Annunciation, of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost, of All Saints, St. John Baptist, SS. Peter, James, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude, Andrew, Thomas, and Matthias, as well as all the Fridays in the year to be observed as days of abstinence, and the forty days of Lent, the Ember and Rogation days to be hallowed both by fasting and abstinence, so long will honest men be ashamed of those Anglicans who either violate these fasts or days of abstinence, or turn to ridicule the Catholic for observing that which, by his religion, he is bid to perform. Suffice it to say, that this contradiction of belief and practice, of prayer-book and dinner-book, has long been censured, and has extorted from the pens of Protestant writers, unwilling avowals against the Liturgy which they had solemnly pledged themselves to receive and follow.

Such is the history of, and such the dissatisfaction felt in respect to, the Liturgy. The Liturgies followed the Articles, or went along with them, in all their changes; and hence, the inference drawn from the alterations of the latter, are applicable too here. All is human in the system. Unlike the light of God's creation, man's imitation was subjected to unruled variations, and darkness was the result. Each generation would be creative. It would not believe that the past was better than the present; that the previous race of men was more enlightened, more sincere, more God-helped, than that actually existing: it rather thought that the present was better than the past,-more spiritualized, more assisted, because more experienced, and therefore it scrupled not to undo, or to take from, or to enlarge the works of those of former times. The Roman forum is a ruin, and Edom a wilderness; Jerusalem has fallen, and the glory

of Greece is as a thing that was, but which is not: why suppose that a Liturgy is imperishable, or that that which was once in honor may not become despicable? Change, then, change: let us build a tower, and make unto ourselves a great name. So, change after change took place; and for more than a century, articles and rituals were the toys with which sovereigns loved to play, and over which they were proud to gain the mastery. Those in power seemed to say to those who were ambitious of rank and distinction in Church and State: fall down and adore us and we will give you......and they adored the royal teacher of the day, hoping for the reward. The compromise was made. Faith was made the slave of interest: it was an item in a worldly bargain; and the world of soul and thought became agitated by a moral earthquake, more violent, more enduring and more destructive, than any convulsion which this material globe has ever had to experience.

Before quitting the subject of the Liturgies, I would wish to draw the reader's attention to the following observation. It is a common thing to hear Protestants praising the beauty of our Liturgy in the same unmeasured terms as they adopt when extolling the perfection of our cathedrals. The Liturgy is said to be only inferior to the Sacred Scripture; it has its faults-this is allowed-but these faults are as few as can be pointed out in any human composition. Now, I would wish it to be remembered, that the Liturgy is substantially of Catholic origin. From our Missals and Breviary has been derived whatever of beauty or of excellence is to be found in the composition of that work. To advert to the Collects, these, as Palmer observes, "have been read in the Liturgies of the Church

can,

of (in ?) England from the most remote period. Not only do we find them in the Liturgies of the English Church, before the Reformation, but in those of the Anglo-Saxon Church long before the Conquest. Most of these Collects in fact, be traced to the very beginning of the AngloSaxon Church; and by that Church they were originally derived from the Liturgy of the Roman patriarchate in primitive times. We are thus enabled to trace them back, in many instances, to the fifth century. So that our Collects, with some exceptions, have been used for 1400 years in the Church of God; and their origin lies in the distant glory of primitive Christianity."1 Similar observations might be made in reference to the Gloria, Credo, Preface, &c., and even to the order of the service constantly retained down to the unfortunate period, when the foreign reformers influenced the leaders of the English Reformation, to substitute a second ritual in place of the first Prayerbook published under the auspices of Edward VI. To Catholicity, Protestantism is indebted for the beauties of the English Liturgy. It is as much indebted to Catholicity for these, as for those gorgeous and stupendous fabrics, cathedrals and monastic churches, which still, after ages of ruin and destruction, stud the English soil. To be sure, the sacrifice and the altar are banished from the Liturgy, as they have been from the temple; and many an excrescence and anomaly spoils the nearly inspired composition, as does many a modern window, or table, or pew, spoil the gothic sublimity of the material structure. But these are innovations, alterations; for these, Catholicity is not responsible. It is responsible

1 Palmer, Orig. Liturg., vol. ii, 39, 40.

2 For details I refer the reader to the work just cited.

only for what is ancient, venerable, true, elevating; for that, through and by which the spirits of the primitive and medieval saints magnified their God and Saviour: it has nothing to do with the novel, the uncatholic; with that, in a word, which makes a man a member of an Anglican, whilst it tears him away from the Catholic Church. These few remarks, on a subject which admits of almost any extent of development, have been made for one object: to do that justice to those who have gone before us, which has been well expressed in one brief sentence-REDDE CUIQUE SUUM.

138

Chapter the Sixth.

On the Royal Supremacy.

CONTENTS.

At the accession of Henry, not the King, but the Pope was head of the English Church. His power considered to be divine, and as such defended by Henry himself.—Henry's work—The title conferred on him in consequence. Henry abandons the Pope, and makes himself head of the Church. His conduct, and that of the Clergy, during the change.Awful extent of the royal assumption-Secured to him by Acts of Parliament, by oaths, &c.—Subserviency of the Clergy, and their subsequent abject condition.-More and Fisher die in defence of the Papal Supremacy.-Edward's claims to and exercise of the Supremacy. -Remonstrance of the Clergy.—Indignation of the German and Helvetic Reformers. Elizabeth refuses the title of Head, but assumes that of Governor of the Church, with all the prerogatives of the Supremacy.-Remarks on the change in the title, by the Anglicans and others. Opposition of the Catholic Clergy to Elizabeth's claims to the Supremacy. Results.-The Supremacy ever since claimed by and allowed to our Sovereigns by Parliament.-Grounds raised for the maintenance of the Supremacy proved to be untenable.-Consequences to England's Christianity flowing from the assumed Supremacy.— Folly of the recent address made to the Queen, relative to the Independence of the Church in England. The scriptural proof in favour of the Royal Supremacy, false as a fact, and absurd as an argument.— No mission in the Anglican Church.—The marks of the Church have disappeared here ever since a King was substituted for the Pope.

WHEN the founder of the Anglican Reformation ascended the English throne, he found England united through