. i A^ ,— (— A- ^^w ^^^" (~> — c — = CD 7 = =^ ^ = 2 = 5 = 3 = f-i = _ ^^ ^^s "^ 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^i! ■?>#k?' ?»-> y* ^:7^:^ / f >" ^ m o' -z^^^c^-z^;^ :*>^J- >%^.^J^-^-^ ^ TRACT XC. HISTORICALLY REFUTED; OR, A REPLY TO A WORK BY THE REV. F. OAKELEY, ENTITLED, "THE SUBJECT OF TRACT XC. HISTORICALLY EXAMINED." BY WILLIAM. GOODE, M.A. F.S.A., RECTOR OF ST. ANTHOLIN, LONDON. " Cum Dominus nostcr Ecclesise suae Doctores pastoresque dodcrit, qui docendi munus.alii aliis, tanquain in ciirsii lampada, usque ad extremuiii seculoruni finein traderuut ; quid nobis optabilius, quid, sivc ad laudem, sive ad fcliciUtein, aniiilius contingere potuit, quani ut liuic mandato c\scqucndo pro officii nostri ratione inservire daretur? Hoe praecipui," tempore, quo, licit Ecclesia Nostra nnn contemncndas jactare possit Doctoruin aliorumque cgrcgiorutn viroruni copias, qui scriptis cam prxclari.ssimis defendunt, ac moribus etiam probatissimis ornant.multo tainen adhuc majorcs dcsidcrare videtur. liinc enim I'ontificii, vcleres Eccleiii(e ReformnUc hnHcs . omnibus, quibus possunt.modiscam oppugnant; nunc aperto Martedccernere parant ; victi atquo fatiguti, iMit ali/tie insidiig, tjuce plcruiuqiic nieltiit illis ccsscre, quid assecjui valeant, ex|icriuntur ; amiciliait simulant, in nostra transiiste aulra vUlcri volunt ; nil intcntatuin rclinquunt, quo imprudcntiores e nostris dccipi sperant atquo opi)rinii posse. Indc alii," &C. Adp. PorrKK. WorUs, iii. 345, LONDON: J. HATCIIATID AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 1845. LONDON : pniNTFD BY ,() ICb— 71 viii CONTENTS. Page Archbishop Tenison ----- 171 — 3 Wake 173, 4 Potter ----- 174,5 Of Herring and Hutton scarcely any remains - 175 Archbishop Seeker - . - . . l75, 6 Of Cornwallis, Moore, and Sutton, scarcely any re- mains .---.. 177 The Irish Church 177 Various divines of our Church : Bishop Bridges - - - - - . 178 Bishop Bilson ..... i78,9 Bishop Lancelot Andrews .... 179,80 Dean Field ...... 180 Dr. Thomas Jackson - - - - - 180,1 Dr. Peter Heylin ..... 181 Dr. Henry Hammond . - . . 182, 3 Bishop Morley .... - i83 — 5 Bishop Jeremy Taylor - - - - 1 85, 6 Bishop Patrick - . . . . 137 Bishop Stillingfleet ..... 187, 8 Archdeacon Daubeny - - - - 188, 9 Concluding remarks ...... 190, l A REPLY, However groundless a religious notion or theory may be, yet when it has obtained a certain degree of currency, and found its way into many minds, it becomes proportionably a matter of serious concernment to all who have at heart the interests of their fellow- creatures. It is useless to hope that any errors will fall by the weight of their own absurdity, or that propositions of the most untenable, I might say, unreason- able kind, when once affirmed, will not meet with minds pre- pared to receive them. It is not always, then, from the plausi- bility of an error, or the strength of the arguments with which it is supported, that a necessity arises for its being encountered. And, while I should much regret being betrayed into the use of any uncourteous language in replying to the works to which the following pages are intended as an answer, I feel almost constrained to preface what I have to say with this remark. The position maintained by Mr. Newman, Mr. Oakeley and others respecting the thirty-nine Articles, is to my mind so utterly and manifestly untenable and unreasonable, that an argument for the purpose of opposing it seems almost like one for proving that two and two do not make five. More- over the arguments, historicjil deductions, extracts, and refe- rences given in proof of their position are often so startlingly innccurate as to leave one at a loss to know how they found their way into the productions of men whom we believe incapa- ble of voluntarily misleading the reader. I will venture to liope that Mr. Oakeley himself will feel that he has cause for regret in this respect. The Tractarian system, indeed, to say nothing of its theological aspect, may be considered a sort of literary phenomenon, a comet, in the world of ecclesiastical literature, of undefinable eccentricity of orbit and path altogether un discoverable. It is, however, beyond question that many minds, warped in- sensibly towards Roman doctrine by Tractarian teaching, and then finding, like their leaders, that they must either quit the church of their fathers or discover some mode of reconciling their new views with the authoritative Formularies of that church, have adopted the ingenious reasonings by which the Tractarian system has been defended as consistent with the teaching of our church. Men whose minds are in the state to which we have alluded, are exposed to the influence of a power- ful temptation to seek a way of escape from the difficulties with which they are surrounded, in ingenious glosses upon words and phrases, and happy applications of a few historical facts and isolated sentences of former writers (which may be found for anything), calculated, as they hope, to show, that the views they entertain are reconcileable with the engagements they have entered into, and the avowed violation of which would entail uj)on them consequences for which they are hardly prepared. To a man even of ordinaiy mental power, when placed in such a position, the task of inventing suitable interpretations is by no means a difficult one. And as far as regards the moral part of the question, great allowances must be made for the circum- stances of the case. But the example is not the less dangerous. And those who take such a course must not be offended if others speak plainly when offering a word of warning against the delusion. It is painful to contemplate the fact, that during the last ten years, principally under the tuition of one who, beginning with one of the worst principles of the Jesuits, has gradually found his way into all the interminable mazes of Romish sophistry, a new school has risen up among us ; which, in the avowed at- tempt to unprotestantize our church, has rendered nugatory all the safeguards she had erected against the inroads of Popish 3 error, by explaining away her tests so as to make them mean anything or nothing as might best answer their purpose. Senti- ments and statements, absolutely unprecedented in the whole histor}'^ of our reformed church, have been put forth with equal confidence as if they were indisputable truths. Matters which have been ruled points in it during the wdiole period of its existence, as for instance its anti-Eomish character, have been brought into question, and determined contrary to the testimony of every writer of its communion. And the truth has been so mystified by the ingenious sophistry by which doctrinal state- ments have been glossed, historical facts represented, and passages from our old divines applied, that many of the disciples of the new school are as little able clearly to see the true state of the case, as men in a labyrinth to find the right path. There is much in the movement so foreign to the character of the English mind, that it is impossible not to hope, that if such a state of things be not a national judgment for sin, the delusion may be, in the case of the majority of its victims, only a temporary one. But the eagerness and credulity wdth which views and statements which a very little research would have disproved, and the arguments and sophisms employed for the defence of error, have been received, have been almost beyond belief. No doubt, this may be partly accounted for by the fact, that the great majority have neither time nor inclination to prosecute those researches which would enable them to test the representations thus made ; and therefore when from any cause, such as a favourable predisposition of mind, a love of novelty, a concurrence of external causes, there exists a feeling in favour of the views advocated, in such cases the most flimsy and un- tenable arguments are sufficient to produce conviction. On no other ground is it possible to account for the temporary success that has attended the writings of the Tractarians. And hence it may reasonably be hoped, that when the true state of the case becomes more fully known, many who had been in- clined to look upon the movement with favour, will recoil with feelings of no slight aversion from the views which had been thus pressed upon tliem. i» 2 These remarks, whatever may he thought of them hy a super- ficial and prejudiced reader, will he found, hy any impartial examiner into the merits of the case, to he strictly home out hy the facts. The following pages will alone, I trust, aJ0Ford a tolerahly decisive proof of their truth. The work to which they undertake to reply is one of the most elaborate produc- tions of the party to which the writer helongs, in defence of the position that the thirty-nine articles may he signed hy one who holds " all Roman doctrine." (p. xiii.) It was first published nearly four years ago, hut has lately reappeared in a " second edition revised," with the modest remark, that, as it has had no regular answer, its author " feels it no sort of pre- sumption to suppose, that the statements on which it [i. e. its chief position] rests, have not heen disputed because they are in reality indisputable." (p. xi.) For my own part, I can only say that until events very re- cently called my attention to it, and I was led to fear that its statements had misled many minds, I had only glanced hastily over its pages, and finding upon the face of it various mistakes, and propositions that seemed to me obviously untenable, I had at once laid it aside. Now however that it seems to have had a favourable reception in many quarters, and that Mr. Oakeley expresses a desire to see an answer, and intimates that the great question for which he wishes to obtain an authoritative decision will be left undetermined by the legal judgment on his case, it appears desirable to place, both before him and the public, evidence which may enable them to pass a judgment for themselves. It is to be regretted, indeed, that his pamphlet did not long ago receive an answer ; and I cannot deny that both the Church and the Tractarians have reason to complain of the silence obsei-ved, during the recent controversy, as far as con- cerns works of learning or enduring character, by those who have been entrusted, professedly for such jmrposes, with the means and opportunities to defend the truth. But the fact is, that (speald)ig generally) for the last hundred years and more, both in the Universities and the Church, ecclesiastical learning has been not only neglected, but praclicalli/ discountenanced, and heathen and secular literature (important in its place) substituted for it ; and the Church is now reaping the legiti- mate and necessary fruits of such a state of things. How dif- ferent the conduct of the Romanists in this respect ! From this work, and the confidence with which it is put forth, the reader may see how far the leading men of the party are trustworthy guides. It must be remembered that this work was lying by its author for three years before its second publication, and yet at the end of that time it is re-issued, as remarkable a collection of misstatements and mistakes as could easily be crowded together within the same space. 1 doubt whether there is one statement, of any importance to the main ai'gument, from the beginning to the end, Avhich will bear examination. And I would earnestly implore those of tbe party who are really desirous of knowing the truth, to pause before they commit themselves to the guidance of such leaders. " The main object proposed" in the pamphlet, •we are told, " is that of defending on historical grounds alone the subscrip- tion of those clergymen of our church, or members of the uni- versity (be they more or fewer), who, in subscribing, reserve to themselves the power of holding all Roman Catholic doc- trine, as distinct, on the one hand, from popular perversions of it, and, on the other, from the question of the Papal jurisdic- tion." (Adv. p. viii.) It is contended, that " the sense in which the Articles were propounded was not a Catholic, nor a Protestant, but a vague indecisive and therefore comprehensive sense ; that the Re- formers themselves were without any precise doctrinal views of their own upon the points in controversy ; that they were con- sequently the victims, alternately, of extreme Catholic and ex- treme Protestant influences ; that, so far as they had any doc- trinal sympathies of their own, they were Protestant rather than Catholic, but that the necessities of their position, as having to provide for the religious pacification of a country, partly Catho- lic, partly Protestant, obliged them to a course (so far as doc- trines at issue lietwccn the contending parties wore concerned) of the strictest neutrality ; and that the mode by which they sought to carry out this principle of neutrality, was that of couching their Formulary in language at once sufficiently Pro- testant in tone to satisfy the Keformers abroad, and suffi- ciently vague in expression to include the Catholics at home." (lb. p. ix.) This statement is, as the author intimates in a note, merely a reiteration of what Tract 90 declared more briefly in the fol- lowing words, — " The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics, and now Catholics will not be excluded." (p, 83.) A more painful misstatement, and one, I will add, more ob- viously untrue and absurd to any one who is acquainted with the documents and history of that period, could not be con- ceived. The argument, it is said, " being purely historical, depends for its force entirely upon the truth of the alleged facts;" it depends " simply on matters of fact." (lb. p. x.) Without admitting this to be the case, then, (for we hold that the Articles themselves sufficiently refute such a statement) we will in the following pages direct our attention to those " mat- ters of fact." Before however we proceed further, we will notice Mr. Oakeley's replies to two preliminary objections he supposes to be made to his statement. The first is, that it is a " paradoxical" one. " It is," he says, " I am well aware, a novel (or rather a revived*), and certainly paradoxical statement ; though not more so, I must think, than any attempt to vindicate for the great majority of the articles any other than a Protestant interpretation. I con- fess myself utterly unable to appreciate the line of those (al- though it numbers a Koman Catholic, i. e. Sancta Clara, among its supporters t), who can see a Catholic meaning stamped upon the surface of the 39 Articles (I am not of course * This is a mistake, as far as writers of our own church are concerned, t This again is a mistake ; Saucta Clara's words in more tlian one place show his sense of the difficulty of the task he undeitook. referriug to the first live). Oa the contrary, to myself, they appear in many serious instances so strikingly uncatholic in sound, that the only reflection upon wliich I can fall hack with any comfort, is that suggested in the 8tli chapter of the " Ideal of a Christian Church," viz. that the difficulties whicn the Prayer-hook presents to those who deny, for instance, the doc- trine of Baptismal Regeneration, or accept that of Justification, in the Lutheran sense, are unquestionably greater than those w^hich any, even the most Protestantly-worded, of the Articles offer to such as desire to interpret them in han»ouy with the formal decisions of the Catholic Church ; and accordingly, that if the authorities of the University and of the Chiu'ch of Eng- land allow what are called 'evangelicals' to assent to the Prayer- book in their sense, those like myself are a fortiori at Uberty to subscribe the Articles in ours. And again I am relieved by considering, with the author of the aforesaid work, that the chief difficulties which occur to myself and others in the matter of subscription, do not arise so much from the Articles which touch upon characteristically Eoman opinions or practices, as from those which (hke the 11th, 12th, and especially the 13th), appear to contravene the most elementary truths of all reli- yion, and (what is yet more to the present purpose) doctrines, upon which all ordinary ' churchmen' whatsoever are supposed to agree." (pp. xi, xii.) The reader is earnestly entreated to reflect upon this extra- ordinary passage. It appears from it that the Articles seem to Mr. Oakeley " in many serious instances so strikingly un- catholic in sound," that his only comfort in subscribing them is, that the Church and the University allow " evangelicals ' to as- sent to the Prayer-book, who hold views which ai>])ear to him to make the Prayer-book present greater " difficulties" (as ho dexterously words it) to them, than the Articles do to him. Has Mr. Oakeley really forgotten that what the Church or Uni- versity or " evangelicals ' or any body else may do is utterly irrelevant to the question, as it regards his own case; and that liis subscription to the Articles is a matter of conscience be- tween himself and his God ? 8 Still luiLlier, he is additionally " relieved, " he tells us, by considering that the Articles which he has the greatest diffi- culty about, " appear to contravene the most elementary truths of all religion," and doctrines which all those who in his view are churchmen" are supposed to receive. Astounding sourco of consolation ! These Articles, in the sense in which they would be understood by a plain ordinary reader, are to his mind so atrociously bad as to convey to him the consoling reflection, that there must be some esoteric meaning in them altogether op- posed to that which appears upon the surface of them. Their very opposition (to all appearance) to the truth, gives him comfort, and he signs them in the happy confidence that they are too bad to be meant to be understood in the sense which the words seem to ordinary readers to convey. The same view will of course equ.ally solve the difficulties of Arians or Socinians, or any other heretics, who may wish to remain in our Church, and be staggered with any of the Articles. The other preliminary objection to his view of the matter, to which he replies, is, that it is an unprecedented one. He says, — " Among other objections which have been made to No. 90 of the Tracts for the Times, it is said to propound a view of tlie thirty-nine Articles, which is unprecedented in the Church of England. The present collection of extracts is brought forward for the purpose of showing that such is not the case." (p. 19). And again; " Is it not, that they [i. e. his opponents] are seeking to oppose, as at variance with the doc- tnne of the Church of wiiich they are members, views, concern- ing which it is, at all events, a doubtful question, whether they have not in past ages been assumed or even pronounced com- patible with that doctrine?" (p. 24.) "If the value of the evidence about to be produced be not greatly overrated, it would certainly tend to the conclusion, that not they are intro- ducing ' a new era,' in the Church of England, w^ho endeavour to reconcile certain doctrines, however now, as of old, unpopular, with the language of the Articles, but rather they, who speak of subjecting to penalties, or placing under incapacities, the persons who are but claiming liberty to hold what English divines of former times claimed, and were allowed, liberty to teach. This rather than the other wonld seem, if it may be said with all respect, to be the line of ' innovation.' " (p. 24.) Now we utterly deny, that any divine of the Church of Eng- land can be found, who publicly maintained without censure the view, that all Eoman doctrine might be held consistently with subscription to the Articles and Liturgy of that Church. And we challenge Mr. Oakeley, or any one else, to point out such a case in the whole annals of our Keformed Church. We affirm therefore that the present case is one wholly unprecedented. And we shall show in the following pages that Mr. Oakeley"s attempts to make out anything like the shadow of a precedent for it are utterly fruitless. The question between him and his opponents is not, whether or not there may be found in the writings of some divines of the Church of England statements on certain points more con- sistent with the doctiine of the Church of Rome than w4th that of the Church of England, and statements which have passed without any recorded authoritative censure. It is readily granted, that such passages may be found, and numerous are the reasons which might be assigned for their having been passed over without authoritative censure. But what do they prove ? Absolutely notliing. Is it any justification of a man who puts forth erroneous doctrines, that one or two divines of our church, and those perhaps in some respects eminent ones, can be pointed out, who have said the same, and from one cir- cumstance or another liave escaped public censure ? If so, various heresies might claim a place in our Church. If, indeed, Mr. Oakeley could show that ^ great number of the divines of our church, at different periods of her history, had clearly maintained uitltoiit contradiction or cenf^ine any particular doctrine of the Church of Rome, it miglit allbrd a presumption in favour of such a doctrine being reconcilcable with the Articles and liiturgy of our Church. But even this would not carry him beyond the particular doctrines so supported. The conclusion would not follow that lie might bold " all Roman doctrine," because certain Romish doctrines hiul been maintained bv divines of our church. 10 But the fact is, that as it respects all the most offensive errors of the Church of Kome, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, the invocation of saints, purgatory, and such like, nothing of the kind can be shown. Not only is their condem- nation by the authoritative formularies of our church distinct and decisive, and the testimony of our divines against them overwhelming, both as it respects numbers and learning, but the testimonies which can be supposed to favour any of them are such as from their extreme paucity, or the known singularity of the opinions of their authors, or from some similar cause, rather indicate opposition to the views of our church, than agreement with them ; so far are they from sup- porting Mr. Oakeley's case. Mr. Oakeley's argument may be divided into four parts, — He considers I. The facts connected with the composition and promulga- tion of the thirty-nine Articles. II. Any subsequent decisions of the Church. III. The attempts that have been made similar, as he con- siders, to liis own. IV. What may be alleged from the writings of individual divines in his favour. We shall follow the same order, and conclude with a Jifth division, containing authorities from the writings of our most eminent divines against the view here opposed. I. The account given by Mr. Oakeley of the historical facts connected with the composition and promulgation of the thirty- nine Articles is as follows ; — After remarking that " history gives no countenance what- ever to the opinion that the Articles were drawn up with the view of excluding Homan Catholics," he thus proceeds, — " With respect to the original Articles of 1552, it seems doubtful, whether they were ever enforced ; if at all, it was but in few in- stances.* After the revision of 1563, they were enforced; * Mr. Oakeley's note here is — '' ' He (Cranmer) laboured to have the clergy 11 but, as it appears, against noji-conformista and not Roman Catholics. The question ^vith Rome was then, as in after times, regarded in a merely political point of view. " ' Against Papists (says Fuller, who certainly cannot be sus- pected of any Romanistic bias) it was exacted [enacted] that to write, print, &c., that the Queen was a heretic, &c., should be adjudged treason. Against non-conformists, it was provided that every Priest or Minister should, before the nativity of Christ next following, declare his assent, and subscribe, to all the Articles of Religion agreed on in the Convocation of 1502, under pain of deprivation.' (Fuller p. 98. Eliz.) " And accordingly it appears that Roman Catholics continued in the communion, and even in the ministry, of the Church of England, for several years after the first promulgation of the Articles. " ' Hitherto' (i. e. till A. D. 1570) ' Papists generally without regret repaired to the places of divine senace, and were present at our prayers, sermons, and sacraments In which sense, one may say, that the whole land was of one language and one speech Hitherto the English Papists slept in a whole skin, and so might have continued, had they not wilfully torn it themselves.'* " It further appears, that many members of the Lower House of Convocation, who were Roman Catholics, subscribed the Articles upon the revision in 1562.t " The term ' Recusant,' by which the Roman Catholics of this country were formerly designated, at once denotes the ground, subscribe them ; but against their will he compelled none.' Strype's Cranmer, p. 272. cf. Bp. Short's Hist, of the Church of England, § 484." * Mr. Oiikelcy's note here is — " Fuller, p. 98. Eliz. See also Strype's Grindal, p. 98. ' Of the subscribers (to Queen Eliz. injunctions for conformity) there were many, who had said mass in Queen Mary's time, and such as would not change their custom of old Pater Noster.' Vide Short's Hist, of the Church of England, §4:57." f Mr. Oakeley's note here is, — " Strype (Ann. of Ref. c. xxviii.) gives their names : and, among tljcm, wc find that of the celebrated John Bridgwater, (called in Latin, Afju.'iiiontaiui.s) wlm, in \hiVl, published the Treatise called, ' Coiicer- tatio Ecclcsiic (/'alliolicic in Anglia advcrsus Calviiio-l'aiiistas et I'uritanos,' being an account of tlie sull'erings of English Roman Catholics in the time of Elizabeth." 