Anglican Claims in the Light of History

By Joseph Pope
The Catholic Truth Society of Ottawa No.ctso008 (1893)

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A Paper Read Before the Catholic Truth Society of Ottawa, on the 12th December, 1893, in Reply to a Lecture Intituled "Roman Methods of Controversy," Delivered by the Rev. W. J. Muckleston, M.A., on the 15th May, 1893.

"Fili hominis putasne vivent ossa ista? Et dixi: Domine Deus, tu nosti." — Ezech. XXXVII, 3.

Note

Were the subjects treated by the Rev. Mr. Muckleston of a purely theological character I should have left the duty of answering him to those who are better equipped for such a task than I am. As, however, they are historical, and relate in great part to the history of England, I cannot see why they should not be discussed by any person interested in the institutions of his country. That such subjects are not popular in Ottawa I gather, not so much from Mr. Muckleston's frequent (I almost think unnecessarily frequent) allusions to "uninstructed churchmen," as from the fact that any considerable number of people have requested the publication of a lecture in which, among a great many foolish or irrelevant things, it is blindly asserted that those who question the claim advanced on behalf of the Anglican communion to continuity with the ancient Church of England, are either very ignorant or very designing persons. Now on behalf of those who do seriously question this claim, and who are just as honest as the reverend gentleman, I join issue with him on this point. I undertake to prove out of the writings of eminent English historians, and distinguished Anglican divines—all of them Protestants—some of them among what I suppose the reverend gentleman calls his "authorities":

1st. That the Church of England, as it existed from the beginning down to the days of Henry VIII, acknowledged the supremacy of the Holy See.

2nd. That the Anglican Church, as it exists to-day, sprang from compromise between two sets of Reformers who vied with one another in uprooting and endeavouring to destroy the ancient faith, and who, so far from claiming continuity with the past, openly proclaimed their disbelief in the necessity for any Episcopal ordination whatever.

To this end I cordially join with our reverend critic in his invitation to the "uninstructed laity" to "read history."

JOSEPH POPE.

Ottawa, 18th December, 1893.

Anglican Claims

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Catholic Truth Society of Ottawa has been honoured during the present year by the notice of an Anglican clergyman late of this city. It appears from a published report of the reverend gentleman's lecture that we have had the temerity to issue in a form designed to catch the public eye, and actually to expose for sale in a leading book-store, certain publications in exposition and defence of what we believe to be the truth. For our effrontery in so doing we are roundly taken to task. All sorts of motives are imputed to us. Our statements, though sometimes cleverly put, are, as a rule, 'fraudulent' and 'deceptive;' our methods of controversy are 'slippery and evasive;' our priests are 'wily' and 'unscrupulous,' and so on in the old familiar style to which we are all accustomed. Now, I do not complain of this language. I have come to the conclusion that on occasions of this sort such phrases have no particular meaning. They recall Lord Palmerston's definition of a mob, "a noun, of multitude signifying many, but not signifying much." They are merely a shibboleth which it is considered the proper thing to employ when referring to Catholics in relation to their Church. This method of controversy, known as 'poisoning the wells,' is an old artifice which I was under the impression had been abandoned, at any rate by Anglicans, and which I still think, in their mouths has ceased to be anything more than a façon de parler. Formerly it was considered particularly effective when speaking to Englishmen, because deceit and evasion and intrigue and hypocrisy are especially hateful to the English character. Therefore it was thought good tactics when addressing an English audience on the subject of 'Popery,' to begin by laying down as an axiom that these words correctly describe the average Catholic. Thus a prejudice against Catholicism was created at the outset which often rendered any appeal to reason or argument quite unnecessary.

The lecture under review is extremely desultory. The lecturer wanders over an immense range of controversy. He seems to have made it the occasion of firing off all the weapons in his theological armoury, without stopping to consider whether they were all suitable to the occasion.

What bearing, for instance, has it upon the matter in hand to affirm the fabulous character of the 'Nag's Head' story which the lecturer avers, on the authority of another, who himself heard it from a third person, that somebody, we are not told who, repeated—we are not told when—in St. Michael's Cathedral, Toronto. The reverend gentleman himself admits that no such statement is made in any of our publications. Not only is this so, but we actually circulate a pamphlet acknowledging the fact that Parker underwent a form of consecration. The nearest approach to the 'Nag's Head fable' that I have ever seen in print, was in the Union Review, a High Church publication, which in an able article on the subject[^1] frankly admitted that Barlow and Scory were 'rascals' capable of any profanity, even of 'going through a mock ceremony of consecration'; and that 'probably Parker himself would have made light of it' since 'he did not shrink from intercourse with two such rascals as Barlow and Scory were.'

How is one to follow a lecturer who contents himself by prefacing a quotation with, "one writer says," without indicating in any way who the writer is, or where or under what circumstances the statement was made, or how can one treat seriously a learned divine who brings forward grave accusations against the Catholic Church and supports them by a reference to the immortal author of the Pickwick Papers! Now I yield to no one in my admiration for Dickens—as a writer of fiction, but as an ecclesiastical historian I submit he is not an authority.[^2] Then again what reply is practicable to a statement that a French priest of no particular eminence, who lived nearly two hundred years ago, supported a certain contention without giving us his words, or at least indicating where they are to be found? So also von Döllinger, Pusey, Freeman, and many other voluminous writers are referred to in the same casual manner, which almost precludes criticism. This is his general rule and a very safe one it is. In three instances, however, he departs from it, to an extent sufficient to enable one to discover the source of his quotations. Let us very briefly examine these three.

The first is contained in a pamphlet by the late Reverend Father Damen, S.J., intituled "Church or Bible," circulated by the Catholic Truth Society. Our critic takes exception to a statement therein contained, which he calls "an imaginary account of the dates when several of the books of the New Testament were written."

Father Damen says in effect that St. Matthew's gospel was written about the year 40 A.D., St. Mark's about the year 43, St. Luke's about the year 58, and St. John's about the year 96. These non-controversial statements are declared by our amiable critic to be 'falsehoods,' 'altogether imaginary,' 'bold assertions,' and so forth. Now it is difficult to see the reason for all this harsh language. The dates of these gospels are not exactly known, and Father Damen carefully guards himself by the use of the word 'about' before each year he mentions. I cannot see that the question is of much practical consequence, but as it is made the ground of a serious charge, let us turn to the authorities of our critic's own church and see what they have to say on the subject. In the first place all agree with Father Damen in the relative age of the Gospels. Bishop Wordsworth, the late Anglican Bishop of Lincoln, says in his "Greek Testament"[^3] that some ancient writers assign to St. Matthew's gospel the date corresponding to the year 39 or 41, which is identical with Father Damen's figures, others a few years later. The Bishop expresses his opinion that St. Luke's was written not later than the year 53[^4]—and he thinks it probable that St. John's appeared about half a century after St. Luke's, or not later than A.D. 103,[^5] or within seven years of the date assigned by Father Damen.

