^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) Y s U., ^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 '^IIIIIM IIIIM SlIIIIU i^ 2.0 1.4 1.6 (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol y (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Les imagob ^uivantes ont 6X6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, co Tipte tenu de la condition et de la nettet^ de :'exemplaire filmd, et en conformity av^^c i. 5V /5. ROMAN Oa Methods of Controversy As exemplified by the " Catholic Truth Society. A Lecture delivered in St. John's Hall, May 15th, 1893, .by William Jeffryes Muckleston, iVI.A., Curate of Christ Church, Ottawa. Ottawa : Printed by Paynter & Abbott, 48 Rideau Street, . 1893. . .< > ■t "■'fV' '■•J- ^y :' ''Vf ; . K^5 PREFATORY NOTE. This lecture is published by request of many members of the Church of England. It does not profess to be ooginal, but only to have put in a convenient shape many dif. ferent illustrations of its one issue, the unlrustworthiness of Roman controversialists. Thus is accounted for the " discursiveness " which has been charged against it. The author disclaims on the part of the Church of to-day, any responsibility for the unfor- tunate roughness used in the necessary "'washing of the Church of England's face." Owing to the vaunted discrediting of Dr. Littledale's most valuable book, he has made less use of it than he would otherwise have done. Taunted on his quoting as evidence for an historical fact a statement of a learned Presbyterian, he has failed to see the force of the objection. C-:. ', ?UA^ ^ , 4 > ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY As Exemplified by the Catholic Truth ^ ' . Society, ; - •1 . . BY W. J. MUCKLESTON. " Of all the duties which conscience may lay upon a minister of the Gospel of Peace there is none from which he is more inclined to shrink than controversy. Those from whom he differs have a right to their own opinion. He is. not likely to change their view. He may be conscious that his own weakness either in knowledge or in argument may do harm to the cause of truth. He may know that the effect of controversy has often been bitterness, and he may be strongly inclined to refuse a challenge ; to allow it to be thought and probably said that for the side which he ought to advocate there is nothing to say ; and by such refusal to speak at the right time to allow possibly weaker and certainly less instructed brothers and sisters in the same Church to have their confidence shaken in her mission, her divine call and the truth of her testimony. Such a challenge has been given most defiantly to the Church of England in this city by a society formed in the interests of the Church of Rome and self-styled by the proud but altogether misleading title of " Catholic Truth." Her right to her own name, the continuity of her history, her orthodoxy in teaching the truth as it is in Jesus, the faith once delivered to the saints, everything in fact that we Church- 2 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. men hold dear as our own lives is turned into ridicule, or called into serious tiucstion, in tracts written to catch the popular eye^ exposed for sale in a leading book-store, circulated by ardent young ladies and endorsed by the names of men of standing in the state. * If Churchmen have nothing to say, or if they are afraid to say what is to be said, surely a victory cheaply won by our default is the reward of the exertions of the " Catholic Truth Society," but if we have a word to say in reply, he who comes forward to say it can hardly, under the circumstances, be thought guilty of any breach of charity, if he denies false assertions and false argument directed against the character and the claims of his honoured and loved mother, the Church of England. Such then is my motive in seeking a hearing at this time. The ""Catholic Truth Society " seems to have two objects in the circulation of its tracts : to assist Romanists in obtaining readily devotional works and instruction about their devotions ; and to attack the Church of England. In the first of these the Society is no doubt justified, accord- ing to the conscientious views of its members and of those who may thus be religiously aided. With the consciences of those, who have been taught to mix up what we deem the peculiarities of Romanism with the truths of Christianity, we are not concerned, nor are we called upon to doubt that the grace sought is obtained by those who pray for it, nor yet to deny the wonderful effect of Christianity shown in the good lives and good works of those who in so many respects differ from us. But with the second of the apparent objects of this associa- tion we are very greatly concerned. Against other societies commonly called Protestant these tracts do not seem to bear any testimony, but against the Catholic Church of England, they are unceasing in their attacks. I have not of course felt '» ROMAN METHODS OF CONTKOVKRSV. a ir called into •opular eye 1 by ardent standing in 'e afraid to ran by our lolic Truth who comes be thought ^rtions and e claims of nd. . t this time. wo objects I obtaining devotions ; ed, accord- those who ight to mix the truths id upon to lo pray for r shown in ny respects lis associa- r societies m to bear England, :ourse felt bound to read all the series, but the fact (which other non- Roman Christians would do well to remark) is evident that the Church of England i 5 the great object of the dislike and the strong language of these writers, language which sometimes makes us rather wonder at the mild and honeyed accents of the President of the Society declaring that " there is notlling in them to offend." The Church of England claims to be historically and con- tinuously the Catholic Church, as settled in England before the mission of Augustine, not originally subject to the Pope and not losing her identity when, with other novelties unknown (like the Papal supremacy) to the Church of the Apostles and of the primitive centuries, that supremacy was cast off. Accordingly against our church has been and is being directed the main labours of Roman controversy in English- speaking lands ever since the Reformation. It matters nothing, as it seems, that all the charges of a broken succession and a lost continuity have been answered clearly and distinctly over and over again ; for these tracts are apparently intended for the misleading of those who are ignorant alike of history and of the true nature of logical argument. If, -n the minds of uninstructed churchmen, a seed of dis- trust can be sown ; if only doubt of the authority and of the truly apostolic character of the Church of their fathers can be instilled, it is hoped that the descent will be rapid, till he who first asks IVas Barlow a Bishop ? as one of these inoffensive tracts enquires, or was Archbishop Parker's consecration valid ? will be led to turn his back upon Scripture and upon reason ; to believe in the infallibility of the Pope ; to worship his fellow- creatures, called saints, with what seems, to us at least; idolatrous respect ; to bow down to images and the relics of dead men ; to accept half the great Sacrament of the Lord's love, being denied the whole ; to pay money to deliver his friends' souls out of an * ] 4 ROMAN METIICJDS 0\< CONTKOVERSV. imaginary Puri^atory and to declare (contrary to the evidence of his God-given senses) that biead and wine in the Holy Com- munion are bread and wine no longer. ' " To attempt to cover the whole ground of the Roman con- troversy in a single lecture would be a manifest absurdity. My main object at this time is to raise, in the minds of churchmen^ a wholesome distrust of the statements of these tracts. We do not hesitate to warn any who may be troubled, that the slippery ways of Roman controversialists have been proverbial ever since the controversy began, and have been exposed over and over again by the great champions of the Church of England. Nothing new is being urged against us and nothing which has not been clearly and fully answered times without number. In these tracts and in all similar writings great use is made of the Fathers of the Primitive Church to show that the supremacy of the Pope and other peculiarities rejected by us were held in early times. Thus a great appearance of learning is seen on their side, but it is only an appearance, and there is always the suspicion that the quotations are not genuine. The texts of many of these ancient writings have been shown to have been deliberately altered and added to. One writer says : ." As the genuine writings of .he Fathers bear constant testimony against the fapal doctrines and usages, a regular system of forgery has gone on in respect of them also : sometimes by the falsifications of whole works, at other times by inter- polations in the text of genuine works " The Fathers, thus manipulated, have furnished a vast magazine whence Rom.anists have drawn weapons of argument which would have astonished none so much as those who were supposed to have originally made them. And so they work according to their manner with clouds of talk and assertion, . , "By repeating" (as Dr. Langtry says) "the same misrepresentations and calumnies as though they had never been disproved," although " their perversion of ROMAN METJIODS OK CONTUOVKKSY. 