The Anglican Church Schismatic
Brownson’s Quarterly Review, October, 1844
ART. III. — 1. White's Confutation of Church-of-Englandism, and Correct Exposition of the Catholic Faith, on all Points of Controversy between the two Churches. Translated from the original Latin, by EDMOND WM. O'MAHONY, Esq. Philadelphia : Henry M'Grath. 1844. 12mo. pp. 342.2. The Churchman. Edited by the Rev. SAMUEL SEABURY, D. D. New-York: No. G98. August 3, 1844.
THE first named publication was originally written in Latin, at Louvain, in 1661, by Alexander White, a pious and learned man, who had been bred up in the Protestant religion, and for some time had officiated as a clergyman of the Church of England. The work is marked by sound sense and solid learning, and may be consulted with confidence and advantage on all the great points of controversy between the Catholic Church and the Church of England. We are not aware that any answer to it has ever been attempted, and we are quite sure that our Anglican friends will find it unanswerable. Its editor, however, has been inexcusably careless, especially in the matter of dates. Thus, he permits us to read, that St. Irenseus, who suffered martyrdom in 202, flourished in 290, and that Tertullian, who was only a generation later, flourished also in 290. Inaccuracies of this kind, though they affect not the general reasoning of the work, are, nevertheless, blemishes, which the editor should not have suffered to escape his notice.
We have introduced The Churchman to our readers, because we have a high respect for the learning and ability of its distinguished editor, and because, as the organ of that section of the Anglican Church, in this country, which has been supposed to have some Catholic tendencies, it undertakes to answer certain objections to Anglicanism brought forward in our Journal for July, in the review of the Letters of Bishop Hopkins on The Novelties which disturb our Peace. We stated, in our remarks, that we could not see how the Anglican Church, on the principles of the Oxford divines, could justify her separation in the sixteenth century from the Church of Rome. According to these principles, as we stated them, and as we understand The Churchman to accept them, the Church of Christ is a single corporate body, existing and acting only in its corporate capacity, and therefore capable of manifesting its will only through corporate organs. Hence, the separation of any one member, or particular Church, from the communion of another, not authorized by the Church in her corporate capacity, speaking through her corporate organs, is not authorized by the Church. The separation of one member from the communion of another, not authorized by the Church, is schism. But the separation of the Church of England from the communion of the Church of Rome was not authorized by the Church. Therefore, that separation was schism.
This was substantially our argument. The Churchman admits that the Church is a corporation, and, therefore, that it can exist and act only in its corporate capacity ; but to the assertion, that it can manifest its will only through corporate organs, and, therefore, that the separation of one member from the communion of another, not authorized by the Church speaking through her corporate organs, is not authorized by the Church at all, he opposes, or seems to oppose, 1. The invisibility of the corporation, that is, of the Church, and 2. That the analogy of the corporate body to the natural body is inadmissible, and therefore no argument founded on the assumption of such analogy can be valid. He says, —
" If Mr. Brownson had termed a corporation an ' invisible body,' he would have had both truth and authority on his side ; but we apprehend that he has neither, when he makes a ' visible centre' and a ' visible head ' essential to the existence of such body. A corporation may have a particular place, for the transaction of business, and an officer to preside in its proceedings ; and this place and this officer may in an improper and metaphorical sense be called its ' centre' and ' head.' So far are they, however, from discharging the functions corresponding to the heart and head of the natural body, that they are mere accidents of the corporation, and not at all necessary to its unity, individuality, or corporate faculty."
The Churchman must pardon us for saying that we do not perceive the pertinency of this reply, even admitting its abstract truth, which, however, we are far from admitting. It is true, we applied the terms " visible centre " and " visible head " to the ecclesiastical corporation ; but we evidently meant no more by them, in our argument, than that a corporation, if but one corporation, must have a visible unity, a unity of thought and will, and an official organ through which the
thought and will are to be expressed and executed. The Churchman has apparently misapprehended our allusion to the Church of Rome. He replies to us as if we had asserted that the Pope and the Church of Rome are the source of the authority of the corporation. But we asserted no such thing. We did not contend that it is essential to the existence of a corporation that it have a head ruling by virtue of its own inherent authority ; but that the body cannot exist and act as a corporation without an official head through which it may declare and execute its will. For aught that we said, the authority may be vested in the whole body. The question before us was not, Where is the authority of the Church vested ? but, What is the legal mode of expressing it ? We assumed, that a corporation is a corporation only on condition of possessing corporate unity, and certain organs through which to act; and that it never does or can act, quoad corporation, save in and through these organs. Is The Churchman prepared to dispute this ? A corporation wanting unity, individuality, is obviously no corporation at all; and a corporation having no organs through which to act is at best a merely possible corporation, not an actual corporation ; for it has no corporate faculty, that is, no ability to perform a single corporate act. The state without organs, that is, constituted authorities, is no true state; it is at best only the state in abeyance. It cannot act as the state ; it can discharge none of the functions of a state.
Equally evident is it, that what is not done by the individuals composing the corporation through its corporate organs, or constituted authorities, is not done by the corporation. The resolutions of the people of Massachusetts, unless these be convened by legal warrant, cannot be the resolutions of the State of Massachusetts. The members of the two houses of the legislature, coming together as so many individuals, without form of law, are not the legislature; and however unanimous they may be in their acts, their acts cannot be laws, unless passed in accordance with the Constitution, the forms of law, and signed by the proper officers. So of any incorporated company. Its acts are corporate acts, authorized by the corporation, and binding on it, only when done by it legally convened, as the corporation, and acting through its proper officers.
