?gHS8sgcS?l. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THEEE LETTERS TO THE EDITOE OF THE GUARDIAN WITH A PRELIMINARY PAPER ON THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF CERTAIN ALLEGATIONS WHICH IMPLY SOME SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE ANGLICAN ESTABLISHMENT AND SOME BRANCH, EXISTING AT SOME PERIOD, OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. ^nlr a |Irffaff, INCLUDING SOME CRITICISM OF PROFESSOR HUSSEY'S LECTURES ON THE RISE OF THE PAPAL POWER. By WILLIAM GEORGE WARD, FORMERLY FELLOW OF BALLiOL COLLEQF., OXFOUI). LONDON: BURNS AND LAMBERT, PORTMAN STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE. 1852. LONDON : PRINTED BY LEVEY, ROBSON, AND FBANKLYN, Great New Street, Fetter Lane. CONTENTS. Preface. I. One Word on the existing Constitution of the Anglican Estab- lishment. II. A Letter to the Editor of the Guardian, by the Author of " One Word," &c. III. The Anglican Establishment contrasted, in every Principle of its Constitution, with the Church Catholic of every Age ; BEING A second LeTTER TO THE EdITOR OF THE GuARDIAN. IV. Heresy and Immorality considered in their respective bearing on THE Notes of the Church ; being a final Letter to the Editor OF the Guardian. 1390110 PREFACE. An account of the circumstances which oriofinated the followinij Letters, will be found in the Preface to the Second Letter. They labour under the defect, so common and so almost unavoidable in productions elicited by the pressure of argument with one particular opponent, a great irregularity in the way of order and arrangement. The Guardian, however, having terminated the controversy, on the very reasonable plea of its unsuitableness to the pages of a newspaper, it seemed better to collect them into one volume : and the object of this Preface is, first, to remedy, as best I may be able, the inconveniences flowing from the above- mentioned defect; and then to develope one particular argument, stated in the Letters, at greater length than the exigencies of the Guardian controversy required. The most methodically arranged portions of my argument, will be found in the sixth section of the Second Letter, and the earlier part of the Final Letter. These pieces of reasoning enjoy also this further advantage, that, in order to their cogency, the admission of no premiss is required, beyond that of the general authenticity and genuineness, on the one hand of the books of the New Testament, on the other hand of the principal works ascribed to the Fathers of the Church. In the first-named of these two portions {Second Letter, pp. 57-83) the " Rule of Faith" is discussed. On this subject there are " two opposite forms of misbelief which exist among earnest and pious minds in England at this moment." The one is that of ordinary Protestants, who consider that the Sacred Writings were put into our hands, in order that each individual might draw from their study his own faith. And this general line of opinion again consists of two divisions, which (though in the h 11 case of some individuals they more or less run up into each other, and though they are often confounded together), yet in tliemselves differ from each other most essentially, and corre- spond to widely different types of ethical character; accord- ingly, that is, as the means for ascertaining the sense of Scrip- ture is supposed to be, on the one hand almost exclusively prayer for the (by hypothesis) promised aid of the Holy Spirit, or on the other hand, principally, the application of study and critical exegesis. Meanvs^hile the opposite form of misbelief, just now alluded to, while it agrees with the Catholic Doctrine in denoun- cing the above notion in either of its shapes, maintains a position no less fundamentally antagonistic to Divine Truth ; viz. that some sacred form of words or ideas has been explicitly handed down from the Apostles, in such sense as that each Christian is enabled to recognise it for himself without the authority of a liv- ing infallible Church, and is bound to accept it, without increase or diminution, as precisely containing the essentials and funda- mentals of true doctrine. I have endeavoured then, in the above-named section, to shew, in reply to both of these most false principles, first, that it may well be doubted whether it was even possible (except by direct miracle) that supernatural truth could really have been conveyed in either of these ways, to persons circumstanced as were the earl}'^ converts (pp. 58-63); and, 2dly that, whether such a course were possible or not, at least that the fact was plainly and indubitably otherwise. (See particularly the pages from p. G^ to p. 65.) I have pointed out, that the organisation of the Apostolic Church, and the Rule of Faith there given, were directly and most undeniably inconsistent with these principles ; that the Apostolic Church was, beyond possible question, no temporary institution, but on the contrary intended to be commensurate in its duration with Christianity itself; and that, from that very day to the present, there has always been one, and never more than one, organised Society, precisely corresponding to the pic- ture presented in Scripture of this Apostolic Church (pp. 72, o). I have drawn attention to the circumstance, that the very quota- tions, called *' Records of the Church," which appeared in the first volume of the Tracts for the Times, on the Rule of Faith, Ill are in direct contradiction to the thesis which it was attempted to found on them (pp. 69-71) ; for "1 confidently affirm that there is no hint there to be found of any independent or histo- rical way of arriving at a real knowledge of the Apostolic Tradi- tions ; no other way than that of listening to the voice of the existing Churches." And I have devoted a note (p. 76) to an exposure of the monstrous fallacy, which would represent St. Vin- centius's well-known treatise, as affording the slightest countenance to the " Anglican High-Church " hypothesis. Finally, I have maintained (giving reasons for my opinion) that the condition of those who have given up allegiance to an infallible Church is, in all essential particulars, so far as religious knowledge is con- cerned, analogous to that of heathens before the Gospel was given (pp. 76-79). This latter consideration is again enforced in the Final Letter (pp. 48-50). The first section of the Final Letter (pp. 1-13) is more closely connected with the original starting-point of the contro- versy ; for my first little brochure was entirely directed to the exposure of that one unspeakably empty and foolish defence, which certain Anglicans had at that time been taking up, under the pressure of the Gorham case. They had been attempting to meet our comments on the abject slavery to the State, under which their Establishment groaned, and of which that judgment was so striking an instance, — by alleging the various concessions to various civil powers which the Church in communion with Rome had at various times made. It required very few words (the wonder was that it should require any) to make clear the toto coelo distinction in principle between these two classes of phenomena ; but during the controversy started thereon by the Guardian, it became gradually clear, to my extreme surprise, that various propositions, which I had looked on as theses admitted on both sides, were really questioned by my opponent. I have now learned to feel no surprise at any confusion of theological ideas however gross, or any abandonment of doctrinal principle how- ever extreme, which may be found in that paper ; but at that time I had not received the benefit of this last year's experience. It was one of these propositions, then, questioned by the Guardian, which the first section of the Final Letter was written to de- IV monstrate ; namely, that as it is the principle of (what we re- ^•ard as) the Catholic Church now, so it has been her plain and undeviating principle from the Apostles downward, that professed heretics are ipso facto and jure divino external to her. This pro- position is, I admit, absolutely fatal to all claims made in behalf of the Establishment, as being "a branch of the Church." But yet it is so undeniably and obviously the unanimous declaration of the Christian Church in every age, that I might well be sur- prised at the Guardian demurring to it; inasmuch as the only difficulty in this part of my argument was, " out of the multitude of pi-oof which throngs on the mind, to select the most forcible and pregnant, in order that unnecessary length might be avoided." " Can any thing be in more preposterous opposition to the whole current of Antiquity, than the idea" prevalent in the party which the Guardian represents, '* that a branch of the Catholic Church can possess members who are not Catholics ?" Against this attack upon the Establishment, two or three de- fences may be attempted. One of these is that on which the Guardian appears to lay its principal stress ; though it is impos- sible for any one, who has not been called on (like myself) to peruse carefully that journal's observations, to imagine the infi- nite self-contradiction in which those observations are throughout involved. The defence alluded to is, that the toleration of evil men, which is practised by the Church in communion with Rome at the present day, is no less fatal to a claim of Catholicity, than is that toleration of professed heretics which is practised by the Establishment. And a methodical reply to this defence is to be found, in the three following sections of the Final Letter (pp. 13-62) ; in which the admixture of evil men with good within the Church is considered, on the ground of Scripture, Antiquity, and reason. There is not a single argument or citation put forth by the Guardian, which is not considered in these sections ; and on which indeed (so far as I can trust my own partial judgment), my opponent does not receive a signal and triumphant refuta- tion. Another defence which may be attempted by Protestant up- holders of the Fathers, against the above general line of assault, is to deny that, in matter of fact, the Anglican Church does tole- nite professed heresy ; or at least, that it tolerates it in tliat very extreme and anti-Christian degree, which we Catholics ordi- narily maintain. My reply to any such defence will- be found in the Second Letter (sections 3 and 4, pp. 10-51). In the first of these sections, I remark on the entire absence from their sys- tem of any thing which they can even themselves profess to be security for sound teaching ; and in the second, I draw attention to the practical corruptions which Ivdve Jlowed from such absence of security. In the third section, then, of the Second Letter, I press on the attention of Anglicans the plain fact, that a question which they must consider as one so intimately, so unspeakably, affecting the spiritual interest of their people, as the question what doctrines they may or may not be taught by their clergy, — this question is decided for them, in the last resort, by an au^thority, to which they not merely can ascribe no gift of infallibility, but not even the most ordinary supernatural grace, or the most ordinary natural qualification, specially directed to that end ; — by the civil power. And by way of contrast to this, I began with shewing " that no branch of the Catholic Church has ever, or any where, been subject to the civil magistrate, in the sense in which the Anglican Establishment is subject to him ; or in such sense as not to retain the most ample security for doctrinal orthodoxy." Most fortunately for my purpose here, a very able and learned article in the Christian Remembrancer had appeared not long before, in which the writer had brought together the strongest instances against this thesis, which his great knowledge of Ecclesiastical History enabled him to discover. On no occasion has one so strong and so well-founded a confidence in one's own cause, as when an able and well-instructed adversary has done his utmost, and one can see with one's own eyes how nothing, or less than nothing, that utmost is. And indeed the result of this writer's labour, was only to place in a still clearer light the fact, other- wise so transparently evident in History, that in the Catholic Church, from the first, no less a personage has been entrusted with that most momentous function, the function of determin- ing the doctrines which we Catholics arc to be taught, than ho, VI whom we believe to be under the pledged and most watchful superintendence of the Holy Spirit, for its due and truthful per- formance. I proceed, in the following section, to contemplate in its resuUs this State Supremacy over doctrine in the Establishment. I iirst point out the great numbers, from the very first, within that body, who have openly and deliberately professed tenets, which my op- ponent himself would designate as heretical ; who have denied Baptismal Regeneration, e. g., or who have refused to condemn the Arian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies. But this is not all, nor the chief; I further maintain, that the Establishment authorities admit within its pale tenets, in themselves so vitally and fundamentally contradictory to each other, as to put all dis- tinctness of teaching, and much more all unity of belief, on the greatest no less than on the least matters of Christian doctrine, absolutely out of the question ; I charge Anglicans with having altogether lost the very elementary idea, as witnessed by the Primitive Church, of true Christian sanctity ; and I allege against a form of doctrine very prevalent among them, the charge that it is in " direct contradiction to the most sacred and primary principles of natural morality." For a fuller summary of this fourth section of the Second Letter, the reader may consult the Final Letter from p. 75 to p. 77. A third defence is conceivable against this attack of ours, which is grounded on the enormous admission of heresy within the Establishment; it is conceivable that an attempt may be made to retort the charge against ourselves. And such a retort is not merely conceivable, but was even at first attempted by my opponent in the Guardian. I have nothing to say here on the subject, except to refer my readers to the whole of the First Letter ; to the observations in the Final Letter from p. 77 to p. 79 ; and also to the sixth and seventh sections of the same Letter (pp. 81-94), on the detached and isolated cases of Liberius and the Sicilian monarchy. I cannot but persuade myself that candid minds, external to the Church, will be much more ready to admit, as probable, the immaculate consistency of Catholic Doctrine, with itself, with History, and with sound morality, from perceiving the astonishing slenderness at first, and the absolute VI 1 nothingness at last, of the Guardian'' s instances in objection to the same. It is, further, not a little observable, tbat of these three de- fences, the first and third have not even the faintest tendency to prove any divine presence in the Establishment, but only to dis- prove such in the Catholic Church. If the Apostles professed to teach a divine Revelation ; — and if it be further demonstratively established, 1st, that the only mode which they gave their con- temporaries for learning the contents of this Revelation was the listening submissively to a Visible Church; and 2dly, that they re- garded the existence of a Church justly claiming such submission of mind, as contemporaneous in duration with the Christian reli- gion itself; — if this be so (and my opponent did not so much as attempt a reply to my reasonings which 'purported to establish this), what would be the inference from those further proposi- tions which he maintains ? Had his success been as signal as his failure has been (and I cannot make a stronger supposition than this,) in making probable the hypothesis, that in matter of fact there has been no Society in later times bearing those notes which the Apostles regarded as essential to the Church, I can- not see what possible inference would result, except that, on this most fundamental matter, the Apostles were in error, and that the Christian religion was not simply divine. The same utter recklessness of argumentative method is visible, as I observe more than once in these " Letters," in the Protestant mode of treating various historical proofs, adduced by us in behalf of this or that particular in our doctrinal system. Let me take, as a special instance, the Papal Supremacy. It is really most won- derful, and bears thinking on again and again, that, in the midst of all the argument and declamation against this doctrine, wliich has been poured forth during the last three hundred years; — in the midst of all the denunciations against us for having falsified History and innovated on Antiquity ; — to the best of my know- ledge and belief, there has not been so much as one single attempt to state systematically, as being the belief of the Early Church, any doctrine whatever on the subject, differing from ours. High Church controversialists seem never to think of the question whether Ihey are right, so engrossed are they with the task ot VIU proving tliat we are wrong ; they never enter into the inquiry whether Antiquity is with them, so anxious are they to shew that it is against us ; insomuch that, in their eagerness to assail us, they never give a moment's thought to the question, whether their weapons, in order to wound Rome ever so slightly, must not pass through the very heart of her whom they profess to reverence as their mother. There cannot be a better illustration of this, than the last controversial work which has appeared on that side of the ques- tion. Professor Hussey's Lectures on the Rise of the Papal Power (Parker, Oxford). The calmness and equableness of tone, the most charitable and forbearing spirit, the lucid order and ar- rangement, so conspicuous in this work, are no more, however, than would have been expected by those who have the honour of even a slight acquaintance with its excellent author. But from beginning to end of these Lectures, I cannot discover so much as the slightest attempt at any positive result. Surely the question is, not what the Fathers did not hold about the Church's constitution, but what they did hold ; and whatever it is which they held, if it is to be authoritative, must be something which admits of definite and consistent statement. I shall be hardly believed by those who have not read the work (unless they are disciplined by experience in other Anglican works of controversy) when I say, that from first to last, I cannot find so much as a hint of any positive conclusion ; unless, indeed, I am to except one passage in the preface (p. xv.), where the author implies that " every Church and nation" has a right to " assert its own religious independence." But if by this he means (what his argument requires) that in matters of doctrine the Church of one nation is, jure divino, independent of the rest of Christendom, I may most safely challenge him to produce one single passage from any one of the Fathers, from Apostolic times downwards, which can give so much as a colourable or prima facie sanc- tion to so extraordinary a proposition. The fifth section of the Second Letter (pp. 51-57) is occupied with this subject. In that section I consider, first, the ordinary response made by Anglican writers, as to the origin of Episcopal Jurisdiction, when they deny that it comes from the Holy See ; IX and I shew the endless self-contradictions, the unspeakable and most grotesque absurdity, which must follow, if any one (by way of novelty) were to think even for a moment of practising what their controversialists for these three centuries have been pro- fessing. I have then tried my hand, as best I could, in devising any other theory which might by possibility be advocated, as consistent at once with Antiquity and with the position of the Anglican bishops. I could only think of one ; and 1 then pro- ceed to destroy this creature of my imagination. In the fourth century of their schism it is really time these Episcopalians should try and start some theory on Episcopacy : let them only start it ; I pledge myself beforehand very confidently to refute and overthrow it. But who can combat a shadow ? The positive historical argument which we derive, from this impossibility of even devising, as the tenet of Antiquity, any posi- tion antagonistic to our own, is stated as follows in a note at p. 20 of the Second Letter : " Our controversialists allege, from Scripture and the Fathers, a large number of the most plain and unequivocal testimonies for the indivisible unity of the Church ; testimonies admitted by Protestants themselves to be absolutely inconsistent, if taken simply and literally, with your claims to Catholicity. The common resource, in controversy, is to bring together a certain number of other facts, which seem to evince that this same principle was not fdly understood by all in early times. Now, for such reasons as those given in the text, there is no difficulty whatever in our admitting that, in this or that instance, the right appli- cation of this principle was not understood ; but this does not in die least shew that the principle dselfwas not held. One fair way of testing, then, how far any such fact is a real objection to our doctrine, is to see whether such fact can possibly be interpreted, as witnessing to some doctrine different from ours on the point in hand. Thus, on the subject above specified : the Apostles either taught that the Churcli is essentially one body politic ; or tliat it is made up of so many bodies polidc, each governed by its bishop ; or that it is constituted in some other conceivable way. Now we Catholics maintain, (and I think quite imanswerably,) tliat there is no one Ecclesiastical Constitution you can name and deline, except the Catholic, in favoiu- of which you can find so much as one (I will not say distinct testimony, but one) hint, in Scripture or the FaUiers. J'he argument, therefore, stands thus : either the Christian Chuich was ordained to be one indivisi- ble Body Politic, or it was ordained to have some other Constitution which admits of being specified. For the first of these alternatives, a vast body of the most explicit testimony is adduced ; for the second of these alternatives, in any one shape that can be named, no testimony whatever is even attempted ; therefore the first of these alternatives is true. The instances, quoted in opposition, must arise from some inci- dental inability rightly to apply the Catholic principle, not from any principle adverse to the Catholic ; because our opponents themselves cannot name any such principle, which they so much as profess to have been held by the personages whom they adduce. In like manner, if the Christian Church be, by divine appointment, one organised body politic, there must be some bond or centre of union appointed by God. There is the strongest evidence, in Scripture and Antiquity, that the obligation of communion with the Holy See is that bond ; while there is no other bond of union that can be named, for which a particle of evidence is producible. Hence, as before, it follows necessarily, that the obligation of communion with the Holy See mas a divinely ordained principle ; and that the instances brought in oppo- sition, are referrible to slowness or mistake in applying that principle, not from any opposition to the principle itself." Confining myself, then, for the present purpose, to these doc- trines of the Church's Indivisible Unity and of the Roman Su- premacy, the argument from History in their favour may be thus drawn out : beginning with the first-named of the two. That the Apostolic Church was one organised Society, has been already noticed in this Preface, and reference has been made to the section in the Second Letter, which enforces and illustrates the fact. The Apostolic Church, I there observe, " was as truly and as fully a visible and organised Society, as England is, or Austria ; differing only from such bodies politic, as being held together, not by temporal, but by spiritual sanc- tions." I may here add more explicitly, that it was one organ- ised Society, not several; in other words, it was not made up, for instance, of twelve or thirteen organised societies, each governed by an Apostle, but it constituted one such Society governed by the collective body of Apostles. This is quite obvious on the surface of Scripture, and such scriptural facts as I mention in pp. 63 and 64 of the above-named Letter are strong instances and illustrations of it ; nor have I ever heard of any one calling it in question. If any one, however, should dream of questioning XI it, nothing more would be necessary, than to go in detail over the various historical particulars recorded in the Acts, and shew how signally and unmistakeably they evince its truth. The more closely indeed any one examines the New Testament, the more impressed will he be with the amount of evidence by which this fact is attested. 1. If, then, the ApostoHc Church was one organised Society, such arguments as those adduced in my Second Letter, pp. 64, 65, and pp. 68-71, to shew that the Apostolic polity was given to be commensurate in duration with Christianity itself, shew also, or rather shew as merely a different way of stating the same conclusion, that the post-Apostolic Church also was one organ- ised Society ; not a number of societies, each under its bishop, but one Society, governed (according to some mutual relations or other between them,) by the collective body of bishops. That one organised Society should be separated into several societies, is the very same hypothesis with that of its being dissolved altogether. 2. That such was the belief of those who lived at the very time of St. John's death, and the consequent inauguration (if I may so speak) of post-apostolic times, is made further obvious by the universal adoption of the phrase " the one Catholic Church." This phrase, as 1 observed in the Final Letter (p. 5), the Pro- testant Bull himself states to have been in universal use from the time of St. Polycarp ; and it is difficult to imagine a phrase more precisely conveying the doctrine we advocate. The word " Ecclcsia" would surely be most extraordinary for expressing an alliance of independent societies; one "Ecclcsia" still more extraordinary ; but one Catholic " Ecclesia" of all the most extraordinary. The language used, in speaking of the Church, by the earlier Fathers, is altogether in accordance with this same principle ; nor is there a single passage in their writings, which I have seen quoted, or am aware of, which would in the faintest degree sufjgest any other idea. St. Justin Martyr speaks of " those who believe in Him" as being " one soul, and one synagogue, and one Church:' (Waterworth, vol. i. p. 825.) And St. Clement of Alex- andria, " The Church is a city on earth, impregnable and free from tyranny." (Waterworth, vol. i. p. 205.) Xll But from tlie time of St. Cyprian, all possibility of doubt as to the current belief is altogether at an end : for he is led to speak on the subject as distinctly and emphatically as a modern Catholic could speak ; and that simply in the tone of one enun- ciating an admitted truth. Merely as an illustration, to remind my readers of his tone, take the well-known passage : " Part a ray of the sun from its orb, this division of light the unity allows not ; break a branch from the tree, once broken, it can bud no more; cut the stream from its source, the remnant dries up, Tims the Church, flooded with the light of the Lord, &c. Does any one believe that this unity can he rent asunder in the Church ? He who holds not this unity, holds not the law of God .... Christ's people cannot be rent .... There is one God, and one Christ, and the Church is one, and the faith one, and the people one, joined into the solid unity of one body by the glue of concord. Unity cannot he sundered, nor the one body he separated by the dissolution of its structure." (Waterworth, vol, i. pp. 145-8.) S. The same truth also necessarily follows, from the position which I consider myself to have established in my Second Letter ; viz. that the one way given by God for learning, in all ages, the Christian doctrine, is to hear the living infallible Church, The Church cannot agree in her enunciation of doctrine, unless either, on the one hand, there be a special inspiration to each independent part of it, which no one maintains; or else, on the other hand, there be no independent part of it, but one Supreme Government over the whole. An organised society can speak with one voice ; because the discipline which exists therein can forbid all voices except one : but a number of independent soci- eties cannot speak with one voice, unless a standing miracle be maintained, to overrule their otherwise inevitable divergency and contrariety. 