which may be added, that though they had held the 
 orthodox points above mentioned, they made use of a 
 matter and form that was insufficient, and not capable 
 gf conferring that power, which essentially belongs to 
 the episcopal and sacerdotal character ; and that, hav- 
 ing at the same time no intention to confer any orders, 
 but such as were conformable to their errors, which 
 were destructive of Christ's institution, their ordination 
 was, ipso facto, null and invalid. 
 
 These are the considerations Dr. Harding and others 
 went upon, when they denied Jewel's character, and rep- 
 resented the whole body of the reformed clergy to be no 
 other than laymen, excepting such as were consecrated 
 in Henry VIII 's reign, before the new Ordinal, or any 
 other erroneous ceremony of ordination was made use
 
 1 22 THE ED \VA KD1NE ORDINAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 of. For the same considerations, the learned divines 
 of Queen Mary's reign, nay, the convocation, and even 
 the legislative power in Parliament, declared the afore- 
 said bishops and inferior clergy to be invalidly conse- 
 crated ; and actually caused all those to be re-or- 
 dained, in whom they found any essential defect. In 
 the following reign of Queen Elizabeth, the divines of 
 the Catholic party continued in the same opinion, con- 
 cerning the invalidity of Protestant ordinations ; and 
 all were re-ordained, that came over to them, notwith- 
 standing any pretended consecration among them- 
 selves Parker's Register, and the account there given 
 of the consecrators' qualifications, being insignificant 
 in the case, where an essential defect was alleged in the 
 matter, form, and intention of the persons deputed to 
 perform the ceremony." Now, if to this \ve add the 
 testimony of Perrone, whom no one will deny to be a 
 theologian, we shall have gathered for our readers data 
 enough to enable them to form their own judgment 
 about the assertion, that no theologian ever ventured 
 to reject, as essentially invalid, the form of consecra- 
 tion used by Barlow in the consecration of Parker, al-. 
 lowing that he did go through the ceremony at all. 
 ''Anglican orders are deemed null and void, not because 
 they are conferred by heretics and schismatics, but on 
 account both of the interruption of episcopal succes- 
 sion in that sect, and of their form having been essen- 
 tially vitiated ; ob vitiatam essentialiter formam" 
 (Perrone, de ord., cap. iv.) And in this connection, 
 Canon Raynal makes the important remark that the 
 " Revised Ordinal was rejected by the Holy See some 
 years before the alleged December consecration of 
 Parker by Barlow."
 
 AS THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 12 $ 
 
 And Rev. Mr. Waterworth, in his historical lectures, 
 thus refers to the same subject : " It is not here the 
 place to enter into the validity of the orders conferred 
 by the new Ordinal ; it will be sufficient to observe that 
 it was composed principally by men who considered 
 ordination an unnecessary rite ; and that in the ensuing 
 reign, the statute authorizing the Ordinal was repealed, 
 and the ordinations made, in conformity with it, reputed, 
 both by the bishops and Parliament, invalid, principally 
 because the anointing of the candidates, and the por- 
 rection of instruments were omitted, and that no form 
 of words ivas preserved significative of the orders con- 
 ferred. 1 ' Yet in spite of all this, our " Old Catholic," 
 misled by false teachers, stoutly avers that in Queen 
 Mary's time the Pope and his legate, Cardinal Pole, and 
 all Catholics judged King Edward's form of ordination 
 valid. As the pains-taking Canon Estcourt has proved 
 this false, after thoroughly sifting the whole matter, 
 and investigating every particular case, we refer to it 
 again only to show from the true character and tenor 
 of the faculties granted to Cardinal Pole, how little 
 those dispensations which he granted in virtue of those 
 faculties, can be relied upon to prove that the cardinal 
 recognized not only the ordinations celebrated in the 
 schism under Henry VIII., but those also under Edward 
 VI. The cardinal does, indeed, as seen in Statutes I 
 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8., dispense with and re- 
 ceive in their orders and benefices those who should 
 return to the unity of the Church. "Owncs ccclesiasticas 
 personas * * * qiz aliquas impetrarunt dispensattoncs, 
 * tam ordincs quam bcncficia ecclesiastics, /v. .VAX? 
 auctoritatc snprcniitatis ccclcsice Anglicans, lied uuHitcr 
 ct de facto obtinucrint, ct ad cor r ever see cedes he it nit at i
 
 124 
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL NOT THE SAME' 
 
 restitutes fuerint, in snis ordinibus et beneficiis, miseri- 
 corditer recipient es, secum super his opportune in Domino 
 dispensamus" Yet this proves nothing, as the same 
 author shows, because only those are or could be re- 
 ceived back in their orders, who had orders, and this is 
 apparent from the tenor of the faculties which he re- 
 ceived, and which he distinctly explains and interprets 
 himself. In exercising his faculties, as well as in grant-, 
 ing to the reconciled bishops the extraordinary powers 
 which as legate he held, he expressly distinguishes two 
 classes of persons, viz., those who had been ordained 
 during the schism, even unduly, by heretical and schis- 
 matical bishops, yet according to the ancient Catholic 
 rite ; and, secondly, those who held benefices without 
 being ordained. The former were allowed " to exer- 
 cise the sacred orders and the priesthood even, received 
 as aforesaid from heretical and schismatical bishops, 
 even unduly (minus rite), provided that the form and 
 intention of the Church had been preserved ;" the latter 
 might be ordained, if worthy, and retain the benefices 
 if otherwise canonically conferred, whilst numerous 
 instances are adduced to show that those latter were 
 persons who had been ordained according to the new 
 rites, and were acting as Anglican ministers. These, if 
 unmarried and otherwise qualified, were to be ordained 
 and retain their benefices. "And thus," remarks the 
 canon, " Dr. Elrington, Mr. Haddon, Dr. Lee, and 
 other Anglican writers, have been entirely mistaken in 
 referring the words ' minus rite' to ordinations after the 
 Edwardine form." 
 
 The fact then remains, and cannot be controverted, 
 or challenged, that the Pope and cardinal wishing to 
 facilitate the return of the English Church to Catholic
 
 AS THE ROMAN FO<\ ! . FIJAL. 
 
 125 
 
 unity, from which a tyrannical, lustful king had vio- 
 lently torn her, stretched indulgence to the utmost 
 limit, condoned all violations of canonical law and 
 Church discipline, sanctioned whatever was not posi- 
 tively against the substance of God's holy institutions, 
 dispensed with irregularities, and absolved from eccle- 
 siastical censures incurred by receiving holy orders, 
 ' minus rite,' without canonical sanction and approval 
 of the Holy See, from prelates schismatical and here- 
 tical, if only what was essential to the validity of the 
 sacrament was observed ; and hence all the ordinations 
 in Henry's time were recognized because the old form 
 according to the Catholic Pontifical and the ancient 
 English liturgies was used. But not a single instance 
 can be adduced of the recognition or sanction of any 
 ordinations performed in Edward's time, after the 
 adoption of the new Ordinal, because they were abso- 
 lutely intrinsically worthless, and no earthly power 
 could give them force or value, because the sacramen- 
 tal form was substantially destroyed, purposely and 
 wickedly vitiated by men who sought to overturn the 
 whole hierarchical order, by poisoning its very root, men 
 who did not believe in the divine institution of the 
 episcopate or priesthood, the sacrament of the Eucharist 
 or the sacrifice of the Mass. Now, as we are not writ- 
 ing a treatise de online, or de sacramcntis in gcncrc, but 
 reviewing and exposing sophistries and refuting false 
 assertions, we must refer our readers, wishing further 
 information on any of the points which we skim over, 
 to the authors and works already named, or to any 
 recognized hand-book of theological science to be 
 found in our Catholic book-stores. Having shown that 
 we did not quarrel with history when we asserted that
 
 1 26 THE ED WA RDINE OKDfNAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 the Popes never recognized as bishops those ordained 
 by the Ordinal of Edward ; having nailed the false- 
 hood : "that Pope Paul IV., his legate, Cardinal Pole, 
 and all the Papal bishops of England, did this in Queen 
 Mary's time," and this other: "that Rome never pre- 
 tended to doubt the validity of the consecration under 
 the Reformed Ordinal, till she lost hope of regaining 
 the Anglican Church ;" and having, in our own opin- 
 ion at least, shown that Popes, legates, bishops, theo- 
 logians, the whole Church, constantly, unconditionally, 
 without an exception, and with entire unanimity, in 
 teaching and in practice, rejected as worthless the or- 
 ders conferred by Edward's Ordinal, we may proceed 
 to discuss our next point. 
 
 "When Dr. Ryan presumes to object to the Angli- 
 can formula of ordination, I have only to reply that it 
 is the same which was used in England before the Ref- 
 ormation, and is essentially the same on which his own 
 orders depend ' receive ye the Holy Ghost.' " 
 
 Here are three distinct propositions, all equally false 
 and untenable, (i) That the Anglican formula of conse- 
 cration is the same that was used in England before 
 the Reformation ; (2) That it is essentially the same as 
 that on which Dr. Ryan's orders depend ; and, by im- 
 plication, at least, (3) That, "Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost," is the essential formula on which orders in the 
 Catholic Church depend, or the essential sacramental 
 form of ordination. 
 
 Let us examine each of these propositions: (i) The 
 Anglican formula of consecration is the same that was 
 used in England before the Reformation. Did not 
 Edward then appoint a commission composed of six 
 bishops and six others learned in the law to draw up a
 
 AS THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 
 
 127 
 
 new Ordinal, to suit and accompany the new liturgy, 
 recently compiled and introduced, enforced by pains 
 and penalties? Is there not on the statute book of 
 England, an act that reads: " For as much as concord 
 and unity to be had within the king's majesty's domin- 
 ions, it is requisite to have one uniform fashion and 
 manner of making and consecrating of bishops, priests, 
 and deacons, or ministers of the Church, be it therefore 
 enacted, by the king's highness, with the assent of the 
 lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons in this 
 present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of 
 the same, that such form and manner of making and 
 consecrating bishops, priests and deacons, and other 
 ministers of the Church, as by six prelates, and six other 
 men of this realm learned in God's law, by the king's 
 majesty to be appointed and assigned, or by the most 
 number of them, shall be devised for that purpose, 
 shall, by virtue of this present act, be lawfully exercised 
 and used, and none other, any statute or law or usage 
 to the contrary notwithstanding"? (3 and 4 Ed. vi. c. 
 12). Were not several Catholic bishops who saw the 
 tendency and aim of this new Ordinal, and the purpose 
 of its framers and compilers, and on that account re- 
 fused to give their consent or approval to the same, 
 deprived and sent to the Fleet? Or, will any one dare 
 to maintain, that the new Ordinal is the same as the 
 old ? Why, then devise a new one ? Why did the 
 Bishops, Tonstall, Aldrich, Heath, Day and Thirlby 
 protest in Parliament against the commission appointed 
 to compose it? Why did it require penal laws to force 
 the bishops to use it ? Why was Heath punished with 
 inprisonment for refusing to approve it? 
 
 But (2) can any one be bold enough to say that the Or-
 
 ! 28 THE ED WARDINE ORDINAL NO T THE SAME 
 
 dinal, composed by Edward's mixed commission, is the 
 same as the old Sarum Pontifical? or that the meagre, 
 meaningless formula of episcopal consecration: "Take 
 the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the 
 grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of 
 hands ; for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but 
 of power and love, and soberness," is the same as that 
 found in the Gregorian Sacramentary, brought from 
 Rome by St. Augustine ? " The traditional forms," says 
 Canon Raynal, " brought from Rome by St. Augustine 
 in the Gregorian Sacramentary, are found in the Anglo- 
 Saxon Pontificals of Ecgberht, and St. Dunstan, and 
 can be traced from the Roman conquests to the very 
 days of the impious Cranmer. " Dr. Pusey, in his 
 Eirenicon, convicts somebody either of not knowing 
 what he is talking about, or deliberately falsifying 
 facts. " The form adopted at the consecration of Arch- 
 bishop Parker was carefully framed on the old form 
 used in the consecration of Archbishop Chichele a 
 century before. * * * The tradition of that consecra- 
 tion was then " only a century old." Then it was not 
 the formula in use before the Reformation. It had 
 not been used for a whole century. And Dr. Pusey 
 says its use even then was exceptional, " having been 
 resorted to at a time when the English Church did not 
 acknowledge either of the claimants to the Papacy;" 
 and that the form was wholly different from that used 
 in the consecration of the number of archbishops con- 
 secrated in obedience to Papal Bulls. Dr. Pusey's testi- 
 mony then proves clearly that the Anglican formula 
 of ordination was not that used in England before the 
 Reformation, but one whose use was exceptional, and 
 he thinks, " it was of the providence of God that they
 
 AS THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL. 
 
 129 
 
 had that precedent to fall back upon." Now, we need 
 not stop here to tell our readers.that the only possible 
 explanation of this assertion of Dr. Pusey is, as Canon 
 Estcourt remarks, that Chichele was consecrated ac- 
 cording to the form in the Roman Pontifical, in which 
 the words, Accipe Spiritnin Sanctum are found, and not 
 according to the old English Sarum. Nor need we 
 stop to remind Dr. Pusey that it was one of these 
 claimants to the Papacy, viz., Gregory XII., who con- 
 secrated Chichele, bishop of St. David, in the year 
 1408, and that afterwards, in 1414, when promoted to 
 thearchiepiscopal see of Canterbury, he was confirmed 
 by Pope John XXIII. This, by the way, to show how 
 true it is that England did not recognize the authority 
 of the Pope, and that the Pope did not exercise any 
 jurisdiction within that kingdom.
 
 130 
 
 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 X. 
 
 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL, 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 HAVING seen that the Anglican formula of ordina- 
 tion is not the same as that used in England 
 before the Reformation, is not the same as that found 
 in the Sarum Pontifical, or the Gregorian Sacra- 
 mentary brought from Rome by St. Augustine and 
 "used until the time of the impious Cranmer,"we 
 come to the second proposition that the "Anglican 
 formula of ordination is essentially the same as that 
 on which Dr. Ryan's own orders depend," we must 
 remark that our objections are to the formula of 
 consecration said to have been used by Barlow 
 in the consecration of Parker, that devised by 
 Edward and found in the. Ordinal composed by his 
 mixed commission. We do not, however, wish to in- 
 timate that the form now used in the Anglican ordina- 
 tion rite, revised, corrected, and amended as it has 
 been, especially by the' addition made in 1662, is a 
 sufficient or valid form, and we do not care to quarrel 
 with the declaration : " the words added in 1662, while 
 they add something to the dignity of the rite, were 
 never supposed by any body in his senses to add any- 
 thing to its validity." We only wish to avoid confusion
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL. j^j 
 
 by having it understood that in the proposition: "The 
 Anglican formula of ordination is essentially the same 
 as that on which Dr. Ryan's own orders depend," the 
 Edwardine form is meant, for to this alone exceptions 
 are taken, and whether the other is or is not valid, is 
 of no consequence, since it came upwards of one hun- 
 dred years too late to rehabilitate or give force or 
 value to Anglican orders. Dr. Pusey is more candid 
 and more correct than most Anglicans, when he ac- 
 knowledges that the forms used when bishops were 
 consecrated in obedience to Papal Bulls, were wholly 
 different from that used at Parker's consecration. Now, 
 as, not only all the bishops of England, from the in- 
 troduction of Christianity into the island were always 
 consecrated in obedience to Papal Bulls until Henry, 
 bullying a weak and servile hierarchy and Parliament, 
 ordained that bishops should be consecrated only in 
 obedience to his royal Bulls, but also, we, and all the 
 Catholic bishops of Christendom of the Latin rite have 
 been consecrated in obedience to Papal Bulls and by 
 the forms found in the Roman Pontifical, the form on 
 which our orders depend, was, to say the least, even 
 according to Dr. Pusey, very different from the Angli- 
 can formula. Can they then be essentially the same ? 
 We hold they are essentially different and precisely be- 
 cause purposely, de industria, Cranmer and his Cal- 
 vinistic co-laborers, in framing the new Ordinal, modi- 
 fied, altered and omitted what we regard as essential 
 in the ancient rite, and thus made the new, reformed 
 Ordinal, substantially and essentially at variance with 
 the Roman Pontifical. We beg our friend to take the 
 Mechlin edition of the Roman Pontifical, to which he 
 in a foot-note refers, and which he presumably has, or
 
 132 
 
 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 if not, we will cheerfully loan him the one now before 
 us, and compare it with his own Ordinal. 
 
 It would occupy too much of our space to 
 show all the points wherein they differ, even all es- 
 sential points, at least, what we deem essential points, 
 and hence we can here only insist that a careful and 
 critical examination of the Anglican forms of making, 
 ordaining and consecrating bishops, priests and dea- 
 cons will reveal the fact which the " Question of An- 
 glican Ordinations," draws out lengthily, conclusively, 
 viz. : that they were framed purposely with a view of 
 excluding the idea of sacramental efficacy, or a conse- 
 crated character impressed on the soul. They recognize 
 no divine gift of grace or power communicated through 
 the rite, conferred by the sacrament ; that, alterations, 
 omissions and novel additions to the liturgy and Pon- 
 tificals have been made with set purpose and design to 
 introduce the newly invented doctrine of- the Reform- 
 ers, to destroy the spirit and sacramental idea of the 
 holy rite of ordination. Too late the schismatical 
 Bishops, Heath, Day and Tonstall perceived what 
 Gardiner and Bonner had realized from the start that 
 Cranmer was bent on the destruction of the English 
 hierarchy, the divine institution of the priesthood and 
 the holy sacrifice, by tampering with the form of the 
 sacrament of the Holy Orders ; and they protested 
 against the appointment of a commission to devise a 
 new form of consecrating and ordaining bishops, priests, 
 deacons and other ministers. "The commission, how- 
 ever," says Canon Raynal, " obtained the sanction of 
 the Great Seal for their newly devised forms, and with- 
 out further trouble forced them upon the bishops. 
 This was in sober truth the dismantling of the f^r-
 
 THE EDWARD1NE ORDINAL. 
 
 133 
 
 tress." In the form of ordination to the priesthood : 
 " there is no indication of looking for a gift of grace 
 peculiar to the order, nor for any interior con- 
 secration, nor for any special power of priesthood ; 
 such a gift of grace as communicated through 
 the imposition of hands, is unasked for, unrecog- 
 nized, unknown ; it is completely ignored. Those 
 parts of the ancient Catholic rite which indicated such 
 grace are omitted, and the portions of the ceremony 
 still retained are so changed as to exclude any such 
 idea. The forms and phrases used are either new, or 
 else applied in a sense quite different from that under- 
 stood by the Catholic Church." In the Edwardine form 
 of consecrating bishops, " the few slight phrases of the 
 Pontifical that are preserved, show that the compilers 
 had the ancient form before them, and that while 
 keeping up a pretence of the same thing, they delib- 
 erately altered it, in order to reduce it to the Lutheran 
 and Zuinglian notions of a mere admission to an of- 
 fice and a trial before a congregation." " There is no 
 mention of the functions of a bishop, as in the Pontifi- 
 cal, ' Episcopum oportet judicarc, inter pretari come cr arc, 
 confirmare, or dinar e, offwreei baptizare.' The functions 
 alluded to in the new Ordinal are, ' to govern, to in- 
 struct, to teach, and exhort, to convince gainsayers, to 
 drive away erroneous doctrine, to correct and punish,' 
 though in 1662, ' to ordain' was added. But as it stood 
 at first, there was no allusion to administering any sac- 
 rament, or to anything requiring the power of order." 
 Again, as a proof that the Anglican form of conse- 
 crating is not the same as that of the Roman Pontifi- 
 cal, please to note the very serious and essential omis- 
 sion in the former of the two prayers of the Pontifical
 
 134 
 
 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 having special reference to the grace of the episcopal 
 order: "Be propitious, O Lord, to our supplications, 
 and turning over on this thy servant the horn (that 
 is, abundance, or plenitude) of sacerdotal grace, pour 
 out to him the power of thy benediction." " And 
 therefore grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to this, thy 
 servant, whom Thou hast chosen unto the ministry of 
 the High Priesthood. * * * Complete, O Lord, in 
 thy priest the sum (or perfection) of thy ministry." In 
 fact, as Canon Estcourt remarks, whilst " certain ex- 
 pressions are retained and taken from the prayer an- 
 ciently called ' Consecratio,' every phrase that expresses 
 a divine power, an authority coming from God, a 
 sacramental efficacy, is studiously omitted. There is 
 no prayer for the gift of the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven, nor of the power of binding and loosing, nor 
 of the episcopal chair to rule the Church and people 
 committed to him. Almighty God is not asked to be 
 his authority, his power, his firmness. He is to be 
 ready to preach the gospel and glad tidings of recon- 
 cilement ; but the ministry of reconciliation is not 
 given to him. He is to be the faithful and wise ser- 
 vant giving the Lord's family meat in due season, but 
 not one whom God sets over his family. Even ' the 
 power which Thou dost bestow' (as the Pontifical has 
 it), is changed into ' the authority given him,' leaving 
 the source of the authority untold. And when we 
 look back in order to know what the authority is, we 
 find only, ' such authority as ye have by God's word, 
 and as to you shall be committed by the ordinance 
 of this realm.' Thus the prayer is only for grace to 
 fulfil certain duties, and it does not ask for, nor recog- 
 nize any sacramental gift whatever." And this is
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL. ^5 
 
 just what we might expect from the well known, and 
 often and publicly avowed sentiments of the compil- 
 ers of the Ordinal. This ought to be more than 
 enough to show that the formula of ordination of the 
 Edwardine Ordinal, on which hang the validity of 
 Parker's consecration, and the orders of the Anglican 
 Church, is not essentially the same as that of the 
 Roman Pontifical, on which depend Catholic orders. 
 But (3), as some seem to regard nothing as es- 
 sential but the words : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," 
 we will now try to prove that this proposition is as false 
 and untenable as the other two ; that " Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost,"* cannot be the sole essential form of 
 episcopal consecration. One simple syllogism should 
 be enough to settle this point. That cannot be the 
 sole essential form of consecration, which was not 
 known in the Church, used in ordination of a bishop, 
 or found in any Pontifical earlier than the I3th century. 
 But the formula, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost" was not 
 known in the rite of episcopal ordination, and is not 
 found in any Pontifical or Sacramentary earlier than the 
 1 3th century, therefore it cannot be the sole essential 
 form of consecration. Some one, then, has been again 
 misled by his. usual blind guides. Mason, an author- 
 ity for our friend, admits the necessity of a sacramental 
 form in Holy Order, and that, for the validity of this 
 form, its words should denote the special order con- 
 ferred and the power given. But the words, " Receive 
 ye the Holy Ghost," do not express the special office, 
 order or power conferred, therefore they cannot be the 
 sole sacramental form of episcopal consecration. Yet, 
 with strange inconsistency, and a boldness of assertion 
 and disregard of logic, worthy even of some one whom
 
 ^6 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 we know, he gravely maintains, that : " If the imposi- 
 tion of hands be the sole essential matter of the epis- 
 copate (as all theologians are agreed that the words 
 which are pronounced whilst the matter is used, con- 
 stitute the form), the words 'Accipe Spirititm Sanc- 
 tum,' (Receive the Holy Ghost) must be the sole 
 essential form, and as these, are found in the Edwardine 
 form, the bishops of the Anglican Church must be true 
 bishops." Hereupon Canon Raynal remarks : " Mason 
 evidently did not know the fact that the words 'Accipc 
 Spiritum Sanctum,' were comparatively a recent ad- 
 dition to the episcopal form, and being a recent addition, 
 could not be the sole essential form. Otherwise the epis- 
 copate was never validly conferred during a thousand 
 years." And referring to the illogical conclusion which 
 Mason draws from his incorrect premises, Dr. Champ- 
 ney says : " It is a marvel to me, that he should so 
 peremptorily say, that their bishops are ordained with 
 true matter and form. But he doth well to be bold in 
 affirming, for a good face sometimes helpeth out an 
 ill game." 
 
 Many other reasons might be assigned why these 
 words, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," as they are found 
 in the Edwardine Ordinal, cannot be the sole essential 
 or sufficient form of episcopal consecration. They do 
 not indicate the order or express the distinctive char- 
 acter or power of the episcopacy ; they are vague and 
 indeterminate ; they are used alike, and with equal 
 fitness in the ordination of a bishop, a priest and a 
 deacon; and in the form used in the Anglican Church^ 
 until 1662, when Cosin and others thought fit to make 
 the change, there was not a syllable in the form for 
 consecrating bishops to determine which order it was
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL. 
 
 137 
 
 intended to confer. In fact it is, as Dr. Milner observes, 
 "just as proper for. the ceremony of confirming or lay- 
 ing hands upon children as for conferring the powers 
 of the episcopacy." But let us see how our Buffalo 
 critic maintains the sufficiency of this form, "Receive 
 ye the Holy Ghost." " As these were," he argues, 
 " the only words used by Christ Himself in giving the 
 Apostolic commission, it may be well asked, what more 
 can be needed to continue it?" Here, indeed, is some- 
 thing to astonish us ! "As these were the only words 
 used by Christ Himself in giving the Apostolic com- 
 mission" ! ! Surely, he must have written that sen- 
 tence for us, poor benighted Papists, who are not al- 
 lowed to read our Bibles! or he could not have haz- 
 arded such an assertion. However, not trusting our 
 memory in opposition to so positive an affirmation, we 
 turn to the holy gospel to verify what sounds 
 strangely to us. Opening the gospel according to St. 
 Matthew, we find no mention of these words, but we 
 do find our Lord giving the Apostolical commission 
 with authority to teach, and baptize, and discharge all 
 the functions consequent thereon in the well-known 
 words: "All power is given to me in heaven and on 
 earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ; baptiz- 
 ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you : and behold 
 lam with you all days, unto the end of the world." 
 (Matt, xxviii. 18, et seq.) Most interpreters would 
 take these words as giving the Apostolic commission 
 and assuring its perpetuity. 
 
 Coming next to St. Mark's gospel, we again search 
 in vain for the words, which, we are told, are the only
 
 138 THE INSUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ones used by Christ in giving the Apostolic commission. 
 We do, indeed, -find such words as these : " Go ye into 
 the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
 He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved, but 
 he that believeth not, shall be condemned." (Mark 
 xvi., 15, 16.) Once more we turn to St. Luke, and 
 still find no trace of these words, though the risen 
 Saviour declares to His Apostles that "penance and 
 the remission of sins should be preached in His name 
 among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and ye 
 are witnesses of these things. And I send the prom- 
 ise of my Father upon you." (Luke xxiv., 47, 48, 
 49.) In the gospel according to St. John we find the 
 world's Redeemer on the first day of the week entering 
 where the disciples were gathered together: " He said 
 therefore to them again : Peace be to you : as the 
 Father hath sent me, I also send you. When He had 
 said this He breathed on them and said 'to them : Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins ye shall forgive 
 they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain 
 they are retained." (John xx., 21, 22, 23.) Now how 
 can the man say in the face of an intelligent Bible- 
 reading community that, " Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost," were the only words used by Christ, in giving 
 the Apostolic commission? He gave h^s apostles their 
 commission when he bade them go teach all nations, 
 preach the gospel, and baptize in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He 
 gave them power and authority to fulfil this commis- 
 sion, when He sent them, as He had been sent by His 
 Father ; He breathed into their souls the grace and 
 power of the Holy Ghost to enable them to execute 
 and perpetuate the divine commission until the end of
 
 THE EDWARDINE ORDINAL. 
 
 139 
 
 time, and He clearly intimates among the duties and 
 powers contained in the commission, and communi- 
 cated to them by the same, the duty and power of 
 forgiving sin in His name, "whose sins ye shall forgive, 
 they are forgiven them ; and whose sins ye shall retain 
 they are retained," Surely, no man with this page of 
 the gospel open before him, can say that " Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost," were the only words spoken by our 
 Lord when commissioning His Apostles, or that these, 
 more than the other words spoken on the same occa- 
 sion, were intended by the Saviour as the essential 
 form of the sacrament of orders or the rite of ordina- 
 tion by which that commission was to be continued.
 
 140 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 XI. 
 
 DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD, CONTINUED. 
 
 IN establishing our thesis that the form of consecra- 
 tion by which Barlow is said to have consecrated 
 Parker, was altogether an insufficient and invalid form, 
 invalidating all the orders in the Anglican Church, we 
 have had to meet and disprove the assertions: (i)that 
 such- was the form used in England before the Reforma- 
 tion ; (2) that it is substantially identical with the form 
 of the Pontifical by which we ourselves were con- 
 recrated ; (3) that Receive ye the Holy Ghost is the es- 
 sential and the only essential form of. episcopal conse- 
 cration ; and that these were the only words used by 
 Christ in giving the Apostolic commission. How very 
 unwarranted and untenable these assertions are must 
 be apparent to every reader who has followed up the dis- 
 cussion, and what amazes us is that such totally 
 groundless assertions could have been published by 
 any one pretending to historical and ecclesiastical 
 knowledge. But there is really no limit to boldness 
 of assertion, and in the interest of truth, and for the 
 sake of the simple and unwary who may have no 
 chance of examining or ever seeing any Catholic 
 authors, we must still further follow up and expose the 
 errors, falsehoods, and fallacies of this writer, pub-
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. ! 4I 
 
 lished here, on the subject of the Ordinal of Edward 
 and the Roman Pontifical. Thus he writes: 
 
 " His (our) own Pontifical is certainly less explicit 
 on this point (of the form) than the Ordinal of Edward ; 
 for while in both we have the formula, Receive the 
 Holy Ghost, there is nothing more in the Pontifical ; 
 while the Ordinal goes on with the very words of the 
 Holy Ghost to a bishop, thus defining the precise 
 charisma bestowed by the laying on of hands." We 
 are inclined to ask, at reading the above extracts, that, 
 The Pontifical is less explicit than the Ordinal of 
 Edward, and that : In the Pontifical there is nothing more 
 than the bare words, Receive the Holy Ghost, has the 
 gentleman ever seen or read the Pontifical published at 
 Mechlin, to which he refers ? If he has, he either does 
 not understand its language, and has merely copied 
 second-hand statements of false teachers, or he is, in 
 bad faith, trying to deceive those who perhaps will never 
 have an opportunity of seeing a Pontifical. Is that 
 fair and honest in a minister of religion ? We are then 
 tempted to quote here the most beautiful and appro- 
 priate prayers of .the Pontifical which immediately 
 follow ihe"Accipe Spiritum Sanctum," " Receive the 
 Holy Ghost," prayers that really determine and express 
 the order of the episcopacy, the plenitude of the priest- 
 hood, the High Priesthood, the sum or completeness 
 and perfection of the ministry, figured in the Levitical 
 law by the priesthood of Aaron ; prayers which ac- 
 tually and explicitly define what the vague and un- 
 meaning form of Edward's Ordinal positively does not 
 the special graces and precise charisma bestowed by 
 the laying on of hands. Though somewhat lengthy, these 
 beautiful prayers of the ordination service in the
 
 142 TH E XOMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 Pontifical will well repay a perusal, and, more forci- 
 bly than any words of ours, they will evince how 
 utterly unreliable is our Buffalo controversialist. 
 