5 -ISC is made facts and Fathers have l)een liroujjht home to them, their charges (lispr<)ve fi J* ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. :s of the \y to be th while le or his that St- St. Mark 65 years t a state- n formed. > so coir- irgument s favour. >t simply /• easy to s growth books for •le in the op Wcst- tioned as ^orth the and the r teaches le on the en, when ,d, if the -e us the :atement. that we shudder at such men being the trusted teachers of others. On the first preparation of this lecture I was unaware of certain matters which form -a wonderful comment on the title " Catholic Trut/t." This pamphlet which first moved my indignation was given in Ottawa in the form of lectures by Father Damen more than twenty years ago. The statement which I am about to expose was then clearly shown to be a pure fiction by Professor McLaren, of Toronto, at that time a Presbyterian Minister here, who published his exposure, and yet the Secretary of the Catholic Truth Society tells me that this proved falsehood has been con- stantly on sale here ever since. The argument is strong for Rome though it is a lie. They keep it on sale and still talk of " Catholic Truth" thus shown to be something different from ordinary or simple truth. The New Testament, as we have it now, is the same as is declared worthy of trust by St. Athanasius in the end of the fourth century. The general acceptance by the Christian Churches every- where by that time is our dependence, and the statement on p. 9, as to the settlement of the question by a council called by a Pope for the purpose, is absolutely unfounded. Listen to Father Damen : • " It was not till the fourth century that the Pope of Rome, the head of the Church, the successor of St. Peter assembled together the Bishops of the world in a council and there in that council it was decided that the Bible, as we Catholics have it now, is the Word of (iod." Listen to the facts. At the Council of Nice held in the year 325 there may have been discussion on the Canon of the New Testament (as we call the authoritative list of its books.) There is certainly no record of any decision come to in the matter in the decrees which have come down to us. r 10 ROMAJSf METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. I'here is an absurd legend, which confutes itself, that the MSS. of all books into whose authority it was desired to enquire were laid on a table together and that, after prayer, those which we now acknowledge were found on top of those which then and now are thought to be unworthy of acceptance. " The Bishops of the World," says Father Damen. There were only two General Councils (as is acknowledged by all) held in the fourth century ; this Council of Nice (to which I suppose Father Damen alludes), and the first Council of Constantinople held in the year 381, when no reference to the Canon of Scrip- ture seems to have Leen made. . ., ... At the Council of Nice then let us look, till we learn to estimate at its true value the trustworthiness of Father Damen even on his oath and of the " Catholic jyutJi Society." In the year 3 1 1 persecution by the Heathen Emperors had ceased and the Emperor Constantine, who was a Christian in sentiment, though not (till near his death) by Baptism, raised up the Catholic Church from its oppression to a commanding position in the world. , ; — Soon it became evident that certain quarrels must be settled or the work of the Church would be hindered, and notably the dispute between the Arians and the Catholics about the Divinity of our Lord. -v. ' ' > ' . ,; :i The greatest name among Christian Bishops seems to have been that of Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, in Spain, who is ever spoken of with the deepest respect. After he had been unsuc- cessfully employed, at Constantine's request, in seeking to mediate between the contending parties at Alexandria, where the strife raged most hotly, the Emperor by the advice, as it is believed, of Hosius, summoned the Council of Nice, so called from its place of meeting about 75 miles south east of Constan- tinople. It was almost entirely an Eastern Council. Of its 318 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. tl [Bishops (though there is some doubt whether that is the exact [number) only some ten, whose names are all known, came from the west, of whom Hosius represented Spain, Gaul and Britain. Under Constantfne, Hosius was apparently the President of the Council. Sylvester, the aged Bishop of Rome, was not )resent, but was ropresented by two priests. To call Sylvester "the Pope," as is done by careless writers on )ur side, is absurd. To Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, was 5uch a title commonly given, but as Dean Sl:anley says : "The 'ope of Rome was a phrase which had not yet emerged in listory." Pope is from Pappas, a familiar Greek word with very much its English meaning papa. It is now the title of all Greek and Lussian parish priests. It was the title of all Latin Bishops. But ill that the word now implies, the claim of supremacy, the claim )f infallibility, are of comparatively recent growth, supported by long chain of forgeries and mistakes and stealthy advances in lays of ignorance. Late in the 5th cei'rtury rose the legend, founded on no ;ontemporary evidence whatever, that Sylvester was concerned [n the calling of the council and that Hosius presided only as his lelegate. But when the decrees of the Council were passed and to be signed, Hosius signs first in his own name and with no mention )f the Bishop of Rome, and the delegates from Rome sign lext, as delegates and representatives of Sylvester. Two other legends about the same Syl "ester are taught to Lomanists as true, though they are both transparently false. It Is stated in a lesson read in the Breviary by every Roman priest )n the 31st day of December in each year, that Constantine, being leper, was healed by Sylvester by means of Baptism, admin- pstered in Rome, whereas it is a matter of history that Constan- itine was not baptized till he was on his deathbed in Nicomedia, ig tSf.=ri i gjBaMtfJea«'.vw 12 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. n III i a city in Asia, when the rite was administered by Eusebius, tlie local bishop. Next, but not, be it noted, till the middle of the 8th century (400 years after the Council of Nice) Sylvester was still further glorified, by the invention cf the fable of the Donation of Con- .stantine, whereby in gratitude for his cure (according to the former fable^) that Emperor bestowed upon the Pope the sove- reignty of Italy and the western Provinces. So the simple story of Nice and its Council is falsified by our Jesuit author, the canon of scripture being declared to have been settled there fwhich is unfounded* and the Council itself being falsely represented as called by the Pope for the purpose of such settlement. The frauds thus begun have been steadily continued. I do not profess to have either learning or leisure to read up ,| all the miserable story, but this is evident, that every author of repute has brought against Rome and her advocates charges of | bad faith, of forged documents, and of real documents fraudulently | altered to bring the ideas of later years into the writings of the men of an older date, who knew them not and would have scout- ed them as heresy, t . i^ 77 • ; "< r '.■ One writer says : /;•■ ■^iQ^.^lrv-::-/,:, -■-..