12 find fixes the date, of their separation from the national church. It was not upon the jyromulgation of the Articles, nor upon any other measure of the Church of England, but upon the political regulations which arose out of the formal excommu- nication of Elizabeth, in 1509, that Roman Catholics withdrew from the communion of our Church. Before that time, not even the oath of supremacy was a bar, as a general rule, to their admission even to civil, far less to ecclesiastical, privileges — the majority of them understanding this oath as a mere test of loyalty.* " But as to the Articles, never, that I can find, were they urged, or felt, as a ground of disunion between the clnirches ; and this fact, as I must consider it, is further attested by the state- ment so commonly made, that Rome withdrew herself, and not u-as driven, from our communion ; and again by the plea, upon which the penal enactments, carried out from time to time in this country against Roman Catholics, have always been de- fended — viz. that they were enforced upon merely civil, and in no wise upon religious grounds. And if the ' unscrupulous- ness of Roman Catholics' in respect of oaths^ and other civil obligations, be urged as the ground of the insuffieifency of our formularies as means of excluding them, then it must be shown, why they were eventually excluded. For that they did refuse some tests, is undeniable." (pp. 28—31.) Now before we proceed further, and give a full reply to these statements, I am anxious to place before the reader the pas- sages here quoted from Fuller, in their original state, unmuti- lated, and in the order in which they stand in the work from which they are taken, putting in italics the parts omitted, for nothing perhaps will more tend to disabuse the mind of the * Mr. Oakeley's note here is as follows — " See a Tract called the ' Execution of Justice in England,' (1583). ' These seditious acts . , . have made them traitors . . . not their books, nor their words, no, nor their cakes of wax which they call Agnus Dei,'&c. (p. 45.) Again, the Jesuits, addressing Queen Elizabeth, said,' In the beginning of thy kingdom thou didst deal something more gently with Catholics '. none were then urged by thee, or pressed either to thy sect, or to the denial of their faith.' Again, ' none were ever vexed that uay, simply for that he was either Priest or Catholic, hut because they were suspected (of dis- loyally).' — Important Considerations, written by the Secular Pi icsts against the Jesuits, 1601." Tor " words" in 1. ?,, read " beads." reader of the erroneous impressions these garbled extracts miglit make, or to sliow him the necessity of caution in estimating the vahie of the statements we are endeavouring to answer. Under the year 1570 Fuller observes, — " Hitherto Papists generally without regret repaired to the public places of Divine service, and were present at our prayers, sermons, and sacra- ments. W/iat they thouyht in their hearts, He hneio who knoiceth hearts ; but in outwaed conformity, they hept communion tvith the Church of England. In which sense one may say, that the whole land was of one language and one speech. But now her/an the tower of Bahel to be built, and Popery to increase, which brought with it the division of tongues, and the common distinction of Pajnst and Protestant, the former now separating themselves from our public congre- gations ; THEY WENT OUT FROM US, BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT OF US, FOR, HAD THEY BEEN OF US, THEY WOULD HAVE CON- TINUED WITH US. Indeed the Pope set his mark of favour on such reputed sheep, as absented themselves from our churches, henceforward accounting them goats that repaired thither. And now began the word recusant to be first born and bred in men's mouths. Which (though formerly in being to sig- nify SUCH AS refused TO OBEY THE EDICTS OF LAWFUL authority) was now confined in common discourse to express those of the Church of Rome. Indeed hitherto the English Papists slept in a whole skin, and so might have -con- tinued had they not wilfully torn it themselves. For the late rebellion in the North, and the Pope thundering out his excommunication against the Queen, with many scandalous and pernicious pamphlets daily dispersed, made her Majesty about this time, first to frown on Papists, then to chide, then to strike them with penalties; and last to draw life-blood from them by the severity of her laws. For, now the Parlia- ment sate at Westminster, cutting {as one may say), with a three-edged sword, as making .'2.) X Ib. p. Il m.) § Strype's Ann. I. ]. 200. 3U cerniug the presence of Christ's hody and blood in the Eucha- rist, leaving the book witliout any direct and unequivocal dog- matical decision on that subject, and so far removing one impediment to its subscription by a Romanist. It seems not unlikely that the Queen's own mind was not thoroughly made up on the subject of the nature of the presence in the Eucharist; and as «// were required to attend the services of the church, and communicate with it, the scruples and doubts of those whose minds were not made up on this point may have suggested the propriety of this course. In the present Prayer-book, however, no such concession has been made, as this rubric (with but a slight change) was replaced at the last Review in 1661 ; as we shall notice hereafter. But now, how was this Prayer-book received ? Do we find that it was considered consistent with Roman doctrine ? Let us inquire. " It was upon the 8tli of May," says Heyliri, ** that the Parliament ended, and on the 24th of June, that the public Liturgy was to be officiated in all the churches of the kingdom. In the performance of ivhicli service, the hishojjs (/iviny no encouragement, and many of tlie clergy being backward in it, it was thought fit to put them to the final test, and either to bring them to conformity, or to bestow their places and preferments on more tractable persons."* Thus Bishop Jewell in a letter to Peter Martyr dated Aug. 1, 1559, tells him, " Now that religion is everywhere changed, the mass-priests absent themselves altogether from public worship. "f Accordingly Commissioners were appointed to institute a general Visitation throughout the kingdom, in which it was required that all the beneficed clergy should make a subscription with their hands to what the Parliament had enacted concerning the restoring the supremacy to the Queen, and that the Book of Common Prayer and the Queens Injunctions were " according to the true word of God, and agreeable with the doctrine and use of the primitive and apostolic church. "if A full account of the proceedings of these Commissioners is given by Strype.§ * Hist, of Reform. Eliz. p. 114. t Zurich Letters, Park. Soc. ed. p. '69. X Strype's Ann. I. 1. 25,5. ^ lb. 210, &s. 245—56'. 31 At this Visitation, the Commissioners being empowered sum- marily to deprive those who refused to subscribe,* the number of recusants was (according to Str^^De and Camden) iHO.f This, indeed, seems but a small number out of so large a body, " but then," (as Heylin, the most anti-Protestant of Protestant historians, remarks,) " we are to know withal, that many who were cordially affected to the interests of the Church of Rome, disjiensed uith themselves in these outward conformities, \<\\\c\\ some of them are said to do upon a hope of seeing the like revolution by the death of the Queen, as had before happened by the death of King Edward ; and otherwise that they might be able to relieve their brethren, who could not so readily frame themselves to a present compliance."! Tliis was the policy, which, as we learn from Strype, the Popish clergj- had from the first resolved to pursue. When noticing the return of the exiles from abroad, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Str}-pe remarks, — " As for the Popish clergy, they looked with a very angry and displeasant eye upon them ; and of all things dreaded these learned men, lest they should take their places, and occupy room in the churches. And they seemed to make it one point of their policy, to keep the Protestant ministers (as much as they could) from officiating there ; and for that pur- pose counselled the priests and curates then in possession of ecclesiastical preferments and benefices, to comply with the constitution of reliyion that should be set up, that they miyht retain their parishes and pdaces^ and in the mean time, as opportunity served, exhort the people to hold and think icell of their old superstitions."^ A curious illustration of such sub- scription is given by Strype in his Life of Parker. " Among • Susceptce religion! subscribcrc obstinate et pcremptorie recusantcs. See the Queen's Commission to the Visitors for the North, given by Burnet, Tt. 2, bk. 3, Kec. vii. There were many recusants therefore among the clergy as early as the year l.'iaO. t Strype's Ann. I. 1,2.55. t H'st. of Reform. Elizab. p. 115. $ Annals I. 1, 154. (104 m.) There is a remarkable statement confirmatory of this in the Life of Archbishop Parker, inserted in some copies of his work " Do Antiquitate IJritannica," and given at kngth by Strype in his Life of Parker, Ap- pendix, No. xc. (vol. iii. [I. 272.) 32 some of the first subscribers," be says, " was Henry Syddal, a thorough-paced man, who being a Canon of Christ's Church, Oxon, had complied in the beginning of King Edward's reign, and was a great zealot the other way under Queen Mary, and one of those that were much about Archbishop Cranmer at Oxford, when he was induced to recant. His subscription I find again as Vicar of Walthamstow in Essex. And many such temporizing priests there were among those subscribers, some whereof got others to sign for them, eorum vice et nomine. And some of the volens are so written, as if they were tiolens rather."* Some also subscribed, and then be- came non-resident to avoid being compelled to use the service, as Strype also informs us; under the year 1562 he says, — *' The Church now, partly by former bad example, and j)artlij hy dislike of, and icithdrawing themselves from, the service now established, had abundance of non-residents."t We must also observe that although Strype and Camden make the number of the recusants 189, Dr. Lingard tells us, that "the Catholic writers make the number much greater."^ And how speedily resignations multiplied, we may judge by the account given by Parkhurst Bishop of Norwich of the state of his Diocese in the spring of 1562, many months before the Articles were even brought before Convocation. In the Arch- deaconry of Norwich, 80 parochial incumbencies were vacant. In the Archdeaconry of Norfolk, 182. In the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, 130. In the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 42. So that in this diocese alone there were 434 parochial incumbencies void. And yet, notwithstanding this, it seems that in this very Diocese there was still reason to suppose that some were making but a feigned compliance with the religion established. For in a letter of Bishop Parkhurst to Bulhnger, dated August 20, 1562, we find the following passage, — " I received a letter from my lord of Canterbury four days ago ; the substance of it is this, that I should diligently ascertain by every means in my power, though secretly, who, and how many there are in my • Bk. 2. c. 3. I. 154. t lb. 432. :♦ Hist, of England, vol. v. p. 155. (ed. 1823.) diocese, who do not comply with the true religion. This is, I suspect, with the intention of punishing their breach of faith."* And at a still earlier period we have a similar account of the Diocese of Ely. For in a letter from Cox bishop of Ely to Archbishop Parker, dated Jan. 24, 1560, the bishop writes, " that of the whole sum of the cures in his Diocese, which was 152 parsonages and vicarages and other cures, there were duly served but only 52 cures. That there were 34 benefices vacant ; tliirteen that had neither rectors nor vicars ; and fifty- seven enjoyed by non-residents." t The bearing of this book, indeed, upon Roman doctrine, and the light in which it was viewed by the leading Romanists, are abundantly manifested by the testimonies, still extant, of the principal Romish bishops and divines of that period ; and it is from their judgment, surely, that we are best able to draw a conclusion, how far subscription to that book can be considered to be consistent with the maintenance of all Roman doctrine. Let us first obsei-ve, then, how the Book of Common Prayer was spoken of by the Roman Catholic Prelates in the House of Lords on the debate for its introduction by the Bill for Uni- foi-mity. This Bill, says Strype, " the Roman prelates in the House did tooth and nail stickle against.":}: And he proceeds to quote the speeches of Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, and Scot, Bishop of Chester, on the subject; the whole of which he has preserved to us in his " Records," A few extracts from these speeches will suffice. " Having at this present," says Abbot Feckenham, " twosundrif kinds of relifjion here jn'opoiiiided and set forth before your ho- «o«r«, being already in possession of the one of them, and your fathers before you, for the space of fourteen hundred years pnst here in this realm, like as I shall hereafter prove unto you ; the other relit/ion here set in a book to be received and esta- blished by the authority of this High Court of Parliament, and • Zurich Letters, p. 12-2. + Strype's Piirker, bk. 2. ch. 2. I. Mi, 4. + Ann. I. 1. Hl-^*. The same testimony is Lome iilbo by Dr. Liiigard, Hist, of Engl. vol. V. pp. 1.52, 3. (cd. 1»23.) D 34 to take his effect here in this realm at Midsummer next coming; and you heing, as I know, right well desirous to have some proof or some knowledge, ivhich of both of these reliyiofis is the better, and most worthy to he established here in this realm, and to be jyref erred before the other, I will for my part . . here set forth and express unto you, three brief rules and les- sons, whereby your honours shall be able to put difference be- twixt the true religion of God and the counterfeit, and therein never be deceived." And he then proceeds to show at some length, that " the new religion" delivered in the Prayer-book, ought to be discountenanced and driven out of the realm.* " This Bill," said Dr. Scot, Bishop of Chester, " that hath been here read now the third time, doth appear unto me such one as that it is much to be lamented, that it should be suffered either to be read, yea, or any ear to be given unto it of Chris- tian men, or so honourable an assembly as this is : for it doth not only call in question and doubt those things which we ought to reverence, without any doubt moving, but maketh fur- ther earnest request for alterance, yea, for the clear abolishing of the same. And that this may the more evidently appear, I shall desire your lordships to consider, that our religion, as it was here of late discreetly, godly, and learnedly declared, doth consist partly in inward things, as in faith, hope, and charity ; and partly in outward things, as in common prayers and the holy sacra- ments uniformly ministered. Now as coticerning these outward things, this Bill doth clearly in very deed extinguish them, setting in their places I cajinot tell what. And the inward it doth also so shake, that it leaveth them very bare and feeble . . . As concerning the first, that is, the weightiness of the matter contained in this Bill, it is very great ; for it is no money matter, but a matter of inheritance, yea a matter touching life and death, and damnation dependeth upon it. Here is it set before ns as the Scripture saith, life and death, Jire and water. If we put our hand into the one, we shall live ; if it take hold of the other, ice shall die. . . . This we know, that this doctrine and form of religion, which this bill pro- poundeth to be abolished and taken away, is that which our * Strype's Ann. I. 2, 431 et seq. Rec. No. ix. 35 forefathers were bom, brouglit up, and lived in, and have pro- fessed here in this realm, without any alteration or change, by the space of nine hundred years and more ; and hath also been professed and practised in the universal Church of Christ since the Apostles' time. And that uhich we go about to establish and place for it, is lateh) brought in, alio iced 7iouhere, nor put in jrractice, but in this realm only ; and that but a small time, and AGAINST THE MINDS OF ALL CATHOLIC MEN."* These extracts will, I think, sufficiently show the sentiments of the Roman Catholic prelates on this book. This book, also, Sti^pe tells us, " highly offended papists abroad as well as at home : and they represented it to the world as though hereby all religion were abandoned in Eng- land."t And he proceeds to quote the language of Hieronymus Osorius, a Portuguese bishop, on the subject, in a letter he published addressed to Queen Elizabeth. His words are these, — " Sacra, cseremonias, sacramenta .... omnino delevit."! He was answered by Dr. Haddon, who vindicated the doctrine and worship of our church from his reproaches. The same language was used by Sanders, (a leading Romanist of that period, who died in 1581,) in the work entitled, " De schismate Anglicano ;" and the account there given is of so much importance in connexion with our present subject that we shall present the reader with a considerable extract from it. After noticing the Bill for Unifonnity, and the effects that followed upon it, and some events of that period, the writer proceeds thus, — "The whole of England being divided into three parts, not one of the three was at that time hoerctical, nor wished for or approved of the change of religion ; much less afterwards when it had experienced the evils produced by the sect. For except many of the chief nobles, of whom we have spoken, the greater part of the inferior nobility was clearly • Strj-pe's Ann. T. 2. pp. 438 ct seq. Rec. No. x. t Ann. I. 1, 124. + Epist. ad Eliz. p. 4.3; praefix. libr. voc. In Iladdonum de rclig. lihvi tres. DilinR. 1.57^. 12mo. I. 2 30 catholic. The farming population also throughout the king- dom (an honourable and opulent class of men in that island) especially abhorred that novelty; nor did any other provinces of the kingdom than those which are near London and the Court, nor any other cities scarcely but those on the sea-coast, and in them more especially idle and dissolute youths, spend- thrifts, women laden with sins, and other miserable creatures of a similar kind, willingly embrace the heresy . . Among those also who gave in to these views were some priests and curates of the inferior clergy, and not a few canons of cathe- dral or collegiate churches, who heartily condemned the sect, and sometimes from conscientious motives abstained from ministering according to those new offices, so that after the day fixed by law on which the true sacred rites were to cease and the false ones commence, many churches throughout the whole kingdom were shut up for some months ; since the old priests would not willingly perform those schismatical sacred rites, and there was not yet a sufficient supply of new ministers to serve so many places. But when Elizabeth shortly after, in her care, forsooth, of all the churches, made a visitation of the clergy, and diligently inquired after those having the charge of parishes who did not perform the parliamentary rites in their parishes at the time appointed by law, most through fear or LOSING THEIR PROPERTY AND BENEFICES COMPLIED WITH THOSE NEV^ SACRED RITES. But if there were any who resisted more firmly, or would not assent to them, she substi- tuted for them other ministers of her own new creation, who should perform their duty; she compelled also the people, by a fine of twelve-pence being appointed for each person if absent on feast days, according to the Act of Parliament, to frequent the churches as before ; which punislmient was afterwards greatly increased, as shall be mentioned in its place. And thus it was effected either by violence or subtilty, that the greatest part of the Catholics, the danger of the thing not being yet clearly seen at this early stage, by degrees yielded to their enemies, so that they refused not to attend sometimes publicly the cliurches, sermons, communion and congregations of the schismatics. Yet so nevertheless as that in the mean 37 time they took care that masses should he secretly celebrated at home, often by the very same priests who publicly officiated in the churches according to the spurious rites of the heretics, sometimes by others not thus polhited by schism ; and often in that mournful time they were partakers in one and the same day both of the table of the Lord and the cup of devils, that is, of the most holy Eucharist and of the Calvinistic supper. Nay what was still more wonderful and miserable, the priest sometimes first consecrating at home, carried forth for the Catholics, whom he knew to be desirous of it, wafers conse- crated according to the form used by the Church, which he gave them at the same time that he distributed the bread pre- pared after the manner of the heretics to the rest that cared less for the Catholic faith. [The marginal note here is, " The dissimulation of the Catholics to be condemned."^ And I commit these things to writing, that other nations taught by our example, may both see the beginnings and progress of heresy, and guard themselves in time from such pests. In the meantime the Queen and her adherents thought from the first that tilings had tui'ned out exceedingly well with them, in that when there were so many maintainers of the ancient faith in the kingdom, yet they should find that the majority either publicly embraced the rites prescribed by them, or sanctioned them, however it might be but outwardly, by their presence, although they might inwardly hold another faith, for which they did not much care, or at any rate thought that it was best to dissemble for the time. And they rejoiced not a little that some even of the priests did not refuse to officiate according to those rites ; [the marginal note here is, " the joy of the heretics at the dissimulation of the Catholics."'\ for they feared lest it should not be possible to bring them to do that, against the example and command of all their bishops and prelates, as well as against their own conscience. For they had not yet new ministers for thirty thousand and more parishes ; and they thought it disgraceful that the greatest part of the churches should be suddenly shut up and left Avithcnit any administration of the sacraments ; and (which is common to 38 all heretics) they preferred at first, in order more easily to deceive the people, to make use of true priests than their own spurious presbyters The new clergy in England was made up partly of apostates from us, partly of mere laymen."* This remarkable passage appears to me to throw much light on the events of this period, and I think is calculated to show Mr. Oakeley that the real state of tilings at the time of the • " Divisa autem omni Anglia in tres partes, ex tribus una non erat eo tem- pore haretica, nee cupiebat aut probabat mutationem religionis, nedum postea, cum sectffi perniciem esset experta. Nam praeter plurimos ex optimatibus prse- cipuis, de quibus diximus, pars major inferioris nobilitatis erat plane catholica. Plebs quoque, qui agriculturam per totiun regnum exercet (honestum et opu- lentum in ilia insula genus homiuum) novitatem istam imprimis detestabatur ; nee regni illius provinci£E alite, quam quae sunt prope Londinum et aulam ; nee civitates fere, nisi maritimse, atque in istis prse cseteris otio et delitiis afHuentes adolescentes, bonorum decoctores, mulieres onustae peccatis, cseterique similis farinffi miselli, ultro hseresim amplexabantur Venerunt quoque in banc ipsam sententiam nonnulli ex inferiori clero presbyteri et parochi, eccle- siarumque cathedralium vel collegiatarum Canonici non pauci, qui ex animo sectam damnabant, et aliquandiu etiam a faciendis istis novis officiis propter con- scieutiam abstinebant ; adeo quidem ut post diem a lege praescriptum, in quo vera sacra cessare, falsa ista inchoare oportuit, muUa essent per tolum regnum ad aliqnod menses clausa templa ; cum presbyteri veteres schismatica sacra non lubenter facerent, et novorura ministrorum non esset adhuc tanta copia, ut tot locis inservirent. Sed cum Elizabetha paulo post, pro sua scilicet omnium eccle- siarum solicitudine, visitationem cleri fecisset, ac in parochos qui ritus parlia- mentarios in parocbiis suis ad diem a lege prtescriptum non obibant, diligenter inquisivisset, plurimi mktu amissionis bonorum et beneficiorum ad nova ista SACRA SE accommodabant. Si qui autem essent qui constantius resisterent, aut non assentirentur, his alios ex nova sua creatione substituebat ministros, qui illos [sic] fungerentur munere ; plebem etiam compellebat, in singula capita, si festis diebus abessent secundum Comitiorum edictum, duodecim assium indicta mulcta, ut ecclesias sicut prius frequentent •, quse pffina postea gravissime est aucta, ut suo loco dicetur. Atque ita vel vi vel arte factum est, ut maxima catholicorum pars, usque adeo his primis initiis non perspecto rei periculo, hostibus paulatim cederet, ut schismaticorum ecclesias, condones, communionem ac conventicula, aiiquando publice adire non recusarent. Ita tamen ut interim missas secreto domi per eosdem saepe presbyteros, qui adulterina heereticorum sacra in templis publice peragebant, aiiquando per alios non ita schismate contaminates, celebrari curarent ; Sc-epeque et mensa; Domini, ac calicisdEemoniorum, hoc est, sacro-sanct£e Eucharistiffi, et coenie Calvinicse, uno eodemque die illo luctuoso tempore parti- cipes fierent. Imo quod magis mirum ac miserum erat, sacerdos nonnunquam prius rem sacram domi faciens, deferebat pro catholicis, quos ipse id desiderare cognoverat, hostias secundum formam ab Ecclesia usitatam consecratas, quas eo- 7 39 Reformation completely overtkrows his theory. The revela- tions made in the above extract are not a little curious and important, as coming from a contemporary writer, and evi- dently stated with reluctance. After this there can be no diflB- culty in accounting for Eomish subscriptions at that period. Further in 1561 or 1562, Strype tells us, there were " ques- tions and cases of conscience propounded and conveyed up and down by some papists, with solutions to them, agreeable to their pui-pose ; to keep the laity, as well as the priests, from compliance and conformity to the present orders about reli- gion. * One of these papers falling into the hands of Pilkington, bishop of Durham, he reprinted it with a full answer.