THE POSITION OF OUR CHURCH; OR, THE TRUE SENSE OF THE NON-SUPREMACY CLAUSE OF THE NEW OATH; THIS SENSE MOST ABSOLUTELY FALSIFIED BY THE ACT AND Common-Law and Parliamentary Ecclesiastical and BY THE REV. CATOR CHAMBERLAIN, M.A., Presbyter of the United Church of England and Ereland. LONDON: PARTRIDGE AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. To the Members, Clerical and Lay, of the United Church of England and Ireland, in Christ Jesus. MY BRETHREN IN CHRIST, The title-page invites your attention to facts and opinions which are as contrary to the prejudices of some zealous Protestants as they are opposite to the policy of the State. That I have acted upon them has been interpreted by such, as indicative of unsoundness of conscience, as betraying ministerial cowardice, as the preference of indolence and ease. He who would deliver exactly that protest which was originated by Cranmer, and adopted by such spiritual giants as Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, Rogers, and Bradford, might disregard the charge of scrupulosity: and, striving to do this at the pains of severe study, as well as at an outlay, not to mention the sacrifice of emolument, to his poverty very serious, he might be indifferent also to the imputation of indolence. Consciousness of this conduct creates a temptation to pass by such aspersions in silence, but it may be more prudent thus to notice and repel them. With regard to the imputation of ministerial faint-heartedness, I would be less anxious to vindicate myself than earnest in inviting others to engage in warfare. Conflict, iv severe conflict, certainly awaits those who adopt the positions developed by the following argument. In contrariety to the preceding objections my case has also been misrepresented as a plea for rushing to ruin headlong, as a plea for Papists, and as antagonistic to our Church. Not a doctrine unbecoming the duty of a Presbyter will be found in any part of the subject. The very spirit of the protest is resistance to those who would make our Church that which she most certainly ought not to be-a lifeless tool of the State; and, who "having made a covenant with death" would involve us in the same apostatical guilt. The facts produced plainly indicate that inattention will be ruingradual, certain, spiritual mortification in the Church; wrath, ever increasing wrath, upon the State. Out of this God will gather his elect; but neither Church, nor State, can emerge from it except through arduous conflict. It will be well if no plea of carnal policy, no love of ease, divert them from the necessary struggle. There lie before both, either ruin and death, or battle which shall surpass that of 1688. The present has been preceded by three other attempts to awaken interest in the case; and, it may tend to a clearer apprehension of this to trace briefly the character of each. The first was a published pamphlet; the second and third were printed but not published: their dates were respectively 1855-6-7. The scope of the first was to direct attention to the spiritual concessions of the Act of Emancipation it assumed the sense of the oath to be that which is now demonstrated; and, that this would be generally admitted: it was an argumentum ad hominem reply to some who wished to insert the words "de jure" in the oath: it proved that by the Act of '29 the Pope's power is exercised |