7

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Contents.

Art.
.
VII. Doctor Posey’s Lectures

on

i

,. Page ;
Daniel ................................
189

1. Daniel the Prophet. Nine Lectures delivered in the
Divinity School of the University of Oxford, with copious Notes.
By E. B. Pusey, D.D., Begins Professor of Hebrew and Canon
of Christ Church. Oxford : Parker. 1864.
2. The inspiration of the Book of Daniel and other portions
of Holy Scripture, with a correction of profane and an adjust­
ment of sacred chronology. By W. R. A. Boyle, of Lincoln’s
Inn, Barrister. London : Rurzton. 1863.
3. Fulfilled Prophecy a proof of the truth of Revealed Religion.
Being the Warburtonian Lectures of 1854—1858, with an Ap­
pendix of Notes, including a full investigation of Daniel’s
prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. By the Very Rev. W. Goode,
D.D., Dean of Ripon. London: Hatchard. 1863.
VIII. The Mexican Empire and the Canadian Confederation 200
Le Mexique Ancien et Moderne. ParMichel Chevali er, Membre
de l’institut. Paris : Hachette.
. La Politique Française en Amérique. Par M. Henri Moreau,
. Paris : Dentu.
L’Expédition du Mexique. Par Le Prince Henri de Valori.
Paris : Dentu.
L’Empire Mexicain et Son Avenir. Paris: Dentu.
Speeches and Addresses on British American Union. By the
Hon. T. D’Arcy McGee, Minister of Agriculture in the Canadian
Government London : Chapman & Hall.
Parliamentary Debates on the subject of Confederation.
Printed by order of. the Legislature. Quebec : Hunter, Rose, &
Co.
Papers relating to the Conferences between H. M. Government
and the Executive Council of Canada. By Command. London :
Spottiswoode.
IX. Foreion Events op Catholic Interest ............ ,..................... 227

X Notices op Books......................................................................... 256
CanonMorris’sLastlllnessofCardinalWiseman—The Bishop of
Clifton’s Remarks on the Encyclical—Mgr. Parisis sur les Libertés
Publiques—The Bishop of Aguila’s Discours sur la Nature du
Mal actuel—Dr. Murray’s Tractatus de Ecclesiâ Christi—
F. Harpers .Claims of the Anglican Establishment to be the
Representative, of the Primitive Church—Mr. Oxenham’s
Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement—The Life and P"relations
of Saint Gertrude, Virgin and Abbess of the Order èPb. Bene­
dict—V» de Madame Geoffroy, Religeuse du Sacré Cœur,
décédée à Lyon en Odeur de Sainteté—Cardinal Wiseman’s
William Shakespeare—S. Martha's Home ; or, Work for Women
•
^îhth^rA.hïay Pageant, and other Poems—Quarante
\* ’^’^•’h'xSkJatQpnr fie Turin—Bishop Dupanloup’s Remarks
Z ftiZÆe Enbÿclicdl-4-Gïii and His Creatures—Catechism, made

i

MMWBWSSi

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.
JULY, 1865.

Art. I.—PUBLIC

SCHOOL EDUCATION.

1. Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to enquire into the
Revenues and Management of certain Colleges and Public Schools, &c.
With Appendix and Evidence. London : Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1864.
2. Butler Burke at Eton. By Bracebridge Hemyng. London : John
Maxwell & Co. 1865.
3. The Public School Calendar. Rivingtons. 1865.

ΓΓ1ΗΕ question of public school education is not merely a
question of immense interest, but of immediate import­
ance J It is a question which sinks deep to the root of England’s
nationality, and spreads itself abroad like,a net-work of
nerves through her political life. Directly or indirectlyfrom the turrets of Windsor to the back-slums of Westminster,
from the peer to the peasant, from Belgravia to Billingsgate—
from the highest to the lowest—in a word, wherever English
blood is to be found, there does the action make itself felt of
that great propelling power in the nation—its system of
public schools. It is a question which has to do with Law,
and Physic, and Divinity ; that stretches itself out to sea
wherever our “ wooden walls ” can spread their sails, or
our iron fortresses move like magic through the waters, and
that thrv . μ in every British vein on board, from the most
reckless and impudent middy to, the admiral of the fleet : it
is a question which runs down our rank and file like a word
of command, having an intimate connection with the stern,
stubborn; dogged hardihood of the British soldier; it is a
question which affects us in politics, in morals, in religion ;
and not only strikes down to the root of the character of the
man, but is most intimately blended with the genius of the
race.
The Boyal Commissioners have been intrusted with a delicate,
ÎITI
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Madame Récander and Her Friends.

120

cholera had broken out in the neighbourhood of the Abbaye;
and though she did not fear death, she had a peculiar horror
of that dreadful pestilence. But her flight was vain; the
scourge pursued her, and fell with sudden violence on her
enfeebled frame. The day before, Ampère and Madame Sali ‘
vage had dined with her, andon the morning of her seizure
her niece's daughter Juliette had been reading to her the
Memoirs of Madame de Motteville. During twelve hours
she suffered extreme torture, but spoke with her confessor,
and received the sacrament of extreme unction. Continual
vomiting prevented the administration of the Eucharist. Am■<1
père, Paul David, the Abbé de Cazalès, her relations and
servants, knelt around her bed to join in the prayers for the
dying. Sobs and tears choked their voices, and “ Adieu,
adieu, we shall meet again ; we shall see each other again,"
'were the only words her agony allowed her to utter.
' Madame Récamier breathed her last on the 11th of May,
1849. The terrible epidemic, which generally leaves hideous
traces behind it, spared her lifeless frame, and left it like a
•. '
beautiful piece of sculptured marble. Achille Devéria took a
drawing of her as she lay in.her cold sleep, and his faithful
sketch expresses at the same time suffering and repose.
’ ;.
Such was the end of her who, without the prestige of
authorship, was regarded by her cotemporaries as one of the
most remarkable women of her time. We will not indulge
in any exaggerated statement of her piety. Great numbers, no
··
doubt, have attained to more interior perfection. Her ambition
I .·
to please was undoubtedly a weakness. Religion did not make
her what she was ; yet die would never have been what she
ί
was without it. It was the ballast which steadied her when
1
I
carrying crowded sail. It was the polar star that directed
>
hey course amid conflicting currents and adverse storms. It
·. !
raised her standard of morality above that of many of her
,
associates. It taught her how to be devout without dissimu1
lation, a patroness of letters without pedantry, a patriot and a
V 1
royalist without national disdain or political animosity. It
J
made her charitable to the poor, kind to the aged and sorrow-ks|
ful, gracious and unassuming: with all, at the very time
-4
that the proudest of emperors invited her presence at his
1
court, and his brother Lucien made her the idol of his verse.
J
îts golden thread guided her aright through the intricate
I
rn.-w.es of social life—through a matrimonial position equally
I
strange and unreal—an engagement to a royal prince who was
1
the foe of t rant»—through fnendsliips with Bernadotte and
‘
Murat on their thrones, with the Queens of Holland and of
> aples when mllen, and with the third Napoleon when plotting
3i'
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Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentiam.

121

to regain the sceptre of the first. It so lifted her above in­
trigue and cabals that she could give her right hand to the
disaffected General Moreau and her left to the devoted Junot
—could be made the confidante of all parties without betray­
ing the secrets of any. It inclined her to be chary of giving
advice, but to make it, when asked for, tell always on the
side of virtue. It enabled her to exhort the sceptical with
effect, and dispose the philosophic to accept the faith.
*
Her autobiography has unfortunately been destroyed by hei’
own direction, because blindness would not allow her to revise
it and cancel its defects. But many fragments of it have been
preserved, and a thousand personal recollections, collected
from those who knew her, have been wrought by her niece
and other biographers into a lasting monument.

Abt. V.—ROME, UNIONISM, AND INDIFFERENTISM.

L'Enajdvpie et les Evêques de France. Paris : Dentu.
A. IMt <m the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom.
By Eight Bev. Bishop Ullathorne. London : Richardson.
Experiences of a’Vert. Reprinted from the Union Review for the Editor. '
London : Hayes.
(hristendom’s Divisions. By Edmund S. Ffoulkes. London : Longman.
IWoyy of the Nineteenth Century (Fraser's Magazine for Feb., 1865). ' By
the Dean op Westminster. London : Longman. .