^ Among these " questions with solutions to them," are the following, — " IV. Whether be priests in schism that have sub- sciibed to the religion now used in England ?" The solution follows thus ; — " In subscribing to this religion now used in England, they have both refused the power and authority which was given to them by the bishop, wdien they were made priests, dem tempore iisdem dispensabat quo panes haereticorum ritu confectos, cseteris Catholicae fidei minus studiosis, distribuebat. [The marginal note here is, " Dam- nanda Catholicorum dissimulatio."] Atque hxc mando Uteris, ut caeterae nationes nostro exemplo edocta, et haereseos principia ac progrcssus videant, et tempestive sibiabhujusmodipestibuscaveant. Interim Reginaet sui, ab initio prseclaresecum agi existimanint, quod cum tot cssent antiquae fidei in regno cultores, plerosque tamen scirent, ritus a sc pra;scriptos publico vol amplcxari, vel pra3sentia sua utcwique exlerius approbare ; licet inlerius aliam fidem de qua ipsi non adeo curabant, aul eerie ad tempus dissimulandum censebant, colerent. Ac ne sacer- dotes quidem quosdam ab illis admiiiistrandis abhorrere, gaudebant non medio- criter : [the marginal note here is, " Gandium hcBreticorum de Catholicorum dissimulatione."] timebant enim, ne contra exemplum et mandatum omnium Episcoporum ac pralatorum suonim, ac contra coiiscientiam suam, adduci non possent, ut id faccrent. Neque enim adhuc habebaiit pro triginta et aniplius parochiarum millibus, novos ministros, turpeque judicabant maximfvm templorum partem subito claudi, omnique sacramentorum usu destitui ; et (quod est ha;re- ticorum omnium propriiim) maluerunt ab initio, iid faciliorem jiopuli dcceptioncm, uti vcris sacerdotibus qiiam pseudopresbytcris suis C'lerus in Anglia novus.partim ex apostatis nostris, partim ex hominibus mere laicisfactus." — De Schism. Anglic, lib. 3. pp. 340—3, & 3.-)0. (Col. Agr. IGlO.) • Ann. I. 1. 3.'r2ct8cq. t Sec I'ilkington's Works, pp. (il7, &8. I'ark. Soc. cd. 40 (that is to say, power and authority to consecrate and ofter, and to celebrate mass for the quick and the dead;) and also they have refused their canonical obedience solemnly promised to the bishops with a kiss. And where the bishops of tliis realm with the clergy assembled at time of Parliament would agree to no imrt of this religion, (in witness whereof the bishops be in prison, and put from all their livings, and a great number of the clergy have lost all their livings, some be in prison, some banished, from their friends ; both the bishops and all the clergy that have lost their livings, are all ready to suffer death afore they will consent to any part of this reli- gion ; but all they which have subscribed, have forsaken the bishops, their true pastors and captains, obeying and following wolves and apostates ; in witness whereof they have subscribed their names ;) so separating themselves from the bishops and clergy they must needs be in schism."* " IX. Whether is this to be called a wicked time, that such heresy and schism does reign ?" The solution is, — " No, rather it is a blessed time : for now God ' tries his family' as St. Cyprian says ; .... St. Paul says, ' It is meet that there be heresy, that the good may be tried ;' " &c. &c. Bishop Pilkington in his " answer" says, " The time for trial of God's people we do not greatly mislike : only this grieves us, that so many withstand the manifest truth, which their conscience acknowledges to be true, and yet for fear of a change or flat- tery of the world, they be cold, and will not or dare not openly profess it ; and also that another sort of turn-tippets, for lack of discipline, occupy the place of pastors, serving rather to Jill their belly, than for love, conscience, or duty ; where good order would, that either such should be displaced, or else do great and worthy open penance solemnly, afore they minis- tered. "+ " XII. How should the people do, that cannot have the sacrament ministered to them according to the ordinance of Christ's Church ?" The solution is, — " In no wise they ought • Pilkington's Works, p. 621. t lb. pp. 632, 3. 41 lu receive the communion, but to commend tlieir minds and good wills to God with devout prayer, firmly continuing in that faith that they were christened in ; w^hich sith the apostles' time has ever heen taught by blessed fathers in Christ's Catholic Church. And so being in will to receive the blessed sacra- ment, if he were in place where it is ministered according to the ordinance of Christ's Church, God will accept your will and good intent, as if you did receive it corporally ; and by that will and intent ye be partakers of the sacraments and prayers of the universal Church of Christ in all christian coun- tries and nations, as well as if you were present bodily. But if you receive this communion, ye separate and divide your- selves from the sacraments and prayers of all the universal Church of Christ, and so wander in the way of perdition."*' Such were the views of consistent Eomanists with respect even to the Book of Common Prayer; such their opinion of the priests that ministered, and the people that worshipped, according to it. Again, in 1580, the celebrated Romanist, E. Parsons, pub- lished under the assumed name of John Howlet, " Discourse, containing the reasons why Catholics refuse to go to Church," (pretended to be printed at Douay,) which was answered by Dr. Fulke in a " Brief Confutation of a Popish Discourse, by John Howlet, or some other bird of the night. 1581." 4to. The discourse is reprinted in Dr. Fulke's answer, and from this reprint are extracted the following passages. " The first reason why 1 being a Catholic in mind may not go to the churches or service of the contrary religion, is because I persuading myself their doctrine to be false doctrine and con- sequently venomous unto the hearer, I may not venture my soul to be infected with the same. (fol. IJ .) In the second reason he says, — " that a Catholic going to the churches, service, or prayers of them of the contrary religion cannot but commit this great sin of scandal in the liighest de- gree .... it is evident to all the world." (fol. l(i.) " The sixth cause wliy a Cathohc may not come to church, is, Vjccausi! he cannot come without dissimulation." (fol. 2'J.) * lb. pp. 037, «. 42 " The seventh reason why a Catholic may not yield to come to the Protestants churches, is because the service which they use is naught and dishonourable to God ;" and among the rea- sons for this charge against the service, the third is, " their service is naught because they have divers false and blasphe- mous things therein." (fol. 32, 3.) Precisely similar was the language used in Queen Mary's time of King Edward's Book. Thus Dr. Weston, the Pro- locutor of her first Convocation, in his address to Convoca- tion, calls it a book "stuffed with blasphemies, stored with errors, which, under the name of religion, took away religion."* And thus speaks a celebrated modern Romanist as to the allesred attendance of Romanists at the Protestant churches during the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign; — "Perhaps," he remarks, sarcastically, " hearing the parson exercise his gift, and (it may be) censuring him for it, was not then esteemed a badge of Protestant communion. This, indeed, might bring for a time both Catholics and Protestants into one assembly ; but could no more make them either of one religion or of one communion, than it makes Quakers of all those that have the curiosity to hear their jnous groans!'-\ I will add one more testimony. It appears from Strype under the year 1568, (and therefore before the issuing of the Bull against the Queen,) that priests were appointed in England, by the authority of the Pope, who among other things had power to " absolve them that had taken any oath to the Queen as supreme, or gone to church and heard common prayer T % Such, then, was the view taken by those who surely were best acquainted with the real nature of the doctrine of the Church of Rome, of the Liturgy of our Church, and the conduct of those Romanists, who even "heard " it. How stands the case, then, with respect to our Liturgy ? Can it be consistently subscribed by one who holds all Roman doc- trine ? * Strype's Eccles. Memor. iii. 1. 71. + Dr. Hawardine's True Church of Christ shewed. Vol. 1. p. 9. sec, ed. 1738. See also p. 105, where he points out some of the errors (according to his views) of our Liturgy. X Strype's Ann. I. 2.259, 2(J0. 43 Intimately connected with this inquiry as to the principle by which our Reformers went, in arranging and fixing the stand- ards of doctrine and worship in our Church, is their conduct with respect to altars and images in churches. On both these points the Queen at first seems to have hesi- tated, but the leading Protestant divines having joined in drawing up and presenting an address to her on each of them, urgently entreating her to consent to their removal, she followed their advice. The reasons drawn up to be ofiered to the Queen's Majesty's consideration, " Why it was not convenient that the com- munion should be ministered at an altar, " are given at length by Strype; * who adds, " from this notable paper of address to the Queen, she yielded to the taking away the altars, as by the effect it appeared," referring to her "Injunctions."t And from these " reasons" it clearly appears, that their object in this matter was to oppose and root out the popish doctrine of a sacrifice in the eucharist. "An altar,'' they say, "hath rela- tion to a sacrifice ; for they be correlativa : so that of neces- sity, if we allow an altar, we must grant a sacrifice.' Again; ''Whereas your Majesty's principal purpose is utterly to aho- lish all the errors and abuses used about the Lord's Supper, especially to root out the Popish mass, and all superstitious opinions concerning the same, the altar is a means to work the contrary, as appeareth manifestly by experience. For in all places the mass-priests .... are most glad of the hope of retaining the altar, &c., meaning thereby to make the commu- nion as like a mass as they can, and so to continue the simple in their former en'ors." Nor did anything more offend the Romanists in the changes that then took place than this removal of the altars,;|: recognizing as they did in this act the denial of one of the most important tenets of tlieir faith. Such was the • Ann. ch. 12. I. 1. 237, &8. t I h.'ivc .ilrciuly fiveii tlie testimonies on this subject so fully in a pami)Iilct entitled " Altars proliibited by the Church of England," (in two parts,) that 1 do not feel it necessjiry to enlarge here respecting it. X See " Altars Prohibited " in various parts. 44 '' netitraV course adopted by our Reformers, and their unwil- litn/ness to oppose and protest against Popery ! An address of the leading Protestant divines to the Queen for the removal of images from the churches is given by Strype and Burnet;* in which they give " those authorities of the Scriptures, reasons, and pithy persuasions, which as they have moved all such our brethren, as now bear the office of bishops, to think and affirm images not expedient for the Church of Christ; so will they not suffer us, without the great offending of God and grievous wounding of our own consciences, (wHch God deliver us from,) to consent to the erecting or retaining of the same in the place of uorshipping ; and we trust, and most earnestly ask it of God, that they may also persuade your Majesty, by your royal authority, and in the zeal of God, utterly to remove this offensive evil out of the Church of Eng- land, to God's great glory and our great comfort." And they conclude, " We most humbly beseech your Majesty to consider, that besides weighty causes in policy, wliicli we leave to the wisdom of the Honourable Counsellors, the establishing of images by your authority, shall not only utterly discredit our ministries, as builders of the thing ichich ice have destroyed, but also blemish the fame of your most godly Brother, and such notable Fathers as have given their lives for the testimony of God's truth, who by public law removed all images." f This document, according to Bishop Burnet, was drawn up in the early part of the year 1559; and he adds, — " These reasons prevailed with the Queen to put it into her ' Injunc- tions' to have all images removed out of the church." The 23rd Injunction is as follows, — " Also, that they shall take away, utterly extinct, and destroy all shrines, coverings of shrines, all tables, candlesticks, trindals and rolls of wax, pic- tures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and superstition, so that there remain no * See Strype's Ann. ch. 18. I. 1, 330, &s., and Life of Parker. I. 191, &s. Also Burnet's Hist, of Reform, Pt, 2. bk. 3, and Records, ib. No. vi. The fullest account of this document is in the latter. t Burnet's Hist. ; Records, ut supra cit. 45 memory of the same in walls, glass windows, or elsewhere within their churches and houses ; preserving nevertheless or repairing both the walls and glass windows ; and they shall exliort all their parishioners to do the like within their several houses."* In the Articles of Visitation, which followed shortly after, for the direction of the Eoyal Commissioners in their general Visitation, the word " images" is added. The second article of inquiry is, — " \Miether in their churches and chapels all images, shrines, all tables, candlesticks, triudals and rolls of wax, pictures, paintings, and all other monuments of feigned and false miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry and superstition be re- moved, abolished, and destroyed." f And the 9th is, — "Whe- ther they use to declare to their parishioners anything to the extolling or putting forth of vain and superstitious religion, pilgrimages, relics, or images, or lighting of candles, kissing, kneeling, or decking of the same images." % Whether the word " images" was intentionally left out of the " Injunctions," or it was thought that the other Avords in- cluded them, must be left to the reader to determine. If the former was the case, it must be supposed that the Queen had not then made up her mind. But at any rate the word is ex- pressly used in the succeeding Articles of Visitation ; so that it is clear that the advice of the divines prevailed. § And hence in Arclibishop Parker's Articles of Visitation a few years after, the sixth is, — " Whether images and all other monuments of idolatr}' and superstition be destroyed and abo- lished in your several parishes." |1 So decided also became the Queen afterwards in this matter, that on the presentation of a Prayer-book to her, adorned with pictures, by the Dean of St. Paul's, on Jan. 1, 15G^, she testi- • Wilk. Concil.iv. 18.5. t Wilk. Concil. iv. 189. + lb. § Strype dates the above document L5G0 or 1.5G1, but this must be a mistake ; as images arc clearly prohibited in the Articles of Visitation. From the date of it, the bisliops alluded to in it muat be those by whom Parker was afterwards consecrated. 11 Wilk. Cone. iv. 258. 46 fied great displeasure. The colloquy between her and the Dean on this occasion has been preserved, and part of it is as fol- lows, — " Q. You know I have a)i aversion to idolatry, to images, and jrictiires of this land. D. Wherein is the idolatry, may it please your Majesty? Q. In the cuts resembling angels, saints : nay, grosser absurdities, resembling the Blessed Tri- nity. D, I meant no harm, nor did 1 think it would offend your Majesty, when I intended it for a New-year's gift. Q. You must needs be ignorant then: have you forgot our Pro- clamation against images, jnctures, and Romish relics in the churches ? Was it not read in your Deanery ? D. It was read; but be your Majesty assured, I meant no harm when I caused the cuts to be bound with the Service-book. Q. You must needs be very ignorant to do this after our proMbition of them." * Surely nothing can show more clearly than these facts the firm and decided manner in which the principles of the Ke- formation were carried out. And as we have had occasion to advert to a supposed hesita- tion in the mind of Queen Elizabeth, in adopting the views of the reforming divines in one or two points, it may be well to show before we proceed further, that any such hesitation was limited to those matters. Her opposition to the doctrines of Popery generally was firm and uncompromising. Thus when in December, 1559, the deprived Popish bishops warned her not to Hsten to those who were persuading her " to embrace schisms and heresies in lieu of the ancient Cathohc faith," she replies in these terms; — " Our realm and subjects have been long wanderers, walking astray, whilst they were under the tuition of Eomish pastors, who advised them to own a wolf for their head (in lieu of a careful shepherd), whose inventions, heresies, and schisms he so numerous, that the iloch of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures. And whereas you hit us and our subjects in the teeth, that the Eomish Church first planted the Ca- * Foxes and Firebrands, Ft. 3. p. 21, &s. The narrative is reprinted hence by Strype, Annals, ch. 23, vol. i. pt. 1. p. 408, &s. 47 tholic faith within our realms, the records and chronicles of our realms testify the contrary' ; and your own Romish idola- try maketh you liars ; witness the ancient monument of Gildas; unto which both foreign and domestic have gone in pilgrimage there to oflfer."* " The next endeavour," says Strjrpe, " of the bishops de- prived, and others of the Popish clergy, was to get the free exercise of their religion, contrary to the law established. "f And they got the Emperor Ferdinand and other Roman Ca- tholic princes to write to the Queen, asking her to allow them churches in the cities. Now let us mark the terms in which this request is refused. " As to what your Majesty further in- tercedes for in their behalf," writes the Queen, " that certain churches should be set apart for them in each city, in which they may safely and without hindrance celebrate their rites by themselves, this request is such, and involved in so many diffi- culties, that we cannot, consistently with the safety of our state, and the preservation of our honour and conscience, grant it. For we and ours (thanks be to God) do not follow any new or strange religion, but that very rehgion which has the consenti- ent mind and voice of the most illustrious Fathers in its favour. But to grant a church to rites of a diflerent kind, besides its opposition to the laws of our Parliament, would be nothing else tlian to sow various reWfions (serere religionem ex religionc), to distract the minds of the good, to cherish the designs of the factious, to disturb religion and the commonwealth in this our now quiet state ; " &c.| And when, soon after, the Duke of Anjou, a Romanist, treated with the Queen on the subject of marriage, stipulating for a " toleration of the Romish relif/ion," the Queen's answer was as follows, — " Although the outward exercise of Christian religion may haply be tolerated witli dilibrent rites and cere- monies, amongst the subjects of one and the same kingdom ; yet a diflerent, yea, a Jlat contrary exercise between us who • Strype'8 Ann. ch. xi. I. 1, 217, 1«. t lb. p. 220. X Sec Strype'H Ann. ch. xxxvi., I. 2. 47, 8, and App. I. 2. .'574, where the ori- ginal (in Latin) is given; from which I have translated the above. am Queen and whosoever shall be our husband, will not only seem perilous but also absurd By tolerating your relif/ion, we break the laws established and give offence to our best subjects," &c. * Can words more plainly express than those used in these documents the direct and intended antagonism, on (to say the least) various important points, of the two systems of the Church of Rome and the reformed Church of England ? From these proceedings of the Queen let us pass on to those of Archbishop Parker and the Royal Commissioners about the same period. In September, 1560, the Archbishop held a metropolitical visitation of the Cathedrals of his Province ; when the seventh Article of Inquiry was as follows, — " You shall inquire of the doctrine and judgment of all and singular heads and members of this your church Whether any of them do either inivihj or openly preach or teach any unwholesome, erroneous or seditious doctrine ; or discourage any man, soberly for his edifying, from the reading of the holy Scripture ; or in any other point do persuade any not to conform themselves to the order of religion reformed, restored, and received by public authority in this Church of England. As for example ; to affirm and maintain, that the Queen's Majesty that now is, and her successors. Kings and Queens of this realm of England, is not, or ought not to be, head, or chief governor of this her people, or Church of England, as well in ecclesiastical causes or matters, as temporal ; or that it is not lawful for any parti- cular church or province to alter rites and ceremonies : to edify or extol any superstitious religion or relics, pilgrimages, light- ings of candles, kissing, kneehng, or decking of images, or praying in a tongue not knoion, rather than in English, or to put trust in a certain number of Pater-nosters, or to maintain purgatory, private masses, trentals, or any other fond fanta- sies invented ly men, unthout ground of God's word : or to say, teach, or maintain, that the word of God doth command sole life, or abstinence from marriage, to any * Foxes and Firebrands, Ft. 3. p. 1 3. 4 'J minister of the Charch of Christ ; or any other errors or false doctrine, contrary to the faith of Christ and holy Scrijj- tures.'"* Indeed for Archbishop Parker's zeal and dihgence in purify- intr the Cliurch of Eomish errors and abuses, we have the testi- mony even of Grindal and Horn in a joint letter written by them a few years after this (dated Feb. 0, 1567), to H. Biil- linger and Eodolph Gualter, in which they say of Parker, — " that prudent father, learned as he is, and exceedingly well- disposed (optime affectus) towards the propagation of the most pure religion, is exceedingly anxious, and earnest, and active in entirely washing away the Komish dregs of every kind." t And as it respects the Commissioners, thus speaks Strype of the spirit by which they were actuated, placing his remark under the marginal title, " By ichat principle the Beformers went ;" — " While these Commissioners," he says, "were thus sitting, and employed about religion, their gke.\t maxim was TO PUUGE THE ChURCH AS MUCH AS THEY MIGHT FROM ALL POPISH DREGS AND SUPERSTITIONS.";}: The objects and views of the authorities both in Church and State, when arranging our standards of doctrine and worship, may be judged of by the celebrated work of Jewell, published about this time under the highest sanctions, entitled "An Apology or Answer in defence of the Church of England, with a brief and plain declaration of the true religion professed and used in the same," Of this work Strj-pe says, — "In these pro- ceedings in religion, it was also wisely foreseen by the Archbishop and his colleagues, how the world would take them; and therefore it was tliouglit necessary by them, that some public apology, or manifesto, should be set forth, to vindicate the Church of England before all the world, for Ler departure from the Bishop of Rome, and for her rejection of his pretended autho- rity, and for what iia-s done in reformiuy reliyion. This work was, as it seems, recommended to Bishop Jewell ; and he performed it in a short time to a wonder. The copy was sent • Strype'H Parker, ch. 2. I. 146—11. t Zuridi Lett.TS, P. S. cil. p. KU iinil App. p. 107. X Strype'H Parkt-r, I. !!»(;. E 60 this year, 1501, to Secretary Cecil, for his judgment, and the Queen's ajiprobation. And in September the Archbishop put him in mind of reviewing and sending it back, in order to the publishing ; giving him this hint in the close of a letter, that he hoped he forgat not the Apology. It came forth in Latin the next year, and soon after in English."* In this English translation (published in 1562) Strype tells us " the Archbishop had a considerable hand."t In 1664 another translation made by the Lady Anne Bacon, was published by the Archbishop himself, as appears by a letter of the Arch- bishop to the translator prefixed to this edition of the book ; in which also the Archbishop calls the Apology a '' puhlic work." X This book, says Strype, " was approved by the al- lowance and authority of the Queen, and published by the con- sent of the bishops and others." § — " Of what esteem and re- putation it was in the Church of England in these times, ap- pears by a state-hook, set forth the year after ; ' I refer you to the Apology, which our Church hath placed openly before the eyes of the whole christian world, as the common and certain pledge of our religion.' (Ad Apologiam ablego, quam ecclesia nostra tanquam commimem et certam nostrse religionis obsidem, palam in oculis orbis clnistiani collocavit. Gual. Haddoni Ep. Hier. Osorio.) So that it was written upon a state account by the common advice and consultation, no doubt, of the college of divines that were then met about re- formation of the church. And so the reverend author himself shewed in his epistle to Queen Elizabeth before his Defence, viz., that it contained the whole substance of the catholic faith, then professed and freely i^reached throughout all the Queetis dominions : that thereby all foreign nations might understand * Strype's Parker, I. 197. t lb. p. 357. t Strype's Parker, I. 355. In his " Annals," (I. 1. 