 " Be propitious, O Lord, to our supplications, and 
 as the horn of sacerdotal grace is outpoured upon 
 these Thy servants, do Thou send down upon them 
 the strength of Thy blessing. Through," etc. 
 
 " O God of all honors, God of all dignities which in 
 sacred Order minister to Thy glory; O God, in the 
 secret and familiar converse with Thy servant, Moses, 
 amongst other directions for Divine worship, Thou 
 didst prescribe also the forms of the priestly attire, 
 and didst command Aaron, Thy elect, to be vested in 
 mystic robes when offering sacrifice; in order that. pos- 
 terity might hereafter derive knowledge from the 
 usages of the ancients, and the instruction of doctrine 
 might not fail at any time. Mere symbolism won rever- 
 ence amongst those of old, but to us realities were to 
 be more familiar than mystic figures. Thus the attire 
 of the ancient priesthood is a symbol of the adornment 
 of our mind, and it is no longer the honor of garment, 
 but beauty of soul, that renders Pontifical glory com- 
 mendable unto us. Yea, even in former times, they 
 looked more to the mystic significance of things than 
 to the pleasure they gave the carnal sight. Where- 
 fore, O Lord, we beseech Thee to bestow Thy grace 
 upon these, Thy servants, whom Thou hast chosen to 
 the ministry of the High Priesthood, that whatsoever 
 was signified in those garments by the brightness of 
 gold, the splendor of gems, and the variety of em- 
 broidery, may shine forth in their lives and in their 
 actions. Perfect in Thy priests the fulness of Thy 
 ministry ; clothe them with every adornment of glory,
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 143 
 
 and sanctify them with the outpouring of heavenly 
 unguent. May it. O Lord, flow abundantly upon their 
 heads, may it bedew their lips, and overspread their 
 whole frame, that the strength of Thy Spirit may in- 
 wardly replenish them, and clothe them outwardly. 
 Let steadfast faith, pure love, and sincere peace abound 
 in them. 
 
 " Place them in the Episcopal Chair to rule Thy 
 Church and the whole of Thy people. Be Thou unto 
 them authority, power, and strength; multiply upon 
 them Thy blessing and Thy grace, that, rendered worthy 
 by Thy bounty to invoke Thy name, they may also be- 
 come holy through Thy grace. Through," etc. 
 
 These prayers of the Pontifical are identical with 
 those of the Leonine Sacramentary, so called from 
 Pope St. Leo the Great, who sat in the chair of Peter, 
 A. D. 440-461, to whom they are attributed. Even 
 'if he be not the author, for some seem to question it, 
 the Sacramentary that bears his name is the oldest 
 liturgical work extant in the Church either East or 
 West, and antedates by centuries the liturgies con- 
 taining the words, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ;" 
 which, though now an integral part of the form of con- 
 secration, are comparatively of recent origin. Courayer 
 himself admits that the form " Receive tJie Holy Ghost 
 was not observed for many ages in the primitive 
 Church." It is strange, then, but true, as a contem- 
 porary author remarks, that "the Reformers, pretend- 
 ing to go back to ancient rites, were misled by a blind 
 adherence to their Popish doctors, the mediaeval 
 schoolmen, who taught that the imperative form of 
 ordination, and the delivery of the instruments were 
 essential and of more importance than the prayers
 
 144 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 from the ancient Sacrainentaries. This seems like a 
 retribution for their unauthorized and sacrilegious 
 meddling with the sacred traditions of the Church." 
 But as we have transcribed the prayers of the Pontifi- 
 cal which are most commonly regarded as the form of 
 episcopal consecration, and as we have been speaking 
 of the Anglican form devised by Edward VI., and re- 
 vised and augmented in the reign of Charles II., we 
 will now place the latter in juxtaposition before our 
 readers, that they may compare them with one another, 
 and with the prayers of the Pontifical given above : 
 Form of consecrating Bishops Form of consecration amended 
 
 devised by Edward VI., 
 in 1549. 
 
 "Take the Holy Ghost, 
 and remember that thou 
 stir up the grace of God, 
 which is in thee by the 
 imposition of hands; for 
 God has not given us 
 the spirit of fear, but of 
 power, and love and sober- 
 ness." 
 
 by convocation in 1662. 
 
 " Receive the Holy Ghost 
 for the office and work of 
 a bishop in the Church 
 of God, committed unto 
 thee by the imposition of 
 our hands; in the name 
 of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost. And remember 
 that thou stir up the grace 
 of God, which is given 
 thee, by this imposition 
 of our hands ; for God 
 hath not given us the 
 spirit of fear, but of power 
 and love and soberness." 
 
 "But the Ordinal," says the writer, "goes on with 
 the very words of the Holy Ghost to a bishop." This 
 again is disingenuous and deceitful. These words r.rc
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 145 
 
 simply the admonition of St. Paul to Timothy, to stir 
 up the grace of God which he had already received, 
 and though they prove, as Catholic divines teach, that 
 grace is conferred in the sacrament of orders, and that, 
 consequently, it has one of the necessary conditions or 
 requisites of a sacrament of the new law, viz. : the con- 
 ferring of grace, they do not define the precise charisma 
 bestoivcd by the laying on of hands / they do not indicate 
 the communication of the episcopal character, the con- 
 ferring of the episcopal order; they are consequently 
 insufficient, and the form is still, in spite of them, an 
 invalid form. "Do these words, then, "we are asked, 
 " detract from grace ?" Not at all. Who ever said or 
 even insinuated that they did ? 
 
 But he continues : " The words added in 1662, while 
 they add something to the dignity of the rite, were 
 never supposed by anybody in his senses to add any- 
 thing to its validity." Transcat, we are certainly under 
 no obligation to defend the validity of the new rite, 
 but mark now the sophisty : " If the lack of them (the 
 words added in 1662) deprives the older Ordinal of 
 validity, then the same lack must deprive Catholic con- 
 secration of validity." That there was a lack of some- 
 thing essential- in the Edwardine form was apparent 
 from the commencement to all who believed in the 
 divine institution of the episcopate and the sacra- 
 mental character of Holy Orders. The reformers were 
 upbraided by the Catholics and Puritans alike with the 
 insufficiency of -the new rite to establish episcopacy. 
 The Catholics openly accused the compilers of a design 
 to blot out the episcopacy as a divine vocation con- 
 ferring, jiire divino, special powers, and imparting 
 special graces, of making bishops merely " ecclesastical ,
 
 146 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 sheriffs," subject to the orders and bidding of the king, 
 levelling down all the different orders of the hierarchy, 
 thus abolishing all distinction between bishops and 
 priests by making no essential difference in the form 
 of ordaining both. " In nothing," says Dr. Milner, 
 " does Cranmer's spirit of Presbyterianism appear so 
 plain as in his form of consecrating bishops." Thus, 
 we see the Edwardi.ne form, by the express design of its 
 framers, actually did what the Pope and Catholic divines 
 are falsely accused of doing, viz. : it destroyed the epis- 
 copal order, and the Presbyterians of the i/th century 
 protested against Anglican bishops being admitted into 
 the House of Lords, to which they had no more right, 
 they maintained, than their own ministers, and they 
 called on the Anglican Church to disavow all episcopal 
 rights and privileges, " since in the ordination of her 
 clergy, she invariably used forms which established no 
 distinction between the episcopate and the priesthood." 
 The Kirk of Scotland openly asserted the existence of 
 bishops in the Anglican Church to be incompatible with 
 the use of forms destructive of the episcopate. Bishop 
 Burnet acknowledges in his " History of the Reforma- 
 tion," that in Edward's Ordinal " there was no express 
 mention made in the ordination of a priest and a bishop 
 of any words to determine that it was to the one or the 
 other office the person was ordained, and that this 
 having been made use of to prove both functions the 
 same, and that the Church esteemed them one order, 
 the form was altered of late years as it is now." There' 
 was then felt to be a lack of something in the Edwardin 
 form, and Bishop Cosin and his associates in convocation 
 in 1662 undertook to supply what was lacking. 
 Whether it was with a view to silence the clamors of
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 '47 
 
 the Dissenters, or to meet the objections of the Catho- 
 lics, or to quiet the scruples of Anglican bishops of the 
 Laudian school, who, after the restoration of the Stuart 
 king, and after having been brought during a foreign 
 exile in contact with Catholic bishops, had conceived 
 other and truer notions of their own dubious orders, is 
 of little consequence to us or to our argument, though 
 it looks a little suspicious, that convocation regarded 
 the change as something more than merely adding to 
 the dignity of the rite. 
 
 All the circumstances of that change taken together 
 and duly considered, there is no doubt in our mind that 
 convocation aimed at supplying essential defects in- 
 validating the form, pointed out by Catholic divines, 
 and especially by a learned convert from Protestantism, 
 Rev. John Lewgar, in a polemical work styled "Erastus 
 Senior" published precisely at the time of the sitting 
 of convocation. We conclude then with Dr. Kenrick 
 that, " If the forms devised by Edward VI. were suffi- 
 cient, the convocation of 1662, by changing them, es- 
 pecially in those points in which their validity had been 
 assailed, inflicted a wound on the character of English 
 orders, which it will be extremely difficult to heal or 
 remove. If the forms of Edward VI. were not suffi- 
 cient, the change came one hundred and three years 
 too late ! Hence, whichever opinion be adopted, the 
 validity of English orders has been most seriously com- 
 promised by those who should have maintained it." 
 But now, please to note this style of argumentation : 
 " If the lack of these words deprives the older Ordinal 
 of validity, then the same lack must deprive Catholic 
 consecration of validity." What wonderful logical acu- 
 men. Who would ever think of asserting that it was
 
 I4 8 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 the lack of these words, added in 1662, which rendered 
 the older Ordinal insufficient, and the Edwardine form 
 invalid : and that because these precise words, which 
 Bishop Cosin and his brethren in convocation devised to 
 remedy the defects of their jejune form of conse- 
 cration are not found in the Roman Pontifical, there- 
 fore, all consecrated by that old and venerable liturgy 
 which dates back for centuries before Cosin lived, or 
 Cranmer apostatized, or king and Parliament arrogated 
 to themselves the right or power to establish the 
 ''manner of making and consecrating of bishops, 
 priests," etc., are not validly consecrated. There was 
 indeed a lack, and a patent and fatal lack, in the form 
 of Edward's Ordinal, but that lack originated precisely 
 because Cranmer and his co-laborers, appointed and au- 
 thorized by act of Parliament to establish " a uniform 
 fashion and manner of making and consecrating 
 bishops," changed and modified and adulterated the 
 form of the Pontifical, and the old English liturgies, 
 of Sarum, York, Lincoln and Bangor, and omitted 
 in their new Ordinal the prayers and form of the 
 Roman Pontifical, already cited, containing what all 
 Catholic antiquity regarded as essential to valid or- 
 dination. It is indeed too funny for anything, to be 
 told that we, with the traditional forms and liturgies 
 of the Christian Church from the earliest ages, cannot 
 have what is essential to a valid ordination, and what 
 is lacking in Cranmer's forms, because, forsooth, we have 
 not inserted in our Pontifical, Cosin's corrected and en- 
 larged forms, or the words added in 1662 to the Angli- 
 can Ordinal. We are again asked, whether we are ig- 
 norant that "the Roman Pontifical is modern in many 
 particulars, and has been often changed ?"
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 149 
 
 The Roman Pontifical is that of Clement VIII. and 
 Urban VIII., revised, as we read on its title page, and 
 corrected by the illustrious and learned Benedict XIV., 
 with additions approved by the Sacred Congregation 
 of Rites. Benedict XIV. was born in 1685, and elected 
 Pope in 1740, and consequently the authorized edition 
 of the Roman Pontifical is comparatively modern. But 
 we also know that if at times the Church authorizes a 
 new edition of her pontifical and liturgical works, and 
 adds some words, and prayers, such as, for instance. 
 " Receive the Holy Ghost," which we have shown to 
 be a comparatively modern addition, authorized, and 
 made by the sanction and approval of the Church an 
 integral part of the form, or if she omits some prayers 
 and forms of blessing that have fallen into desuetude, 
 and thus adapts her ritual to the wants and present 
 discipline of the Church, it is not at the dictation of a 
 boy-king, or in obedience to a Somerset and a War- 
 wick ; it is not in virtue of an act of Parliament en- 
 forced by pains and penalties, or through an acknowl- 
 edged necessity, because her liturgy was deemed in- 
 sufficient for the valid administration of the sacra- 
 ments, rendering her orders doubtful, her ministrations 
 unsafe, her hierarchy insecure. We know, and this lets 
 out the venom of the charge, that, whatever changes, 
 additions or omissions have thus been made by her in 
 virtue of her own divine right, under warrant and 
 sanction of her God-given authority, as a perfect spir- 
 itual society having power to regulate her own disci- 
 pline, manage her own internal affairs, and to enact her 
 own laws, they have never affected the substance of 
 the sacraments, have never materially or substantially 
 altered the sacramental forms. We hold with Benedict
 
 150 THE KOMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 XIV., and the Council of Trent, that Christ has given 
 to his Church power to ordain or change any rites or 
 ceremonies in the dispensation of the sacraments that 
 do not affect their substance, salva illoram substantial, 
 but that may contribute to the edification of the peo- 
 ple, the utility of the recipient, or the veneration and 
 dignity of the sacraments themselves. The matter 
 and form appertain to the substance of the sacraments, 
 and therefore the matter and form are invariable, and 
 the Roman Pontifical of to-day is substantially iden- 
 tical, as to the matter and form of Holy Orders, with 
 the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, 
 with the old English Pontificals, and with the Orien- 
 tal liturgies. King Edward's Ordinal on the contrary is 
 substantially different from all these, and therefore we 
 say : Please, dear sir, to redeem the pledge given in 
 these bantering terms : " His (our) most learned Cath- 
 olic authors can construct no argument in behalf of 
 the Pontifical's present form, which does not equally 
 cover our case. This I am prepared to show him at 
 large when he presents me with such an argument." 
 We flatter ourselves that we have presented such an 
 argument, but we beg the gentleman not to refer us, as 
 he seems inclined to do, to his ordinary authorities for 
 reasons already stated, and which may be found more 
 at large in chap, viii., " Ordinal of Edward VI.," by 
 Dom. Wilfrid Raynal, O.S.B. We want facts, argu- 
 ments and historic documents, and if we refer to and 
 use freely, both with and without acknowledgment. 
 Catholic authors, particularly^ Kenrick, Estcourt and 
 Raynal, we wish our readers to attach importance or 
 weight to their writings only as they find their argu- 
 ments convincing, their reasonings conclusive, their con-
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. i$i 
 
 elusions irresistible, their assertions warranted by the 
 records of history, their facts undeniable. We have, 
 perhaps, spun out too lengthily this point of the inade- 
 quacy of the Edwardine Ordinal, and invalidity of An- 
 glican orders, but the vital importance of the subject 
 must be our apology. 
 
 We are anxious to conclude this question of Ang- 
 lican orders, on which we have expatiated at much 
 greater length than we originally designed, but the 
 subject grew on us insensibly, especially as we were in 
 some sort forced into the discussion of several questions 
 in order to expose and refute theological blunderings, 
 historical inaccuracies, erroneous statements and 
 unscrupulous falsifications of facts, connected with the 
 matter in dispute. We need hardly notice again what 
 we find again so positively, yet so falsely asserted and 
 reiterated : " The words added in our Ordinal in 1660 
 ('62 ?) make the old formula more explicit, not a whit 
 more sufficient, for the formula itself remains as it was 
 in the old Ordinals; and as it is still in the Romish 
 Pontifical." The falsehood of this assertion is already 
 proved and patent, but its reiteration is something 
 amazing, as anyone who will take the trouble to com- 
 pare any of the old, ante-Reformation Sacramentaries, 
 and the present Roman Pontifical with the unrevised 
 Edwardine Ordinal, will at once see its glaring falsehood. 
 "The words, Receive the Holy Ghost." he continues, 
 "are used in both (the Roman Pontifical a'nd Edward's 
 Ordinal) as sufficient to complete a solemnity which 
 preceding words have defined to be the consecration 
 of a bish >p." Now let us remember that, as we before 
 declared, the words, " Receive the Holy Ghost," were 
 not at all in the older Ordinals, and in the Roman
 
 152 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 Pontifical they were not used as sufficient to complete 
 the consecration of a bishop. These words now used 
 in the consecration of a bishop constitute an integral 
 part of the form, and the Council of Trent has defined 
 that the Holy Ghost is given in Holy Orders, and that 
 the bishops say not in vain " Receive the Holy Ghost," 
 but the Council has not defined or insinuated that 
 these words are the form of the .sacrament of orders, 
 nor does the Pontifical teach that these words aresuf- 
 ficent for the consecration of a bishop. The Church 
 has not defined what precise words do constitute the 
 sacramental form of Holy Orders and are positively 
 essential to its valid administration, and theologians 
 have held different opinions on the subject, but all 
 hold that in orders, as in "baptism, the sacramental 
 form is contained in the words or prayers used in the 
 application of the matter, and that there must be at 
 least a moral union between them, so that whilst the 
 minister pronounces the words of the form, he may be 
 morally supposed to perform the act denoting the 
 special nature of the sacrament which he confers, and 
 signifying the special effects produced, and determining 
 the special character impressed on the soul, or sacra- 
 mental grace infused. 
 
 It will not do, then, for any one following Courayer 
 and other Anglican writers, to say that words preced- 
 ing the form sufficiently determine the meaning of the 
 form, and define the solemnity to be the consecration 
 of a bishop. Would he acknowledge, for instance, the 
 validity of a baptism in which the determining words, 
 " I baptize thee," were omitted, on the .plea that the 
 preliminary interrogatories, and ceremonies, and 
 prayers, sufficiently indicated that it was the sacra-
 
 THE ORDINAL OF ED WARD. 
 
 'S3 
 
 ment of baptism which the minister intended to confer ? 
 We think not ; at least Catholics would not, and Pope 
 Alexander III. has pronounced invalid, baptism in 
 which these words " I baptize thee" were omitted, and 
 merely the words " in the name of the Father," etc., said 
 whilst the water was poured ; not, as a learned canonist 
 remarks, because these precise words were omitted, for 
 the G reeks do not use these identical words, but " because 
 the act which is performed by the minister is not re- 
 garded as sufficiently expressive," does not sufficiently 
 determine the special object of the sacrament. The 
 same eminent divine (von Espen) affirms that Eugenius 
 IV., in his famous decree to the Armenians, " clearly 
 intimates that the expression of the ministerial act in 
 baptism is necessary for its effect ; thus anxiously re- 
 quiring that the act. which is exercised by the minister 
 should be expressed." From this Canon Raynal, from 
 whom we largely borrow, argues : " What has been said 
 of the form of Baptism, will hold good in regard to 
 Holy Orders, and an expression of the ministerial act 
 which determines the special character conferred by 
 the imposition of hands, is absolutely necessary for the 
 validity of the sacramental forms of the sacred orders." 
 But in the form by which Parker was consecrated, or 
 in the words, " Receive the Holy Ghost," there is no 
 such expression of a ministerial act determining the 
 special character conferred, or defining the rite to be 
 the- consecration of a bishop, and no preceding words 
 can supply for this essential defect in the Edwardine 
 form. Canon Estcourt produces the testimony of 
 Richard Broughton, a Catholic writer, on the Thirty- 
 nine Articles in 16^2, \vhich bears so strongly on this 
 subject of the Anglican lunn, which .s so persistently
 
 154 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 maintained to be the same as that of the Roman Pon- 
 tifical, and the same as that on which our own claims to 
 be a bishop must depend, that we cannot resist the 
 temptation of quoting it : 
 
 " And these Protestants' form of making their pre- 
 tended bishops, is also utterly overthrown. * * * For 
 there is not one singular or privileged thing, sign, cere- 
 mony, word or act, that may by probable or possible 
 means give episcopal order ; * * * for here is no more 
 done or said than was in their making of pretended 
 priests or ministers before ; for these, the same were 
 their ceremony, and words: 'Receive the Holy Ghost.' 
 Here is no material difference ; a bishop is pretended 
 consecrator in both alike ; the ceremony of laying on 
 of hands is the same ; the words spoken do not differ ; 
 in both there is the same sentence and sense. * * * In 
 the pretended ordination of bishops there is no power 
 at all given, but the party only put in mind or admon- 
 ished to stir up that grace, which was in him before 
 the very same words which St. Paul, absent, wrote to 
 St. Timothy, long after he had consecrated him priest." 
 We do not think it necessary for our purpose, in this 
 little treatise, and to justify our rejection of the Anglican 
 form, to examine the theological question, whether these 
 words, " Receive the Holy Ghost," in the mouth of a 
 Catholic bishop, united in faith, and in full accord with 
 the Catholic Church regarding Holy Orders, the priest- 
 hood, and the Holy Sacrifice, and using otherwise a 
 liturgy approved by the Church, and expressing the 
 faith of the Church in the sacramental grace and power 
 of Holy Orders, would be sufficient, or, in other words, 
 whether the form used in the Anglican Church, sinihil 
 aliud obstet, were there nothing else to hinder it, would
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 155 
 
 be a valid form. ^Sorne Catholic writers affirm it. 
 Canon Estcourt is of this opinion, and a writer in the 
 "Catholic World" for August, 1874, coincides with Canon 
 Estcourt, that, " so far as the material words of the 
 Edwardine forms go, they are sufficient i. e., they are 
 words capable of being used in a sense in which they 
 would be sufficient but the words are ambiguous." 
 These writers have apparently adopted this opinion on 
 the strength of a so-called decree of the Holy Office, 
 in 1704, approving of certain Abyssinian ordinations, in 
 which the abuna, or Abyssinian ordaining prelate, 
 passed hurriedly along a line of deacons, laying his 
 hands on the head of each and saying, Accipe Spiritum 
 Sanctum, Receive the Holy Ghost. " Canon Estcourt," 
 says the writer in the "Catholic World" " has understood 
 the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, in their 
 decree of 1704, to have ruled that the form, 'Accipe 
 Spiritum Sanctum' understood in the sense of the 
 Abyssinian liturgical books, is valid for the priesthood, 
 although, in the particular case, no further expression 
 is given to this sense, at least no expression within the 
 limits of the form, strictly so called i. c., " the verbal 
 formula synchronous with the matter." For ourselves, 
 we do not see how this decision or answer of the 
 Sacred Congregation (which Cardinal Patrizi says is not 
 a decree of the Sacred Congregation), in a special case, 
 in regard to a solitary deviation from an othenvise ap- 
 proved liturgy, can be amplified into a general recog- 
 nition of the validity of the form, "Accipe Spirit urn 
 Sanctum" The answer can cover only the case, or solve 
 the doubt proposed. Now there is no proof, as far as 
 we can see, that the dubium proposed by the mission- 
 aries to the Holy Office had reference to the sacra-
 
 156 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 mental form, F. Jones asserting that it turned exclu- 
 sively on the non-tradition of the instruments, and the 
 fact that the bishop did not lay his hands on each of 
 the deacons during the whole of the form, but hurried 
 along the line, imposing his hands on each only whilst 
 pronouncing a part of the form, or the words, Reple 
 euni Spiritu Sancto, which words he thinks the mission- 
 aries translate, "Accipc Spirit um Sanctum." This most 
 probably is the correct view and statement of the case 
 proposed to the Sacred Congregation, so that the " tal 
 modo c forma" of the dubium may refer to the hurried 
 imposition of hands during one phrase, instead of the 
 whole of the form, Respice. 
 
 In fact, we do not see how from this so called decree of 
 the Sacred Congregation, dated April loth, 1704, after 
 the letter of his Eminence Cardinal Patrizi to Cardinal 
 Manning, which we find in "T/ie Month" for August, 
 1875, and which we subjoin, can in any way be con- 
 strued the sufficiency of the form, " Accipe Spiritum 
 Sanctum" the cardinal expressly affirming: "This 
 S. S. C. never, either explicitly or implicitly, declared 
 that the imposition of hands with these only words, 
 Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, sufficed for the validity of 
 the order of the priesthood." 
 
 I. LETTER FROM H. E. CARDINAL PATRIZI TO H. E. 
 THE CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. 
 
 ''Domino Cardinali Archiepiscopo Westmonastericnsi. 
 
 " Eminentissime ac Reverendissime Domine Obs me 
 
 " Litteris diei 24 Augusti, anni nuper clapsi, referebat 
 
 Eminentia Vestra quaestionem isthic exortam inter 
 
 aliquos Scriptores, circa sensum cujusdam, ut appellat, 
 
 "decreti," ab hoc Suprema Congregatione Universalis
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. 
 
 157 
 
 Inquisitionis die 10 Aprillis, anni 1704, editi, quod 
 valorem respicit ordinationis in quodam Casu Abissi 
 norum expletae per verba Accipe Spiritum Sanctum 
 manuum imposition! conjuncta, ex eoque Anglicanos 
 praesumere ac jactitare nullum jam posse a Catholicis 
 moved dubium de eorum ordinum validitate. Proinde 
 ad anxietates eliminandas, veritatemque securius de- 
 fendendam, quaerebat eadem Eminentia Vestra sequen- 
 tis dubii declarationem ; scilicet, an, in supra-asserto 
 decreto, explicite vel implicite, contineatur doctrinaad 
 validitatem ordinis presbyteratus sufficere impositionem 
 manuum cum iis dumtaxat verbis Accipe Spiritum 
 Sanctum. 
 
 "Jam vero Eminentissimi Patres Cardinales una 
 mecum Inquisitores Generales, articulo formaliter ac 
 mature discusso, in feria iv. die 21 labentis mensis, 
 rogationi ejusmodi respondendum duxerunt Negative. 
 Atque, ad hujusce decreti justitiam protuendam, pauca, 
 ex mente Sacri Ordinis, Eminentiae Vestrae innuisse 
 sufficiat. Scilicet, ex ipso Coptorum ritu, ut in eorum 
 libris Pontificalibushabetur, manifestum esse, ilia verba 
 Accipe Spiritum Sanctum non integram formam con- 
 stituere, nee sensum documenti, quod ex anno 1704 
 profertur, quodque non est decretum Sanctae Congre- 
 gationis, uti ex ejus Tabulario patet, alio modo intelli- 
 gendurri esse nisi quod, penes Coptos, ordinatio pres- 
 byteri cum impositione manuum Episcopi, et prolatione 
 formae, in antique eorum ritu praescriptae, valida sit 
 habenda: nunquam vero Sanctam Supremam Congre- 
 gationem, sive explicite sive implicite, declarasse ad 
 validitatem ordinis presbyteratus sufficere manuum 
 impositionem cum his dumtaxat verbis. Accipe Spiri- 
 tum Sanctum.
 
 158 
 
 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 " Post haec, cum me jam mei muneris partes imple- 
 visse sciam, superest ut, eo quo par est obsequio, Emin- 
 entiae Vestrae manus humillime deosculer. 
 " Eminentiae Vestrae 
 " Romae, die 30 Aprilis, 1875. 
 
 (Sigtt :) " Humillimus et devotissimus Servus, 
 " C. CARD. PATRIZI." 
 
 This so-called decision does not then, as the learned 
 Canon Estcourt supposes, establish the principle that 
 the words, Accipe Spiritum Sancttim, are sufficient as a 
 form of ordination to the priesthood. Cardinal Patrizi 
 expressly declares that from the rite of the Copts, as 
 found in their Pontifical books, it is manifest that 
 those words, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, do not consti- 
 tute the integral form, and that the sense of the docu- 
 ment published in 1704 is to be understood in no other 
 way than that among the Copts the ordination of a 
 priest with the imposition of the bishop's hands and 
 the pronouncing of the form prescribed in their ancient 
 rite is to be held valid. 
 
 However, no one pretends that the Sacred Congre- 
 gation sanctioned the form, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, 
 taken by itself simply, but specificated in the sense of 
 the Abyssinian liturgy, as the "Catholic World" justly in- 
 terprets the mind of Canon Estcourt. But the learned 
 canon expresses this himself so strongly and clearly that 
 we must give his own words : " It is perfectly well known 
 that even if the prayers prescribed by the Abyssinian 
 sacred books are not said, yet that the faith and doc- 
 trine of the Abyssinian Church is expressed by those 
 prayers, and that it is the same with the faith and 
 doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding Holy
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWAKD. 
 
 '59 
 
 Orders and the priesthood. There is no addition made 
 to the words which excludes the due and proper sense 
 from them, and therefore no doubt can exist about the 
 sense in which the words are used in an Abyssinian 
 ordination, though the practice is so far short of the 
 theory. There is also a certain faith and doctrine ex- 
 pressed in the Anglican forms of ordination ; and it is 
 not the faith and doctrine of the Catholic Church, but 
 that of Luther and other reformers. It is impossible 
 to take the words, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, separately 
 from the context in which they are found. And the 
 context does exclude a due and proper sense, and 
 fixes and determines the sense to be contrary to that 
 of the Catholic Church. Thus the Abyssinian abuna, 
 though he repeats no more than those three words, 
 yet, following the traditions of his Church, expresses 
 his faith with respect to the sacramental grace and 
 power of the order conferred in a manner agreeable 
 with that of the Catholic Church. On the other band, 
 the bishop who uses the Anglican form in ordaining, 
 is not only prevented from attaching a right sense to 
 those words, but openly declares and professes that he 
 does not repeat them according to the sense in which 
 the Catholic Church receives and uses them." So 
 that even if the material words, " Receive the Holy 
 Ghost," were sufficient in connection with an otherwise 
 approved liturgy and authorized ordination rite, the 
 Anglican form would be invalid, because the Catholic 
 liturgies and the Catholic Ordinals were vitiated for the 
 purpose of introducing error. 
 
