IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 12.8 ■ 45 «^ m. '""^ ii^ IIIIIM 1^ 1^ IM 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 -^ 6" - ► V] ""b^ V «. i? :\ iV ^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The mstitute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checited below. [Zl Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ D D D D D D Couverture endommagde Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaur^e et/ou peiliculde □ Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque I I Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or blacit)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound V ith other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La reliure serrde peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge int6rieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se puut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6td filmies. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppl^mentaires: L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6td possible de se procurer. Les ddtaiis de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reprnduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage sont indiq^^s ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Pages restored and/oi Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes Pages discoloured, stained or foxe( Pages ddcolordes, tachet^es ou piqu6es I I Pages damaged/ I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ I ^ Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ □ Pagen detached/ Pagt^s d<§tach6es I n/^howthi.ough/ I — i3 Transpa'^ence I I Quality of print varies/ D D Qualitd in6gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material/ Comprend du materiel supplementaire Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6X6 filmt&es 6 nouveau de fapon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 10X 14X 18X 22X 26X 30X y 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Library of the Public Archives of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grAce A la gAnArosit6 de: La bibliothdque des Archives publiques du Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in Iteeping with the filming contract specifications. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the bacl( cover when appropriate. All other original copies am filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol ~^ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol Y (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Les image? eyivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la n«iS^et& de l'exemplaire f llmA, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimis sont filmis en commen^ant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par ie second plat, salon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenfant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symboie — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 A partir de Tangle supirieur gauche, de gauche k droits, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les daagrammes suivants lllustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ' "I n'iMiiiiii»»_i ■' FATHER MURPHY'S REPLY ■'"■■■■>,'. -v •; TO THK ~,.-^\ WITNESS CORRESPONDENCE, EVOKED HY HIS UKFKNTK OF • H- .'. K .,■•'- PAPAL J N FALLl BI LI LY -A. LKlCTtJE/E '-^f •■ ''■..■■^■5 DKLIVKKKl) IN THK .'"---^'is: \r '• J MEOIIANICS' HALL, i •■ -• jVlONDAYj pCTOBER IS^^j 1875, ;: 'P '' - D. & J. SADLIEIi & Co., ' !■.-;-/' ^^ ' '4:;y__''f^ 27 5 NoTUE Damk Stkeet, i "^^ .''^^'^^^ ,-:•■- .-V ■';■'":: j'. Montreal. ■:*,.-.., n» ■•:■..;--■ ;v''A:7;-. /'■ i^f; ■>:■. ♦'■■■ . k.v : ''f . »' ■%■< »_" A'; ' " " ^ ^' h, ' '" CANADA PUBLIC ARCHIVES ARCHIVES PUBLIQUES GvwfcTTR Pw>itii*g*Hj6i>ss;, Mo»'r»«Ai'; T ■"•.>.■ ''m7^<- ■:■■' •*■■ <■« d ;ttr ' i/;.> ii il ■^ 1 1 I •n I ! ^ -^rA > '.i-*." "i*¥^*^}^r:' ■■',.(&s*r- ••>v fMf/ iX>."A^ .V,^./--; ;i- ■ . ..' '■ .'-fc- ■ f ^' f ^, > -/x FATHER MURPHfe REPL^^y TO THE WITNESS CORRESPONDENCE, EVOKED BY HIS DEFENCE OP Pi^PAL INFALLIBILITY J^ IjE]OTTJE,E3 DELrV'ERED IN THE MECHANICS' HALL, yVlONDAY, pCTOBER IS™, 1875. D. & J. SADLIER & Co., 275 Notre Dame Strbbt, MONTREAL. ■iMiriid PREFACE. The present Lecture is the complement, but only the partial complement, of the lecture which, in last January, I delivered on Papal Infallibility. The method of treatment which I adopt for the entire subject is the ordinary method of polemical writers. My first step is to prove, by positive arguments, the doctrine which I defend ; my second step is to answer such objections as have been urged, whether against the validity of my arguments or against the truth of my doctrine. The first step I took on the 14th of January, the second step I took on the 18th of October. I used my best diligence to collect what was written against me. Doubtless I have had cr'tica who have escaped my notice. Doubt- less, too, to some adverse criticisms I have not given. a specific reply. But I have done as mucli as I could hope to do within the necessary limits of a single lecturr And I believe that no objection has been raised against Papal Infallibility, whereof the solution, or the prin^ ciple of solution, is not found in the following pages. I beg to remind my critics of the exact state of our controversy now. My arguments of last January have, for the most part, been left unanswered. Where an answer has been attempted, the present pamphlet shows that the attempt, to say the least, was a failure. I have, therefore, a right to make the following demand : -If any critic believe my defence of Papal Infallibility unsuccessful, let him refute my arguments; let him refute them one by one; when he conceives that he has achieved their refutation, let him, before sending it to the printer, read the refutation for some shrewd and sensible friend. If the friend counsel printing, let the refuta- tion appear. If the friend consider the refutation iasuflScient, then, since Art 18 long, and life is fleeting, let the press and the public and myself, the humble servant of the public, be spared. JAMES J. MURPHY. St. Bridget's, Montreal, October 19th, 1875. s BJiVfj^ LECTURE. Ladies and Gentlemen, — In the commencement of the present year, I delivered, from this platform, a lecture on Papal Infallibility. Therein I under took to prove that, no matter what its difficulties, that doctrine is true. The arguments which I submitted to ray audience were of two kinds : first, arguments drawn directly from the Bible ; secondly, arguments drawn indirectly from the Bible, and di- rectly from the known ways of God in human society. As a specimen of the first class I recall the following : Christ states that He will build His Church upon a certain man, whom He calls its Eock- Foundation ; therefore He did so build it. He states, fur- ther, that against that Church the Gates of Hell (Sin and Error) will never prevail ; therefore, against her, Sin and Error do not pre- vail. But if they prevailed against her Eock-Foundation, they would prevail against herself; therefore they never do prevail against her Rock-Foundation. But the Church, Christ states, is to endure to the end of the world ; therefore her Rock-Foundation endures to the end of the world. Therefore both the Church and her Rock-Foundation are existing now. Therefore, at this very moment, there is some Church of Christ, with some man as her Rock- Foundation, and against neither that Church nor that man does Error prevail. But the man against whom Error does not prevail is infalli- ble. Therefore, at this very moment, there is some man, in the Church, a religious teacher, a Eock-Foundation to the Church, and that man is infallible. But no man in the Church even claims to be so — except the Pope. Therefore the Pope is that man, and is infallible. As a specimen of my second class of argument, I men- tion this : If, in the world, God be Master and men be servants — if to live in all things precisely as God desires be men's one duty, then God must have given unto men some means of knowing, and of knowing for a certainty, and of knowing with facility, what they are, by His will, to believe, and what they are, by His will, to do. Actual belief and actual work must be men's business, and not » doubt and debating about belief and work. Thorcforo God must have left some agent that can put a satisfactory end to religious doubt and religious debating. But to bo able to do so, such au agent must itself be not doubtful and not debatable — that is. it must be, and must be admitted to be, in religious matters, certain final, and infallible. Therefore there must be, in the doubt-ng and debating world of to-day, some infallible agent for bringing religious doubts and religious debatings to an end. But such an agent, existing now, must be not alone infalliblo, but exactly suited to tho special exigences of the time. But the present time requires that the agent appointed to solve religious doubt and terminate religious debating, along with being certain, final and infallible, be also free of action, easy of approach, rapid of decision. But no such agent even claims to exist except the Pope ; therefore the Pope is that agent and is infallible. — These, ladies and gentlemen, are but two specimen skeletons to which your memories or your intelligences must give flesh and color and life. I present them here solely to define the position which I took up last January. The position was this : Prom the Bible, by lour arguments, from the natuie of God's Church and of human society, by three arguments, 1 proved the