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sure, further than the strong general feeling which he ever entertained and expressed, of the illegality of his deprivation, it is impossible to speak, because they are not recorded. The transaction took place, it should be remembered, at a time when his spirits were broken by ill health, and the events which had befallen him; and when the influence of others was likely to impel him to the adoption of measures which his own sounder judgment <would not have approved. That judgment would, no doubt, have otherwise taught him to reflect, that it is no light matter to cause, in any case, a schism in the Church of Christ; that the grounds of such a proceeding ought to be most seriously weighed, before they are acted upon; that, as the evils which result from it are certain, there ought to be a clear conviction that they cannot conscientiously be avoided, and that they are overbalanced by contrary good. It would have suggested to him that, in the present instance, there could be no sufficient reason for establishing a permanent schism, as there was no difference of doctrine or discipline concerned, no alleged doubt as to the validity of the ministerial functions in the Church in possession, but merely a separation, on grounds purely civil and temporary in their nature, which only affected those who had taken the oaths to the former sovereign, not others who were to succeed them. It was one thing to refuse

* "Soon after the Revolution, alterations in the Liturgy were proposed, with the view of satisfying the scruples of dis senters; for this purpose, a commission of divines was appointed under the great Seal, to consider the matter and prepare a scheme to be laid before the Convocation. The Convocation, however, were hostile to the measure, and nothing was done. On this Bishop Burnet remarks. (vol. ii. p. 30-34) that herein was a happy direction of Providence: for the Jacobite clergy were at this time contemplating a schism in the Church, and wished to be furnished with some specious pretences for that purpose; if, therefore, alterations had been made in the Rubric and other parts of the Common Prayer, they would have contended that they still stuck to the ancient Church in opposition to those who were setting up new models."

to hold an office, civil or ecclesiastical, under a sovereign to whom, while another sovereign lived, they felt they could not conscientiously take the oath of allegiance; but it was quite a distinct consideration, whether they should deliberately pronounce the church established under that sovereign, to be, on this ground alone, not a true Church; an opinion which alone could justify them in setting up a rival communion against it. However, it does not become us to judge dogmatically, or to censure with too much harshness, in a matter where some of the wisest and the best of men were divided in their opinions; where we have the fullest reason to be assured that all acted from the sincere dictates of conscience; and where the name of Sancroft is found to sanction and to dignify a cause, which our own individual judgments may lit tle dispose us to approve."

We do not wish to lessen the force of the apology thus offered for the ve nerable Archbishop. It may be that he was led by others, less wise and more intemperate than himself: it may be that ill health and misfortune had impaired his faculties, and broken his spirits; and that his sounder judgment would have disapproved the measure which he thus sanctioned.

The account which Dr. D'Oyly has given of the last sickness and death of Sancroft is very interesting; not only for the pleasing picture which it exhibits of the piety and many virtues which adorned his mind, but also for the curious instances which its records of those unhappy prejudices that he had suffered to possess it, which induced him to refuse to make a will, be cause it must be proved in the courts of his successor; and to provide with much anxiety that his funeral service should not be performed by any but a non-juring minister.

Such are the imperfections which al loy the fairest character, and show, that error is, more or less, inseparable from us all. That he died in charity with all, we have, however, the most satisfactory testimony.

"We saw at this period, proceeds the narrator of his last illness, his ar dent charity both extended and limited,

according to the Apostle's direction

to all, but especially to them of the household of faith." His suffering brethren were the principal objects of his charity and prayers, but not exclusive of others; for, upon the frequent returns of exercises of his devotions, he suited his prayers to the general needs of men, and recommended all his brethren to the divine mercy. In short, if he had any enemies, they were included in his prayers; in particular, a short time before his last hour, after solemnly praying for a blessing on his family, relations, and friends, he earnestly implored forgiveness for his enemies, as he desired it of God for him

self.

