mation and a reaction upon it. We care not how great innovators the school were considered in their time, or upon how slender a thread they seemed to hang,-they succeeded, and their innovation is now our rule. The Church cannot shake off the Laudian school. She has identified herself with them; she has accepted their ground, and she stands upon it. And it is from the Laudian epoch that we are to date the return of any thing like reason or decency in the Anglican divines when treating of the ancient Church; and most assuredly, if the reviewer had not intended to act an unfair part, he would never have made the selections he has done from the writings of the Laudian school. But he has received his reward and we our justification by the manner in which his extracts have been met by his antagonist, who has shown that the views of the Laudian school are very different from those which the reviewer would make his readers believe it entertained. What, then, were the views of the Laudian school? "And first (to adopt the words and order of the British Critic) the general prepossession of the Laudian school in favour of a reunion is what we remark in the first instance, the hold which the idea had upon them, their thinking and scheming about it."

“I will confess that freely," says Archbishop Bramhall," which Mr. Baxter neither doth know, nor ever could know but by me, that about thirty years since, when my body was stronger, and my wits fresher, when I had some books and notes of my own, and could have had what supply I desired, and opportunity to confer with whomsoever I pleased, I had then a design, indeed, to do my weak endeavour to disabuse the Christian world, by the right stating and distinguishing of controversies between the Church of Rome and us, and to shew,

"First-how many of them are mere logomachies, or contentions about words without any just ground?

“Secondly—how many of them are scholastic subtleties, whereof ordinary Christians are not capable, and consequently no points of faith?

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Thirdly-how many of them are not the controversies of the Churches, but of particular persons or parties in those Churches?

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Fourthly-how many of our controversies are about rites and ceremonies, and things indifferent in their own nature?

"When all these empty names, and titles of controversies are wiped out of the roll, the true controversy between us may be quickly mustered and will not be found, upon a serious inquiry, to be so irreconcilable as some persons have imagined. The two dangerous extremes are to clip away something from saving truth, whereof I do not find the Church of Rome to have been guilty, and to obtrude erroneous or probable opinions for articles of faith, whereof I find many in the Church of Rome to have been most guilty.

"These were my thoughts in my younger days, which age and experience hath rather confirmed and radicated in me than altered; which, if they had been known, I deserved rather to have been cherished and encouraged, than to be branded by any man as a factor for the Pope."-Bramhall's Reply to Baxter, p.

623.

After quoting Heylen to the same effect in answer to the same charges against Laud, the reviewer observes that "this general à priori desire for unity was the motive our divines started with; a disposition to diminish differences necessarily followed; the enlarged vision overlooking many points. Allow unity to be important at all, and its importance is immense." Of the advantages of unity, Thorndike, prebendary of Westminster, was strongly impressed.

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Unity in the Church is of so great advantage to the service of GOD, and that Christianity, from whence it proceedeth, that it ought to overshadow and cover very great imperfections in the laws of the Church. For the unity of so great a body will not allow that the terms should be strict or nice upon which the communion thereof standeth, but obligeth all that love the general good of it to pass by even those imperfections in the laws of it which are visible, if not pernicious."-Preface to Epilogue.

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Though I sincerely blame the imposing of new articles upon the faith of Christians, and that of positions which I maintain not to be true, yet I must and do freely profess that I find no position necessary for salvation prohibited, none destructive of salvation enjoined to be believed in it. And, therefore, must I necessarily accept it for a true Church, as in the Church of England I have always known it to be accepted. There remains in the present Church of Rome, the profession of all that which it is necessary to believe, either in point of faith or manners. Idolatries I grant to be possible, but not necessary to be found in it, by the ignorance and carnal affections of particulars, not by command of the Church or the laws of it. As for the half-sacrament, the service in an unknown language, the carrying the people from the Scripture (much as they are to be objected to) it is to be feared that the authors of such hard laws, will have a strong plea for themselves at the day of Judgment, in the unreasonableness of their adversaries."—Conclusion to Epilogue.

Great, however, as may be the desire for unity on the part of our Anglican separated brethren, no union can be entertained which has not a complete recognition of the papal supremacy as its basis, a point which the Critic truly considers "the first in importance" of the particular parts of difference between the Churches. He selects Bramhall and Thorndike as representing the Anglican Church on this question at the time we are speaking of; the difference in the character of their respective views only making their testimony the more complete. We

are not of course to look for a full acknowledgment of the papal supremacy from either, but their admissions go far to clear the way. To begin with Thorndike.

"I say, then, the apostles and disciples of the Lord Christ, intending to establish one Church of all that should be converted, did agree and appoint that the churches of the chief cities should be the chief churches, and that the churches of inferior cities should depend upon them. And the obligation upon

the Church must remain to cherish and maintain that order once established by them: the unity of the Church which is the end of it, not being otherwise attainable.

"Upon this ground, I maintain that the Churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, had from the beginning a privilege of eminence over other Churches. But he that shall compare these cities and greatness of them, and eminence over their respective territories with that of Rome, not only over the rest of the empire but over these cities, will find it consequent to the ground of this design that the Church of Rome should (not be sovereign but) have that eminence over the churches of these cities (and by consequence much more over the churches of inferior cities) as is requisite for the directing of such matters as might come to be of common interest to the whole Church, to such an agreement as might preserve the unit, thereof.

"Thus deriving the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome not from St. Peter's personal pre-eminence only, but from an order given out by the apostles, you easily see that the concurrence of St. Paul with St Peter, to the founding of it, is a confirmation of that ground."—Epil. iii. 163.