4. And lastly, while there is tliis overwhelming amount of positive evidence in behalf of the Church's indivisible organic Unity (to repeat my words in the above-quoted note), " there is no one ecclesiastical constitution except this, which you can so much as name and define, in behalf of which you can find so much as one (I will not say distinct testimony, but one) hint in Scripture or the Fathers." All that Protestants can attempt in this matter is, to instance a certain number of occasions, on xm which certain Fathers do or say certain things, which they would not have said or done, had they fully understood, and habitually in the hurry of practical action borne in mind, the right applica- tioji of this universally-admitted principle. The utter nothing- ness of such a class of objections, is now, I trust, made sufficiently apparent. We may regard this doctrine as now fully proved ; though I could have wished Mr. Hussey had given us some means of judging, how far he himself acquiesces in it. It is one of the many particulars which evince (what I must call) the slipshod way in which he has performed his task, that I am quite unable to discover whether, in this preliminary stage of the controversy, we are to count him as a friend or as an opponent. The second stage of our argument does, of course, bring me into direct collision with his whole work. I would desire his candid and patient attention, while I state my case. The Christian Church, then, is, by divine appointment, One organised Body Politic. But if this be so, it must have, by divine appointment, some bo?id or centre of union. We Catholics consider that the obligation of communion with the Holy See is this di- vinely-appointed bond of union ; and I base this doctrine, to put it briefly, on the following chain of historical demonstration. 1. That there is certain distinct evidence, in Scripture and Antiquity, m favour of such divinely-appointed bond of union; 2. that there must be in the Church some divinely-appointed bond of union of some sort, else she will not he jure divino an organised Society ; and, 3. that there is no other bond of union that can be named, in behalf of which one particle of evidence, even the most faintly probable, from Scripture or Antiquity, admits of being produced. Let me make good these assertions in order, and so draw out the cumulative proof of this doctrine; in doing which I shall do little more than repeat great part of a review which I published in 1848 in the Tablet newspaper, and which I am not sorry of an opportunity to put on more permanent record. Arguments indeed such as Mr. Hussey 's, have literally no prima facie force whatever, even in the way of faint probability, except on an hypothesis concerning the meaning of what is called "Tradition,'' which no one would maintain if nakedly put before him, but which the ordinary run of " high-Church" controver- siaUsts assume and imply in every word they utter. To read their works, one would suppose that unwritten Tradition meant merely Tradition learned by heart, and from some accident not written down. One would suppose that, instead of *' the tra- ditions which have come down to us from the Apostles as it were from hand to hand" (as the Council of Trent speaks), there were a certain series of definite doctrinal statements, in the pos- session of some man or body of men in the Churcli ; a series, containing the doctrinal determinations of all the CEcumenical Councils that ever have sat or ever will sit, and ready to be pro- duced from time to time, whenever circumstances may require. Certainly there is nothing in the world written more plainly on the very surface of History, than that the Gospel message was in fact delivered to the Church in some very different manner from this ; and what that manner was, I have endeavoured to express in my Second Letter (pp. 61, 2).* Seeing, then, that divines and bodies of men are led to very many of their opinions on religious subjects, by the circumstances of their education and position; by individual or national peculiari- ties of character ; by reasons (true or false) ; by imagination, by con- jecture, by impulse, by excitement, by simple misapprehension; — and seeing that the opinions, which they have obtained by divine Tradition, are not necessarily marked off from the former by any precise, definite, or unmistak cable boundary -mark ; — it is plain to how imminent a danger of corruption Tradition would inevi- tably be exposed, if there were not some divinely-appointed touchstone and test of its purity. We, of course, hold most firmly that there is such a touchstone ; that the solemn decisions of the Holy Father, and, by consequence, of any body of bishops acting in communion with the Holy See, are divinely overruled to distinguish true doctrine from false. And we maintain that Tradition must ever be a most untrustworthy guide for the mass of men, unless where such a touchstone is possessed. But our present question is not how the mass of Christians are to be guided, but on what principle controversialists are to deal with the facts * See also, on this subject of Tradition, Father Newman's Lectures on Catholi- cism in England, pp. 306-IU4. XV of Ecclesiastical History ; what is tlie reasonable manner of studying that History, so as to draw from it true conclusions. And I say that such considerations as the above shew it to be in the highest degree probable, that there may have been many doctrines, handed down by the Apostles, of whose Apostolical origin no convincing proof can be directly gathered from the existing records of Antiquity. And much more do they shew, that doctrines, such as the Papal Supremacy, which are most clearly to be proved from these records, must be proved, nevertheless, by means of some more philosophical and reasonable process, than " high-Church" controversialists seem to dream of. It is a truly vulgar conception, to think of deciding on the Apostolicity of such a doctrine by the process of counting heads ; of balancing against each other the number of Fathers who, by their words and acts, seem prima facie to testify for or against. And it is an un- speakably more vulgar conception, — one which we are sorry to find Mr. Hussey now and then half-inclined to countenance, — which would solve the difficulties caused by their apparent dis- crepancies, by imputing to the successive Popes an ambitious and self-aggrandising spirit. It is impossible here to investigate the various principles of historical interpretation, which flow from the view thus opened to us of the ancient Christian records. One canon alone is amply sufficient for our present purpose, and carries its truth and rea- sonableness on its face ; and it is the very one laid down in the note in my Second Letter, which gave occasion to this discussion. " No word or act of early Christians can he admitted as evidence of Divine Tradition, unless we can refer such word or act to some distinct principle, ivhich we can suppose these Christians, consciously or unconsciously, to have held^ Any words or acts which we cannot so refer, must, by the very necessity of the case, be referred to one or other of the causes just mentioned as tend- ing to obscure and corrupt Tradition : they cannot be taken as testifying to any doctrine handed down from Apostolic times, because (by hypothesis) there is no doctrine that can be named, to which they can by any possibility be alleged as testifying. This canon is immediately and undeniably applicable to the present subject, as I shall presently shew ; but even if it were XVI not, would it even then follow that our doctrine is historically doubtful? Let us first examine this question. It has been already shewn, that the first Apostolic Church was but the continuation of that organised Society, whereof the Apostles themselves were the first rulers. From this it follows, that the divinely -given bond or principle of union, of which we are in search, must have been one applicable no less to Apostolic than to subsequent times ; no other hypothesis can possibly meet the requisitions of the problem. The Catholic principle (which as yet I treat merely as a hypothesis) does so far suit the necessi- ties of the case. That St. Peter, and his successors at every period, were, ^Mre divino, the centres of union of the Church, is a plain practical proposition, amply sufficient for what is required. Moreover, this proposition has distinct evidence in its favour, both in Scripture and Antiquity. Let me first adduce the latter. Mr. Hussey indeed says boldly that, until the fourth century, "no claim was advanced beyond that of precedence among equals" (p. 1). How much of authority is implied in the idea of the " divinely- constituted centre of unity," will presently be considered ; but at all events, it is something considerably more than "precedence among equals." And strangely enough (yet honourably to his character for candour and fair dealing), Mr. Hussey alludes in a note to those very cases of St. Victor and St. Stephen, which are the direct contradictories of his assertion. I observe in my Second Letter that " every one who considers the subject is obliged to admit, that the conduct of the early Popes either flowed from a consciousness of their divinely-given supremacy, or was meddling and intrusive. Protestants invariably accept the latter alterna- tive." But as Mr. Hussey has made the above extraordinary assertion, I may as well cite Dr. Burton on these two cases; than whom there cannot be, on every ground, a more unsuspicious authority. He tells us, that " the character of Victor is perhaps the least amiable of any we have yet met with among the heads of the Church ; his conduct to the Asiatic churches cannot he defended'' Moreover, "that nothing can justify St. Stephen's intemperate warmth," and "that an idea o{ pre-eminence, as at- tached to the imperial city and the See of St. Peter, had more than crossed the mind of the Bishop of Rome :" adding, however. xvu that in the mind of St. Cyprian this " only applied to rank and precedence, and not to authority in matters of faith." {Ecc. His- lory of Three First Ages, vol. ii. pp. 236, 356.) 1 may here also add, in regard to Mr. Hussey, that he had no right to assume that St. Irenseus' well-known " potentior principalitas" did not mean what it seems to mean : he should at least tell us, what is his non- natural sense of this phrase. On the general aspect of the Church in the three first cen- turies, I cannot do better than quote at starting Mr. Allies's forcible summary : " The Primitive Church, during nearly three centuries, in whicli it was exposed to continual persecution, was never assembled in a General Council. During that time it was governed by its one Episcopate, cast into the shape which it had received from the moulding hand of S. Peter himself, at the head of the Apostolic College. That Apostle, in his own lifetime, established three primatial Sees, of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, — the mother Churches of three great patriarchates, whicli, as Church after Church was propagated from them, and received its Bishop, yet retained over them a parent's right of correction and inspec- tion. Of these, the two latter, the Sees of Alexandria and Antioch, were subordinate to the See of Rome, to whose Bishop their Bishojis were accountable for the jiurily of their faith, and the due government of their Church. The records of these three first centuries have in a large degree perished ; but we see standing out of them certain facts, which cannot be accounted for but by the Roman Primacy, viz. that the Bishop of Rome, and he alone, claims a control over the Churches of the whole world, threatening to sever from his communion, (and sometimes carrying that threat into execution,) such as do not maintain the purity of that faith which he is charged to watch over, and the rules of that communion which had come down from the Aposdes. The well-known instances of S. Clement writing to the Church of Corinth to heal its divisions, in the very lifedme of S, John, of S. Victor censuring the Asiatic, and S. Steplien, the African Churches, and of S. Dionysius receiving an apology for his faith from his namesake, the Bisliop of Alexandria, are sufficient proofs of this. The force of the fact lies in this, that the Bishop of Rome, and he alone, claims, as need may arise, a control over all ; but no one claims a control over him." It is not to the purpose to reply upon this, that these instances are not demonstrative : neither Mr. Allies nor myself ever said they were. I say that they are evidence of an idea, in the mind of certain Popes and certain other Christians, that the successors c XVlll of St. Peter are those especially charged with preserving the unity of the Church. Whether there were other Fathers who held some different idea as to the bond of ecclesiastical unity, is a question which we are presently to consider. At all events, that the Church in those ages of persecution had very little opportunity for corporate action at all, must be admitted by every one ; and this universally admitted fact, leads of itself, by necessary conse- quence, to the further fact, that a definite and explicit considera- tion of this question as to the divinely-appointed centre of union, and a definite marking out of the prerogatives flowing from it, would be postponed, until the period when these questions should become practically important ; in other words, until this corpo- rate action of the Church should have the opportunity of fully commencmg. For the details of ante-Nicene testimonies on this head, I know no work in every respect more admirable and more suited for reference, than a little treatise published in the year 1848 by Mr. Sconce, a recent Oxford convert.* This writer goes in detail through the various Fathers, and puts together those vari- ous testimonies of theirs, which so remarkably converge on one particular doctrine. In his Introduction he draws attention to the circumstance, "that after St. Ignatius Martyr (and even he hints at the pre-eminence of Rome), every single Father ivho speaks of bishops at all, speaks of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. Those who are silent upon one subject are silent upon the other ; and there are obvious reasons for their silence." I wish it were possible to transfer bodily into this Preface all that part of Mr. Sconce's work, which is occupied with ante-Ni- cene times. I will put down one or two instances as specimens ; begging all my readers who really care to know what Catholics adduce, to have recourse to the treatise itself. 1. St. Clement of Rome (a.d. Q5) is appealed to by the Corinthians in their troubles, and in return to their appeal sends Legates to set matters right ; and this, while the Apostle St. John is still alive. ^. St. Ignatius Martyr speaks of the Roman * The Testimony of Antiquity to the Supremacy of the Holy See, by R. K. Sconce, B.A., Oxon. This treatise, published in Sydney, is always on sale with Messrs. Burns and Lambert, XIX Church, and of that alone, as that which presides. 3. St. Poly- carp, it is said by Eusebius, " in the time of Anicetus's episco- pate, ca77ie to Rome and conferred with him, upon a question that had been started in the Church concerning the observation of Easter." 4. Marcian (a.d. 120), excommunicated by the Church of Pontus, immediately on his excommunication betakes him- self to the Bishop of Rome to procure his restoration. When he arrived. Pope Hyginus was just dead ; but the Presbyters of the See rejected him. 5. St. Dionysius of Corinth (a.d. 168) tells Pope Soter, " This practice has prevailed with you from the very hegimiing, to do good to all the brethren in every way, and to send alms to many churches in every city.'' Again, " To-day we have passed the Lord's holy day, in which we have read your (the Pope's) Epistle ; in reading which we shall always have our minds stored with admonition^ as we shall also from that written to us before by Clement.''' 6. We now come to a well-known and very explicit testimony, — that of St. Irenaeus : "Ad banc [Romanam] Ecclesiam, T^roptev potentiorem principalitatem, ne- cesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam, hoc est omnes qui undique sunt fideles : in qua semper, ab his qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quae ab Apostolis est traditio." Mr. Sconce has a long and eminently candid and luminous comment on this passage. To proceed: 7. King Lucius (a.d. 180) sends messages to Pope St. Eleutherius, begging him to send duly qualified and authorised persons to instruct the Britons in Christianity, and administer to them the divine mysteries : and this, though the great St. Irenaeus was so very much nearer; nay, the mes- sengers would probably pass through Lyons on their way to R-ome. 8. St. Victor threatens to excommunicate the Asiatics ; yet is called by all Antiquity (which differs in that respect from Dr. Burton,) a " thrice-blessed Saint and Martyr." Moreover, the Protestant Grotius expressly says that " Irenaeus, when he admonishes Victor concerning a right use of his power, by that very fact recognises his authority over the Churches in Asia." 9. Praxeas (a.d. 201), in the words of Tertullian, "prevailed on the then Bishop of Rome to recall the letters of peace already sent out, and to cease from his intention of accepting offerings." 10. Tertullian, when a Catholic, says that St. Peter was. the XX rock oil wliicli tlie Church was built ; tliat the Lord left His keys to the Church ^^ through Peter i' that "into the Roman Church the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their whole doctrine " that with "our neighbours the Romans both Peter and Paul left the Gospel, sealed too with their blood." As a heretic, he bears witness to the prominent position held by the Pope in that Church which was opposing him, by calling the Roman Bishop, in irony and derision, " the Supreme Pontiff,'' " the Bishop of Bishops," " Apostolicus," " the Most Blessed Pope;" and by speaking of a "peremptory edict" having been "issued" by him, and "read in the Church." Excellent are Mr. Sconce's comments on Tertullian. 1 1 . Origen says : " On Peter as on the earth the Church was founded." Peter is " the great foundation of the Church and the solid rock on which Christ built His Church." " To Peter the supremacy in feeding the sheep was given, and on him as on a rock the Church was built." " St. Peter is reckoned first in the number of the twelve, obviously as being more honoured than the rest." "Since it was ordered that Peter should have {in especial office, distinctly and previously it was said to Peter, ' I will give thee the keys, &c.' before it was said to the rest, ' Whatsoever ye shall hind on earth, &c.' If, too, we examine the Evangelical Scri])- tures carefully, we shall find in them, that even in cases where Peter's power seems to be shared by those who are commissioned to exercise discipline over their brethren, there is a great difference and pre-eminence evident in what is said to Peter above the others who were second to him." \2. St. Hippolytus (a.d. 230) says, "Peter uttered these words," &c., and thus " the rock of the Church was consolidated." 13, St. Cyprian, who is so very voluminous and energetic in behalf of the Church's indivisible Unity, is hardly less so in his enunciation of what he regards as the divinely-given principle of such Unity. Thus, " Our Lord built His Church upon Peter, being one ; and though He gave to all the Apostles an equal power, yet, in order to manifest Unity, He has, by His own authority, so placed the source of the same Unity as to begin with one." ' To manifest Unity,' as need not be proved, means here * to preserve manifest, i. e. visible Unity ;' and ' the source of the same unity,' in St. Cyprian's judgment, is the Holy See. In like manner. XXI ** there is one Church founded by our Lord upon Peter, with a source and means of Unify." " God is one and Christ one, and the Church one, and the chair one, founded upon Peter by the voice of the Lord . . . Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters." " Peter, on whom He built the Church, and /row whom He insti- tuted and proclaimed the source of Unity.'" " The chciir of Peter, and the principal Church, whence hath issued the Unity of the priesthood." Speaking of the Roman See and Church of his own day : " The place of Peter and the rank of the Sacerdotal Chair was vacant" at such a time ; i. e. the Holy See was vacant. The Roman Church is " the root and womb of the Catholic Church." To Pope St. Cornelius he says, "Letters were sent generally to all the dioceses, that everyone of our colleagues might steadfastly approve and hold to your communion ; that is, to the Unity and Charity of the Catholic Church." To Pope St. Stephen : " Give us clearly to understand who has been substituted in Marcian's stead at Aries, that we may know with tvhom to direct our bre- thren to communicate." To the same on some African affairs : " To you in the very first place it was our duty to write on this subject." 14. The Roman Presbyters, sede vacante, to St. Cyprian: " It is incumbent upon us ivho seem to be set in the chief place, and in the absence o( the Shepherd, to have the charge of the flock." One would quite fancy they were the Cardinals of the 19th century who were speaking. Again : " The whole (Roman) Church salutes you, which also with the utmost solicitude watches for all who call upon the name of the Lord." Agam, " It is no wonder that you, . . . brother Cyprian, ... be willing that we should rather have a hand in, than be mere judges of your measures." " As for the matter of" a certain African Bishop, " you acted like your- self in giving us information of a subject which we arc anxious about ; for it is the duty of us all to be watchful for the body of the whole Church, whose members are scattered through the various provinces." 15. The Emperor Aurelius leaves the decision, as to whether Paul Samosatene is or is not Bishop of Antioch, to " the Bishops of Italy and Rome." In regard to some few of the above quotations, it is to be observed, that since we have already proved that the later Chris- XXll tiaii Church is a contuiuation of the Apostolic, those Fathers who declared that the Apostolic Church was built upon Peter, must by absolute necessity further imply, that the later Church is built upon Peter also ; i. e. upon * Peter living in his succes- sors,' to use the ecclesiastical phrase. I consider that all these quotations, fairly considered, prove a very great deal more indeed than they are here adduced to prove. They are adduced to prove, that certain Christians in the three first centuries regarded the Roman Bishops as having a position, quite special and distinct from other Bishops, in keeping together that organised Society called the Church : that whereas the Church is one edifice, built up by God Himself, certain Christians con- sidered St. Peter, in himself and in his successors, to be the rock whereon that one edifice was huilt ; that whereas the Church is by divine appointment indivisibly One, communion with the See of Peter was the divinely-appointed instruvient and means of such Unity. For the later centuries, it is hardly necessary to consult any compiler of facts beyond Mr. Hussey himself. I am quite un- able indeed to admit, that he gives a /air view of the period on which he treats ; though to imagine any intentional unfairness would be preposterous. Still the facts quoted by him are very amply sufficient ; and we may note it, I suppose, as one post at length surrendered to the forces of truth, that he admits the Su- premacy to have been claimed by the Holy See from the fourth century downwards. Those very ages of purity then, it is at last conceded, to which the four great QEcumenical Councils be- long ; — which are the very period specially contemplated by the Anglican Prayer-book under the name of Antiquity ; — in which lived all those great Fathers who are quoted with every epithet of honour by the Anglican homilies ; — these were ages in which the evil weed of Papal Supremacy had already reached a rank luxuriance ! Mr. Hussey would seem to have arrived at a very definite conclusion, as to the exact date of undue Papal pretensions ; and to have placed their first exhibition precisely between Pope St. Julius (a.d. 342) and Pope St. Damasus (a.d. 366). For he says (p. 7), that the former Pope " knew of no right, divine or human. XXlll belonging to the Pope, of supreme jurisdiction over the rest of the Church; but only tJie custom of precedence and priority of placed Whereas, in St. Damasus's time, the Roman Church " put forth arrogant pretensions," and " a claim of authority" (p. 18); and " Paulinus's party" are represented, on St. Basil's au- thority, as having " brought letters from the West as if they were a warrant from some sovereign power;'' and as being "proud of such documents ;" and St. Damasus himself, on the same autho- rity, as " a high and mighty personage seated aloft somewhere, who for that reason could not bear to hear those who from below spoke the truth to him" (pp. 19, 20). Moreover, St. Jerome tells the same St. Damasus, " While I follow no chief but Christ, I am joined in communion 'with thy beatitude, that is, the seat of Peter. On that rock I know the Church is built." It were to have been wished that Mr. Hussey had gone on with this quotation, which would have made still clearer St. Jerome's meaning: "Whoso- ever shall eat the Lamb outside that house is profane ; if a man be out in the ark of Noe he shall perish ; . . . whosoever gathers not ivith thee scattereth ... I implore you, if it be your pleasure, isstie your decree." And it were also to have been wished that Mr. Hussey had inserted the passage which immediately precedes his quotation : " Though your greatness aives me, your kindness en- courages me to approach to you. From the priest I ask the sacri- fice of salvation, from the pastor the cure of the sheep." In this connexion I may refer also to a quotation in my Second Letter (p. 15), also cited by Mr. Hussey (p. 16) from the law (a.d. 380) of Gratian and Theodosius, giving, as the very test of orthodoxy, the agreement with St. Peter's Tradition, as preserved in Rome, and witnessed by Damasus. Further, " the Archbishop of Aragon addressed a letter to St. Damasus, asking for directions, &c. This letter reached Rome after Siricius was Pope (a.d. 384), and he answered it in a style of authority, intermixing some reproofs. His answers would stand as decrees upon the several points submitted