The language of the archbishop is very remarkable in three several points of view. doctrine of transubstantiation was, for the first time, directly attacked by Berenger in the eleventh century.-Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 120. His lordship does not seem to have been aware of the zealous opposition made to this identical doctrine, in the ninth century, by Raban of Mentz, and many other assertors of what, until my evidence be set aside, I shall venture to call the OLD faith. On the disagreements among Luther and Calvin and Zuingle respecting the doctrine of the Eucharist, the bishop is superfluously copious. I see nothing extraordinary in the fact, that, when men first open their eyes from a deep slumber, their vision should for a season be defective in clearness. Be this, however, as it may, we of the Anglican church are no way bound to answer for the differences of the continental reformers. We are neither Lutherans, nor Calvinists, nor Zuinglians: we have received our appellation, as Chrysostom speaks (Homil. xxxiii. in Act. Apost. xv. Oper. vol. viii. p. 680.), from the faith itself: we are catholics of the Anglican church, no less than the bishop of Aire is a catholic of the Gallican church. Certainly we honour both Luther and Calvin and Zuingle for their works' sake: but the bishop greatly errs, if he imagines that we erect any one of them into our spiritual master. Yet, though I feel myself no way pledged to act as an umpire between these three eminent foreigners, I cannot quite so readily pass over the attack, which the bishop of Aire has made upon one of our own most venerable English prelates. On the authority of Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, his lordship informs us, that Bishop Jewel charged his chaplain to publish to the world after his death, that all which he had written against the Romish doctrine had heen written against his conscience and the truth, and that he had thus acted purely to pay his court to the queen, and to prop up the religion which she had introduced.-Discuss. Amic. vol. ii. p. 135. Thus condescends the respectable bishop of Aire to calumniate an English prelate on the testimony of a man, who published his pretended facts, not in the reign of Elizabeth, and in England; but in the year 1654, and at Paris; thus condescends the bishop to mislead an English layman, forgetting, or ignorant, that this very Jewel, BEFORE the accession of Elizabeth, and DURING the reign of her sister, had been ejected from all his preferment for his stout adherence to the primitive catholic faith, and had himself escaped the flames only by a timely flight to the continent. Jewel is not the only English divine whom the bishop has undertaken to misrepresent. He further claims, as favourable to Without the slightest hesitation, he pronounces the doctrine to be AN ERROR, which he himself was strenuously opposing: by the use of the word some, he clearly testifies, as a naked matter of fact, that, in his time, the doctrine was held only by a few adventurous admirers of Paschase: and, by the expression OF LATE, he no less clearly indicates, also as a naked matter of fact, that the doctrine, though its outlines might have been traced by Eutyches, and recognised by the second Nicene Council, was, in the ninth century, resisted as a palpable innovation.* the doctrine of transubstantiation, Forbes and Thorndike, and Montague and Parker.-Discuss. Amic. vol. i. p. 333-336. Bishop Forbes merely says, what I have myself said, that he would not undertake to pronounce the doctrine of transubstantiation an impossible absurdity: and as for Thorndike, Montague, and Parker, they simply maintain, what the church of England has ever maintained, a change produced in the elements by virtue of consecration. For this doctrine they refer to the fathers; and, with good reason, do they thus refer. The fathers, like themselves, held the doctrine of a change indeed but that change was a moral, not a physical one. : His Such controversial stratagems, in a work professedly addressed to the English laity, are unworthy of the bishop of Aire. lordship must surely have known, that the divines of the Anglican church hold the doctrines of a real presence, and of a change in the consecrated elements, after a totally different manner from the divines of the Latin church. A layman, however, not conversant in these topics, might easily be perplexed by his state ment. *The bishop of Meaux roundly asserts, that, both in the East and in the West, the doctrine of transubstantiation was unanimously adopted from the words of our Lord, without causing the least trouble or opposition: and he adds, that those who believed it were never marked by the church as innovators.