make it. And after all, we are not told whether these things were abused only to superstition, or are errors against truth; but abuses can never be alleged against the lawful use of a thing. The doctor adds:"While opinions were prevalent, such as those relating to transubstantiation, decidedly erroneous, which the Church did not protest against, but rather seemed to sanction." Opinions!-But opinions are not faith, or of faith. If these were merely opinions prevalent, you cannot charge them upon the faith of the Church, nor would she need reforming in faith. Prevalent!-This would not make them universal, so that, if the opinions were false, they would not corrupt the body of the Church, and Cranmer need not have devoured it to destroy a prevalent opinion. What would you say to a man that would overturn and revolutionize your Church to destroy a popular erroneous opinion that was no matter of faith? But transubstantiation is not matter of opinion, but of faith, and was many long ages before Cranmer's time. And how happened it that the greatest lights, and most holy doctors and bishops, did not weed it out before Cranmer arose? Why they knew it to be truth. But lechery and blindness are congenial; chastity and wisdom always go together. Neither was this dogma merely prevalent; it was and is the universal doctrine of God's Church. "The Church did not protest against it, but rather seemed to sanction it." What Church? He cannot mean the old Catholic Church of this kingdom, for how should she protest against a doctrine whicheɣery body knows she taught? Nor did she merely seem to sanction, but clearly and dogmatically propounded it. The doctor must mean the newly reformed Church. If so, what a trifler with truth, what a succumber to public opinion, what a hypocrite in grain, to seem to sanction error because it prevailed among the populace! Well might they reform and re-reform! But does not the Church of England seem to sanction it now? Does she not imprint on the tender mind of youth, that what is taken with the hand and received with the mouth, in the Lord's supper, is "verily and indeed the body and blood of Christ?"

VOL. II.-No. 5.

Does she not hold it forth to the communicant as such real body and blood? She does! Does she not assert it in her homilies? She does! Why, doctor, after all her reforming, she wants reforming still. She is still seeming, and simulation is not the best quality for a reformed Church to cultivate. And if this dogma was erroneous, she ought to have protested against it, and not seem to sanction it. It is true the word transubtantiation regards the modus of the real presence in the eucharist, but this was of long standing as a decree of the Church's meaning; and as to the faith of the Church, it was of all ages since her establishment. But if the modus was all we had to settle, it might soon be done. The objection is re ipsa, the presence denoted by it; or why, if you dont like the prefix trans, don't you adopt that of con? If you will not be Catholics, why not Lutherans? The old English Catholics, however, should rise from their Popish tombs, and thank Dr. Hook for his bland complaisance. They were not heretics because they believed the real presence a revealed truth." And yet he charges us with heresy, as if we do not believe it a revealed truth. Why may not our error lie in mere matter of fact? Oh! but you don't hear the Church of England now she has spoken! Well now, doctor, I will tell you candidly and honestly, if you will prove to me that the voice of your Church is infallibly true, I will hear, my dear doctor-yes, indeed I will-for I will never cease to hear the Church of God. But you all tell me she may err; yea, you tell me so in this very paragraph: “They were less cautious than we are now-we, who perhaps err on the side of caution." Ah! cautious souls! cautious of believing what the universal Church teaches as revealed truth. Cautious of all the holy maxims of mortification and self-denial proclaimed by the Scripture, and a million tongues in the Church of all nations and ages. Cautious of admitting the holy and wholesome thought of offering a prayer for the souls of the faithful departed, even for the founders of All Soul's college, or on the tomb-stone of a church yard. Cautious of losing the tithe of the pigs, or the anise,

