one has to establish
in order to justify the Roman Church, and to prove that the English and the
Eastern are in Schism, is, that Roman doctrine, as stated by Bellarmine,
which is really the key-stone of the whole system, that "Bishops succeed
not properly to the Apostles," "for they have no part of the true apostolic
authority," but that "all ordinary jurisdiction of Bishops descends
immediately from the Pope," and that "the Pope has, full and entire, that
power which Christ left on the earth for the good of the Church."[1] Let
this be proved on the testimony of the first six centuries, and if it be
true, nothing can be more easy than to prove it, as the contradictory of it
is attempted to be proved in the following pages, and all controversy will
be at an end. We claim that it should be proved, for even De Maistre, who
has put forward this theory with the least compromise, declares, "There is
nothing new in the Church, and never will she believe save what she has
always believed."[2]

* * * * *

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CLEARED FROM
THE CHARGE OF SCHISM.

The course of events, for some time past, has been such as to force upon
the most faithful sons of the Church of England the consideration of
questions which they would rather have left alone, as long ago settled; for
the nature of these questions is such, not to speak of their intricacy and
painfulness, as almost to compel the student to place himself, as it were,
_ab extra_ to that community, which he would rather regard with the
unreasoning and unhesitating instinct of filial affection. One of these
questions, perhaps the first which directly meets and encounters him, is
the charge of Schism brought against the Church of England on account of
the events of the sixteenth century, and her actual state of separation
from the Latin communion, which has been their result. Time was, and that
not long since, when it might have been thought a sort of treason for one
who ministers at the altars of the Church of England, and receives by her
instrumentality the gift of Life, so much as to entertain the thought,
whether there was a flaw in the commission of his spiritual mother, a flaw
which, reducing her to the condition of a sect, would invalidate his own
sonship. And certainly the treatment of such a question must be most
painful to any one, who desires to be obedient and dutiful, and therefore
to be at peace. How can it be otherwise, when, i