Peter, and upon those who should
succeed him in his sublime office, and who have received the Divine
Commission to rule over the entire flock, to hold the keys of the
kingdom of heaven, and to confirm their brethren to the end of time.
Besides, a careful study of the origin and genesis of the present
Anglican Establishment is scarcely calculated to predispose any one
particularly in its favour. It is not Catholics only who might be
thought biased upon such a point, but others also who feel this. In
fact, it is precisely impartial men, unaffected by any interest either
way, who most fully realise from what a very shady beginning the new
state of things arose. As Sir Osborne Morgan puts it, "Every student
of English history knows that, if a very bad king had not fallen in
love with a very pretty woman, and desired to get divorced from his
plain and elderly wife, and if he had not compelled a servile
Parliament to carry out his wishes, there would, in all human
probability, never have been an Established Church at all."
This gentleman is a Protestant, and the son of a Protestant clergyman,
so we may be quite sure that he harbours no special leanings towards
us, yet he speaks impartially as one who has not only read history,
but read it without coloured spectacles.
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