N order that our readers may appreciate some of the works
named at the head of our article, wo must once more
advert to a matter on which we have of late been laying con­
siderable stress : we must speak once more on the fundamental
erroneousness, the violently anti-Catholic character, of that
opinion, which would limit the Church’s and the Holy Father’s
infallibility to actual definitions of faith. In addition to
various arguments which we have already urged on this matter,
we would entreat our readers’ attention to the following
considerations:—
(1.) F. Perrone’s lectures (whatever criticism may other­
wise be made On them) have beyond question a greater
value than any other work that can be named, in this respect ;
vis., in showing what is the view of Catholic doctrine incul­
cated at this moment on theological students, by the great

I

* See her letters to Ampere in the Correspondant, 1864.

122

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentiam.

majority of bishops throughout the world. Now in his dis. sertation on the Church, he lays down a certain elementary
doctrine on infallibility, as “ held by Catholics and denied by I
all others.” He does not speak of it as of one Catholic view
among many, but as of the one Catholic doctrine ; nor does
he so much as hint that among Catholics any other can pos­
sibly exist. We cannot, better express this doctrine than in
his own words While the Church fulfils the office of teaching, she performs a threefofi
duty ; viz., that of witness, of judge, and of guide (magistræ). Of witness,
in proposing those truths of the faith which she has received from Christ;
of judge, in deciding controversies which either touch the faith or have refer­
ence thereto ; lastly of guide, in that daily ministry whereby thronjh hr
oral and practical teaching (vivâ voce et praxi) she instructs the faithful in
all those matters which conduce to their being trained in pure doctrine aai
morality, and whereby she leads them as it were' by the hand along fhepA'
of eternal salvation. Catholics contend, all non-Catholics deny, that Christ
has endowed His Church, with infallibility for performing each of ta
duties.—De Locis, n. 347, 8,

Now it is plain on the surface, that those who limit the
Church’s infallibility to her definitions of faith, admit indeed
her infallibility as “ testis
and to some limited extent as
“judex but that they deny infallibility to her altogether, in
her capacity of “ magistra.” No such view, however, is so much
as known to approved theologians. According to their
unanimous teaching, the Church is infallible, not only in
witnessing and in judging, but in practically guiding her
children to salvation.
Now let our readers consider at their leisure—though
indeed it requires very prolonged consideration to exhaust the
subject—how much is implied in this pregnant statement,
that the Church is infallible in her “juge magisterium.”
Take the obvious illustration of a parent ; and suppose it were
revealed to me that my mother’s guidance is infallible in every
particular of moral and religious training. That I should
accept with unquestioning assent the very least detail of her
explicit instruction, is but a small part of my submission to
her authority. I should be ever studying her whole de­
meanour in my regard—her acts no less than her words—in
order that I may more fully apprehend her implied principles
of conduct, and gather those lessons of profound wisdom which
she is privileged to dispense. Perhaps indeed at the present
time no more important contribution could be made to scien­
tific theology, than a full exposition of the Church’s infallible
“ magisterium j” so that this great doctrine may be cleared

i

Rome, Unionism, and, Indifferentism.

123

of possible misconception, and vindicated against plausible
objection.
·
.
.
(2.) This infallibility of the Church's “ magisterium ” is
also testified by the “ sensus fidelium." He who holds that
the Church is infallible only in her definitions of faith, studies
divine truth by a method which we must maintain to be
characteristically Protestant. He takes for his principles
these definitions (as contained e. g. in Denzinger’s small
volume) and manipulates them'according to his own privato
views of history and logic, with no further deference or sub­
mission to the living Church. Now such an extravagance as
this is by absolute necessity confined to highly educated in­
tellects: the ordinary believer has no more power of proceeding
by such a method, than by the more openly Protestant maxim
of private judgment on Scripture. A few unsound Catholics,
we repeat, may be led astray by intellectual phantoms or
blinded by intellectual pride ; but the great mass have imbibed
one and one only method of acquiring Catholic truth. The
Church, as they have been taught, in her full practical exhi­
bition, is their one infallible guide. They well know that,
if they would learn their religion, they must open their heart
unreservedly to the Church’s full influence ; study for their
guidance those manuals and spiritual books which she places
in their hand; listen with docility to the instruction of her
ministers ; practise those duties which she prescribes in the
very form in which she prescribes them ; labour in one word
that that great body of truth may sink silently and deeply
into their heart, which her whole system of practice and dis­
cipline inculcates and implies.
*
Now it is a principle of
Catholicism that wherever the body of the faithful has unani­
mously imbibed one impression of fundamental doctrine, a
strong presumption arises of such impression being the true
one.t But even otherwise—-is there any one who would
openly say that there is a K royal road ’’ to religious
truth? that the highly cultivated intellect is to seek it by
a method essentially different from that accessible to the ordi­
nary believer? that far less deference is due to the Church’s
practical guidance from the former than from the latter? An
* “As the blood flow from the heart to the body through the veins ; as
the vital sap insinuates itself into the whole tree, into each bough, and leaf,
and fibre ; as water descends through a thousand channels from the moun­
tain top to the plain ; so is Christ’s pure and life-giving doctrine diffused,
flowing into the whole body throwgh a thousand organe from the Ecclesia
Docens.”—Murray, de Ecclesiâ, disp. XI., η. 15.
+ E. g, “ In quæstione fidei communis fidelis populi sensus haud levem
facit fidem.”—Charmes, Quoted with assent by Perrone.

t
i

h

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124

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentiam.

affirmative answer to this question is involved in the opinion
which we are combating ; but such an answer is so obviously
and monstrously anti-vatholic, that no one will venture ex­
pressly to give it. The legitimate benefit to be derived from
intellectual cultivation is not (we need hardly say) that men
should be less loyal and submissive to the Church; but on
the contrary that their docility to her, while remaining for­
mally the same, may become materially far greater, from the
far more extensive knowledge opened to them, of her true
mind, of her implied teaching, of her multifarious traditions.
(3.) According to that ultramontane doctrine which (as we
shall presently urge) is alone defensible, the Pope's infallibility
is precisely co-extensive with that of the Ecclesia Docens.
Now if it be granted that the Pope is infallible in his constant
and abiding “ magisterium,” in all his implied and practical
teaching,—much more must he be infallible in that large body
of explicit instruction, which he is constantly putting forth
for the guidance of all his spiritual children. We are here
referring of course, not to definitions of faith alone, but to
such Papal acts as are recounted, e.g., in the recent Syllabus.
Acts of this kind are put forth, as the Pope himself says, in
virtue of his office as universal teacher, and they are published,
for the guidance of his flock; but they vary indefinitely in the
forms which they assume: sometimes they are consistorial
allocutions, sometimes encyclicals, sometimes letters addressed
to this or that individual pastor. Being intended, however,
as instructions'to the whole Church, it is plain that they form
a part of the Holy Father's "juge magisterium ;” and those
who admit him to be infallible in the whole of this latter office,
must admit him to be infallible inclusively in such doctrinal
I
declarations. On the other hand, and conversely, it is hardly
an exaggeration to say that those who hold this latter infalI
libility, and act consistently with this belief) will be practically
I
in the same position as if they held the former also.’ And at
i
all events it is absolutely certain, as men of every party will
;
admit, that all those who accept thoroughly either of the two
above-named doctrines, will accept the other also : that ail
who regard the Pope as infallible in his various doctrinal
declarations, will regard him as also infallible in his "juge
magisterium
and vice versa. For all practical purposes,
therefore, the question which we are now discussing is equivaf
lent to that which we have been treating in our recent numbers,
i
on the infallibility of those Papal declarations which are not
f
definitions of faith.
I
The present,then, will beaverygoodopportunity forexecuting 1
a purpose which we mentioned in April; viz., the placing before
I

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

125

our readers some sufficient sample of the extraordinary una­
nimity with which the French Episcopate has recognized, the
infallibility of the recent Encyclical with its appended Syllabus.
No errors are therein formally condemned as heretical, and ■
I against several of them no one even alleges the charge of
! heresy. If, therefore, the Pope is infallible in condemning
them, it can only be because he is infallible in all his doctrinal
declarations addressed to the whole Church, and not merely
in those which are definitions of faith. Yet we shall see that
, the French bishops not only recognize with one voice this in­
fallibility,—but also regard such infallibility as an elementary
and familiar portion of Christian doctrine, held as a matter of
course by the whole body of believers. We quote from the
work named first at the head of this article ; and the peculiar
importance of the point at issue will plead our excuse, if our
quotations run to a considerable length.
The Bishop of Nantes :—
f

[The parish priests of my diocese] will not allow the faithful to forget
(ignorer) what the Catechism has taught themfrom their infancy, that a doctrinal
instruction emanating from the Supreme Pontiff should be the rule of their
belief as of their moral conduct ; and they will have recourse to this venerable
monument [the Encyclical] to resolve all the questions which shall be submitted
to them on these subjects (p. 107).

