different parts of the church assembled from time to time, under the authority of the pope, to define its doctrine and regulate its discipline. The size of the sheet was insufficient to exhibit all the various councils. Again, you behold in this tree, the con

family and other subjects, was now reclaimed to the church, and Pulika, Patriarch of the Nestorians in Assyria, came to Rome, in order to join the numerous churches under him to the centre of unity and truth.

CENT. XVII.

The sects of which I have been speaking, were, at the beginning of this century, in their full vigor; and though they differed in most other respects, yet they combined their forces, under the general name of Protestants, to overthrow Christ's everlasting church. These attempts, however, like the waves of the troubled ocean, were dashed to pieces against the rock on which he had built it. On the contrary, they weakened themselves by civil wars and fresh divisions. The Lutherans split into Diaphorists and Abiaphorists, the Calvinists into Gomarists and Arminians, and the Anglicans into Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, and Quakers. A vain effort was now set on foot, through Cyril Lucaris, to gain over the Greek churches to Calvinism, which ended in demonstrating their inviolable attachment to all the controverted doctrines of Catholicity. Another more fatal attempt, was made to infect several members of the church itself with the distinguishing error of Calvinism, under the name of Jansenism. But the successors of St. Peter continued, through the whole of this century, equally to make head against Protestant innovations, Jansenistical rigor, and casuistical laxity. Their names, in order, were these: Leo XI., Paul V., Gregory XV., Urban VIII., Innocent X., Alexander VII., Clement IX., Clement X., Innocent XI., Alexander VIII., and Innocent XII. Their orthodoxy was powerfully supported by the Cardinals Bellarmin, Baronius, and Perron, with the Bishops Huetius, Bossuet, Fenelon, Richard Smith, and the divines Petavius, Tillemont, Pagi, Thomassin, Kellison, Cressy, &c. Nor were the canonized saints of this age fewer in number or less illustrious than those of the former, namely, St. Francis of Sales, St. Frances Chantal, St. Camillus, St. Fidelis, martyr, St. Vincent of Paul, &c. Finally, the church continued to be crowned with fresh converts, in Peru, Chili, Terra Firma, Canada, Louisiana, Mingrelia, Tartary, India, and many islands both of Africa and Asia. She had also the consolation of receiving into her communion the several patriarchs of Damascus, Aleppo, and Alexandria, and also the Nestorian Archbishops of Chaldæa, and Meliapore, with their respective clergy.

CENT. XVIII.

At length we have mounted up the apostolic tree to our own age. In it, heresy having sunk for the most part into Socinian indifference, and Jansenism into philosophic infidelity; this last waged as cruel a war against the Catholic Church, (and, O glorious mark of truth! against her alone,) as Decius and Dioclesian did heretofore; but this has only proved her internal strength of constitution, and the protection of the God of heaven. The pontiffs who stood the storms of this century, were Clement XI., Innocent XIII., Benedict XIII., Clement XII., Benedict XIV., Clement XIII., Clement XIV., Pius VI., as at the beginning of the present century, Pius VII. has done. Among other modern supporters and ornaments of the church, may be mentioned the Cardinals Thomasi and Quirini, the Bishops Languet, La Motte, Beaumont, Challoner, Hornyhold, Walmes

tinuation of the apostolical work, the conversion of nations; which, as it was committed by Christ to the Catholic Church, so it has never been blessed by him with success in any hands but in hers. This exclusive miracle, in the order of grace, like those in the order of nature, which I treated of in a former letter, is itself a divine attestation in her behalf. Speaking of the conversion of nations, I must not fail, dear sir, to remind your society, that this our country has twice been reclaimed from paganism, and each time by the apostolic labor of missionaries, sent hither by the See of Rome. The first conversion took place in the second century, when Pope Eleutherius sent Fugatius and Duvianus for this purpose to the ancient Britons, or Welsh, under their king or governor, Lucius: as Bede and other historians relate. The second conversion was that of our immediate ancestors, the English Saxons and Angles, by St. Augustin and his companions, at the end of the sixth century, who were sent from Rome, on this apostolical errand, by Pope Gregory the Great. Lastly, you see in the present sketch, a series of unhappy children of the church, who, instead of hearing her doctrines, as it was their duty to do, have pretended to reform them; and thus losing the vital influx of their parent stock, have withered and fallen off from it as dead branches.

