cording to Usher, in 1130, twenty-five years before the date of what the Catechist calls the merce'nary compact of the Pope and Henry II., by 'which,' he says, 'the Pope's jurisdiction was 'first introduced into Ireland,' and forty years before the latter invaded Ireland; which island, after all, as every child knows, he invaded, not as the executor of Pope Adrian's legacy, but as the ally of the dethroned King, Dermont.

In speaking of the beginning and progress of the Religion of our own ancestors, the English, it might be expected the Right Rev. Catechist would have paid more attention to truth and consistency, than he has done with respect to the foregoing more obscure histories. This, however, is not the case. But, previously to the writer's entering on this particular subject, he wishes to observe what is more fully demonstrated in the following work, that the Catechist, totally misrepresents our Apostle, Pope Gregory the Great, as having 'reprobated the Spiritual Supremacy,' and also 'his successor Boniface as being the first 'Pope to assume it.' p. 16. In short the question, at issue, is not concerning the title, but the power of a head Bishop; which power, as it will appear below, no Pope exercised more frequently or extensively than the learned and virtuous St. Gregory,' to use the Prelate's own epithets concerning him. His Lordship does not deny that our ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, were converted to Christianity by the Pope's Missionaries,' p. 28, namely, by St. Austin and his companions, sent hither by the same Pope Gregory, in 597; nor does he contradict the account of our venerable historian, Bede, who describes the whole jurisdiction and discipline of our Church as being regulated by that Pope and his successors. Still the Prelate most paradoxically denies that 'the 'Pope ever exercised jurisdiction in England or 'Ireland, except during the four centuries before

"the Reformation!' p. 11; and he maintains, in particular, that the Anglo-Saxon Churches differed from the Church of Rome in their objection to Image-worshipping, the Invocation of Saints, 'Transubstantiation, and other errors.' p. 28. Here are two paradoxes to be refuted; one concerning the spiritual power, the other concerning the doctrine of the See of Rome. With respect to the former: is it not a fact, my Lord, known to every ecclesiastical antiquary, that each one of our Primates, from St. Austin down to Stigand, exclusively, who was deposed soon after the Conquest, either went to Rome to fetch, or had transmitted to him from Rome, the emblem and jurisdiction of legatine authority, by which he held and exercised the power of a Metropolitan over his suffragan Bishops? An original author, Radulph Diceto, exhibits a succinct but clear demonstration of this, in a series of all the Archbishops, and a list of the different Popes, from whom the former respectively received the Pallium. Did not St. Wilfred, Archbishop of York, appeal to the Pope from the uncanonical sequestration of his diocese by the Primate Theodore? Did not Offa, the powerful Mercian King, engage Pope Adrian, to transfer six suffragan Bishoprics from the See of Canterbury to that of Litchfield, constituting it, at the same time, an Archbishopric? A hundred other instances of the exercise of the Pope's ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England, previously to the Conquest, could be produced, if they were wanted.--As to the pretended difference between the doctrine of the AngloSaxons and the Church of Rome, the Catechist was bound to inform his readers when it took place; and who were the authors of it; that is, who first persuaded the whole English nation to reject the Religion they had been taught by their Apostles, Pope Gregory and his Missionaries; and whether this change was effected by

slow degrees, or on a sudden. (1) If so absurd a paradox as this required a serious refutation, it might be stated that, in 610, Bishop Mellitus, who afterwards became Primate, went to Rome to obtain the Pope's Confirmation of certain regulations which had been made in England; that he subscribed to the Acts of an Episcopal Synod, then held in that city, which Acts he brought back with him to England; (2) and that, in 680, St. Wilfred, going to Rome, to prosecute his appeal, was present at a Council of 125 Bishops, where, 'In the name of all the Churches in 'the North part of Britain and Ireland, and the 'nations of the Scots and Picts, he made open 'profession of the true Catholic Faith, confirming 'it also by his subscription.' (3)

Other paradoxes of the Right Rev. Prelate, relating to matters of a later date, are these: that Pope Adrian IV. grounded his right to give away Ireland on the forged donation of Constan'tine,' though he never once alluded to it, but assigned quite other grounds for what he did; and that the Pope now owes the whole of his 'temporal and spiritual power on the Continent, 'to this gross fiction, and the Decretal Epistles." p. v. Alas! what must the learned Catholics op

