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non quod a te inventum : quod accepisti, non quod excogitasti : rem non ingenii, sed doctrinæ non usurpationis private, sed publicæ traditionis rem ad te perductam, non a te prolatam: in qua non auctor debes esse, sed custos: non institutor, sed ŝectator: non ducens, sed sequens. Catholicæ fidei talentum inviolatum, illibatumque conserva. Quod tibi creditum est, hoc ti penes te maneat, hoé a te tradetur. Aurum accepisti, aurum redde: nolo mihi pro aliis alia subjicias: nolo pro auro aut impudenter plumbum, aut fraudulenter æramenta supponas nolo auri speciem, sed naturam plane." The Reformers asserted that the Ro man Churchy if tried by any of the tests proposed by Vincent, would be found guilty of innovation, or of defect, or of cor ruption, in all those things upon which it prided itself, and which others understood by the name Roman That its practices were innovations, and not such as had been followed at all times,ino all places by all the members of the one Catholic Church.That its preached other doctrines than those which St. Paul preached and the primitive Church received, and was therefore under the anathema of St. Paul. And that the sacredo deposit itself had not been kept whole and undefiled; but, by these innovations in practice, these de fects and substitutions in doctrine, had been changed; so that, instead of the fine gold of the sanctuary, which they ought to have received, impudence and deceit had endeavoured to palm lead and brass upon them, or sparkling tinsel in place of true gold. Or apply the tests of Vincent to that which Manzoni asserts is the main point to be believed an assertion which Count Montalembert says every Catholic will repeat the in fallibility of the Church, or rather of the Pope; and this point brings out the innovations of Rome in avstill clearer and stronger light; since this supremacy of the head of the Roman Church was for the first time claimed in the beginning of the seventh century; and to mark more strongly the inno+vation, the claimant had just before declared that the patriarch of Constantinople, in calling himself universal bishop, would be taking the mark of Antichrist a claim which began and has perpetuated the schism between the eastern and western! halves of Christendom. And of this supremacy and infalli bility, tried by the standard of St. Paul's Gospel, what shall we say? Did St. Paul, in his preaching, give any precedency to St. Peter Verily, nay. He withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed he gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, to Peter, James, and John; he would not acknowledge himself to be one whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles and the supremacy of Peter is contrary to the Gospel of Paul. Lop amplicob res bing “Abee!

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But a difficulty arises in consequence of the slow growth and long continuance of the Roman errors and usurpations; owing to which it is some time before they appear considerable enough to be deemed innovations; and when they are become thus considerable, their true origin can only be assigned to some remote period--almost too remote for applying to such things the term " innovation." Yet it should be remembered that it is as innovation on the faith of the primitive and truly Catholic Church that the term is used by Vincent; and that, however slow the growth may be, each stage of it has been a further progress of innovation; and the longer such a system continues, the further is the departure from primitive truth, and the more correctly may the whole be regarded as one system of innovation. The Papal claim of supremacy, for instance, was first put forth by Gregory, first allowed by Phocas to Boniface III. in the beginning of the seventh century; but the separation between the Eastern and Western Churches did not take place till the middle of the ninth century, and on other pretences; while the Papal supremacy did not arrive at its height till the time of Hildebrand, towards the end of the eleventh century. And this difficulty Vincent has foreseen, and suggested the true remedy:

"Sed neque semper, neque omnes hæreses hoc modo impugnandæ sunt, sed novitiæ recentesque tantummodo, cum primum scilicet exoriuntur, antequam infalsarint vetustæ fidei regulas, ipsius temporis vetentur angustiis, ac prius quam, manante latius veneno, Majorum volumina vitiare conentur. Cæterum dilatatæ et inveteratæ hæreses nequaquam hac via aggrediendæ sunt, eo quod prolixo temporum tractu longa iis furandæ veritatis patuerit occasio. Atque ideo quascunque illas antiquiores, vel schismatum, vel hæreseon prophanitates, nullo modo nos oportet, nisi aut sola, si opus est, scripturarum auctoritate convincere, aut certe jam antiquitus universalibus sacerdotum Catholicorum Conciliis convictas damnatasque vitare."

The sagacity of Vincent has foreseen precisely such a case as we have to deal with in the inveterate errors and widespread corruptions of Rome; and the method he recommends is precisely that course which was taken by the Reformers, in bringing all the doctrines and practices of the Latin Church to the test of Scripture, and of the early and truly Catholic councils councils of the eastern as well as of the western fathers and of times when, the whole Church being pure and orthodox, the temptation to corrupt the Scriptures and records of the Church had not arisen on the one hand; nor would such wickedness, on the other hand, be tolerated among the people

"Antequam infalsarint vetustæ fidei regulas-priusquam, manante latius veneno, Majorum volumina vitiare conentur."

durer times tices;

The Roman Church has added the apocryphal books to the Scripture has appended its own contradictory dogmas to the orthodox creed has falsified the ancient rule of faith in many respects and has grown old in these schismatic practices; therefore, we must revert to earlier and than Romant And it is the consciousness of the advantage which this gives to us that makes them so anxious to sink the name Roman altogether, and call themselves only Catholics, and deny this to any other Christians, however numerous or orthodox. Down to the time of the Council of Trent, the Church of Rome, when speaking accurately or authoritatively, calls herself, not the Catholic, not even the Roman Catholic, but the Roman Church; and the converts, on admission, declare "I, with a firm faith, believe and profess all and every one of those things which are contained in that creed which the holy Roman Church maketh use of." And nothing else will be correct, because the Catholic creeds are the Apostles", Nicene and Athanasian; but the Roman is not one of these it is a subsequent addition. And if the Church of England is to be taunted with three hundred years of schism, because we have been so long separated from the Church of Rome, though we deny our separation from the Catholic Church-how much more aggravated is the schism of Rome, which has continued for near twelve hundred years, and is not merely separation from a particular, but from the Catholic Church? In judging us, they furnish us with words which far more severely condemn themselves.uswVE