 " It is a settled principle with Catholics," says Arch- 
 bishop Kenrick, " that no error about the nature or 
 efficacy of a sacrament, no positive disbelief of its divine
 
 l6o TH E ROM A A 7 PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 institution, or any other personal unworthiness on the 
 part of him who administers it, can deprive such a 
 sacrament of its effect, provided sufficient matter, valid 
 form, and due intention concur in its administration. 
 
 "But if the matter be omitted, or curtailed of any 
 essential part ; if the form be vitiated, or if ambiguity 
 be introduced, for the purpose of introducing error, it 
 is no longer a valid means of producing sacramental 
 effects." Dr. Newman in a note, written since his con- 
 version to the Catholic Church, on an essay written 
 whilst a leading spirit of the Anglican communion, 
 says: " The consecrations of 1556 were not only facts, 
 they were acts ; those acts were not done and over 
 once for all, but were only the first of a series of acts, 
 done in long course of years ; these acts, too, all of them, 
 were done by men of certain positive opinions and in- 
 tentions, and none of these opinions and views, from 
 first to last, of a Catholic complexion, but on the con- 
 trary, erroneous and heretical. And I question whether 
 men of those opinions could, by means of a mere rite 
 or formulary, however correct in itself, start and con- 
 tinue in a religions communion, such as the Anglican, 
 a ministerial succession which could be depended on 
 as inviolate. I do not see what guarantee is produci- 
 ble for the faithful observance of a sacred rite in form, 
 matter, and intention, through so long a period, in the 
 hands of such administrators." 
 
 I will now adduce one more testimony in confirma- 
 tion of this view of the nullity of the Anglican form, 
 on account of the bad faith and heterodoxy of its 
 framers. Dr. Lee, one of the Buffalo divine's most trusty 
 guides and reliable authorities, alleges the celebrated 
 Franciscus a Sancta Clara, as an authority in favor of
 
 THE ORDINAL OF ED WA KJ). jgj 
 
 the validity of Anglican orders. Him, then, we shall 
 summon, as our last witness to confound Dr. Lee, and 
 to demolish the forms of Edward's Ordinal. After 
 asserting in explanation of the 36th Article, that: their 
 (the Anglican) ordination, for as much as concerns 
 their form and matter, will be valid, " si niliil obstet" " if 
 there be nothing else to hinder ;" he subjoins: "Not- 
 withstanding all this, after a serious and sincere exam- 
 ination, I must put this final resolution as a most in- 
 dubitable conclusion : according to the clear sense of the 
 ancient and present universal Church, their ordinations are, 
 ipso jure, invalid" After showing that: "The judg- 
 ment of the whole Catholic Church was and is, that 
 baptism administered by an Arian intending to oppose 
 the Church's sense, that is, not to do what the Church 
 doth, by that their imperfect form, would be invalid, 
 and by consequence his ordination, though not differ- 
 ing essentially from the Catholic form., provided that 
 he should hereby sufficiently manifest his depraved 
 sense to be against the truth of Christ's institution," 
 he continues: " The application of this, or this ex- 
 plication, is easy to the question of ordination, minis- 
 tered by our Protestant bishops ; for though we should 
 suppose these forms not to be substantially changed, 
 or their derivation of episcopacy to have been origin- 
 ally from ours, as they seriously pretend, yet since 
 they have changed the church forms, de industria, as 
 the second sort of Arians did, to declare that they do 
 not what the Church intends, and in pursuit thereof 
 have solemnly decreed against the power of sacrificing 
 and consecrating, that is in the sense of the old and 
 present Catholic Church, of changing the elements of 
 bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, our
 
 162 THE KOMAX PONTIFICAL S.X2) 
 
 Lord, as appears in the 28th and 3ist Articles, it evi- 
 dently concludes, that they never did or could validly 
 ordain priests, and consequently bishops, having, as I 
 say, expressed clearly the depravation of their intentions 
 in order to the first and principal part of ordination, 
 which consisteth in the power, supers-Corpus Christ: 
 Tcrnni, of sacrificing and consecrating his true body, by 
 them professedly denied, and the sacrifice declared a 
 pernicious imposture (a strange expression) in their 
 articles, never repealed or mitigated in any synod." 
 
 After ridiculing the pretension that, even if there 
 "were a flaw in the first consecration, a valid succession 
 \vas transmitted in after times, as if "the}' could derive 
 ^i succession per saltuin, as from a great grandfather, 
 without a father," he concludes with this argument : 
 "'All ordinations, celebrated in a form different from 
 the Church, with an intention, sufficiently expressed, 
 of opposition to her sense, are invalid according to the 
 definitions of the general councils cited (Nice and 
 Aries). But their ordinations are such, ergo." From 
 "this extract it is plain, as Canon Estcourt remarks ; 
 from whom we have abridged 1 it, that this would-be 
 witness to the validity of Anglican orders, rejects them 
 >tnost explicitly and roundly, even when conceding that 
 the forms may be sufficient in themselves, " yet, as 
 they have been changed, dc indnstria, to declare that 
 the ordainers do not intend what the Church intends, 
 the ordination cannot be valid." We have now done 
 with the main question at issue, the legitimate succes- 
 sion and valid orders of the Anglican 'and Protestant 
 Episcopal bishops, having demonstrated fully, at least 
 'we think so, that Anglicans have no claims, to either. 
 
 Dr. Lee himself, the chafmpion of Anglican orders,
 
 THE OKD1XAL OF EDWARD. 163 
 
 is- too fair and too conversant with the subject to 
 simply pooh-pooh the objections of Catholics. We will 
 then let him have the closing words on Anglican 
 ordinations. " There are," lie says, in his late work, " cer- 
 tain difficulties, which, it must be frankly allowed, have 
 always been felt by learned Roman Catholics and Orien- 
 tals, with regard to the fact of Parker's consecration and 
 which must be duly faced and removed, before any re- 
 cognition of the validity of English ordinations can be 
 reasonably expected from the Eastern or Western 
 Churches. Anglicans must not remain contented with 
 assertions, which appear to satisfy themselves, but be 
 prepared with arguments and conclusions, which will 
 convince their opponents." (Vol. I. p. 99). "The 
 modern Easterns," continues the same frank and able 
 writer, "though personally civil and polite enough, 
 frequently repudiate our ordinations with scorn. The 
 late archbishop of Syros and Tenos, even more civil 
 than some of his brethren, reordained absolutely the 
 Rev. James Chrystal, an American clergyman of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church ; while the Servian archi- 
 mandrete, who once gave Holy Communion to a 
 London clergyman, the Rev. Wm. Denton, who had 
 rendered good service to the Servian Church, was 
 most severely reprimanded by authority, and made to 
 give a promise in writing, that he would never repeat that, 
 his canonical offense ; and this in a formal document, 
 which described the Church of England as 'unortho- 
 dox,' and Protestant, and the clergyman in question as 
 'without the priesthood."' We are not alone, then, 
 in questioning Anglican and Protestant Episcopal 
 orders. 
 
 Nor is it owing to the cross ignorance of Roman
 
 164 THE ROMAN PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 Catholic theologians, that succession and orders in the 
 Anglican establishment are rejected, for Dr. Lee, with 
 praiseworthy candor, asserts : " At Rome every care 
 is taken to arrive at the truth, so that the inadequate 
 defences regarded as sufficient and satisfactory by some 
 at home, will never pass muster, in presence of the 
 skilled theologians of the eternal city. A huge assump- 
 tion, as Roman Catholic theologians maintain, that all 
 was right in Parker's case, is of course easily enough 
 made ; but detailed proof of facts, and satisfactory re- 
 plies to objections often give trouble, entail research, 
 and yet remain insufficient for the purpose." (Vol. i. 
 p. 200.) And yet, in spite of his close study of facts 
 and patient research, Dr. Lee is forced to fall back on 
 what he styles the moral argument in favor of Anglican 
 orders. But let us hear him further: "Of course to 
 any English churchman, of the Oxford school, the pro- 
 ceedings in question will no doubt be read with some 
 pain. It is no easy task to show that the revived doc- 
 trines and Catholic practices, now so largely current in 
 every diocese of our beloved country, and, many of 
 them, so generally popular, were utterly repudiated by 
 the dismal prelates, whose violent and heretical lan- 
 guage is so awful in itself and so disquieting to dwell 
 upon ; and whose destructive labors it is so distasteful 
 to put on record. Men who in a spirit of self-sacrifice 
 now repair churches, cleanse the font, rebuild the 
 broken-down altar of the Lord, beautify His sanctuary, 
 adorn with pictured pane and mosaic representation 
 the chancel wall who open the restored churches for 
 the daily office, who in the face of secular and sense- 
 less 'judgments' believe in baptismal regeneration, 
 practise confession, pray for the departed, and have
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWARD. ^- 
 
 been led, step by step, to restore the Christian sacrifice 
 and Eucharistic adoration ; and who, furthermore, look 
 upon themselves, now clothed in sacerdotal garments, 
 and standing facing the crucifix at lighted altars, as 
 sacrificing priests of the New Law can surely have 
 but little in common with the vulgar anti-Catholic 
 bishops of Queen Elizabeth's day, whose profane and 
 awful words, when read at a distance of three centuries 
 or more, make a reverent person shudder; and the 
 dark records of whose blasphemies and active wicked- 
 ness, when calmly faced, sends a thrilling shiver through 
 the heart of a Christian, and makes every decent Eng- 
 lishman unparalyzed by indifference, and not choked 
 by false science blush for shame that such officials 
 ever belonged to so moderate and respectable an in- 
 stitution as the Church of England by law established 
 now appears." (Vol. i. p. 272-4.) 
 
 The above we have borrowed from an able article in 
 the " Liverpool Catholic Times" and although somewhat 
 lengthy we will allow the writer to continue his review 
 of Dr. Lee's work in his own w r ords: 
 
 " From these data, Dr. Lee, in several places, but es- 
 pecially in his introductory essay on 'The present 
 position of the Established Church,' draws a 'moral' 
 argument in favor of Anglican Orders. ' It is self- 
 evident,' he writes, ' that the moral argument in favor 
 of their validity is very strong, perhaps stronger than 
 either the theological or historical argument. When 
 the frightful state of degradation into which the 
 National Church during Elizabeth's reign had been 
 brought, is honestly contemplated ; and when the strik- 
 ing contrast between its position then and its altered 
 state now is clulv realized the manner in which so
 
 AC y)/.;.\' PONTIFICAL AND 
 
 much that had been then cast away as valueless is now 
 sought after and has been once more secured ; we may 
 reasonably infer (though there be no exact precedent 
 nor perfect parallels in past history for the complex 
 character and unique position of the Established Church 
 of England) that, as divine grace has never been with- 
 drawn from her crippled rulers, so an inherent and es- 
 sential distinction between clergy and laity has been 
 in the main consistently and continually remarked and 
 admitted.' (Pp. 51-52.) 
 
 " We give the argument in the writer's own words, so 
 as not to deprive it of any weight which may legiti- 
 mately attach to it. But we cannot but think that Dr. 
 Lee's own volumes are its completest refutation. Angli- 
 cans are in the habit of assuming that the ' Reforma- 
 tion' in England essentially differed from that on the 
 Continent and in Scotland in certain respects, and, inter 
 alia, in the retention of a belief in, and respect for, the 
 grace of Holy Orders; and then (when historical diffi- 
 culties are raised) they fall back upon the sentiment 
 that God would never have permitted the lapse of sac- 
 ramental grace through the accidental oversight of any 
 essential. Dr. Lee makes short work, however, of any 
 such assumption. He shows the authors and abettors 
 of the New Church as being to the full as blasphemous 
 and sacrilegious, as coarse, as immoral, and altogether 
 as satanic, as the Continental ' Reformers,' with the 
 superadded malice of abominable and anti-Christian 
 subserviency to the crown. So far, then, the moral 
 argument against Anglican orders is as strong as 
 against Presbyterian or Lutheran ones. In other words, 
 as. upon Anglican equally as upon Catholic principles, 
 uc know that God permitted the Kirk of Scotland and
 
 THE ORDINAL OF EDWAKD. 
 
 the Continental Protestant Communions to have lost 
 the grace of orders and sacraments, there is no reason 
 (in the absence of direct proof) to believe that He dealt 
 otherwise with the equally guilty and sacrilegious 
 rulers of the Elizabethan Church. The weight of proba- 
 bility is that God should, rather than that He should, 
 not, have withdrawn His sacraments from the sac-., 
 rilegious grasp, of men who were wont to style the 
 Blessed Sacrament Jwrrcscinnis refercntcs'(\\ r c can- 
 not bring ourselves down to quote the low and shock- 
 ing language used by the reformers towards the Blessed. 
 Sacrament): " who in all things were the subservient 
 tools of. a monster who, whilst claiming more than 
 Pontifical honors, caused the Corpus Christi canppy to 
 be borne over her at Cambridge, and who ended by* 
 making the hearing or singing of Mass a crime punish-, 
 able by fine, imprisonment and death. 
 
 " But the moral argument against Anglican orders is 
 still stronger when we consider the attitude of the 
 Elizabethan bishops themselves towards orders. One 
 and all they repudiate any such belief in ordination as 
 obtains among Ritualists, or even among moderate 
 Anglicans. They denounced the sacrament of order 
 as fully, as consistently, and as vehemently as they 
 denounced the Muss, the Real Presence, or Extreme 
 Unction. Again and again they admitted merrtocure 
 of souls who had never received episcopal ordination, 
 and allowed preachers to occupy benefices who refused 
 to administer either Baptism or 'the Supper,' and 
 were known as ' no sacrament ministers.' They w; re 
 quite content to hold their posts solely from the 
 queen, to be 'bishops by act of Parliament.' And 
 when, later on, an attempt was made to claim for them
 
 l68 PONTIFICAL AND ORDINAL. 
 
 some kind of spiritual jurisdiction as successors of the 
 Apostles, they were promptly told that their jurisdiction 
 was derived from the crown, and that any attempt to 
 claim independent jurisdiction would lay them open 
 to the penalties of premunire. Even Hooker, whom 
 Dr. Lee rightly praises as 'the first person among 
 the English ministers who, by the general soundness of 
 his principles, the clearness of his thoughts, and the 
 ability with which he set them forth, began to stem 
 the tide of confusion, innovation, and novelty,' never 
 adopted the Catholic belief as to orders, and actually 
 regarded Dr. Adrian de Saravia 'ordained abroad 
 by presbyters, if at all,' as a fit and capable confessor, 
 and so employed him upon his death-bed, receiving 
 also the Communion at his hands. No doubt the 
 Caroline divines, like their successors of the Oxford 
 school, succeeded in raising the standard of sacramental 
 belief, but like the changes in the Ordinal, due, no 
 doubt, to the influence of their teaching, such improve- 
 ments came too late to affect the main question."
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 XII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE have now come to the end of our little work, 
 and it only remains for us to summarize the 
 main points on which we touched, and the conclusions 
 which we reached. We have endeavored to show, with 
 what success our readers will judge, that the line of 
 Apostolical succession has been hopelessly broken be- 
 tween the Primitive Church, and the Anglican and 
 Protestant Episcopal Churches, and that every at- 
 tempt to bridge the chasm between Catholic England 
 under the supremacy of the Popes, and the Anglican es- 
 tablishment under the Tudors, between Cardinal Pole, 
 last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, and Matthew 
 Parker, the first link of the new line forged by the 
 despotic iron hand of Elizabeth, has been vain. Suppos- 
 ing the Lambeth Register to be a genuine, authentic 
 document, the form used at Parker's consecration was 
 confessedly that of the Edwardine Ordinal, devised 
 towards the end of the year 1549. The form prescribed 
 in the Roman Pontifical was abolished by act of Parlia- 
 ment (3 Edward VI., c. 2) and the newly devised form 
 made obligatory after April 1st, 1 5 50, and added to Book 
 of Common Prayer by another act of Parliament in 
 1552 (5 and6 Edward VI.). According to the Lambeth
 
 j^O CONCLUSION. 
 
 Register, Parker was consecrated by this form, which 
 was so plainly inadequate and invalid that acts of Parlia- 
 ment were deemed necessary to supply its defects, and 
 in the year 1662, one hundred years later, the form 
 was again changed, obviously to remedy deficiencies 
 pointed out by Catholics and Dissenters, and perhaps, 
 too, to satisfy a reactionary movement inside the. es- 
 tablishment itself towards Catholic doctrine and prac- 
 tices, though its defenders stoutly affirm that the 
 change was not made to add to the validity, but to 
 the dignity of the rite. Be that as it may, the form is 
 intrinsically insufficient to confer valid consecration. 
 Matthew Parker, therefore, never was a bishop, and 
 consequently could not validly consecrate others. Be- 
 sides, grave doubts and suspicions attach to the Lam- 
 beth Register, and still graver doubts are entertained 
 as to the fact of Barlow's consecration, and the slen- 
 der thread on which Anglican orders rest must be pain- 
 fully apparent to those who claim thac the assistant 
 bishops at Parker's consecration, and at some subse- 
 quent consecration, would even suffice to supply for 
 Barlow's non-consecration. 
 
 What thick mists and dark clouds of suspicions, doubts 
 and uncertainties hang over the orders of the Church of 
 England, even if it could be conceded which it cannot 
 consistently with the doctrinal- teachings of the Chris- 
 tian Church that the form was a vaild one. But Apos- 
 tolical succession requires not only valid orders but 
 lawful mission ; this has been proved from the teaching 
 and practice of the early Christian Church ; this is held 
 by Anglicans and Episcopalians. This must, how- 
 ever, be ever carefully borne in mind, that the power of 
 order, and the right to exercise that order, jurisdiction.
 
 CONCL USION. 
 
 171 
 
 mission, the assignment of charge or people over 
 which that power may be exercised, are very different 
 things, and do not necessarily go together. A bishop 
 from the time of his appointment, even before his 
 consecration, has jurisdiction over his diocese, though 
 he may exercise no exclusively episcopal functions, do 
 no act requiring the episcopal order and character. 
 He may govern his flock as a legitimate pastor, and 
 administer his diocese and empower other bishops to 
 ordain priests and officiate in episcopal functions. 
 And a validly and lawfully consecrated bishop may be 
 without episcopal jurisdiction, may have no charge, no 
 diocese to govern. Auxiliary and co-adjutor bishops 
 have only such limited jurisdiction as the titular bishop 
 or ordinary of the diocese may grant them, and not 
 unfrequently, in case of the absence or death of the 
 titular bishop, the administration is in the hands of 
 a priest, a vicar-general, for instance, and he gives 
 jurisdiction to the lawfully consecrated auxiliary 
 bishop. How often do I here ordain priests for other 
 dioceses and confer on them all the powers of their 
 priestly order, but I cannot give them jurisdiction. 
 That belongs to their own bishop. Only, then, a law- 
 ful ecclesiastical superior can impart ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction, and only valid orders and jurisdiction, 
 transmitted in an unbroken line irom the days of the 
 Apostles to our own time, can constitute Apostolical 
 succession. 
 
 Granted, then, that Barlow was a regularly conse- 
 crated bishop, and that he, in the Lambeth chapel, 
 actually consecrated Parker with valid matter and 
 form, even with the intention of the Church, and agree- 
 ably to the Roman Pontifical, from whom does he
 
 , 72 CONCL USION. 
 
 (Parker) get jurisdiction? What ecclesiastical super- 
 ior assigns him a charge? gives him the right to exer- 
 cise the power of his episcopal order? who gives him 
 charge of the diocese of Canterbury? Not Barlow, nor 
 Scorey, nor Coverdale, nor Hodgkins ; one, according 
 to the Register, bishop elect of Chichester ; one, bishop 
 elect of Hereford ; one, bishop elect of Exeter, and the 
 fourth suffragan of Bedford. What right had they in the 
 diocese of Canterbury ? How could they confer jurisdic- 
 tion on the archbishop from whom they themselves were 
 to be confirmed and to receive a mission and right to ex- 
 ercise their episcopal orders ? Not from the Pope, who 
 utterly rejects his pretensions, and excommunicates him 
 as a schismatic and heretic. Not from the Pope, whose 
 authority he repudiates and forswears. From Queen 
 Elizabeth, then ? Yes, this is his only and last resource. 
 Here, then, comes the claim of royal, spiritual suprem- 
 acy or headship over the Church of England, started 
 by her royal father, asserted by her royal brother, and 
 now exercised by herself, and thus, in virtue of the 
 powers conferred by queen and Parliament, is Parker 
 first Anglican archbishop of the Church by law estab- 
 lished, and thus from the commencement is the fatal 
 defect, the disastrous break in the chain of Apostoli- 
 cal succession. And it is well said : " that as original sin 
 is not done away with by distance from Adam, so 
 this original defect of jurisdiction cannot be supplied 
 by length of time, quod ab initio nullum est, tractu tem- 
 per is non convalescit."
 
 MISSTATEMENTS OF CATHOLIC FAITH 
 
 AN:I 
 
 NUMEROUS CHARGES 
 
 AGAINST THE CHURCH AND HOLY SEE, 
 
 CORRECTED AND REFUTED. 
 BV 
 
 S. V. RYAN, BISHOP OF BUFFALO. 
 PART II.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY I 
 
 II. THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 4 
 
 III. HENRY VIII. To WHOM HE BELONGS n 
 
 IV. THE NEW LITURGY BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. . . 16 
 
 V. NEW ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 19 
 
 VI. CLEMENT'S DISPENSATION TO HENRY 21 
 
 VII. EQUIVOCATION AUTHORITY OF SAINTS AND DOCTORS OF 
 
 THE CHURCH 23 
 
 VIII. PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 32 
 
 IX. POPES LlBERIUS AND HONORIUS. 47 
 
 X. HONORIUS VINDICATED 52 
 
 XI. ST. GREGORY THE GREAT CLAIMING AND EXERCISING 
 
 PAPAL SUPREMACY 62 
 
 XII. CATHOLIC BISHOPS NOT SIMPLE PRESBYTERS OR MERE 
 
 VICARS OF THE POPE. 74 
 
 XIII. TEACHINGS OF THE ANCIENT FATHERS VINDICATED . Si 
 
 XIV. CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS 86 
 
 XV. THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE REGARDING ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 JURISDICTION 03
 
 MISSTATEMENTS OF CATHOLIC FAITH 
 
 AND 
 
 NUMEROUS CHARGES AGAINST THE CHURCH 
 AND HOLY SEE, CORRECTED AND REFUTED. 
 
 I. 
 
 i 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 I HAD fully resolved not to notice the many irrele- 
 vant questions, groundless and false assertions pro- 
 fusely scattered through the pages of the little 
 pamphlet, " Catholics and Roman Catholics," by "An 
 Old Catholic," to which the articles substantially re- 
 produced in the preceding pages, and originally written 
 for the " Catholic Union'' were intended to reply. 
 However, as the specious and misleading statements, 
 put forward with a certain air of plausibility and con- 
 fidence might, if left unchallenged, impose on those 
 who have no access to original documents or works of 
 reference, I have, on second thought, deemed it in- 
 cumbent OTI me, in the interest of truth and Catholic 
 faith, to rectify the principal misstatements of " Old 
 Catholic," even at the risk of swelling this little 
 publication to unexpected proportions. 
 
 I
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The discussion of these matters will, in my opinion, 
 prove how easily people may be imposed on by un- 
 grounded statements, how cautious we should be in 
 giving credence to authorities cited at second-hand, and 
 how sadly deficient in accurate information regarding 
 the doctrines, traditions and history of the Church even 
 intelligent and otherwise well-educated Churchmen 
 often are whose reading and studies, ministerial labors 
 and professional duties seem to be directed to the single 
 point of obscuring the claims of the Catholic Church, or 
 deterring others from the calm, dispassionate, thought- 
 ful investigation of the same. Of such we can only 
 say, in the language of one whom the grace of God 
 and light of the 'Divine Spirit enabled to rise above 
 the prejudices of his early education : " Prejudice is 
 always obstinate, but no prejudice is so wilfully stub- 
 born as that which is professional. It is bad enough, 
 in any case, that the mind should be settled in op- 
 position to the truth, but when a man has made it the 
 special business of his life to oppose and controvert 
 that truth, his intelligence becomes so fortified by his 
 will, as to be almost inaccessible. The citadel of his 
 heart is well nigh impregnable. * * * His mind is 
 systematically warped. He is trained to reason from 
 false principles. He becomes, perhaps, by sheer habit, 
 the champion of untruth." (" The Invitation Heeded :" 
 Dr. Kent Stone.) This may explain, and if not excuse, 
 in some degree extenuate the blind, unreasoning pre- 
 judices of men who are schooled into bitter hostility to 
 the Catholic Church, and forced by their position and 
 professional duties to repudiate her as the true and 
 legitimate spouse of Christ, to reject her authority and 
 deny her identity with the Apostolic Church, simply
 
 INTRODUCTORY. >, 
 
 because these claims annihilate all their own titles, brand 
 them as illegitimate, spurious, counterfeit. Yet we do 
 not presume to judge how far they are responsible for 
 errors which they have inherited and prejudices which 
 they have unconsciously imbibed, religious predilections 
 and affinities naturally springing from circumstances 
 over which they could have no control, and hence we 
 disclaim any personal feeling, most sincerely profess 
 to be actuated by motives of Christian charity and love 
 of truth. And if in anything we say we appear to be 
 pointed and personal, it is because of the necessity 
 of meeting particular charges, or misleading and in- 
 jurious insinuations against Catholic faith and practice.
 
 THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 "'TPHE first archbishop of Canterbury was conse- 
 -L crated at Aries in France (597), and thus intro- 
 duced the Ephesine succession from St. John, through 
 Irenaeus and Photinus.' 7 (Note I. Catholics and non- 
 Catholics.) We have answered already that Augustine 
 was consecrated bishop at Aries by Virgilius, acting as 
 legate and vicar of Pope St. Gregory, but the title 
 and privileges and jurisdiction of archbishop were 
 afterwards accorded to him by Gregory, Pope of Rome, 
 not by Virgilius of Aries, who had, as we shall presently 
 see, only such jurisdiction as Gregory granted him in 
 Gaul. Lingard, in his "Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Church, "says : "Gregory, whose zeal already predicted 
 the entire conversion of the octarchy, commanded it 
 to be divided into two ecclesiastical provinces, in each 
 of which twelve suffragan bishops should obey the 
 superior jurisdiction of their metropolitan." Again, as 
 clear proof that not only the new Anglo-Saxon con- 
 verts with their bishops and archbishops, but also the 
 ancient British Church, acknowledged the authority of 
 the same Roman Pontiff, Lingard says : " Gregory, 
 treading in the footsteps of his predecessor, Celestine, 
 who two centuries before had appointed the monk 
 Palladius to the government of the Scottish Church,
 
 THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 5 
 
 invested Augustine with an extensive jurisdiction over 
 all the bishops of the Britons." To show still further 
 what little truth there is in the assertion that the Pope 
 " could never assert even a patriarchal authority over 
 England," let us hear Dr. Lingard still further: "Au- 
 gustine himself preferred Canterbury to London ; and 
 the metropolitical dignity was secured to the former 
 by the rescripts of succeeding Pontiffs." Again, Pope 
 Vitalian placed Theodore, an aged monk, in the see of 
 Canterbury, and " invested him with an extensive juris- 
 diction, similar to that which Gregory had conferred on 
 St. Augustine." 
 
 But let us now see how the archbishop of Aries, who 
 consecrated Augustine, acknowledged the authority and 
 supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, Gregory the Great, 
 over the churches of Gaul. In the year 595, two years 
 before he consecrated Augustine, Virgilius wrote, and 
 had King Childebert II. write, to Gregory, asking the 
 pallium and the dignity of vicar of the Apostolic See, 
 with which the greater part of his predecessors had 
 been honored. In the month of August of the same 
 year, Gregory writes to him (L. 5, Epist. liii.) granting 
 his request, and among other things says : " I am very 
 far from suspecting that in asking the use of the pal- 
 lium and the vicarship of the Apostolic See, you 
 thought only of procuring for yourself a passing power 
 and an exterior decoration. I prefer to believe that 
 knowing for no one can ignore it whence the faith 
 was propagated over Gaul, you wished in addressing 
 yourself to the Apostolic See, according to ancient 
 custom, to act like a good son, who has recourse to 
 the bosom of the Church, his mother." He concludes 
 his letter thus: "We establish vour fraternitv our
 
 6 THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 vicar in the churches of the kingdom of our most ex- 
 cellent son, Childebert, without prejudice to the rights 
 of the metropolitans. We send you also the pallium, 
 which you will make use of only in the church and 
 during the Mass. If any bishop wishes to take a long 
 journey, he will not do it without permission of your 
 holiness. If any question of faith, or any other diffi- 
 cult affair come up, you will assemble twelve bishops 
 to take cognizance of it. If it cannot be decided, you 
 will refer the judgment to us." He wrote at the same 
 time, in the same sense, to the bishops, exhorting 
 them to submit to the new vicar of the Apostolic 
 See, as the Angels of Heaven, though without sin, 
 are subordinate one to another ; and to King Childe- 
 bert, begging him to support by his authority what he 
 had regulated in favor of Virgilius, and for the sake of 
 God and St. Peter to cause the decrees of the Apos- 
 tolic See to be observed in his states. (Works of 
 S. G., L. 5, Epist. liv. et Iv.) This, I should say, would 
 make the great St. Gregory, in the 6th century justly 
 styled the Apostle of England, a good enough Pope of 
 the iQth century. But of this we will have more to say 
 hereafter. Now we are prepared to examine the ques- 
 tion of the " Ephesine succession from St. John, through 
 Irenaeusand Photinus." We should have said, through 
 Photinus and Irenseus, for the latter succeeded the 
 former in the see of Lyons, A. D. 177. 
 