to his judgment; indeed he speaks of the Deer eta of his predecessor Liberius : and thus the Papal decretals grew up" (Hussey, pp. 25, 26). That from this time forward, then, the Popes invariably claimed Supremacy over the Church, is Mr. Hussey 's distinct XXIV admission; and his subsequent pages contain innumerable in- stances of the fact. But as he says that Pope St. Julius knew of no such Svipremacy (p. 7), we may as well turn to Mr. Sconce's pages for his senti- ments. Pope St. Julius, then, is quoted by St. Athanasius as writing what follows : " Why was nothing said to us of the Church of Alexandria in par- ticular ? Are you ignorant that the custom has been for word to be wvhtenfrst to us, and then for a just sentence to be passed yVom this place? If, then, any suspicion rested on the Bishops there, notice thereof ouirht to have been sent to the Church of this place ; whereas, after neg- lecting to inform us, and proceeding on their own authority as they pleased, now they desire to obtain our concurrence in their decisions . . . not so have the constitutions of Paul, not so have the traditions of the Fathers, directed : this is another form of procedure, a novel j}racfice . . • What we have received from the blessed Apostle St. Peter, that I signify to you ; and I should not have written this, as deeming that these things tvere manifest to all men, had not these proceedings so disturbed us." Such are the words of the Pope, whom Mr. Hussey regards as having known of no right of Supreme Jurisdiction over the rest of the Church ! And this same St. Julius is addressed by the Western Bishops assembled at Sardica in a fully corresponding strain : " This will appear best and most highly fitting, if the Bishops out of every province make reference to the head, that is, the See of Peter." It may also be worth while, as Mr. Hussey quotes St. Basil's strong expressions against St. Damasus, and as he is therefore the most unsuspicious of authorities, to see, from Mr. Sconce's work, what was his belief on this doctrinal question. " Blessed Peter set over all the disciples,'''' &c. " receiced upon him- self the fabric of the Church ;" and to St. Damasus himself: " Nearly tlie whole East . . . labours under a lieavy storm and surge. We have been expecting a visitation from your tender compassion, as the one remedy of these evils. Your extraordinary love has in time past ever charmed our souls . . . Send persons like-minded with us either to reconcile the parties at variance and bring the Churches of God to unity, or at least to give you a clearer understanding of the authors of con- fusion, so that you may be sure in future with whom it is fitting to hold conmuuiion. IVe are in no wise asking an[i Ihinf] new . . . for we know XXV by tradition . . . that Diont/sius, that most blessed Bishop [oCRovae], sent letters of visitation to our Church at Ccesarea, S^-c. It seemed fit to us to write to the Bishop of Rome, to beg that he would visit our affairs and interpose a decree of his judgment, that . . • he may himself ^/»e authority to chosen men ... to bring with them the acts of the Council of Ariminum and modify them where they seem to he harsh. Eustathius ... on being deposed (from his bishopric), took measures to effect his restoration . . . We are not aware of what passed between him and the Bishop of Rome, or to ivhat terms they eame. All we know is, that he brought a letter, on production of ivhich to the Council of Thyana he was restored to his See." I cannot fancy that the most prejudiced of our opponents could look through the testimonies collected in Mr. Sconce's work, without being greatly surprised and startled at their num- ber and strength. But the only proposition which my argument calls on me to put forth, is an extremely safe one ; viz. that as in ante-Nicene, so in post-Nicene times, there were certain Christians, who considered that the Holy See was the divinely- appointed means for preserving that Unity of organisation, which, by divine appointment, was an essential characteristic of the Church. Further, there are certain passages of Scripture which (to speak greatly within bounds) obtain an incomparably deeper and more natural meaning, if we suppose them to imply the same doctrine, than by any other interpretation which has ever been suggested. I may refer to Mr. Allies' work on the See of St. Feter (pp. 13-35) for an admirable summary of these testimonies; but if any one wishes to know how much may be most fairly and directly deduced from holy Scripture on this head, let him con- sult Father Passaglia's work De Prceroc/ativis Beati Petri (1850, sold in London by Nutt). Let no one imagine he has done justice to this controversy, without perusing this most admirable volume. We have now arrived, then, at two conclusions. The first is, that the Christian Church was founded at Pentecost as one orga- nised Society, and as one organised society was handed down by divine authority to post -apostolic times. The second is, that whereas a Society, by divine law (me, must have some divinely- XXVI given principle of unity, there have been certain Christians in every subsequent age, who have considered that the obligation of communion with St. Peter and his successors was such principle; and further, that there are certain scriptural texts, which have a far more natural and probable interpretation by supposing that Christ and His Apostles taught the same doctrine. Let me now attempt to draw forth the cumulative evidence on which our con- clusion rests, that such doctrine is the true one. 1. Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that some other doc- trine on the subject really prevailed, at certain periods, in some portion of the Church : what would follow from this ? Protestant controversialists, and Mr. Hussey in the number, seem to take for granted that this circumstance would at once prove our doc- trine to be a corruption. Yet surely, upon all ordinary rules of logic, it would prove nothing of the sort ; it would prove only that one or other of the two doctrines was a corruption. And the circumstances of the time or place where the two doctrines respectively prevailed, might be sufficient to have made clear, even to contemporaries, which of the two was corrupt. To fix our ideas by an example. Mr. Hussey, as was to have been expected, lays the greatest stress on a certain attitude of antagonism, assumed on certain occasions towards the Holy See, by the general body of Eastern Bishops. Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that these Bishops advocated some doctrine dif- fering from ours on the matter in hand. What would have been the value of their authority with contemporary Catholics ? Here were a body of Bishops, who so grossly failed in their very most sacred trust, that, had it not been for the intervention of the Popes of the period, it is very doubtful (to speak much within the mark) whether Nestorianism would not at one time have pre- vailed throughout the East, or Eutychianism at another time have been formally decreed there ; not to speak here of the Arian scandals. It is very easily conceivable then, that among such a wretched body of Bishops, a false theory on the far less primarily sacred question of Church government might have received admittance ; and the more readily, if it were such as to flatter their love of independence. Nay, and it is quite conceivable also, that even holy men (who would have been saved from heresy XXVll in these high doctrinal mysteries by their sanctity itself, and by the firm grasp of Dogmatic Tradition which they would thereby obtain, and by their deeply meditative study of Scripture,) might yet have acquiesced almost unawares in such a theory. If, then, there really had been two rival theories at that time, respectively maintained in East and West, — there would yet have been suffi- cient indications for a right-minded Catholic, who should apply himself to the task of methodically considering the matter, to feel pretty confident on which side was the corruption and on which the true Apostolic Tradition. For Rome, even by Mr. Hussey's own confession (p. 56), " on this (the Nestorian), as on other occasions, was the champion of orthodoxy," And of the West generally, as every historian admits, a calm, stable, unmoved faithfulness and consistency on all matters of doctrine was the unfailing characteristic ; of the East, qualities the very reverse of these. 2. But even if Christians of that age might, on such a hypo- thesis, have conceivably been perplexed in their attempts to de- cide which was the true Tradition, it does not in the least follow that for us there is any perplexity. It was admitted on both sides (as none will deny) that the Church is destined by divine promise to last to the end of the world ; * and it was admitted * It occurs to me, since writing the above, that an objection may be brought against me, on the ground that I have not proved the indefectibilUy of the Church, but only its continuance into post-apostolic times. I omitted to prove this, only because I have never heard of any one doubting it, who believed that the Church by divine appointment entered into post-apostolic times at all. Mr, Waterworth's work, so often quoted, may be here also referred to under the head ' indefectibility ;' nor am I aware on this head of so much as one prima facie difficulty over the whole expanse of Ecclesiastical History, which requires to be considered. It may be well, however, to add the following from Mr. Palmer, a very unsuspicious authority when his words make _/br us. "The perpetuity of the Church is indeed in some sense admitted by all parties. The creeds, which are received by the infinite majority of professing Christians, express a belief in the existence of ' One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church ;' which usage can only be founded on the doctrine that the Chiircli was always to continue: for why otherwise should men profess their belief in the existence oftheCburch as an article of the faithl We find that such a belief was universal among Christians from a very remote period. St. Athanasius says: ' The word is faithful, the promise is unshaken, and the Church is invincible, though the gates of hell should come, though hell itself and the rulers of the darkness of the world therein be set in motion.' His im- mediate predecessor in the see of Alexandria, St. Alexander, had taught the same doctrine: ' We confess one and only one Catholic and Apostolic Church, never to be xxvin also (as we have already proved) that the Church was one organ- ised Society. But if any other hypothesis except ours as to the divinely-given principle of Unity were true, the divinely-consti- tuted Church has long since ceased to exist ; since there is no one organised Society, except our own, which so much as claims to be the one successor of the Apostolic Church. See on this head the Second Letter, pp. 72, 3. Even, then, if the extravagant supposi- tion were conceded, that Christians of that century could have been exposed to reasonable doubt, we are not exposed to such doubt ; for undeniable experience has shewn us which of the two (supposed) theories was really Apostolical. And this argumeiit, be it observed, would exist in its full force, if the direct evidence in behalf of our theory were ftir less than it is ; nay even if there were none producible. S. But the strongest part of the case is, that there is literally no rival theory whatever producible : from East any more than from West ; from earlier any more than from later centuries ; from those who most resisted particular exercises of power on the part of the Popes, than from those who most consistently up- held them. If there be any such at least, let it be stated. Pro- testant arguers have shewn their controversial tact, by studiously avoiding any such attempt ; for, in truth, the mere attempt of such a task on the part of our opponent, would serve our cause better than the most elaborate argument on the part of our friend. Thus, to fix our ideas by an instance, if Catholic Unity do not by divine appointment consist in communion with the Pope, it may be conceived to consist in communion with the majority/ of duly ordained Bishops ; the full statement of which hypothesis would be something as follows. " The divinely -given bond of union for destroyed, though the whole world should war against it.' Eusebius observes, that the Lord 'foretold that His Church, composed of all nations, by His power should be invincible, unconquerable, and never to be overcome even by death,' ' Hence,' says Jerome, ' we understand that the Church may indeed be assailed by persecutions to the end of the world, but cannot be subverted ; may be tempted, but not overcome; and this will be because the Lord God Almighty, the Lord God ot the Church, has promised that He will do so/ Augustine confirms the same truths : ' The Cluirch shall not be overcome, it shall not be rooted up, nor shall it yield to any temptations, until the end of this world shall come.' " — 0;i the Church, partii. sect. i. cap. 2. XXIX " the Apostles, was the obHgation of remaining in communion " with the majority of their number : all duly-ordained Bishops " are successors of the Apostles: accordingly, the divinely-given " bond of union for priests and laity, is submission to duly-ordained " Bishops : and that for Bishops, is the obligation of remaining " in communion with the majority of their number. St. Peter's " Successor has no pre-eminence or authority over the Bishops, " but only the place of precedence among equals. He, no less " than they, is subject to the decrees of the Majority, whether dis- " persed or authoritatively assembled in Council, in matters of " faith and discipline ; and becomes a schismatic if he separates " himself from their communion. All Christians, who wish to be " within the One Church, must count up the number of Bishops " in each separate society, and remain lirm in the communion of *' that in which they find the majority of heads: secure that this " is the one, which has the gift of salvation and is the Body of " Christ, and the rest are alien from the promises. If, indeed, " so many Bishops should leave one of these societies for another " as to change the balance of numbers, the society thus increased " forthwith becomes the True Church ; from which henceforth, " until further notice, we are to learn true doctrine and receive " the Christian Sacraments." This is simply the consistent statement of one rival theory to the Catholic, which can be devised ; and, as I need hardly point out, for such a theory as this, I will not say that less evi- dence is producible from Antiquity than for the Catholic, but rather that not one particle or scintilla of evidence, no not the faintest hint, is discoverable. There is an appearance of absur- dity in the mere methodical statement of it. Let some other, then, in like manner be attempted : as for example, that certain Patriarchs are successors of the Apostles ; that Catholic Unity in the first age consisted in communion with the majority of the Apostles, and in subsequent ages with a majority of these Patriarchs; that the Pope is but one of these Patriarchs, though in precedency the first ; that he is bound therefore to obey the decision of the majority of their number. Here again, it would be just as accordant with the most obvious facts of History, to say that the Lord Mayor of London is the XXX head of the Catholic Church, as to say that at any period she was believed by any one person to have received from Christ such a constitution as this. This whole argument seems to me very unanswerable ; and yet, as Protestant controversialists seem somehow to miss its force, I must risk wearying the friendly reader's patience, by repeating it once more in another shape. They dwell with great emphasis on various instances of resistance, on the part of Bi- shops and others, to certain particular acts of papal power. Let them fix their attention on those very instances. Do the principal personagesthemselves, in these various acts of opposition, profess to ground their opposition on any theory whatever, on the con- stitution of the Church, different from ours ? Do they main- tain e. g. that each Bishop has a divine right to govern his diocese, both as to discipline and as to doctrine, according to his own judgment, independently of external interference, whe- ther from Patriarch or Pope ? or do they maintain that each Patriarch has the divine right of governing his patriarchate according to his own judgment independently of such interfer- ence ? or do they allow indeed that the Church is one organ- ised Society, and that her supreme government may therefore interfere at its discretion in the affairs of each patriarchate and each diocese, but maintain that the Church's supreme go- vernment is vested in some certain other man or aggregate of men which they name, and not in the Pope ? If to any one of these questions Protestants could give an affirmative answer, they would be far enough indeed from proving their cause, but at least they would have a locus standi ; they would have their theory, as we have ours; and we should have to compare the one theory with the other, in respect of the evidence for its Aposto- licity. But if the very opposite be the case, — if in the very words and professions of the greatest objectors against Rome, you search as fruitlessly as in those of her greatest upholders, for one syllable implying any counter -{\\eoxy whatever, — nothing surely but the lowest and most unreasoning prejudice can at- tach the slightest weight to such grounds of objection. A party cannot be admitted into the argumentative arena, until they will name the thesis for which they intend there to dispute. Let XXXI Mr. Hussey but be induced to name his thesis, and the argument will be brought to a very speedy and satisfactory close. Till then, I must be allowed once more to sum up my argument. 1 . The Church was either founded and continued as one indivi- sible body politic, or was ordained to have some other constitu- tion which admits of being specified. In behalf of the first of these alternatives there is a vast body of most explicit evidence ; for the second, in any shape that can be named, not one particle of evidence. Therefore the first alternative is true ; that is, the Church by divine right is one indivisible body politic. 2. An indivisible body politic has some one or other bond or principle of union : the Church therefore, being by divine ap- pointment an indivisible body politic, has by divine appointment some such bond. There is strong evidence in Scripture and An- tiquity, that the obligation of communion with the Holy See is that bond ; there is no other alleged bond of union, in behalf of which one single scrap of evidence is producible from Scripture or Antiquity. Therefore the Church, by divine appointment one indivisible body politic, has, for its bond of union, the divinely- imposed obligation of communion with the Holy See. I now proceed further. It needs not many words to shew, that, to be the centre of unity in such a Society is, by the most necessary consequence, to be its Supreme Governor. The argument in the sixth section of my Second Letter purports to prove, that the Church is a Society, endowed by God with the gift of infallibly teaching doctrine, and entrusted also by Him with the commission of enforcing by His authority rules of discipline. Let us first consider the latter of these two. She is by divine appointment indivisibly one, with the power, as one, of enforcing by a supernatural sanction rules of discipHne. Let us suppose now, for a moment, that her bond of unity had been (as is more common in temporal con- stitutions,) the voice of the majorittj of her rulers ; and let us suppose that this or that individual ruler, in any particular case, were to attempt, contrary to the will of this majority, to enact, in his own particular province, this or that disciplinary law. If such an enactment were binding, it would follow that the Society had not the right of governing as one ; but the very contrary, that each individual ruler was so far tlie independent head of XXXll a separate society : wlncli is precisely contrary to the supposi- tion witli which we set out. Every one would see this in the case supposed. Again, if the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had the power of enacting laws for Ireland, contrary to the will of the United Parliament, that would be tantamount to saying that Great Britain and Ireland do not make up one body politic, but tivo. Now the case before us is precisely parallel. For the fact that, in the Christian Ciiurch, the bond of union is not the voice of the majority, nor the voice of an United Parliament, but the obligatoriness of communion with one definite personage, makes no difference in the principle. If a Bishop could make disciplinary laws in his own diocese, contrary to the express prohibition of Rome, and when a withdrawal of her communion is the consequence, that would be simply to say that the Chris- tian Church, so far as discipline is concerned, is not one Society, but consists of as many societies as there are Bishops. Such laws of an individual Bishop therefore are only binding, so long as Rome does not expressly annul them. In the last resort, there- fore, Rome is sovereign.* * Since writing the above, I have referred with great attention to an article against the Papal Supremacy, which appeared in the Christian Remembrancer for January 1851. I find there a passage which will help me to make my argument here still clearer. " We need but cast our eyes around the society in which we live, to see that a first place is different from, and short of, absolute power ; and that such primacies not only of rank, but of real power, differ in every conceivable degree among them- selves. To say that an authority is in some sense supreme, tells nothing of its real extent of action, till we know what other powers work with it" (pp. 71,2). This is most just. The writer proceeds to illustrate : " There are supreme courts, courts of first appeal, &c. ; . . . but these are powers only under fixed condi- tions ; apart from those conditions, their pre-eminence avails them nothing. Take the dominant state in an association of nations ; it may be the leadership of Sparta, or the rule of Athens, or the empire of Rome, or the pre-eminence of Austria and Prussia. , . . Take the general of an order, the abbot of a monastery, the head of a college, the chancellor or vice-chancellor of a university ; primacies all of them, of great and real poioer^'' and yet not absolute. Nothing can be more important than the bringing together of such instances ; and their contrast with that of the Papal Primacy will make our argument clearer. We put out of the question, of course, such instances as do not refer to an organised society at all ; such as the alliances of Sparta and Athens ; as I am not supposing it questioned here, that the Church was divinely set up and continued under this pre- cise idea of an organised Society : this is the previous thesis which I have admit- ted all through to be a necessary basis for the present. Take the other instances, an order, a monastery, a college, an university, — you sec at once that each one of them has a constitution of its own ; and that this is its bond or principle of union. A general of an order or abbot has exactly so many privileges as the rules of the order XXXUl In my Second Letter I have carried out a similar argument into the province of teaching. " If the one way appointed by Christ for us to learn doctrine is, that we receive humbly the teaching of His Church ; and if that Church be the Visible Body in communion with Rome ; to suppose that this body can teach error, is to suppose that Christ Himself can directly teach error" (p. 121). But if the Society in communion with Rome cannot teach error, this is but saying, in other words, that Rome cannot enforce error as the condition of communion ; or, in other words again, that tenets, which she does enforce as conditions of com- munion, cannot be errors. Both these respective doctrines, then, are by absolute neces- sity implied in our original statement, that Rome is the divinely- appointed centre of union ; and, as being so implied, must have been inevitably evolved from it, as time went on, and as circum- stances elicited its full meaning and its divers bearings. But, in fact, both these consequences were not unperceived, but directly recognised, in various instances, from the first. Indeed, of the respective quotations which I have drawn out from Mr. Sconce's work, it will be found (I think) that quite as many refer to the Holy Father under the special idea of " supreme visible teacher," or " supreme visible governor of the Church," as under that more elementary one of " centre of unity;" and as early as the Fourth or monastery confer upon him ; and if tliere be a dispute as to the meaning of the rules, there is a duly appointed tribunal to adjudicate. Precisely the same in a col- lege or in an university, as we all know ; precisely the same, I may add, in the case ofthat Society, which is called the " United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." The constitution of an order, is not the obligation of its members to continue in com- munion with a certain specified general ; nor of a monastery with a particular abbot ; nor of a college with the head; nor of an university with the vice-cliancellor; nor even of the United Kmgdom with the Queen. General, abbot, vice-chancellor, and head, may all be deposed by duly appointed authority; and (I trust it is not unbecoming, for the sake of making my argument clear, to put so absurd a suppo- sition) if the King or Queen of England were to endeavour to enforce laws of his own, against the will of parliament, and were to refuse to specify any one as being his responsible adviser (who in that case, as such, would be condignly punished l)y the outraged laws), every one would regard him as having ipso Jar to ceased to reign. Now nothing can make clearer than this, the very point for which 1 am contend- ing. In the case of the Catholic Church, its precise constitution, its precise principle of Unity, is (what it is not in the other case) the obligation oi communion with its head ; at least, as I have so often sjiid, if that be not its divinely-given constitution, let our opponents endeavour to name some other. IJut if it he, then, as I argue in the text, the Pope must he jure divino absolute sovereign. XXXIV Century, as every one knows, we find tliis very precise expression, " The Church is God's house, whose ruler at this time is Dama- sus" (quoted by Newman on Development). There would literally not be the slightest difficulty in the way of these various conclusions, though there were even a con- siderable number of ecclesiastical facts which the Catholic found it difficult to understand. In tlie first place, the Protestant finds such facts as difficult to understand as the Catholic does; for if not, why is he not able to state the definite anti-Catholic thesis, which he imagines such facts to support ? But, in truth, I have already drawn out a large number of causes, amply sufficient in them- selves to account for any extent of traditionary corruption ; and literally, the very utmost, that our inability to explain this or that fact would shew, is, that in our great ignorance of various contemporary circumstances, we are not able to specify for cer- tain, among all these classes of corrupting causes, to which the particular corruption was attributable. But the only matter which concerns us is, surely, not how we are to account for such a corruption, but whether