Shepperton Manor (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1845 Excerpt: ... same time sent a spirit of discord on the Romish Church? was She not as a fold without a shepherd 1 nay, was it not publicly asserted that a shepherd was not necessary to Her existence? And was it not notorious that the reason for this assertion was neither more nor less than the fear that if the English Church should possess a bishop, it might aspire to the same independence of Rome as the Gallican had done? None of these facts did Father Francis deny: with Courayer, De Sancta Clara, and others, he, although at that time standing almost alone in his opinions, held our Succession to be good. He had often lamented the disorders of his own Church: he could not therefore deny them now; and he was too honest to wish to do so. He dwelt principally on the necessity of visible Communion with the See of Rome to the essence of a Church: and argued, and in this respect well, that nothing could be more delusive than the conclusions drawn with respect to a body from the piety and zeal of individual members within that body. It might, he said, have appeared to one who lived at the time when Tyre was peaceful and flourishing, and the ten tribes tor by the most bloody contentions, that the former was the state of God's people, the latter aliens from His favour: we, who look back on the history of these two nations, know differently. He dwelt much i on the sins of the English Reformation, especially the destruction of the religious houses, and the desecration of relics; he pointed also to the Puritanism infecting the larger cities and towns, and allying itself closely with the Establishment. "For," he said, "although certain men whom I scruple not to call great and good, do say that with the Puritans they have neither lot nor part, yet doth not the voice of mankind, yea, d...