■^'■i-.::^';;- '^y_- ■ "To such an extent has this been canried, (easy enough to accomplish in the days of manuscripts and lack of critical acumen) lliat it is impossible to trust any quotation from Latin fathers or Latin translations of Greek fathers without verifying them from carefully edited originals, because suspicion must attach to all, since from sad experience we know that very many paseages have been more or less corrupted in the interests of the Papacy or have been altered to suit altered doctrine." The same writer gives as a terrible example a short sentence from St. Ambrose (whom one of these tracts glorifies very highly) wherein that Doctor, stating his belief in the P^eal Presence of Christ veiled beneath the outward visible signs of bread and wine, which were preserved entire, is made by the 1 omission of two little words to declare his belief in the novel figment of Transubstantiation of which he could not even have dreamt, ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 13 8th century still further tion of Con- ding to the e the sove- simple story )r, the canon e fwhich is •resented as It. nued. e to read up | y author of charges of fraudulently | tings of the have scout- complish in the le to trust any ithout verifying all, since frcm 2SS corrupted in ort sentence orifies very | I the Real )le signs of ade by the j 1 the novel t even have As we have wandered somewhat from Father Damen and ^is interesting fiction about the Council of Nice, we may as well, rhile we are talking of fictioi., just mention one other most imarkable instance of successful fraud, most disastrous to truth, lost useful to Rome : '* In the middle of the ninth century came the greatest of all the forgeries, the kmous *' False Decretals " that is a collection of about a hundred fermal official Itlers and decrees of a number of early Popes and Councils on points of doctrine and |scipline, all intended to augment the Papal authority, which were fabricated in Western Gaul about 845, and were eagerly seized on by Pope Nicholas I, an ambitious id perfectly unscrupulous pontiff (858-867), to aid in revolutionizing the Church, as in fact largely succeeded in doing. Here are a few specimens of the sort of thing ith which they teem : ' Not even among the Apostles was there equality, but one set over all. ' ' The Head of the Church is the Roman Church. ' • The Church Rome, by a unique privilege, has the right of opening and shutting the gates of [eaven for whom she will."' (Dr. Littledale — " Plain Reasons.") Among these " Catholic Truth " tracts is one with the bold [tie " The False Decretals," which acknowledges the existence these spurious documents. Pointing out and recognizing plainly the evil and the guilt lat would have attached to the Church and the Popes " if the fope had invented these forgeries " or adopted them knowing or ispecting them to be forgeries, but using them to strengthen leir own power, he asserts as follows : " Happily the False Decretals have had no such influence on the legislation of lie Catholic Church. They have introduced no dogma, no law, no custom that did |ot exist before." ^ . Indeed ! But if any man were now charged with and con- tantly suspected of securing wrongful advantages for himself forged documents, it would go hard with him if more than loo such papers, calculated for such use, were found in his desk, Iven though he exclaimed ever so loudly that he had never got [ny real advantage by them. We mark that this writer also has S. J. after his name, and wanting better assurance than Bardolph, we ask the great French & 14 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. ecclesiastical historian Fleury, what effect had these Forged Decretals on the course of Church history, and we hear his answer : . ' "Of all these false documents,- the most pernicious were the Decretals attributed to the Popes of the first four centuries, which have inflicted an incurable wound on the discipline of the Church, by the new maxims which they introduced concerning the judfjments of the Bishops and the authority of the Popes." "No influence on legislation" says the Jesuit. * An incurable wound on the discipline of the Church," says the great Fleury. We look for a moment at two more testimonies. Another Jesuit, DeRenyon, is quoted on the other side : " Yes, the impostor has attained his end. He has changed, as he wished, tht discipline of the Church, but he has not arrested the general decay. God never blesses imposture. The False Decretals have never produced anything but mischief." Pere Gratry, whose story sadly reminds us of Galileo's, silenced also in Rome's own style, was an ardent French oppon- ent of the lying dogma of Infallibility, who showed up fraud and heresy in every direction, till on his death-bed he was (Rome fashion) silenced and brought to recant by the withholding of the last Sacraments. - :^ ^.vy jii/ > y;f Pere Gratry shows that in one standard work on the Papal claims, which he studied in his seminary course, out of twenty quotations, eighteen were taken from the False Decretals. We also remember the four letters written by Pere Gratry during the Vatican Council, page after page teeming with instan- ces of corruptions of the Fathers, and of the decrees of Councils and Popes, of false deductions, of garbled passages (chapter and verse given of each) so that he does not hesitate to say, " It is a question utterly gangrened with fraud." Do we not well then in cautioning Church people to beware of the statements of these tracts, to take no alleged fact as true, to follow no argument unless with both eyes open.? Let us now listen a little longer to Father Damen, on the ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. IS ibject of the comparative merits of the authorized version of le English Bible and of the Latin Vulgate : " The Bible is the book of Gorl, the language of inspiration ; at least, when have a true Bible, as we Catholics have, and you Protestants h.ive not." " But, my dearly beloved Protestarii friends, do not be oflFended at me for saying [tat. Your own most learned preachers and bishops tell you that, and some have written lole volumes in order to prove that the English translation, which you have, is a |try faulty and false translation. "Now, therefore, I say that the true Bible is as the Catholics have it, the Latin ilgate, and the most learned among the Proteslants themselves have agreed that Latin Vulgate Bible, which the Catholic Church always makes use of, is the best existence ; and therefore it is, as you may have perceived, that when I preach, I re the text in Latin, because the Latin text of the Vulgate is the best extant." We know that Protestants have sometimes a slip-shod way- talking about the English Bible as if the very English words lemselves were inspired, but of course no one, who thinks* lagines j.nything but the truth, that the version of i6i i, con- [dering the state of Greek and Hebrew scholarship in England the time, is a marvel of accuracy. Since then more has been learned and other manuscripts ive been discovered and the greatest Greek and Hebrew fholars of the day are proud to give their talents to the dis- )vcry of the true meaning of the original Greek of the New testament and of the Hebrew of the old. . The many mistakes of which he speaks are for the most irt unimportant, while his wholesale condemnation of the Book faulty and false is absolutely unfounded and his statement )out the preference of the most learned Protestants for the itin Vulgate is a deliberate falsehood. Cardinal Newman was never found to speak anything but )rds of loving regard for the Book, whence in his youth he Jarnt the things of God, and one very eccentric pervert, Mr ^aldo Sibthorp, a contemporary, if not a friend of Newman's, was the habit of carrying his English Bible into Roman pulpits. I borrow some account of the Vulgate or Latin Bible from JBi i6 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. I( ! s. a letter on Papal Infallibility by Revd. J. M. Davenport, of St. John, N.B., published in 1885, first explaining that the Vulgate was originally put into shape by revision and fresh translation by S. Jerome, early in the 5th century, but we notice that Jerome made a clear distinction, since obliterated by infallible Rome » between the Old Testament as we now have it and the books called Apocrypha. ■ Mr. Davenport writes : " Pope Sixtus V, 1590 A.D., issued an edition of the Vulgate, declaring as a perpetual A^cx^t, ^ by the fuhuss of Apostolic pmver'''' that henceforth it was to be the '* sole authentic and standard ieyii forever ^ 'since relying on the authority of the Prince of the Apostles,' he had corrected it with his own hand, and that therefore any | departure