we are quite certain it is a corruption. And of this we are quite certain, as I have so repeatedly said, in the existing state of the controversy ; it is quite certain that this or that act or speech of this or that Father is no exponent of a genuine Tradition, is no evidence of any Apostolical doctrine, when those very adversaries, who cite such act or speech, are unable so much as to imagine any conceivably Apostolical doc- trine, in behalf of which they can even allege it. I suppose there is more than one doctrinal question (though I have really no particular instance in my mind when I make the observation,) on which this consideration must be the refuge of a Catholic ; more than one instance, in vphich, while it is most abundantly certain from History that this or that tenet is a cor- ruption, our ignorance of facts, nevertheless, is too great, to allow us to ascertain the exact origin, and trace the exact progress, of such corruption. But at all events, on the present subject, there is no such difficulty. It would, perhaps, be bold to say, that no one isolated instance presents obstacles in the way of satisfactory explanation ; though I know none of those commonly alleged in controversy which presents any: but this I confidently affirm. XXXV that the general lie and course of ecclesiastical phenomena in every age, to my mind, group themselves, with the utmost rea- diness and naturalness, around this central Catholic doctrine. The only assumption necessary to explain them, being one which, over and above the evidence of its truth arising /ro??i its explaining and harmonising facts, will be admitted (I think) by every candid person, to have the utmost antecedent probabi- lity in its favour. That assumption is the following : That in proportion as persecution ceased, and free intercourse between the various parts of the Church became habitual, — and again, in proportion as orthodoxy became more deeply and firmly estab- lished, — the consoUdation of the Christian Empire became one primary object, at which the visible sovereign of that Empire was bound to aim. Every one knows what is meant in History by the consolida- tion of an Empire ; it is making the sovereign power more sen- sibly and practically felt through every part of it. And every one knows the inestimable importance of this process, where the object is, on the one hand, to foster a deep spirit of unity within, and, on the other hand, to make the Empire influential or formi- dable in its eff*ect on those without. And when I speak of this as one primary object at which the Supreme Pontiffs were bound to aim, I am far from meaning that a distinct plan of operations towards this result was consciously thought out, and handed onwards from Pope to Pope : this is not the ordinary way by which God performs great works. Rather, each successive event would bring with it some new consciousness to the mind of the reigning Pontiff, as to the nature and extent of the post which God had assigned to his keeping; the functions which of right belonged to it; and the immediate duties jiowiny from those functions. Let me now, then, take in order the chief anti-papal objections, and see how immediately tliey fall to the ground on this simple view of the case. And I say anti-papal rather than Protestant, for the reason so often repeated ; because such rea- sons are in favour 0/ nothing at all, and would bo as pertinent in the mouth of an atheist as of an Anglican; being objections against one definite view, and not tending ever so remotely to the establishment of another in its stead. XXXVl Objection 1. The Popes were continually making " aggres- sions" on the rights of other bishops ; i. e. claiming to exercise power which they had not been in the habit of exercising. Undoubtedly. To make the sovereign's influence more sen- sibly felt throughout the Church, one most obvious means is, that he shall take into his hands various matters of administration, which had hitherto been allowed to remain in other hands. To make " aggressions," in this sense, was one principal duty of the reigning Pontiff. Objection 2. These " aggressions" were frequently resisted by those against whom they were directed. So Mr. Hussey, passim. Certainly this would be an objection, if our opponents main- tained, or if we on our principles were bound to maintain, such wooden, stupid, ideas on the nature of Tradition, as those exposed some pages back. If, for instance, we were bound to maintain, that the early orthodox Bishops, — while heathen persecution was op- pressing them and keeping them asunder, or while they were en- gaged in an active and protracted struggle against the most insidious heresies, in behalf of those high mysteries of faith which are the stay and support of the holy soul, — if we were bound to main- tain that these Bishops, through the excitement of their material and their moral conflicts, preserved accurately, in their memory or in writing, a precise and definite constitutional code, with which they were prepared rigorously to square their ecclesiasti- cal acts in proportion as circumstances should allow, though cir- cumstances had hitherto forbidden its practical adoption; — if we were bound to maintain this, there is no lack of absurd results of all kinds which would also be pressed on our accep- tance. But if not, how can it cause a moment's wonder that, in various instances, they were not prepared at once to admit some claim on the part of a Pope, which confessedly had not been previously put forth ? The very fact of his interference implies, that, on the imme- diate circumstances of the case, on the desirableness of some matter of discipline, or on the essentialness (if I may coin a word) of some matter of doctrine, their opinion differed from his. Can it be gravely urged as an objection to their true belief in XXXVll his Supremacy, that many men were slow to surrender a precon- ceived opinion, or innovate on a long-established usage, in defer- ence to a mandate from him, which confessedly went beyond any former exercise of his power ? Is it the common habit even of very able men, much more of men of ordinary intellect, under circumstances of excitement and in the hurry of a crisis, to ana- lyse the speculative opinions they hold, and carry them forward to their true conclusions ? And are they more likely to do so, when these conclusions are strongly in the teeth both of ancient custom and present inclination ? Nay, even if the opposition be energetic and long-continued, is it unnatural that the Holy Father, at the helm, should take a more true and just view of principles, than a local Bishop in some corner of Christendom ? Or, again, is it uncommon to find that a conscientious man thinks more about his own duties than others do for him ? and so that a Pope would be more keen-sighted than others as to the extent of his own prerogatives, when such prerogatives involved the heaviest re- sponsibilities ? Objection 3. It is sometimes found in History, that Popes yield for the time to such opposition ; and yet that their succes- sors make use of some more favourable moment, for estahlishing the once-abandoned claims. This is so obviously the course dictated by charity, in cases where the opposition is bona fide; where the concession involves no direct violation of duty (such e.g. as toleration of heresy); and where to press the claim at the moment might risk a schism ; that I should not even put it down as an objection, did I not know that it is gravely urged as such. Let me refer, for a more detailed treatment of it, to the Second Letter, pp. 18-20. Objection 4. It happened more than once, that an Emperor, or again a Council, acted or spoke in a way apparently incon- sistent with belief in the Pope's doctrinal infallibility ; and yet the Pope acts with them, without scruple or protest, in taking measures against the heresy of the day. There is no sin in communicating with those, who even in terms deny the Pope's doctrinal infallibility; much less therefore with those, who only do not seem distinctly to apprehend it in itself or in its results : because this truth, however certain, has XXXVIU never, even to this day, been defined as an article of faith. Never indeed did any Pope, from the earliest times, admit the possi- bility of doctrinal corruption in the Holy See. But when he found an Emperor or Bishops ready to act with him in energeti- cally repressing heresy, was he to wait for an explicit recognition of his prerogatives, and so allow the heresy to make progress, and infect the body of the Church, and destroy souls to an inde- finite extent ? Objection 5. The canons of Sardica conferred on the Pope the right of appeal ; those therefore who enacted these canons did not believe that the Pope,^"Mre divino, had such right. Mr. Hussey takes for granted, without argument, that these canons confer upon the Pope a right, which he had not hitherto been in the habit of exercising : Mr. Sconce adduces arguments, which seem conclusively to prove the reverse of tliis. But the question is quite immaterial. The Council is occupied, either in sanctioning a discipline already established, or introducing a new one, (I care not which,) on the question of appeal. It is legislat- ing practically for an immediately practical object: it is deciding upon what terms the mutual relation of bishops is at present to be carried on. The question of abstract right is evidently the farthest possible from their thoughts. Any Catholic of the pre- sent day would say, that the Holy Father can remove Vicars- Apos- tolic at his simple pleasure, but Bishops in ordinary only for some canonical offence. He would mean that this is now the prac- tical discipline of the Church, and nothing else whatever would be in his thoughts. What could be more preposterous, than to cite such an expression as testifying against the Pope's abstract right to make what laws in the Church he pleases ? or, again, to cite it in behalf of the schism called la petite Eglise ? Yet this is pre- cisely the argument built on these Sardican canons. Weak indeed would be such an argument, even if the canons stood alone, without external illustration of their meaning. But let it be remembered, that it was this very Council which, on breaking up, addressed to Pope Julius the above quoted words — " for this will seem to be the best and most fitting, if the Lord's priests /rom every 2>rovince in the world refer to the Head, that is to the See of the Apostle Peter." Is this the language of men. XXXIX who have been conferring the right of appeal, as a privilege resting ultimately on their oion authority? Yet it ivould be so resting, if it v^^ere merely of ecclesiastical right, and not of divine. Objection 6. The subsequent Popes often appealed to these canons in behalf of their claim to hear appeals, instead of ground- ing such claim on their divinely given-authority. The former objection was flimsy enough; but this goes far beyond it. What! Did English subjects e. g. profess that the privileges guaranteed to them by Magna Charta, or the Petition of Rights, were not legitimately theirs previously to those enact- ments? Is not the very opposite absolutely notorious? Did not the whole agitation for those charters proceed on the hypothesis, that the claimants sought, not a new concession, but the expression of an ancient right? And yet, in all subsequent contentions, the appeal was wo^^o such ancient rights, but to these written documents. And that for the very obvious reason, that a written document is something definite and tangible to appeal to; something which admits of no mistake or evasion; something which would neces- sarily be common ground to both parties. Such a phenomenon as the above, then, cannot be alleged, without the most preposter- ous extravagance, as implying, on the part of a Pope, the slightest admission against his own divinely-given prerogative. The very utmost it can even tend to prove is, that other bishops were not so clear-sighted as the Pope himself, as to the various legitimate applications of that prerogative. But this last fact I have already most fully admitted. Objection 7 from an article in the Christian Remembrancer y already quoted. The early assertion of their prerogative by Popes, and admission of it by others, helps not forward at all the precise modern Roman view. " Pre-eminence proves nothing, deference proves nothing, the necessity of communion proves nothing, if that for which proof be wanted is the exclusive derivation of episcopal authority from the Pope."* " Pre-eminence" certainly proves nothing, and " deference" proves nothing ; but " necessity of communion" proves every thing. I have already explained this at so great length, that J * Christian Remembrancer for January, 1851, p. 81, xl hardly know how to make it clearer ; and it will come before us again in answering the next objection. Objection 8, from the same article. " If the Pope was from the first . . . the acknowledged and only source of all ecclesiastical authority, it is impossible there should he any mistaking it" in the records of Antiquity; "the position ... is a very clear one, and the evidence, if there is any at all, cannot but be as clear also."* Why? Let me repeat my argument at the risk of tedium, it may be most unhesitatingly asserted, that there is no trace, from the first, of any Patriarch or Bishop imagining that his jurisdiction was, in its essence, independent of the obligation of union with the rest of the Church. To make such a supposition, would be to suppose, in other words, that to such Patriarch or Bishop the special sin of schism would be simply impossible ; and that if he thought fit to hold aloof from the rest of the Church, all the priests under him would be absolutely hound, under pain of damnation, to keep aloof also. We may most unhesitatingly as- sert, that there is not the faintest trace of §uch a doctrine in the records of the Church ; because if there had been, the many bitter enemies of Catholicism would long since have brought such trace to light. Every one therefore, whether Bishop or Patriarch, believed that his ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not in- dependent, but was contingent on union with the one organised Society called the Church. This one organised Society had some organisation or other. Many from the first explicitly held, that this organisation was the obligation of communion with Rome; and no one from the first, either explicitly or implicitly, held any other principle of organisation: hence this was the divinely -given organisation. But if the jurisdiction e. g. of a Patriarch was con- tingent on his union with the one organised Church ; and if the one organised Church meant simply the Society in communion with Rome ; then the jurisdiction of a Patriarch was contingent on communion with Rome : therefore if Rome withdrew her communion, such jurisdiction ceased: therefore the Pope was the ultimate source of jurisdiction. What flaw can be found in all this? * Christian Remembrancer foi Januan, 1S.">1, p. 54. xli Again, the greatest Catholic writers freely admit, that the exercise of Papal power was very much more limited in earlier than in later times. Now the government of the Church, on the one hand by a body of Bishops who held their prerogative solely in virtue of their communion with the Holy See, and its govern- ment on the other hand simply and directly by the Pope hmi- self, — these two modes of government, so far as external and superficial appearances go, are undoubtedly very different: and yet, nevertheless, in their real nature and ultimate analysis, they are absolutely identical. Let me cite an instance in which no one will deny this. The power of the Pope is, at the present time, very far more practically and sensibly felt in the more dis- tant extremities of the Christian Empire, than it was even in the middle ages ;* yet no one will say that the government of the Church, at the 19th and 13th centuries respectively, is mutually different in principle. Why, then, does a similar difference in practical exercise between the 13th and the 3d centuries, constitute in that instance a difference of principle either ? So to take another case from the possible future. I am myself one of those, who most earnestly hope that the influence of Rome, throughout every corner of Catholic Christendom, may still constantly and ener- getically increase ; and who are convinced, that all hopes of the progress of Catholicism in England e. g. are most intimately and indissolubly bound up, with the greater and greater strengthening of the bonds which unite us to Rome; and with an ever-increas- ing loyalty and devotion of heart, and most submissive obedience, to the Holy See. But though this bright hope were at some future day accomplished, even in the degree in which Christ Himself could wish, who would say that the difference between English Catholics of that future day, and of this, is one oi prin- ciple ? Let me put the same thing in still another shape. In earlier times, as compared with later, the exercise of Papal power was greatly limited. From this our opponents infer, that there were * There was an extremely curious statement in the Tablet a year or two back, as to the constitution of the various ecclesiastical tribunals in Rome at the respec- tive periods of the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries; shewing ho^ incomparably greater is the number of appeals from all paitb of the Church to Rome now than there was then. xlii some divinely -appointed limits to that divinely-appointed power, over and above such limits as are fully and unanimously recog- nised by Catholics of the present day. Let such opponents state those supposed limits : they cannot ; they have never even attempted it. In regard, now, to the special objection above raised, I observe that never was there a more absurdly gratuitous hypothesis, than that which it contains. Why was God bound to make explicitly evident from the first, to every Christian, every Papal prerogative, which was really contained in the fundamental principle of the Church's organisation ? Why was He bound Himself to declare all this in some formal document or long-detailed formula, instead of allowing circumstances gradually to unfold it ? How in the world are we able to judge, which mode of action is most suitable to the hidden purposes of His Providence ? The objection is precisely parallel to Tom Paine's, who said he could never be- lieve that God had made a revelation, which He had not written plainly in the sun, or had not in some other equally effectual method made urmiistakeably manifest to all men. In this, as in so many other particulars, the anti-Catholic argument is simply infidel. But the truth is, that there is another circumstance in Ecclesi- astical History which closely bears on the question : I mean, the undoubted fact, that for many centuries every age of Christians expected the speedy return of Christ to judgment. I am not going to enter here into the rationale of this phenomenon ; it is sufficient for my purpose that every one admits the fact. On the other hand, it is maintained by all Catholic controver- siaHsts, that a great number of the Pope's divinely-given prero- gatives were quite incapable of being advantageously exercised, nay, of being exercised at all, except in circumstances the most dissimilar to those of the earliest Christian times. Is it not, then, as plain as day, that the distinct and explicit enunciation by the Apostles of these various prerogatives, would have implied, as a necessary consequence, that the Second Coming was many centuries distant? that the Church was destined to outlive the existing state of society, and reach into a new social world ? If God wished, therefore, that Christians should ever be looking for Christ's re- xliii turn, He could not have so acted as the objection supposes, unless He simultaneously worked a miracle, to prevent that result which the ordinary laws of human nature must have produced. Much might be also said, on the parallel between this and other Christian doctrines, as to its method of revelation ; but that this would lead us into too wide and extended a field. Reverting to Professor Hussey, I have hardly the honour of any further acquaintance with him, than that which is implied in having been an undergraduate at Christ Church Oxford, when he was tutor ; but even so much acquaintance as that, is quite sufficient to give one a knowledge of his character. It was the universal judgment of the whole body of undergraduates, that his plain manly candour and energetic straightforwardness were so conspicuously manifest in every thing which he did or said, as to be placed beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil. And yet, as if some fatality were at work the moment that even the most upright men take up arms against the Church, who can say that such qualities are similarly evident in the Lectures on which I have been commentinij ? To make ray meaning clear, let me confine myself to one particular office of the Church, that of teaching. We Catholics hold one most definite and practical doctrine, as to the one means given to Christians by our Blessed Saviour, of learning the religion which He came to reveal. Mr. Hussey attempts the overthrow of that particular belief (belief in the Papal Supre- macy), which, by the confession of both parties, is the very key- stone of this doctrine ; and yet, as to what Rule of Faith he would himself substitute, he has not enabled us so much as to guess. It is not as though he were one of those, who consider the Scriptures to be the one sole standard of belief to individual Chris- tians. Such an opinion as this, I, for one, regard indeed as among the most grotesque and preposterous superstitions on record ; whether we consider its historical baselessness, or its practical absurdity : yet at least, as far as statement is concerned, it is straightforward and consistent. But Mr. Hussey implies through- out, that he regards " the Church" as having " authority in con- troversies of Faith," as his articles of religion express it. And yet, as to what " the Church" is, or what its " authority" is, he xliv lets us know no more of liis opinion, than that " the Church" is not the Society governed by the Pope, and that the " authority'' is not that of infallible guidance. But if " the Church has authority," it is most essential for Christians to know what it is, not what it is not. For instance, is it one Society or an " aggregate of Societies ?" If the latter, what makes any Society one of this favoured aggregate ? is the having a Bishop* necessary ? is this sufficient ? Then as to the body of religious opinion recognised in such a Society, since it is not certainly true, by what standard is each individual Christian to measure it ? So far as he may differ from it, what is his proper attitude towards it ? And how are the indefeasible claims on his allegiance of spiritual truth, to receive their due recog- nition? Is owr communion ^ar/ of that aggregate? If yes, are those born in Catholic countries bound to receive as true what Mr. Hussey firmly holds to be false ? Or else, on the other hand, does God, having set up a *' branch" of " His Church" among them, require of them that they reject its teaching and incur its anathemas ? But if our communion is not part of that aggregate, of what does the aggregate consist ? These questions are no minor and subordinate ones ; they are not such as bear upon some one or two isolated and detached matters of duty ; so far from it, that the majority of them must be practically answered one way or other, before one single act of Christian Faith, or one single fulfilment of Christian precept, as such, is so much as possible. And yet Mr. Hussey leaves his hearers without one hint for their solution. To consider, however, in a moral point of view, the state of mind which such a course seems to imply, both in professor and students, or (to speak more truly) in the religious system to which they belong, would necessitate remarks of such severity, as should not be made without the fullest explanation and most careful limitation ; and this would carry us too far away from our immediate subject. But what is its merely intellectual • I do not say, the being governed by a Bishop; for even Mr. Hussey would hardly say that the English dioceses are governed by their respective Bishops, except suhordinately to the law of the land, which rigorously defines and limits their functions. xlv aspect ? On every other subject of human thought, in scientific, historical, critical, literary, or assthetical discussions, there is no course universally considered so low and grovelling, as that of picking holes in every existing school of opinion, without the attempt at originating one single positive idea. How long is a procedure, scouted in every other subject-matter, to pass current in the noblest and highest of all ? In a word, Truth is consistent with itself. No one who pro- fesses himself able to use his mind at all, is at liberty to acquiesce in a congeries of opinions mutually contradictory. Now I main- tain, first, that there is no assemblage of general propositions able to be specified, as to the constitution and functions of the Christian Church, which, on the one hand, are free from such mutual con- tradiction, and on the other hand, are reconcileable with the claims, put forth on behalf of the Establishment, as being a " branch of the Catholic Church," and having "authority in controversies of faith." And I maintain secondly, that there is no assemblage of general propositions which can be specified, differing from ours, on the constitution and functions of the Christian Church, which, on the one hand, are free from such mutual contradiction, and, on the other hand, can be maintained by our most prejudiced opponents as having even a shred of support from the records of Antiquity. But if thete be no one assemblage of consistent pro- positions which has either of these two attributes, (viz. the being reconcileable either with belief in the Establishment's Catholicity, or with the testimony of Antiquity,) how doubly certain is it (if I may so express myself), that no such statement is possible as is requisite for my opponent's case ; no one statement, which shall unite both these indispensable requisites; which shall both have some appearance of agreement with Antiquity, and also some appearance of being reconcileable with belief, that members of the Establishment are within the Church of Christ. One very simple and brief mode of disproving these two as- sertions, is ready at hand ; viz. the expressing such general pro- positions on the constitution of the Christian Church. Heartily do I wish that, now at least, in this the Fourth Century of their separation from us, they would at last give us some positive statement of principle, with which we could grapple. The having xlvi any definite position to attack, is an advantage which would come to us with all the attraction of freshness and novelty. I venture, however, to prophesy, that there will be no such attempt. Our opponents know full well, though possibly by an unconscious instinct, that their whole strength lies in criticism and attack; and that to make one single positive assertion, and keep to it, is argumentatively to ruin their cause.