independently educated Heathen mind in the most exact and strongest form possible. The great Eastern Church rejects those claims with unshaken confidence. The intellectual Protestant world in Europe resents them. With ourselves in England, the increased knowledge of history is enabling us to see with increasing clearness the human origin out of which many of those ecclesiastical claims have sprung, and the human infirmities which have supported and developed them. The increased study of history in our universities is a marked feature of the last fifty years. Formerly, the requirements of candidates for ordination, with regard to Church history, were limited, almost exclusively, to a knowledge of the first three or four centuries, and of the Reformation, which left them in blank ignorance of the very thousand years in which the claims of the papacy grew up. This ignorance on our part gave a great opportunity for the strong assertions of the advocates of the Roman claims. Now the study of mediaeval history has enabled us to appreciate more fully the truth of the quotation with which the late learned. Archbishop of Dublin concludes his lecture on "The papacy at its height" in the time of Innocent III., when he speaks of it as "the grandest and most magnificent failure in human history." Father Puller has brought out very clearly 2 how much in the Roman claims to jurisdiction may be traced to the merely human source of the Rescript of Gratian, towards the close of the fourth century. Yet "the new system," he adds, "applies only to the West." "There is not a word in the Rescript about the Eastern empire." "It is limited, local;" "patriarchal, not papal." And the patriarchal jurisdiction over Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa "was the creation of the State, not of the Church." The same is true of the Rescript of Valentinian III., which formed a new starting-point in the development of the papal power.1 "1 Viewed in connection with the persistency of the Roman 1 Mediaeval Church History, by Archbishop Trench, p. 162. 1877. [3 The quotations in the text are cited from a section of the book which has been much altered and enlarged in this new edition. The expressions quoted do not now find a place in this volume. However, what they set forth is perfectly true; and the substance of the last quotation, though not the actual words, will be found on p. 155.-(July, 1900).] pp. 212-215. с assumptions generally, the failure of the repeated attacks of Roman writers upon the validity of Anglican orders is very encouraging. Nothing could have been stronger than the assertions which have been made. The historical facts of the consecration of Parker and of Barlow have been disputed, but no candid weigher of historical evidence would now doubt them. The validity of the form used in ordination and consecration has been denied, but the better liturgiologists of the Roman communion have shown that such denial would be suicidal. Attempts have been made to hang the weight of the validity of our orders upon the subtle thread of intention, but here in truth we agree; "Intentio faciendi id quod facit Ecclesia, quod Christus instituit," we heartily accept.1 Indeed, one of the latest writers against Anglican orders has honestly admitted that "it is very unfortunate that the Nag's Head story was ever seriously put forward; for it is so absurd, on the face of it, that it has led to the suspicion of Catholic theologians not being sincere in the objections they make to Anglican orders." 2 Quite so. And this compels us to mention what we would willingly, if sorrowfully, pass over in silence-the worse than merely human element on which much of the Roman claims are based; the false documents, the forgeries; and the unaccountable false use of true documents, such as the quotation of the fifth canon of the Council of Sardica by the Roman legates at the Council of Carthage as a canon of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. "The Council of Nicaea was venerated in Africa, as elsewhere, and its canons received as authoritative." But "when the legates quoted the Sardican canon as if it were Nicene, the African bishops at Carthage must have been thoroughly puzzled. They thought that they knew the Nicene canons well, and 1 Cf. Hooker (Eccles. Pol. v. lviii. 3): "Inasmuch as sacraments are actions religious and mystical, which nature they have not unless they proceed from a serious meaning, and what every man's private mind is, as we cannot know, so neither are we bound to examine, therefore always in these cases the known intent of the Church generally doth suffice, and where the contrary is not manifest, we may presume that he which outwardly doth the work, hath inwardly the purpose of the Church of God;" and see Elementa Theol. Dogm., vol. vii. p. 135. Schouppe, S.J. 1870. "Non requiritur intentio faciendi id quod facit Ecclesia Romana; sed sufficit intentio generalis faciendi quod facit Ecclesia." 2 The Question of Anglican Orders Discussed, by the Very Reverend T. H. Estcourt, M.A., F.S.A., Canon of St. Chad's, Birmingham, p. 154. 