from it even in private reading, discussions or explanations should incur the greater excominunication. " " This surely, must be then an Ex cathexira \hai is formal and so infallible utter- ance (though the term was not yet invented). " Yet what was the event ? "This edition, guaranteed by the infallible Pope, so sivarmed with errors that | it was called in almost immediately and Clement VIII published a new Vulgate in I i592,diflFering from that of 1590 in several thousand places and likewise issued under penalty of excommunication for any deviation from it. ** Here was and is surely a puzzle for Roman Catholics. The value of the dogma of infallibility is, we are assured, that it makes one so certain what to do and believe in all matters of faith and practice. " y And further on he concludes, '' r-x:^■:^'■^■^"^■ '^'^\ cannot help thinking that we are infinitely happier here without than with i an in'allible Pope. We can relegate the Apocrypha to its proper position ; can reject both Sixtus' and Clement's editions in favor of better, and can profit by the '| suggestions of Biblical reviiors, none of which things a consistent infalHbilist can ■ do ! Thank you, sir, we will not change our Bibles for yours. " Father Damen's clever picture of representatives of the! different sects contending over the Bible would have been made much more lifelike by the introduction of a puzzled Romanist trying to find the infallibility of the Pope in any shape or form j either in the Vulgate or in the rough English version put into^ Romanists' hands and known p the Douai Bible. As the New Testament* was written by Christians to! ROMAN METHODS OF CONTKOVEKSV. j; )ort, of St. le Vulgate translation lat Jerome ble Rome > the books leclaring as a was to be the ' of the Prince therefore any lould incur the nfallible utter- V; 'th errors that jw Vulgate in e issued under ; vaUie of the rhat to do and hout than with position ; can in profit by the ' InfalHbilist can ives of the been made Romanist ,pe or form m put into iristians tol Christians, there arc many matters connected with the already [xisting and working system of the Church Catholic, which arc jferred to but not explained in detail. If the Bible is to be handled by people who superstitiously fnd in isolated texts matter for working out their pet systems, )thing but the present confusion could be expected, but if jverently used in the light of history, with our knowledge of le primitive Church and especially of the age of the Niccne touncil, when for the first time the Catholic Church was able to ft up herself, free from slavery to heathen emperors and >vernors and persecutors, the appeal of the Church of England the Scriptures will be found most reasonable. -f^ At all events, since one lecture cannot contain all necessary Jfeaching and we are not now concerned with the mistakes of [rotestantism, it is enough for our present argument to see that le Roman Church has practically cast the Scriptures behind it, is made new claims and set forth new doctrines which arc not ily unscriptural but are most distinctly opposed both to the ^tter and the Spirit of the New Testament. But it is when our author comes to the Reformation era, lat his power of appropriate and telling invention comes into )ecial play. Let us hear him : *' In the year 1520 — 368 years ago — the first Protestant came into the world. |fore that one there wa.s not a Protestant in the world, not one on the face of the bole earth ; and that one, as all history tells us, was Martin Luther, who was a itholic priest, who fell away from the Church through pride, and married a nun. was excommunicated from the Church, cut off, banished, and made a new religion fhis own. " Before Martin Luther there was not a Protestant in the world ; he was the first Iraise the standard of rebellion and revolt ngainst the Church of GfKl. " The point against Luther might have been made riiorc krcible, if instead of calling him a priest (one bound only by (w as I understand to a celibate life) our author had shown that was a monk or rather a friar and bound by a solemn vow not marry. i8 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. Luther's marriage was certainly, as a matter of policy, a serious mistake as giving handle to such statements as this ever since. , • As to his conscience, we have no means of judging. He is said to have come to regard all such vows as sinful and to have advised others in like cases to break them. Whether Luther were right or wrong in his actions, good or bad in his heart, is not now our concern. We are no followers of Luther, and I am only bringing forward these statements as remarkable specimens of " Catholic Truth." Luther is here definitely declared in almost as many words to have broken with Rome in order to marry. But his breach with Rome over the vile and immoral traffic in indulgences took place in 15 17, and it was not for eight years or in 1525 that his marriage took place with a nun named Catherine Von Bora who was then only twenty-four years of age. And this is historical truth, I beg pardon, Catholic truth, as declared on oath. - " • "^ Luther is one of the strong men of the world, an '^poch maker. The result of his influence and his work seemed likely to be the destruction of Popery ifi Europe had the course of the Reformation not been stopped by Charles V, and had not the ''\ Inquisition been called into action. The power of Luther's teaching is still felt in Germany ; his j hymns are sung in every Protestant -German home. Though] his self-will was no doubt 'strong and hurtful, though his hasty ^^ words are to be deplored by all who believe in Christian charity yet Luther (as has been shown by Carlisle) is the strong man. Luther, as painted by Roman controversalists, is a wicked! and self-indulgent and therefore a weak man. If the Luther ofi Rome's painting, could set all Germany in a blaze of hatred ofl Rome and of Rome's doctrines and above all of Rome's morality I ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 19 policy, a this ever g. He is d to have s, good or bringing | " Catholic iny words lis breach [inces took •5 that his Bora who fl ic truth, as , an '^poch med likely Lirse of the ! id not the rmany ; his :. Though ^ ti his hast)' ian charit)-, Dng man. ^' 3 a wicked ; Luther of J f hatred of I's nmoralit}^ ^hat must have been the condition of religion in Germany after :enturies of the absolute sway of that system, which ardent :on verts now deem to be and always to have been so good, so )ure, so Christlike ? But next, as tp the truth of the statement, that before .uther there was not a Protestant in the world. The word thus used has had different applications. For istance in Ireland the name used to be always applied to a lember of the Church of Ireland as distinct not only from Lomanists but from Presbyterians. . In another sense (the truest historically) the only Protestants ^re Lutherans, as following those from whose Protest in 15^9 le name first came into use. But in the common everyday use of the name it is simply [n a par with the other assertions of this tract to state that xUther was the first Protestant, leaving it to be understood that fefore him none ever protested against Rome's new doctrines or ir ever increasing usurpation of authority. Are we to believe that our author never- heard of Wickliffe )r instance, who, though he lived and died a faithful parish friest, raised no sect, set up no school, yet struck for truth and Ight long before Luther did, issuing his English translation of the fible in 1382, 135 years before Luther opposed Tetzel and his lie of indulgences ? From Wickliffe's work rose the people called Lollards, who^ Hth what purity of doctrine we can scarcely estimate, yet were :rtainly Protestants before Luther. It was against them that Je law "de comburendis haereticis," "for the burning of heretics" passed in England, whicn it is said has never been repealed, id which was so terrible a weapon in the hands of Queen Mary, lile the persecution of the Lollards is declared by Green to ive been one of the reasons which made the cause of Henry unpopular when the Yorkists began the wars of the Roses. 