* There is one more subject, on which I should touch in this Preface. It may be asked, whether I allege that grounds of a merely historical and external character, such as those with which the whole present volume mainly deals, can be reason sufficient for a Christian's abandoning at once all his earliest and holiest associations ; and for his quitting a communion without delay, which may have been in one sense the instrument of much good to himself; with whose general tone his moral percep- tions are still in harmony ; and in whose behalf, persons, whom he has long learned to revere, earnestly maintain, that it contains every thing necessary for holiness and salvation. On this general head, I would beg particularly to refer to the concluding remarks of the Second Letter (pp. 135-140). If I went too far, in some things which I wrote as a Protestant, in the way of disparagilig all historical arguments, I wish the reader at least to observe, that I have not now gone into the opposite extreme. In truth, con- sidering how especially Faith is the gift of God and the result of grace, and how closely that which is believed is bound up with the whole texture and character of our moral nature ; it does * I may as well add here one word, in reply to an extraordinary statement which I have sometimes seen, viz that Catholics who advocate what has been called the i)rin- ciple of Development, give up the ground of History. Even one's ordinary experience on the recklessness of anti-Catholic arguments, would have hardly prepared us for so wonderful an allegation as this. The considerations mentioned in the text, however, are a sufficient reply to it. If Ecclesiastical History do indeed testify to some definite assemblage of doctrines and principles, differing from ours, let such assem- blage be specified : the mere attempt to do so would shew the wild extravagance of the assertion. For my own part, so far as I am acquainted with Ecclesiastical His- tory, the two things which it seems to me, from the very first to the very last, to tes- tify with the most unmistakable clearness, are, first, the Apostolicity of that one definite system of doctrine which we maintain to be the Catholic ; and secondly, this process of" development," through which the said doctrine from the very first has ever been passing. See, on this head. Father Newman's most accurate phraseo- logy, (luoted in a different connexion, in the Second Letter, p. 47, note. xlvii seem inconceivable, that a mere summing up, and pronouncing judgment upon, historical evidence, can be of itself a sufficient basis within the mind, whereon the fabric of religious conviction may securely rest. I will take this opportunity, of putting on record the existing state of a significant controversy between the Christian Remem- brancer and myself ; if controversy that can be called, on which one side maintains a persevering silence. Let me here cite a passage from the Preface to the Final Letter : " I must take advantage of this opportunity, for want of a better, to comment on another matter connected with my former Letter ; and to express my great surprise at the silence of the Christian Remembrancer on certain matters contained in it. I am not alluding, of course, to my various allegations of theological and argumentative inaccuracy against that Review ; every periodical has the full right to determine for itself on the time of noticing an antagonist, or whether it shall notice him at all. But all honest men will agree with me, that where a question of misrepresentation is concerned, however unintentional such misrepresen- tation may have in the first instance been, the case is widely different. •' Now, in my former Letter (p. 47, note,) I drew attention to a statement in the Christian Remembrancer that Father Newman's account ' of the origin of the existing dogmatic Christianity ' is ' substantially identical' with that of a Mr. lerson ; who considers our Lord to have been 'a mere preacher of natural religion,' averse to dogmas of all sorts. This imputation was grounded on a single passage in Father Newman's recent Lectures. Altogether denying that his words could fairly bear such an interpretation, I drew attention however to another passage in the same Lectures ; on which I observed, that ' if Father Newman had been aware of Mr. lerson's statement, and wished to express distinctly the precise contradictory to it, I see not how he could have used more explicit language.' I then proceeded to say : ' As several readers of die Christian Remembrancer may not have looked through Father New- man's Lectures, I cannot doubt that the Editor's sense of justice will lead him to insert this passage, when his attention is drawn to it ; in order that his readers may judge for themselves how far he has truly represented Fathft Newman's doctrine.* As soon as my pamphlet was published, I forwarded it to the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer ; and I added a private note, expressly drawing his attention to this com- xlviii ment of mine, and to no other part of the whole pamphlet. Two num- bers of his periodical have since appeared, and not the slightest notice has been taken of my communication. " Now, here is an imputation brought against no ordinary person, of as ' unspeakably disparaging' a nature (to use my former phrase,) as can well be conceived ; it would be more true to say, of as ' grossly calum- nious :' though I was unwilling to use the word ' calumny,'' in the then position of circumstances. The Editor, on being expressly applied to, will not so much as allow his readers (if he can help it) to see a passage of the same writer's, which has been alleged as in itself a sufficient refutation of such calumny. If such controversial tactics are to exist, may they ever continue in the undisputed possession of our opponents ! " As soon as the present pamphlet is out, I shall also forward a copy of it to the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer ; and shall again add a private note, drawing his attention to this Preface." I fulfilled the intention here expressed, and two more num- bers of the Christian Remembrancer have since appeared ; but no notice whatever has been taken of my appeal to the Editor's common fairness and controversial honesty. A charge has been brought forward by this worthy Editor, the most destructive one can well imagine of an opponent's reputation. If he still believe the charge true, where can be the common manhness and courage of a man who hangs back from vindicating it ? If (as I suppose one may fairly presume from his silence,) he now knows it to be false, what terms can we find suitable to designate the conduct of one, who will wilfully, deliberately, and continuously, cling to the grossest false-witness, rather than give an opponent his fair controversial advantage ? I shall forward this Preface also to the Editor, and add a third private letter, drawing his special attention to the present position of the case. ONE WOED ON THE ACTUAL CONSTITUTION OF THE ANGLICAN ESTABLISHMENT. It is a matter of plain common sense and common observation, that the Anglican Establishment is dependent upon the State, in quite another sense from that in which any branch of the Catholic Church, -whether in mediseval or in modern times, has been depen- dent on it. But this plain matter of fact has been called in ques- tion ; and precedents have been adduced, with more or less in- genuity, from other times and countries, with the view of throwing doubt on its truth. This indeed is but one of the innumerable instances, wherein the dictates of plain common sense are called in question by a superficial learning, but re-estabhshed in their full perspicuity and force by a deeper and more philosophic erudition. Nothing however of that kind will of course be attempted in this short hrochure; but I shall rather enter into a previous enquiry, the result of which may make further argument on mere historical .details unnecessary. I shall enquire, what is the actual constitu- tion of the Anglican Establishment. The Bishop of Oxford has taken occasion by the Gorham decision, to enunciate a certain proposition concerning Baptism, as being the undoubted doctrine of the Anglican Church, as of the Catholic Church from the first. Now I wish to ask, sup- posing a clergyman, presented to a benefice, were to come before Dr. Wilberforce for institution, would his Lordship venture to interrogate him, for the purpose of discovering whether he faith- fully holds this necessary and essential doctrine ? Nay, were the clergyman to claim as his own the ipsissitna verba of Mr. Gorham, would his Lordship venture to refuse him institution ? If he would not venture so to do, what does his grand and solemn enunciation come to ? It comes apparently to this, that it almost debars us from the possibihty of attributing to his Lordship invin- cible ignorance of Catholic Truth on this head; and almost of necessity compels us to pronounce — that in instituting such clergyman, he would act deliberately against his conscience, in one of the most solemn acts he can be called on to perform. But let us suppose that Dr. Wilberforce did refuse to institute ; he would then place himself precisely in the position of Dr. Philpotts. The Bishop of Exeter, (and he alone among so many bishops,) in one particular instance at least, has had the honesty to act upon his convictions, and has refused to institute Mr. Gorham. Will the law bear him out in doing so ? If it will, it is the very last thing I should think of denying, that he will persevere in his course. But let us suppose, as appears almost certain, that the law will not bear him out : what then will the Bishop of Exeter do ? His Lordship maintains that the supervision of the Diocese of Exeter is committed to him by Divine right. Will he then solemnly warn the parishioners of Bampford Speke to refuse all attendance on the ministration of one, whom his Lordship him- self denounces as a heretic ? Will he entrust jurisdiction over these parishioners to some other clergyman, (whether one of the neighbouring incumbents, or some other,) and solemnly call on them, as they value their souls to join themselves to this clergy- man, and above all, to avoid the congregation of the parish church, as the synagogue of Satan ? If he do less than this, he deliberately violates what on his own shewing is among his most solemn duties, and so damns his soul. But if he do so much as this, is it not as plain as day, that from that moment the disruption of the Establishment is no longer a matter in immediate prospect, but a matter already hegiui f There may be differences of opinion as to the precise means by which such disruption would be carried into effect ; but there can be no difference of opinion, that from the moment two clergymen should appear in opposition at Bampford Speke, one under the sanction of the Bishop, and the other under the sanc- tion of the State, the Establishment and the Bishop of Exeter are in the very act of parting company. This then, and no less than this, is the charge we bring against (not the Anglican Estabhshment, but) the existence of high- church principles within its pale : viz., that the very tenure by which it is held together, the very condition of its existence, is, that Bishops of ' high-church ' principles shall consent to commit what they are bound to consider as mortal sin. No Bishop of the Establishment can possibly take any standard of orthodoxy except what the Law courts, as subject to Parhament, shall declare, and then faithfully act upon such standard, without being himself of neces- sity driven out of the Establishment. — In other words, every single Bishop of the Establishment intending to remain such, either on the one hand holds the Erastian heresy, or on the other hand is resolved on occasion to commit mortal sin. We all know how many opinions have been held of late years within the Estabhshment, which all 'high-churchmen' must regard as damnable heresies. The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin advocates Sabellianism ; the Dean of Saint Paul's doubts the reality of our blessed Saviour's temptation ; and it cannot but be that such dignitaries have followers among the inferior clergy. Has any one of the bishops who profess ' high-church ' opinions, so much as made the attempt to satisfy himself that presentees to benefices are free from such heresies, before he institutes them, and so confers on them what he calls jurisdiction ? And if not, why not ? for the plain reason, that he knows the law-courts will not bear him out in such attempt ; and that heresies short of simple and avowed Uni- tarianism, would be sure of patronage in high places. It will be said, perhaps, that in their examinations for ordination several of the Bishops have of late made considerable enquiries into the faith of the candidates. If the fact is so, my argument is greatly forwarded. For no one will say, that ecclesiastically speaking, the institution of a heretic is a less serious evil than his ordination : rather, if a comparison is to be made, the direct conferring of spiritual jurisdiction on such a person over a flock, is the more in- tolerable evil of the two. Why is it then that some Bishops display a strictness in the one case which they dare not display in the other ? Because the law of the land allows them a latitude in one case, which, in its jealousy for the rights of patrons, it does not alloiv them in the other. No other answer can possibly be given. Here then, as in the former case, the very fact that certain of their Lordships do exercise a certain strictness in examining the orthodoxy of candidates for ordination, if true, would almost forbid us to impute to invincible ignorance their laxity in institution ; or, in other words, almost compel us to think that, supposing them really to believe what they profess, they are habitually prac- tising mortal sin. And now then to consider the precedents so ingeniously attempted to be drawn from Catholic practice, whether mediaeval or modern. Certainly I should he very far from denying, that the Church has at all times been even forward to make the very utmost concessions, consistent with the essentials of her faith and discipline, for the pur- pose of avoiding the fearful evils of persecution or schism. Far from denying this fact, I consider it as among the most glorious in her history : for what sacrifices, which principle allows, ought not to be made, if by them may be averted a state of things, in which heroic fortitude becomes absolutely necessary to salvation, and in which accordingly the poor weak souls who perish eternally may be counted by millions ? But having fully admitted, or rather main- tained, this, I would go on to beg our opponents to take any one fact in the whole Catholic history, whether of the middle or of modern ages, let it be as isolated, anomalous and obscure as they please ; and to say distinctly, whether by any possible ingenuity it can be so distorted, as to present even a momentary and colourable parallel to the state of things I have been lately describing ; a state of things too, which has been no accidental and temporary pheno- menon, but has been the one consistent undeviating law of the Establishment, from the very Eeformation to the present day. I cannot but hope there are numbers, connected with the present high-church movement, who will not, with their eyes open, be mixed up with such an ecclesiastical organization. Yet such, let me repeat, has been most undoubtedly the organization of the Anglican Establishment, openly and consistently, during the whole period of its existence. The State itself may have approached more nearly to orthodoxy at one period than another; but at no period has any bishop been allowed to act on any standard of orthodoxy, except the State's voice. Give up your so called Catholic principles, if you have the heart. But in the name of common honesty do not profess to retain them, and yet look upon a body like the Establishment as being part of the Catholic Church. Whatever further may or may not be your duty, to renounce all allegiance to the Establishment is at least a plain and undeniable duty. And let me add, that it is by taking our first step immediately upon our conviction, that we shall have the best hope for God's guidance in taking our second step aright. A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OE THE "GUARDIAN," BY THE AUTHOR OF " ONE WORD ON THE EXISTING CONSTITUTION OF THE ANGLICAN ESTABLISHMENT." BURNS AND LAMBERT, 17, PORTMAN STREET, and 63, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1850. A LETTER, &c. Sir, As the author of a short paper, " On the Existing Constitution of the Anglican EstabHshment," which has been made a subject of comment in a leading article of your last number, I know not that I should have been excited to the task of a reply, had you not in direct terms attacked my " honesty." " The writer," you say, " not being quite honest enough to say " something or other, has made " a silly compromise between his argument and his conscience." And the reason of this charge is, because I draw a contrast between the Anglican Establishment on the one hand, and " any branch of the CathoHc Church, whether in mediaeval or in modem times " on the other hand, with a silence, and, as you affirm, a disingenuous silence, on the subject of early times. But surely I have a right to treat on one subject at a time; and the subject on which I did intend to treat, was on an allegation continually made by Anglican writers, and not least by yourself, that what you designate as the " Eoman Church," has made, at various times, concessions to the civil power, no less ample than those made by your own Church. I was not treating of any other subject; such, e.g. as the contrariety between Anglicanism and primitive times: this is a separate question, and, for reasons which will presently appear, is more conveniently treated separately: in- deed I may mention that I was at one time rather meditating a series of such short papers, one of which would have been occupied with that very question. But in the present instance I was not engaged in this task, but in another; in contrasting AngUcanism, not with the Church of primitive times, but with what you call "The Koman Church;" with a certain body, that is, which you consider to have overladen the primitive truth with various cor- rupt additions of its own, and to which, on that ground, you refuse submission. Now at what period do you maintain this body, so conceived, to have come into existence ? in the early ages ? you indignantly repudiate such a notion ; I appealed therefore, of course, to those periods of history, " the mediaeval and modern," which you regard as being alone concerned with that Church. Since, however, you have made such comments on my omission of early times, I will not shrink from meeting you on that matter also, and showing how little possible reason I could have for evading the consideration of them. Not indeed that there is any neces- sity for me to do so ; for the contrast between the Church system of those times and your own Church system, on the very point in hand, has been drawn by Mr. Keble himself, quite as strikingly as any Catholic could draw it. I allude to his letter in your pages, in which he frankly admits, that in primitive days, had an archbishop concurred in such a judgment as that lately delivered, the faithful would at once have withdrawn from his communion. Only try to conceive the very attempt at such a movement within your Church at present, and you will see, far more clearly than I could hope to describe, the radical contrariety between the two systems. However, I am quite ready, as you seem to wish it, to express the same thing from a Cathohc point of view; premising, to make my meaning clear, two universally admitted principles of our Church. A Catholic then, as you are aware, considers that those, and those only, belong, or ever have belonged, externally to the Visible Church of Christ, who are or have been at the time in communion with the See of Kome. Again, no Catholic in the world considers any tenet to be heretical, except one which would, on occasion, be so pronounced by the Holy Father. Now I challenge you to pro- duce a single undisputed instance, from the reign of St. Peter to that of Pius IX, where any Pope, under whatever pressure of temporal difficulty, to whatever threats or whatever allurements he may have been exposed, has continued to hold communion with any one, king or subject, who has openly and wilfully maintained, what he or any of his predecessors had pronounced heresy. The continual stress laid by our opponents on particular isolated acts, such as that of Liberius, or the events consequent upon the fifth Ecumenical Council, very far as these facts are from bearing out their case, shews how impossible they find it to deny this proposi- tion. But if there be no such instance, then it follows, that no Catholic has ever been obliged to remain in communion, even for a day, with any heretic, (even a layman, not to speak of a liHhop,) known to be such. Kemarkable contrast indeed to the condition of Anglican ' high-churchmen.' I am not, however, at all unwilling to admit, if it is to be called an admission, that the same (as I should call it) purblind, narrow, one-sided way of reading the history of early times, which leads B 4 some to deny tlie Papal supremacy as having been then in recog- nized and active energy throughout the Church, will lead them also to find in those times precedents in justification (not indeed of anything like the Anglican Establishment, but still) of much indefensible Erastianism. This is a fact which, though observed by many before, the recent discussions and publications of your Church have tended to place in the clearest possible light ; and it is because some notice of it seemed indispensable to any fair argu- ment founded on the history of those times, that I reserved the latter altogether for a separate discussion; and confined myself in my first paper to the mediaeval and modern period. And I should not omit here to observe, on the marked testimony really borne by yourself. Sir, to the thesis which it was the object of my short paper to defend. For your complaint of my alluding to medisDval and modern times alone, and omitting the earlier, implies directly and of necessity that in your opinion it is frima facia easier, to find precedents for extreme state interference, in the earlier than in the later period. But it is precisely at the later period that you consider the Pope's authority to have ac- quired a new and unprecedented extent; we have then, sir, your own most unsuspicious testimony, that in proportion as the Papal power has had influence, extreme concessions to the state have been diminished. Let me now turn to consider the one instance you have adduced from later times, in refutation of my argument : and as you have taken as nearly as possible two months to answer my ' four octavo pages,' I am entitled to infer that it is the strongest instance which can readily be found. Now first bear in your remembrance the allegations I made against the position of a 'high churchman' in the Establishment. To speak generally, they were as follows. He finds himself in full communion with various persons, some of them bishops, who profess opinions which he regards as deadly heresies. I mentioned in addition to this anti-Baptismal heresy, Sabelhanism, and the doubt of the reality of our Blessed Saviour's temptation ; and I might easily have added almost indefinitely to the number, but these were sufficient. Not one of the bishops has ever so much as attempted to examine candidates for institution, as to how far they are implicated in such heresies, with the simple exception of Bishop Philpotts's late unsuccessful efi'ort. Aud as to a bishop of your opinions, if he were once honCi fide to attempt purging his diocese of heterodoxy, so far as on your views he is by the laws of God absolutely hound to do, he would simply and with- out delay be ejected from your body. And such, I added, has been the organization of the Anghcan Establishment, during the whole period of its existence. Such was the allegation which I brought against the Anglican Establishment ; and such is the state of things, which you profess to parallel from the practice of our own Church. I had begged our opponents to " take any one fact in the whole Catholic history .... let it be as isolated, anomalous and obscure as they please, and to say distinctly whether by any possible ingenuity it can be so distorted, as to present even a momentary and colourable parallel to " this state of things. You bring forward a fact as parallel. What does one expect? that you will name any local Church in communion with the Holy See, so swarming with persons whom we consider to be heretics, as you admit that the Anglican Establishment swarms with persons whom you consider such ? No one of course is so simple as to expect so much as that. But your readers, I suppose, may have anticipated, that you would bring forward, from some dark and obscure corner of history, some one acknowledged heretic in full communion with some local Church, that Church herself being in communion with Eome, and Kome cognizant of the fact ; or some one Pope who might have tolerated some one obscure heresy, condemned by some one of his predecessors. But what do they find ? nothing of the sort even alleged. Baronius describes, with no sparing energy and with no tendency towards extenuation or concealment, a most miserable and detestable state of things undoubtedly; but as to heretics admitted to communion, or orthodox (on the ground of their orthodoxy) excluded from it, there is not the most distant allusion to such a thing. The very circumstance that you can produce no stronger case than this, must convince all reasonable men. of the truth of my original assertion, that there is no fact in Catholic history which " can by any possible ingenuity be so distorted, as to present even a momentary and colourable parallel" to your deplorable con- fusions. Before proceeding, I should state, that I do not profess any such learning or critical power as would enable me to place before you, as my own, any special construction of the particulars which you quote. My argument was grounded on facts — patent on the very surface of history — and so, on this matter, I am quite content to join issue on your own statement of the facts which you adduce. Baronius describes the King of Spain as pursuing a course the most pernicious, odious and tyrannical ; but as to that special in- stance of tyranny which, in the case of the Anglican Church, was my one subject of comment, — as to any attempt (I say) on his part at claiming a power of decision in the last resort as to what is and what is not the doctrine of the Church, nothing of the kind is so much as hinted at. The only heretical doctrine which Baro- nius's words could even suggest, is a claim as of right to spiritual jurisdiction. But the very passages you quote make it plain (as any Catholic would be quite certain a priori) that he made no such claim : for, first, he grounded his whole conduct on alleged powers conferred by a former Pope's bull; and, secondly, even apart from this, the phraseology, neque ipsam Apostolicam sedem recognoscere et habere superiorem, nisi in casu prmventionis (which latter words you do not translate, and of which, apart from the context, I do not profess to understand the precise meaning), would of itself make it pretty clear, that Baronius is speaking not of theoretical but practical recognition, — that he imputes to the King not a doctrinal denial, but a practical over-ruling, of the Pope's jurisdiction. And here I must not omit to correct a most strange misconcep- tion of my meaning into which you have fallen, and which, I should have thought, even a sHght degree of attention would have pre- vented. I had said that the readiness of the Church to make concessions where the law of God permits, rather than cause a schism, was among the most glorious of her history ; and you most strangely suppose, that