3. "I also profess that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all for every one; to wit, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony; and that they confer grace, and that of these, baptism, confirmation, and order cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. I also receive and admit the received ceremonies of the catholic church, used in the solemn administration of the aforesaid sacrament.

4. "I embrace and receive all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification. 5. "I profess, likewise, that in the mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the wine into the blood, which conversion the catholic church calls transubstantiation. I also confess, that under either kind alone, Christ is received whole and entire, and

a true sacrament.

6. "I constantly hold that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful.

7. "Likewise that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be honoured and invocated, and that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be had in veneration.

8. "I most firmly assert, that the images of Christ, of the mother of God, ever virgin, and also of other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration is to be given them.

9. "I also affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people.

10. "I acknowledge the holy, catholic, Apostolic, Roman church for the mother and mistress of all churches. And I promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ.

11. "I likewise undoubtedly receive and profess all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy council of Trent. And I condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the church has condemned, rejected, and anathematized.

"I, N. N., do at this present freely profess and sincerely hold this true catholic faith, without which no one can be saved; and I promise most constantly to retain and confess the same, entire and unviolated, with God's assistance, to the end of my life."

On this monstrous and unwarrantable document, the putting forth of which as a term of Christian communion is the most genuine act of schism that ever was perpetrated in Christendom, I will only make one observation. In the eleventh article there is required, as part of that "faith without which no one can be saved," an "undoubting reception and profession of all things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy council of Trent ;" and an equally unhesitating "anathematizing of all things and all heresies which the church has anathematized." Before any "unstable soul" is "beguiled' into making this profession, it is right he should know that the church of Rome reckons no less than twenty of these councils which she calls general; and that of these, the single council of Trent contains upwards of six score of anathemas alone; and, probably, about an equal number of definitions and declarations. All these form articles of negative or positive faith respectively, to which (unless the whole thing is an impious and sacrilegious mockery) the convert to Rome is solemnly and indissolubly pledged in the face of God and man. Possibly, this consideration, unless the fear of God is wholly banished from his mind, may induce him to pause before imprecating the Divine vengeance upon himself, by binding his soul, in a matter affecting his own and others' salvation, with an obligation, the extent of which he has (to speak generally) not even the means of ascertaining.

The impassable gulph which at present divides the churches of England and Rome, is occasioned by these terms of communion which the latter has appointed, requiring all who would receive communion at the hands of her ministers, to assent, unhesitatingly, as necessary to salvation, to certain positions in theology, which are not only not required by any other portion of the church of Christ, but were not for

many hundred years required by the Roman; and not only so, but are, either all or almost all, actually condemned in the writings of the ancient church. It becomes, therefore, a matter not devoid of interest to ascertain the date of the authoritative imposition of these terms of communion; that is to say, to ascertain, in respect to each of them, the date up to which communion was to be had in the church of Rome, without professing an assent to it; for we shall thus most clearly see on whom the charge and guilt of this schism rests, which has proved so prejudicial to the cause of Christianity.

It will be observed, that we are not at present concerned to inquire when first any of the positions in question was broached by individuals, for that is nothing to the purpose. As long as it was free for men to hold or to reject them without interruption of communion, no harm was done by the church, and no schism was created. The maintainers of them might, indeed, in the judgment of individuals, be liable to the censure which the apostle passed upon those who early adopted one of them—the worshipping of angels-whom he designates as "vainly puffed up with a fleshly mind;" yet, as the apostle did not require such persons, in consequence, to be separated from communion, the church is not to be censured for admitting them to it, notwithstanding the speculative errors in which they indulged. The church of Rome, in short, is not chargeable (strictly speaking) with these errors, unless, nor until she authoritatively adopted them. Now the authority which the members of the church of Rome admit to be sufficient for such compulsory adoption of doctrines, is, and is only, that of a general council. I speak under correction from the members of that church, but I believe I speak accurately, when I say, that until any dogma has received the sanction of a general council, no priest of that church (as such)

* The matter is here discussed on Roman grounds, and (which will serve more effectually to prove the insupportableness of their position) the Romans are allowed, for argument's sake, the advantage of their novel dogma, that a decree of what they call a general council is sufficient warrant to interrupt communion with those who do not receive it. Even allowing them this, it will be shewn how modern (comparatively) all interruptions of communion (founded on this principle) are between them and us. But, of course, in strictness of speech, this concession cannot be made; and it is certain that, with regard to the Deutero-Nicene council, which they consider general, the rejection of its decrees by the British, German, and Gallican churches, at the council of Frankfort, did not interrupt communion between these churches and those which acknowledged that council. And, therefore, in strictness of speech, the Roman peculiarity which causes the interruption of communion between the two churches, dates no higher than the practical adoption of the new principle respecting the authority of the, so called, general councils.

