judgment would overthrow every claim to Catholicity that could be made for the Church of England; and consequently that it was of indispensable importance, to obtain from the bishops a re-affirmation of the condemned doctrine. Our author then goes on to repeat the history of what subsequently took place. Bishop Blomfield, of London, speedily brought in a bill (p. 8) to vest in the bishops exclusive judgment on matters of doctrine; but the bill was rejected. It was rejected with an overwhelming rejection, not only of opposition but of arguments. So utter was the defeat that it has never been heard of more. No one has ventured to introduce any like it again. The vice of the whole situation was so visible and so hopeless that it has been left without an attempt to cure it (p. 9). Ever since this futile and grotesque exhibition, the Church of England has acquiesced without further remonstrance in the final appellate jurisdiction of the Crown; and the very notion of repudiating the Gorham decision has faded from men's minds. An attempt was indeed made to obtain signatures for a declaration, "that the Oath of Supremacy could be taken to oblige the conscience only in matters of a civil and not of a spiritual kind" (p. 12). But how was this declaration received by the clergy? Out of 17,000, some 1,800 signed it. Meanwhile about the same time the Catholic hierarchy was restored to England; and now, no longer one tenth part, but the whole body of Anglican clergy spoke out with emphasis. The Church of England, bishops, clergy, and laity, in ecclesiastical sections of dioceses, chapters, archdeaconries, rural chapters, diocesan meetings, with an unanimity never known till then, not only protested against the Supremacy of the Holy See, but fell for protection at the feet of the Royal Supremacy (p. 13). Time passed on and Convocation obtained leave to act. What were its declarations? did it reaffirm Baptismal Regeneration? On the contrary, "for thirteen years the Church of England has met, I know not how often, in Convocation; but on the appellate jurisdiction and the Gorham heresy not an act has been done, not a word has been resolved" (p. 14). So much on one of the two Anglican sacraments. As to the other, all which Archdeacon Denison even claimed (p. 15) was a liberty to hold one of two contradictory doctrines; nor has any Anglican even expressed a desire, that clergymen may be forbidden to hold that tenet, which Tractarians regard as heretical. Next as to another sacrament, though one not recognized as such by Anglicans. The Christian law of marriage has been abolished by Act of Parliament. For the first time since the coming of S. Augustine of Canterbury, the bond of marriage is dissoluble in English law; and divorce, borrowed partly from Judaism, and partly from the schismatics of the East, has been introduced. This has been done by Act of Parliament alone; yet the Church of England has made no protest, and its clergy are bound to remarry, or to lend the church for the remarriage of, those whose husbands or wives are still living : and they do so (p. 17). This, however, concerns only successive polygamy. But simultaneous polygamy "has been allowed by Dr. Colenso, under the protection of Dr. Whately, to the Christians of Natal" (ib.). And now on the top of these various apostasies came the judgment on "Essays and Reviews." Convocation indeed, to do it justice, protested against this book, and ultimately condemned it (p. 37). Nor indeed can we better exhibit to Catholic readers the contents of that miserable volume, than by quoting the summary of its contents from the Convocation document. (See p. 20.) We find that in many parts of the volume statements and doctrines of the Holy Scriptures are denied, called into question, or disparaged; for example : 1. The verity of miracles, including the idea of creation presented to us by the Bible. 2. Predictive prophecy, especially predictions concerning the Incarnation, Person, and Offices of our Lord. 3. The descent of all men from Adam. 4. The fall of man and original sin. 5. The Divine command to sacrifice Isaac. 6. The incarnation of our Lord. 7. Salvation through the blood of Christ. But what power has been permitted to Convocation of carrying out this judgment? There is an authority with which alone it rests to assign the conditions, under which an Anglican clergyman may maintain his position as such. That authority is the Crown in Council; and it has expressly decided "that to deny the inspiration of any portion of the Old and New Testament, so long as no entire Book is thereby erased from the Canon, and to deny the eternity of punishment for the wicked, is not at variance with the Articles or formularies of the Church of England" (p. 22). Lastly, as a climax comes Dr. Colenso, and denies that Scripture can be trusted even as a substantially true record of facts. Such was the bearing of our author's first pamphlet. It was not to be expected that so vigorous and telling an indictment should be left unchallenged; and Anglican rejoinders were numerous and vehement. These rejoinders led to the second treatise in this volume "The Convocation and the Crown in Council" (pp. 35-79). Of this the argument is in some sense supplementary to the former. In the former Mgr. Manning had pointed out how serious were those errors, against which the English clergy had no inclination to protest; and in this he proceeds to show, how unavailing is their protest where they do make one. Convocation, greatly to its honour, condemned the "Essays and Reviews," and declared their teaching "contrary to the doctrine of the Universal Church;" or (in other words) false and heretical. What has been the practical result of this condemnation? Has one single clergyman been prevented thereby from teaching every tenet which they contain? On the contrary (p. 42) the Lord Chancellor declared in the House of Lords that Convocation possesses no such jurisdiction as had been claimed, and " that the whole of it" had "been taken away and annexed to the Crown." As our author points out at length (pp. 42-3) it is not that the Crown extends ever so unduly the sphere of what it calls "temporalities:" no; it has direct jurisdiction over "spiritualities." "The Church of England actually submits, though with much ill will," to this jurisdiction (p. 45). But what is it which has involved the Church of England in this ignominious subjection? Obviously and undeniably the Reformation. Slavery to the State, so far as the Church of England was concerned, was the one animating principle of that whole movement. The