patriarchalis judicio finiri. In occidente porro post hanc synodum adversus disciplinam in ea sancitam reclamarunt Africani, reclamarunt et Galli, ut dicemus infra, imo ne ipsi quidem Itali illos in authoritatem admiserunt.-P. 110. At non ita se gessit Concilium Tridentinum, nam illud omnem prorsus judicandorum Episcoporum potestatem Episcopis aliis ademit, et Soli Pontifici Romano reservavit sessione vigesima quarta de reform. cap. v.

The correspondence of St. Augustine (of Hippo) and the African Bishops with Pope Zosimus, a. D. 418, shows that the Sardican Canons were unknown in Africa in the fifth century, and that Rome was not then acknowledged to have any such appellate jurisdiction as, on the ground of those Sardican Canons, it has since claimed. See Cabassutii Concilia, p. 236.

CHAP.

111.

CHAPTER III.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND INDEPENDENT OF ROME.

Mission of St. Augustine.

Q. 1. You have said that the Bishop of Rome exercised no jurisdiction in England during the first six centuries: but may it not be justly alleged that he might acquire Patriarchal authority over England by the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity by Augustine, sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the First, A. D. 596?

13. iii. 5. 7.

A. No. By conversion they became not Gre-1 Cor. i. 12, gory's nor Augustine's, but CHRIST'S. And further, Augustine, it is true, converted Ethelbert, king of the Cantii, and the inhabitants of part of his kingdom; but Bertha, his queen, was a Christian already; and there was a Christian Bishop, Liudhard, and a Christian Church in his

PART capital city, Canterbury, before Augustine's arII. rival; and even if Augustine had converted the whole Heptarchy, no such right could by that act have been acquired. If such right were to accrue by conversion, all Christian Churches, and Rome among them, would be subject to "the Mother of all Churches, the Church of Jerusalem," (above, ch. ii. ans. 4.)

1 BEDA, Hist. Eccles. i. 25.

2 Archbp. BRAMHALL, i. 266–268.

Q. 2. But might not the Pope obtain a Patriarchal authority by the ordination of St. Augustine, and of those who were ordained by him?

A. No. This plea, is under another form, the same as that of conversion; for that supposes the planting of a Church, and a Church supposes an ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; and, besides, as Britain had never been under the Bishop of Rome's jurisdiction, but had been always governed by her own Bishops, the assertion of such authority on the part of the Popes of Rome is an infraction of the Canon of the General Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431;) which Pope Gregory himself declared that he regarded, as he did the three other General Councils, with the highest veneration.o

1 S. IGNAT. ad Trall. χωρὶς τούτων Ἐκκλησία οὐ καλεῖται. See above, pt. i. ch. ix.

2 GREG. Mag. ii. p. 515. 632. Sicut quatuor Evangelii libros, sic quatuor Concilia suscipere et venerari me fateor, totâ devotione complector, integerrimâ approbatione custodio.

Q. 3. What is the tenor of that Ephesine Canon ?

A. It is expressed as follows: "Rheginus and his fellow Bishops of the province of CYPRUS, Zeno and Evagrius, having brought under our

III.

notice an innovation against the laws of the Church CHAP. and the Canons of the Holy Fathers, and affecting the liberty of all; This holy Synod, seeing that public disorders require greater remedies, inasmuch as they bring greater damage, decrees that, if no ancient custom has prevailed for the Bishop of Antioch to ordain in CYPRUS as the depositions made to us attest there has not-the Prelates of the Cyprian Churches shall, according to the decrees of the Holy Fathers and to ancient practice, exercise the right of ordaining in the said Church unmolested and inviolable. And the same rule shall be observed in all other dioceses and provinces whatsoever, so that no Bishop shall occupy another province which has not been subject to him from the beginning; and if he shall have made any such occupation or seizure, let him make restitution, lest the Canons of the Holy Fathers' be transgressed; and lest under pretext of sacerdocy the pride of power should creep in, and thus we should, by little and little, lose the liberty which the Liberator of all men, JESUS CHRIST, has purchased for us with His own blood." By this right, which is called the Jus CYPRIUM, the Church of England is independent of all foreign jurisdiction; and by the same authority the Pope, if he claim any such authority, is guilty of unwarrantable usurpation.

EPISTOLA Episcoporum Egypti ad Melet. circa A. D. 306. Routh, Reliq. Sacr. iii. p. 382. Lex et Patrum et Propatrum, constituta secundum Divinum et Ecclesiasticum ordinem, in alienis Parœciis non licere alicui Episcoporum ordinationes celebrare. Cp. ibid. p. 391, and vol. iv. p. iv.