Perhaps it may not be unacceptable to the reader to be furnished with a list of the councils which the Roman writers consider "general." They are twenty in number. Of these only six are acknowledged to be of that character by the church of England. These are-1 Nice, A.D. 325. 2. Constantinople, A.D. 381. 3. Ephesus, A.D. 431. 4. Chalcedon, A.D. 451. 5. Constantinople, A.D. 553. 6. Constantinople, A.D. 680. This last is remarkable as being that which condemned Honorius, the Roman pontiff, of heresy, and ordered his books to be burned.

The others which are received by Rome as general are, 7. Second Nicene, A.D. 787. (This is the one whose decrees concerning image worship, though enforced by Pope Adrian, were despised, rejected, and condemned by the British, Gallican, and German bishops, at the great council at Frankfort, under Charlemagne, A.D. 794. A pretty fair criterion of the value of the council, and of the extent of the papal supremacy at that time.) 8. Constantinople, A.D. 869. 9. Lateran, A.D. 1123. 10. Lateran, A.D. 1139. 11. Lateran, A.D. 1179. 12. Lateran, A.D. 1215. 13. Lyons, A.d. 1274. 14. Lyons, A.D. 1274. Vienne, A.D. 1311. 16. Constance, A.D. 1414. 17. Basle, A.D. 1431. 18. Florence, A.D. 1438. 19. Lateran, A.D. 1512. 20. Trent, A.D. 1545.

15.

With regard to these councils it may be observed, that divines are not agreed as to what is necessary to constitute a general council. Some would make it turn upon the individuals present, whether they could fairly be deemed representatives of the general body of Christendom; others, more reasonably, would make it turn upon the general reception throughout Christendom of the decisions which it might put forth. But let either or both of these descriptions be admitted, it is certain that the, so called, general councils which Rome acknowledges do not answer to them. 1. The bishops present at them could not be considered as fair representatives of Christendom in general: for instance, at the Deutero-Nicene council there were no western bishops; at most of the others no eastern; at that of Trent neither eastern, nor any from a very large portion of the west. 2. Their decisions were not generally received, but only in certain parts of Christendom.

would be under compulsion to refuse the communion to any person who rejected such dogma; neither assent nor dissent in respect of it would interrupt communion. Let it be distinctly understood, that the church of England requires nothing as a term of communion which the church of Rome does not require also. She has recorded opinions contrary to some of the Roman doctrines, but does not require an assent to such opinions as a term of communion.

The additional terms of communion all lie at the door of Rome, having been put forward by her. We proceed, therefore, to point out in respect to some of the chief additional doctrines the date when first they were compulsorily adopted. It will be enough if we take some of the most important; to which class the following will probably be admitted by both sides to belong. Image worship-transubstantiation -supremacy of the Roman see-prayers in an unknown tongue-communion in one kind-purgatory-indulgences-priest's intention necessary for the validity of the sacraments canon of Scripture, and number of the sacraments.

Image Worship.-A. D. 787.

No one of the doctrines which distinguish the church of Rome from that of England has an earlier countenance by what they call a general council, than that of the worship of images, which was decreed at the (so called) general council of Nice, A.D. 787.

Thus

"The whole synod exclaimed, we kiss the holy images, let anathema be upon the head of those who do not. 串

As this is the earliest authority for any of their Roman peculiarities, and as the church of England at the time was remarkably concerned in it, it may not be out of place to mention the circumstances. The Emperor Charlemagne, who was very much offended at the decrees of the Nicene council, sent a copy of them into England. The learned Alcuin attacked them, and having produced much scriptural authority against them, transmitted the same to Charlemagne, in the name of the English bishops. Roger Hoveden, Simon of Durham, and Matthew of Westminster (as quoted by Collyert), mention the fact, and speak of the worship of images as being execrated by the whole church. Charlemagne, pursuing his hostility to the Nicene council, drew up four books against it, and transmitted them to Pope Adrian; who replied to them in an epistle" concerning images against those who impugn the Nicene synod," as the title is given, together with the epistle itself in the seventh volume of Labbee and Cossart's councils. The genuineness of these books is admitted by all the chief Roman writers. For the purpose of considering the subject more fully, Charlemagne assembled a great council of British, Gallican, German, and Italian bishops at Frankfort, at which two legates from the Bishop of Rome were present; where, after mature deliberation, the decrees of the soi-disant general council of Nice, notwithstanding Pope Adrian's countenance, were "rejected," "despised," and "condemned.”‡

