The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism: Upon Testimonies of Councils and Fathers of the first six centuriesAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism: Upon Testimonies of Councils and Fathers of the first six centuries
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Continuity of the church -- Anglican Communion; Episcopacy -- History of Doctrines; Papacy -- History -- To 1309
of the Roman See, but to the testimony of the whole Church spread
everywhere, not mentioning that See pre-eminently; or when he does mention
"the See of Peter, in which Anastasius now sits," mentioning likewise "the
See of James, in which John now sits:"--all these were nothing more, at the
same time, than the Pope's delegates, and received through him their
jurisdiction.
Can a claim be true which is driven to shifts such as this for its
maintenance? Or can the truth of Christianity and the unity of the Church
rest upon a falsehood? Is infidelity itself in such "a hopeful
position,"[164] as regards Christianity, that it is really come to this,
that we must either receive a plain and manifest usurpation, or be cast out
of the house and kingdom of God? That we must reject the witness and
history of the first six hundred years of the Church's life on the one
hand, or be plunged into the abyss of infidelity on the other? If it be
true that the Pope is Monarch of the Church, which is the present Papal
theory, the Church of England is in schism. If it be not true, she is at
least clear of that fatal mark. All that is required for her position is
the maintenance of that Nicene Constitution which we have heard St. Leo
solemnly declare was to last to the end of the world, viz. that every
province of the Church be governed by its own Bishops under its own
Metropolitan. And who then but will desire that the successor of St. Peter
should hold St. Peter's place? Will the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the
Archbishop of Moscow, or the Primate of Canterbury, so much as think of
assuming it? Be this our answer when we are accused of not really holding
that article of the Creed "one Catholic and Apostolic Church." Let the
Bishop of Rome require of us that honour and power which he possessed at
the Synod of Chalcedon, _that, and not a totally different one under the
same name_, and we shall be in schism when we do not yield it. At present
we have no farther separated from him than to fall back on the constitution
of the Church of the Martyrs and the Fathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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