The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-06 00:00:00

church of Rome, you reply, hos corrupted the faith
and usurped a dominion to which she has no title.
Who saps*? Do not attempt to answer that you
can show that Rome teaches both in regard to go-
vernment and faith what is not catholic truth. Be-
fore we inquire into the truth or falsehood of Romish
doctrine we must first settle what is the tribunal

by idiels that Wes is to be tried. Upon your
the question with you logically can never
wit the doctrine is but who pronounced it. The
divine right of the episcopate to rule Christians, and
expennd the faith, is the centre of church principles.
*senins new articles of belief, you are bound to
Flukes the =press warrant and commission of that'
episcopate. You are but an insignificant minority of
the bishops with whom you have been in comma-1
nion : an overwhelming majority declares the Roman
faith to be the true faith, and the Roman govern-
ment to be the divine government instituted by
Christ. The power of the keys, the ultimate deter-
mination
of doctrine and practice resides in the ma-
jority of the episcopate, or does not reside at all in
the institution as such. To refuse submission to the '
assesses of the majority is to recognise a tribunal
higher than the episcopate, a tribunal whose only
suet can be the individual mind of each Christian.
If, therefore, the decision of the majority of the epis-
eeseppsntles the sole authority which you can recognise
es missing the church, and holding it together as one
society, on what basis would articles of religion voted
by a few bishops rest, and how would the church of
England escape the condemnation of having broken
away from the church of Christattortiter;
upon church principles no church at all ?
We arc a national church, you answer; we are not
*eating a new independence, but vindicating an old
one. National episcopates are for their several na-
tions integral church unities. But what, I ask, i 6 a na-
tional church ; and what is a nation ? A political and
secular division, defined by geographical and other
principles wholly foreign to church : in no way is it
a constituent and organic element of the great cor-
poration of the christian church as described by
church principles. A' thousand worldly accidents
determine the limits of a nation ; how can they fur-
nish a principle for investing a portion only of the
bishops of Christendom with sovereign rights? A
nation is a purely secular institution; whatever is
national has the state for its ground and basis ; it
an have no principle higher than the state.
It is in the last degree preposterous in,
upholders of church principles to seek from
the state an authority which shall break up the
episcopate into fragments, and enthrone in sore- I
reignty an arbitrary number of bishops. Yet this is
what they do who try to obtain a sanction for the
Reformation by representing it as the regular act of
an independent episcopate. Had the King and par-
liament chosen to stand aloof at the breach with
Rome, the whole episcopate of England would not
have had a valid church reason for enforcing the
concurrence of a single bishop who refused to share
in their reforms. Such a one could have successfully
pleaded that a national church was a purely adminis-
[ tmtive body, subordinate to, and acting in the name
of, the universal episcopate which ruled over all
Christendom, and that no number of bishops con-
nected by geographical and secular tics could consti-
tute themselves a sovereign power, or furnish him
with a justification for rebelling against the church ;
for the voice of the universal episcopate, and not that
of a few bishops dwelling in the same land, was the
voice of God. Nothing short of an cecumenical coun-
cil could on church principles have compelled such a
dissentient to submit to his colleagues. He would
have had as much right to excommunicate them for
revolting against the Pope, as they to excommuni-
sate him for not joining in that revolt.
And if the absurdity is great of attempting to
hand independence of church government consist-
gently with church principles on a relation determined
by state; how much greater the absurdity and ins-
powihility of rendering the state the arbiter of the
faith ? The size of a nation may be enlarged or re-
duced by a single battle ; the number of its national
bishops may be prodigiously altered by a treaty or
an invasion ; new provinces may send to its synods
prelates entertaining theological views diametrically
opposed to those held by the ancient clergy; how is
a principle of religious certainty—a certainty which
theory makes to rest solely on the dictum of the
national synod—to be found amid such purely mun-
dane contingencies? England had two convoca-
tions. If Canterbury bad pronounced for the two
elements in the distribution of the sacrament
to the laity, and York for ono only, how
should an Anglican have learnt the right faith
and practice? Would Canterbury have been ortho-
dox, because its province Wag geographically larger?
or would two different creeds have been respectively
true in the northern and southern divisions of the
Anglican church? Nay, would there have been one
or two Anglican churches ? Ecclesiastical history
flunishes an unbroken record of the conflicting opi-
nions of national churches, and of the decrees and
counter decrees, accompanied by the direst forms et
mutual anathematizing of the bishops of the same
national church. Where is the Anglican to find amid
such perplexity that authority
.which alone dieter-
mines for him what true religion is? He will find it,
he says, in catholic consent. But if the bishops as
such cannot declare wherein that consent truly con-
sists; if opposing bishops utter conflicting oracles
if he is to seek for the authority of a doctrine or a
church, not in the decisions themselves of bishops,
but in his own view of the rightness or wrongstiMer
those desinions, then the episcopate does not possum the
of declaring the faith authoritatively, and
Anglican is launched on the great pro-
testant mean of private judgment.
One harbour of refuge, indeed, may present itself
to his mind, but to reach its shelter he meet Ism tis
Church of England. He may logically and senist.
ently place the oracle of truth in an cecummusleneete
tell, but such an opinion mast make him irk of
the legality of his church. For not c was the
church of England not constituted by • general
council, but it is also notorious that the lest thing
which an assembled synod of all the bishops of the
world would do would be to sanction the doctrine
and constitution of that church.
I conclude, then, that the Reformation was not the
work of English bishops, sad even if it had hew,
did not derive its legitimacy from them. The
at the apostolate is unable to justify that greet=
For the faith then professed, and the ecclesiastical
system then set up, the Anglican can get upon his'
atflc no other authority than the privide
nt of so many individual bishops : for their
into one national church, defined by gee-
erg and political limits, cannot, except upon
t principle of the right of evmy
esebrroitgovern itself, make them a
ppuewllesrr. No doubt the Anglican will appal to
etches of Africa and Syne, and many others, and
will point out their independent action, their supreme
rule over their own membms, and their mistime
to the encroachments of other amebae. He may de
so fairly, bat I pray him to remember that the No-
bly eft throe churches meads nmsniaset the weans=
aOm church theory without a astral organ et lath
=resent. Ude indepundeses and their
Wight every wind the neesnity of the idea
of unity, es alone nimble et saving the apostaate.
It is this idea a malty proclaimed by Rome whisk
made her triumphant wawa amebas, and whisk,
in our days, tills her fad with sonnets has the
church of England. This opens a new beple. I
stop here for the priest. IL A.
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