20 ROMAN MKTIIODS OK C'ONTUOVKRSY. Wickliffc's work had great influence in Bohemia through John Muss and Jerome of Prague, both of them martyrs and true heroes, put to death by fraud and falsehood at the Council of Constance in the early days of the 1 5th century. Long before that time we read of the revolt from Rome of the Albigenses in the South of France in the I2th century. Their doctrines we cannot know certainly. There seem to have been what we would call heretical ideas mixed with the truth. Through the whole region, civiliy.ed and advanced beyond any other part of the world, the breach with Rome was complete. But the Kingdom of Rome is ever a kingdom of this world. With fire and sword were murder and destruction carried through the lovely land. Listen to Macaulay : " A war, distinguisheil even among wars of religion hy its merciless atrocity, destroyed the Alliigciisian heresy and with that heresy the prosperity, the civilization, the literature, the national existence of what was once the most opulent and enlight- ened part of the great European family." " A crusade," it was called, " a holy war'" authorized and demanded by Pope Innocent III and conducted by Simon dc Montfort, the father of the great author of the English Parlia- ment. ■ . ''^. . ■ ■ , ' ' " ■ -"■-',. I do not take time now to mention at length the more well known instance of the Walden.«es in Piedmont, who have lived in independence of Rome from very ancient days, nor do I more than mention the most tremendous instance of all, the great unchanging Orthodox Churches of the East which have never acknowledged the Pope. And yet Luther, in Roman phraseology, " was the first to raise the standard of rebellion and revolt against the Church of God." But of course this author is especially vigorous and eloquent j and untrustworthy when he comes to the never failing slander | -Jl^ -^ ROMAN MKTMODS OF CONTROVERSY. 21 that the Church of England was founded by Henry VIII. We jhall let him sj)eak for himself : " Henry VIII was a Catliolic, and defemlcd ihe Catholic religion ; he wrote a look against Martin Luther in defence of the Catholic doctrine. That book I have jyself seen ill the library of the Vatican at Rome a few years ago. Henry VIII defended the religion, and for so doing was titled by the Pope " Defender of the •"aith." It came down with 'lis successors, and Queen Victoria inherits it to-day. le was married to Catharine of Arragon ; but there was at his court a maid of lonor to the Queen, named Ann iioleyn, who was a beautiful woman, and captivating appearance. Henry was deteimined to have her. But he was a married man. le put in a petilijn to the Po[)e to be allowed to marry her- and a foolish petition It was, for the l\)i)e had no power lo grant the prayer of it. The Pope and all the jishops in the world cannot go against the will of God. Christ says : ' If a man nitteth away his wife, and marrielh another, he committeth adultery, and he that larrieth her who is put away committeth adultery also,' " As the Pope would not grant the prayer of Henry's petition he took Ann |ioleyn anyhow, and was excommunicated from the Church. " After a while there was another maid of honor, prettier than the first, more jeautiful and charming in the eyes oi' Henry, and he said he must have her, too. He ^ook the third wife, and a fourth, fifth and sixth followed. Now this is the founder )f the Anglican Church, the Church o< England; and, therefore, it is that it goes ->y the name (^f the Church of England." Besides the slanderous attack upon us contained in these Jast words there are in this series of tracts {with ?tothing in them io offend, as the President so kindly explains), a great many ilmost as false and quite as mischievous. We have been, as I feel, honoured by special notice. There ire two small bound volumes of tracts with the misleading title )f " The Church of Old England," to meet what a prefatory note :alls " the endeavours of the Anglican establishment to pass tself off as Catholic." Some of the statements, as to how villainously Henry VIII md his creatures acted when they were seeking excuses to lestroy and rob the monasteries ; as to the persecutions of those ^ho would not join him in his revolt from the usurpation of the lishop of Rome and as to the persecution of Romanists under ilizabeth and James I are, we doubt not, perfectly true. 22 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. i I That great changes were also made in the received faith all agree, Such changes, the tracts declare, have destroyed the continuity of the Church. , . - But not so. The appeal was to the ancient constitution of the Primitive Church. ^ . ;^^. j. But what has the Church of England to do with the Prim- itive Church? it is in effect asked. It was founded, we will be told, in the opening years of the 7th century by Augustine, a Mission- ary sent by Gregory Bishop of Rome. It therefore in a special manner was subject to Rome. Even if this were true, we know that Gregory, to whose memory all true Churchmen must pay respect, was the very man who said that " the title of Universal Bishop is profane, superstitious, haughty and invented by the first apostate," and who advised Augustine, in manner most unlike a Pope, as to his behaviour towards the remnants of the once flourishing British Church. But in any case wc find that sixty years after the mission of Augustine, the Church as founded by him in Kent was still, after many successes and failures, confined to that County or Kingdom and to a small part of the South of England outside Kent, while the rest of the country had been largely converted by missionaries acting from Scotland and Ireland, who had introduced quite a different rite from the Roman or Latin use of y\ugustinc, especially ir the matter of keeping Easter. So that even in its origin the Church of England was not Roman. But if it were, it would still be Apostolic with a right to appeal beyond Rome and against Rome to the undivided Church and the Canons of the undisputed General Councils. . •. The greatness of the innovations afterwards introduced did not, as Rome and we agree, break the c. ntinuity of the English | Church. We do not even charge that the immense additional inno- vations made since the Reformation, the creed of Pius IV and all ■n ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY 2.3 '^ed faith all stroyed the stitution of I the Prim- will be told, , a Mission- n a special 7, to whose s the very is profane, state," and 3e, as to his ing British he mission t was still, County or nd outside ^ converted , who had ^atin use of ■. So that man. a right to led Church educed did he English ional inno- 5 IV and all he novelties of the Council of Trent, or even the two awlul dditions to the faith made during our own time have broken e continuity of the Roman Church. Why then are we now asked to acknowledge that our con- nnity was broken by the abolition of innovations ? When we are asked " where was your Church before Henry III or Cranmer?" i^ '^^ay be a slightly vulgar answer but it is a ost effectual one, to enquire " where was your face before it was ashed ?" If one be dressed in borrowed or stolen or unneces- larily cumbrous clothing, the identity of the man within is not Iffccted either by such dress or by its casting off. Certainly the plied and expressly stated objection, that the old Church of ugustine and of Bedc is not the Church of our love and our llegiance and devotion to-day, because of the great and neces- ry and wholesome changes of the Reformation is without undation in history or in reason, unless in history read as JR-ome reads it, or in reason educated by the arts of Jesuits. « That these changes were in some instances brought about ^y means from which we shrink; that the leaders in the English Revolt from Rome were in many cases evil men, seemingly led by motives of greed and covetousness ; that there was, because of the time, much persecution, all these things are sadly true. But our interest in reading the honest truth about Henry ,and Cranmer, about Somerset and Northumberland, about lizabeth and Burleigh, is only the same as our interest in reading bout the other questionable characters of English history. If everything were true which Romanists assert about these istorical personages, and that is asking a good deal of our edulity, our position to-day would not be altered by a hair's- readth and our conhdent appeal to Scripture and to the con- stitution of the Primitive Church would be unshaken. No one alleges the infallibility of the Anglican Church. For instance, in the terrible matter of persecution, let us ill 24, ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 1 • notice how different is our position from that of Rome. She claims to be not only Catholic as we also claim to be, but the whole