I am, &c.

JOHN MILNER.

ley, Hay and Moylan. Among the writers are Calmet, Muratori, Bergier, Feller, Gother, Manning, Hawarden, and Alban Butler; and among the personages distinguished by their piety, the Good Dauphin, his sis ter Louisa, the Carmelite nun, his heroical daughter Elizabeth, his other daughter Clotilde, whose beatification is now in progress, as are those of Bishop Lignori, and Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists; as also FF. Surenne, Nolhac, and L'Enfant, with their fellow-martyrs, and the Venerable Labre, &c. Nor has the apostolical work of converting infidels been neglected by the Catholic Church in the midst of such persecutions. In the early part of this century, numberless souls were gained by Catholic preachers in the kingdoms of Madura, Cochin-China, Tonquin, and in the empire of China, including the peninsula of Corea. At the same time numerous savages were civilized and baptized among the Hurons, Miamis, Illinois, and other tribes of North America. But the most glorious conquest, because the most difficult and most complete, was that gained by the Jesuits in the inte rior of South America over the wild savages of Paraguay, Uraguay, and Parona, together with the wild Canisians, Moxos, and Chiquites, who, after shedding the blood of some hundreds of their first preachers, at length opened their hearts to the mild and sweet truths of the gospel, and became models of piety and morality, nor less so of industry, civil order, and polity.

LETTER XXIX.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ.

ON THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC

DEAR SIR

MINISTRY.

IN viewing the apostolical tree, you are to consider it as representing an uninterrupted succession of pontiffs and prelates, who derive, not barely their doctrine, but also, and in a special manner, their ministry, namely their holy orders, and the right or jurisdiction to exercise those orders, in a right line from the apostles of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Catholic Church, in all past ages, has not been more jealous of the sacred deposit of orthodox doctrine, than of the equally sacred deposits of legitimate ordination, by bishops who themselves had been rightly ordained and consecrated, and of valid jurisdiction or divine mission, by which she authorizes her ministers to exercise their respective functions in such and such places, with respect to such and such persons, and under such and such conditions, as she, by the depositaries of this jurisdiction, is pleased to ordain. Thus, my dear sir, every Catholic pastor is authorized and enabled to address his flock as follows:-The word of God which I announce to you, and the holy sacraments which I dispense to you, I am QUALIFIED to announce and dispense by such a Catholic bishop who was consecrated by such another Catholic bishop, and so on, in a series which reaches to the apostles themselves: and I am AUTHORIZED to preach and minister to you by such a prelate, who received authority for this purpose, from the successor of St. Peter in the apostolic See of Rome. Heretofore, during a considerable time, the learned and conscientious divines of the Church of England held the same principles, on both these points, that Catholics have ever held, and were no less firm in maintaining the divine right of episcopacy and the ministry than we are. This appears from the works of one who was, perhaps, the most profound and accurate amongst them, the celebrated Hooker. He proves, at great length, that the ecclesiastical ministry is a divine function, instituted by God, and deriving its authority from God, "in a very different manner from that of princes and magistrates:" that it is "a wretched blindness not to admire so great a power as that which the clergy are endowed with, or to suppose that any but God can bestow it;" that "it consists in a power over the mystical body of Christ, by the remission of sins, and over his natural body in the sacrament, which antiquity doth call the making of Christ's body."* He distinguishes between the power of orders and the

* Ecclesiast. Politic. B. v. Art. 77.

authority of mission or jurisdiction, on both which points he is supported by the canons and laws of the Establishment. Not to speak of prior laws, the act of uniformity* provides that no minister shall hold any living, or officiate in any church, who has not received episcopal ordination. It also requires that he shall be approved and licensed for his particular place and function. This is also clear from the form of induction of a clerk into any cure. In virtue of this system, when episcopacy was re-established in Scotland, in the year 1662, four Presbyterian ministers, having been appointed by the king to that office, the English bishops refused to consecrate them, unless they consented to be previously ordained deacons and priests; thus renouncing their former ministerial character, and acknowledging that they had hitherto been mere laymen. In like manner, on the accession of King William, who was a Dutch Calvinist, to the throne, when a commission of ten bishops and twenty divines was appointed to modify the articles and liturgy of the Established Church, for the purpose of forming a coalition with the dissenters, it appeared that the most lax among them, such as Tillotson and Burnet, together with Chief Baron Hales, and other lay lords, required that the dissenting ministers should, at least, be conditionally ordained,§ as being, thus far, mere laymen. In a word, it is well known to be the practice of the Established Church, at the present day, to ordain all dissenting Protestant ministers of every description, who go over to her; whereas, she never attempts to re-ordain an apostate Catholic priest who offers himself to her service, but is satisfied with his taking the oaths prescribed by law. This doctrine of the Establishment, evidently unchurches (as Dr. Heylin expresses it) all other Protestant communions, as it is an established prin

