rail I III i !Willl!l>.il | ;; id I nil HlMfll 111" m ii II ill il ?! mi i IHllillwi s* •«2; LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIRT OJ whe, &d Received. September^ / 885 . Accessions No. ~2~7 ^%-l2— Shelf No OS* — -3v> Jb LETTERS TO M. GONDON, AUTHOR OF MOUFEMENT RELIGIEUX EN ANGLETERRE," " CONVERSION BE CENT CINQUANTE MINISTRES ANGLICANS," $c. #c. #c. ON THE DESTRUCTIVE CHARACTER Cfturrft of a&onu, BOTH IN REJJjGiON AND POLITY. , D.D. 'ER. S»econtr lEtrttton. LONDON: FRANCIS & JOHN RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO TLACE. 1847. \AJb LONDON: gilbert and rivington, printers, st. John's square. -^7 FX TO M. JULES GONDON, AUTHOR OF " MOUVEMENT RELIGIEUX EN ANGLETERRE f* " CONVERSION DE CENT CINQUANTE MINISTRES ANGLICANS, OU PERSONNES DE DISTINCTION ;" " MOTIFS DE CONVERSION DE DIX MINISTRES ANGLICANS j" &C. &C. My dear Sir, I have been induced by public and private considerations to address the following Letters to you. You have taken a lively interest in our religious affairs, and have evinced considerable knowledge of them in your periodical and other publications* for copies of which I am indebted to your kindness ; and from personal intercourse with you, to which I look * M. Gondon also announces for immediate publication a Trans- lation of Mr. Newman's Essay on Development — " ouvrage traduit de PAnglais avec l'approbation de l'auteur." IV DEDICATION. back with feelings of pleasure and of cordial regard for your friendship, I am persuaded that the senti- ments expressed in your writings are deeply im- printed on your mind. Your acquaintance also with the productions of the English press supplied me with another motive for addressing you ; and I am glad to be able to think that the references in the following Letters to our Writers, particularly Theological, find an ap- propriate place in a correspondence with one who has paid especial attention to the Literature and Religion of England. In writing freely to a friend concerning the reli- gious and political system of the Church of Rome, to which he is strongly attached, I cannot expect his concurrence in all I have said on that subject, at least until he has very carefully examined the grounds of my assertions; but I should deeply regret if any thing should be found in these Letters which is justly chargeable with asperity or illiberality towards that Church or any of her members. My main design has been to endeavour to show unreservedly, but not uncharitably, what the real DEDICATION. V nature and necessary results of the ecclesiastical and civil principles of Rome are ; and to prove, at the same time, that we enjoy in this country a form of Religion and Polity which other Nations may do well to imitate, and which we are bound to main- tain : and thus I have aimed to promote the cause of Truth and of Peace. Allow me now to submit what I have written to your candid and serious consideration, and to sub- scribe myself, my dear Sir, with sincere regard, Yours faithfully, CHR. WORDSWORTH. Cloisters, Westminster, March 1, 1847. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. Since the publication of the first edition of these Letters, various inquiries have been made of the Author concerning the Hungarian Confession, from which some extracts are introduced in pages 69 — 71. He therefore thinks it right to print the original entire. It will be seen that it is introduced with the names " supremi magistratus spiritualis et saecu- laris." He follows the text of the collection of Sym- bolical Books of the Church of Rome, printed at Gottingen in 1838, Vol. II. pp. 343—346, and edited by two learned members of that Church, Streitwolf and Klener. Confessio Romano-Catholica, in Hungaria Emngelicis publice prcescripta et proposita. I. Fatemur et confitemur, nos singular! cura supremi nostri magis- tratus spiritualis et saecularis, diligentia et ope Dominorum Patrum Soc. Jesu, ab hseretica via et fide ad veram Catholico-Romanam salvificam deductos esse, eamque ore nostro et lingua universo mundo aperte ad notitiam velle dare. II. Confitemur, Papam Romanum caput esse Ecclesiae, nee errare III. Confitemur, et certi sumus, Papam Romanum Vicarium esse Christi, plenariamque habere potestatem, omnibus hominibus, pro voluntate sua, peccata remittendi, retinendi, [in] infernum detru- dendi, excommunicandique. ADVERTISEMENT. Vll IV. Confitemur, quicquid Papa instituerit novi, sive intra sive extra Scripturam, quicquid etiam demandaverit, esse verum, divi- num et salvificum ; ideoque a Laicis majoris sestimari debere, Dei vivi prseceptis. V. Confitemur, Papam Sanctissiraum ab omnibus honore divino honorari debere, majori cum genuflexione, ipsi Christo debita. VI. Confitemur et asserimus, Papam ab omnibus, tamquam Pa- trem Sanctissimum, in omnibus esse audiendum sine omni excep- tione ; ejus institutis dirigentibus contrafacientes, sine omni miseri- cordia tales Hsereticos non solum igne tollendos, sed et cum corpore et anima inferno tradendos. VII. Confitemur, lectionem Scripturse Sacrae ortum esse heere- sium, et sectarum, scaturiginemque blaspliemiie. VIII. Confitemur, mortuos Sanctos et Sanctas invocare, Imagines eorum honorare, coram eis genua incurvare, ad eos peregrinari, [eos] vestire, lumina eis accendere, bonum, pium, sanctum, utile et salutare esse. IX. Confitemur, unumquemque Sacerdotem multo majorem esse Deipara, B. Virgine Maria, quae semel solum peperit Christum, nee amplius parit. Sacerdos autem Romanus non solum, dum vult, sed et quandocumque vult, offert et facit Christum, imo et creatum absumit. X. Confitemur, pro mortuis Missas celebrare, eleemosynas distri- buere, orare, utile ac salutare esse. XI. Confitemur, Papam Romanum habere potestatem Scripturam immutandi, pro voluntate augendi et minuendi sua. XII. Confitemur, animas post mortem in Purgatorio purgari, ac Missas Sacerdotum eis auxilium cum eliberatione esse. XIII. Confitemur, sub una specie Eucharistiam percipere, bonum et salutare ; sub utraque, hsereticum et damnabile esse. XIV. Confitemur et asserimus, hos, qui sub una specie utuntur? totum Christum cum came et sanguine, cum Deitate et ossibus, uti> vel percipere ; qui vero sub utraque, solo nudo pane frui et vesci. XV. Confitemur, septem esse vera et realia Sacramenta. XVI. Confitemur, Deum in imaginibus honorari, ac per eas ab hominibus agnosci. XVII. Confitemur, Mariam, Beatam Virginem, majore honore dignam ab Angelis et hominibus, ipso Christo, Filio Dei. XVIII. Confitemur, Beatam Virginem Mariam esse Reginam Coeli, simulque cum Filio regnare, cui Filium omnia ad voluntatem ejus facere debere. Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. XIX. Confitemur, ossa Sanctorum magnam habere virtutem, unde ab hominibus honoranda esse, ipsisque sacella exstruenda. XX. Confitemur, doctrinam Romanam esse Catholicam, puram, divinam, salvificam, autiquam et veram ; evangelicam autem falsam, erroneam, blasphemam, maledictam, heereticam, damnosam, sedi- tiosam, impiam, excogitatam ac fictam. Cum igitur in totum et plenarie, in omnibus explicationibus, religio Romana sub una specie bona sit et salutaris, ideo maledicimus omnibus illis, qui nos in hseresi adversa et impia sub utraque erudierunt. Maledictos pronuntiamus Parentes nostros, in fide ilia hseretica nos educantes ; maledicimus quoque et illis, qui nobis Romano-Catholicam fidem in dubium voca- runt, sicut et ducibus * illis, qui nobis maledicto illo calice subser- vierunt. Imo nobis ipsis maledicimus, maledictosque nos pronun- tiamus, eo quod ex maledicto illo calice hseretico (ex quo nobis bibere non decebat) participavimus. XXI. Confitemur, Scripturam Sanctam esse imperfectam et litte- ram mortuam, quousque a Summo Pontifice ea non fuerit explicata? et Laicis ad legendum concessa. XXII. Confitemur, unam Missam Sacerdotis Romani utiliorem esse centum et pluribus concionibus Evangelicorum. Ex eo male- dicimus libris illis, quos legimus, doctrinam illam hsereticam et blas- phemiam comprehendentibus. Maledictionem etiam superinducimus super omnia opera nostra, (in fide ilia hseretica exsistendo) patrata, ne in extremo die coram Deo nobis aliquid mereantur. Hsec omnia ex candido pectore facimus, asserentes, Romanam Ecclesiam in his et similibus articulis esse verissimam, cum solenni haereticse illius doctrinse, coram Vobis, Viri honorati, Matronse honoratse, Juvenes et Virgines prsesentes, renuntiatione. Juramus insuper, numquam amplius nos ad haereticam illam sub utraque (etiamsi licitum esset, vel fuerit), vita durante conversuros. Juramus etiam, donee una gutta sanguinis in corpore nostro extiterit, doctrinam maledictam illam evangelicam, nos omnimode, clam et aperte, violenter et frau- dulenter, verbo et facto persecuturos, ense quoque non excluso. Ultimum juramus (immutatione fors in statu sseculari vel spiritual i subsecutura), nos coram Deo, Angelis et Vobis prsesentibus, neque metu aut gratia, ab hac salvifica Romano -Catholica Ecclesia et divina discessuros unquam, et ad haeresin evangelicam maledictam redituros et reversuros, vel amplexuros. • ducibus ex conjectura, pro duobus quod in textu est. LETTERS, Laudatis antiqua, sed nove de die vivitis. Tertullian, Apol. 6. My dear Sir, At the close of the last letter which I had the pleasure of receiving from you, you expressed your satisfaction at the present posture of affairs in England, as far as concerns religion. You appeared to cherish a hope, not only that individuals in the two countries, France and England, but that the two nations themselves might he brought into close approximation in this respect, — in short, that we might be reconciled, as you would express it, to the Church of Rome. Since that letter was written much has occurred in France and England to strengthen that expec- tation. The number of converts to Rome has been 2 LETTER I. augmented by fresh accessions, of which full details have been published by you, and circulated in your country ; and a demonstration has been made of the same hope from one end of France to the other. No less than thirty-nine of your Archbishops and Bishops have enjoined the Clergy and Laity of their dioceses to offer up public prayers for the conver- sion of England. Masses have been said and lita- nies chanted for the " return of England/' as you term it, "to the Unity of the Church." Indul- gences have been granted to all Priests who offer the sacrifice of the Altar, and to all laymen who partake of it, in the intention of interceding for our restoration to the Faith. Nor is this all. Rome has spoken. The Supreme Pontiff has authorized a Novena to be celebrated in the Church of the Jesuits in his own city for our conversion. He has granted three hundred days' indulgence to all who visited the Church during the Novena, and plenary indulgence to those who, after confession and com- munion, paid five visits to the Church during that period. In the year 1553, Pope Julius III. struck a medal with the inscription Anglia resurges — " England, thou shalt rise again" — on which Queen Mary* is ♦'Thus described in the Historia Pontifi cum, Paris, 1677: "In hoc nuramo regina Maria depingitur quae Pontificem prona vene- ratur, astante Polo Cardinale. Hie autera numraus gratulatur Anglise ab errore resurgenti." % LETTEK I. 3 represented kneeling before the Pontiff, and receiv- ing his blessing. Perhaps the present Pope has a prophetic vision of a similar scene. Certain it is, that you look with no ordinary interest at present towards England ; and we ought not to be surprised at your hopes, or at the announcement of them to 'the world. But, permit me to say, whatever you may think, we must deplore the occasion and cause of your anticipations, not only for our sakes, but also for your own. The great majority of Englishmen believe that many of the tenets of the Church of Rome are of such a kind as to peril the souls of those who hold them ; and that when carried out in prac- tice they tend to disturb the peace and safety of empires : and they therefore deeply lament that events should have occurred in this country to bind you in closer bondage to those doctrines ; and that England should thus have served to promote the cause of Rome. It would, therefore, be much to be regretted if nothing were supplied you from this country to repair the mischief we have done you. Hence it is that I have ventured, not without reluctance, to take my pen to address you after a silence of more than a year; and you will pardon me, I am sure, if I reply to your last letter through the medium of the press, in the hope that if what I submit to your con- sideration should prove of any value, it may be useful to others as well as to yourself. b2 4 LETTER I, Before I proceed further, allow me to acquaint you with my opinions concerning your relation and that of the Church of France generally to us in England and to our Church. It is my "belief that our Blessed Lord designed His Church to he commensurate with the world in extent, and coexistent with it in duration. This Church, — thence called Catholic or Universal, — has many con- stituent elements, commonly termed particular Churches. Some of these are in a sounder state than others ; some are in a healthy, some in a morbid, some in a moribund condition. Start not, I pray you, if I profess my conviction that the Church of Rome is of this last description ; and that those national Churches which communicate with her in all her doctrines are necessarily in the same predi- cament. At the same time I readily allow that the cor- ruptions of a Church are not in themselves sufficient to justify its members in separating from it. Wilful schism is a mortal sin. No disease can be imagined so great that this can be its remedy. No Church on earth is perfect : the Apostolic and Apocalyptic Churches were tainted with heresies. Tares there are, and ever will be, mixed with the wheat in every part of the universal field of the Church ; and if the wheat will uproot itself because of the tares near it, it must look to grow, or rather to wither, in the air, for it will never find a place to its mind in the LETTER I. 5 soil. Therefore do not suppose that I am calling on you or any one else to pluck himself up from that part of the field in which he has been sown by the providence of God. No : let him only take care not to be tares, but to be good wheat. But, then, you must suffer me to add, that the case may occur of a Church not allowing any per- sons to communicate with her except on this con- dition, that they communicate with her in her cor- ruptions. A schism must then take place ; and wilful schism, as was before said, is a mortal sin ; and wo to him who gives occasion to it ; wo to him, I say, "by whom the offence cometh." It is clear that in the case supposed the whole guilt of the schism lies with that Church which imposes sinful terms of communion: and the party who does not communicate with her does not separate himself, that is, is not guilty of schism. He is not the injur -er, but the injured : he does not commit evil, but suffer it. Whether the Church of Rome does impose sinful terms of communion on her lay members I leave you to judge : that she does impose them on her Clergy, by compelling them to subscribe the Creed of Pius IV., — which contains twelve articles not merely unknown to the Primitive Church, but, for the most part, contrary to what it received from Christ and His Apostles, and destructive of it, — with an express decl aration that " out of this faith " so b3 6 LETTER I. enforced " there is no salvation/' — does not appear to me to admit of a doubt, and that, whether any one subscribes this creed or no, the Church of Rome is guilty of schism by obtruding it, I for my part cannot hesitate to affirm. If the whole of her Priesthood were to abjure this oath as an illicit one, she herself would alone be responsible for what she would call their apostasy. But I am writing to a layman ; and you will now understand from what I have said, that I make a broad distinction between yourself, born in France and baptized in the Church of Rome, and remaining in its communion, and those who have been bap- tized in the Church of England, and fall away from it. Let the Church of England be as defective as they allege she is in means of spirituality and holi- ness, let her even be as corrupt as we affirm the Church of Rome to be, still they cannot prove that she is not a Church, and that she is not the Church in which they themselves have been baptized ; and unless they can clearly demonstrate that she has excommunicated them by imposing on them sinful terms of communion, as we can show that the Church of Rome does excommunicate all those who cannot receive the unscriptural and anti-scriptural additions she has made to the faith of the Apostles and of all the Apostolic Churches, they have severed them- selves from the Church Catholic, and are guilty of the heinous sin of schism. They are aiders and LETTER I, 7 abettors of those who set up Altar against Altar, Priest against Priest, and Bishop against Bishop ; that is, they are the promoters of " confusion and every evil work/' It is vain, therefore, for them to speak of their " having joined the Church of Rome :" they have joined no Church, nor can they do so. They are wilful schismatics, and, as such, have put themselves out of communion with the whole Catholic Church. They are " sine matre, sine sede, orbi fide, extorres sine lare*," like Cain. Let them even then possess the knowledge of Apostles, and the faith of Martyrs, and the eloquence of Angels, yea, let them give all their goods to feed the poor, and their bodies to be burned, yet they have broken the bonds of Church unity, and therefore they have not charity ; for, as St. Augustine says, " non habent Dei chari- tatem, qui non diligunt Ecclesia? unitatem j- ;" and therefore their gifts and graces, whatever they may be, profit them nothing, but only serve to increase their condemnation. You will understand, then, my dear sir, that I do not charge you with schism, as I do them. But still you will pardon me, I trust, if I venture to say that your true wisdom, and your true charity to yourself and to your Church, would be not to confirm her in her errors by collecting examples and publishing catalogues of the apostasies which have taken place • Tertullian, Prseser. Hteret. 42. f c. Donat. iii. 21. B 4 8 LETTER I. in England, but to examine the faith and practice of your own Church by the standard of Reason, Scripture, and primitive Antiquity ; and having ob- served her miserable declensions from it, to endea- vour to raise her to the position in which she once stood, and from which she has now most lamentably fallen. Oh ! that you, and others of ability, know- ledge, and zeal like you, would labour to bring bach your Church to what she was in the days of your Hilary and of your Irenaeus ! What a noble exer- cise would this be of your piety and patriotism ! You have had appeals from England, calling on you to pray for our conversion ; let now another voice, how- ever feeble, of a different kind, excite you to labour and pray for your own reformation ! But to revert to your letter. You there dwelt with pleasurable anticipations on what you regarded as the probable results of an event which had not then taken place, — the admission of the Rev. J. H. Newman "into the communion of the Church of Rome/' That event, alas! has now occurred, and, as you are aware, at the same time with it a work appeared from his pen, entitled " An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine." Before I proceed further, let me say, once for all, what I request you carefully to bear in mind, in reading the present letter and the others that may follow it from me. I shall have frequent occasion to refer in them to the " Essay on Development/' but LETTER I. 9 my object in writing to you is not to compose a criticism on that book. This has been done by others ; particularly by the learned master of Win- chester College, Dr. Moberly, the Rev. Win. Palmer of "Worcester College, the Rev. W. J. Irons, and Pro- fessor Butler of Dublin * But my present concern is not with any individual work or person whatsoever, but with a system ; and I advert to that volume only so far as it is connected with a system, and as it illustrates the proposition which I shall endeavour to prove in the following letters — I mean the destructive character of Romish principles. When carried to their legitimate results, they are, in my opinion, subversive of all that is most valuable and sacred in morals, politics, and religion. The day seems to be fast approaching when this fact will be still more clearly manifested to the world by practical evidence than has ever yet been the case. You yourselves are suffering from these principles in France both as a State and a Church ; and when you pray that Eng- land may espouse them, your desire, as it appears to me, amounts to this, that we should be the victims of a system which must plunge us in anarchy and infidelity. But I return for a few minutes to the * It were much to be wished that the admirable letters of the last-mentioned winter, addressed to the editor of the " Irish Eccle- siastical Journal," could be circulated more extensively by being published in a separate form. B5 10 LETTER I. More than a year has now elapsed since the pub- lication of this volume, which the author (as he states in the postscript) " submits to the judgment of the Church, with whose doctrine on the subjects of which it treats he wishes all his thoughts to be coincident/' Sufficient time, therefore, has been given to ascertain the opinions of Roman Catholic divines, and of the Church of Rome generally, with respect to it. These opinions may be inferred partly from what she has not done, and partly from what she has done with respect to it. The preface is dated October the 6th, 1845. and on the 8th of the same month the author was re- ceived into communion with the Church of Rome. He came, therefore, into that communion with this book in his hands. It was, if I may so speak, his passport ; his profession of faith. Now, I would observe, that all who have been abettors of heresy (so-called), and who are afterwards admitted into the Roman communion, are required by the Church of Rome in her Pontifical* to anathematize all heresy, to swear that they hold the same faith as the Church of Rome, and that they will ever remain in com- munion with the Supreme Pontiff; and to declare that all who oppose this faith are deserving of eter- nal execration. You must allow that if the Church of Rome is a pure Church, the author of the " Essay on Development" had been an abettor of heresy. * Pontifkale, p. 449, ed. Rom. 1818. LETTER I. 11 He had called the Church of Rome u crafty, obsti- nate, wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, as mad men are ; or, rather, she may be said to resemble a de- moniac. She is her real self only in name, and till God vouchsafe to restore her, we must treat her as if she were the Evil One who governs her. And in saying this, I must not be supposed to deny that there is any real excellence in Romanism even as it is, or that any real excellent men are its adherents. Satan ever acts on a system * '• The writer of these words could not (I conclude) have been admitted into your communion without satisfactory evidence that he had passed from heresy into orthodoxy, in your sense of the terms. Hence it is impossible not to infer, that the recep- tion of the author into the Church of Rome, bearing this volume with him, is tantamount to a declaration of his conviction, and to an acknowledgment on the part of the Church which so received him, that this publication is in accordance with, or, at least, not contrary to, the teaching of that Church. Indeed, by the retractation prefixed to his volume of his former language " reflecting on the Church of Rome," he intimates, what he also declares, that the present volume is "directed to the removal of obstacles lying in the way of communion with that Church -f" Be- sides this, the Church of Rome possesses what is * Newman's Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 103. *}* Advertisement prefixed to the Essay on Development. b6 12 LETTER I. called a Congregazione dell' Indice, a Congregation for examining books, and for putting those which are disapproved by it into the Index Expurgatorius ; and this Congregation has been very active lately, as your Procureur- General and Member of your Cham- ber of Deputies, M. Dupin, can bear witness, whose Manual has been enrolled* among the prohibited books by the Pope: but I do not hear that the " Essay on Development" has shared the same fate. No : that book has not been put into the Index, — but its author is now in the Propaganda ! In addition to all this, the work in question has not only been called "un beau fruit" by your leading Ecclesiastical Review -f-, but it has received encomiums from Romanist Prelates and Divines in this country. Thus, for instance, a writer in the Dublin Review J, who, we are informed § by a Romanist Clergyman, is a Bishop of the Romish Communion, thus speaks of Mr. Newman and his Essay. "The reader must peruse this volume as the description of the process * With several other books, by a Decree of the Pope, April 7, 1845. t Le Correspondant, 25th Dec. 1845, p. 906. X Dublin Review, Dec. 1845. § The Rev. John Dalton, in the ■ Tablet," Jan. 24, 1846, p. 54, who says, — " The constant writer in the Dublin Review, on the Religious Movement, is one of our venerated Bishops" Six of these articles have been reprinted from the Dublin Review, and circulated, with Bishop Wiseman's name as their author, by the " Catholic Institute of Great Britain." Dr. Wiseman appealed to the Bishops of France for their prayers in behalf of the British Nation in a letter dated Paris, 1845, and reprinted by M. Gondon. LETTER I. 13 of reasoning by which the author's powerful and well-stored mind was brought to a full accordance with Catholic Truth *." " Never did convert come to the Church with mind, soul, and heart more thoroughly made over to her cause, with more com- plete hearty and filial allegiance, than this work shows him to have done-f*. The Catholic system is em- braced (in it) with the fervour and simplicity of one trained from infancy to the Faith \." Such is the verdict which has been pronounced on this work by one who (it is said) holds an Episcopal office in the Church of Rome — a Church, be it ob- served, which never ceases to assure us that the most perfect unity of judgment and practice exists in her communion ; and therefore what is promulgated by one Bishop may be received as the opinion of all. But further still, another Romanist Prelate in this kingdom has paid a still more flattering tribute, of another kind, to this work. Dr. Gillis, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Edinburgh, has delivered a series of Lectures upon it in the Scotch capital §. He has * Dublin Review, Dec. 1845, p. 527. f P. 532. X P. 534. § The following account of these Lectures is given in the English Roman Catholic journal, the " Tablet," No. 300, p. 70 (for Jan. 7, 1846) : " Sir, — As every thing connected with our Church in partibus infi- delium must be interesting to the readers of the * Tablet,' I take the liberty of mentioning that a series of eight lectures has lately been delivered to the community of this city by our much-valued Bishop Coadjutor '. Dr. Gillis. The subject of these lectures — which have been 14 LETTER L thus received the Essayist into the number of the Doctors of the Church of Rome ; he has, as it were, attended, not merely by the members of our Holy Faith, but by large numbers of Protestants of all sects and denominations — was Mr. Newman's recent Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine ; and their object was to convey a succinct analysis and exhibition of the process of reasoning contained in that psychological marvel to such who, either from circumstances, might be unable to procure access to the volume, or be incapable, without some guidance, of following the line of argument pursued by the distinguished essayist. This Dr. Gillis accomplished with his accustomed eloquence and perspicuity. By taking separately each of Mr. Newman's tests, and illustrating his relative deductions by the parallels adduced by the reasoner, and those abundant evidences afforded by the peculiar features of the Establishment at home, and the cradle-land of the Deformation — Germany ; the blasphemies of both, and the infidelity now openly flourishing in the one country, and rapidly becoming developed in the other ; Dr. Gillis, as it were, illuminated that most important essay, and extended the principles of its learned author to the comprehen- sion of the humblest and least instructed, as well as to the admira- tion and charm of his more favoured auditors. These lectures, we know, have already been productive of much good, and will yet effect more ; and we have heard several liberal and learned Protestants express their regret that his Lordship has brought the course to a conclusion. For while Dr. Gillis unflinchingly and boldly denounced and exposed the infamous calumnies heaped upon God's Church, and the lamentable errors and ignorance of her aspersors, he testified the beauty of its holiness by the affectionate charity and kindness with which he solicited mercy and enlightenment from heaven on the individuals themselves. From the obvious benefit resulting from these lectures of his Lordship, I have accordingly deemed it my duty to convey the fact to your columns, respectfully suggesting that a similar course should be adopted in the various districts of the kingdom wherever * two or three are gathered together,' as such expositions are but due to Mr. Newman, and conducive to the honour of that glorious Church, at the foot of whose altars he has laid this * reason for the faith that is in him.' — I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant, A. "Edinburgh, St. John Chrysostom, 1846." 15 TO placed his "Essay on Development" by the sicfc^Jojp the Libri Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, and Secunda Secundse of Thomas Aquinas. Nor is this all. We find from the Ecclesiastical Intelligencer of the Continent, the Univers, that the author of the " Essay on Development" has been honoured with a mark of approval and favour from the Pope himself. The same letters from Rome, which state to the readers of that periodical that the whole month of March of last year has been devoted, by a religious Society in that city, to prayers for the conversion of England, apprises us that " the Holy Father (Gregory XVI.) has presented a beautiful crucifix to Mr. Newman *.* The present Pope, Pius IX., has also given public proofs of the same feelings. The author of the " Essay on Development " has been admitted to reside in the great Missionary College of Rome, and has been allowed to preach in a church, * "Borne, 18 Mars, 1846. — La fete de saint Gregoire a e^e cele*- bre'e le 12 de ce mois en grand* solennite dans la belle e'glise du Monte-Celio, au couvent des Camaldules. Un triduo y avait e'te ordonne pour demander a Dieu la conversion de V Angleterre. Une foule de catholiques anglais etaient venus s'agenouiller au pied de ces autels, d'ou, a la voix de saint Gregoire, sont partis les apotres qui convertirent la Grande-Bretagne. A l'occasion de cette fete touch ante, une pieuse association s'est formee dans le but de con- sacrer tout le mois de mars a des prieres pour la conversion de 1' Angleterre. Un grand nombre de messes sont dites tous les jours a cette intention au Je'su et dans toutes les eglises et chapelles par- ticulieres de Rome. " Le Saint Pere (Greg. XVI.) a fait present oVun beau crucifix a M. Newman." 16 LETTER I. although, in your eyes, he is a layman, and is gone from us to receive holy orders at Rome. Such are the tidings we receive from Italy ; and from Paris we learn at the time when I am address- ing you, that Mr. Newman, on his way to Rome " to receive holy orders," was welcomed with marks of tender cordiality by the Archbishop of Paris, and by the Nuncio of the Apostolic See*: no less marked was the welcome he received from the most eminent Bishop of the French Church of the present day, the Bishop of Langres -f*, and an earnest hope is ex- pressed by the leading Romanist Journal of France, that " after having saluted the tombs of the Apostles, he will return, strong in the graces he will have re- * Uniters, 13 Septembre. — See the following page. f Univers, 20th Sept. 1846. " On nous e'crit de Langres, — * La presence du R. J. H. Newman dans notre ville n'a pas excite moins d'interet qu'a Paris. Sa simplicity et sa raodestie ont fait le charme de toutes les personnes qui ont eu l'avantage d'etre admises aupres de lui. Notre ve'uerable e'veque l'a accueilli avec l'empresse- ment et la cordialite d'un frere. Quarante a cinquante membres de notre clerge ont eu l'honneur d'etre presentes a celui dont la parole eloquente emouvait jadis la jeunesse studieuse de la premiere uni- versite' d'Angleterre. Les marques de sympathie dont le savant ecrivain a etd l'objet lui ont dit le bonheur qu'eprouvent les catho- liques de le compter parmi leurs freres. L'anxiete avec laquelle on cherchait a apprendre de ses levres les progres du mouvement re- ligieux de sa patrie trahissait l'interet avec lequel la France suit la renaissance de l'Angleterre. II nous semblait voir dans la personne de M. Newman, allant se jeter aux pieds du vicaire de Jesus-Christ, un avant-coureur depeche par l'Angleterre pour aller porter a Rome la nouvelle de son retour a la foi de ses peres. Puissent ces douces esperances se realiser un jour ! Quels hommes admirables que ces convertis d'Oxford ! Dieu ne s'est pas choisi sans dessein des instru- ments si propres a accomplir de grandes choses.' " LETTER £ 1/ ceived, and in the benediction of the vicar of Jesus Christ, to evangelize his country" The expressions to which I advert will remain as a record to posterity of your hopes, and as a testimony from you of the honour due in the opinion of your hierarchy from the See of Rome to the author of the " Essay on Development *." * " Paiis, 12 Septemhre. — Le reverend John Henry Newman, pre- mier chef de la celebre ecole qui, aujourd'hui,a le docteur Pusey pour maitre, vient de passer trois jours a Paris. II en est parti hier, se ren- dant a Langres,ou il va serrer la main de son ami et disciple, le reverend Dobre Dalgairns, qui, comme lui, apres avoir embrasse la foi catho- lique, se prepare, par le recueillement et l'e'tude, a Vexercice du saint ministere. Dans les courts instants que le savant theologien anglais a passes ici, il a visite les principaux monuments religieux de la ca- pitale de la France. 