The principle here contended for must apply equally to the Church, if the Church be a corporation. It must be an organic body, organized into an artificial individual, and have appropriate organs through which to express and execute its will; and then only what is done through these organs is done legally, that is, by the Church. This is what, and all, we contended for. We did not contend that the Pope is the sovereign of the Church, but simply that he is its visible, official head, through which the will of the Church must be expressed and executed, in order to be legally expressed and executed. More than this we of course believe ; for we hold the Pope to be, not the vicar of the Church merely, but also the vicar of Christ; but this is all that was assumed in our argument, and all that we judge it necessary to assume in order to convict the Anglican Church of schism.
Admitting, then, for the moment, that the analogy of the corporate body to the natural body is not complete, our argument is not invalidated; because we do not found our argument on the assumption of such analogy, in any sense in which The Churchman has objected to it. He denies that analogy only when the head of the corporation is assumed to govern the corporation in the sense in which the head governs the natural body ; but we have asserted the head not as governing the corporation, but simply as the organ through which the corporation must govern. A head in this last sense is essential to the very existence of a corporation as an actual corporation.
Nor better founded is the objection, that the corporation is "an invisible body." In this objection The Churchman asserts the invisibility of the Church, that is, that the Church is an invisible body ; and from the invisibility of the Church he apparently concludes, though his reasoning is exceedingly vagne and uncertain, to the invisibility of its organs, and therefore that an act of the Church, or any portion of it, in order to be legitimate, does not need to be done through visible organs. Consequently, admit that the separation of the Church of England was an act not authorized by the corporation speaking through visible organs, it does not follow that it was not authorized by the Church ; for it may have been done by the Church speaking through its invisible organs. Therefore, it does not necessarily follow that the separation was schismatic. If this is not his argument, Ave do not comprehend the force of his objection, nor wherefore he should have quoted Blackstone's definition of a corporation, namely, " A corporation, being an invisible body, cannot manifest its intentions by any personal act or oral discourse."
But to this we object, 1. That, strictly speaking, a corporation is not an invisible body; and 2. That, though a corporation may not be able to manifest its intentions by a personal act or oral discourse, yet it must be able to manifest its intentions, and, therefore, have organs through which to manifest them, or be at best only a merely possible corporation, not an actual corporation. To all practical purposes, otherwise, it would be as if it were not.
A single legal authority will suffice to sustain our first objection.
" A corporation," says Mr. Kyd, as quoted with approbation by Angell and Ames, " is as visible a body as an army; for, tliough the commission or authority be not seen by every one, yet the body united by that authority is seen by all but the blind. When, therefore, a corporation is said to be invisible, that expression must be understood of the right of many persons, collectively, to act as a corporation, and then it is as visible in the eye of the law as any other right whatever of which natural persons ..are capable."—Angcll and Ames on Corporations, p. 4.
But even admit that the corporation, quoad corporation, is invisible, yet the individuals composing it, and the organs through which it acts, are visible, and this is all the visibility we contended for. The authority of the Church, all admit, is invisible ; for it is the authority of Christ, who is its Invisible Head. But the question we raised does not turn on this, but on the visibility of the organs through which that authority is expressed. Is The Churchman prepared to deny that the Church is the visible depository of the doctrines, and the visible medium of the authority, of Christ on earth ? Does not The Churchman hold, as well as we, that Christ both commissioned his Church to teach all nations, and commanded us all to hear the Church ? But, if the Church, that is, the Ecclesia docens, be not visible, how are we to recognize it, to know when we hear its voice and receive its teachings, or when we do not ?
The validity of the second objection we have already established, in establishing the necessity of organs through which the Church may manifest its intentions. The Church is to teach ; but how can it teach, if it have no organ for teaching ? We, the Ecclesia discens, are to hear it; but how can we hear it, if it have no voice ? And how can it utter its voice without a vocal organ ? And if the organ be not visible, cognizable, how shall we distinguish the voice of the Church from any other voice, or know it to be the voice of the Church ? The Churchman, as well as we, demands obedience to the voice of the Church. Then he must abandon the fiction of an invisible Church, and concede the Church to be a visible, organic body, existing in space and time, with visible organs for the perceptible manifestation of its intentions.
Furthermore, the best legal authorities sustain the analogy of the corporate body to the natural body much more fully than The Churchman seems to suspect. Chief Justice Marshall defines a corporation to be, —
" An artificial body, possessing certain properties; among the most important of which are Immortality, and, if the expression may be allowed, Individuality; properties by which the perpetual succession of many persons are considered as the same, and act as the single individual." — Angcll and Ames on Corporations, p. 2.
Jacob, in his Law Dictionary, as well as Tomlins, in his, defines a corporation (corporatio) to be, —
" A body politic, or incorporate; so called, as the persons composing it are made into a body, and of capacity to take and grant, &o, Or, it is an assembly and joining together of many into one fellowship and brotherhood, whereof one is head and chief, and the rest are the body ; and this head and body knit together make the corporation : Also, it is constituted of several members like zaito the natural body, and formed by fiction of law to endure for ever."
Another authority adds, —
"A corporation aggregate [as distinguished from a corporation sole] is an artificial body composed of divers constituent members ad instar corporis humani; the ligaments of which body politic or artificial body are the franchises and liberties thereof, which bind and unite all its members together ; and the whole frame and essence of the corporation consist therein." — 1 Bacon's Abridgment, p. 500.