Dean Alford, in his "Greek Testament,"[^6] says it would appear that St. Matthew's gospel was published before the destruction of Jerusalem, and while he considers the date very uncertain, quotes authorities to show that it was probably written within fifteen years of the Ascension.

Of St. Mark's he thinks the most direct testimony shows it to have been written subsequent to the year 63,[^7] or twenty years later than the time indicated by Father Damen.

St. Luke's, he thinks, was published between the years 50 and 58,[^8] the latter year coinciding exactly with Father Damen's date.

St. John's gospel, he thinks, may have been written between the years 70 and 85,[^9] or a few years earlier than the date given by Father Damen.

Both the Bishop and the Dean are dealing with the subject in extenso, and are therefore in a position to qualify their statements to a much greater extent than Father Damen, who, in a short paper dealing with many subjects, is compelled to express his absence of certainty by the single word 'about,' yet all three practically agree.

It is, I repeat, difficult to see what the Jesuit has said in this connection to warrant the attack made upon him, particularly when our critic goes out of his way to admit that "our Jesuit author is perfectly right and the average Protestant is absolutely wrong, when the former teaches and the latter practically denies that we accept the Bible on the authority of the Church."

The next statement that arouses the ire of our critic is the following made by Father Damen, that:

"It was not until 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 God, and that the gospels of Simon, Nicodemus, Mary, the Infancy of Jesus, and Barnabas, and all these other epistles were spurious, or at least, unauthentic; at least that there was no evidence of their inspiration."

This is characterized by even stronger language than the preceding quotation.

Now we do not claim that every statement in all the books we circulate is absolutely and literally correct. We say that as carefully prepared papers, in many cases by men of distinguished reputation, they are on the whole trustworthy, but those who write much well know how difficult it is to avoid an occasional error which, despite all precautions, will now and then occur.

The history of the early councils is involved in much obscurity, and is a study with which I am not specially qualified to deal. My experience has taught me that any statement of fact made by a Jesuit priest is pretty sure to be well founded. Notwithstanding, however, the antecedent probability of Father Damen's assertion proving correct, I am bound in candour to say that it appears to me our critic has here discovered an error of fact. I have said that it is hard to insure absolute correctness. It is still more difficult to write 36 pages of controversial matter without making one point. Both these truths, it seems to me, receive their illustration here. I am inclined to think that Father Damen's statement is not technically accurate, and if so, our critic has made a point, the only one, in my judgment, that he has made against us from the beginning to the end of his lecture.

To be sure it is not much of a point. Perhaps I am attaching undue importance to it. Let us see.

Father Damen says that, in the fourth century the Pope, as Head of the Church, assembled together the bishops of the world in Council, and at that Council it was decided that the Bible as we have it to-day is the Word of God. Speaking with great diffidence it appears to me that, when writing this Father Damen had in his mind, not a General Council of the Universal Church, but of the African Church which was held at Carthage in the year 397. But how much does this improve our critic's position? I find from that 'very trustworthy' book of Bishop Westcott which the reverend gentleman specially recommends to those who desire to ascertain the truth about the early Christian Church, that at this council of Carthage which was presided over by St. Augustine the Great, a decree was passed enumerating and ratifying, subject to the confirmation of the Roman Church, the canonical Scriptures.[^10]

This whole subject forms, as I have said, a recondite study which it is futile to attempt to discuss here—but let me ask again, how far is Father Damen's position materially affected by the fact that no General Council of the Church determined the canon of Scripture in the early centuries. Let us amend his statement and make it read "It was not until the fourth century that the Second Council of Carthage presided over by St. Augustine, decided upon the ratification of the canon of Scripture, subject to the confirmation of the Roman Church." The point Father Damen desired to make was that with the Roman Church rested the ultimate determination of the canon of Scripture. Is not the statement as amended, testimony, somewhat weakened, I admit, but still testimony to, the supremacy of the Roman See?

I hurry on to consider the remaining assertions of our critic which he has given us an opportunity to disprove. He says:

A foolish list of "Roman Recruits" was paraded in this city last year, a pamphlet torn to shreds by the Quarterly Review for January, 1888, which showed that it covered the first 84 years of this century, and that it went to Russia, Germany and America for names. This article, well worth reading, shews how little has been done by the most elaborate system of most showy machinery, by Eminences, Graces, Lordships and Reverences without end, by assertion and assumption, and unheard of impudence, by pointing out and exaggerating our difficulties; by concealing and falsifying their own.

The facts in relation to this pamphlet are simply these. It was first published in the year 1878 by the editor of the Whitehall Review, a secular newspaper, as a bit of what is called newspaper enterprise, just as one of our newspapers published the other day, a list of Ottawa visitors to the World's Fair.

This action of the Whitehall Review was deprecated at the time by many of those concerned, who regarded it as an unwarranted liberty with their names. The Catholic authorities were in no sense responsible, and when I recall the letter from Cardinal Manning, published in the preface of the first edition, declining to furnish any information, or to countenance the publication in any way, I cannot help feeling indignant at what I must characterize as the rude and uncalled for allusion, which our reverend critic has thought proper to make, to the "unheard of impudence of Eminences, Graces, Lordships."

The man who first encouraged the publication was a pillar of the Anglican Church, to wit, Mr. Gladstone, who wrote a letter to the editor, making certain suggestions as to the arrangement of the names and so forth. The pamphlet has since gone through several editions, each an enlargement and improvement on the preceding. The last edition was published in 1892, and so far as my personal knowledge goes, is what it professes to be, a list of prominent English converts to Rome during the nineteenth century. Our critic refers us to the Quarterly Review of 1888, where he says this pamphlet is torn to shreds. The writer in the Quarterly had reference to the edition of 1884, but I do not find that he was nearly so destructive, as one would gather from the reverend gentleman's words. He does not tear anything to tatters; on the contrary he is moderation itself. In an article of 32 pages on "The Roman Catholics in England," this anonymous writer devotes one page to the pamphlet in question.

The hardest hit is as follows:

"It should be premised that whatever errors, accidental or otherwise, may be detected in these lists, they are entirely free from understatement. There are names inserted which have no business there, and some names of little children are set down as though they were adults; but no name has been left out that could be got hold of, and the humblest claim to social position, such as kinship to an attorney, has been held sufficient for admission to the honours of the list."