11 a ete recu avec les marques d\ne tendre cor- dialite par Mgr. le nonce apostolique et par Mgr. Varchevtque de Paris, qui, Tun et Fautre, ont ete heureux de pouvoir lui exprimer de vive voix tout ce que leur coeur avait eprouve* d'alle'gresse en apprenant la conversion d'un esprit si eminent. L'ancien cure' de Sainte- Marie et de Littlemore s'est agenouille' dans l'eglise ou la piete des fideles venere les reliques de saint Vincent de Paul. . . . " Ajoutons que ce celebre enfant de VEglise n'a pas voulu quitter Paris sans faire une visite a Notre- Dame-des-Victoires, ce sanctuaire ou reposent les trophees de tant de conquetes modernes du eatholi- cisme, ou chaque semaine un pretre venerable et venere' lit au milieu d'une foule pieuse le bulletin des victoires remportees sous les auspices de Marie. Celui dont la conversion avait ete dans ces murs sacre*s l'objet de vives et perseve'rantes prieres, venait se confondre parmi les fideles qui avaient adresse* leurs supplications au Ciel, et, a son tour, lui aussi priait pour la conversion des amis dont il s'est se*pare et de sa patrie tout entiere. Le sejour de M. Newman a Paris a e*te court, parce qu'il a hate de se rendre a Rome, ou il se propose de passer Vkiver et de recevoir les ordres sacris. Sa presence dans la capi- tale du monde chretien ne saurait etre un e*ve*nement sans importance pour l'Angleterre religieuse. Le travail de regeneration qui s'opere ne peut manquer d'en recevoir une impulsion nouvelle. L*inte*r^t que cette circonstance eveillera en faveur de l'Eglise renaissante 18 LETTER I. Looking, then, at the reception of the author of the " Essay on Development" into the Church of Rome, with this volume as his confession of Faith, — looking at the tributes of honour which have been paid to him and his work, by Prelates of your Church, and by the Pope ; considering also that unity of doctrine and practice is affirmed by your Church to be her special badge and prerogative, we should be guilty of great disrespect to her if we did not allow that this work is (to adopt the first-mentioned Bishop's words) " in full accordance with Catholic truth " as received and professed in the communion of Rome. You cannot wish us to imagine that the infallible Head of the Church of Rome can have been deluded ; and that he can have extended his favour to the publisher of a Theory inconsistent with Roman orthodoxy. It would be very unjust to your Pre- lates, to suppose that, arrived at their stage of life and dignity, they can have had, as it were, to go a second time to school, and learn a new " Theory of Christian Doctrine"" from the lips of a Neophyte freshly won from the ranks of Protestantism. They are too clear-sighted not to perceive how dangerous d'Angleterre ddterminera, sans aucun doute, des efforts nouveaux pour satisfuire a ses besoins. L'homme le plus eminent que l'angli- eanisme ait eu depuis deux siecles raffermira sa science et sa foi dans la ville sainte, et apres avoir baise le tombeau des apotres, il partira, fort des graces qu'il aura re£ues et de la benediction du vicaire de Je^sus-Christ, pour cdler emngeliser sa patrie et lui dire ce qu'il aura vu, entendu et conquis." LETTER I. 19 an alternative it would be for them to concede that this doctrine, so honoured and lauded by them, is new to them and to their Church : that it is not, in fact, her doctrine. They cannot suppose that Reli- gion, like natural Science, admits of discoveries : that it has at one time its Ptolemaic system, at another its Tychonic, at another its Copernican and Newtonian, to explain its phenomena. No : this doctrine, if true noiv, must have been always true, and it must, in their opinion, have always been the doctrine of thai Church, which they affirm to be the divinely- appointed depository and guardian of all Sacred Truth, — the Church of Rome. Let me refer also to another circumstance, which, I would observe by the way, has given me another reason for writing to you. It appears that you already have one; and are likely to have another trans- lation of the "Essay on Development" in France. From the terms in which one of these translations is announced, it would appear that the author still abides by the opinions and statements of his book ; and it would seem, also, that the Church of Rome, to say the least, does not disapprove of them. Indeed, considering the author's present position in a state of tutelage in the Propaganda *, we may say that his * Extract from the tinkers, 10th Jan. 1847 : — " Le reverend M. Newman, dans une lettre recemment ecrite de Rome a un de ses amis, exprimait le desir que la traduction de son bel outrage sur YHistoire du Developpement de la Doctrine Chrttienne ne parut pas sans avoir ete revue par un ami de son choix. Ce desir 20 LETTER I. acts are those of his Roman superiors rather than his own ; and his expression of a desire for a French translation is tantamount to an imprimatur from them. For my own part, I am persuaded that every one who reflects carefully on the principles of the Church of Rome, illustrated by her practice, will allow that the Romanist Prelates, to whom I have now referred, are correct interpreters of her mind, when they laud and lecture upon the "Essay on Development/' I do not hesitate to affirm, that the author has no less est bien justifie, car les idees qu'il exprime dans cet ouvrage sont souvent si abstraites, et son style est si parfaitement anglais, qu'une simple connaissance de la langue anglaise ne saurait suffire pour re- produire avec toute la precision desirable ce beau travail. Ces ddsirs de M. Newman ont apporte quelque retard dans l'apparition de cet ouvrage ; mais, quelque desiree qu'en soit la traduction, mieux vaut qu'elle paraisse un peu plus tard, que d'etre livree au public dans un e"tat imparfait ou n'offrant pas toutes les garanties desirables. " Le savant neophyte, en exprimant ce desir, ne s'attendait pas a etre victime de ce qu'il redoutait davantage. II apprendra avec douleur qu'une traduction de son ouvrage, pleine d'erreurs gros- sieres, que nous signalerons sans delai, vient de paraitre. Nous sommes certains d'etre agreables a l'auteur de YHistoire du Developpe- ment en signalant cette pretendue traduction de son ouvrage pour ce qu'elle vaut. II est impossible de pousser plus loin que le traducteur l'ignorance de toutes choses se rattachant a M. Newman et au mouve- ment religieux de PAngleterre. Nous justifierons demain cette opinion. " M. Newman peut se rassurer. Le public francais ne le jugera pas sur l'oeuvre informe qu'on nous donne sous son nom ; il attendra la traduction qui doit paraitre avec son approbation, — traduction et approbation que la publication dont nous signalons les defauts rendent plus que jamais indispensables." — Mr. Newman dates his public declaration concerning the supposed miraculous cure of the Abbe* Blanpin, fi from the College of the Propaganda, 4 Jan. 1847." LETTER I. 21 fairly than freely stated the true, the only Theory of Christian doctrine as taught by the Church of Rome. I do not mean to say that it has always been as clearly avowed by her Divines as he has stated it ; no, far from it. Some of them, and these very eminent Theologians, — your own Bossuet, for instance, (as I shall hereafter show,) — have struggled vehemently against it. They have contended as earnestly for an unvarying and invariable Tradition of Doctrine, as he does for an unlimited and illimitable Expansion of it. Some of your Doctors say that " the Church believes as she has always believed/' as vehemently as others among you affirm, that " the Church is always learn- ing new truths/' yr\pa(jKU t aid 7roAAa SiSaaKOfxivj}, It will be found that on this fundamental question, you have, as in many others in your Church, Doctors against Doctors, Bishops against Bishops, Councils against Councils, Popes against Popes. But though you have no unity of teaching on this subject, yet there is a ruling idea which runs through the acts of the Church of Rome : and what Mr. Newman's Essay is in Theory, that the Papacy is in Practice. From Ecclesiastical History, as he reads it, Mr. Newman constructs the Papacy ; from itself, as it exists, the Papacy interprets Ecclesiastical History. The one proceeds by synthesis, the other by analysis. The Theory of Development is the result of both processes. It is, and must be, the Theory of all consistent Romanists. It follows necessarily from 22 LETTER I. the doctrine of the Papal Infallibility : a living In- fallible Power must be creative. The will of the existing Roman Church, or, as the Greeks very well express it, rrig ad 'Pwjucmcfic 'EkkXtj- criag, of the Romish Church from time to time*, that is, en dernier ressort, the will of the Pope, is, and must be, your Rule of Faith. Your canon law distinctly avers this, " the practice of Rome," it says, " is the law of the world "f\? 0w7rre tov Kparovvr ad, " Bend to him who rules at Rome," — this is your maxim. Change as he may, he cannot err. Change he will, (" to be perfect is to have changed often," says your new convert J,) for it is the property of the Faith to grow, and it is his province to engraft new articles of faith on the original stock. It was once a mere seed ; then a tender plant : now it makes new shoots ; now it buds and blossoms ; and casts out luxuriant branches — , nee longum terapus et ingens Exiit ad coelum ramis felicibus arbor, Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma. Virg. Georg. ii. 80. There is, I confess, a boldness and fearlessness * Bacon, the English Jesuit, thus writes in his Analysis Fidei IV. ch. vi. p. 244. 1637 ' — " Hie modus resolvendi ultimo fidem in regulam vivam sensibilem" (i.e. Pontificem Romanum) "ipsissimus est quo usi sunt primi Christiani." Vide p. 246. f Jus Canon. Decret. Dist. xi. c. 1 1 . " Ab omnibus servari debet quod Romana servat Ecclesia ;" and again Dist. xix. c. 2. " Quic- quid Romana Ecclesia statuit vel ordinat, ab omnibus observandum est." t P. 39. LETTER I. 23 about the "Essay on Development/' which would be very delightful if it landed the reader on terra firma, instead of leaving him like a wrecked mariner on a quicksand of unbelief. The author has evi- dently dared to despise the dictates of caution which some among his Romanist friends may have suggested to him. Ausus est vana contemnere, as was said of Columbus ; though we cannot add that, like him, he has found a continent. His "well- stored mind" was not ignorant that the cause of Rome cannot be maintained on the grounds of Scrip- ture and Primitive Antiquity ; and he is too honest to pretend that it can. He therefore flings them to the winds. Again, he has too much sense to imagine that it can be defended at the same time by the opposite theories of Tradition and Development. He will not attempt to combine contradictions. He sees that Tradition and Development are, ex vi termino- rum, antagonist forces ; and he will not tie his reli- gion to both, knowing that it must be torn in pieces if he does. He has a choice to make between them, and he knows it well. So, jacta est alea, he has made his election. He has rejected Antiquity, and has accepted Development. The aim of war is peace, and the end of contro- versy is truth. The question is now simplified between the Churches of Rome and England by the " Essay on Development ;" and its appearance is, 24 LETTER I. therefore, in a certain sense, a reason for gratitude to Him Whose peculiar attribute it is to bring good out of evil ; deeply to be deplored though it be for the author's sake that such a work should have ever been written. Abundant and strong the evidence is that the Theory of Development is the only con- sistent Theory of Romanism, yet it has never, I believe, been propounded so distinctly, or worked out so elaborately, as by the author of this volume. Your theologians have sighed for it, and have che- rished it secretly ; but they have been afraid to own it publicly. This Theory has had many a Coper- nicus among you, but he is its Newton ; and we would indulge a sanguine hope, that the cause of truth will be promoted in due time by the unre- served manner in which this Theory, this only Theory of Romanism, has been stated in this Essay. It would be an interesting study, scarcely any more so, to trace the progress of this doctrine of development through the writings of your Romanist Divines. It showed itself timidly at first, like a stream half hidden in the sand. Here and there it flowed in a feeble rill in your earlier theology. But it has gradually become broader and deeper, till at length it has swollen into the main navigable flood, and become the ecclesiastical Tiber of the Eternal City. The reason of this progress is clear. In the middle ages, when the Scriptures were less accessible to the world, and when the works of the Fathers LETTER I. 25 of the Church were buried in MSS. in libraries, it was not difficult or dangerous for the Church of Rome to plead her cause by an appeal to Scripture and Antiquity. The documents to which she refer- red were in her own hands, and scarcely in any other. Nor can I doubt that many of her Divines who made this appeal believed that they had good ground for doing so. But in course of time the Scriptures were more studied, and the works of the earlier Fathers were more and more diffused through the medium of the press ; and then it became evi- dent to those who examined the matter, that if the cause of Romanism was to be maintained, it must look for aid of a very different kind from that which it had formerly pressed into its service. If you will allow me, I will submit to you some proof of this assertion. About a hundred and eighty years ago our learned Bishop Stillingfleet * thus wrote to an Englishman who had been perverted to Romanism, Mr. John Serjeant \ : "I see the Roman Church asserts that things may be de fide in one age which were not in another ; at least Popes and Councils challenge this ; and this is the common doctrine there, and others are looked on as no members of their Church who assert the contrary." By way of comment on * Appendix to Rule of Faith. Lond. 1666. p. 39. . f Concerning whom see the note to the recent excellent edition of Archhishop Bramhall's Works, ii. p. 358. C 26 LETTER I. this statement of the Bishop, I would remind you of Leo X., and his famous bull Eocsurge Domine * against Luther, wherein the Pope condemns as heretical, the assertion " that it is not in the power of the Church or Pope to constitute articles of Faith/' Before that time Cardinal Cusanus f had affirmed that " Scrip- ture is modified and variously understood according to change of times, so that at one period it is to be expounded in one way according to the practice of the Church, and that on the change of practice its sense is changed also/' So, again j, Gregory of Valencia says, " the same things have not always been believed explicitly ; but divers points, in course of time, have been made manifest and believed/' and Austin § of Ancona, " the Pope may make a new Creed, multiply articles of faith, and place more points under each article than were before." And thus the celebrated Salmeron || declares that " God has not given all things to all men, and that every * Bullarium Romanum, vol. v. p. 489. + Cusan. ad Bohem. Epist. 2. * Scripturas esse ad tempus adap- tatas et varie intellectas, ita ut uno tempore secundum currentem universalem ritum exponerentur, mutato ritu iterum sententia mu- taretur." See also the discussions in Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent (Brent's Translation, 1676, p. 149. 170—173). t iii. 96. § tt Novum symbolum condere ; novos articulos supra alios mul- tiplicare." August. Triumph, de Ancona, Surara. de Eccl. Pot. q. 59, art. 3. || " Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus, ut qurelibet setas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior setas ignoravit." Salmeron. Dis. 57, in Ep. ad Rom. LETTER I. 27 age should enjoy its own truths which were unknown to preceding generations ;" and we are assured by Stapleton that "the Church learns many things* from the Holy Spirit, which she has not been taught by Christ/'' In fact, Christianity, with many of your Divines, admits as much of discoveries as Chymistry. Even your Bellarmine, zealous as he was for tra- dition, does not scruple to say that every doctrine rests'on the authority of the existing Church *f- ; and that the Church of latter time has not only power to explain and declare, but to constitute those things which belong to faith \. Bossuet also, vehemently as he protested (as I shall show hereafter, for your divines are not always consistent) against the Doc- trine of Development when taught by a Protestant, did not scruple to say that " the Church of the first three centuries left many things to be cleared after- wards both in its doctrine and practice §" For * Relect. iv. 9. 1. art. 1. ad 4. "Suggerit multo plum" . . . " ad- huc docet ; nee a solo Dei verbo, »sed a voce loquentis Ecclesiae pendet Fides." ■\ "Omnium dogmatum firmitas pendet ab authoritate prcesentis Ecclesxce" De Sac*, ii. 25. See also de Eccl. Mil. iii. 10. So also Gretser. Def. c. 10. lib. iii. de Verbo Dei, p. 1450. Per Ecclesiam intelligimus Pontificem Romanum, qui pro tempore Ecclesise navi- culam moderatur : and Def. c. I. lib. i. de Verbo Dei, p. 16. Id solum pro verbo Dei veneramur quod nobis Pontifex ex cathedra Petri tanquam supremus Christianorum magister omniumque con- troversiarum Judex definiendo proponit. X De Sum mo Pontifice, iv. c. 2—4. § Exposition of Christian Doctrine, i. p. 9. This passage was erased by the Doctors of the Sorbonue. See Wake's edition of it in Bishop Gibson's Tracts, iii. p. 10. c2 28 LETTER I. example of this, Scotus * tells us, that " before the Lateran Council, under Innocent III., transubstan- tiation was not an article of faith f and Vasquez-J* says that "we cannot deny that the practice of administering both kinds in the Sacrament con- tinued in the Latin Church to the times of Thomas Aquinas ;" and the Church of Rome teaches in her Canon Law " that many things were allowed, before the Gospel became clear, which are now forbidden— for instance, the marriage of the Clergy/' she says, "is not prohibited by the Law, the Gospel, or the Apostles — but it is strictly interdicted by the Church \" I will not trouble you with many citations to prove the growth of this theory in modern times. The author of the " Essay on Development/' appears to think that your famous Count Joseph De Maistre was one of its advocates §. I doubt this. De Maistre taunts I] Bossuet and Fleury (for I find that your * Scotus in 4 Sentent. Dist. xi. 9. 3. " Ante Lateranense Con- cilium (a.d. 1215) Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei." f " Negare non possumus etiam in Ecclesia Latina fuisse usum utriusque speciei, et usque ad tempora S. Thomse durasse." Vasq. in 3 Disp. 216, c iii. n. 38. X Jus Canon Decret. Pars II. c. xxvi. Q,u. 2. Sors non aliquid, p. 884, ed. 1839. § Mr. Newman says (p. 27), "The view on which it" (his own Essay) " is written has at all times, perhaps, been implicitly adopted by Theologians " (i. e. of Rome), " and I believe has recently been illustrated by several distinguished writers of the continent — such as De Maistre and Mohler." || Du Pape, liv. i. cap. i. p. 250, ed. Paris, 1841. See ibid. p. 617. LETTER I. 29 Divines often quarrel), the one for asserting that the Infallibility of the Pope dates only from the Council of Florence, the other for maintaining that it was invented by Cardinal Caietanus ; and he is very angry with Bossuet for the "long list of errors of Popes which he made with the zeal of a centuriator of Mag- deburgh/' X)n the other hand, De Maistre contends that " there is nothing new in the Church of Rome, and that she will never believe any thing which she has not believed always/' He had no notion of the doctrines of the Church having been set up in move- able types ; he boldly affirmed that her faith had been stereotyped once for all in the Apostolic times ; and that if people could not see all Roman doctrine in that of the primitive Church, — it was the fault of their eyes *. But passing from De Maistre, we find, as you know, a zealous partizan of the Doctrine of Develop- ment in the late celebrated Bavarian Professor of Theology, Dr. Mohler. His work on symbolism -f-, * Mr. Palmer, in the Appendix to his learned Work on Develop- ment, has quoted some extracts from De Maistre's " Du Pape," which show that he had not made up his mind whether " Saint Pierre avait une connaissance distincte de l'etendue de sa prerogative ;" but, on the whole, he decidedly clings to tradition. See his Du Pape, iv. p. 491. "Nos docteurs protestent et prouvent quHls n'ensei- gnent que lafoi des Apotres." + The first edition of which was published at Tubingen in 1832 ; the fifth at Munich in 1838 ; in which year and place the author died. An English translation of this work has been published by Mr. James Burton Robinson, 2 vols. Lond. 1843, from which I quote. c3 30 LETTER I. or on the dogmatic differences of Protestant and Romanist Churches, deserves to be carefully read. The earlier portion of it breathes a delightful spirit of Christian charity ; and if the author did not com- mit the inexcusable error of substituting Rome for the World — Urbem pro Orbe — and of limiting to the present Romish communion, which is only a part, and a very corrupt part, of Christendom, what the Divine Head of the Church has given to the whole Catholic Church of all times, he would, I think, have gained the sympathy and respect of all Christian readers in this portion of his work. He expounds the Theory, of which I am now speaking, in the fifth chapter of his first part. There he says that " the theory of the unity of the doctrine of the Church with that of Scripture is applicable to its substance only, and not the form *." " The original doctrine, as the human mind variously evolved it, expanded itself in a much altered form ; it remained the original ; and yet it did not f." " The word, after Christ's ascen- sion, existed for the world in no other form than in the faith of the Lord's disciples, whose kernel in Peter He therefore called the rock, whereon His Church was in such a way to be built that the powers of hell should never prevail against it. But after the Divine word had become human faith, it must be subject to all mere human destinies \" "All * Tom. ii. p. 49. t P. 50. £ P. 49. LETTER I. 31 the developments of the dogmas of the word and its morality, which can be considered as formal acts of the whole body, are to be revered as the sentences of Christ Himself*/' " The faith -f- is ever old and ever new/' and the Church by whose energy it is de- veloped " must be infallible/' The reader will, I think, rise from a perusal of Dr. Mohler's volume with the feeling that the author writes obscurely and vaguely : and the reason of this is obvious ; he was conscious of the difficulty under which he laboured. Can he espouse Development without discarding Tradition ? He strives earnestly to do so ; but cannot. He therefore absorbs Tra- dition into Development. Tradition, according to Dr. Mohler, is not definite or fixed, but it is the living word energizing in the hearts of believers. It is the sap of the tree ascending upward, and causing it to put forth buds, branches, and leaves. In fact, Tradition loses all its traditive character in Dr. Mohler's hands ; and instead of practising the strict fidelity of the Historian it luxuriates in all the exuberant imaginativeness of the Poet. One of the most elaborate theological works that have been produced in the present day in the Church of Rome is a course of Lectures delivered by the Padre Perron e, Professor of Divinity in the College of Jesuits, at Rome. You are aware that it has been circulated very widely in your country and on the * P. 37. t Pp. 8. 10. c 4 32 LETTER I. continent generally, although written in Latin and consisting of about three thousand very closely printed large octavo pages. The Roman Professor has not the boldness of Mr. Newman, nor even of Dr. Mohler. He therefore exhibits the Church of Rome entangled in a complex web of inconsistencies. Per- haps he was too near the steps of the infallible chair, and was dazzled by the excess of light in which it is invested. Whatever the reason — he has attained a most oracular ambiguity of speech. He will not abandon an iota of the old mediaeval traditional Theory, and yet he is determined to have all the benefit of the newer doctrine of Development. "With Cardinal Baronius he affirms that all the modern claims of the Papacy are to be found in the records of the Primitive Church * ; and yet he will contend with Mohler for its evolutionary and expansive power. It shall be rigid and yet elastic ; stationary and yet progressive ; land and yet sea. To say nothing at pre- sent of his defence of Romish Doctrine on the ground of antiquity, I would only lay before you one or two passages from his work, of an opposite character. " The faith (says he) which was contained in ge- neral words, as it were in a kernel or a seed (" in nucleo aut semine "), was evolved by degrees, as occa- sion required, and enunciated in precise formulas •(*." * Pp. 883—930, ed. Paris, 1842. + De Locis Theologicis, vol. ii. p. 847, Part I. c. iv. He there refers to Mohler (torn. ii. ch. v. § 40), " Ubi (says Perrone) hoc argumentum egregie evolvit." LETTER I. 33 The following words will be read with a painful interest : — " Since (says the same Roman Professor *) the objection, viz. that the Church of Rome has added new articles to the Creed, has ever been urged against her by Protestants, among whom Mr. New- man holds a distinguished place, who, in his Treatise on Romanism, censures the Catholics for substituting the confession of Pius IV. for the Creeds which the Church of England receives, I rejoice to be able to stop the mouths of our adversaries with the profound theory of Br. Mbhler." Having cited some of the paragraphs from Mohler's work, which I have already adduced, he adds, " If the Church of England -f-, as Mr. Newman asserts, has remained content with the three Creeds, it is because she is destitute of infalli- bility, and has never been able to condemn any heresy ; which is the case with all sects!' Such is the language of the Professor of Theology in the Jesuit College at Rome. Whether he will see cause to rejoice that Mr. Newman has now adopted Dr. Mohler's "profound Theory/' and has developed it in its full amplitude, remains yet to be seen. Of this I am sure, that with the rise of this Theory, that of Primitive Tradition, to which the Professor clings so fondly, must/a^ : — " Non bene conveniunt, neque hi una sede morantur." * Perrone, p. 855, ed. Paris. f Pp. 845—847- c5 34 LETTER I. The Church of Rome is now in a very critical posi- tion. She desires to belike the last day of the Athenian months, tvri kcu via, both new and old at the same time. But she cannot remain where she is. The new moon must appear. And the Essayist has been the first to announce it in a bold and audible voice. Will she thank him for so doing ? At present he has served only to remind us of her Variations ; to call our attention to the fact, that some of her Doctors are for Tradition, some for Development, some for both. Is this consistent with truth ? Is this unity ? I begin to think, that you will ere long have cause to rue his conversion. You now rejoice in your con- quest, but time will show whether you will not regret it. You have been dazzled by his erudition and ability; but it may perhaps prove fatal to your cause. He has fascinated the Papal Tarpeia with the jewels on his arms ; he has been received by her within the walls of the Roman citadel ; it remains now to be seen, whether he will not crush her with their weight. Believe me, My dear Sir, Yours faithfully, &c. &c. LETTER II. " And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, On this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may thrust out all your right eyes." ... I Sam. xi. 2. Such, my dear Sir, is the condition on which the Church of Rome consents to make a covenant with us. If we are willing to extinguish the Eye* of Reason which God has planted in our minds, and which He enlightens with heavenly radiance, we may have peace with the Roman Nahash, and take an oath of allegiance to him. You will remember that Saul and Samuel and the people of Israel did not approve of the Ammonite's proposition ; that their indignation was greatly excited by it, and that they arose as one man to assist the men of Jabesh-Gilead to whom the overture was made, and that by the aid of the Divine Spirit they fought valiantly against the Ammonites, and routed them utterly. After a few preliminary observations, I purpose to show in the present letter that the Church of Rome c6 36 LETTER II. is ready to receive us into her communion, on the condition of our sacrificing our Reason. It is impossible to admire adequately the mercy of Divine Providence, in affording means and oppor- tunities for embracing the truth to all who are willing to accept it ; and permit me to add, that this good- ness has shown itself in an especial manner in the present day to the Church of England, in overruling the religious controversies of the times, so as to display clearly, to all who will consider the matter, the soundness of the foundation on which her doc- trinal system is based. She affirms* that "Holy Scripture containeth all things" (that is, all doctrine of supernatural truth) " necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation :" and * Art. vi. See again Art. xx. " It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written ; neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet as it ought not to decree one thing against the same, so, besides the same, ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of salvation." Again, in her Ordinal, the fol- lowing question is put to the person to be ordained Priest or Bishop : — " Are you persuaded that the holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ ; and are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge, and to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture ?" LETTER II. 37 reasonably concluding from the nature of the case, and from Christ's special promise of presence and guidance to His Church, that it is impossible that the whole Church, and particularly the whole Church in the ages nearest to that of the Apostles, should have been in ignorance of any cardinal article of Christianity, she rightly teaches that nothing is to be regarded as a doctrine of Scripture, or to be in- culcated as such, which is contrary to the interpreta- tions of Scripture contained in the Three Creeds, which " ought" (she asserts) " to be thoroughly re- ceived and believed*." Whatever article of doctrine has not been deduced from Scripture by the ancient Doctors of the Church, or can be proved to have been unknown to the first ages of Christianity, she allows not to be taught as an article of Faith -f*. Hence, while other Churches are now drifting on a troubled ocean of uncertainty — while some are tossed about by the veering gusts of private inter- pretation, or by the no less capricious blasts of the arbitrary will of the Papacy, the bark of the Church of England remains securely anchored to the rock of Scripture by the two cables of Reason and Antiquity. Allow me here to observe — by way of preamble to my argument — that the very event, to which you * Art. viii. And our Reformatio Legum Eccles., p. 6, thus em- phatically speaks of the Creeds : " Summa fidei capita ... in sym- bolls breviter comprehensa, in exponendo Sacras Litems ob oculos per- petub habeantur, ne quid contra ea aliquandb interpretemur" f Canon. 1571, de Concionatoribus, " Imprimis" &c. 38 LETTER II. adverted in your last letter to me as a triumph to the cause of Romanism — I mean Mr. Newman's fall — appears much more likely to prove an occasion for the more clear display of the weakness of Rome, and of the strength of the Church of England. Let me endeavour to explain this. Mr. Newman's conversion to Romanism was ac- companied, as I have said, hy the publication of his " Essay on Development/' which is intended to de- clare the grounds of his change. But it so happens, that in this volume he has inflicted a severe wound on the Papacy. Its very name is ominous against it. What is Development? The explication and evo- lution of something that was wrapped up in embryo. St. Paul gives us a very pertinent illustration of this process with respect to Doctrine. He speaks of a Mystery. What is a Mystery ? A thing concealed *, undeveloped. He speaks of a mystery of Iniquity, or, rather, of lawlessness (avofiia). He says that this mystery is already at work -(•, like leaven, secretly fermenting the mass in which it is ; and, he adds, that in time it will be developed^. Let us apply this to the fundamental doctrine of * Mvffrrjpiov. The Lexicographers explain this word by arrop- pt]Tov, apprjTov, arcanum. f 2 Thess. ii. 7, to jxvoTnpiov fjdr} tvipyiirai rrjg avofiiag. Com- pare Apoc. xvii. 5, l7ri to ixetoj^ov avrrjc ovofia yeypafinkvov, Mt/cr- Trjpiov. The word " Mysterium " was formerly inscribed on the papal tiara ; whence it was removed by Pope Julius II., a.d. 1503 — 1513. J a7TOKa\vu)Q avriipzv Iv ry '^v\y — Reason is the light which God has kindled in the soul*)*, said the heathen philosopher. " Res Dei Ratio/' as Tertullianj well expresses it, and, as he adds, " God who purposed, disposed, and ordered nothing without Reason, wills that all things should be treated and considered with Reason ;" and true Faith, so far from being opposed to Reason, or inconsistent with it, is the consumma- tion, the perfection, of Reason. Hence our blessed Lord Himself, " in § Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge/' willed Himself to be called Aoyoc, or Reason. Not that we imagine in any respect that the objects of the spiritual world — such as the Trinity of Persons in one God, the Incarnation * Jonah i. 6. + Aristot. Rhet. iii. 10. t De Poenitentia, § 1. § Col. ii. 3. 46 LETTER II. of the Second Person, or the regenerating influences of the Third, are discoverable by the rational faculty ; but what we mean to say is, that rational man is the proper subject for the indwelling of that Faith which does discern them ; and that unless man were rational, he could not discern them by Faith. Christianity does not beguile or compel us to believe the doctrines which it propounds to us ; it does not shun examination, but courts it ; it appeals to Reason, and commands us to use it. It is, indeed, quite true, that the Christian religion having once convinced us of its own truth in general, — having persuaded us that God is infinitely wise, good, and true, and that it comes from Him, it then requires a hearty and unqualified assent to the special doctrines, which Reason itself shows us to be grounded on its fundamental principles. For example, we prove by Reason that the Scriptures are the word of God ; and by Reason we deduce certain articles of doctrine from the Scriptures : some of these articles far tran- scend the reach of our rational faculty ; they are not objects of our Reason, but of our Faith. But then Reason must have preceded, in order for Faith to exist. The Poet beautifully describes the kindling of the hero's arrow in the sky and its melting away, as it were, into the pure ether : — " Volans liquidis in nubibus arsit arundo, Signavitque viam flammis, tenuesque recessit Consumta in ventos ;" Mx. v. 525. LETTER II. 47 The arrow became fire, "but the shaft was shot from a bow on earth. So it is with Reason. It kindles into Faith, through the influence of Revelation and of the Spirit of God, but it requires an impulse from the string and the bow of the human intellect. The arrow cannot be fired without being discharged into the air. Such was the agency which produced the Faith of Apostles, and Evangelists, and Martyrs. How strange, therefore, is it that the Essayist should have endeavoured to persuade us that the first converts to Christianity were beguiled in the following manner into belief of it * ! He thus writes, " It is the very objection urged by (the infidel) Celsus, that Christians were but parallel to the credulous victims of jugglers or of devotees, who itinerated through the pagan population. He says that some do not even wish to give or to receive a reason for their faith, but say, ' Do not inquire but believe,' and 'Thy faith will save thee/ and 'A bad thing is the world's wisdom, and foolishness is a good/ How does Origen answer the charge ? by denying the fact, and speaking of Reason as proving the Scriptures to be Divine, and Faith after that conclusion receiving the contents, as it is now popular to maintain ? Far from it ; he grants the facts alleged against the Church and defends it." How strange, I say, is it that the Essayist should have hazarded such assertions as these with the fol- * P. 329. 48 LETTER II. lowing passages of Scripture before him ! " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good/' " Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind/' " I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say/' " Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God/' " How is it that even of your own selves judge ye not what is right ?" " Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." With such precepts as these sounding in their ears, the first Apologists of Christianity could not have followed the course which the Essayist says they did. It is very extraordinary that he should have specified the objections of the sceptical Celsus, and have affirmed that they were allowed to be true by Origen, when the very contrary to this had been long ago truly established by one of our greatest Eng- lish Theologians, Dr. Barrow. Let me commend the following passage from his works to your perusal *. " It was anciently objected by Celsus (says he) and other adversaries of our religion, that Christianity did exact from man a bare groundless Faith ; did im- pose laws uncapable of proof ; did inculcate the rule, do not examine or discuss, but only believe ; that it debarred inquiries, slighted the use and improvement of Reason. The ground of his accusation was surely a great mistake, arising from their not distinguishing * From his Sermon, " On the Truth and Divinity of the Christian Religion," vol. ii. p. 189, ed. 1683. LETTER II. 49 that belief, whereby we embrace Christianity itself in the gross, from that belief, whereby, in consequence of the former, we assent to the particular doctrines thereof, especially to such as concern matters super- natural, or exceeding the reach of our natural under- standing to penetrate or comprehend. For, as to the first kind of belief, whereby we embrace Christianity itself as true in the gross, I say, it is in no wise re- quired on such terms. Our religion doth not obtrude itself upon men in the dark, doth not bid them put out their eyes, or to shut them close, or even to wink ; but it rather obliges them to open them wide. It requires not, yea it refuses, ordinarily, a sudden and precipitate assent : admitting no man, capable of judging, to the participation thereof, till, after a competent time of instruction, he declares him- self to understand it well, and practically to ap- prove it." Such is Barrow's language concerning the treat- ment which Reason receives from Christianity ; what treatment it has received from Popery, is, my dear Sir, a very different thing. If Popery were Christianity, then indeed all the objections of Celsus would be true. Then, indeed, the infidel might justly assert, that all our religion is a mere TpiXrj ttiotlq, a bare, groundless faith, and that all our teaching consists in this, " Do not inquire, but believe/' This indeed your theologians allow. For example : " The Catholic Church" (he means the Roman Church), says your D 50 LETTER II. De Maistre *, " is not argumentative in her nature. She believes without disputing ; for faith is a creed of love, and love disputes not. The Catholic knows that he cannot be deceived; and that if he could, there would be no more revealed truth, nor assurance for man on the earth." If this be so, I should be glad to know what is the use to which a Roman Catholic turns his Reason : does he not find it a very inconvenient incumbrance ? Now for a word concerning Origen. To adopt the Essayist's language, " How does Origen answer the charge of Celsus V \ He grants the fact alleged against the Church by Celsus, and defends it/ is the Essayist's reply. Nay : but let Origen speak for himself. I cite from his third book against Celsus -f*. Celsus (says he) thus writes : " We see jugglers ex- hibiting their legerdemain in the streets, but never coming into the company of wise men, nor daring to act there ; but where they behold children, and slaves, and a mob of silly folk — there they intrude themselves, and display their feats." " But look," says Origen, " how Celsus calumniates J us, comparing us to mountebanks, itinerating through the populace. What do we like them ? What do we even like his own Pagan Philosophers ? They are not scrupulous about their scholars : any one may hear them who lists. . . . But we, as much as we can, pre-examine * Du Pape, p. 250. f Lib. iii. p. 141, ed. Cant. 1677. X ovKoQavTii r/fiag. LETTER II. 51 tlie minds of those who come to us, and make them rehearse to us, before we admit them to our commu- nion ; and then we receive them in two classes, the one of those recently admitted and not yet baptized, the other of those who have professed their resolution to live and believe as Christians/' Hear Origen again*; "Celsus affirms that we say ' this life's wisdom is bad, and that foolishness is good;' but, I reply, he calumniously misrepresents our words, not stating them as they are uttered by St. Paul *f*, " If any one of you appears to be wise in this world, let him become foolish, that he may become wise." "Therefore" (adds Origen) "the Apostle does not say that wisdom is folly with God, but that the wisdom of this world is folly." And again J, Celsus says, " we teach men not to examine but believe." . . . " But," argues Origen, " what is more rational than to believe in God § ? Let your Philosophers boast of their investigations ; not less || research than theirs, to say the least, will be found among Christians con- cerning their articles of belief." He allows, and very justly, that all men cannot examine the grounds of every particular doctrine of Christianity; and he maintains that the miracles of mercy wrought by Christ entitle Him to be heard as a teacher sent from God, and that the doctrines ought to be re- ceived " for His works' sake IF/' But what is there * Lib. i. p. 11. f 1 Cor. iii. 8. $ Ibid. p. 8. § P. 10. H ovk eX&TTwv iZsTcitrie tu>v irnriaTiviikvwv. p. 9. If P. 9. d2 52 LETTER II. here to justify Mr. Newman's assertion that Origen allowed the validity of the objection urged by Celsus, that Christians believed without Reason ? Nothing ; — but very much to prove the contrary. Thus your new convert is seen to have acted very unfairly toward the venerable Apologists of Chris- tianity. Surely, if you wish well to its cause and to your own, you must regret his reception among you. I must say a few more words on the teaching of the ancient Church, strangely misrepresented by the Essayist, concerning the uses of Reason in Religion. If the enthusiastic ecstasies and fanatical ravings of Mon- tanism had been orthodox Christianity, then, and then only, would his assertions have been true ; for the Phrygian dogma was, " Imbibe our words, and you shall thirst no more : no inquiries shall vex you. Reason will be swallowed up in Faith * " But not so the Catholic teachers. The author of a work in- serted among those of St. Athanasius -f*, expressly declares, that of- all the heresies which have crept into the Church none is more pernicious than that which says, " Embrace unhesitatingly (airXiog) what we deliver J ; and which calls a blind assent to * Tertull. de Resurr. Carnis, ad fin. + St. Athanas. Opera, ii. 581, ed. Benedict. Trpbg rovg KtXtvov- Tag cnrX&g tnarivuv rolg Xtyo/x'svoig. See also the authorities in Mr. Palmer's Essay, pp. 9. 