is ever to be supposed in our acknowledgment of the royal supremacy. Consequently we give no authority to the prince, except what is consistent with the maintenance of all those rights, liberties, jurisdictions, and spiritual powers, which "the law of Christ" confers on his church. (4.) The church of England believes the jurisdiction and commission of her clergy to come from God, by apostolical succession, as is evident from the Ordination Services, and has been proved by the papist Milner himself (Letters to a Prebendary, lett. viii.); and it is decidedly the doctrine of the great majority of her theologians. (5.) The acts of English monarchs have been objected in proof of their views on the subject. We are not bound to subscribe to those views. If their acts were wrong in any case, we never approved them, though we may have been obliged by circumstances to submit to intrusions and usurpations. But since this is a favourite topic with Romanists, let us view the matter a little on another side. I ask then, whether the parliaments of France did not for a long series of years, exercise jurisdiction over the administration of the sacraments, compelling the Roman bishops and priests of France to give the sacraments to Jansenists, whom they believed to be heretics? Did they not repeatedly judge in questions of faith, viz. as to the obligation of the Bull Unigenitus"? Did they not take cognizance of questions of faith and discipline to such a degree; that they were said to resemble "a school of theology?" I ask whether the clergy of France in their convocations, were not wholly under the control of the king, who could prescribe their subjects of debate, prevent them from debating, prorogue, dissolve, &c. Did they not repeatedly beg in vain from the kings of France, for

66

a long series of years, to be permitted to hold provincial synods for the suppression of immorality, heresy, and infidelity? Is not this liberty still withheld from them, and from every other Roman church in Europe ? I further ask whether the Emperor Joseph II. did not enslave the churches of Germany and Italy; whether he did not suppress monasteries, suppress and unite bishopricks, whether he did not suspend the bishops from conferring orders, exact from them oaths of obedience to all his measures present and future, issue royal decrees for removing images from churches, and for the regulation of divine worship down to the minutest points, even to the number of candles at mass? Whether he did not take on himself to silence preachers who had declaimed against persons of unsound faith? Whether he did not issue decrees against the Bull "Unigenitus," thus interfering with the doctrinal decisions of the whole Roman church? I ask whether this conduct was not accurately imitated by the grand duke of Tuscany, the king of Naples, the duke of Parma; whether it did not become prevalent in almost every part of the Roman church, and whether its effects do not continue to the present day? I again ask whether "Organic Articles" were not enacted by Buonaparte in the new Gallican church, which placed every thing in ecclesiastical affairs under the government? Whether the bishops were not forbidden by law to confer orders without the permission of government? Whether the obvious intention was not to place the priests, even in their spiritual functions, under the civil powers? And in fine, whether those obnoxious "Organic Articles" are not, up to the present day, in almost every point, in force? I again enquire whether the order of Jesuits was not suppressed by the mere civil powers, in Portugal, Spain,

France, Italy, &c.; whether convents, monasteries, confraternities, friars, and monks, and nuns, of every sort and kind, were not extinguished, suppressed, annihilated by royal commissions, and by the temporal power, in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, &c. &c.; and in opposition to the petitions and protests of the pope and the bishops? I again ask whether the king of Sicily does not, in his "Tribunal of the Monarchy," up to the present day, try ecclesiastical causes, censure, excommunicate, absolve? Whether this tribunal did not in 1712 give absolution from episcopal excommunications; and whether it was not restored by Benedict XIII. in 1728? Is there a Roman church on the continent of Europe, where the clergy can communicate freely with him whom they regard as their spiritual head; or where all papal bulls, rescripts, briefs, &c. are not subjected to a rigorous surveillance on the part of government, and allowed or disallowed at its pleasure? In fine, has not Gregory XVI. himself, been compelled in his Encyclical Letter of 1832, to utter the most vehement complaints and lamentations, at the degraded condition of the Roman Obedience? Does he not confess that the church is "subjected to earthly considerations," "reduced to a base servitude," "the rights of its bishops trampled on?" These are all certain facts: I appeal in proof of them to the Roman historians, and to many other writers of authority; and they form

See Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire Eccl. &c. xviiie siècle; Mémoires sur les Affaires Ecclésiast. de France; La Mennais, Réflexions sur l'Eglise en France, Essai sur l'Indifference, Affaires de Rome; Mémoires Historiques sur Pie VI. et son Pontificat

VOL. I.

but a part of what might

(by Bourgoing); Bouvier, Episc. Cenomanensis, de Vera Ecclesia, Appendix; and the "Report from the Select Committee on the regulations of Roman Catholic subjects in foreign countries" (Parliamentary Papers, 1816.). This Report contains a mass of

S

be said on this subject. Romanists should blush to accuse the church of England for the acts of our civil rulers in ecclesiastical matters. They should remember those words: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

But, it will be objected, all this was contrary at least to the principles of the Roman church, while English theologians on the contrary, exaggerate the authority of the civil magistrate in ecclesiastical affairs. I admit unequivocally, that some of our theologians have spoken unadvisedly on this subject. But what of that? Can they have gone further than the whole school of Gallican writers, of modern canonists, and reforming theologians, in the Roman church, whose object is to overthrow the papal power, and render the church subservient in all things to the state? Do Romanists imagine that we are ignorant of the principles of Pithou and the Gallican school, of Giannone, Van Espen, Zallwein, De Hontheim, Ricci, Eybel, Stoch, Rechberger, Oberhauser, Riegger, Cavallari, Tamburini, and fifty others, who were tinged with the very principles imputed to us? Do they forget that their clergy in many parts have petitioned princes to remove the canonical law of celibacy? In fine, is it not well known, that there is a conspiracy among many of their theologians, to subject the discipline of the church to the civil magistrate? It is really too much for Romanists to assail us, on the very points where they are themselves most vulnerable, and where they are actually most keenly suffering. Our churches, though subject to authentic documents of the highest importance, which it is impossible to find elsewhere. L'Ami de la Religion, a religious perio

dical, published at Paris, and which has existed ever since the restoration of the Bourbons, is also full of valuable details.

some inconveniences, and lately aggrieved by the suppression of bishoprics in Ireland, contrary to the solemn protests of the bishops and clergy, are yet in a far more respectable and independent position, than the Roman churches. Those amongst us who maintain the highest principles on the spiritual jurisdiction of the church, have reason to feel thankful, that we have not yet fallen to the level of the church of Rome.

OBJECTIONS OF DISSENTERS.

XIV. The church of England contradicts Scripture, (Eph. i. 22.) which declares that Christ alone is the head of the church; for she makes the king her head.

4

Answer. (1.) She does not acknowledge the king as head of the universal church, which alone is spoken of in that passage. (2.) She only attributes to him temporal and external authority, but no jurisdiction purely spiritual, which belongs to the ministers of God by divine institution. (3.) The church of England, as I have already said, is not bound to approve all the opinions or acts of civil governors or of lawyers; they may perhaps exaggerate the authority of temporal rulers in ecclesiastical affairs; but the church of England is not obliged to subscribe to any of their opinions. (4.) Dissenters admit that from the time of Constantine the Great, the civil magistrate exercised various powers over the church. And not merely the unreformed churches of the East and West, but the Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, and Presbyterians, universally acted on, and adopted the principle of the authority of the civil magistrate in some ecclesiastical affairs. The Puritans of England availed themselves of the aid of the civil power; and the community of Independents alone exclaimed against all authority of the magistrate in ecclesiastical matters.