I consider not only the Church's con- cessions to be 'glorious,' but the State's aggressions to be 'glorious' also : and because Baronius adopts the most keen invective against the King of Spain, you quote him as an authority against my view of the general principle. Certainly, as regards many of those to whom the Church has from time to time been induced to make the largest concessions, the devout Catholic feels the deepest abhor- rence for their most unchristian and oppressive tyranny ; and in all cases he laments bitterly the many spiritual evils which result from the State's aggressions. Under such unhappy circumstances, to omit numberless other particulars, we often find a deep-seated lieretical spirit gaining ground among tlie people, wliich there is no power adequately to check, and which may any day break out into express and open heresy. It would indeed be absurd to call such phenomena * glorious ; ' but it is a glorious fact in the Church's history, for the reasons I mentioned among others, that she tends always to stretch her long-suffering and forbearance to the utmost limit allowed by the law of God ; and that the Holy Father will rather endure any amount of slights and humiliations, than place the souls committed to his charge in such frightful peril, as I described in a passage you quote. But I say also, that when actual /teres// has displayed itself, there the law of God does interfere, and forbids further toleration. It can be no true portion of Christ's Church, which allows heretics to preach from her pul- pits, or even to approach her sacraments. This is that very sin to which all along I have been drawing attention : that sin, from which the Church in communion with Eome has ever been undeni- ably free, but in whose mire, even according to f/our oivn ideas of heresy, your own Establishment has been plunged up to its neck from the first moment of its existence to the present. And the contrast is made still clearer, by the practical working of our respec- tive principles. Should we. Catholics, in some most unusual case, suspect either priest or bishop of openly professing heresy, we should bring the case before the Holy Father, and believe of necessity, with an interior assent, the justice of his decision, whatever it may be. But you, when out of the numberless here- sies of daily occurrence among you, it pleases you to single out one for protest, what can you do, except appeal to the law courts, and, failing them, assemble public meetings and raise a clamour ? We are taught hij our Church, but ijou feel it a duty to teach yours There is one more particular in your article, which it is incum- bent on me to notice. I had said that " every single bishop in the Estabhshment, intending to remain such, either on the one hand holds the Erastian heresy, or on the other hand is resolved on occasion to commit mortal sin." You reply that this is " a fallacy which answers itself," for that " a bishop may intend to remain in the Establishment, without having determined to remain in it under all possible contingencies." The italics are mine ; but I apprehend your meaning to be that, though of course it is not cer- tain that the law of the Establislimcnt may not some time contra- 8 diet the law of God, yet that there is a reasonable probability of its never doing so ; insomuch that a bishop may fairly be said to intend remaining in the Establishment, though he have determined to quit it in the event of such contradiction. I have taken pains to ascertain your meaning, and believe this to be it. ' The very same number of the Guardian contained a notice of a certain address from the Bishop of Exeter to the churchwardens of Bampford Speke, which affords a very curious commentary on your sentiment. I quote, however, not from the abridgment of this address, for which alone you had room in your postscript, but from the address in extenso as we find it in the daily papers. A bishop, on your view, receives the pastoral charge over his diocese immediately from Christ Himself. The Bishop of Exeter, therefore, who considers Mr. Gorham as a professed heretic, is bound (as I urged in my last letter), on pain of mortal sin, to warn those parishioners of Bampford Speke whom Christ has placed under his charge, to avoid all communion with the said Mr. Gorham, to flee from his ministrations, and seek orthodox teaching elsewhere. But what says the Bishop himself? "Shall I license some sound minister to reside among you and preach to you the pure Word of God?" Such seems the only straight- forward course, one would think: but no. "Any minister," he says, " acting under such a hcense and officiating in your parish, would offend against the law of the Church, and expose him- self to censures." At least then the bishop will warn these poor Anglicans to avoid Mr. Gorham's ministrations, and go to the neighbouring parish churches? Hear the answer : " it would be a presumptuous invasion of his " (the heretic's) " rights so to do : it would be schismatical to give such advice and schismatical to follow it." So that Bishop Philpotts, who " would be bound," he tells us, " to submit to every penalty rather than himself give Mr. Gorham institution," yet in the diocese which he claims as directly committed to his charge by Christ, tells the poor people it will be schismatical if they do not place themselves under the pastoral care of this open and intolerable heretic. And thfe reason he gives is, because the Archbishop is a party to the institution. Why, Mr. Editor, the very principles which you profess are, that within the limits of his own diocese a bishop is supreme; this is one of those especial doctrines, which "it is the glory of Anglicans to maintain against the usurping claims of Eome :" and yet see what 9 it comes to, when the especial occasion arises for acting in accor- dance with it. A bishop, in his own diocese, admits the command of an external bishop, as a dispensation from the law of God ! Nor does the absurdity end here. The contradictory of any heresy is of course an expressly revealed truth of God ; and he who denies that a certain tenet is a heresy, denies that its contra- dictory is an expressly revealed truth of God. It is for this reason, of course, that in every age of the Church those who deny any heretical tenet to he heretical, have been accounted to be them- selves as fully heretics, as though they themselves held the heretical tenet ; and that, as Mr. Keble observes, in early ages, the faithful world have avoided the communion of any Archbishop in Dr. Sumner's position. Whether Dr. Sumner does or does not, as a matter of private opinion, agree with Mr. Gorham, he does not con- sider the contradictory of Mr. Gorham's tenet to be part of God's expressly revealed doctrine. Dr. Philpott's does believe it to be such, and therefore believes Dr. Sumner himself to be heretical. Nay, I suppose for that reason, he has expressly renounced communion, by anticipation, with any one who should institute Mr. Gorham. Yet this very Archbishop, whom he is bound to consider a heretic, and with whom he has renounced communion, is at the very same time invested by him with power, to supersede his own most pri- mary and sacred duties, in that diocese, which he holds (as he maintains) directly from Christ, and independently of any even the most orthodox Archbishop in the world. You will say perhaps, that at least these doctrinal disputes, carried to such an extent, are but rare exceptions in your Church : but I answer, as I did before, that the reason of this is, because universally the bishops of your Church have either not held your opinions, or not acted on them. For consider. Such tenets as the following, which I mention merely as samples of a great number, you will not deny to bo heretical. 1, That Holy Com- munion is no more than a mere sign or symbol ; 2, that several clauses in the Athanasian Creed are unmeaning subtleties ; 3, that original sin is not actually imputed to children born into the world, but is only an ' infection of their nature ' ; 4, that glory hereafter is not in each case proportioned to the holiness res- pectively attained here. Nor again will you deny that such tenets are held even by clergymen (for I will pass over laymen,) in every English diocese. What is the duty then incumbent by 10 the law of God on any bishop who may hold your pmiciples ? So much at least ; viz. carefully to examine all candidates for institution as well as ordination, and peremptorily to refuse institution to all whom he may find sulhed with such heresies. . Appeal would follow to the law courts. Do you suppose that your bishop would have the slightest chance of succeeding there ? Is there a single doctrine held by you, on which you could come before the courts with one quarter of the ground to stand on, which you had in the Gorham case? The bishop then must either institute these men, or leave the Establishment. If the former, he commits mortal sin ; if the latter, as he is still (on his principles) by the law of God bishop of the diocese, he is bound to summon ail the faithful of the diocese, under pain of damnation, to leave the Establishment also and cleave to him as to their bishop. It is surely doubtful whether a person holding opinions which bind him to such proceedings as these, could honestly accept 'consecration' in the Establishment, without having first made the clearest possible explanation of his views. But so much as this at least is quite certain, that a bishop who should hold prin- ciples which bind him to such a course, if an honest man, could not be said to intend remaining in the Establishment ; and that I was justified to the letter in my original assertion, that ' every single bishop of the Establishment, intending to remain such, either on the one hand holds the Erastian hersey, or on the other hand is resolved on occasion to commit mortal sin.' I repeat, if your Church has hitherto been free from violent conflict, it is either because no one of your bishops has held your principles, or else because any one who has ever held them, has pursued a line of conduct, which, on those principles, is mortal sin. I am sorry to have been led to such length. As it is, I have omitted many things I wished to say, and abridged many others. I am. Sir, Your obedient Servant, N.N. August 26th, 1850. 11 Postscript. Since the foregoing letter has been in the printer's hands, I have seen in due course the following number of the Guardian, and observe that you continue the same theme. Since, however, your remarks of to-day have httle direct reference to my original paper, I will but point out that every observation which falls from you makes it clearer, how impossible it is to refute my original asser- tion. My allegation concerned the constant admission and tolera- tion of open heresy, admitted by yourself to be such, within your EstabUshment ; and you answer, by adducing proof of " the visible or apparent dissolution of Catholic power and holiness," which from time to time has been exhibited within the Catholic Church : as though any Catholic in his senses could have dreamt of denying such a thing, or could have been ignorant or unmindful of such very common-places in controversy, as the scandalous history of the infamous Marozia, which you quote. It does not surely need proving to you, that the prevalence of immorality within the Church is a totally and incomparably diffe- rent phenomenon from the prevalence of heresy within her, in its bearing on the notes of her divinity. You, I say, have not to learn this, for you profess yourself a disciple of the early Church ; and you will not doubt that, in the early Church just as in the later, ten thousand persons who should never think of their Baptism, and should never worship Christ, would not have produced one-hun- dredth part of the excitement and protest which would have been caused by even one man of otherwise blameless life, who should, as a matter of doctrine, deny Baptismal Regeneration or Christ's Divinity. It is your affair, as much as mine, to stand up in defence of this general principle; to point out how that, even in the merely tem- poral order of things, one single educated and sane man, who should deliberately and publicly profess the universal lawfulness of murder, would excite incomparably greater alarm and conster- nation than a thousand murderers ; and that the case becomes far stronger in the case of the Catholic Church, whose absolutely indispensable duty it is, to teach her subjects true doctrines on the various questions of faith and morals. How in the world then do the facts you specify interfere with the Catholic habit, of " looking to the Roman See as the supreme 12 defender and asserter of Christian morality, the unerring guide, the immoveable rock on which the faith stands, and to which tliose who are in perplexity are to look for strength and comfort ? " In one brief and most calamitous period especially, unhappy men, in possession of St. Peter's chair, have been profligates and adulterers: but have they ever taught, or dreamed of teaching, ex cathedra, that profligacy and adultery are other than abomin- able sins ? It is the Church's ofiice to hold up distinctly before her children the principles of faith and morality, that they may be guided in their course heavenwards ; and a body, therefore, which habitually admits professed heretics into its pulpits, would, in no age, have been accounted part of the Catholic Church, because it does not fulfil this ofiice. But the past existence of such sins as you record in the occupants of St. Peter's See, only places in stronger light the supernatural guidance extended to that See : for it is a fact which has continually been remarked in controversy, and which is such, one would have thought, as forcibly to arrest the attention of the most careless or the most prejudiced, that these very Popes have never promulgated a de- cision either on faith or morals, which has been so much as called in question. I am very much tempted to comment on other parts of your present article; but on the whole think it better, both now and hereafter, in whatever I may address to you, to confine myself to those of your observations alone, which are directed against the simple argument contained in my original paper. I am quite con- vinced, that the more closely this argument is sifted, the more persuasive will it be found to all humble and Catholic-minded enquirers after truth. I will add no more then, except to draw your readers' attention to the circumstance, that Mr. Foulkes, in your last number, de- poses to the very fact which I had inferred ; viz., that in the case of " The SiciHan Monarchy," the king laid no claim to spiritual • jurisdiction, except on the ground of delegation from the Pope. August ZQth, 1850. THE ANGLICAK ESTABLISHMENT CONTRASTED, IN EVERY PRINCIPLE OF ITS CONSTITUTION, WITH Cl)f Cdtirfl) (!tfltl)0Hr 0f ntx\f ^ge. BEING A SECOND LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE "GUARDIAN:" WITH STRICTURES ON THE ARTICLES IN THAT JOURNAL ENTITLED « ANGLO-ROMANISM." By WILLIAM GEORGE WARD, AUTHOR OF " ONE WORD ON THE EXISTING CONSTITUTION OF THE ANGLICAN ESTABLISHMENT.' LONDON: BURNS AND LAMBERT, PORTMAN STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE. 1850. LONDON: PRINTED BY ROFSON, LEVKT, AND FRANKLYN, Great New Street, Fetter Lane. CONTENTS, PAGK Preface v SECT. I. State of the Controversy ... ... 1 II. Personal explanation . ...... 2 III. Contrast between the Anglican Establishment and the Ca- tholic Church of every age, in the absence from the former of all security for Orthodox Doctrine . . . .10 IV. Practical Corruptions of Doctrine within the Establishment, from the Reformation downwards . . . .23 V. Contrast between the Anglican Establishment and the Ca- tholic Church of every age, in the nature of its Episcopal Constitution . . . . . . . .51 VI. Infallibility an essential attribute of the Catholic Church in every age ......■•• 57 VII. On the holiness of the Church, and the admixture of Evil men with Good within her pale . . . • .83 VIII. Papal Infallibility 120 IX. Practical conclusion . . ■ • • • .135 Postscript, in reply to the Guardian's concluding Article . .140 PREFACE. The following Letter was begun, and mostly written, before the late excitement on Catholic subjects ; and it will (I suppose) appear very tame and insipid at the present time, as being on an argument wholly distinct from this question of the Hierarchy. However, it seemed better to publish it, since it was written ; and possibly too the state itself of the public mind may lead some to look at Catholic works, who would not otherwise do so. At all events, the class (large or small) for whom it was immediately intended, and which was directly addressed by those articles in the Guardian referred to throughout, — those Anglicans, namely, who hold what they consider Catholic principles, and have entertained misgivings, more or less serious, as to the Catholicity of their Church, — these are not likely to be more satis- fied and at rest in their position, in consequence of the phenomena which we see around us. It cannot indeed but produce a strong impression on the mind of every reflecting person, to observe the position now taken up by the Establishment. Contro- versialists spin out theories (very poor ones, by the way) in their closet, as to the spiritual independence of Angli- can Bishops, and circulate and sign declarations against the Queen's Ecclesiastical Supremacy in their Church ; but when it comes to the excitement and stir of action, how ludicrously unreal and inoperative are such theo- ries I The Queen's Spiritual Supremacy is resorted to by an irresistible instinct, as the real antagonist to the Pope's; and the Establishment is found making com- vi - PREFACE. mon cause with Dissenters, in more than one case even with Jews, in opposition to that Church, which, some Anglicans would have us believe, is regarded by their own as a sister and a co-ordinate ** branch." Another consideration is in point. The Guardian, and other periodicals of the same party, have not un- frequently twitted us English Catholics with the chi- merical and hopeless nature of the enterprise which they attribute to us, that of converting England. Now in reality nothing can be more absurd than to imagine, that the fact of Catholics aiming, wherever they are able, at conversions, is any proof that we regard the conversion of all England as a humanly probable event. Some in- deed may think so, and some may think otherwise : but I do not see how it is possible for any one to feel a deep and sure conviction of enjoying the truth, the one exclu- sive truth, without being anxious that as many as pos- sible should be in the same happy position. Accordingly, " Evangelicals" (to their honour) are as anxious to con- vert us, as we to convert them. But at all events, whe- ther our numbers are likely to increase or otherwise, at least we have not the task before us of converting our ozvn Church. With us, to be a member of the Catholic Church is to be a Catholic. But the party against whom I am writing, so far from being in a position to twit us, have a far more up-hill game to play themselves; — they have first to convert their ozvn fellow-Churchmen to what they believe to be the true Faith. And this initiatory task alone is (to say the least) fully as hope- less and chimerical, to judge merely by appearances and human probabilities, as our entire work. Few people indeed who read the daily papers will doubt, that it is even less difficult to turn England into a Catholic counlrfj, than the Establishment into a " Tractarian'' Church. PREFACE. VU The present Letter, however, as I said, is wholly ir- respective of such questions. It originated in the circum- stance, that I put out in the course of last July a short brochure^ of " four octavo pages" (as the Guardian some- what contemptuously remarked), with the view of shew- ing Anglican " high-churchmen," (what they seemed to me strangely blind to,) the real nature of their Church's constitution j how that with them, ever since the Re- formation, the civil magistrate and the civil courts have been, as a plain matter of fact, the sole judges of doc- trine in the last resort. I had it in my mind to publish some other such little papers : but for various reasons, did not carry out my intention ; partly indeed because I did not find that my first had attracted any notice. Two months afterwards, to my extreme surprise, I found an article in the Guardian^ drawing attention to this paper of mine, and censuring it in the severest terms. This led me to address a brief letter to the Editor, which he, in reviewing, did not admit as a satis- factory reply. I then thought, on the whole, that it might be better, once for all, to put into shape the whole line of reasoning which I had intended to run through in my projected brochures^ and at the same time to notice the chief controversial topics recently urged against us by Anglican <* high-churchmen ;" with the hope that some at least in their number might find certain of their difficulties solved, or certain of the ar- guments urged in favour of their position demolished. And as the Guardian was still pursuing its series of articles addressed to the very same class, I thought it natural to include them in my remarks. The latter part of my plan has led me into much greater length than I intended ; for the (to me) very astonishing line taken up by that newspaper, in regard viii PREFACE. to the admixture of evil men in the Catholic Church, made it necessary very much to enlarge the sixth sec- tion of this Letter, and entirely to add the seventh. The sixth article of his series appeared as I was nearly con- cluding ; but it will be found fully answered in a note at p. 101. The seventh and concluding one did not come out till I was actually at press ; but I have added a Postscript to give so much reply as seemed necessary. It will be seen, by this statement, that I have taken for granted all through, as a basis for my argument, the principles professed by " high-church" Anglicans ; and that this Letter therefore has no force as an argument, if addressed to a different class. From this, however, I may except the sixth section ; which, as being directly founded on Scripture, has some claim perhaps to be con- sidered by professing Christians of all denominations. Those readers who are not specially interested in the controversy between the Guardian and myself on the sub- ject of my personal veracity, had better omit from p. 3 to p. 7 : which they will find quite uninteresting. On looking over the sheets, I think it advisable, under present circumstances, to point out, (what indeed the most ordinary attention to the context will sufficiently shew,) that all which I have written, from p. l6 to p. ^% on the relations between the Pope and the civil magis- trate, refers to spiritual matters alone ; such as the ap- pointment of Bishops, parcelling out dioceses, setting on foot ecclesiastical measures, &c. The question of temporals, as will be at once seen, does not bear ever so remotely on my subject. TO THE EDITOR OF THE " GUARDIAN." Sir, I have reason, in many important respects, to be very well satisfied, with the effect produced upon your tone and line of argument by my former letter. My original little brochure was in no special way addressed to yourself; however, you put forth an unfavourable criticism on it, and that couched in a very confident and triumphant tone. There is not one argument, urged by you in that article, which I did not meet in my former letter ; and now let us see, how far you even profess to main- tain the aggressive ground, which you originally assumed. In my original paper, I had " begged my opponents to take any one fact in the whole Catholic history, whether of the mid- dle or of modern ages, — let it be as isolated, anomalous, and obscure as they please, — and to say distinctly whether, by any possible ingenuity, it can be so distorted, as to present even a momentary and colourable parallel" to your deplorable confusions. After two months' interval, you came forward with your in- stance ; and maintained that, even on the version of it most favourable to our cause, our " only mode of escape" from its force "would be by declaring broadly, that what was wrong in the Enf^lish Church was right in the Roman ; or, in other words, by boldly begging the question at issue." I proved to you m my reply, that so far from this being the case, the facts you adduced did not present the faintest or most distant resemblance, to that class of facts in your Church on which I was comment- ing; and what is your rejoinder? " The contest," you answer, "can only be kept up either by sweeping assertions," as you represent mine to be, "which may or may not be true, or by the statement of specific facts like those adduced by" yourself; " which, besides the possibility of inaccuracy, may or may not be fair instances of the general truths which they profess to illus- B 2 trate." In other words, you decline saying a word more, for the applicability of that one antagonist precedent, which a two months' search enabled you to discover; and thus you "unostentatiously" yield me the victory. Nor does your remark upon " sweeping as- sertions" avail you in mitigation. Such " sweeping assertions" are no doubt very hazardous, where one is not thoroughly convinced of the truth of one's cause ; but in that very proportion are they conclusive, where their accuracy is made manifest. And for the accuracy of mine there can be no better guarantee, than that, three months ago, I challenged the production of even one ex- ceptional instance ; and that the only one which was attempted, has been at once withdrawn. On the main argument of my original paper, my victory is even more decided. I professed to shew, by plain undeniable facts connected with the constitution of your Church, that " every single bishop of the Establishment, intending to remain such, either on the one hand holds the Erastian heresy; or, on the other hand, is resolved on occasion to commit mortal sin." Your first article characterised this argument of mine as " a fallacy which, in fact, answers itself;" and I applied myself accordingly, in my former letter, to make still clearer the grounds of my assertion. What is your present view of that assertion ? " We wish," you say, ''fully to acknoivledge, that a very weak point of the English Church is there exhibited, with exaggeration indeed, but with force." Comment is superfluous. Another, and a still more important — I cannot call it ad- mission, for I absolutely and altogether dissent from it ; but — opinion has (not indeed been elicited from you by my letter, but has) served as a basis to both your articles. For whereas my distinct allegation against the Anglican Establishment was, 1st, that, " at no period, from the Reformation downwards, has any bishop been allowed to act on any standard of orthodoxy except the State's voice ;" and 2d, that there is no precedent for such a state of things in all Catholic history ; — you complained, in so many words, in your first article, that while I appeared to claim all Catholic history as opposed to such a constitution, I really " accepted only the history of the Catholic Church after it had well become Roman;" and you added that, for m^' purpose, " the 3 contemporaries of Constantine, Tlieodosius, or Justinian, might be unpleasant witnesses." In other words, you maintained that a reception of the State's voice as the sole standard of orthodoxy is a principle more opposed to the usages of the "Roman Church" in later times, than of the " contemporaries of Constantine, Theo- dosius, or Justinian" in the earlier period. I cannot doubt that this is your deliberate opinion, because it is the sole support for a charge^ of dishonesty, which you have maintained against me for more than two months past ; and I cannot attribute to you the guilt of founding so grave a charge, on grounds which you have not very carefully weighed. But if it he your deliberate opinion, I must consider that you have acted most ungenerously and inequitably, in so long suppressing it. An opinion so un- speakably honourable to the Holy See, has been buried within your own breast on those numberless occasions, when you have been engaged in disparaging and censuring that See ; and has found expression only, when it seemed to give an opportunity for branding an individual Catholic with a serious charge. II. But while I have been thus successful in eliciting from you sentiments favourable to my general argument, I regret to say, that your imputations on my personal integrity are repeated in even stronger terms. You had accused me before, of not being "honest enough" to say what I should have said, and of " making a silly compromise between my argument and my con- science." But you now assert, that " my statement is grossly and palpably untrue;" and "leave your readers to judge for themselves how far the untruth is deliberate" This renewed and enlarged imputation of dishonesty affords one great reason, among others, why it is perhaps better to put my name to the present publication. From some expressions in your original article, I infer that you attributed the authorship of the paper which you were criticising, to some more recent convert than myself; and it is only fair that the full blame should fall on the right shoulders. But to me it is quite astonishing, that any one should think as you do, who has read with any care my two pre- vious papers, and who has any, even ordinary, acquaintance with the principles professed by your party. In my original paper, the whole stress was laid, not on his- torical considerations, but on plain matters of fact connected with your Establishment. The title was, " One word on the actual constitution of the Anglican Establishment ;" and of my " four octavo pages," fully two and a half were occupied with a detailed criticism on the constitution of the Establishment, while only half a page contained any allusion to history at all. The remaining two half pages were, on the one hand, a concluding exhortation ; and, on the other hand, an introductory paragraph, in which I expressly say, " in this short brochure I shall enter into a previous inquiry, the result of which may make further argument on mere historical details unnecessary . 