Supremacy, and against the power and authority of all foreign Potentates, to be ministered unto every one of them that are to be ordered.

"The Oath of the Queen's Sovereignty.

"I, A. B. do swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable Doctrine and Position, that Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed, or murdered by their Subjects; or any other whatsoever. And I do declare that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State, or Potentate, hath, or ought to have, any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority, Pre-eminence or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual, within this Realm. So help me God."

This Oath, ministered on the most serious of all occasions, to those who are to represent her in their several spheres, the Church has well considered, not merely as to the phrases employed, but in regard to the implications it necessarily conveys. By such an expression of its meaning it binds the consciences of its deacons, its priests, its bishops;-and by these implications they must abide.

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That the reference in this oath is to Rome, all must allow :it can be to no other Power. It is the Church of Rome that has professed, and has acted upon the "impious, heretical, and damnable doctrine," herein specified. Whether the Church of Rome may have withdrawn or renounced the doctrine, is not a question with which we are here concerned. Whether mistaken or not in the fact (and assuredly she is not mistaken) the English Church, by imputing to Rome a heresy so atrocious, as well as “damnable," declares, in the most emphatic manner, what is her sense of the wickedness and the doctrinal pravity of the papal despotism. And as in her Homilies, so also in her Canons, and so in this Oath, which she does not cease to exact from her ministers, the Church speaks of Popery in terms not surpassed, as to energy of reprobation, by the formularies of any other Protestant communion.

But the latter clauses of the Oath of Supremacy have a still more conclusive bearing upon the question-Whether the English Church admits, or utterly rejects the fundamental principle of the

Papacy. If she rejects this first principle, then no retrenchment of abuses, no renunciation of particular errors, can avail for rendering a coalescence of the two communions possible. So long as the Oath of Supremacy continues to be ministered to the deacons, priests, and bishops of the one Church; and so long as these are mindful of their solemn obligations, the two must stand apart.

Those therefore who, at the present moment, are "compassing" such a reconciliation, must necessarily be understood to have relieved their consciences-in some manner, of their oath; and to look forward also to its erasure from the formularies of the Church. In other words, to wish, and to promote a reunion of the Churches, is the same thing as to desire, and to lead forward, a revolution-Ecclesiastical and Civil.

Nothing can be more clear or inevitable than are these consequences. Let the reader consider the facts.

Romanism, by its very definition, and as it is distinguished from the Eastern, and from the Protestant Churches, is-apart from its body of doctrines, worship, and discipline, a scheme of UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL GOVERNMENT. Romanism is a pretended right, vested in its chief, to rule the human family; nor can it, without treason to itself, either admit a peer, or tolerate a rival, or allow of an exception. The very existence of this Power would be compromised, were it to withdraw its claim to a single islet of the Southern Ocean. Peter's vicarship, if real, can have no other boundaries than those of the Church itself, which, in the end, is to embrace all lands that are visited by the sun.

With an Eastern Patriarch we might dispute his claim to rule this or that tract of country; and we might even wrench it from his jurisdiction, without aiming a thrust at his ecclesiastical life. In the end, he may himself peacefully cede the territory in question; and he may admit that his predecessors had trenched too far upon another man's field.

But there can be no room for any such mode of dealing with him who is either indeed the representative of Christ, on Earth; or, what the Church of England styles him-an impious tyrant.

Thus in fact does the Church, in her Homilies, denominate the bishop of Rome; and even with greater cogency of demonstration

does she declare him such when, in ministering the Oath of Supremacy to her priests, she spurns with horror that very pretension which is the fulcrum of the papal domination.

If the Pope neither hath, nor ought to have, any authority, either secular, or spiritual within this Realm, then he blasphemes Heaven in the first axiom of his sovereignty; and must be denounced as a pretender and impostor, in every land where he proclaims his titles.

This inference is not to be evaded-without the aid of some shuffling subterfuge; and the consequences thence resulting may, earlier than some would imagine, convulse the British empire, and throw the world into confusion. Two suppositions, the one of which ought always to be thought of as certain, and the other every day's events are showing to be probable, are sufficient to imply such a consequence ;—the first is, that a British Sovereign thinks his throne, and sceptre, and his life itself to be less dear than the sacred obligations of the oath he has taken :—the other is, that the champions of Church Principles should, at some moment, believe themselves to be in a position (favoured by the course of events) for realizing their professed desires. In such a case an active endeavour to subject the English Church-and England, to the Papacy, must subvert the Throne, and reduce the empire to anarchy.