Bramhill's view (to borrow the words of the Critic) consists of a string of admissions to Rome, which, as coming from so undoubted a representative of the Church in his day, (whatever may be said of Thorndike), is worth attention.

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A "universal bishop," i. e. in the sense of "challenging universal jurisdiction," he does not decide against, but puts down as controverted, whether lawful or unlawful." He admits the expression that "the Pope, omni præsidet creaturæ, is above every creature;" and "that the Bishop of Rome, as successor to St. Peter, is principium unitatis, the beginning of unity, and hath a principality of order above all Christians,"" to which primacy of order," he adds, "great privileges are due. It implieth a headship as well as supremacy of order; neither is it destitute of all power. It hath some power essential annexed to it, to congregate, propose, give sentence; some power accessory, to execute the canons, &c." in which sphere it exacts obedience, "sub pæna spirituali. Which superiority of order was necessary to prevent schism," inasmuch as "in all societies a head of order is necessary, to

prevent and remedy schism, that there may be one to convocate the society, to propose doubts, to receive votes, to pronounce sentence." "We do confess that the Primitive Papacy,—that is, exordium unitatis, was an excellent means of concord; we do not envy the Bishop of Rome any honour which the Catholic Church did allow him. We seek not the extirpation of the Papacy." For "though the faults of the Papacy are woven into the body of it, they are not inseparable; time was when the Papacy was without those blemishes." "We are not so stupid as not to see that some good use may be made of an exordium unitatis ecclesiastica, especially at this time, when the civil power is so much divided and distracted." "The Pope might still for us carry his protopatriarchate, and the dignity of an apostolical bishop, and his primacy of order, so long as the Church thought fit to continue it to that see." "I wish to see the Church restored to its ancient splendour of an apostolical Church, and the principal proto-patriarchate, and the beginning of unity." In this sense, Bramhall had no objection to the Pope being called Head of the Church. If, under the name of the Universal Church (he is replying to Baxter) he include the triumphant Church, we know no head of the Universal Church but Christ. If he limit it to the militant Church, we are as much against one single monarch as he-yet we quarrel with no man about the name of head, as a metaphorical expression." We may mention that both king James and king Charles addressed the Pope as "Most Holy Father," for which they When called to account were sharply reprehended by the Puritans. by Baxter for these admissions, Bramhall only replies by repeating

them.

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"That St. Peter had a fixed chair at Antioch, and, after that, at Rome, is a truth which no man, who giveth any credit to the ancient fathers and councils and historiographers of the Church, can either deny or will doubt of.

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Secondly, that St. Peter had a primacy of order among the apostles, is the unanimous voice of the primitive Church, not to be contradicted by me; which the Church of England and those old Episcopal divines, whom he pretendeth to honour so much, did never oppose. The learned bishop of Winchester acknowledgeth as much, not only in his own name, but in the name of the Church of England, both king and Church knowing it and approving it. Neither is it questioned amongst us whether St. Peter had a primacy, but what that primacy was. The king doth not deny Peter to have been the prime and prince of the apostles.

"My third assertion is, that some fathers and schoolmen, who were no sworn vassals to the Roman bishop, do affirm that this primacy of order is affixed to the chair of St. Peter, and his successors for ever. As, for instance,

Gerson, for a schoolman, that learned Chancellor of Paris, who sided with the council against the Pope, and left his enmity to the innovations of the court of Rome, as an hereditary legacy to the school of Sorbonne. Auferibilis non est

usque ad consummationem seculi vicarius sponsus Ecclesiæ. The vicarall spouse of the Church (this was the language of the age, whereby he meaneth not the person of any particular Pope, but the office of the papacy), ought not to be taken away until the end of the world.' And among the fathers, I instance St. Cyprian, whose public opposition to Pope Stephen is well known, who seemeth not to dissent from it. In his epistle to Antonianus, he calls the see of Rome the place and chair of Peter (Ep. 52); and in his fifty-fifth epistle to Cornelius, They dare sail and carry letters from schismatical and profane persons to the chair of Peter, and the principal Church from which sacerdotal unity did spring.' And in his De Unitate Ecclesiæ, Although he give equal power to all his apostles, after his resurrection, &c., yet, to manifest an unity, he constituted one chair, and by his own authority, disposed the original of that unity, beginning from one.' And a little after, The primacy is given to Peter, to demonstrate one Church of Christ, and one chair.”—Bramhall, p. 628.

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Hammond admits " the primacy and dignity of order which belonged to Rome"" the precedence and dignity of the bishop of Rome," that "in respect of order and priority of place, the bishop of Rome had it among the patriarchs, as the patriarchs among the primates," and that,

as for fraternal communion and such as is granted from one Church to another, it is willingly granted to the Roman Church ;-if, instead of fraternal communion, it be subjective to the Roman See, then we willingly grant to that see all that the ancient canons allowed it."Hammond, i. 512, 527.

II. Even Field, Puritan as he was, did

"Not deny but that blessed Peter had a kind of primacy of honour and order, that in respect thereof all metropolitans do succeed him as being greater than other bishops in honour and place; and amongst them the Roman bishop in the first place. ... We deny not, therefore, to the Roman bishop his due place among the prime bishops of the world." (On the Church v. p. 32.)

Again:

"Touching the presidentship of general councils, it pertaineth in a sort to all the patriarchs. ... Yet we deny not, but that as these were over all other bishops, so even amongst these also there was an order, so that one of them had a pre-eminence above and before another. For the bishop of Alexandria was before the bishop of Antioch, and the bishop of Rome before him; anciently, even before the time of the Nicene council, and afterwards, the bishop of Constantinople, made a patriarch, was set before the other two next unto the bishop of Rome. The canon of the Church prescribeth that no general