: exhibited. Again you behold, in this tree, the continuation of the apostolical work, the conversion of nations which, as it was committed by Ch.ist to the Catholic church, so it has never been blessed by him with success in any hands but in hers. This exclusive miracle, in the order of grace, like those in the order of nature, which I treated of in a former letter, is itself a divine attestation on her behalf. Speaking of the conversion of nations, I must not fail, dear sir, to remind your society, that this our country has twice been reclaimed from Paganism, and each time by the apostolic labours of missionaries, sent hither by the See of Rome. The first conversion took place in the second century, when Pope Eleutherius sent Fugatius and Duvianus for this purpose, to the ancient Britons, or Welsh, under their king or governor, Lucius, as Bede and other historians relate. The second conversion was that of our immediate ancestors, the English Saxons and Angles, by St. Augustin and his companions, at the end of the sixth century, who were sent from Rome, on this apostolical errand, by Pope Gregory the Great. Lastly, you see in the present sketch, a series of unhappy children of the church, who, instead of hearing her doctrines, as it was their duty to do, have pretended to reform them; and thus, losing the vital influx of their parent stock, have withered and fallen off from it as mere dead branches. I am, &c. LETTER XXIX. To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c. ON 1 HE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC MINISTRY. DEAR SIR J. M IN viewing the apostolical tree, you are to consider it as representing an uninterrupted succession of pontiffs and prelates, who derive not barely their doctrine, but also, in a special manner, their ministry, namely their holy orders and the right or jurisdiction to exercise those orders in a right line, from the apostles of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Catholic church, in all past ages, has not been more jealous of the sacred deposite of orthodox doctrine, than of the equally sacred deposites of legitimate ordination, by bishops who themselves had been rightly ordained and consecrated, and of valid jurisdiction, or divine mission, by which she authorizes her ministers to exercise their respective functions in such and such places, with respect to such and such persors, and under such and such condition, as she, by the depositaries of this jurisdiction, is pleased to ordain Thus, my dear sir, every Catholic pastor is authorized and enabled to address his flock as follows: The word of God which 1 announce to you, and the holy sacraments which I dispense to you, I am QUALIFIED to announce and dispense by such a Catholic bishop, who was consecrated by such another Catholic bishop, and so on, in a series, which reaches to the apostles themselves and I am AUTHORIZED to preach and minister to you, by such a prelate, who received authority, for this purpose, from the successor of St. Peter, in the apostolic See of Rome. Heretofore, during a considerable time, the learned and conscientious divines of the church of England held the same principles, on both these points, that Catholics have ever held, and were no less firm in maintaining the divine right of episcopacy and the ministry than we are. This appears from the works of one who was, perhaps, the most profound and accurate amongst them, the celebrated Hooker. He proves, at great length, that the ecclesiastical ministry is a divine function, instituted by God, and deriving its authority from God, "in a very different manner from that of princes and magistrates:" that it is " a wretched blindness not to admire so great a power as that, which the clergy are endowed with, or to suppose that any but God can bestow it" that "it consists in a power over the mystical body of Christ by the remission of sins, and over his natural body in the sacrament, which antiquity doth call the making of Christ's body." He distinguishes between the power of orders and the authority of mission or jurisdiction, on both which points he is supported by the canons and laws of the establishment. Not to speak of prior laws; the act of uniformity, provides that no minister shall hold any living, or officiate in any church, who has not received episcopal ordination. It also requires that he shall be approved and licensed for his particular place and function. This is also clear from the form of induction of a clerk into any cure. In virtue of this system, when Episcopacy was re-established in Scotland, in the year 1662, four Presbyterian ministers having been appointed by the king to that office, the English bishops refused to consecrate them, unless they consented to be previously ordained deacons and priests, thus renouncing their former ministerial character, and acknowledging that they had hitherto been mere laymen § Iu Ecclesiast. Politic. B. v. Art. 77. + Stat. 13 and 14 Car. 2, c. 4. "Curam et regimen animarum parochianorum tibi committimus. Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. ii. p. 887. It appears from the same history that four other Scotch ministers, who had formerly permitted themselves to like manner, on the accession of king William, who was a Dutch Calvinist, to the throne, when a commission of ten bi shops and twenty divines was appointed to modify the articles and liturgy of the established church, for the purpose of form. ing a coalition with the dissenters, it appeard that the most lax among them, such as Tillotson and Burnet, together with chief baron Hales and other lay lords, required that the dissenting ministers should, at least be conditionally ordained, as being thus far mere laymen. In a word, it is well known to be the practice of the established church, at the present day, to ordain all dissenting Protestant ministers of every description, who go over to her, whereas, she never attempts to re-ordain an apostate Catholic priest, who offers himself to her servive, but is satisfied with his taking the oaths prescribed by law. This doctrine of the establishment, evidently unchurches, as Dr. Heylin expresses it, all other Protestant communions; as it is an established principle that, No ministry no church, and with equal evidence, it unchristians them also; since this church unanimously resolved, in 1575, that baptism cannot be performed by any person but a lawful minister. But dismissing these uncertain and wavering opinions, we know what little account all other Protestants, except those of England, have made of apostolical succession and episcopal ordination. Luther's principles on these points are clear from his famous Bull against the FALSELY CALLED order of bɩ. shops, where he says, "Give ear now, you bishops, or rather you visors of the devil: Dr. Luther will read you a Bull and a Reform, which will not sound sweet in your ears. Dr. Luther's Bull and Reform is this, whoever spend their labour, persons and fortunes, to lay waste you episcopacies, and to extinguish the government of bishops, they are the beloved of God, true be consecrated bishops, were, on that account, excommunicated and degraded by the kirk. Records, N. cxiii. Life of Tillotson by Dr. Birch, pp. 42. 