8
quote them. The very next words of the writer contradict this. He proceeds (and to prevent the possibility of a mistake, he has printed these words in capitals),—
"But, alas! an union is impossible. Their communion is infected with heterodoxy: we are bound to flee it as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth; and by their claim of immutability in doctrine, cannot undo the sin they have committed. They cannot repent. Popery must be destroyed; it cannot be reformed."
Honesty required the insertion of these words; but they would have spoiled the jest, and so they are omitted.
Again, as a member, to all appearance, of our Church, and so having no prejudice against her, it is hardly probable that you should believe what a recent author[1] has well termed "The fable of the Nag's Head consecration." Bishop Bull calls it "a putid fable;" and even Lingard, who shrinks not from any plausible fable, discards it[2]. It suited, however, your assumed character, and so, in answer to the words—
"As to the fact of Apostolical succession, every link in the chain is known, from St. Peter to our present metropolitans."
You reply:
- ↑ Short's History of the Church of England, chap. viii. § 409.
"Strype has been very particular in recording every thing which was done on this occasion, from the most authentic documents, in order to refute the fable of the Nag's Head consecration, which was promulgated by the Roman Catholics about forty years after the event had taken place, when it might have been supposed that all direct testimony had been lost. The story is, that the bishops met at a tavern which bore that sign, and that when Oglethorp refused to consecrate them, Scory laid a Bible on each of their heads, and bade them rise up bishops. The tale has been refuted as often as brought forward."
The following also is the statement of the Calvinist Professor, John Prideaux. "The public acts are still extant in Mason and others, honestly brought forward, and they sufficiently annihilate this transparent lie of the calumniators. Archbishop Abbot caused them to be shown to certain priests, to convince them of the impudence of this fiction, that so they might at length cease from seducing so wickedly their credulous Proselites." (Controv. de Disciplina Ecclesiæ, p. 248. The Italics are his.)
- ↑ Hist. of England, Vol. vii. Note I.