15. 19. X #£X£(70e, *l) dtiv e%tTa£eiv o\tog rbv \6yov. •f Lactant. ii. 8. " Oportet in ea re maxime in qua vitae ratio ver- satur sibi magisque confidere suoque judicio ac propriis sensibus niti ad investigandam et perpendendam veritatera quam creden- tem alienis erroribus decipi tanquam ipsura rationis expertem." £ Ecclus. xxxix. 33. d3 54i LETTER II. Creator, "Who is the Author and Giver of them both. It is strange, that the Essayist would have us believe, that St. Augustine*) of all persons in the world, was an advocate of blind assent to articles of faith. Like every judicious man, St. Augustine did indeed teach that there are two sources of human knowledge, Reason and Authority ; and that in Education, Authority is prior in time, though, as he expressly says, Reason is prior in fact-)*. Oportet discentem credere ; sed oportet edoctum judicare. He who learns must listen to Authority, because his Reason is immature ; but he who has learnt must use his Reason ; and it is the duty of Authority to call upon him to do so ; and let it be observed, that children, not yet arrived at years of discretion, in obeying Authority are in fact obeying Reason, not their own, but the Reason which guides others, namely Parents and Tutors, set over them to seek and procure their good ; and nothing can be more in accordance with Reason than that the tender Reason of youth should lean on the mature Reason of riper years. So that the exercise of Authority is grounded on Reason. Indeed no one has treated this subject more clearly than St. Augustine. He had an especial call to do * P. 332. + St. Aug. de Ordine, ii. 9. " Tempore Auctoritas, re autem Ratio prior est." LETTER II. 55 so, for he was taunted by his Donatist adversaries with laying too much stress on logical deductions. He was too good a dialectician (they said) for a Christian Teacher*. This was their opinion. But Augustine thought that all God's gifts ought to be used in His service ; and that Reason was one of the best. While on the one hand he refuted the ancient Rationalists, who taught "nihil esse credendum, quam quod possitevidenti ratione demonstrari-f-/' that nothing is to be believed but what can be proved by Reason ; on the other hand, to a friend, Consentius — a Priscillianist of Spain— who broached the opi- nion which your new convert has revived, " veritatem rei divinse ex fide magis quam ratione percipi opor- tere," that the truth of Religion is to be imbibed rather by Faith than by Reason, he replied in an admirable letter. " Certain things there are (says he J) appertaining to salvation, which we are not able as yet to understand by Reason ; and in these things, Faith should precede Reason : so that the heart may be prepared to receive the light of hea- venly Reason. This itself is a work of Reason. It is reasonable, that for the reception of certain great truths, which we cannot yet understand, Faith should precede Reason ; yet the Reason which persuades us that this is reasonable is itself antecedent to Faith. * S. Aug. c. Crescon. i. 16. " Quasi Dialectica Christianse non pongruat veritati." See Hooker, III. viii. 8. f De Util. Cred. c. 1. % S. Aug. Epist. cxx. D 4 56 LETTER II. And lie who understands by sound Reason what he before only believed by Faith, is to be preferred to one who as yet only desires to understand what he believes ; and if he thinks that those things, which ought to be understood by Reason, are only to be viewed by Faith, he knows not the true use of Faith. I know not how they (he adds) who are content with Authority, and go no further, and lead good lives, can be called happy, as long as they exist in this world, though I believe that, such as their life is here, such will be their lot hereafter.''' In your own country, my dear Sir, many writers of celebrity have abused their Reason to destroy the use of it in matters of Religion. Thus, in the words of Tennemann *, Peter Huet, Bishop of Avranches, " employed Scepticism as a means of converting Pro- testants." In his book on the Imbecility of the Human Understanding, and in his Evangelical De- monstration, he commends the process of reasoning, which invalidates all philosophical principles pre- vious to or independent of Revelation. Thus he pre- pared the way for the reception of a living infallible guide f. For how should Revelation be understood, since Reason is hopelessly incapable, unless some unerring Judge is always at hand ? Thus Rome rises * Tennemann, Hist, of Philosophy, § 343. *t* " It is well known that the Jesuits, who were favoured by Huet, have employed this method to lead Protestants into the Romish Communion." Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. Cent. XVII. Sect. i. Part I. note. LETTER II. 57 on the ruins of Reason. The " Supremacy of Faith," is in fact the Supremacy of the Pope. Let me take occasion to observe an inadvertency into which the Essayist has been betrayed, in his zeal for Faith opposed to Reason, concerning the true character of the philosophy of the New Academy. He would brand Carneades and his followers as mere sceptics. " Arcesilas and Carneades (says he *) are known to have innovated on the Platonic doctrine by inculcating an Universal Scepticism." This is the objection of the Freethinker Collins, to whom the Essayist is too often in a very dangerous proximity (as we shall see), and was refuted more than a hun- dred years ago by Dr. Bentley, who showed that the Philosophers of the New Academy did not pre- tend to go beyond what was probable ; but that their probable (verisimile) was to them as much a dogmatic principle, as the truth (verum) of any other School to its Sectaries. Indeed, as Bentley f shows, Cicero, the greatest Roman follower of the New Academy, dogmatizes as boldly in some of his Philosophical Treatises {, as ever Theophrastus did among the Peripatetics, or Chrysippus among the Stoics. The * P. 78. f On Freethinking, 243—250, ed. 1743. X Ibid. p. 250, e. g. " His De Officiis, Tusculanse, De Amicitia, De Senectute, De Legibus ; in which, and in the remains of others now lost, he declares for the Being and Providence of God, for the Immortality of the soul, for every point (in ancient philosophy) that approaches to Christianity." d5 58 LETTER II. Philosophers, therefore, of the New Academy cannot be cited as Sceptics, nor do they afford any aid to the New Theology which would * annihilate Reason to make way for Romanism, and would make us In- fidels if we will not he Papists. It is, I repeat, a most painful thing to observe, into what company you are brought by the Theory which the author of the " Essay on Development " propounds, and which, as I have before said, is the only true Theory of Romanism. The Essayist's alle- gations here are the same as those of a sceptical writer, who made much noise in this country by a book published anonymously a hundred years ago f, with the title, " Christianity not founded on Argument." Christianity, said he, is not based on Reason, but on an inward persuasion, or presumption rather, which he calls Faith. The results to which such a Theory leads ought, I think, to excite in the minds of all reflecting persons among you, the most serious * " 'Tis most certain," says Dr. Bentley, in the work just quoted, p. Ill, "that to propagate Atheism in Protestant countries has been a method prescribed and made use of by Popish emissaries. . . . Infidelity and indifference to religion must needs pave a way for Popery ; while zeal and flame are all on one side, and coldness and mere ice on the other. Let those authors look to it then ; and let your Government look to them.'* + Lond. 1742. This author agreed also with Romish writers in the opprobrious terms he applied to Scripture, which he called u manuscript authority "" paper revelation " "dead letter" His book was refuted by Dr. Benson, * On the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion," 1743 ; and Archdeacon Randolph, " The Christian's Faith a Rational Assent," 1744. LETTER II. 59 misgivings concerning the soundness of the cause which is to be maintained by such means. The Reason being enslaved, it necessarily follows that the "Will must succumb too. As a necessary consequence of what the Essayist calls the Supremacy of Faith, the following doctrine is propounded. " The Papal See has in all cases a claim on our obedience f/' And the benefits of this implicit obe- dience to the Papacy are described as follows -f* : — " As obedience to Conscience, even supposing Conscience ill- informed, tends to the improvement of our moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge, so obedience to our Ecclesiastical superior may subserve our growth in illumination and sanctity, even though he .should command what is extreme or inexpedient, or teach what is external to his legitimate province." Here, Sir, is one of the foundations on which the Papacy is built, — Obedience to Conscience, as it is called, however erring the conscience may be. Now our ethical instructors have ever taught us, that if our Conscience is ill-informed, we ought not to obey it, but to inform it aright ; and that, if we obey it when it is ill-informed, so far from improving our moral nature, we do in fact degrade it, and disobey its Divine Author, Who has not only given us a Conscience, but a Rule whereby to regulate it, and Who orders us to apply this rule to its government, and warns us that we shall be judged hereafter accordingly as we have * P. 124. + P. 125. d6 60 LETTER II. done so or not. But your new convert says that, " Obedience to Conscience, even suppose Conscience ill-informed, tends to the improvement of our moral nature, and ultimately of our knowledge/' Why, my dear Sir, scarcely any flagrant crime has ever been perpetrated where Conscience was not pleaded as an excuse for it. "In nomine Domini/' as the old proverb says, " incipit omne malum." The Jews thought they were doing God service when they persecuted the Apostles. They obeyed their Con- science ; but it was ill-informed. Did they thus " improve their moral nature f" If this were the case, then Saul's moral nature must have been greatly damaged by his conversion ! He ought never to have condemned his past life, or to have . branded himself as a blasphemer and injurious, and the chief of sinners — because he persecuted the Church of Christ ; he ought rather to have said that because he obeyed his Conscience (which was doubt- less the case), he therefore had done what tended to the "improvement of his moral nature, and ulti- mately of his knowledge !" We must henceforth learn to consider the baptism of St. Paul by Ananias as great a calamity as that of your new convert by Father Dominick ! Obedience, Sir, to conscience, is a great Christian virtue : but then it must be under the guidance of right Reason. Do not, however, imagine that I suppose right Reason to be an adequate Rule of LETTER II. 61 Obedience. No, the only adequate rule of human Obedience is * God's Law, however made known to us : but right Reason is necessary for the discovery and application of this Law : and he who obeys his Conscience, when by the exercise of his Reason (which he is bound to use) he can discover that by so doing he is disobeying God, Who is the Author of his Conscience, and of the Law by which it ought to be regulated, he, I say, who in such a case as this obeys his Conscience instead of regulating and re- forming it by the Divine Law, sins against his Reason and against his Conscience, which, let us remember, are talents lent to us by God, talents lent to us to use, but not to give away — for we " are not our own" but God's — and he sins against the Law of his Conscience ; that is, he sins against himself and against God. Let me also add, that Obedience to a human superior is a great and necessary virtue. " Obey them that have the rule over you/' is the command of Scripture. But then we must be quite sure that they, who command, in any given case, have the rule over us in that particular ; and we must be satisfied that, by obeying their commands, we should not be withdrawing our Obedience from some other power, to whom it is due in the first instance, and thus be * As is clearly stated by St. James iv. 12 : tlq kariv 6 TfofioQeTriQ 6 Swd/xtvog (Taxrai icai airoXkaai. The Lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy, is One only — God. See also Bp. Sanderson, Praelect. iv. 62 LETTER II. not obeying those who really have the rule over us, but rebelling against them. And we may be sure of this, that since Almighty God is the Author of all power, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and since our obliga- tion to obey an earthly authority is derived solely from its being God's representative to us in that behalf, and since God's commands cannot be at vari- ance with each other, we may, I say, be satisfied that when any earthly superior commands what is clearly opposed to the will of God, he is not entitled to our Obedience. He ceases to be God's representative to us, as far as that command is concerned, and we should be guilty of disobeying the Divine Author of all Power if we " called any man Master " in such a case as this. Even, therefore, if the Pope had " the rule over us," which is not the case ; yet, considering the nature of many of his commands, we should be guilty of rebellion against God, if we allowed that " the papal See has in all cases a claim on our obe- dience." Observe, I repeat, Sir, the principle on which the Essayist constructs the Papacy; and now let me beg you to remark, that the Papacy has laid pre- cisely the same foundation for itself. He assumes certain false principles as if they were true, and on them erects the Papacy : the Papacy assumes itself to be true, and requires us to receive the same false principles which the Essayist assumes. Conscience, says he, is to be obeyed however ill- LETTER II. 63 informed it may be ; " the Papal see has in all cases a claim on our obedience :" hence then our Conscience is to resolve itself into the Pope's will : and, however ill-informed it may be in doing so, yet it is our Con- science and it is to be obeyed ; that is, we are to pay blind Obedience to the dictates of the Pope ; and, though " he should command what is extreme or inex- pedient," this " Obedience will subserve our growth in illumination and sanctity." This is the initial point from which your Roman doctors go backwards to the destruction of the Law of Conscience and of Right Reason, by which that Law is to be discovered and applied. Thus, for example, Cardinal Bellarmine says, " If the Pope should so far err as to command Vices and to prohibit Virtues, the Church would be bound to believe that Vices are good and Virtues are evil ; unless she will sin against her Conscience *." You see then, Sir, that the Essayist proceeds from certain principles, and arrives at the Papacy ; Cardi- nall Bellarmine proceeds from the Papacy, and arrives at the Essayist's principles. The course traversed by both is the same ; the only difference is, that they go over it in an inverse order. But not only have we had these principles laid down by our great Romish Doctors, we have seen them put in practice by the most favoured agents of * Bellarmin. de Pontif. iv. c. 5. " Si autem Papa erraret prseci- piendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare." 64 LETTER II. the Papacy. You are well aware that the Society of Ignatius of Loyola — I mean the Society of the Jesuits — is founded on this very basis of implicit Faith and Obedience to a human Superior. Sacri- fice your Reason : resolve your Faith into the de- crees of the Pope : subject your will unreservedly to his dictates : these are the first axioms and postu- lates of Jesuitism. Hear the language of its Founder : " Although (says he) we confess that all Christians are subject to the Roman Pontiff as their Head, and Vicar of Jesus Christ, yet, for the greater humility of our Society, and for the perfect mortifica- tion of every member of it, we have judged it highly useful that each of us should be bound by a special Oath, that whatever the Roman Pontiff should com- mand, conducive to the edification of Souls, and the propagation of the Faith, we should be bound to execute forthwith, without any demur or excuse *." Again, in the Constitutions ■)•, " Let us strain every nerve to pay this virtue of Obedience to the Supreme Pontiff, so that in all things, to which Obedience can be extended with love, we may, with the greatest alacrity, obey his voice as if it were that of Christ Himself/' And again J, "The Society subjects all its own Sense and Will to Christ our Lord, and His Vicar." Again, what the nature of the obedience * Pauli III. Confirmatio Instituti, Antwerp, 1635, p. 10. " Ulico, sine ulla tergiversatione aut excusatione exequi teneamur." + Pars VI. cap. 1. $ Pars VII. cap. 1. LETTER II. 65 required is, — that it is to be blind, irrational, and mechanical, — is evident from the comparisons by which it is pourtrayed ; " Let every one/' say the Constitutions *, " persuade himself that they who live under Obedience ought to allow themselves to be borne and carried by Divine Providence acting in the person of their Superiors ; that they ought to permit themselves to be moved about as if they were a corpse, which suffers itself to be carried and swayed in any way you please ; or as if they were a staff in the hand of an old man, which allows him to use it wheresoever and for whatsoever he likes/' And in another place, " He is to be like soft wax in the hands of his Superior, to take what form he pleases/' And, as if this was not enough, it is expressly said that the Superior may bind the Members of the Society to commit mortal sin -j-, " in case it shall be very conducive to the good of an individual, or of the whole. And in this case it is commanded, that the * Const. VI. cap. 1. " Qui c quid nobis injunctum fuerit obeundo: omnia justa esse nobis persuadendo, omnem sententiam ac judicium nostrum caeca quadam obedientia abrogando." f Pars VI. c. 5. " The Constitutions are not to bind to mortal sin, nisi Superior id in Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, vel in vir- tute Obedientise, juberet, quod in rebus vel personis illis in quibus judicabitur quod ad particulare uniuscuj usque vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet, fieri poterit, et loco timoris offensee suc- cedat amor et desiderium omnis perfectionis." How different is St. Augustine's language, contra Mendac. c. 7- " Ea quse constat esse peccata, nullo bonse causee obtentu, nullo quasi bono fine, nulla velut bona intentione facienda sunt ;" and St. Paul's, Rom. iii. 8. 66 LETTER II. person bound to sin should feel love and desire of all perfection, instead of any fear of offence I" Such, my dear Sir, is the homage which the Papacy demands from the "World. Men are to be- come like wax, and to be moulded by its hand into whatever form it pleases they would assume ; they are to immolate * themselves (I use the word of Igna- tius) as victims to its Power, to throw themselves down prostrate, to be crushed by its sacred wheels ! they are to destroy their Reason, their Conscience, and their Will ; that is, they are to annihilate the Divine image within them, and to become passive, motion- less, lifeless, and (must we not add, when the Divine spirit is extinct ?) loathsome corpses ; they are to cease to be men, and to become senseless, sapless staves, as blind as the eyeless beggar who wields them ! Such are the principles of the Society of Ignatius ; and let me remind you that these principles, as now stated, have been solemnly sanctioned by the Roman Pontiff, who has approved and confirmed the Consti- tutions of Ignatius by a special bull *(", and has enrolled the Author of them himself among the Saints of Rome ; and the Pope in the bull of canoni- * Ignat. Epist. de Obed. p. 267, ed. Antwerp, 1635. " Obedientia est bolocaustum quo totus homo hnmolatur" + Gregory XIII. Literte Apostolicse quibus Institutum, Privi- legia et Constitutiones confirmantur, 1582. " Constitutiones et sta- tuta, qualiacunque Bint, ea omnia confirmamus et approbamus." LETTER II. 67 zation * asserted, that " the ineffable goodness of God had raised up the spirit of Ignatius of Loyola, who gave himself up to be formed by Divine guidance to found a Society for the maintenance of the Papal Power !" We shall be led hereafter to consider the practical results of these principles in their bearing on the peace of Nations, on the security of Governments, and on the lives of Sovereigns. Your own history affords, as we shall see, a sad commentary upon them : and since we are commanded in Scripture to judge the tree by its fruits, we must ask ourselves the question, What must the root of the Papacy be, when such is the produce which hangs upon its branches ? Before I conclude this Letter, you will excuse me, • Urbairi VIII. Literie Apostolicsu Canonizationis S. Ignatii Loyolae, 1623, p. 320. The author of the * Essay on Development," p. 438, thus speaks of the " Exercitia Spiritualia " of the Founder of the Jesuits : — " St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are among the most approved methods of devotion in the modern Catholic Church ; they proceed from one of the most celebrated of her Saints, and have the praise of Popes, and of the most eminent masters of the spi- ritual life. A Bull of Paul the Third's ■ approves, praises, and sanctions all and every thing contained in them ;' indulgences are granted to the performance of them by the same Pope, by Alexander the Seventh, and by Benedict the Fourteenth. St. Carlo Borromeo declared that he learned more from them than from all other books together ; St. Francis de Sales calls it ' a holy method of reforma- tion ;' and they are the model on which all the extraordinary devo- tions of religious men or bodies, and the course of missions, are conducted. If there is a document which is the authoritative ex- ponent of the inward communion of the members of the modern Catholic Church with their God and Saviour, it is this work." 68 LETTER II. I hope, if, from considering the results of the doctrine of Implicit Obedience, I revert now for a few- minutes to the question of the Supremacy of Faith, in order to exhibit the consequences of this principle also, when reduced to practice by the Papacy. The following document is a public and an autho- ritative one ; it has even taken its place among the " Symbolical Books " of the Church of Rome, and I cite it from one of the most recent editions of the dogmatical Collections * of that Church. You will see from it to what awful conclusions the Papal principle of Implicit Faith leads, and to which it has actually led ; and after having perused it, you will, I think, be induced to inquire whether the Papacy does not claim "dominion over your Faith/' and whether it be not liable to the wo denounced by our Blessed Lord upon those who " make the Word of Gfod of none effect by their traditions ;" and "teach for doctrines the commandments of men :" whether it does not come under the sentence of condemna- tion uttered by the Apostle, " Though an angel from heaven preach any thing unto you besides what we have preached unto you, let him be accursed -f." Let me also be permitted to ask you, whether in submitting to such a system as this, you are not disobeying the Divine will ; whether, if I may so * Libri Symbolici Ecclesise [Romano-]CatliolicEe, edit! a Streit- wolf (a Roman Catholic). Gotting. 1838. Tom. ii. p. 343. + Gal. i. 8. LETTER IT. 69 speak, in tying up your own Reason and Conscience in the Napkin of the Pope's will, and burying it in the ground, you are not incurring the judgment which will be pronounced on the unprofitable servant at the great day. But to proceed to our citation. It is from the Confessio Romano-Caiholica in Hungarid Evange- licis public^ prcescripta et proposita; i. e. from the Roman Catholic Confession publicly prescribed and propounded* to Protestants in Hungary and Ger- many on their reception into Communion with Rome. I quote from it the following Articles : — " I. We confess that we have been brought from heresy to the Roman Catholic faith by the diligence and aid of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus. " II. "We confess that the Pope of Rome is Head of the Church, and cannot err. " III. We confess and are certain that the Pope of Rome is Vicar of Christ, and has plenary power of remitting and retaining sins according to his will, and of thrusting men down into hell (in infernum detrudendi). " IV. We confess that whatever new thing the Pope of Rome may have instituted (quicquid Papa institu- * About the year 1673. See Streitwolf *s Collection of the Confes- sions of the Church of Rome, Gottingen, 1838, p. li ; and Mohnicke's work on the same subject, and his volume " Zur Geschichte der Un- garschen Fluchformulars :" Greiswald, 1823. 70 LETTER II. erit novi), whether it be in Scripture or out of Scrip- ture (sive infra sive extra Scripturam), is true, divine, and salvific ; and therefore ought to be regarded as of higher value by lay people than the precepts of the living God (ideoque a laicis majoris adstimari debere Dei Vivi prceceptis). " V. We confess that the Most Holy Pontiff ought to be honoured by all with divine honour (honorari divino honore), with more prostration than what is due to Christ Himself. " VI. We confess and affirm that the Pope is to be obeyed (audiendum) by all men in all things, without exception, and that whoever contravenes his decrees is not only to be burnt without mercy, but to be delivered, body and soul, to hell. " VII. We confess that the reading of Scripture is the source of heresy, and the fountain of blas- phemy. 3|y 5J* 5fC >jC " XL We confess that the Pope has the power of altering Scripture, of increasing and diminishing it, according to his Will. *r *P *i* ^n " XIV. We confess and affirm that they who com- municate under one kind receive the entire Christ, and that they who communicate in both kinds receive nothing but bare bread. Jf. SJC 9(C 5}C " XVIII. We confess that the Blessed Virgin is LETTER II. 71 the Queen of Heaven, and that her Son ought to do whatever she bids Him. * * * * " XXI. "We confess that Holy Scripture is imper- fect, and a dead letter, until it is explained by the Supreme Pontiff, and permitted by him to be read by lay people. " All these things we do confess and affirm sin- cerely and openly ; . . . and we swear in the presence of God and His angels that we will never recede either through fear or favour from the salvific and divine Roman Catholic Church/' Need I add any thing to these monstrous and appalling articles, in further proof of the consequences of the doctrine of the Supremacy of Faith, as actually developed in practice by the Church of Rome? I think not. I remain, My dear Sir, Yours faithfully, &c. &c. LETTER III. Alvog fiacriXevti, tov Ai' iZehijXaKWQ. Aristoph. Nubes, 1454. ' ' Jove is deposed ; and Dinos holds his throne." Such, my dear Sir, is the language of the Son in the Aristophanic Play, who has renounced the ancient Faith for the new Philosophy, which had been recently imported by the Sophists into Athens : and such may be your reply when you are asked for a brief account of the theory presented to us by the Author of the " Essay on Development/' and put in practice by the Church of Rome. Alvog fiaaikevei, tov AC l^eXriXaKwg. Reason is dethroned ; Free-will is dethroned ; Scripture is dethroned ; Antiquity is dethroned. And who rules in their stead ? Alvog, Development ; a wondrous Spirit, with " an Infallible Developing Power/' (as the Essayist calls him, that is, the Pope,) enshrined, bombyx-like, in the centre of the spiral, and endued with most prodigious powers of evolution. Having shown in my preceding Letter that the Papacy requires us to sacrifice our Reason and our LETTER III. 73 Will, I now propose to prove that the next victim which it dsmands at our hands is Scripture. For this purpose Scripture, like Reason, is to be decried, disparaged, vilified. Yes, and, let it be spoken with reverence, it is to be treated as its Divine Author was by the servants of Caiaphas, and the soldiers of Pilate, — first blind-folded, buffeted, and spit upon, and then put to death. The language of the Essayist concerning Holy Scripture is, as I shall show, entirely in accordance with that of some of your most distinguished Theo- logians. He says, that " Scripture needs comple- tion*/' that "we have tried it, and that it disap- pointsf/' "that it has its \ unexplained omissions/' "that all that our Lord said and did, His actions, miracles, parables, replies, censures, are evidences of a legislation in germ afterwards to be developed § ;" that " it suggests great questions which it does not solve \\." These are precisely the terms in which many Romanist Divines speak on the same subject. St. Paul commends Timothy for studying the Holy Scriptures even from a child, and he IT teaches us that they are able to make us wise unto salvation. But, in order to make us believe that if we would believe any thing, we must believe in the Pope, your Romish Doctors strain every nerve to persuade us that Scripture is imperfect, uncertain, ambiguous, ' * P. 100. f P. 126. t P. 140. § P. 105. || P. 98. «H 2 Tim. iii. 15. 74 LETTER III. and unintelligible ; and that the reading of it is unnecessary, and unprofitable, if not dangerous. For example, " Vain is the labour," said Cardinal Hosius* a Papal Legate, and President at the Coun- cil of Trent, " which is spent on Holy Scripture ; for Scripture is but a creature, and a beggarly element." And Ludovicus, a Canon of the Lateran, in a speech at the same Council, " Scripture is only lifeless ink :" and Pighius, in his third book of Controversies f, calls it a Mute Judge, a " Nose of wax, which allows itself to be pulled this way and that, and to be moulded into any form you please ;" and the Church of Rome, so far from regarding the reading of Scrip- ture as necessary, has by the mouth of her Supreme Head, Pope Clement XL J condemned as false and scandalous, the proposition, " that the Christian Sunday ought to be hallowed by reading of the Holy Scripture," and that it is " criminal to prohibit Chris- tians from such reading," and " that to take away from them the New Testament is to close against them the mouth of Christ ; to interdict them the use of Light ; and to subject them to a kind of excom- munication." These assertions, I say, have been condemned by your Infallible Pontiff as false and scandalous ; and the bull in which he condemns them * De Expresso Verbo Dei, i. p. 624. + Contr. iii. de Ecclesia. % In the Bull Unigenitus, Jus Canon. Appendix, p. 143. Lips. 1839. LETTER III. 75 is every where received by your Romish hierarchy, and is appended to one of the most recent editions of your Canon Law*. The "Essay on Development" has not left the Romanist allegations, concerning the uncertainty and insufficiency of Scripture, where it found them. The Author has adduced, what to some may appear a strong reason for those assertions. He would have us believe that the " Canon of the New Testament was not formed till the fourth and fifth centuries ;" that is to say, that it was not decided till then what books are canonical, i. e. are of authority in establishing articles of Faith ; and that none of the Fathers of the first three centuries knew what Scripture was ; indeed, that it was not before the end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth, that it was decided by the Church that certain books were of authority in matters of doctrine. He thus writes "J", " On what ground do we< receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries 1 The Church at that era decided — not merely bore testi- mony, but passed & judgment on former testimony — decided, that certain books were of authority. We receive that judgment as true, that is, we virtually apply to a particular case the doctrine of her Infalli- bility, and in proportion as the cases multiply, in * That of Leipsic, 1839, vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 143. + Pp. 142, 143, and 160. E 2 76 LETTER III. which we are obliged to trust her decision, do we approach, in fact, to the belief that she is infallible." " The Creed, the Canon *, the Papacy, (Ecumenical Councils, all began to form as soon as the empire re- laxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church/' If, now, the Canon of Scripture was not settled till the fourth or fifth century, we must allow (as the Essayist intends us to do) that Scripture cannot be the Rule of Faith ; for if it were so, the first three centuries, which did not know what books were Scripture and what were not, must then have been without a Rule of Faith ; which is absurd. There must have been therefore some other Rule. And what was that ? " The authority of the Church f is the reply, which, by deciding what is Scripture, gave to Scripture the force which it possesses. And since the first, three centuries did not know what was Scripture, and since we all allow that certain books were re- ceived as Scripture in the fourth and fifth centuries, and have ever since been acknowledged as Scripture, it is evident that we must admit the reasonableness of the Theory of Developments ; for we have here a remarkable example of it, in the elevation of certain books more than three hundred years after they were written, to the dignity of inspired compositions. Your Divines go on to argue, that since the Scrip- tures owe their authority as Scriptures to the Church of the fourth century, therefore the existing Church * P. 167. LETTER III. 7^ has power to make that to be the "Word of God which was not so before : or as a Romanist Divine expresses it, "The Church has authority to invest writings with canonical authority, which they do not possess by virtue of themselves or their author*/' Besides, some Rule of Faith is necessary ; and since the Scriptures have failed us as a Rule, we must look elsewhere for guidance ; and since also we have acknowledged one great development, viz. the elevation of certain books, by the authority of the Church, to the dignity and authority of inspired com- positions, which had never been before so regarded, having, I say, thus once crossed the Rubicon and passed into the region of Development, we are now on the high road to Rome. One great development being acknowledged, others naturally follow in their rear. If the Scriptures, written in the first century, do not emerge as such till the fourth, why should we be surprised that we have to wait for the ticvevcrig or ebullition of a Pope till the seventh ? And if the Church has power to endow writings with Divine authority, why should she not communicate the same to persons ? If she can make a Bible, why not also make a Pope ? What then is the fact ? Is it true that the Canon of the New Testament was not settled till the fourth or fifth century, and that, therefore, the Christians of the first three centuries did not know what were * Pighius de Ecclesia Hierarch. Hi. 3. See below, p. 101, note. e3 78 LETTER III. the words of the Holy Spirit to the Church ? Such is the allegation of your new convert, and it is re- markable, that we have here in his pages the asser- tion — only greatly exaggerated — of the two Free- thinkers*, Toland and Collins, concerning the Canon of the New Testament ; and I must here desire you to observe, that the best refutation of Romanist objec- tions to the authority of Scripture and the Primitive Church may often be found in the works written by our English Theologians against modern Deists. As an illustration of this assertion, I may mention, that, in order to destroy the authority of Scripture, Collins affirmed that no Canon of the New Testa- ment was made till about sixty years after the death of Christ. He was content, you see, with allowing the Church to have had a Canon of the New Testa- ment in the first century, whereas your new convert will not permit her to possess one before the end of the fourth. So much more liberal is the Freethinker of the two : But what was said to Mr. Collins by our Divines a hundred years ago ? Your love of English literature may have made you acquainted with the Remarks of Dr. Bentley, under the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, on the * Toland's Amyntor, 1698, passim, especially pp. 47. 56. 