 Now, we would greatly desire to see any one trace 
 the succession of Virgilius of Aries to St. Photinus of 
 Lyons, and then trace St. Photinus to St. John, in or- 
 der to bring the Ephesine succession down to the 
 bishop of Western New York. It is simply ridiculous 
 to talk nbo-.it the Ephesine succession, and no one fa-
 
 TUR EPIIESINE SUCCESSION. f 
 
 miliar with ecclesiastical history, or with those saintly 
 and historic names of the ancient Church of France 
 could commit himself to such an absurdity. The 
 see of Aries was founded by bishops sent directly.from 
 Rome. St. trophimus, its first bishop, was sent, ac- 
 cording to St. Gregory of Tours, from Rome to Aries 
 in the year 250, during the reign of Decius, and the 
 Pontificate of Pope Fabian. Later French writers 
 maintain that he was sent by St. Peter himself, during 
 the reign of the Emperor Claudius, and in proof here- 
 of, they cite a letter of nineteen bishops, written to 
 Pope Leo, praying him to restore to the metropolitan 
 see of Aries the privileges which had been wrested 
 from it. " It is a matter well known," the letter goes 
 on to say, " to all Gaul, and to the Holy Roman 
 Church, that Aries, the first city of Gaul, has the 
 honor of having received the faith from St. Peter 
 through Bishop Trophimus, and that it spread thence 
 to the other provinces of Gaul." These particulars we 
 have taken from the excellent English translation of 
 Alzog's " Universal Church History," by the lamented 
 Dr. Pabisch and Rev. Thos. S. Byrne (vol. i., page 246). 
 Whether the translator's learned observations will con- 
 vince the reader that Aries owes its foundation to the 
 Prince of the Apostles or not, the discussion proves 
 conclusively that Aries does not derive its succession, 
 its orders or its mission from" Lyons or from Ephesus, 
 but from Rome, and that Virgilius goes back through 
 Trophimus to either Fabian or Peter, and not through 
 Iremvus or Photinus to St. John. But now, suppose 
 we get to Lyons, and to Irenaeus, who succeeded St. 
 Photinus, martyred in 177, how can we find our way to 
 Ephesus and St. John ?
 
 8 THE EP HE SINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 RevAlban Butler tells, us on the authority of St. 
 Gregory of Tours, that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and 
 disciple of St. John, and ordained by him, sent St. 
 Irenaeus to Lyons. But he was not yet a priest, but 
 was ordained a priest of the Church of Lyons by St. 
 Photinus, its first bishop, to whom he succeeded. 
 Though a disciple of St. Polycarp, from whom he de- 
 rived his doctrine, there is not the slightest proof or 
 pretence that he exercised his orders, or his mission 
 under other authority than that of Rome, and as an 
 unanswerable proof that even then, in the second cen- 
 tury, the Churches of Gaul, and the Church of Lyons 
 in particular, acknowledged the supreme authority of 
 the Bishop of Rome, St. Irenaeus was actually sent by 
 the Church of Lyons, as we learn from Eusebius and 
 St. Jerome, to entreat Pope Eleutherius not to cut the 
 Orientals off from communion with the Church on ac- 
 count of their difference about the celebration of 
 Easter. But does St. Irenaeus himself appeal to the 
 Ephesine succession to prove the truth of his doctrine 
 and the Apostolicity of his faith and his lawful descent 
 from the Apostles? In his third book (Contra hereses, 
 chap, iii.), he says that most assuredly the Apostles de- 
 livered the truth and the mysteries of faith to their 
 successors, and to them we must go to learn the same, 
 but especially "to the greatest Church and most an- 
 cient and known to all, founded at Rome by the two 
 most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, which retains 
 the traditions received from them and derived through 
 a succession of bishops down to us. For with this 
 Church, on account of the more powerful principality, 
 it is necessary that every Church, that is, the faithful 
 who are in every direction, should agree." (S. livn., L. 
 3, c. iii.)
 
 THE EPHESINE SUCCESSION. 9 
 
 He then enumerates the Pontiffs from Peter to 
 Eleutherius, then reigning, and to this succession in the 
 See of Rome, and not to the Ephesine succession, does 
 Irenaeus appeal. To the same did St. Augustine ap- 
 peal. To the same Apostolic See do we appeal, repeat- 
 ing again that the See of Rome is the only Apostolic 
 See, whence it is at all possible for Christian prelate 
 or priest to trace his Apostolical pedigree and 
 descent. Happy, then, for our episcopal claimant of 
 Apostolical succession if he can " show his line going 
 direct to. Rome, by many points," even if, as he con- 
 fesses, " it is just there* that the greatest confusion 
 occurs; so that we do not think much of it." 
 
 LINKS OF ANGLICAN SUCCESSION OF UNSAVORY ODOR. 
 
 Of course, since he must recur to the Popes for his suc- 
 cession, it will be his business, not ours, to determine 
 which of the three rival Popes was the true Pope when 
 Gregory XII. consecrated Chichele. As he cannot 
 again claim succession through Aries to Ephesus, he 
 must go to Rome for all his right and title to be a 
 " corporate witness," and in his desperate attempt to 
 get there, vaulting with a bound the wide and deep 
 chasm separating Parker from Pole, he goes through 
 Scorey (throwing Barlow overboard) and Cranmer to 
 Beaufort, of whom he says : *' I have now reached the 
 name of one of the worst characters in the Anglican 
 succession." Strange that he should stop in this un- 
 savory spot, yet he thinks that he ought not be expected 
 to go further, " for Beaufort was just the kind of a 
 man to please a Pope," and hence I suppose a good 
 enough man to transmit Anglican orders. As, how- 
 ever, he'mentions, and very earnestly, that : " The sue-
 
 Io THE EP HE SINE SUCCESSION. 
 
 cession by which Christ Himself 'came in the flesh,' is 
 disfigured by many unworthy names, besides that of 
 Rahab ; and the Scriptures have reached us through 
 many unworthy hands," I am saved the trouble of 
 defending or justifying those Popes " whose abominable 
 lives," he tells us, " were the by-word of their times." 
 Impartial history has done tardy justice to many of the 
 maligned Pontiffs of the middle ages, but the subject 
 matter under discussion debars me from entering more 
 lengthily into the history of these ages and these Pon- 
 tiffs, nor have I the slightest inclination to shield any of 
 the very few unworthy occuparfts of the Pontifical throne 
 from merited censure. But neither the Church nor the 
 Papacy is responsible for their personal views, nor is the 
 purity of Christian doctrines blackened or defiled by the 
 unchristian lives of those who neglect the teachings of 
 the Church, whether they be of high or low degree, 
 whether simple faithful, or masters in Israel. "The 
 Scribes and Pharisees have sitten on the chair of 
 Moses. All things, therefore, whatsoever they shall 
 say to you, observe and do, but according to their 
 works, do ye not ; for they say and do not." (Matt, 
 xxiii. 2, 3.) At least after the admissions' made 
 above, objections of this kind will come with very bad 
 grace from those who own descent from immoral char- 
 acters, and from a line disgraced by Pontiffs " com- 
 pared with whom Henry VIII. is almost pure."
 
 HENRY VfH.-~TO WHOM HE BELONGS. \\ 
 
 III. 
 
 HENRY VIII. TO WHOM HE BELONG. 
 
 JUST here we may as well remark that " Old Catho- 
 lic'' is 'not in love with the first royal Head of the 
 Anglican Church, and has " no disposition to take him 
 off of the hands of those to whom he exclusively be- 
 longs the Roman Catholics." Well, we confess he 
 was once a Roman Catholic, and a staunch champion 
 of the Papacy, and from a Pope received the title of 
 "Defender of the Faith," and that " he never fully de- 
 serted his faith ; but he allowed his passion to blind his 
 eyes and impel him to the greatest of scandals." 
 
 Then he severed himself from Rome, then he re- 
 jected the authority of the Pope, then he started the 
 " Church of England as by law established," and had 
 himself proclaimed its head by a subservient Parlia- 
 ment and a weak, servile clergy ; he threw off spiritual 
 allegiance to the Pope, -imposed the oath of royal 
 supremacy on the English realm, and thus started what 
 Edward and Eli/.abcth afterwards worked into shape ; 
 and that impartial sicular authority in the "Saturday Re- 
 view" who ventures to write that, "there is a perfect 
 legal and historical identity, so to speak, of person, 
 between the Church of England before the Reforma- 
 tion and the Church of England after the Reformation," 
 goes very near establishing in our minds his m\.i
 
 12 HENRY VI 1 1. TO WHOM HE BELONGS. 
 
 identity with the gentleman who quotes him, and who 
 says, "that Henry merely continued the Church as he 
 found it," and " as for her (Queen Elizabeth) estab- 
 lishing the Church of England in any sense other than 
 that in which it was the law of the land under the 
 Plantagenets and the 'Papacy, is a very ignorant mis- 
 take." In both, there is such assurance, such defiance 
 of history, and implicit reliance on the ignorance of 
 their readers, that we can hardly go wrong in tracing 
 them to the same source, and assigning them the same 
 paternity. Queen Mary, we are again told, " estab- 
 lished the Roman hierarchy by law, 'by queen and 
 Parliament,' while Henry never did anything of the 
 kind." True, indeed, Henry never did anything of the 
 kind, because he found the Roman hierarchy existing 
 in England not only since Augustine came from Rome 
 to convert the Angli, but ever since a Pope sent the 
 first missionaries to convert the ancient Britons a 
 Roman hierarchy, exercising its authority under the 
 jurisdiction and in the communion of the holy Roman 
 See, until by legal enactment, by king and Parlia- 
 ment, he and his son Edward severed that commun- 
 ion cemented by the tradition of ages, by im- 
 memorial usages, arrogating to themselves spiritual 
 jurisdiction over the realm, and not only appointing, 
 but confirming, empowering, and even by newly-devised 
 forms consecrating a new hierarchy, thus establishing 
 a New Church, whose very legal title, the name im- 
 posed on it at its birth not Church of England, 
 which St. Gregory recognized, and of which he is 
 justly styled the Apostle but "Church of England 
 by law established," belies its claim to Apostolical 
 origin, stamps it as a royal and parliamentary founda- 
 tion, a modern invention, a sect.
 
 HENRY VIII. TO WHOM HE BELONGS. jj 
 
 Mary's attempt was then, not to erect the Roman hier- 
 archy by law', but to repeal the laws enacted in the two 
 previous reigns, and to restore the Church of England 
 to the condition in which it was before " Henry's 
 passions blinded him and impelled him to the greatest 
 of scandals." " Henry belonged to the Roman Catho- 
 lics." True, so did Cranmer once, so did Calvin, so 
 did Luther, so did Pelagius, so did Donatus, so did Arius, 
 so did all the heretics of ancient times, but they fell away, 
 they apostatized, they left the only ark of safety, the 
 One, Holy, and Apostolic Church. The infamous traitor 
 Judas was once a disciple, nay, even a chosen Apostle 
 of our Lord, and you may as well charge our Lord and 
 His Apostles and the Christian name with the infamy 
 and fearful crime of that arch-traitor, as to make the 
 Catholic Church responsible for the crimes of Henry 
 after he severed himself from the communion of the 
 Holy See, and had himself proclaimed Supreme in 
 spirituals as well as temporals. It is true, and no 
 Catholic, as far as we know, will deny what the late 
 Welby Pugin asserts, that England presents " a fearful 
 example of a Catholic nation betrayed by a corrupted 
 Catholic hierarchy. Henry is declared the Snprcmum 
 Caput of England's Church ; not voce populi, but by the 
 voice of convocation ; the Church is sacrificed, the people 
 are sacrificed, and the actors in this vile surrender are 
 the true and lawful bishops and clergy of England." It 
 is also true that, "all the terrible executions of Henry's 
 dreadful reign were perpetrated before the externals of 
 the old religion were altered," but it is not true that it 
 was before the system of Protestantism was broached, or 
 the essentials of the Catholic Church denied. For the 
 wretched system was broached, and the Catholic faith in
 
 14 HENRY VIII. TO IVHO.M HE BELONGS. 
 
 its essentials was rejected when the authority of the 
 Church and the primacy of the Pope were rejected and 
 denied. It is also true that by his will he ordained that 
 masses should be celebrated for his soul, for the exter- 
 nals of the old religion, the ancient liturgy, the old Cath- 
 olic Missals and Pontificals were not yet altered, and the 
 masses that were said by an Augustine, a Cuthbert, "a 
 Wilfrid, an Anselm, a Dunstan, a Bede, and thousands 
 of saints of the English Church, were still said in 
 Henry's time, and even Cranmer himself, who is ap- 
 plauded as a model reformer, offered Mass for the re- 
 pose of the soul of Francis I., King of France, on the 
 I9th of June, 1547. "The archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Cranmer, with eight other bishops in their richest Pon- 
 tifical habits, sung a mass of Requiem." (Collier ii., 
 229, as quoted by Dodd.) 
 
 Let me quote the same historian, Dodd, in answer to 
 the charge that Henry's evil conduct may be laid at 
 the door of the Catholic Church. "To charge the 
 scandalous part of Henry's life upon his popish educa- 
 tion, is so groundless an aspersion, that it is inconsis- 
 tent with every circumstance of the facts. While he 
 lived like other princes, in due subjection to the See of 
 Rome in all spiritual matters, no one had a better 
 character; but as the first step of unfortunate children 
 is disobedience to their parents, this seems to have been 
 the origin of Henry's disorderly life ; who no sooner 
 had broke out of the pale of the Church, but he ranged 
 without control through all the paths of vice. Per- 
 haps Catholics will not recriminate so closely in their 
 reflections, as to charge the monstrous crimes he was 
 guilty of upon the reformers' principles, though some of 
 his advisers, who put him on the method of Reform;"
 
 HENRY I'll 1. TO ll'HOM I IE BELONGS. 15 
 
 were capable of delivering such lesv>ns): }-et it has 
 always been an observation, both in private life, and in 
 the fate of nations, that a defection from the Universal 
 Church had two dismal consequences, free thinking as 
 to religion, and a boundless liberty as to morals." 
 (Part i., Art. vi., p. 323).
 
 i6 
 
 THE NEW LITURGY 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE NEW LITURGY BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 
 
 BUT is it not strange to hear the objection that 
 Henry belonged to the Catholics because masses 
 were said for him, when it is known that there was 
 in England no other form of public worship, no other 
 liturgy, until the second year of Edward VI.? Is it not 
 known that the commission which he appointed in the 
 year 1554, ''pretending to work on the plan of the four 
 Rituals hitherto used in England, viz., Sarum, York, 
 Bangor and Lincoln, compiled the 'Book of Common 
 Prayer ?' " Is it not known that at this time the so-called 
 reformers were fearfully mixed up and divided in re- 
 gard to the holy Mass ? " One while they were disposed 
 to retain the names, sacrifice and mass, and as a neces- 
 sary consequence also the word altar." 
 
 Now, the altar was to be called a table, which was 
 removed some distance from the wall, again placed in 
 the middle of the chancel, and once more restored to 
 its original place, where the high altar stood. "On 
 which occasion, Dr. Hugh Weston merrily said, 'The 
 reformation was like an ape, not knowing which way 
 to turn his tail.' ' (Foxe, Hi, 76.) This new liturgy en- 
 titled " Book of Common Prayer," and made obli- 
 gatory under pains and penalties by act of Parliament 
 (2 and 3, Edward VI., c. i), was thus forced on the English
 
 THE NE W LITURG Y. \ J 
 
 Church, though the bishops of Norwich, Hereford, 
 Chichester and Westminster, who were on the com- 
 mittee for drawing up the bill, protested against it ; 
 (Collier ii., 364), and four other bishops who had been 
 on the committee, namely, those of London, Durham, 
 Carlisle and Worcester, were equally opposed to it. 
 (Lords'Journal i., 33 1 , cited-by Rev. Mr. Tierney, F.S.A.) 
 The act of Parliament providing for " uniformity of 
 service and administration of sacraments throughout 
 the realm," passed January I5th, 1549, became obli- 
 gatory on the Feast of Pentecost of that year. " On 
 that day, "says Rev. Mr. Tierney, " the English service 
 was for the first time solemnly performed in the 
 Cathedral of St. Pauls'. ' As to the clergy, although to 
 escape pains and penalties, they had been induced to con- 
 form to the provisions of the act, they were not disposed 
 to abandon the ancient liturgy ; the bishop (Bonner) 
 was known, moreover, to be favorable to their views ; and 
 accordingly, while the common prayer was recited 
 publicly at the high altar, Mass continued to be pri. 
 vately celebrated in the different chapels of the 
 Cathedral," just the same, we may remark, as it is to- 
 day in the different chapels of our own Cathedral. Thus 
 we see how, and when, and by whom the Mass was abol- 
 ished in England. Soon after came another order to the 
 bishops from the king, to-burn and destroy all the missals, 
 antiphoners, graduals, etc., previously used in the 
 churches, and as the bishops were unwilling to enforce, 
 and the clergy to obey the royal mandate, abill waspassed 
 (3 and 4, Edward VI., 10.) by which any person refusing 
 to surrender, or any archbishop, bishop, or other officer 
 neglecting to destroy, such books, should suffer fine or 
 imprisonment, as the case might be. This common
 
 18 THE NEW LITURGY. 
 
 prayer established in 1549, was revised and altered in 
 1552, and again under Elizabeth in 1559, again under 
 King James I. in 1604, and afterwards under Charles II. 
 in 1662. Thus we have a history of the Anglican form 
 of public worship, or Book of Common Prayer, ori- 
 ginating with the novelties of the Reformation, forced by 
 king and Parliament upon the Church, revised, altered 
 and modified to suit and give expression to the ever- 
 changing faith of a Church that had broken loose from 
 the chair of Peter, the Reformers thus instinctively and 
 perhaps unconciously affirming the Catholic principle 
 that a Church's liturgy or form of prayer is the truest 
 expression of a people's faith, which Pope Celestine I. 
 thus enunciates, writing (Epis. viii.) to the bishops of 
 Gaul : "Ut legem credendi, lex statuat supplicandi"
 
 NEW ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 
 
 V. 
 
 NEW ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 
 
 HAVING changed the ancient liturgy of the 
 Church, and destroyed the old missals used in 
 the Church of England from time immemorial, and 
 thus insensibly robbed the people of their faith by a 
 mutilated and deceptive form of public prayer, craftily 
 obscuring and implicitly denying the very essence of 
 sacrifice, the next step of the wily reformers, headed 
 by Cranmer, who, together with a wife had smuggled 
 into England from foreign lands many of the errors of 
 Luther and Calvin, was to devise an Ordinal or form 
 of ordination to accompany the Common Prayer Book, 
 which should ignore and obliterate the very idea, char- 
 acter and office of the priesthood. During the first 
 two years of Edward's reign, no essential change was 
 made in the Roman Pontifical. Only the oath of alle- 
 giance was changed, and hence all those priests or- 
 dained and bishops consecrated during this time, though 
 schismatics, and excommunicated and deprived of all 
 power of jurisdiction, had valid orders, were validly, 
 though illicitly (minus rite), ordained and consecrated, 
 and they could be, and were with proper dispensations in 
 the time of Mary allowed again to exercise their orders, 
 recognized as bishops and priests. But in 1550 Parlia- 
 ment passed an act devising a new method and " uni-
 
 20 W IV ANGLICAN ORDINAL. 
 
 form- fashion and manner of making and consecrating 
 bishops, priests, deacons or ministers of the Church," 
 and for not concurring in which at least four bishops 
 were deprived. This new Ordinal, established by au- 
 thority of Edward's Parliament, was again confirmed in 
 1552 (5 and 6 Edward VI., c. I.), when the Prayer Book 
 was revised. In again examining carefully the history 
 of the introduction of the Prayer Book and Ordinal, 
 we cannot understand how any one can assert that 
 the acts of Parliament innovated nothing, and only 
 made the law of the land what was before the ecclesi- 
 astical law. The very reverse is transparent. And 
 we may be allowed here again to quote the historian 
 Dodd, who asserts that this Ordinal of Edward, that by 
 which Parker is said to have been consecrated, " was in 
 the ensuing reign (of Mary) examined and declared to 
 be insufficient and invalid as to the purposes of conse- 
 crating a true ministry," because, among other reasons, 
 " there was no form of words specifying the order that 
 was conferred, and particularly, no words or ceremony 
 made use of, to express the power of absolving, or 
 offering sacrifice."
 
 CLEMENTS D ISP EN 3 A TION TO HENRY. 21 
 
 VI. 
 
 CL-EMEXT'S DISPENSATION TO HENRY. 
 
 BEFORE finally closing our historic review of this 
 period of the Anglican establishment, I must call 
 attention to a strange error, or shall we call it, fabrica- 
 tion ? 
 
 "The Pontiff did actually give Henry permission 
 to have two wives at once." But, continues our 
 honest controversialist, who, in this instance at least, 
 seems to have descended not to equivocation merely, 
 but to bare-faced falsification : " Bad as Henry was, he 
 had more conscience, it would seem, than this compli- 
 ant Pope, who, anxious to be on good terms alike with 
 Henry and Charles, could only continue to please them 
 both by authorizing Henry to practise bigamy." 
 There is not a word of truth in it. It is a falsehood, 
 manufactured out of whole cloth, and the pretence of 
 quoting Lingard makes the fabrication all the more' 
 glaring. Dr. Lingard (" History of England," vol. vi. , c. 
 iii.) acknowledges that the Pope, Clement VII., signed 
 a document by which " he granted to Henry a dis- 
 pensation to marry, in the place of Catharine, any other 
 woman whomsoever, even if she were already promised 
 to another, or related to himself in the first degree of 
 affinity." We have italicized the words /;/ the place of 
 Catharine, showing it was not a permission to have two
 
 22 CLEMENT'S D ISP ENS A TION TO HENRY. 
 
 wives at once, or an authorization to practise bigamy. 
 Dr. Lingard, in a note on this same passage, tells the 
 reason why such a dispensation was deemed necessary, 
 and where the Bull of dispensation could be found. 
 Now, as any one may see at a glance, from the words of 
 Dr. Lingard, and more clearly still from the document 
 sent from England and signed by Clement, A. D. 1527, 
 and of his Pontificate the fifth, that the dispensation 
 was granted conditionally, to authorize Henry to con- 
 tract a valid marriage with Anne Boleyn, if, in the in- 
 vestigation then going on before a commission em- 
 powered by the Pontiff himself, it were found that the 
 marriage of Henry with Catharine was null and in- 
 valid. The dispensation was asked, as we read in the 
 document itself: "in.eventum declarations nullitatis 
 matrimonii" and granted: " Si contingat matrimon- 
 ium cum praefata Catkarina, alias contractum, mi Hum 
 fuisse, et esse/' Now, how any man can, with these 
 documents before him, assert that the Pope granted to 
 Henry permission to have two wives at once, or to prac- 
 tise bigamy, is more than I can understand, and I must 
 repeat that it appears to me not an equivocation, but 
 a bare-faced falsification, worthy of those, " who 
 reck not \vhat they do or say to damage an adversary."
 
 TRUTH AND EQ U2 VOCA TION. 23 
 
 VII. 
 
 EQUIVOCATION AUTHORITY OF SAINTS AND DOCTORS 
 OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 WHILST thus retorting in his own words, I must, 
 for the sake of truth and in self-vindication, 
 notice and repel the injurious charges and insinuations 
 contained in the following extracts from the same 
 pamphlet, and harped upon in season and out of season 
 by the same writer, to throw discredit on Catholic 
 theology, and our veracity and regard for the truth. 
 " I have no Liguori permitting me by infallible author- 
 ity to say anything but plain truth:" " His infallible 
 master has commended in a superlative degree the 
 teaching of Alphonsus de Liguori, by which he is in- 
 structed to violate even an oath, whenever ' the good of 
 the Church' conflicts with keeping it. It is lawful for 
 a Roman Catholic, ' for a good cause, to use equivoca- 
 tion, in the modes laid down, and to confirm it with an 
 oath' So says the Papal authority." We will not 
 now advert to the questionable courtesy of the expres- 
 sion, his infallible master, or the misuse of the words, 
 Papal authority, applied to St. Liguori's treatise on 
 moral theology, or the misapplication of the term in- 
 fallible. I purpose simply to show that the gentleman 
 misconstrues the text of St. Liguori, and gives a mis- 
 leading rendering of the very passage which he cites. 
 Taking it apart from its context, he gives a false coloring
 
 24 TRUTH AND EQUIVOCATION. 
 
 to the whole. " I should be sorry to accuse him of 
 wilful mistake," but probably not having the works 
 of St. Liguori, he has been imposed on " by the 
 authors from whom he borrows his statements," and 
 who "freely use a license," which neither Jesuit nor 
 Liguorian morals, as we know them, would tolerate. 
 
 Then we say it is totally false that " St. Alphonsus 
 de Liguori instructs us to violate even an oath, when- 
 ever the ' good of the Church' conflicts with keeping it." 
 St. Alphonsus does say (Lib. 4, Tract. 2, de secundo 
 prceccpto decalogi), and this is obviously the passage 
 which our friend pretends to give in an English dress 
 " His positis, cerium est et commune apudomnes, quod 
 ex justa causa licitum sit uti cquivocatione modis expositis, 
 et cum juramento firniare" Not, then, whenever the 
 good of the Church conflicts with keeping an oath are 
 we instructed to violate it, nor does he say that we 
 may use equivocation and confirm the same with an 
 oath for a good cause, but having explained three dif- 
 ferent ways in which equivocation, or a play upon 
 words, or the use of double meaning expressions, am- 
 phibology, may be used, he says simply that it is the 
 certain and common opinion of theologians that when 
 there is a just cause it is allowable to use equivocation in 
 the ways or manner laid down, and before explained, 
 and to confirm the same with an oath. Now, we must 
 here know what is meant by ex justa causa, which is a 
 sine qua non, and what are the modes laid down, or the 
 manner in which play on words, or equivocation, is 
 allowable. When a word or sentence has two mean- 
 ings, and the speaker uses it in one sense, and intends 
 his hearers to take it in another, or when an expression 
 may be taken in a literal or a spiritual sense, as for in-
 
 TRUTH AND EQUIVOCATION. 2 $ 
 
 stance, when our Lord said of John the Baptist : " He is 
 Elias," and the Baptist himself said : " I am not Elias." 
 Such a play on words, St. Liguori says, is allowable, and 
 when there is a just cause the same may be confirmed 
 with an oath, and a just cause the saint explains as, 
 " quicumqtic finis lionestus ad servanda bona spiritui, vel 
 corpori utilia." 
 
 As a recent writer on this subject well says, " The 
 right to plead ' not guilty,' acknowledged in our law, St. 
 Liguori maintains to be, under certain circumstances, 
 a natural right. When a questioner has a right to 
 the truth, then the equivocation is forbidden, and where 
 the saint would allow of equivocation, his Protestant 
 critics would in all probability lie more or less clum- 
 sily." To show that this is not a groundless assertion 
 I will take the liberty of making an extract from the 
 admirable work of Dr. Newman, " Apologia pro vita 
 sua," where, whilst affirming that on this point he 
 does not follow the holy and charitable St. Liguori, 
 but rather other saints and doctors of the Catholic 
 Church, he shows that many good Protestant au- 
 thorities need vindication fully as much as our saint. 
 " Now I make this remark, first great English au- 
 thors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of 
 very distinct schools of thought, distinctly say, that 
 under certain special circumstances it is allowable to 
 tell a lie. Taylor says : ' To tell a lie for charity, to 
 save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of 
 a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only 
 been done in all times, but commended by great and 
 wise and good men. Who would not save his father's 
 life at the charge of a harmless lie from persecutors or 
 tyrants ?' Again Milton says : ' What man in his senses
 
 26 TR UTH AND EQ Ul VOCA TION. 
 
 would deny, that there are those whom we have the 
 best grounds for considering that we ought to deceive 
 as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, 
 men in error, thieves ? I would ask, by which of the 
 commandments is a lie forbidden ? You will say, by 
 the ninth. If, then, my lie does not injure my neigh- 
 bor, certainly it is not forbidden by this command- 
 ment.' Paley says : ' There are falsehoods which are 
 not lies, that is, which are not criminal.' Johnson: 
 ' The general rule is, that truth should never be vio- 
 lated : there must, however, be some exceptions. If, 
 for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a 
 man has gone?' " The estimable and learned Dr., now 
 Cardinal, Newman continues : " You must not suppose 
 that a philosopher or moralist uses in his own case the 
 license, which his theory itself would allow him. A 
 man in his own case is guided by his own conscience ; 
 but in drawing out a system of rules, he is obliged to go 
 by logic and follow the exact deduction of conclusion 
 from conclusion,' and be sure that the whole system is 
 coherent and one." And as Dr. Newman remarks, and 
 as we all know from St. Liguori's life, he who by some 
 is so flippantly paraded as authorizing equivocation, 
 and even lying, was most scrupulous and of singular 
 delicacy of conscience on that very point, so much so, 
 that having been unwarily led into defending a case on 
 false grounds, whilst in the profession of the law, he 
 abandoned his profession and embraced the religious 
 life. 
 