"That his strong feeling of the rectitude of the course which he had taken, did not narrow or enfeeble his feelings of kindness towards those who differed from him, or prevent his most fully allowing that they also acted from pure conscientious motives, is clear from all his conduct during the close of his life. We have seen in how affectionate a manner he took leave of one of his former chaplains, Mr. Wharton. His other chaplain, Mr. Needham, came to him, as he lay upon his deathbed. He gave him also his blessing in the most affectionate manner, and, after some other conversation, said thus to him: "You and I have gone different ways in these late affairs, but I trust heaven's gates are wide enough to receive us both. What I have done, I have done in the integrity of my heart. Upon this, Mr. Needham modestly attempted to explain the motives which had influenced his conduct: to which the Archbishop replied, I always took you for an honest man. What I said concerning myself, was only to let you know that what I have done, I have done in the integrity of my heart; indeed in the great integrity of my heart." "

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To him who alone is the judge of that integrity, we may safely leave this eminent person. And, though we cannot perhaps rank him with the greatest or the most learned of those who have filled the important station which he held in the Church of England; or conceal from ourselves the indecision

and weakness which marked his conduct on some occasions, or the unfortunate excess to which he suffered his prejudices to lead him in others; still we cannot but admire his inflexible maintenance of the principles which his conscience led him to espouse, "his firm unbending integrity, his lofty and immoveable uprightness of mind, which made him, on all occasions, steadily adhere to that cause which he believed to be right, and postpone to this proud feeling every consideration of worldly interest."

His character has been somewhat overrated by the writers of his own persuasion, who regarded him as the great martyr to their cause; and it has been unfairly depreciated by the partial historian of" his own times," who mixed up his private feelings with his narrative, and seemed to have taken a petty delight in decrying him, whose disinclination to consecrate him a Bishop, he never could forgive; and whom he justly regarded as the decided enemy of the principles which he advocated, and the measures he pursued. On the whole, we agree with his biographer, that "Archbishop Sancroft was greatly eminent in his generation for the manner in which he fulfilled all the public and private duties of life. The various excellencies and virtues which adorned his character, are sufficient to claim for him the tribute of admiration from posterity in general; but by the Protestant members of the Church of England, his name must ever be especially cherished with grateful recollection, for the noble stand which he made, at the hour of trial, in defence of the religious and civil liberties of the country; a stand to which the preservation of that goodly fabric in Church and State, which they inherit from their forefathers, is principally to be attributed."

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bound to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope, and to be in communion with the Church of Rome?

The retort is frequently made upon Episcopalians, when they insist upon the duty of conformity to and union with their Church, that they are exposed to the same charge they make upon others, that they have destroyed that unity for which they contend, by separating from the Church of Rome, and are therefore according to their own principles in schism.

To prove that this allegation is unfounded, I shall endeavour to show, that there is no foundation in Scripture, or in the writings or practice of the primitive Church, for the supremacy of the Pope; and that we are not bound to preserve unity with the Church of Rome, or with any other church, farther than in the points already stated.

One of the passages of Scripture, upon which the Romanists build the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy, is the answer which our Lord made to Peter, when he acknowledged the Saviour's divinity; "I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Here, it is said, our Lord declares that he will build his Church upon St. Peter, whom he styles a rock. The inference is then drawn that St. Peter was superior to the rest of the Apostles, that he was the head of the Church at that time, and as he was afterwards Bishop of Rome, (a circumstance by the way which itself is very doubtful,) that Rome was in all succeeding ages to be considered the mother Church, and the Bishop in being, the successor of St. Peter, and spiritual Lord of the whole earth.

It must be evident to any person, candidly examining the passage in question, that these are very strained inferences, even if the interpretation put upon it were correct. But we deny the correctness of the interpretation. We pretend not to be able to give such a solution of it as will satisfy every person, since the language evidently is figurative, and almost all commentators have acknowledged the difficulty at

tending it; but the interpretation generally given to it by Protestants is the most probable.