It is curious to observe the desperate efforts which the Roman writers make to avoid swallowing this bitter pill. Some would assert that there was no such decision come to at Frankfort; but Sirmondus acknowledges that there is no question of its authenticity. Others, because the canon calls it the synod of Constantinople (it having been first assembled there, and afterwards removed to Nice,) would fain have it believed that some other synod was intended; but Baronius and Bellarmine both admit that it was the Nicenc. Others again would make out that the bishops at Frankfort were ignorant of the real nature of the Nicene decrees; an absurd supposition, as Binius|| argues, for the controversy between Adrian and Charlemagne, must have given both time and opportunity for the former to have set the latter right, if he had misapprehended them. Besides, there were two Roman legates present in the council at Frankfort, and they, at all events, could have given accurate information. No: the synod of Frankfort remains unshaken, a monument of a noble stand in defence of the ancient religion, in which the church of England had

Ταυτας δε τας τιμίας και σεπτας είκονας, καθώς προείρηται, τιμῶμεν και ἀσπαζόμεθα, και τιμητικως προσκυνουμεν.-Labbee & Cossart. Conc. vii. p. 321. † Collier's Eccles. Hist., vol. i. p. 139.

See the Second Canon of the Council of Frankfort, A.D. 794.

S Labbee Conc. vii. 1054.

|| Ibid. 1070.

an honourable share, occupying, a thousand years ago, the self-same ground we now maintain, of protesting against the Roman corruptions of the catholic faith.

The decrees of the Deutero-Nicene synod were again condemned at a numerous assembly of bishops, at Paris, A.D. 824; and had, in the meantime, been condemned by two successive synods of eastern bishops at Constantinople, a. d. 809 and 814.

Transubstantiation.—A.D. 1215.*

In the exposition of the catholic faith, contained in the first chapter of the fourth council of Lateran there are these words:" whose (Jesus Christ's) body and blood are truly contained under the species of bread and wine, which are changed by transubstantiation, the bread into the body, and the wine into the blood, through the Divine power," &c.

:

Prior to this time, as Tonstall, Bishop of Durham, informs us, a belief in this, however it might be entertained by individuals, was not deemed necessary for a Christian as he says, "concerning the manner in which that" (the sacramental change of the elements) " is effected, it were better to leave every person to his own conjecture, as it was free to do before the council of Lateran." When the error was first in set terms broached by some individuals, “ nuper non rite sentientibus," (as Raban Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, describes them,) the English and Irish divines were the foremost to oppose and to refute it; of whom we may mention Elfric among the former, and the famous John Scot Erigena among the latter.

Supremacy of the Roman See.-A.D. 1215.

The same council, the fourth Lateran, is likewise the first of those called general which recognized the authority of the Roman see as supreme over the church. In the fifth canon the Roman church is said to have "a principality of power over all others, as the mother and mistress of all Christian believers ;" and all other Patriarchs are required to receive their palls from the Roman pontiff. The style of Universal Pope was used by the Roman legates at the 8th general council of Constantinople, A.D. 869. But the whole proceedings of that council sufficiently shew what little deference was paid to it. There was no allusion to it in the three first Lateran

This has been here assigned as the date of the authoritative adoption of the doctrine of transubstantiation by the church of Rome, because many of her eminent writers have so considered it; but it must not be forgotten, what the learned Bishop Taylor tells us, (vol. x. p. 99,) that there is good reason to believe this to be a mistake, and that the doctrine of transubstantiation was not determined by the great Lateran Council. The word was first invented by Stephen, Bishop of Augustodunum, about the year 1100, or a little after, in his book, "De Sacramento Altaris," and the word did so please Pope Innocent III., that he inserted it into one of the seventy canons which he proposed to the Lateran Council, 1215, which canons they heard read, but determined nothing concerning them, as Matthew Paris, Platina, and Nauclerus witness. But they got reputation by being inserted by Gregory IX. into his "Decretals," which yet he did not in the name of the council, but of Innocent, to the council. But the first that ever published these canons, under the name of the Lateran Council, was Johannes Cochlæus, A.D. 1538. But the article was determined at Rome, thirty six years after that council, by a general council of fifty-four prelates, and no more."

