CARDINAL POLE vs. MATTHEW PARKER.

425 an individual clergyman silenced for errors or misconduct? Whatever ministerial acts such a body of men perform are unlawful, and, therefore, in opposition to the authority from which they originally derived the right to minister. Those who follow them in their revolt from the Church may say, as long as they please, that these men succeed those who had peacefully finished their course and kept the faith which they have abandoned; but every unprejudiced observer will perceive that where there is no identity of religious principle, no uniformity of faith, there cannot be anything like apostolical succession, which consists in the continued transmission of the same sacred deposit of doctrine from one pastor to his successor, and not in the mere fact that one Bishop succeeds another in the same see, without any regard to the doctrines professed by each. Thus, to illustrate this position by the case at present in question, it is not denied that Cardinal Pole was followed in the see of Canterbury by Matthew Parker; but it is equally undeniable that Pole would have considered Parker a heretic, and that Parker regarded Pole as an idolater. To suppose, then, that they were both links of the same chain-both equally capable of transmitting the invaluable blessings of apostolical succession-is to confound all notions and contradict the most universally received maxims. As well might Cromwell be considered one of the Stuart Kings of England, or Napoleon Bonaparte one of the Bourbon race, as Matthew Parker-even if validly ordained-be regarded as a link added to the chain of Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury, reaching down from St. Augustine to Cardinal Pole, in whom that illustrious series of Pontiffs finally ceased.

"And all this, I must again remind the reader, is to be understood, even in the supposition that the orders of the English Church are valid and its clergy regularly

ordained; so that it is not necessary for Catholics to disprove the Anglican orders in order to defeat the claim to apostolic succession, so pompously put forward, especially in these times, by men who seem to have grown up amidst the evidences of their defective title, and yet to have learned no fact from history, no wisdom from experience, no counsel from the suggestions of cool and unbiased reason.

"But although it be not necessary for Catholics to disprove the validity of the Anglican ordinations, in order to defeat the claim to apostolical succession put forward by the clergy of that Church, it is obvious that one of the simplest means of defeating that claim is to show, by a reference to facts, that the very foundation on which it is raised is itself either positively disproved, or, at least, very uncertain, as must be evident to every one acquainted with the circumstances of the case and not influenced by any other motive than a love of truth. The Catholic can, then, defeat the Anglican's claim to apostolic succession without disproving the orders of the English Church; but the advocates of this latter cannot advance a single argument in support of the supposed succession of their Bishops without first proving the validity of their ordination.

"From what has been hitherto said, it appears that the validity of the Anglican ordinations and the apostolical succession of the Bishops of the Church of England are distinct questions, not necessarily connected with one another; at least, that the apostolic succession of pastors is not a necessary consequence of their being validly ordained. And hence it is apparent that the exceptions taken to the Anglican ordinations do not necessarily follow either from Catholic principles or from a desire to set aside the claim to apostolical succession on the part of the English Bishops. Whether they are the quibbles

REFORM FROM WITHOUT.

427

of captious sophists, or the serious doubts and well grounded objections of conscientious men, I shall leave to the reader to determine.

"In the sixteenth century, in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth, the Church of England underwent a change, by which it was delivered from the 'damnable idolatry' and superstition, in which, according to the book of Homilies, all ranks and conditions of Christendom had lain buried 'for eight hundred years and more.' It does not, of course, enter into the plan of this inquiry to examine the merits or wisdom of the change, of which men will judge according to their different religious convictions. But I must be pardoned for briefly noticing one fashionable theory on this subject, which is, at the same time, so monstrously absurd and so palpably inconsistent with the facts of the case, that a more convincing proof of the general ignorance regarding the causes and stages of the English Reformation among those who believe it could not easily be adduced. According to this theory, it was not the State that reformed the Church of England, but this change was brought about by the Church itself. So far, however, from this being the case, that in the first year of Elizabeth's reign the Convocation of the English clergy made a profession of faith quite conformable to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and, of course, quite in opposition to the doctrines and principles of the Reformation. There were then but fourteen Bishops in England, and they all remained faithful to Catholic principles; they unanimously proscribed the new errors. Of these thirteen were deprived of their sees for refusing to take the oath of supremacy; there was but one recreant of the episcopal body, who took the oath and thus preserved his see, but who yet remained steadfast in the Catholic faith. The Church of England did not, then, reform itself; it was

crushed and almost annihilated by the civil power; and in its place was established a new church, essentially different from that which had been swept away.

"The great parent of the so-called Reformation, Martin Luther, openly taught that the ministers of religion differed in nothing from the laity but by their election to the office of teacher. According to him, every Christian is a priest. His words are: 'Let every Christian, therefore, acknowledge that we are all equally priests; that is, that we have the same power in the Word and in every sacrament; but that it is not lawful for each one to use that power unless elected by the community or called by the RULER.' According to this theory, there would be no necessity for ordination, as each member of the Church is supposed to be invested with equal powers 'in the word and in every sacrament' by baptism; and election is only required to prevent the confusion which would arise from each individual exercising the power he possessed. It is not necessary to refer to the sentiments of the other continental reformers on this subject, it being sufficiently notorious that they denied the efficacy of ordination.

"To confine myself, then, to the English Reformers. We learn from a public document in Burnet what were the sentiments of Archbishop Cranmer on this important subject. The record, 21, in the Appendix to Burnet's 'History of the Reformation' is entitled 'The Resolutions of several Bishops and Divines of some Questions Concerning the Sacraments.' One of these questions, the ninth, is thus proposed: 'Whether the Apostles, lacking a higher power, as in not having a Christian King among them, made Bishops by that necessity, or by authority given them by God?' In reply to this the Archbishop of Canterbury, that is, Cranmer, said: 'All Christian princes have committed unto them immediately

PRIESTS BY "ELECTION.”

429

of God the whole cure of all their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God's word for the cure of souls as concerning the administration of things political and of civil governance.' In answer to the tenth question: 'Whether Bishops were before priests, or priests before Bishops; and if so, did not the priests make the Bishop?' he replied: 'that the Bishops and priests were at one time, and were no two things, but both one office in the beginning of Christ's Religion.' To the eleventh question he answered: A Bishop may make a priest by the Scripture, and so may princes and governors also; and that by the authority of God.' He says that laymen. may make priests by election; and in answer to the twelfth question he replies: 'In the New Testament he that is appointed to be a Bishop or a priest needeth no consecration by the Scripture; for election or appointing thereto is sufficient.'

"Besides these answers, we have the sentiments of Cranmer on this subject thus given in the words of Burnet's abridger. 'Cranmer had at this time some particular opinions concerning ecclesiastical offices; that they were delivered from the King as other civil offices were, and that ordination was not indispensably necessary, and was only a ceremony that might be used or laid aside; but that the authority was delivered to churchmen only by the King's commission.' Nor was this royal supremacy, which, as we learn from the same writer, the clergy placed 'in some extraordinary grace conferred on the King in his coronation,' suffered to lie dormant. In common with all the other time-serving Bishops of that reign-with, however, the glorious exception of Fisher of Rochester, who suffered death rather than acknowledge the royal supremacy-Cranmer gave a practical proof of his principles by throwing up his commission and consenting to receive jurisdiction from