*Stat. 13 and 14 Car. II., c. 4.

"Curam et regimen animarum parochianorum tibi committimus."

Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. ii. p. 887. It appears from the same history that four other Scotch ministers, who had formerly permitted themselves to be consecrated bishops, were, on that account, excommunicated and degraded by the kirk. Records, N. cxiii.

§ Life of Tillotson, by D. Birch, pp. 42, 176.

Notwithstanding these proofs of the doctrine and practice of the Established Church, a great proportion of her modern divines consent, at the present day, to sacrifice all her pretensions to divine authority and uninterrupted succession. It has been shown in The Letters to a Prebendary, that in the principles of the celebrated Dr. Balguy, a priest or bishop can as well be made by the town-crier, if commissioned by the civil power, as by the metropolitan. To this system, Dr. Sturges, Dr. Hey, Dr. Paley, Dr. Tomline, and a crowd of other learned theologians subscribe their names. Even the Bishop of Lincoln, in maintaining episcopacy to be an apostolical institution, denies it to be binding on Christians to adopt it; which, in fact, is to reduce it to a mere civil and optional practice. Elem. Vol. ii. Art. 23.

ciple, that, no ministry, no church;* and with equal evidence, it unchristians them also; since this church unanimously resolved, in 1575, that baptism cannot be performed by any person but a lawful minister.†

But dismissing these uncertain and wavering opinions, we know what little account all other Protestants, except those of England, have made of apostolical succession and Episcopal ordination. Luther's principles on these points are clear from his famous bull against the FALSELY CALLED order of bishops, where he says: "Give ear now, you bishops, or rather you visors of the devil: Dr. Luther will read you a bull and a reform, which will not sound sweet in your ears." Dr. Luther's bull and reform is this: "Whoever spend their labor, persons, and fortunes, to lay waste your episcopacies, and to extinguish the government of bishops--they are the beloved of God, true Christians, and opposers of the devil's ordinances. On the other hand, whoever support the government of bishops, and willingly obey them-they are the devil's ministers," &c. True it is, that afterwards, namely, in 1542, this arch-reformer, to gratify his chief patron, the Elector of Saxony, took upon himself to consecrate his bottle-companion, Amsdorf, Bishop of Naumburgh but then it is notorious from the whole of his conduct, that Luther set himself above all law, and derided all consistency and decency. Nearly the same may be said of another later reformer, John Wesley, who, professing himself to be a presbyter of the Church of England, pretended to ordain Messrs. Whatcoat, Vesey, &c. priests, and to consecrate Dr. Coke, a bishop! With equal inconsistency the elders of Hernhuth, in Moravia, profess to consecrate bishops for England and other kingdoms. On the other hand, how averse the Calvinists and other dissenters are, to the very name, as well as the office of bishops, all modern histories, especially those of England and Scotland, demonstrate. But, in short, by whatever name, whether of bishops, priests, deacons, or pastors, these ministers respectively call themselves, it is undeniable, that they are all self-appointed, or, at most, they derive their claim from other men, who themselves were self-appointed, fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen hundred years subsequent to the time of the apostles. The chief question which remains to be discussed, concerns

*"Ubi nullus est sacerdos nulla est ecclesia." St. Jerom, &c. + Elem. of Theol. Vol. ii. p. 471.

Adversus falso Normin. Tom. ii. Jen. A. D. 1525.

Sleidan, Comment. L. 14.

Dr. Whitehead's Life of Charles and John Wesley. It appears that Charles was horribly scandalized at this step of his brother John, and that a lasting schism among the Wesleyan Methodists was the consequence of it.