We are not particularly concerned in the accuracy of this pamphlet, still, as it has been published, it is well to know how far it is to be depended on. Fortunately this question is capable of easy determination. I have often looked through "Rome's Recruits" and my impression, notwithstanding the reviewer's statements to the contrary, is that the principal errors are those of omission. I need not go outside of this city to give one notable example of this, in the person of the Right Honourable gentleman who was the first President of this Society. Of course some names have got in that should not be there. How many do you think? So far as I can ascertain, just 11, in a total of 3541, exclusive of foreigners and children, or one in every 322; and these 11 are individually withdrawn and apologized for in the preface to the last edition.

These mistakes apparently have occurred chiefly in the cases of extreme high churchmen, who in externals, approach so nearly to Rome that it is no wonder the newspaper was occasionally deceived. It is surely not necessary to ascribe such natural errors, particularly when committed by a secular newspaper in search of a sensation, to 'Romish' malignity or love of falsehood.

To return to our local illustration. What would be thought of a man who would seek to hold up the Ottawa Journal to obloquy, because it was shown that out of the 750 names published as having visited Chicago, three had got off at Detroit! Would not any reasonable being say that so far from the newspaper being blameworthy, the fact of only three names out of 750 being wrong was pretty good evidence of the correctness of the list as a whole? In like manner, though I object to the publication of these names, correctly or incorrectly, without the consent of the owners, I say that the fact of only 11 complaints being made out of 3541 names, is evidence of the trustworthy character of the pamphlet, whatever one may think of the taste which prompted its compilation.

Our critic says that the pamphleteer went to Russia, Germany, and America for names. Why did he not say also France, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland? The fact is, the book appears to be exactly what it purports, a list of prominent British converts. Following, as a sort of supplement, under the heading of 'List of a few foreign Converts,' which heading is printed in large type, are the names of a number of Americans, 13 French, 49 Germans, one Russian, two Swedes, four Danes, and six Swiss. Surely that is legitimate. Could any one who had never seen the book, conjecture from our critic's description its true structure? I will add that there is nothing in the reverend gentleman's criticism to indicate that he ever even opened it. Nor does this surprise me. I can well understand that the imposing array of eminent names there presented is not calculated to promote an Anglican clergyman's peace of mind.

I cannot see that this list, apart altogether from the question of its accuracy has, any more than the dates of the gospels, a bearing upon the merits of the controversy in which our critic is interested. But the reverend gentleman no doubt knows best.

So much for our critic's general observations, underlying which, so far as there is any connection between them, I think I detect an apprehension, disguised in the language of strenuous assertion to the contrary, that the position of the Anglican Church in respect of its claims to antiquity and continuity with the past, is not quite impregnable.

As it is manifestly impossible to discuss the false decretals, and the Lollards, and the Albigenses and Martin Luther, and a host of other controversial subjects, in the brief space of half an hour, I think I should best fulfil the object we have in view, by devoting a few minutes to the claims advanced on behalf of the Anglican Church. And first let me disabuse the minds of those, who like our reverend critic, may consider that the Catholic Truth Society has any animus against that communion. To one casually looking over our publications the impression is perhaps not an unnatural one, but the explanation is very simple. Almost all our books are imported from England, where the Established Church stands for the great body of non-Catholic thought. Let me assure our Anglican friends that there is no antipathy to their Church on the part of the Catholic Truth Society. On the contrary, it seems to me that the notice we pay to it points the other way. It shows that at any rate we recognize in the Anglican Church, certain forms in common with our own, which render comparison possible. How is a Catholic profitably to discuss ecclesiastical history, with those who do not believe in any visible church, or in the episcopal form of government, or in the idea of sacramental grace, or who do not pretend to a corporate existence of more than relatively a few years. We are so wide apart that unless one enters the purely theological arena there is no basis for controversy or discussion.

Alone of all the bodies that surround us the Anglican communion sets up any claim to the prerogatives of the Church. A pale reflection though she be, still, in her form of government and liturgical observances, one can discern traces of Catholicity not wholly obliterated. While I do not believe that a single member of this society is animated by any ill will towards the Established Church, I may be permitted to add that my own feelings lead me in quite a contrary direction. That it is in any sense a portion of the Catholic Church I am, for reasons which I hope to show, unable to believe. At the same time it is undoubtedly one of the great institutions of our country, one of the pillars of the constitution. It is vastly better than its founders. It teaches much Catholic truth. It stands as a breakwater against greater evils. It contains within its ranks numbers, of whose learning and piety there is no question, of men who would fain blot out its shameful past. I do not believe that it possesses the apostolical succession, but most heartily do I concur in the opinion that if excellence of purpose and purity of life could make a man a priest, the Church of England would number many such. As a Catholic I should look forward to its disestablishment with dismay, and for very obvious reasons. Being purely a human institution, I greatly fear that the moment the strong arm of the state was removed, the Establishment would fall asunder, and there is nothing to take its place.

The number of converts to Rome in England is very considerable, and the fact that they are almost all drawn from the upper classes of society, gives to the movement an importance altogether out of proportion to the actual count. At the same time we must remember that the great mass of the English people is Protestant, and Protestant it will remain, without a miracle, for years to come. The process of conversion now going on is no doubt leavening the upper strata of society. I believe I am not wrong in saying that there is scarcely a noble family in England which has not furnished a member to the Catholic Church. But there are 27 millions of people in England and in these days, when one man is as good as another, what are a few thousands among so many. If the Anglican Church were disestablished to-morrow, it does not follow that her cathedrals and universities and revenues would revert to the use for which they were originally established. Far from it. All these things would simply become the spoil of contending factions, or be turned over to secular uses, and our prospects of some day regaining our own would be enormously lessened. It is sad I admit, that the ancient sees should be occupied by those whom we cannot but regard as intruders. It is equally painful to behold those glorious cathedrals erected by the piety of our forefathers for Catholic worship, diverted to their present use. But on the other hand it is surely better for their rightful owners that Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral should remain in the keeping of cultivated English gentlemen, who are not insensible to the sacred influences of those hallowed spots, than that they should once again be over-run by men without reverence for the past, respect for the present, or regard for the future. Better a thousand times that they should continue to resound with what is after all the echo, faint it may be, but still an echo of the olden worship, than that they should be profaned with the uncouth diatribes of an itinerant preacher, or given over to the purposes of a socialistic propaganda. In this of course, I speak only for myself.