The analogy of the corporation to the natural body is recognized and insisted upon by all these authorities. They all go to prove that a corporation, quoad corporation, must be an individuality, and possess a central will or unity of volition, together with a head or organ for its expression. The Church, then, since it is conceded to be a corporation, must possess the same ; and its whole frame and essence, as a corporation, must consist in its being knit and bound together into one artificial body, with a central will, and unitary organs for expressing and executing it. All this is involved in the very conception of it as a body corporate, or corporation, in distinction from a mere aggregation.
This assumed, we return to our former argument. The separation of one member of the Church from the communion of another, not authorized by the Church in its corporate capacity, is not authorized by the Church at all, and is therefore irregular and schismatic. The antecedent' we have proved from the admission of the Church as a corporation, and from the very conception of a corporation itself. The conclusion is evident from the fact, that the Church is one body, and all the members are members one of another. Si cut enim in uno corpore multa membra habemus, omnia auteni mem
bra non eundem actum habent: Ita unum corpus sumus
in Christo, SINGULI AUTEM ALTER ALTERIUS MEMBRA,
Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; and again, JSicut enim. corpus xmuin
est, et membra habet multa ; omnia autem menihi'a cor-
poris cum sint multa, unum tanien corpus stint, ita et
Christus Vos aulem esiis corpus Christi,ET MEM
BRA DE MEMBRO, 1 Cor. vii. 12, 27. It is by the intercom
munion of member with member, each with each, and
each with the whole, that the unity or solidarity of the
whole is effected and maintained. He that is in com
munion with a member is in communion with the body ;
and consequently, he that withdraws or separates from
the communion of the member withdraws or separates
from the communion of the body. Therefore, the
member separating from the communion of a member,
without the authority of the body, is guilty of schism ;
for schism is the unauthorized separation from the
body.
The separation of one member of the Church from the communion of another, without the authority of the Church, is schism, But the Church of England separated from the communion of the Church of Rome, without the authority of the Church. Therefore, the Church of England was guilty of schism. The Church of England, by confession of The Churchman, was not the Church, in the unity and integrity of the corporation, but only a member of it. Admit, what however we admit merely for the sake of the argument, that the Church of Rome was also only a particular Church, and therefore, only a member of the corporation. Yet, to separate from the communion of Rome, according to the principles we have established, was, still, to separate from the Church of Christ, unless the Church of Rome had separated herself, or been separated by a competent authority, from the Church of Christ. But the Church of Rome had not separated herself, nor been separated by a competent authority, from the Church of Christ. Therefore, the Church of England, in separating from her communion, separated from the communion of the Church of Christ.
We prove the minor by plain historical facts. Prior to the Reformation, the whole Church of Christ, save condemned heretics and acknowledged schismatics, was in communion with the Church of Rome ; and no act of the ecclesiastical corporation can be pleaded, cutting her off from the communion of the Catholic body. She possessed and exercised all the rights and immunities incident to an integral member of the Church of Christ.
But you say, that she had separated herself virtually, if not actually, from the Church of Christ, by having corrupted the word of God, and departed from the faith once delivered to saints. By her corruptions and heresies, she had ceased to be an integral portion of the Church of Christ. Therefore, to separate from her communion was not to separate from the Church of Christ.
Admitting the premises, we must of course concede the conclusion. But against these premises we allege, first, that the faith of the Roman Church, prior to the Reformation, was the faith of the whole Christian world, with the exception of condemned heretics and schismatics, not to be counted. If Rome had departed from the faith, the whole Church, quoad Church, had departed from it and become heretical, and therefore had failed. But Christ has promised that his Church shall not fail, and given it assurance of exemption from error, in promising it the spirit of truth, which shall lead it into all truth, and to be with it himself all days unto the consummation of the world. But Christ is God, and it is impossible for God to promise and not to fulfil. Therefore, his promise made to the Church could not fail. But, if the promise of Christ could not fail, the Church could not lapse into heresy. Then the Church of Rome, since its faith was that of the whole Christian Church, had not. lapsed into heresy, and therefore was not corrupt and heretical, as the argument presupposes.
But, secondly, admitting that the Church of Rome had become corrupt and heretical, the fact needed to be known and judicially established by a competent tribunal, before any particular Church could have the legal right to withdraw from its communion. The only competent tribunal to take cognizance of the question, and to convict Rome of heresy, which alone could justify separation from her communion, was the ecclesiastical corporation in its unity and integrity, acting in its corporate capacity, and speaking through its official organs. Now the Church of England was not this ecclesiastical corporation, and therefore was not in herself alone competent to establish judicially the fact, that Rome was corrupt and heretical. But she established it by no authority but her own. She then did not establish it by a competent authority. Then she did not establish it at all. Then she had no right to assume it as established, and to make it the basis of her separation. To separate from the Roman communion, before that communion was convicted of heresy by a competent tribunal, was schism, according to the principles established, and which The Churchman cannot gainsay. But the Church of England did separate before that communion was convicted of heresy. Therefore, the separation was schism. We see no possible escape from this conclusion.
Will The Churchman plead the authority of the word of God, written and unwritten ? But no particular Church or member of the Universal Church is the ultimate judge of what the word of God teaches. Before he can plead the word of God in his justification, he must adduce a decision of the Universal Church, in its highest judicial capacity, declaring, that, by the word of God, the doctrines of the Church of Rome are heretical. But no such decision was adduced, no such decision can be adduced. Therefore he cannot appeal to the word of God, for such appeal would be a mere begging of the question.