64 ; and Collins' Discourse on Freethiuking, 1713. The assertions of Toland were refuted by Dr. John Richardson (of Emmanuel College), in his work, entitled " The Canon of the New Testament Vindicated," Lond. 3rd edit. 1699 ; those of Collins by Bentley, in his " Remarks," &c. Cambridge, 8th edit. 1743. LETTER III. 79 work of the Freethinker, and you have a transla- tion of them in your language. If, then, you will turn to Dr. Bentley's book, you will read* as follows : " All the books of the New Testament were not written till the year of Christ xcvn, and that is above lx years after the death of Christ What sense is there, then, in this complaint, that the books were not collected, before they were made ! All the books we now receive as canonical were written occasionally between the years lii and xcvu. And during that interval of xlv years every book, in the places whither it was sent, or where it was known, was immediately as sacred and canonical as ever it was affer. Nor did the Church loiter and delay in making a Canon or collection of them ; for in two years after the writing of St. John's Gospel, the Evangelical Canon was fixed ; and within x after that an Epistolical Canon was made ; quick enough, if it be considered that they were to be gathered (whither they had been directed) from so many and so distant parts of the World." So writes Phileleutherus, in his Reply to our Eng- lish Freethinker: how astonished would he have been to hear from an English Theologian that the Church had loitered and delayed in making a Canon, for more than three hundred years ! But you may say that you want proofs of the truth of Dr. Bentley's statement : that you have the * P. 86, 8th edit. 1743. E 4 80 LETTER III. Essayist's allegation on the other side ; and "you cannot suppose it possible that he can have been guilty of so flagrant a misrepresentation on so im- portant a subject, as must be the case, if Bentley's assertion is true. Besides, it is quite true that you have not only the Essayist's assertion on the other side, but you have also that of some of your most famous Roman controver- sialists. Thus, for instance, Bishop Milner, in his End of Controversy*, boldly asks, " "Was the abrogation of the First Rule of Christianity deferred till the Canon of Scripture was fixed at the end of the fourth century?" I shall now proceed to refute this most unwar- rantable assertion, which shows what the fate of Scripture is likely to be if it should ever be left to the care of Rome. I fear it would fare as ill in her hands as in those of Infidels. But Di meliora piis ! Allow me, then, to submit the following facts to your consideration : — Dr. Milner and Mr. Newman affirm that the Canon of the New Testament was not made till the end of the fourth century. They do not say where it was made in the fourth century ; but I take it for granted they refer in their own minds to the council of Laodiceaf, which met about the year a.d. 360, * P. 143, ed. Dublin, 1830, Ninth edition : countless reprints have appeared of this book since 1830; and it is said to have perverted many to Romanism. The assertion I have quoted from it is a sample of its veracity. f Concil. ed. Bruns, p. 408 ; it is there placed at a.d. 352. Binius, LETTER III. 81 and made a catalogue of the books " which are to be read in the Church/' both of the Old and New Testa- ment. If the Canon of Scripture was made before that Council, much more was it made before the " end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century." Let me now ask one question, Did the Council of Laodicea intend to make any books canonical, which were not so before ? Certainly not : look at the words of the decree, — " It is unfit (says the Council) that Private Hymns should be used in the Church, or uncanonical books be read, or any, except the canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments*/' It then proceeds to enumerate them. You perceive then, my dear Sir, that the Synod does not pretend to settle the Canon of Scripture at all ; no, this would have been actum agere : it speaks of the canonical writings as already known, and decrees that only canonical books should be read. The injunction that only canonical books should be read, shows that every one could tell what canonical books were. It is evident, then, that the Church of the fourth century, so far from having " decided," as the Essayist says-)-, " what books were of authority/' bears palpable testimony that this question had been already decided. The Laodicene decree was not an enactment, but a declaration. ap. Labbe Concil. i. 1522, places it before a.d. 325. The Canon in question will be found in Brims' Ed. p. 80. * Canon LIX. + P. 160. E 5 82 LETTER IIL But to prove this more fully. First, I observe that some persons are accustomed to point to the Council of Laodicea in the fourth century, as one of the first which declared what books were canonical. But this is an incorrect view of the subject. Many Councils sate before that of Laodicea : and many, we doubt not, published catalogues of Books of Scrip- ture ; but their Acts are lost, and we know nothing of them. Cardinal Baronius says*, " Who can doubt, nay, who will not affirm, and that with the greatest safety, that a Canon of Scripture was published at the great Council of Nice?" The Cardinal asks a very reasonable question : for St. Jerome, in his pre- face to the Book of Judith, refers to the Nicene Canon ; and there seems to be little doubt that if the Decrees of all the early Councils had survived, we should find there abundant evidence of the re- ception of the books of the New Testament, as the Church now receives them. But next I would remark, that the writers of the New Testament addressed their works for the most part to public communities, to nations, cities, or churches ; and that they gave strict instructions that the works so written should be publicly read in the Churches to which they were sent. St. Paul's solemn language, " I adjure you by the Lord, that this Epistle be read to all the holy brethren f" * Annates ad a.d. 325. See Bellarmin. de Verbo Dei, i. x. § 2. t 1 Thess. v. 27. LETTER III. 83 spoken of one Epistle, the first which he wrote, is a general authoritative precept, dictated by an in- spired Apostle, which could not be disobeyed ; and the injunction " If any man obey not our word by this Epistle, note that man*/' is another proof that the Apostolic Epistles were to be made known to all, and to be the rule of faith and practice of all ; and we know as a matter of fact that these directions were complied with ; and that the books of the New Testament were read-)* in all Christian assemblies, as soon as they were written, and have so continued to be read to the present hour. Why, then, do Bishop Milner and the Essayist speak of the Canon of Scripture not being settled till the fourth century ? The books of the New Testament were given by the Holy Spirit into the hands of the Church, they were forthwith publicly read : this was their canonization. Let us apply the Essayist's principle to profane authors. The works of Horace and Martial were not published at once, by their respective authors, but at intervals of several years. Now that they are collected together in one volume, we have what may * 2Thess. iii. 14. f Coloss. iv. 16. I Thess. v. 2^ ; and Justin Martyr, Apol. xi., says, that on Sundays the Christians met in religious assemblies , wherein * the memoirs of the Apostles and writings of the Prophets were read ;" and Tertullian de Anima, c. 9, states, that " among the solemn exercises of the Lord's Day the Scriptures were read (inter Dominica solennia — Scripturse leguntur)." See also Apol. C. 39, Cogimur ad divinarum literarum commemorationem. E 6 84 LETTER III. be called a Canon of Horace and Martial. But how was this formed ? Did a junta of grammarians sit down at a table and decide what books were to be received as making it ? No : the Canon of Horace and Martial made itself, by the general reception of their books, as the works of their respective authors, as soon as they were written. So, much more the Canon of the New Testament made itself by the 'public usage of the Church in all parts of the world. But, it may be asked, can we show that the books of the New Testament, which we receive as inspired, were so received as soon as they were written I Let us examine this point. Ruffinus, a Roman Presbyter in the fourth cen- tury*, gives a catalogue of the books of the New Testament, as, " according (says he) to the tradition of our ancestors, they are believed to have been in- spired by the Holy Ghost, and delivered to the Churches of Christ, and as we have received them from our Fathers." He had no idea that it was reserved for his age to make a Canon of Scripture : that century had nothing to do but to acknowledge the Canon delivered to it by its predecessors. Such was the language of Ruffinus in the "West : let us now hear the Eastern Church speaking by the mouth of St. Cyril, " Meditate (says he, in his Cate- chetical Lectures -f) only on the books which are * In Symbol, p. 26, ad calc. S. Cyprian, ed. Fell. t IV. xxxiv. LETTER III. 85 read in the Church. The Apostles and primitive Bishops who delivered them to us were wiser than thou. thou child of the Church, revere the laws of the Church I" And to proceed higher still. Tertullian *, writing in the second century, has quoted all the books of the New Testament, except the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Third of St. John, and perhaps the Epistle of St. James ; and he expressly says that it was the characteristic of heresy to reject -f- certain books of Scripture : but how, I ask, could heresy be said to reject what had never been received by the Church ? It never could have been a mark of here- tics to repudiate Scripture, if Scripture was not known as Scripture by the orthodox. But to ascend higher. The New Testament divides itself into two portions, viz. the Gospel History with the Acts ; and the Epistles with the Apo- calypse. The four Grospels were received as inspired, immediately they were written ; and no others. This is beyond all doubt. Your great Bishop and Mar- tyr of Lyons, Irenseus, the scholar of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, thus writes : " There are four * See Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, 294. 308. t De Prsescript. Hseret. xvii. " Ista hseresis non recipit quasdam Scripturas, et si quas recipit, non recipit integras ;" — a passage of great importance, as showing the definiteness of the Canon, and of the text of the books which form it. In the same treatise, Tertullian speaks of the books of the New Testament as forming a known Sylloge, or Corpus, in the same manner as those of the old. " Marcion Novum Testamentum a Vetere separavit." 86 LETTER III. quarters of the globe, and there are four winds of heaven, and the Catholic Church is diffused over all the earth, and the Gospel is the Pillar of the Church, and the Breath of Life ; therefore the Word, the Creator of all things, Who sits on the Cherubim and upholds all things, when He revealed Himself to men, gave us the fourfold Gospel/' And he pro- ceeds to apply the Vision of Ezekiel of the four ani- mals to the four Evangelists * It is clear, then, that the Evangelical Canon was received in the Second Century. Again : Tatian, the scholar of Justin Martyr, com- posed a Gospel History, which he called Diates- saron -f-, i. e. a compendium of the Four, which proves that he acknowledged Four Evangelists, and Four only. Again : Polycarp, who according to Irenaeus was " instructed by the Apostles, and acquainted with many who had seen Christ/' and placed by the Apostles in the Episcopal See of Smyrna, speaks of " the Evangelists \" as a definite number of per- sons ; and he specifies them by name, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But, finally, I affirm that the Canon of the Gospels * S. Iren. III. xi. S. Jerome, in an eloquent passage, ad Paulin. vol. iv. p. 574, calls the Evangelists the " Quadriga Domini." •f* Euseb. iv. 29. Theodoret, Hseret. i. 20. See also the testimony of Jerome (ad Algas. iv. p. 197), concerning Theophilus Antioch- enus, " Quatuor Evangelistarum in unura dicta opus compegit." X Fragm. Polycarpi ap. Feuardent. Iren. iii. 3. LETTER III. 87 was made by no less a person than Polycarp's Master, the Apostle and Evangelist, St. John. It happened, non sine numine, — and providentially the fact has been recorded, — that the three earlier Gos- pels were brought to St. John by the Bishops of Asia for his testimony ; whereupon he publicly re- ceived and guaranteed them as true *, and wrote his own Gospel, as the complement of theirs. Thus he canonized the three previous Gospels, and sealed up the Evangelical History : and the concluding words of the last chapter of his Gospel may be regarded as the colophon of the Evangelic Quaternion. So much for the Gospels, which constitute a most important part, to say the least, of the New Testa- ment ; and yet, without any reference to this evi- dence, your Divines tell us that the Canon of the New Testament was not settled till the fourth or fifth centuries ! I pass now to the Acts of the Apostles, and to the Epistles of St. Paul. It is related of the Encratite heretics of the time of Irenseus, that they rejected the Epistles of St. Paul, and did not even accept the * Euseb. iii. 24. rStv Trpoavaypav evdeiv fiov\r)(f>6pov avSpa — * Newman's Essay, p. 165. u In course of time, first the power of the Bishop awoke, and then the power of the Pope," p. 145. i( Nor would a Pope arise, but in proportion as the Church was con- solidated," p. 1 66. " The regalia Petri might sleep, not as an obso- lete, for it never had been operative, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not understood ; as an unfulfilled prophecy." See also above, p. 39. f2 100 LETTER III, and after all, in the fifth century, the Canon is settled — without him ! thou second Daniel, most admirable " living In- fallible Judge ! " What hast thou been doing all the while that this question has remained undecided for so many years, and after all is not decided by thee ? how useful and necessary a thing is the Papacy i Well, indeed, might Bellarmine say that Divine Providence " would not have taken care to secure the welfare of the Church, if He had not instituted it ! " What, my dear friend, will be your reply to all this ? Will you say with the Essayist that the Pope could not act before he was born, and that he was only in an embryo state — in ovo — during the first four or five centuries, but that when he broke his shell, and was full fledged (it was rather late to be sure), he showed his power most royally in the busi- ness of settling the Canon ? Yes, we remember that well. Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, said very boldly, " Not a single book or chapter of Scripture shall be held Canonical without my autho- rity V Alas ! for the world before his authority awoke ! It had no Bible. Another Pope, Sixtus V., in 1590, authorized a Latin Bible as an authentic Infal- lible Standard, in the place of the Hebrew and Greek Original ! and in this Latin Bible several books are * Dictatus Papae ap. Card. Baron, ad ad. 1076, torn. xi. 633, ed. Colon. 1609. " Nullum Capitulura nullusque liber Canonicus habea- tur, absque Papce auctoritate" LETTER III. 101 called Canonical, which were never regarded as such by the Christian Church for fifteen hundred years I and in 1592 behold another development! Clement VIIL comes forth with another Latin Bible, to supersede the Infallible Bible of his Predecessor, and differing from it in several thousand places * ! This was acting like a Pope indeed : and if Scrip- ture ought to be thus treated, we must indeed allow the Pope to be necessary to the Church ; for it never has been so treated, and never will or can be by any one in the world but a Pope -J* ! But, my dear Sir, let me here remind you, that if your plea be allowed in favour of the supreme claims of the Papacy, although it remained undeveloped for some six hundred years, you have been very hard upon us. We appeal to the ancient Church. We take our stand upon the old paths. Ta apyala Wr\ KpaTuro), — "Let the ancient customs prevail/' we say with the great Council of Nice, which your Bossuet $ tells us was infallible. Nothing * See Dr. James, Bellum Papale, pp. xii. xxv, xxviii. ed. Cox, and Corruption of the Fathers, p. Ill, ed. Lond. 1688. f Pighius, Hierarch. lib. iii. cap. 3, ap. Chemnitz. Cone. Trident, p. 32, says : " Ecclesia (i. e. Romana) habet illam potestatem ut possit Scripturis quibusdam impertiri canonicam auctoritatem." Sta- pleton, lib. ix. Doct. Princ. c. 14, et Relect. Princ. Doct. p. 514, says : * Prcesentem Ecclesiam posse librum in Canonem recipere." Perrone, ii. p. 1051 : " Ecclesia Romana suum potuit constituere Canonem." % See his letter to Robert Nelson, Life of Bp. Bull, p. 330, " De l'assistance infaillible du Saint- Esprit dans le Concile de Nicee." f3 102 LETTER III. is professed by us as an article of Faith which we cannot prove to have been preached by Christ and His Apostles, and received from them by the Primi- tive Church. And yet, after all, we poor Anglicans are to be denounced by you as rash innovators — we are religious revolutionists, schismatical Jacobins, forgers of novelties, utterers of base coin, and what not ! — and then we are to be inundated with tracts from the Catholic Institute, to prove to us, who know nothing forsooth of Primitive Christianity, that Popery is the " Old Religion ! " and that we have fallen away from " the Church of our Fathers !" In the mean time, you will permit me to ask, in the words of the great and venerable St. Jerome, " Why, after four hundred years, do you pretend to teach the Church what she never knew before ? Why do you promulgate a doctrine which Peter and Paul never preached ? Up to this day the world was without that doctrine of yours. I am resolved to retain that faith, as an old man, in which I was brought up as a boy*/' This, I say, would have been St. Jerome's answer to your attempts to compel him to receive your cardinal doctrine of the Papal Supremacy, which your new convert allows was not developed for many hundred years after the birth of Christ. And this is our reply also. I have dwelt longer on this question of the Canon of Scripture, not only on account of its importance, * Ad Thcophilum, Epist. XII. torn. ii. p. 486, ed. 1643. LETTER III. 103 but because the Essayist's assertion, with respect to it, is a fair specimen of the process by which he has been brought to an acknowledgment of the claims of the Church of Rome. Not for its antiquity — no, this is renounced ; not for its Catholicity — no, for this falls with that renunciation ; not because it is recommended by the dictates of Reason or of Scrip- ture, for Reason is weak and " Scripture disappoints" — is the Papacy embraced by him ; but it is eagerly grasped at as a straw floating on the surface of the sea of doubt, raised by himself, in which he is sinking. But he has proved that it is only a straw, by pulling it with him under the water. He has shown that it cannot sustain him or any one else. He has proved that, if you have many more such conversions, your cause is lost ; a few more such victories will ruin you. You had much better suspend your prayers for " our return to Unity," " Evertere domos totas optantibus ipsis Di faciles." Who knows whether his apology for Romanism may not prove more injurious to it than the assaults of Luther against it ? But to return for one moment to the question on the Canon, and J will close this Letter. In His providential dispensations towards us, both in the world of Nature and of Grace, Almighty God does not exercise compulsion. He draws us with the " cords of a man." He gives us Moses and the f 4 104 LETTER III. Prophets, Christ and the Apostles, and bids us " hear them -," but He does not force us so to do. He does not take us by storm. He speaks to "us in parables, and thus tries us, whether we will be of those, who " seeing see not ; or of those whose eyes are blessed, for they see ; and their ears, for they hear *." He allows us, if we will, to doubt and to cavil ; and if we are disposed to do so, He punishes us by making our mole -hills of doubts appear to us to be mountains. He exercises our faith by apparent difficulties ; and then, if we come to Him with a loving and teachable heart, He rewards us by re- moving them. We have seen specimens of this mode of His dealing with us, both in the Canon and in the Text of the New Testament ; and what has been said of them may be applied to all the other objects which are proposed to our Faith. But now permit me to observe, that by intro- ducing a Pope — a living, infallible Judge — into the scheme of Christianity, you mar the whole. You alter its whole constitution as framed by Christ. You annihilate its probationary and disciplinarian character. You destroy our moral nature. You ma- terialize our minds. You reduce us from men to machines. You annihilate our Faith by force. You resolve Reason and Conscience, and Scripture, into * Matt. xiii. 13— 16.— Matt. iv. 34. "Without a parable spake He not unto them ; and when they were alone, He expounded (J7r£\i'f) all tilings to His disciples." LETTER III, 105 the will of an infallible guide, as you call him. But then, my dear Sir, if we now read and reflect, we find (indeed you do not deny the fact) that this our infallible guide was unknown to the Church for many centuries ; that it is no necessary part of Christianity, that it is only an accident! "What then ? By this your attempt to give us superhuman certainty, you have deprived us of all certainty. The Athenian statue was so contrived that it fell to pieces when the name of Phidias was removed ; so the fabric of Romanism is shivered to atoms, when the name of an unerring authority is torn away. The rock crumbles into a quicksand ; and the beacon of Infallibility becomes an ignis fatuus of Infidelity • We retrace our steps with fear ; and take refuge in the Word of God. I am, Sir, With great regard, Yours truly, &c. &c. * Life of Blanco White, i. 256. " Into the authority of the Roman Church I resolved the certainty of my faith as a Christian ; yet I did no sooner allow myself to examine the question of Church Infal- libility, than my whole Christianity vanished like a dream ! " F 5 LETTER IV. ' Ectti Toivvv Trjg piv TraXaiag SiaOrjKrjg /3i/3\ia Ty apiOfiql to. TTCtvTa ilttocn dvo, — ravra irijyal rov ffwrijpiov, iv rovroig fio- voig to Trjg ivatfitiag didaaicaXeZov cuayyeXt^srai* Mtjdeig t o vroig £7ri/3a\\£r w. — S. Athanas. Epist. xxxix. My dear Sir, If it could have been shown that the Church of the first four centuries did not know what the Scriptures of the New Testament are, we might per- haps be led to believe that she did not learn what those of the Old Testament are, till she was informed by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. The former of these two allegations has been con- sidered in the preceding letter ; and I now proceed to observe, that the Church of Rome, by making a new Canon of the Old Testament at that Council, has presented to the world a practical example of the Doctrine of Development in all its destructiveness of what is most sacred and valuable to mankind. On the eighth day of April, a. d. 1546, little more than three hundred years ago, certain Roman Divines and Canonists met at the Cathedral of the LETTER IV. 107 City of Tridentum, or Trent, in the Tyrol. After hearing Mass they proceeded to the important busi- ness for which they were assembled, which was no other than to determine, of what books Holy Scrip- ture consists, and on what principles these books are to be interpreted. You, my dear Sir, and other Romanists are wont to speak in the most reverential terms of what you call — and what called itself* — the " Sacrosancta Synodus (Ecumenica Tridentina in Sancto Spiritu legitime con- gregata" I remember hearing one of your most learned Divines speak of it as inspired by the Holy Ghost ; indeed this is your usual language concerning it. But permit me to ask, — which I do with great deference to your feelings on so serious a subject, — did you ever take the pains seriously to examine what this Council was, of what materials it was com- posed, and under what influence it acted ? I will say nothing of the authority by which it was convened, but will merely remind you that no General Council of the Church was ever summoned for the first thousand years after Christ by the same power as summoned the Council of Trent — I mean the Bishop of Rome ; — so-f* that it had a radical defect in its Convocation which vitiated all its pro- ceedings ; but I will request you to suppose yourself at Trent at the opening of the Session of 1 546. You * Sessio IV. f See Bp. Beveridge on our XXIst Article. F6 108 LETTEK IV. imagine yourself, perhaps, like the Gallic soldier when he entered the Roman senate -house — awe-struck by the venerable aspect of the assembly. In idea, it may be, you have a vision of mitred Patriarchs and Prelates, with snow-white beards, from every quarter of the world. You expect, perhaps, another Council of Nicaea with 318 Bishops, — if not, a Synod of Chalcedon with 630 ; or of Basle or Constance with about 1000. A Sacrosancta Synodus CEcumenica in Sancto Spiritu congregata (listen to these high- sounding titles) summoned to a most convenient spot for East and West, North and South, after a pre- paration of more than twenty years, must needs be something wonderfully august and numerously attended. And then the subject for deliberation, how solemn is it, sufficient of itself, you would think, to stir the hearts of all Christendom — like the voice of Peter the hermit — to make a pilgrimage to Trent. But what was the fact 1 In this Session of the Sacred (Ecumenical Synod there were not above fifty-three* * See the names in Streitwolf, Libri Symboliei Ecclesiae Catholicse, ii. p. 21. It is said by Romanist writers, that though it cannot be denied that the Council of Trent, in its fourth session, in 1546, at which the Roman Canon of Scripture was framed, consisted only of fifty-three Bishops, and they such Bishops as I have described, yet that all the decrees of Trent were subsequently confirmed at the close of the Council in 1563 ; and that the number of prelates and others who subscribed their names to this final sanction was two hun- dred and fifty-five ; and that the Roman Canon of Scripture ought to be considered as the work of all the Bishops who sanctioned the decrees, of which that concerning the Canon was one. Be it so j we have therefore here another proof of the unhappy bondage in which LETTER IV. 109 Bishops ! and, if each represented his own flock, they represented no more than the thousandth part of Christendom ; and of these fifty-three some were * mere titular Bishops, without Sees, Bishops made for the occasion by the Pope ; many of them living on his alms*(-, and more than four-fifths of them Italians, and all of them bound by an oath of obe- dience to the Pope, and none of them able to open their lips except on topics propounded by his le- gates I, who presided in the convention, and had orders from him to put nothing to the vote which had not been approved at Rome. And this, my dear Sir, is to be called a General Synod of all Christendom ! why, one of our Trent- valley Railway Committees might as well call itself Roman Bishops are. First ; it is certain that all these two hundred and fifty-three prelates were sworn vassals of the Pope ; next, that they were compelled to subscribe all the decrees of Trent * sotto sco- munica " (as not only Sarpi, p. 758, but Pallavicini also, lib. xxiv. c. 8, informs us) ; next, the Council having asserted itself to be in- spired, and having made a decree concerning the Canon of Scripture, they could not recede from this decree, or their infallibility was at an end. The assertion of inerrancy had bound them in a perpetual necessity of erring ; and now we only add, that if they really love the truth, if they love their own Church, the Romanist clergy and laity of the present day will take comfort to themselves from the considera- tion, that the error of the fourth session was the error only of a few ; and, instead of identifying themselves with it, they will be the very first to affirm that the Council of Trent was no general Council, and that they are not bound by its decrees. * See Sarpi, Istoria di Concilio, ad annum 1546, pp. 117- 127. 131. 153. 433. 783, 784. 823, of Brent's Translation. Lond. 1676. f Sleidan Comment, 17. Bp. Cosin on the Canon, p. 211 — 216. + Sarpi, p. 130. 137- 154. 110 LETTER IV. the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, as the Trent Cabal (excuse the name) style itself a Council of the Church. And yet we are called upon to receive its decrees as divine oracles, and are to be anathematized as heretics if we do not ! Stigmatize us, however, as you will, we must use our Reason, (for we are ac- countable to a higher tribunal than Trent for that,) and you must pardon me for saying that the Triden- tine Synod was a mere Puppet, an Italian Marionette pulled by wires in the hands of the Pope ; and since this Trident ine Automaton, having learnt its lesson from him, would needs dictate it to the world, it must even permit me to say to it in the name of Reason and of Truth, — " Tu, mihi qui imperitas, aliis servis miser, atque Duceris, ut nervis cUienis mobile lignum." Hor. Sat. II. vii. 81. And alas ! this is not all. This Trident ine neuro- spastic Machine is taught not only to utter new decrees, but to vent imprecations on all who will not receive them ; and, — in the matter now before us, — on all who cannot receive as God's Word in the Old Testament those Books which the Church of the Jews, to whom, as we know from the New Testa- ment, the "lively oracles of God were committed*," never f received as such ; that is, which Christ and * Rom. iii. 2. Acts vii. 38. xiii. 14. 27. xv. 21. f See Josephus, lib. i. 8. contra Apionem j Euseb. H. E. iii. 9 and LETTER IV. 11] His Apostles never so received. Our Blessed Lord comprehended the Old Testament under the title of " The Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms*/' (where the Psalms comprehended all the Hagiogra- pha or Chethubim, and, being the first and most eminent, gave a name to the rest,) and in quoting from these, He is expressly said to have expounded " in all the Scriptures the things concerning Him- self-)-/' Neither He nor His Apostles (as far as we know) ever confirmed any article of Faith, by any citation from any other books than those which were received as Canonical by the Church of the Jews ; and which have been delivered by them into the hands of the Christian Church \. But the Church 10 ; and Melito ap. Euseb. H. E. iv. 26 ; and Philo ap. Euseb. de Praep. Evang. viii. Hence Cardinal Bellarmin, De Verbo Dei, says truly, " Omnes Libros quos Protestantes non recipiunt, etiam He- braici non admittunt." It may be observed, that this fact renders the Church of England a much fitter instrument than the Church of Rome for the conversion of the Jews. How can it be expected that they will ever receive nine books, in addition to the Canon of their Fathers, who, as Philo says (1. c), " would rather die a thousand deaths than suffer a single letter of their sacred books to be altered V* Besides this, if nine books, which the Jews do not receive, are to become part of our Rule of Faith, then Christianity is deprived of the argument, so powerfully urged by the early Fathers in her be- half, that she proves her cause against Jews and Pagans from docu- ments which she has received from her adversaries — the Jews. * Luke xxiv. 27. f Luke xxiv. 44. % Hence Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in the second century, went to Palestine to satisfy himself, by personal inquiry, what the Books of the Old Testament were. aveXQwv eig avaroXrjv, Kai ea>£ rov rbtrov ytvofuvoQ tvQa hnpvx^n Kai iTrpaxQt], Kai a»cpt/3w£ fiaOuv ra rrjg 112 LETTER IV. of Rome at the Council of Trent placed other books on an equal footing with those thus delivered to the Church of the Jews by Grod, and which alone were treated as divine by Christ and His Apostles*; and the Church of Rome anathematized, and still ana- thematizes f, all who do not and cannot receive these other books, as of equal authority with those whose inspiration is guarantied by Christ. What is this but with profane irreverence to dictate to the Su- preme Being Himself? Must we not say to you, " Apud vos de humano arbitratu Deus pensitatur ; nisi homini Deus placuerit, Deus non eritj?" What is it but to elevate human authors into divine, and, after the manner of ancient Rome, as S. Chrysostom § TraKaias diaOrjKTjg /3i/3\t'a virord^ag tiri/Aipd § 4. " Simonis as- seclae yv£>oiv, i. e. Scripturse Sacrse mystice interpretandi facultatem sibi arrogantes multa V. Test, mysteria ad impuros suos usus accom- modabant." " It must be confessed (says Neander, ii. p. 234) that the Alexandrine principle, earned to the extreme, might lead to an idealism, subversive of all that is historical and objective in Chris- tianity." See also Bp. Marsh, on the Interpretation of the Bible, Lectures VI. and IX. 134 LETTER VI. Widely different from the Alexandrine School of Hermeneutics, was that of the Syrian Antioch, the birth-place of the Evangelist St. Luke, the Episco- pal See of St. Peter, and St. Ignatius. There the literal system prevailed. One of the most eminent of its early expositors was Diodorus, first a Presbyter and afterwards Archimandrite of Antioch, and Bishop of Tarsus, a.d. 378 ; under him were formed Theo- dore, Presbyter of Antioch, and afterwards Bishop of Mopsuestia, (who died a.d. 429,) called the Teacher of the whole Church by Theodoret*. He wrote a work " Concerning Allegory and History, against Origen." Another very eminent member of the same school, John, surnamed Chrysostom, or Golden- mouth, from his eloquence, was born at Antioch a.d. 354, and was Presbyter of that city, from which he was afterwards translated to the Patriarchal Chair of Constantinople. His exegetical works are among the most precious remains of Christian Antiquity. Thomas Aquinas used to say that he would not part with Chrysostom's Homilies on St. Matthew for the town of Paris f. These, as well as his other com- mentaries, are composed in the literal, historical, practical style, though he did not altogether neglect the figurative. Theodoret was a fellow-citizen, con- temporary, and schoolfellow, — and also, as some say, a pupil, — of Chrysostom. He was born about a.d. * irdoriQ 'EKK\f](riag diddffKaXog. E. H. v. 40. f Bartholini de Legendis Libris, V. LETTER VI. 135 390, and consecrated Bishop of Cyrus in Syria about a.d. 425. He wrote commentaries on both Testa- ments, which are not exceeded in value by any thing produced by the ancient Expositors. He united the typical method with the literal ; and, as well as Chry- sostom, may be said to have followed a middle course between the manner of Origen and that of Diodorus of Tarsus *. The Author of the " Essay on Development " is lavish in his eulogies on the Alexandrine or Origen- istic school, and not less unsparing in his censures on the Antiochene or Diodorianf He does not scruple to say, that the u mystical% interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together:" he charges the Antiochene School with Nestorianism as its natural result § ; forgetting, as it seems, that Pope Victor expressly declares that Artemon was the originator of Nestorianism || (apxnybg Ntoropiou); and he does not appear to bear in mind that the heresies of Apollinarius and Eutyches may be traced with at least equal fairness to the teaching of that of Alexandria. He brings other charges against the literal Inter- preters. Thus, for example, " according to it," (he does not scruple to say,) " Christ was divided from His Saints, and so the Saints were divided from Christ, and an opening was made for a denial of the doctrine * Rosenmuller, 1. c. iv. p. 36. f See pp. 281—292. $ P. 324. § P. 290. || Concil. Labbe, i. p. 602. 136 LETTER VI. of their cultus*;" as if, my dear Sir, the worship of Saints was a tenet of the Early Church ! and as if "an opening was made" for its rejection, by the teaching of an heretical school ! And what is the counterbalancing benefit which the Essayist derives from the opposite or allegorical school ? He has the privilege of believing that Saint- Worship may ap- peal in its support to the words of the Psalmist, " Laudate Dominum in Sanctis Ejus, and A dor ate scabellum pedum Ejusf." These are the precious fruits of Allegory ! These, my dear Sir, he calls Developments from Scripture ; but most persons, I should suppose, would term them Developments against Scripture. Scripture requires itself to be interpreted " according to the proportion of faith J;" and therefore the Church of England declares, that " no one place of Scripture" is so to be expounded "that§ it be repugnant to another." But this figurative mode of interpretation by its own fantastic notions concern- ing the meaning of one passage of Scripture, would destroy the plain teaching of the whole ; like the Bath-col o£*the Rabbis, which subverts the Word of Inspiration. Again: the Essayist says ||, that "certainly some of the most cogent passages brought by moderns -against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist" (he * Essay, p. 286. f Psalm xcix. 5. Essay, p. 112. t Rom. xii. 6. § Art. XX. || P. 287. means the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiate " are taken from writers who are connected with this (the literal) School ;" that is, the Syrian Divines are inconvenient witnesses against it, as well as against Saint-Worship. Of this, indeed, I feel no doubt, that if Transubstantiation had been really " the Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist" in the fourth century, then the most eminent members of this school, St. Chry- sostom and Theodoret, who speak in the most une- quivocal terms in opposition* to it"f% must have been branded and excommunicated as heretics. It is abso- lutely impossible that, with the numerous enemies who pursued both Chrysostom and Theodoret to their death, and even after it, no one should ever have brought the charge of heterodoxy on this point against them, if Transubstantiation had been then the re- ceived doctrine of the Eucharist. And this argument becomes still stronger when it is remembered that these testimonies of Chrysostom and Theodoret are * Chrysostom, in his Epistola ad Csesarium, inserted by Emeric Bigot, in his edition of Palladius, Paris, 1680, but suppressed by the Doctors of the Sorbonne, (who ordered the leaves in which it was printed to be cut out from the copies,) and reprinted, with Bigot's Preface, by Archbishop Wake, in his " Defence of the Ex- position of the Doctrine of the Church of England," p. 146—103. Lond. 1086. f The passages of Theodoret, on this point, from his Dialogue Eranistes, cannot be presented more clearly to the English reader than they have been by Bp. Pearson, in his notes to the Exposition of the Creed, Art. III. p. 162. " From them" (says Bishop Pear- son) " it is observable that the Church in those days understood no such doctrine as Transubstantiation." 