428.) Strype states that the other English translation published in 1562 was done by the same lady. Are the translations the same, and the edition of 1562 the first edition of it ? § Strype's Ann. ch. 25. I. 1. 424. These words are translated from Lawrence Humphrey's " Vita Juelli,'' published Lond. 1573, 4to., where he says, — " Anno Domini 1562 edita est Ecclesise Anglicanae Apologia : quse licet Regiae Majestatis autoritate et assensu probata, et de consilio Episcoporum aliorumque publicata sit, tamen ab hoc autore pertexta et conscripta est, tanquam omnium Anglorum fidei Catholicse et Christianae publica confessio." (p. 177.) ol the considerations and causes of ber doings in lluit behalf." * So CoHicr, the nonjuror, tells us, that this work " was approved by the Queen and set forth with the consent of the bishops." f Bishop Jewell himself in his Reply to Harding says that he bad the concuri'ence of the whole English clergy with him in this work. " My choice," says Bishop Eandolph in his Preface to liis Enchiridion, " has been principally directed to such works as had the sanction of public authority, and which may, therefore, be relied on as containing the final and decided opinions of our Reformers, approved of in the general by the church at large Of this kind, that is, thus publicly received, were Jewell's Apology and Nowell's Catechism ; the former of which is said to have been published with the consent of the bishops, and uas always underatood to speak the sense of the ichole church, in tchose name it is written Both these works were publicly received and allowed," (Enchirid. theolog. ; Pref) "By Queen Ehzabeth, King James, King Charles, and four successive Archbishops, the Apology was ordered to be read and chained up in all parish churches throughout England and Wales." X It is quoted by Hooker as " the English Apology ;" § and lastly, as decisive of its authority, it is recognised in the thirtieth of the canons of 1G04 as " the Apology of the Church of England." I have given more space to these various testimonies in proof of the authority of this work, as exhibiting the spirit and prin- ciples of those who settled our legal standards of doctrine and worship, and giving a general view of the doctrine it was their ob- ject to maintain, than some perhaps may think necessary. But , the value and importance of this treatise at the present period, it would be difficult to overrate ; and therefore it is desirable that there should be no doubt as to the degree of authority that belongs to it. Now what is the testimony of this book as to the religion then established in England ? It appears from it that the Romanists directly charged that religion with being heretical, and the cause of all sorts of • Strype's Ann. cli. 2.5. 1. 1. 425, 6. t Hist. vol. 2. p. 47.'*. X Watt's Hil)Iioth. nritanii., iiiidcr " .Towell." § E. P. ii. 6". J-: 2 52 evil and confusion. " They cry out upon us at this pre- sent everywhere," says Jewell, " that we are all heretics, and have forsaken the faith, and have with new persua- sions and wicked learning utterly dissolved the concord of the church. That we renew, and, as it were, fetch again from hell the old and many a day condemned heresies: that we sow abroad new sects, and such broiles as never erst were heard of : also that we are already divided into contrary parts and opinions, and could yet by no means agree well among ourselves," &c. * And what is Jewell's answer ? Is there any tenderness shown towards " Koman doctrine ?" Does he intimate that the doc- trine of the Church of England is such that both Eomanists and Protestants might (if only the former would give up the point of the jurisdiction of the Pope) conscientiously intei^pret it as consistent with their own views ? On the contrary, the pro- test against Romanism is clear, definite, and decided. It can hardly be necessary to quote much from a work so well known ; a few extracts will be sufficient. After speaking of the separation they had made of the Angli- can from the Romish Church, Jewell remarks, — " Forour parts, if we could have judged irpiorance, error, super stitioti, ido- latrij, men's inventions, and the same commonly disagreeing with the Holy Scriptures, either to please God, or to be suffi- cient for the obtaining of everlasting salvation ; or, if we could ascertain ourselves, that the Word of God was written but for a time only, and afterward again ought to be abrogated and put away ; or else, that the sayings and commandments of God ought to be subject to man's will, that whatsoever God saith and commandeth, except the Bishop of Rome will and command the same, it must be taken as void and unspoken : if we could have brought ourselves to believe these things, we grant, there had been no cause at all, why we should have left these men's company. As touching that we have now done, to depart from that church whose errors were proved and made manifest to the world, which church also had already evidently departed from God's word, and yet not to depiut * Works, eel. leil.pp 1(1, &s. 5n so much from itself, as from the errors thereof, and not to do this disorderly or wickedly, but quietly and soberly, we have done nothing herein against the doctrine either of Christ or of liis apostles."* " If that church may err which hath departed from God's words, from Christ's commandments, from the apostles' ordinances, from the primitive church's examples, from the old Fathers and Councils orders, and from their own decrees; and which will be bound within the compass of none, neither old or new^, nor their own, nor of others, nor man's law, nor God's law; then it is out of all question, that the Eomisli church hath not only had power to err, but also that it hath shamefully and most wickedly erred in very deed^t " We have renounced that church, wherein we could neither have the word of God sincerely taught, nor the sacraments rightly administered, nor the name of God duly called upon." % " We so have gotten ourselves away from that church, wdiich they had made a den of thieves, and wherein nothing was in good frame, or once like to the church of God, and which, by their own confessions, had erred many ways, even as Lot in times past gat him out of Sodom, or Abraham out of Chaldee, not upon a desire of contention, hut by the w^arning of God himself: and . . . we have searched out of the Holy Bible, which we are sure cannot deceive us, one sure form of religion, and have returned again unto the primitive church of the ancient Fathers and Apostles, that is to say, to the ground and beginning of things, unto the very foundations and headsprings of Christ's church."§ Mr. Oakeley affirms, that" the later Church of England has been, from first to last, remarkably unwilling to protest, as a church, against the doctrines orilome." (p. 28.) Now (putting aside for a moment the 80 Articles, as the subject more particu- larly in question) what more energetic protest against the doc- trines of Home can be conceived than that contained in this work ? And this treatise was put forth under the especial sanction of our Reformers, /// o/f/cr to sltow /he world the vieus and principles under the injlneiive of ichich they icere acting. It was formally npprovedby the Queen, and spoken nlby iIk I'liimili' as a " piil)- * Jewell's Works, cd. Kill. Defence, &c. i)i). :;.'i.J-7. t li>. i>. i'*'.'. X \\\ p. :.ii. § 11'. 1-. (iM. 51 lie work ;"" it " was always understood to speak the sense of the whole Church in whose name it is written ;" and is recognized in the 30th canon as " the Apology of the Cliurch of England." It is difficult therefore to draw much distinction between it and a document issued by the Church " as a Church." Certainly, the formal sanction of Convocation, which no one doubts that it virtually had, was the only thing wanting to constitute it such when it was published ; and indirectly it has since received that sanction. At any rate it was a manifesto of the Reformers showing the nature of the course they were pursu- ing and the objects they had in view ; and from which there- fore we may easily conclude, how far they were likely to draw up or sanction a confession of faith for our Church, which should leave it exposed to the " error, superstition, and idola- try," which had been the cause of its separation from the Church of Rome. Let us now proceed, then, to consider the steps taken for settling the standard of doctrine of our Reformed Church. The first act in this direction was the drawing up, at the commencement of 1560, that is, as soon as possible after the consecration of Archbishop Parker and some other bishops, "a declaration of certain principal articles of religion, set out by order of both archbishops metropolitans, and the rest of the bishops ; for the unily of doctrine to he taiKjht and holden of all parsons, vicars, and curates : as well in testification of their common consent in the said doctrines, to the stopjnnf/ of the mouths of them that go about to slander the ministry of the Church for diversity of judgment, as necessary for the instruction of their people. To be read by the said parsons, vicars, and curates at their possession-taking, or first entry into their cures, as also after that, yearly at two several times," &c.* In this "Declaration," among other directly anti-Romish pro- positions, it is maintained " that the doctrine which maintaineth the mass to be a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead, and a means to deliver souls out of purgatory, is neither agreeable to Christ's ordinance, nor grounded upon doctrine * Strype's Ami. ch. 17, I. 1.325, reprinted hence by Wilkins and Cardwell, but with the date 1559. 55 apostolic, but contrariwise, most ungodly and most injurious to the precious redemption of our Saviour Christ, and his only sufficient sacrifice, offered once for ever upon the altar of the cross ;" and that the taker of it " utterly disallows the extol- ling of images, relics, and feigned miracles," &c.* Surely these statements are plain enough. Neither Mr. Newman nor Mr. Oakeley, I suppose, will venture to say, that they are so drawn up as to enable Romanists to take the Declaration. True, the clergy were not all called upon imme- diateUf to make this *' Dechiration ;" and here I humbly ven- ture to thiiik the Reformers showed their wisdom. They re- quired assent to the Prayer-book, because that was necessary to secure to the people a pure form of worship ; and they per- mitted none to preach but those whom they had expressly licensed to do so ; but in requiring assent to full statements of doctrine they proceeded more slowly and cautiously. The arti- cles thus set forth were intended io promote purity and unity of doctrine throughout the Church ; but a formal declaration of assent to them was not required from the clergy generally, but only from those who might be nuhsequentlij admitted to cures, so that their effect might be f/radual but sure. This is shown in the title, as already quoted ; and so the case is represented by Strypewhen first noticing the matter,— " iVopi.s/i doctrines and superstitions, and to nuike the best security he could of admitting none to officiate but such as consented to the ffospeland fiio/> /he pro/'^-ssion thereof upon IhemyX • lb. 1>1>. ;i-'7, '!. t StiM't-'h Ann, 1. 1 . •.'•J:^ ; II). i...;-j'». 56 And in his Life of Archbishop Parker, lie introduces this Declaration, (which, by the way, he there dates April, 1561,) with the following important remark, — " In the Church many pojnshly affected priests still kept their hold by their outward compliances ; but to make the best provision that could be against such for all times hereafter, all parsons, vicars, and curates that took ecclesiastical livings or cures were now bound to make a public declaration, by the order of the Archbishop and the rest of the Bishops, and afterwards to be read by them once every half-year before their people, to testify their common consent in certain sound doctrines. That hereby Papists might be refuted, who had slandered the Protestant ministers, as if there icerc no agreement and unity of faith among them!'* The object of the Reformers evidently was to proceed gradu- ally and with caution, while they secured the ultimate attain- ment of the end they had in view, namely, the purgation of the Church, as Strype says, from " Popish errors and superstitions." Their views in this respect are thus stated by Strype: after noticing some advice that had been given by the martyr John Rogers during the reign of Mary, to one of his fellow-suffer- ers, in the prospect of a subsequent change of circumstances, he adds, — " This advice in part was now followed by the guides of the Church, by appointing readers for the churches ; but the method they thought too violent to turn out all the former priests, especially being willing to conform themselves. For this icould make too great a devastation in the Church. And they hoped by time and better information, even these priests might come to be hearty embracers of the Reformation, and serviceable to it."-\ These words are remarkable as showing the reasons the Reformers had for proceeding in the cautious way they did, and the object they had in view in tolerating for a time the reten- tion of men in the Church, who, while willing to officiate ac- cording to the Reformed Liturgy, might still be inclined in some points to Roman doctrine. * Stripe's Talker, I 181, 2. + Ann. I. 1. '207. 57 But they took efFectiuil means to prevent their teacliituj their errors. For as Strype informs us, after noticing the " Declara- tion" just given, " Near ahout this time also (unless it were the year before) another tiling was drawn up by the Archbishop for the inactice of the clergy, as the former was for them to declare, entitled, 'Eesolutions and Orders taken by common con- sent of the bishops for this present time, until a synod may be had, &c.' " And the first of these " Orders" is, " That the licenses given for preaching by the late Visitors general be no longer in force. And that such as liereafter shall be admitted to preach shall be diligently examined, as well in nnitij of doc- trine established by public aathority, as admonished to use sobriety and discretion in teaching the people," &c.* It is clear, then, that none were allowed to preach but those of whose orthodoxy the authorities of the Church were satis- fied. And who those were, we may learn from a speech of Lord Mountague, a Eomanist, in the House of Lords, in 1502 ; who savs, — " It is sufficient and enough for Protestants, to keep the possession of the churches, and the authority to preach and excommunicate, not to seek to force and strain men to do or believe by compulsion that they believe not."t Such were the precautions taken by our Reformers in matters of doctrine previous to the Convocation at wliich the Thirty- nine Articles were passed as the standard of our Church's faith. Can we recognize, then, in these proceedings anything of that spirit of "neutrality" between Protestantism and Ro- manism by which IVIr. Oakeley tells us they were guided? At the meeting of Convocation at the latter end of 15G2, the Thirty-nine Articles were agreed upon ; the Convocational subscription to them being made in Feb. l;'5G2-3. And before we proceed to the particular consideration of tiiem, I would observe, that as, in the case of the former Articles, subscription was not rcfpiired immediately from all the clergy, so with these the members of Convocation only were called upon to subscribe them at the time. It appears, indeed, from the • Aim. 1. J. ;iJf). + Slope's Ann. I. 1.4i;5. 58 Acts of this Convocation,* that many of the clergy wished that they should be immediately enforced throughout the kingdom ; and, as we shall have occasion to notice hereafter, four years after this the matter of subscription was mooted in the House of Commons, and a petition presented by the bishops to the Queen, begging her to favour the measure ; from which we may see, that the forbearance exercised towards popishly affected ministers in possession of benefices was only intended to be temporary : but (probably through the reluctance of the Queen) nothing was done in the matter till the year 1571. Consequently it is perfectly true, that, so far as the Thirty' Nine Articles tvere concerned, persons attached to Komish doc- trines might remain in the ministry of the Church, because they were not called tijwn to declare their assent to them, prudential reasons causing a sufferance ybr a time of those who could not conscientiously subscribe them. But this forms no ground of defence for one who subscribes them while holding Romish doctrines. The question, it must be remembered, is not, whe- ther men suspected of holding Koman doctrine, or even pro- fessing to hold it, were ever permitted, for a time, under certain circumstances, to minister in our Church without subscribing the Articles; but, whether an avowed adherence to Koman doc- trine is consistent with the obligations now imposed upon the ministers of that Churchy when all are required to subscribe the Articles. And the very fact that (either from tenderness or policy) subscription was not, for a time, universally pressed upon all those in possession of benefices at the accession of Queen Elizabeth, but only upon those who should be newly admitted to them, shows, Avhen we remember that the former had all been Romanists, what the doctrine of the Articles was considered to be by those who promulgcd them. We thus see the error of the statement, that " after the revision of 1502 they [i. e. the Articles] were enforced, but as it appears against Non- conformists and not Roman Catholics." They were not in fact enforced, that is the clergy generally were not called upon to subscribe them, until 1571, when an ♦ See Wilk. Concil. iv.241. 8 69 Act of Parliament passed requiring all the clergy to subscribe them. And, as we have already noticed, the passage quoted from Fuller in support of this assertion has been taken out of its context to adapt it to that purpose, for it occurs under the year 1571, and follous the passage which the pamphlet y;/ac6?.laincd of those laws as requiring them to join in services opposed to the doctrines of their Church. And though in a certain sense the penalties might be said (in the language of that period) to be enforced on civil and not religious grounds, i. e. as a penalty for disobedience to what had been enjoined by the State, and for the absence of out- ward compliance with the law, (which was all that was re- quired,) the words could not be used in any sense that implied an agreement between the Protestant and Roman doctrine. The Act for Unifonnity in 1550 inflicted a penalty on all wlio did not attend the sei^ice of the Church ; also upon all who spoke against the Book of Common Prayer ; and, still further, upon all who said or heard mass.* And by 5 Eliz. c. 23, it appears that a writ de excomm. raj), might issue on the ground of " refusing to have his or their child baptized, or to receive the holy commutiion as it is now commonly used to be received in the Church of England, or to come to Divine servjcc, now • Gibson's Codex, i. •2(;ft, note r, and 2()'f), note b. 64 commonly used in the said Church of England, or error in matters of religion or doctrine now received and allowed in the said Church of England or idolatry." * And these enactments were put in force against the Ro- manists. August 8, 1502, Strype tells us, " a priest was taken in Feuter-lane at a certain lady's house, singing of mass ; and with his cope which he had on, he was carried through London to the Lord Mayor's ; and after, from thence to the Compter ; and some days after removed to the Marshalsea, where popish priests were now commonly committed." " Feb. the 2nd being Candlemas-day, in devotion to the blessed Virgin Mary, certain men and women went to Durham-place, and others to St. Mary Spital, to hear mass. But many of them were taken, and carried away with the guard, and others sent to the Compter and other places. Such strict care was now taken, that no popish superstition, or any other divine service should be used but that lately established by Act of Parliament." f Among Archbishop Grindal's Letters also are two or three which will illustrate this matter. In one (written Aug. 1563) to Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, who had interceded for one Sebastian Westcote, a minor canon of St. Paul's, Grindal, then Bishop of London, says that he had been complained of in his Visitation for " utterly abstaining from the communion," and adds, " I also one day conferred with him myself: and perceiving that he sticked much at the matter of transiihstantiation , I showed him testimonies not only of the Scriptures, but also of the old Fathers, most evidently against that error ; and gave him then time to think upon the matter. But all in vain. And therefore I was at length compelled to pronounce him excommunicate, who afore in doings had ex- communicated himself"! Li another letter, to Sir W. Cecil (July, 15G3), he says respecting a Sir Thomas Fitzharbert, we " concluded to let Mr. Fitzharbert be abroad upon sureties, if he would he hound in the mean time to go orderly to the * Gibson's Codex, ii. 1058. + Strype's Ann. ch. 32. I. 1. 54,% 6. X Grindal's Works, Park. Soc. ed. p. 2C2. (55 church, without binding him to receive the communion. That Sir Thomas refused."* And again, to the Lords of the Privy Council who had placed under his charge one Michael Hare, Esq., a papkt, that he might " deal with him to bring him to conformity in the religion established," \ he writes (Jan. 1569) " It may please your good Lordships to be advertised, that Michael Hare, Esq., by order from your Lordships, hath re- mained in my house sithence the 15th of November last, in which time I have conferred and travailed with him, (as my other businesses would permit me,) to persuade him to resort to common prayer, to communicate with us in the Lord's Supper, and generally to assent to all points of godly religion by law established in this realm. Notwithstanding, finding the said Mr. Hare in all other matters very courteous and tract- able, I cannot yet persuade him hereunto, alleging that he is not yet satisfied in conscience, and that for conscience sake only he doth forbear so to do, and not of malice. The prin- cipal ground whereon he most stayeth himself in all conferences is the long continuance of the contrary religion, in the times that have gone before ; notwithstanding sundry allegations by me made, and divers authorities showed, that the most ancient times agree with us."| There is ample evidence, then, (and it would be easy to add to it,) as to the views of tliat period on the relative character of Church of England and Roman doctrine ; and the way in which non-conforming Romanists were dealt with. And to settle this whole matter beyond dispute, wc will close our remarks upon it with an extract from an Act of Parliament, 23 Eliz. c. 1. (a. 1580), in which it is enacted, that all persons who shall attempt to " withdraw any of the Queen's Majesty's subjects .... from their natural obedience to her Majesty ; or to withdraw them, for that intent, from the religion now BY HER Highness authority established within her Highness dominions to the Romish religion, or to move them or any of them to promise any obedience to any prc- • lb. 274. t Strypt'sCirirulal, 223 (151 m.) X Grindal'.s Work-, p. ;>-'(). F 6i5 tended autliority of the See of Rome .... shall be to all in- tents adjudged to be traitors," &c. &c.* Mr. Oakeley tells us, that the use of the term " recusant," as applied to the Romanists, fixes the date of their separation from the national Church, and makes it posterior to the year 1569.t After the evidence already adduced of the secession of the Romanists from the ministry, and even to a considerable ex- tent from the communion, of our Church, long before that period, it is hardly necessary to say, that even if this term had not been previously used, such a fact would not have altered the state of the case. But the truth is, the term was used long before ; certainly as early as the year 1561, as appears from a document of that date given by Strype ; and therefore, according to Mr. Oakeley's own showing, the separation took place as early as that year. The document is a list of persons attached to the Romish rehgion, principally of the clergy, headed, " Recusants which are abroad, and bound to certain places." It is introduced by Strype with the following remarks, — " Such as bore affection to the old popish religion were now very busy about the kingdom, to disaffect the minds of the Queen's sub- jects. These were both of the laity, and of the clergy, and of the universities, whom it was therefore thought necessary to watch diligently And many were about this time brought before the ecclesiastical commissioners; from whom yet they received favourable handling, for they did not put or continue them in prison, nor prosecute the law upon them .... And thus they might have lived and died here safely and se- curely, as several did ; but many, or most, acted by a turbulent spirit, soon after this fled away beyond the seas .... I have met with a particular list of the names of these men, whether deans, archdeacons, prebendaries, beneficed priests, scholars in the universities, &c and another list of the names of such who were known to be dangerous persons, but not taken ; also a third, of the names of such as were fled, and a fourth of such as were in hold." % * Gibson's Codex, i. 536 f See pp. 11, 12, above. Ann. ch. 24, I. i. 410, 11. 