Will he go further, and contend that a national council is competent to declare authoritatively the word of God, and to determine what is or is not heresy ; and say, that the national council of England condemned Rome as heretical, and therefore the Church of England was not guilty of schism in separating from the Roman communion ? We have too much confidence in his principles as a sound Churchman to believe that he will take this ground ; but if he should, we reply, —
1. That it contradicts the acknowledged principles of
the Church, according to which it is only a universal
council that is competent to declare what is or is not
heresy ; and a national council, when it goes beyond
matters of local discipline, is of no authority, unless its
decisions are accepted or assented to by the Universal
Church. But, waiving this, we deny, —
2. That the Church of England proceeded by the
authority of even a national council. First, no council,
provincial, national, or oecumenical, is really a council,
unless convened by legal warrant from the chief pastor
of the Church. The Church is an independent polity
in itself, and in no sense dependent on the civil govern
ment. The authority of the council is not derived
from the emperor or prince by whose permission or
edict it is assembled, but from the official head of the
ecclesiastical corporation. The consent or warrant of
the prince is essential only so far as concerns the peace
able assembling of the council, and so far as the council
may deliberate on matters purely temporal. Now in
England, at the time of the Reformation, no legal
council was called, for none was called by the consent
or warrant of the authority competent to convoke a
council. But waiving this, in point of fact, the con
demnation of Rome was not pronounced by a council,
nor was the separation authorized by a council, but
by act of parliament. There may have been a convo
cation, but every body knows that there was no free
council. The whole matter was begun, carried on, and
completed, by the authority of the king and parliament,
an authority unknown to the ecclesiastical corporation.
Bishop Jewell, in his Apology of the Church of Eng
land, says, —
" Neither have we done that we have done altogether without bishops, or without a council. The matter hath been treated in open parliament, with long consultation, and before a notable synod and convocation."
On which the editor of the edition before us, the present Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland, remarks, —
" Jewell's cause would have been no worse, if it had wanted this plea. The best friends of the Church of England have ever been ready to acknowledge, that it would have been happy, had parliament possessed a far less conspicuous share in its reformation. The measure was one of necessity; for although the great body of the people, and the principal nobility, were friendly to the reformation, yet a large majority of the clergy retained their attachment to the distinguishing dogmas of popery, and were strenuous in their opposition to the measures which were taken for their suppression. Left to themselves, they would, in all probability, have quietly relapsed into submission to the yoke of Rome. LAY INFLUENCE WAS EMPLOYED BY THE PROVIDENCE OP GoD (!) TO EFFECT THE PURIFICATION op HIS CHURCH,"*(FOOTNOTE: * Apology of the Church of England. By John Jewell, Bishop of Salisbury. New-York: 1831. pp. 192,193.)
Here the great and important fact is admitted. The separation was not by authority of the Church of England, quoad Church; for, if left to herself, she would have continued in the communion of Rome. The separation was effected by lay influence, an influence, as such, not recognized in the Church of God, which vests the authority, not in the laity, but in the pastors and teachers. The simple fact is, a portion of the laity of England, wielding the civil authority, aided by a few of the clergy, against the wishes and convictions of the Church of England, violently separated her from the communion of Rome. Let it not, then, be said, that it was done by a free council deliberately convicting Rome of heresy, and therefore forbidding communion with her. No council ever met in England during the sixteenth century, that would, if free, have passed any condemnation on the Church of Rome. By what authority, then, of the Church, has Rome ever been declared heretical, and a solid ground of separation from her communion established ? By none at all.
But The Churchman goes further, and contends that the Church of England has never separated from the communion of the Catholic Church. " We deny," he says, " that the Church of England has ever separated itself from the rest of the Universal Church ; and we deny that the rest of the Universal Church, acting in its corporate capacity, has ever separated from the Church of England." To this we reply,—
1. That the Church of England, in separating from
the communion of the Church of Rome, while that
Church was, as we have seen it was at the time of the
separation, an integral part of the Catholic Church, did
separate from the communion of the Catholic Church.
So long as the Church of Rome was unconvicted of
schism or heresy before a competent tribunal, separation
from it was separation from the Catholic Church. But
particular churches, according to the acknowledged
constitution of the Church, intercommiuie through their
bishops or chief pastors. Consequently, to withdraw
from the communion of a bishop or chief pastor is to
withdraw from the communion of the Church over
which he presides. But The Churchman confesses
that the Church of England did separate from the
communion of the Pope or Bishop of Rome. There
fore, it separated from the communion of the Church of
Rome. Therefore, again, it separated from the com
munion of the Catholic Church, of which the Church
of Rome was an integral member. But we reply, —
2. That, whether by her own act or that of the Uni
versal Church, the Church of England is separated from
the communion of the Catholic Church. The Cliurch-
man, we presume, will not contend that his Church is
in communion with the non-episcopal Churches, whose
orders it does not recognize. It certainly is not in com
munion with the Church of Rome, or with any of the
particular Churches, such as the Spanish, the Gallican,
the German, &c, which recognize the authority of the Holy See. Nor is it in communion with the Greek Church, the Armenian, the Nestorian, or any of the Eastern Churches, which are not in communion with Rome. There is no Church that intercommunes with the Anglican. As a question of fact, it is a solitary Church, extending communion to, and receiving it from, no other Christian body on earth. Now, of two things, one : Either the Church of England, as existing in the British dominions and in this country, is the one Holy Catholic Church, the Church corporation in its unity and integrity, or it is a body distinct and apart from the Holy Catholic Church. It is not the first, by the confession of The Churchman, and of all Anglicans, none of whom dare call it the whole Catholic Church, or pretend that it is any thing more than a part, a branch, of the Catholic Church. It is not a part or branch, because the parts or branches all intercommune, and it, as we have seen, communes with no ecclesiastical body but itself. Then we are forced to adopt the second conclusion, that it is a body distinct and separate from the Holy Catholic Church.