35

and mint, and cummin of the gardens. Cautious of inhaling death from the sick man's couch, or of wearing yourselves out in the duties of a parish priest. There is, I grant, an excess of caution mixed up with all your other errors. But let the reader observe a discrepancy in the doctor's complaisance. He has just told us there was only an opinion prevalent as to the real presence which the Church seemed to sanction; and now he tells us that our Catholic forefathers believed it a revealed truth. It is really painful to follow the man, line by line, for there is scarcely a line in this hodgepodge of a sermon that is not full of inconsistency. And yet he boasts a doctor's cap! This is some encouragement to thee, reader. Perhaps thou wilt be a doctor sometime, and oh that thou mayest have a doctor's head with better bumps than these! The doctor now returns to the reforming prelates, and says, "They discovered that all the errors which they detected in their Church were innovations gradually and imperceptibly introduced, and not belonging originally or essentially to the Church of England." What a passage this is! Discover that errors are innovations! Why, who cannot discover that error is always an innovation on truth? And could not the bishops of former ages have discovered this? Could not Bishop Fisher, and Chancellor More, and Cardinal Pole, and the Tunstalls, Gardiners, Bonners, &c., have discovered this as well as Cranmer? But he discovered this just as he discovered that Henry was not lawfully married to Catharine, and that Anne Boleyn was a proper match, though reputed the king's daughter, and, as he afterwards discovered, that Anne Boleyn was not lawfully married to Henry, although he had married them himself. Oh blessed man! Oh sweet, orthodox, and profound archbishop! He discovered that these innovations had been introduced gradually and imperceptibly. Well then, as he was so lynx-eyed as to discover the gradus, he can tell the steps. Oh no! He discovered the steps, but they were imperceptible! Well, I never thought Cranmer a conjurer till now. But how could the worship of images and saints as gods, and

the liturgy in a language not understood, and the doctrine of the real presence and transubstantiation, &c., &c., come into the Church imperceptibly? Was the world tied up in a sack and dipped in the river Lethe, and, when dried, dipped again in the Tiber, and thus saturated with Roman compound; impregnated with its mixed alluvion? But this would be a remarkable event, and could scarcely fail to be observed; and, what is equally remarkable, this immersion took place at the conversion of all nations; and what Cranmer detected as imperceptible, was known and professed by all apostolical churches all the world over. But the doctor says those innovations and errors were not essential to the church! This is a truism certainly, which none but a doctor of the English Church could have found out. Error not essential. Very true! very true! But the doctor says, "In the seventh century, five councils were held in England, when the doctrines denounced by the reformers were unknown!" Reformers! I thought he had renounced and denounced the reformers; let us examine, however, the facts. St. Augustine with his missionaries arrived here at the close of the sixth century, and was sent from Rome by the then Pope Gregory; and, if he did not follow the doctrine and discipline of Rome, he would neither have been sent or acknowledged by the Roman pontiff. It was eighty years after this before the whole Anglo-Saxon nation was converted to Christianity, and it took a considerable time before the gospel penetrated any of the other kingdoms of the heptarchy. During the seventh century, therefore, the Anglo-Saxon Church was in its infancy; and, though synods and councils were held, the former twice a year, the latter not unfrequently, they were held for the regulation and support of discipline rather than doctrine. The faith of Rome, which was the faith of the whole Church Catholic, was the model and standard of the AngloSaxon Church; and this bond continued indissoluble down to Cranmer's time. And this fact will upset a thousand pretences of Dr. Hook that the faith of the AngloSaxon Church in the seventh century was

different from that of the English Church at the dawn of Cranmer's career (Vide Lingard's Anglo-Saxon Church, especially chap. v, as also chap. ii). The merest tyro in history knows, and all its monuments declare that the religion of England, from its conversion to Henry's reign, was Roman Catholic. The doctor asks, "What then did the archbishop and his associates determine to do? They determined not to overthrow the old Church, and establish a Protestant sect in its place; but merely to reform, to correct abuses in the existing Church." I grant Cranmer did not overthrow the frame work of the old Church, but this he did;