claim of supremacy and of final determination in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, is a primary principle of the Anglican system. It has been accepted, and even clamorously affirmed, by the Anglican Church. The appellate jurisdiction of the Crown in all causes is the same in principle, whether under the form and title of the Court of Delegates or of the Privy Council. Its machinery may vary, but the thing is identical (p. 46). This brings Mgr. Manning to consider what were the principles of the English Reformation. They were essentially rationalistic. Anglicans acknowledge readily that Protestantism is essentially rationalistic, but deny that Anglicanism is Protestant. What I wish to show is, that Anglicanism is identical in principle with all other forms of the Protestant Reformation (p. 50). Three principles in particular were common to Anglicans with all Protestants. Firstly and fundamentally this; that they rebelled against the direct unintermittent energizing magisterium of the living Church, and appealed therefrom to private judgment in one or other shape. It matters not to what they appeal, whether to Scripture, or to Fathers, or to Antiquity, or to the undivided Church, as they say, before the separation of the East and West, or to General Councils in the past or in the future ; for all these are but so many forms and pleas of evasion to cover the essence of their insubordination, which consists in this, namely, the refusal of the living voice of the Church as the rule of faith. For example, if a subject refuse submission to the sovereign power, and appeal to parliaments in the past or princes in the future, nobody would care for the tribunal to which he appealed. To refuse obedience to the sovereign is treason. Such an act would be a capital offence. So it is with the Church. There can be no appeal from its voice without a denial of the law: "He that heareth you heareth me" (p. 51). Secondly, all alike profess the sufficiency of Scripture; for this is expressly asserted in the Articles of the Church of England. And thirdly, all alike profess that the Church's teaching had become corrupt, and proclaim, accordingly, a doctrinal reform. "Anglicanism" indeed "is perhaps the most obtrusive" of all "in its claim to a special purity and primitiveness in its system " (p. 51). The following passage, reprinted from a former work, is among the most striking we have anywhere seen in theological controversy: During the eighteen centuries of its existence, the Catholic Church has been tried by the rise of a succession of heresies within its unity. Every century has had its characteristic heresy. From Gnosticism to Jansenism there is a line of almost unbroken succession in error, which has sprung up parasitically by the side of the Divine Truth. But the Church remained steadfast and resplendent, without change or shadow of vicissitude, ever the same, and perfect in its light as in the beginning. The errors of the human intellect have never fastened upon the supernatural intelligence of the mystical body; but every successive error has been expelled by the vital and vigorous action of the infallible mind and voice of the Church of God. All its dogmas of faith remain to this hour incorrupt, because incorruptible, and therefore, primitive and immutable. The errors of men have been cast forth as humours which are developed in the human system, but cannot coexist with the principle of life and health. A living body casts off whatever assails its perfection. But in the Anglican Church all is the reverse. Every error which has sprung up in it, adheres to it still. Its doctrines vanish, its heresies abide. All its morbid humours are absorbed into its blood (pp. 63–5). The next treatise is to our mind the ablest and most important in the volume: it is on "the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England." It was occasioned by the following singular statement of Dr. Pusey's. "A class of believers," said that prejudiced controversialist, "joined in the triumph" caused by the Privy Council judgment on "Essays and Reviews; " "And while I know that a very earnest body of Roman Catholics rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened in what weakens her who is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land, others seemed to be in an ecstasy of triumph at this victory of Satan." Every one thought at the time that Dr. Pusey intended to include Mgr. Manning in the last-named category; though we have great pleasure in recording, that he has since entirely disavowed any such intention. At all events, Mgr. Manning replies that, on the one hand, he heartily rejoices in all the workings of the Holy Ghost in the Church of England, though, on the other hand, he cannot regard her as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." As to the former portion of this answer, it is astonishing how widely an impression once prevailed among the Anglican party that converts to Catholicism ordinarily regard their past spiritual life as a mockery, and deny the past operations within them of the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, if converts indignantly repudiated so perverse a notion, then they were assailed on the other side, as admitting by this very repudiation that, in some sense or other, the Establishment is part of the Visible Church. The main purport of the truly admirable essay before us is to lay down the true "via media" which lies between these two extremes. There is abundant grace, says the author, ever active and energetic among Anglicans; but not on that account are they members of the Visible Church. Great numbers of them have, indeed, been baptized in their infancy, and were thus raised to the supernatural order. If these men, after they become adults, remain faithful to actual grace and avoid mortal sin, they retain that habitual grace which they received at Baptism; but not on that account are they members of the Church's body, though they appertain to her soul. But, putting aside this question of Baptism, every Catholic holds that supernatural grace visits even the unbaptized; that they have full power of corresponding with that grace; that if they do duly correspond with it, they will obtain an increased degree thereof; and that finally, by an act of sovereign love, they may obtain the great gift of justification. Under any circumstances, it is not for being external to the Visible Church that men are punished (p. 95), but for being culpably external to her. But all this, as is evident, has nothing to do with the Church of England, |