138 LETTER VI. found in controversial works against the Apollinarian and Eutychian heretics, who certainly would not have lost this opportunity of retorting the charge of heresy against them, if Transubstantiation had been the doctrine of the Church. Indeed one of your divines* says that Chrysostom may be excused, because Transubstantiation was not developed then. Since also Pope Grelasiusf (a.d. 492 — 496) used pre- cisely the same arguments on the same subject in the Western Church, as Chrysostom and Theodore t had done in the Eastern, we cannot doubt what the judgment of Christendom then was on this subject ; and you, my dear Sir, will have to allow that your infallible Judge was a heretic, if Transubstantiation is true. But to return to the subject of Expositions. The plain fact is, that when the Essayist says, that " mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together/' the orthodoxy of which he is speaking is that of the modern Church of Rome. Mystical * Gamachseus ap. Albertinum de Eucharistia, ii. p. 553. " Ex- cusari posse quod Transubstantiatio non ita perspicue tradita et explicata sicut hodxeP Gamachseus ascribes Chrysostom's work to another John of Constantinople, at the end of the sixth century ; so that he allows the development not to have taken place two hundred years after Chrysostom. f In his Treatise, " De duabus Naturis in Christo," where he com- bats the Eutychian doctrine of a confusion of Natures in Christ, by referring to the Sacrament of the Eucharist; in the same way as Theodoret and Chrysostom had done. The words of Gelasius will be found in the notes just cited of Bp. Pearson. LETTER VI. 139 Interpretations are precisely those in which she rejoices. Allow her to allegorize, and she will prove any article of her Creed from any verse of the Bible. Therefore she makes her young Ecclesiastics learn by heart the two monkish lines*, in which, in con- tempt of all prosody and orthodoxy, she sings, " Litera gesta docet ; quid credas, AUegoria ; Moralis, quid agas ; quo tendas, Anagogia." "Quid credas, AUegoria;" this is her axiom, which agrees with the Essayist's assertions, that " Scripture is the medium in which the mind of the Church" (always meaning the Church of Rome) " has energized and developed " that she evolves her doctrines from Scripture ; but then it is from " the spiritual or second sense of Scripture -f-," and " the definitions of the Church rest upon definite, even though some- times obscure, sentences of Scripture J " of which Laudate Bominum in Sanctis, already cited as an authority for Saint-Worship, is a specimen §. * They will be found in her Theological Summaries ; e. g. Dens, ii. p. 99. Perrone, ii. 1149. *f- P. 327. " The use of Scripture, especially its spiritual or second sense, as a medium of thought and deduction, is a character- istic principle of the developments of doctrine in the Church." See also p. 319. "The mystical interpretation of Scripture is one of the characteristic conditions or principles on which the development of doctrine has proceeded. Again, Christianity developed, as we have incidentally seen, in the form, first, of a Catholic, then of a Papal Church. Now Scripture was made the rule on which this develop- ment proceeded in each case, and Scripture moreover interpreted, in X P. 112. § Ibid. p. 112. 140 LETTER VI. Here again we are shocked by the reckless and infidel destructiveness which characterizes Popery when carried to its ultimate results. Doctrines (we are told) develope themselves by degrees : if we ask, From what elements are they evolved ? the reply is, From Scripture. But if we inquire, How under- stood ? in its literal sense ? No, by no means ; such interpretations lead infallibly to heresy ; but in a figurative and mystical one. And who shall develope that ? The " one living, infallible Judge/' — the Pope. Such is the practice of Rome, and such is the theory of the Essayist. In further proof of this, let me refer to some of these " definitions or received judgments" of the Church of Rome, which, we are told, " rest upon definite, but obscure, sentences of Scripture/' This mode of developing from Scripture is ex- emplified (says the Essayist) " in the structure of the Canon Law, and in the Bulls and Letters of Popes*." To these, then, let us resort for instances of the application of the theory. Pope Innocent III., (who dethroned our King John,) in one of his Bulls has given a spiritual Scholium on the text of Genesis, (i. 14.) " Grod made two great lights/' These words (says that Pope) "signify that God made two dignities, the Pontifical and the Royal ; but the dignity which rules the Day — that is, the Spiritual Power — is the * Essay, p. 321. LETTER VI. 141 greater Light ; and that which rules the Night, or the Temporal, is the Lesser ; so that it may be under- stood that there is as much difference between Popes and Kings, as between the Sun and Moon *." Take another sample ; Pope Boniface VIII., in one of his Bulls, comments on the tenth verse of the first chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah, and throws in by the way some unique specimens of biblical Inter- pretation. The verse is as follows, " See, I have this day set thee over the Nations, and over the Kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy/' "Here/' exclaims Boniface f, "the Al- mighty is speaking of the power of the Church, to create, and to judge the Temporal Power ; and if the Temporal Power swerves from its duty, it shall be condemned by the spiritual ; and since Peter said to Christ, ' Ecce duo gladii/ * Lord, behold, here are two swords \* therefore the Pope has both the temporal and spiritual swords at his command ; and since also Moses writes §, ( In principio Deus creavit coelum et terram/ and not ' In principiis,' there- fore there is only one Princedom, and that is the Papacy!" What wonders may not be expected from the developing powers of your hermeneutic Thauma- * Decret. Greg. IX. lib. i. tit. xxxiii. c. 7. torn. ii. p. 191, ed. 1829, Lips. f Unara Sanctam, Extrav. Liv. i. tit. viii. J Luke xxii. 38. § Gen. i. 1. 142 LETTER VI. turge, who educes such marvellous things from the first two words of the Bible. If he will wave his wand, a College of Cardinals may start forth from the stars, as the Pope has leapt from the sun. He may give away kingdoms by a gloss ; and dethrone princes by a marginal note. It was, you know, on the strength of one of these expositions that Pius V. deposed Queen Elizabeth, and absolved her subjects from their allegiance, in 1570*. From Gen. i. 27, " God made man in his own image/' Pope Adrian argued that images may be set up in Churches*)* ; and because the heavenly voice said to Peter, " Arise, Peter, kill and eat," therefore if Cardinal Baronius is to be believed, the Pope had a right to devour the Venetians £; At the Lateran Council, Pope Leo X. profanely allowed the text " Ecce venit Leo de tribu Juda," to be applied § to himself; and Martin IV., in a public Consistory, permitted the Sicilian Ambas- sadors to say to him without rebuke, " Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis ;" and at the opening of the Council of Trent, the Bishop of Bitonto ||, in a set speech, said, " Papa Lux venit in mundum, et homines dilexerunt tenebras magis * See the preamble to his Bull, dated v. Kal. Mai. 1570. t Whit, et Dureeus in Camp. 9. Reason, p. 269. Z Cardinalis Baronii Votum contra Venetos. § By the Bishop of Modrusia. || Sarpi, Istoria, p. 165, ad ann. 1546. LETTER VI. 143 quam lucem ;" and this oration was printed by papal authority, as was the impious address to Leo the Xth of the Archbishop of Patraca, in the last Lateran Council, in which he applied to Leo* the text, " Omnis Potestas mihi data est in ccelo et terra;" for, Nihil est quod credere de se Non possit cum laudatur Dis sequa potestas." Such are a few specimens of the application of the non-literal and non-natural method of Interpret- ation by the Roman Pontiff, to whom you com- mit the power of developing Doctrines ; and con- cerning whose Expositions, one of your Cardinals f says, " If any one has the Interpretation of the Church of Rome concerning any text of Scripture, although he does not understand how the Interpre- tation suits the text, habet tamen ipsissimum verbum Dei/'' On these principles we shall be required to give up our Greek to the learned Romish Canonist, who derivesj the word Cephas from Ke P- 857. " Nee mirum si praxis Ecclesise uno tempore iuterpretatur Scripturam uno modo, et alio tempore alio modo ; nam intellectus currit cum pi'axi : intellectus enim qui cum praxi concurrit est Spiritus vivificans." See also the opinions of Cusanus, as quoted by Sarpi, Istoria, p. 163. " L'intelligenza delle Scritture si debbe accommodare al tempo e non altremente intese il Concilio Lateranense." 146 LETTER VI. to assert that this is no change at all ; for, says he, the " power of the Church is not less than that of Christ * ; and the Church is animated by His Spirit, and it does nothing but what He wills " so that however the form of Scripture, so interpreted, may vary, there is no change in its substance "f*. The Church of Rome, therefore, does not conform herself to the Word of God, but makes the Scripture attend her pleasure. Scripture in her hands is not a fixed rule of faith, but changes with the time ; that is, her own sense, exhibited in her practice, varying from time to time, is the true Exposition of Scripture J. Scripture is only the echo of the Papacy, — " Vatican i Montis Imago." * Cusani Epistola 2, ad Boheraos, p. 833—835, ed. Bas. 1565. " Etiam si hodie alia fuerit interpretatio Ecclesise, (says he of half- communion,) tamen hie sensus, nunc in usu currens, ad regimen Ecclesise inspiratus, uti tempori congruus, ut salutis via debet acceptavit Cardinal Cusanus has given in this letter a sketch of the " Theory of Development ;" and he there in the most unqualified manner resolves every thing into the authority of the existing Church of Rome. f Cardinal Cusanus, ibid. p. 834. "Dicetis forsitan, prsecepta Christi mutabuntur auctoritate Ecclesise ? ut sint tunc obligatoria quando Ecclesise placuerit ? Dico nulla esse Christi prsecepta quam per Ecclesiam pro talibus accepta . . . et non hsec est mutatio." J Bellarmine de Sacr. ii. 25. " Omnium dogmatum firmitas pen- det ab auctoritate pra>sentis Ecclesise ;" and Pighius says, Controv. iii. p. 91, " Nulla Scripturarum apparentia abduci nos oportere a communi observatione Ecclesiw, quse est ipsissima Christianoe veritatis regula." LETTER VI. 147 Tims, for example, it was once the true sense of Scripture that no creature should be worshipped ; and the Collyridians were condemned as heretics by the Church for worshipping the Virgin Mary * ; and the Council of Laodicea f- anathematizes those who worship Angels ; but now the Church of Rome worships the Virgin and Angels, and therefore the precept, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God," and " Him only shalt thou serve J ;" and, " see thou do it not, worship God," the words of the angel to St. John falling down before him, have lost their force, and what was Idolatry is now Religion. We find also that Image- Worship was established by the Second Nicene Council, on the plea that it was the practice of the existing Church §. So, again, it was the doctrine of Scripture that all men are conceived and born in sin, but it is the practice of the Church of Rome to celebrate the Fes- tival of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and therefore Original Sin is no longer, in her case at least, an Article of Faith ||, but the contrary. So, again, it was once the real meaning of Scrip- ture, that all communicants should receive both kinds, for it was once the practice of the Church of Rome to administer both kinds, and Pope Gelasius con- * Epiphan. adv. Hsereses, lib. III. torn. ii. p. 1064, ed. Petav. f Canon XXXV. J Matt. iv. 10. Rev. xxii. 9. § See Concil. Labbe, vii. pp. 838. 863. 886, 887. || See the arguments of the Tridentine Bishops, in Sarpi, p. 169 — 171. H 2 148 LETTER VI. demned the practice of half-communion as sacri- legious * ; but the Church of Rome now administers but one kind, and therefore the meaning of God's Word has changed, — yes, what it once commanded, it now forhids. Nor is it content with forbidding ; but any presbyter who communicates the people in both kinds may be delivered over to the Secular arm as a heretic "f : and we must follow the practice of the Church of Rome, and believe it to "be the true exponent of Scripture J« But, my dear Sir, in opposition to all this unhappy sophistry, let us remember the declaration of Scrip- ture, that the Faith § was once for all (cnra%) delivered * " Grande sacrilegium," a.d. 492. Jus Canon. Comperimus, de Consecratione, dist. 2. c. 12. + The language of the Council of Constance, a.d. 1414 — 1418, is most explicit on this matter, and exhibits a most striking practical specimen of Development in all its anti-scriptural destructiveness. The following are its words (Sess. XIII. Lahbe, vol. xii. p. 100) : — " In nomine Sanctee et Individuee Trinitatis . . Amen. Hoc prsesens Concilium Sacrum generale Constantiense in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregatum, decernit, quod licet Christus discipulis administraverit sub utrdque specie, . . tamen hoc non obstante, consuetudo est rationa- biliter introducta, quod, licet in primitiva Ecclesia reciperetur sub utrdque specie, posted a laicis tantummodo sub specie panis recipiatur " — therefore any presbyter who administers in both kinds is "ut hcereticus coercendus, invocato etiam ad hoc, si opus fuerit, brachio seculariy % " For some wise purpose, doubtless," (says Mr. Newman, p. 366,) " such as that of showing the power of the Church in the dispensa- tion of Divine grace, as well as the perfection and spirituality of the Eucharistic Presence, the Cup is withheld from all but the celebrant in the Holy Eucharist." § Jude, ver. 3. LETTER VI. 149 to the Saints ; and that a part of this Faith is that the Sacraments are divinely instituted means of grace, and that the participation in them, full and entire, is necessary to salvation. The denial of the cup to the laity is irreconcileable with this article of Christian doctrine. In the words of Christ *, — " From the beginning it was not so •" and of His Apostle, and all the Primitive Apostolic Churches, " "We have no such custom, nor the Churches + of God." What then ? When the Apostle says, " Let him that interpreteth \ Scripture (6 npo^Tevow) in- terpret according to the proportion of the Faith" (ttjv avaXoyiav tt\q iriaTiug), that is, according to the sys- tem of doctrine delivered by Christ and His Apostles, and received from them by the Church, it follows that the denial of the cup to the laity, and the other Romish practices, to which I have just referred, which are contrary to the Faith as propounded in Scripture and exhibited in the public language and practice of the Primitive Church, are violations of St. Paul's precept, and are acts of rebellion and despite against the Holy Spirit Who dictated it, and against the Divine Lawgiver, " Who, only/' as St. James says §, " is able to save, and to destroy." In these and in other respects, the Church of Rome has done precisely that for which our Blessed Lord condemned the Pharisees of old. " Laying aside the * Matt. xi. 8. +1 Cor. xi. 16. X Rom. xii. 16. § iv. 12. h3 150 LETTER VI. commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men f" " Ye have made the Word of God of none effect by your tradition, which ye have delivered ; and many such things do ye *)*.".. . Nay, more, not only does she thus render the Word of God of none effect, but she even ascribes His oracles to the dic- tation of the Evil One. Cardinal Hosius £ says, " That which the Church (of Rome) teaches is the express Word of God ; and that which is held con- trary to the sense and consent of the Church, is the express word of the Devil/' So that if we believe that Christ commands us to § receive in both kinds, saying, " Drink ye all of this ; and except ye drink my blood, ye have no life in you ;" as the Church of Rome herself once taught and practised, we should obey Satan, and not God || ! Oh ! my dear Sir, let me implore you to remember the words of Him Who said, " Every plant which * Mark vii. 8. f Matthew xv. 6. Mark vii. 13. + Cardinal Hosius de Expresso Verbo Dei, p. 643, 622, 623. " Quod Ecclesia docet expressum Dei verbum est ; quod contra sensura et consensum Ecclesise docetur, expressum Diaboli verbum est." Idem, p. 624. " Vanus est labor qui Scripturce impenditur, Scriptura enim creatura est et egenum quoddam elementum." . . . So the Jesuits of Cologne, in Censura Coloniensi, fol. 132. " If any man examine the Pope's doctrine by Scripture, and contradict it therefrom, let him be rooted out with fire and sword." Walsh's Irish Remonst. Treat, iv. p. 61. § Matt. xxvi. 27. John vi. 53. || Cardinal Hosius, p. 627- " Est ordinatio seu observantia Christi corporis Ecclesise ut sub una specie communicetur ? Vult Satanas sub utraque." Cardinal Hosius was specially patronized by Popes Paul IV. and Gregory XIII., to whom he dedicated his works. LETTER VI. 151 My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up *» You, and other good men like you, in France, speak often, with good reason, in terms of the great- est alarm and abhorrence of the results arising from rationalistic Principles in Germany. One of the most pernicious tenets of the Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves: — "We are convinced that Jesus Christ is one and the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever ; that He is the Lord of the Church ; but this Lord is nothing else but His Spirit within us. His Spirit is the Judge of all things ; and this Spirit is ever with His Church. She finds in her foundation and in her history, the clue that conducts her through the labyrinth of human error and the rule of the development of her doctrine. Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows the development of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church - organization, to which it gives expression and life. The Scriptures and the Creeds are the witnesses of ancient Christendom. Being, however, the works of men, they express the faith of men ; and their form bears the impress of the time in which they were made. It is not in them that absolute truth resides, but it is in the Spirit of truth, holiness, and love, which animates mankind. He who revealed Him- * Matt. xv. 13. h 4 152 LETTER VI. self to the world by tlie authors of the Scriptures is in us and by us ; He interprets the same Scriptures, and judges of their truth." Such is the language which was addressed, a little more than a year ago, by a great metropolitan munici- pal body* to the Sovereign f of Prussia on his throne, with the assurance " that the great majority of edu- cated persons in his capital participate in the same opinions/' You, I am sure, can hardly read it without an inward shudder ; and I am persuaded you will agree with me, that if Scripture is a human compo- sition ; if it is temporary and variable ; if it is to be judged and interpreted by a spirit within us, — instead of our spirit being tried by it, and being conformed to it ; if thus, in a word, according to the old Pro- tagorean doctrine J (which has been developed in an infinite variety of forms) "man is the measure of every thing to himself," then all objective truth, * The Municipality of Berlin, Oct. 2, 1845. t The learned and able Dublin Professor of Moral Philosophy, Professor Butler, Irish Eccl. Journal, iii. p. 307, has shown the si- milarity of Kant's teaching with that of the " Essay on Develop- ment." The latter destroys Christianity by the adoption of new doctrines, the former by the renunciation of old ; while both pretend to preserve the Spirit entire. So, too, he proves that the Essayist and the " great Patriarch of Rationalism " agree perfectly on the neces- sity of mystical interpretation. See also Mr. Palmer's valuable col- lection of documentary evidence to the same effect, p. 91 ; and the Rev. E H. Dewar's interesting and instructive volume on German Protestantism, pp. 5 — 8. $ On which see Plato's Thesetetus, and Cudworth on Immutable Morality, pp. 42 and 07- See also Perrone, Loci Theologici, ii # p. 1265. LETTER VI. 153 whether moral or dogmatic, is gone for ever, • and we must soon be the victims of the wildest licentiousness of opinion and practice, which will make the world a ruin. But let me now inquire — Are these teachers the only destroyers of Faith and Morals ? are not they also chargeable with precisely the same offence, who command us to submit implicitly to the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of " one living Infallible Judge," or "Developing Power?" Can men have fixed articles of faith and morals in this system any more than in the other ? No. " Unus utrisque Error, sed variis illudit partibus." There is the same evil in both, but it operates in different ways : in the for- mer, every one developes for himself ; in the latter, the Pope developes for every one. Both are alike destructive of true social and civil liberty and safety. We may repeat of both what Augustine says of the Manichseans, " They weigh matters not in the un- erring balance of Scripture, but in the false one of their own devices *." Both dishonour the Word of that Divine Being, with Whom there is " no variableness or shadow of turning," and Who has said, that " the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever f." Both are warring against Revelation, and are fighting un- der the banner of Infidelity. You look with fear on the progress of Rationalism ; and what hope can * Aug. c. Ep. Parmen. iii. c. 2. f 1 Pet. i. 24. H 5 154 LETTER VI. any man derive from that of Romanism ? The same reasons, which induce you to augur the worst results from the one, ought at least to prevail upon you to look charitably on us who are resolved, with God's help, to contend earnestly against the other. Let me say a few words concerning our principles of Scripture Interpretation, and I will conclude this letter. " I hold it " (says Richard Hooker*) " for a most in- fallible rule in expositions of Sacred Scripture, that where a literal interpretation will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous than the licentious and deluding art, which change th the meaning of words as alchymy doth or would do the substance of metals, maketh of any thing what it listeth, and bringeth in the end all truth to nothing. 3 ' The writer of these words is speaking especially of those heretics who would explain away the words of our blessed Lord, " Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ■£*' and who would give them a mere figurative signification involving no precept for the outward administration of baptism. He rightly asserts that nothing is more fatal to truth than inter- pretations like these. But what Hooker here main- tains against certain heretics respecting Baptism, may be justly alleged against Romanists in regard to the * Eccl. Polit. V. lix. 2. f John iii. 5. LETTER VI. 155 other Sacrament. " Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God/' may as well be wrested to prove that water baptism is not necessary, as " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you/' and " Drink ye all of this," be allowed to mean, as the Church of Rome requires that it should mean, " None of you shall drink of it ;" and if the non-recognition of the necessity in the one case be heresy, much more is the actual prohibition in the other. The allegorical mode of Interpretation, so much lauded by the Essayist and practised by Rome, has ever been a favourite resort of Scepticism; and here, as in many other respects, Rome and Infidelity make common cause. An English author of our own age, whose works have been translated into your lan- guage, and lauded by some for logical accuracy, comments in the following terms on certain words of our Church Catechism * : — " The Devil and all his works/' " Exists there/' he asks, " any where any real Being to which this name is applicable V Then, having recollected that Scripture often speaks of such a Being, he says, " Not by unbelievers only, but by many a pious Christian, is the existence of any such Being as the Devil utterly denied — the sort of Being mentioned under this name being no other than an allegorical one ; the passages in which mention is * Benthara on the Church Catechism, p. 9, 1817. h6 156 LETTER VI. made of him so many purely allegorical and figura- tive expressions ; he is figurative, and upon a line with Jupiter and Juno, and the other inhabitants of the classical heavens." Thus the Unbeliever, bor- rowing from Rome her metaphorical method, alle- gorizes Satan into a mythical character ; and, at the same rate, Heaven may be only another name for Elysium, and Hell for Phlegethon and Styx. The Romish Bishop, Dr. Milner, in his work enti- tled the " End of Religious Controversy *," dwells on the extravagances to which persons are carried who affirm that every man ought to be " his own Interpreter of Scripture/' and he concludes his re- marks on this subject with citing the well-known lines of Dryden f : — ■ " As long as words a different sense will bear, And each man be his own interpreter, Our airy Faith will no foundation find, The Word's a weathercock to every wind." It is remarkable that precisely the same senti- ment, expressed nearly in the same words, had been applied, fifty years before Dryden's poem, by a learned Anglican writer J, to the Method of Biblical Interpretation employed by the Church of Rome, which, says he, by her Expositions " makes of the Scripture a weathercock, which turns about with every * End of Controversy, Letter viii. f Hind and Panther, Part i. J In a very ingenious volume entitled the Beehive of the Romish Church, Land. 1623, p. 82. LETTER VI. 157 ivind" I am not concerned to defend the false prin- ciple against which Dr. Milner is writing. With every faithful member of the Church of England I reject it. I have before shown that Scripture is indeed the Rule of Faith of the Church of England, but it is Scripture, not interpreted by every man in every age according to the varying caprice of the indivi- dual and the time, but Scripture interpreted by Reason, and by the Practice of the Church Universal in and from the earliest times ; and whatever doc- trine can be shown to have been unknown to Chris- tian Antiquity, or condemned by it, we reject as either unnecessary or false, and not to be imposed on any one as the sense of Scripture, and obtruded as an article of Faith. But of this I am fully persuaded, that all that Dr. Milner has written against the evils of Private Interpretation, may be, and must be applied to his own Church ; * Mutato nomine de Te Fabula narratur." There, " The Word's a weathercock to every wind " that blows from the cave of the Papal JSolus ; and the world's history bears too much evidence that if the Roman Pontiff has any object of aggrandize- ment in view- — if the Juno of his ambition tempts him with the bribe of a Deiopeia, he is ever ready to let forth an Eurus or a Zephyrus, as may best suit his purpose, and Scripture is made to veer about 158 LETTER VI. like a vane with the fickle gusts of his arbitrary will. This is clear from the Interpretations cited from Papal Bulls and Decretals in this letter. Miserable, indeed, is the state of Society, where every man, woman, and child, set up to be an Interpreter of Scripture, but not less wretched are they, where the Pope is every man's Interpreter. No one can interpret Scripture worse for himself than the Pope has done for him. The strangest neologistic ravings of a Bretschneider or a Strauss have been equalled if not exceeded in extravagance by many of the oracular Expositions which have pro- ceeded from the chair of the Vatican. Permit me, in conclusion, to ask one question ; the Bishop of Rome founds his claim to Infallibility and Supremacy mainly on the promise of our Lord to St. Peter — which is blazoned in large letters round the inside of the dome of St. Peter's, "And I say also unto thee, Thou art Peter, (i e. a stone,) and on this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it * " This sentence was addressed to St. Peter in consequence of his good confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God/' Now, what I would inquire is, — since Christ's promise to Peter is grounded on Peter's confession of Christ, — if Peter sets himself against Christ and in the place of Christ, and (pardon the expression) if he ceases to be Peter and becomes * Matt. xvi. 18. LETTER VI. 159 Antichrist, is not Christ's promise void ? The Bishop of Rome claims to be the successor of Peter ; be it so ; but he does not confess Christ, he obeys not Christ's word, but subverts it by his own, he destroys Peter's foundation ; and what then does our Lord say of him ? " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock . . . and every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand ; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof*" I am, dear Sir, &c. &c. * Matt. vii. 24—27. LETTER VII. " Interroga generationem pristinam, Et diligenter investiga Patrum memoriam. Hesterni quippe sumus et ignoramus, Quoniam sicut umbra dies nostri sunt super terram. Et ipsi docebunt te ; Loquentur tibi, et de corde suo proferent eloquia." Liber Job. viii. My dear Sir, The greatest scholar, and one of the best of men, who ever adorned your country, I mean Isaac Casaubon*; says, in one of his letters to his friend Daniel Heinsius, "I desire with Melanch- thon and with the Church of England, that the doctrines of Christianity, derived from the source of Holy Scripture, should be deduced through the channel of Antiquity. Otherwise, what end will there be of novelties T* And again, in a letter to your learned Cardinal Perron, written in the name of our King James I., he says, " The King, with the * Epistola 744, ed. Roterod. 1709. Casaubon was born at Geneva in 1559, but passed the greater part of his life in France. LETTER VII. 16 L Church of England, declares that he recognizes that doctrine as true and necessary to Salvation, which, flowing from Holy Scripture, has been derived to our times through the consent of the Ancient Church as by a channel . . . His Majesty readily allows that if the testimony and authority of the Primitive Church is set at nought, there can, humanly speaking, be no end to religious controversy. He is not speaking of Rites and Ceremonies, but of articles of Faith ; and he affirms that whatever ought to be regarded as necessary to Salvation is to be proved from Holy Scripture alone, and does not depend on any human authority, but on the written Word only, by which God has revealed His Will to us through the Holy Spirit. The Fathers of the Church, and the Ancient Church generally, enjoyed the right of deducing articles of Faith from Scripture, and of explaining them, but not of making any new article. This was the sense of all the ancient Doctors of the Church ; as can easily be shown from their writings*/' Again, one of our most learned Prelates, a Pro- fessor of Theology in one of our Universities, and a Prolocutor of our English Convocation, Bishop Overall, thus declares the judgment of the Church of England in a letter to Hugo Grotiusf, " Our divines hold that the judicial power of declaring articles of Faith belongs to Councils of Bishops and * Epistola 838. f a.d. 1617. Epistolae Prsestant. Viror. p. 486. 162 LETTER VII. other learned Ministers of the Church, chosen and convoked for this purpose, according to the practice of the Ancient Church, and grounding their judg- ments on Holy Scripture, explained according to the consent of the Ancient Church, and not according to any private neoterical Spirit/' I would also request your attention to the follow- ing words of one of our most learned and admired Theologians, Dr. "Waterland*. " If there is any Church (he says) now in the world which truly reverences Antiquity, and pays a proper regard to it, it is the Church of England. The Romanists talk of Antiquity, while we observe and follow it. For with them both Scripture and Fathers are, as to the sense, under the correction and control of the present Church ; with us, the present Church says nothing but under the direction of Scripture and Antiquity taken together, one as the Rule, and the other as the Pattern or Interpreter. Among them it is the present Church that speaks, though in the name of Scripture and the Fathers ; with us, Scrip- ture and the Fathers speak by the Church/' Again ; " We allow no doctrine as necessary which stands only on Fathers : we admit none for such but what is contained in Scripture, and proved by Scrip- ture, rightly interpreted; and we know of no way * On the Use and Value of Ecclesiastical Antiquity, in vol. v. p. 318, of Bp. Van Mildei-t's edition, Oxford, 1823 ; compare vol. x. p. 487. LETTER VII. 163 more safe in necessaries to preserve the right inter- pretation than to take the Ancients along with us : we think this a good method to secure our Rule of Faith against impostures of all kinds, whether of enthusiasm, false criticism, conceited reason, oral tradition, or the assuming dictates of an ' Infallible Chair/ If we thus preserve the true sense of Scrip- ture, we build our Faith upon Scripture only ; for the sense of Scripture is Scripture." Such, my dear Sir, is the language of our best divines concerning Scripture and Antiquity. We do not regard the Fathers as exempt from human in- firmities. We do not deny that blemishes, both as respects doctrine and practice, may be found in their works. Therefore we are far from regarding them as a Rule of Faith. No. Scripture is our only Rule ; and our Church teaches that " whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation*/' But then she considers that the Fathers are of excellent use in the applica- tion of this Rule. She does not believe that any doctrine, which may be now alleged to be deducible from Scripture, and which can be shown to have been unknown to them, is a true doctrine, or can rightly be called the sense of Scripture. In the * Art. vi. 164 LETTER VII. words of Bishop Bull*, " We have, and ever shall have, a dread of interpreting Scripture against the torrent of all the Fathers, except when most evident Reasons compel us to do so ; which we think will never be the case." Again ; as Bishop Stillingfleetf says, " It is sufficient prescription against any thing which can be alleged out of Scripture, that, if it appear contrary to the sense of the Catholic Church from the beginning it ought not to be looked upon as the true meaning of Scripture/' In this respect, we hold that the writings of the Fathers are invaluable. They are admirable expositors of ancient truth ; and they are something more than this ; they are sure preservatives against modern error. They are faithful keepers of the old Catholic faith ; and they are no less effective safeguards against the new Trent Creed. If we can prove that any doctrine was unknown to the primitive Church, we are sure that it could not have been taught by Christ and His Apostles, and that it therefore cannot be necessary to salvation -* and we affirm that in the Trent Creed there are many doctrines which were unknown to the pri- mitive Church, and therefore are not doctrines of Christ, and not necessary to Salvation. The author of the Essay on Development attempts to get rid of this argument by a very novel experi- ment, — the introduction of Chance. He alleges that * Def. Fid. Nic. i. 1. 9. f Rational Account, ii. 59. LETTER VII. 165 the silence of Primitive writers concerning Romish doctrines is not conclusive against them* ; for the " law of silence is often simply unaccountable." In one part of his workf he rejects the disciplina arcani, as it is called, by which some Romanist Divines explain the non-appearance of certain of their doctrines in the works of the Early Fathers of the Church J, alleging that the Fathers held those doctrines, but did not teach them, and that Christianity had from the first both an esoteric and exoteric character, the one distinct from the other. According to this theory, this or that doctrine of the Church was like an Alpheus which ran for a long way under ground, till at length it emerged, in this or that age, in the Arethusa § of a synodical canon, or a decretal of a Pope. But in subsequent paragraphs ||, the Essayist argues (as I have said) that " the law of silence or deficiency is often simply unaccountable." " Thus Lucian " (he says) " hardly notices Roman authors or aifairs. Maximus Tyrius, who wrote several of his works at Rome, makes no reference to Roman his- tory. Paterculus, the historian, is mentioned by no ancient writer except Priscian. What is more to our present purpose, Seneca, Pliny the elder, and Plutarch, are altogether silent about Christianity, » P. 139. f P. 25. X See Schelstrade, Dissertatio Apologetica de Disciplina Arcani, 1685, contra Tentzelium. § Virg. Mn. iii. 694. || P. 139. 