Catholic Church and infallible, while within the last twenty-five years she has discovered that her head is and always has been infallible also, when he speaks as they say " ex cathedra," that is formally, leaving it for future generations to wrangle over and perhaps burn each other over the question, when does he speak- thus ex cathedra. Persecution has been endorsed by. Popes over and over again. The Inquisition has rested upon decrees of Popes begin- ning with Pope Innocent III in the 13th century and for 500 years it filled Western Europe with torture and terror and groans and tears and blood. Let any one read it for himself. Let him read Dickens' description of the prison of the Inquisition, in his "Pictures from Italy," detailing what is known of the awful scenes enacted under the picture of the Good Shepherd. Motley estimates that not less than 100,000 victims of the Inquisition were burnt, .strangled and buried alive during the reign of Philip II in the Netherlands, while the Duke of Alva- the horrible mojister who urged on the work, received from the infallible Pius V a consecrated hat and sword of honour as a reward. The hideous massacre of St. Bartholomew at Paris was endorsed by Pope Gregory XIII, who, went in procession to the Church of St. Louis to sing Te Deum for the triumph. I do not bring these charges wantonly, but in answer to the statements of the tracts about the persecution of Romanists in England, because for all that can be said against our fathers for copying Rome's tactics, infinitely more is to be said against her, with the teirible addition that modern Rome, the Church which our weaklings are to be tempted to join, is committed to the ■..:''^'M ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSV. 25 omc. She t the whole twenty-five ? has been edra," that le over and s he speak ' and over Dpes begin - nd for 500 and groans d Dickens' :turcs from leted under ims of the during the e of Alva' d from the )nour as a Paris was sion to the 1. >wer to the manists in fathers for gainst her, rch which ted to the hole system by the fatal error of the Vatican decree of the fallibility of the Pope. Then pfjain we do not consider it any argument against omc that her Popes have been in many cases men not only lad and vile but hideously and awfully so, but as the immoral aracter of some of our leaders is dragged in as if in argument gainst us we do right to bring forward in answer Alexander I, known as Borgia, one of the vilest of all vile wretches, John XIII — so awful a monster that at the Council of Constance, hich burnt Huss and Jerome and deposed John, it was declared at he ought to be burnt also, and many another Pope and ing exalted and made much of by Pope or Jesuit such as ouis XIV and Louis XV of France and Philip II of Spain mpared with whom the chief actors of the English Reforma- on including Henry were as angels of light. Either such arguments are useless, as I maintain, or they ill prove to be most dangerous and suicidal weapons in the ands of Rome. But in looking a little closer at the matters alleged by ather Damen we find that his indignation against Henry for ^king a divorce, on the ground that the Pope could not grant ch a thing, contrasts somewhat absurdly with the fact that enry himself must have well remembered that in 1498 (only years before his own marriage) Louis XII of France had tained from Pope Alexander VI, called Borgia, a divorce from s wife, not only without any such fair seeming reason as was leged by Henry, but as historians agree for a very disreputable ibe. As a matter of fact, however, Henry did not ask for a vorce, strictly speaking, at all. He had married his brother's idow, contrary as we believe, not only to the law of the Church, t also to the law of God. He had done this (mark the fact) dispensation from Pope Julius II. IfS'WMi 'III I ' ti IP '■ • 26 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. iai h 01 n '. er Who is the Pope to dispense with God's law ? He does it yet if you pay for it- When marriage between a man and his deceased wife's sister was legalized by our Parliament the bill was supported by many Roman Catholic members because, in any case, such marriages with them would require the Pope's dispensation and are a source of revenue and of power. This marriage took place in 1509. In 1527 the question was raised, how we cannot be sure, of the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, the only surviving issue of. the marriage. The ordinary view taken by all Romanists, that Henry only wanted a legal way to commit adultery is directly contradicted !^ by Professor James Anthony Froude. His arguments, how- ^^^ ever, will never alter the idea of Henry VI H, which has become ||p ^] part of our English nature. But it is quite certain that what Henry asked of Pope Clement VII was not a divorce, but a declaration that his marriage had been null and void from the beginning, a very different thing, as our Jesuit knew well enough, though he was very careful not to say so. In reading his words we would gather that the Pope sent back an immediate and authoritative and very indignant No^ anc thus forced the wicked Henry into an immediate schism in order to commit adultery, but instead of that we find that the case dragged on for five years with no prospect of a decision. Am: the reason is not far to seek. «>f( \ X- fbj . . , tttat The infallible pontifT, the supreme judge, the Vicar of Christ ry , was in mortal terror of the Emperor Charles V, the nephew 0; * t^ the injured Queen Catherine, a dutiful Catholic whose army a: one time invaded Italy and sacked the City of Rome witb enormous robbery and bloodshed. And .so Clement dared not act j ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 27 He does it lan and his I nent the bill because, in the Pope's ^ ^er. At last in 1530 the questions were forced into the minds of nglishmen, Who is this Italian Priest who assumes so much d can do so little ? Whence is his authority and how did it ach its present extent in England ? Such questions were not new. As far back as 1270 we find lat Edward I, perhaps the greatest of all our Kings, was solute (as Green puts it) to force the Church to become oroughly national and to break its growing dependence Rome. As a step in that direction was passed by Parliament, en only beginning its long and glorious course, the statute " Mortmain " to limit the increasing wealth of the Church. In the reign of Edward J II the statute of " Provisors," to put a stop to certain intolerable forms of extortion on the part of the Pope, and in the reign of Richard II that of " Praemunire," to forbid appeals to Rome from the King's courts, were passed By Parliament. ' '■•--«' And yet we are asked to believe that when Parliament passed .an act or acts in 1532 which finally and forever denied lOUgh he was atid destroyed any power which the Pope could have over the subjects of the English crown it was altogether strange. Not t be sure, of| ing issue of t Henry onl}' contradicted ments, how- i has become ked of Pope tion that his nning, a very ; M i " Of the Papal usurpation," says quaint old Thomas Fuller, " It went forward jnant IVO, ailC ;^Htil the statute of Mortmain. It went backward slowlv when the statute of Pro- ^hism in order '^^W^ors was made under Edward III, swiftly when the siaiuie o( /'rae/Hiunre was made. It fell down when the Papacy was abolished in the reign of Henry VIII. " And the Convocation of Canterbury, which was practically n the mouthpiece of the Church of England declared in 1531 t "the King was the chief protector, the only and supreme d and head of the Church and clergy of England, so far as the of Christ will allow." ,,.