Now, it matters not whether this separation be by her own act, or by that of the Catholic Church. She is in either case alike a schismatic body. If she has separated herself by her own act, she is guilty of schism ; and if she has been excluded from the communion of the Catholic Church by an act of the Catholic Church, she has been excluded by the competent authority, and is schismatic by judgment of the Universal Church. How will the Church extricate herself from this dilemma ? It is in vain that she attempts to deny the fact of the entire separation between her and all other Churches extant, for the fact of such separation is unquestionable ; and this fact proves of itself, either that she is the one Holy Catholic Church, or no part of it.
Will The Churchman contend that the separation does not really exist, because there can be pleaded no formal act of the Church of England separating herself from the communion of other Churches, and none of other Churches separating themselves from hers ? We reply, first, that a formal act to this effect is not necessary. The separation exists as a fact, and is acquiesced in by the whole body of the Anglican Church, which is primtt, facie evidence of her approval of it. It is acquiesced in, assented to, by all other Churches, which is all that is needed on their part. The universal acquiescence or assent of the whole Church is always taken and deemed to be the. decision of the Church.
But we reply, secondly, that it is not true that there is no formal act, on the part of England, of separation from the Catholic Church, and that there is none on the part of the Catholic Church cutting her off from the Catholic communion. She herself, as an integral member of the Catholic Church, declared the Greek Church to be in a state of schism, and therefore could not commune with her, after her separation from Rome, without being guilty of schism by her own judgment and confession. The same may be said, so far as concerns all the Eastern Churches condemned as heretics or schismatics prior to 1534, when she formally broke with Rome. By the formal act of her parliament, in 1534, when she abolished the authority of the Pope, not in temporal matters only, but also in spiritual matters, and made a layman the supreme head of the Church in all matters, spiritual as well as temporal, she formally separated herself from the communion of Rome, and from all the Churches continuing in that communion. Then, on the other hand, nobody can deny that she is, if not by name, at least in fact, condemned, and cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent, accepted, so far as the present question is concerned, by all the Churches, except those whom she herself had, prior to her separation, condemned or disowned as heretics or schismatics. If the Catholic Church existed anywhere out of England, it was represented in the Tridentine Council, and expressed its judgment in that Council, either then formally, or since virtually, by accepting its decrees. But it did exist out of England by her own confession. Then, inasmuch as she was virtually condemned in that Council, she has been condemned by the Catholic Church.
But perhaps The Churchman will contend, that his Church is in communion, if not with existing ecclesiastical bodies, at least with the primitive Catholic Church. The Church is catholic, in time as well as in space ; and the body in communion with the primitive Church is by that fact in communion with the Catholic Church, although it should not be in communion with any other extant body. But the Church is a body corporate, and must needs exist, if catholic, in time as well as in space, as a perpetual organic body. It can never disappear from the earth as an organic body. That body which remains in communion with the primitive Church continues and perpetuates it by regular succession. If the Church of England do this, it is the Catholic Church, and it, and such particular bodies as are in communion with it, are not only Catholic, but the whole Catholic body. This argument, then, proves nothing, for it proves too much. It proves that the Church of England is the Catholic Church in its unity and integrity, which is more than she claims. She must either say boldly, that she is the one Universal Church, or abandon this argument, and admit that she is no part of the Universal Church.
We stated in our former article, that the Church of England was not competent to sit in judgment on the Church of Rome and her bishop, because Rome and her bishop were the acknowledged centre and head, under Christ, of the ecclesiastical corporation. To do so would be for the part to sit in judgment on the whole, which is not allowable; and furthermore, the Church of England could not be legally convoked as an ecclesiastical court without the authority and consent of Rome and her bishop. Whether this was the original constitution of the Church or not, such had been its constitution for many ages, and no authority below that of the Universal Church was competent to set it aside, or to adopt a new constitution. The Churchman appears to have felt the force of the argument; and therefore denies positively, that the Church of England "has ever sat in judgment, not merely on the Church Universal, but even on the Church of Rome, or refused its communion." We are not a little surprised at this statement. We presume The Churchman will not quibble on the fact, whether it was the Church of England, or the Parliament, that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles. In strictness, we own they were imposed on the Church by lay authority ; but the Church, in accepting and subscribing to them, made herself responsible for them. Now, in these articles we find several very positive condemnations of the Church of Rome. We read in the nineteenth article, "As the Church of Hicrusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." Here is a judgment rendered. Again, article twenty-two: " The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God." Is not here a judgment of condemnation of the Roman communion ?
Does not the Church of England refuse the Roman communion ? What communion has there been between the two Churches since the days of Elizabeth ? Does the Church of England recognize the ecclesiastical authority of Rome, or Rome that of England ? Do the bishops of one Church receive " the letters dismis-sory of the bishops of the other" ? Not at all. Nay, the Church of England in her 27th canon, by implication, at least, declares all adherents to the Roman communion schismatics, and forbids, the minister from communicating to them the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Church of England has never refused the communion of Rome ! If so, would King James, the British Solomon, the supreme head of the Church of England, have discoursed in the following manner?
