doctrine which Dr. Pusey here intended to vindicate.. It asserts that "there is nothing in the Apostolic system which gives any authority to the Pope over the Church, which it does not give to a bishop. It is altogether," it says, "an ecclesiastical arrangement, not a point de fide, but of expedience, custom, or piety, which cannot be claimed as if the Pope ought to have it, any more than on the other hand the King could of divine right claim the supremacy.” "Bishop," it states, "is superior to bishop only in rank, and not in power, and the Bishop of Rome the head of the Catholic world, is not the centre of unity, except as having a primacy of order." All these statements, indeed, follow from the Anglican view of the Church of Christ. Because, as is said in the Tract, "the portions of the Church need not otherwise have been united together for their essential completeness than as being descended from one original. They are like a number of colonies sent out from a mother country. Each church is independent of all the rest, and is to act on the principle of what may be called 'episcopal independence,' except, indeed, so far as the civil power unites any number of them together."" In this manner Tract XC. clears the English Church from the charge of schism, since in releasing itself from the Roman Supremacy, it remained essentially complete without Rome. So that the Anglicans, in order to free themselves from the charge of schism, are forced to alter the essential features of the divine plan of the Church of Christ.

IV. Dr. Pusey, with the Anglicans, adheres to the statement of Tract XC., which formally denies the monarchical character of the Church, both under the government of the Apostles and that of their successors. They acknowledge in St. Peter a pre-eminence of honour

• Tract XC., sec. 12, pp. 78, 79. Edition of 1841.

given by Our Lord, for reasons, which, as Mr. Palmer says, were not revealed to the Church. They recognize too in the Bishop of Rome a pre-eminence, which he did not inherit by divine right from St. Peter, but which may be accounted for by the peculiar circumstances of the Church of Rome. Nevertheless, they add, this preeminence of honour gave him no claim over other bishops and their flocks. This system was fully developed by Mr. Palmer; it is, more or less, that of the old Church of England divines, and it has been set forth in Tract XC., and was obstinately maintained by the Oxford party throughout the course of the Tractarian movement. The Thirty-Seventh Article is commonly interpreted in the same sense by the standard expositors. We may, for example, cite Burnet, Beveridge,10 Dr. Browne,11 and others. The Anglican system, therefore, can be summarily stated as follows:-1. Jesus Christ did not bestow on St. Peter a supremacy of jurisdiction over the other Apostles, but only a pre-eminence of rank, incapable of transmission. Hence, a divinely-instituted monarchical government is not to be found in the Church. 2. The Bishop of Rome does not possess a primacy by divine right his pre-eminence is owing to certain peculiar circumstances, and to ecclesiastical institution. 3. To this we may add, on the assertion of Dr. Pusey, that the extension of the Papal power is to be attributed in an especial manner to the false decretals, which

7 Palmer: 1. c., p. 370.

8 Palmer: Treatise on the Church of Christ, chs. iii.—vi., pp. 384-416.

Burnet: Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 386, ⚫ et seq. London, 1826.

10 Beveridge: The Doctrine of the Church of England; Discourse upon the Thirty-nine Articles. Works, vol. vii., p. 571, et seq. Oxford, 1845.

11 Browne: An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 803, eet seq.

introduced a system alien to the original constitution of Christ's Church. These are the chief heads of doctrine concerning the authority of the Roman Pontiff implied by the Anglican system as set forth by the divines of the Church of England who are held in most esteem, and by the Tractarian school of the present day. The grounds on which these principles rest, in no means. differ from those by which schismatics and Protestants of all times have ever sought to justify their apostacy from Christ's holy Church.

SECTION I.

UNITY AND SUPREMACY IN THE CHURCH OF

CHRIST.

PROTESTANTS of every denomination have constantly misapprehended the fundamental idea of Catholic unity. Despite the efforts and influence of the Tractarian movement, the Oxford school did not, in the least, succeed in removing or modifying this misapprehension; for we find that the very starting-point of the Tractarian system is the assumption that bishops are naturally independent. Now this independence of the Episcopate is declared to mean that no church or diocese can exercise control or jurisdiction within the boundaries of another church or diocese. But such is not the true idea of that Catholic unity which Christ revealed, and to which all antiquity bears witness. This may be seen. from a consideration of the two chief prototypes on which the Church was to be modelled. These are:(1.) the Word made flesh; (2.) the most Holy Trinity. With reference to the former, St. Paul tells us that, “As the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ."12 Now, in this and similar passages, as the Fathers have aptly observed,13 the apostle desigI Cor. xii. 12. Καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα ἓν ἐστιν καὶ μέλη ἔχει πολλά, πάντα δὲ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος πολλὰ ὄντα ἓν ἐστιν σῶμα, ὄντως καὶ ὁ Χριστός.

12

13 See St. Chrysostom: Hom. xxx. in 1 Cor. n. 1 (Op., tom. x., pp. 269-70. Edit. Maur). August.: De Civit. Dei, 1. xxii., c. xvii. (Op., t. vii., p. 513. Edit. Maur, Antwerpiae). St. Gregory of Nyssa states that the Church is often (πολλαχή) named (κατονοMalera) Christ by St. Paul.-De Vita Mosis (Op., tom. i., p. 226. Edit. Parisiis, 1637).

nates the Church by the name of Christ Himself. For as Eve was formed by the divine hand from the flesh of Adam, and fashioned to the likeness of God, so the Church is formed from the flesh of Christ, and made to His likeness.14 Our blessed Lord Himself, in the prayer addressed to His divine Father, has revealed to us the second, and a heavenly, prototype of His Church-the Holy Trinity: "Neither do I pray for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on and through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."15 Christ, by these words, evidently meant His Church as it was destined to endure until the consummation of the world, since unto the last there were to be believers in Christ, for whom He was then praying. This is clear from the text itself. Moreover, He said of His Church, that it should bear the likeness of that divine unity of the Father with the Son in which consists the great mystery of the most Holy Trinity. So that the Word of God made Man, and the most Holy Trinity, are the two great Scriptural prototypes after the pattern of which the Church was to be modelled. The Church, therefore, was intended to reveal to all future ages the essential characters of those divine types. Nay, the unbelieving of the world, by seeing in the Church the copy of patterns so perfect, were to be led to believe that the doctrine of Christ was from God, for Christ Himself added in His prayer-"that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."16

II. What, then, are the essential characters of these divine prototypes? The first, the most prominent, and the one common to both, is that most singular and

14 Ephes. v. 30, coll., Gen. ii. 20, 21.

15 St. John xvii. 20, 21. (Protestant version.)

16 St. John xvii. 21. ἵνα ὁ κόσμος πιστεύσῃ ὅτι σύ με απέστειλας.