67 A3 it respects the oath of suprema(!y which Mr. Oakeley says was no bar before 1569 to civil, far less to ecclesiastical privi- leges, being understood by the majority as a mere test of loyalty, it is notorious that (to mention no others) it was refused by all the bishops but one. There is no doubt, cer- tainly, that many took it who held many points of Roman doc- trine, but it is equally clear that by the leading men among tiie Romanists it was refused. But the matter is wholly immaterial to our present subject, and therefore it is not worth while to pursue it further. But it is stated, that " it further appears, that many members of the Lower House of Convocation, who were Roman Catholics, subscribed the Articles upon the revision in 15G2." And the authority for this statement is as follows, — " Strype gives their names, and among them we find that of the celebrated John Bridgewater," &c. &c. (p. 30. See p. 1 1 above.) Now this is altogether a mistake ; the statement of Strype is this, — " It may not be amiss," he says, " in the perusing these names, [that is, the subscribers to the Articles in the Lower House,] to show which of them had been exiles under Queen Mary, and who, though not exiles, yet lived then obscurely ; and who, lastly, in that reign, comphed with the popish reli- gion, and were dignified in the Church." And then, having noticed the names of the first two sorts, he adds, — " Those of this synod that were in place and dignity under Queen Mary were Tliomas White ; (who is mentioned in a letter of Bishop Grindal's, writ soon after this synod to the secretary, as a great papist, and yet at the synod ; and I find that Gregory Martin, of Rheims, wrote, anno 1575, to one Dr. Tho. White, Warden of New College, who I conclude was this our White, reproving him for ''following the world, or dinHcmhling in reli- gion againnt his cotmcience and knowledge ;^) he was Arch- deacon of Berks, 1557, Chancellor of Sarura, 1571, and died 1588. ]3esides this White, of the same sort, were Andrew Feme, Francis Mallet, (who was Queen Mary's chaplain, and nominated by her to the Pope, a little before her deatli, for 08 bishop of Sarura,) Cottrel, Turnbul, (who was prebend of Cau- terbury,) and divers others. '* Let me make a brief note or two of a few more members of this synod, as I might of many more of them, were this a place for it. John Bridgwater was rector of Lincoln College, in Ox- ford, and after divers years went over sea, and took several young men along with him, and turned papist!'* Now the only person here mentioned of whom there seems any evidence that he was a papist, is Thomas White ; for, of the rest it is only stated that they were " in place and dignity under Queen Mary ;" and he, it appears, for retaining his place in the Church of England, was called to account by a Romanist for " folio wiinj the world or dissembling in religion against his conscience and knowledge^' that is, in short, for having either gone over to Protestantism or pretended to have done so ; the best possible proof we could have, that if any holding Roman doc- trine remained in the ministry of the Church of England, they were obliged to use dissimulation to do so ; so that if we put down all here mentioned as having been "in place and dig- nity under Queen Mary," as Romanists in heart, this will not help out Mr. Oakeley at all ; and in fact this very passage of Strype affords the best possible evidence against the hypothesis we are combating. And as it respects John Bridgwater, he is not mentioned as one who even had been a papist, but as one who afterwards " turned" papist, and then quitted the Church of England. And we may add, that in the work he published after turning papist, entitled, " Coucertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae in Anglia adversus Calvinopapistas et Puritanos," he through- out speaks of the clergy of the Church of England, whom he calls "Calvinopapistas," (their title to the latter part of this name being derived from their retaining the Episcopal form of Church Government instead of adopting the Presbyterian), as heretics. So far, then, from there being any evidence here, that oxr^ pro- fessing to hold Roman doctrine subscribed the Articles, there * Annals cli. 28. I. 1. 491, 2. 69 is, on the contrary, evidence that any such subsciiptiun could only have been made by the subscriber dissembling his real sentiments. The passage of Heylin, upon which (and upon which alone) Mr. Oakeley grounds his assertion, that the Articles were remo- delled by Archbishop Parker and his coadjutors "with a studied reference to the views of those who I'etained their prepossessions in favour of the old religion," states nothing more than that their " moderation" was " visible in declining all unnecessary determinations," and in "not separating further from the Church of Rome than that Church had separated from what she was in her purest times," (which is all the separation Pro- testants desire,) and that "possibly" some who subscribed the Articles in the Lower House of Convocation were " inclined ratJier to the old rehgion ;" all which may readily be granted without aflbrding any help to Mr. Oakeley's hypothesis. In fact, the passages already quoted from Heyhn* show that in this passage he has no meaning such as Mr Oakeley has attn- ])Uted to him. It is also urged, that the Articles were "presented again and again to the members of Convocation until all or nearly all had subscribed them;" and hence the conclusion is deduced, that the imposers of the Articles " took the best means in their power to overcome the scruple" of those who objected to them, instead of at once ejecting them on their first hesitation. Surely the very fact of their wishing to avoid subscription goes against Mr. Oakeley's hypothesis ; and our reformers were not accustomed to act in the summary way here suggested, by turn- ing men out on the first appearance of hesitation in complying with their requisitions. Tliey gave time for consideration. But as to their taking "the best means in their power to overcome the scruple, "and " acting in a Catholic spirit towards the repre- sentatives of the ancient faith," it is difficult to know to what tiiese words refer. The course they did take, is thus described by Heylin. After noticing the continued demur on the part of " many" in llie Lower House to subscribe, even after an order " SfC [I. w'l ;il;ovc. 70 for subscription had been issued by the Upper House on ac- count of previous delay in the matter, he adds, — " An order thereupon is made by their Lordships, on the 10th then following, that the prolocutor should return the names of all such persons who refused subscription, to the end that such further course might be taken with them as to their Lordships should seem most Jit."* That is, they were either to subscribe or be brought before the High Commissioners. Is such subscription, then, by a few individuals, (supposing the fact, which is not proved, that they did hold the doctrine of the Church of Rome,) any evidence that there is no inconsis- tency between the two ? Did all the subscribers in King Edward's days hold the doc- trine they subscribed ? What was the confession of one of the principal of them, Dr. Weston, afterwards ? In the Disputation with Ridley at Oxford, referring to the Catechism, commonly called King Edward's Catechism, he complains to Ridley, "You made me subscribe to it, when you were a bishop in your rufif ;" which, though Ridley denied it, shows with what views Dr. Weston subscribed.i* And there was no difficulty in obtaining a dispensation for such subscription, if it was supposed that the interests of the Church of Rome would be promoted by it. Among some state papers, which came into the hands of Archbishop Usher, and from him to the eminent antiquary Sir James Ware, and were pubUshed by his son, Robert Ware,:t is one (reprinted by Strype) from an agent of Cecil's in Italy, in 1564, in which the writer states that among various expedients devised by a Council at Rome, appointed by the Pope to arrange such mat- ters, it had been determined, that "for the better assurance of further intelligence to the See of Rome, licenses were to be given to dispense with several baptisms, marriages, and other ceremonies of the Church of England, to possess and enjoy any offices, either ecclesiastical, military, or civil ; to take such oaths as should he imposed upon them, provided that the same * Hist, of Reform. Eliz. p. 150. f Ridley's Works, Park. Soc. cd.p. 226. t In " Foxes and Firebrands." 7] oaths be taken with a resei've for to serve the mother Church of Rome, whenever opportunity seiTed ;" also " the See of Rome to dispense with all parties of the Roman faith to swear to all heresies in England and elsewhere ; and tliat not to be a crime against the soul of the party ; the accused taking the oath with an intention to promote or advance the Roman Catho- lic faith."* It is easy, then, to account for there being so?ne subscribers among the adherents of a rehgion in which such things were tolerated. Nor should it be forgotten, that those who subscribed the Articles in Convocation, subscribed the 28th with the clause that was in the Articles of 1552, but was omitted in our pre- sent Articles before they were authorized by Queen Elizabeth ;t and therefore subscribed expressly and in terms against " the real and bodily" presence of Christ in the Eucharist ; which shows, that if any Romanists subscribed them, they w^ere only such Romanists as were ready to subscribe anything rather than give up their places in the Church, for here the very term " real presence" is rejected. There remains, I believe, but one of Mr. Oakeley's authorities to meet, namely, his reference (p. 29) to Strype's Grindal, p. 98 [97], from which he quotes thus, — " Of the subscribers (to Queen Elizabeth's injunctions for conformity) .... there were many, who had said mass in Queen Mary's time, and such as would not change their custom of old Paternoster." Now the fact is, that the subscription required was not, as is here represented, to Queen Elizabeth's injunctions, (though even that would prove nothing respecting the 39 Articles,) but merely a subscription promising to observe an order that had been issued for the use of the cap, tippet, gown and suqihce ; to which of course the papists would be far from objecting. This is distinctly stated in the context of the passage cited from Strype. • Strype's Ann. ch. SfJ. I. 2. .5G, 7. t Sec nurncl'8 Expos, of the Articled, on Art. 28; and Grinilal's Works, Lett, to Cecil, July 1 7, 1 v;."}, p. 'iru. 72 Mr. Oakeley's proofs, then, altogether fail him, when exa- mined. What he has to show is, that Eoman doctrine was held by ministers of the Church of England openly and avowedly, and with the sanction of the authorities of the Church, after subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles; while on the contrary the utmost that can be proved, is, that after a most extensive secession from the ministry had taken place in consequence of the introduction of the Prayer- book, and various steps had been taken gradually to purge the Church from Popish errors and superstitions, a few persons suspected of holding Komish doctrines were in the Convocation of 1562, and, after trying to avoid subscription to the Articles, and being threatened by the bishops with further proceedings if they refused, did ultimately subscribe. And these persons were accused by the Romanists, (for the charge made against one applies to all,) of either following the world or dissembli/uj against their conscience in remaining in the Church of Eng- land. Having thus shown, not merely the absence of all evidence in favour of Mr. Oakeley's position, but that there is ample evidence against it, in the general history of the rise and progress of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth, let us proceed to consider more particularly the history of the Articles themselves, as remodelled at this period. Among the documents given by Strype is one entitled, " Ge- neral Notes of Matters to be moved by the Clergy in the next Parliament and Synod." The author of it is not known, but the paper contains marginal notes by Archbishop Parker him- self and others. Among these notes occurs the following, — " Certain articles, containing the principal grounds of Chris- tian religion, are to be set forth, {in the which also is to be de- termined the truth of those things which in this age are called into co?itrnversij,) much like to such Articles as were set forth a little before the death of King Edward. Of which Articles the most part may be used with addition and correction, as shall be thouglit convenient. " * * iStiypi.''B Ami. uli. '27. I. 1. 474. 7S This throws some light, then, ou the intentions of some lead- ing men, engaged in this matter, previous to the Synod or Con- vocation at which the Articles were agreed upon. At the Convocation, in 1502, one of the Petitions of the Lower House of Convocation to the Upper was, — " That certain Articles, containing the principal grounds of Christian religion, be set forth, as well to determine the truth of things this dutj in controversy, as also tu show what errors are cliiejiy to he eschewed. "* This, again, shows the wishes of the Lower House ; and that it was quite against their view to maintain a neutrtility in the Articles ou the points then in question between the Komanists and the Protestants. And this fact is of great importance, be- cause in the Lower House alone could there be 'duy j^ossibiliti/ of Romish counsels entering. Proceeding to the Articles themselves, we find them almost a repetition of those drawn uj) in ]r)52; and which, as we have already seen, formed one principal ground of Cranmer's con- demnation, being pronounced by the University of Oxford to be '*' heretical, imj)ious, and execrable." And, to the com- plete overtlirow of Mr. Oakeley's hypothesis, the alterations made were all of them, with one exception, indisputuhly in u Protestant direction. I say, with one exception, because though the words substituted in 1502 are clearly enough op- posed to the Roman doctrine, and do in fact, as Bishop Burnet says, " amount to the same thing," there was an omission of u dogmatic statement against the Romish doctrine on the subject, containing a somewhat more precise defimtion on one point than the clause substituted for it; an omission made probably at the instance of the Queen, whose views on that point were at first, it seems, not so clear or decided as were those of her divines. The exception is in the Article on the Lord's Supper, in which, in the Articles of 1552, occurred the following clause : " For as much as the truth of man's nature requireth, that the body of one and the self same man cannot be at one time in divers places, but must needs b(! in some one certain place, • Jl>. lIi. M. I. 1. .;08. Wilk. Cone. iv. J 10 74 tlierefore the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places : and because, as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly confess the real and bodily {corporalem) pre- sence, as they term it, of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper." This clause was omitted in 1562; and a similar one in the Prayer-book of 1552 (in the rubric at the end of the Communion Service) denying any " real and essential T^TQ%encQ of Christ's natural flesh and blood" in the Eucharist, had been omitted in the Prayer-book of 1559. But then, in the place of the clause omitted, was inserted the following, directly opposed to the doctrine of the Church of Eome as laid down previously at the Council of Trent. " The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith." The alteration was not made in Convocation, for the Articles were signed by both Houses of Convocation with the clause of 1552 in them, but by the direction of the Queen or her Council. And the account of this matter by Bishop Burnet is as follows, — "When these Articles," he says, "were at first prepared by the Convocation in Queen Ehzabeth's reign, this paragraph was made a part of them ; for the original sub- scription by both Houses of Convocation, yet extant, shows this. But the design of the Government was at that time much turned to the drawing over the body of the nation to the Ke- formation, in whom the old leaven had gone deep ; and no part of it deeper than the belief of the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament ; therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a definition in this matter, in which the very word real preseyice was rejected. It might perhaps be also suggested, that here a definition was made that went too much upon the principles of natural philosophy ; which how true soever, they might not be the proper subject of an Article of reUgion. Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this para- graph ; though it was a part of the Article that was subscribed, 7 75 yet it was not published, but tlie paragi-aph that follows. The body of Christ, dc. was put in its stead, and was received and published by the next Convocation ; which upon the matter was a full explanation of the way of Christ's presence in this sacra- ment ; that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that faith is the mean by which he is received. This seemed to be more theological, and it does indeed amotint to the same tiling. But howsoever we see what was the sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's reign ; it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's time. And therefore though this paragraph is now no part of our Articles, yet we are certain that the clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the truth of it ; we are sure it was their opinion, since they subscribed it, though they did not think fit to publish it, at first; and though it was aftersvards changed for another, that was the same in sense."^ And so far as Mr. Oakeley or any of the clergy of the pre- sent day are concerned, the alteration, whatever its import, would make no difiercnce, because the rubric, which is much stronger than the clause in the Article, was restored in the Prayer-book at the review in 1662, with only this change, that the word ''corporal" (the very word that had been used in the Article,) was inserted in place of the words " real and essential" I am quite aware that this change has been pressed into their service by Mr. Oakeley and others. But, not to men- tion the context, asserting that the " sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances," and that " the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven and not here," (expressions clearly condemnatory of the Roman doctrine,) the fact is, that the doctrine as thus ex- pressed was one of the principal things for which Cranmer suf- fered ; for he is charged with maintaining " inter cetera Chris- tum in Eucharistia spiritualiter tantum et non corporaliter esse, sed in corpore in celo tantum esse, et non alibi. "f Were it necessary, it would be easy to bring additional proof that the • Burnet's Expos, of the Artick'g,oii Art. 2b. + Strypc'B Cranmer, Oxf. cil. vol.2 p. 1075. 76 phrase " corporal presence" is tlie proper and authorized phrase for the Roman doctrine ; and the word was substituted for the words " real and essential," because, as Archbishop Tenison tells us,* the latter were "subject to misconstruction." They might be applied to a spiritual and sacramental presence, and therefore a more definite and precise term was preferred. Thus Cranmer in the disputation at Oxford says, — " If ye understand by this word ' really' ' re ipsa,' i. e. in very deed and effectually, so Christ by the grace and efficacy of his passion is indeed and truly present to all his true and holy members. But if ye un- derstand by this word ' really' ' corporaliter,' i. e. ' corporally,' so that by the body of Christ is understood a natural body and organical, so the first proposition doth vary, not only from the usual speech and phrase of Scripture, but also is clean con- trary to the holy word of God and Christian profession." f And the latter was what was contended for in this disputation by the Romanists. Hence supposing any advantage to accrue to the Romish party on this particular point by the alteration made in this respect in the time of Queen Elizabeth, (and little enough it could be, as it left the protests against transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, &c. precisely what they were before,) the change cannot be of any avail now to those who hold Roman doctrine, because the rubric has been re-inserted in the Prayer- book. As it respects the phraseology of the rubric, we shall make some further remarks, when we come to notice, in its proper place, its re-insertion in 1662. We should observe also, while noticing the alterations intro- duced at the revision in 1562, that in the Article against purga- tory, indulgences, &c., the phrase, " the doctrine of the school authors," used respecting them in 1552, is changed into " the Romish doctrine," wliich, notwithstanding any attempts to ex- plain it away, any impartial reader will, I believe, consider as intended to express " the doctrine of the Church of Rome." It is quite true, that the session of the Council of Trent in which its decrees respecting purgatory, indulgences, worship- * On Idolatry, p. 181. t Fox's Acts iiud Mon. vol. vi. p. 446. 77 ping of relics and images, and invocation of saints were laid down, was posterior to the revision of the Articles ; the latter being in Jan. 1562-3, and the former in Dec. 15G3. But not only was there sufificient evidence what the doctrine of the Church of Eome was upon those subjects from other sources, but in fact as to purgatory,* indulgences,t and invocation of saints,! these doctrines had been distinctly recognized in va- rious sessions of the Council that had preceded the revision of the Articles. Indeed out of the twenty-five sessions of the Council, the decrees of sixteen ( including the doctrines of Scripture and tradition, original sin, justification and good works, the sacraments, baptism, the Lord's supper, &c.) were well known here before the Articles were originally drawn up in 1552 ; and the decrees of twenty-two must have been well known here before the revision in Jan. 15G2-3, the twenty- second session having taken place in September, 15G2, four months previous. And the only matters connected with our present subject discussed in the remaining three sessions were, the sacraments of order and matrimony and the points above mentioned. So utterly incorrect is the assertion that " the decrees of Trent were drawn up after the Articles. "§ This change of phrase bears strongly against Mr. Oakeley's hypothesis, not only as affecting the phraseology of the Arti- cles, but as showing the object of the Reformers to be pre- cisely contrary to what he has asserted. And if it were, neces- sary' to add one word more to fix the meaning of the phrase " the Romisli doctrine," we may observe, that upon the revision of the Articles in 1571, previous to their general subscription, seven years after the conclusion of the Council of Trent, this phrase was retained; which, had it applied to anything different from the doctrine as ultimately laid down in the Council, would, of course, not have been the case. Further ; the object for which the Articles were put fortli was, to produce unity of doctrine in the church in the great pointfi then controverted ; a fact, which stamps the hypothesis • Sew". v'. pan. 30. sesa. xxii. c. 2. t Scss. xxi. c. 9. \ Sc8.s. x.\ii. c. 3. § Lett, to Pr. Jclf, pp. G & \9. 78 of Mr. Newman and Mr, Oakeley witli palpable absurdity ; for that hypothesis supposes that the Articles were intentionally so worded as to give no definite decision on the points at issue between the Protestants and the Komanists ; the dijBFerences be- tween the two being, nevertheless, according to Mr. Oakeley himself (p. 38), "fundamental and irreco?icileable." That such was the object, is evident, first, from the very title prefixed to the Articles ; " Articuli de quibus convenit &c. ad tollendam oiyinionum dissensionem, et consensum in vera reli- giotie Jirmandum ;" or, as in the English edition, " Articles agreed upon &c, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true religion." Can words more clearly show, that it was the intention of those who put forth those Articles, that they should supply a definite decision on the great points then in controversy ? There was no doubt a wise moderation observed, as Dr. Heylin remarks, in not stuff'ing the Articles with unnecessary theological deter- minations on all controverted points, a moderation which I for my jyart trust that the Church of England will ever observe, but such a position as that of Mr. Newman and Mr. Oakeley would thoroughly stultify those who put them forth with the title they bear. And that this was the general object of our Reformers in all their proceedings, that is, to produce gradually unity of doc- trine in the church, on all points of primary importance, we have abundant testimony from other sources. Thus in the " Declaration" (ah'eady quoted*), drawn up in 1560, to be signed by all newly inducted into cures, the articles contained therein are said to be put forth " for the unity of doctrine to be taught and holden of all parsons, vicars and curates ; as well in testification of their common consent in the said doctrines to the stopping of the mouths of them that go about to slander the ministry of the church for diversity of judgment, as neces- sary for the instruction of their people." And in the " Orders" put forth about this time, according to Strype, by the bishops, the first is, "that the licenses given for preaching by the late • See p. 54 above. Visitors general be no longer in force ; and that such as here- after shall be admitted to preach shall be dihgeutly examined, as well in unity of doctrine established hij puhlic authority, as admonished to use sobriety and discretion in teaching the people," &c.