 I will then only add what Dr. Newman so well and 
 clearly snys on this point in the Appendix to the work 
 already mentioned : "Almost all authors, Catholic and 
 Protestant, admit that when a just cause is present, there
 
 TR U TH AND EQ UI VOCA TION, 27 
 
 is some kind or other of verbal misleading, which is 
 not sin," and the equivocation and play on words 
 which St. Liguori allows, is precisely such as is not a 
 lie, is not sinful, and therefore ex justa causa, when 
 there is a just cause, may be confirmed by an oath. 
 This, after all, is only his opinion as a private theolo- 
 gian, and the Church, much less the infallible Pope, must 
 not be held responsible for his private theological opin- 
 ions. Archbishop Kenrick, in his " Theologia Moralis," 
 (Tract, iii., c. xii., iv.) thus speaks of equivocation, 
 or ambiguity of speech : " It is confessed by all Cath- 
 olics that in the common intercourse of life, all ambig- 
 uity of language should be avoided : but whether such 
 ambiguity may ever be allowed, is a subject of dispute. 
 Most theologians give an affirmative answer, provided 
 a grave cause urges, and from the adjuncts or circum- 
 stances the mind of the speaker may be gathered, 
 although in reality it is not so gathered." And then 
 he instances examples of Holy Writ, as when Abraham 
 counselled Sara to call herself his sister, hiding their 
 marriage relations, and Isaac would have Rebecca 
 called sister, rather than wife. So our Lord said He 
 would not go up to the festival day not wishing to go 
 up there publicly, with His disciples, and manifest His 
 divinity, though intending to go up afterwards in 
 secret. (John vii., 8, 10.) He spoke of Lazarus 
 sleeping, and said of the girl that she was not dead. 
 (John xi., 11.) He declared He knew not the day of 
 the judgment because it was not to be made known. 
 (Mark xiii., 32.) Meaning His body, He spoke of the 
 temple, so that the Jews understood Him to speak of 
 the temple of Jerusalem. (John ii., 19.) And the 
 learned author quotes Jeremy Taylor, affirming :
 
 28 TK UTH AND EQU1 1'OCA TION. 
 
 " It is lawful, upon a just cause or necessity, to use in 
 our answers and intercourse, words of divers significa- 
 tion, though it does deceive him that asks." This I 
 think is sufficient to show St. Liguori does not even go 
 as far on the subject of equivocation as other learned 
 and esteemed Anglican authors, and that his language 
 is garbled, his meaning distorted, his teaching grossly 
 falsified, when he is said to " teach us to violate even 
 an oath whenever the good of the Church conflicts with 
 keeping it.." Surely, he " whose teachings have been com. 
 mended in a superlative degree," would not contradict 
 nor ignore the teachings of Pope Innocent XI., who 
 condemned the following proposition: 
 
 "If any one alone, or before others, whether inter- 
 rogated, or of his own prompting, either for the sake of 
 recreation, or any other end, swears that he did not 
 really do what he did do, meaning in his own mind 
 something else which he did not do, or some other 
 way, from that in which he did it, or any other true 
 circumstance, he does not really lie, is not a perjurer." 
 No matter, then, what may be the opinion of individ- 
 ual theologians and casuists as to the lawfulness of 
 misleading by equivocation or ambiguity of language 
 in certain circumstances and with just cause, or as to 
 cases when untruths are not lies : the teaching of our 
 holy Church is that lying is never lawful, that it is not 
 allowed to tell the slightest venial lie to save the whole 
 world. Not, then, for the good of the Church, nor to 
 secure the return to her bosom of the whole Protes- 
 tant world, could the Church authorize a wilful lie, much 
 less a false oath. A lie is an offence against God, for 
 which no finite good, no conceivable good to the whole 
 human race, can compensate ; and besides, the catechism
 
 TRUTH AND EQUIVOCATION. 2 <) 
 
 of the Council of Trent, which is the Church's author- 
 ized hand-book of Christian doctrine, declares:' " To 
 none, therefore,' can it be matter of doubt, that this 
 (eighth) Commandment condemns lies of every sort, as 
 these words of David expressly declare : " Thou wilt de- 
 stroy all that speak a lie." And again, *' But the evil con> ' 
 sequences of lying are not confined to individuals ; they 
 extend to society at large. By duplicity and lying, good 
 faith and truth, which form the closest links of human so- 
 ciety, are dissolved ; confusion ensues ; and men seem 
 to differ in nothing.from demons." I have dwelt on this 
 point so fully because again and again these same parties 
 have belied ourselves and our Church, charging us with 
 holding doctrines which the Church repudiates and 
 rejects, and they never tire of throwing in our teeth 
 the " license of Jesuit and Liguorian morals." In ad- 
 dition to misconstruing, distorting and falsifying the 
 teaching of our saints and doctors, they will still insist 
 that these authors, because canonized saints and doc- 
 tors of the Church ; are the very mouth-peices of the 
 Church, and speak with Papal, and even infallible, 
 authority. 
 
 To set at rest forever this false notion so industri- 
 ously circulated, we will again ask a learned friend 
 to speak for us. Dr. Newman, in the appendix to his 
 "Apologia pro vita sua," says: "It is supposed by 
 Protestants that, because St. Alfonso's writings have 
 had such high commendations bestowed upon them 
 by authority, therefore they have been invested with a 
 quasi-infallibility. This has arisen in good measure 
 from Protestants not knowing the force of theological 
 terms. The words to which they refer, are the author- 
 itative decision that ' nothing in his works have been
 
 3O A UTHORITY OF SAINTS AND 
 
 found worthy of censure, censurd dignum] but this does 
 not lead to the conclusions that have been drawn from 
 it. These words occur in a legal document, and can- 
 not be interpreted, except in a legal sense. In the 
 first place the sentence is negative; nothing in St. 
 Alfono's writings is positively approved ; and secondly, 
 it is not said that there are no faults in what he has 
 written, but nothing which comes under ecclesiastical 
 censure. " Pope Benedict XIV. says : " The end or 
 scope of the judgment pronounced on the works of a 
 saint when examined before his canonization, is, that 
 it may appear that the doctrine of the servant of God, 
 which he has brought out in his writings, is free from 
 any theological censure. It can never be said that the 
 doctrine of a servant of God is approved by the Holy 
 See, but at most, it can (only) be said that it is not dis- 
 approved (non reprobatani). Hence a writer of Mechlin 
 quoted by Dr. Newman, observes: "It is, therefore, 
 clear that the approbation of the words of the holy 
 bishop teaches not the truth of every proposition, adds 
 nothing to them, nor even gives them by consequence 
 a degree of intrinsic probability." So much then for 
 the approbation of the writings of canonized saints. 
 Now what about solemnly declared doctors of the Uni- 
 versal Church? I borrow my answer from a well- 
 informed writer in a late number of the " London 
 Tablet" " The highest appreciation of the doctrine 
 of doctors is in a quotation made by Benedict 
 XIV. from a decree of Boniface VIII., where w r e read 
 that for one to be raised to such rank, it should be 
 verified that, by his doctrine the darkness of errors 
 was dispersed, light thrown upon obscurities, doubts 
 resolved, the hard knots of Scripture unloosed." Be-
 
 DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH. ^\ 
 
 sides, as the same writer remarks, does not St. Alfonso 
 himself often impugn the opinions and controvert the 
 teachings of other illustrious and sainted doctors, and 
 among others of St. Thomas Aquinas himself, the great 
 scholastic doctor and angel of the schools. And may 
 not we say in regard to St. Liguori what the monk 
 Nicholas is said to have answered, when charged with 
 want of reverence to St. Bernard, who is styled the 
 most lovable of the doctors of the Church: " We may 
 not indeed doubt of his glory, but we may dispute his 
 word." Nay, more, though we are firm believers in 
 Papal infallibility, and always have been, even before 
 its explicit definition and formal promulgation by the 
 Vatican Council, we do not hold that the canonization 
 of a servant of God, or his elevation to the rank and 
 title of doctor of the Universal Church, by the Holy 
 See, invests his writings with infallible, or quasi-infalli- 
 ble, or Papal authority, or decides the truth of every 
 theological proposition which he maintains, though, as 
 Benedict XIV. remarks: "We should speak of him 
 with reverence and attack his opinions only with temper 
 and modesty." More still, Catholic faith does not 
 make the Pope, nor does he himself claim to be, infal- 
 lible, when, as a private doctor or theologian, he dis- 
 cusses theological questions or writes on disputed points 
 of doctrine or morals.
 
 32 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 ^HIS brings us to the subject of papal infallibility, 
 -A- so frequently mentioned and strangely misrepre- 
 sented in the pamphlet of an " Old Catholic," review- 
 ing our lecture. I must of necessity be brief on 
 this point, and must confine myself to a statement of 
 the Catholic doctrine and the grounds on which it is 
 based. This will suffice to correct the wrong views 
 taken of it, and the false impressions which unreflect- 
 ing readers might take from the pamphlet in question. 
 In the last session of the Vatican Council, on the i/th 
 day of July, the following definition of Catholic faith 
 was promulgated : 
 
 "Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition re- 
 ceived from the beginning of the Christian faith, for 
 the glory of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the 
 Catholic religion, and the salvation of the Christian 
 people, the sacred council approving, we teach and de- 
 fine, that it is a dogma divinely revealed : that the 
 Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra that is,
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILTV. 33 
 
 when in the discharge of tne office of pastor and 
 teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme 
 authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be 
 held by the Universal Church is, by the divine as- 
 sistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, possessed 
 of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer 
 willed that His Church should be endowed for de- 
 fining doctrine regarding faith or morals ; and that 
 therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irre- 
 formable of themselves, and not from the consent of 
 the Church." 
 
 No novelty in doctrine then is here introduced, no 
 new article of faith taught, but faithfully adhering to 
 the traditions received from the beginning of the Chris- 
 tian faith, it is declared to be a dogma divinely revealed 
 that when the Roman Pontiff, in his supreme official 
 capacity of pastor and teacher of all Christians, speak- 
 ing ex cathedra, defines a doctrine touching faith or 
 morals to be held by all Christians, he cannot err in so 
 defining, but through the divine assistance promised to 
 Blessed Peter he is endowed with the infallible magis- 
 terium or teaching authority, with which our Lord and 
 Saviour was pleased to invest His Church. We recog- 
 nize no authority on earth, in Pope or council, to make 
 a new article of faith, to alter, add to, or take from the 
 deposit of faith once committed to the saints ; we be- 
 lieve in no new revelation. The question before the 
 council was simply, has this doctrine been revealed? is 
 it clearly contained in the deposit um fidei ? The bishops 
 of the Catholic world assembled in council under the 
 presidency of the Sovereign Pontiff claimed no author- 
 ity to make a new dogma, no right to impose a new 
 article of faith on the consciences of their people.
 
 34 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 t 
 
 They were indeed judges and qualified witnesses of the 
 faith and traditions of the churches " over which they 
 were placed by the holy Ghost to rule." The revealed 
 word of God, the holy Gospels,were reverently enthroned 
 in the council chamber, and the Fathers asked them- 
 selves, is this doctrine sustained by Scriptural proof? is 
 It taught in the infallible word of God? is it conform- 
 able to the revelation of Jesus Christ? what has been 
 the faith of Christian Churches ? what traditions have 
 been handed down ? It was only after the most con- 
 clusive evidence, afforded by an elaborate and critical 
 examination of Scriptural authorities, and a patient, 
 thorough, searching investigation of the traditions of 
 all the Christian Churches, that, it was proclaimed a 
 revealed dogma of Christian faith ; that, the above de- 
 cree was formulated, with the sacred council approving ; 
 that, the explicit formal decision of the question was defi- 
 nitively and authoritatively pronounced. Did the 
 Council of Nicea, in the year 325, under Pope St. 
 Sylvester, make a new article of faith when it defined 
 the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father ? Did 
 the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431, under Pope St. 
 Celestine change the Christian faith when it defined 
 that there was but one person in Christ, and that Mary 
 was truly the Mother of God ? Does our Supreme 
 Court alter the Constitution of the United States, or 
 add an amendment to the same, when it interprets of- 
 ficially and authoritatively that honored instrument, 
 which Americans love to call the great palladium of our 
 liberties, and decides grave legal rights and hotly con- 
 tested questions to be within the purview of the Consti- 
 tution of our fathers, or conformable to its provisions? 
 This is all the Fathers of the Vatican Council did, this is
 
 PAP AT. INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 35 
 
 all that any Council ever did, or can do. Constituted a 
 Supreme Tribunal of last resort, it decides not only 
 definitively but with infallible authority what is of faith, 
 what is conformable to the revealed word of God. This 
 is all the Church has ever claimed, but this prerogative 
 she has ever claimed and exercised, and it is absolutely- 
 necessary to her in the fulfilment of her divine com; 
 mission to teach all nations, all truth, down to the end 
 of time, absolutely necessary for the preservation of 
 oneness of faith, absolutely necessary that we may know 
 what is the faith, which we are bound to believe if we 
 would be saved. And hence our Blessed Lord, in estab- 
 lishing His Church, and requiring us to receive her 
 teaching: " He that will not hear the Church let him 
 be to thee as the heathen and publican," (Matt, xviii., 
 17), declaring, that " He that believeth not shall be 
 condemned," (Mark xvi., 16), must of necessity have 
 made her unerring, absolutely infallible in her teaching, 
 as he did promising " Himself to be with her for- 
 ever," (Matt, xxviii., 20), and to send the Spirit of 
 Truth to abide with her forever, to teach her all truth. 
 Since the coming of our Saviour there has been no new 
 revelation. The/rfzV/j once delivered to the saints is un- 
 changeable, and hence with St. Paul we say, if any one, 
 even an angel of Heaven, preach to you any other 
 gospel sa\fre that which you have received, let him be 
 anathema. (Gal. i., 9.) 
 
 The Church is then simply the witness among men 
 of the original revelation. Her office is to declare what 
 was contained in that original deposit, and in declaring 
 this she is divinely assisted, and thus it is, by the divine 
 assistance of the Spirit of Truth, the integrity and purity 
 of faith, are divinely and infallibly preserved, and as
 
 36 PAPAL IN FALLIBILITY. 
 
 may be seen by the decree itself, and by what may be 
 called the preamble to the decree, the whole text of the 
 fourth chapter of the first constitution of the Church 
 of Christ, she goes back to the teaching of Scripture 
 and tradition, councils and doctors of the Church, and 
 expressly declares : " The Holy Spirit was not promised 
 to the successors of Peter, that by His revelation they 
 might make known new doctrine, but that by His as- 
 sistance, they might inviolably keep and faithfully ex- 
 pound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered 
 through the Apostles." Indeed I feel impelled to 
 transfer to these pages the full text of that fourth chap- 
 ter, " On the infallible magisterium, or teaching author- 
 ity of the Roman Pontiff," and although somewhat 
 lengthy it will well repay perusal, as it shows the mind 
 of the council, the sources whence it drew the doctrine 
 defined, and must forever set at rest the charge of 
 novelty or innovation. 
 
 " Moreover, that the supreme power of teaching is 
 also included in the Apostolic primacy which the Ro- 
 man Pontiff, as the successor of St. Peter, Prince of 
 the Apostles, possesses over the whole Church, this 
 Holy See has always held, the perpetual practice of the 
 Church confirms, and oecumenical councils also have 
 declared, especially those in which the East with the 
 West met in the union of faith and charity. For the 
 fathers of the fourth council of Constantinople, follow- 
 ing in the footsteps of their predecessors, gave forth 
 this solemn profession: The first condition of salvation 
 is to keep the rule of the true faith. And because the 
 sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed 
 by, who said : Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I 
 will build my Church (Matt. xvi. 18), these things
 
 PAPAL JXFALL1B1LITY. 
 
 37 
 
 which have been said are approved by events, because 
 in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always 
 been kept undefiled. and her holy doctrine proclaimed. 
 Desiring, therefore, not to be in the least degree 
 separated from the faith and doctrine of that See, we 
 hope that we may deserve to be in the one commun- 
 ion which the Apostolic See preaches, in which is the 
 entire and true solidity of the Christian religion. 
 (Formula of St. Hermisdas, subscribed by the fathers 
 of the Eighth General Council [fourth Constantino- 
 ple], A. D. 869.) And, with the approval of the second 
 council of Lyons, the Greeks professed that the Holy 
 Roman Church enjoys supreme and full primacy and 
 pre-eminence over the whole Catholic Church, which it 
 truly and humbly acknowledges that it has received with 
 the plenitude of power from our Lord Himself in the 
 person of the Blessed Peter, Prince or head of the 
 Apostles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is ; and 
 as the Apostolic See is bound before all others to de- 
 fend the truth of faith, so, also, if any questions regard- 
 ing faith shall arise, they must be defined by its judg- 
 ment. (Acts of Fourteenth General Council [second 
 of Lyons], A. D. 1274.) Finally the Council of Florence 
 defined : (Acts of Seventeenth General Council of Flor- 
 ence, A. D. 1438) that the Roman Pontiff is the true 
 vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole Church, 
 and the father and teacher of all Christians, and that 
 to him, in Blessed Peter, was delivered by our Lord 
 Jesus Christ the full power of feeding, ruling, and gov- 
 erning the whole Church. John xxi. 15-17. 
 
 To satisfy this pastoral duty our predecessors ever 
 made unwearied efforts that the salutary doctrine of 
 Christ might be propagated among all the nations of
 
 38 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY, 
 
 the earth, and with equal care watched that it might 
 be preserved genuine and pure where it had been 
 received. Therefore the bishops of the whole world, 
 now singly, now assembled in synod, following the 
 long-established custom of churches (Letter of St. 
 Cyril of Alexandria to Pope St. Celestine I., A. D. 422, 
 volvi., pt. II., p. 36, Paris Edit, of 1638), and the form 
 of the ancient rule (Rescript of St. Innocent I. to 
 Council of Milevis. A. D. 402) sent word to his Apos- 
 tolic See of those dangers especially which sprang up 
 in matters of faith, that there the losses of faith might 
 be most effectually repaired where the faith cannot fail. 
 (Letter of St. Bernard to Pope Innocent II., A. D. 
 1130, Epist. 191, vol. iii., p. 433, Paris Edit, of 1742.) 
 And the Roman Pontiffs, according to the exigencies 
 of time and circumstance, sometimes assembling 
 oecumenical councils, or asking for the mind of the 
 Church scattered throughout the world, sometimes 
 by particular synods, sometimes using other helps 
 which Divine Providence supplied, defined as to be 
 held those things which with the help of God they 
 had recognized as conformable with the sacred Scrip, 
 ture and Apostolic tradition. For the Holy Spirit 
 was not promised to the successors of Peter that by 
 His revelation they might make known new doct- 
 rine, but that by His assistance they might inviol- 
 ably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or 
 deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles. And 
 indeed all the venerable fathers have embraced, and 
 the holy orthodox doctors have venerated and followed 
 their Apostolic doctrine ; knowing most fully that 
 this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all 
 * blemish of error, according to the Divine promise of
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 39 
 
 the Lord our Saviour made to the Prince of His dis- 
 ciples: I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not,, 
 and when thou art converted confirm thy brethern. 
 (Luke xxii., 32. ' See also acts of Sixth General 
 Council, A. D. 680.) 
 
 This gift, then, of truth and never-failing faith was 
 conferred by heaven upon Peter and his successors ir 
 this chair, that they might perform their high office- 
 for the salvation of all ; that the whole flock of Christ,, 
 kept away by them from the poisonous food of error,, 
 might be nourished with the pasture of heavenly doc- 
 trine; that the occasion of schism being removed, the 
 whole Church might be kept one, and, resting on its 
 foundation, might stand firm against the gates of helL 
 
 But since, in this very age, in which the salutary- 
 efficacy of the Apostolic office is most of all required, 
 not a few are found who take away from its authority, 
 we judge it altogether necessary solemnly to assert the 
 prerogative which the only-begotten Son of God 
 vouchsafed to join with the supreme pastoral office. 
 
 "Therefore, continues the council adhering to the 
 tradition received from the beginning of the Christian 
 faith," etc., as above. To demonstrate that this same 
 tradition was held in the Church of England before the 
 so-called Reformation, I will cite two distinguished arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury. St. Thomas, in a letter to the 
 bishop of Hereford : "Who doubts that the Church of 
 Rome is the head of all the churches, and the fountain 
 of Catholic truth ? Who is ignorant that the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven were entrusted to Peter? Does 
 not the structure of the whole Church rise from the 
 faith and doctrine of Peter?" And the illustrious St. 
 Anselm, who died in 1107, writes to a Pope of his day:.
 
 40 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 "For as much as the Providence of God has chosen 
 your Holiness to commit to your custody the (guid- 
 ance of the) life and faith of Christians, and the gov- 
 ernment of the Church, to no other can reference be 
 more rightly made, if so be, anything contrary to 
 the Catholic faith arise in the Church, in order that it 
 may be corrected by your authority." In further 
 proof, if indeed that be needed, that the dogma is no 
 novelty, I will take a short extract from a pastoral 
 which seventeen of the archbishops and bishops of 
 Germany addressed to their clergy and people from 
 Fulda after the Vatican Council in 1870: "Wherefore, 
 we hereby declare that the present Vatican Council is 
 a legitimate General Council, and moreover that this 
 council, as little as any other General Council, has pro- 
 pounded or formed a new doctrine at variance with the 
 ancient teaching ; but that it has simply developed and 
 thrown light upon the old and faithfully preserved truth, 
 contained in the deposit of faith, and in opposition to 
 the errors of the day has proposed it expressly to the 
 belief of all the faithful ; and lastly, that these decrees 
 have received a binding power on all the faithful by 
 the fact of their final publication by the Supreme 
 Head of the Church, in solemn form at the public 
 session." Thus, what was always contained in the 
 deposit of faith, by the formal explicit definition of 
 the council, and solemn promulgation by the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, became of binding force on all the faithful"; 
 what was before matter of implicit faith became 
 thenceforth of explicit faith. What then becomes of 
 the objection of "Keenaris Catechism" and Bossuet, of 
 the want of unanimity in the council, etc. 
 
 Before the final ruling of the Supreme Tribunal and
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 41 
 
 the explicit decision of the question at issue, Catholics 
 could take sides, and as the German prelates say : "As 
 long as the discussions lasted, the bishops, as their con- 
 sciences demanded, and as became their office, expressed 
 their views plainly and openly, and with all necessary 
 freedom ; and as was only to be expected in an assem- 
 bly of nearly 800 Fathers, many differences of opinion 
 were manifested." 
 
 That religious questions would arise, and differences 
 of opinion, eighteen hundred years after Christ, as well 
 as in the first age of the Christian Church, our Lord 
 well knew, and he provided for the solution of these 
 questions and the settlement of those differences, and 
 thereby for the integrity and purity of Christian faith 
 by establishing an ever-present, living, speaking author- 
 ity in His Church, who would be His own mouthpiece, 
 and make His people, the world over, and down through 
 the ages, unius labii, and thus save them from the Babel- 
 like confusion into which those sects necessarily fall 
 who reject the authority of an infallible teacher. 
 
 The Bible is the word of God, but without the living 
 voice of an authorized teacher it is wrested to the 
 destruction of faith and to the endless divisions of 
 Christianity. What anarchy and endless disputes, and 
 bitter, bloody feuds, to say nothing of wild revolu- 
 tionary schemes, would have ensued before the first 
 centennial of our independence, had the wise fathers 
 and founders of the Republic left each man to judge 
 for himself of the true meaning, scope and intent of the 
 constitution, without a tribunal, whose decisions were 
 to be final and possessed of a certain legal infallibility. 
 And can we believe that our Lord, in giving a consti- 
 tution to His Church, which was to spread over the
 
 42 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 habitable globe, from ocean to ocean, and from pole 
 to pole, and to continue to the consummation of ages, 
 would have left us without some such resource, the 
 hopeless victims of interminable divisions, doubt, un- 
 certainty and error whilst, too, obliging us under pen- 
 alty of exclusion from the kingdom, to believe His doc- 
 trine, to be His disciples, and to observe all those 
 things that he had commanded? But thanks to His in- 
 finite love and mercy, He has not thus abandoned us. 
 He has established a Church with authority to teach, 
 and it is His own mystical body, which cannot exist 
 without a head, and which, animated by the divine 
 Spirit, becomes the organ of infallible truth and divine 
 life to man United with that head must the members 
 be. would they share that divine life; around that head 
 were the bishops of the Church of God gathered in 
 love and reverence, and bearing witness to the unfailing 
 faith of ages : through the voice of Pius they proclaimed 
 that the Sovereign Pontiffs were still the successors of 
 blessed Peter, and by the divine assistance promised to 
 that privileged Apostle, when defining faith or morals, 
 ex cathedra, as doctor of all Christians, are possessed of 
 that infallibility with which our Divine Redeemer 
 wished his Church to be endowed. 
 
 Such, then, is the true doctrine of Papal infallibility, 
 to which at once all bow submission, and cry out with 
 the Apostles of our Lord : " Lord, to whom shall we go 
 but to thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 (John vi., 69.) How different from the so-called Church 
 of freedom, that dares not define its own belief, because 
 conscious of no divine authority to teach, for how can 
 they teach if they be not sent ? But how unjust and 
 ungrounded the charge of crouching servility, made
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILTY. 4, 
 
 so recklessly against Prelates, ready to sacrifice lib- 
 erty and life rather than compromise principles, who 
 have shown themselves not only men of pure elevated 
 characters, but intrepid heroes and martyrs in defence 
 of religion, and the rights of conscience. If our own 
 testimony on this subject be not taken, whose privilege 
 it was to be present in the venerable council, and to 
 have had an inside view of all its proceedings and I 
 will during my whole life cherish it as the greatest honor 
 of my life, to have been thus brought into friendly, social, 
 fraternal relations with many of the most estimable, 
 highly cultured, and saintly men if the plain language 
 of the learned and independent German Prelates be- 
 not enough to vindicate the honor of that council 
 against the aspersions of an anonymous writer who, 
 ashamed, as well he might be, to make himself known, 
 concealed his identity under the title of " Janus," 
 I beg to refer to "Anti-Janus," by Dr., now Car- 
 dinal Hergenrother. or to the "True Story of the Vat- 
 ican Council," by Cardinal Manning. I have dwelt so 
 long on this point, because of the misunderstanding and 
 misconception, and either ignorant or wilful misrepre- 
 sentation of the doctrine of Papal infallibility, and the 
 so-called innovation in doctriile by the Vatican Council. 
 This may show also how easily some people can say : "/ 
 have shown that not even the Roman Church held this 
 doctrine of infallibility four years ago ;" and: "7 Iiave 
 shoivn that Pius IX., on the i8th of July, 1870, taught 
 a new doctrine," when they have slioii'n no such thing, 
 nor can they show anything more than that four years 
 ago, from the time the person wrote, that is, on the i8th 
 of July, 18/0, there was not an explicit positive de- 
 cision, or an official ruling of the Supreme Tribunal of
 
 44 
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 God's Church, that the doctrine of Papal infallibility 
 was actually contained in the deposit faith, revealed by 
 Christ, and committed to the keeping of the Church. 
 
 In civil affairs doubts arise as to the legality of cer- 
 tain acts, or to the constitutionality of certain legisla- 
 tive enactments, and men take sides and are free to 
 hold different opinions, because as yet the case has 
 not been authoritatively and definitively decided, 
 but when the case has been submitted to the Supreme 
 Court, and the decision has been handed down, there 
 is no longer question. That decision is appealed to as a 
 final settlement of the question, though no one in his 
 senses would say that the fundamental laws of the 
 country have been changed, or a new article added to 
 the constitution by such a decision. Now, there is 
 just one more point in this connection to which I wish 
 to call attention. I asserted in my lecture that in the 
 ancient Church, communion with the See of Rome was 
 a conclusive proof and crucial test, not only of legitim- 
 acy of succession, but also of orthodoxy of faith, to which 
 our " Old Catholic" reviewer replies: " This I frankly 
 allow : nay, this I delight to show, while the bishops of 
 Rome were orthodox, they were pillars of orthodoxy." 
 But, he continues: ''When a Bishop of- Rome became 
 a heretic, it was no advantage to any one to be in 
 communion with him." He then goes on to state 
 that we are bound to exclaim in pious horror that 
 such a thing is impossible, viz., that a Pope could be a 
 heretic, and then attempts to prove by a quotation 
 from " Bossuet, the greatest of all modern bishops," 
 that such is the fact. Needless to say that the words 
 of Bossuet prove nothing of the sort, and although we 
 believe that no Bishop of Rome ever became a
 
 PAPAL INFALLIBIL1 T Y. 45 
 
 heretic, we are not bound to believe that such a thing 
 cannot be. We are bound to believe that no Bishop of 
 Rome ever taught, or could teach, ex cathedra, in his 
 official capacity of teacher of the Universal Church any- 
 thing heretical, false, or immoral. Here is a distinction 
 which some people do not see, or care to make, and no 
 wonder that infallibility in this sense, personal infalli- 
 bility, or that Catholics were bound to believe the 
 Pope in himself to be infallible, was declared to be a 
 Protestant invention. It is then a baseless fabrication, 
 an " Old Catholic," invention, that we have made a 
 God of the Pope, or believe him to be impeccable, and 
 hence how vain and hopeless the task of combating 
 Papal infallibility by charges of corruption, vice and 
 wickedness made against certain Popes. 
 
 The terms of the Vatican definition are too plain to 
 be misconstrued in this way, and precisely to obviate 
 this difficulty, to anticipate this objection, and pre- 
 clude the possibility of this wrong interpretation, the 
 title of the fourth chapter, which originally read: "On 
 the Infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff," was changed 
 to that of, " The infallible teaching authority of the 
 Sovereign Pontiff." And is it not a very significant 
 fact a fact which may be said even to constitute a 
 .prima facie evidence in favor of the doctrine of the 
 Pope's infallibility that, although in every age from 
 the beginning of Christianity, disputes and controver- 
 sies concerning points of belief, doctrinal questions 
 most grave, complicated and vital to the unity and 
 integrity of the faith of Christ were referred to the 
 Holy See from every quarter of the Christian world, 
 were answered and decided by the Sovereign Pontiffs, 
 not a single one of the long, unbroken line of Supreme
 
 46 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 Pastors, from Peter down to Leo XIII., now gloriously 
 reigning, can be convicted of teaching ex cathedra in 
 his official capacity erroneous doctrine or erring in 
 his Pontifical decision of what was to be held as of 
 faith by the Universal Church. When again we reflect 
 that in the mass of official acts of Popes, Pontifical 
 constitutions, bulls, decrees and encyclicals accumul- 
 ating during nineteen centuries, ransacked, sifted, 
 keenly scrutinized, carefully and searchingly examined 
 in the discussion of a question now happily closed, 
 nothing positive could be discovered in conflict with 
 the infallible prerogative of the chair of Peter, is not 
 the conviction forced upon us that the "finger of God 
 is here," that this astounding fact can be reasonably 
 and satisfactorily accounted for only by the special 
 assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised to His Church 
 by Christ our Lord. With all this before us, what 
 difficulty can we find in believing and professing that 
 the same divine help, the same supernatural guidance, 
 the same assistance of the Holy Spirit will ever be 
 vouchsafed to the visible Head of the Church in the 
 discharge of the sacred and sublime duties of his 
 Apostolical office of vicar of Christ and teacher of the 
 Universal Church, especially in view of the promises 
 made to Peter by our Lord, and of the absolute need 
 that the truth of faith should be thus divinely guarded 
 through the divinely appointed Supreme Pastor and 
 shepherd of the whole flock of Christ : " Feed my 
 lambs, feed my sheep." (John xxi., 16, 17.)
 
 POPES LIBERIUS AND HONORIUS. 
 
 47 
 
 IX. 
 
 POPES LIBERIUS AND HONORIUS. 
 
