opinion, and in the Law, there is yet hope that the frequency of Divorce, and the drift towards successive Polygamy in our New England States may be stayed; that the Public Mind may become more elevated, that the morals of Social and Domestic Life may become sounder and purer, more wholesome and beneficent, and that a new generation may arise with a higher, and better, and holier future, than that which now seems to dawn on the present.

ART. VI. THE PRESENT ASPECT OF "THE ROMAN QUESTION."

The Comedy of the Convocation in the English Church, in two Scenes: Edited by ARCHDEACON CHASUBLE, D. D.

Ινα τὶ γέλοιον εἰπῶ καὶ περί γελοίου πράγματος.

Give me leave to be merry on a merry subject.-S. Greg. Naz.

New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1868.

A BOOK with the above title, and imprint, has recently appeared which challenges the attentive, and thoughtful consideration of Anglican Churchmen. It is not an ordinary brochure, but a wellconsidered, and carefully-prepared theological pamphlet. The secular press describes it as "one of the sharpest, wittiest satires seen for a very long time;" while the "Catholic Standard" scruples not to affirm, that it is "as unanswerable, as it is timely, and has dealt a blow to Anglicanism from which that dying system will never recover." Common rumor ascribes its authorship to that "Prince of 'Verts," Father Newman; and, if it be not from his pen, it is at least worthy of him, in its intellectual ability, and unscrupulous malignity against the Church of his Baptism. After a careful perusal, it is our humble judgment, that no abler assault than this has been made from the side of Rome on the doctrines and discipline of the English Church. Before this "Comedy," Milner's "End of Controversy " must "pale its ineffectual fires." That weak book proceeded on the principle (so common among Romanists) of lumping together all the errors and abuses of every known Protestant sect, and attributing them en masse to an imaginary body, styled "The Protestant Church," to which it is assumed that Anglo-Catholic and Puritan dissenter alike belong. Of course no well-instructed Churchman could be imposed on by

such clap-trap. Weak woman (like "Charlotte Elizabeth " Tonna) after reading it, might confess to bewilderment as to the right way; but the sophistries of the smooth-tongued Bishop of Castabala could mislead no well-instructed, and well-balanced mind. Not so with our author. His eagle eye has left unnoticed no spot, nor blemish capable of detection in any part of the Anglican Communion, while, with an ingenuity, which seems well-nigh superhuman, he has contrived not to let drop a single word, which could be construed in our favor on any point. As a specimen of special pleading it is simply admirable. He means to exterminate us root and branch. He assails "High," "Low," and "Broad "— each in detail, and to each school of Anglican thought he designs to give "No quarter." The scene opens in "The Jerusalem Chamber," with the question proposed for discussion by a certain Dr. Easy (a character evidently intended to personate a well-known easygoing Dean, whose local habitation is not distant from Westminster Abbey).- -"Would it be considered heresy in the Church of England to deny the existence of a God?" And here let us note his first fallacy. The proposition is immediately stated, and represented as uncontradicted, that our "nineteenth Article, in affirming that ALL churches, even the Apostolic, have erred in matters of faith, obviously implies that the Church of England may err also in the same way." The nineteenth Article affirms no such thing of all churches. Error is attributed to four Patriarchates, including Rome; but there is no charge brought against the Church of Constantinople, a rather important part of the Catholic Church. So the argument, whatever it might have been worth as stated, falls at once, because it is based upon a falsehood. Of course every difficulty, which besets the Mother Church of England, owing to her unfortunate (but we may hope temporary) connection with the State, is carefully brought to light. Queen Victoria, and the Judicial Committee of her Privy Council are represented as of equal authority in all matters of Faith with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the two Houses of Convocation.

Much is made of the statement in the Twenty-first Article (omitted in our Prayer Book) that "General Councils sometimes have erred." But that this assertion was predicated of the Romish (80-called) General Councils, and not of the undisputed Councils, is obvious. The Statute (1 Eliz. i. 36) expressly provides that"Heresy shall only be adjudged by the authority of the Canonical

Scriptures, or by the first four General Councils, or any of them, or any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresy, by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures.' And the Lambeth Conference solemnly reaffirmed "the Faith as taught in the Holy Scriptures, held by the Primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed General Councils." Possibly this may suffice to answer the anxious question, which our Comedian puts into the mouth of his Dean Critical, -"Could any of his reverend friends undertake to inform him what was the authority of the Church of England?"