+In provincial synods an earlier recognition was obtained. That of Pontyon, in France, A.D. 876, I believe to have been the first.-See 1st and 2nd Canons. There are certain Sardican canons, A.D. 347, to which the Roman writers refer, the 3rd and 5th of which permit appeals to Rome in certain cases; but there is much reason to doubt whether such canons were ever made. It is certain that when, in the fifth century, the Bishop of Rome tried to usurp upon the liberties of Carthage, and pretended these Sardican canons as a warrant, he alleged that they were (not Sardican, but) Nicene canons; and when the African bishops had inquired into the matter, they returned for answer, that the council of Nice had ́ determined the direct contrary to what was pretended, and that they knew no decree of the fathers authorizing the pope's claim. See the whole story in Johnson's Vade Mecum, vol. ii., pp. 162, 164, or Collyer's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. pp. 33-4. The letter of the African bishops to Pope Celestine, is in Labbee and Cossart's Councils, vol. ii., p. 1674-5.

I am not speaking of priority of rank. The bishops of Rome, which was the seat of the civil government, always had, on that account, a certain deference paid them, and the chief seats in the councils assigned to them; and, on the same account, when the empire was divided, and the seat of the Eastern settled at Constantinople, that see was raised to a patriarchate, and precedence given to it over the elder Patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch. The question befores us relates not to rank, but to authority, power, and jurisdiction.

VOL. VIII.-Dec. 1835.

4 N

councils; so that up to 1215, it was free for a man to think how he pleased concerning it. And not only were men free to deny the papal supremacy, they were bound to resist and reject it, in all places where it could not be proved to have been from the beginning. For so it was decreed by the third general council which was assembled at Ephesus, A.D. 431, "that none of the bishops, most beloved of God, do assume any other province that is not, and was not formerly, and from the beginning, subject to him, or those who were his predecessors. But if any have assumed any church that he be forced to restore it, that so the canons of the fathers be not transgressed, nor worldly pride be introduced under the mask of this sacred function. The holy general synod hath therefore decreed, that the rights of every province, formerly, and from the beginning, belonging to it, be preserved clear and inviolable." This decree was past on the occasion of an attempt by the patriarch of Antioch to usurp authority over the churches of the island of Cyprus, which had not been formerly under his jurisdiction, and is worthy of notice to the members of the churches of England and Ireland. For as it is beyond denial, from the conduct of the British and Irish bishops, that the churches in these islands knew no subjection to Rome up to the close of the sixth century, it is certain that every exercise of jurisdiction which the Bishop of Rome practised afterwards, for a time, in this kingdom, was in violation of the decrees of the catholic church, and that the churches here were merely acting in obedience to those decrees when, after having made trial of that cruel bondage, they were enabled to release themselves from it.

Prayers in a tongue not understood by the people.

After all that has been taught by the church of Rome, concerning the authority of general councils, an assent to them, as necessary to salvation, being made part of the conditions on which alone communion is to be had in that church, it will probably excite the surprise of the reader to find that the exclusive use of the Latin language in the celebration of the divine offices, to which the bishops and clergy of Rome so pertinaciously adhere, is not only not sanctioned by any one of these councils, but is against the positive enactment of the 12th general council (which is the fourth Lateran, A.D. 1215), the ninth canon of which is as follows-"Because in most places within the same city and diocese there is a mixture of people who have, under one faith, different rites and customs, we straitly enjoin that the bishops of such cities and dioceses provide proper persons to celebrate the divine offices, and administer the sacraments of the church, according to the diversities of rites and languages, instructing them both by word and by example."

Communion in one kind.-A.D. 1414.

The first synodical prohibition of the administration of the holy eucharist in both kinds, is to be found in the decrees of the council of Constance; the bishops assembled at which, though they admit "that Christ administered the holy sacrament to his disciples under both species, of bread and wine," yet made the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition, following up their admission by a decree to the following effect: namely, "that no presbyter, under pain of excommunication, communicate the people under both kinds."

This error early made its appearance in the church, but was condemned as soon as it came to light.

Thus Pope Gelasius, A.D. 494 ::-"We have found that some persons receive only a portion of the holy body, and abstain from the sacred blood, who without doubt ought either to receive the entire sacrament, or to be expelled from it entirely; because a division of one and the same mystery cannot take place without gross sacrilege."+

So also the council of Braga, A.D. 675:-" We have heard that some give to the people the bread of the eucharist dipped in the wine (intinctam eucharistiam) instead of the full communion which receives no sanction from the Gospel, where he gave to the apostles his body and his blood; for the giving of the bread is mentioned separately, and the giving of the cup is mentioned separately, and therefore all such error and presumption ought to cease." Which is enforced by sentence of suspension against any person so offending.

Purgatory.-A.D. 1438.

The first authoritative decree concerning purgatory is to be found in the council of Florence; at which council endeavours were made (and with momentary success)

* Sessio 13.

+ Epistle to Majoricus and John.