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Page 30
Whom shall we believe? King Edward III. himself, who, in the above
words, declares he is a staunch Roman Catholic, and an obedient son of
the Pope, ready to defend his rights against all, or the present
Bishop of London, who declares he was not?
There is one sentence in the King's letter which is especially worthy
of consideration, as it is so pregnant with meaning. We refer to the
following: knowing that "your Holiness presides over every creature,
_which to deny is heresy_".
You will observe that the King not only believes, but that he here
practically makes an explicit profession of faith in the spiritual
supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, the Popes. In fact, he not
only admits and confesses the Pope's supremacy to be true, which is
one thing, but he declares it to be a _revealed_ truth, taught by Our
Blessed Lord Himself, which is a great deal more. How does he do this?
Suffer us to explain.
To deny any truth of religion is wrong and sinful, but it is not
necessarily and always heretical. Heresy is not the denial of any kind
of truth: it is the denial only of a special form of truth. It is the
denial of those truths which have been taught by Jesus Christ and the
Apostles. But the King explicitly declares in his letter to the Holy
Father that to deny the Pope's spiritual supremacy over all is not
only wrong, not only sinful, but that it is to be guilty of the
specially horrible sin of heresy. His words are: "It is to maintain
heresy". Yet Anglicans still fondly cling to the delusion that the
Church in England in the time of Edward III. is in unbroken continuity
with the Church of England in the time of King Edward VII.!
But, to continue. It is interesting to note that the Pope, Benedict
XII., in due course replies to this letter from his "devout and humble
son," as Edward describes himself. He begins by expressing his
satisfaction that His "most dear Son in Christ King Edward of England"
should thus "follow the commendable footsteps of your progenitors,
Kings of England who," he goes on to say, "were famous for the fulness
of their devotion and faith towards God and the Holy Roman Church".
Will the present Bishop of London, we wonder, be good enough to
explain how Pope Benedict XII. could possibly tell a renowned King of
England that his progenitors, that is to say, the Kings of England who
had preceded him, were famous--mark the word--"_famous_ for the
_fulness_ of their devotion and faith towards God _and the Holy Roman
Church_," if they were all the while cut off from the Roman Church,
and denounced as heretics by that Church, if, in short, they were of
one and the same faith as the Anglicans are to-day? We pause for a
reply. Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in
a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when
they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But
really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly
be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of
its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black
to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them
in the eyes of honest men.
In conclusion, we are persuaded that some may feel curious or
interested to see and read King Edward's letter for themselves, and in
its entirety. Some may even wish to satisfy themselves that we are
stating actual facts, and not romancing; so let us inform any such
persons that the letter quoted belongs to the thirteenth year of King
Edward III.'s reign (An. Regni xiii. Ed. Rex III.). The original, if
not at the Vatican, should be either at the Record Office or at the
British Museum. The English version, of which we have made use, may be
found on pages 126-30 of _The History of Edward III._, by J. Barnes,
Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and published in 1688. Had this
history been composed in more modern times, this famous letter to Pope
Benedict would probably have been quietly suppressed or omitted.
But in 1688 the theory of continuity had not been invented by the
father of lies, to bolster up a lost cause, so the letter actually
appears in Barnes' History, to tell its own unvarnished tale: and to
bear its uncompromising testimony to the truth.
In the meanwhile, time wears on, and the end draws near when each man
will have to give an account of his life and conduct to the Supreme
Judge of the living and the dead. And it will go hard with us if we
turn our back upon the truth. God is speaking in this England of ours,
and shedding His light, and many are finding their way back to that
glorious Faith of which they were cruelly robbed at the "Reformation".
"To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts," but
lend an attentive ear to His invitation, and pray that you may have
courage enough to join hands once again with Bede, and Dunstan,
Anselm, and Thomas � Becket, and with Edward III. and his royal
predecessors, all faithful sons of St. Peter and the Holy See, and to
enter that Church which was built by God Incarnate on Peter, and upon
no other foundation; which still rests securely upon Peter, and which
(if there be any truth in God's promises) will continue to rest on
Peter till the end of time. "Upon this Rock (Peter) will I build My
Church, and the gates of hell (_i.e._, the powers of darkness) shall
never prevail against it."
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