APPENDIX.

NOTE ON THE ROMAN SCHISM AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

[RECENT debates in both Houses of Parliament must have impressed upon all sound and spiritual Churchmen, the necessity of imbuing the popular mind with a right view of what constitutes the real catholicity of the English and Irish Church, in contrast with that fictitious universalism which Romish arrogance perpetually assumes. The following remarks may, therefore, be useful in this respect. They are selected from a letter addressed by the present writer to one of the editors of an ultra-montane newspaper, called the "Univers," published in Paris. The work specifically alluded to is a French publication, entitled "LE MOUVEMENT RELIGIEUX," &c. &c., and is precisely such a production as a believing student of the "TABLET," or an impassioned worshipper of Mr. O'Connell, might be expected to compose:]

"The very title of his work is gratuitous, and takes for granted what thousands of English Churchmen laugh to scorn, and repudiate with ineffable disgust. M. Gondon puts in his title page not simply "Le Mouvement Religieux;" but also "Le RETOUR de l'Eglise Anglicane, à l'Unité." This ridiculous verbiage may be very soothing in the ears of ultra-montane Papists, whose intellects have been blinded by Satan into the monstrous belief, that submission to a mere Italian priest, and adherence to Catholic unity, are inseparable things! But I beg to assure the presiding genius of L'Univers, we deny, as REAL CATHOLICS, the presumption on which M. Gondon's dogmatic produc

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tion starts. Like most of his fraternity, this gentleman finds it marvellously convenient to assume as an unquestioned and unquestionable verity, that the Romish Church and the Catholic Church are convertible things; and moreover, that the Pope is the earthly head of this Church, and the centre of visible unity: so that, forsooth, those Churches who do not submit to his decrees, and sustain his supremacy, are not Catholic, but sectarian novelties! This, we repeat, is the ultra-montanism of L'Univers, in its essential principle; and need we add, that we reject this fundamental sophism with the utmost disdain: it is indeed taking for GRANTED the very thing which Anglo-Catholics deny. If M. Gondon can suggest any mode of carrying on this controversy, with the blessing of God, I undertake to disprove this gigantic assumption concerning the Pope as the centre of unity, from REASON, HISTORY, TRADITION, and THE WORD OF GOD. Meanwhile, let us just whisper into his ear the mighty words of no less a Pope than the great St. Gregory himself, who, when John, patriarch of Constantinople, dared to assume the title of "UNIVERSAL BISHOP," protested against this anti-Christian arrogance thus :-" Far be this blASPHEMOUS TITLE FROM THE HEART OF CHRISTIANS." We earnestly commend this glorious orthodoxy of A POPE to les Redacteurs de l'Univers, when they fulminate their ultra-montane bulls in favour of Popish supremacy at Rome."

"The word Catholic is next alluded to by M. Gondon; and he is quite right in asserting that no controversy could be carried on in a logical way between us, until we understand each other's precise meaning in the use of that pregnant term. In a transient communication like this, I cannot of course be expected to enter into a dogmatic treatise on the word Catholic. But a few passing remarks you must allow me to offer. UNIVERSALISM, then, in its PHYSICAL and ABSOLUTE sense, cannot be predicated of ANY Church on the face of the earth; this is a self-evident proposition, which, like a first principle, is seen in its own light. Accordingly, M. Gondon must agree with me in using the word Catholic in a moral and ecclesiastical sense. What then do we mean by "Catholic Church?" My answer is twofold-first, we thereby intend to distinguish the Christian Church from the Jewish; which plainly was not Catholic, but peculiar: there the PUBLIC WORSHIP of God was confined to ONE COUNTRY, the sacrifices were limited to ONE TEMPLE, and the Church was contracted into ONE NATION: not so with the Church of Christ, which, in distinction,

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is universal or catholic. Still the question is positively to be considered, viz. :—what do we mean when we say "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church?" Now, is M. Gondon aware, that the more ancient creeds have not the "Catholic," but simply "Holy?" The word Catholic was added by the Greeks, and afterwards received into the Latin Symbol. Let us then simply state what we understand by "Catholic Church" the entire body of believing Christians, who continue in "the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship," holding fast and firm the "faith once delivered unto the saints." Will M. Gondon accept this interpretation of Catholic? As he has presumed to write a thick volume upon our English Church, has he ever read the immortal pages of Bishop Pearson on the Creed ?--a man of whose genius the illustrious scholar and critic, Bentley, said, “Its very dust was gold." I am bold enough to suspect, that M. Gondon knows nothing of our theological literature, in its HIGHEST FORMS, whatever; and he must, therefore, pardon me for offering two brief extracts on the meaning of Catholic-the one is from the writings of Pearson, and the other from the celebrated Bishop Bull, the great antagonist of Boussuet. Pearson says (Works, Oxford edition, 8vo. vol. p. 410)-"Wherefore, I conclude that this Catholicism, or second affection of the Church, consisteth generally in universality, or embracing all sorts of persons, as to be disseminated through all nations, as comprehending all ages, as containing all necessary and saving truths, as obliging all conditions of men to all kinds of obedience, as curing all diseases and planting all graces in the souls of men. The necessity of believing the Holy Catholic Church, appeareth first in this, that Christ hath appointed it as the only way unto eternal life. . . Christ never appointed two ways to heaven; nor did he build a Church to save some, and make another institution for other men's salvation. There is no other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus; and that name is no otherwise given under heaven than in the Church. As none were saved from the deluge but such as were within the ark of Noah, framed for their reception by the command of God; as none of the first-born of Egypt lived, but such as were within those habitations which were sprinkled with blood by the appointment of God, for their preservation; so none shall ever be of God, which belong not to the Church of God." And now let us hear that fine champion of English Catholicism, Bishop Bull, whose prodigious learning caused Boussuet himself to compliment an Anglican