The Bishop of Arras :—
In the Bull “Quanta Cura,” as in the Syllabus, everything is doctrinal
and even dogmatic. ... For us dogma ... is the divine truth itself,
eternal, sovereign, unchangeable as God ; consequently to ask of the faithful to
contradict it, and of pastors to conceal it, is to ask what is impossible, because
it would be die sacrifice of eternal salvation. . . . You will say to me perhaps
... that all the condemnations pronounced by these two last declarations of
the Holy See are not articles of faith. As regards some of them, I admit
that they are not, in such sense that those who should not admit them would
not on that account be formally heretics ; but not in such sense as that
[Catholics] may reject them without becoming greatly culpable under the
head of faith. . . . AU the bishops of France at this day believe or profess
that the Pope has received from God the special and supreme power of . . .
feeding both shepherds and flocks with the bread of divine truth ; because
io Peter alone and his successors it has been promised that they should never
teach error (p. 109).

The Archbishop of Sens :—
We adhere entirely, sincerely, simply, without distinction, without reserve,
to all decrees teaching the Church's doctrine which have been put forth since
the beginning of Pius IX?s reign. We account it a duty in all the faithful
entrusted to our charge to adhere thereto in spirit and in heart, and to make
thereof the rule of their faith. Tfaxa. whence will come to us the light which

126

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

shall guide us in the midst of that thick darkness which encompasses us 1 It
is from the height of Peter’s ehair that such light is given us to show us our
path. Let us enter on that path . . . without fear of ever losing our mg.
Let us follow it with confidence ; it will conduct us to salvation (p. 137).

The Archbishop of Bourges f—
Since the Church has received from our Lord the sacred deposit of doctrine,
and the mission of communicating it to men with supreme and infdliMs
authority, she has the right to count on her children’s docile and respectful
submission. Whether she exercises this power by means of general councils
which the Sovereign Pontiff convokes ... or by dogmatic constitutions
addressed from Rome to the bishops and faithful, the obligation is always the
same ; for it is always the same authority which speaks—thé authority of the
Church ; authority holy, sovereign, infallible in doctrinal matters, to which
we all owe obedience, unless we would renounce (à moins de renoncer) our tide,
of Catholics. ... We adhere therefore fully and entirely to the Encyclical
of Dec. 8 ; we reprobate and condemn all the errors which are there repro­
bated and condemned, in that sense and manner in which the Pope reprobates
and condemns them. . . We know but one sole judge in faith, but one sole
doctrinal authority—the Church—the Church expressing herself by the
mouth of our revered head. . . . Rome has spoken, the cause is decided (pp.
143, 146).

The Bishop of Pay :—·
If the dogmatic and infallible teaching of Pius IX. contained in the En­
cyclical and Syllabus cannot ... at this moment ... be duly promulgated
in ordinary form . . . it is not the less obligatory, the less sacred, for all ; ti
does not the less bind every Christian conscience; we receive none the less,
with a religious and entire submission of spirit and heart, all the oracles which
it proclaims (p. 166).

The Bishop of Versailles :—
What must we see in the Encyclical 7 We must see in it condemnations
pronounced at different epochs by an infallible authority ; then, theories and
principles laid down by the same authority as a basis for general instruction.
How ought we to receive the Encyclical Î We should receive it as a symbol,
as a credo, with the most perfect submission (pp. 178,179).

The Bishop of Soissons :—
The faithful of your parishes . . . know that every Catholic is obliged to
adhere in conscience to the doctrinal decisions which [the Encyclical] contains
(p. 218).

The Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons
You have read this writing [the Encyclical] with that respect and venera­
tion which we owe to the words of the Vicar of Jesus Christ: you hare
adhered from the bottom of your heart to that which he teaches us : you hare
condemned all which he condemns, and this Encyclical will have been for yon
. . t the oracle which must be listened to and believed (p. 244).

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

127

The Archbishop of Toulouse
The recent documents, emanating from the authority of the Holy Apostolic
See . . . contain a doctrinal instruction ; and on matters of doctrine the
Vicar of Jesus is the first and only judge (p. 10).

The Bishop of Nimes ·.—>
The doctrines proclaimed by Pius IX. in the Encyclical . . . have been al­
ready promulgated more than once ; the errors which he mentions have been
previously condemned. Nay more, as to the eighty propositions contained in
the Syllabus, the Holy Father expresses no [new] censure ; he does but refer
to his previous allocutions, individual letters, or encyclicals. All those acts
which he recounts have been in our hands for a greater or less period ; the instnutions which they contain under the form of dogmatic exposition or condemnation are accepted by the whole Church ; they have the force of law within
the Church (ils y font loi) ; and neither the circular of your Excellence nor
the decisions of the State Council can exempt Catholics from the obligation of
submitting to them. This is an incontestable doctrine even according to the
ancient maxims of the Catholic Church (p. 17).

The Bishop of Limoges :—
The word of Christ speaking through the Apostolic mouth is always faithful
and worthy of all acceptation, to which word belief is given in the heart
to justification, and confession with the mouth to salvation. The unfailing
crade of truth was to me a matter of greater consolation .... Therefore
as to all the propositions censured in the aforesaid Syllabus and Encyclical,
and other Apostolic letters, I profess that all without exception are to be
rejected and condemned in the sense and mode which the Apostolic See intends,
likewise of all the documents of the Encyclical, as far as rests with me one
iota or one point shall not pass away, but that it shall be taught and believed
in my whole diocese (p. 19).

The Bishop of Poitiers :—
We declare that we adhere fully in spirit and in heart to all the doctrinal
judgments and affirmations, to all the rules of belief and conduct, enunciated
by our Holy Father Pius IX., from the beginning of his Pontificate to the
present day; and we pronounce that it is the duty of all orthodox Christians
to submit themselves to the said instructions with an humble and filial
docility of their understanding and will (p. 31).

The Bishop of Beauvais :—
If you ask of us what line you should yourselves follow (vous devez suivre
Vous-mêmes), our answer will be easy. ... In regard to doctrine, full and
perfect adhesion of spirit and of heart to the instructions, decisions, condemna­
tions, which emanate from the holy Boman Church, the mother and mistress
of all churches (p. 38).

The Bishop of Frejus :—
The Encyclical, which does but renew the condemnation of propositions

ί

128

Home, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

already condemned with the unanimous consent of the Episcopate, becomes e
rule offaith which every Catholic is boundto accept (pp. 55-6).

The Bishop of Saint Die :—
[The Encyclical contains] the instructions of him “ whose faith cannot fail,"
and who has been appointed to “ confirm his brethren.” ... At the same time
and to satisfy our duty as son and bishop of the holy Catholic Church Apo­
stolic and Roman, surrounded in spirit by our well-beloved clergy who, espe­
cially at this moment, make but one heart and one voice with their bishop,
we condemn all which is condemned in the Encyclical of Dec. 8,1864 ; we
reprobate all which it reprobates, and in the sense in which it reprobates and
condemns (p. 70).

The Bishop of Algiers :—
In the presence of a dogmatic and moral bull ex cathedrd, emanating from
him who has received of Jesus Christ the full and entire mission of teaching
the Universal Church, the bishops could notin any manner believe themselves
dispensed from the docility of mind and heart which they owe to it (p. 75).

The Bishop of Bayeux :—
The sentiments of profound veneration and perfect obedience wherewith yon
are animated in regard to the Sovereign Pontiff, impose on us the duty of
letting you know with what submission of spirit and heart we have received
the sacred words of the Vicar of Jesus Christ (p. 79).

The Bishop of Langres :—
Now it is in spirit and in heart,... with our whole soul and without reserve,
that we adhere, we and all of you with us, to the great and salutary instruc­
tions of the Encyclical ; and that we reprobate and condemn everything
which the Pope reprobates and condemns, and in the same sense in which he
condemns it (p. 115).

The Bishop of Gap :—

' -

This word of the Supreme Pontiff, of him who is “ teacher of all Christians’
(Cone. Flor.) ·. . . has reached you by all the organs of the press. After the
example of your first pastor, you will receive it with all the respect dite to it ;
with the most entire submission of mind and heart. This is an imperative and
sacred duty for you and for all true Catholics (pp. 121-2).

The Bishop of Quimper :—
[The Supreme Pontiff] is appointed by God to direct [men’s] conscience...
Far from us the thought as regards this solemn document of either adding
aught to it or taking aught from it: we adhere to it fully and without
reserve (p. 158).