Holding this view of the Anglican body and its clergy, it will be readily believed that it is not an agreeable task to be compelled to deny its claim to be considered a portion of the Catholic Church, or to say of its ministers that their orders are more than doubtful. Yet there are occasions when the truth demands the fulfilment of many duties from the performance of which we would willingly escape, and this is one of them. Fortunately in the present case the disagreeable character of the task is largely modified by the fact that a majority of the Anglican body (as regards the laity I think I may say the great majority) entirely disavow the doctrine, that union with a visible church, by participation in material sacraments, is necessary to eternal life. On the contrary, the whole body of the Low Church party will tell you that the Christian Church is not necessarily an external organization at all, but is the body of all true believers, no matter to what communion they belong. Thus one of their most eminent Bishops wrote[^11]: "Blessed be God there is no difference in any essential matters betwixt the Church of England and her sisters of the Reformation." To the members of this school, nothing I am going to say possesses interest. So far from claiming for their clergy any sacerdotal powers or functions derived from the imposition of hands in a direct line from the Apostles, they will tell you that such an assertion is an impious derogation from the prerogatives of the Son of God.

There is, however, a body of men within the Establishment, certainly not inferior in learning or piety to the rest—who do, I believe, in all sincerity claim those attributes for their church and for themselves. They affirm that their communion is one with the ancient church as it existed in England for a thousand years before the Reformation. That union with Rome is not essential to Catholicity. That there was an ancient British Church in existence before the days of St. Augustine; that this Church was independent of Rome. That gradually the Popes imposed their power, until the sixteenth century, when the English Church threw off the Papal supremacy and resumed its original position in the Christian world. That the succession, though endangered by the excesses consequent upon the Reformation, was preserved in the person of Archbishop Parker, and that the Church of England is to-day a living branch of the Holy Catholic Church. For many who hold and preach this doctrine I entertain the highest regard—for some of them an affection that will last with my life. I can only hope that what I feel called upon to say here may be received by them without offence, as I am sure it is uttered without malevolence.

I now propose to discuss the assertion of our critic which he says is disputed only by the ignorant or malicious, that—

"The Church of England claims to be historically and continuously 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."

Now, first, as to the early British Church. That Christianity existed in England before the mission of St. Augustine is undoubtedly true, though how it came there no one can say with any certainty. It seems to have reached its greatest development during the early part of the fifth century, or just before the arrival of the Saxons in 449. This savage race, issuing from the forests of northern Europe, remote from all civilizing influences, was the fiercest of the northern barbarians. Heathens who had never heard the name of Christ, they swept down upon the Britons whom after many a desperate struggle, they drove before them into the fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall. In little more than a century Christianity, says Professor Emerton of Harvard, in his introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, had almost disappeared from England proper, and was to be found only in Wales, Ireland and Scotland.[^12]

Thus the greater part of England was again without knowledge of God, and so it remained until Pope Gregory, attracted by the beauty of a group of fair-haired Saxon slaves exposed for sale in the market place of Rome, sent St. Augustine to recover the land. We all know what happened. How the Saint went forth on his mission. How he landed on the Kentish coast and succeeded in winning over the rude Saxon king. How Christianity spread throughout the land. How again Mass was sung and the saints invoked on English ground. How Augustine founded the see of Canterbury and governed the Church, subject to the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. The few remaining British bishops would not at first co-operate with him, not because he came from Rome, but for the expressed reason that they considered he did not receive them with sufficient deference. Within a comparatively short period, however, an understanding was effected. Together the British and Roman missionaries undertook the work of conversion in the north, and at the Council of Whitby, in the year 664, the supremacy of Rome was formally acknowledged. From St. Augustine and his successors the Church of England derives whatever she may possess. Indeed this is so well recognized that a favourite name for their body, among many high Anglicans, is the "Church of St. Augustine." St. Augustine is recognized as the founder and he, as is not disputed, received his authority direct from Rome.

But supposing, for the sake of argument, that the ancient British Church had preserved its local identity—suppose there had been no Saxon invasion and no visit from St. Augustine, and that the Anglicans of to-day could trace their succession in a direct line from the bishops who met Augustine, would that justify their present attitude towards Rome. I answer no, because the British Church, in common with the churches of Gaul, Africa and elsewhere, acknowledged the authority of the Holy See. I do not merely assert this after the fashion of our critic. I prove it. In two leaflets issued by the Catholic Truth Society, intituled respectively "The English Church always Roman Catholic," and "Was the British Church Roman Catholic," will be found quotations from St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, as also from the Venerable Bede and other early British writers, which seem to me to place this fact beyond doubt. I observe, however, that our critic feels some difficulty in accepting our quotations, all of which, he charitably says, are open to the suspicion of not being genuine.

To verify these patristic utterances would require more time, and call for more learning than, I fear, I possess. I think, however, I can remove the objection by supplying confirmatory evidence of what the Fathers say, from English writers, all of them Protestant, and some of them eminent divines of our critic's own church. For the correctness of these quotations I hold myself personally responsible, and as they are all from well known writers, any attempt at fraud on my part can easily be detected and exposed.

1st. Bishop Goodwin, the late Anglican Bishop of Carlisle, says in his "Church of England, Past and Present"—"There is no evidence of any substantial difference between it (the British Church) and the Church which Augustine established."[^13] This is pretty straight and to the point.

2nd. Archbishop Trench, the late Protestant Archbishop of Dublin says in his "English Past and Present": "The fact that we (the English people) received our Christianity from Rome, and that Latin was the constant language of the Church &c."[^14]

3rd. Hume, in his "History of England," says in effect that the early British Church differed from the Roman only in the mode of computing the date of Easter, and in the shape of the tonsure,[^15] and

4th. Emerton, in his introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, says the same thing.[^16]

5th. Hallam, in his Constitutional History, admits that the clergy of England always acknowledged the Papal supremacy.[^17]

In addition to these authorities I might quote Montalembert, who declared that "if England is Christian at this hour she owes it to the monks and emissaries of the Holy See," though, as Montalembert was not a Protestant, I do not choose to rest anything on his assertions.

But not only is it true that in matters of faith and doctrine the early British Church was subject to Rome, it is a fact, dispute it who may, that no country in the whole world exceeded England in the loving obedience which our fathers paid to the successors of St. Peter. "Not only did the doctrine (of Papal Supremacy) take root in Germanic Britain," says Professor Ranke, "but with it a veneration for Rome and the Holy See, such as no other country had ever evinced."[^18]

In the face of witnesses such as these, what becomes of the theory of an independent British Church? Whatever may have happened afterwards, it seems to me impossible for any candid mind to withstand the testimony brought in support of the claim that, from the earliest times down to the Reformation, England was subject in spiritual matters to the Roman Pontiff.