Peter had replied to the question"Whom say ye that I am?" put to him by our Lord" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Saviour then addresses Peter, and says, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." * What was this rock? We answer, The confession of Peter, that Christ was the Son of the living God. "On this rock," that is, on the doctrine of my divinity, I build my Church-this is the foundation, and if this foundation. remains unshaken, the gates of hell shall not prevail against my Church. There is an evident antithesis, or rather two antitheses, between the speech of Peter and that of our Saviour." Thou art the Christ"-"Thou art Peter." Here is the first. Again, "the Son of the living God." Christ, referring to this, says, 66 on this rock-or this selfsame rock-I build my Church.” The divinity of the Saviour, then, would appear to be the rock on which he was about to build his Church. In the verse succeeding the one now explained, our Saviour adds, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."+ Upon this passage also the Romanists depend for support of the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy. Whatever may be its true meaning, it confers no more authority upon St. Peter than upon the rest of the Apostles. Does it refer to ecclesiastical discipline, to the power of receiving into or rejecting from the Church, of censuring, admonishing, and pronouncing absolution from sin ? We know that these were acts appertaining to all the Apostles, and to their successors also. "Whosesoever sins," says our Saviour to them, " ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." Does it refer to the privilege of opening the door of the Chris

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tian Church to the Gentiles, and of confirming or abrogating the laws under which the Jews lived? St. Peter, it is true, prepared the way for the admission of the Gentiles generally into the Church, by receiving Cornelius the centurion and his family. He was the instrument chosen by the Almighty for this purpose; and, if the opinion of Bishop Horsley be correct, he then used the keys of the kingdom of heaven -he then unlocked the gates of Zion, which before had been inhabited only by Jews, and admitted the Gentiles to all the privileges of the holy city. "St. Peter was the first instrument of Providence in dissolving the obligation of the Mosaick law in the ceremonial, and of binding it in the moral part. The rescript, indeed, for that purpose, was drawn by St. James, and confirmed by the authority of the Apostles in general, under the direction of the Holy Ghost; but the Holy Ghost moved the Apostles to this great business by the suggestion and persuasion of Peter, as we read in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And this was his particular and personal commission to bind and loose."* The selection of him by the Almighty for these purposes, no doubt, was highly honourable to St. Peter; but it is difficult to see wherein an increase of power was thereby conferred upon him. The opening of the door to the Gentiles was an act which, when once done, could not be repeated-the power to do it, when once exercised, ceased by the very circumstance of the exertion; and St. Peter, when his work in this respect was done, although always deserving of high honour and great deference on account of his being selected for its accomplishment, resumed his former station of equality with the rest of the

* See Bishop Horsley's Sermon on the passage in question.

After the most mature reflection that the writer of this has been able to give to the subject, he thinks that the learned Bishop's exposition is the most satisfactory of any he has seen. It may be proper to remark, that the exposition did not originate with Bishop Horsley-but he has stated the argument in a clearer and ronger manner perhaps than any of his predecessors.

Apostles. We have no evidence that he ever exercised any authority over them. All the influence he possessed evidently arose from his superior ability and zeal. He certainly was a favourite disciple of our Saviour, as appears from the circumstance of his be ing chosen with James and Johm tó be present at his transfiguration, and from the last discourse of his Lord and Master, in which he says to Peter, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" But we find no where that our Saviour gave him any authority over the rest of the Apostles-much less that his successor in the See of Rome should have it. Nor do we find that St. Peter ever claimed, or that the other Apostles ever yielded this authority. He submitted to the direction of the other Apostles.* St, Paul likewise tells us, that he withstood him face to face, a very unwarrantable act surely, if Peter was his superior; and, in another place, he declares that he himself was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the Apostles. In truth, if either of the Apostles was superior in authority to the rest, St. Paul might perhaps lay the best claim to this distinction. His labours and sufferings were exceeded by no one; while his writings hold the most elevated rank among the Epistles indited by the Apostles. Again, St. Peter died long before some of the rest of the Apostles. If, therefore, he was prince among them, who succeeded to his authority in the See of Rome? We are not told that either of the other Apostles did; and how improper would it have been to place any but an Apostle over these chosen disciples of the

Lord?