"As I have said in Parliament-house, I can love the person of a Papist, being otherwise a good man and honestly bred, never having knowen any other religion; but the person of an Apostate Papist I hate. And surely for those Polypragmaticke Papists, I would you would studie out some severe punishment for them; for they keepe not infection in their owne hearts onely, but infect others, our good subjects. And that which I say for Recusants, that same I say for Papists. I confesse, I am loth to hang a priest [a Roman Catholic] onely for religion sake, and saying masse; but if he refuse the Oath of Allegeance (which, let the Pope and all the devils in Hell say what they will) yet (as you iinde by my booke and by divers others, is merely civill) those that refuse the Oath and are Polypragmaticke llecusants ; I leave them to the law ; it is no persecution, but good justice,
" And those priests, also, that out of my Grace and Mercie have been let goe out of prisons, and banished, upon condition not to returne ; aske mee no questions touching these, quit me of them, and let me not heare of them : And to them I joyne those that breake prison ; for such priests as the prison will not hold, it is a plaine sign that nothing will hold them but a halter. Such are no Martyrs, that refuse to suffer for their conscience. Paul, notwithstanding the doores were open, would not come foorth. And Peter came not out of prison till led by the Angel of God. But these wil goc Iborth, though with the angel of the Divell." *(footnote: * " His Majestie's Speach in the Starve-Chamber, the xx. of June, Anno J61CJ. Imprinted at London, by Robert Barker, Printer
to the King's Most Excellent Majestic")
If the Church of England accepts the Roman communion, why has she kept, and why does she still keep up, an independent church establishment in Ireland, at an enormous expense, and to the great vexation of the immense majority of the Irish people ? Really, The Churchman is joking us, and trying to see how we shall contrive to prove what is as obvious to all eyes as is the fact that the sun is round.
"What order of the Universal Church," asks The Churchman, "has the Church of England ever violated ?" We answer, she has violated the order of the Universal Church itself, by bringing the spiritual corporation into subjection to the civil; which she did when she made the king, the civil ruler, a layman, supreme head of the Church, and conferred on him, not only the management of Church temporalities, but supreme authority in spirituals also, as was done by act of Parliament, in its session from November 3 to December 18, 1534, substantially confirmed under Elizabeth in 1659, ordained in the first canon of The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the Church of England, and proclaimed by James the First in his preface to The Book of Common Prayer, in 1603. By this, the independence of the Church as a body politic, complete in itself, is destroyed, and the exercise of pastoral functions, necessary to its very being, is made to depend on the good-will and pleasure of the prince. No bishop can be chosen in the Church of England without a congd d'elire from the king to the chapter, or consecrated without his permission, or have jurisdiction but according to his pleasure. Is this compatible with the constitution of the Church as an ecclesiastical corporation ? Is this accqrding to primitive usage ? Did the Apostles recognize the authority of the Roman emperor, in choosing and consecrating bishops, and in conferring on them spiritual jurisdiction ? The most that the Church has ever conceded to princes, the most that it ever can concede without being suicidal, is to permit them to put the bishop into the possession of the temporalities of his see ; and even this, which leaves the spiritualities untouched, is quite too much. It is true, the prince may have endowed the see ; but the endowment, when made, becomes a vested right of the Church, and ought to pass tinder the exclusive control of the spiritual authority, the temporal power having rightfully no authority in the matter, but simply that of protecting the Church in the peaceful and full possession and management of it. But, even admitting that the temporal power may retain the control of it, or may even -resume it, without breaking the order or constitution of the Church, it assuredly cannot go further, and claim authority as to the persons who shall exercise spiritual jurisdiction, or to prescribe the conditions on which spiritual jurisdiction shall be exercised, without striking at the very foundation and existence of the Church as a corporation complete in itself.
The Church of England has also broken the order of the Universal Church, by declaring herself, as an ecclesiastical polity, independent of the Universal Church; which she did when she threw off the authority of Rome, and prohibited the recognition of any authority, spiritual or temporal, not within the realm. For the Church is a single corporate body, one and catholic, not an aggregation of separate and independent ecclesiastical polities. She broke the unity of the corporation by asserting the principle of Independency ; for, if the corporation be a single corporation^ it can have only a single government, which must ramify through all the members, in due subordination, from a common centre, binding them all into the unity of the body. This fact is of itself decisive, and alone convicts the Anglican Church of schism.
The Church of England has, furthermore, broken the order of the Church in its rejection of the authority of the archbishop of Rome as primate of the Western Churches, of which we are not aware that it has ever been denied that the Church of England was one, What were the rights and immunities of the primate may be somewhat uncertain; but it is evident from the sixth canon of the Council of Nice, whatever view we may take of that canon, that the primate had some authority over the Churches within his jurisdiction. But the Church of England threw off all authority not within the realm, and therefore rejected the authority of the archbishop of Rome as Primate no less than as Pope. This is so obvious to all who know any thing of what is called the English Reformation, that the assertion of The Churchman, and the authorities he quotes to prove that the Church of England still admits the primacy of Rome, are without force, and we are not a little startled to find any Anglican divine pretending to the contrary. If the primacy means any thing more than the chief place in the procession, — and that it is a primacy of authority, not of mere order, the sixth canon of the Council of Nice fully establishes, — we all know that the Church of England has rejected it, and she has even in fact rejected it as a simple primacy of order, and ought to reject it, to be consistent with herself, since she officially in her Homilies, and semi-officially in Jewell's Apology, treats the Pope as Antichrist. We have no doubt that many members of the Anglican Church deeply regret their state of ecclesiastical isolation, and would gladly return to the communion of Home, and accept, not the primacy merely, but also the papacy; but it is hardly laudable in them to attempt to deceive themselves or others bjr concealing or disavowing facts which stand recorded against them.