Papal Infallibility. The proof being concluded, I left both my thesis and my reasonings to the criticism of all comers, with a promise that, to all comers, I would, when I found it interesting, give a reply. I am going to fulfil that promise now. I shall do so with all due courtesy, drawing no blood, or only so much as is needed to evidence that I do not always fight with foils. In solving all such difficulties as have been presented by the amiiteur theologians ot Montreal, it is not, I am grieved to say, necessary to be very wise. Generally their objections prove the one fact only : that the objectors do not know what really is Papal Infallibility and what precisely is its real sphere. To myself it was sorely disappointing to discover that my lecture had not been more efiective, at least in making our doctrine uomistakeable. I had hoped that clearness of thought and precision of statement were among those few literary virtues which I have been able to acquire ; and I knew that in my lecture I had taken some trouble to be precise and clear. But the Witness correspondence evoked by my lecture showed that my labor had been, for many, unproductive. By the Pope's Infallibility we are thought to mean, that the Pope cannot sin ; that he cannot make a mistake in any shape or in any department ; that he has all knowledge and unlimited ability ; that. T as a certain rovcrond lecturer told his distinguished hearers, tto " believe the Pope a man equal to God in power and wisdom and " intelligence." Now, firs*, of all, the Pope's Infallibility has noihing to do with the Pope's personal morals. Secondly, his Infallibility does not make him a, whit more learned or more wise than lie was before. Thirdly, his Infallibility keeps him from error in ono department and one department only, the department, namely, of Itevealed Truth. Fourthly, even in that departmen*, the Pope's Infallibility is not the result of any permanent faculty in his soul, but is the result of an external, active, divine assist- ance. Fifthly, that assistance which makes the Pope's pronounce- ment infallible, is given (in so far as the Vatican Council has defined) in one case only, and that is when the Pope formally and expressly teaches Revealed Doctrine to the Universal Church, These limitations being made, it will bo at once apparent that, rot often, comparatively speaking, does the Pope's privilege of inenancy come into play. It is not often, as a matter of fact, that he, hv mally and expressly, teaches Eevealed Doctrine to the Chi h at large ; and, in all cases where he does not formally aad cAprei- ;ly teach Eevealed D^r ' rine to the Church at large, the Vatloan Council lonves him as if ho never were made infallible. Taki; an illustration; Suppose it weij this evening that the Pope sat do«u to frame into a dogma the revealed doctrine ol the l:nmacula>'.o Conception. In teaching that dogma to the Universal Church ho is infalliable, that is, he is divinely guarded from error ; and that for the simple reason, that in such an action, he is acting precisely as Pope or Teacher of the Infallible Churoli Universal. But, through- out the day, he acts in various other capacities. IIo convers^aj gives audiences ; writes lettters to this or that private individuai ; delivers, perhaps, a sermon ; adds, maybe, a chapter to some book which he is engaged in composing. In all these things ho is just m fallible as if he never were Pope, and, in all these things, he may make as many mistakes as you wish to fancy. But when, in the evening, he sets himself formally to teach the Universal Church whether or not the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is a revealed truth, he cannot make a mistake at all. And he cannot, in such a ca&e, make a mistake, because God has arranged and promised not to permit him to make it. Whereof the fundamental reason is this : If the Pope taught the Universal Church doctrinal error, the Universal Church would have to believe it ; but God ^anno'; let the Universal Church believe doctrinal error; and there- ■i I 8 fore, to the Universal Church, He cannot permit the Pope to teach it. That, 1 hope, is now at last sufficiently plain. And so we may at once proceed to deal vrixh our Objectors. The first person on my list is a gentleman — or lady, I know not which — that calls itself Beta. Beta, beinr the second letter of tht Greek alphabet, is a somewhat learned name. The person yyho assumes it, wrote, shortly after the delivery of my first ecture, two letters to the Witness. In these letters, that person, among many other interesting remarks suitably uncomplimentary to my poor self, stated, that in proving the Pope's Infallibility I supposed the Pope's Supremacy, a supposition which the second letter of the Greek alphabet is not disposed to allow. Being myself a person of classic sympathies, I excused Beta's blundering on the score that in getting into controversy he had, most probably, got out of his sphere, and on the other score that, possibly, though he criticised my lecture, he did not well understand it. My lecture was printed, and though the text was suflficient, yet (still moved by my clas-^ic sympathies) I, in an appended note, furnished Beta with a special reply. That reply, in a condensed shape, was the following : In proving the Pope's Infallibility I do not presuppose the Pope's Supremacy. I do not even presuppose the Pope's existence. The sole assumption which I venture to make is, that what the Bible says of Christ's arrangements is true. That assumption being allowed me, I at once prove, that, no matter where he is or what you call him, there must be a man on the earth to-day, a religious teacher, a religious teacher in Christ's Church and infallible. The proof that there must be such a man I have repeated already. But such a man existing, who is he ? If Christ has put upon the earth an infallible teacher, and has put him on the earth to teach infallibly, that man, I apprehend, must know that he is infallible. Knowing that he is infallible, he will, I apprehend, be very likely to let the world know it too ; feeling he has such a gift, such a gift, I apprehend, he is sure to claim. But, among all our Christian teachers, and their name is legion, and their audacity peerless, not even one claims to be infallible, except the Pope. Therefore the Pope is the teacher whom Christ appointed, and is infallible. That argument, I should say, is somewhat pressing. It appeared in my printed lecture. To it neither Beta nor any one else attempted a reply. May I not infer that no reply was attempted because no reply could he made? And am I not justified this evening in doing what I do now, when I put Beta, but most gently, aside, and bid it to the nursery and the food for babes ? £ 9 Id The next knight errant whom I have to encounter is Charles 'Hous. Charles, J confess, I rather like. And with sufficient reason. Jle gives me abundant praieo ; he brackets me, very flatteringly, yritlx a decidedly able man, Merle d'Aubigne ; he tells me that I am honest and manly ; he assures me that I have already entered the narrow gate of evangelical perfection ; and ho trusts (not, let me hope, without a tincture of prophecy) that I shall go on pros- pering and to prosper. But when I consider the grounds of Charles' patronage of my poor self, I doubt much if he can be trusted. For I find him telling me that, by my own distinct admission, the Infallibility of the Pope cannot be proved from the Bible. This, after the fact that to arguments from the Bible almost all ray lecture was devoted, is passing strange. It forces me into suspicions ot Charles* accounta- bility, Certain expressions of which he makes use intensify my suspicions. " A miracle," he says, " is not a sign of the true faith, but of falling off therefrom." Indeed ! But Jesus Christ wrought miracles ; so did Saint Paul. To go no further, were Christ and Saint Paul among the people that fell away ? Again, he says, " If you admit that the Pope can be a sinner, even a great sinner, why do you call him Holy Father ? " Because, my dear Charles, by his office he ought to be holy, and because I ought to suppose (from pure politeness, if from nothing else) that, what he ought to be, he also is. Why does Saint Paul, writing to large communities, ad- 4]ress them all indiscriminately as Saints ? Because, though many of them were sinners, yet, being Christians, Saints they ought all to be. •' Catholicus," a writer of admirable point, who stepped in between me and my slayers, supplies an apt illustration. " We call the Queen," he says. " Her Most Gracious Majesty, and so we should continue to style her, even though she turned out to be the most ungracious mortal of us all." Once more: Charles Boux, against the Infallibility of the present Pope, finds a supreme argu- ment in this : that Pius IX. gave the Golden Rose to Isabella of Spain, and, by so doing, implicitly pronounced her the most virtuous sovereign in Europe, which Charles, whose knowledge of royal morals is very extensive, pronounces untrue. Now, whether Isabella of Spain was or was not the most virtuous sovereign in Europe, or whether any one of these European potentates was particularly vir- tuous, I do not pretend to know ; but I know that it is somewhat hard to have to reasor with people like Charles Boux. He has not -even the shadow of a notion of what Papal Infallibility means. It •means that in teaching the Universal Church the Pope cannot err. 10 But in teaching her what ? In teaching her this and this only — what is contained in the body of doctrine which God and