So tender and tenacious is Dr. Hook of the Catholicity of his Church, that he asserts it over and over again. "The present Church of England is the old Catholic religion reformed in the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth; it is the old Catholic Church which was originally planted in this country, and which has descended from our British and Saxon ancestors. The founders of the Church of England-remember I do not mean the reformers for nothing but ignorance the most gross will speak of them as our founders, ignorance which concedes to the Papist an argument of the very greatest importance the founders of the Church of England, both Britons and Saxons, were bishops ordained by other bishops, &c. As such it possesses the same original endowments, which were never taken from one Church and given to another." As to endowments, I leave Dr. Hook to his fears; but, 1st. He ought to tell us whether the Church derives her succession from the ancient British hierarchy, or from the Saxon-they cannot be confounded. 2dly. He ought to tell us what bishop ordained the first British bishops, for this will lead as to Rome. 3dly. He ought to know, that if he could establish the succession of orders, this would not establish the succession of jurisdiction. Orders give the power of function, but not the power and right of governing, or of exercising those functions. These can only be exercised by legitimate rule, over, and in regard to, subjects or persons committed to their pastoral authority. Thus, supposing Dr. Hook a priest-he has the power and functions of a priest, but he can only exercise them where jurisdiction is given him, and not where he has no jurisdiction. Therefore, could he prove the succession of orders, which he cannot, this would be nothing, unless he could prove succession of jurisdiction also. But the right of jurisdiction is lost, as I have said, by heresy, schism, deprivation, excommunication; and I have shewn that both orders and jurisdiction, if not lost before, were certainly lost at Elizabeth's accession. The doctor says, "The Church, after it was reformed, remained the same as it was before, just as a man remains the same after his face is washed as he was before; or Naaman was the same man after being cured of his leprosy as he was before." These are old trite figures, but they will not serve his purpose. 1st. A man is a positive being, and the dirt on his face, or leprosy on his carcass, does not alter his person or change his nature; but the Church of God is a relative corporation, and is no longer the Church of God when fallen into heresy, idolatry, apostacy, or schism. And, as a body corporate, she loses all

he sapped its foundation, cut off its legs, and propped it up with a pair of stilts, marked with the initials H. and C. Moreover he completely gutted it, after the martyr fashion of this and other reigns. The regularly ordained clergy continued, but this was the only similarity left. But at the accession of Elizabeth event this relic was completely lost, and the present English Church clergy can only trace their pedigree to Archbishop Parker, who was consecrated himself by an ordinal that broke all apostolical succession-all connexion with the previous clergy; annulled the priestly character, and made the Church a new Church,

right of jurisdiction; and, therefore, the old Catholic Church, on this supposition, could not give jurisdiction to the reformed Church, till absolved from her errors on renouncing them. Nor was the dirt merely on the face of the Church, or her leprosy on her skin-they entered into her very constitution, and changed her nature and relative existence. Instead of being the Church of God, she was the synagogue of the devil. Dr. Hook's Church, therefore, must not only wash its face, it must be reconstituted; and he should rather boast of deriving his orders and jurisdiction from a different source, viz. from some Church that had preserved the faith and authority delivered by Christ to his apostles pure and valid through all ages. Cranmer was consecrated by an idolatrous bishop, according to the Church homilies; so was Barlow, if consecrated at all, of which there is great reason to doubt. How could they derive jurisdiction from a man that had none himself? In addition to this, let the reader bear in mind what I have said on Edward's ordinal. 2dly. Dr. Hook should rather have adopted the argument of the negro Methodist preacher, only reversing the order. "God," said he, "created Adam a black man ; but when Cain slew his brother, God asked him what he had done, and he turned pale with fear and shame, and that paleness was the mark God fixed upon him. We are the children of Seth, and all these white men are sons of Cain." Now as all the Christian world was black before the reformation, Christ and his apostles must have created it so, or there would have been some pale tribes. But even Dr. Hook will acknowledge Henry VIII to be a sinner. Well, God reproved him, and he turned pale, and became the father of a white and spotless Church. This would be something like argument; and though Henry was a second Cain, what matters it if Dr. Hook can show that God changed his heart with his color, and adopted him and his progeny for his sons and daughters. We have Adam and Seth, and the negroes and antiquity, on our side; Dr. Hook has Cain, the murderer, with the novelty, the renovation of color at least, and the supposed adoption of God on the other. But however Dr. Hook may flatter himself that God has forsaken his firstborn sons, be they black or white, and adopted the offspring of Cain, the murderer, God has pledged himself to the contrary. The generations of the Church Catholic will never fail, nor will the mark of Cain ever be effaced from the brow of his offspring, till they are regenerated, and united to the great family of heaO Domine, prospere, procede, et regna!

ven.

both in doctrine, discipline, and order, and, indeed, in every sense of the word, and all bishops and priests were ordained by this ordinal for more than one hundred years.