The Bishop of Chartres :—
When the Church speaks, all should hear her, if they wish still io claim At
name of Catholics. . . . We declare that the Sovereign Pontiff’s letter,
dated Dec. 8, prescribing the jubilee, as well as the catalogue of condemned

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism,

129

triors annexed to it, should be the rule which shall direct our minds and
■ cmduct under present circumstances (p. 168).

The Bishop of Périgueux :—'
We adhere emphatically (hautement), in your name as well as in our own,
with submission and love to all the instructions given to the Church and the
world by our Holy Father Pope Pius IX., during the whole course of his Pon­
tificate, and particularly on that ever memorable day, Dec. 8, 1864. We apyrwi, affirm, and believe all which he approves, affirms, and believes ; and all
wJtci he rejects, reprobates, and' condemns, we reject, reprobate, and condemn.
Such is our faith, such is yours ; and with Gods help it shall ever be the same
a the faith of Peter’s legitimate successors (p. 187-8).

The Cardinal Archbishop of Chambery :—

•

For many years past the venerable head of the Church has condemned
some of these most dangerous errors ; these condemnations have been succes­
sively published without exciting any protest. They have been recapitulated
and put together in a Bull, published Dec. 8 last . . . and addressed to all
the bishops of the Catholic world that it may serve as a rule of belief to the
faithful. . . . It is absolutely necessary that the head of the Church may
make his voice heard by his children, that he may teach them what they must
Mieve and practise to be saved (p. 191, 2).

K’

The Bishop of Angoulême :—
The Bull Unigenitus subsists and will always subsist, venerated in the
entire world as a rule of faith, from which no one could deviate without
ceasing to be a Catholic. It will be the same with the new Bull (p. 201).

We have prolonged these extracts at the risk of wearying
our readers, because no general account of them would suffice
for the impression which we wish to convey. Some Catholics
seem to think, that even if that doctrine be true which we
have maintained on the infallibility of such papal pronounce­
ments, at least the question is an open one, and one on which
good Catholics may freely take either side. But the French
bishops speak of our doctrine as quite rudimentai j as familiar
to all Catholics ; as contained in the very Catechism.*
* It is interesting to English Catholics, that their own bishops use the same '
*rpuat and unmistakable language. What can be more express than this
nom the Bishop of Shrewsbury ?—“ We cannot indeed but think that we
•re calling such men [those who “have presumed to question not only the expediency hut the soundness ” of the Encyclical and Syllabus] by a wrong title
when we give them the name of Catholic. For does not that name imply in
!
U» essential meaning that we submit ourselves, our views, our judgment in all
J .
of faith or morals to the voice and decisions of the Church? . . .
!
. kt them pretend with that false refinement which the spirit of insubordii.
suggests to draw too nice distinctions. . . . The word that has gone
At **i.
of man but of the Pontiff ; and in that word we revere
t* teaching of Him by whose power it has been uttered.”—Pastoral of April
vol. y.—no. ix. [ATew
κ

■sr

130

Rome, Unionism,, and Indifferentism.

Another inference is at once deducible from the passages
which we have quoted. Benedict XIV., in his well-known
letter to the supreme inquisito» of Spain, says that the Pope’s
infallibility, in his teaching ex cathedra, is received everywhere
except in France.
*
Now the extracts just given show most
clearly that this exception no longer exists. The Bishop of
Arras’s testimony, e.g., is express on this head, and no one has
attempted to contradict it:—“All the bishops of France at
this day,” he says, “ believe or profess that to Peter alone and
his successors it has been promised that they should never .
teach error.” The Catholic Episcopate then is now unanimous
in this particular, and Gallicanism under present circumstances
slays itself. If we start from the Gallican premiss, that the
bishops are infallible when united with their head ;—we are led
to the ultramontane conclusion, that their head is also in­
fallible when speaking alone. Never had ultramontanes so
much right to say (and we do most confidently say it) that
theirs is the only doctrine consistently tenable by a Catholic.
(4.) The French bishops teach, then, that the Holy Father
is infallible in all his doctrinal declarations, and not exclusively
in his definitions of faith. That which they say on occasion of
the Encyclical, he had already said in the Encyclical itself.
We showed this in our last number (pp. 445—447). He teaches
therein that the Pope is in the habit of putting forth certain
“judgments” which “do not touch the dogmata of faithand
morals,” and which assuredly, therefore, are not definitions
of faith. He teaches, further, that the Pope is infallible in
these judgments ; and that interior assent cannot be refused
to them “without sin,” and without a certain “sacrifice of
■ the Catholic profession.” Every one at all acquainted with
theological language will admit that “ sin ” here means
25th. The Church, Review of April 29, in noticing our own statements to
this effect in our last number, gays, “ We do not so wrong the majority of our
educated brethren of the Boman persuasion, as to suppose that the above
farrago of nonsense in the least represents what they believe on the subject’
The writer shows by his tone that he wishes to use conciliatory language
towards the general body of English Catholics ; and he thinks he shall best
accomplish that purpose, by calling the judgment of their bishops a “farrago
of nonsense.” Let him name, if he can, one single Catholic bishop throughout
the world, who has either stated or implied that the doctrinal decisions of the
Encyclical and Syllabus are fallible.
’ Totum [Bossueti] opus versatur in asserendis propositionibus h Clero
Gallicano firmatis in conventu anno 1682. Difficile profectà est aliud opus
reperire, quod æquè adversetur doctrinas extra Galliam ubique recepta de Summi
Pontificis ex cathedrd definientis infallibililate ; de ejus excellentiâ supra quod­
cunque concilium œcumenicum ; de ejus jure indirecto, si potissimum religionis
et Ecclesiae commodum id exigat, super juribus temporalibus principem supre­
morum. . ■

Hovle, Unionism,) and Indifferentis·™.

Ï8i

"mortal sin;” but all possible doubt on the subject must be
removed, by the “ sacred invitation” which the Cardinal Vicar
of Rome issued under the Pope's own eyes, as & pastoral in­
struction to the Pope’s own diocese. For Cardinal Patrizi
says expressly that the Encyclical and Syllabus are to be
received “ as the very word of God ;” and that he who “ listens
not ” to the Pope so speaking has " no longer & right to the
eternal inheritance of heaven ” (see p. 449, noté).
From these various considerations then (to which very
many others might easily be added), we unhesitatingly draw
our conclusion. No doctrine which is not explicitly de fide
is more irrefragably certain, than that the Pope’s infallibility
is not confined to his definitions of faith, but that it extends
over his whole practical “magisterium;” and inclusively,
therefore, to all those declarations which he aùthoritâtively
puts forth for the instruction of the universal Church.
As we are presently to speak of the Unionists, it will be de­
sirable, before quitting this part of our subject, to consider an
allegation which is frequently in their mouth. They love to
speak of the great evils which have accrued to the Church,
from the separation of England, e. g., and to so large an extent
of Germany, from the Boman See. Now as to the great
majority of Unionists—those who are non-Catholic—they may
most consistently say this : for they believe that the Church
bas been actually divided. If the Church could be divided at
all, it would be impossible (no doubt) to exaggerate the calamitonsness of such an event. But the question which we wish
to consider concerns Catholics. How far and in what sense
ran Catholics truly say that the Church has Suffered injury;
through the lamentable defection which has taken place from
her body ?
Firstly, of course, the loss of so many souls, which might
have been saved within visible unity, but which will not in
met be saved externally to that unity, is a grievous injury to
the Church’s interests : for her highest interest is the salva­
to» of souls.
_ Then, further, an active’ intellecttiàl process has been exermsed within the Church from the first, on the deposit of faith,
hreat thinkers have busied themselves in every age, whether
®ith analyzing some individual doctrine; or harmonizing various
uoctnnes in their mutual relation; or carrying them forward
to their legitimate conclusions, theological and philosophical ;
penetrating the depths of Scripture;; or exploring the
"Usures of tradition. All this has been done under the
^gilant supervision of
* the Holy See; which has carefully
Forded the purity of this doctrinal development, and provided
K 2

