Before entering on the subject, it may not be unnecessary to state what relation the proposed investigation has to the religious controversies of the day; and, at the same time, to give such a sketch of the facts connected with the history of this controversy, as may enable the reader who has not heretofore turned his attention to the subject, to have a clear view of the nature of this discussion.

Whether the Anglican orders be valid or not, does not involve any dogma or principle of Catholic faith. The church recognizes the orders of the Greek and other schismatic churches, which have been, for ages, separated from her communion; nor would she hesitate to admit those of the Anglican Church, were their validity sustained by the facts of the case. It would, therefore, be an erroneous impression, to suppose that Catholics have any possible inducement to deny the validity of the Anglican ordinations. So far from this being the case, it has been regarded by some as a great misfortune, that the succession of the ministry was not kept up in England, at the time of the miscalled Reformation in that country. Speaking of the attempt made by a French ecclesiastic, Courayer, to defend the ordinations of the English Church, Chardon says;― "It would have been desirable that he (Courayer) had cleared up all doubt on that subject, since there would then be one obstacle less to a reunion, of which we should never despair; and this would attach still more closely to the Catholic Church, that illustrious nation, from which so many learned and holy men have sprung, and which, even now-a-days, is so famous for the number of virtuous and scientific men whom it produces; who are distinguished from all the other Calvinists, by their regard for the episcopal hierarchy, whose rights and prerogatives

they zealously maintain."* It is not, then, from any principle she holds, or any apparent advantage the denial might be supposed to afford her, that the Catholic Church has constantly rejected the ordinations of the Anglican Church as invalid, but merely because the facts of the case do not warrant her in coming to any other conclusion.Whether these facts are such as I have here represented them or not, the reader, who will accompany me in the following examination, will be enabled to decide.

It is here necessary to point out the distinction between a valid and a lawful ordination. The one is an act, to which nothing is wanting that is necessary to give it effect; whereas, the other is one, not only complete in itself, but conformable to the laws that have been made to direct and govern the power that produced it. Thus, for example, a clergyman who has been suspended from the exercise of his ministry, may, if he be so regardless of his duty, continue to officiate, and his official acts would, in most instances, be valid. They would not, indeed, be lawful acts, but, on the contrary, a sacrilegious abuse of the powers of the ministry. Hence, were a Catholic bishop to apostatize from the faith, and confer the order of priesthood on one of his partizans in error, his apostacy or heresy, would not invalidate the act, although it would render it plainly unlawful. And hence it is that the Catholic Church regards all ordinations that are made in the sects separated from her communion, as unlawful ; but she only considers those invalid, in which either the ordaining prelate was not himself consecrated, or in which he employed a defective form, or in which he had no serious intention of performing a sacred rite.

* Chardon, Histoire des Sacremens. De L'Ordre. Liv. I. c. 8.

The foregoing explanations have been thought necessary, in order to show more clearly to the general reader, that a participation of the Apostolic ministry, by means of valid ordination, does not suffice for the lawful exercise of its functions: and hence that those who infer that the Anglican Church enjoys an apostolical succession, because, in their opinion, she has an apostolic ministry, overlook one of the most obvious, and most universally admitted principles of church government, and one which they themselves recognize. When a clergyman of the Church of England is silenced by his bishop, no orthodox Churchman attaches any importance to his ministrations. Why? Because he has ceased to derive the right of ministering from the source in which ecclesiastical authority is presumed to dwell. Suppose, now, that there is not question of an individual, but of a body of clergymen,-of a bishop, or of many bishops, who revolt against the Church of which they were ordained ministers; and are, therefore, deprived by the proper authority of the right to continue to act as ministers of such church; surely no one will say that there is a shadow of difference in principle, between this case and that of 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 any thing 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 Mathew 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 Mathew 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 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