them, and assault them in their separate posts. Many, may we not in- We are, in truth, as much concerned as the Romanist, in wishing that he should adopt this his proper policy. For unless he does, all our contest is a mere waste of strength and vexation of spirit. We are only eluding each other and calling names, as if afraid to meet face to face. And so far from our Church gaining any advantage, by joining in assault with the rest of the Protestant body, she loses her peculiar character amid the confused multitude, and were victory ever so complete, that would not assist one jot her claims to be the original and national church of this country, and establish her in the rights of her inheritance. Her proper position, in the first instance, is that of defence against Rome's proper position of offence. She must first rout the enemy at the foot of her own encampment, and then follow up the victory into his. The Romanist has, in general, always well understood his position. It is by arguments concerning the unity of the church, that at this day, as previously, he successfully assails weak and unprepared, and yet orderly, minds. They naturally expect, when once their attention has been seriously called to the subject, and the less attentive they have hitherto been, the more impatiently do they now expect, to see the church of Christ all one body and one mind; not only theoretically, but practically. But they can see this character only in the communion of the Church of Rome, according to the artful representations of those who are intent on making them proselytes. And when they have once come to this point, examination of doctrine is quite superfluous. Does not this fact forcibly illustrate the proper ground which the advocate of our Church should take? What is the use of exposing the absurdity, or even impiety, of a body of doctrines, while one tenet which sanctifies them all is left unassailed? been gained by the lectures which have been recently delivered in many We doubt, therefore, whether much has places against the corruptions of Popery; even supposing them to have been delivered by persons qualified by knowledge of the subject, and never by persons of so slender theology as not to be acquainted with the first principles of the position of the church in general: still less with the real question with Rome in particular. We scarcely believe that, excepting in the way of confirming in prejudices (and not all those the soundest), they have fortified a single hearer against the artful insinuations of the advocate of the pretended one true church, or been successful in reclaiming converts among those who may have happened to hear them. But on the contrary, many of them holding, and, amid their very argument, proclaiming tenets which are destructive to the unity of the church, may have offended well-disciplined minds, and inclined them to receive the advances of the Romanist more favourably than they would have done. Those ad vances are, as we have said, invariably made under shelter of the necessity of the maintenance of the unity of the church. The wily proselytist affects not to meddle with doctrinal differences, and his hearer, struck with the unexpected liberality with which he is treated, imagines that he is left quite free, even on so vital a point as justification by faith. But when he has once shaken him on the grand external point, his adversary knows that he has him in his toils. On this ground then the battle is to be fought. And whatever may be the faults of the writers of the Oxford Tracts, this merit cannot be denied them, that on this question they have taken up the only tenable position. It is a glorious spot to stand upon. There Laud stood in his argument with Fisher the Jesuit. There Barrow stood, and erected an impregnable fortress in his Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, and Discourse on the Unity of the Church. And we may here express our pleasure at seeing these works republished at the Oxford Press. They are an invaluable present to our Clergy, to most of whom they were formerly strange. We trust that they will henceforward be as familiar, and that our Church will never again lose sight of the only ground on which she can either maintain herself against her sectaries, or await the attack of Rome. Her sectaries of course will raise the hue and cry, that in seizing this outstanding position she has marched towards Rome. And Rome, alarmed at the nearness and strength of it, will echo their cry, and join in their measures of fear and hatred. Meanwhile let it be but maintained, with the knowledge arising from a good acquaintance with the documents of the Church, with the skill resulting from a cool judgment and careful review of them, with the courage which the conscious possession of the truth ever inspires, and we have no fears for the result. We have always been victorious upon this ground, and always shall be, if we maintain our good old courage. Our only danger arises from either neglecting to seize it, or from a timid occupation of it. It is much to be regretted that many persons, through ignorance or misconception, have taken offence at our seizing upon so forward and external a position. Thus they much remind us of raw recruits, who, seeing a detachment marching to seize a commanding position close to the enemy, imagine that they are going actually to join the enemy, and cry out, Treason! We earnestly hope, however, that a little more experience in the course of the campaign will convince them of their error, and we flatter ourselves, that we already begin to see a change in the sentiments of many. Above all, we implore them not to take up their information at second hand, nor to listen, without hesitation, to the representations of such writers as the author of Ancient Christianity, whose argument goes to destroy Romanism at the expense of Christianity itself. It is curious, by the way, to see how extremes meet. The Romanist, in seeking to establish the authority of his church, is careless as to what becomes of the credibility of the