-Hist. des Variat. livr. ii. § 36. Greatly did I marvel when I read this extraordinary passage. Is it possible, then, that the mass of evidence to the direct contrary, which I have now produced, can have been utterly unknown to such a man as the learned Bossuet? Is it possible that he can have been ignorant, that Pope Gelasius in the West, and Theodoret of Cyrus in the East, synchronically, and with one accord, opposed the new doctrine of a physical change in the consecrated elements, when it was first started by the Eutychians in the fifth century? Is it possible, that these and the other facts which I have brought forward, can never have come within the cognizance of this very Raban of Mentz, as we might well expect, was not the only opponent of the Paschasian novelty. It was equally impugned by Heribald of Auxerre, Amalar of Triers, Bertram of Corby, Walafrid Strabo, Christian Druthmar, Drepanius Florus, and John Scot Erigena. able and acute Latin prelate? To omit what a Romanist would deem the inferior authorities of Theodoret and Ephrem and Facundus and Raban of Mentz, a direct censure upon the palpable novelty of a physical change was specially pronounced by the presiding pope himself. Gelasius, the_lawful head of the universal church for the time being, expressly declared, with the full concurrence of that church, and even in controversial opposition to the then new dogma of a physical change, that the substance or nature of the bread and wine ceases not to exist. Yet does the bishop of Meaux fearlessly assert, that the doctrine of transubstantiation was unanimously adopted, both in the East and in the West, without causing the least trouble: yet does he intrepidly pronounce, that those who believed it were never marked by the church as innovators upon primitive antiquity! CHAPTER IX. The Difficulties of Romanism in respect to Auricular Confession, as imposed and enforced by the Church of Rome. AURICULAR Confession to a priest the church of England allows, and in some cases recommends: the church of Rome not only allows and recommends it; but, also, as a matter of strict religious obligation, imposes and enforces it. Such being the case, if the bishop of Aire wish to convict the Anglican church of error, it will be his business to shew, that auricular confession to a priest is, not merely a point of option, but a point of strict religious duty and absolute necessary obligation. Accordingly, his lordship undertakes to perform this task, partly from Scripture, and partly from the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity.* I. To discover in Scripture any explicit command either of Christ or of his apostles, that we should regularly make auricular confession to a priest, was a thing altogether impracticable. The bishop, therefore, does not attempt it. Yet, what cannot be proved explicitly, may be proved, he thinks, inductively. 1. "The power of the keys, or the right of abso'lution and retention," he argues, "has been given by Christ to his apostles and to their lawfully con * Discuss. Amic. Lett. xi. 'secrated successors.* But this power cannot be 'effectively exercised without auricular confession. Therefore, by a necessary consequence from Holy Scripture, the religious obligation of auricular con'fession has been demonstrated." Of this syllogism I am willing to allow the conclusiveness, whensoever the bishop shall have proved, that the power of the keys cannot be effectively exercised without auricular confession as practised in the church of Rome. That important point he labours, no doubt, to prove; because he is conscious, that, without such proof, his syllogism is invalid. But, even upon his own principle of the power of the keys, as that power is interpreted by himself, he has laboured ineffectually. The granting or the withholding of sacerdotal absolution, the bishop reasonably makes to depend upon the actual dispositions of the sinner.† Hence the question is, How these actual dispositions are to be ascertained? Now, as the bishop truly remarks, spiritual judges can no more read the thoughts and hearts of sinners, than any other persons. What then is to be done in order to a just absolution or retention ? The bishop says, that we must needs have auricular confession. For, without auricular confession, we cannot ascertain the actual dispositions of sinners: and, unless the actual dispositions of sinners be ascertained, the granting or the withholding of sacerdotal absolution cannot be rightly and effectually exercised. Such, in full, is his lordship's argument from Scripture. The point, wherein it fails, is the defect of proof, that we cannot ascertain the actual dispositions of sinners without auricular confession. * Mat. xviii. 18. John xx. 21-23. |