The Churchman asks again, " What definition of faith the Church of England has ever rejected." She has rejected Transubstantiation, and, in point of fact, the Real Presence. We are not ignorant of what the Oxford divines allege on this point, but we appeal to the symbols of the Church herself. She admits no change in the elements, which remain after consecration bread and wine as they were before ; and the only presence of Christ she admits at all is not, strictly speaking, a presence of Christ in the sacrament, but in the soul of the faithful communicant. The faithful, indeed, partake, in a mysterious manner, of the body of Christ; but to the wicked, as we collect from her Articles, Catechism, and Homilies, there is no presence of the Lord's body, but the mere outward sign of the sacrament, to wit, the bread and the wine ; and, consequently, the wicked who partake of these are not to be condemned for eating unworthily, not discerning the Lord's body, since it would be absurd, nay, unjust, to condemn them for not discerning the Lord's body where not present. She rejects also the sacrifice of the Mass, deprives herself of both altar and victim, and of the means of replenishing her divine life at its infinite Source. She rejects five out of the seven sacraments, and mutilates the two she retains. She rejects the Catholic doctrine of works, prayers for the dead, purgatory, reverence and invocation of saints, &c.
But we did not, in our argument, charge the Anglican Church with heresy, but with schism. We of course believe the Church of England to be heretical as well as schismatic, and though we do not look upon her as having lapsed so far into heresy as some of her sister Protestant Churches, yet we are far from holding her sound in the faith. But on this point we have, for the present, no controversy with The Churchman. We will willingly consent to discuss this point hereafter ; but at present we will consent to no new issue. Our objections to the Anglican Church were not based on its supposed unsoundness in the faith. We charged it with being schismatic, which it may well be without being heretical. Nor did we, in fact, charge it with being absolutely schismatic, but only so in case we adopt the principles of the Oxford divines, that the Church is a corporation, and, therefore, must needs be one in the unity of the corporation, and then in its corporate authority, as well as one in the unity of faith and charity. Now, if the Church be a single corporation, that is, a single body corporate or politic, as it must be if it is one corporation, and not an assemblage of corporations, the Anglicans, in breaking the unity of the corporation, and declaring their Church an independent corporation, as we all know they did, were guilty of schism. Now, is the Church a corporation, or is it not ? Is it a single corporation, or is it an assemblage or collection of distinct and independent corporations ? If you say the latter, you deny the unity of the Church as a corporation, and assert Independency, which, in principle, is repugnant to all ecclesiastical authority, to the Church itself as an authoritative body. If you say the former, then is the Church of England this ecclesiastical corporation, or is it not ? It is not, by the confession of The Churchman itself. Is it, then, a member of that corporation ? We answer, it is not a member. It can be a member only on condition of being joined to the body, and participating in its authority. The government of Prance is not a member of that of Great Britain, nor the government of Great Britain a member of that of France, because they are two distinct, independent governments, and neither participates in the authority of the other. But the Church of England is a distinct, independent polity, participating in the authority of no other body, and holding communion with the authority of no body but itself. It, therefore, is not a member of the Catholic body. It, since it is an independent body, either is that corporation in its unity and totality, or no part of it. It is not it, and therefore is no part of it, but another and a totally distinct body. This is the inevitable conclusion to which we must come, if we adopt the doctrine that the Church is a single corporate body. Now, it is to this point we wish The Churchman to confine his attention ; to the argument we have here summed up, we wish him to reply. We tell him that the claim of his Church to absolute independency as an ecclesiastical polity negatives its claim to ^e a 'member of the ecclesiastical corporation ; and as he himself concedes that it is not the Church in its unity and totality, we demand of him to show us how it can be other than a totally distinct and separate body from the Church of Christ, without denying the unity of the Catholic Church as a body corporate, and asserting the principle of Independency, which he must concede to be destructive of all rule and of all unity of the governing body. When he has answered this demand, we will go into the question of heresy, and discuss the question, whether his Church is sound in the faith or not, to his heart's content.
Our limits do not permit us to remark on all the statements in The Churchman's reply to us, that we could wish to notice; but there is one statement of so extraordinary a character, that we cannot let it pass without comment.
" As to appointments and investments," he says, " it should be remembered th'at the Church of England made no new law, and cisserted no new liberty, at the time of the Reformation ; the parliamentary statutes on this subject being merely declarative of old laws which had been continuously asserted in almost every successive reign, from the time when the exercise of these
powers in England was first claimed by the Pope. Neither is it correct to say, that, in revoking these powers from the court of Rome, the Church of England yielded them to the temporal power as such ; for the representatives of the temporal power were then a portion of the Church, and, in suffering appointments and investments to revert to the crown, the Church of England did no more than acknowledge the element of lay cooperation in the management of Church temporalities."