Scriptures; while the sectary, seeking to destroy all deference to the church, destroys all the ground upon which their reception, in the first instance, rests. There cannot be a more signal proof, were any still wanted, of the propriety of the position which the true defenders of our Church against Rome have always taken up, than the evident alarm which inspires the Romanist body in England on seeing it once again resumed. Gladly would they frighten us from it, by representing us to the dissenter as coming over to Rome; gladly would they persuade us, that we are where we must shortly yield at discretion. We know where we are too well. We are where the genuine Fathers of our Church pitched, and fought, and conquered. We know the ground, and, by God's help, will maintain it. This alarm has lately been sounded in a loud strain by Dr. Wiseman, one of the principal champions of the cause of Rome in these islands. Among other papers, he has put forth two especially directed against the Anglican claim to Apostolical succession, which claim, being made good, clears us, of course, from all charge of violating the unity of the Church, and retorts the charge of schism upon Rome herself. If, however, he thought to go unanswered, he has been mistaken. Mr. Palmer, who is too well known for us to say more than mention his name, has accepted his challenge, and, in our opinion, most satisfactorily disposed of it. Whether his answer will reach Romanists, whom Dr. Wiseman had principally in view when he made this attack, is very doubtful. Anglicanists, however, will thank him for this prompt and successful vindication of their principles. It is no obscure sign of the turn which things are taking, that Dr. Wiseman thinks it expedient not to revive the calumnious misrepresentations which have been made by his party, for the purpose of denying the validity of the transmission of our orders at the Reformation. He is content to discuss the question which he proposes, independently of all inquiry into the validity of our ordinations. And having given us this vantage ground, boasts that he will thereby make it a dopov ädwpov indeed, by only more completely cutting it away from under our feet. Distinguishing, therefore, between orders and jurisdiction, he denies that the valid possession of the former necessarily implies the valid possession of the latter, which he denies that we have. On this ground he raises his battery, and fulminates away after the usual fashion of his school. Mr. Palmer readily disposes of this distinction, by showing that it was never held in the Church; but that lawful ordination was always understood to convey Apostolical jurisdiction, and quotes the ancient form of consecration used by the Church of Rome herself to that effect, in addition to other evidence. The question might now be supposed to be settled, this distinction being the ground of Dr. Wiseman's argument. Still, however, Dr. Wiseman's reader may apply his further remarks against the validity of our ordinations, as being uncanonical. Mr. Palmer therefore proceeds in refutation of his several successive objections. The great question henceforward is, Did the Bishop of Rome ever obtain a rightful jurisdiction over our church? If so, then undoubtedly our present orders, not having been confirmed by him, being on the contrary conferred by persons opposed to his authority, are uncanonical; and, as we have seen, we cannot make up their deficiency by pleading the necessity imposed by the corruption of his doctrine. Here then we must stand or fall. And we cannot sufficiently thank Mr. Palmer for his able defence upon ground so narrowed, and therefore so critical. He had done great service if he had only riveted our attention to this ground. But he has done more. He has enabled us to maintain it against all adversaries. We cannot pretend, within our proper limits, to accompany him through this argument, and therefore must be content with presenting a general outline. It requires but little trouble to show that the Pope had not a shadow of jurisdiction over the ancient British Church. The evidence derived from Bede alone is decisive on the point; to say nothing of the canons of the Councils of Nice and Ephesus, which forbid such a stretch of authority. The point in question therefore is, whether the conversion of the Saxons by his missionaries gave him a patriarchal jurisdiction over the Anglican Church. Mr. Palmer quotes the examples of the Pope sending Palladius and Patrick into Ireland, and several bishops into France, and yet the churches of those countries remained quite independent of him, and one most happily in point which we cannot exhibit better than in the words of Mr. Palmer himself. The Bulgarians, a barbarous and heathen nation, had subjugated the Christian provinces of Epirus, Thessaly, and Dardania, forming part of the ancient civil diocese of Illyricum; when, in the latter part of the ninth century, their king, influenced by the long prevalence of famine, by the exhortations of his sister, who had been converted to Christianity at Constantinople, and of two Greek monks, named Theodore Couphara and Methodius, embraced the Christian faith, and sent to the emperor of Constantinople for a bishop, who, on his arrival in Bulgaria, baptized the king. This prince subsequently exhorted his subjects to become Christians, and accordingly they were baptized by Greek priests. This occurred in the year 865; soon after which, the king of Bulgaria sent to the king of Germany to ask for a bishop and priests to assist in the work of evangelizing his people. He addressed a similar request to Pope Nicholas J., who eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to send two Italian bishops into Bulgaria, who prevailed on the king to banish the Greek missionaries who had first preached the gospel there and baptized the inhabitants. From this time the popes claimed jurisdiction over Bulgaria, without paying the slightest regard to the prior claim of the see of Constantinople to the honour of having converted this people. Indeed, the subsequent