182

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

against the danger of unsound opinions taking root within the
Church. Now the intellectual labour of which we have spoken
has conferred inestimable services ; and at no period has it
been more needed than in the three last centuries. It has
no doubt, therefore, inflicted very serious injury on the Church,
that men of genius and learning, who (had they been Catholics)
might have taken a prominent part in the work, have wasted
or worse than wasted their power,'by devoting it to the service
of a false religion. Germans, e. g. (whatever their intellectual
faults) are perhaps exceeded by none in critical acumen, and
again in philosophical profundity. The Church then has sus­
tained a severe detriment, from so many Germans being Pro­
testants ; in that she has lost the benefit of such important
Services as they might have rendered her.
The Church then, we say, has been negatively a great
sufferer by the Protestant apostasy; but no good Catholic can
admit that she has positively suffered thereby. It is neces­
sary to insist on this, because we are inclined to fear that,
through confusion of thought, much unsound speculation has
found access to the mind of certain Catholics. It has been
implied in fact—unless we misunderstand the meaning of
various expressions which have been used—that she has
actually suffered in the purity of her teaching, through
the defection of Protestant England and Germany ; that
Rome's authoritative lessons (apart of course from defi­
nitions of faith) are less simply orthodox in tendency, than
they would have been had all Europe remained Catholic. Such
a notion simply inverts the Church's whole constitution. God
teaches the Holy See, and the Holy See teaches the Church;
it is Peter whose faith fails not, and who in his turn confirms
his brethren : whereas, according to the above notion, he would
not be simply the Church’s teacher, but in part her disciple.
Rome, let it never be forgotten, is commissioned to teach
England and Germany, not England or Germany to teach
Rome. So far as any Englishmen or Germans are at variance
with what is authoritatively inculcated in Rome, they are in­
fallibly in error. Rome no doubt may often wish to correct
her impressions of fact by special communication, e. g., with
England; but she cannot, without abandoning her essential
claims, seek correction from any source on matters of doctrine
or of principle.
*
* “This Boman chair of the most blessed Peter, which, being the mother
and guide (magistra) of all Churches, has always preserved whole and in­
violate the faith delivered by Christ the Lord, and faithfully taught it, show­
ing to all men the path of salvation and the doctrine of vncorrupted truth ...
Where Peter is, there is the Church ; and Peter, through the Boman pontiff,

Some, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

133

Now as to the anonymous pamphlet named at the head of
our article, it is little to say that its writer is removed in the
farthest possible degree from accepting such principles as we
hare been laying down : he does not seem ever to have heard
of their existence. He professes Catholicism, indeed ; or, in
other words, he professes that the Catholic Church was or­
dained by God to teach him true religion : and one would have
thought it therefore a matter of the simplest common sense,
that he should place himself at her feet in the position of a
humble disciple : yet his tone implies throughout, not only
that he has nothing to learn from her, but that she has every­
thing to learn from him. He begins by saying (p. 3) that she
would seem to have “ duped ” him “ upon a point affecting
his highest interests?’* Presently he adds (p. 9) that he
would not have been educated a Catholic “ for the world.” f
He cannot accept the Church’s doctrine, that Anglicans are
schismatics and treated by God as such (p. 10). Indeed, he
considers his " own happy country at the head of the whole
civilized world in all that can make a nation great, prosperous,
and intelligent” (p. 11); so that the Catholic faith has no
tendency, in his view, to make a nation great, prosperous,-and
intelligent. Nor is this wonderful ; for a “ well-educated, well
brought-up” Protestant “ Englishman” “would undoubtedly
see many things ” in Catholic churches abroad “ that he would
bless God his own Ghurch had either never known or had dis­
carded” (p. 12). Then the author holds, that the English bishops
and the Congregation of Propaganda have committed a simple
„ impertinence, in presuming to interfere on the question of
Catholics going to Oxford or Cambridge. “ It is purely
a question that concerns our laity; above all, our gentry”
furnishes truth of doctrine (præstat fidei veritatem) to them that seek it.”—
(Encyclical “ Qui Pluribus.”) “ In which [Roman Church] always remains the
infallible magisterium of the faith, and in which, therefore, apostolic tradi­
tion has been ever preserved.”—(Encyclical “Nostis et nobiscum.”) “In
which [Roman Church] alone religion has been inviolably preserved, and
from which all other Churches must borrow the tradition of faith”—-(Bull
“Ineffabilis.”)
* “It will seem to have been my fate to have been twice duped in the
course of my life upon a point affecting my highest interests. I do not say
» myself— God forbid—but there is something in it that is beyond me to
oplain to my own satisfaction. . . . The Church of Rome . . . professed to
receive me into the Holy Catholic Church, but on my reception it was to the
Roman Catholic Church that I was made to promise obedience.”
+ “ I would not part with my Anglican education, or with my knowledge
the Bible in particular, for the world.” The author’s egotism may perhaps
oxcuse the egotism of another. The present writer is also a convert. His
testimony is, that his Protestant education—emphatically and specially his
public school education—has been the one crushing calamity of his life,

134

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

(p. 19). " Oar laity,” in fact/
*
are becoming too numerous and
too highly educated to be kept any longer in leading-strings,
or tied to the aprons of their spiritual guides ” (p, 20)
*
“Let
not our laity,” then,“ any longer hesitate to insist upon having
a class of schools and a system of education pursued in them,
in which the ecclesiastical element shall be neither predomi­
nant nor, except for teaching theology and performing divine
service, indispensable” (p. 21).j- At all events he, for his
part, will set a spirit-stiring example to his brethren of inde­
pendence and rebellion. Whatever heresies and errors are
contained in the Protestant version of Scripture, still it is
expressed in good English.
I will never part with my An­
glican Bible for any other in the same language, till I can be
supplied with one at least as good in this respect” (p. 22).
The principle, he seems to say, put forth by Catholic bishops,
is truly monstrous ; viz., that pure doctrine is more important
than good English : and if they have nothing better than this
to allege, I totally deny that God has given them any authority
to control me in the matter. I am a free-born Englishman ;
and I will stick to that English Bible, which is English.
We cannot be surprised at such a Catholic thinking (p. 29)
that “ our own bishops ” will never, as now trained, “ attain to
that manly, vigorous, and decisive type of character which is
the only one likely to command respect’ever with English­
men.” His national vanity, by the way, is really ludicrous i
he speaks as though an unmanly, feeble, and indecisive
type of character might be influential enough among French
or Italians ; among cardinals or monsignori ; but that it
is the high prerogative of Englishmen to estimate such
a character at its true value. Never then, in his opinion,
• * Through that confusion of thought which so remarkably characterizes
this pamphlet throughout, it is somewhat difficult at first sight to ascertain
the authoris precise meaning here : for in one sentence he speaks as though
it were only on matters purely literary, that he complains of the clergy exer­
cising “surveillance” (as he.calls it) over Catholic publications. Bathe
cannot really mean this : he cannot imply that Catholic bishops and clergy,
as such, claim any kind of authority on such a question, as the relative
poetical excellence of Wordsworth and Tennyson, or the mèrit of Mr.
Carlyle’s style. He refers then certainly to' matters which, indirectly at
least, bear on faith and morals ; and he must be understood to advocate the.
detestable tenet, that on such matters the Ecclesia Docens has no legitimate
authority over her children.
·
t “ That method of instructing youths can be approved .by Catholic men
which is disjoined from the Catholic faith and the Church’s power, and which
regards-exclusively, or at least principally, knowledge of the natural order
alone and the ends of social life on earth.”—(Prop, xlviii. condemned in the
Syllabus.)

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

135

will Catholic bishops rise above that degrading and unEnglish standard which does well enough for foreigners,
“if they are so thoroughly bound hand and foot to the
judgment of a foreign court-—never too popular in this country
from the time of the Conquest downwards—that they can
never venture to speak and act for themselves like men "
(p. 29). To revolt, then, against the authority set over them
by God, is “to speak and act for themselves like men.” The
successors of St. Peter, to whose services exclusively England
owes so much of the Gospel as she still retains, constitute "a
foreign court.” And the ingratitude with which Englishmen
have repaid the inestimable benefit conferred on them by
Home, is cited,—not as a fact truly disgraceful to their charac­
ter;—but, on the contrary, as a reason why even Catholic
bishops should join their heretical compatriots, in slighting the
Vicar and one earthly representative of Him who died to save
them.. .
Such is the author’s attitude of mind towards his spiritual
pastors ; and his general opinions are such as might have been
expected from the fact. Thus (p. 7) he. is convinced by his
own past internal feelings—by “ the glow of pure happine'ss ”
which “passed over him ” when he was ordained by the Bishop
of Oxford—that Anglican ordinations are valid: and this,
"though for one that upholds there may be ten that sneer at
Anglican orders in the Church of Rome; ” and thousands, at
all events, that totally deny the validity of those orders. “ In
deference to ecclesiastical authorities,” he would “ submit ” (!)
"to further ordination,” but their judgment would in no
respect alter his private opinion.
.We have referred already to that confusion of thought which
so singularly characterizes the whole pamphlet : out of so many
instances we will select two. In page 9 these statements
occur in close proximity—“ I have been as great and constant
a sinner since my reception into the Church of Rome, as I ever
was in the Church of England ; ” “ the practice of confession,
obligatoiy as it is with us, has greatly tended to purify and
to brace my conscience.” It is for him to explain, how his
conscience has been greatly purified and braced, while, never­
theless, he remains (we sincerely hope he is mistaken here) as
great and as constant a sinner as before. Then, secondly, in
various passages he implies that those are gravely culpable
who remain in “what they suspect
. to be schism or heresy ”
(p. 10). “I have no business to stay in what I even imagine to
he wrong” (p. 10). I would not pass judgment on those “who7
have never had one misgiving" on their Church’s position
(p. 13). But only turn over the page, you find a very different