This statement opens up a great subject, into the discussion of which we cannot now enter. We can only remark, that it is hardly true, to say that the Church of England made " no new law, and asserted no new liberty, at the time of the Reformation." The old laws, to which allusion is made, were, in the first place, never assented to by the Church; and it may be a question, whether, the connexion of the Church with the state then existing considered, the protest of the Pope was not sufficient to destroy their force as laws; and, in the second place, they were never executed, but had been suffered from the first to remain on the statute-book a mere dead letter. They had never been laws in force in the realm. They were merely acts of the temporal government, and could, therefore, have been rightfully enforced, even at hest, only so far as they concerned the temporalities of the Church. The temporal government never had in England, or in any other country, the right to make laws touching the spiritualities of the Church. But these laws did touch the spiritualities of the Church, and were therefore, so far at least, null and void from the beginning, cle jure, as they proved to be de facto.
The Churchman does not state the case correctly, when he says, that, " in suffering appointments and investments to revert to the crown, the Church of England did no more than acknowledge the element of lay cooperation in the management of Church temporalities." We surely need not tell him that investment carries with it spiritual jurisdiction. It was on this fact that the Pope grounded the right of the spiritual government to invest, and denied it to the temporal government. If the temporal government grant investiture, it confers spiritual jurisdiction, which gives it complete control in spirituals as well as in temporals. To say that the giving of this right to the crown was merely acknowledging ", the element of lay cooperation in the management of Church temporalities" is an assertion hardly compatible with a correct knowledge and faithful statement of the real points involved in the controversy.
But we have no space left us for further remarks. We confess, that, the more closely we examine the claims of the Church of England, the more untenable we find them. We had almost worked ourselves into the desire to connect ourselves with that Church; and we are not certain but we should have so done, had it not been for the Letters of Bishop Hopkins, which we found ourselves unable to refute on Anglican principles. We confess that Bishop Hopkins appears to us to be true to his Church, and to interpret her constitution and doctrines according to the genuine principles of its founders. His brethren, who differ from him, have more with which we sympathize than he has ; but they are, in our judgment, less faithful to Anglicanism. They would-fain have us receive their Church as Catholic, and disingenuously in their publications call it Catholic ; but it is a Protestant Church, Protestant in spirit, in doctrine, in position, and in name, and we cannot reconcile it to our sense of honesty and frankness to seek to call it by any other name. It seems to us ridiculous to call it Catholic.
Even The Churchman itself calls its Church " The Reformed Catholic Church," which admits its fallibility ; for if it had not been fallible, it could never have needed reforming ; and being fallible, who shall assure us that it may not need reforming again ? This is enough for us. We have been forced by our own errors, mistakes, misapprehensions, self-contradictions, and frequent changes of opinion on all subjects, even the most vital, to. admit that our own reason alone is not adequate to settle the great questions which concern our peace and salvation. We must have a guide, but do not mock us with a fallible guide. Talk not to us of a church, unless you have an infallible church to oiler us. We have followed a fallible guide long enough. We believe Christ did found an infallible church, rendered infallible by his perpetual presence and supervision. To that church we willingly yield obedience. But your church is not it; for yours, by your confession, is fallible. We have, therefore, been obliged to look beyond Anglicanism, to a church Avhich at least claims to be infallible, and which demands our obedience only on the ground that it is infallible.
Believing, as we do, that the Church of Christ is infallible, and authoritative because infallible, we have no sympathy with those who seek to restrain its authority as a body politic. It is a kingdom supreme and complete in itself, established and endowed by Christ, its Founder and invisible Governor, for the express purpose of governing mankind. All attempts to control it, to restrain its free action, or to bring it into subjection to any authority foreign to itself, we look upon as treason against the Eternal King, and as a betrayal of the true interests of man and society. All such attempts are wrong in principle, and necessarily disastrous in their results, of which the history of the Greek and Anglican Churches affords us striking proofs. Let civil governors and temporal princes learn this, and cease from their insane warfare against the Lord and his Anointed. It was the madness of the court of Constantinople that drew the Greek Church into schism, and ruined the Eastern empire, or at least deprived the Church of the power to convert its conquerors. It was the mad ambition of European princes, seeking to make the Church their tool, that fostered the spirit which effected the Protestant schism, which, however much its children may sing its praises, has already proved a serious calamity, and will yet be looked upon as the severest curse that could have befallen the nations involved in its guilt.
Nor have we any sympathy with the war of The Churchman against the papacy, and, whether we find few Romanists-or many to go with us, we would not destroy the papacy, nor lessen in the least the power of the Pope, if we could. We dare be known to be one of those who believe that the papal authority is none too great; and we fully believe, if the all but martyred Gregory the Seventh had succeeded in securing to the Church the independence he asserted, and for which he struggled through life, a far different and a far happier world had been realized for us and our children. We fear not the power, but the weakness, of the papacy ; and we have no sympathy with those who would make the Pope a mere presiding officer, and only allow him the place of honor at the feast, or in the procession. We find Anglicanism more objectionable in its rejection of the papacy than in any thing else. This was its primal sin, its mother error, from which has come, as a natural progeny, its whole brood of errors. Had it not been for the papacy, the Church, humanly speaking, had failed long ere this. In the institution and preservation of the papacy, we see the especial providence of God. We shrink not from the abused name of Papist; and we only regret that the ambition and wickedness of civil rulers have been able to prevent the papacy from doing all the good it has attempted. No man must think to frighten us by the cry of " Popery." Happy are we to acknowledge the authority of the Holy Father; more happy shall we be, if we can so live as to secure his blessing.
We have spoken freely to the editor of The Churchman, whom we respect as a man and a theologian. We await his reply.