refusal of Ignatius and Photius, patriarchs of Constantinople, to relinquish their jurisdiction over Bulgaria to Rome, was the principal cause of the disputes between those patriarchal thrones. Thus it appears that the popes rejected, in the case of the Bulgarians, that plea for jurisdiction, founded on conversion, which their adherents now so frequently advance, to establish their claims over England. But if we examine this case a little closer, it will furnish a still more evident justification of the Church of England. The Roman pontiffs based their claim to jurisdiction over Bulgaria on the fact, that Illyricum, which the heathen Bulgarians had subdued, had formerly been subject to the see of Rome; and they considered this claim valid, although the see of Constantinople had subsequently acquired jurisdiction over Illyricum, to the exclusion of that of the Roman pontiffs. The subjugation of those provinces by a heathen nation, and the conversion of that nation by Greek missionaries, made no alteration in the rights of the pontiffs in their own opinion. Now this applies exactly to the case of Britain. Subject to its own metropolitans for several centuries, it had been afterwards subdued by the pagan Saxons. But this invasion, the subsequent conversion of the invaders by the missionaries of Rome, and the temporary acquisition of jurisdiction in England by the papacy, did not impair the original rights of the English churches and metropolitans. Their claim always remained in its full force, and they were entitled to assert that claim whenever a proper opportunity presented itself. Several other instances of the same disregard of the Roman pontiffs for prior occupation might be pointed out. What has been said, however, will suffice to show, that neither the Catholic church generally, nor the Roman pontiffs in particular, have ever acknowledged the principle, that any patriarch or bishop who may have been instrumental in converting the heathen, acquires a perpetual right of jurisdiction for his see, over the churches so founded.-Pp. 148-151. But Dr. Wiseman, aware that all is not quite right, has another point in reserve, which it required no inconsiderable assurance of face to make. It is, that jurisdiction acquired even by usurpation, becomes lawful by custom. We will here again leave him in the hands of Mr. Palmer, who after having given several apposite examples in opposition to such a rule, proceeds to say: All this shows sufficiently, that Dr. Wiseman's notion, that jurisdiction. usurped in contradiction to the canons, becomes, by mere usage, invested with canonical authority, is altogether alien,-altogether repugnant to the doctrine of the council of Chalcedon, and to that of Pope Leo, whom he quotes with applause. If any thing be evident, it is, that abuses such as Dr. W. defends, were regarded as entirely devoid of authority, and incapable of obtaining it. What then are we to say to the unheard of doctrine which Dr. W. in the latter part of his observations, attributes to the council of Chalcedon? What shall we think of its being charged with holding the monstrous opinion, that customs founded in usurpation, in pride, ambition, worldliness, in every thing most contrary to Christianity, are "to prevail against" the most sacred canons of œcumenical synods? It is in this opinion, according to Dr. W., that the synod of Chalcedon" acquiesced;" an opinion necessarily destructive of all discipline, and subversive of all the canons. For, if mere success in usurpation, mere continuance in sin, is to sanctify and authorize transgressions of ecclesiastical discipline; and if this was the sentiment of an oecumenical synod; the greatest possible encouragement is held out to usurpations, and to every other sort of irregularity. What use can there be in canons in this case? What force can they possess? The council of Chalcedon, had it held such doctrines, would have completely stultified its own proceedings. It would have enacted canons, constituting a certain jurisdiction, and at the same moment declared, that continued and successful disobedience to those canons should be itself canonical, and still more canonical than the regulations to which it was opposed. canons. Dr. W. carries his doctrine to a still further point. It actually and necessarily leads to the conclusion, that such abuses as have been tolerated for a time, are not merely canonical, but IRREVOCABLE; that they have an authority, which Dr. W. denies to the canons themselves. He is ready to concede, that the papal jurisdiction in England was originally an usurpation, an abuse contrary to the Nevertheless he distinctly charges our catholic and apostolic churches with infringement of the canons, usurpation, and intrusion, for attempting to suppress this jurisdiction. In short abuses and usurpations in violation of the canons are sacred and holy. The removal of abuses, and restoration of the canons are altogether impious! Such are the conclusions, immediately resulting from Dr. W.'s reasoning. Let us observe its inconsistency also. He maintains that the papal jurisdiction in England, though usurped, became canonical by mere custom; but he refuses to admit, that the domestic jurisdiction of the English church, though enjoying a prescription of three centuries, since its revival, is canonical. Surely if custom alone sanctioned the one, it must sanction the other also. But Dr. W. will not admit our jurisdiction to be canonical; therefore he cannot consistently maintain, that custom alone rendered the papal jurisdiction obligatory on our churches.-Pp. 69-71. Thus all objections are cleared as to the ordinations in the reigns of Henry and Edward. But the intrusion of Mary's bishops, on the expulsion or death of their predecessors, produces fresh materials for the objections of the Romanist to our present orders. They object to the unlawfulness of the removal of these bishops. To this a satisfactory reply can be made from abundant examples of the temporal power removing intrusive bishops, which may be seen in p. 155, &c. of Mr. Palmer's |