166 LETTER VII. and perhaps Epictetus also, and the Emperor Marcus. The Jewish Mishna, too, compiled about a.d. 180, is silent about Christianity ; and the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds almost so, though the one was compiled about a.d. 300, and the other a.d. 500. Eusebius, again, is very uncertain in his notice of facts : he does not speak of St. Methodius nor of St. Anthony, nor of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor of the miraculous powers of St. Gregory Thaumatur- gus Josephus* is silent about Chris- tianity, and Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine." The inference from all this is stated as follows in another page -f* : — " It is true that St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the subject of the Pope's authority ; but if that authority was not and could not be in active operation, then such silence is not so difficult to account for as the silence of Seneca or Pliny about Christianity itself, or of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine according to the need/' . . . " For St. Ignatius to speak of Popes when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an army to arrest a housebreaker %." It would seem, therefore, that, according to the Author's view of the case, the Papal power might have existed, though not in active operation, even from the Apostolic age ;. and that the fact of St. Ig- natius not referring to that Power is not so strong a * P. 141. + P. 165. % P. 167. LETTER VII. 167 proof against the existence of the Papacy as the silence of Seneca or Pliny against the existence of Christianity, or as the silence of Lucian concerning it is against the existence of the Roman people ! Let us examine these assertions. The Papacy is the fundamental article of your system. St. Ignatius was writing letters to Christian Churches, one of which was Rome, concerning their duties to their spiritual guides ; and the very reason which leads him to dwell so much on the necessity of obedience to their Bishops, must, a fortiori, have induced him to speak of the submission due to the Supreme Pontiff, the Bishop of Bishops — if any such Ecclesiastical Ruler had existed in those times. This is our assertion ; and this is one of the many examples we adduce of the great, the inestimable, value of the Writings of the Early Fathers, as prce- scriptiones (to use Tertullian's word) against modern Romish heresy and schism ; especially against the great source of schism, and the arch-heresy of here- sies, the doctrine of the Papal Supremacy and Infal- libility. But the Essayist says that Ignatius might have been aware of the existence of the Papacy, and yet might say nothing about it, as " Lucian is silent about the Roman people:" and in accordance with the Doctrine of Development, that in the time of Igna- tius the Papacy " was not and could not be in active operation ;" that " first the power of the Bishop awoke, 168 LETTER VII. then that of the Pope •" that " Christianity developed itself first as a Catholic, then as a Papal Church ;" and therefore it would have been idle for Ignatius " to speak of Popes when it was a matter of Bishops:" so that Ignatius says nothing about Popes, not because they were not — but because they were asleep ! Sleep, Sir, is not characteristic of Popes. They are possessed with a perpetual agrypnia. If we believe their own assertion, their power consists in Universal Supremacy over all Pastors and People. Cancel an iota of this claim, and the Papacy is not. Therefore, when he says that the Papacy was not in "active operation" in the time of Ignatius, he allows its non-existence ; and for our parts we are quite content with the form of Church Government which existed in the days of the holy Martyr Ignatius, the disciple of St. John, and the true successor of St. Peter*. But "the law of silence (we are told) is often simply unaccountable." The Pope might have ex- isted, and Ignatius say nothing about him ; and we are assured that there are other examples of reserve quite as strange as this. Let me then say a few * At Antioch. While speaking of the See of Antioch I may observe, that the Essayist has fallen into an anachronism concerning Severus, the famous Monophysite Patriarch of that city, to whose history he gives several pages. In p. 312 he says, " Severus, Patri- arch of Antioch at the end of the fifth century." Severus was not Patriarch till a.d. 513. LETTER VII. 169 words on the supposed parallels between the silence of Ignatius concerning Popes, and that of some other writers concerning celebrated persons and things, known to have existed in their time. This examination will furnish us with a specimen of the character of the statements and reasonings of the " Essay on Development/' and will, I think, induce you to pause before you place any reliance on them, without careful inquiry. Your faith, I assure you, will be much imposed upon if you receive them im- plicitly. First, then, the author says in the passage above cited, "Lucian hardly notices Roman authors or affairs." This is a very strange assertion. Lucian speaks very frequently of Roman* affairs. Ta 'Pwjuiaitov opdrcj-f' — "let him survey Roman affairs," is his pre- cept to his Historian, and *Sohus is silent about Christianity." * De Viris Illust. c. 81. f H. E. v. 4. 15. 21, &c. X vi. 30. 6 Ka9' yfjiag l-ttTKOTnov 8ia(36r)TOQ Tprjyopiog. § vii. 25. LETTER VII. 175 Here is another assertion in which the Author presumes on a most wonderful degree of ignorant belief in his readers. Who is there, of moderate his - torical knowledge, who has not heard of the cele- brated passage in the Antiquities of Josephus* con- cerning Christianity ? and though some persons have raised doubts about it, yet what theologian knows not that it is quoted as genuine by Eusebius f, Hegesippus, and Jerome in their controversial writings with Jews ? Who is ignorant that its genuineness has been maintained by the most learned men in your nation and in ours, — by Casau- bon, Valesius, Usher, and Pearson j; and yet with the most perfect calmness the Author says, " Josephus is silent about Christianity!" Tenthly, "Eusebius passes over the death of Crispus in his life of Constantine." I have already mentioned the Essayist's obliga- tions to Dr. Paley in these paragraphs : and from him I will borrow a sentence, which it is clear that the Essayist had seen (indeed he refers to it), when he was gathering his examples of inexplicable omis- sions. It occurs in the context of what I have quoted from that author's " Evidences," concerning the Talmud. " I think it may with great reason be * xviii. 3. f Professor Lee has lately given to the world a new citation of it by Eusebius, Theophania, p. 329. J See Archdeacon Chux*ton's Edition of his Minor Works, i. 319. 332. ii. 25. 33. I 4 176 LETTER VTI. contended" (says Dr. Paley) "either that the passage oiJosephus is genuine, or that his silence is designed: perhaps he did not know how to represent the busi- ness, and disposed of his difficulties by passing it over in silence. Eusebius wrote the life of Constan- tine, yet omits entirely the most remarkable circum- stance in that life — the death of his son Crispus — undoubtedly for the reason here given." I have thus gone through ten assertions, nine of them taken consecutively from a single half page of the " Essay on Development/' You will pardon, I trust, the trouble I have given you in carrying you through these details ; but I was desirous of showing you once for all how little claim the Essay has to be regarded as a correct representation of facts ; and since its main design is to show that Popery is " his- torical Christianity •/* I thought it a duty to prove that the " Essay on Development " is not Christian History, and that a writer who founds the claim of Romanism to be regarded as historical Christianity on such assertions as these, has gone far to prove it to be as fabulous as Greek or Latin Mythology. Again, it was my desire to show that the silence of Ignatius concerning the Papacy is indeed unac- countable on any other supposition, except the true, viz. that in his age it did not exist; and it is my opinion that the alleged examples in which the -29. LETTER VII. 177 author has attempted to find parallels for the silence of Ignatius, only afford additional proof that this silence is inexplicable, if the Papacy is true *. Having thus shown by an example the use which we make of Primitive Christian Antiquity, I proceed to observe, in further illustration of what I am now saying, that our learned Bishop Jewel, who was no vain boaster, did publicly, at St. Paul's Cross, Lon- don, in the year 1560, on the second Sunday after Easter, make a challenge to his Romanist adversa- ries, that if any learned man among them " would bring any one sufficient sentence out of any Catholic Doctor or General Council, for the space of six hun- dred years after Christ, in support of the twenty-six several doctrines, cited by him, in which the Church of Rome differs from the Church of England, and which the former affirms to be necessary to salvation, he would give over and subscribe to him." So con- fident was the Bishop — "the worthiest divine that Christendom had bred for the space of some hun- dreds of years," as Hooker f calls him — that in those doctrines in which Rome now differs from England, she differs from her ancient self; and that, therefore, * It would not be surprising if, under these circumstances, some Romanist Divines should be tempted to dispute the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles, — indeed a Dublin Reviewer has done so, No. xxxvi. p. 367. But let those Divines be reminded, that supposing, for argu- ment's sake, that those Epistles were not written in the seccnd century, but in the fourth or fifth, then the argument against the Papacy as a modem corruption becomes still stronger than before, f E. P. II. vi. 4. I 5 178 LETTER VII. we, at our Reformation, did not sever ourselves from her, but that she had separated herself from the ancient Catholic Church ; and that the guilt of the schism between us lies at her door. It is an argument of a bad cause when an adver- sary abandons the ground on which he once mainly rested, and begins to decry what he formerly em- ployed as his principal ally. Rome once appealed to Antiquity ; but now she reviles it. If a Jewel were now to reiterate his challenge, she would elude it by saying, " Let the Church of England hold the faith of the Primitive Church, yet this profits her nothing ; for the ancient Fathers were ignorant of many truths which have now become articles of Faith ! " Again ; we may prove that the Church of Rome imposes many articles as necessary to salva- tion, of which the Church of the first six centuries knew nothing ; but this, we are now assured, is a proof not of her corruption, but of her vitality ! This, then, is the question — Is Antiquity to share the fate of Reason and of Scripture at the hands of the Church of Rome ? Was the early Christian Church ignorant of any fundamental doctrines of the Christian Faith ? This is a large and comprehensive inquiry ; but it may be reduced into a tolerably narrow compass. Happily the Essayist has specified the objections which he has to make to the teaching of the pri- mitive ages ; and, taking the most prominent points LETTER VII. 179 of his pleading against them, I think that I shall be able to show, that, so far from inflicting any damage upon them, he has rather corroborated their autho- rity. If, after all his researches, the allegations he has to bring against them form the total of his charge, they have little to fear for their reputation ; and if they should amount to ten times this aggre- gate, we have nothing to fear for our Christianity. His argument is, that some of the Fathers speak ambiguously or erroneously, or are altogether silent, on certain doctrines allowed by us, as well as by the Church of Rome, to be parts of the true Faith ; that, therefore, the truth of these doctrines was not esta- blished in primitive times ; and that we do not refute this or that doctrine of the Church of Rome, when we show that it was not held by the Early Church : in short, that we cannot reject the doctrines of Trent, without renouncing those of Nice *. First, let me observe, that there is one extraordi- nary fallacy in this argument, which completely viti- ates the whole. It sets out with an ignoratio elenchi. It proceeds on the supposition that we make the Fathers our Rule of Faith ; whereas, as I before said, the Church of England knows of no other rule of Faith than Scripture; and the authority which it accords to the Fathers is not a legislative but an interpretative one. We believe the articles of the Nicene Creed, not because they were held by such • Seep. 9. 16 180 LETTER VII. or such Fathers of the Church, but because they may " be proved by most certain warrants * of Holy Scripture f ;" and because, being so proved by the Fathers of that Council j, they have ever since been * Bp. Sanderson in his Fifth Sermon ad Clerum thus speaks, " The orthodox bishops and doctors in the ancient Church being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, the hypostatical union of the two natures in the person of Christ, the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and other like articles of the Catholic religion against the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, and other heretics, had recourse often to the tradition of the Church, whereby they meant not any unwritten doctrine not contained in Scriptures, but the very doctrine of the Scriptures them- selves, as they had been constantly understood and believed by all Chris- tians in the Catholic Church, down from the Apostles* times till the several present ages wherein they lived" f Art. VIII. % At the Sessions of Councils of the Church, and, we may well suppose, at that of Nicsea, the Scriptures were placed on a throne § in the Council Chamber, to show that they were the vofioQ fiacnXiKbg — the royal rule — of the Church. Wheatley, on the Nicene Creed, p. 82, ed. 1738, " Whenever any Councils were held of old, a throne was erected in the midst of the assembly, on which the Gospels were solemnly laid, that all might know upon what authority their deci- sions were to be built, from what principles their conclusions were to be drawn." Nothing can be more certain than these two points ; (I) that Councils did not propound their decrees (quatenus their de- crees) as a Rule of Faith; for, as Augustine says (lib. ii. c. 3, de Baptism, c. Donat.), " Provincialia Concilia emendari possunt per Plenaria, et Plenaria priora per postenora ; (2) that (in the words of Hooker, II. v. 4) " to urge any thing upon the Church as part of that supernatural truth which God has revealed, and not to show it in Scripture, that did the Ancient Fathers evermore think unlawful, impious, execrable;" and, therefore, S. Jerome says, in Epist. ad Galat., " Contra Spiritus Sancti doctrinam, quae canonicis Uteris est prodita, si quid statuant Concilia, nefas duco" § See the authorities in Bp. Cosin, On the Canon, p. 41. LETTER VII. 181 received as true by the Universal Church, to which Christ has promised His presence and Spirit always, even unto the end of the world. What is it, then, to us, if it could be shown by a Petavius *, a Perron, a Newman, or a Dublin Reviewer-)*, that this or * See Bp. Bull, Defensio Fidei Nicsense, Prooem. § 8 ; and Robert Nelson's " Letter to a Popish Priest," in Hickes's Letters, p. 334. " I am not ignorant that two of your great champions, Cardinal Per- ron and Petavius, have aspersed not only the Holy Scriptures, as incapable to prove our Saviour's divinity, but have impeached the Fathers of the first three centuries as tardy on the same point. Blessed God I that men should be so fond of human inventions, as to sacrifice to them those pillars of our Faith which are alone able and proper to support it, — Scripture and Primitive Antiquity." ■f See the article in the Dublin Review of June, 1845, entitled "On the difficulties of the Ante-Nicene Fathers;" which antici- pated the publication of Mr. Newman's work by more than three months. The object of this article is to undermine the authority of the ancient Church, and, if possible, to leave nothing standing but the Papal chair. Its animus may be sufficiently conceived by the reader from two notes, and from the concluding paragraph (pp. 369, 370). The two notes are as follows, p. 337 : " The assertion that Bp. Bull's Work (Defence of the Nicene Creed) has never been answered, can only proceed from persons ignorant of Whiston's Primitive Chris- tianity, and Jackson's Reply to Waterland, and Notes to Novatian, p. 353. The remains of Novatian were edited by Jackson, the learned Arian opponent of Waterland. He has added notes, for the purpose of showing how all Primitive Antiquity told against the Atha- nasian doctrine." The concluding paragraphs are : — " However dis- cordantly the Fathers may to superficial readers " [i. e. to all readers, for why otherwise speak of the " difficulties of the Ante-Nicene Fathers ! " which have not been cleared up by Bp. Bull, see p. 337, note] " seem to speak upon particular points of doctrine, in spite of their deep-rooted and solemn unanimity, there is one truth at least upon the very surface of their writings, and which penetrates to the very depths thereof, to which they, one and all, bear harmonious witness. They teach with a voice not to be mistaken " [not the sufficiency and supremacy of Scripture, but] " that the Church of 182 LETTER VII. that Ante-Nieene Writer spoke ambiguously concern- ing this or that article of the true Faith ? Our question is — Is the Article in Scripture or not ? ytypawTm ; r) ov yiygairTai ; can it be proved from Holy Writ or not ? Was it known to the Church before the Council, or was it then first published to the world ? Concerning the Nicene faith, we assert that it is in Scripture ; and we add, that it was known to be so before the Nicene Council ; for this Council was composed of Bishops, three hundred and eighteen in number, and these Bishops did not start from the earth like myrmidons or like the sol- diers of Cadmus, but they had received what they then promulgated as the sense of Scripture from their predecessors, and their Creed is an authentic proof of what they had been taught, and the reception of this Creed in all parts of Christendom, from that time to the present, has the force of a divine autho- rity witnessing to its antiquity and truth. What, therefore, I repeat, is it to us, if some, who might be employing their talents in a nobler task, Christ " [i. e. of Rome] " is the divinely-appointed and divinely- guided Teacher of all truth ; that she is the Spouse of Christ, and cannot become adulterous ; that the Holy Ghost dwelleth with her, and speaks by her mouth." " Those who humbly receive her doc- trine " [i. e. that of the present Church of Rome] " cannot go icrong ;" but those who, under the pretence of reforming corruptions, plead the authority of Scripture and Antiquity against the received doc- trine of the present Church [of Rome], are marked out by the Fathers of ancient Christendom as enemies of God and destroyers of the souls of men." LETTER VII. 183 should be able to cast a shade over some of the vene- rable names of Christian Antiquity ? The literary remains of the Ante-Nicene period are scanty and fragmentary, and it is inconsistent alike with charity and with equity not to credit their orthodoxy on the general testimony of the Church which possessed their works entire, and could judge of them by their oral teaching as well as by their writings ; but, on the strength of some insulated passages or phrases, at this period of time, to charge them with ignorance or error concerning some article of Faith propounded in Scripture and proclaimed by a General Council early in the Fourth Century, and received by the Universal Church, — this is neither reverent nor just. Again, whatever attempts may be made to dis- credit the orthodoxy of this or that Ante-Nicene writer, these aspersions, after all, can only affect the character of a few ; and the Nicene Creed, received in all Christendom, still remains, as before, an inde- structible monument of the Faith, not of a few, but of the Ante-Nicene, as well as the Nicene, Church. But now let us apply these remarks to the Triden- tine Creed. It is said by your Romanist Theologians, that we have not refuted those doctrines when we have shown that they were unknown to the Primitive Church of Christ, except we are willing to allow that they have refuted the Nicene doctrines by 184 LETTER VII.- showing that they were unknown to the Ante-Nicene Fathers * To this we reply, first, that neither Fathers nor Divines are our Rule of Faith. We accept the doctrines of the Nicene Council, because they can be proved from Scripture ; and we reject those of the Tridentine, because they are contrary to it. The one decided Kara rag ypacfrag, "according to the Scriptures ;" the other, Kara rwv ypatywv, against the Scriptures. The cases, therefore, are by no means parallel in this respect. Secondly, let us allow, for argument's sake, that some of the Ante-Nicene writers have spoken ambiguously concerning the Nicene doctrines ; but then we say that no one writer can be cited in favour of some of the Tridentine tenets for a thousand years after Christ. Here, again, is a great difference between the two cases. Thirdly, the Nicene Creed was published early in the fourth century, and has ever since that time been received— that is, for fifteen hundred years — through- * The Romish argument in Bishop Bull's words is (Def. Fid. Nic. Procem. § 5), " Concilia (Ecumenica potestatem habere novos fidei articulos condendi, sive, ut Petavius loquitur, constituendi et pate- faciendi, unde satis prospectum videatur additamentis illis quae regul^e fidei assuerunt quseque Christiano orbi obtruserunt Patres Triden- tini ; quanquam ne sic quidem fides Romana stabit ; cum Tridtntina Conventio quidvis potius quam generate concilium dicenda sit." It is clear from these words that our great English theologian, Bishop Bull, saw very distinctly, a century and a half ago, that the essence of Romanism is Development. out the whole of Christendom ; but the Tridentin§^?flpr Creed was not promulgated till the sixteenth cen- tury, and it is rejected by the whole of the Eastern Church, and by a great part of the Western. Here, again, is another great difference. Fourthly, the Ni- cene Creed does not pretend to add * any new Arti- cles to the Faith once for all (cnra%, Jude 3) delivered to the Saints, but to declare what it reads in Scrip- ture, and has received from the Fathers before it ; and Scripture anathematizes those who add any thing to the Faith. But the Trent Council added twelve new Articles to the Nicene Creed, some of which Articles it does not even pretend to find in Scripture, and none of them are contained in Scrip- ture, and some of them are contrary to it ; and one of them makes Tradition of equal authority with Scripture, and thus destroys Scripture ; and so the Council incurred the anathema pronounced in Scrip- ture on those who add new Articles to the Faith. Here is another great difference. Next, the Nicene Coun- cil was a Synod of the Church legally convoked, and its Bishops were under no sinister influence, but had perfect freedom of deliberation and decision ; but the Council of Trent was not a Council of the Church, but only a Conclave of the Pope t, the * Similarly, it is the language of the great Councils of Constanti- nople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, that they teach no other doctrine than what has been unalterably held from the beginning. See the quotations of Professor Butler, p. 342. f See above, pp. 106—112, and the Letter of Andreas Dudithius, 186 LETTER VII. Bishops there being all bound to him by an oath of implicit obedience, and being under the control of his Legates ; and the Pope himself was one of the liti- gants, for the doctrine and discipline of Rome were the very subjects under consideration for which that Council was called, and therefore the Pope sat there as Judge in his own cause. He was, in fact, Plaintiff, Defendant, Advocate, and Arbiter ; and so the decision was null. Here, too, is a strong con- trast between Mcaea and Trent. "What we say, therefore, to your Theologians is this : Show us that your Tridentine Creed is read in Scripture, or may be proved thereby ; show us that the Tridentine Council was a legal and free Council of the Catholic Church ; show us that the Trent Creed has been received in all the Churches of Christendom ; show us any single Father or Eccle- siastical Writer, for a thousand years after Christ, who held it ; and then we shall be prepared to re- ceive the Trent Creed as we receive the Nicene Faith, — but not till then * Episcopus Quinque-Ecclesiensis, ad Maximilianum II., printed in Brent's translation of Sarpi's Hist., p. 823. * There is precisely the same fallacy in the Dublin Reviewer's Article " On the difficulties of the Ante-Nicene Fathers," above referred to, as in Mr. Newman's Essay. The former thus writes, p. 335, " We are called upon to give up all belief in Purgatory, to deny Transubstantiation, to refuse obedience to the Pope, and to leave off praying to the Saints, because they " [the Anglo-Catholics] " cannot see these doctrines in the Primitive Church, but find lan- guage in the Fathers which seems to them inconsistent therewith. . . LETTER VII. 187 But I have not yet stated the argument in favour of the Nicene doctrines as strongly as it ought to be put. I have not yet shown that the allegations brought by the Essayist against the orthodoxy of some of the Ante-Nicene writers are very unjust. This I propose to do in my next letter. In the mean time, I beg leave to commend to your consideration the following words of one of the most learned and pious Bishops of France, St. Ire- nseus, the noble martyr of Lyons, which will clearly show how strongly the Ante-Nicene Fathers pro- test against the notion that the faith was imperfect in their age, and that new doctrines could be added to it. " The Church " (says he) " having received this faith, which I have declared, guards it carefully as if she dwelt in one house, albeit she is dispersed throughout the whole world ; and she maintains it as if she were animated with one heart and soul and spake with one voice ; and neither will he who is most eloquent among her Pastors deliver any other On our part (p. 337) we have no hesitation to maintain, that those who accept the doctrines contained in the Athanasian Creed, have difficulties to get over " [with regard to the language of the Fathers] "with which those" [Roman doctrines] u which they throw in our teeth as Catholics, cannot bear the most distant comparison." Waiving the latter question for the present, I would only observe, that the Reviewer seems to forget that our assertions are, that " Holy Scrip- ture containeth all things necessary to salvation n (Art. VI.), and that the Athanasian doctrines " may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture" (Art. VIII.), and that the "Romish doctrine of Purgatory and Invocation of Saints, is grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." (Art. XXII.) 188 LETTER VII. doctrine than this, (for no one is above his Master,) nor will he who is weak in the word detract aught from the tradition. For since there is but one and the same faith, neither can he who is able to speak much concerning it, add to it ; nor can he, who can say but little, take away from it * " So far was your Irenseus from imagining that Developments were to be made in the doctrines of Christianity. With what feelings of sorrow and surprise would he have regarded your two Translations of "the Essay on the Doctrine of Development/' into the language of the country in which he fed the flock of Christ as a Bishop, and shed his blood for it as a martyr ; and with what sighs, and tears, and groans of spirit would he have deplored the welcome given to the author of that book by an Archbishop and Bishops of France ! I am, Sir, Yours truly, &c. &c. * Adv. Hsereses i. c. 3. LETTER VIII. " Quo spes, quoque ira vocasset, Ferre manum .... gaudensque mam fecisse ruina." Lucan i. 150. My dear Sir, I proceed to examine the worth of the Essayist's imputations against the Ante Nicene Fathers. The first charge to which I desire your attention is the following. It is directed against the Pro- vincial Council of Antioch ; to which we are indebted for an Epistle, which for its matter and style may be regarded as one of the most precious remains of Christian Antiquity.* The authorf says, " There is one, and one only great doctrinal Council in Ante-Nicene times. It was held at Antioch in the middle of the third century, on occasion of the incipient innovations of the Syrian heretical School. Now, the Fathers then * It will be found in Routh's Reliquiae, ii. 465. f P. 13. 190 LETTER VIII. assembled, for whatever reason, condemned or at least withdrew the word ' Homoousion*/ which was received at Niccea, as the Special Symbol of Catho- licism against Arius." You would naturally infer from this allegation, that the Antiochene Fathers " condemned, or at least withdrew, the term ' Homoousion/ M understood in the same sense as that in which it was afterwards used by the Nicene Council. Otherwise the objection is frivolous, not to say disingenuous and unjust. Evi- dently, the conclusion at which the Author intends us to arrive is, that the Antiochene Council did not hold the true doctrine of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. This is a grave charge, aimed as it is not against one or two Fathers in their private capacity, but against a Synod which consisted of seventy Bishops. Now, what I would first observe is, that this objection is by no means a new one, but was made by the Arians fourteen hundred t years ago, and has been repeated by their successors J up to the last century, and has been refuted by Catholic writers from the times of Athanasius§ to our own. * i.e. Consubstantial ; and, when applied to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, " of one substance with the Father." t See Athanas. de Syn. Arimin. et Seleuc. § 45. J As Sandius, Nucleus Historiee, p. 124. § Athanas. 1. c. § 45. Bp. Bull, Works, ii. p. 81. Berriman on the Trinitarian Controversy, 119—124. Routh, Reliquige, ii. 317, 318. 465. 493. LETTER VIII. 191 It is a melancholy thing to see that the learned writer of the " Essay on Development" has not only fallen away from the Church of England to Rome, but in so doing has left the company of Athanasius and Hilary for that of Sandius and Leclerc. Now for the fact Did the Antiochene Fathers condemn the word " Homoousion ?" Not to trouble you with many authorities, I beg to refer to an author against whom you, I think, can make no ex- ception, the present learned Theological Professor in the College of Jesuits at Rome — Father Perrone. "It is now agreed," says he*, " among the best critics that the alleged condemnation of the word ' Homoiision' by the Antiochene Council is supposi- titious. This is certain from the fact that no men- tion was ever made of this condemnation till ninety years after that Synod was held, when the story was got up by the Semi-Arians, in the Council of Ancyra, a.d. 358." But, further : we readily allowed that some great men of ancient times, for instance, Athanasius and Hilary, were induced to believe (whether correctly or no is not the question) that the Antiochene Fathers did reject, or at least withdraw the term Homoousion: but of this we are sure, that they never imagined that the Antiochene Fathers rejected the word understood * Prselectiones, i. 567. 192 LETTER VIII. in the same sense as that in which it was afterwards used at Nicsea. The occasions upon which the Councils of Antioch and Nicsea were summoned were very different. The former was convoked to suppress the heresy of Paul of Samosata, who denied the existence of Christ as a Person before His conception ; the other was called to quell that of Arius, who confessed the existence of Christ before His conception, but only as a creature. The former was held to vindicate the plurality of Persons in the Ever Blessed Trinity ; the latter to maintain the Unity of their substance *. It would not be surprising, then, if, having met with a very different aim, the two councils should have used the same word in a different sense ; and it is certain, that what some of the ancients believed the Antiochene Fathers to have really declined, was the term " Homoousion" used not in its Nicene and even Ante-Nicene sense, (for the word was used in its Nicene sense even before the Council of Antioch f,) but as employed in a heterodox sense by Paul of Samosata, who had wilily perverted the word to serve his own purpose ; and if, therefore, the Fathers of Antioch had used it, he would probably have alleged that they had adopted his sense of it, and had acknowledged the conse- quences which he deduced from it. This is clear from the words of St. Hilary. * See Athanas. ibid. § 45. Bp. Bull, ii. 87. f See the passages in Bull, v. 78—81. Routh, ii. 519. LETTER VIII. 193 " Some," says lie, " have thought that the word ' Homoousion' should be rejected, because it seemed to involve the notion of a third substance, which the First and Second Persons of the Trinity share between themselves : but this is a false meaning of the word, and is proscribed as profane by the com- mon consent of the Church. Secondly, you allege (he adds) that our ancestors rejected the word ■ Homoousion' when they condemned Paul of Samo- sata for heresy: yes, and wherefore did they so? because by his misuse of the word, understood in the sense of identity of essence, he made the Father to be of the same Person with the Son. The Church regards this meaning as most profane ; because it reduces the Father and Son to a solitude of union and singularity ; and denies the propriety of each as a Person*/' It is plain, therefore, that Hilary did not believe that the Antiochene Fathers rejected the term Homo- ousion as it was afterward understood by the Nicene Council ; it is clear that he thought they rejected it not in its orthodox sense of consubstantial, but in its here- tical one of co-personal : and that he would have been greatly astonished by the assertion, that the " Fathers of Antioch condemned, or at least withdrew, the word ' Homoousion/ which was received at Nicsea as the special symbol of Catholicism/' * Liber de Synodis, § 81 and 85. 194 LETTER VIII. Let us see whether this charge would be better received in other respectable quarters. St. Athanasius* and St. Basil affirm, that Paul of Samosata wished to rob the Church of the term " Homoousion," by abusing it (something, let me say, in the same way as Rome has attempted to deprive the Church of the word " Catholic" by appropriating it to herself) : he, they say, sophistically alleged that if the Son is " Homoousios" with the Father, it would follow that there was some one common pre-existing substance and two distinct beings produced out of it; as two coins struck from the same metal; and thus not only the relation of the Father and the Son would be destroyed, but also the eternity of both : and therefore the Fathers of Antioch abstained from using a word, of which the meaning had been per- plexed by the subtleties of a heretic, and which might therefore give rise to misrepresentation. Whether this act of reserve was a judicious one, I do not take upon me to determine ; but certain it is, as St. Athanasius -f* affirms, that though the Council of Antioch did not use the same word as was employed by that of Nicsea, both the Synods were perfectly agreed as to the doctrine%. * S. Athanasius, de Synod. § 45 and 51. S. Basil, Epist. lii. (olim 300.) Bull, v. 86 ; and particularly v. 91, 92. Routh, Reliquiae, ii. 487-489. *j* Athanasius de Synodis, § 45. TrdvTOjg evprjaofitv dii^orspojv rwv avvoSojv tt)v ofxovoiav. X In the words of Waterland (i. p. 330) to an Arian : " The An- LETTER VIII. 195 So much for your new convert's first attack on the credit of the Ante-Nicene Fathers ; his second is not more injurious to their character, nor more creditable to his own. " The six great Bishops and Saints * of the Ante- Nicene Church/' says he, " were St. Irenaeus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is accused by St. Basil j* of having sown the first seeds of Arianism." Such is the charge. It appears to be borrowed, almost word for word, from the anti-Athanasian Whitby, who adduces it in two of his works J. Let us now examine it. Dionysius, justly called the Great, was Bishop of Alexandria from the year a.d. 248 to a.d. 265. If then it be true, as Basil sup- poses, that he was the first to sow the seeds of Arianism, Arianism is not of primitive origin, nor could it have been known to the Church before the middle of the third century. This I observe by the tiochene Fathers condemned the word Homoousion, as it had been misunderstood and misapplied by Paul of Samosata ; but they esta- blished the very same doctrine with the Nicene Fathers" * P. 13. •j- Basil, Ep. ix. 2. ax^ov ravTrjci rrjg vvv TrepiQpvWovfxtpijg aoefitiag, Trjg Kara to 'Avofioiov Xeyu), ovtoq Igtiv, oca ye ry/mc; 'icynv, 6 irpoJTog dv9ph)7T0ig rd airkpixara Tcapaax&v. X De Scriptur. Interp. p. xxxi. Lond. 1714; and Disquisitiones Modestse, p. ix. Lond. 1718. In both he cites the sentence of Basil : " Quo nihil expressius dici potuit," says he very complacently, " ad orthodoxiam Dionysii labefactandam." K 2 196 LETTER VIII. way, as a very important fact, and a satisfactory re- futation of the insinuations of your Petavius, Perron, Huet, and the Dublin Reviewer, who, making com- mon cause with the Le Clercs, Clarkes, Whitbys, Jacksons, Whistons, and Lindsays, and other Arian- izing writers *, would have us believe that the early Church was of their opinion on the great question of our Lord's Divinity. Let us now look more closely at Basil's testimony. Observe, it is in no elaborate treatise or public homily that the passage occurs, but in a private letter which he is writing to his friend Maximus. " You ask f (he says) for the writings of Dionysius. Many of them have come down to us ; but I have none of them by me. But this is my opinion ; I do not admire them all : some things which he has written I positively disapprove : he is the first, as far as I know, who sowed the seeds Of the heresy now so rife among us, I mean Arianism." But now mark, my dear Sir, what follows : — "I attribute this (adds Basil) to no fault of his own judgment (yvwftrj), but to a vehement desire of striving against (uvtitslveiv) the Sabellian heresy. For my own part, I am wont to compare him to an horticulturist, who, wishing to correct the distortions * Jackson is called "the learned Arian opponent of Waterland" by the Dublin Reviewer (see above, p. 181) ; and the works of the Jesuit, Petavius, were republished, under an assumed name, by the coryphaeus of Socinianism. Le Clerc. t Ep. ix. 2, vol. iii. p. 90, ed. Benedict. LETTER VIII. 197 of a shrub, wrests it from the perpendicular by excess of reaction (civfloXjdjc ajutTpiq) into an adverse direction. Somewhat in the same way, Dionysius, in his violent opposition to Sabellianism, was insen- sibly carried away into an opposite error." What, then, does the Essayist's allegation come to ? Simply this : that in Basil's opinion, given off- hand to a friend, with none of the works of Dionysius before him, that venerable person was betrayed by his zeal for orthodoxy into some incautious expres- sions. What great wonder if this were the case ? Who is there in the world so free from human in- firmity, as to keep always the even line between opposite extremes : and because he may sometimes deviate from it, although he is ready to return to the right road, when admonished by a friend, shall he therefore be called a heretic ? Who then is safe ? Augustine is so zealous against Pelagianism, that he seems to some to approach the brink of Calvinism. Cyprian, and Ambrose, and Chrysostom, are so vehement against a barren Faith, that they have been called Arminians : shall they all be branded as heterodox ? Certainly Basil had no such severe intention with respect to Dionysius. The Essayist would only have done common justice to both those venerable names, if he had mentioned that in another epistle Basil honours Dionysius with the epithet of the Great*. * Ep. 188, p. 269, ed. Bened. k3 198 LETTER VIII. But this is not all. Let me repeat, that we Anglicans do not speak of any of the Fathers as in- fallible. No : we say with St. Augustine * " Scrip- ture alone can neither deceive or be deceived ; and we read the Fathers, not with minds made up to consider any thing true simply because they do, but because they are able to convince us of its truth, either by Canonical Scripture, or by Sound Reason/' But we respect their opinion ; and we greatly revere the collective judgment of the Ancient Church. Let us then inquire, did Dionysius escape the censure of the Church, when he used these equivocal expressions to which Basil refers ? No. Great as he was styled, and as he really was, a holy champion of the Church against the Sabellian heresy, he was called to account for these questionable phrases ; and he therefore addressed a letter to his namesake, Dionysius of Rome, to explain his real opinions, and to justify himself in the eyes of the Church. And this letter, as St. Athanasius informs us, was univer- sally accepted as satisfactory f. Let me now proceed to observe, my dear Sir, that this incident affords us the clearest evidence of the * Epist. 