136

_

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

and most startling view. “Let no one venture to quit the
Christian calling in which he has been placed without a direct
summons from Him who placed him in it . . . it will come”
(if it comes at all, for “in innumerable instances ” it does not
come at all) “ in a way and with a force that he cannot mistake.
. . . Let him reject it at his peril : let him anticipate it at his
peril likewise” (p. 14). This extraordinary doctrine is alto­
gether inconsistent with the former : for could it be maintained,
it would follow that you are bound “ at your peril ” to remain
a Protestant—however serious your “ suspicions'’ and “mis­
givings”—until a direct summons come to you which you
cannot mistake.
The author’s ignorance of Catholic dogma is truly remark­
able in one who comes forward as a teacher and a reformer.
We have already seen, that not merely he does not himself
admit the “Ecclesiæ juge magisterium,” he seems never
to have heard of it. We should have very much to say again
concerning his doctrine, just cited, on the unmistakable
“summons,” and the inculpability of schismatics who have
not received that summons ; but that it is impossible to treat
adequately this extraordinary and heretical delusion, without
writing at far greater length than our limits will permit. Then
in page 12 he maintains (as we understand him) that the
dictum, “nulla extra ecclesiam salus,” is no longer true, since
the “ separation” of “ East and West : ” a tenet which is beyond
all possible question heretical.
*
Further (pp. 8, 9), he implies
that baptism may be valid, though there be no “properinten­
tions on the part of the officiator.”f Lastly, his language
here and there makes it almost impossible to doubt—what,
nevertheless, it is almost impossible to believe—that he is
totally ignorant of one among the most elementary truths of
Catholicism : the distinction between actual and habitual
grace; between the “auxilia gratiæ” on the one hand, and
“gratia habitualis, semen glorias,” on the other. We must
. enlarge a little on this strange confusion, to explain our mean­
ing. Thus he says (p. 30)—
“There is a‘pendant’to the dogma,‘nulla extra ecclesiam salas,’which
. Roman Catholics arc far too apt to slur over; and it is this. In the celebrated
Bull of Clement XI. (Unigenitus), one of the propositions condemned »
heretical Î by that Pope . . . . is ‘extra ecclesiam non conceditur gratia.”
* See, e. y., Benzinger’s various references.
+ We are very unwilling to press the author too hard ; and we must ever
remember his great mistiness of thought and expression. Perhaps at last he
only means here, that the minister need not believe in baptismal regeneration,
in order to validity of the sacrament
J The author never can contrive to be accurate, even by accident No

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

137

What Catholic on earth can have the slightest temptation
to "slur over” this censure? Why no one could accept
the condemned thesis, without falling into the most patent
heresy: for he must hold either that heretics and schismatics
can be converted without grace, or that they cannot bo
converted at all. But the author seems to regard the Pope as
here deciding, that those external to the visible Church may
possess habitual grace, and so be under God’s favour and acceptance. Now, in what sense this doctrine may be true, we
are not here considering : * but the merest tyro must know that
the censure before us does not bear on it ever so remotely ;
that the censure would be equally deserved, even if it were a
revealed verity that no single individual can be in God’s favour
who is external to the Church’s visible communion. So in page
8, “We may think it ever so fitting”—he means “extreme
and bigoted Catholics may think it ever so fitting”—“that
the members of a Church that can be proved to be in schism,
should be denuded of all grace.” What Catholic ever dreamed
of so preposterous a notion, as that the members of a
schismatical society are “denuded” of the auxilia gratiæ?
On such an hypothesis not one of them could possibly
submit to the Church.
A few lines later he implies
that the not being “denuded of all grace,” necessarily
involves the possessing habitual grace. Whereas, had he
any acquaintance with the distinction between these two
kinds of grace, he must see, of course, that no state is more
easily imaginable (as, indeed, none unhappily is more common)
than the being “ denuded” of habitual grace, while visited by
actual: the being under God’s wrath and displeasure ; while
He solicits the soul, by the auxilia gratiæ, to return into His
favour and into the possession of gratia habitualis.
As to the main dnft of his pamphlet, it would appear that
there are two propositions which the author is mainly desirous
of upholding: the one, subjective; the other, objective. He
wishes (1) to impress on the Catholic world, as a matter of his
own personal experience, that Catholicism at last is not so very '
superior to Anglicanism; and he wishes (2) to impress on the
English Catholic bishops, as a matter of doctrine, that their
constant reference and unremitting subordination to Rome are
un-Catholic. Now, as to the first of these propositions, what
can his experience possibly be worth ? No one can have had
propositions are separately comdemned in the Bull as heretical; but the pro­
positions are condemned in globo as heretical, erroneous, scandalous, &c., &c..
iwpectively.
• See on this head, our last number, pp. 450-461.

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Rome, Unionism,' and Indifforentism.

experience of a religion, who has not practised it ; and how can
it possibly be said that this writer has practised Catholicism?
To do so, is to sit at the Church's feet as a disciple ; to
accept humbly her practical lessons concerning faith and the
spiritual life ; to act diligently on the knowledge thus acquired.
No one, holding our author’s opinions, can have any more con­
ception of what Catholicism really is, than a man born blind
can have a true idea of colour. ■ When such a person gravely
speaks of instructing the world by his “ experiences ; ” and
when he calls on us to believe on Ins word that Catholicism is
not that noble and divine thing which we know it to be ;—he
does but remind us of the well-known worthy, who announced
to a large circle of eminent mathematicians, that he for his
pari once went through two pages of the “ Principia,” and
found Newton to be at last a very ordinary and common-place
mortal.
As to the author's second proposition, it indicates quite
amusingly his characteristic ignorance and mistiness, that he
simply begs the entire question at issue. The Holy Father
and his chosen counsellors are “ ecclesiastics,” it seems,
" whose vision is bounded on the north by the Alps, on the
south, east, and west by the tideless Mediterranean '' (p. 29).
Certainly, if the Holy Father’s vision is thus bounded; if
he has not some very special insight into matters which
stretch, not merely beyond Alps and Mediterranean, but
altogether beyond this earth ; if he be not gifted imme­
diately by God with infallible judgment in teaching the
Church on matters of doctrine and principle ; if he have not
received the commission of imparting to other bishops and
Churches that light which he divinely receives;—then (nodoubt)
the English bishops pursue an imbecile course, in their eager
longing for his instruction, and their earnest deference to his
judgment. But on the other hand, if the above-named doc­
trines are true and not false,—in that case it is no Jess un­
questionable that the English bishops act in the only way
consistent with straightforwardness and common sense. The
whole question, beyond all possible doubt, turns solely and
absolutely on this doctrinal controversy, concerning the nature
and extent of Papal infallibility. Wifi it be credited, that the
pretentious writer before us not merely makes no attempt to
argue this controversy, but does not ever so distantly allude to
its very existence ?
It will be seen, by a correspondence printed at the end of
this pamphlet, that Mr. Ffoulkes was very generally supposed
to be its author; and that he has declined either to confirm or
repudiate the supposition. He has now published a volume in

Rome, Unionism, and Indiffer eniism.