 NOW, we said above, that since the days of Peter, 
 for whom our Lord prayed that his faith might 
 not fail : " I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail 
 not," (Luke xxii., 32) nearly nineteen hundred years 
 ago, nothing has been discovered in the official acts 
 of his successors in the See of Rome in conflict with 
 the decree of the Vatican Council concerning the in- 
 fallible teaching authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. 
 In fact, of only two in that long line of Pontiffs has 
 the orthodoxy been questioned, and even these two, 
 Liberius, whose Pontificate extended from the year 352 
 to 366, and Honorius, who reigned from 625 to 638, rigid 
 historical research, has fully vindicated from the charge 
 of teaching error. As these charges are again repeated 
 in the pamphlet before me, and with so much confi- 
 dence, I must beg my readers' pardon for detaining them 
 by a brief refutation. A cursory review of these points 
 of Church history may not prove uninteresting or un- 
 instructive. Liberius was the immediate successor of 
 Julius, who asserted the jurisdiction of his See over 
 the whole Church, East and West, and severely rebuked 
 the Eastern heretical bishops for daring to take decisive 
 action in the case of Athanasius without his authority, 
 and the immediate predecessor of Damasus, of whom
 
 48 POPES LIBERIUS AND HONORIUS 
 
 St. Jerome says : " Following no leader but Christ, I 
 am associated in communion with thy Holiness, that 
 is, with the chair of Peter ; upon this rock I know that 
 the Church has been built." Honorius was appealed 
 to in the question of jurisdiction and precedence be- 
 tween the sees of Canterbury and York, and although 
 some people will say that England was never subject 
 to Rome, or acknowledged the supremacy of the 
 Roman Pontiff, this same Honorius gave the pallium 
 to Honorius and Paulinus, archbishops of Canterbury 
 and York, granting them the faculty, that whichever 
 of them should survive might ordain the suc- 
 cessor of the deceased. But now to the charges: 
 "Liberius turned Arian," " Athanasius is condemned 
 by the Bishop of Rome for adhering to orthodoxy," 
 "The holy and orthodox bishop of Poictiers says: 
 ' Anathema to thee, Liberius, to thee, and to those who 
 are with thee. I repeat anathema ! Again, a third 
 time, anathema to thee, thou prevaricator, Liberius.' " 
 Now, it is certain Liberius never became an Arian, and 
 never condemned St. Athanasius. The most that is 
 said of him by his enemies 'is, that worn out by the 
 sufferings of exile into which he had been sent by the 
 Arian emperor, Constantius, on account of his uncon- 
 querable firmness in sustaining the orthodox Catholic 
 faith, he at length weakened and signed one of the 
 specious and deceptive professions of faith, cunningly 
 devised by the wily Arian tricksters, and thus pur- 
 chased his release from banishment and return to 
 Rome. It is doubtful that St. Hilarius ever wrote 
 the words here ascribed to him ; many regard them, and 
 with good reason, as an interpolation; again, though 
 there were three different formulas or professions of faith
 
 POPES LIBERIUS AND HONOR JUS. 49 
 
 framed in three different Arian conferences or gather- 
 ings at Sirmium, one of which Liberius is said to have 
 subscribed, yet no one can determine which of them ; 
 and lastly, if he did sign the most objectionable of 
 them, it militates not in the least against the doctrine 
 of Papal infallibility, in as much as when under com- 
 pulsion and in exile, in a moment of weakness he sub- 
 scribed a profession of faith which, though capable of 
 an orthodox interpretation, might be construed as 
 favoring Arianism and condemning St. Athanasius, the 
 great champion of orthodoxy, he was not teaching the 
 Church, was not, ex cathedra, deciding what should be 
 held by the Universal Church. But with the great 
 ma*ss of authorities, we do not believe that he ever 
 subscribed any such doubtful formula, and it cannot 
 be proved that he ever did. We do not believe that 
 St. Hilarius ever pronounced the anathemas above 
 mentioned, and even if he did, it is no ways conclusive 
 against the orthodoxy of Liberius, for we can easily 
 suppose him deceived by the lies of the Arians seek- 
 ing to support their errors by the authority of the 
 Bishop of Rome, or giving vent to overwrought feel- 
 ings of indignation and holy zeal at what he conceived 
 to be siding with the enemies of the faith. 
 
 In concluding this question of Liberius, I can not do 
 better than quote from a great and learned historian, 
 who after noting the different authorities making these 
 charges against the Pontiff, and among them the frag- 
 ments of Hilarius, says: " But considering the silence 
 of Socrates, Theodoret, Cassiodorus and Sulpicius 
 Severus, there is a strong suspicion that this passage 
 was interpolated by the Arians, whose restless spirit 
 stopped at nothing that might further their cause.
 
 5Q POPES LIBERIUS AND HONOR I US. 
 
 The passage has, moreover, no connection in the con- 
 text either with what precedes or follows. This we find 
 in a note on page 542, Alzog's "Church History," vol. 
 i. (Pabisch and Byrne), and in the text the same author 
 says: "Constantius yielding to the prayers of the 
 most estimable ladies of Rome, granted permission 
 to Pope Liberius to return to his See ; but it is 
 thought that the menacing conduct of the Roman 
 people, who openly protested against the imperial 
 decree authorizing a rival bishop, and cried out in the 
 circus, that as there was but one God and one Christ, 
 there should be but one bishop, contributed more 
 than anything else to extort from the emperor this 
 act of clemency." What becomes now of the ana- 
 thema to Liberius? How unlikely that he ever 
 turned Arian, or condemned St. Athanasius ! But how 
 evident, and demonstrably certain, that he never in 
 any official document, or by any^-r cathedra pronounce- 
 ment, taught error, or promulgated anything unor- 
 thodox, which would be necessary to constitute a valid 
 objection to the doctrine of Papal infallibility. What 
 additional strength does all this acquire when we find 
 St. Jerome, who was not wont to fawn on or flatter 
 either bishops or Popes, in the very next Pontificate, 
 when he certainly could not have been ignorant of any- 
 thing that occurred under the previous Pope, declaring 
 communion with the See of Rome the test of ortho- 
 doxy : "Whoever is not in communion with the 
 Church of Rome is outside the Church, and therefore 
 was one of the twelve set over all the others as the re- 
 cognized Head, that all occasion of schism might be 
 removed ;" and Pope Hormisdas, some time afterwards, 
 in the beginning of the 6th c.entury, declared : "The
 
 POPES LIBERIUS AND HONOKWS. 5 i 
 
 faith of the Apostolic See has always been inviolate ; 
 it has preserved the Christian religion in its integrity 
 and purity." Enough, then, about Liberius, whom we 
 think we have fully vindicated from the charges brought 
 against him. Can we do as much for Honorius?
 
 52 H ON OKI US VINDICATED. 
 
 X. 
 
 HONORIUS VINDICATED. 
 
 WE think we can, at least as far as the charge of offi- 
 cially teaching heresy^goes, for all we pretend or 
 care to do, is to show that the prerogative of Papal in- 
 fallibility as defined in the Vatican Council has been 
 in no wise impaired or obscured by the ex cathedra 
 teaching of these two much maligned Pontiffs. Here, 
 then, are the charges against him quoted from Bos- 
 suet's " Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican 
 Clergy :" " Honorius being duly interrogated concern- 
 ing the faith by three Patriarchs, gave most wicked 
 answers. He was condemned by the Sixth General 
 Council under anathema. Previous to this anathema, 
 he was sustained by the Roman Pontiffs, his successors ; 
 but since the supreme judgment of the council, the Pon- 
 tiffs have condemned him under the same anathema." 
 We are then asked by our " Old Catholic" friend, " where 
 infallibility was in those days, when one Bishop of 
 Rome taught heresy from his throne, and of his suc- 
 cessors some upheld him and others anathematized 
 him as a heretic?" But as Bossuet, " the greatest of 
 all modern bishops, who have lived and died in com- 
 munion with the Pope, and who had no mind to be a 
 mere worshipper of Popes," is cited against us, it is 
 only fair to that illustrious bishop to tell our readers
 
 HONOKIUS VINDICATED. 53 
 
 that in the opinion of such men as de Maistre, the 
 "Defence of the Gallican Declaration" should not be 
 taken as the expression of the true and permanent 
 sentiments of Bossuet ; that it was a work wrung from 
 one who, though a bishop, and, if you please, the 
 " greatest of modern bishops," for we wish not to dim 
 his glory or extenuate his fame, was forced to act the 
 courtier to the royal despot who not only claimed to be 
 the incarnation of all political or state power, " Vttat 
 cest moi," but would have all ecclesiastical and spiritual 
 authority subject to his beck. It was a posthumous 
 work, which he never wished to publish, for although 
 he lived twenty-two years after the famous declaration 
 of 1682, he never would publish its " Defence," and it 
 is an insult to the memory of the immortal prelate to 
 have published it under a title of which he seemed to 
 be ashamed. The work itself, undertaken in obedience 
 to a royal master, he altered and revised, and changed 
 so often and so much that his historian declares that 
 " no one can doubt, that it was his design to change his 
 whole work, as he had actually changed the first three 
 chapters." The work which we have under the title 
 of the " Defence of the Declaration of the Gallican 
 Clergy," does not then express Bossuet's real mind, and 
 is deprived of all authority, as his purpose was to 
 change it entirely, and his manuscripts show that he had 
 nearly completed his design when death overtook him. 
 With Count de Maistre we may say of Bossuet, that : 
 " In the same man there seemed to be two different 
 characters, the Roman Catholic bishop and the French 
 courtier: the bishop, who speaking the language of 
 the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles and the 
 Fathers belonged from the very bottom of his soul
 
 54 HONORIUS VINDICATED. 
 
 to the Roman Church ; the courtier, who to please his 
 master, extends one hand to the centuriators of 
 Magdeburg, and the other to Voltaire, the better to 
 falsify history, to the prejudice of the Popes and the 
 profit of kings." 
 
 But how grandly and how eloquently does this 
 " greatest of modern bishops, who is no worshipper 
 of the Popes," when writing in his true character of a 
 Catholic bishdp, untrammelled by court influences or 
 royal favors, speak of the See of Peter, the preroga- 
 tives of the Roman Church, and the authority con- 
 ferred on, and the obedience due to the successors of 
 him to whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven were 
 entrusted. We cannot forbear a short extract from 
 the " Discourse on Universal History," revealing the 
 lofty genius and true Catholic mind of the illustrious 
 bishop of Meaux : " What consolation for the children 
 of God, what conviction of truth ! when they see that 
 from Innocent XI., who now (1681) fills so worthily the 
 first See of the Church, we go back without break even 
 to Peter, established by Jesus Christ Prince of the 
 Apostles: and there taking up the Pontiffs who served 
 under the law, we go back even to Aaron and to 
 Moses; and thence to the Patriarchs and the origin of 
 the world. What a succession, what a tradition, what 
 a marvellous connecting chain. If our mind, naturally 
 uncertain, and by its incertitude become the sport 
 of its own reasoning, has need, in questions where sal- 
 vation is at stake, to be steadied and determined by 
 some certain authority, what greater authority can 
 there be than that of the Catholic Church, which com- 
 bines in itself all the authority of past ages, all the 
 ancient traditions of the human race up to its origin.
 
 HONORIUS VINDICATED. 5; 
 
 Thus the society which Jesus Christ in fine, after ages 
 of expectancy, founded on the rock, and over which 
 Peter and his successors should preside by His orders, 
 is justified by its own continuity, and bears in its 
 eternal duration the impress of the hand of God. It 
 is this succession, which no heresy, no sect, no other 
 society but the Churchof God can claim. The founders 
 of new sects among Christians, and the sects established 
 by them, will be found to have been detached from 
 this great body, from this ancient Church which Jesus 
 Christ founded, and in which Peter and his successors 
 held the first plate." To this let us add what this 
 " greatest of modern bishops, and no worshipper of 
 Popes" says in the first part of his " Discourse on the 
 Unity of the Church :" " What is intended to sustain 
 an everlasting Church, can itself have no end. Peter 
 will live in his successors ; Peter will always speak in his 
 chair; this the Fathers assert; this six hundred and thirty 
 bishops in the council of Chalcedon confirmed. * * * 
 This is the Roman Church, which, taught by St. Peter 
 and his successors, knows no heresy. * * * Thus the 
 Roman Church is always a virgin Church, the Roman 
 faith is always the faith of the Church; what has been 
 believed, is believed still ; the same voice is heard 
 everywhere ; and Peter remains in his successors, the 
 corner-stone of the faithful. Jesus Christ Himself lias 
 said it, and heaven and earth shall pass away sooner 
 than His word. But let us see the consequences of 
 that word. Jesus Christ pursues His design and after 
 having said to Peter, the eternal preacher of the faith : 
 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my 
 Church,' He adds: 'I will give to thee the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven.' Thou, who hast the preroga-
 
 56 HONORIUS VINDICATED. 
 
 tive of preaching the faith, thou shalt have also the 
 keys, which designate the authority of government ; 
 ' whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in 
 heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall 
 be loosed in heaven.' All are subjected to these 
 keys ; all, my brethren, kings and people, pastors 
 and flocks; we publish it with joy, for we love 
 unity, and glory in our obedience. Peter was com- 
 manded first ' to love more than all the other Apostles,' 
 and then ' to feed' and govern all, ' both the lambs and 
 the sheep,' the little ones and their mothers, and the 
 shepherds themselves ; shepherds towards the people, 
 but sheep in regard to Peter." 
 
 Thus does Bossuet, following the Patriarchs, the 
 Prophets, and Apostles, proclaim aloud the infallible 
 promises of God to his Church and her head. In justice 
 to the great Bossuet, we deemed it a duty to say this 
 much. We now return to Honorius, whose case, in our 
 opinion, is correctly stated by Archbishop F. P. Kenrick 
 in the brief notice of the Sovereign Pontiffs appended to 
 the fourth volume of his '^Dogmatic Theology," in these 
 few words : " That he was imposed on by Sergius 
 of Constantinople and inopportunely commanded 
 silence in relation to one or two wills in Christ, most 
 authors admit ; but that he was guilty of heresy is de- 
 void of every semblance of truth." But the gist of 
 the charges against him, and his vindication may be 
 at once discovered from words already quoted from 
 the concluding words of cap. xxvii., Lib. vii., " De- 
 fensioDeclarationis cleri Gallicani." 
 
 " Honorius being duly interrogated concerning the 
 faith by three Patriarchs, gave most wicked answers." 
 In the first place, we would ask, why was the Bishop of
 
 HONORIUS VINDICATED, 57 
 
 Rome interrogated by these three Eastern Patriarchs? 
 Is not this very fact an additional and undeniable evi- 
 dence that in the East as in the West, by Patriarchs, as 
 well as by bishops, and even by heretics the primacy of 
 the Roman See and the supreme jurisdiction of the 
 Roman Pontiff were acknowledged ? The three Patri- 
 archs referred to are, Sergius of Constantinople 
 and Cyrus of Alexandria, both tainted with the 
 Monothelite heresy, and Sophronius, of Jerusalem, 
 an able and learned champion of the Catholic faith. 
 To these Honorius is said to have given wicked 
 answers, and all the charges of heresy alleged against 
 him are to be found in his letters to them, and 
 particularly in his letters to Sergius. Is not this of 
 itself sufficient to show that the case of Honorius offers 
 no difficulty in regard to the doctrine of Papal infalli- 
 bility, as we have already explained it, and as it has 
 been defined in the famous Vatican decree of iS/o 5 
 Where does he teach, or pretend to teach the Universal 
 Church ? where does he define or pretend to define what 
 must be held by the whole Church as of Catholic 
 faith? Suppose that in these letters some expressions 
 are found not entirely consistent with orthodox Catho- 
 lic faith, and grant that he was deceived and fell into 
 the trap sprung upon him by the wily Sergius and 
 wrote to suppress all discussion about one or two wills 
 in Christ, can any one reasonably say that he taught 
 heresy from his tJirone ? or made a dogmatic, ex cathedra 
 definition in regard to faith or morals? But more 
 than that. With the letters of Honorius before us, and 
 after a careful study of the subject as presented by the 
 clear, keen, argumentative mind of Bossuet himself, 
 Honorius cannot, in our opinion, be convicted of
 
 $8 HONORIUS VINDICATED 
 
 heresy, he wrote nothing but what is capable of a Catho- 
 lic meaning. He repeatedly proclaimed Christ to be 
 perfect God and perfect man, thus condemning the 
 errors of Nestoriusand Eutyches, showing that though 
 he expressed himself inaccurately, he thought correctly 
 on the two operations in Christ. 
 
 No wonder, then, that John IV., his second successor, 
 declared, as we read in Alzog's "Church History," " that 
 Honorius mistook the question at issue to be, whether 
 or not there were two conflicting human wills in 
 Christ, the one of the spirit, and the other of the flesh, 
 which, if such were the case, would necessarily imply 
 the opposition of the human to the Divine will an 
 error of which Honorius wished to disabuse Sergius." 
 In speaking~of one will and one theandrie operation, he 
 meant nothing more than the moral unity of the 
 Divine and human wills. " Not having seized the real 
 drift of the controversy, it was but natural that he 
 should express himself obscurely, and with a lack of 
 precision in his reply to the craftily worded letter of 
 Sergius." (Alzog's" Church History," vol. I, p. 635.) 
 From the same source we learn that not only did his 
 successors sustain him, but the Abbot Maximus, the 
 most acute theologian of his age, and foremost cham- 
 pion of the Catholic cause against the Monothelites, 
 especially after the death of Sophronius, asserts em- 
 phatically in two different peaces that Honorius was 
 an opponent of the Monothelites. The heretics, however, 
 used the hasty and ill-considered letter of Honorius 
 in support of their error, and his secretary, the Abbot 
 John, in vindication of his first (cursory) letter asserted 
 openly that it had been falsified (falsely interpreted) 
 by the Greeks. Whereupon the Abbot Maximus
 
 HONORIUS VINDICATED. ^ 
 
 exclaims: "Who, then, is a more reliable interpreter 
 of that letter the enlightened abbot, who is still 
 alive, who wrote it in the name of Honorius, or they 
 of Constantinople, who say what they please?" So 
 much, then, in vindication of the orthodoxy of Hono- 
 rius, but what now about his condemnation by the 
 Sixth General Council? " He was condemned by the 
 Sixth^General Council under anathema. Previous to 
 this anathema, he was sustained by the Roman Pon- 
 tiffs, his successors, but since tJie supreme judgment of 
 the council, the Pontiffs have condemned him under 
 the same anathema." (" Defense," etc.) This sixth 
 oecumenical council, called also the First Trtilla*. 
 Synod, was opened, at Constantinople Nov. 7, 680^ 
 and presided over by three legates of Pope Agatho. 
 The Pope's dogmatical epistle was read as the basis of 
 the council's deliberations, which defined the contro- 
 verted point of faith regarding the two wills in Christ 
 corresponding to the two natures so clearly and suc- 
 cinctly, that the assembled fathers cried out with one 
 voice : " Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Agatho." 
 In the fourth session of the council another letter of 
 the same Pope, who was recognized as the very mouth- 
 piece of blessed Peter, was read and received without 
 opposition, in which he thrice solemnly declares: 
 "Through the grace of the omnipotent God, this Apos- 
 tolical Roman Church will be proved to have nwer erred 
 from the path of Apostolical tradition, nor has it suc- 
 cumbed to heretical novelties, but as from the begin- 
 ning of the Christian faith it received from its founders, 
 the Princes of the Apostles, so it remains untainted 
 even to the end, according to the divine promise of 
 our Lord and Saviour, spoken to the Prince of the dis- 
 ciples in the holy Gospel." (Luke xxii., 32.)
 
 6o HONORIUS VINDICATED. 
 
 This much premised, we answer the objections in the 
 words of Dr., now Cardinal, Hergenrother : " A Pope is 
 not infallible in proceedings such as those of Hono- 
 rius, who contributed unintentionally to the increase 
 of heresy by not issuing decisions against Jt. Hisletters 
 contain no decision, neither do they contain any false 
 doctrine. No decision of his ever was, or ever could be 
 condemned as false, otherwise the sixth council would 
 have contradicted itself, for it recognized that the Holy 
 See had in all time the privilege of teaching only the 
 truth. He was condemned for having rendered him- 
 self morally responsible for the spread of heresy, by 
 having neglected to publish decisions against it, and 
 in this sense alone was his condemnation confirmed by 
 Leo II." (" Catholic Church and Christian State." Her- 
 genrother, vol. i., p. 83.) In this sense, then, and in this 
 sense only, did the council condemn Honorius, and suc- 
 ceeding Pontiffs re-echo the condemnation, that by his 
 negligence he allowed 'the unspotted faith to be defiled. 
 Not as a heretic, then, but as one who had actually by 
 his culpable indecision become an abettor of heresy and 
 heretics,, and he was justly blamed and severely taken 
 to task for doing precisely what so many wished Pius 
 IX. to do, viz., to put off and leave undecided a grave 
 doctrinal question that was agitating and disturbing 
 the Christian Church and severely testing its unity and 
 peace. Pope Leo II., who succeeded Agatho before 
 the close of the council, confirmed its decrees and its 
 condemnation of Honorius, because the heretics, dis- 
 torting the meaning of his words, made use of his name 
 and his authority to propagate their errors, and as he 
 wrote to the Spanish bishops, " because he did not at 
 once extinguish the flame of heretical error, but by his
 
 HONORIUS VINDICATED. j 
 
 negligence contributed fuel to the fire." We have dwelt, 
 perhaps unnecessarily long in vindication of these two 
 much abused > Popes, but we thought it well to clear 
 up a matter, out of which the enemies of the Papacy 
 make so much capital, and it is not always easy for 
 everybody to have access to the historical documents 
 or the authorities on which the solution of these ques- 
 tions rests.
 
 62 ST. GREGOR Y THE ORE A T 
 
 XL 
 
 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT CLAIMING AND EXERCISING 
 PAPAL SUPREMACY. 
 
 IN the pamphlet before us we are told lhat : " by 
 usurpation Boniface III. began, and Nicholas I. 
 completed a Papacy ;" and that : " St. Gregory was the 
 last Bishop of Rome who obeyed the canons of the 
 Church in this respect," that is, as far as we can gather 
 the meaning of the words from the context, the last 
 who held that all bishops were " the equals of their 
 brother in the See of Rome," and denied " any suprem- 
 acy of one over the others, such as is claimed by the 
 Popes." Now we propose to show, from his own words 
 and official acts, that St. Gregory claimed this Suprem- 
 acy of spiritual jurisdiction over his brethren in the 
 episcopate throughout the whole Church, just as fully, 
 and as uncompromisingly as Boniface III., or Nicholas 
 I., or as Pius IX., or Leo XIII. Of course we can show 
 that in every age, from the Apostles down to Gregory, 
 the same supreme authority was recognized in and by 
 the successors of St. Peter in the See of Rome, yet we 
 are pleased to have here a starting point and a de- 
 liberate acknowledgment that St. Gregory was a bishop 
 wlio obeyed the canons, "and is a reliable witness 
 of the "doctrine of Catholic antiquity." I will 
 not now stop to discuss a ''primacy or presidency
 
 EXERCISING PAPAL SUPREAtACY. 63 
 
 consistent with the co-equality of all bishops which the 
 Church itself has instituted or regulated by canons, but 
 forbidding any supremacy of one over the other," as 
 " St. Gregory, who obeyed the canons of the Church, 
 in this respect," recognizing a primacy regulated in- 
 deed by canons, but instituted by Christ, and resting, 
 as all the laws of the Church, rest, on the divine law, 
 claims, and as we shall presently see, exercises a suprem- 
 acy of spiritual jurisdiction or authority over bishops, 
 archbishops and Patriarchs, but as St. Gregory is a re- 
 cognized, legitimate, and orthodox Bishop of Rome, 
 *' who obeys the canons of the Church," we cannot be 
 much deceived in holding to the primacy of the See 
 of Peter, and Papal supremacy, as he understood it. 
 Neither will I stop to point out the childlike naivete 
 of the following passage : " Christ gave a primacy among 
 the Apostles to St. Peter : but he limited it by rebuking 
 the inquiry, ' who should be the greatest,' and by com- 
 manding them to call no man master, they being all 
 brethren, with one Father in Heaven St. Peter him- 
 self was rebuked as a 'Satan* the moment he departed 
 from the words of Jesus." 
 
 It were surely labor lost to argue with a man who 
 can assert that our Lord's instructions to His disciples 
 regarding personal humility and warnings against per- 
 sonal ambition, His intimation that our Father in 
 Heaven is incomparably more to be regarded than 
 any father upon earth, and that no master is to be 
 followed, who would lead us away from Christ ; His 
 paternal chiding of Peter, callinghim l< Satan" on account 
 of his indiscreet zeal and his ardent but unenlightened 
 and too human love for his Divine Master, were in- 
 tended to limit, or rather destroy in the opinion of
 
 64 57; GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 those who deny any primacy, or at least any of divine 
 institution a primacy which our Blessed Saviour- 
 deemed necessary for the government of His Church, 
 and which, though previously promised in strong and 
 solemn words (Matt, xvi., 18, 19), was actually con- 
 ferred only after Peter had fully atoned for his shame- 
 ful three denials, by his triple profession of greater' 
 love on the shore of the sea of Tiberias. (John xxi., 
 15, et seq.) But now. to return to St. Gregory, who is 
 introduced to us as the model Christian Bishop of 
 Rome, in contradistinction to the " despotic Pontiff of 
 the modern Roman Church, " in these terms: "And 
 here is the place to quote St. Gregory, the last Bishop 
 of Rome who obeyed the canons of the Church in this 
 respect. When a bishop flattered him with|the pompous 
 title of universal jurisdiction, Gregory rebuked the 
 brother kindly but sharply, in the following weighty 
 words : (Epis. v. , 20. et seq.) " None of my predecessors 
 would use this impious word (Universal Bishop), because 
 in reality if a Patriarch be called universal, this takes 
 from all others .the title of Patriarch. Far, very far 
 from every Christian soul be the wish to usurp any- 
 thing that might diminish, however little, the honor of 
 his brethren. * * * Give not to any one the title of 
 universal, test you deprive yourself of your own due, 
 by offering what you do not owe to him." 
 
 Surely our Old Catholic" brother never read these 
 letters of St. Gregory, from which he pretends to 
 quote, and to which he gives references. He surely 
 would not knowingly and deliberately impose on the 
 public. If he ever read these letters he would know 
 that these words of Gregory are not addressed to a 
 brother " bishop, who flattered him with a pompous
 
 EXERCISING PAPAL SUPREMACY. 65 
 
 title of universal jurisdiction." He would know that 
 this very fact in the history of St. Gregory's pontificate 
 affords the strongest possible proof that he claimed 
 universal jurisdiction, and this sharp rebuke is admin- 
 istered in the exercise of his unquestioned right to re- 
 prove, correct and condemn not simple bishops only, 
 but Patriarchs as well, and even the Patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople. Now what is the fact in the case ? The 
 Patriarch John of Constantinople, called the Faster, 
 sending to Rome an account of the sentence passed 
 against a priest accused of heresy, styles himself re- 
 peatedly, oecumenical or universal Patriarch, and Pope 
 St. Gregory, in his undoubted right as head of the 
 Universal Church and guardian of the rights of other 
 bishops and other patriarchs, reproves this as an ar- 
 rogant, ambitious usurpation of a pompous title, 
 and observing the order of fraternal connection, twice 
 admonished him privately by his nuncio in Constanti- 
 nople, and when this failed to bring him to a sense of 
 his fault, he wrote in sharp but fatherly reproof to him- 
 self, to the Emperor Mauritius, to the Empress Con- 
 stantina Augusta, and to other eastern bishops, and in 
 particular a joint letter to St. Eulogius, Patriarch of 
 Alexandria, and St. Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch. 
 It is from this letter to those patriarchs, the xliii., not 
 the xx., that the language above quoted is taken, 
 though words to the same effect and in the same sense 
 are found in all of them. 
 
 To make the matter clearer, I will give a short extract 
 from some of these noble productions, worthy the pen 
 of Gregory the Great ; and first from Epist. xx. L. 5, 
 written to the Emperor Mauritius, and given as author- 
 ity for the utterly false assertion that the great Pope
 
 66 ST. GREGOR Y THE GREA T 
 
 was only rejecting a pompous title offered to him by 
 a flattering friend : " It is evident," writes the Pope to 
 the emperor, " to all acquainted with the Gospel, that 
 by our Lord's words, the care of the whole Church was 
 committed to St. Peter, Apostle, and Prince of ail the 
 Apostles. For to him is said : Peter, lovest thou me ? 
 Feed my sheep. (John xxi., 17.) To him is said : Behold 
 Satan hath sought to sift you as wheat and I have prayed 
 for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not, and thou at length 
 converted, confirm thy brethren. (Luke xxii., 31.) To 
 him is said : Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will 
 build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it. A nd I ivillgive to thee the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth it 
 shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt 
 loose upon earth it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Matt. 
 xxi., 19.) Behold he receives the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven, the power of binding and loosing is given to 
 him, the care and the princedom of the whole Church 
 are committed to him." Verily St. Gregory does not 
 agree with our friend about the limitation of the pri- 
 macy of Peter " and still he is not called the universal 
 Apostle, and the most holy man, John, our fellow-priest, 
 endeavors to be called the universal bishop. I am 
 compelled to exclaim and to say : O tempora ! O 
 mores /" 
 
 He concludes his letter to the emperor thus : " In 
 obedience to our master's orders I have written to our 
 aforesaid fellow-priest kindly, and I have humbly ad- 
 monished him to correct this desire of vain-glory. If 
 he is pleased to listen to me, he will have a devoted 
 brother. If he persist in his pride, I see what will 
 follow ; he will have Him his enemy of whom it is said :
 
 EXER CISING PAPAL S UPREMA C Y. fy 
 
 God resist eth the proud, but giveth his grace to the 
 humble" (James iv., 6.) In the same strain he writes 
 (Epist. xxi.) to the empress, asking her to use her in- 
 fluence to bring John to a sense of duty, and then 
 turning to another matter that concerned him as head of 
 the Church and Supreme Universal Pastor, exercising 
 the power of the keys committed to Peter, he writes : 
 " The bishop of the city of Salon, Maximus, has been 
 consecrated without my knowledge, or consent, and 
 thus has been done what was never done under pre- 
 vious princes. Which as soon as I heard, I wrote to 
 the prevaricator that he should not presume to cele- 
 brate the solemnities of Mass, until I should learn that 
 this was done by orders of our most serene Lords, and 
 this I commanded him under pain of excommunica- 
 tion." But we will find instances enough in Gregory's 
 pontificate of this claim of authority, and compulsion of 
 obedience, or in other words that Gregory, who obeyed 
 the canons and was the model Bishop of the Christian 
 Church of antiquity, claimed and exercised all the 
 privileges and powers, all the authority and jurisdiction 
 overall the Bishops of the Universal Church, which the 
 Pope, of to-day claims. To John himself, the Patriarch 
 of Constantinople, St. Gregory writes: (Epist. xviii., 
 L. 5.)' "Your fraternity remembers how great was 
 the peace and concord of churches when you were 
 promoted to the sacerdotal dignity. But with what 
 hardihood and strange swelling pride, have you sought to 
 usurp to yourself a new title, from which the hearts of all 
 your brethren might receive scandal." He then re- 
 minds him how Pope Pelagius, his predecessor, had 
 written to him and ordered the archdeacon not to 
 hold communion with him until he laid aside his pre-
 
 68 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 tensions, and that abominable name of Universal 
 Bishop, so derogatory to the honor, not only of the 
 Holy See, but of all bishops, and continues : " Certainly 
 Peter, the first of the Apostles, was a member of the 
 Holy and Universal Church. Paul, Andrew, John, 
 what else were they but heads of their respective peo- 
 ple, and still they were all members under one head. 
 To embrace all in a brief speech, the saints before the 
 law, the saints under the law, the saints under the dis- 
 pensation of grace, all perfecting the body of the Lord, 
 are constituted members of the Church and not one 
 even wished to have himself called Universal. See and 
 own, then, what an arrogance it is to ambition a name 
 which none of the saints presumed to bear. Were not 
 the bishops of this Apostolic See, to which, God so dis- 
 posing, I have been raised, called as a title of honor, Uni- 
 versal Bishops by the venerable council of Chalcedon? 
 And nevertheless no one ever wished to have that title, 
 no o r ne used that rash name, lest in taking to them- 
 selves in that rank of Pontiffs a special or singular 
 glory they might seem to deny the same to all their 
 brethren." 
 