We have little concern with our author's trenchant assaults on the schools of pseudo-evangelicanism, and rationalism, save to laugh at the fine points he makes. What immediately concerns us is his attack on our doctrine of the Constitution and Nature of the Holy Catholic Church, as held by the orthodox among us "the branch-theory," as our author contemptuously terms it. Of course we dismiss at once any such untenable theories as that the Anglican is the sole survivor of the ancient Catholic Church, or that Protestantism is par excellence Catholicity. "The branch-theory is, that the Catholic Church of Christ was for many centuries one undivided, visible, Holy Communion. But the grasping ambition of the Roman Patriarchs, and their unwarranted tampering with the Nicene Faith by the addition of FILIOQUE to the Creed, led to a separation between East and West, which still continues with mutual anathemas. The Catholic Church did not perish, but became divided like the Jewish Church after the death of Solomon; the Greek Church corresponding to the tribes under Rehoboam, and the more numerous Latin Churches to the rest of the nation, Israel. Some centuries later, when the ancient Church of England reformed Romish abuses, and reasserted her true independence, which had fallen into abeyance, Pope Pius V. pretended to excommunicate her, and thereby created a new schism in the West. The Catholic Church therefore is at present divided into three communions the Greek, the Latin, and the Anglican-each of which claims to rest infallibly on Holy Scripture, as defined by the Ecumenical Creeds and Councils; but neither of which can truly claim infallibility for minor theological opinions. Of course we, as Anglo-Catholics, believe in the correctness of all the religious articles laid down in the Book of Common Prayer; but we would be perfectly willing to submit them for ultimate judgment to a Gen

eral Council, in which all three branches of the Catholic Church should be fairly represented. To such a future Council our divines and doctors have constantly appealed.

The ingenious author of this "Comedy" attempts to cast ridicule on "the branch-theory" by such language as this:

66

Suppose the Archdeacon, resolving to try his theory, set out on a foreign tour. Did he leave Dover an Anglican, and disembark at Calais a Roman Catholic? If so, at what particular spot did he drop the Anglican Articles, and take up the Roman Missal? Was it marked by a buoy? or was the transformation a gradual process, like the changes of temperature? On leaving Dover he carried with him only two sacraments, which had grown into seven by the time he landed at Calais. Supposing the distance to be twenty-five miles, did he take up a new sacrament, he was going to say at every fifth mile-stone, but the sea knew not such measures of distance. Were there fixed points at which he began to believe that Transubstantiation was a holy mystery, and not a blasphemous fable; that Confirmation and Extreme Unction were divine sacraments, and, not, as he had believed while breakfasting at Dover, a mere 'corrupt following of the Apostles?' Did he, in spite of the injunction with which they were all familiar, not to speak to the man at the wheel,' anxiously interrogate that individual as to the precise longitude in which it behooved him to cast away some Anglican delusion, and to take up some [R.] Catholic Truth? At what point of the voyage did the Pope's supremacy begin to dawn upon him? etc. etc."—pp. 64, 65.

Now this is all very funny, but unfortunately not very true. It is a manifest Petitio Principii. It assumes that Anglo-Catholics hold the same expansion of dogma that the Roman Catholics do. Rome has elevated minor dogmas, many of which we consider erroneous, to the dignity of Articles of Faith. Pope Pius IV. in his zeal for Roman orthodoxy, succeeded in chiseling out a mammoth Creed, its stupendous proportions almost rivaling the nine hundred and ninety-nine articles of the "Profession of Faith " of some backwoods Calvinistic" Church."

But we have not elevated the Thirty-eight Articles to the rank of a Creed. Wherever the Catholic Churchman goes, he carries with him his firm and unshaken Faith in the Nicene Creed, the Apostolical Succession, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Real Presence. And this is all that is essential; on minor points we can safely allow latitude of opinion. S. Augustine has well said, “In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas." Thus,

if inter-communion were restored between us and the Russian Church, we could carry with us our Articles to Moscow, and the Muscovite his sacred icons to New York, without prejudice to one another's Faith, and without "counting the mile-stones" to determine their orthodoxy!

Speaking of the Articles, we cannot omit noticing the hit at Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon." Much as we respect the vast erudition, fervent piety, and holy zeal for Unity, which characterize that truly eminent man, we cannot but regard as chimerical his scheme for the reconciliation of the English Articles with the Tridentine Decrees. Better drop both, than attempt to harmonize incompatibles. The scheme commends itself more to the heart than to the judg

ment.

"DEAN CRITICAL did not see why, if every man might choose his own sense, Dr. Pusey might not choose his own interpreter, though he could have wished he had made a better choice. But he was surprised that Dr. Pusey did not detect the inconsistency of making the Roman Church the interpreter of Articles, which were directed against herself.

It was really too much to make the Roman Church at once the interpreter of charges brought against her, and the judge of the parties who brought them." p. 26.

This is all, in effect, very true, though the Articles are somewhat older than the Decrees of Trent. Still the "Eirenicon' has many merits, which suffice to redeem it from this blemish of inconsistency.

The ingenious author of the "Comedy" devotes his second scene to a discussion of that bugbear of all Roman controversialists, the validity of Anglican Orders. No mention, of course, is made of the fact that Pope Pius IV. the author of the longwinded Creed which goes by his name, offered repeatedly to Queen Elizabeth to accept the Anglican Church and its Clergy, without reordination, if England would but own his Supremacy. Such a suppressio veri is not uncommon in this work. The old stale cavils are all burnished up anew, except the "Nag's Head Fable,” which we trust is now dead and forever buried. (1.) The length of time before the records of Parker's consecration were produced. (2.) The form of consecration:-"Take the HOLY GHOST, and remember that thou stir up the grace of GoD which is in thee, by imposition of hands; for GOD hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of soberness." (3.) The missing record of