176. Notwithstanding these proofs of the doctrine and practice of the established church, a great proportion of her modern divines consent, at the present day, to sacrifice all her pretensions to divine authority and uninter. rupted succession It has been shown in The Letters to a Prebendary, that in the principles of the celebrated Dr. Balguy, a piest or a bishop can as well be made by the town crier, if commissioned by the civil power, as by the metropolitan. To this system, Dr. Sturges, Dr. Hey, Dr. Paley, and a crowd of other learned theologians subscribe their names. Even the bishop of Lincoln, in maintaining Episcopacy to be an apostolical institution, denies it to be binding on Christians to adopt it: which, in fact, is t reduce it to a mere civil and optional practice. Elem. Vol. ii. Art. 23. "Ubi nullus est Sacerdos nulla est Ecclesia." St. Jerom, &c. Elem of Theol. Vol ii. p. 471. Adversus falso Nomin. Tom. ii. Jen. A. D. 1525. Christians, and opposers of the devil's ordinances. On the other hand, whoever support the government of bishops, and willingly obey them, they are the devil's ministers," &c. True it is, that afterwards, namely, in 1542, this arch-reformer, to gratify his chief patron, the Elector of Saxony, took upon himself to consecrate his bottle companion, Amsdorf, bishop of Naumburgh* but, then, it is notorious, from the whole of his conduct, that Luther set himself above all law, and derided consistency and decency. Nearly same may be said of another later reformer, John Wesley, who, professing himself to be a Presbyter of the church of England, pretended to ordain Messrs. Whatcoat, Vesey, &c. priests, and to consecrate Dr. Coke a bishop! With equal inconsistency, the elders of Hernhuth in Moravia, profess to consecrate bishops for England and other kingdoms. On the other hand, how averse the Calvinists, and other dissenters, are to the very name as well as the office of bishops, all modern histories, especially those of England and Scotland, demonstrate. But, in short, by whatever name, whether of bishops, priests, deacons, or pastors, these ministers respectively call themselves, it is undeniable, that they are all self-appointed, or, at most, they derive their claim from other men, who themselves were self-appointed, fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen hundred years subsequent to the time of the apostles. The chief question which remains to be discussed concerns the ministry of the church of England: namely, whether the first Protestant bishops, appointed by queen Elizabeth, when the Catholic bishops were turned out of their Sees, did or did not receive valid consecration from some other bishop, who, himself, was validly consecrated? The discussion of this question has fuuled many volumes, the result of which is, that the orders are, to say the least, exceedingly doubtful. For, first, it is certain that the doctrine of the fathers of this church was very loose, as to the necessity of consecration and ordination.. Its chief founder, Cranmer, solemnly subscribed his name to the position, that princes and governors, no less than bishops, can make priests, and that no consecration is appointed by Scripture to make a bishop or priest.‡ In like manner, Barlow, on the validity of * Sleidan, Comment. L. 14. + Dr. Whitehead's Life of Charles and John Wesley. It appears that Charles was horribly scandalized at this step of his brother John, and that Alasing schism among the Wesleyan Methodists was the consequence of it Burnet's Hist of Reform. Records, B. iii. N. 21. See also his Rec Part ii. N 2, by which it appears that Cranmer and the other complying pre lates too's out fresh commissions on the death of Henry VIII, from Edward overn their dioceses, durante beneplacito, like mere civil officers. whose consecration that of Matthew Parker and of all succeed ing Anglican bishops chiefly rests, preached openly that the king's apointment, without any orders whatsoever, suffices to make a bishop.* This doctrine seems to have been broached by him to meet the objection that he himself had never been consecrated in fact, the record of such a transaction has been hunted for in vain, during these two hundred years. Secondly, it is evident, from the books of controversy, still extant, that the Catholic doctors, Harding, Bristow, Stapleton, and Cardinal Allen, who had been fellow-students and intimately acquainted with the first Protestant bishops, under Elizabeth, and particu larly with Jewel, bishop of Sarum, and Horne, bishop of Winton, constantly reproached them, in the most pointed terms, that they never had been consecrated at all, and that the latter, in their voluminous replies, never accepted of the challenge or refuted the charge, otherwise than by ridiculing the Catholic consecration. Thirdly, it appears that after an interval of fifty years from the beginning of the controversy, namely in the year 1613, when Mason, chaplain to archbishop Abbot, published a work, referring to an alleged Register at Lambeth, of archbishop Parker's consecration by Barlow, assisted by Coverdale and others, the learned Catholics universally exclaimed that the Register was a forgery, unheard of till that date, and asserted, among other arguments, that, admitting it to be true, it was of no avail, as the pretended consecrator of Parker, though he had sat in several Sees, had not himself been consecrated for any of them.f These, however, are not the only exceptions which Catholic divines have taken to the ministerial orders of the church of England. They have argued, in particular, against the form of them, as theologians term it, in fact, according to the ordinal of Edward VI, restored by Elizabeth, priests were ordained by the power of forgiving sins, without any power of offering up sacrifice, in which the essence of the sacerdotium, or priesthood consists; and, according to the same ordinal, bishops were conseerated without the communication of any fresh power whatṣoever, or even the mention of episcopacy, by a form which might be used to a child, when confirmed or baptized. This was *Collier's Eccl Hist. Vol. ii. p. 135. Richardson, in his notes on Godwin's Commentary, is forced to confess as follows: "Dies consecrationis ejus (Barlow) nondum apparent." p. 642. "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins thou dost forgive, they are for given, and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained: and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his Holy Sacraments Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p. 158. Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of hands.”—Ibid. p. 164. |