 This same he repeats again and again in several of 
 his epistles, showing how unseemly it was in the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople to arrogate to hirnself a 
 title, which was conceded to the Roman Pontiffs, but 
 which they never would use, and which, even when ex- 
 acting obedience to their supreme authority, and ex- 
 ercising, as in this very instance, the powers of a 
 Supreme Pastor over the whole flock of Christ, they 
 would not employ, but rather would in their humility 
 be called " the servant of the servants of God," and 
 addressed the bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs as
 
 EXERCISING PAPAL SUPREMACY. 69 
 
 do the Popes of our own day as brothers. St. Gregory 
 then protested against the title of oecumenical or uni- 
 versal Pope or patriarch, in the sense just explained, 
 and called it blasphemous in the mouth of the 
 Byzantine Patriarch, who unrighteously arrogated to 
 himself a name which the Roman Pontiffs were un- 
 willing to accept even when offered by general councils. 
 Many other beautiful and pointed things I might cite 
 from these fervent and eloquent letters of the great 
 Pope, and in particular, I may mention those written 
 to his friend Eulogius, in which, as the historian Rohr- 
 bacher tells us, the holy Pope sums up and teaches, 
 " what are the principle, the model, the means and the 
 end of the Catholic Church and its unity. Its princi- 
 ple is one God and three persons ; the model of its unity, 
 the union of the three divine persons in the same es- 
 sence ; the mediator, who unites it to heaven, and in 
 heaven to the one undivided Trinity, is Jesus Christ, 
 giving to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; 
 the means of this unity among men. is the union of 
 the three Patriarchs and the other bishops with the 
 same Peter, from whom their authority proceeds ; the 
 final end, is the consummation of this unity in the 
 three divine persons. .The pretensions of the bishops 
 of Constantinople were directly at variance with this 
 divine ensemble. They grounded their claims, not on 
 God, nor on Jesus Christ, nor on Peter, but on the 
 residence of the emperors in their city. Therefore they 
 would be called Universal Bishop. And the Greeks 
 argued later that this title of universal belongs not to 
 the Roman Pontiff from the time the empire passed 
 from Rome to Byzantium, which implies that the au- 
 thority and hierarchy of the Church came not from Jesus
 
 p-0 5r. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 Christ but from Caesar. And thus this frivolous title, 
 which appeared to Mauritius but an unmeaning word, 
 concealed the whole system of Anti-christ, and its full 
 significance the Pope alone realized." As in the 
 Eastern Church, so also in the West, was the authority 
 of St. Gregory recognized. His untiring vigilance, and 
 inflexible firmness and burning zeal for the integrity 
 of the faith and the observance of ecclesiastical discip- 
 line are seen in his numerous writings, but what we 
 wanted to show was that St. Gregory the Great, who is 
 acknowledged to be a true and model Bishop of Rome, 
 living up to the canons of the ancient Christian Church, 
 was as much a Pope by the universal jurisdiction which 
 he claimed, and the supreme pastoral authority which 
 he exercised over the Church and the bishops of his 
 day as the Popes .of our own times. 
 
 This is seen abundantly in this affair regard- 
 ing the title of oecumenical or universal bishop, and 
 the Patriarch, John the Faster, afterwards publicly ac- 
 knowledged Gregory's authority and referred ecclesi- 
 astical causes, even those regarding simple priests, to 
 him for final and definitive judgment. A few more ex- 
 amples of the exercise of supreme appellative ju- 
 risdiction by St. Gregory may not be out of place. 
 Honoratus, arch-deacon of Salon in Dalmatia, accused 
 his bishop, Natalis, of unjust treatment, and appealed to 
 St. Gregory to be reinstated in the office from which 
 Natalis had deposed him. The saint wrote to Natalis 
 to restore Honoratus, and if there still remained any 
 subject of strife, " let the arch-deacon come hither, 
 and send some competent person to plead your cause, 
 that thus with the help of the Lord we may be able, 
 without regard to persons, to decide in favor of jus-
 
 EXERCISING PAPAL SUPREMACY. /I 
 
 tice." (L. i., Epist. xix.) The bishop not heeding this 
 command, Gregory wrote to him again in March, 592 : 
 " Reinstate Honoratus immediately on the receipt of 
 this our letter. If you .defer longer, know that you are 
 deprived of the use of the pallium, which has been 
 granted you by this see. Should you continue in your 
 obstinacy, you will be deprived of the participation in 
 the body and blood of our Lord, after which we will 
 examine juridically whether you shall continue in the 
 episcopacy. As to the one whom you have ordained 
 arch-deacon to the prejudice of Honoratus, we depose 
 him from that dignity, and if he continue to exercise its 
 functions, he will be deprived of Holy Communion." 
 (L. ii., Epist. xviii.) The bishop submitted, and after 
 his death, which occurred shortly afterwards, Honora- 
 tus, with the approval of the Pope, was elected by the 
 clergy to the vacant see. The bishops, however, of the 
 province did not concur in his election, and preferred 
 another, called Maximus, whereupon the Pope wrote to 
 the bishops of Dalmatia, forbidding them by the autho- 
 rity of St. Peter to consecrate a bishop of Salon with- 
 out his consent, under pain of being deprived of the 
 participation in the body and blood of the Lord, and 
 of the nullity of the election. (L. iv., Epist. x.) It is 
 of this Maximus that St. Gregory spoke in his letter 
 to the empress. If we now turn to Gaul, we will see 
 his authority everywhere acknowledged. He made, as 
 we have already remarked, Virgilius of Aries, his own 
 vicar, sending him the pallium, and giving him metro- 
 political jurisdiction over other bishops. In England, 
 to which he had sent St. Augustine, he regulated all 
 the ecclesiastical affairs, gave authority to Augustine 
 to consecrate other bishops, and expressly declares
 
 72 ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 
 
 that, " Besides the bishops ordained by yourself and 
 the bishop of York, we wish also all the bishops of 
 Britain to be subject to you." (L. xi., Epist. Ixv.) In 
 a memorial replying to St. Augustine, he even goes 
 into details of Church government, and among other 
 things allows St. Augustine, whilst the only English 
 bishop, to consecrate without the assistance of other 
 bishops, thus forestalling by centuries, objections of 
 the violation of canonical rule made against some of 
 our consecrations, and showing that a Bishop of Rome 
 even as observant of the canons as St. Gregory is ac- 
 knowledged to be, could dispense with canons of dis- 
 cipline when there existed sufficient cause. 
 
 Thus is St. Gregory shown to have acted the Pope 
 much more than poor Boniface III., his second suc- 
 cessor, who is blamed for having initiated the usurpa- 
 tions of the Papacy, though he only reigned from 
 February igth, 607, to November loth of the same year. 
 The honor of beginning the Papacy within so brief a 
 pontificate is doubtless accorded to him, because he is 
 said to have obtained from the Emperor Phocas, who 
 had succeeded Mauritius, an acknowledgment that 
 the Apostolical See of St. Peter, that is, the Roman 
 Church, was the first and chief of all the churches. 
 Whether the emperor actually subscribed to such a 
 document or not is of little consequence, as what we 
 have seen of St. Gregory, how emphatically this claim 
 was made, and positively enforced by him, shows the 
 existence of a full-fledged Papacy before either Boni- 
 face or Phocas. Not to become entirely too prolix, 
 we beg to refer our readers to Dr. Hergenrother's, ad- 
 mirable little work on the " Catholic Church and Chris- 
 tian State," (vol. I. Essay II, p. 93) for clear and con-
 
 EXERCISING PAPAL SUPREMACY. 73 
 
 vincing testimony that not only was the Papacy in ex- 
 istence, but that Papal infallibility was believed and 
 taught in the first six centuries. I ought*, perhaps, for 
 such as wish to verify rrty statements, say that I have 
 quoted the epistles of St. Gregory from the Abbe 
 Migne s Patrologice cursus completus, torn. 77. Paris, 1849.
 
 74 CA THOL1C BISHOPS NOT MERE 
 
 XII. 
 
 CATHOLIC BISHOPS NOT SIMPLE PRESBYTERS OR MERE 
 VICARS OF THE POPE. 
 
 THE next gross misstatement of Catholic doctrine 
 growing out of this controversy, which I feel 
 myself called upon to correct, is that Catholic bishops 
 are now "reduced to the rank of presbyters;" that, 
 "The modern theology of Rome has abolished 
 the episcopal order, and maintains nothing but an 
 episcopal office, which is held at the nod of the Pon- 
 tiff by a class of men in the order of presbyters who 
 are mere vicars of the Pope in their several dioceses, 
 but have no power at all as true bishops." This same 
 idea is frequently repeated under various forms of ex- 
 pression, all more or less discourteous, and sometimes 
 actually insulting, and in proof of all this, references 
 are given to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, 
 and St. Liguori's Theology ; references which, as we 
 shall presently see, prove nothing of the kind. To 
 prove that the modern Roman Church does not reduce 
 its bishops to the rank of mere presbyters ; that the 
 modern theology of Rome has not abolished the episcopal 
 order, and that as true bishops, the bishops of the Catho- 
 lic Church have all the power both of order and juris- 
 diction ever possessed or exercised by bishops in the 
 primitive Roman Church in its Catholic purity, we
 
 'VICARS OF THE POPE. 75 
 
 acknowledge, and, if necessary, can demonstrate that in 
 the first, second, third and fourth centuries of the 
 Church, bishops were held to be a distinct order from 
 mere presbyters, and by divine institution, superior to 
 them in rank, dignity and power, and we will give a 
 simple brief statement of the authoritative teaching of 
 the Catholic Church of to-day from the Council of Trent 
 and St. Liguori, the two authorities quoted against us. 
 We beg, moreover, to refer any one wishing either to 
 satisfy himself that this is in harmony with the modern, 
 theology of Rome, or to see the question more fully 
 discussed, to a compendium of dogmatic theology, a 
 copy of which last year I had the honor of receiving 
 from the hands of its venerable and learned author, 
 H. Hurter, S.J., S.Th., et Ph.D. (torn. iii. CEniponte, 
 1879), a professor in the University of Innsbruck, and 
 a son, by the way, of the illustrious Hurter, who so 
 nobly vindicated the character of Innocent III. "If 
 any one say that there is not, in the Catholic Church, 
 a sacred hierarchy by divine ordinance instituted, which 
 consists of bishops, priests and ministers, let him be 
 anathema," says the Council of Trent. (Sess. 23, Can. 6.) 
 As presbyters or priests outrank deacons, so bishops 
 outrank presbyters, and that this sacred body of rulers 
 in the Church, thus graduated, co-related and subordin- 
 ated, is of divine institution, is the express teaching of 
 modern Rome. 
 
 Not mere presbyters, then, are bishops, but by divine 
 institution they are distinct. But not only are they 
 distinct from, but they are, by the teaching of the same 
 council, superior to simple presbyters : " If any one 
 say, that bishops are not superior to priests, or that 
 they have not the power of confirming and ordaining,
 
 76 CA T HO LIC BISHOPS NO T MERE 
 
 or that that power is common to them and priests, 
 let him be anathema." (Sess. 23, Can. 7.) How then 
 can it be said that bishops are simple presbyters when 
 the highest authority of the Church thus distinctly and 
 explicitly states the contrary, and all modern theolo- 
 gians teach with the Church that there are powers at- 
 tached to the episcopal order which simple priests can- 
 not exercise. The simple priest, through the sacred 
 laver of regeneration, begets children to the Church, 
 but only bishops can by the imposition of hands beget 
 fathers and masters. That this power attaches to the 
 episcopal order by divine right and not by any eccles- 
 iastical law, may be shown from the fact that although 
 in case of necessity laics may validly confer baptism, 
 and priests by special delegation may be empowered 
 to confirm, never has the Church held valid an ordina- 
 tion of priest or bishop unless when administered by a 
 validly consecrated bishop. And never has the Church 
 attempted to withdraw this power from the bishop. 
 She simply declared such ordinations illicit and sac- 
 religious, but still valid, even when performed by an 
 excommunicated, deposed, or heretical bishop, from 
 whom she has withdrawn all jurisdiction, and thereby 
 disqualified him from transmitting lawful succession. 
 
 Not only does the modern theology of Rome then 
 establish the superiority of bishops over simple pres- 
 byters but the Roman Pontifical, in the ordination 
 service of the priest, plainly distinguishes between 
 the high priests (pontifices summos), placed over the 
 people to rule them, and the men of a lower order 
 and second dignity (scquentis ordinis viros, et secun- 
 d& dignitatis), chosen to co-operate with and aid the 
 higher order, as the seventy prudent men aided Moses
 
 VICARS OF THE POPE. 77 
 
 in the desert, and as our Lord associated with the 
 Apostles other disciples and teachers of faith. The 
 learned Hurter, in the work already mentioned (p. 428), 
 lays down this thesis : " The rite by which bishops are 
 consecrated is a true order, distinct from the other orders 
 and a true sacrament," in which he combats the teach- 
 ing of the ancient scholastics that the episcopacy was 
 only an extension of the priesthood, and maintains that 
 it is now the common opinion, and the one by all 
 means to be held, that the episcopate is an order dis- 
 tinct not merely in grade or rank (gradu\ but also in 
 species (specie) from the priesthood. We may with 
 the same author sum 1 up the teaching of the Church 
 regarding the hierarchy in these three points : (i) The 
 hierarchy is divided into three degrees ; (2) The origin 
 of this division is divine ; (3) As priests are superior to 
 deacons, so bishops are superior to presbyters. This 
 surely were more than sufficient to vindicate the 
 teaching of modern Roman theology on the point in 
 question, and to show how ungrounded and false the 
 assertion that we had abolished the episcopal order, and 
 reduced bishops to the rank of mere presbyters. 
 
 We need then take no further notice of such glar- 
 ingly false charges as these : " Popes had taught them 
 that bishops were only presbyters, in order to magnify 
 themselves as the only and universal bishops." " Such 
 was the common teaching of school divines before the 
 Reformation :" " It is the Roman doctrine now. Yet 
 as our good friend insists that these are dogmas of our 
 own Church, established by infallible authority, and in 
 proof hereof quotes in a foot-note " Liguori, who says 
 some think the episcopate, probably, an order, torn, 
 vi., p. 10," we beg our readers to bear with us a little
 
 ^8 CA THOLIC BISHOPS NOT MERE 
 
 longer, while we show what St. Liguori really does say, 
 for although we do not regard him as in any respect 
 an " infallible authority," we respect him as a saint 
 and doctor of the Church, and certainly of higher au- 
 thority on points of Christian doctrine and Catholic 
 theology than the man who pretending to give tome 
 and very page misquotes and travesties his statements. 
 Leaving some one else to hunt up and verify the re- 
 ference, torn. vi. p. 10; in the edition (Mechliniae 
 MDCCCXLV.) of the works of St. Liguori now before 
 me, we find (torn. 7, Lib. 6, Treat 5. de ordine, p. 220) 
 as follows : " The episcopate is an order, by which 
 special power is conferred of confirming the faithful, 
 and ordaining ministers of the sacraments, and of con- 
 secrating things appertaining to the divine worship." 
 And in the same treatise : (p. 223) " It is asked Is the 
 episcopate an order distinct from the priesthood ? St. 
 Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and others deny, saying that 
 it is an extension of the order of the priesthood. But 
 more commonly theologians affirm that it is an order 
 distinct from the priesthood, because in it a distinct 
 character is communicated, and a special power re- 
 garding the Eucharist is given, namely, that of conse- 
 crating ministers of this sacrament ; also, because the 
 order of the episcopate is conferred by the laying on 
 of hands and the form, receive ye the Holy Ghost, etc." 
 To this let me add a short extract from a work by 
 Rev. Aloysius Togni, entitled, " Instructio pro Sacris 
 Ecclesiae Ministris," which, we are told, is of the highest 
 authority in Rome, being commonly used in the Roman 
 seminaries. This we copy from note viii., in Appen- 
 dix to " The Anglican Ministry," by Arthur W. Hutton, 
 M. A.:
 
 VICARS Of-' THE POPE. yg 
 
 "What is the difference between a priest and a 
 bishop? A bishop by divine right is superior to a 
 priest, both in power of order and jurisdiction. In the 
 power of order, for he administers the sacraments of 
 Orders and Confirmation, in regard to which, the 
 Council of Trent says, others of an inferior order, and 
 therefore priests, (presbyters) "have no power:" in 
 jurisdiction, also, because the bishop has proper and or- 
 dinary jurisdiction through the whole diocese; but the 
 priest has either only vicarious and delegated juris- 
 diction or ordinary jurisdiction in a certain part of the 
 diocese. Whence the bishop is the summit (apex] and 
 complement of the priesthood (saetrdotii} holding the 
 first place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy." 
 
 Clearly then modern Roman theology has not abol- 
 ished the episcopal order or confounded bishops with 
 presbyters, and it only remains for me to remark, that 
 those Catholic theologians, such as St. Thomas and St. 
 Bonaventure, whose names stamp value and weight 
 on whatever opinions they may defend, or whatever 
 side of a controversy they espouse, in denying that 
 the episcopate was an order distinct from the priest- 
 hood, never dreamt of saying that bishops were 
 simple presbyters or mere vicars of the Pope in their 
 several dioceses, as " Old Catholic" does. They taught 
 that there were seven orders, four minor and three 
 major or sacred orders: that the priesthood (sacer- 
 dotium] was the highest order in the Church ; that this 
 saccrdotium or priesthood was two-fold, embracing the 
 presbyterate, or inferior priesthood, and the episco- 
 pate, or superior priesthood, that sacerdotium was 
 therefore a generic term, of which the episcopate was 
 the extension, the plenitude and the crown : and that
 
 g o VICARS OF THE POPE. 
 
 though in rank the bishop was even by divine institu- 
 tion distinct from and superior to the priest, yet the 
 episcopate was not, properly speaking, a distinct order 
 and sacrament. This differs, toto ccclo, from the mis- 
 statments we are combating, and it shows how easily 
 persons may be deceived, who take things at trust, or 
 at second-hand, or who know of Catholic theology 
 only what they glean from a superficial reading of 
 some elementary hand-book of Christian doctrine.
 
 THE ANCIENT FATHERS VINDICATED. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 TEACHINGS OF ANCIENT FATHERS VINDICATED. 
 
 WE can hardly excuse a man making pretensions 
 to theological knowledge and patristic lore, 
 quoting the ancient fathers and their writings, and yet 
 putting forth garbled, falsified, and interpolated cita- 
 tions, thus misleading simple, unsophisticated minds, 
 to the prejudice of Catholic truth and the doctrines 
 of the Catholic Church. With a theologian's knowl- 
 edge of the question in dispute between Catholic 
 doctors regarding the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and 
 the decisions of the Council of Trent on the same sub- 
 ject, no sincere seeker after truth could quote the 
 catechism of the Council of Trent, Chapter vii., Ques- 
 tions xii., xxii., xxv., in proof of assertions which we 
 have proved above to be so false and so contradictory 
 to the decrees and canons of the council. Again, " St. 
 Cyprian (A D. 250) on ' The Unity of the Church,' lays 
 down certain maxims, which in his days were univers- 
 ally accepted, thus." Here follow four propositions, 
 all more or less garbled, and evidently intended to con- 
 vey the idea that St. Cyprian, who occupied the See 
 of Carthage from 248 to September I4th, 258, held 
 principles and taught maxims in opposition to the 
 primacy of the Holy See, yet perhaps not one of the 
 early Fathers more strenuously defends the preroga-
 
 82 TEACHINGS OF THE 
 
 tives of the chair of Peter, which he styles the ruling 
 chair, or more frequently appeals to the authority of 
 Peter's successors, as the centre and source of unity in 
 the Church. Certainly no one who ever read his ad- 
 mirable treatise, " On the Unity of the Church," could 
 have the face to mention either it or its author in 
 assailing the claim of Papal supremacy, and universal 
 jurisdiction of the See of Peter. We would ardently 
 desire to have the whole treatise in a good English 
 dress introduced to the English-speaking community. 
 No better testimony could be adduced, that the maxims 
 and principles of St. Cyprian, and universally accepted 
 in his time, regarding the Papacy, are identical with 
 those held by the Catholic Church to-day Pardon us 
 then, dear readers, a short extract to supplement the 
 mutilated excerpts of our " Old Catholic" controversial- 
 ist. " The proof of faith is easy and compendious, 
 because true. The Lord speaks to Peter : ' I say to 
 thee,' He says, ' that thou art Peter, and on this rock 
 I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against it. And to thee I will give the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
 on earth, shall be bound also in heaven ; and whatso- 
 ever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed also in 
 heaven.' And again he says to him, after His resurrec- 
 tion. ' Feed my sheep.' Upon that one individual He 
 builds His Church, and to him He commits His sheep to 
 be fed. And although after the resurrection He gives 
 to all His Apostles equal power, and says: 'As the 
 Father hath sent me, I also send you ; Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost; whose sins you shall forgive, they shall 
 be forgiven them ; whose sins you shall retain, they 
 shall be retained ;' yet, to manifest unity. He disposed
 
 A NCI EN T FA THERS V IN DIG A TED. 83 
 
 by His authority the origin of the same unity, which 
 begins from One. Even the other Apostles were cer- 
 tainly what Peter was, being endowed with equal par- 
 ticipation of honor and power, but the beginning pro- 
 ceeds from unity, and the primacy is gi'ccn to Peter, 
 that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one, 
 and the chair one" 
 
 In other places St. Cyprian calls the Church of 
 Rome, the root and matrix of the Catholic Church, the 
 ruling Church whence sacerdotal unity has arisen. So that, 
 as the learned Dr. Kenrick, in 'his " Primacy of the 
 Apostlic See," tells us, the violent opponent of the 
 Pope's supremacy, Barrow, admits that, " St. Cyprian 
 considered St. Peter to have received from Christ a 
 primacy of order," and Bishop Hopkins of Vermont 
 was forced to sigh over the fact that so early did the 
 Bishops of Rome endeavor to secure dominion and suprem- 
 acy, and that it must be granted that in the year 220, the 
 doctrine was partially admitted that the unity of the 
 Church took its rise in the See or diocese of Peter. And 
 Hallam (" Middle Ages," Chap, vii.) confirms this, say- 
 ing : " Irenaeus rather vaguely, and Cyprian more 
 positively, admit, or rather assert, the primacy of 
 the Church of Rome, which the latter seems to 
 have regarded as a kind of centre of Catholic unity." 
 The appeal, then, to the early Fathers furnishes little 
 comfort to the enemies of the Holy See, and a study of 
 those early lights of the Christian Church must con- 
 vince any earnest, candid inquirer that the Papacy, 
 its powers and prerogatives, are of divine origin, and 
 hence neither Tertullian, nor St. Vincent of Lerins, 
 teach anything but what we teach to-day in the quota- 
 tions urged against us. And I would here close ti-'s
 
 84 TEACHINGS OF THE 
 
 reference to the Fathers did not our reviewer sum- 
 mon the illustrious doctor of the Western Church, St. 
 Jerome, to testify in behalf of " Old Catholicism." I 
 cannot allow that great man, stern of feature and 
 blunt of speech, whose classic latinity, and rigid asceti- 
 cism made him worthy to be the secretary of the 
 learned Pope Damasus, and spiritual guide of a 
 Paula and Eustochium, whose biblical knowledge 
 qualified him to undertake and faithfully execute the 
 task of translating the Bible from the original text, to be 
 put on record in the iQth century against the Papacy 
 whose sturdy and fearless champion he was in the 
 4th and 5th centuries. Thus, then, St. Jerome is made 
 to speak : " If one is looking for authority, the world 
 is greater than one city. Wherever a bishop may be 
 placed, whether at Rome or Eugubium ; whether at 
 Constantinople or Rhegium ; whether at Alexandria 
 or at Tunis, he has the same authority, the same 
 worth, the same priesthood. The power of wealth, 
 the lowliness of poverty, render a bishop neither 
 higher nor lower. All are successors of the Apostles." 
 Now, please to remark that the only words in this 
 extract from the letter of St. Jerqme having any sem- 
 blance of force or point against Catholic doctrine are 
 those " he has the same authority" and these words St. 
 Jerome never wrote ; they are a pure interpolation. 
 Now, I do not charge that our Buffalo " Old Catholic" 
 committed this fraud, or falsified St. Jerome's letter ; he 
 simply did here, what he has been doing all along; he 
 has taken these things at sec9nd-hand, has accepted 
 a falsified, interpolated version as the genuine text, 
 without ever examining the original. I am the more 
 inclined to put this construction on the matter, be-
 
 ANCIENT FATHERS VINDICATED. 5 
 
 cause I think if he had read this letter, to which he ac- 
 curately refers in a foot-note as Epist. cxlvi., he would 
 never have cited it as authority, for in this letter St. 
 Jerome does what modern Roman theoloijv is charged 
 
 j o * 
 
 with doing, he reduces bishops to the level of priests, 
 and says that bishops and priests are all the same. We 
 will let our Episcopal friend settle the matter with St. 
 Jerome and Presbyterians, who often quote this very 
 epistle of St. Jerome. For ourselves, we know what 
 the Church teaches on this-point, and we know that St. 
 Jerome himself elsewhere acknowledges the superiority 
 of bishops, and we know that this letter was written to 
 correct an abuse, by which deacons pretended an 
 equality with priests, and grounded their claims on 
 certain Roman customs and privileges.
 
 CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. 
 
 JUST here I may call attention to another very mis- 
 leading statement, professedly inferred from the 
 canons of the -Councils of Xicea and Ephesus. In a 
 lecture delivered in St. Joseph's Cathedral, 1874, I 
 referred to the letter which Pope Julius I. wrote to the 
 Eastern bishops, A. D. 342, sustaining the appeal made 
 by St. Athanasius, in proof that at this early period 
 there was a Pope claiming and exercising jurisdiction 
 over the whole Church, East and West, as fully and em- 
 phatically as the Popes in our own times; to which 
 our " Old Catholic" reviewer replies : " Had Julius 
 addressed the bishops of Britain, A. D. 342, even in 
 terms of patriarchal authority, they would have re- 
 minded him that his limit was Lower Italy." A few 
 sentences before he averred that, " Western Europe 
 had but one such (Apostolic) See, and in the nature of 
 things that gave Rome a canonical primacy;" and 
 still a few lines above, he asserts that in the letter to 
 which I referred, written to the bishops of the East, in 
 answer to an appeal to the Pope: "Julius was claim- 
 ing his patriarchal primacy under the canons." So 
 that although Julius' "patriarchal authority was 
 limited to Lower Italy, ""Rome had a canonical prim- 
 acy over Western Europe," and "a patriarchal author-
 
 CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. gj 
 
 ity, under the canons" over Alexandria and the East- 
 ern Church. But it is not to these contradictions that 
 I wish to call special attention, but to this following 
 statement : "After Ephesus, they (the bishops of 
 Britain) would have said, that England, with Cyprus 
 and other islands, was canonically exempt from all 
 such jurisdictions ; which was and is the fact." But 
 even stranger than the statement itself is the bold at- 
 tempt to sustain it by reference in a fooi-note to - 
 " Canon vi., of Nicea, afterwards Canon vii., o 
 Ephesus." 
 
