so strongly on good works, (1) rejected the authority of this Epistle, alleging that it was 'not lawful for an apostle to institute a sacrament.' (2) But I trust that you, dear Sir, and your conscientious society, will agree with me, that it is more incredible that an apostle of Christ should be ignorant of what he was authorized by him to say and do, than that a profligate German Friar should be guilty of blasphemy. Indeed the Church of England, in the first form of her Common Prayer, in Edward's reign, enjoined the Unction of the sick, as well as prayer for them. (3) It was evidently well worthy the mercy and bounty of our Divine Saviour, to institute a special sacrament for purifying and strengthening us at the time of our greatest need and terror. Owing to the institution of this, and the two other sacraments, Penance and the Real Body and Blood of our Lord, it is a fact that few, very few Catholics die without the assistance of their clergy; which assistance the latter are bound to af ford, at the expense of ease, fortune, and life itself, to the most indigent and abject of their flock, who are in danger of death, no less than to the rich and the great: while, on the other hand, very few Protestants, in that extremity, partake at all of the cold rites of their religion, though one of them, the Lord's Supper, is declared, in the catechism, to be necessary for salvation!'

It is equally strange that a clergy, with such high claims, and important advantages, as those of the Establishment, should deny that the orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are sacramental, or that the episcopal form of Church government, and of ordaining the clergy, is required in scripture. In fact, this is telling the legislature and the nation that, if they prefer the less

(1) Luther, in the original Jena edition of his works, calls this Epistle a dry and chaffy epistle, unworthy of an Apostle. (2) See Luther, in his original Jena edition.

(3) See Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 257.

expensive ministry of the Presbyterians or the Methodists, there is nothing divine or essential in the ministry itself, which will be injured by the change; and that clergyman may be as validly ordained by the town-crier with his bell, as by the Metropolitan's imposition of hands! Nevertheless, strange as it appears, this is the doctrine, not only of Hoadley's Socinian school, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, (!) but also of those modern Divines and Dignitaries, who are the standard of Orthodoxy. (2) Thus are the Clergy of the English Church, as well as all other Protestant Ministers, by their own confession, destitute of all sacramental grace, for performing their functions holily and beneficially. (3) But, we know, conformably with the doctrine of St. Paul, in both his Epistles to Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6. and the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, as likewise of all other ancient Churches, that this grace is conferred on those who are truly ordained and in fit dispositions to receive it. We know, moreover, that the persuasion which the faithful entertain of the divine character and grace of their Clergy, gives a great additional weight to their lessons and ministry. In like manner, with respect to Matrimony, which the same Apostle expressly calls a Sacrament, Ephes. v. 32, the very idea of its sanctity, independantly of its peculiar grace, is a preparation for entering into that state with religious dispositions.

Next to the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, as so many helps to the holiness and salvation of her children, I must mention her public service. We continually hear the advocates of the Establishment crying up the beauty and

(1) Dr. Balguy, Dr. Hey, &c.

(2) The Bishop of Lincoln's Elem. of Theol. vol. ii. pp. 376, 396. (3) See Letters to a Prebendary, Letter VIII.

perfection of her liturgy; (1) but they have not candour to inform the public that it is all, in a manner, borrowed from the Catholic Missal and Ritual. Of this fact any one may satisfy himself, who will compare the prayers, lessons, and gospels, in these Catholic Books with those in the Book of Common Prayer. But, though our service has been thus purloined, it has, by no means been preserved entire: on the contrary, we find it, in the latter, eviscerated of its noblest parts; particularly with respect to the principle and essential worship of all the ancient Churches, the Holy Mass, which, from a true propitiatory Sacrifice, as it stands in all their Missals, is cut down to a mere verbal worship, in The Order for the Morning Prayer. Hence our James I. pronounced of the latter, that it is an ill-said Mass. The servants of God had by his appointment, SACRIFICE both under the law of Nature and the Written Law; it would then be extraordinary, if under the Law of Grace they were left destitute of this, the most sublime and excellent act of Religion, which man can offer to his Creator. But we are not left destitute of it: on the contrary, that prophecy of Malachi is fulfilled, Mal. i. 11. In every place, from the rising to the setting of the sun, sacrifice is offered and a pure oblation; even Christ himself, who is really present and mystically offered on our altars in the Sacrifice of the Mass. I pass over the solemnity, the order and the magnificence of our public worship and ritual in Catholic countries, which most candid Protestants, who have witnessed them, allow to be exceedingly impressive, and great helps to devotion, and which, certainly, in most particulars, find their parallel in the worship and ceremonies of the Old Law, ordained by God himself. Never

(4) Dr. Rengel calls the Church Liturgy the most perfect of human compositions, and the sacred legacy of the first Reformers.' P. 237.

Disc.

theless, it is a gross calumny to assert that the Catholic Church does, or ever did make the essence of religion to consist in these externals; and we challenge them to our councils and doctrinal books, in refutation of the calumny. In like manner, I pass over the many private exercises of piety which are generally practised in regular Catholic families, and by individuals; such as daily meditation and spiritual reading, evening prayers and examination of the conscience, &c. These, it will not be denied, must be helps for attaining sanctity to those who are desirous of it. But I have said more than enough to convince your friends, in which of the rival communions the means of sanctity are chiefly to be found.

THE fruits of Sanctity are the virtues practised by those who are possessed of it. Hence the present question is, whether these are to be found, for the most part, among the members of the ancient Catholic Church, or among the different innovators, who undertook to reform it in the 16th and 17th centuries? In considering the subject, the first thought which strikes me is, that all the saints, and even those who are recorded as such in the Calendar of the Church of England, and in whose name their churches are dedicated, lived and died strict members of the Catholic Church, and zealously attached to her doc

trine and discipline. (1) For example, in this calendar, we meet with a Pope Gregory, March 12, the zealous assertor of the Papal Supremacy, (2) and other Catholic doctrines; a St. Benedict, March 21, the Patriarch of the western monks and nuns; a St. Dunstan, May 19, the vindicator of clerical celibacy; a St. Augustin, of Canterbury, May 26, the introducer of the whole system of Catholicity into England; a venerable Bede, May 27, the witness of this important fact. It is sufficient to mention the names of other Catholic Saints, for example, David, Chad, Edward, Richard, Elphege, Martin, Swithun, Giles, Lambert, Leonard, Hugh, Ethelreda, Remigius, and Edmund; all of which are inserted in the calendar, and give names to some or other churches of the establishment. Besides these there are very many of our other saints, whom all learned and candid Protestants unequivocally admit to have been such, for the extraordinary purity and sanctity of their lives. Even Luther acknowledges St. Anthony, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Bonaventure, &c. to have been Saints, though avowed Catholics, and defenders of the Catholic Church against the heretics and schismatics of their times. But, independantly of this and of every other testimony, it is certain that the supernatural virtues and heroical sanctity of a countless number of holy personages of different countries, ranks, professions and sexes, have illustrated the Catholic Church in every age, with an effulgence

(1) I must except King Charles I. who is rubricated as a martyr on Jan. 30 nevertheless, it is confessed that he was far from possessing either the purity of a saint or the constancy of a martyr: for he actu ally gave up Episcopacy and other essentials of the established religion by his last treaty in the Isle of Wight.

(2) Many Protestant writers pretended that Saint Gregory disclaim. ed the Supremacy, because he asserted against John of C. P. that neither he nor any other Prelate ought to assume the title of Universal Bishop; but that he claimed and exercised the Supremacy, his own works and the History of Bede incontrovertibly demonstrate,