189

hjs own name, from which we made a few extracts in our last
.number. These extracts we here repeat:—
“The whole Church,” at a certain period of her history, “delegated to ” the
Pope “ the same executive powers over Christendom generally, that had been
already delegated to metropolitans over provincial, and to patriarchs oyer
diocesan churches” (p. 19).
“There were some specious grounds, at all events, for deciding as she
did” (p. 12).
“The" Church’s “second stage towards monarchy had been actually at­
tained before the conversion of Constantine” (p. 16).
“The headship of emperors is a thing that has been tried and laid aside :
uhat therefore remains, but that of the Pope ? ” (p. 35, note).
“Had Christianity never encountered a world-wide empire at its birth . . it w quite possible that the idea of a supreme earthly head of. the Gh/urch would
bate never occurred at all to its professing members” (p, 37).
“ I sincerely believe myself that a Church , . -, without any supreme head
•. - but One who is there worshipped in faith as ever present, is the loftiest
and most Evangelical idea of a Church by far; and that, to a certain extent,
this was actually exhibited in . . . the three first centuries ” (p, 35).
“If His Church was to have a supreme head at all upon earth,” Christ
“vested that dignity in S. Peter and his successors” (p. 37).
“ The principle of a supreme earthly potentate ” was not “ conceded without
reproof . , . ‘ Get thee behind me, Satan, thou apt an offence to me ; for thou
savourest not the things of God, but those that be of men,’ said our Lord to
that very S. Peter whom He had just before designated as the rock on which
He would build his Church ; neither can one passage be applied to his successors
without the other” (p. 36).
“Through the instrumentality of ” S. “ Peter’s successors, one part of His
Church” was “ bound together in a compact mass ” (p. 37).
“The Church of England , , , and the bodies that spring from it . . . are
. .. destined, perhaps, to play an important part in any future schemes for
fHinion of the whole Church” (p. 34).
“Where” Popes and Cardinals “have discharged” their appointed “ task
faithfully and efficiently, there is no class of men entitled to more respect and
honour at our hands. . . . Where they have not discharged that task, or made
it subservient to their own interest or aggrandisement, there can be no greater
enemies of the whole human race. ... It would be unjust and contrary to
fact to insinuate that nothing else but their rivalries and backsliding» ...
hare caused our divisions ” (prefiiee, pp. xiii, xiv).

The last of these passages we cited, for the purpose of
showing the intolerable disrespectfulness with which Mr.
Ffoulkes permits himself to speak on the Vicar of Christ.
On looking, however, at the passage again, .we find it may
possibly he so interpreted, as to include within the criticised
“class of men,” not “Popes and cardinals” alone, but
“bishops and archbishops.” This is not indeed its more

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obvious interpretation; but as we have now reason to believe
that the author intended it, and as the passage is certainly
far less offensive if so explained, we have pleasure in with­
drawing this particular count from our indictment. The remain­
ing extracts, however, oblige us to bring against him no less
severe a charge than that of actual heresy. That the Pope’s
authority over the whole Church was conferred on him imme­
diately by God, is no less essential a portion of the Faith than is
the Trinity or the Incarnation. If it be worth while on so plain
a matter to adduce any ecclesiastical definition, we will refer to
the well-known “ Auctorem Fidei,” of which there has never
been any doubt that it was accepted by the Catholic Episcopate.
“ That proposition,” says the Bull, f< thus explained, viz., that
the Boman Pontiff receives, not from Christ in the person of
Blessed Peter, but from the Church, the power of ministry
whereby he rules in the Universal Church as successor of Peter,
the Vicar of Christ, and head of the whole Church [so explained
this proposition is] heretical” (Denz. n. 1366). Now this pro­
position so explained is precisely Mr. Ffoulkes’s, and we are
compelled to say in consequence that he has committed him­
self to actual heresy.
'
Mr. Ffoulkes, indeed, protests against this conclusion and
has written a reply in his own vindication. We are most
happy to insert it ; and we entreat our readers, in justice
to the accused, to give it their most careful attention. We
have neither put any words into italics, nor in any other way
touched what Mr. Ffoulkes has written.
Dear Sir,—Some extracts from my book, as given in the last number d
the Dublin Review, seem calculated to produce very erroneous apprehen­
sions both of its meaning and of my own principles in general Allow me
therefore to state explicitly, that I hold the Papacy to be of Divine institu­
tion, and interpret our Lord’s words to S. Peter, “ I say unto thee that thou
art Peter,” &c., literally and unequivocally, as conferring upon him and lus
successors those prerogatives which are implied in it And it is in no spirit
of disloyalty to that belief that, as a student of ecclesiastical history, I hare
endeavoured to arrive at a true solution of some difficulties which present
themselves as facts that cannot be set aside, and in my humble opinion have
not as yet been interpreted consistently with that belief. One of these is
that for the first three centuries or more the power of the Popes remained in
suspense, and exercised no active influence over the Church. It is but vaguely
hinted at in the countless canons that were passed by successive councils
respecting Church government. My explanation of that phenomenon is
derived from the analogy which the historical books of the Old Testament
supply. God foresaw that the Israelites would desire a visible king. He
therefore foreordained and foretold Judah as the patriarch from whose de­
scendants that king was to be taken when the time came. Christ in like

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141

manner foresaw that. TTia Church would desire a visible earthly head. He
therefore foreordained and foretold S. Peter as the apostle from whose succeBsors that visible Head was to he supplied. Thus both the kingdom under
the law, and the Papacy under the gospel, were divine institutions, and
neither of them the work of man ; though men may be said to have asked
for them in either case. This, in the case of the Jews, is stated in so many
rorda to have taken place. Samuel carried their request before the Lord.
Bat if we turn to Church history, the creation of metropolitans, primates,
»nd patriarchs by express canons of general councils in the first three or four
ontmies may be taken to be as explicit a declaration on the part of the
Church in favour of a supreme earthly Head, to which post the successors of
8. Peter had been already foreordained by Christ himself. In this way, too,
a met the objection so frequently urged against the Papacy by its opponents,
namely, that it was founded in a series of violent and overbearing acts against
the liberties of every local church ; whereas my explanation shows that it had
been accepted in principle by the actual course of Church legislation from
the first, so that the whole Church was a consenting party to it. Another
of these difficulties is found in the history of the Papacy itself, and as distinct
from the personal character of the Popes themselves, which is a further
question. I mean, that there are certain facts from time to time associated
with the Papacy winch are not in harmony with bur Lord’s words, “Upon
this rock I will build my Church.” In many senses the Papacy has never
teased to fulfil them in all time ; there are senses in which I am unable to
reconcile them with its actual history.
As a guardian of doctrine, to my mind, the Papacy Ims been unimpeach­
able. As a guardian of discipline I should say the same in many centuries.
But when I look at the Papacy during the 9th and 10th centuries, and part
of the 15th, I am met by facts which I cannot get over ; and when I look at
the Papacy at Avignon, and during the great schism of the West, the thought
a forced on me, in spite of myself, “ Can this indeed be the rock on which
Christ has built His Church ? ”
Therefore, were there no other passage of Holy Scripture to appeal to, I
should feel sorely perplexed how to reconcile Christ’s words with actual facts.
But when I remember that those words formed the answer to S. Peteris
confession of faith, “Thou art the Christ,” and that the very next act of
S. Peter, after he had been named the Rock, was to deprecate the idea of His
lord suffering, for which the immediate reply of His Lord was? “ Get thee
behind me, Satan !” 1 find every difficulty removed : because I see those facts
in the history of the Papacy rebuked by anticipation in the rebuke thus read
to S. Peter so soon after the confession of his faith, and for the very first of
Hs subsequent acts. Therefore, the pomp, pride, and luxury, which has been
charged against the Papacy by Protestants, and against the Court of Rome
by saints of the Church, as S. Bernard, or doctors, as Gerson, Cardinal d’Ailly,
and others, however melancholy, is by no means irreconcilable with the words
of Christ to S. Peter, when both His speeches are brought into juxtaposition,
and made joint interpreters of the entire history of the Papacy. But to
measure it by the first of His speeches exclusively, I feel I must either dis­
parage that speech or else ignore fact·?. Let me illustrate this by a case in

J

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*

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t

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Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

point which all can appreciate. 8. Paul says, in one epistle, “ What ! know
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, which
ye have of God?” Were there no other qualifying passage in his epistles,
how sorely should we not be puzzled to apply this verse to Christians
generally, living in the world and not unfrequently led away by their passions.
How difficult to interpret this verse intelligibly, and yet not overlook facts.
But when, in another epistle, we hear the same Apostle representing
Christendom in his owrf person, and saying, “I see another law in my
members .... bringing me into captivity to the law of sin” .... we are
at Once relieved from any difficulty ; and both passages together explain both
our privileged and our actual state—the gifts which we have from God, and
the acts which we nevertheless commit as men. I have, therefore, merely
tried to explain difficulties to the best of my ability, in a way consistent with
facts and with Holy Scripture, without by any means doubting, or meaning
to suggest a doubt, that the Papacy is of divine institution. My explanation
may or may not prove the true one. And the Church in communion with
the Pope I hold to be the Catholic Church in unbroken unity now, as in
times past. But I look upon all baptized Christians as forming part of one
general Christendom, which, though unhappily not now synonymous with
the Catholic Church, may still in some sense be called the Church ; and I
I use such terms as the Church of England, the Greek Church, &c., as
conveying a definite meaning which it would be difficult to express in oth«
words.