^ . --^^^^^^ , _ ,,, , that the case Dcision. Audi 'icar of ChristJ le nephew ol| hose army at f Rome witli^ dared not act True, it is said, that neither Parliament nor Convocation ^re free, but that both were terrorized by Henry, and we know i|at some of the best blood of England was shed by him, 28 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. H m r l-l notably that of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher because they would not disown the Pope. s ^ ^ \; :^ - But unfortunately we have seen already why accusations of persecution are no argument, and still more unfortunately we know that both of these great and good men, and such they certainly were, had themselves been guilty of the same sin of the times. Parliament and Convocation, free, or not, did formally act j and declare as I have said, and be it noticed that neither were what are now called Protestant. Henry VIII held all Roman doctrine except that one of the Pope's supremacy which the Pope's miserable weakness had led him to reject. The Reformation had made no head in England, and of Convocation at the time of the breach with Rome and the con- demnation of Bishop Fisher we read the following words in the wr'ting of Mr. Pugin, the eminent architect, himself a pervert to Pome : ' " It was done in a solemn convocation, a reverend array of l)ishops, abbnis and dignitaries in orphreyed copes and jewelled mitres. Every great Cathedral, every diocese, every abbey was duly represented in that important synod.... One venerable prelate protests ; his remonstrance is unsupported by his colleagues and he is speedily brought to trial and execution. Ignorar.tly do we charge this on the '< Protestant system, which was not even broached at the time. His accusers, judges, jury, his executioner — all Catholics ; the bells are ringing for Mass as he ascends the scaffold." As a strange commentary on this Romanist's true words, we are told by one of these tracts of More and Fisher and others: " The English martyrs have been beatified, which means that the people of England jyc Jlr.-.ved and encouraged to publicly honour and worship them and pray: t •'\ ■■-'^ is who are already numbered with the blessed in Heaven." J '2 -'■ I'ou : Pray to them. i.ic, . . "colics, as Pugin calls them, killed these men. The; . V iX'. ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 29 ir because usations of anately we such they \e sin of the )rmally act either were t that one e weakness and, and of id the con- ords in the I pervert to hishops, abhccs e.\t Cathedral, synod .... Om: leagues and he ■ge this on the ccusers, judges, he ascends the true words, Fisher and the people of them and pray :aven." men. The A as they style themselves, intend to pray to them in .^pite of the first commandment. Henry VIII was as much a Roman Catholic as the late ling Victor Emmanuel and -without any scruple after his death mass for his soul was performed with all ceremony at Notre I)ame in Paris by order of Francis I. He is their man all through and not ours and they are Welcome to him. We owe him the beginning of the wholesome breach with llome, but we owe him nothing more, and to say that he or any ther man of his day was the founder of the Anglican Church IS Father Damen does) is to say, whether ignorantly or ma- :iously, what is utterly false. The royal supremacy over an established church, though [pressed more definitely and more roughly by Henry VIII, feis no new idea. Several of the Christian Emperors^fter Con- lantine showed themselves (as the Church allowed and accepted) Suite as much rulers over all their subjects as Henry claimed to 1^ and especially in the crucial case of summoning the Council C9 Nice and afterwards enforcing its decrees. The supremacy liad practically been always attached to the crown of England ass shown by the appointment of Archbishops and Bishops. Ilary Tudor used the same power (which if wrong once is wrong , r'- alv/ays) to re-establish Rome's dominion and did it by means of ^r subservient Parliament, without the consent of the Church's Convocation, so that when it came to Elizabeth's turn it was i|bsolutely essential that she should act at once, with a strong Wind. , . _ _ ^,. ,, , , We cannot find any accurate estimate of the relative l^ength of the parties of reform and reaction at the time of her |§cession. Macaulay thinks that both parties together made up It a small part of the nation, for that if either were really strong persecutions under Edward and Elizabeth of one party and amm 30 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. I i^i ! ' ( under Mary of the other would not both have been possible. The breach with Rome was probably popular. Mary's sullen persecution and her known desire to wrest church pro- perty from its new holders, the great families enriched by Henry | and Edward, had for different reasons made her government enormously disliked, so that Elizabeth without a standing army, | with her throne actually depending on the people for support, was almost an absolute ruler. The times demanded a strong hand and it was hers surely. To succeed despots successfully only a strong character is | possible. The most absolute ruler England ever knew was Oliver Cromwell. He was succeeded by his son Richard, a man I against whom no word was ever spoken, and yet Richard ruled but a few months and sank without a struggle, because he was wanting in force of character. But Elizabeth was no such trifler. Will our friends who seek now to turn back the wheels of time, ask us to believe that Elizabeth ought to have submitted her claims to the Pope, who from mere consi.stency must have declared her illegitimate, and handed over her dominions to Mary Stuart ? After the death of Mary Stuart, the infallible Pope, accord- ing to the Romanist Lingard, encouraged Philip to invade England and offered a million crowns to aid him. The infallible «] Vicar of Christ had long claimed the right to give away king- doms. Do these modern believers in his infallibility wish that the Armada had succeeded and that England had been turned, }| like the rich and fertile Netherlands by the same PhMip, into a happy hunting ground for the Inquisition, its fires, its racks, its^ hideous desolation ? Or are they logical enough to wish now our free Province' to be placed under such a yoke as presses on Quebec ? Do. they pine for the time when here also a free man can be ruined | by the stroke of an Archbishop's pen and abused like a pick- ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 31 lers surely. character is ' knew was lard, a man chard ruled luse he was such trifler. ; wheels of I submitted must have )minions to 3pe, accord- » to invade he infallible away king- ty wish that Deen turned, hMip, into a its racks, its •ee Province uebec ? Do in be ruined like a pick- cket and threatened with excommunication for appealing for stice to the Queen in her courts of law ? And if Elizabeth as to stay on her throne and be the mother of modern England nd her Colonies and of the United States, so different, because if her course, from modern France, and Spain, and Italy, and outh America, where the religion of the Pope has had its full ay and has not improved things, it was necessary that she ould exercise most care about the undoing what Mary had ne and shew there her strong will and her strong hand. Elizabeth's personal character is not the question. We know how her enemies talked then and how they talk ill. We try to read history with both eyes. Wc are quite are of her gross faults, of her tyranny, of her parsimony, of r falsehood. But what did she do ? By a strange coincidence Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop ho had succeeded Cranmer, died almost at the same time as pis kinswoman Queen Mary. Of the Bishops placed by her in Hic sees of those she had burnt or exiled, no less than 14, besides the Archbishop, had died leaving their sees vacant. Of the 10 remaining all but one or two refused to assist at the coronation of Elizabeth or subsequently to take the oath of supremacy, and were deprived. Hardly any of the Bishops of Edward's time had survived their exile, so that there seemed great danger of the English continuity being lost. / > V The universal custom of Catholic antiquity, never departed ftom unless in cases of gravest necessity, required three Bishops tib unite in the consecration of each new Bishop, so that if any- thing were afterwards proved against the authority or due Wdination of one of them the consecration would not be -^akened. Barlow, who had been Bishop of Bath and Wells in Henry Hi's time, Scory, who had been Bishop of Chichester, Cover- 32 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. i I • if: dale, formcHy of Exeter, and Hodgkins, a suffragan, or assistant B'shop of Bedford, consecrated Matthew Parker Archbishop of I Canterbury, and from Parker the succession of Anglican Bishops has come. *'^'Ui itnt^jl,,,^ i,.