The doctor says, "These reformers established their own independence as bishops against the usurped authority of the Pope, who had no more authority of right in England than the bishop of Canterbury had in Rome." The doctor is a complete independent, and would he carry his principle out to its legitimate results, he might easily go from his Church and preach in the Independent chapel at Leeds. But this assertion of his, though easily made, is not easily proved. It is in the teeth of all antiquity as regards the pontifical authority. It is in the teeth of all antiquity as regards the patriarch's authority in his patriarchate. It is in the teeth of all custom and right which gives the mother Church authority over the churches established by her missionaries. It is in the teeth of all order and subordination in the Church; for, by the same rule that Dr. Hook ought to be subordinate to his bishop and his bishop to the archbishop, so the archbishop ought to be subordinate to a superior spiritual authority in his Church. And the king is not that superior spiritual authority, as Dr. Hook admits in this sermon. Where is it then? It is in his patriarch-the archbishop of Rome, who has a two-fold authority over him, 1st, as patriarch, and 2d, as Pope, or pontiff over the whole Church, to which pontificate all simple patriarchs are subject. Has the Pope then no superior? No! He has no superior on earth, or equal in the Church on earth; he is the representative of Christ. But is he not responsible to any one on earth? Not to any one; but he is responsible to the canons and a general council, of which there is abundant evidence. The Church is a monarchy, not absolute, but limited; and she alone is the sure foundation and safeguard of every earthly monarchy. The doctor concludes his historical survey by saying, "Now, from this historical statement you see the absurdity of which the Papists are guilty when they accuse us of having deserted or dissented from the old Church, and of having reared a new Church

of human origin, the absurdity of their speaking of theirs as the old Church and the old religion." By the doctor's leave, there is not much guilt in a mere absurdity. As to the term dissenters, it is evident to all disinterested persons that he and his Church are as much dissenters as any of the sects in this land. And they have claimed the same right as the sects have. He and his Church have dissented from the Church Catholic in doctrine and discipline; the result is, they have broken off all communion with her. The Church Catholic spoke, but they would not hear the Church. They acted upon an opposite principle to that which they maintain in regard to the dissenting sects. They proclaim liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment, and that the Scriptures are the rule and sole rule of faith; but when a man dissents from them, what do they say? Why, you have

a right to judge, but you have no right to leave the Church; and Dr. Hook calls upon all to hear the Church. What nonsense! Did they act upon this rule? No! They judged, dissented, and left the Church, crying out to all, "Come out of her, that ye partake not of her sins and receive not of her plagues." It is in vain that Dr. Hook tells them there is not just reason; they say there is, and they are as convinced of it as Cranmer was, nay, much more so; it was not conviction in him, but lust of various kinds.

When the Church spoke by the Catholic bishops under Elizabeth, they were sent to prison, and a new sect was formed that would not hear the Church; and this sect was established by parliament and the queen: it is of human authority only, and supported only by this authority. The Catholics have remained faithful to the religion and the Church of their ancestors. They obey bishops consecrated and authorized by, and in communion with, the whole Church Catholic, and can officiate in all the churches of Catholic unity. Whereas, the Protestant bishops are not acknowledged by any other Church throughout the world. Romish dissenters indeed! If, to reject Dr. Hook's new Church and cling to the old Catholic Church be to become dissenters, we repudiate not the term, however calumnious it may be.

The apostles were dissenters from Simon Magus. The Nicene fathers were dissenters from the Arians just as much as we are dissenters from the established sect. All the rest of the sermon is mere chaff, which a breath can dissipate; and, therefore, I conclude by directing the doctor's attention to the confession of his Church, and hoping he will say it from the heart :-"We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep; we have followed too much the de

vices and designs of our own hearts; we have offended against thy holy laws; we have done the things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone the things we ought to have done; and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders." Then, I trust, the Church will follow his example and be reformed back again; and peace, happiness, unity, and prosperity be established in the land.