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 have 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, Walmesley, 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 sister Louisa, the Carmelite nun, his horoical daughter Elizabeth, his other daughter Clotilde, whose beatification is now in progress, as are those of Bishop Liguori, 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 the 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 bap. tized 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 interior 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.

I do not, dear Sir, pretend to exhibit a history of the Church, nor even a regular epitome of it, in the present note, any more than in the Apostolical Tree; nevertheless, either of these will give you and your respectable Society, a sufficient idea of the uninterrupted succession of Supreme Pastors, which has subsisted in the See of Rome from St. Peter, whom Christ made head of his Church, up to the present Pope, Leo XII. And this attribute of perpetual succession, you are, dear Sir, to observe, is peculiar to the See of Rome: for in all the other Churches founded by the Apostles, as those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Ephesus, Smyrna, &c., owing to internal dissensions and external violence, the succession of their Bishops has, at different times, been broken and confounded. Hence the See of Rome is emphatically and for a double reason called the APOSTOLICAL SEE; and being the head See and the centre of Union to the whole Catholic Church, furnishes the first claim to its title of THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.-But you also see, in the sketch of this mystical Tree, an uninterrupted series of other Bishops, Doctors, Pastors, Saints, and pious personages, of different times and countries, through these eighteen centuries, who have, in their several stations, kept up the perpetual succession: those of one century having been the instructors of those who succeeded them in the next; all of them following the same two-fold Rule of Scripture and Tradition; all of them acknowledging the same

expositor of this rule, the Catholic Church; and all of them adhering to the main trunk or centre of union, the Apostolic See. Some of the General Councils or Synods likewise appear, in which the Bishops from 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 continuation 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 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 labour 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 Welch, 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.

J. M.

LETTER XXIX.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

ON THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE CATHOLIC

MINISTRY.

DEAR SIR,

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 "nder 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.' (1) He distinguishes between the power of Orders and the 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

(1) Ecolesiast. Politic. B. v. Art. 77.