Christ re- vealed to the world. But that body of doctrine* was given to the world nearly eighteen hundred years before Isabella of Spain was born. The good lady, therefore, came nearly eighteen hundred years too late to be the subject of a Papal dogmatic definition. In describing the state of her conscience (even if he attempted such a t^ing), the Pope is no more infallible than he would be in describing the state of the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. Neither the state of the queen's conscience, nor the state of the ocean's bed, ever came^ whether by Scripture or tradition, into the list of God's revelations ; and with God's revelations only, to preserve them and present then fittingly to the Church, has Papal Infallibility its appointed oflBce.. While here, I draw attention to the argument of a person who calls himself, with, I suspect, a convenient ambiguity, "Artist." His objection is this : Sixtus V. — whom, by the way, " Artist " repre- sents as living in the eleventh century, though that great pontiff lived and died in the sixteenth, just five hundred years afterwards — Sixtus V. published an edition of the Bible. With that edition was published a Papal decree, in which the Pope announced that the edition was issued " with his certain knowledge, and from the plenitude of his apostolic power." Yet the edition was subsequently discovered to be so deformed with errors that Clement VIII. had to call in the copies and publish a new edition. "Artist" asks, '' Was Sixtus v. infallible?" Accepting "Artist's" own statement of facts, I answer that Sixtus V. was not infdlible — in correcting proof-sheets, sharpening the sight of compositors, moderating the playfulness of printers' devils, and introducing that literary mil- lennium when authors shall not rise up against printers and the Press fcl.all blunder no more. To "Artist" I shall have to return; but my dear friend Charles I send, with " Beta," to partake of nursery fare. After " Beta " and Charles Roux there enters the lists a cavalier called Bibaud. He runs a tilt in the Witness of the 1st of Feb- ruary. He runs it in French. Bibaud is not strong of brain, but he is patient of fingers. He can scarcely reason, but he can tran- scribe well. This is his reasoning: "Father Murphy's most for- midable argument " — [I do not think so, and to myself my strong points are probably no mystery] — " Father Murphy's most formid- able argument is, ' The Episcopal Body is infallible ; but the Epis- copal Body has declared the Pope infallible,, therefore infallible the ■ bis only — Christ re- ven to the Spain was 1 hundred tition. In ted such a describing lie state of ever caaie^. evelations ; 3sent then [ited office.. 1 who calls ist." His St" repre- eat pontiff er wards — lat edition meed that . from the bsequently II. had to sks, '* Was tement of correcting rating the erary mil- 1 the Press iturn ; but af nursery a cavalier 3t of Feb- brain, but 5 can tran- most for- my strong st forniid- the Epig- yiible the 11 Pope is.' " " But," says BIbaud, " you prove the Episcopal Body to be infallible by assuming that the Episcopal Body and the Church are one and the same. One and the same, however, they are not." Has Bibaud ever heard the distinction between the Ecclesia Bocens and the Ecclesia Audiens — the Church Teaching and the Church Taught ? Has he ever heard that the Church Teaching is the Episcopal Body, and the Church Taught is the rest of the faithful ? I hope so. Now, I prove precisely this, not that the Church at large, but the Church Teaching (that is, the Body of Bishops, with the Pope among them) is iufaliible ; and I prove it in this way. Christ says to certain Eleven men> and to them alone : " Go, teach all nations whatsoever things I have commanded you ; and behold I am with you always, even to the end of the world." These Eleven men are, therefore, teachers of all the rest ; they have a monopoly of the teaching office ; and with them, in the discharge of that office, Christ is always, even to the end of the world. But to be always with them means (as I proved) to be always guarding them from error; therefore the Eleven men are always guarded from error — that is, are infallible. Therefore, since these Eleven men, in their own persons, exist on the earth no longer, and since, nevertheless, they must, in some shape, be on the earth always, teaching and teaching infallibly, there must be, some where on the earth, to-day, a compact body of teaching men, with a monopoly of the teaching office, and infallible. But no compact body of teaching men, now existing, even claims to be infallible except our Episcopal Body; therefore our Episcopal Body is infal- lible. But — to repeat the argument which Bibaud thought he was attacking — our Episcopal Body, thus infallible, has pronounced the Pope infallible too ; therefore infallible the Pope is. And I shall like to see the knight-errant who will again touch that argument upon the shield. But it is not in argument that Bibaud is ordained to shine. His gift is quotation. And he quotes, not wisely, but too well. His object is to show that some of our own best writers have denied the Papal Infallibility. To attain this object he ites, with no great attention to chronology, a vast variety of names. The principal of these are Cardinal La Luzerne, Dr. Newman, St. Columban, Inno- cent III., Innocent IV., Arnulph of Orleans, Bossuet, Gersou, Doellinger, Lord Acton, and Lord Camoys, not to mention some distinguished individual whose initials are F. 8., and who owes a library to the True Witness. All the authorities evoked by Bibaud ■p 12 I shall not b3 able to handle, but from them I select two. And these I eeleot as being i'ar the ablest, and therefore, I suppose, far the strongest, against me. They are Bosmet and Dr. Newman. And, first, of Bossuet. James Benignus Bossuet was simply the most gifted ecclesiastic of his time. His gifts were of the most varied kind. As a Theologian he was among the foremost ; as a Controversialist he had no superior ; as a Pulpit Orator he had no equal. In everything he wrote there is the massive grandeur of a kingly Thinker and the divine fire of a kingly Poet. In an age of great men he was immeasurably the greatest ; in the gorgeous court of the Grand Monarque his genius was the brightest glory. Well did they style him " the Eagle of Meaux " ! Those eyes of his had seen into the sun ; that beak and those claws of his had so renjj Protestantism, that for any thinker (like, for instance, Leibnitz) it lived no more. But Bossuet was no trickster, and, from his own great unsus- pecting nature, was just the man whom tricksters would easily trick and entangle. The eagle is not by any means as crafty a bird as the magpie, Now, Louis the Fourteenth had loaded Bossuet with favors, and Louis the Fourteenth, a trickster of the true breed, had not done so without a purpose. He had already pro- claimed himself absolute in the State ; Vetat c'est Moi is his famous saying; and even in the Church he brooked no rival. He desired a church of France such as Prince Bismarck desires a church of Germany — one, namely, of which he himself would be sole dictator. But, with the Pope admitted as Infallible Ruler of that church, his scheme would fail. It was necessary, therefore, that that Church should deny the Pope's Infallibility. Louis resolved to have the denial, and through Bossuet, as intellectual leader of the Bishops, he hoped to realize his resolution. It was not easy for Louis to succeed. The Church of France, from St. Hilary of Poictiers in the fourth century, on to St. Bernard in the eleventh century, on to Fenelon in the seventeenth, had, through a long list of the greatest men and the most brilliant councils, testified to its own belief ia Papal Infallibility. Even in Lo\iis' own time such witnessings had been sufficiently pronounced. In 1 626 the French Bishops had, in their synodical letters, unan- imously declared that "all should venerate the Pope as V^isible " Head of the Universal Church; as the Successor of St. Peter <* upon whom Christ founded the Church, to whom He gave the " keys of heaven, with that Infallibility of faith which we «ec «o 8te.H>wJhl^,. ^ 13 select two. And re, I suppose, far Dr. Newman, ssuet was simply were of the most e foremost ; as a Orator he had no ve grandeur of a et. In an age of in the gorgeous brightest glory. I Those eyes of Lws of his had so istance, Leibnitz) )wn great unsus- ;ers would easily i as crafty a bird I loaded Bossuet ster of the true had already pro- c'est Mot is his ed no rival. He imarck desires a limself would be ifallible Euler of essary, therefore, allibility. Louis i, as intellectual ition. lurch of France, itury, on to St. the seventeenth, the most brilliant ibility. Even in sntly pronounced, cal letters, unan- Pope as V^isible sor of St. Peter m He gave the tohich we see so i -^ ' " miraculously preserved in his successors even to our own day." In 1653 the Bishops of France wrote jointly a letter of congratulation to Innocent X., and in this they assert that " a Papal decision in »' matters of faith hat divine authority , and that to it, interiorly and '* exteriorly, every one must accord sincere submission." Nay, still later, in 1663, they use language which even now would be accounted strong, and which, when it describes their belief in Papal Infallibility, must be gently interpreted, to escape the reproach of exaggeration. And, as it had been with the French Church, so it had been with Bossuet himself. In his Meditations on the XXII. and XXIII. Chapters of St. Luke ; in