I do not for a moment seek to obscure the fact that there was a national spirit in English Catholicity which found expression in certain local 'uses' and customs, just as France had its Gallican rite; nor do I deny that the kings of England from time to time quarrelled with the Pope, as did the kings of Spain, but what I do maintain is that during all those years of which we have been speaking, there was but one religion in the kingdom—that of Rome; but one faith—the Catholic.

It was the supreme consciousness of this fact that wrung from Macaulay these memorable words. (He is speaking of the Universities.)

"When I think of the spacious and stately mansions of the heads of houses, of the commodious chambers of the fellows and scholars, of the refectories, the combination rooms, the bowling greens, the stabling; of the state and luxury of the great feast days, of the piles of old plate on the tables, of the savoury steam of the kitchens, of the multitude of geese and capons which turn at once on the spits, of the oceans of excellent ale in the butteries; and when I remember from whom all this splendour and plenty is derived; when I remember what was the faith of Edward the Third and of Henry the Sixth, of Margaret of Anjou and Margaret of Richmond, of William of Wykeham and William of Wayneflete, of Archbishop Chicheley and Cardinal Wolsey: when I remember what we have taken from the Roman Catholics—King's College, New College, Christ Church, my own Trinity; and when I look at the miserable Dotheboys Hall which we have given them in exchange (Maynooth), I feel, I must own, less proud than I could wish, of being a Protestant and a Cambridge man."[^19]

In process of time there came a change, and England, or rather its adulterous and bestial king, wearied of the restraints to which the Roman obedience held him. Inflamed with pride, avarice, and lust, he determined to sever the bond which had connected England with the centre of Christendom for a thousand years. What he failed to complete his savage daughter accomplished. The Church and ecclesiastical communities were pillaged, the altars were overthrown, the sees were despoiled, the professors of the ancient faith were hung, drawn, quartered, racked and roasted, and finally driven out of the kingdom, or obliged to hide in the holes and corners of the earth. A new regime was inaugurated.

The reverend gentleman is very angry at Father Damen for saying that Henry VIII was the founder of the Anglican Church. He calls the statement a 'slanderous attack.' Yet Father Damen in saying this uttered nothing original. He who has been styled the most impartial of English historians said it long before.

"Cranmer and most of the original founders of the Anglican Church, so far from maintaining the divine and indispensable right of episcopal government, held bishops and priests to be the same order."[^20]

Nor is Hallam alone. When our reverend critic was writing his lecture he had at his hand, and quoted from a very celebrated author who did not scruple to apply to the Anglican Church the self same word in the self same sense. Let him open Macaulay's History of England, turn to chapter I, p. 60, and he will find it so employed twice in two consecutive lines.

"If for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of those laws we examine the books and lives of those who founded the English Church, our perplexity will be increased; for the founders of the English Church wrote and acted," etc.

He will also find much more in the same chapter amplifying this view.

"But as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides; a union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England."

and again:

"The man who took a chief part in settling the conditions of the alliance which produced the Anglican Church was Archbishop Cranmer."[^21]

and again:

"To this day the constitution, the doctrines and the services of the Church retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she sprang,"[^22] and much more to the same effect.

Let me also refer the reader to Lecky's History of the 18th Century[^23] and Hume's History of England[^24] for confirmation of the statement that the Anglican Church was the outcome of the Reformation and the result of compromise.

Now I submit, with such gravity of countenance as under the circumstances I can command, that when Hallam and Lecky and Macaulay and Hume agree upon an historical fact, one should be permitted to share their opinion without being exposed to the charge of ignorance or knavery.

Departing from his usual practice our critic favours us with a quotation from an historian in support of his view of the antiquity of the Anglican Church. It is not very precise, nor very apposite, and it has apparently got into the wrong place in the reverend gentleman's pamphlet, but here it is:

"Professor Freeman, speaking not as a theologian, but as a historian, says that, legally and historically, 'the Church of England after the Reformation is the same as the Church of England before the Reformation.'"

Of course we are not told where or in what connection Professor Freeman uttered these words, but let that pass. Speaking not from a theological but from an historical point of view, no one doubts Professor Freeman's statement. We may be quite sure that Henry VIII who made the laws, took good care to give a legal status to the work of his hands, and that so far as Acts of Parliament could preserve the continuity, it was legally, and therefore in a sense historically, the same Church after as before the Reformation. What we are interested in knowing is was it the same Church, ecclesiastically and spiritually as before? Did it teach the same faith, administer the same sacraments, acknowledge the same head? That is what many anxious minds want to know, and the reverend gentleman may take my word for it they will not all be put off by quibbles on the word legally or rubbish about washing one's face.

From mere motives of expediency, and not from any belief in its divine appointment, Elizabeth determined that the new Church should retain the episcopal form. The Queen's choice of primate fell upon Matthew Parker, some time Dean of Lincoln, who she decreed should be Archbishop of Canterbury. On the accession of Elizabeth there were 14 bishops in England. All of them refused to have any part in the consecration of Parker, and in consequence 13 of them were instantly deprived of their sees. This unanimous refusal made it necessary to look about for some of the bishops who had resigned or been deprived at the beginning of Mary's reign. Of these William Barlow, who had been Bishop of Bath and Wells, was chosen to consecrate Parker, assisted by Coverdale, Scory and Hodgkin, three other deprived bishops. The ceremony was performed. Archbishop Parker ascended the chair of St. Augustine, and from him the Anglican episcopate of to-day derive their orders. The question which so deeply concerns our English Church friends is, was this consecration of Parker valid? To determine it we are obliged to ascend one step and propound the enquiry whether Barlow, the consecrator, was himself a Bishop. This is the crucial point. In examining it I do so from the position of an Anglican. As a Catholic I may say that the subject of Anglican orders has never been pronounced upon by the Church, and until she says so there is no absolute certainty on the point. It is not material to the controversy between Rome and Canterbury, so far as Rome is concerned. For even supposing it could be demonstrated beyond all doubt that Anglican orders were valid, the fact would not make the English Church Catholic. The Greek orders are certainly valid. That many of the sects of antiquity possessed true orders is beyond dispute. Rome has always acknowledged the orders of the Armenians, the Nestorians, the Old Catholics and many other heretical bodies. The Catholic Church therefore has no possible object in denying the Anglican claim. But while the point is not material so far as the Roman Church is concerned, it is absolutely vital to an Anglican, because if his Church does not possess the succession, obviously she cannot form a part of the Catholic Church. The importance of the question is therefore apparent.