1873. this canon quoted by the legates which allowed appeals to Rome, was completely new to them."1 The whole case of Apiarius is most instructive. We may compare with it the false quotation, as from the sixth canon of Nicaea, which was made by the Roman legate Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon.2 There is perhaps an element of comfort to be derived from the recognition of the existence of these forgeries. On the one hand, it frees us from the necessity of any longer straining our minds to account for facts which appear in all honesty so unaccountable. On the other, it may mitigate the moral responsibility of those who have honestly based their words and actions upon them, believing them to be genuine. It is, for example, hard to understand how any one familiar with the writings of S. Irenaeus, could speak of S. Peter as the first bishop of the Roman see. The antiPauline Clementine romance may explain the source from which this invention was derived. The interpolations in the writings of S. Cyprian, the supposed decretals of the early popes, given in Isidore's decretals, and woven into the Decretum of Gratian and the later canon law, and into the theological system of the schoolmen,-all these, and other like inventions, have had much to do with building up the papal system, and have given confidence to the modern assumption of universal jurisdiction. It is much to be wished that the writings of the schoolmen, as a whole, should be seriously taken in hand by a competent body of scholars, so that they might be thoroughly edited, and the statements contained in them tested by the knowledge which we now possess. A valuable residuum would, I have no doubt, remain in all the branches of scientific knowledge; but it would be a residuum. Not all their assertions could be accepted. The same is to be wished with regard to canon law. The contributions which have been made by Von Schulte and others ought to be attended to and followed up. 1 See p. 185. 5 2 See Dr. Bright's Notes (as before), p. 198. Two words in this sentence, which needed to be corrected, have been altered. -(July, 1900).] See pp. 41-49. ... Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts, . . . von Dr. Joh. F. von Schulte. 1875. Hitherto Roman writers have too often made their assertions, and then retired into the dark places of the schoolmen and the canon law, as into a wood; and we, from ignorance, have been afraid to follow them. The whole ground wants clearing, and sowing with the good seed of the truth. But this is perhaps travelling beyond the limits of the present volume, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome. The book should be studied carefully, in order that the contrast between the modern Roman claims and the teaching of the primitive saints may be seen in detail, and the importance of the contrast may be fully appreciated. The latter part is chiefly occupied with the contravention of the Roman position, as expressed by Cardinal Wiseman: "According to the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, it is easy at once to ascertain who are the Church Catholic, and who are in a state of schism, by simply discovering who are in communion with the see of Rome and who are not." 1 The impossibility of accepting this statement is very fully and ably shown from the history of S. Meletius, S. Flavian, S. Chrysostom, and many others, who during their lifetime were the recognized leaders and champions of the Church, and who were reckoned among the saints after their death, though their lives were lived, in part or altogether, out of communion with the see of Rome.2 While the historical force of the book cannot be felt without a careful study of its contents, there is one element of power which it possesses for which I cannot refrain from expressing my most sincere thanks: I mean the brilliancy of the Christian spirit which runs through it all. This is in a measure a new and a most powerful factor in our controversy with Rome. The self-devotion and zeal of many in the Roman communion have been a great weight in the scale when the mind has become weary of arguing. The 0 in 1 p. 216. S. Meletius, even while president of this second General Council, was still out of communion with the West" (The Councils of the Church from A.D. 51 to A.D. 381, by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., p. 306. J. H. Parker. 1857). "S. Hilary died on May 5, at the age of forty-eight. He was, like Meletius, a man of acknowledged sanctity outside the Roman communion" (History of the Church from A.D. 313 to 451, by W. Bright, p. 389. Parker. 1860). Tíoris has a persuasive force of great and deserved value. It partakes of the mysterious power of personal influence, and is the result, not of mere intellectual cleverness, but of character and life. A light of new brilliancy seems to be thrown on these old records, as they are represented to us by one who has voluntarily renounced those worldly comforts and advantages which most of us in the Church of England have claimed it to be our rightful liberty to enjoy. Nothing but the pure desire to state the truth, that so the light and life and love which belong to the Body of Christ, by virtue of her union with her Divine Head, might be with us in their fullest perfection, could have induced this author to write a book of controversy. It is this perfect charity and chivalrous confidence in the truth, through the power of the Holy Spirit, which gives us new hope that, in God's good time, Wisdom will be justified of her children; and that, as we are each and all indwelt by the Holy Spirit in greater fulness, we shall be taught by the same Spirit to speak the truth in love, and to "grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." "1 So may the Saviour's prayer be fulfilled, "that they may be one even as We are One." 2 EDWARD LINCOLN. 1 Eph. iv. 15, 16. 2 S. John xvii. 22. |