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Tract Xc on Certain Passages in the XXXIX Articles
Tract Xc on Certain Passages in the XXXIX Articles Author:John Henry Newman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 80 § 12.—The Bishop of Rome. Article xxxviii.—"The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England." By "hath" is meant "ought to have," as... more » the Article in the 36th Canon and the Oath of Supremacy show, in which the same doctrine is drawn out more at length. " No foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to haw, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm." This is the profession which every one must in consistency make, who does not join the Roman Church. If the Bishop of Rome has jurisdiction and authority here, why do we not acknowledge it, and submit to him ? To say then the above words, is nothing more or less than to say " I am not a Roman Catholic;" and whatever reasons there are against saying them, are so far reasons against remaining in the English Church. They are a mere enunciation of the principle of Anglicanism. Anglicans maintain that the supremacy of the Pope is not directly from revelation, but an event in Providence. All things may be undone by the agents and causes by which they are done. What revelation gives, revelation takes away; what Providence gives, Providence takes away. God ordained by miracle, He reversed by miracle, the Jewish election; He promoted in the way of Providence, and He cast down by the same way, the Roman empire. " The powers that be, are ordained of God," while they be, and have a claim on our obedience. When they cease to be, they cease to have a claim. They cease to be, when God removes them. He may be considered to remove them when He undoes what He had done. The Jewish election did not cease to be, when the Jews went into captivity: this was an event in Providence; and what miracle had ordained, it was miracle that...« less