82, ad Hieronymum. + Athanasius, de Sententia Dionysii, § 14. 17, and 19. See Bp. Bull, v. 394. 409. 414. " Maximum virum Dionysium Alexandrinum blasphemiee quam Arius postea propugnavit neutiquam favisse, sed de Filio Dei adeoque de SS. Trinitate catholice omnino et sensisse et scripsisse abunde, ni fallor, evicimus." See also Waterland, v. 228. LETTER VIII. 199 scrupulous fidelity of the Ante-Nicene Church in the custody of the true faith, since even some casual expressions let fall in the heat of con- troversy by one of her greatest Doctors immediately excited her anxiety, and impelled her to require an explanation of the words so used. She could not have given us a better vindication of herself from the imputation of Arianism brought against her by certain of your Romish divines. We are not in any way concerned with the perfect orthodoxy of every one of the early Fathers, but we do venerate the judgment of the Ante-Nicene Church : and we rejoice in the testimony to her which is elicited by the Essay- ist's allegation against Dionysius. He has done no damage to the character of that venerable Father, and he has brought honour on the Church ; whether he has enhanced his own credit by making this charge, or that of your Church in receiving him with such impeachments in his hands, I leave you to judge. His next accusation is a still more heavy one ; for it concerns no less than six of the most eminent Doctors of the Ante-Nicene Church, and it appears at first sight the more formidable, because the indictment is preferred in the name and words of one of the most learned Divines of the English Church, Dr. Water- land. " The authors who make the generation [of Christ] temporary, and speak not expressly of any k 4 200 LETTER VIII. other, are these following, Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tatian, Tertullian, and Hippolytus." — Waterland, vol. i. part ii. p. 104 *. Who would not infer from these words, quoted without any qualification, that these writers did not believe in Christ's eternal generation from the Father, %. e. that they were infected with the Arian heresy, and that Dr. Waterland supposed them so to be? But what is the fact ? The Ante-Nicene Fathers speak of a threefold generation of the Son. 1. His eternal generation, as everlasting Son from Everlast- ing Father. 2. His generation in time, (for so it is sometimes called,) or condescension (o-uyicaraj3a a y i y . . eoTOjg oirov ov dti, spoken of by our Blessed Lord \ Matt. xxiv. 15. Mark xiii. 14. LETTER XII. 301 be observed in the election of the present Pope ; and you will believe me, I trust, when I say that it was with very painful feelings that I perused the follow- ing description of that ceremony given in your leading Romanist Journal*. " Premiere entree du Pape au Vatican. " C'est le 17 juin (1 846), vers cinq heures et demie, que Sa Saintete Pie IX. s'est rendu a Saint-Pierre pour y recevoir la seconde et la troisieme adoration des cardinaux." "Lorsque le Conclave avait lieu au Vatican, le nouveau Pontife se rendait a la chapelle Sixtine, pour y recevoir la seconde adoration, des que les portes du Conclave etaient ouvertes. Depuis que Felection se fait au Quirinal, le Pape n'est ordinaire- ment conduit au palais de Saint -Pierre que le lende- main. II en a ete ainsi pour Pie VIII. et Gregoire XVI. ; il en a ete ainsi pour Pie IX." " Arrive dans la petite salle des parements, de paramenti, le Pape prend la mitre d'or et la chape d'argent, entre dans la chapelle Sixtine, prie, s'asseoit sur le coussin prepare au milieu de l'autel, ou il recoit la deuxieme adoration des Cardinaux, qui baisent ses pieds, sa main, sous la frange de la chape, et rec,oivent de lui le double baiser." " Sa Saintete, elevee sur la sedia, precede'e de la croix et des chantres de la chapelle papal e, qui * Univers, 27 Juin, 1846. 302 LETTER XII. chantent YEcce sacerdos magnus, entouree des gardes suisses, escortee de tous les prelats et dignitaires de sa maison et de la cour pontificale, est portee a la basilique, (i. e. the Church of St. Peter,) a travers la salle royale et par Tescalier royal, et re9ue par le Chapitre, sous le portique, au chant de Tantienne, Tu es Petrus. Le Saint-Pere descend de la sedia devant Tautel du Saint-Sacrement, s'agenouille et prie. On le porte ensuite devant Fautel de la chaire de Saint-Pierre qui fait face au grand autel de la confession. Le Pape descend de nouveau, et de nouveau s'agenouille et prie. Puis, assis au milieu de cet autel, il recoit la troisieme adoration des Cardi- naux, qui la rendent, la barrette a la main et le man- teau trainant. Le Cardinal Doyen ayant, le premier, fait son obedience, entonne le Te Deum, que les chantres continuent jusqu'a ce que le Pape ait re$u V adoration de tout le Sacre College. Alors le cardinal entonne le Pater Noster, le verset Salvumfac servum tuum, avec les versets ordinaires ; le chceur repond, et le Pontife, sans mitre, assis sur Fautel, commence le verset, Sit nomen Domini benedictum ; puis, debout la tete inclinee, il benit solennellement, pour la pre- miere fois, le peuple dont les flots inondent la basi- lique." Such, Sir, was the Spectacle presented by the Church of St. Peter on the 17th of last June. Let me now say a word on the Coronation of the Pontiff. The form of words used by the Cardinal Deacon LETTER XII. 303 when he places the triple crown on the head of the Pope, seated, as it were, between heaven and earth, on the lofty balcony in the portico of St. Peter's, looking down on the crowds in the piazza before it, have been cited by our Theologians*, as proving incontrovertibly that the Roman Pontiff claims Uni- versal Supremacy, temporal as well as spiritual. " Know that thou art Father of Princes and of Kings, and Ruler of the World f these are the expressions with which he is then addressed when he is invested with his dignities as a sovereign. It cannot be said that he has ever laid aside these claims : they were asserted in a solemn manner in the pre- sence of thousands on Sunday the 21st of June last year. I quote the following description of the cere- mony of the coronation of the present Pope from the same source *(* as that from which the account of his inauguration in St. Peter's is derived. The scene changes from the interior of that Church to its ex- terior ; from the High Altar to the Grand Balcony in the Eastern Facade of it. " Couronnement du Souverain-Pontife. " (Test le dimanche 21 juin, fete de saint Louis de Gonzague J, qu'a eu lieu, dans la basilique de Saint- Pierre, le couronnement de notre Saint-Pere le Pape * Leslie, Case Stated, p. 75. Townson's Works, ii. p. 252. *f* U niters, 1 Juillet, 1846. % One of the principal Patron Saints of the Order of Jesuits. 304 LETTER XII. Pie IX. Voici quelques details sur cette magnifique et sainte ceremonie : " Le couronnement a lieu d'ordinaire un dimanche (le dimanche qui suit Telection), ou un jour de fete ; cependant, cette regie ne fut pas toujours observee ; Leon X. fut couronne le samedi, Clement VIII. le jeudi, Paul II. le mardi, etc. C'est a Saint-Pierre, et depuis Marcel II. (en 1555), dans la Grande-Loge (balcon) de la basilique, que le Pape est couronne. " Le cortege parcourt la grande nef de la basilique, s'arrete devant la chapelle du Saint-Sacrement, ou le Pape fait une courte priere, traverse le portique et se rend processionnellement a la grande loge {loggia, balcon ou tribune) qui domine la place de Saint- Pierre. " Une foule innombrable remplit la place immense ; sur les galeries et terrasses de la colonnade sont les sieges occupes par les princes et les etrangers dis- tingues de toute nation. Le cortege entre et se range dans la loggia, la croix papale apparait entre les sept chandeliers ; voici la sedia avec les flabelles, voila le Pape, sous le grand dais nottant ; les chantres font retentir dans les airs les accents de Palestrina, Corona aurea super caput ejus." The Pope has made his appearance on the bal- cony, let us now observe the form and manner of his coronation. LETTER XII. 305 ***** " Le second Cardinal-Diacre ote la mitre au Pape, et le premier Cardinal-Diacre, auquel est reserve le privilege de le couronner, lui met la tiare sur la tete en disant : " Accipe tiaram, tribus coronis ornatam, et scias te esse Patrem Principum et Regum, Rector em orbis, in terra Vicarium Salvatoris nostri Jesu-Christi, Gui est honor f et gloria, in scecula sceculorum. Amen. " ' Recois la tiare aux trois couronnes, et souviens- toi que tu es le Pere des Princes et le guide des Rois sur la Terre *, le Vicaire de notre Sauveur Jesus- Christ, a qui est l'lionneur et la gloire dans les siecles des siecles. Amen/ " La sedia avance, portant vers le peuple, qui d'en bas contemple le Pontife couronne : deux Eveques a genoux tiennent Tun le livre, Tautre le cierge allume, et le Pape prie. " Le Pontife se leve , il est debout sur la sedia, entre la terre et le ciel, les yeux en haut, les bras entrou- verts, trois fois sa main trace dans Fair le signe de la croix, a droit e et a gauche, devant lui ; il benit : Bene- dictio Dei Omnipotentis, Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super vos, et maneat semper. Amen. Et YAmen, trois fois repete, remonte comme un seul * It will be seen that the important words " Rectorem Orbis" are omitted in this French version, and that the sense is inadequately represented in other respects. 306 LETTER XII. cri du sein de la multitude, et les cloches de la basili- que et Tartillerie du chateau Saint- Ange raccom- pagnent, le portent au loin. " Avant de quitter la loggia, le Souverain-Pontife donne une derniere benediction, et la sedia rentre, pendant que le peuple se precipite aux avenues du portique pour prendre des mains des deux Cardinaux- Diacres assistants les formules imprimees (les unes en latin, les autres en italien) de Tindulgence pleniere accordee a tous ceux qui ont recu avec les disposi- tions requises la benediction papale." Such, Sir, was the ceremonial of the Coronation of Pius IX. You will observe, that the mitre was re- moved from his head in order that the tiara or triple crown might be placed upon it : that is, the sacerdotal insigne was withdrawn, in order to make way for the royal * : this having been done, he was hailed " Pater Principum et Regum, Rector Orbis." And shall we * Boniface VIII. (a.d. 1012—1024) was the first Pope who wore a double crown. The tiara, or triple crown, was first worn by Benedict XII. (a.d. 1334—1342.) See Pascal, Liturgie Catholique, p. 1195. The Tiara is called by Latin Romanist writers the Regnum, or royal badge, — see Du Cange v. Regnum, — and it signifies plenary power, temporal and spiritual. Cseremonial. Roman, lib. iii. " Tiara triplici corona ornata per quam significatur Sacerdotalis et Imperialis summa dignitas atque potestas." The following words of Durandus, Rationale III. xiii. 8, are very observable : — " Illud quoque notan- dum est, quod Romanus Pontifex in signum imperii utitur regno, id est, corona imperiali ; et in signum Pontificis utitur mitrd ; sed mitrd semper utitur et ubique ; regno vero non semper, nee ubique, quia Pontificis auctoritas et prior est et dignior et diffusior Imperiali potestate." LETTER XII. 307 now be told that the Roman Pontiff does not claim universal temporal power ? Shall we be called upon to credit that he will not assert this claim wherever he is able to do so ; and that those who are bound to him by oath, who behold in him the Vicar of Christ, and believe him to be infallible and to have power to forgive sins and to cancel oaths, will not aid him in his encroachments on the temporal power of Princes, and in his aims at universal dominion ? It may be true that Popes are not now in a con- dition to enforce these claims for themselves, but it is clear, that by allying themselves with a demo- cratic power, they may give a semblance of piety to its aggressions against all constituted authority. They may thus make Revolution more formidable by lending it the name of Religion. This is the danger to be apprehended ; and the Monarchs, Nobles, and Gentry of Europe have good reason to make a firm stand on the principles of pure Christianity and to display those principles in their public acts, or the time may come, sooner than they imagine, when they may be assailed by a lawless populace leagued against them with a Pope. I am, My dear Sir, Yours faithfully. LETTER XIII. " It is to be remarked, that the value of any particular Religious Establishment is not to be estimated merely by what it is in itself, but also by what it is in comparison with those of other nations ; and what is still more material, the value of our own ought to be much heightened in our esteem, by considering what it is a security from, I mean that great corruption of Christianity, — Popery, which is ever hard at work, to bring us under its yoke. Whoever will consider the Popish claims to the disposal of the whole earth, as of Divine right ; to dispense with the most sacred engagements ; the claims to supreme absolute authority in religion ; in short, the general claims which the Canonists express by the terms plenitude of power, — whoever, I say, will consider Popery as it is at Rome, may see that it is a manifest open usurpation of all Divine and human autho- rity." — Bp. Butler, Sermon before the House of Lords in the Abbey Church of Westminster, on the King's Accession, June 11, 1747- You, my dear Sir, as a Roman Catholic residing in France as it now is, feel considerable difficulty in understanding how a sovereign can be — what we affirm our own most gracious Queen to be — supreme governor under Christ of a National Church. From personal intercourse with you, and with others of your country, I know this to be the case. You can- not comprehend, you say, how a Queen can have any ecclesiastical authority. I do not, indeed, believe that you would go so far as to approve the language LETTER XIII. 309 which, as our King James I. tells us *, was applied to his predecessor Queen Elizabeth by the Jesuit Sanders, who dared to assert that " the supremacy of a woman in Church matters is from no other than the devil •" or that you would adopt the words of one of your French divines, a vicar-general of a bishop, of .the present day, who, in his directory for your clergy *f*, is so far forgetful of the apostolic command j, not to " speak evil of dignities," as to describe the illustrious wearer of the British crown as " une femme a la fois reine et papesse." But I know you and your countrymen generally are now strongly opposed — however in the times of your Fleurys and Dupins, De Marcas and Bossuets, the case might have been otherwise — to our English opinions on this subject ; and as I am firmly per- suaded that your objections to them arise in a great degree from misapprehension of their true nature, I shall, with your leave, endeavour to explain to you what our opinions really are. We believe, then, that sovereign governing powers are Vicegerents and Ministers of Almighty God ; for * Works, p. 282, Lond. 1616. f Guide des Cures, i. p. 454, Lyon, 3eme edition. Ce n'est qu'a Petersbourg et a Londres, qu'un autocrate qui est roi-pontife, et qu'une femme a la fois reine et papesse peuvent s'eriger en regula- teurs du culte et en juges du clerge des sectes grecque et protestantes qui se glorifient de ne relever que du pouvoir temporel. Mais dans 1'Eglise Catholique il n'y a que les e"veques, les metropolitans et le Pape pour proceder a l'examen des matieres spirituelles. X 2 Pet. ii. 10. Jude 8. 310 LETTER XIII. so we are taught by Him in Holy Writ *. We know from the same sacred course, that it is our duty to submit to civil authorities, to pay them tribute, to pray for them, " that we may lead quiet and peace- able lives in all godliness and honesty ; for this is good and acceptable in the sight of Godf." If, indeed, they should so far forget their duty as to command us to do any thing plainly contrary to the Word of God ; if they should order us to commit idolatry, or not to pray to God, or not to receive His sacraments, rather than be guilty of these sins we should prefer the furnace with the three children of Babylon, and the den of lions with Daniel, and the rack with the Maccabees. Yes, we obey Caesar for God's sake, but we cannot disobey God for Caesar's ; but in all his lawful and not unlawful commands we obey Caesar, because we cannot dis- obey God. True, you will reply, in all temporal matters, by all means ; but there you must stop. No, we answer, we cannot stop here ; for God commands us to pro- ceed further. If, Sir, we consider what civil powers are commanded by God to do for Him, we shall soon perceive that our duty to them extends beyond these limits. Sovereigns (and when I speak of sove- reigns I include all governing powers, whether mon- * Rom. xiii. 1—6. 1 Pet. ii. 13. f 1 Tim. ii. 1—3. Matt. xxii. 21. Rom. xiii. 1—7. Tit. iii. 1. 1 Pet. ii. 13. LETTER XIII. 311 archical or others) are God's " ministers" to us "for good *," not only of our bodies, but our souls ; and it would be very degrading to them, and very irre- verent to Him, Whose ministers they are, to suppose that their care is to be limited to the temporal wants of their subjects. No ; here is the true dignity, the glorious prerogative of the magisterial office ; it ex- tends to the soul; it has hopes and aims "full of immortality." It looks to eternity ; it sows on earth, that it may reap in heaven. Thus earthly and heavenly happiness is wreathed into one crown. Yes ; since the Almighty Himself gives to kings and queens the title of " nursing fathers and nursing mothers" of His Church -(-, and since this is pro- mised as a blessing to His Church, and since it is the chief duty of fathers and mothers in their families to provide for the spiritual welfare of their offspring, it cannot be supposed that the eternal interests of their subjects are not to be the first I care of magis- trates. This being so, it follows that they have a divine right to those powers, without which this duty^ cannot be performed. That is to say, Kings have royal authority in spiritual matters as well as in temporal. Let us examine in what this consists. First, then, it certainly does not extend to the performance of any sacred function, such as the * Rom. xiii. 4—6. t Isa. xlix. 29. % Bp. Andrewes, Opuscula, p. 380. Religionis cura non modo regia est, sed in regiis prima. 812 LETTER XIII. ministration of the "Word or Sacraments, or the ordination of Ministers of the Church. The power of performing these offices is derived from God alone, and is restricted to those spiritual persons to whom He has assigned it. He struck King Uzziah * with leprosy for invading the priestly office ; and the prince who dared to consecrate priests •f was Jeroboam. Sanders, indeed, and other Jesuits of his day, pre- tended to believe that Queen Elizabeth assumed to herself the sacred office of ministering the Word and Sacraments, and they studiously promulgated a scan- dalous calumny to that effect. But this imputation was solemnly repudiated by Queen Elizabeth J her- self, and by our Church in her Articles §, and by our greatest divines ||. From all which it appears, than when our sovereigns claim supremacy over all persons in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, they assert their right and acknowledge their duty (not to perform any sacred function in their own persons,) but to see that all they who have sacred functions assigned to them perform them duly. The royal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters in England * 2 Chron. xxvi. 18. f 1 Kings xiii. 33. X In her admonition ; see Bp. Gibson, Codex, p. 54. § Art. XXXVII. || Bp. Andrewes, Opuscula, p. 380. Bp. Bilson, Christian Sub- jection, p. 1 49. Archbishop Bramhall, ii. 219, 220. Bp. Stillingfleet, Ecel. Cases, ii. 97. Mason, de Minist. Angl. iii. c. 3. Bp. Taylor, Duct. Dub. iii. 3. Abp. Wake, Authority of Christian Princes, pp. 10—12. LETTER XIII. 313 does not admit of the exercise of any priestly power on the part of the sovereign, bnt it does imply that it is the office of the sovereign to command all those who have that power to use it rightly. It appears further, from the same authorities, that this ecclesiastical supremacy is no other than that which belonged to the princes of God's own people, the Jews ; and to the first and greatest emperors of Christendom. I pass briefly over this topic, but I cannot forbear reminding you of the important fact, that those of the Jewish rulers who exercised this authority most vigilantly and energetically, — as, for instance, David in convoking religious assemblies, in bringing back the ark, in regulating the courses of the priests, Solomon in building, Joash in restoring, Hezekiah and Josiah in purifying, the temple, in republishing the book of the law, in putting down idolatry and superstition, and in bringing back the people to the true worship of God, in a word, in effecting a great religious Reformation, — are distin- guished with special commendations and benedic- tions by God in Holy "Writ. But, you may say, let it be granted that the Jewish law furnishes precedents for the supremacy which you are maintaining, what authority have you in Christian antiquity for your principles and prac- tice ? I do not hesitate to say, Sir, in reply, that we have the unanimous consent of all ancient Christen- p 314 LETTER XIII. dom, after the empire ceased to be pagan, in fayour of our English laws in ecclesiastical matters. Compare, I would request you, my dear Sir, our system in this respect with that of Rome. A Roman Catholic bishop derives all his authority from the Pope. No Romanist archbishop can consecrate a church, or confirm a child, without receiving the Pallium from Rome*. All Romanist prelates are what they are, not by Divine Providence or permis- sion, but by the grace of the Papal see ! All this is in direct defiance of the laws and practice of the ancient Church. It is notorious that " most princes in the west, as in Germany, France, and England, did invest bishops till the time of Gregory VII."(" M It is certain, also, that the popes of Rome, who now claim % a right to ordain and place bishops through- out the world, were themselves appointed by the emperor till the ninth century § ; and the Church of England treads in the steps of the ancient Church, when she acknowledges the English Crown to have the right of placing persons, whose spiritual qualifi- * Pontificate Romanum, p. 87. Antequara obtinuerit quis pallium, licet sit consecratus, non sortitur nomen patriarchse, primatis aut archiepiscopi ; et non licet ei episcopos consecrare, nee convocare concilium, nee chrisma conficere, neque ecclesias dedicare, nee cleri- cos ordinare. + See Barrow on the Pope's Supremacy, p. 228, ed. 1683. X Bellarmin. de Rom. Pontine, ii. c. 18. Habet potestatem consti- tuendi et confirmandi episcopos per totum orbem. § See S. Gregorii Vita, lib. i. p. 216, Paris, 1705. De Marca, viii. 14. LETTER XIII. 315 cations have been ascertained and approved by the spiritual authorities, in the sees which the Crown itself has founded, and in allowing them to exercise episcopal jurisdiction over its subjects within the limits duly assigned to them. Again, the Church of Rome, as we have seen in the episcopal oath (above, p. 295), claims the power of convoking bishops from all parts of the world to attend her in her councils, and allows no ecclesias- tical law to have any authority without her sanction. This too is in contradiction of ancient practice. All the General Councils of antiquity were summoned by sovereign princes ; and there is not a single in- stance of any one Council claiming to. be general, convoked by the Pope of Rome, for a thousand years * after Christ ; and the laws made by bishops in councils depended for their ratification and pub- lication on the sovereign power f. Who then is the true follower of Christian Antiquity, the Church of Rome — which obliges bishops by an oath to quit their own dioceses, whenever summoned to Italy by the Bishop of Rome, and to attend upon his calling, perhaps for near twenty years together, if the Romish synods are to last as long as the Council of Trent, and which asserts J that the canons of councils de- * Bp. Andrewes, On the Right and Power of Calling Assemblies, vol. v. pp. 141—168. f Bp. Andrewes, Opuscula, p. 165. X Card. Bellarmin. de Pontifice Rom. Tota firmitas Conciliorum est a Pontifice. p2 316 LETTER XIII. pend for their validity on the Pope's assent — or the Church of England, which declares* " that General Councils may not he gathered together without the commandment and will of princes/' and which acknowledges the right of her own sovereigns to summon the "bishops and clergy of the realm to meet together in convocation f, and to give effect to their decrees hy sentence of ratification ? In all these ecclesiastical matters, that is, in the placing of bishops, in the summoning of councils and in ratifying their decrees, we acknowledge our sovereigns to have supreme jurisdiction over spiritual persons, to the exclusion of all foreign power, whether lay or ecclesiastical, and according to the ancient principles and practices of the Christian Church, and for the maintenance of her laws : but, observe, against these received laws an*d customs of the Church, no power is claimed by our princes, nor is any ascribed to them by usj r "Nihil potest rex, nisi quod jure potest/' is our maxim. Our most gracious Queen has supreme power according to the laws, and for the laws, but against them, none. And we go further and say, that this jurisdiction, which I have de- scribed, is an inalienable prerogative of the English * Art. XXI. t See Declaration prefixed to Thirty nine Articles. J Lord Clarendon, on Religion and Polity. " As sovereign princes cannot prescribe what laws they please, contrary to the laws of nature and of God, so they cannot impose what religion they please, . contrary to what He has enjoined." LETTER XIII. 317 crown. You speak to us sometimes of our King John and Henry the Second, as having brought their realm under the spiritual dominion of the Pope. But, Sir, not all the kings who ever sat on the throne of England could do this. As Lord Chan- cellor Clarendon says, " The king of England has no power to release a single grain of the allegiance which is due to him*." The supremacy of our sovereigns in ecclesiastical matters, and over spiritual persons as well as civil, is founded not on any human basis, but on the Word of God. " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," says the Apostle f St. Paul, and "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king J, as supreme," says St. Peter. It rests on the will of God, Whose ministers and representatives sovereign princes are, and Whose work human society is ; and the throne of the one and the peace of the other can never be secure, while the Sovereign has only a divided sway, and while his partner in it is the Pope. Observe, my dear Sir, I do not say that the exer- cise of this power may not be greatly embarrassed by reckless and revolutionary legislation, or may not * State Papers of Edward Earl of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 309. So Hammond, ii. p. 133, " The king cannot alienate his regality." Thus he could not give titles from English cities to English Romanist bishops, on the ground of their consecration by the Pope ; for this would be an alienation of the regale, and " an act against the known laws and liberties of the kingdom." f Rom. xiii. 1. % 1 Pet. ii. 13. P3 318 LETTER XIII. fall into decay by the neglect of those to whom it is committed ; for we all know that the possession of rights supposes the discharge of duties. Monarehs, therefore, may become mere phantoms, by the fault of their subjects or their own. Remove from Mon- archy its religious responsibilities, make it indifferent to Religion, so that it may treat all creeds alike, and you rob it of all the respect of its subjects, who will regard it with offence as a mis-shapen abstract of their own anomalies, as an unsightly epitome of all their own religious deformities. A Crown without a conscience is a mere bauble, or rather it will be looked upon as a splendid grievance, which a heavily taxed and restless Nation in an utilitarian age will soon condemn to destruction. By your Gharte of 1830, France ceased to have a national religion. She then thought fit to suppress the article of the Charte of ] 814, which declared that she had a " religion de VEtat." By the same Charte of 1830, she gave endowments to various forms of Christianity, and in 1831 she extended them to Judaism. Let us mark the consequences of these unhappy acts. She did not, it is true, directly deprive the crown of its supremacy, but she did virtually ; she paralyzed the exercise of it. The Charte robbed the crown of its Creed ; it divested the Monarch of his religious character ; it took from beneath his throne its only true support — Chris- tianity. Before 1830, the language in France was LETTER XIII. 319 " Le Roi ne tient sa couronne que de Dieu et de son epe'e ;" but now it is " II ne tient sa couronne que de la Revolution, fille de la Philosophie* " The State by endowing all religions does in fact endow none. It endows religious indifference. It has estranged the Church from the Throne, and placed it at the feet of the Pope. By the Charte of 1830, France intended to establish the sovereignty of the People, but the event has shown that she advanced that of the Pope. No hull which ever issued from the Roman Vatican in the days of Hildebrand has done so much for the Papal power in France, as the popular Charte of 1830, which decreed the equality of all religions. You, my dear Sir, know full well what the language of the Roman Catholic Church of France now is. As long as the Grown had a conscience and a creed, (of course I am speaking of the office alone,) so long the Church allows she owed it reverence. But now that the Crown regards all creeds as equal, the case is very different ; and the Church cannot (she says) any longer admit that the Crown has any right to exercise any authority over her. No ; the eyes of the Church of France are now turned away, alas ! from the royal throne to the Papal chair. Instead of being a National Establishment, — may I not say, the great conservative establishment of the nation ? — the Church of France has become an extra-national and antinational one. * Journal des Ddbats, 13 Jain, 1845, p 4 320 LETTER XIII. In proof of this, let me appeal to the course the Church has pursued and is still pursuing in the great question of National Education. On one side we see the civil power — and the eighty bishops of France on the other. They assert that the State, having ceased to be Christian, has no right to* interfere with public instruction ; that it cannot any longer pretend to discharge the great duty of a state, that of improving the moral and religious condition of the people, especially of the poor ; that it has forfeited the power of maintaining truth and repressing error ; that the whole work of instruction must be left, without any restraint or direction, to the energies of individuals, that is, in fact, to the Church of France, with all her ultramontane affections and obligations, on the one side, and to the democratic licence of an infidel philosophy on the other. This is a deplorable condition of things, and one which (unless Divine Providence should interfere) * Thus, for instance, the Archbishop and suffragans of Bourges in their memorial to the king in council, 16th April, 1844. . Aujourd'hui l'etat ne saurait revendiquer sur PEducation les droits qu'il exercait sous Vaneien regime, car alors il y avait union entre Peglise et l'etat. Mais a present ce principe est aboli. La religion catholique n'est plus la religion de Pe'tat. La Charte proclame la liberte des consciences et des cultes, et l'etat, qui est mis en dehors des croyances religieuses, ne peut aspirer a diriger PEducation. And a layman, Count de Harrer, in his translation of the Archbishop of Cologne's work on the relations of Church and State, Paris, 1144, p. 114, says, Lorsque, comme en France, Vital ne professe aucune religion, il est virtuelle- ment athie, et par consequent inhabile a donner aucun enseignement religieux quel qu'il puisse etre. LETTER XIII. 321 must inevitably produce in a very short time results too dreadful to contemplate. What indeed can be more lamentable than to see that they — I mean the bishops of France — who ought to be the most faithful and zealous supporters of the throne, and who would doubtless be so, if their circumstances were different, that is, if they were released from their oath of vassalage to the pope and if the Grown had a creed, are in fact now the devoted subjects of a foreign and hostile power ? A slight incident will illustrate what I am saying. The reappearance of the Proper Lesson for Gregory the Vllth's Day in your Parisian and Lyonnaise Breviary of 1842 (to which I alluded in my last Letter*) speaks volumes concerning the ultramon- tane spirit which now animates your Church. But what I now advert to is a different circumstance, though not of a dissimilar kind. Your bishops take an oath to the popef, one of the clauses of which is, that they will visit Rome once in so many years, and render an account to him of the state of their dioceses. By your civil laws the bishop is bound to obtain the leave of the Crown before he quits his diocese on his journey to Rome f. But when, the year before last, one of your prelates visited Rome, and it was stated that he had not obtained any such previous per- mission, your reply was, that the preventive law * See above, p. 290. t See above, p. 295. X Articles Organiques, section iii. § 20. p5 322 LETTER XIII. might have been very well for the time of Louis XIV., when the sovereigns of France bore the august title of most Christian king, but that it would be a violation of the liberties of the Church, if it were enforced now*. Upon which I would only beg leave to ask one question : If this be so, whose subjects are your bishops ? the King's or the Pope's ? Let me add another observation on the papal ad- vantages derived from what is not unfrequently, but most untruly, called popular legislation. About a year ago you suppressed the order of Jesuits in France. This was no new thing with you. In 1610, the year of the murder of Henry IV., you burnt their books by order of parliament. In 1644, your university-)* peti- tioned parliament against them, affirming that " their doctrines affected the security of all states and nations interested in preserving the authority and just power and life of their sovereigns." In 1682, your clergy, with the great Bossuet at their head, protected the crown and the constitution from their anti-monarchi- cal and anti-social principles, by the declaration of the Gallican Articles. In 1763, the Parliament of Paris declared by its decree of the 6th of August, that the " order of Jesuits was by its nature inadmissible in all rightly-constituted states J ;" and it was suppressed accordingly. * See Univers Catholique, 23 Nov. 1845. f See the original words in the edition of Fleury's Discours snr les Libert £s de l'Eglise Gallicane, 1765, p. 82. $ Ibid. p. 404. LETTER XIII. 323 But since your last Revolution affairs have greatly changed in your country, in this as in other matters. Your clergy appear to be desirous at present of iden- tifying themselves with the Jesuits. Some of your bishops have come forward as their champions. The Bishop of Chartres declares in his published letter to the Minister of Religion * that " he knows that many archbishops and bishops have intimated to him (the minister), that if the Jesuits are driven from their houses, they will be received by them into their palaces." What a change does this indi- cate in the animus of the Church of France toward the Crown ! What a demonstration is here of its de- termination to make common cause with the papacy in its most anti-monarchical form ! Let us observe further, that not only the Church, being repudiated by the Crown, but the Crown also, being opposed by the Church, is driven to do homage to the Pope. The Pope gains both ways, by the separation of the two. He has become the common referee for both parties ; and has grown in strength and importance accordingly. Instead of prohibiting appeals to Rome, your State is now making them in * " Je sais, M. le Ministre, que plusieurs archeveques et eveques vous ont fait connaitre que si les Jesuites e'taient chasses de leurs maisons ceux-ci trouveraient un asile dans relies qu'ils habitent eux- memes." Lettre de Ms r . l'Eveque de Chartres a M. le Ministre des Cultes, 19 Mai, 1845. See also the letter of the Bp. of Chalons to the Univers, 28 May, 1845. P6 324 LETTER XIII. its own behalf. Your most zealous Romanists de- plored the recent suppression of the Jesuits in France, but they must have derived great consolation from the manner in which that measure was effected. The State said to the Jesuits, " We know you to be dan- gerous to our peace and safety, and we therefore wish you to be suppressed ;" but it did not say, as was formerly the case, and as, if it were independent, it certainly would have done now, — " We know you to be dangerous, and, therefore, we exercise our own power, and we suppress you." No : Signor Rossi is sent to Rome, on a special mission to the Pope, to persuade him to use his influence with father Rooth- man, the Gfeneral of the Jesuits, for their suppres- sion ; and they are withdrawn from France accord- ingly. What was this but a public announcement of the feebleness of the civil power, and of the superiority of that of the Pope ? He might have been sorry to exercise this power, and probably he was in the pre- sent case ; but then the appeal to him to exercise it, was a recognition of its existence on the part of France. Nothing can be more gratifying to him, or more conducive to his aggrandisement, than such applica- tions as these from sovereign princes, that he would be pleased to vouchsafe them the benefit of his pon- tifical interference to keep their kingdoms quiet. Some assert that England will one day entreat him to govern Ireland for her, by a pacificating bull to the LETTER XIII. 325 Romish hierarchy. He well knows, that in being called in by princes and states, to read these his irenical and ironical homilies, his universal power is acknowledged. How must he rejoice in such appeals as these ! See, he must say, how necessary the papacy is to the world ! How could you manage your people without me? You speak of me as a disturber of public tranquillity ; but the fact is, as your petitions to me show, I am the great pacificator of the world. So it is now, my dear Sir; political storms are raised by winds let loose from the papal caverns, and then the Pope is implored by civil governments to allay them ; and he even pretends to be angry (like the poet's Neptune) with the political Euri and Zephyri, which have broken forth from his own iEolia ! — " Quos ego " (he exclaims) * sed motos prsestat componere fluctus V And he, the canonizer of Hildebrand, will preach ser- mons on loyalty, forsooth, for the benefit of kings ! Thus he did to the Polish bishops in 1832 f, and so again last year to those of Gralicia, in his brief to the Bishop of Tarnow J ; and as he did a little while since * Virgil, Mn. i. 135. f See the Brief in the Pieces Justificatives of La Mennais' Af- faires de Rome, p. 309. J Which will be found in the " Tablet" of April 18, 1846. It is observable that the Pope there exhorts the Clergy to obey the em- 326 LETTER XIII. to the titular prelates of Ireland ; and as I doubt not, the man did to the stag, for the special benefit of the horse, in the apologue of Horace *, with which the Pope is doubtless familiar ; and once placed on the horse's back, at the horse's request, he remains there firmly seated for ever — " Cervus equum, pugna melior, communibus herbis Pellebat, donee minor in certamine longo Imploravit opes Hominis, freenumque recepit ; Sed postquam violens victo decessit ab hoste, Non equitem dorso, non freenum depulit ore." Let those sovereigns who humbly sue to the Pope for concordats, wherewith to keep their own subjects in order, bethink them betimes how they will be able to shake the Man from off their backs, and to get his bit out of their mouths. Let, I say in sober sadness, both sovereigns and subjects reflect, that if they do not maintain and strengthen the one foundation on which governments can rest independently and immoveably, namely, true religion, the royal power is gone, and the safety, the happiness, and the liberties of their subjects are de- stroyed ; and the world may shortly be prepared to see this fearful consequence — that the only surviving power claiming to exist by divine institution will be peror, " nisi forte aliquid imperetur, quod Dei et Ecclesice legibus adversatur." The very same expression occurs in the Encyclic Letter of the present Pope. We know what the " leges Ecclesite " are. See above, p. 278—286 and p. 292. * Hor. Epist. i. 10. 