Page:Elizabeth Elstob - An English-Saxon homily on the birth-day of St. Gregory.djvu/49

  see why the Bishops might not justly claim it, and enjoy it: and yet St. Augustine''’s Reputation be safe, and without Blemish. And yet, it may be made a Question; how the Britains, in refusing to assist in the Saxon Conversion, can be defended: Since two Sister-Churches, independent upon each other, in point of Jurisdiction, might, may I not say ought, to have communicated with each other, in so good a Work. But what is it since the Reformation, that has so much enflam'd this Controversy? Is it not the fear that the Church of Rome, wou'd hereupon have some Advantage of Supremacy? is it not that having at any time been related or indebted to that Church, must render us guilty of those Corruptions, with which, in these latter Ages, it has been polluted? And yet surely, there has been a time, when it was no Shame to be thus related: when St. Peter and St. Gregory held the Chair, it was worth owning an Acquaintance with it. And it had been well if some of our Writers, since the Reformation, had consider'd; that none of those intolerable Corruptions, that hinder our Communion with the present Church of Rome, were imported by St. Gregory and his Missioners; nor confequently cou'd the Primitive Saxon Church derive them from it.''

''I am willing to believe, that the Design of those Writers, was to do Honour to the Reformation: which needed not to be set off with such false Ornaments, and at so great Expence. Some better''