Vi.

built for Christian preaching and worship, and CHAP. not for the promotion of Popery, as such, much less of Popery such as it became in the sixteenth century, at the Council of Trent; they were built, not for the maintenance of error, but of truth; and their endowments, though given, indeed, in some cases, to an erring Church, were not given to its errors. And further, (as the Churches of the Donatists in Africa and their endowments were transferred to the Catholic Church by Christian Emperors in the fifth century, and this was done legibus religiosis, as St. Augustine calls them; so) when the whole body of the Church and State of England, Sovereign and People, Clergy and Laity, (doubts and questions having arisen concerning divers points of doctrine and discipline,) did, after consulting Reason, Scripture, and Antiquity, in a lawful and deliberate manners consider and decide the question what is truth and what is error, and so the plea of ignorance in these matters was taken away, it would have been inconsistent with the duty of Rulers and People to Almighty God, and injurious to the Founders of those Churches, and to the Nation at large, to have suffered error mixed with truth, and corrupting it, both in teaching and worship, to be perpetuated in them, instead of Truth alone. The Pantheon of Agrippa, at Rome, was once a heathen temple, dedicated to all the gods, and it is now a Christian Church; and the members of the Church of England might ask the Romanist why sacrifices are not there offered to Jupiter, if he should inquire of them why saints are not invoked and images worshipped in our Churches.

1 Ecclesia (says the English Law, 2 Inst. 64) est domus mansionalis OMNIPOTENTIS DEI. Cp. HOOKER, V. XII. 3. The Dedication of Churches serveth to surrender up that

PART right which otherwise their founders might have in them, II. and to make GOD Himself their Owner. See also SOUTH, in Christian Institutes, iii. p. 429.

2 S. AUGUSTIN, Epist. 50, ad Bonifac. Quicquid nomine Ecclesiarum partis Donati possidebatur, Christiani Imperatores legibus religiosis cum ipsis Ecclesiis ad Catholicam transire jusserunt.

SARAVIA, de Sacrilegio, p. 88. In Reformatione Ecclesia fit casta conjux, et vero suo Christo reconciliatur: quare bona mariti tanquam uxor sibi vendicat legitima Ecclesia.

3 See above, ch. v. Of 9400 beneficed Clergy, only 243 (according to Neal, i. ch. iv.) or 199 (according to Bp. Burnet) did not conform to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England as reformed in 1559.

[According to Camden, 177.]

Q. 7. You have before spoken of the Church of England as Protestant; is she not then liable to a charge of inconsistency and partiality in recognising the Holy Orders of the Church of Rome, while she does not acknowledge those of such ProPreface to the testant Communities as do not possess Episcopal Government; and does she not, it may be inquired, in so doing, prefer Romanists to Protestants?

Ordinal.

Eccl. xlii. 1. James ii. 1. Jude 16.

A. No. The Church of England does in no respect prefer persons, as such, to any other persons. But, as the baptism given by Judas was the baptism of Christ not less than that given by Peter or by John, and therefore, the primitive Acts xix. 5. Church' did not re-baptize those who had been baptized by Judas, but it did baptize those who had been baptized by John the Baptist; and in so doing, it did not prefer Judas to John, but it preferred the baptism of Christ, though given by Judas, to the baptism of John the Baptist, though given by John himself; so the Church of England prefers the Holy Orders of Christ, by whomsoever they may be given, to a commission from man, whoever he may be. In this matter, therefore, she is resolved to "follow the perfection of them that

2

like not her, rather than the defect of them whom CHAP. she loves."3

1 S. AUGUST. in Joannis Evang. Tract. v. 18. Baptismum Christi das, ideo non post te baptizatur; post Joannem (Baptistam) ideo baptizatum est, quia non Christi baptismum dabat, sed suum. Non ergo tu melior quàm Joannes: sed baptismus, qui per te datur, melior quam Joannis. Ipse enim Christi est, iste autem Joannis. Et quod dabatur a Paulo, et quod dabatur a Petro, Christi erat: et si datum est a Juda, Christi erat. Dedit Judas, et non baptizatum est post Judam; dedit Joannes, et baptizatum est post Joannem: quia si datus est a Judâ baptismus, Christi erat: qui autem a Joanne datus est, Joannis erat. Non Judam Joanni, sed baptismum Christi, etiam per Juda manus datum, baptismo Joannis etiam per manus Joannis dato rectè præponi

mus.