* And among articles of inquiry at episcopal Visitations, a prominent one is, as to unilbrmity of doctrine being maintained according to the laws put forth on that behalf, and whether ««y jtopish errors are taught. Thus in Archbishop Parker's Metro- political Visitation Articles, for the cathedral and collegiate churches of his Province, given by Strype both under the yeai's 1560 and 1567,t and by Wilkins under the latter date,J the sixth is, — " You shall inquire of the doctrine and judgment of all and singular head and members of your church .... whether any of them do either privily or openly ■\^xq^(A\ or teach any unwholesome, erroneous or seditious doctrine; or discou- rage any man, soberly for his edifying, from the reading of the Holy Scripture ; or in any other point do persuade any not to conform themselves to the order of religion reformed, restored and received by public authority in this Church of England. As for example ;"§ &c, And then follow several ptopish doc- trines, as purgatory, &c., as we have already seen.|| And in his Visitation Articles for his Diocese in 1509 the 25th is, " Whether any your ordinaries . . . and all and sin- gular others, that have or do exercise any visitation or juris- diction ecclesiastical within any part of this diocese, have up- rightly, faithfully and unfeignedly, to the uttermost of their powers, observed in their own persons, and towards all other put in due execution, the Queen's Majesty's ecclesiastical laws, statutes, injunctions, and all her Highness' other command- ments 7?«i//.s7/6Yiyor ww//<>/v;. 1 I7-">I. lOG (1.) The first is to be found in the Injunctions (Injunc. 23) and Articles of Visitation (Art. 2,) issued by Queen Eliza- beth in the year 1559 ; which we have already noticed in pp. 44, 45, above. (2.) The second is in Bishop Jewell's Apology of the Church of England ; given in pp. 52,3 above.* (3.) The third is in Dean Nowell's Catechism, quoted p. 82 above. (4.) The fourth is in a public Form of prayer for the Plague, issued in 1563 by public authority, i. e. of the Queen and Me- tropolitan, according to the Act of Parliament. One of the Prayers of this Service contains the followiug passage, — " Thou hast called us to the knowledge of thy gospel. Thou hast released us from the hard servitude of Satan. Thou hast delivered us from all horrible and execrable idola- try, wherein we were utterly drowned, and hast brought us into the most clear and comfortable light of thy blessed word, by the which we are taught how to serve and honour thee ; " &c. f This form was to be used (see title) in Common Prayer, twice a week throughout the kingdom. The testimony hence derived is peculiarly strong ; because the introduction of such an expression into a public form of prayer ordered to be used throughout the kingdom, shows, even more than a mere dogmatical decision on the subject, how deeply seated such a view was in the minds of our Reformers, and their desire to impress it upon the minds of the people. And yet, in the face of such testimonies, Mr. Oakeley ventures to say, that " the Reformers themselves were without any precise doctrinal views of their own upon the points in controversy," and that " the necessities of their position" " obliged them to a course of the strictest neutrality." (p. ix.) (5.) The fifth is in a public form of thanksgiving in the thirty- seventh year of Queen Elizabeth, a, 1594, in which * The reader who desires to see more passages on the subject than are there quoted, and in the original Latin, may consult pp. 129: 149,5<) •, 151, 2 ; 1G9, 70; 171,2; 178; 180; 189; 194 ; of the edition in Randolph's Enchiridion, vol. 1. Sd.ed. 1825. t Grindall's Works,p. 88. ^ ' 107 Popery is called " that idolatrous religion ;" * to which, of course, the same remark applies as we have made respecting the last. (6.) The sixth is in the canons of the synod of 1640 under Archbishop Laud. The third of these canons is entitled, " For the suppressing the growth of Popery ;" and enacts that " all and every eccle- siastical persons, of what rank or condition soever, . . . shall use respectively all possible care and diligence, by conferring privately with the parties, and by censures of the Church in inferior and higher courts, as also by complaints unto the secular power, to reduce all such to the Church of England who are misled into Popish superstition. . . . This sacred synod doth earnestly intreat the reverend justices of assize to be careful in the execution of the said laws committed to their trust, as they will answer to God for the daily increase of this gross kind of superstition." f The sixth canon is entitled, " An oath enjoined for the pre- venting of all innovations in doctrine and government," and enacts as follows ; — " This present synod (being desirous to declare their sincerity and constancy in the profession of the doctrine and disciphne already established in the Church of England, and to secure all men against any suspicion of revolt to Voperi) or any other superstition) decrees, that all arch- bishops and bishops, and all other priests and deacons in places exempt or not exempt, shall, before the 2d day of November next ensuing, take this oath following, against all innovation of doctrine or discipline I, A. B., do swear that I do approve the doctrine and disciphne or government established in the Church of England, as containing all things necessary to salvation : and that I will not endeavour by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, to bring in any Popish doctrine, contrary to that which is so established : nor will 1 ever give my consent to alter the government of this Church by arch- " Stillingflcet's Answer to Sevcnil Treatises, I'refacc, c. 7. (The ;;«//fs are not numbered.) t Wilk. C.neil. iv. .340, 7. 108 bishops, bisliops, deans, and archdeacons, &c., as it stands now established, and as by right it ought to stand ; nor yet ever to subject it to the usurpations and sttperstitions of the See of Rome," &c. * And in the seventh we read, that " at the time of refonning this Church from that ^ross superstition of Popery, it was carefully provided, that all means should be used to root out of the minds of the people, both the inclination thereunto, and memory thereof, especially of the idolatry committed in the mass, for which cause all Popish altars were demolished." f Mr. Oakeley admits (p. 42), that these canons do contain a condemnation of Eoman doctrine ; which, indeed, it would be difficult to deny ; though not more so, as it appears to me, than to deny the same with respect to our Articles. Now these canons were published with the formal consent of the Crown attached to them ; and therefore, at the time, were of equal authority with the canons of 1604. But the great re- bellion occurring almost immediately after, they were probably never enforced ; and, as Bishop Stillingfleet tells us, " after the King's restoration, an Act of Parliament passed (13 Car. ii. c. 12,) for restoring the bishops' ordinary jurisdiction, wherein a clause is added, that this Act did not confirm those canons of 1040, but left the ecclesiastical laws as they stood 1639 ; which Act being passed by the King's assent, it voids the former confirmation of them, and so leaves them without force." X These canons, therefore, can only be considered as representing the sentiments of the authorities of the Church of England at the time at which they were passed. But then, how important are they, merely in this point of view, in connexion with our present subject. For if the English bishops under the primacy of Laud formally condemned the doctrine of Eome, is it any longer a question what the character of our standards of doc- trine is on the subject? It is so notorious, and, in fact, in- * lb. p. 549. t lb. \ Stillingfleet's Ecd. Cases, Pt. 1. p. Too, cd. 1702, 1U9 sisted upon by those wlio take Mr. Oakeley's views,* that there was a movement in the direction of lioman doctrine in our Church in the time of Laud, and a clear desertion of the pre- cise ground previously occupied by tlie authorities of our Church as to doctrine, that the decision, coming from such a quarter, is overwhelmingly contradictory of the hypothesis we are opposing. (7.) Tlie seventh is the rubric inserted at the end of the Communion Office in the Prayer-book in 1661, by the united authority of the Convocation and the ParUament. This rubric runs thus, — " Whereas it is ordained in this office for the administration of the Lord's Supper, that the com- municants should receive the same kneeling ; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful ac- knowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue ;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved ; it is hereby declared, that thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored, (for that were idolatrv, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here ; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." This rubric is vei^ nearly the same as one that occurs in the same place in the second Prayer-book of Edward VI., and was omitted in the Prayer-books of Elizabeth and .lames L; — the only real difference being, that instead of the words " corporal presence," the previous rubric had " 7-eal (Did essential ])\:c^cuco there being." Of this alteration, as we have already observed, Mr. Oakelcy * See Brit. Crit. No. Ixiv., Oct., 1(542, vol. xxxii. [ip. ."300, et ser]. 110 avails himself, *■ as if it rendered the rubric consistent with his views, by making it condemn " not formal statements, but loose and popular views, of doctrine ;" and he quotes Dr. Cardwell's remark upon the change as if it was confirmatory of his argument. Now what Dr. Cardwell says, (which the reader will find below,)t is merely a repetition of what we have already quoted X from Archbishop Tenison in explanation of the change ; that is, that the words " real and essential" were " subject to misconstruction," and therefore altered. The ques- tion between the Church of England and the Church of Kome, properly stated, is not, whether there be any real and essential presence of Christ in the Eucharist ; for as Archbishop Tenison says, " real it is, if it be present in its real ejQFects, and they are the essence of it so far as a communicant doth receive it ; for he receiveth it not so much in the nature of a thing, as in the nature of a privilege ;" refeiTing to the words of Eishop Jewell in his Apology, — " Christum enim asserimus vere se praesentem exhibere in sacramentis suis ; in baptismo, ut eum induamus ; in coena, ut eum fide et spiritu comedamus, et de ejus cruce ac sanguine habeamus vitam seternam :" § and so Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in his able reply to Woodhead's charge against our Church of varying in this point of doctrine, says, that our Church " always held a real presence so far as a real participation implies one, but always denied it, if by real we mean corporal and local ;" || and that " King Edward's rubric by real and essential means (as the * See note, p. 43 f " The fate of the rubric is worthy of notice. It was excluded by Queen Elizabeth in 1559 ; and its removal clearly shows, that the Church could not then be brought to express an opinion adverse to the real presence: it was restored in 1661, on the revision of King Charles II. ; and its reappearance may likewise be employed to show, that the Church at that time also was unwilling to make any declaration on that important tenet. To prevent misapprehension on this point, the words ' or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood,' were altered to the very different expression, ' or unto any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood.' " Cardwell's Hist, of Conferences, p 35, note. X See p. 76, above. § Tenison on Idolatry, p. 181. II Reply to Two Discourses, &c., p. 4. Jll Papists then used to do) a real and hudiUj presence, as is plain by the Articles set forth about the same time;"* which pre- cisely agrees with the statement of Archbishop Cranmer, already quotedjt by whom the former rubric was put forth. There was no real change of doctrine therefore involved in the alteration of the rubric, but merely the substitution of a clearer phrase for one more open to misconstruction. But the chief question is, what is the force of the rubric as it now stands ? Is it condemnatory of Koman doctrine ? The change, even if it be allowed to be, as Mr. Oakeley contends, " in a more catholic direction," will avail him nothing, if after all it left it anti-Roman. And this, I maintain, it clearly does ; and in opposition to Mr. Oakeley 's assertion, it is easy to show, that it condemns not merely " loose and popular views of doc- trine" among the Romanists, but " formal statements of doc- trine," such as must be considered as representing truly the doctrine of the Church of Rome. We have already shown, that Cranmer was condemned for holding, among other things, that Christ was not corporally {corporaliter) present in the Eucharist. % What moreover is the language of the Council of Trent ? " In the first place the holy synod teaches, and openly and plainly professes, that in the benign holy sacrament of the Eucharist, after the consecra- tion of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ true God and man, is truly, really, and substantialli/ [i. e. corporally] con- tained under the form of those sensible things ;"§ and the first canon on the subject is, — " If any one shall deny, that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and suhstantially the body and blood together with the soul andDivinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in fact whole Christ, but shall say that they are in it only in the way of sign, or figure, or virtue, let him be anathema." || * lb. p. [). f See p. 75, above. % See p. 76, above. § Principiodocetsanctasynodus, etapcrteacsimpliciteiprofitetur,inalmo8ancto Eucharistia; sacrainento. post panis et vini consecrationcm, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum vcrum Deum atque liornincm, vero, realitcr, ac substantialiter, sub specie illarum rerum sensibilium contincri. Synod. Trid. Sess. 13. c. 1. II Si quis ncgavcrit, in siinclissima' Eucliaristia; sacramento confineri vere. 112 And hence a learned Eoman Catholic divine, speaking of " the four main points, that are maintained by the supreme church- authority, to wliich Protestants refuse conformity, and at which they take most offence," reckons as the first of them, " the corj)oral presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, and consequently adoration of them as present." * And if it be said, that the words " corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood" refer only to the presence of the body in a natural manner, and that the Council of Trent itself seems to maintain, that it is present, in a natural manner, only at the right hand of the Father, ■\ the words that follow show that this explanation will not reconcile the rubric to Eoman doctrine, for it is there said that " the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven and not here, it being," &c. ; and, as a learned man who left us for the Eoman communion, Abraham Woodhead, observes, " these two are very different, the riatural body is not here, and, the natural hody is here, but not after a natural mode ;" % and moreover, as he proceeds to remark, the reason given, that it is " against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one," shows that the doctrine of our divines differs from that of Eome, for " if they hold the natural body to be there [in the sacrament] as well as in heaven, this its being there (though there modo non naturali) overtlu'ows this reason, by its being still in two places, the same time ; in one, modo naturally in the other, modo non naturali." § realiter, et substantialiter corpus et sanguinem una cum anima et divinitate Do- mini nostri Jesu Christi, ac proinde totum Christum ; sed dixerit tantummodo esse in eo, ut in signo, vel figura, aut virtute, anathema sit. lb. Can. 1. * Woodhead's Considerations on the Council of Trent, p. 228. f Nee enim hssc inter se pugnant, ut ipse Salvator noster semper ad dexteram Patris in coelis assideat, juxta modum existendi naturalem ; et ut multis nihilo- minus aliis in locis sacramentaliter preesens sua substantia nobis adsit, ea existendi ratione, quam etsi verbis exprimere vix possumus, possibilem tamen esse Deo, cogitatione per fidem illustrata, assequi possumus, et constantissime credere debe- mus. Synod. Trid. Sess. 13. c. 1. X Two Discourses concerning the adoration of our Blessed Saviour in the Eucha- rist, p. 31. § lb. 1J3 Moreover iu other parts of the rubric the Roman doctrine is contradicted in terms. Thus it is said, that " the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances ; " whereas the Council of Trent expressly affirms, that " by con- secration there is produced a change of the bread and wine, of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of our Lord Christ, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood ; which change is conveniently and properly called by the holy catholic Church transubstautia- tion :"* and an anathema is pronounced against those who deny such a change, f Similarly it is maintained, that the consecrated elements " may not be adored, for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;" whereas the Council of Trent main- tains, that through the transubstantiation which takes place in the elements, " no room for doubt remains but that all Christ's faithful people should, according to the custom always received in the Catholic Church, pay to this most holy sacra- ment in their devotions to it, that worship of latria which is due to the true God, ";]; and an anathema is pronounced against those who say that such worship ought not to be offered. § So that as Archbishop Tenison, in a work published within eighteen years of the restoration of this rubric, says, " This rubric doth in effect charge the Church of Rome with gross idolatry ;" || and thus Dean Aldrich remarks, " As the Church ever held a real, so she ever denied a corporal, i. e. a local presence ; and for that reason forbid the adoration of the sym- bols. For (to say no more at present) the same arguments that will justify our adoring them upon the score of any, but a • Per consecrationem panis et vini conversionem fieri, totius substantire panis in substantiiun corporis Christi Domini nostri, et totius substantiae vini in substan- tiam sanguinis ejus. Qua convcrsio convenienter et proprie a sancta Catholica Ecclcsia Transub-stantiatio est appcllata. Sess. 13. c. 4. fib. Can. 2 ; and see Can. 3 and 4. X NuUus itaque dubitandi locus rclinquitur, quin omncs Christ! fideics pro more in Catholica Ecclcsia semper recepto latria; cultum, qui vero Deo debetur, liuic sanctissimo sacramento in venerntione cxliibeant. % lb. Can. *>. II Of idolatry, p. UiO. I J 14 local presence of Christ's natural body, will excuse not only the Poj)l,sh, but even the grossest heathen idolatry !' * The Dean's statement of the doctrine of our Church on this subject is so judicious, and the work in which it occurs so far from common, that the passage, though a long one, will I think be acceptable to the reader. " The natural body of our blessed Saviour," he says, " comes under a twofold consideration in the Euchaiist. \. As a body dead ; under which notion we are said to eat it in the sacra- ment, and to drink the blood as sited ; as appears by the words of the Institution, Take and eat, this is my body which is given or broken for you ; Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood which is shed for you : in wliich words (as Mr. Bradford, Acts and Monuments, p. 1611, long ago observed) what God has joined we are not to put asunder. 2. As a glorified body ; in ■which condition it now sits at the right hand of God, and shall there continue till the restitution of all things, imparting Grace and Influence and all the benefits purchased by the Sacrifice of the dead body, to those that (in the holy Eucharist most es- pecially) are through Faith and by the marvellous operation of the Holy Ghost incorporated into Christ ; and so united to him that they dwell in Christ and Christ in them ; they are one loilh Christ and Christ with them ; they are made members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones ; and by partaking of the Spirit of him their head, receive all the graces and bene- fits, purchased for them by his bitter death and passion. " Wherefore it is evident that since the body broken and the blood shed neither do nor can now really exist, they neither can be really present, nor literally eaten, or drank, nor can we really receive them, but only the benefits purchased by them. But the body which now exists whereof we partake, and to which we are united, is the glorified body : which is therefore verily and indeed received (as we shall see anon) and by consequence said to be Really present notwithstanding its Local absence, because a real participation and union must needs imply a Real presence, though they do not necessarily require a Local * Repl3' to two Discourses, &c., p. 3. 115 one. For it is easy to conceive how a thing tliat is Locally Absent may yet bo Really Received, as he that receives a dis- ciple is said to receive Christ ; as the disciples tiiemselves received the Holy Ghost ; as tlie King in the Gospel received a Kingdom ; or as we commonly say a man receives an estate or inheritance when he receives the Deeds or Conveyances of it. In all which cases the reception is confessedly real, though the thing itself is not locally or circumsciiptively present, or literally grasped in the arms of the receiver. " This by the way may serve to show the vanity as well as falsehood of Transubstantiadon, which was first devised to solve the literal eating of the ylorijied body of our Saviour : whereas though the body that is glorified, be numerically the same that was broken ; yet the body which is eaten as dead, and tiie body which is present as . 01 above. 122 tlieologians, and the authoritative declarations of the Council of Trent, upon various points of doctrine and practice ; as, for instance, the Real Presence, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Inter- mediate State, Intercession for the Dead, and the Reverence due to Images and ReHcs. Accordingly this Essay is alone enough to take from the present undertaking all pretension to originality. However, my object, so far, falls short of that of this writer, that, while he seems to consider that the Church of England teaches certain doctrines, all at which 1 aim, is to show, that she cannot be proved to repudiate them. And of this Essay, ingenious and (on the whole) conclusive as it is, I am ready to admit that it seems to me, for the reason I have just given, partial if not disingenuous. Also I will add, that in the extracts which the writer has made from the works of English theologians, (the most important of which, I have verified, and find correct,) he has not always been sufliciently observant of collateral qualifications in the context of what he cites. Altogether, then, I will say of this very curious book, that, while no person ought to take any decisive step in the present controversy, till he has carefully read, and fairly weighed it ; I am, for my own part, inclined to dispense with the evidence which it famishes to the point of these observations, from feeling, not so much, I may sincerely say, that it is ques- tionable, as that it is superfluous. The extract which, among others, I am about to make in support of the statement to the proof of which these observations are directed, shall come from a quarter which there can be no difficulty in admitting. It shall come, not from this Catholic Essay, but from the An- glican Reply to it. Of this, then, I will now say a few words. The Essay in question is accompanied by Observations, in- tended (according to the profession of the title page) to ' detect the mystery, and to expose and defeat the design, of the ori- ginal work.' The writer of these observations evidently sup- posed that the author of the Essay was a Roman Catholic in dis- guise, and, accordingly, he does not spare him. He, then, at least, must be considered an impartial witness : yet we shall presently see, how far even he goes on the side of the Tract. 