2 CONCILIA Generalia, iii. p. 802, ed. Labbe, 1671. And this was again affirmed by the Council of Trullo (Conc. Quini-Sextum,) the Vth and VIth General Council, canon

39.

3 BINGHAM, Antiquities, bk. ii. ch. xviii. 3. And this

PART

II.

(jus Cyprium) was also the ancient liberty of the Britannic
Church before the coming of Austin the Monk, when the
seven British Bishops paid obedience to the Archbishop of
Caer-Leon, and acknowledged no superior in spirituals over
him as Dionothus, the learned Abbot of Bangor, told Austin
in the name of all the Britannic Churches; "that they owed
no other obedience to the Pope of Rome than they did to
every godly Christian, to love every one in his degree in
perfect charity: other obedience than this they knew none
due to him whom he named pope. But they were under the
government of the Bishop of Caer Leon-upon-Uske, who
was their overseer under God." See also BINGHAM, ix. ch.
i. 11, 12; and above, chap. i. at the end.

HAMMOND'S Works, Reply on Schism, ii. pp. 31. 93.
Abp. BRAMHALL, ii. p. 406.

Hoc

And this is confessed even by some Roman Catholic writers, as by BARNES Cath. Rom. Pacif. sect. 3, in the Appendix to Brown's Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum, p. 839. Insula Britannia gavisa est olim privilegio Cyprio. autem privilegim cum tempore Henrici Octavi totius Regni consensu fuerit restitutum, videtur pacis ergo retineri debere absque schismatis ullius notâ. See also ibid. p. 841, 842.

Q. 4. But is not the case of England very different from that of Cyprus, inasmuch as in Cyprus, at the time of the Council of Ephesus, there were Christian Bishops discharging their spiritual functions; whereas, when Augustine landed in England, the greater part of it had fallen into heathenism, and without him, it is alleged, there would have been no Church in this country; and did not Pope Gregory, therefore, it is asked, obtain a patriarchal jurisdiction over England by giving it what is called the grace of Holy Orders? Luke xix. 45. A. The grace of Holy Orders, like all other spiritual grace, is not to be dispensed for private advantage; "gratis datur, quia gratia vocatur;" "gratis accepistis, gratis date. It might also first be inquired, whether Augustine used all proper means to enter into and maintain communion with the existing British Bishops. Next it

Acts viii. 1820.

may be asked, whether, on the ground of a mere ceremonial difference concerning the time of observing Easter, and one or two similar matters, (such as had not interrupted the communion of St. Polycarp and Pope Anicetus, and concerning which St. Irenæus, in his letter to Pope Victor, had left both a warning and a rule,) he ought to have stood apart from them, and required a change of their customs as a condition of communion with Rome; and lastly, it may well be doubted whether, because the British Bishops were unwilling to renounce obedience to their own Primate, and to swear allegiance to the Bishop of Rome, the rights of these native Bishops and of the British Church ought to have been set at naught by him, and sacrificed. But even on the supposition that Augustine proceeded regularly in all this, yet the ordination of Augustine, and of those who were ordained by him, gave to the Bishop of Rome no patriarchal jurisdiction over the country in which Augustine was received.

5

IS. AUG. Tract. v. in S. Joann,

S. AMBROSE in S. Luc. xix. 40.

2 Augustine's conference with the British Bishops did not take place till near the close of his mission and life; and this, Bede says, was adjutorio Regis Ethelberti, lib. ii. 1.—Sir H. SPELMAN, in WILKINS' Concilia, i. 26, animadverts on the proceedings of Augustine in his intercourse with the British Bishops.

MASON, F. Vindiciae Eccl. Angl. lib. ii. cap. 5, says, Augustinus ipse nisi superbo et elato fuisset animo rogâsset ut suam in prædicando Anglis operam Britanni unà collocarent, non etiam ut sibi et domino suo obtemperarent: and again, Quicquid in Augustino resplendet boni, illud amplectimur atque laudamus; quicquid vero in eo reperitur mali, in ipsâ radice flaccescat. Sanctum paganos convertendi desiderium, et pia in Principem desideria, aureis literis inscribi merentur: at, ut cæremoniarum quas intulit redundantiam et nimiam fimbriæ pontificiæ dilationem silentio præteream, negari non potest quin erga Britannos superbè se gesserit atque superciliosè.

CHAP.

III.