All ambiguity should be removed from this subject.-When a re-union with Rome-on the supposition that she may perhaps retract certain of her errors, and correct a few of her abuses, is spoken of as possible and desirable, it is unavoidably implied that those who express this desire have considered, and have assented to the preliminary, namely a recognition of the universal vicarship of the successors of St. Peter. No one has ever imagined that Rome will yield this point. In other words then, these modern" fautors of Rome," or "popishly-given" persons, do steadily contemplate a compromise of their ordination oath. After having sworn that they reject the doctrine of the spiritual, as well as civil authority of the Pope, within these realms, they do not conceal their wish that a reconciliation between the daughter and the Mother-the first step toward which must be a dutiful recognition of the rightful authority of the latter,

not only in these, but in all other realms, should be brought about!

This one subject is assuming every day a more serious aspect, and may ere long lead to changes the end of which none would venture to foretel.

-At this moment the Theory of the universal vicarship of St. Peter's successor is agitating the convictions of a large proportion of those who have already admitted the several dogmas, together with the axioms, of the papal system-in a word, every thing papal, saving only that one harmonizing assumption which gives solidity and consistency to the entire structure. Popery, without the Papacy, is a pile of materials without cement, and which threaten every moment to crush those who cringe around it :-the Papacy is a structure of squared masonry, and it will stand, until "He who is mighty," shall shake it.

The feeling which has been obscurely indicated in many of the publications devoted to the promotion of " Anglo-Catholicism"a feeling of unsettledness-of incompleteness-of blind onward impulse, has come forth from all embarrassments, with an attractive consistency, in the language of those who have lately seceded to the communion of Rome.

"Why are you become a Catholic ?"-In one word, because, having already admitted every Catholic verity "-that one excepted which affords the only real authority for all and each of them, we have at length seen the beauty and symmetry of that one, also, and joyfully submitting to it, find ourselves at rest :— our consciences relieved of a thousand disquietudes, and a path opened to us wherein we may walk without let or perplexity. We now can only wish the same peace to those of our late associates who are tormented beneath the spikes of the Thirty-nine Articles-crushed by the ponderous Protestantism of the "Book of Homilies," and torn by the deep-piercing thorn of their ordination vow.

This appears to be the substance of "a Letter to a Friend," which, from the beauty of its manner, its fervid simplicity, and the cogency of its reasoning, as addressed to the holders of "Catholic views," cannot fail to produce a profound impression upon those of this description whose minds are ingenuous and susceptible.

It is very far from being true that the claims of the "Servus servorum Dei," to universal lordship, are likely now to be waived, or held in abeyance, as if questionable, or not easily to be sustained. The very contrary is the fact; and it is a fact deserving of the most serious regard, as a prognostic of the events which impend, that at no period since the days of Gregory VII. has the doctrine of the papal universal supremacy been advanced with a more significant intensity, than at this moment. Toward this point all eyes will ere long be directed. The progress of opinion on this line is manifest.

"In joining myself to it (the Catholic Church) I felt that I should join myself to the Church of the whole earth-the Church of twelve centuries in England, and of eighteen centuries in the world."... "Especially to members of the Anglican Church she (the Catholic Church) says-You share, in common with myself, in this land (for you reach no further) the attacks of our common foe. This is for your honour. But think not you will escape where you are. The city of God is but one. You are too separate while you are rejecting my supreme earthly Head, my long-established discipline, my catholic order, to be a part of that city. Whatever may be your apparent unity, you are really separate. Your strength is thrown away in attempting to protect what is indefensible. But join me in repairing my fences against the foe; in reviving the courage of my true citizens, recovering ancient discipline, and re-animating decaying strength. Your return to me will be like health to the feeble, and strength to the faint; like an infusion of young blood into an ancient frame. You will be welcomed with gladness, and rejoiced over with singing, and the joy of earth will be re-echoed and sustained by that of heaven; the devout thanksgiving of the sixteenth Gregory for the recovery of the strayed sheep of his flock, will be taken up by the first of his name, the saint in heaven, for the renewal of that conversion of England, for which both he on earth (Gregory XVI.) so fervently prays, and he in heaven (Gregory the Great) so continually intercedes."

These appeals, and the fair show of a beautiful theory which

"Some answer to the Inquiry-Why are you become a Catholic? By Richard Waldo Sibthorp, B.D. &c."