5 123 The ' Observations' in question I have been enabled to trace to Nathaniel Spinckes, A.M., Rector of Peakirk cum Glynton, in the county of Northampton, and diocese of Peterborough, and of St. Martin, Sarum, and also Prebendary of that Cathedral ; of which dignity he was deprived, in the episcopate of Bishop Burnet, A.D. 1090, on the gi-ound of his refusal to take the oaths to King "William III." (pp. 52-4.) And with these remarks is introduced at p. C6, from the " Observations" above mentioned, a passage in favor of " prayers for the dead." I have given the passage relating to this subject entire, lest I should make any omission of which Mr. Oakeley could com- plain. A more extraordinary mis-statement of facts (unin- tentional no doubt, but culpably careless) I have scarcely ever met with. The "Essay" here refen-ed to (of which, by the way, the correct title is, " An Essay towards a proposal for Catholic Communion," and the date of publication not 1715, but 1704,) could hardly, under the circumstances of its calling forth a Secretan,^ of State's warrant for the arrest of the author and the seizure of his papers, be of much value to Mr. Oakeley as a precedent, whoever might be its author. But, no doubt, if it was written, as it professes to be, both in the title and the body of the work, " by a minister of the Church of England," it would afford a sort of precedent for his views. If, however, it was by a Eomanist, it comes to us with a falsehood on its vei7 title, and " the intemol evidence," on which the " competent" and ''impartial judges" rehcd, is evidence of nothing but dcH- berate deceit and fr.aud. Now there really is no difficulty in ascertaining the name of the author. The Roman Catholic historian iJod has given it to us;* and told us that it was Thomas Dean of University College, Oxford ; who, as An- thony a Wood in his " Athena; Oxonicnses" informs us, being a Roman CathoUc Fellow of University College, withdrew from Oxford withJohnMassey, the Rom. Cath.Dean of Christ Church, in 1088, on the arrival of the Prince of Orange, and went over to France. Mr. Oakeley is altogether mistaken therefore in • Cirtamcn utriusquc Ecclcsiae, p. ]<"<. T siijipoBC lie also mentions it in lii» '' History," Imt I have not the work «t liand to refer to. 124 supposing that it was written by one in the ministry of the Church of England ; and the mistake is of consequence, be- cause it involves the supposition of a precedent for a case that is wholly unprecedented. And the work being written by a Romanist in disguise, pretending to be a minister of the Church of England, is altogether without weight. But Mr. Oakeley says, he will not rely upon this Essay, but quote " from a quarter which there can be no difficulty in ad- mitting," namely " the Anglican Reply to it," that is, the " Ob- servations" which were published upon it, which, he tells us, he has "been enabled to trace to Nathaniel Spinckes" a Non- juror. Now in the first place, if the " Observations" had been written by Spinckes, the work of a Nonjuror would have had little right to the title of '' the Anglican Reply." How Mr. Oakeley has " been enabled to trace" them to him, I must leave to him to explain. He found, I suppose, that Spinckes had written an answer to the " Essay, " and that the " Ob- servations" were written as an answer, and hence jumped, in true Tractarian style, to the conclusion that the " Observa- tions" were written by Spinckes.* The fact is, that if he had even read the " Observations," he would have found that they were not written by Spinckes, For by p. 181 it appears, that the author was the person spoken of in the " Essay "•f under the terms, " Mr. St. ;" and also that he was the aiithor of the " Letter to a Missioner," known to have been written by a person of the name of " Edward Stephens." J And we are informed by Dod in the work already quoted, that the " Essay" was answered by a writer of the name of " Stephens." Who, * The title of this Work is, — " An Essay towards a Proposal for Catholic Communion fairly and impartially considered in certain neces- sary Observations upon the Title, Preface, and from Chapter to Chapter to the Conclusion. Lond. 1705." 8vo. t See p. 17"2 of the reprint in the " Observations." X I am not sure that this pamphlet was published with his name, but it is ac- knowledged by him as his, in another pamphlet (p. 54) published with his name, entitled, " A true Account of the unaccountable Dealings of some Homan Ca- tholic Wissionars of this Nation. Lond. 1703." 4to. l'2o tlien, was this Edward Stephens ? By a pamphlet published with his name attached to it in 1708,* it appears that he was not even in the communion of the Church of England, but that he had formed a little party of his own, on the model, as he conceived, of the primitive Church, f And by his own con- fession in this work, | he was accused of being too favourable to the Papists. Of course, therefore, the author of the " Observations" is a most unfit person to be called as a witness, to testify the Ariews of the Church of England. In fact, liis own words, at the close of Ills Preface to the " Observations," might have shown Mr. Oakeley (had he read the work) that this was the case. " God himself knows," he says, " that what I heretofore writ, seembig to many cu/ainst the Church of England, was purely for his service, and the service of my country, and of the Church of England itself: and that what I have since done in treating uith those of the Roman Communion here, was in all sincerity for his service, and for the service of his true Hoty Catholic Communion. And in aW, I have been so conducted ihxow^h. so many surprising unforeseen occuiTences all tending to the same end, by true catholic principles, to the most true Catholic Communion, by Communicating Letters, that is now in the world, that should I be insensible of a Divine Hand in it, I should be a fool or a brute," &c.: his " most true Catholic Communion" being (as is not uncommon with similar fanatics) a little knot of people following his own devices. And it is remarkable, that in his " True Account" (p. 0,) he notices his own views on the subject for which he is quoted by Mr. Oakeley (p. CO,) under the name of Spinckes, — namely, Prayers for the dead, — as one reason for which some accused him of Popery. Let us now pass on to the work really written by Spinckes, and published, with his name attached to it ;^ ajul iiltliough it * " A true Account of the unaccountable Dealings of some Roman Catholic Missionars of this Nation. Lond. 1703." 4to. t Sec pp. 4 ; 2.5 ; r,7, 8. : P. 6. $ The Kxaay towards a i)ropo8. 'I'', 7, above. 8 151 bishops, wo find her charging Popery with " inventions, here- sies, and schisms so numerous, that the flock of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures ;" and expressly accusing it of ''idolatry."' KING JAMES I. " As iox prayer to saitits," says King James, " Christ (I am sure) hath commanded us to come all to him that are loaden with sin, and he will relieve us ; (Matt. xi. 28 ;) and St. Paul hath forbidden us to worship angels, or to use any such volun- tary worship, that hath a shew of humility in that it spareth not the flesh. (Coloss. ii. 8, 23.) But what warrant we have to have recourse unto these Dii Penates or Tutelares, these Courtiers of God, I know not ; 1 remit that to these pliiloso- phical neoteric divines. It satisfieth me to pray to God through Christ as I am commanded, which I am sure must be the safest way ; and I am sure the safest way is the best way in points of salvation. But if the Romish Church hath coined new Articles of faith, never heard of in the first 500 years after Christ, I hope I shall never be condemned for an heretic, for not being a novelist. Such are the private masses, where the priest playeth the part both of the priest and of the people ; and such are the amputation of the one half of the sacrament from the people ; the transuhstantiation, elevation for adora- tion, and circumportatio7i in procession of the Sacrament; the tvorks of supererogation, rightly named thesaurus Eccle- sice ; the baptising of hells, and a thousand other tricks ; but above all, the worshipping of Images. If my faith be weak in these, I confess I had rather believe too little than too much : and yet since I believe as much as the Scriptures do warrant, the Creeds do persuade, and the ancient Councils decreed, I may well be a schismatic from Rome, but I am sure I am no heretic. " For reliques of saints, if I had any such that I were assured were members of their bodies, I would honourably bury them, and not give them the reward of condemned men's members, which are only ordained to be deprived of burial. 15f) But for worshippituj either them or imcKjes, I must account it damnable idolatry. " I am no Iconomachus ; I quarrel not the making of images, either for pubhc decoration, or for men's private uses : but that they should be worshipped, be prayed to, or any holi- ness attributed unto them, was never known of the ancients ; and the Scriptures are so directly, vehemently, and punctually against it, as I wonder what brain of man, or suggestion of Satan durst offer it to Christians ; and all must be salved with nice philosophical distinctions : as Idoluni nihil est, and. They worship (forsooth) the images of things in being, and the image of the true God. But the Scripture forbiddeth to wor- sliip the image of anytljing that God created. It was not a nihil then that God forbad only to be worshipped, neither was the brazen sei"pent, nor the body of Moses a nihil; and yet the one was destroyed, and the other hidden for eschewing of idolatry. Yea, the image of God himself is not only ex- pressly forbidden to be worshipped, but even to be made. . . Let them therefore that maintain this doctrine, answer it to Christ at the latter day, when he shall accuse them of idola- try ; and then I doubt if he will be paid with such nice sophis- tical distinctions " As for Vurgatory, and all the trasli (Jubilees, Indul- gencies. Satisfactions for the Dead, &c.) depending thereupon, it is not worth the talking of. Bellarmine cannot find any ground for it in all the Scriptures." And proceeding to exphiin the prophecies relating to Anti- christ, wliich lie considers to be the Pope, he says, " By their fornication is meant both their spiritual fornication of idola- try, and &c. . . And they are guilty of theft, in stealing from God the titles and greatness of power due to him, and bestow- ing it upon their head, the Antichrist : as also by heaping up their treasure with their juggling wares and merchandise of the souls of men, by Jubilees, Pardons, Keliques, and such like strong delusions." * • A Premonition to all Most Migiity Monarchs, &c. in liis Works, ed. ICIO'. pi>. 303-5 \ 321. 15fi KING CHARLES I. In Ills " Declaration to his subjects of the causes which moved him to dissolve the Parliament," dated March 2, 1G28 9, after expressing his firm resolve to " presei've that t(fntl/ of doctrine and discipline established in the time of Queen Elizabeth," he adds subsequently, — " We do here pro- fess to maintain t/ie true religion and doctrine established in the Church of England, without admitting or conniving at any backsliding either to Popery or schism."* And in his " Declaration to all those who profess the true, reformed, Protestant religion," in the year 1644, he observes, that, "many false rumours and scandalous letters" having been published, intimating " that we intend to give way to the introduction and public exercise of Popery again in our domi- nions," " we never entertained in our imagination the least thought to attempt such a thing, or to depart a jot from that holy religion, which when we received the crown and sceptre of this kingdom we took a most solemn and sacramental oath to profess and protect This most holy religion of the Anglican church, ordained by so many Convocations of learned divines we solemnly protest, that, by the help of Almighty God, we will endeavour, to our utmost power and last period of our life, to keep entire and inviolable, and will be careful, according to our duty to heaven, and the tenor of the foresaid most sacred oath at our coronation, that all our ecclesiastics in their several degrees and incumbences shall preach and practise the same."i- And in his conference with the Marquis of Worcester, as reported by his chaplain, Dr. T. Baylie,J (who had strong * Works (ed. 1602, fol.) Pt. 2, pp. 19 & 29. t lb. pp. 411, 12. % Certamen religiosum : or, a Conference between his late Majesty Charles King of England and Henry late Marquess and Earl of Worcester, concerning Religion; &:c. &c. 1G49. r2rao. It was republished, "together with a vindi- cation of the Protestant cause from the pretences of the iMarquess his last Pa- pers, which the necessity of the King's affairs denied him opportunity to an- swer," by " Chr. Cartwright, Minister in the City of York." Lond. 1652. 4to. Doubts were entertained by some at that time of the genuineness of the account 157 Romish tendencies, and aftei*wards joined publicly the Romish Church, and therefore would not give any testimony against Rome more strength than was necessary,) we find the king speaking thus; — " I pray, my lord, satisfy me in these parti- culars : Why do you leave out the second commandment and cut another in two ? Why do you withhold the cup from the laity? Why have you seven sacraments, when Christ insti- tuted but two ? Why do you abuse the world with such a fable as Purgatory, and make ignorant fools believe, you can fish souls from thence with silver hooks ? Why do you pray to saints, and worsliip images ? Those are the offences which are given by your Church of Rome unto the Church of Christ ; of these things I would be satisfied."* Again ; — " Wherefore if you cry never so loud, Sancia mater ecclesia, sancta mater ecclesia, the holy mother church, holy mother church, as of old they had nothing to say for themselves but Temphim Domini, Templtim Domini, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, we will cry as loud again with the prophet : Quomodo facta est meretrix urhs Jidelis ? how is thefaithful citi/ become a harlot ? if you vaunt never so much of your Roman Catholic Church, we can tell you out of St. John that she is become the synagogue of Satan : neither is it impossible, but that the house of prayers may be made a den of thieves : you call us heretics ; we answer you with St. Paul, Acts xxiv. 14. After the way which you call heresy, so worship we the God of our fathers, helieviny all ihinys which were written in the Law and the Prophets'' * Let us take next the Archbishops of Canterbury. Now tlio series of these archbishops, from the accession of Queen Eli/ubeth to the present time, stands thus, — Parker, Grindal, Whitgift, Bancroft, Abbot, Laud, Juxon, Sheldon, Sancroft, given of thin Conference, from the favour evidently shown towards the cause of the Church of Rome. But tliis only gives additional weight to the testimony quoted above. • Baylie's Ccrtijmen Reliqiosum, j)!). 18, '■) ; or, Cartwrighl's edition, p. iC. t lb. PI-. 111,12; or, p. 4a. 158 Tillotson, Tenison, Wake, Potter, Herring, Hutton, Seeker, Cornwallis, Moore, and Sutton. And with the exception of those few among them from whom we can quote nothing, simply because they have left nothing, or next to nothing, in print, we have from all these prelates a distinct testimony against the errors and idolatry of the Church of Rome. ARCHBISHOP PARKER. In the Visitation Articles of this prelate already quoted,* we have sufficient testimony of his sense of the errors and idolatry of the Church of Rome. But it is easy to add further evidence. Thus in the " Examination of Faithful Commin," a concealed Romanist, conducted by the archbishop before the queen, in 15G7, the archbishop asks him, " But is this spirit that is in you, either the spirit of grace or truth, that doth not comply with the orders of the church, lately purged and cleansed from schism and IDOLATRY ? " t And in his Address to Convocation in 1571, he expressly identifies the Church of Rome with Antichrist, speaking of its errors in such terms as, among others, the following, — " This subject supplies me with abundant materials (if I wished to dwell longer upon it) to set before your eyes, by what arts Antichrist cunningly deceived us, and led us captive in clouds and darkness that might be felt into his dark dungeons. And this ought to be to us, above all things, a cause of infinite joy and peculiar thanksgiving to God, that that more than Cym- merian darkness has been dispersed, and the ineffable splendour of his truth has at length shone upon us. Moreover, we ought to gird ourselves and apply our whole strength and resources to the task both of resisting firmly the dark powers of the world and the devil, and defending and maintaining the truth of the divine * See pp. 45, 48, and 79, above. + Foxes and Firebrands, 2nd edit. Pt. 1 , p. 19. 159 word so often assailed by our imprincipled and wicked adver- saries." * ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL. From Archbisliop Grindal, also, we have already quoted several passages,t occumng in his Visitation Articles, showing his sense of the opposition of the doctrine of the Church of England to that of the Church of Rome. He also, like Archbishop Parker, distinctly charges the Church of Rome with the practice of idolatry. Thus, in his Injunctions for the Province of York in 1571 , he directs that vaiious things used in the Popish services, as, holy- water-stocks, images, &c., " and all other reUcs and monu- ments of superstition and idolatry be utterly defaced, broken, and destroyed ;" % an order which is repeated in his Metro- political Visitation Ai-ticles for the Province of Canterbury in 157G.§ And in his " Fruitful Dialogue between Custom and Verity," (written, says Strype, " soon after his coming back into Eng- land, for the better service of the Church, that was then to be purged of Popish doctrines and superstitions," ||) he says, — " I remember that the Romish bishop was wont to have the Bible for his footstool, and so to tread down God's word ever- more, when he stood at his mass. But, thanks be to God, he is now detected, and his abominations be opened and blown throughout all the world." 1[ And at the close of this treatise, • " Hoc argumcntum copiosam mihi materiam suppeditat (si in co longior esse vellcm) vol)is ante oculos proponere, quibuB nos antichristus pra;stigiis callide delusit, tcncbrisfiue ac caligine palpabili in atros buo8 carceres duxit captives. Qufe gaudii infiniti, ct sunimas Deo gratias agcndi, maxima nobis causa esse debet, quod profligatis illis plusquam c^-mmcriis tenebris, incflabilis vcritatis suae splendor nobis tandem illuxit. Praeterea accingere nos, totisque viribus ac apparatu insistere debemus, ut ct caliginosis mundi ac diaboli potentiis fortitcr resistamus, et divini verbi veritatem, ab improbisac scelcratis nostiis adversariis totics oppu?natani, tue.imur atquu tcncamus." — Wilk. Concil. iv. 271. t See p. 80, above. % Inj. 7. Sec bis Works, P.S. ed. p. l.'JG. § Art. fi. lb. p. 1.5.0. II Strype's Life of Grindal, p. A^A, (.3l:< m.) f Grindai's Works, p. .'i9. IGO speakino- of the doctrine of transubstantiation and the conse- quent adoration of the elements, he says, — " Since which time [that is, the year 1050] even until this day, although idolatry had great increase, yet there never wanted some good men, which boldly would profess and set forth the truth ; although they were well assured that their worldly reward should be spite, maUce, imprisoning, swordj fire, and all kinds of tor- ments." * ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT. "I do as much dislike that distinction of the Papists [i. e. that tlieij worship God by their images, and the Jews and heathen worshipped only their imayes], and the intent of it, as any man doth, neither do I go about to excuse them fii'om wicked, and (without repentance and God's singular mercy) damnable idolatry : but yet do I say, the idolatry both of the Jews and of the Gentiles (for the causes by me alleged) to be much greater. For there are three kinds of idolatry. One is, when the true God is worshipped by other means and ways, than he hath prescribed, or would be worshipped. The other is, when the true God is worshipped, together with false Gods. 2 Reyiini. 17. The third is, when we worship false Gods either in heart and mind, or in external creatures, living or dead, and altogether forget the worship of the true God. All these three kinds are detestable, but the first is the least, and the last is the worst : in the which kind the IsraeUtes sundry times ofi"ended, as is manifest in the places before mentioned. The Papists worship God otherwise than his will is, and other- wise than he hath prescribed, almost in all points of their worship : they also give to the creature that which is due to the Creator, and sin against the first table : yet are they not, for oudit that I can see, or learn, in the third kind of idolatry; and theref(n-e if they repent unfeiynedly, they are not to be cast either out of the Church, or out of the ministry. The Papists have little cause to thank me, or to fee me, for » lb. p. 74. 161 nnything tlmt I have spokeu in tlieiv behalf as yet: you see that I place them among wicked and damnable idolaters. My defence is of those that have been Papists, and he not, and for no other.'' * ARCHBISHOP BANCROFT. In his famous sermon at Paul's Cross, Feb. 9, 1588, on 1 John iv. 1, this able champion of the rights and discipline of the Church, and opponent of the Puritans, thus speaks of the Romanists : — " The Popisli false prophets will suffer the people to try no- thing, but to [? do] teach them wholly to depend upon them, and to that purpose they have indeed three notable slights. " First they forbid them the reading of the Scriptures ; and the better to be obeyed therein, they will not permit the Scrip- tures to be translated into their vulgar tongue; whereof it came to pass that the people were so easily seduced and drawn from Christ to the Pope ; from his merits to the saints and their own merits ; from his bloody sacrifice, whereby only sins are remitted, to their most dry and fruitless sacrifice ; from the spiritual food of his Body and Blood, unto a carnal and Ca- pemaitical Transubstantiation ; from the calling upon his name, to the Invocation of saints ; and from their sure trust and con- fidence in his death, to a vain imagination of the virtue of their Masses, Pilgrimages, and Pardons, and I know not to what intolerable mipersfition and idolatry. " Against this their falsehood, and very lewd dealing, all those places of Scripture may be alleged, wherein we are com- manded to search the Scriptures, ' to prove all things, and to hold that which is good ;' and likewise in this place, to try and ' cxamiTH' the spirits, whether thoy be of God.' " The second shift which these false prophets of the Romish Church do use, is this; Now that they perceived the Scriptures to be translated into the language almost of every nation, and * Dcltncc of llie Aii'^wcr In tlii' Admonition. (1.')7 I. M.) Tiiict ."<, p. I.")'.'. M 162 that the Books are now so common in every man's hands, as that with their former device they are no longer able to cover their nakedness ; they labour with all their might to bind us to the Fathers, to the Councils, and to the Church of Eome, protesting very deeply, that we must admit of no other sense of any place of the Scriptures, than the Eomish Church shall be pleased to deliver unto us. . . . " To repel the grossness of this absurd opinion, all that is very eflFectual, which is brought to prove that the Church is inferior to the Scriptures. Besides, we say, that the Fathers do in many points dissent amongst themselves ; and their general Councils have been oftentimes repugnant one to another. But yet we join with them upon a nearer issue. Where the Fathers do all agree together, we do not dislike them, and for the first four general Councils, we allow and ap- prove them; and hereof it cometh to pass, that we do the rather condemn many points of Popery, in that they have of latter days broached and taught us sundry very strange and dangerous opinions ; which as they are not to be found in the Scriptures, so are they repugnant as well to the Fathers, as to all the aforesaid general Councils. " Wliereupon ariseth their third shift. " They will not stick to confess, that they teach many things now, which are not to be proved either by the words of Scrip- ture, Fathers, or Councils. Marry, say they, if the Apostles and Fathers had lived in our times, they would have taught and decreed as we have done. " To repel these blasphemous assertions, all those authorities of Scripture are very material, wherein God is shewed to be immutable, and his word an everlasting word, and a word of truth. Likewise those sentences of the Fathers, wherein they appeal, as occasion serveth, to the Scriptures, accounting them as the very Touchstone and Rule of all truth. Which could not be true, if (as the Papists say) they were like a nose of wax, or a sword of lead, that might be turned as a man lists ; or like to the Cameleon, that changeth his colours according 163 to his seat ; or as though the Scriptures were to yield to the fantasies of men ; that as they changed their minds, being by nature mutable, so the Scriptures should change the sense and meaning of God, who is not subject to any alteration or change. It were but a deceitful Touchstone that would apply itself unto the goldsmith's pleasure ; and he that should trust it, were not unlike oft-times for pure gold to be deceived with copper. The Lord open their eyes, that they may see the grossness of this their great sin : or otherwise I can say no- thing farther of them, but that if needs they -will be filthy, let them be filthy still." * And in his "Dangerous Positions and Proceedings," first published in 1593, he speaks of those who for the profession of the " right religion," " are mightily afflicted by certain giants of the eaith, the soldiers and members of that Anticlirist of Rom€."\ ARCHBISHOP .\BBOT. When King James I. consulted Archbishop Abbot in 1623, on the subject of a toleration of the Popish religion, proposed by the Court of Spain as a condition of the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta, the Archbishop in his reply warns him against setting up " the most damnable and here- tical doctrine of the Church of Eome," and reminds him, — " How hateful it will be to God, and grievous to your good subjects, the professors of the Gospel, that your Majesty, who hath often disputed, and learnedly written, against those heresies, should now shew yourself a patron of those wicked doctrines, which your pen hath told the world, and your conscience tells yourself, are fnqjemtitious, idolatrous, and de- U'stable.'* % • Sec Bibliotlicca Scriptorum Eccles. Anglic. Lontl. 1709, 8vo. (generally but not correctly said to be edited by Dr. G. Hickcs,) pp. 268 — 71 • •f Dangerous Positions and Proceedings, p ') X Rushworth's Collections, vol. i. p. 8j. Life of Ablwt, (Guildf. 