MR. JUSTICE COOPER AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 954, 22 October 1910, Page 10

MR. JUSTICE COOPER AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Sir,—ln his otherwise admirable judgment o:n tho : '.validity ■of ■ bequests, ■ for Masses for the dead, Mr. Justice Cooper makes a statement about the Church of England that cannot be defended from a historical point 'of viSw. '• According to your paper, the learned Judge is reported to have said that the Church of Bugland did not owe its origin to the statutes of Henry VIII. Tho arguments that ho used to support, his contention are simply beside the question. Of .course, there, was. a Church commonly, called "Ecolesia Ang-. lioana,'; or-Church of England, long befor the sorcolled Eeformation; and it was the national Church in tho sense that [ill the nation belonged to it,. and the Stato rcoognised no other.. But that it was the same Churoh as that by law established by the statutes of Henry VIII and Elizabeth is too.utterly absurd for serious consideration. The, very- article of Magna Charta referred to .by .Judge Cooper has a totally different -meaning from that which ho apparently considers it to have. It was insorted at tho, instance of Car- / dinal Langton and the Bishops, and meant that tho Church of England was to be free from the very thing from which it is now not\freo, namoly, the jurisdiction of the State Government. The Judge assumes that it meant freedom as a'national Church from the jurisdiction of tho Pope, but it was nothing of the kind. Its.subjection to the authority of the Popo is affirmed by countless pre-Eeformation acts and documents. This is frankly admitted by such Anglican historians. as Dr. Akitland Brewer, Dr. Qairdner, Easdall, 1 and Professor Tout, 'of Manchester. The last-named, referring to certain laws against the Papal prerogatives, explains:—"The anti-Papal laws of the fourteenth century (the same referred, to by Judge Cooper) were the acts of'the-secular, and not of tho ecclesiastical power." And, again, lie says: "Few figments have less historical basis than-the notion that there was an anti-Papal Anglican Church in the days of the Edwards." (Political History of England 111, 379.) And from the time of St. Augustine, tho first Archbishop of Canterbury, until Henry. VIII passed his laws, every Archbishop in England, before being ablo to exercise any. act of jurisdiction had to receive tho pallium (which was the sign of his authority in tho Church) from tho l'ope. This is a solid and unshakable historic fact. The very doctrine which formed the subject of the case before Mr. Justice Cooper, and which ho so well explained from the Catholic point of view, viz., tliat the Sacrifice of tho Mass was, until the Reformation, the central dogma of tho Church of England. And so effectively did the Parliament of, tho 'Tudor 1 Sovereigns wish to show that they wero founding an entirely new Church by law established that they 'not' only did away with the supremacy of the Popo in that new Church, but they legislated to destroy tho most essential act of its liturgical worship by making bequests for tho saying of Masses legally invalid. If that did not change the essential constitution of an institution such as a Church, I ask what could do so. Tho Church of England by law established dates as a Church-only from, the reigns of Henrv VIII, Edward VI,. and. Elizabeth. The Church of England up to that time was an essentially different institution; different in its government, in tho person in whom supreme jurisdiction was vested; totally different in its doctrines and in' its worship and liturgy—in fact, it was identical with the' Church that is to-day known as tho Catholic. Church in England, whoso head is the Archbishop of Westminster, who, in turn, is subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope, just as St. Augustine, Cardinal Langton,

ami evorv other Archbishop in Enfiland was until the statutes of Henry VIII's time. It is a .historical puzzle to me how an institution which was changcd and.transformed by an English Parliament in its lock, stock, and barrel—in other words, in its govornmont, belief, and worship—can still 1)0 tlio samo identical body as it was before, especially when the Bishops and a largo number of adherents of the old Church protested against the new establishment, and'claimed as their successors and descendants still claim that they were tlio original Church of England. Lot anyono seeking for information 'on this subject .read P. W. .Maitland's "Roman Canon Law," or any of tlio non-Catholic historians I ha've above quoted, and ho mill find abundant proofs in support of every statement I. am making.—l 'am, : - " PRE-KEFORMATION. Wellington, October 18, 1910.