his Catechism ; in his first two Pastorals ; in his refutation of the Calvinist Catechism ; and, finally, in his famous '* Exposition of Catholic Doctrine," he had explained and maintained the Papal Infallibility. To get such a Church and such a Bishop to declare the Pope not infallible, was a serious undertaking. Yet Louis, with all that dauntless impudence which distinguished him,, faced it ; and, to all appearance, did for a season achieve success. In this way. Just at that time the King was in controversy with Rome upon a certain point relating to the temporalities of the French Church. Espousing the King's cause in the matter to which I refer, were some of the French prelates and some of the French people. In the year 1682 the King got together thirty-six of these prelates, ostensibly for the sole purpose of expressing their sentiments on the question of the temporalities. Many of these thirty-six were mere creatures of the King; most were genuine courtiers, ready Polonius-like, to echo the royal whispers, and to swear of any passing cloud that it was like a camel, or a rat's back, or a weasel's belly, or mighty, oh, mighty, like a whale. The opportunity was too good to lose, nor did the King lose it. The meeting, under his inspiration, drew up four ^-esolutions nowise bearing on the subject for which they had assembled ; and of these, the fourth was a distinct denial of the Papal Infallibility. Bossuet had addressed the assembly and had, despite himself, used language which, as his colleagues did not fail to taunt him, showed clearly that though his voice was for the King his intellect and conscience were for the Pope. " The " Roman faith " sail he, '* must he always the faith of the Church.^' " St. Paul,'" said he, " returning from the third heavena went to " render an account of his faith to St. Peter, therein giving," said he, " an example to all future generations." " From Peter," said he, " and from Peter's successor, the Faith of the Church is to be M. M 14 ** derived; and this,'' said he, "is the heUef of the whole Church "from the rising to tJie setting of the sun." Yet, despite all this, not only did the thirty-six French prelates declare against the, Pope's Infallibility, but, when their declaration was attacked, as it at once was from all quarters, Bossuct gathered up all his glorious, gigantic strength and defended the declaration ! Sut he had now an opponent worthy of his steel, the only com- batant then living fit to cross swords with such a champion, and that opponent was — himself. It was, besides, his best self, and ruinous defeat was consequently certain. If anything coming from such a man could be despised, the defence he made would be infinitely con- temptible. It is cramful of contradictions, and of equivocations that are very much worse than contradictory. Speaking of the Chair of Peter, that is, of the Pope officially teaching the whole Church, he says, " if that Chair could fall into error, the wlwle Chvrch would " he dissolved." Speaking of the formula of Pope Adrian II., and of subscription to it as a test of orthodoxy, he says, " hy their *' subscription to it, all the Churches professed their belief tn the " immutability of the Apostolic See in matters of faith, according *' to the promises of Christ." And yet, although making thos°! state- ments, which, if they mean anything, mean that the Pope is in .llible, he still, while himself admitting the Papal Infallibility, sets himself systematically to argue against it! And such arguments! One, and that the principal one, is so bad that a certain very notorious and slightly reverend lecturer thinks it a good one. Peter denied Christ ; therefore any Pope may deny Him. Peter toas called Satan; therefore any Pope may be called Satan. Such staring stupidity ! Why, at the time that Peter denied Christ, and at the time that he was called Satan, Peter was not Pope at all ! Upon this Rock 1 WILL build my Church, says Christ, and unto thee 1 AVILL give the keys of the Kingdom; not " I do build" and " I do give," but " I will build " and " I will give." All was as yet in the future, and Peter's popehood was in the future too. All this is so plain that any school-boy knows it. And, therefore, through that reasoning of Bossuet, in so far as it is Bossuet's, I treat with tolerance, yet in so far as it is the reasoning of others who have not Bossuet's set-offs to show again&t it, I pronounce it unworthy even ot the Witness and its pretty babes. No \yonder that the great Fenelon should toss the " Defence " contemptuously aside, proclaim- ing it but the puny twitching of Samson's fingers when his glorious head was shorn of its hair ! No wonder, too, that Count de Maistre 15 \e whole Church despite all this, are against the^ s attacked, as it all his glorious, b1, the only com- ampion, and that self, and ruinous ling from such a 36 infinitely con- [uivocations that of the Chair of vhole Church, he Ic Chinch would Adrian II., and says, *' by their eir belief in the faith, according iking thoH°! state- i'ope is in .llible, lity, sets himself guments ! One, n very notorious e. Peter denied 'eter was called Such staring irist, and at the at all ! Upon and unto thee I lild" and "I Jo was as yet in the All this is so erefore, through it's, I treat with jrs who have not t unworthy even ;r that the great aside, proclaini- hen his glorious 'ount de Maistre should hint, in his cruel way, that the Eagle of Meaux, being a kingly bird, forgot a while the cold, clear, snow-capped solitudes where his strength was born, and pared his talons and modulated his scream to suit the magpies that hopped and chattered about the throne ! For, alas ! it was with Bossuet, as it had been with Wolsey, as it will be often with the greatest men, the voice of his conscience was not quite f o potent as the voice of his king. He, for a time, and the thirty-six French prelates, for a time, sacrificed what they knew to be the truth to what they knew to be the royal desire. But only * for a time. Within five years, the unhappy prelates who had signed the Declaration denying the Pope's Infallibility, wrote to the Pope these repentant words; *' Prostrate at thy feet we confess and " declare that, from our very hearts, and with more grief than we " can express, ive deplore what we did in that assembly. And, " therefore, all that we then said in regard to the Papal Authority " we now unsay, and as unsaid we implore you to regard it." Nor was Bossuet without his compunctious visitings. In his Life written by his nephew, Cardinal de Bossuet, we read that to his latest day he bewailed his one unworthy act of weakness ; and when he heard that the merciful Pope had held out to the penitent prelates, hands of loving pardon, he exclaimed, in words so bitterly expressive of his own intense contempt for the Declaration which he had defended : *' Abeat ergo quocumque voluerit ista — I can hear him hiss out that contemptuous ista ! — " abeat ergo quocumque voluerit ista Decla- ratio !" devoting thus to the father of all lies the lying denial of Papal Infalliability. And so, for us and for the faitR' that is in us, complete and perfect as it is to-day, we are proud that we can number — all the prouder that ouce he tried to be against us — we are proud that we can number that mightiest genius of modern time, the glory of France, the glory of the Church, nay, the glory too of all humanity, James Beingnus Bossuet ! And now for Dr. Newman. At the time when the Vatican Council commenced its sessions, and when it was formally announced that among the subjects on which it would be called to decide, was Papal Infallibility, it was well known that the overwhelming majority of Catholics, clerical and lay, desired that the doctrine should be lifted to the rank of a dogma ; that is, that the doctrine already known from Scripture and Tradition to be divinely revealed, should as such be formally promulgated and enforced by the supreme Church assembled in Council. But, even among Eoman Catholics, there I 16 was a small minority who fur preferred that Papal Infallibility: should be left as it was. This minority included two classes of persons. In the first class were numbered those who opposed the dcfinitioQ of the doctrine because they thought (or thought they thought — a very diiferent thing) the doctrine untrue. In the second class were numbered those who, though they held the doctrine itself to be true, were still of opinion that its definition at the time of the Vatican Council, would be rash and imprudent. Of that second class some members were, undoubtedly, honest and capable men. They themselves believed that the Pope is infallible. They saw his Infallibility practically admitted by all Catholics, and practically- proclaimed by the Pope on every occasion when he taught the Church which he rules. But tbey knew that men will often admit practically what theoretically they are prepared to deny, and they knew that many practically admitted the Papal Infallibility who theoretically hated its very name. They were moreover aware that for Protestants, whose knowledge of Catholic doctrine is generally not very complete, the definition of Papal Infallibility would be one more barrier on the road to Catholicity, and, for Protestants, they wished the passage to the Church to be as smooth and as easy as possible. They there- fore said to the Council : The doctrine is true, but this is not the time to define it; to define it now will be to make the weaker class of Catholii'3 weaker still, and to excite the foes of the Church to a new and more bitter hostility; the definition of the doctrine will be the definition of a truth, but it will be inopportune. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I will, for an instant, suppose the worst thing I can suppose of Dr. Newman, a thing for supposing which he will by and by be rebuking me ; I will suppose that to the class of men who, though believing in Papal Infallibility, yet thought the definition thereof inopportune. Dr. Newman for a season belonged. He is essentially the gentlest and mildest of men, England he loves with a lofty and noble love ; for England's ret'irn to the only Faith worthy of so great a land, he is anxious through all his soul. But he, knew his countrymen; and he knew that the definition of Papal Infallibility would at once requicken that fierce old spirit of No-Popery which, however it might renew its youth in the Colonies, would, in England, if let alone, most probably die out with poor old Earl Bussell. As the event has shown, his vision, as far as it went, was clear; but, as the event is now showing, his vision did not go far. He saw ahead just up the rising ot the No. Popery howl ; he did not see how, the howl over, laughter and 17 contempt of it, from all sides, would follow. lie saw that some impudent pretender to theological knowledge would astonish the British Public by insane attempts at aping the thunder of heaven ; but he did not see that the poor squibs which a spiteful broken- down politician mistook for thunderbolts, would by all men be regarded as follies, and be regarded as failures even by the squib- loving circle of little boys. Dr. Newman saw that the Church would be attacked ; but he did not see that to attack her you must approach her, and that, when you approach her, her great majestic beauty makes you her slave. He had no doubt that the Pope was infallible ; but he conscientiously believed that to define the Papal Infallibility would be to retard the conversion of England, and therefore did he declare himself unfavorable to the definition. I am not afraid to say that, in making that declaration, he was, according to his lights at the time, doing no more than his strict duty. But this declaration — how did he make it ? Recollect, Ladies and Gentlemen, my sole business is to show that the doctrine of the Papal Infallibility is true, whether defined at the right time or the wrong, and recollect that the person called Bibaud — whom I am sorry to have to make miserable in the shadow of Bossuet and Newman — cites Dr. Newman as making against me. How then does Dr. Newman speak? I quote the very passages quoted by Bibaud, and I ask you then to judge what kind of people they are to whom the Witness gives hospitality in its Casual Ward. In a letter to a friend, written after hearing that the definition of the Infallibility is being very strongly urged by the theologians at Rome, this is what Dr. Newman says : — " Just when we are all at peace : " when We have no doubts whatever ; and when at least pracitcally, " if not theoretically, we hold the Pope to be infallible, suddenly we " hear thunder in a clear sky." And then, with his characteristic caution, he proceeds to state what he means by this last figure, and he means by it, he says, that the definition is unexpected and will be irritating. But, in the very same sentence, he avers that " we " (the whole English Catholic Church) " already hold practically " if not theoretically, that the Pope is infallible." That is, he says, we do not need the definition, for, even now, the doctrine is as good as defined, but we dread the definition, for we believe it will disturb the peace ot many among us. Therefore, when Dr. Newman afterwards appears as the opponent of Mr. Gladstone, so far is he from contradicting himself (which Bibaud alleges) that it is him- 1 I ! ' ! i! I 19 self as well as the Church he is enguged in defending. Of course everj^ one, except Bibaud, knows that even though be had denied the Papal Infalliblity before the Council, to admit it afler the Council would not be a self contradiction. The judgment would be changed because the evidence was changed ioo. If in the morning when one's eyes happen to be jaundiced, he believe all things are yellow, it is no con- tradiction of himself to believe in the evening, when his eyes are healthy, that yellow is not the only colour in the paint-box of nature. But let that pass, as being too abstruce for persons like Bibaud. The fact is that, before the Council as after the Council, Dr. Newman believed the Papal Infallibility. And that fact is proved by the very passage which Bibaud quotes to prove the opposite. But this is not all. Such reasoners as Bibaud are not, I hope,^ numerous in Canada. We are, however, likely to have some of the same stock as long as the very liberal " Witness " extends to them in dull times a policy of protection. But of such reasoners Canada has no monopoly. Accusations like those of Bibaud were made against Dr. Newman in his own land. To people of any fair amount of comprehension these accusations needed no answer. But there were some among the English Journalists whose measure of compre- hension was not excessive ; and, for their sakcs, the groat gentle charity of Dr. Newman gave a public reply. The reply was publish- ed in all the leading English Newspapers; reproduced in all the leading journals of the world; and, in that reply, Dr. Newman not' only states, that always since his conversion had he believed the Pope infallible, but he points out how to that belief he had given public expression when delivering Lectures on University Education, in Dublin, as far back as 1854. But not even that is enough. From the book which I hold in my hand I beg leave to read two brief pas. sages. One is at page 5. " The English people," says the writer, " are sufficiently sensitive of the claims of the Pope without having " them, as if in defiance, flourished in their very faces. These claims " most certainly I am not going to deny ; Ihave never denied them. ^^ In pages 20 and 21, speaking of the Vatican Council, the same writer proceeds : — " It was an extraordinary gathering, and its pos- " sibility, its purpose and its issue were alike marvellous. * * * " Marvellous was the concurrence of all but a few, out of so many " hundred Bishops, in the theological Judgment so long desired at *' Rome, the protest made by some eighty or ninety, against the pro- ** ceedings of the vast majority, lying not again-Jt the truth of the "doctrine defined, but against its opportuneness. * * For f oourse every lied the Papal lounoil would anged because len one's eyes w, it is no con- his eyes are box of nature. Bibaud. The , Dr. Newman ed by the very re not, I hope^ ive some of the ztends to them isoners Canada ud were mad& any fair amount ver. But there isureof compre- be groat gentle )ly was publish- uued in all the Dr. Newman not' elieved the Pope lad given public y Education, in enough. From id two brief pas. says the writer, I without having es. These claims )er denied them.'' )uncil, the same ring, and its pos- llous. * * * , out of so many 10 long desired at r, against the pro- the truth of the 18. * * For 19 " myself, I did not call it inopportune, for times and seasons aro " known to God alone, and persecution may be as opportune, though " not so pleasant as peace ; nor, in accepting as a dogma what I had " ever held as a truth, could I be doing violence to any theological view " or conclusion of my own." These are words, claar, precise, final, unmistakable. The man who wrote them tells the world solemnly that, not only had be always held the Papal Infallibility as a truth but that he had never even pronounced its definition, as a dogma in- opportune. Who is the man that wrote these words? They are found in " a Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Morfolk ;" and the writer of the letter is the plain Priest, John Henry Newman I And there- fore, as a little while ago I was proud that on oor side was the first genius of the Seventeenth Century, so now also an: X proud that, in the 19th century, the foremost thinker, the — , ('iS /Jlatthew Arnold calls him) " the largest and most cultivated soul oi' England," or of the world, is, clearly and unmistakably and without any reservation, upon our side. About this case of Br. Newman I have entered into something more than necessary detail. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have not done so without a special purpose. As of Bossuet, so of Newman, is it true that he is ' a choice specimen of humanity. Both friends and foes acknowledge his intellectual pre-eminence. Both friends and foes acknowledge his moral blamelessness. Both friends and foes- acknowledge the 4)readth of his erudition, the keenness of his in- sight, the athletic grandeur of his logical faculty, the matchless sagacity of his discrimination, the matchless caution with which he feels his way to his conclusions. He is just the man certain not io deceive, and most unlikely to be himself deceived. In his case, there- fore, we may apply a principle, provably true, and, at all events, practically of universal acceptance. The principle is this: In any department of human affairs, the mass of men may follow, do follow, ought to follow, the opinion of any one man who, in that department, has had life-long experience ; who in that department has displayed unquestioned and unrivalled ability ; who in that department and in all other departments has, for plain sheer veracity, made himself a snow-white name. Take an illustration from a quarter of which all can be judges. If I o a man invest his whole fortune, and that a princeley one, in a certain Bank ; if there be no doubt at all about the extent of the fortune or the reality of the investment ; if I know the man to be a man of perfect honesty, incapable of acting a trick or speaking a lie ; if I also know him to be so able and so versed in II (■ I ! ! I I >' tl li 20 business affairs that ho has no living rival ; I think T am at onco infer, I think 1 ovght at once to infer that a small investment in the Bank which that man patronizes is safe and secure. The case I now state is precisely parallel. To the religious question Dr. Newman, as he himself tells us, has devoted all his life from his 10th to his 75tli year ; his honesty of purpose and truthfulness of speech are above suspicion ; his intellectual power leaves him among modern thinkers without an equal ; his theological learning and his knowledge of Protestantism are unsurpassed ; and now, with that sadly worn but royally rugged face of his, which I so well remember, he is momen- tarily expecting the solemn summons of Him who comes soon to demand his soul. And yet that everlasting soul, to us all so grandly noble, to himself so surpassingly precious, he has staked on the truth of Roman Catholicism and Papal Infallibility I Ladies and Gentle- men it might bo impertinent in me to draw the inevitable inference. Therefore, I will only say that, if I were a Protestant, I would, I think, be very uneasy when I had to reflect that Protestantism was abandoned as untenable, branded as untrue by such a man as John Henry Newman. If from out the Bank where my few dollars lie — few, but my sole subsistence — if from out that Bank, the honestest and ablest business-man of tho time has drawn all his princely for- tune, publicly stigmatizing the Bank as a monstrous fraud, how, if I leave my sole means of living ^ihere, can I call myself else than an arrant fool! Of my self I may say, anything; to no child of Adam do I wish to be oflensive. But, if there be one Protestant listening to me now, I ask him, not for the sake of God but for the sake of our common manhood, to face my reasoning. The result of the encounter I want no prophet's vision to foresee. And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I may pass unto that clcss of objections on which the lower order of our opponents find delight in descanting. There are men whose sympathies are naturally filthy, and who are never quite at rest till they have made or tried to make others as filthy as themselves. The magpie is a contemptible bird ; the carrion crow is disgubting ; but that biped described by Virgil which with its foul feet slimed, and shamed everything doomed to feel its abominable touch — to describe that fairly, I should have no ladies here, and I should have to use the stern syllables of a Roman . tongue. Against that biped and its human brethren I advance now. Popes, these reasoners tell us, have been sometimes the worst of people ; they have been cruel, treacherous, lewd, avaricioui ; abominations of desolation set up in the house of the Lord. And then they offtr us, SI their own slime upon it, the history say of Alexander the Sixth or SixtUH the Fifth, and bravely ask us, can we believe that such men an these were really infallible ? Now, I am not here to deny that some Popes have been depraved ; and I am not here in any way to palliate their depravity. But I would, out of a spirit of fair play towards the helpless dead, remark, in the first place, that the list of IJad Popes even as made out by opponents is not larj^e, and that, put beside the list of Good Popes, universally allowed to be such, it is infinitesimally small. In the second place, 1 would draw a sharp distinction between the bulk of a crime as measured by its real malice and its bulk as mcasuscd by its notoriety. It is the natural misfortune and the supernatural safe- guard of men in eminent positions that the evil which they do, cannot escape notice and cannot escape exaggeration. What in others is nothing is in them an imprudence ; what in others is an imprudence is in them a fault; what in others is u fault is in them a crime; what in others is a crime is in them a monstrosity. I need hardly say that a wise man always estimates guilt by the measure of conscience and that to him, a stain will be nothing the bigger and nothing tho blacker because it is found on tho robe of a King. In the third place I would advise distrust of Papal History as written by his- torians of anti-papal predilections. About Popes as about other people the scandalmongers have told much, wholesale and ratail, that a literary chemist or a Judicial officer of customs would con- demn as adulterate and unfit for the public. An instance in point is of quite recent occurrence. Sixtus the Fifth is one of these Popes whom Protestant historians have been wont to regard as a lawful subject for the most energetic reviling; treacherous, cruel, blood- thirsty, murderous, are the qualifications they give him ; but a certain Baron Von Ilubner arises ; collects from the four quarters of the universe all tha*^ time has recorded of Sixtus ; has about him a certain keen acid of criticism which makes short work of brass when it finds it; writes thePontifif's Life in that ealm dispassionate manner almost unknown outside of Germany ; and lo and behold ! it turns out that the Pope after all was not quite so black as artists had painted him, but (as the Baron says) •' a fierce man in a tierce " time; a judge who showed no mercy because to show it would be " to encourage crime ; a King who neither from his own subjects nor " from foreign potentates would tolerate the least infringement of " his rights ; a great Pope, if ever there was one, fit imitator of the *' Great Hildebrand, fit model for other Popas that have yet to reigo 1" M\ 22 It is not unreasonable to surmise as the Baron surmises, that with the other so-called Bad Popes it is as it was with Sixtus, — what we now read as their history is in reality but the unlawful birth of hostile imagination. If the wolf wrote the life of the lamb or the devil became biographer of St. Michael, the lamb would not be de- scribed as all innocence nor St. Michael as all invincible. Now, the stories current about such Popes as Alexander the Sixth are told by men who would exaggerate them if they were true, and if they were false would not fail to consort them. The inference is easy. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, these remarks are quite unessential. To answer the objection which we are now considering, namely, " some Popes were bad, therefore they were not infallible," I need no special pleading, nor any appeals to your pity, for the lapses of men who were, after all, only human. For, in the fourth place, the morals of the Popes have nothing to do with their Infallibility. They are infallible in their official capacity as Popes ; they are bad or good in their private capacity as men. To do His work God may choose as He pleases any instrument, saintly or sinful ; He has chosen such slightly suspicious characters as Balaam and Solomon and Jonas; nay, according to I'rotestants, He chose, as agents of Reform, Luther and Calvin, and Luther and Calvin have yet to be canonized. The sanctity of a Pope means that he in all things fulfils God's Law ; the Infallibility of the Pope means that, in one thing and one thing only, at one moment and one moment only, in teaching Eevealed Truth to the Church Universal, He is so divinely assisted that he will not and cannot make a mistake. Take an illustration. Suppose you had only one Judge in Canada. Suppose God so loved us Canadians that He determined to save us from unjust decisions. Might not God then make your one Judge in all his formal court-judgmtnts infallible, and yet leave him, in all other vays, as liable to err — (if you please), as sinful and degraded — when off the bench, as if on the bench he never was accorded the privilege of Infallibility ? And so of the Pope. If he wants particularly to get damned, hell is ready for him as it is for us all; but if he wants to teach God's Church a lie, God will not let him! Hence these interesting narratives about this ]*ope and that other, who did not enter through Mr. Charles Itoux's narrow gate of evangelical perfection, are beside the mark, and prove nothing bat the crass ignorance of the narrator. " Is it not blasphemous," asks one of these Eeverend narrators, after giving a certain spicy story about certain Popes, " Is it not blasphemous to say such men as these were i Ithat with ■what we birth of !mb or the |not be de- No w, the re told by Id if they is easy. nessential. , namely, " I need ! lapses of place, the fallibility. ey are bad work God il ; He has d Solomon 3 agents of e yet to be all things hat, in uiie nt only, in so divinely Take an . Suppose 'e us from idge in all in all other led — when le privilege larticularly but if he 1 1 Hence sr, who did evangelical the crass sks one of tory about these were 28 infallible — temples of the Holy Ghost ? " Such rot ! Who says that these men were temples of the Holy Ghost ? Who says that, to be infallible and to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, mean one thing and the same ? Who says that Balaam, the unhappy prophet, was a temple of the Holy Ghost, when, despite himself and because God forced him, be had to bless, though he tried to curse, the tents ot Israel ? If by suflScient evidence, it be proved to my satisfaction, I shall belieT' 'hat Pius IX is a murderer and robber ; to rob and murder God leaves him free; but if he — make the absurd sup- position — if he set about teaching the Church an error in faith or an error in morals, I defy him, it he can never do. And why ? Why ! Because God cannot break His recorded promise ; because He has promised the Church that error she can never believe ; because error she would have to believe if a Pope bade her believe it ; and because, therefore, either God must break His recorded promise or He must see that no Pope teaches the Church a lie. That is it, Ladies and Gentlemen, pure and simple, plain and true ; even though the Pope himself attempted it — make th« absurd supposition — yet, against God's Church the gates of hell cannot prevail. On this matter, I shall tell you a small story. I call it a story, because, though it is put down by mauy authors as certain, I do not yet find for it all that weight of evidence which, for such a fact as it en- closes, you have a right to demand. It is, at all events, a tradition in the theological schools, and is often employed as a theological illust- ration. It is this : In the early part of the seventeenth century a good deal of dispute arose among Catholic Theologians as to the nature of Divine Grace. The point in discussion was an open point, and an open point, it, at least theoretically, remains to this day. But it was a^ point on what I may call the Dominican school of thinkers had already committed themselves to very distinct opin- ions. A Jesuit theologian of great eminence, Louis Molina, (whose shade in the next world I would advise illogical people to shun) wrote a certain book destined to a large renown ; and in this book he, with great ability, and frankness, defended opinions the reverse of what the Dominicans held. Our Church does not discountenance but rather encourages a healthful rivalry among her children ; and so, there was at once a trial of theological strength between the two great schools. But, in theological debates, the best of people are liable to lose their temper ; and, neither the sons of Saint Dominick nor the sons of Saint Ignatius were altogether exempt from the little •weaknesses of common humanity. So heated and so unoompliment* 24 ary did the disputants become, that the people of the time, expect- ing perfection where nothing can be perfect, began to take scandal. It was the Pope's duty to inteirfere. He did interfere. The best representatives of the rival schools were summoned to Eome, (I am happy to say that one of my own countrymen was in the number) ; Congregations were there held with sometimes the Pope as president, sometimes a Caruinal- Deputy ; in these Congregations all the learn- ing of Home and much of the learning of the world was present ; before these Congregations, the champions of both opinions had, for weeks and months and years, to argue out the case, point by point, syllogism by syllogism, in sharp, stern, scholastic style. After a long time the Pope seemed satisfiied and intimated that the Con- gregations might close. It is now generally acknowledged by theo- logical writers, that the Jesuits in the main were right and the Dominicans in the main were wrong. Therefore, had the Pope decided for the Dominicans, he would have decided wrongly, and had he so decided by a dogmatic decree for the Universal Church, he would have brought the Church into error. As a matter of fact a day came when it was rumoured about Kome that the Pope was framing such a decree and that it was the Dominicans whom he intended to favor. lie died that night. Take that story at its pro- per worth. Every atom of it is historically certain except the state- ment concerning the Pope's intentions ; and that statement, though not historically certain, has for it such evidence as if it had against anything Catholic would support the Witness for twenty years. For that statement, however, I do not vouch ; but I vouch for the story's value as an illustration. And this is what it illustrates. In private life, the Pope may be as depraved and as stupid as you care to fancy ; with his own poor soul he may tamper precisely as he pleases ; that is his look out ; but were he, whether f^om ignorance or from malice, to go about teaching God's spotless Church, for which God died, a lie in faith or a lie in morals, then, that is God's look-out ; the stability of God's own promise and the truth of God's own word are then in question ; and, if there be no other means available, God is bound to take His Pope unto Himself sooner than let Him teach the Church what is untrue. But, Ladies and Gentlemen, in criticising these Popes whose salt did somewhat lose its savour, an argument of another kind has had abundant patronage. Rival Popes are paraded, each cursin*^ and contradicting the other; and then Roman Catholics are asked triumphantly tohich of these Popes they consider infallible. This i i I 25 is the sore question proposed by Artist in the Witness of January 27th. After quoting for the readers of that sage and saintly journal a bit of history such as has won for it a very highly-scented name; Artist proceeds: "there were then three Popes in the field, Sylvester " ant' Benedict and Gregory VI; I would like to know, Sir, '' which of the three was infallible?" That is what Artist would like to know, and that is what the Editor of the Witness did not like to tell him. Yet the answer is one which a very small Artist or a very small Editor should be able to find. That one among the three icas infallible, icho was the Pope. The other two were, in that case, not Popes at all, but pretenders to the papacy; and, as such, they were as fallible, or nearly as fallible, as Artist himself If all three were pretenders, then all three were fallible, and the duty of the Church was to do as she did at Con- stance, to make all sure by a new election. For a false Pope or a doubtful Pope I can say nothing. But brine me a true Pope, one whose election has stood the test of review, and I shall say of him without dread, what I have proved of him without doubt, that he is infallible. And if Artist be not satisfied now, I must for the present request him to seek the childrens quarters, and, there, while winks and watches the night-capped wisdom of dear, old, dry-nurse Witness, let him play at some little four-handed game of easy reasoning with Beta and Bibaud and Charles Roux. So then, Ladies and Gentlemen, if our opponents wished to use the history of the Popes in disproof of Papal Infallibility, our oppo- nents did not proceed in the right way. To prove that Popes are sinners is not to prove that they are false teachers. Infallibility and impeccability, to use a common and convenient, but for reasoning pur- poses, much too magnificent a phrase, are not the same. Even Avithout supposing that the Pope has a certain divine assistance, that ought to be sufiiciently clear. Some of the best of scholars have been the worst of men ; and it is only the lower order of human intelligences who imagine that none but pious people can know and teach the truth. It was long the fashion with little souls to decry Lord Byron's genius because they abhorred his immorality ; but as Mr. Disraeli has remarked " a monument to the Poet is not a monument to the man;" the deformity of Byron's foot did not mar the beauty of Byron's face ; and I, for one, am of the same mind with Father Burke, who has nothing but contempt for the dullness that cannot value a diamond because it is discovered in dirt. To teach correctly and to live purely have no essential dependance ; and so, to prove. 56 that a Pope's life "was unclean will nut prove that his teaching was untrue. But why did not our opponents join issue with us here ? Why did they not come up to the only point which was in conten- tion ? Why did they not prove that Popes had, as a matter of fact, in faith or in morals taught the Church incorrectly ? They might have attempted such proof in two ways. First, they might have endeavoured to show that one Pope had taught the Church one doc- trine, and another Pope had taught its contradictory. Secondly, they might have essayed to establish that for some doctrine which he bad taught the Church, a Pope was condemned or contradicted by a subsequent general council. Ladies and Gentlemen, both plans have been often tried. They have been tried, not by amateur theo- logians who learn their theology from a " Daily Witness " and a Sunday cigar, but by men, who had " ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ;" who loved knowledge passionately, intensely, as no woman ever yet was loved ; who in solitary cells and amid lonely mountains had thought and pondered for years and years; and who, to do the thinking and to do the pondering, brains dis- ciplined and eyes strengthened in bitter battles with the great of old. And with what result ? After at least 1200 years of the most incessant search only one case was found to give the shadow of a foundation for the statement that a Pope had taught dogmatic error ; and that one case — every scholar will know that I refer to Honorius — when brought under the magnificent acid of modern criticism has fallen into ashes or fled in fume. Like that long-buried body of the king, Which at a touch of light, a ray from heaven, Slipt into ashes and was known no more. This, then, is the phenomenon to which I now draw your attention, and with this last trial to your great courtesy, I shall bring my arguments to a close. From Peter, the first Pope, down to him who now holds Peter's office, in round numbers, 260 Popes have sat in Peter's chair. They were men who, in all human qualities, varied from one another as much