(1) To make some brief confutation of each of the Catechist's alleged differences between the Anglo-Saxon Church and that of Rome: Bede testifies, that when Saint Austin and his fellow Missionaries preached the Gospel to King Ethelbert, they carried a cross for their ensign, with a painted picture of Christ, L. i. c. 25. Will. Malmsb. mentions that, among other pious images preserved at Glastonbury, were those of Christ and his Apostles, made of silver, and given by King Ins. De Antiq. Glaston. We learn from Archbishop Cuthred's Letter to Lullas, successor of St. Boniface, Bishop and Martyr of Mentz, that a Synod of Anglo-Saxon Bishops had chosen this Saint, and St. Gregory and St. Austin, to be their patrons and intercessors.' Inter. Epist. Bonif. That our ancestors believed in Transubstantiation is clear, from Osbern's relation of Archbishop Odo's rendering this visible. Angl. Sac. P. ii. p. 82. One of his successors, Lanfrank, was the principal defender of this doctrine against Berengarius. It may be added, that the original faith concerning Purgatory, the Mass, and perhaps every other controverted point, can be proved from Bede's History alone. (3) Ibid. L. v. c. 20.

(2) Bedo, L. ii, c. 4,

the Continent, whose predecessors were the first to detect these literary frauds of the eighth century, and to trace them to the place of their birth in Lower Germany, think of the literature of this country, when they hear a BISHOP, and a Member of our learned Societies, telling them that they would not acknowledge the Pope to be Prince of Rome or Head of the Church, were it not for those spurious pieces!--A similar paradox is, that 'The Popish Bishops and Popish Clergy were the real "authors of the fictitious statutes, (Acts of Parlia'ment) of Richard II. Henry IV. and Henry V.' against the Lollards; though they neither did, nor were permitted, to interfere in those Acts; and though it is notorious from all contemporary history, that these severe edicts were occasioned by what that anarchical faction had done and threatened to do. They had, under the command of Wat. Tyler, and John Ball, a Wickliffite Priest, actually put to death, by public execution, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, and the Lord Chief Justice of England: and they had threatened to kill the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and all the pen and ink-horn_men, as they called the lawyers; as also to put down all the Clergy, except the begging Friars, and to divide among themselves all their lands and property. (1) Such were the levellers of the fif teenth century, whom a modern Bishop eulogizes! The following are Theological Paradoxes, and such as will infallibly non-plus every regular student in Divinity. 1st, The Apostles were not Bishops.' p. 15. By the same rule Bishops are not Priests.-2dly, 'To retain the obsolete language of 'ancient Rome, in prayer, is an error. p. 39.-3dly, 'The Irish were guilty of a heresy of discipline!' p. 60.

But the political paradoxes, my Lord, of this

(1) Hist. Major T. Walsingham, Knighton De Event. Angl. Colier's Eccl. Hist.

new Catechism, are still more inexplicable than the theological ones. The first of them, which I shall mention, is contained in the following question and answer. 'Q. What is it excludes Pagans, 'Jews, and Mahometans, from our Churches, and 'from Parliament?-A. Religion.' p. 44.-Your Lordship will permit the writer to observe, in the first place, that it is impossible either for the simple Catechumens of Wales, or even for the learned Reviewers of England, to gather from this passage, whether the Right Rev. Prelate means to say, that it is the Religion of Pagans, Jews, and Turks, or that of Protestants, which excludes the former from Parliament. However, the passage, taken either way, is perfectly paradoxical. For can that Prelate, or any one else, cite a precept of the Vedam, of the Talmud, or of the Koran, which prohibits its respective votaries from sitting and voting in the British Parliament, if they can get entrance into it? Or can he show any thing in Protestantism (which he defines to be "The abjuration of Popery, and the exclusion of 'Papists from all power, ecclesiastical or civil)' that prevents a man, who publicly proclaims Mahomet, or who publicly denies Jesus Christ, or who publicly worships the obscene and bloodstained idol Jaggernaut, from being a member of either house of the Legislature? No, my Lord, there is no one article in any one of these Religions, if they may be called by that name, which excludes them from our Parliament; the only condition for rendering them fit and worthy to enter into it, and becoming legislators, being their calling God to witness, that there is no Tran'substantiation in the Mass,' and that the wor 'ship of the Virgin Mary, and the saints, as prac'tised in the Church of Rome,' (upon both which points the worshippers of Jaggernaut and English Protestants are, for the n.ost part, equally well 'instructed,) are idolatrous!'-A second politi