Excerpt from Catholic Unity

If then, the principles laid down in the following tract be true, as I hold them to be unassailably true, the condition of the Christian world appears clearly defined. Our own Church, with that of England, and the numerous Churches of the East, including the Russian, are not in a state of heresy, because fully recognising the Catholic creed; are not in a state of schism, because, beside being under the sacerdotal institution of our Lord, they have not formally and officially refused each other's commu nion, though they have made additional municipal articles of faith of their own. The Bishop of Rome, with his adherents, are not heretical, for the same reason, nor fundamentally schismatical, because pos sessed of the same sacerdotal institution; but are yet schismatical in the sense of refusing communion with other churches possessed of the elements of truth and order. Of the promiscuous mass of Chris tians called Protestants, some are heretical and others not so, according as they do or do not embrace the Catholic creed; but all are fundamentally schis matical when defective in that order of the gospel established by our Lord as the foundation of his Church's unity. Whether the Church of Rome proper and its dependencies, have for ever barred the way to reducing the dogmas of the particular Coun cil of Trent, to the rank of municipal laws, or, Whether those dogmas be, susceptible 'of 'a less ob noxious and culpable interpretation than is found in practice, I will not undertake to determine. If the answer to these inquiries be unfavourable, then are the hopes of a reunion among Christian Churches, as remote from fulfilment, as they were three hun dred years ago. To a consummation so devoutly to be wished as that union, let me be allowed to say, that I consider the jealousy of power on the part of the Bishop of Rome, in other words the papal supre macy, as the chief, if not the only obstacle. For example, no Roman thinks it any sin to worship God without an image, or to pray in a tongue understood, or to forbear, at least in public, and in some places, the invocation of the saints, and the adoration of the host, or to give the cup to the laity. Nay, in Eng land, they came without scruple to our churches till they were afterwards forbid by a bull from the Pope. What hinders then'l - But if thoughts of the plan upon which, without the compromise of truth, (a compromise more fatal than schism itself, ) the union of Christian Churches might be efibcted, have cross ed the imagination of a comparatively retired stu dent, he is not ignorant of the restraints imposed on the expression of those thoughts, by the brevity of a preface, and the circumstances of the times. This at least may be claimed, that the views of Catholicity here presented, secure for our own branch of the Catholic Church, a position which would make her the centre of that union to which the eyes of all good men, and true of heart, must anxiously turn.

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