 Now, although we cannot be expected here to dis- 
 cuss these canons, we affirm positively and categorically,, 
 that these canons do not exempt England, Cyprus or 
 any other islands from the jurisdiction of the Holy- 
 See, and that there was no question of such exemp- 
 tion in either the Council of Nicea or Ephesus. The 
 question before the Fathers of the Nicene Council was 
 in regard to the jurisdiction of the See of Alexandria, 
 honored and privileged from earliest days because it 
 was the See of St. Mark the Evangelist and disciple of 
 St. Peter. The Melet-ian schism gave rise to this con- 
 troversy, for after Meletius was condemned by St. Peter 
 of Alexandria, and deposed from his see, he rebelled 
 against the authority of the Apostolic See of Alex- 
 andria, and this it was that caused the synod to define ' 
 the rights and jurisdiction of that see over the prov- 
 inces of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, which it does in 
 these words: "Let the ancient custom throughout 
 Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis be strictly adhered to, so 
 that the bishop of Alexandria shall have jurisdiction 
 over all these ; since this is also the custom of the 
 Bishop of Rome." Now, there has been some differ
 
 88 CA A'CLVS OF NICE AN^D EPHE S US. 
 
 ence of opinion about this last clause, or about the 
 true meaning and correct translation of the original 
 Greek text, some, with Bellarmine, maintaining the true 
 meaning of the canon to be: ''Let the bishop of 
 Alexandria govern these provinces, because such was 
 the custom of the Bishop of Rome ; that is, because 
 the Roman Pontiff, prior to any definitions by councils, 
 was used to permit the Alexandrian bishop to govern, 
 or have jurisdiction, over these provinces," which 
 would be a clear acknowledgment by the first general 
 council of the primacy of Rome. Others say, with 
 Phillips, that, " This canon does not demonstrate the 
 primacy of the Pope, as the Council of Nicea did not 
 speak of this primacy, simply because it had no need 
 to be established or confirmed by it," and hence with 
 Hefele, they translate the clause; "There is a similar 
 custom for the Roman Bishop," that is, jurisdiction over 
 different provinces, a patriarchate is recognized in re- 
 gard to Rome, and the same should hold for Alexandria. 
 Now, we will not discuss this disputed point, though 
 from the text the first is plainly the true meaning, but 
 it is in any case undeniable that the Council of Nicea 
 never dreamed of curtailing the jurisdiction of the 
 Pope or exempting England, Cyprus, or other islands 
 from his jurisdiction. So much then for Canon vi. of 
 the Council of Nicea. What about Canon vii. of 
 Ephesus? In the first place, with' most authors who 
 have written the history of this council, we hold that 
 that council formulated but six canons. "If in some 
 o>dk*r,"says Hefele, (" History of the Councils," torn. II., 
 p. 389, French Ed. 1869), "eight canons are found, it is 
 because the resolution passed by the council on the 
 the motion of Charisins, is regarded as Canon vii., and
 
 CAXOKS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. 
 
 C,-w 
 
 09 
 
 the decree concerning the bishops of Egypt is put 
 down as Canon viii." This decree, then, passed in the 
 council at its seventh session, is referred to by our 
 learned divine as Canon vii. of the Council of Ephesus. 
 Those wishing to obtain full information regarding the 
 nature and meaning of 'the decree of the council, I 
 must refer to Hefele's History above cited, or to the au- 
 thorities which he quotes, (ibid., pp. 386, 387.) Let me, 
 however, briefly as possible, state the question pro- 
 posed to, and acted on, by the council, in order to show 
 that it has no connection at all with the jurisdiction or 
 primacy of the Roman Pontiff, although, with an un- 
 accountable assurance, evidencing either bad faith, or 
 inexcusable reliance on second-hand, untrustworthy in- 
 formation, we are told that : "After Ephesus, England, 
 with Cyprus and other islands, was canonically exempt 
 from such jurisdiction." 
 
 The* Apostolic See of Antioch, which the Apostle 
 St. Peter himself founded, like that of Alexandria, 
 claimed special privileges and an extensive jurisdic- 
 tion, which the sixth canon of the Council of Nicea 
 seemed to recognize and confirm, in these terms: " In 
 like manner, regarding Antioch and the other provinces, 
 let the churches retain their special privileges." The 
 bishop of Antioch claimed superior metropolitan or 
 patriarchal rights over Cyprus, in particular the right 
 of consecrating its bishops. As the metropolitan of 
 Constantia died about the time of the convocation of 
 the council, the proconsul of Antioch, at the suggestion 
 of the Patriarch, forbade a new election to beheld until 
 this disturbing question of jurisdiction should be finally 
 adjudicated. In defiance of the prohibition. Rheginus 
 was elected to the see of Constantia, and with two of
 
 g O CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. 
 
 his suffragans, Zeno and Evagrius, he appealed to the 
 council against the pretensions of Antioch, and the 
 question was warmly and lengthily discussed in the 
 seventh session, and it was decreed, that : " The 
 churches of Cyprus should continue to enjoy their in- 
 dependence and the right of consecrating their own 
 bishops (and of electing, them), and that the synod 
 renew in general all the liberties of the ecclesiastical prov- 
 inces, and forbid encroachments on foreign provinces." 
 Thus a contest between local churches regarding ec- 
 clesiastical privileges, and disciplinary canons regulat- 
 ing the mutual relations of these churches, has been 
 strangely twisted into a canonical exemption from the 
 jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, and it is more than 
 insinuated that such, forsooth, was the purpose and 
 scope of these canons. Such contests and rivalries 
 and disputes regarding jurisdiction have been not un- 
 frequent in the Church, since the Apostolic ages; such 
 existed between Canterbury and York in England, be- 
 tween Aries and Vienne in Gaul, and such, in very 
 possible contingencies, may yet exist between the 
 metropolitan sees of Baltimore and New York. 
 
 Voluminous are the canonical enactments adjudicat- 
 ing such rival claims, deciding such controversies, 
 and regulating and defending the limits and extent of 
 diocesan, metropolitical, primatial and patriarchal jur- 
 isdiction, yet what student of church history would 
 assert that by such ecclesiastical legislation a blow was 
 aimed at the supremacy of the Holy See, or the uni- 
 versal jurisdiction of the Pope? It is even still more 
 astonishing that any one denying the primacy of the 
 Pope, or claiming independence of his supreme pastoral 
 authority, should make any reference to the Council of
 
 CANONS OF NICE AND EPHESUS. g t 
 
 Ephesus, held in the year 441, composed of two hun- 
 dred bishops, mostly of the East. Cyril, of Jerusalem, 
 opened the first session, on the the 22d of June, and 
 presided, as the acts of the council state, in the name 
 of the Pope. It proceeded to condemn Nestorius, who 
 refused to the Blessed Virgin the title of TJieotokos or 
 Mother of God. " Forced," says the council, " by the 
 canons and by the letter of our most holy Father, and 
 co-laborer, Celestine, Bishop of Rome;" it vindicated 
 the divine maternity of Mary, and originated the prayer 
 so dear to Catholics, adding to the Angel's greeting the 
 words: "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, 
 now, and at the hour of our death." 
 
 In the second session, held on the loth of July of the 
 same year, Cyril is again expressly designated in the min- 
 utes orproch verbal oi the session, as the representative 
 of the Bishop of Rome. In time to assist at this session 
 came three legates of the Pope, Arcadius and Projec- 
 tus, bishops, and Philip, a priest, bringing a dogmatical 
 letter from Celestine, which was read before the synod, 
 first in the original Latin, and then in a Greek version, 
 which was received with loud applause. The letter of 
 the Pope declares that : " He sent three legates to assist 
 at the deliberations of the synod, and to attend to the 
 execution of what the Pope had previously concluded; 
 and he doubted not, but that the assembled bishops 
 would be in accord with these his decisions." The third 
 session was held the following day, the nth of July. 
 The legates of the Pope declared that they had read, 
 in the interval, the acts of the first session, (at which 
 they had not assisted) and had found the sentence 
 against Nestorius entirely canonical and according to 
 the discipline of the Church, but that, according to the
 
 9 2 
 
 CANOA'S OF NICE AND EPHESUS. 
 
 orders of the Pope, they should require the acts of the 
 first session to be read in their presence, which was 
 immediately done. (Hefele, torn, ii., p. 379.) This, surely, 
 does not look much like snubbing the Pope, or repudi- 
 ating his jurisdiction. Does Ephesus limit the Pope's 
 jurisdiction to Lower Italy ? What gives Celestine, 
 Bishop of Rome, the right to preside by his represen- 
 tatives at the General Council of Ephesu^ and to im- 
 pose his authority and his doctrinal decisions on the 
 assembled bishops ? Can it be his dignity as Patriarch 
 of the West ? How came Rome to have a " canonical 
 primacy?" Where are the canons to be found conferring, 
 formulating, or promulgating this primacy ? Is it not 
 plain and undeniable that this primacy had its origin 
 in a higher source, existed, and was acknowedged prior 
 to councils and canons? and that these, as Boniface I. 
 writes to the bishops of Thessaly, " did not dare pass 
 laws regarding the Bishops of Rome, knowing that no 
 act of man could confer additional power on one, who 
 had received all power from the words of our Lord 
 Himself." With the history of the Council of Ephesus 
 before us, its acts and its canons, how difficult it is to 
 be patient on reading repeated assertions of this kind : 
 "By the ancient canons (A. D. 431) it was impossible 
 for him (the Pope) to assert even a patriarchal author- 
 ity, in England, which enjoyed the insular privi- 
 lege of entire self-dependence," giving as authority 
 'Third General Council, Ephesus," when there is 
 nothing of the kind to be found in the Council of 
 Ephesus, nothing more than what we have already 
 mentioned, that the churches of the island of Cyprus 
 are not subject to the see of Antioch,but should con- 
 tinue to enjoy their independence in the election and 
 consecration of their bishops.
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE REGARDING ECCLESIASTI- 
 CAL JURISDICTION. 
 
 OUR opponents seem to have no idea of the power 
 of jurisdiction as distinct from the power of order 
 conferred in priestly and episcopal ordination, and hence 
 much of their confusion, bewilderment, and erroneous 
 inferences. We have already said that the power of 
 order may exist without the power of jurisdiction, as 
 in the case of a priest regularly ordained by any lawfully 
 consecrated bishop, but who has not yet received facul- 
 ties or a mission from his own ordinary ; or in the case of 
 a bishop consecrated merely to perform certain special 
 acts, such as confirming, ordaining, etc., and these on 
 this account are called in German, wtihbischofs, and 
 they perform acts which none but bishops, none but 
 those having the episcopal character and order can 
 do. So, too, jurisdiction may be exercised without 
 orders, as when a simple cleric is appointed to a bene- 
 fice, or when a priest has received from the Pope his 
 appointment to a see, but has not yet been consecrated. 
 This premised, we say we hold, with St. Jerome, that a 
 bishop in Buffalo is the equal of a bishop in Rome as 
 far as his episcopal order, and the power attached to 
 and inherent in his order, are concerned, for the episco- 
 pate is one, the episcopal order is one and the same in
 
 94 
 
 CA THOLIC DOCTRINE REGARDING 
 
 all bishops, wherever they may be placed, whetJier at 
 Rome or Eugubium; at Buffalo, or New York, though 
 there are various grades or degrees of jurisdiction, as 
 is clearly explained in the Catechism of the Council of 
 Trent, Chap. VII. , Question xxv., to which reference 
 has already been made. Take an illustration. Our 
 present revered metropolitan, lately, to the joy of Catho- 
 lic and non-Catholic America, made by our late loved 
 and saintly Holy Father, first American cardinal, be- 
 fore his promotion to the archbishopric of New York, 
 was the bishop of Albany, and then he and the bishop 
 of Buffalo were on a perfect equality, each governing 
 his respective diocese, and discharging the duties of 
 his episcopal office with the same powers both of order 
 and jurisdiction. Elevated to the archiepiscopal dig- 
 nity, and installed in the archiepiscopal see, and in- 
 vested by the Sovereign Pontiff with the pallium, 
 things are somewhat changed. His episcopal order 
 has undergone no change, no new character has been 
 impressed on him, ho new consecration conferred, but 
 besides the ordinary jurisdiction which he has now over 
 the diocese of New York, as he had before over the 
 diocese of Albany, and as the bishop of Buffalo has 
 over his own diocese, he now has an enlarged or ex- 
 tended jurisdiction according to the canons and laws 
 of the Church over a whole Province, embracing seven 
 dioceses. Another illustration. Our present illustrious 
 Pontiff, Leo XIII., was consecrated bishop in Rome 
 on the i gth of February, 1843, with the title of arch- 
 bishop of Damietta in partibus. 
 
 He then received the full powers of the episcopal 
 order, with only a nominal jurisdiction. He was sent 
 as nuncio to Brussels, and for three years in the
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 95 
 
 capital of Belgium, as bishop, was on a footing of 
 equality with the bishops of that kingdom, though, 
 except by special delegation, he could exercise in any 
 of their dioceses no act of an Ordinary, no episcopal 
 jurisdiction. His health somewhat impaired, he 
 travelled, we are told, through Belgium and parts of 
 Germany, visited England, and on his way back to 
 Italy, passed through Paris, Lyons, Marseilles as a 
 simple bishop, as the equal of the bishops whom he 
 met, everywhere esteemed and admired for his learning, 
 ability and virtue. We find him then a simple bishop 
 again in Rome, and as such the bishop of Buffalo, had 
 there been one at the time, would have been the equal 
 of a bishop in Rome, nay, in some respect superior to 
 him, for he would have jurisdiction as Ordinary over a 
 diocese, and Bishop Pecci in Rome had not. But in 1846 
 Monsigneur Pecci was appointed to the see of Perugia ; 
 on the 26th of the same year the new bishop took sol- 
 emn possession of his see, and without any new consecra- 
 tion or any addition to the power of the episcopal order, 
 by the appointment of the Sovereign Pontiff, he was in- 
 vested with the additional power of jurisdiction as ordi- 
 nary of the see of Perugia and metropolitan of the 
 Province of Umbria. On the 2Oth of February, iS/S, 
 Monsigneur Pecci, who on December iQth, 1853, had 
 been made cardinal, and on the 2ist of September, 
 1877, camerlengo, was elected, and on the 3d of 
 March solemnly crowned Pope, under the name and 
 title of Leo XIII. He is now, not a bishop in Rome, 
 but the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter and 
 vicar of Christ. Though there has been no addition 
 to, or extension of his power as a bishop, or more 
 properly of his episcopal order, yet, on his legitimate
 
 g6 CA THOL 1C DOC TRINE RE GA RDIXG 
 
 and canonical elevation to the See of Rome, the 
 chair of Peter, he has acquired by divine right, by 
 the institution of Christ and the Divine constitution 
 of the Christian Church, supreme and universal juris- 
 diction over the Church, is made Supreme Pastor 
 of the whole flock, and thus, as among the Apostles, 
 who were all equal, " one was selected," as St. Jerome 
 says, " that by the appointment of a Head, the occasion 
 of schism may be taken away," so among bishops, 
 though there is a solidarity, " the episcopate is one 
 and indivisible," according to St. Cyprian, and "each 
 bishop can hold a part without division of the 
 whole," yet " Christ gave the keys to Peter as a token 
 of unity," and for the preservation of that unity, He 
 made the Roman Church, the chair of Peter, the 
 radix and matrix of the Catholic Church, so that, 
 though she "pours abroad her bountiful streams, yet 
 there is one source, one Head, one Mother, abundant 
 in the results of her fruitfulness." (St. Cyprian, De 
 Unitate Ecclesiae.) 
 
 Is not this just what we should expect in a Church 
 founded by the Word and Wisdom of God. into which 
 all were to be gathered that were to be saved and 
 come to the knowledge of the truth, that thus, as He 
 Himself declared, there might be "one sheep-fold 
 under one shepherd." Thus then, with St. Jerome we 
 agree that a bishop in Buffalo is, as to his episcopal 
 order and the power of order, not only the equal of a 
 bishop at Rome, but the equal of a Bishop of Rome, 
 and Pope Leo XIII., in this respect possesses no higher 
 or greater power, is no more a bishop in the sense ex- 
 plained than was simple Monsigneur Pecci after his 
 consecration on the Viminal hill, in Rome, in the year
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. gy 
 
 1843, though as to jurisdiction we now own him as 
 Bishop of bishops, holding a primacy of honor and 
 jurisdiction over the whole Church, and we hesitate not 
 to repeat in regard to Leo XIII., what, when spoken 
 in 1874 of Pius IX., of saintly memory, so much riled 
 certain parties here : " As one man, we all, bishops, 
 priests and people, lay at the feet of his Holiness all 
 the devotion, love, reverence and submission due 
 to the Supreme Head of the Church and vicar of 
 Christ." This is probably more than enough to ex- 
 plain the twofold power of order and jurisdiction, and 
 our relations as bishops governing our respective dio- 
 ceses in communion with, and subordination to, the 
 Holy See. Are Catholic bishops then simply vicars 
 of the Pope, holding their office and their powers'^ 
 his nod?' The episcopacy is of divine institution; it 
 belongs to the organic constitution of the Church as 
 founded by Christ. The titular bishop is the Ordinary 
 of his diocese, governing it not by vicarious or delegated 
 powers, but " placed there by the Holy Ghost, to rule 
 the Church of God." (Acts xx. 28). His power both of 
 order and jurisdiction over his flock, is from God, there- 
 fore, he is styled Ordinary, exercises ordinary jurisdic- 
 tion, which he delegates to others. Here we see the 
 necessity of the distinction, which we have already 
 brought out at some length, between the power of 
 order and jurisdiction, and between the divine institu- 
 tion of the episcopate and the appointment of individ- 
 ual bishops. Bishops are successors of the Apostles, 
 but each individual bishop is not the successor of some 
 one Apostle, as the Bishop of Rome is the successor of 
 St. Peter. The mission of the Apostles was " to teach all 
 nations," " to preach the gospel to every creature." No
 
 gS CA THOL1C DOCTRINE REGARDING 
 
 bounds were assigned to them for the exercise of their 
 jurisdiction ; the jurisdiction of a bishop is limited by 
 the diocese to which he is appointed. 
 
 The power of order in all bishops is, as we have 
 seen, equal ; so is it essential, inamissible, indestructi- 
 ble. In spite of Popes and councils, in spite of canon- 
 ical prohibitions, excommunication, and even deposi- 
 tion, a true bishop can validly perform all the acts 
 proper to his episcopal order, because, not from the 
 Church, not from the Pope, not from canons or coun- 
 cils, but directly and immediately from God, is his 
 power of order, and it is conferred by consecration. 
 Not so the power of jurisdiction ; it is conferred by 
 his appointment, and before consecration is possessed 
 in all its fulness and extent. It is not equal in all bishops, 
 for then there could not be metropolitans, primates, 
 patriarchs, any more than Popes, and yet these have ex- 
 isted in the Christian Church from the earliest ages, and 
 are interwoven into the texture of her constituent 
 laws. Nothing is more clear in the history of the 
 Church, and of the Church of England in particular, 
 than that the jurisdiction of bishops has been modi 
 fied, changed, enlarged or curtailed by canonical en- 
 actments and the actions of Popes. The history of the 
 Pontificate of Gregory the Great, and the sees of 
 Canterbury and York, affords ample proof of this, 
 whilst it is superfluous to say that the Holy See has 
 erected new sees, divided and subdivided dioceses and 
 provinces, and even, though rarely, abolished sees. Wit- 
 ness the Church of France after the French revolution, 
 the establishment of the American Church, the re-es- 
 tablishment of the English and Scotch hierarchy. The 
 power of jurisdiction, then, in the episcopacy is divine
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 99 
 
 and from God, but indirectly, and through the Pope, 
 Christ our Lord so organizing and constituting His 
 Church, giving to Peter the full power of the keys and 
 the feeding and government of the whole flock, lambs 
 and sheep. (Matt, xvi., 19. Johnxxi., 15, 16, 17.) " The 
 episcopal power of jurisdiction is therefore not de- 
 rived immediately from Christ, in so far as it exists in 
 individuals; it has been established by Christ, but is 
 not conferred immediately by Him upon individual 
 bishops ; it is imparted to them by the Head of the 
 Church, or bishops whom he has authorized. Thus the 
 unity of the episcopate, so much insisted on by the 
 Fathers, is fully upheld ; the Holy See is head, root, 
 spring, origin of the spiritual authority." (Hergenrother, 
 " Church and State," vol. I., p. 177.) 
 
 This is sufficient explanation of the formula used in 
 the appointment of bishops, " In virtue of the power 
 of God, of the Prince of the Apostles, and of the Rul- 
 ing Pope ;" and also of that used by bishops themselves, 
 " By the grace of God and of the Holy See," for even 
 those who maintain with Thomassin that bishops obtain 
 their jurisdiction immediately from Christ, acknowl- 
 edge that : " They have not received immediately 
 from him their particular territory or peculiar diocese, 
 since this partition has been made in the course of 
 ages by the Church, nor could it be made or perpetu- 
 ated unless with the consent of the Head, in whom is 
 the pivot and centre of the ecclesiastical unity." 
 (Thomassin, cited by Hergenrother, as above.) More 
 clearly and correctly does the learned Gerdile, quoted 
 in the same place by the same author, express the 
 Catholic doctrine on this point, thus : "For jurisdic- 
 tion, the assignment of a people as subjects is requisite,
 
 IOO CA THOLIC DOCTRINE REGARDING 
 
 and this is done by human, not divine right. Though 
 the form and manner of this assignment may vary in 
 different places and times according to the diversity 
 of discipline, yet none could be lawful unless approved 
 by the Holy See, from whose consent it receives force 
 and strength, according to the plenitude of power shed 
 over the universal Church." That is, by the positive 
 act of the Holy See assigning a diocese, and determin- 
 ing its limits, the subjects of a bishop are determined 
 and actual jurisdiction over the same is conferred, 
 which jurisdiction is from God, though not immedi- 
 ately, but through the vicar of Christ, it is ordinary, 
 not delegated or vicarious, and hence he can delegate 
 the same to others, which he could not do, were it a 
 delegated power. And though the manner of making 
 appointments to episcopal sees has varied at different 
 times, no appointment could ever have been lawful, 
 if the Holy See rejected it, or if the Sovereign 
 Pontiff did not expressly or tacitly consent to it. 
 
 This a Bishop of Rome who was faithful and exact 
 in the observance of the canons, St. Gregory the 
 Great, explicitly declares ; writing to the empress 
 of Constantinople, he says in regard to the conse- 
 cration of Maximus, elevated to the episcopate against 
 his wish : " A thing was done which never happened 
 under previous princes." (L. 5, Epist. xxi.) And to 
 Maximus himself, he writes: "An unheard of wicked- 
 ness is added, that after our interdict, excommunicating 
 yourself and those ordaining you, you are said," etc. 
 (L. 4, Epist. xx.) Rightly then do we " object to 
 any ordination not proceeding under warrant from 
 Rome." Nor does this "overthrow the orders of St. 
 Chrysostom. St. Augustine and St. Ambrose," as
 
 E CCL E SI A S TIC A L J UKISDIC 770 A'. 
 
 101 
 
 any student of history knows that these illustrious 
 saints and doctors of the Church acknowledged the 
 supremacy of the See of Rome and were in turn ac- 
 knowleged by the Sovereign Pontiff. How false, then, 
 and misleading the assertion, that because the Papacy 
 is the source and centre of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 in the Catholic sense now explained, Catholic bishops 
 are " not true bishops, have no power at all." I 
 almost deem it beneath me, especially after all we have 
 already said, to notice the insulting remark : "They are 
 not permitted to bear any corporate witness whatever ; 
 and when summoned to meet the Pope in council, 
 it is only to tremble around his throne, accept his 
 oracles, and renounce their own convictions at his com- 
 mand, or submit to be stripped of their dignities, such 
 as they are." Catholic bishops are, by divine right, 
 witnesses and judges of the faith, and they can neither 
 abdicate their rights, nor be despoiled of them by any 
 earthly power. 
 
 It is precisely when assembled in council under the 
 presidency of the Pope, that they represent, and are 
 successors of the College of the Apostles, and in their 
 corporate capacity speak with the full, supreme and in- 
 fallible authority, vested by Christ our Lord in His 
 holy Church. Are judges in our courts not true judges, 
 void of all power and authority, because there are 
 judges of higher courts to whom appeal may be taken, 
 who have a wider jurisdiction, and who are empowered 
 to review, confirm or reverse their decisions? Have 
 bishops no power, because by our Lord's divine ordi- 
 nances their power in the Church is subordinated to 
 that of him whom He appointed as Supreme Judge in 
 faith and morals, and Supreme Ruler and Pastor of his
 
 I Q2 CA THOLIC DOC TRINE RE GA RDING 
 
 whole flock ? Does not the Council of the Vatican clearly 
 and emphatically state that its decrees do not curtail, 
 weaken, or in any way belittle episcopal authority; 
 that the universal and supreme jurisdiction of the Sov- 
 ereign Pontiff does not conflict with that of the bishop 
 in his own diocese? " But so far is this power of the 
 Supreme Pontiff from being any prejudice to the ordi- 
 nary and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by 
 which bishops who have been sent by the Holy Ghost 
 to succeed and hold the place of the Apostles, (Coun. 
 of Trent, Sess. xxiii., chap, iv.) feed and govern, each 
 his own flock, as true pastors, that this their episco- 
 pal authority is really asserted, strengthened and vin- 
 dicated by the Supreme and Universal Pastor." (Dog- 
 matic Constitution of the Church of Christ, chap, iii.) 
 
 Thus, while thanking our friends for the great inter- 
 est they take .in the maintenance of our rights as 
 bishops, as against the so-called overshadowing and 
 all-absorbing power of the Pope of Rome, we see how 
 jealously the Church guards the original divine con- 
 stitution given to her by her divine Founder. The 
 Church is to-day as the Redeemer of the world consti- 
 tuted and organized her, holding all her powers from 
 Him, and wonderfully, divinely equipped to do His 
 work, and to do His work unfailingly to the end of ages. 
 To her keeping the fruits of redemption, the merits 
 of the passion and death of a God-man, were to be 
 committed, through her to be dispensed to the souls of 
 men. She was to guard the deposit of faith, and teach 
 it to all nations, and He Himself was to be with her all 
 days, to the end of time, and the Holy Ghost was to 
 abide with her forever to teach her all truth. Her 
 ministers to-day can say with St, Paul, " Let a man so
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 
 
 look upon us as ministers of Christ and stewards of 
 the mysteries of God," (I Cor., iv. i.)and because sent 
 by Him, delegated and empowered by Him, He says: 
 " He that hears you hears me." (Luke x. 16.) But 
 they have no arbitrary powers, they can exercise no 
 usurped authority, and nothing is plainer in Holy Writ; 
 than that our Lord chose his own ministers : " I have 
 chosen you, not you me ;" (John xv. 1 6.) and appointed 
 them to do His own work, and " I have appointed you 
 that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your 
 fruit should remain." (ibid.) 
 
 The Church is God's own work. He founded it, and 
 " other foundation no man can lay but that which is 
 laid." (I Cor., iii. 2.) " Built upon the foundation of the 
 Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the 
 chief corner-stone." (Eph., ii. 20.) His own mystical 
 body, moulded into perfect shape and form by His own 
 hands, living a divine life breathed into it on the day 
 of Pentecost, it is destined to gather into one fold, un- 
 der one shepherd, all mankind, for, as St. Cyprian 
 teaches, there is " one God, one Christ, one Church," 
 and St. Paul, " one Lord, one faith, one baptism," and 
 does this not 'imply one Head, one Supreme Author- 
 ity, one Universal Pastor? Can the smallest meeting 
 be organized without a chairman ? Can any society ex- 
 ist without a presiding officer? Can any city success- 
 fully conduct its municipal affairs without a - mayor? 
 Would any rational man dream of a state without a 
 governor, or a nation without a ruler? How long 
 would our union hold together without a president; 
 and does not the setting up of rival presidents involve 
 the disintegration of the nation ? Could any of our 
 parishes or congregations ever remain one, united and
 
 IO4 
 
 CATHOLIC DO CT JUNE REGARDING 
 
 prosperous without a spiritual guide and pastor, hav- 
 ing authority to teach and to govern ? How preserve in 
 agreement of discipline and faith the priests and people 
 of a diocese without a bishop invested with superior 
 jurisdiction, recognized higher pastoral authority, and 
 how maintain " one faith," " one Church," " one fold," 
 embracing all the world, all the bishops, all the priests, 
 and all the faithful people of Christendom, without one 
 Supreme Head, one sovereign authority, one divinely 
 constituted, Universal and Infallible Pastor ? Did not 
 our Lord provide for this in selecting one among all His 
 Apostles, giving him the name of Peter, establishing 
 him as the rock on which His Church was to be built, 
 pledging His infallible word that the gates of hell should 
 never prevail against it, praying with a prayer of divine 
 efficacy that his faith fail not, for he was to confirm 
 his brethren, and finally, actually giving him the full 
 charge of feeding and governing his whole flock, lambs 
 and sheep, pastors and people ? The episcopate and the 
 priesthood are necessary constituent elements in the 
 Church, and can never be absorbed or abolished, but 
 they are, by the very nature and constitution of the 
 Church, subordinated to the Supreme Pastor, the Sov- 
 ereign Pontiff. 
 
 Nor does it follow, because a sovereign ruler, or ex- 
 ecutive of a nation, may appoint, and, for cause, re- 
 move inferior officers, or veto the acts of a co-ordinate 
 branch of the government, that therefore he may abol- 
 ish such offices, branches, or departments of govern- 
 ment, or usurp rights, privileges, and powers, equally 
 valid with his own, and derived from the same source ; 
 even though by the law of the land, and the constitu- 
 tion of the state, subordinate to his. In like manner
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 105 
 
 in the Church, by her divine constitution, a master-piece, 
 by the way, of divine wisdom, there is, and it is of faith 
 that there is, besides the Papacy, with its primacy of 
 honor and jurisdiction over the Universal Church, a 
 sacred hierarchy consisting of bishops, priests and minis- 
 ters ; with rights, privileges and powers, as valid as those 
 of the Papacy, reposing on the same foundation, se- 
 cured by the same charter, a hierarchy therefore, that 
 never can be abolished by Papal power, absorbed or con- 
 founded in the prerogatives of the Holy See, but without 
 jangle or clashing of any kind, bishops, priests and 
 ministers are ordained of Christ to co-exist and effect- 
 ually co-operate even to the end of ages, with the 
 supreme power with which He has been pleased to 
 invest the successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the 
 Apostles and first Bishop of Rome. I must now finish 
 what I have perhaps drawn out with perhaps un- 
 necessary prolixity, but I was anxious to elucidate this 
 point of Catholic faith, which has been so much obscured 
 and misrepresented, in the hope that those large 
 numbers of our esteemed and most worthy fellow-Chris- 
 tians who admire the beauty, and strength, and indes- 
 tructibility of what they call the Catholic system or 
 Papal polity, may at length see that all this beauty, un- 
 conquerable strength, and indestructible vitality are de- 
 rived from her Divine Founder. Of them, orat least of 
 many of them, whom we sincerely believe to be uncon- 
 sciously and innocently, outside the true Church, our 
 loving Saviour says : " Other sheep I have, that are not 
 of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they shall hear 
 my voice and there shall be one sheep-fold and one 
 Shepherd." (John x. 16). Fiat! Fiat! 
 THE END. 
 


 
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