2 See above, ans. 4.

3 HOOKER, V. XXVIII. 1.

Q. 8. But it is asked, since a Church cannot exist without a priesthood,1 nor a priesthood without a sacrifice, can it be said that there is any sacrifice in the Church of England: and if not, has she a true priesthood, and is she a true Church?

VI.

Phil. iv. 18.

A. The Church of England has all the sacrifice Heb. x. 26. which the Catholic Church has, and she dares not have more. In her Office for the Holy Communion she has a sacrificium primitivum, i. e., a sacrifice in Heb. xiii. 16. which she offers "alms and oblations," primitiæ or first fruits, of His own gifts, to God, as the Creator and Giver of all; she has a sacrificium eucharisticum, i. e., a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," she has a sacrificium votivum in Ps. cxvi. 12. which the communicant presents himself, his "soul xi. 23-26. and body, to be a reasonable sacrifice to God," and Heb. xiii. 1. in which the Church offers herself, which is 1 Pet. ii. 5. "Christ's mystical body," to God; a sacrificium commemorativum, commemorative of the death and sacrifice of Christ; a sacrificium repræsentativum, which represents and pleads His meritorious suffer

1 Cor. vi. 20.

Rom. xii. 1.

II.

John vi. 51

56.

PART ings to God; a sacrificium impetrativum, which implores the benefits of Christ's death from Him; and she has a sacrificium applicativum, which applies them to the worthy receiver. But she has no sacrificium defectivum, in which the cup is denied to the lay communicant: nor, on the other hand, has she a sacrificium suppletivum, to make up any supposed defects in the One great sacrifice offered once for all for the sins of the world, upon Heb. vii. 15. the cross, by Him Who "remaineth a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck."

Heb. vii. 27.

x. 12. 14.

1 S. HIERON. adv. Lucif. c. 8. Ecclesia non est quæ non habet Sacerdotes.

2 GRABE, ad S. Iren. iii. xxxii. Ante consecrationem, veluti primitias creaturarum, in recognitionem supremi Ejus super universa dominii. pp. 323–328, and p. 396. "Hoc est," (says GROTIUS, Annot. in Cassand. Art. x. p. 620,) “quid dicitur in Liturgiis, τὰ Σὰ ἐκ τῶν Σῶν.

3 GROTIUS, iv. p. 620. Tertium sacrificium est quod facit Ecclesia offerens corpus Christi, quod est Ipsa, ut loquitur Augustinus. Offerunt enim fideles suum corpus et sanguinem Deo, parati, si res ita tulerit, pro Ejus gloriâ vitam profundere. Sic Abraham dicitur filium obtulisse defunctione cordis, ut explicat Salvianus.

Archbp. LAUD against Fisher, 35. In the Eucharist we offer up to God three sacrifices; one by the priest, only, that is the commemorative sacrifice; of Christ's death, represented in bread broken and wine poured out; another by the priest and people jointly, and that is the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for all the benefits and graces we receive by the precious death of Christ; the third by every particular man for himself, and that is the sacrifice of every man's body and soul to serve Him in both all the rest of his life.

Bp. ANDREWES, v. 67. Archbp. BRAMHALL, ii. 276. Bp. VAN MILDERT'S Preface to Waterland's Works, i. 267–276, and WATERLAND, Works, vii. p. 349. viii. p. 161. GROTIUS in Cassand. Art x. p. 620.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DID NOT SEPARATE HER-
SELF FROM THE CHURCH OF ROME.

Q. 1. Ir is one of the marks of the true Church to be always visible: was then, it is asked, the, Protestant Church of England visible before the Reformation? and if not, can it be a true Church?

A. Yes, (as has been before stated, chap. i.-vi.) the Church of England has been always visible since the time of the Apostles, not, indeed, as Protestant, but as a branch of the Catholic Church. A man is a man, and a visible man, even when he is labouring under a sore disease. Job was visibly Job when he was covered with sores. So was the Church of England visible in the worst times. She was visible in her Churches, in her ordained Ministry, and in her religious assemblies; she was visible in the Holy Sacraments, in the Holy Scriptures, in the Decalogue, in the Lord's Prayer, and in the Creeds, which she retained1 even in the worst times; she was visible in the flames of her martyrs, who suffered for the TRUTH.

1 HOOKER, III. 1. 8-10. See above, chap. v.

Q. 2. But if the Church of England was still a Church in Papal times, was she not guilty of the sin of schism in separating herself from the Church of Rome?

CHAP.

VII.

Matt. v. 14.

11.

A. Schism is a voluntary separation (Part i. ch. Below, ans. v. ans. 24.) The Church of England did never