1 shall inquire what is the actual constitution of the Anglican Establishment." The conclusion to which I came, as already quoted, was this : that "at no period," since the Reformation, in your Establishment, " has any bishop been allowed to act on any standard of ortho- doxy except the State's voice." This conclusion I was fully pre- pared, in case my little paper should attract any notice, to find called in question, and pulled to pieces, in every possible way. But there was one thing for which I certainly was not prepared ; viz. to find the truth of it, even for argument's sake, admitted by a member of your party, and a. justification attempted. That a professed disciple of the early Church, should say simply, and without disguise, that '' the contemporaries of Constantine, Theodosius, or Justinian," i.e. St. Athanasius, St. Leo, St. Gre- gory, " might be unpleasant witnesses," if called on to testify against the erection of " the State's voice" into the " sole standard of orthodoxy ;" — this, certainly, is an unexpected phenomenon. So far from carefully adjusting my words with the view of eluding such a comparison, the very notion of its being attempted never entered my mind. Surely, if there is one thing in the world which may be taken for granted, it is, that professed disciples of the early Church, and members of the movement of 1833, are zealous for the principle of ecclesiastical independence ; and that I have overthrown all claim of the Anglican Church on their allegiance, if I have shewn them that the sole doctrinal standard in that Church is the State's voice. Father Newman points out in his recent lectures, that " the idea or first principle of the movement of 1833 was ecclesiastical hberty ; the doctrine it especially opposed was, in ecclesiastical language, the heresy of Erastus, and in political, the royal supremacy. . . . The indepen- dence of the Church is almost the one subject of three out of four volumes of Mr. Fronde's Remains ; it is, in one shape or other, the prevailing subject of the earlier Tracts for the Times' (pp. 85, 6). The state of opinion to which I addressed my original paper, and which I considered to be that of Anglican " high-churchmen" in general, was such as the following : that a much larger mea- sure of ecclesiastical independence than now exists in the Esta- blishment, both is abstractedly very desirable, and, in point of fact, was enjoyed by the early Church; but that the modern Church, whether Anglican or Roman, has been led by circum- stances to abandon much, which had better have been retained ; yet not, on the other hand, so much, as to destroy the essence of either Church. This was the ground taken by yourself, sir, if I rightly remember, on the occasion of Dr. Hampden's nomination to a bishopric, and the events which followed ; you cited, namely, a fact from the history of the French Church, which you repre- sented as still more grossly inconsistent with ecclesiastical prin- ciple. And this has been also alleged during the present con- troversy, by Mr. Irons of Brompton; who maintains, that the Reformation was distinctly a movement toivards ecclesiastical independence: nor has his pamphlet, to my knowledge, been repudiated, either by yourself or by any other member of your party. I considered this general opinion to be fovmded, partly on great misconception as to the sort of concessions made at vari- ous times by the Roman Church, but very much more on the strangest obliquity of vision, in regard to the actual constitution of the Anglican Church. And it was to the latter misconception especially, as both the title and the contents of my paper prove, that 1 addressed my observations. I laboured to shew, what was the real nature of those concessions to the State which were made at the Reformation ; and how absolutely incommensurable they are, with those made, whether in mediaeval or in modern times, by the Catliolic Church. I took for granted, it is true, that in its earlier days, the Catholic Church had never made any concessions in the remotest 6 degree analogous to those which I was describing. I took this for granted, because it was a matter, which no one of any party, that I ever heard of, even thought of doubting; seeing that the world in general is so far acquainted, with the outlines at least of that portion of history, as to see the absurdity of imagining, that bishops then " were not allowed " by tlie Church's consti- tution, "to act on any standard of orthodoxy except the State's voice." And I took this proposition for granted especially, be- cause those, whom I was addressing, were the very persons of all others who have been ever eager in maintaining it. It is true, indeed, that during the last controversy, two writers of that party (Dr. Pusey, and the author of an article in the Christian Remem- brancer of last April,) have pointed out, that great apparent claims of spiritual authority were made by those whom you mention, Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian ; but do those very writers, as you seem to f incy, imply ever so distantly, that these claims were greater than those made by temporal sovereigns in mediaeval and modern times? So far from it, the last-named writer lays fully as much stress on the precedents of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, as on those of Theodosius and Justinian ; and says (p. 507), that the strongest case of all is to be found " in the whole history of the French Church, from the time of the great western schism to Napoleon." So that, in- stead of my shirking (as you imply) the most formidable cases of objection, my challenge most expressly includes those prece- dents, which your own chosen advocate considers the strongest. I repeat, if it be not certain that the whole spirit of the early Church was energetically opposed to the very idea of ac- cepting " the State's voice as the sole standard of orthodoxy," I know not any one fact of history which is certain. You yourself, sir, admit this as strongly as I can do ; and the very two writers I have just been mentioning earnestly maintain it. But I do think, some facts which they adduce would lead to an opposite conclu- sion, unless they are taken in connexion with another fact, equally certain and equally plain, which, however, they are unwilling to admit ; viz. the Pope's Supremacy in that same period. This sen- timent of mine I shall, without delay, proceed to illustrate ; but the preceding observations make it sufficiently clear, why I was not able actually to say, totidem verbis, " that there is no fact" in the earli/ ages " which, by any possible ingenuity, can be so dis- torted as to present a momentary and colourable parallel" to the Anglican Establishment. Deny the Pope's Supremacy, as you deny it, and the thing is done ; but in like manner, if any were bold enough (and it would be no whit more bold) to deny that the Pope's Supremacy existed in the middle ages, there would likewise be mediceval precedents enough for something like the Anglican Erastianism. But to make all this clear, required the entering into a completely different subject; and it seemed, therefore, the most convenient arrangement, to devote my first paper to the task of setting forth the real nature of the Anglican supremacy ; and to challenge comparison with the alleged parallels, so often, and yet so beyond words unreasonably, adduced from the " me- diaeval and modern" Church. Nor, be it observed, should I, in the following paper, have devoted a moment to the task of proving, that the early Church would have rejected, with deepest indignation, the principle which I had imputed to the Anglican Establishment. Rather, assuming this as too plain to require proof, and uniting it with the facts quoted by the above-named wa-iters, I should have constructed an argument (and I think an extremely strong one,) in proof of the universal recognition, at that period, of the Roman supremacy. I should have made this much clearer in my first letter ; but it unfortunately takes many words to explain, as 1 fear my readers have found to their cost ; and in my previous letter I was perhaps over-studious of brevity. I had begun, in that letter, to put down what I have here been stating ; but finding the length to which my observations were proceeding, I erased them, in the hope that what I had already said would be sufii- cient. That it was not found sufiicient, must be my apology for troubling the public at so great length on a matter merely personal. Before leaving, however, these personal matters, 1 will not omit to notice an epithet applied by you to my original paper ; which you call " bitterly aggressive" in its tone. So far as this is meant unfavourably, it is intended possibly to imply, what I have seen more expressly urged in some quarters, a complaint, 8 namely, that Catholics do not sufficiently sympathise with your friends, in their struggle for what we, no less than you, regard as essential truths. If this be so, I can only say, that it is one thing to recognise, with sincere respect, much that is right in its principle, and admirable in its energy, and exalted in its devotedness and piety, in the eiforts of your party ; and quite another thing, to feel the very slightest sympathy or regard for the cause itself, to which these high qualities are devoted; I should rather say, on which they are wasted and thrown away. There are many particulars, in the sayings and doings of your friends, which, I fully admit, are worthy of all praise and ad- miration ; many, on the other hand, candour obliges me to add, which, for my own part, I cannot read or hear of, without an involuntary feeling of disgust and alienation. But while my feeling towards individuals is a mixed one, my feeling towards their cause is quite zmimxed. It is, indeed, rather strange, that any of your party should make such a comment; for what are you yourselves doing in the whole struggle, except opposing a class of men, with whom you have much in common ? You sympathise with the " Evange- licals," in their denunciations of worldliness, in their reverence for Holy Scripture, in the ministerial zeal for which many of them are distinguished. Why do you oppose them, then, and press for a decision, which must exclude all the honest and con- sistent of their number from the ministry of your Establish- ment ? " Because truth is sacred, and admits no compromise." Allow us, then, to feel the same ; for taking the matter on its most superficial ground, and counting explicit doctrines one by one, we are as far removed from you as you from them. The main reason, indeed, why any Catholic should be anxious that " high churchmen" awake from their dream of security, is the imminent peril to their soul which that dream involves. But looking abroad, looking forth from the individual soul to the course of events on a large scale, how can we wish well to the present efforts of your party ? As regards the uneducated, — nay, and the commercial and trading classes, — I firmly hold, that it is absolutely hopeless, by any machinery with which the Establishment can supply you, to indoctrinate them with even that small amount of dogmatic truth, which you hold yourselves; and at the same time, for want of belief in the divine obligation of Confession, souls in those classes are perishing by millions. I believe further, that even those true doctrines which you hold, in the case of numbers among you, and as the natural result of your system, (however counteracted, I hope, in many, yet excep- tional, cases) are almost as though they were not believed at all ; as being believed on so unchristian a principle. I hold, that this principle itself, the principle, namely, of individual in- ference from the records of Antiquity, leads, as a principle, by natural (though, I hope, often counteracted) consequence, to an arrogant and critical temper of mind, the very opposite to that child-like spirit enforced by the Gospel ; and results too, as a mat- ter of fact, — not in men really surrendering themselves the spirit of Antiquity, which would very soon lead them on to Catholi- cism ; but in their picking and choosing for themselves, according to their bias or the necessities of their position, which doctrine of Antiquity they shall retain as essential, which they shall dis- card as mere matter of opinion. I hold, that several heresies, ao"ainst which you cannot venture to make a stand as being forbidden by your Church, such, for instance, as Justification by Faith only, are more fundamentally destructive of the Christian character, than is that anti-baptismal heresy against which you are contending. I hold, that numbers of those who join you in the present movement, are to the full, in the whole complexion of their doctrines, as opposed to the spirit of Antiquity, as the Evangelicals themselves are, or as the wildest latitudinarians. Nay, in one respect, I hold that the " Evangelicals," as a body, are nearer the truth than your party, as a body ; I mean, in their encouragement of a temper of per- sonal and fervent love for our Adorable Saviour. I admit ex- ceptions to this statement, in the case of one or two eminent men in particular, whose names will readily occur to you ; but the tone adopted by your party as a whole, in regard to Catholic devotions, e. g. towards the Five Wounds, or the Precious Blood, or the Sacred Heart, will explain what 1 mean. And I think, too, that the spirit of your Prayer-book, wliich is the very model you propose whereon to form the inward life, and which one 10 of your greatest names has expressly praised as being " sober," — I say the spirit of your Prayer-book is, in my judgment, eminently opposed to, what one may call, a personal and affec- tionate habit of religion. I am neither expecting you to agree with these opinions of mine without proof, nor yet professing to prove them ; I merely say, that if any one holds them, you cannot be surprised that he views your movement with no sort of sympathy, except so far as it may be the means of opening the eyes, first of one, and next of another, as to the empty pretentiousness of your claims to Catholicity. The Establishment, as an Establishment, appears to me in many ways of great service; your movement within the Establishment, so far as it draws forth aspirations which must look to the Catholic Church for gratification, is of still more obvious service ; but the attempt to force on the Es- tablishment those doctrines which you consider Catholic, as the doctrines of that body, I cannot but regard as, not only unjust and even impudent in itself, but most assuredly vain in reference to any effective result. I hope you will pardon me this digression, so far as it is to be called such ; but the charge which I have been meeting is really of so very severe a character, (being, indeed, no less than that of dealing with religious argument in the spirit of party, rather than of love for, and sympathy with, truth), that before proceed- ing with the aggressive line marked out by my original paper, it seemed due to the cause of truth itself to make such an ex- planation. III. I proceed now to enlarge on the proposition, which was implied indeed, but not dwelt upon, in my original paper: I mean, that no branch of the Catholic Church has ever, or any where, been subject to the civil magistrate, in the sense in which your Establishment is subject to him; or in such sense, as not to retain the most ample security for doctrinal orthodoxy. And first, to defend the allegation which I was just now led to make. I affirm then, that various facts adduced, whether by Dr. Pusey or by the writer in the Christian Remembrancer , would lead to a conclusion, which those writers themselves would be the first; to disavow, unless taken in connexion with the doctrine of the 11 Pope's Supremacy; from which circumstance I infer against them, that the Pope's Supremacy was universally recognised, even as a first principle, in those early times. A few words will shew this. But I may as well introduce the subject, by a quotation from an article ascribed to Mr. Keble, and written more than ten years ago: which 1 cite, not for the purpose of proving what no one denies, but of recalling to the reader's mind the undoubted phenomena of the fourth and fifth centuries. Let us " turn back the mind's eye," says he, " towards the days when the kings and rulers of the world first began to appreciate this highest part of their calling. St. Paul had taught Christians, from the first, that even heathen princes were XeirHpyol, ' ministers of God to His people for good :' and when they came themselves to be Christians, it never entered their minds that the true and eternal good was the one interest of their people, with which they were never to busy themselves. On the con- trary, the very word Xttrapyoc suggested to them, as the word minister naturally might to us, the notion of their being, though of course not literally as priests, yet in some analogous way, called to wait on God in His Church; and the prophet's word, 'nursing-fathers,' would at once inform them what that office was. They would well understand that in spiritual matters they were to execute the laws of Christ's Church, not impose laws upon her : except it be the office of a nurse to o-ive directions to a parent, and not rather receive instructions how the child ought to be managed. The strength of this impression on their minds, will account for such anecdotes, as that of Constantine refusing to take his seat at the Council of Nice, until he was requested by the bishops to do so ; and again, declining to receive an appeal, when tendered by Donatists in an ecclesiastical cause ; and also for that remarkable expression, so different from the tone encouraged by the modern doctrine of legal supremacy, in his promulgation of the Nicene Decrees ; ' By the suggestion of God, I called together to Nice the greater part of the bishops, with whom, as one of you, I, your fellow -ser- vant,' the fellow-ser\'ant of ordinary lay-men, ' and rejoicing above mea- sure to he so, did myself undertake the task of examining the truth.' These and the other incidents of the same era, commonly appealed to by writers on this subject, such as Hosius and St. Hilary's demurring to the sentence of Constantius ; St. Ambrose's resistance to Valentinian and his officers; and excommunication of Theodosius; St. Basil's refusal 12 to alter the Church formularies, though it might bring Valens into Church communion ; and still more than the incidents themselves, the manner in which such sacerdotal boldness was received by the several emperors, and the tone in which it is related by contemporary writers (some of them of the highest authority, St. Athanasius, for instance, and St. Gregory Nazianzen), are sufficient indications, not perhaps of any formal compact, such as some appear to dream of, between the ecclesiastical and secular authorities, but of something yet more striking and authoritative, — a general consent in the early Christian world, as to the meaning of what Scripture teaches concerning the office of kings in the Church. The notion of nursing -fathers — confidential servants entrusted to bring up her children according to her laws— runs through the whole, and accounts for each particular. The voice of the Church was, ' We call Christian emperors happy, if they make their power a handmaid to the majesty of God, for no purpose so much as the propa- gation of His true religion and worship.' And again : ' Whereas it is written, ' The sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee / it may be that by kings he means here literally those who are crowned with the highest honours, and sway the sceptre of royalty, who also are ministers of the Church : now ministering in this place sigvifies obedience.' The whole doctrine was, and we believe still is, significantly taught in many parts of the Christian world, by the custom which prevails of the Sovereign at solemn coronations wearing a deacon's habit, or part of it, under his robes of state ; thereby acknowledging himself a servant of the Church, whose anointing and blessing he has just received, and bound to wait on and guard her bishops and priests, somewhat as a deacon should, in their holy offices, and again (which is another part of the diaconate), to take care that the Church's children generally be duly taught, and warned of their own part in the service." — British Critic for October, 1839, pp. 375-6. No one of course doubts, that great numbers of Eastern bishops were, at various times, disposed, as to the Arian, Nesto- rian, and Eutychian heresies, so, and in the same proportion, to what was in later times called the Erastian, also ; but I am cer- tainly entitled to take for granted, nor do I for a moment doubt your full concurrence, that a body of bishops, who were in full communion with the Catholic Church, were (externally at least) free from one and all of these heresies, and would have at once 13 peremptorily repudiated the principle of accepting the Emperor as their authoritative instructor in the truths of religion. Now, take such passages as the following : " We will that all people, whom the power of our clemency rules, should live in that religion which, &c that is, that according to Apostolic discipline and Evangelical doctrine, we believe one God- head of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in an Equal Majesty and in a Merciful Trinity. We command that, following this law, they take the name of Catholic Christians ; adjudging the rest senseless and mad, to bear the infamy of heretical doctrine, and to be punished."— Xaw of Gra- tian and Theodosius.* " Further, we decree, that those who abet the impious opinion of Nestorius, or follow his abominable doctrine, if they are bishops or clerks, be cast forth from the Churches ; if laymen, be anathematised, according to what has been already established by our Divinity " But whereas it has come to our pious ears, that certain have com- posed certain doctrines, and have published such, being ambiguous, and not in all things and exactly agreeing with the orthodox faith pro- pounded by the holy synod of those holy Fathers who assembled at Nicsea and Ephesus, and by Cyril of pious memory, who was Bishop of the great city of Alexandria, we order that all such writings, whether composed before or now, be burnt and utterly destroyed, &c And henceforth no one is at liberty either to say or to teach any thing beyond the faith set forth, as well at Nicsea as at Ephesus ; and the transgressors of this our divine precept shall be subject to the same penalty decreed against the impious faith of Nestorius. But that all may learn in very deed how much our Divinity abhors those who follow the impious faith of Nestorius, we command that Irenseus, formerly under our displeasure for this cause, and afterwards, after second mar- riage (as we have learnt), contrary to the Apostolic Canon, made Bishop of Tyre, be deprived (dejici) of the Church of Tyre, and do abide in his own country in quiet, divested of the character and name of a priest " We wish your Holiness to know every thing which relates to the state of the Church. We have, therefore, thought it necessary to address these divine words to your Holiness, and thereby exjjlain to you the measures which have been set on foot, though we are persuaded that you are acquainted with them. Finding, therefore, some who were aliens from the Holy and Apostolic Church, following the deception of the impious Nestorius and Eutyches, we before promulgated a divine * Christian Remembrancer, No. LXVIII. p. 486. 14 edict, as your Holiness knows, by which we restrained the madness of the heretics " These, then, are the points in which, by our divine edict, we con- victed the heretics ; to which divine edict all the most holy bishops who were here, and the most reverend Archimandrites, together with your Holiness, subscribe Let no one, therefore, vainly trouble us, relying on a vain hope, as if we ever had done any thing contrary to the Four Councils, or should do, or should allow to be done by any, or should suffer the holy memory of the same holy Four Councils to be removed from the aforesaid diptychs of the Church. For all who by them have been condemned and anathematised, and the doctrine of those condemned, and those who have thought or think with them, we anathematised."* Surely these passages, taken as I have quoted them, present every appearance of a distinct claim made by the Emperor, to decide what shall, and what shall not, he accepted as the ortho- dox faith in the Imperial Church. The comment indeed made, in the article itself, on similar passages, is the following: — " If Charlemagne or Louis speak to bishops, and upon spiritual matters, in terms as authoritative and peremptory as those of a Pope's brief, we know that they are fully agreed with their bishops, and are probably using the words which their bishops have drawn up for them." But, with great deference to this very able, interesting, and learned writer, I cannot admit that he has solved the difficulty. I cannot think such passages, as I have quoted, fairly reconcileable with any idea, on the Emperor's part, that it is the bishops of the Empire, and not himself, who are to determine on the religion of the Empire : the bishops are plainly not addressed as having voice or part in the matter, except to obey the Emperor's command. We have absolutely no alterna- tive then, but to believe, either that the Emperor actually made this claim of determining, on his own authority, the religion of the Empire (which no one maintains), or else that he was not originating commands, but enforcing on them the commands of some external authority, which he recognised as binding both on him and them. And the latter hypothesis gives to the full as natural an interpretation as the former. Suppose a Christian * Christian Remembrancer, from the same article. 