prelate. "By the CATHOLIC CHURCH, I mean the Church universal, being a collection of all the Churches throughout the world, who retain the faith (añaž) delivered to the saints (Jude 3); that is, who hold and profess, in the substance of it, that faith and religion which was delivered by the apostles of Christ to the first original Churches, according to Tertullian's rule before mentioned."—(Bull's Works, Oxford edition, vol. ii. p. 242.) "None of us do affirm that our Church is the only true Church: for that would be a schismatic assertion, like that of the Donatists of old, and THE PAPISTS nowadays, and the highest breach of charity, in damning all the Christian world besides ourselves." (Ibid, vol. ii. p. 188.)

"We must now revert to another point in my remarks on M. Gondon's "Mouvement," to which the editor of L'Univers has alluded with sarcastic triumph. How far or not his sneering Romanism is premature, will presently appear. Your readers, sir, will perhaps remember, that in reply to the boastful assertions of M. Gondon, against the Catholicity of the English Church, I threw down the following challenge: viz., that I would undertake to prove the following three propositions :"

(1.) That in England the so-called Romish Church is nothing more than a SECT.

(2.) That the English Church is our true Catholic Church.

(3.) That the Popish "Bishops" in England and Ireland are SCHISMATICS.

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"Now on this occasion I am not called to enter on this triple argument, but to M. Gondon's sneer I am bound to reply—“ Je ne comprends pas sa seconde proposition. Comment une Eglise serait elle Catholique en Angleterre, si elle cesse de l'être en quittant cette ille?" Really, sir, it is not my duty to supply the editor of the L'Univers with comprehension as well as ideas; but let me tell him, that when English Churchmen call their Church by the venerable name of Catholic," they do so principally for two reasons: first, because they consider her to be not exclusively the Catholic Church, like the Romish Dissenters; but because they know her to be a TRUE BRANCH, primitive and apostolical, of that ONE CHURCH UNIVERSAL which Christ founded; and secondly, in order to distinguish their own Communion from the almost numberless sects and nameless societies which arrogate to themselves the attributes of "Churches," but which, according to the tenth Canon of the English Church, are to be consi

dered as no organized Churches at all. Where then is the absurdity of our denominating the Mother Church of Great Britain, Catholic?"

"But let us again retort the argument on this oracle of modern ultra-montanism. What right then, either in reason, history, or fact, has the Romish Church to limit the exclusive appropriation of Catholic to herself? Her dogmas, principles, articles, and doctrines, are to a great extent novelties and intrusions, which, like all other forms of dissenterism, have been invented by the sectarian discontent of man's heart; and have therefore no pretensions whatever to Catholicity, or primitive truth. The Romanists vastly exaggerate the extent of the Papal see. Before the fifteenth century, those Roman Churches, which are not within the European continent, had no existence. Then, neither in Africa, Asia, nor America, had Rome her ecclesiastical colonies. And at the present period can anything be more preposterous, than for the slaves of the Pope to grasp unto themselves the title of exclusive Catholicity? Do these adulators of Romish assumption imagine, that the ORIENTAL CHURCH in European Turkey, Siberia, a great part of Russia, Moldavia, Greece, the Archipelago, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt-is an absolute nonentity? Are the immense communions of believers in the East, which are under the Episcopacy of the four Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, to be melted into mere negations before the flaming arrogance of pontifical Rome? If not, then what becomes of that miserable falsehood, and bombastic absurdity, that in the Roman community THE Catholic Church exists, to the destruction of all other branches of the Church Universal? In the words then of a distinguished Churchman in our day, let me add:-"Our Churches are CATHOLIC, because they acknowledge the Catholic Church, respect its authority, receive its faith, and have never been divided from it."

In another part of M. Gondon's letter, the writer of this is censured for speaking of Mr. Ward's book as "heretical." Since that letter appeared, we all know the decision which an overwhelming majority in Oxford have come to, in reference to some passages of ecclesiastical treason towards the Church of England, which this "Ideal" of Mr. Ward has ventured to publish :-we need not therefore enter largely into this subject. Let others plead for "holding" Romish doctrines, as distinct from "teaching" them: let them reconcile their consciences as they can, before a heart-searching God, as to the honesty of their conduct towards a Church whose principles they betray, and whose