as men could vary : Greeks and Latins ; French and Germans ," English and Italians ; Spaniards and Sclavonicans ; young Popes and old ; wise Popes and foolish ; learned Popes and ignorant ; saintly Popes and Popes that were far from saintly ; Popes that despised all earthly honours and Popes that were eaten up by ambition for earthly renown; Popes that k 27 'Vi ,■ (fit loved their predecessors and held their memories sacred, and Popes that hated their predecessors and spat upon their memories with bitterest scorn. And yet, in teaching the Church the divine doctrines to believe and the divine precepts to fulfil, no one of these 260 ever contradicted, in even the slightest way, the teaching of another; but, throughout that long and troubled 1800 years, all taught a creed, perfectly harmonious, perfectly self consistent, — developed and defined a Faith, in the loftiest sense, One, as one is Baptism and one is God, the Father of all. Do you believe that 260 men spread out over 1800 years, 260 men so various in soul and sentiment, 260 men often hating one the other with bitter hatred, — do you believe that they could have been, in thei» teaching, so harmonious, in their precepts so unanimous — do you believe that, through ignorance or stupidity, or bate, or spite, or jealousy, they would have refrained from contradicting one the other, if their human nature, so bad in some of them, Imd been left to itteJff You cannot believe it. The history of humanity shows that it should not be believed. Therefore, the Popes' human nature was not left to itself. Therefore, when they set to teach the Church, they were kept in bounds by a higher and stron^f*"" Hand than theirs. But that means that God, who let them damn themselves if they chose, did not let them teach His Church a lie ; and that means that, by God's ever-present intervention, they were, not for their own sakes, but for th'e Church's sake, Infallible. And so, from the large historic fact, unquestionable and now unquestioned, that no one Pope ever contradicted the dogmatic teaching of another, we have at oace proved, and by an argument that will be found irresistible, the Papal Infallibilty. And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must at last close my lecture. In it I have tried to notice such poin*', worth noticing as were brought against me; but some points I ::iave been forced to neglect; and those which I have touched I had to touch with a hurried hand. But, in the future, as in the past, I will shirk no responsibilty that my words entail ; and if any one consider that he has yet some objection which he thinks insoluble, let him produce it, and, as soon as I get a fair opportunity, he may be certain that, with the blessing of God, I will do him full and final justice. He need not fear that I shall warp an argument or mis-state a fact. To him I may owe nothing but to answer him according to his folly ; but something •difierent I owe myself, and something diflferent I owe the people of JMontreal. The people of Montreal, both Protestant and Catholic, 'M ^j.v««»^«.iJHK()f»Jfl IWmiUVfltmitryi-, !■- 28 have extended to me an unmerited consideration, which I can appreciate and cannot forget; and I should hold myself contemptible for ever, if their favour which I honestly desire, I did not, by tru-^ labour of eyes and brain, try as honestly to deserve. And so I use no treacherous trick, nor make The vain parade of petty Gaul, But right through all defences break With one down stroke that does for all. These words, however, refer to those alone who, like the persons whom to-night I entrusted to their nurse's care, seek, not the truth of God, but self-notoriety. Let them be comforted ; they have had and shall Gave their reward. Last January, though my lecture was so gentle that one of my friends called it weak, I was assailed with, not argument, but insolence; and, while I had to possess my soul in patience, and to bide ray time, the Witness was, at my poor expense, humouring the malice of its pretty babes. For such people I have no hope that good will come from any word of mine. They lack those things, without which, if even Christ Himself addressed them, their conversion would be impossible, humility, earnestness, prayer, the Grace of God. But these unwise men — why, they are only five poor units out of so many thousands of my Piotestant brethren of Montreal ! And for these thousands, hope of the highest kind I do entertain ; and. may my tt-r^ue wither and my brain rot, when for them, I shall be else than a plain minister of that Gospel of Good News, which brings peace and plenty, not to all men, but to men w].o, like these thousands of my Protestant brethren, are men of Good Will. About the advisability of giving a controversial lecture such as that which I am now concluding there may be diversity of opinion. Some may think that such a lecture has a tendency to irritate, and that my Protestant fellow-citizens will be displeased because a doc- trine which they despise, I have publicly defended. The mere state- ment of such an opinion contains its reply. Precisely because what he believes, means to live by, means to die by, is held in contempt, will, for a true man, always be the best reason to avow and main- tain it For my own part, I have no fear that my Protestant u "'?or3 will charge my selection of to-night's subject to any ' ,: i: •;> •■(■' J motive. They, as well as I, reverence the truth ; they, .■:i yi""" ♦> T desire that nothing but what is true should live in the 1!::- '/ ' ' n ; they, as well as I, are ready, at any moment when I 29 conscience calls, to pass from under the ignoble slavery of falsehood to that gentle rule of truth which alone can make mon free. I would not in this matter conceive misapprehension possible, but that I noticed it in another department. I once gave, from this same plat- form, a lecture on " The Irish Race." Therein I stated that my countrymen were often very much despised ; and that the phrase *' only an Irishman " was a very common phrase with a very obvious insinuation. On that occasion and on other occasions I tried to show that my countrymen were very far from being contemptible and that for their shortcomings, not they, but others were principally to blame. But I did so with the purpose expressed and avowed not of producing discord, but of promoting concord in our com- munity. If, I said, Canada is to become great, we, French and English, Irish and Scotch, must become a united people. But, to become united, we must love one another. And how, I asked, can you French and Scotch and English pretend to love us Irish, if yoif do not commence by giving us vour respect ? That was the line I followed, sharply-defined and clear. But I was not, I think, wilfully, but still gravely misunderstood ; and the Evening Star rebuked me, but, (I must say) with great courtesy and gentleness, for the intro- duction of subjects calculated to annoy. " lie that builds by the road-side," says a Scotch proverb, "must t|)e content to have many masters " ; and a man who lectures for a mixed community * must not expect to be judged justly by all* I do not think I was really offensive ; I am sure I never tried to be so. " Sweeetness and Light," says Matthew Arnold, quoting Dean Swift, '* are the perfecting qualities of a human character," and I, believing what the great Dean believed, struggle in my small way, for my full measure of sweetness as well as my full measure of light. It is therefore to me a sore surprise to be even suspected of those nar- row prejudices that darken and those little animosities that embitter man ; and I often wonder whether, they who so suspect me, can really remember that we are in Canada, that majestic land, where if men were little, Nature, who is here so great, would with one glance of her glorious face, bring them to eternal shame. But whatever be the judgment of his critics,one must be loyal to Faith and to Fatherland. And therefore, is it, that I for one, shall never be afraid, at whatever risks, to proclaim myself, first a Catholic and then an Irishman , nor, when I feel that either my countrymen or my cO-religionists are dealt with unfairly, shall I hesitate, at whatever hazard, to raise my voice, for the dear Old Land which gave me birth, and the dear Old Church- in which I hope to find salvation. " In vhich I hope to find salvation." These words suggest the thought with which, deeply grateful for your extended courtesy, I should dismiss you now. Were I a layman I should, perhaps, and not unpardonably, seek in my lectures some personal and passing end- being a Priest, the end I seek should not be personal, and . ..not be passing. In any case, I could not, if I know my own mmd, which, from the Star, I learn to be very doubtful,-! could not stoop to make myself the caterer of transient pleasure ; but, being a Pnest» and speaking on a subject so momentous as Papal Infallibility, I could not, as I proceeded, help being awe-stricken as I remembered that every idle word a man shall speak, and every earnest word a man shall idly hear, for it he shall render au account m the Day ot Judgment. I do not think that I, to-night, have spoken an idle word And for those that hear me I have this hope, that if from speech of mine they have been vouchsafed light, they will let it lead them, on and on, to that World's Light, which is the Church, by ber in turn, to be guided further yet and higher, till at last is reached that other Light, on this dark earth inaccessible, m the Heaven of Heavens to be reached, which is, verily and truly, the- Almighty God. > > a