ECCLESIASTICAL MEDDLING AND MUDDLING.
[To THB EDITOR or TEE " SPECTATOR."3 Sra,—Your correspondent, "A Roman Catholic," is in error when he says that there is a canon of 1604 "to the effect that the Church of England, in reforming herself, had no intention of dictating to the Churches of France, Spain, Italy," drc. What the canon (30) says, is this :—" So far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, &c., in all things which they held and prao- tified, that it cloth with reverence retain those ceremonies, which do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men; and only departed from them in those particular points, wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their
antient integrity, and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders." Everybody is pretty well agreed that, in the existing condition of Christendom, it is better that each local Church should attend to its own affairs rather than to those of its neighbours.
If the Patriarch of Rome had confined himself to his own Patriarchate, which, according to all history (as read even by Du Pin and Rnffinus, both Romanists), did not include Britain, much trouble would have been saved. But the question which must be faced is this,—supposing Christians in Italy, or in Spain, or in Germany, are refused communion unless they will profess belief in Papal infallibility and the immaculate concep- tion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and other Roman additions to the Catholic faith, are the Anglican Bishops, when appealed to, justified in declining to interfere in the matter ? Now, upon this point there is the clearest Catholic tradition to guide us. Bingham, Book ii., chap. 5, quotes St. Augustin, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and others, to the effect that every Bishop is a Bishop of the Universal Church; so that if any Bishop were guilty of heresy, or began to lay waste or tear the flock of Christ, all other Bishops are bound to come to the rescue.
No doubt this should be done with all humility, and with the least possible breach of charity ; but, after all, the duty is laid upon the Episcopate, as the executive of the Church, to main- tain the Faith once for all delivered, and to see that Christians who acknowledge that Faith, are not deprived of sacraments which Christ left for them, because they refuse to accept some- thing else which never formed part of it, and is in direct con- tradiction to Catholic teaching.—I am, Sir, &c.,
G. R. PORTAL.
[*** This correspondence must end here.—En. Spectator.]
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