1777, 8vo.) p. 35. M 2 164 ARCHBISHOP LAUD. " The Church of Rome," says Archbishop Laud in his answer to Fisher, "hath solemnly decreed her errors; and erring, hath yet decreed withal that she cannot err. . And therefore in this present case there is peril, yreat ^>en7 of damnahle both schism and heresy, and other sin, hy liviiif/ and dying in the Roman faith, tainted with so many suj)erstitions as at this day it is, and their tyranny to hoot I do, indeed, for my part, (leaving other men free to their own judgment,) acknowledge 0, possibility of salvation in the Roman Church ; hut so, as that which I grant to Romanists, is not as they are Romanists, hut as they are Christians ; that is, as they believe the Creed, and hold the foundation, Christ himself, not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross superstitions of the Romish Church." * " All Protestants unanimously agree in this, ' that THERE IS great PERIL OF DAMNATION FOR ANY MAN TO LIVE AND D[E IN THE ROMAN PERSUASION ;' AND YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO PRODUCE ANY ONE PROTESTANT THAT EVER SAID THE CONTRARY. Aud tlierefore that is a most notorious slander, where you say, that they which affirm tliis peril of damnation are contradicted by their o^ui more learned brethren." f " A Church may hold the fundamental point literally, and, as long as it stays there, be without control ; and yet err GROSSLY^ DANGEROUSLY, NAY DAMNABLY, IN THE EXPOSITION OF IT. And THIS is the Church of Rome's case. For most true it is, it hath in all ages maintained the faith un- changed in the expression of the Articles themselves ; but it hath, in the exposition both of Creeds and Councils, quite changed and lost the sense and the meaning of some of them. So the faith is in many things changed, both for life and behef, and yet seems the same. "J * Relation of the Cor.ference between Lrind and Fisher, with an answer to tlie exceptions of A. C. (first published, Lond. 1639, fol.) § 35. Oxf. ed. 183.0, 8vo. pp. 250, 251. t lb. § 35, p. 254. X lb- § 37, p. 269. 165 And Bishop Stillingfleet, in the Preface to his '= Discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome," tells us, that in the Archbishop's marginal notes upon Bellarmine, written with his own hand, and then in Bishop Stillingfleet's possession, " where BeUarmine (De Sanct. beat. 1. i. c. 20.) answers the testimony of the Council of Laodicea against the worsliip of angels, by saying, ' That it doth not condemn all worship of angels, but only that wdiich is proper to God ;' he [the archbishop] replies, ' That Theodoret, who produced that testimony of the Council, expressly mentions the praying to angels; therefore,' saith he, ' the praying to them was that idolatnj which the Council condemns.' " * The next occupant of the See of Canterbury was William JuxoN, who has left nothing but a sermon on the death of King Charles, and Considerations on the Act for Uniformity. He was succeeded by Gilbert SiikldOxN, of whom, (except some Letters and Orders given by Wilkins,) one sermon only remains, namely a thanksgiving sermon on the Restoration. These small pieces have not fallen into my hands, but are hardly likely to contain anything on our present subject. ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT. In his " Ariides recommended to all the bishops within his Metropolitan Jurisdiction," in 1 088, the eleventh Articleisas fol- lows, — " T'hat they [i. e. the clergy] also walk in wisdom towards those who are not of our communion .... that they take all opportunities of assuring and convincing them, that the hinhopn (if this church are really and sinccreli/ irreconcilealde enemies to the errors, superstitions, IDOLATRIES, and tijrannies of the ('hurch. of Rome, and that the very unkind jealousies, which somr June had of us to the contrary, were altoyether yroundless. Atid in the last place, that they warmly and most afFecfionately exhort them to join with us in daily fervent prayer to the God (jf peace, lor an universal blessed union of all reformed * Bishop Stillingfleet's Discourse concorniiiK the iilc.l;itiy i>nu-ti8cil in the Church of Rome, and the hnziird of Bulvalicm in llic i aniniiiiiidii of it ; Preface. Third ed. Ifi7'2. pag. penult. 166 churches, both at home and ahroad, against our common etiemies ; and that all they, who do confess the holy name of our dear Lord, and do agree in the truth of his holy word, may also meet in one holy communion, and live in perfect unity and godly love."* The same language he uses in his sermon preached before the House of Lords in 1678, on the discovery of the Popish Plot ; where, speaking of the contrivances of the Papists to throw things into confusion, that they might " rear up a new world of their own," he adds, " But what a world ! a world made up of a new heaven of stiperstitions and idolatries,"^ &c. Such is the language even of the leader of the Nonjurors. ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. In his sermon entitled, " The hazard of being saved in'^the Church of Rome," this prelate remarks, — " I. First, We will consider some doctrines and practices which the church of Rome hath built upon the foundation of Christianity, to the great hazard and danger of men's salvation. It is not denied by the most judicious Protestants, but that the Church of Rome do hold all the Articles of the Christian faith which are necessary to salvation. But that which we charge upon them, as a just ground of our separation from them, is the imposing of new doctrines and practices upon Christians as necessary to salvation, which were never taught by our Saviour, or his apostles ; and which are either directly contrary to the doc- trine of Christianity, or too apparently destructive of a good life. And I begin, " 1. With their doctrines. And because I have no mind to aggravate lesser matters, 1 will single out four or five points of doctrine And the first which I shall mention, and which being once admitted, makes way for as many errors as they please to bring in, is their doctrine of infallibility . . . * Wilk. Conci!. iv. 61.0. t Santroft's Sermons, 17. fol. pj'. 91— o;s/!//? and idolatry, or idol-worship, if any such be pretended from the difference between imago and idolum, it will not be worth our pains to examine it, because the worshipping of anything, which is not God, be it image or idol. Christian or heathen simili- tude, or anything else, will fall under the guilt which now we speak of [i. e. idolatry]." f " Once more, to worship the bread in the Sacrament, must (wheresoever it is to be met with) cer- * Of superstition. Sect. 3. Works, vol. i. p. 242. ed. 1684. t Of idolatry. Sect. 5G, il. lb. ] p. 2(i2, 3. Ib3 tainly be idolatry too, iu the literal notion of the word, i. e. the worshipping that which is not God. And for those that do tins on any the subtilest ground, that by any error or mistake (be it never so piously taken up) do actually worship this bread, that first conceive it to be turned into the very body of Clu-ist, and the elements after consecration to be no longer bread and wine, but very Christ incarnate, and thereupon do worship it : these I say, in case they be mistaken, and those elements be not so turned and transubstantiated into Christ, though they are not guilty of the sin of idolatry in all the aggravations that belonged to it among the heathen, yet can I not free them from the charge of worshipping an idol, i, e. somewhat which is not God, viz. a piece of consecrated hread, &c. He that conceives this too sudden or severe a censure, may know that the Papist doctors are very ready to make confession of it themselves. If the elements he not so changed, saith Costerus of Transubstantiation, we Papists are the meanest, vilest kind of idolaters in the world, worse (as I remember he adds) than the Laplanders that ivorshijoped a red cloth." * See also his Treatises against the Eomanists in the 2nd vol. of his Works. BISHOP MORLEY. After noticing the various unauthorised doctrines of the Ro- mish Church, as, Invocation of angels and saints. Adoration of images, Purgatory, Indulgences, &c. &c., he adds, — " Where- unto might be added the doctrine of Transubstantiation, with all the absurd and blasphemous consequences of it, especially the idolatrous adoration of the consecrated elements of bread and wine." f And in his Letter to Janus Ulitius on the In- vocation of saints, he repeatedly lays it down that such a prac tice is idolatrous, % and contumelious towards God or Christ, or both ;§ and tliat the distinction which the Kouumists draw • lb. Sect. C4, 65. p. 2G3. t Bishop of WititonN Letter in answer to the Itoman priest, p. 34. In liis "• Several Treatises." Lond. l(j«3. 4lo. + Ad Januni Uliliuni Kpist. (lua ; pp. 20,25, '26, 28, 3.{. lb. 184 between the Invocations they address to God, and those which they address to the saints, is frivolous and worthless (imo nul- lara) ;* and that the work of intercession so belongs to Christ, that it cannot be given to any creature " without the highest sacrilege and most manifest idolatry." f And in his " Letter to the Duchess of York," he thus speaks on the whole subject; — *' Although we have so much charity for some that live and die in the belief and practice of some erroneous doctrines, and of some superstitious usances of the Church of Kome ; sup- posing they do both the one and the other out of invincible ignorance, and supposing too, that they would have continued in neither, if they had known or suspected them to be either erroneous or superstilious, and consequently, that they had a preparation of mind to believe and practise the contrary truths, if they had been made known unto them, or rather, if they had not by their false teachers been concealed from them ; and lastly, supposing likewise that as they do actually and particu- larly repent of all their known sins, so they do habitually, or in the general, truly and lieartily repent before they die of all their unknown sins also ; or of all such sins of theirs which God knows to be sins, though they do not; and consequently of all such errors and sujierstitions as they have ignorantly and unwittingly and unwillingly lived in : although (I say) we have so much charity for some that have been born and lived and died in the communion of the Church of Rome as not to deny, iijwn the aforesaid suppositions, they may be saved ; not BECAUSE but NOTWITHSTANDING they lived and died in that Church, which is no more than the charity which upon the same supposition they have for us, or for those that hve and die in our Church : ]/et tve have not, nor cannot have, the same hope for those that having been horn and bred in our Church, and sufficiently instructed in the doctrine of it, do afterwards become apostates from it, and jiroselytes to the Church of Home, by renounciny those truths they were taught in the one, and pirofessing those falsities they are made to believe in the * II). p. 21. t lb. p. 25 185 other : for whom (as I said) we have no such hope, no?- indeed any hope at all, unless they do actually and particularly repent of this, as well as of all other their known sins, and withal do testify the truth of that repentance, hy returning again unto us, and hy asking God and the Church forgiveness for the sin against the one, and for their scandal against the other, hy their going away from us, if at least they have time and oppor- tunity to do it. Now this (according to our opinion) heing the difference betwixt those that after the knowledge and pro- fession of the truth, go out from us, and those that would (if they had known the truth) have come over to us, it is manifest, that the charity we have for the one, though they live and die in the Church of Kome, can he no motive or encouragement for those of the other sort to go and live and die there ; no more than it can be any warrant for a sound man to go out of an healthy air and to put himself in Ripest-house, because there is a possibility that some one or a few may not die of the plague there." * BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR. This eminent prelate, in his last work, " A Dissuasive from Popery," observes, — " Their worshipping of images we have already reproved upon the account of its novelty and innova- tion in Christian rehgion. But that it is against good life, a direct breach of the second Commandment, an act oi idolatry, as much as the heathens themselves tvere guilty of, in relation to the second Commandment, is but too evident by the doc- trines of their own leaders. For if to give divine honour to a creature be idolatry, then the doctors of the Church of Rome teach their people to commit idolatry Neither can this be eluded by saying, that though the same worship bo given to tlie image of Christ, as to Christ himself, yet it is not • Letter written hy the BiBhop of Winchester to Her Highness tlic Duchess i)f York, some few months heforo her dcatli ; pp. 15 — 17. In " Several Trca- lises," &c. 18G done ill the sume way ; for it is tenninativdy to Christ or God, but relatively to the image, that is, to the image for God''s or Christ's sake. For this is that we complain of . . . . it is of itself evident, that whoever. Christian or heathen, worships the image of anything, cannot possibly worship that image termi- natively, for the very being of an image is relative ; and therefore if the man understands but common sense, he must suppose and intend that worship to be relative, and a heathen could not worship an image with any other worship ; and the second Commandment, forbidding to worship the likeness of anything in heaven and earth, does only forbid that tiling which is in heaven to be worshipped by an image, that is, it forbids only a relative worship .... And therefore these doc- tors teach the same thing which they condemn in the heathen. Either therefore the heathens were not idolaters in the worshipping of an image, or else these men are. The heathens did indeed infinitely more violate the first Command- ment ; but against the second, precisely and separately from the first, the transgression is alike. The same also is the case in their worshipping the consecrated Bread and Wine. Of which how far they will be excused before God by their ignorant pretensions and suppositions, we know not ; but they hope to save themselves harmless by saying, that they believe the Bread to be their Saviour, and that if they did not believe so, they would not do so. We believe that they say true ; but we are afraid that this will no more excuse them, than it will excuse those who worship the Sun and Moon, and the Queen of heaven, whom they would ?iot worship, if they did not be- lieve {thenil to have Divinity in thetn." * " The religion of a Christian consists in faith and hope, repentance and charity. Divine worship and celebration of the Sacraments, and finally in keeping the Commandments of God. Now in all these, both in doctrines and practices, the Church of Kome does dangerously err, and teaches men so to do.''t * Dissuasive from Popery. Pt, 1. ch. 2. sect. 12, ed. Lond. 1686. 8vo. pp. 196—200. t lb. Sect. 13. pp. 202, 3. la: BIbHOP PATRICK. The works of this able and excellent prelate against the doctrinos of the Church of Eome are so well known, that it seems needless to do more than refer to them. And in his " Answer to the Touchstone of the Refonned Gospel," * he ex- pressly maintains,t that the ruling power at that time in the Roman Church was Antichrist; which, he says, is "the com- mon opinion of all Protestants ;"| and that Eome Christian, as then existing, was pointed out in the Prophecies of Scrip- ture, as " a people apostatized from true rehgion to idola- try ;" § and quotes with approbation Dr. Jackson's remark, " That he who will not acknowledge the Papacy to be the kingdom of Antichrist, hath great reason to suspect his heart, that if he had lived with our Saviour, he would scarce have taken him for his Messias." (On the Creed, bk. 3, eh. BISHOP STILLINGFLEET. From the writings of this learaed prelate volumes might be quoted on our present subject. It is only necessary, however, here to refer to his Treatise, entitled, " A Discourse concern- ing the Idolatiy practised in the Church of Home, and the hazard of salvation in the communion of it," &c. ;1I with the Defences of it afterwards published.** The great object of this Treatise is, to shew that the Church of Eome is guilty of idolatry in the worship of images, the invocation of saints, and the adoration of the host. " Uiwn the very name principleH^^ he says, " that a Pajnut worships imuyes, saints, and the host, he may as laufully uorshij) the earth, the stars, or • An Answer to a Book spread aljroad by the Romish Priests, iiitituled. The 'I'ouchstone of the Reformed Gospel. Lond. l(;i*2. 12mo. t l'-«8. + P. 8(>. § P. 88. II Pp. 94,3. H Third ed. Lond. 1672. 8vo. ** An AiiMwer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entitled, A Discourse, &c. First Part. Second ed. Lond. 1G74. 8vo. Alto, Defence of the Discourse, ike. Lond. 1676. 8vo. Also, Several Conferences between a Romish Piiest, a fanatic Cliai>lain, and a Divine of tin Church of England, concerning the idolatry of the Church of Rome. Lond. 167J). Jivo. 188 me?i ; and he no more guilty of idolatry in one, than in the other of them." * And in the Prefaces to this " Discourse " and the " Answer to several treatises " in defence of it, he proves at large, that this is the doctrine of the Church of Enyland. ARCHDEACON DAUBENY. That I may continue this chain of evidence to the present time, I will close the list with Archdeacon Daubeny. In liis " Protestant's Companion," we find the following remarks. " Should there be any doubt with respect to the real sentiments of our Reformers, relative to those corruptions, against which the Article in question [the xxiid] was designed to guard, the Homilies, which were intended as enlarged comments upon the Articles, on those parts of them particularly, which are directed expressly against the gross corruptions of the Romish Church, are calculated to do it away. Of these, however, Mr. B. cannot speak with any tolerable patience. . . . What wo look for in our Homilies is truth and sound doctrine. And the reason why our Homilies give so much offence to Mr. B. is, because they speak too much truth, and in a plain way. . . . The Homily here more immediately referred to, gives, in some detail, the disgraceful history of the rise and progress of idolatry in the Christian Church. It cannot, therefore, be a matter of surprise, that a priest oi an idolatrous Church, regarding such a history as a sort of scandalum mag- natum, or an unpardonable offence against the assumed ma- jesty of the Popedom, should cry aloud. Mr. B., from the reo'urd which he would be thought occasionally to feel, for the characters of the present clergy of the Established Church, ' is very sure that the generality of them are much too liberal, as well as too delicate minded, to admit the doctrines or utter the lano-uaire of our Homilies.' Should this be intended as a com- pliuient to the clergy of the Church of England, it is, I ap- prehend, one by which they will not feel themselves to be much * Discourse, \t. i\ 113. 189 flattered. For I trust the time will never come, when the clergy of the Church of England will cease to ' endure sound doctrine/ although it may not be clothed in the polished dress of the 19th century. . . . Now ha^dng travelled through the whole extent of the Popish countries from the northern to the southern extremity .... the language of our Re- formers does not, to me, appear to be one bit too strong for the subject to which it is apphed : on the contrary, that they were fully justified in contrasting the tawdry frippery of a?i idolatrous Church so ostentatiously displayed on all occasions, with the 'sincere simplicity of the true Church of God, as a chaste matron, espoused, as the Scripture teacheth, to one husband, our Saviour Jesus Christ.' " * " My attention is pro- fessedly directed to the Chui'ch of Rome, as a corrupt branch of the Universal Church of Christ ; whilst the position which I undertake to establish is, that the Church of Rome is, at this time, an idolatrous and grossly corrupted Church. And that my reader may be competent to judge, how far I make good my point, I shall set out with giving a definition of what is to be understood by idolatry, in the words of Archbishop Wake. ' That to give any appropriate acts of divine worship to any creature, whatever sense men have of the thing to which they give them, or their intention be in so doing, is neverthe- less esteemed by God to be idolatry.' ... 7 say openly, boldly, and honestly, without any qualification whatever, that if the crime of idolatry ever has been committed in the world, it is at this time committed by the Church of Rome." The image worship in the Church of Rome, he says, " is in one most important respect precisely similar to that which was practised in the times of heathenism ; since the heathens defended their idolatry by the same pretence which is used by the Papist of the present day, namely, that the worship was relative."-^ The reader who is at all acquainted with our ecclesiastical * The Protestant's Comip.inion, or, a sctisoiinble preservative against tlie errors, corruptions, and unfounded claims of a superstitious and idolatrous Church, Lond. 1»2». 8vo. pp. 118—21. t lb. p. 132, 3. 190 history, will at once see, that the divines from whom tliese ex- tracts are given, are exclusively such as cannot be excepted against by any party as likely to take (what is called) an ultra- protestant view of the subject. And I need hardly add, that such extracts give, in themselves, but a very inadequate idea of the force of the evidence that exists upon the subject, even in the writings of those from whom the quotations are made ; and that the only difficulty in forming such a Catena is, to compress it within any reasonable limits.* When we review, then, the witness thus borne by our Church and her divines for three centuries, against the errors, superstitions, and idolatries of the Church of Rome, how painful the thought that those very errors, superstitions, and idolatries are again finding advocates among us, even among those who, on the faith of subscription to our standards of doctrine and worship, minister in our Church ! There is a remark of Mr. Oakeley himself, to which I may, I trust, without off'ence, call attention, as one which deserves the serious consideration, not merely of some among us, but of all of us ; for the circum- stances of the present times are such as to bring responsibility in this matter, more or less, upon all. " If," he says, " by ' Popery ' be meant some form of superstition and idolatry, then not they only who seek to advance, but they also who do not activehj resist, the present movement, (being supposed consci- entious men,) must be understood to intimate, by the very fact of such advocacy, or acquiescence, their belief that it tends to no such result, except in the way of perversion or abuse." (pp 57, 8.) To what " result," however, " the present move- ment" leads, is now no longer a matter of doubt. I cannot conclude without remarking, how strikingly, (as it appears to me,) even in the present unhappy controversy, is seen the value of our standards of doctrine and worship. True, they have been made to speak any language which the Tracta- » There is an excellent work by Bishop Bull, entitled, •' The corruptions of the Church of Rome, &c. in answer to the Bishop of Meaux's queries;" lately reprinted with additional notes by the Cinistian Knowledge Society, in a Tract for general distribution. 191 rians might desire ; and hence those who oppose subscription to such tests, have availed themselves of the fact, (as the Ro- man Cathohcs do of the various misinterpretations given to the Holy Scriptures,) as proving that such documents are like a leaden sword or a nose of wax, which can he turned in any direction. But the very attempt to turn them out of the direc- tion which the common sense of mankind sees that they were intended to have, involving, as it necessarily must, the prac- tice of evasion, equivocation, and misrepresentation, to a fear- ful extent, disgusts men of honest and ingenuous minds, and consequently renders its authors, with all such persons, power- less. Views so recommended carry, in the case of many, their own antidote with them. Their misintei"pretations may be very ingenious, and very plausible ; but, after all, the stubborn statements against which they are directed remain unscathed, in all the majesty of truth ; bearing their quiet but decisive witness against all who have misrepresented them. The more the matter is inquired into', the more will the public mind per- ceive the disingenuousuess and Jesuitism that have character- ized the Tractarian movement. There is great hope, humanly speaking, in this fact. An honest straightforward attempt to recommend to public favour the doctrines of the Church of Rome, however unpromising it might have been at first, (and we trust little likely to be under any circumstances successful,) would still have been more likely to produce a permanent effect, than an endeavour to make the standards of our Pro- testant Church speak the language of Romanism. To sub- scribe Protestant Articles of faith, and take office and emolu- ment in a Church on the faith of that subscription, while holding Roman doctrine; and justify it on the ground, that the words of those Articles can be twisted and tortured so as not to condemn the doctrine which common sense tells mankind they were intended to condemn ; is an act subversive even of the bonds by which society is held together. And men cannot but feel, that they who arc sapping the very foundations of morality, arc not likely to be the best teachers of religion. 6 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES '"'TJFORNIA LIBRARY geles :^."«» damped below. AA 000 702 530 ^:/mr *»'« ^%, 3X Goo de » 5099 Tract XC. G61t historically refuted -.r^h 1 BK 5099 G61t ^/ J^mkr '^».r