The Roman schism, as the Bishop of Exeter calls it, evidently is a case which can only be met in the way in which the Reformers dealt with it-that is, by the last of Vincent's methods, by the authority of Scripture alone, where it sufficiently meets the case; and where further explanation is required, by consulting the creeds, canons, decrees, and recorded practices of the primitive Church-that portion of it which can alone be regarded as impartial and Catholic-as living before the disputed questions arose-before they had wrought this schism in the Church. And in such questions, as Vincent observes, we need not reserve our judgment until all the minor points are cleared up or settled; but, having determined the great principles, consider these as carrying with them all these subordinate questions as necessary consequences. "Quæ tamen antiqua sanctorum patrum consensio, non in omnibus divinæ legis, quæstiunculis, sed solum, vel certe præcipue in fidei regula, magno nobis studio, et investiganda est, et sequenda." We will, therefore, examine a few of the most conspicuous practices,

-a few of the most prominent and distinctive doctrines of the Roman Church.

In comparing the Anglican and Roman practices, we would begin with the highest act of worship, the holy communion, which the Romanists call by the absurd name of the sacrifice of the mass-absurd, we mean, in the conjunction of sacrifice with mass, if missa means dismissal; for it is the sacrifice of one thing, and the dismissal of another: and absurd in their common practice of allowing persons to be present as spectators, and not participants, since there is then no dismissal at all. In both the Anglican and Roman Churches this service is their highest, most solemn act of worship, and the place where it is performed the most holy place of the sanctuary. But while this is observable in both, it is much more marked in the Roman churches, by the place where the sacred elements are consecrated being regarded as an altar, and treated accordingly; while the place of consecration in the English churches is regarded as a holy table, and accordingly it is not made so conspicuous an object. The altar in every Roman church is placed aloft, as the centre to which everything tends, and on which the rays of light principally fall, that it may be the culminating point on which the eye should first and chiefly rest on entering the building, and during all the services. And so far the Reformers would have had no objection to such a distinction of the holy table. But they very well knew that, with this honouring of the place where the sacred elements were partaken-with the change which had been introduced in its material and form, and the place it occupied-and, above all, with the name altar, in the sense then attached to it, had crept in superstitions of the worst kind, carrying with them, as a necessary consequence, all the errors of the Church of Rome. And that, therefore, in the circumstances which they found, the name altar, and all these its accompaniments, must be by them resisted.

For the Reformers found, in the practices which were going on, that the altar had been put into the place of the cross of Christ; that the acts done thereon every day were asserted to be so many repetitions of the one sacrifice of the Son of God; and that, by necessary consequence, and as an inseparable conclusion, the altar itself, and all the material elements connected with it, had not only been abused to the worst purposes of superstition, but had become objects of gross palpable idolatry among the people. They would gladly have retained, in all honourable distinction, that place in the church where we celebrate the eucharistic commemoration of the past sacrifice

of Christ once for all, and where we find an ever recurring symbol of our oneness with Christ, and receive heavenly grace and strength, in virtue of his everliving mediation and intercession; but as a place for the repetition of that one sacrifice, or as adding in the least degree to his finished work-as derogating from his glory; or, above all, as a shrine of idolatry putting him wholly out of sight-they could not endure it. And they saw no sufficient cure of these evils, short of putting altars wholly away from their churches; since altars had become so identified with transubstantiation and the adoration of the host, that these last could not be effectually suppressed, or eradicated from the minds of the people, without wholly suppressing the former.

That the Church of England has no repugnance to the mere naming the holy table an altar, and in what sense she regards it as an altar indeed, will appear on referring to the service appointed for the consecration of churches; wherein, after "the lesson at the communion-table," part of which is taken from Hebrews xiii. 10, "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle;" and, "By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually;" and, "But to do good, and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased;" it immediately follows

"Then the bishop, arising from his chair, shall kneel before the altar, or communion-table, and say-Let us pray. O eternal God, who, in an infinite mercy to mankind, didst send thy holy Son to be a sacrifice for our sins, and the food of our souls, the author and finisher of our faith, and the great minister of eternal glory; who also now sits at thy right hand, and upon the heavenly altar perpetually presents thee the eternal sacrifice, a never ceasing-prayer, be present with thy servants, and accept us in the dedication of a ministerial altar, which we humbly have provided for the performance of this great ministry, and in imitation of Christ's eternal priesthood, according to our duty and his commandment," &c.

From this it is evident that they meant to limit the meaning of the words altar and sacrifice to that sense which they have in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews; and if they could have retained the words, without danger to the people, from the gross and literal meaning which the Romanists had attached to them, and consequent peril of idolatry, they would no doubt have used indifferently the words altar or table. But seeing that there was reasonable cause for fear, they used only the word table during the remainder of the service of consecration ; as, for similar reasons, altars had been removed from

VOL. XVII.-C