Let us enumerate in a word the conditions necessary to constitute a valid ordination. The consecrator must himself be a bishop. He must pronounce certain words and perform certain manual acts, with the intention of imparting sacramental grace.

Now...

(1.) Was Barlow a bishop?

(2.) Did he consecrate Parker?

Taking up the latter point first. As to whether Barlow, supposing him to have been a true bishop, fulfilled the requisite conditions in his consecration of Parker, I may say at once that we have in the register of Parker's consecration, which is among the archives of Lambeth Palace, prima facie evidence in the affirmative. It is true there are several suspicious circumstances in connection with this record. In the first place it was not produced or specifically alluded to until after the lapse of 50 years, when every participant in the ceremony had long been dead. When during Parker's life time the consecration was challenged, the Archbishop replied, not by producing the register which would have settled the question, but by obtaining an Act of Parliament (8 Eliz. Cap. 1) supplying whatever defects might have occurred. Notwithstanding this, the register is there, and competent critics are of opinion that it is genuine, and consequently that Parker's consecration, apart from the question of Barlow, was in regular form.

To come now to the point. Was Barlow a bishop? In the first place, no record of his consecration can be found. That fact, though unusual, taken by itself is by no means conclusive against him, for the omission might have been accidental, and in any case registration has never been held to be essential, but as we enquire further, doubts multiply. He is said to have been consecrated by Cranmer, "the most infamous personage in English history,"[^25] according to Dr. Littledale, an authority for whom our critic professes high esteem. That again is not material, provided he complied with the formal conditions of the ceremony, and had the right intention, for Cranmer was undoubtedly, (we confess it with shame) a true bishop. The fact, however, of his being an infamous personage or, as Littledale in the same letter calls him, "an utterly unredeemed villain," renders it important to enquire what Cranmer's views on the necessity for episcopal ordination were. Fortunately they are on record, as are those of his colleague, Barlow. Cranmer avowed his conviction, says Macaulay in his History of England,[^26] that there was no difference between bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was altogether superfluous. According to the same authority, he stated that the king might, in virtue of his authority derived from God, make a priest, and that the priest so made needed no ordination whatever. He also held that his spiritual functions were determined by the demise of the Crown, and when Henry VIII died, he and his suffragans took out fresh commissions.[^27]

This wretched sycophant has thus been gibbetted by Dr. Littledale in a passage which, for merciless invective, is not exceeded by anything in the whole range of English literature.

"Every crime which tempted him he committed; every crime which any one in power wished to commit, he assisted or condoned. If Nathan, instead of denouncing David in the parable of the ewe-lamb, had pronounced a sentence of divorce between Uriah and Bathsheba, and had countersigned the fatal missive to Joab; if Elijah, instead of meeting Ahab with a message of Divine vengeance at the entrance of Jezreel, had presided over the mock court which condemned Naboth, and had been rewarded for his subserviency by a rent charge on the vineyard; if Daniel had at once sacrificed his religion at the ukase of Darius; if John Baptist had consented to perform the rite of marriage between Herod Antipas and Herodias, Philip's wife, how would we loath their memories? and yet each of them, had he stopped short there, would have been incomparably less guilty than Thomas Cranmer, whose whole life was a tissue of like acts."[^28]

So much for Cranmer, now for Barlow.

In the reign of Henry VIII certain questions were put by the King to the bishops and other divines, upon theological points. Among other questions they were asked, "Whether Bishops or Priests were first? and if the Priests were first, then the Priest made the Bishop."

To this question Barlow answered—"At the beginning they were all one."

Asked whether "in the New Testament be required any consecration of a Bishop or a Priest or only appointing to the office be sufficient."

He answered "Only the appointing."[^29]

He also declared that "If the King's Grace, being supreme head of the Church of England, did choose, denominate, and elect any layman being learned to be a Bishop, that he so chosen (without mention made of any orders) should be as good a Bishop as he is, or the best in England."

These are the two men upon the validity of whose consecration and action the orders of the Church of England depend.

It is only fair to Cranmer and Barlow to say that in holding these views they but expressed the opinions of their fellow reformers. An instrument is extant by which Grindal, the successor to Parker in the primacy, in the year 1582, authorized a Scotch minister, ordained according to the form of the Scotch Church, to preach and administer sacraments throughout the Province of Canterbury.[^30]

In 1603 Convocation solemnly recognized the Church of Scotland, in which episcopal ordination was unknown, as a branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ.[^31]

Many English benefices were at that time held by divines ordained in the Calvinistic form. Re-ordination was not thought necessary or lawful,[^32] and it was not until 1661, when the non-episcopal divines threatened to absorb all the good things of the Establishment, that episcopal ordination for the first time was made an indispensable condition to church preferment.[^33]

As to Barlow himself, what manner of man was he? We do not need to refer to any Catholic historian. We have his portrait admirably sketched by one of our critic's standard authorities, the great Littledale himself.

"William Barlow," says Dr. Littledale, "actively assisted Henry VIII in his divorce and in the spoliation of the monasteries, for which he was made Bishop of St. Asaph and thence promoted to St. David's. While occupant of that see, preferring to live at Abergwili, he stripped the lead off the palace of St. David's and sold it, embezzling the price and letting the palace go to ruin. Under Edward VI he avowed himself a Protestant, and was rewarded with the richer mitre of Bath and Wells, from which he immediately alienated eighteen manors to the Protector Somerset as the fee for his promotion. Then he broke his vows and married. When Mary came to the throne he immediately recanted, (Strype Eccl. Mem. III. 153), and even wrote a strong book against the Reformation, whose authenticity Burnet questions for no other reason than that he did not like to admit it. When Elizabeth succeeded, Barlow recanted again."[^34]

Of the assistant consecrators I am not so well informed. Littledale indeed says of Coverdale, whom he styles "the infamous,"[^35] that he is the same who preached a thanksgiving sermon amidst the unburied corpses of the Devonshire Catholics murdered by Lord Russell's foreign brigands. He does not mention Scory or Hodgkin by name, but includes them in this general estimate of the Reformers.