>«Hf '"'^ But " was Barlow a Bishop ? " asks one of these tracts. It is answered that supposing he was not, the other three were, and that there is no reasonable doubt that he was. True, the record of his consecration is wanting, but so are the records of many others, and notably of Gardiner, one of Mary's trusted Bishops, who had agreed in Henry's time to the breach with Rome, and was therefore, according to the tracts, a Protestant. His consecration no one doubts, though nothing, we are told, can be found out about it. Henry VHI. and Elizabeth were specimens of royalty with whom nobody ever played tricks, and with no conceivable reason we are asked to gratify Roman whims, and to believe that Bar- low was a sham Bishop, when he could much more easily have been a real one, took his seat in the House of Lords and carried on a long and bitter dispute about his rights with his Cathedral Chapter, without anyone dreaming that he was amusing himself and risking his head, till the idea was started by men of the same class as invented the still popular fable of the " Nag's Head' consecration. Once more, be it noted that no alleged breach of continuity has ever been urged against our Irish sister Church, and yd that Romanists have never acknowledged her claims, and that a Bishop with the Irish succession laid hands on Laud, from whom as well as from Parker all our Bishops derive their orders The question was carefully investigated by Father Courayer a candid French priest of the last century, who has left a most voluminous book to prove beyond a doubt the validity of our orders. • Dr. Von Dollinger (the German priest who ranked among le is a '•■'X- ^d ,gng llfiei 3r assistant :hbishop of an Bishops tracts, other three A^as. True, the records | ry's trusted breach with ^1 Protestant, we are told, royalty with vable reason ve that Bar- easily have i and carried is Cathedral ising himself ^ Y men of the Nag's Head" of continuity arch, and yet^ 1ms, and that] Laud, fromj ; their orders,| ler Courayer,^ is left a most] alidity of ouil .nked amongl ROMAN METHODS OF CONTKOVICKSY. 33 the very highest of Roman theologians till he refused the figment )f infallibility, and was excommunicated), thus spoke in 1875 '• — "The fact that Parker was consecrated by four rightly consecrated Bishops, file et legitime, with imposition ol hands and the necessary words, is so well attested latifone chooses to doubt this fact one could, with the same right doubt one lundred thousaml facts — the fact is as well established as a fact can be required to And at another lime he says : "The result of my investigation is that I have lo manner of doubt as to the validity of the Episcopal succession in the English Kurch." Our own great theologian Puscy writes thus to his former fiend Newman of our English orders : — " I have exan\ined in turn every ol)jeclion made to them, and it has seemed to that Roman Catholic controversialists took up easily any otjection which might |r the moment serve tht;ir turn," fhich be it noticed is in a new shape the ever recurring charge bad faith. . .. ' : ,,, Lastly, we notice, but will not now quote at length, that ^e late Professor P'reeman speaking, not as a theologian, but an historian, says that legally and historically, "The Church of England after the Reformation is the sume as the Church of jgland before the Reformation," " .j'v^ ^d Bishop Stubbs, who is perhaps the greatest living authority on iglish constitutional history, is most emphatic on the same jes. -• '' ■ •■^; I have no doubt tried to cover too much ground in one ;ture, but it seemed desirable to make one effort to induce Iglish Church people to realize how futile, and for the most [rt how false, are the ways of Roman controversialists, and at same time to warn those who are neither students of history students of logic, how very clever is the bait put round the icealed hook, and how very sharp and quick is the unseen rler with the rod. If you want to go into the whole question, well and good, if not, let these new hashes of very stale and very unwhole- le food severely alone, for they will surely disagree with ptal stomachs accustomed to honesty and square-dealing in preparation of mental food. I 34 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 'i > i h 1 il i i h\ ii:' 1 ' !i il But, says some hysterical Protestant, are not all English Churchmen going to Rome fast ? Certainly not very fast. Forty-three years ago that guile- less soul, Pius IX, made a tremendous noise and a tremendous preparation for the " Conversion of England." But the conversion of England is to-day further' off than ever, and the Church of England to-day is in a very different condition from that of the days when Newman and Manning j deserted, lest it should fall on their heads. It is now probably the strongest institution in the Empire, And the Roman Church in England, the Italian mission, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has well called it, is a laughing stock to her own children. Hear Lord Braye, as he speaks in 1884 : " Is there any religious body in the country where so much fine energy is wasted? Learned priests without anybody to buy their learned l)ooks. A dozens large colleges, where one public school would he amply sufficient. Dioceses withj scarcely a parish priest to a county. What is the use under these foggy circumstan- ces, of building great churches in a place where you can hardly get a server for the; mass ?" The Roman mission in England, apart from Irish immigra- tion, is a ghastly failure. They talk still of Newman and Manning, and well they may, but the supply of such perverts has stopped long ago. A foolish list of " Roman Recruits " was paraded in thi? city last year, a pamphlet torn to shreds by the Quarterly! Review for January, 1888, which showed that it covered the firsts 84 years of this century and that it went to Russ^.h, Germany andi America for names. This article, well wort«i reading, shews howl little has been done by the most elaborate system of rnost showy! machinery, by Eminences, Graces, Lordships and Reverences withj out end, by assertion and assumption, and unheard of impudencc| by pointing out and exaggerating our difficulties, by concealing and falsifying their own. ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. 35 They seek, by such means, to advance what is elsewhere most successful of all human institutions, and it advances ^her not at all or distinctly backwards, as can readily be proved figures. The marvel is that such perverted but such great fenuity is not more successful. • ! . Their big talk in America is much like their big talk in igland. One of the tracts for instance, called " Catholic Con- rts, or all roads lead to Rome," is foun« led on the perversion, December, 1891, of the Rev. Dr. J. F. Spalding, and praises and his acquirements very highly indeed, altogether omit- kg, however, to mention that " the honest seeker after truth," the tract calls him, with less than three months experience of )me, where he apparently did not find it, returned to his alle- mce, and was admitted to Communion, at the very altar which had deserted on Palm Sunday of 1892. But once more (we hear^ those dreadful high Churchmen Ritualists are doing Rome's work. Don't you believe it ! A small knot of Romanizers, with weak knees and sickly kins, does (I believe) exist, but the great body of the High iurch clergy and laity are loyal to the core, and are quite as ;ly (as Dr. Arnold puts it) to believe in Jupiter as to believe [the Pope. Here, then, is the issue between the Church of the Infal- Pe Pope, of the worship of Mary and the Saints (and of ever- mging fashions even in that), of Indulgences, of Purgatory the purchased escape from it, of a mutilated communion, of msiibstantiation, of the rule of the Jesuit, of Latin prayers on jlish tongues, of the novel worship of the Sacred Heart, and Church of our love, not faultless, God knows and we know, ler in its history or its present discipline, but Catholic, con- lous, free, seeking to draw us to Christ, appealing ever to +he riptures and the Primitive Church. Which will you have ? 1 ill; jf ii ... If ■pi:|N i! ii 36 ROMAN METHODS OF CONTROVERSY. The issue only needs to be fairly put before the minds of even our less instructed people, and the choice between their country's Church and the Church which their fathers have always, with good reason, distrusted and disliked, is soon made And lastly, let us take from this survey the resolve that the Church of our allegiance will have all our love, all our energy and all the work and help we can give her, till we do something in the uame of God to enable her to take her true stand as the EngHsh Church in this English country. i| ¥ I la-. II; ii) liil the minds ofl aetween thtifi fathers havei| is soon made, isolvc that thej dl our energy| do something stand as the ,^ :¥