34. LETTER XIII. 327 that of the Pope, and all thrones, which are not swept away by infidel fury, will exist only as feudatories of the papacy. But to return. I have referred to the example of France in what I have now written ; but you will not, I hope, imagine that what I have said is dictated by any unfriendly feeling towards your institutions, or that I think it may not be applied in a considerable degree, with equal justice, to ourselves. Indeed, if the truth is to be told, many of us in England are much more deficient in the discharge of our duty to our own sovereign than you are to yours. You are, for the most part, Roman Catholics ; and believing as you do — though, as we think, very erroneously — that the Pope is the father of the faithful, and the vicar of our Lord upon earth, you may regard the extension of his power without dissatisfaction ; and considering the unhappy condition to which your monarchy has been reduced, you may feel more loyalty to the Roman see, than to the throne of the sovereigns of France. But our case is very different. Publicly we know nothing of the Pope except as a foreign potentate, who has presumed to excommunicate us, and pre- tended to depose three of our monarchs, and to send a Spanish Armada against us, and to place our coun- try under an Interdict. Besides, by the Divine goodness, we have still a Christian monarchy ; and by the blessing of Heaven 328 LETTER XIII. on the valour and wisdom of our ancestors, we have a constitution in which the supremacy of the sove- reign over all persons in all causes is so happily esta- blished, that I venture to affirm that no nation in the world can show a framework of government so well adapted to secure the rights of the sovereign and the liberties of the subject from domestic and foreign usurpation, whether lay or ecclesiastical. Our only danger is from ourselves. And it must be confessed with sorrow, that (not- withstanding the solemn warning which we have from your example) much has been done and much is now being done by some who bear the name of Englishmen for the disorganization and disruption of this well-concerted system ; much for the destruc- tion of the foundations of our throne, and for the disturbance of our domestic peace. To speak briefly of particulars : — I. You are aware that some persons in this country are desirous of legalizing the settlement of Jesuits in England, although it is notorious that their princi- ples are destructive of public and private happiness *, and that they take an oath of implicit obedience to the Pope f ; and are not and cannot be the subjects of * See above pp. 64—69, 71, and pp. 216—218. and p. 322. f Literae Apostolicse, quibus institutio, confirmatio, et varia privi- legia continentur Societatis Jesu, Antwerp, 1635. p. 11. 63. Speciali voto astringimur, ut quicquid modernus et alii Romani pontifices jus- LETTER XIII. 329 any temporal sovereign, much less of a Protestant one. Here they outrun you in zeal for the papacy ; you lately suppressed the order of Jesuits in France, this year they would establish them in England. II. Secondly, some of us in England would take upon themselves to exercise the royal prerogative, and, indirectly, to confer titles by the removal of the present penalties for their assumption ; and what titles, do you suppose, and upon whom ? the titles of the sees into which they have irregularly intruded themselves, upon Roman Catholic ecclesiastics in England and Ireland ! Not to say that such a deed as this would be one of flagrant schism *, inasmuch as it would set up bishop against bishop, and altar against altar, from one end of Great Britain to the other, and an act of most unwarrantable injustice towards the present holders of these titles ; it would also be an invasion of the rights of the Crown, and a destruction of the foundations of the British throne. All titles of honour are derived from the Crown alone -f* ; and the assertion of a right to share with the Crown in conferring them is an encroach- serint, ad profectum animarum et fidei propagationem, illico exequi teneamur. * S. Cyprian, ep. 52. Quisquis post unura episcopum factus est, non jam secundus ille, sed nullus est. Ep. 67. Foris esse coepit qui, episcopo ordinato, profanum altare erigere, adulteram cathedram collocare tentaverit. f Blackstone, i. 7« iv. The Crown has " the sole power of confer- ring dignities and honours." See also abcve, p. 317, note. 330 LETTER XIII. merit on the royal prerogative ; and I would respect- fully venture to express a doubt whether even deli- beration upon it is not very like an unconstitutional usurpation of that nature. It would, 1 say, Sir, seem worthy of consideration, whether it is not an invasion of the Queens rights for subjects to discuss the collation of titles at all *, and, secondly, and much more so, to deliberate on the collation of them on Romanist bishops, as such ; an act which I venture to affirm is not even within the power of the Grown to perform^. If ecclesiastics, intruded on us by the Pope, consecrated by his sole appointment, and bound to him by an oath of vassalage, should ever be thereby qualified, ipso facto, to bear English titles, then the regalities of the English Crown would be annulled, and the protest that " no foreign prince, prelate, or potentate, had any jurisdiction, power, or authority in this realm of England " would be void J. " iVo bishop, no king/' said King James § ; but put two bishops — one of them a subject of the Pope — * The following notice concerning Foreign Orders, which appeared in the "London Gazette" of December 6, 1823, seems to be appli- cable to titles conferred by the Pope : " 1. No British subject shall accept a Foreign Order, or wear its Insignia, without having previously ob- tained a Warrant under the Royal Sign Manual (directed to the Earl Marshal of England), granting them His Majesty's permission to accept and wear the same." + See above, p. 317. X Oath of Supremacy : see above, p. 277- § See Judicium Acad. Oxon. de Solenni Liga, p. 19. LETTER XIII. 331 into the same see, and then, " two bishops, and no king/' would be at least, equally true. III. Thirdly, another proposition, to which I must here advert, is that of endowing the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland at the national expense. With many who would advise this course, the reli- gious argument would probably avail little. It would, perhaps, be useless to say to them, that by endowing Romanism, the State would endow religious error of the most destructive kind, both as regards sacred and civil matters ; and that, by erect- ing a co-ordinate Church, where there is a Church already established, which ought to be supported and strengthened both on religious and secular grounds, it would endow Schism and all its injurious consequences, feuds, factions, and confusions, and would render the restoration of peace almost unat- tainable in that country, under any circumstances. Perhaps, however, it may be of use to us all to remember what you, Sir, know to be the fact, that the Church of Rome is a very differently constituted Ecclesiastical body from the United Church of Eng- land and Ireland. We speak of endowing the Roman Catholic Clergy ; be it so : there are 28 Irish Roman- ist Bishops, 1008 Parish Priests, and 1385 Curates*, now in Ireland ; these would require a large sum for their endowment : but this is not the main point ; when they had been purchased by the Government, * See Irish Ecclesiastical Register for 1 846, p. 336. 332 LETTER XIII. they would be worth nothing. It is to be feared that a great part of the influence of the Priests over the populace is due to the notion that they are like Tribunes of the People, its Champions against their rulers ; and if the Priests were endowed by the State, it would be supposed by the people that their Priests had been bought by the Government not for any love of them, but in order that they might be subservient to it ; and thus the influence of the Priests over them would become null ; and then that other element of the Romish Ecclesias- tical body would come into play, I mean the Regular Clergy, the Monks and Friars, who even now amount to 300 * in Ireland, and who would succeed f , * See the Irish Directory for 1846, p. 331. All this was well put, in 1805, in a speech in Parliament by Mr. Perceval : — " The principal of the arguments in favour of a national payment for the Roman Catholic priest is, that it will give the Government a hold upon the Roman Catholic priest, and be the means of attaching the priesthood to the interest of that Government, of which, at present, they are wholly independent, if they be not radically hostile and averse to it. " Now, Sir, if this be either the avowed, or the suspected, object of the indulgence, will it not, I ask, instantly defeat itself] Would not a Roman Catholic Priest, by accepting this offer, become an object of jealousy to his own body ; of distrust to his own flock ? Would it not detach him greatly from it ; and so deprive the Government of all the hope of utility proposed by the connexion ; and give rise to a new set of popular and independent priests, — most probably of the Regular Orders, — who will enjoy the lost influence of those whom Government has purchased ?" + It may be conjectured that the present proposals of certain parties for legalizing the Regulars is made under an expectation that the Seculars will be endowed. LETTER XIII. 333 in increased numbers and power, to the place of those who are pensioned, and would exercise more than all their influence for evil in the cause of agitation. This proposal, therefore, appears to be very short- sighted, even as one of mere political expediency. IV. Fourthly, it is proposed by some, that bulls from Rome should be introduced without any let or hindrance, and be recognized as having legal validity. Those who know Rome best — Spain, Austria, Por- tugal, and France, all Roman Catholic countries, — will not allow a single Papal bull to be introduced, before it is carefully examined by the civil power * ; and you, my dear Sir, must smile at the temerity and self-conceit of some of us who appear to consider themselves much wiser than all European nations, since they propose that we, a Protestant people, should admit freely from Rome what Roman Ca- tholic states carefully exclude. * What, Sir, maybe asked, would then become of our love for our sovereign ? what of our loyalty for the monarch who is alive ? what of our reverence for the dead ? Surely it would be an insult to the living and to the departed kings and queens of England, to legalize the admission of these papal edicts, when we know what has been, and still is, their language toward the holders of the English crown. As long as those im- pious, sanguinary, and treasonable anathemas, which * See Report of Select Committee on Regulation of Roman Catholic Subjects in Foreign Countries. Lond. 1816, pp. 3 — 35. 334 LETTER XIII. were pronounced by the Roman pontiff against Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth *, as long as that tissue of curses against all Protestant princes and people, contained in the bull In Ccend Domini, remain in the pages of the Roman Bullarium ; so long, I say, it would appear to be a treasonable f act against the Crown, an act of outrage against the Divine Being, Whose Minister the Queen is, and one of contume- lious scorn towards her subjects, to propose to legalize the admission of bulls from Rome into England. V. Fifthly, it is proposed to relieve English Romanists from all penalties for asserting the Pope's Spiritual Supremacy in these realms, in opposition to that of the Queen \ ; and for extolling and main- * See above, p. 283. t Concerning the bull against Queen Elizabeth, (which, as well as that against Henry VIII., is still retained in the Bullarium,) Lord Keeper Burleigh thus wrote : " The Pope's bull aforementioned, imports that her Majesty is not lawful Queen of England, — the first and highest point of treason ; and that all her subjects are discharged of their oaths and obedience, — another high point of treason ; and all warranted to disobey her and her laws, — a third and very large point of treason." — Burleigh's ** Execution of Justice in England, not for Religion, but for Treason," 17 Dec, 1583, p. 15. X The consequences of this proposal may be anticipated from the terms of the following letter of Sir Valentine Blake, to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland : — " Paris. Place de la Madeleine, September 24, 1846. " My Lord, " I had the honour to receive a letter written by your Lord- ship's directions, yesterday, wherein it is intimated to me that my name is reinstated in its proper place in the commission of the peace LETTER XIII. 335 taining his pretended and usurped power over her subjects. What is this but to call upon the State to legalize a public profession on their part, that they are not subjects of the Crown ; and to make this non-subjec- tion of theirs the occasion, groundwork, and reason for legislative innovations and aggressions against the Crown and the Constitution ? or, in other words, because it is true that some persons are disloyal enough to deny the independence of the Crown, and to pay little regard even to the personal safety of the monarch (for the Pope affirms that deposed sovereigns may be murdered ; and what sovereign of England — indeed, what Protestant sove- reign — is not ipso facto deposed * by the Pope ?) — for the county of Galway, for which I beg to return you my most sincere thanks. " The Clerk of the Hanaper has enclosed to me the form of oaths to be taken, and, inasmuch as it is required that I should swear that the see of Rome, or the potentate who occupies the papal throne, has no spiritual power within the realms of her Majesty, which we all know is untrue, I am sorry that I must refuse to take such an oath ; and I am only surprised that other conscientious Protestants should do so ; but I hope shortly to see your Lordship on the woolsack of the Irish House of Lords, as the keeper of her Majesty's conscience in Ireland, bringing in a bill to abolish the taking of such an oath. " I have the honour to be, my Lord, " Your Lordship's most faithful, and obedient, humble Servant, " Valentine Blake." " The Lord Chancellor of Ireland." * See above, p. 283. The Pope told Queen Elizabeth at her accession, that England " era feudo della sede apostolica ; ch' era stata una grand' audacia dell' haver' assonto il nome di Regina ed il 336 LETTER XIII. therefore the rights of the Crown, instead of being more vigorously asserted, are to be sacrificed! and the person of the sovereign, instead of being more carefully guarded, is to be put in more imminent peril ! But, Sir, you may desire to know on what grounds such propositions as these are made. I. First, then, it is alleged that the laws which these propositions would repeal are " the offspring of a dark age." A dark age ! The age of Shak- speare, of Spenser, of Ben Jonson, of Burleigh, and Salisbury, and Raleigh, of Bacon, and of Coke, of Jewell, and Hooker, and of Andrewes ! A dark age ! Dark indeed, in a certain sense, it was, when those deeds of darkness were performed under the authority and with the approval of the Papacy, which rendered those laws necessary : — dark indeed it was, when on the night of the 24th of August, 1572, St. Bartholo- mew's day, about five thousand Protestants were butchered at Paris, and when within a few days after it, in six towns of France, five-and-twenty thousand more were slain * : — dark it was when as soon as he heard of this dreadful massacre, Pope Gregory XIII. went in procession to the Church of St. Louis, at Rome f , to give God thanks ; and when, to com- governo senza lui." — Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent, lib. v. See also Ranke's History of the Popes, pp. 80, 81. * Ranke (History of the Popes, p. 147) says, " the numbers that fell amounted to 50,000." f Lord Clarendon, Religion and Polity, p. 427. " Notorious it is LETTER XIII. 337 memorate this event, he ordered a medal to be struck *, which represents the savage work as per- formed by an angel of heaven, with a sword in one hand and a cross in the other, and which bears the inscription, VGONOTTORVM STRAGES, The Massacre of the Huguenots : — dark it was, when on the 1st of August, 1589, the friar Jaques Clement *f", " having learnt from theologians whom he had consulted, that a tyrant might lawfully be put to death," went and assassinated his own sovereign, your King Henry III. : — dark it was, when on hearing the intelligence of that King's death, Pope Sixtus V. summoned a consistory of his cardinals, and in a set speech ascribed the murder of the king " to the pro- vidence of God," and spoke of it as a pledge that " the Almighty would still protect France j :" — dark that Gregory XIII. had no sooner notice of that barbarous and inhuman massacre of St. Bartholomew, than he went in solemn pro- cession to the Church of St. Louis in Rome to give God thanks." * Of which I have an engraving before me in p. 87 of Historia Summorum Pontificum per eorum Numismata, a Molinet, Lutet. 1679, which is dedicated by the author to a Pope, Innocent XI. f These are the words of the Jesuit Mariana, "Jac. Clemens cognito a theologis quos erat sciscitatus tyrannum jure interimi posse cseso rege ingens sibi nomen fecit." See Ranke's History, p. 177- Fleury, Discours sur les Libertes, &c. p. 80, note. X " II Papa nel consistorio discorre che '1 successo della morte del re di Francia si ha da conoscer dal voler expresso del Signor Dio, e che percio si doveva confidar che continuarebbe al haver quel regno nella sua protezione." Dispaccio Veneto, quoted by Ranke, p. 173 : compare Lord Clarendon, p. 465. " The news of this horrid parricide was no sooner brought to Rome, than the Pope presently called a consistory, that he might be the first reporter of it, when he made the Q 338 LETTER XIII. it was, when on the 14th of May, 1610, Ravaillac the Jesuit effected what, in 1594, Jean Chastel the Jesuit had attempted, and murdered your sovereign Henry IV., and, after the deed was done, freely confessed that it was the book of Mariana the Jesuit which encouraged him to that design * : — dark it was, when at several times after the publication of the Papal Bull against her in 1567, (Feb. 24,) the life of our gracious Queen Elizabeth was attempted, as in 1572 by Story, again in 1583 by Somerville, again in 1585 by Parry, stimulated by the Pope's nuncio, and in 1586 by Savage, having plenary indulgence from the Pope, as appears from the letter of a Car- dinal di Como, dated Rome, 30 Jan., 1584, again by Moody in 1587, again by Patrick in 1594, by Lopez and York in the same year, again by Squire in 1598, by Winter in 1602 -f, from all which traitorous relation of it in such a manner as made it evident that he was well enough content to be thought the author ; and he even solemnized the memory of the friar for his unparalleled zeal and courage, in that speech of his to the consistory, of which there are too many records preserved to have it ever forgotten." See also Thuani Historia, torn. iv. ad ann. 1589, ed. 1620, who says, " that Sixtus V., in a pre- meditated speech made in the consistory on the 3rd of the Ides of September, compared the deed on account of its greatness to our blessed Lord's incarnation and resurrection, and extolled the author of it above Eleazar and Judith, &c." The original Latin speech was printed at Paris in 1585. It will be found in Foulis' History of Romish treasons, p. 413. Davila Historia, lib. x. ad ann. 1589. * De Rege et Regis Institutione, Mog. 1605. See notes to Fleury, Discours, p. 80, and P. Du Moulins' Anticoton, quoted by Bp. Barlow, Brutum fulmen, p. 196. f See Camdeni Annales Elizabethee, in these years. LETTER XIII. 339 designs, set on foot by the arts and arms of Rome, she was delivered by the merciful interference of Divine Providence ; and dark it was, when in the year 1605, a conspiracy was made to destroy the king, royal family, lords and commons of England, and when Bulls from Rome were ready * to give complete effect to what was then decreed : — dark, I say, the age may well be called, when such acts as these were concerted and executed. But in another sense that age was one of light Wisdom guided the councils of England, and sound laws were enacted, by which, under the Divine blessing, these dark designs were defeated, and the light of peace and liberty and public safety were diffused through- out the realm. But, if in a spirit of presumptuous contempt for the wisdom of that age, and of arrogant confidence in our own sagacity, we abolish these laws, who shall say that we shall not bring back in all its gloom the thick darkness which they dispersed ? In the mean time, if we desire to prove that we are ourselves in darkness, we have only to be guilty of the folly, as far as regards England, of calling that age a dark one. i/that age was a dark one, would that we had more such darkness and less of our own * See Bp. Andrewes' Reply to Cardinal Bellarmine, cap. v. p. 113, ed. 1610. " E vestris unus atque is Jesuita apud nos fassus est in id ipsum tempus, quo accensus hie pulvis et strages subsecuta procusum t'uisse fulinen trisulcum, bullas tres, statim, ubi coufecta res, Ponti- ficis nomine publicandas, quibus tria in Regno loca confestim ferienda." Q2 340 LETTER XIII. light ! Would that we had more of its loyalty and piety, more of its steadiness of purpose, more of its faith in fixed principles, and more of its courage in carrying them into practice ! In further justice to these laws, I shall content myself with referring to the character which is given of them by three of our greatest statesmen and lawyers, Lord Treasurer Burleigh *, Lord High Chancellor Bacon *{*, and Lord High Chancellor Cla- rendon J. II. But, secondly, it is alleged that these laws ought to be repealed, on the great principle of reli- gious toleration ; that none of " Her Majesty's sub- jects" ought to suffer penalties for "religious opi- nions ;" and that our Most Gracious Sovereign ought " to be the Queen of all her subjects/' Now, first of all, — as to the point of repealing laws against the Pope, I should be very glad to be in- formed whether he has ever repealed any one of his laws against us ? Has he ever erased a single line of his canon law in which, as I have shown §, he claims the power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from their allegiance ? Never. Has he ever re- voked one of his unchristian anathemas against us * Lord Burleigh, Execution of Justice in England, not for Re- ligion, but for Treason, 1583. f Lord Bacon, Observations on a Libel, 1592, vol. ii. p. 42, ed. Lond. 1778. X Lord Clarendon, Religion and Polity, p. 424. § Above, p. 279. LETTER XIII. 341 and our princes? Never. Has he ever ceased to impose his own oaths of allegiance and supremacy on Romish ecclesiastics who are subjects of the Queen of England, and to teach them that all their civil oaths to their sovereign, to the prejudice of his own interest, are perjuries ? Never. Has he ever allowed a word to be breathed in favour of our oaths of alle- giance and supremacy, or permitted our books in its favour to be admitted into his dominions, as some of us would admit bulls from Rome into England ? Never. And yet we are, forsooth, to be called upon to repeal our laws against his unjust and unholy usurpations and aggressions against the rights of the British crown and the liberties of the subject, and to give free admission and even titles of distinction to Jesuits and other Romish ecclesiastics, who are bound to him by a most solemn oath of obedience, and who are obliged by that oath to teach the doc- trine of the Pope's supremacy, and by consequence to subvert that of the Queen ! And all this on the " sacred principle of religious Toleration !" most blessed Toleration, which would tolerate every thing but that which ought most to be secured and encouraged ! which would tolerate sedition, and dis- countenance loyalty ; which would tolerate Jesuits and the Pope, but would not tolerate the Queen; which would sacrifice the Crown, and boast of its liberality ; which would talk of " civil and religious liberty/' and degrade its sovereign to a slave ! Q3 342 LETTER XIII. But, thirdly, it is said, " Her Majesty's subjects " ought to be relieved from all " penalties and disabili- ties in regard to their religious opinions." Certainly, this is very true: but then, first, it is equally true that they who ought to be Her Majesty's subjects and are not, but who choose to be the Popes sub- jects, ought not to be relieved from penalties and disabilities in regard to their irreligious practices: Under the words " religious opinions n lurks the old fallacy, which was exposed so well by Lord Burleigh, in that " dark age '• of which we have just heard, in his admirable work entitled " Execution of Justice in England, not for Religion, but Treason." He there says *, speaking of papists who were punished for traitorous practices in Queen Eliza- beth's reign, that " whereas the party of the pope, the principal author of the invasion of Her Majesty's dominions, do allege that a number of persons, whom they call martyrs -f-, died for defence of the Catholic religion, the same in very truth may manifestly ap- pear to have died (if they will so have it) as martyrs for the pope, but traitors against their queen, in ad- hering to him." And in the same dark age, Lord Bacon tells us, " that Queen Elizabeth was firm to the resolution not to suffer the state of her kingdom to be ruined under pretence of conscience and reli- * P. 15. f See on this point Bishop Barlow's Brutum Fulmen, p. 187- LETTER XIII. 343 gion V And, in the same manner, King James I. f writes, " I must ever avow and maintain, as the truth is according to mine own knowledge, that the late Queen of famous memory never punished any papist for religion, but that their own punishment was ex- torted out of her hands by their own misbehaviour," — which he proceeds to prove. They were punished, he shows, not for " religious opinions" but for " re- bellious acts" under the fair name of religion, which was used by Pope Paul V. when he wrote, in his brief of Oct. 1, 1 606, to all English Romanists, that " the oath of allegiance to the English crown could not be taken by them without injury to the Catholic faith !" and we know well (in the words of Bishop Sanderson) that " nothing is more common than for men to plead conscience when they have no mind to obey," and that disobedience and disloyalty is no part of religion, nor any fruit or sign of it. So it is now : the penalties and disabilities, which it is pro- posed to abolish, do not lie on " religious opinions" at all, but on all disloyal and seditious practices, of which, if persons choose to be guilty, they must and ought to expect penalties and disabilities; and the true, the only, relief for them lies not with us, but with themselves : it is to be derived from their alter- ing their practices, not from our repealing our laws. But it is said, in the next place, that " Her * Sir Roger L'Estrange, Toleration Discussed, p. 104. + Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, Works, p. 252. Q 4 344 LETTER XIII. Majesty's subjects" should be relieved from these penalties ; and that the " Queen ought to be the sovereign of all her subjects." This last assertion is very true: but then it is first to be ascertained whether they are her subjects, or will be so. Here is another fallacy lying hid under the word subjects. Would to Heaven, indeed, that they were her sub- jects ; and that she were the sovereign of all her subjects ! This indeed would be a most blessed con- summation. Then all our controversy would be at end. But if, alas ! some of her subjects are so for- getful of their duty to her as to withdraw their alle- giance from her, and to take an oath of vassalage to a foreign power, it is a manifest absurdity to speak of their being any longer her " subjects." No : they have revolted from her ; and no Acts of Parliament in the world can make them her subjects by calling them so. A parliament which attempts such a chime- rical project as this only stultifies itself. And if our English laws are to be altered in the vain hope of changing the Pope's subjects into the Queen's, by " relieving " them from their disabilities for their dis- loyalty, then the inevitable consequence must be, that instead of gaining those who are not her subjects, she would lose those who are, and in lieu of being the " sovereign of all her subjects," she would be in very great danger of ceasing to be the sovereign of any. From all that I have now said you will perceive, my dear Sir, that we in England have little reason, LETTER XIII. 345 and, I trust, little disposition, to boast ourselves at your expense. Every one who has the feeling of a true patriot, must indeed earnestly pray that his own beloved country and the crown of its august monarch may for ever remain Christian, and that it may ever remain free. But we should have little of the spirit of Christianity or of freedom, if we did not desire also for you what we so earnestly cherish for our- selves. Would that your Monarchy and Church were once more united together in a happy alliance, the one Christian, the other free ! Why should not an Irenseus* arise once more among you to remind the Bishop of Rome of his true position, and to give him friendly rebuke instead of treacherous adulation ? and why should not the French Church, animated by the spirit of the Gospel, endeavour to restore to the Crown those fair flowers of religion and piety which once bloomed upon it, but were torn from it by the hand of Revolution ? But, to revert to what I was saying : with your example before our eyes, with the exhibition which you present to us of the destruction of a Church Establishment, and of the lamentable consequences to the cause of Christianity and of the Crown, to the Church and to the Country, we, if we proceed further than we have already done in following your steps, shall be guilty of greater rashness and sin, and may expect greater misery and shame. * Euseb. v. 24. 346 LETTER XIII. But we confidently hope better things. Our great Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated by three popes, Pius V., Gregory XIII., and Sixtus V., the last of whom sent the Spanish Armada against her, published a crusade against us, as if we were infi- dels, and gave plenary indulgence* to all who should assist in the invasion. She was assailed by nume- rous conspiracies. But she, who was cursed by Popes, was blessed by God. She was strong in His faith and fear, and in the love of her people ; and to quote the words of her great minister, Lord Bur- leigh-)-, " For the comfort of all good subjects against the pope's bulls, it is manifest to the world, that from the beginning of her majesty's reign, by God's singular goodness, her kingdom hath enjoyed more universal peace, her people increased in more numbers, in more strength, and with greater riches, the earth of her kingdom hath yielded more fruits, and generally all kind of worldly felicity hath more abounded since and during the time of the pope's bulls, thunders, curses, and maledictions, than in any other long time before, when the pope's pardons and blessings came yearly into the realm ; so that his curses and maledictions have turned back to himself and his fautors, and it may be said to the fortunate Queen of England and her people, ' The Lord thy God would not hear Balaam, but did turn * Camden, Annales Eliz. lib. iii. ad aim. 1688. f Execution, p. 35. LETTER XIII. 347 his curses into blessings;' the reason is, for because thy God loved thee/' So may it ever be with her successors on the throne of England ! Permit me, my dear Sir, to state what appears to me to be the great practical inference to be drawn from the facts and principles which I have now laid before you, and I will bring this Letter to a close. First, I would venture to submit with great reve- rence and humility to the consideration of sovereign princes and states, whether, instead of repealing their own just and necessary laws against the papacy, they ought not rather to unite together in requiring the Pope to retract his illegal acts and decrees against their lawful authority ; whether they ought not to oblige him to withdraw the illicit oath * which he now * The following propositions deserve to be considered with regard to this oath : — " 1. Allegiance is a duty which every subject, under what form of government soever, by the law of nature, oweth to his country, and consequently to the sovereign power thereof. " 2. The bond of Allegiance, whether sworn or not sworn, is in the nature of it perpetual and indispensable. " 3. All Promises and Assurances, wherein faith is required to be given to another, ought to be understood ad mentem imponentis. [The mens imponentis, in the case of the Papal Oath, is clear from the Papal laws.] " 4. We cannot of our own accord enter into a covenant, wherein he, whose subjects we are, is concerned, without his consent. " 5. It is, otherwise, in his power by the equity of the law, Numb. xxx. to annul and make void the same at his pleasure." These propositions are from Bp. Sanderson, " Case of the Engage- 348 LETTER XIII. presumes to impose on their subjects, and to erase from his Canon Law, his Bullarium, and his Bre- viary, all those seditious statutes, edicts, collects, lessons and imprecations, which infringe on their prerogatives, and impugn the royalties of the sove- reign, and the liberties of the subject : whether, in short, they ought not at once to arise and emancipate themselves and their people (if he is unwilling to release them) from the thraldom to which he has reduced them, and which he is making daily more grievous to be borne ; whether they ought not to warn him to confine himself within the limits of his own dominions in temporal concerns ; and whether, in spiritual matters, they ought not to deliberate in their national Councils Civil and Ecclesiastical, on this important question : " Can it be shown by the law of God, and by the practice of the primi* tive Church, that the Bishop of Rome possesses any greater spiritual authority, power, or jurisdiction within their realms than any other foreign prelate of the Church V and if this question be answered in the negative, then whether they ought not to require the Pope to restrain himself and his commands within the limits of his own patriarchate, according to the ment," and of "the Solemn League and Covenant." See also his " Judicium Acad. Oxon. de Solenni Liga," 1 Jan. 1647. The applicability of these observations to the Oath of Jesuits and Roman Catholic Bishops to the Pope, is too obvious to require to be further insisted on. LETTER XIII. 349 decree of the great General Council * of Nice ; and, in the mean time, until such a consultation as this be held, whether every Nation and Church ought not to keep itself as near as may be to that order which it ought to have, according to law both human and divine, and, in so doing, to rest in faith on the aid and defence of Him Who is the Author of all Law and the Avenger of all Iniquity ; and to look forward in sure and certain hope to that glorious time when the great Head of the whole Church, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, will come again to reward all His faithful subjects, and to put all His enemies under His feet. I am, my dear Sir, with sincere regard, Yours very faithfully, CHR. WORDSWORTH. * Canon 6. THE END. 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