"They (the Reformers, collectively) were men of the basest and lowest stamp; they committed or encouraged the vilest crimes. They were corrupt, perjured, dishonest, cowardly and irreligious. They violated every pledge and every duty which bound them to man, and it is consequently most improbable, to say the least of it, that they can be safe guides in matters relating to God."[^36]

Here then is the position. Barlow, a notorious unbeliever and buffoon, who proclaimed his utter disbelief in the efficacy of episcopal ordination, is said, in the absence of any documentary evidence, to have been consecrated by Cranmer, a man of still worse character, and still more shameless unbelief. I say again that the circumstance of these men being destitute of morals and of principle would not necessarily affect the validity of the consecration, provided their actions were regular, which indeed is the question at issue. The fact is important, however, as showing that neither Cranmer nor Barlow would be restrained by any scruple from doing anything that would advance their worldly interests. Both these men were at this time fawning upon the King, whose vanity they fed by ascribing to the royal prerogative the source of episcopal authority. Their omission or travesty of a ceremony which both agreed in thinking entirely superfluous, would undoubtedly be regarded by Henry as a recognition of his kingly power, and as such would be directly in their own interests. I repeat, the disproof of this consecration is not quite absolute. It is proverbially difficult to prove a negative, but in view of the well known opinion held by the consecrator and consecrated on the subject of episcopal consecration; in the absence of the record of any consecration whatever, and, above all, the practice of the Anglican Church for a century thereafter in admitting to her ministry, persons who never pretended to have received episcopal ordination, I ask if it be not a subject of the gravest doubt whether this all important ceremony was canonically performed?

Our critic advances as a reason for supposing Barlow to have been consecrated that

"Henry VIII 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 Barlow 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 any one 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."

Surely, as Mr. Montague Tigg's school-boy remarked when writing home about the milk and water, 'this is indeed weakness.' Does not the reverend gentleman know that in the opinion of Henry VIII episcopal authority was conferred, not by the imposition of hands, but by a commission under his sign manual, revocable at the royal pleasure; that nobody could be a sham bishop with such a commission, nor a true bishop without it. If he does not, let him 'read history.'

"He (Henry VIII) proclaimed that all jurisdiction spiritual as well as temporal was derived from him alone, and that it was in his power to confer episcopal authority and to take it away. He actually ordered his seal to be put to commissions by which bishops were appointed who were to exercise their functions as his deputies, and during his pleasure. According to this system as expounded by Cranmer, the king was the spiritual as well as the temporal chief of the nation. In both capacities His Highness must have lieutenants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to collect his revenues and to dispense justice in his name, so he appointed divines of various ranks to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments. It was unnecessary that there should be any imposition of hands."[^37]

Nor was his daughter less modest. Perhaps our critic may have heard of Elizabeth's command to the Bishop of Ely to give one of her favourites the greater part of the land at Holborn belonging to the see, and what happened when the bishop, (who, unlike most of Elizabeth's creatures, appears to have been troubled with a conscience), hesitated to commit the sacrilege.

"Proud Prelate," wrote the virgin Queen, with her own hand, "I understand you are backward in complying with your engagement, but I would have you know that I who have made you what you are can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God I will immediately unfrock you.

Yours as you demean yourself, Elizabeth."[^38]

The Bishop was not proof against her Majesty's wrath; and what is now called Hatton Gardens passed out of the Church's possession.

The sole point made by our critic in favour of the validity of Anglican Orders is the opinion of Dr. von Döllinger that:

"The fact that Parker was consecrated by four rightly consecrated Bishops, rite et legitime, with imposition of hands and the necessary words, is so well attested that if one chooses to doubt this fact one could, with the same right, doubt one hundred thousand facts—the fact is as well established as a fact can be required to be." And at another time he says: "The result of my investigation is that I have no manner of doubt as to the validity of the Episcopal succession in the English Church."

There is no doubt that the reverend gentleman 'scores' here, for von Döllinger is a theologian of repute. We are told that these words were spoken in 1875, though no further information is given us, and as I do not pretend to any acquaintance with German theologians, I am ignorant of the circumstances which called them forth. We know that in 1875 von Döllinger was smarting under sentence of excommunication pronounced against him by the power whom he had all his life venerated as the vicegerent of Christ. Perhaps some feeling of resentment against Rome may have prompted this rather dogmatic utterance, though as I have shown, Rome has no object in denying the Anglican claim. Perhaps he went a little further than he meant to in complimenting his new found Anglican friends. Perhaps he was thinking chiefly of Parker's consecration (the outward ceremony connected with which I do not dispute was actually performed) and overlooking the question of Barlow's. Perhaps with all his erudition he may not have been familiar with what Littledale calls "the utter scoundrelism"[^39] of the English reformers. However that may be, I take our critic's word that he said it, and leave it to be set off against the objections I have raised.

I have, of course, touched only upon the chief heads of this question. Before leaving it, I must express my astonishment at the treatment accorded to the pamphlet intituled, "Was Barlow a Bishop," which our critic dismisses with the bare repetition of its title and a sneer. Why did he not at least mention the name of the author? It is on the title page. Let me draw the attention of those who have listened to the reverend gentleman, that this pamphlet is a series of exceedingly able letters on the subject of Barlow's consecration by the late Mr. Sergeant Bellasis, a gentleman who 20 years ago, stood in the front rank at the English Parliamentary bar. That great lawyer patiently examined into this question when a Protestant, sifted the evidence for and against with all the skill for which he was celebrated, and arrived at the following conclusion:

"Under all these circumstances, considering the openly expressed opinions of both Cranmer and Barlow that consecration was not necessary,—that that opinion would be pleasing to King Henry,—that there is no record of any consecration of Barlow by Cranmer or any one commissioned by him, or by any one at all,—that the documents relating to the election of his successor at St. Asaph speak of Barlow as having been 'Bishop elect' only, and use words to describe the cause of the vacancy altogether unusual and implying something short of a regular 'translation,'—I think it is in the highest degree probable, if not certain, that Barlow never was consecrated at all; and if so, it follows that he had no power to consecrate others, and therefore that Parker's consecration, so far as it depends upon Barlow, was no consecration at all."[^40]

I am greatly mistaken if the cause of our reverend critic will be strengthened by this contemptuous treatment of the judgment of one of England's great legal minds. It is all very well so to treat a hapless Jesuit, particularly if he be a foreigner, but there are many thinking men in our midst to whom the name of Mr. Sergeant Bellasis is not an empty sound.

Some there are possibly who may consider that in intellectual power, in mental training, in learning and dialectical skill, as well as in honesty of purpose, the dead lawyer was not inferior to the living divine. Perchance some of them may read the letters of Mr. Bellasis, and end by sharing his conclusions. In so doing they would be but following in the footsteps of many who have come to realize the folly of risking their soul's salvation on the bare possibility that a man of no principle and infamous life, imparted to another almost as depraved, by means of a ceremony which both looked upon as a farce, a grace in which neither believed nor desired to possess.