15 king, for example, were earnestly to command his subjects to abstain from robbery, adultery, and murder, affixing, at the same time, civil punishments to these offences, no one would suppose him to mean, that he had an equal claim on their obedience if he commanded the perpetration of these vices. No one would suppose this, because all his subjects would perfectly know, that he recognised the law of God as binding both on himself and on them ; and that, in these matters, he was not originating commands of his own, but enforcing the commands of God. Now, this conclusion would inevitably follow, even if there were no explicit mention of this external authority ; but I have chosen the particular passages above cited, partly because some of them contain express reference to that, which I contend must be u7iderstood through the whole series. Thus the law of Gratian and Theodosius : " We will that all people, whom the power of our clemency rules, should live in that religion, which was given by St. Peter the Apostle to the Romans, as the religion by him introduced witnesses to this day, and which it is clear that Pope Damasvs follows, and Peter, Bishop of Alex- andria, a man of Apostolical sanctity." Again, Justinian to the Patriarch of Constantinople : "We wish your Holiness, &c., [as above quoted] .... a divine edict, by which we restrained the madness of heretics ; yet without having changed or changing any thing whatsoever, or having gone beyond the constitution of the Church, which has been, by God's help, hitherto preserved ; but having kept in all things the state of unity of the most holy Churches with the most holy Pope and Patriarch of old Rome, to whom we have written to the same effect. For we suffer not that any thing that pertains to the state of the Church should fail to be referred to his Blessedness, seeing that he is the head of the holy priests of God ; and the more so, because, whenever heretics have sprung up in these parts, they have been restrained by the sentence and just judgment of that venerable throne." It will further illustrate my argument, and will shew more plainly what a deep and radical difference of meaning there may be in the very same words and external acts, accordingly as men do, or do not, admit this necessity of communion with the Holy See, if we imagine the hypothesis of the Established Cliurch 16 having been imbued with that principle during the few last years. It is wonderful how little need have been the changes of form, and, on the other hand, how complete, and (as we may say) revolutionary , the change of essence. In Mr. Gorham's case, for example, supposing it had been possible for such a case to have arisen, things might have proceeded in the very same form which we have lately seen : but when the time for final judgment came near, it would have been signified by the Holy Father, that he must exclude from his communion all who, whether as judges or otherwise, in any way forwarded these here- tical views ; and that, in case the law went in favour of Mr. Gor- ham, he must place the parishioners of Brampford Speke imder a different pastor, and enforce excommunication against them, should they unite " in sacris" with the heretical intruder favoured by the State. But in fact, supposing this principle to be really held, things would never be suffered to proceed to extremities. The Government would press forward their influence, no doubt, in a degree extremely detrimental to the Church's well-hemg ; but they would take care to stop precisely at the point where it would threaten her being, and so bring down upon them the interference of Rome. Every thing, short of open heresy, might be industriously forwarded ; but as industriovisly would open heresy have been avoided. Not only might the government have been allowed to appoint the bishops (this indeed is the general rule in Catholic countries) ; they might have had also the appor- tionment of dioceses, the power to abrogate old, or to construct new ; nay, (though I am not aware of any Catholic precedent for this,) it would not be in itself contrary to principle, that bishops (as in King Edward's time) should have held their jurisdiction only during the king's pleasure. Such grievances as these (which, however, I am as far as possible from imdervaluing,) are not, however, the real wound from which the Establishiuent suffers ; and an agitation for the removal of these, as though its position thereby would be one whit better, is the merest child's-play. No ; the death-wound of the Establishment is something incom- mensurably deeper than any or all of these ; it is the loss of that, without which no Church can possibly belong to the Apostolic Body, — the loss of all security for the preservation of the Apos- 17 tolic Faith. That the Anglican Church is now, and has been from the Reformation downwards, a prey to ahnost every variety of deadly heresy, this is what I shall presently maintain : what I am now pointing out is, that she has lost all security for being otherwise ; that, in matters even of doctrine, the State's voice is her supreme law ; the Judicial Committee her final judge. For such grievances as I just now recited (except perhaps the last), precedents in plenty may probably enough be found in ecclesias- tical history ; but for this grievance, (if I may once more repeat an expression I have had so often to cite from my first paper,) " I would beg my opponents to take any one fact in the whole course of Catholic history, .... let it be as isolated, anomalous, and obscure as they please ; and to say distinctly whether, by any possible ingenuity, it can be so distorted, as to present even a momentary and colourable parallel." So long as the obligation of communion with Rome is admitted, there is, by the very necessity of the case, a most real (however for the time latent) power, from whom ecclesiastical jurisdiction really proceeds; and of whom it is guaranteed to us by divine promise, that he will never permit the Faith itself, in his communion, to be called in question. Nor is this all, though this would indeed be much. The same power which (tacitly) gave jurisdiction, may revoke it ; and so long therefore as this one belief, (viz. in the necessity of communion with Rome,) remains intact, a principle is implanted, by help of which the Holy Father may at any time, when for the good of religion it shall to him seem expedient, enforce a change of the relations between Church and State. You may possibly be inclined here to interfere ; and to object that I am assuming one or two most important matters, which you confidently deny. You may object, that you neither admit the fact of the Pope's early supremacy, nor the doctrine of his present infallibility ; and that, in all 1 have been lately saying, I have taken for granted both fact and doctrine. But so to object would imply a complete misconception of my whole argument; which does not assume either of these positions, though it tends undoubtedly to 'prove the former. My argument has been twofold: 1st, that whereas both you and I agree that no Catholic bishops, in early times, would have c 18 accepted the emperor's decree as the standard of orthodoxy ; it is very difficult nevertheless, or even impossible, to reconcile certain documents of the period with this principle of ours, unless we admit the contemporaneous existence of the Papal supremacy : and Sdly, whereas 1 have over and over again distinctly charged the Anglican Establishment, with submitting to the State as judge of doctrine in the last resort; I have pointed out, that notliing bearing the most distant resemblance to this can possibly have place, in a society which (rightly or wrongly,) regards communion with the Pope as necessary to salvation. And I have hinted at this further fact, that whereas every branch of the Catholic Churcli possesses that which, on her 'principles, is security for sound doctrine; no change that any one has ever proposed, in the constitution of your body, will give you what, on your principles, is such security. Another difficulty, and at first sight a more reasonable one, may be raised, as making my wliole argument difficult to under- stand, " Why," it may be asked, " if facts are as I represent them, why cannot the Pope enforce in all cases those conditions of alliance, which to him seem, in the abstract, most desirable ? If the people are really persuaded, that union with the Holy See is necessary to salvation, will they not willingly accept any terms, rather than forfeit that union ?" A difficulty this, how- ever, which forgets the fact, that the mass of men are not, on the one hand, intellectually far-seeing and perspicacious ; nor, on the other hand, morally endowed with saint-like humility and self-abnegation. Let me explain myself on both these parti- culars ; and, assuming our doctrines to be true, let me shew how, on that assumption, the difficulty disappears. And first, on the moral impediments. It is among the com- monest and most obvious phenomena, that great numbers of men are really resolved, by the grace of God, to avoid mortal sin ; who yet are so disposed that we have a fear, almost amounting to certainty, that, under certain circumstances, they would fall from their holy resolution. And accordingly, it is among the most continually recurring and universally admitted obligations of charity, to avoid placing men in " occasions of sin." This obligation is felt, of course, in a degree so special as almost to 19 amount to a difference in kind, by him who has received com- mission from the Chief Pastor, to guide, feed, and govern His flock. This yearning love of souls, which so singularly charac- terises the dealings of the Holy See with the Church, produces a most unremitting and tender anxiety, that the principle of obe- dience be not pressed beyond what it will bear ; and that com- mands be not imposed, which the spirit of pride, or cowardice, or indolence, or personal or national independence, may pro- bably prompt men to disobey. They, indeed, if unrepentant, would eternally perish for their disobedience ; but he might not be without blame who, without necessity, exposed them to the peril. On the other hand, there are not unfrequently evils, and those of no less momentous a kind, attending the opposite course of lenience and forbearance. And to steer his way between these opposite evils, so as to obtain the greatest benefit with the least sacrifice, — this is the problem ever placed before our Holy Father; and in which, we Catholics doubt not that he receives a special gift of wisdom from above, which enlightens and directs his steps.* Again, as regards intellectual deficiency. The doctrine that communion with the Holy See is commanded, as indispensably necessary for salvation, (indispensably necessary, that is, where there is not invincible ignorance of the precept), this principle is no doubt pregnant with an indefinite train of results, of the most momentous kind. Yet it is one thing sincerely and heartily to receive the principle, and quite a different thing to be quick in recognising its legitimate applications. In very many cases, such an application may point to the duty, of inno- vating upon perhaps long-continued usage, nay, of abandoning very strong preconceived opinions. In such cases, it is greatly understating the matter to say, that many will be slow in ad- mitting the legitimacy of such applications : rather, it is very few who will be otherwise than slow. And the Supreme Pontiff may well hesitate in pressing claims, however just, with the certainty of causing many conscientious perplexities, and with • It is not meant by this, that we believe the Pope to be actually infallible on such matters of ecclesiastical conduct ; but \vc do believe him to bo assisted by very special Divine superintendence. This subject is enlarged upon, towards the end of the letter. 20 the risk of tempting to actual schism. And yet here, as in the former case, there may be most grievous danger also from the opposite quarter; and his office is, to adjust the balance as well as may be done. Hence we see, in history, so many, and so well-founded, Papal pretensions, waved for a time, and renewed when there is more hope of success; — a procedure always espe- cially distasteful to Protestants and infidels, and which is the substratum of fact, lying under the various popular declamations about " the spirit of Papal aggression," and the like.* * This obvious consideration affords a ready solution to the objections brought by Protestants against the evidences of the Catholic Church. For instance, our contro- versialists allege, from Scripture and the Fathers, a large number of the most plain and unequivocal testimonies for the indivisible unity of the Chtirch ; testimonies admitted by Protestants themselves to be absolutely inconsistent, if taken simply and literally, with your claims to Catholicity. The common resource, in controversy, is to bring together a certain number of other facts, which seem to evince that this same principle was not fully understood by all in early times. Now, for such reasons as those given in the text, there is no difficulty whatever in our admitting that, in this or that instance, the right application of this principle was not understood ; but this does not in the least shew, that the principle itself was not held. One fair way of testing, then, how far any such fact is a real objection to our doctrine, is to see whe- ther such fact can possibly be interpreted, as witnessing to some doctrine different from ours on the point in hand. Thus, on the subject above specified : the Apostles either taught that the Church is essentially one body politic ; or that it is made up of so many bodies politic, each governed by its bishop ; or that it is constituted in some other conceivable way. Now we Catholics maintain, (and I think quite unanswerably,) that there is no one ecclesiastical constitution you can name and define, except the Catholic, in favour of which you can find so much as one (I will not say distinct tes- timony, but one) hint, in Scripture or the Fathers. The argument, therefore, stands thus : either the Christian Church was ordained to be one indivisible body politio or it was ordained to have some other constitution which admits of being specified. For the first of these alternatives, a vast body of the most explicit testimony is adduced; for the second of these alternatives, in any one shape that can be named, no testimony whatever is even attempted ; therefore the first of these alternatives is true. The instances, quoted in opposition, must arise from some incidental inability rightly to apply the Catholic principle, not from any principle adverse to the Catholic ; be- cause our opponents themselves cannot name any such principle, which they so much as profess to have been held by the personages whom they adduce. In like manner, if the Christian Church be, by divine appointment, one organised body politic, there must be some bo7id or centre of union appointed by God. There is the stronc^est evidence, in Scripture and Antiquity, that the obligation of communion with the Holy See is that bond ; while there is no other bond of union that can be named, for which a particle of evidence is producible. Hence, as before, it follows necessarily, that the obligation of communion with the Holy See was a divinely ordained principle ; and that the instances brought in opposition, are referrible to slowness or mistake in applying that principle, not from any opposition to the prin- ciple itself. This reasoning will be better understood at a later part of my argument. 21 At the same time (often as I have mentioned this, it is safer to mention it again, that I may avoid all risk of misapprehension), all these claims, which may thus be waved at one time and enforced at another, are such as steer quite clear of the essentials of the Christian Church. In particular (to speak of what bears on my present subject), they are absolutely and altogether clear of all toleration of heresy. It is commanded by God's law, and guaranteed by God's promise, that the Holy See shall never continue its communion to open and known heretics. Further, it must not be forgotten, that even were the Catho- lic people as humbly and dutifully loyal to the Pope, as Christ Himself could desire ; concordats are not made with peoples, but with sovereigns. The people may be profoundly Catholic, and yet the sovereign may be attached to Rome by cords, which a very little resistance will break. Now, as I urged in my first paper, the evil of a scliismatical and persecuting potentate is so awfully great, that any sacrifices, however grievous, far more, however wounding to human pride, so only princij^le allows them, will most readily be made, " if by them may be averted a state of things, in which heroic fortitude becomes absolutely necessary to salvation, and in which accordingly the poor weak souls, who perish eternally, may be counted by millions." I have been speaking of the various causes, which will, at all times, most piously and reasonably weigh with the Holy Father, and induce him to abstain from pressing very many conditions of communion, which he may regard as abstractedly desirable. But I am not meaning to commit myself to an opinion, that the state of things, e. g. under Charlemagne, at all belongs to this class. The question, as is evident, is wholly without practical import- ance ; but it is quite conceivable for a Catholic to think (whe- ther or no I should agree with him), that supposing a thoroughly Cathohc king and a thoroughly Catholic people, there could not be a much more salutary arrangement. So far as I am able to ■understand history, there is nothing more alien to the spirit of the Holy See, in later as well as in earlier times, than the attempt to engross into its own hands the whole administra- tion of the Church. The very contrary seems to me the case ; a constant labour and endeavour that its various subordinates may promote the great cause, each according to his respec- 22 tive mode of action ; and an unwillingness to interfere, except where an heretical leaven might be creeping in. Witness the ready encouragement, and wide liberty, given to the vast variety of orders and congregations, each with its own sphere of action and maxims of conduct ; witness the great discretion allowed to individual bishops, in their mode of governing their respective dioceses. Heresy or heretical tendency not being supposed, the Holy See seems never disposed to interfere, except where there may be a disposition, in societies or individuals, not to be con- tented with liberty allowed to themselves, but to encroach on the liberty equally allowed to others. And so, no doubt, if an em- peror were roughly to over-ride his bishops, take from their due liberty of action, or otherwise to contravene the general maxims of the Church, a Pope might wish (except for fear of greater evils) to diminish his power. But on the contrary supposition — if there be a Christian emperor, filled with deference for the Holy See, and acting also on terms of the fullest confidence and sympathy with his bishops, — that such an emperor, should have by far the largest share in originating ecclesiastical measures for his people's good, and should also exercise a very wide superin- tendence over their execution, this is certainly not anti-catholic in principle ; nay, I can imagine many a good Catholic to regard it as the most salutary possible state of things. And certainly such facts as those brought together in the Christian Remem- brancer, are in one respect especially valuable ; for they bear the strongest possible protest against the modern idea, that it is not (if so be) a miserable necessity, but rather that it is the one appropriate position of the civil magistrate, that he ignore the claims of spiritual truth, and direct his efforts exclusively to objects of this world. I only maintain, that it is competent to the Pope, and him alone, to oblige the consciences of Christians peremptorily and without appeal, on the question, whether, and how long, any particular terms of union are to continue. I have now then, sir, I trust, explained more clearly than I seem to have been able before, the distinction which I meant to draw, between the concessions made by your body to the State, and those which have been made by any branch of the Catholic Church. The very plenitude of jurisdiction, given over to the Church, includes the power (generally speaking) of delegating 23 that jurisdiction to whom she will ; but over the faith she has no j)oiver, beyond that of declaring and defining it. Accordingly, while you have surrendered dogma, we have most religiously pre- served it. That wonderful fabric, both of doctrinal and moral definitions, that vast scheme of scientific theology, which has grown up in the course of ages within the Church, has never for one moment been tampered with, nor the laws of its steady and equable growth \dolated, even in the most disastrous epochs of the Church's history. She may have yielded to the State's des- potism in almost every thing else, as she had full power from Christ to yield ; but here she has been proof alike against threats and blandishments, against material power and intellec- tual rebellion. You may say, if you will, that the Pope has de- cided doctrine wrongly ; but it is a plain matter of fact, that he has kept the decision of it in his own hands. The distinction between you and us, in one word, is no other than that very dis- tinctly pronounced, and very familiar one ; the distinction be- tween the giving what is our own, and the making free with what is entrusted to us by another. An offence this last, which has always been marked with a very special note of turpitude in the ethical code. IV. This, then, being the plain matter of fact, which no one can deny or dispute ; the State having kept in its own hands, for the last 300 years, the decision, as to what shall and what shall not be taught in your pulpits ; it needed no very prophetic mind, to augur the general course of events. The State is too busy with its own affairs, to have much leisure for theology ; and moreover, its authorities have their mental vision so habitually engrossed with objects and interests of this world, that it is the fondest illusion to imagine they can ever be sensitively anxious, as to the means of high spiritual progress, or the strict purity of Christian faith. But this is not all. They will not merely be indifferent to the Church's objects, they will in many most im- portant respects be averse to them. " The State wishes its sub- jects," it has been said, " to have some teaching about the next world, but not too much ; just as much as is important and beneficial to the interests of the present. Decency, order, indus- try, patience, sobriety, and as much of purity as can be expected 24 of human nature, this is its list of requisites ; not dogma, for it creates the odium theologicum ; not mystery, for it only serves to exalt the priesthood," — Father Newmans Lectures, p. 156. Let us now see, in some degree, how far the facts of the case have answered such expectations. I say in some degree, for as regards the doctrinal condition of your Church in recent times, I absolutely despair of doing any sort of justice to the deep feeling — I might almost literally say sense — of the unspeakable divergences, confusions, worldliness, profaneness, shallowness, formalism, arrogance, stupidity, which belong to the religious tenets professed among you ; a sense, which the five years' ex- perience of doctrinal unity has not a little intensified. And as to the earlier days, again, of your post-reformation existence, I doubt not that an acquaintance at first hand with the writers of that period, would enable me to give far more apposite and (so to speak) more lively instances than will here follow. Such as I can produce, however, will be found quite enough to impress with aversion and disgust any really Catholic mind. Nor can I find any more appropriate preface to my proposed examination, than the following passage, — a passage at once most eloquent and most honourable to his Catholic feeling, — from Mr Glad- stone's late pamphlet. It is impossible to ask for a more dis- tinct and emphatic statement of the principles held by the early Church in regard to doctrinal unity : and thus it will afford an admirable standard whereby to measure such facts as may be ad- duced ; while, on the other hand, as coming from so "' moderate" a person as Mr. Gladstone, there can be no suspicion of its being coloured for a purpose. " A certain body of revealed truth," says Mr. Gladstone, " has been given by God to man, and defined in an intelligible manner for his use, which it is not only the specific ofiice, but the divine commission, of the Church to teach. Now, if these things be true, then to propose that the faith and its opposite in any particular article shall be placed on equal terms, within the precinct and by the law of the Church, is simply to demand that she shall betray her office. It is precisely (however startling the comparison may appear) what it would be relatively to the marriage state, to enact that fidelity might be maintained in it, but that adultery might also be practised in it at the option of the parties. 25 It is a process to which, if the early Church would have submitted, she need never have seen her children mangled in the jaws of lions, or writh- ing on the stake or in the flame. But then it is also a process which would have turned the divelUng -place of the living God into a Pantheon. It is, therefore, that which simply could not be; because it is contrary to the words, which His hand had graven upon the rock with a pen of iron : The gates of hell, &c." — Gladstone on the Supremacy, pp. 77, 78. In the vast mass of heresy at once opening to our notice, let us begin with the one just now in every one's mouth, a denial of the universal regeneration of infants in holy Baptism. It is con- venient to begin with this, because the whole stir made by your party, at the present time, implies the deepest and most unani- mous conviction that it is a heresy. And I proceed to observe, that Calvinism necessarily implies this heresy. The Christian Remembrancer for last January, indeed, has bestowed (I must think) a great deal of labour on a very easy undertaking, viz. the proving that there is no essential contradiction between the Au- gustinian doctrine of Predestination, and the Catholic doctrine of Baptism. It is probable enough (I don't know how the fact stands) that Mr. Gorham's counsel may have led the way in this confusion between St. Augustine and Calvin; but the reviewer should have remembered, that Calvinism has not one " point" only, but " five ;" and that " the indefectibility of grace" is among these five. It might be added, indeed, that both this tenet and that of " personal assurance," are far more intimately connected with (what we should have called at Oxford) the rj9o