But a fair and certain criterion on this point is the opinion and practice of the three first centuries. Do we find that the Bishop of Rome possessed universal power during this period? We find the contrary. The fathers who lived in these centuries universally speak as if all Bishops were equal. And when any dispute or difference arose in which the Bishop of Rome took part, his opponents always ad

*Acts viii. 14.

St. John outlived him several years.

dressed him in the plain and bold language of equals. This fact is well known to all who are acquainted with the lives and writings of the fathers.* Further, we can distinctly trace the rise and progress of the Pope's supremacy in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. Rome being the imperial city, gave a more than ordinary consequence to its Bishop in the first place. As the piety and knowledge of the people declined, these pretended vicegerents of Christ made rapid strides in their advancement. They meddled in affairs of state; cajoling some princes, and threatening others. They invited the neighbouring Bishops to come to them for the settlement of their disputes, throwing their weight now into one scale and then into another, and thus gradually increased in power, until, in the seventh century, the Emperor Phocas declared Pope Boniface universal Bishop. Now, where we can so distinctly trace the rise and progress of the Papal power, we can have no doubt concerning the limited nature of this power in the primitive ages. If the authority of the Pope, in the first and second centuries, had been equal to what it has been since the seventh, there would have been no necessity that Phocas should pronounce him lord over his brethren. Such a decree in that place would have been highly absurd. Enjoying from the apostolic age universal power over the Church, we cannot doubt that he would at all times have received due homage and respect from the Christian world. No contests for superiority, we may be lieve, would have arisen between him and other Bishops ;† nor would he have thought it necessary to court the aid of temporal princes in order to support his pretensions. In short, if any fact is plainly established by ecclesiastical history, it is this, that, in the three first centuries, the Bishops of Rome neither claimed nor possessed universal spiritual power.

The reader is referred generally to Barrow's Treatise of the Pope's Supre macy," for authorities in support of the positions here maintained.

As between him and the Bishop of Constantinople.

But it will perhaps be still retorted upon us-"As at the time of the reformation, all the Western Bishops were subject to the Pope, and had promised allegiance to him, did not those who revolted commit the sin of schism? Was not their oath of allegiance a voluntary act? Had then any person a right to absolve them from their oath but the Pope? And could he not lawfully depose those who had revolted? If so, where does the Episcopal Church get her ministry?" To this we reply, in the first place, that an illegal promise, especially when made in ignorance of its illegality, is never binding. If, then, the Bishops of the Christian Church did, previous to the reformation, subscribe to the Pope's supremacy, were they not justifiable in renouncing this act, when the light of knowledge had shown them its unlaw fulness? Most certainly. They were not only justifiable, they were imperiously bound so to do.* In the second place, the power which the Popes had

The defence made by Gardiner, Bi shop of Winchester, in the reign of Henry VIII. upon occasion of his renouncing allegiance to the l'ope, is appropriate and

just.

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"He received his Episcopal character" (this is his language) by the Pope's consent, and was consecrated by his mandate; and yet, after all these ties and assurances, he had ventured to unite against his supremacy, and renounce him in the most public manner. To take oft the imputation of falsehood and perjury, he observes very well, that an engage For an oath was never intended a bond of ment against right is by no means bindinginiquity and a bar against repentance. He illustrates his case with a husband's marrying a second wife, living the former: living the former, I say, whom, after the best inquiry, he concluded dead. Thus he continued undisturbed in his second marriage: and when his first wife returned from a foreign country, and challenged him for her husband, he denied the relation. But after she had made out her claim by legal proof, he lived with her again, and dismissed the second. This instance the Bishop applies to his own case. He thought the Pope's authority unques tionable at first, and submitted accordingly. But when truth appeared, he found himself mistaken, and, therefore, ought not to be charged with breach of faith for altering his measures." Collier's Eccle. Ilist. vol. ii. p. 139.

See

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