To those who have been impelled by the stern logic of facts to this conclusion, and to all that it entails, the process was not a pleasant one. They would fain have wished that the result of their enquiries had been otherwise. And if they gave up much that they greatly prized and might have retained, they did so because, in the words of the most illustrious of them all, 'they loved honesty better than name, and truth better than dear friends.'

Authorities Quoted in the Foregoing Paper

"Roman Methods of Controversy, as exemplified by the Catholic Truth Society," by William Jeffryes Muckleston, M.A.
"Church or Bible," by the Rev. A. Damen, S.J.
"Converts to Rome, an extended version of Rome's Recruits," by W. Gordon Gorman; London; Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Paternoster Square, 1892.
Lecture on "Innovations," delivered at Liverpool, on April 23rd, 1868, by Richard Frederick Littledale, LL.D., D.C.L., Priest of the Church of England; London; Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1868.
"Was Barlow a Bishop," by the late Mr. Sergeant Bellasis.
"A History of England in the Eighteenth Century," by William Edward Hartpole Lecky; London; Longmans, Green & Co., 1878.
"The History of England, from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688," by David Hume, Esq.; London; Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1848.
The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the original Greek, by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln; London; Rivingtons, 1870.
The Greek Testament, by Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury; London; Rivingtons, 1859.
"The Bible in the Church," by Brook Foss Westcott, M.A.; London and Cambridge; Macmillan & Co., 1864.
"The Constitutional History of England," by Henry Hallam; London; John Murray, 1827.
"A History of the Popes of Rome," by Leopold von Ranke; translated from the German by Mrs. Austin; London; 1847.
"The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England," by John, Lord Campbell, LL.D.; London; John Murray, 1848.
"The History of the Reformation of the Church of England," by Bishop Burnet; London; J. F. Dove, 1830.
"An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages," by Ephraim Emerton, Ph.D.; Boston; Ginn and Co., 1889.
"The History of England from the Accession of James II," by Lord Macaulay; New York; Harper and Brothers.
The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay; London; Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1878.
"Pictures from Italy," by Charles Dickens; London; Chapman and Hall, 1880.
"English, Past and Present," by Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D.; Archbishop of Dublin.
"Church of England, Past and Present," by Harvey Goodwin, D.D.; Bishop of Carlisle.

Notes

[^1]: Union Review, November, 1870. [^2]: Particularly in this case where, in the preface to the work our critic recommends as affording a good description of the iniquities of "Popery," Dickens expressly disclaims any intention of holding the Roman Catholic religion responsible for what he describes. He says: "I hope I am not likely to be misunderstood by professors of the Roman Catholic faith, on account of anything contained in these pages. I have done my best, in one of my former productions, to do justice to them, and I trust, in this, they will do justice to me. When I mention any exhibition that impressed me as absurd or disagreeable, I do not seek to connect it, or recognize it as necessarily connected with any essentials of their creed. When I treat of the ceremonies of the Holy Week, I merely treat of their effect, and do not challenge the good and learned Dr. Wiseman's interpretation of their meaning. When I hint a dislike of nunneries for young girls who abjure the world before they have ever proved or known it; or doubt the ex officio sanctity of all Priests and Friars, I do no more than many conscientious Catholics both abroad and at home."—Pictures from Italy, p. 2. If the reverend gentleman really wants a good 'creepy' description of the horrors of the inquisition, without any such qualifications, I recommend 'Montezuma's Daughter,' in which story Rider Haggard gives full play to his lively imagination, and treats his readers to harrowing accounts of the walling up alive of unfortunate nuns in the most approved fashion. [^3]: p. liii. [^4]:p. 168. [^5]:p. 256. [^6]: Vol. 1. Prolegomena, p. 31. [^7]:p. 36. [^8]:p. 46. [^9]:p. 65. [^10]: "Bible in the Church." p. 188. [^11]: Hall. The same idea can be found in Bishop Ryle's works, passim, or indeed, in the writings of almost any Low Church divine. [^12]: p. 111. [^13]: I have not been able to procure a copy of this work, which is not in the Parliamentary Library. Before reading my paper I sent to New York for it, but without success. While I have no doubt of the correctness of this quotation I am, for the above reason, obliged to give it second hand. In view of the fact that I have taken our critic's word for all his quotations, perhaps he will accept mine for this one. [^14]: Part 1, p. 43. [^15]: Vol. 1, pp. 52, 53. Our critic stoutly affirms "that in its origin, the Church of England was not Roman," but as usual, he does not support his statement by one single authority. Now, I propose to supply this want. Hume, in the same chapter from which I have just quoted, says that in the very beginning of things the British bishops did not acknowledge Rome. In this he differs from other authorities, and even from himself (see above). I allude to this, because it undoubtedly weakens the force of my reference, and I desire to be scrupulously fair. [^16]: p. 112. [^17]: Vol. 1, p. 69. [^18]: Hist. Popes, vol. 1, p. 20. [^19]: Speeches, p. 682. [^20]: Hallam's Cons. Hist. Vol. 1, p. 428, note. [^21]: p. 57. The previous quotation is on the same page. [^22]: p. 58. [^23]: "The (Anglican) Church was designed to be a State Church, including the whole nation, governed by the national legislature and disposing of vast revenues for national purposes. It may reasonably therefore be concluded that those who interpret its formularies in the widest and most comprehensive sense compatible with honesty, are acting most faithfully to the spirit of its founders." Vol. 2, p. 541. [^24]: Vol. III, p. 138. [^25]: Letter to the Guardian, 20th May, 1868. [^26]: Vol. I. p. 59. See Burnet's Hist. Reformation, Vol. IV. p. 125, where will be found a great deal more to the same effect. [^27]: Macaulay, Hist. England, Vol. I, p. 61. [^28]: Letter to Rev. J. G. Cazenove, published in the Church Times, 24th September, 1869. [^29]: These questions and answers are in what is called a "collection of Records," which make up the fourth volume of Burnet's History of the Reformation. See pp. 126 and 128. I have verified them all, not without some trouble. [^30]: Macaulay Hist. Eng., vol. 1, p. 80. [^31]: Macaulay Hist. Eng., vol. 1 [^32]: Macaulay Hist. Eng., vol. 1 [^33]:p. 169, see also Hallam's Cons. Hist., vol. 1, pp. 427–8. [^34]: Lecture on Innovations, pp. 50–51. [^35]:p. 35. [^36]: Letter to Rev. J. G. Cazenove, as above. [^37]: Macaulay, Hist. Eng. Vol. I. p. 61. [^38]: Campbell's Lord Chancellors, Vol. II. p. 149. [^39]: Lecture on Innovations, p. 17. [^40]: "Was Barlow a Bishop," pp. 10 and 11.