The penultimate of our original extracts implied that "the
Church”is now not corporately" united;”and we are glad there­
fore to find Mr. Ffoulkes rejecting that particular tenet. But as
th all the rest, it will be seen at once that this letter leaves the
matter exactly where it was. It is of faith that Christ gave
immediately to S. Peter, and to his successors, supremacy over
the whole Church. Mr. Ffoulkes, in opposition to the Catholic
Faith, holds the following tenets: (I) that Christ did not in
any sense give supremacy over the Church to S. Peter and
his earlier successors ; (2) that, had Christians preserved the
"most evangelical” idea of the Church—the idea, therefore,
most in conformity with Christ’s wishes—none of S. Peter’s
successors would have had such supremacy; (3) that Christ,
however, gave to the Church the power of appointing a supreme
ruler whenever she might please ; requiring only (4) that if
she appointed any ruler at all, it must be S. Peter’s successor.
This is exactly the view of Mr. Ffoulkes’s doctrine which would
have been derived from our extracts ; and his letter has con­
firmed it in everyparticular. He holds in his own senseno doubt,
that “ the Papacy is of divine institution
i. e., that God has
appointed the Pope to be supreme rnler, on the hypothesis that
the Church chooses to have a supreme ruler at all : but there

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143

is no Catholic theologian in the world who will doubt that thia
whole doctrine is directly heretical.
We would not deny, however, that the case is imaginable of
a writer who might, from ignorance or inadvertence, admit some
heretical proposition into his work, while yet the main scope
of that work might be edifying and Catholic. But it is
abundantly plain that the tenet above mentioned, if held
at all, must pervade throughout the whole texture of a
treatise, written on such a subject as Mr. Ffoulkes has
chosen : and since the tenet is heretical, the whole treatise
is throughout leavened with heresy. That doctrine which
Mr. Ffoulkes denies, if it be indeed true—and all Catholics
are required to hold it as actually of faith—must of necessity
be the one fundamental principle of the Church’s constitu­
tion : and he, therefore, who with Mr. Ffoulkes rejects it,
whenever he speaks of the Catholic Church, must speak of
her, not as a Catholic speaks, but as a heretic.
One particular illustration of this is worth mentioning.
The Unionists love to contemplate the Pope becoming a
“constitutional king” as an end to 'be greatly desired.
On Mr. Ffoulkes’s theory this is perhaps intelligible : the
Church, he may think, which delegated the supremacy, may
withdraw or modify it. But then this theory is a heresy.
It is an integral portion of the Catholic Faith, that Christ
Himself commands all members of the Church to obey the
Pope absolutely and unreservedly in the spiritual order. The
Pope, then, could not possibly become a “ constitutional king ”
in spirituals,—i. e., could not recognize his spiritual power as
rightfully limited by any earthly authority whatsoever,—
without teaching his flock to violate directly the very com­
mands of Christ. He has no more power of becoming a
“constitutional king” in spirituals, than he has of abolish­
ing the episcopal order, or of changing the matter or form
of a sacrament.
The work before us then is simply the violent assault of a
heretic (material or formal) against the Church which in fact
condemns him. Nothing can be more exquisitely ludicrous
than to speak, as the Union Review speaks, of the ” candour "
with which Mr. Ffoulkes admits the Church’s past corruptions
or palliates England’s present schism (May, 1865, pp. 310,
316). We really cannot be surprised at the “candour ” of a
heretic—we sincerely hope and believe a merely material
heretic—in denouncing that Church to whose Faith he 4s an
alien.·
· ■
ν'·:.:...·;.'·· ■
On the value of Mr. Ffoulkes’s general argument, one cir­
cumstance will throw sufficient light. He assumes throughout

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Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

as the very basis of bis remarks—as an admitted axiom with
all whom he addresses—that Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians,
Monothelites, form no part of “ Christendom
while Pho.
*
tians,
Anglicans, and Protestants are included in that cate­
gory. f Of course there is no possible sense of the word
“ Christendom ” in which any Catholic can admit this state­
ment. If by “ Christendom” be meant those who adhere to
that one religion which Christ founded, it includes Catholics
and Catholics alone. If those be meant who sincerely regard
Christ as founder of their religion, it includes (no-doubt)
Photians, Anglicans, and Protestants ; but it also includes
Nestorians, Arians, and Unitarians.
Mr. Ffoulkes’s book shall be mentioned once more before
we conclude; but we reserve its main treatment fora
future article. It ranges over a large portion of historical
ground, and our present limits would not permit us to give any
adequate impression of its extraordinary unfairness and in­
consecutiveness. Moreover at last there is little satisfaction in
exposing an opponent, unless some counter-view he at the
same time exhibited of those facts which he may misappre­
hend. But no such counter-view can possibly be attempted,
without devoting a whole article to the question ; and this we
hope to do in an early number.
If Mr. Ffoulkes is thus profoundly ignorant on the most
elementary doctrines of that religion which he believes himself
to have embraced, it is no matter of surprise that men avowedly
non-Roman are equally ignorant. We will merely record the
fact, therefore, that a writer in the March number of the Union
Review (p. 141) stigmatizes as “the extremest ultramontane
theory ” that doctrine, which regards the visible Church as
precisely co-extensive with the Roman obedience : the simple
fact being, that no one who holds any other “theory” is
received by the Pope into his communion at all; and that even
Mr. Ffoulkes admits it in the letter which we have just inserted.
He who denies the doctrine in question is regarded, we
* Photians, some of our readers maybe glad to know, are those schismatics
of whom the Russian Emperor is one ; and who are called by Tractarians
“ the Greek Church.”
t “ As long as controversy turned principally on those articles of the creed
which related to God, Christendom on the whole maintained its witty. Its
breaches commenced and have gone on widening ever since it engaged in
questions relating to man.” That is, by a purely arbitrary and unmeaning
use of words, Mr. Ffoulkes chooses to give the name of Christian to those who
schismatisedon the latter class of questions, while he refuses it to those who
schismatised on the former. We dd not here inquire how Mr. Ffoulkes can
allege, that the Photian schism turned on theological “questions relating to
Ίηβη.”'.

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

145

(material
or formal) by every Catholic
say, as a.. heretic
---K -----throughout the world; and, as we now understand, by
Mr. Ffoulkes himself. The Catholic doctrine, indeed, does
not deny (as has of late been strangely supposed), that
individuals may be saved, both baptized and unbaptized,
though they die out of visible communion with the Holy
See. On this head we would refer to our remarks in
April, from p. 459 to p. 469. But the Catholic doctrine
undoubtedly does assert that such individuals, though apper­
taining to the soul of the Church, are separated from her
body; and that Photians and Anglicans are no more within
tÉe visible Church than are Unitarians and Deists. To this
doctrine all Catholics are required to yield the assent of divine
faith ; and we fully agree with the writer whom we are now
noticing, that “ it forces its upholders,”—i, e., all Catholics
throughout the world,—"into a rigorous antagonism to all
desire and labour ” for that extravagant project which he
heretically calls "Catholic reunion.” We will now give one
or two reasons for agreeing with him in this proposition.
We are inclined to believe that the immense majority of
non-Catholic Unionists are profoundly ignorant of that
elementary Catholic doctrine, on which we have been
speaking : though such ignorance might at once be removed
by their consulting any Catholic theologian, however extremely
Gallican. Certainly no Unionists have attempted to meet
those obvious objections to their whole movement, which the
doctrine in question necessarily presents. They are putting
forth certain efforts and prayers " for the reunion of Christen­
dom;” which at all events must include their own reunion with
the Holy See. We would address them thus. The one funda­
mental principle of Roman Catholicism, as a doctrinal system,
w the Church’s infallibility: are your efforts and prayers
addressed, or are they not, to the end that Catholics may
abandon that principle ? Look the question, we entreat you,
m the face, and answer yes or no. If you make the former
reply, you reply in fact that your movement is directed simply
against Roman Catholicism; that you aim, like Dr. Cumming
or Mr. Spurgeon, at inducing Roman Catholics to abandon
their religion. In that case you can no more expect Roman
Catholics to regard you as their friends, than they so regard
those extreme Protestant divines just mentioned.
You will reply, therefore, that you do not desire Roman
Catholics to desert their religion ; that you are but labouring
for re-union with them on its basis. You have no wish at all,
then, that they shall abandon their belief in the infallibility of
the Roman Catholic Church. But this infallibility is comm. v.—no. ix. [New Series.!
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Same, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

initted, as we have seen, to the doctrine, that Christ has
directly imparted to the Pope supremacy over all Christians;
you are labouring therefore, according to your own statement,
for union with Roman Catholics on that basis. Now there is
one way possible, and only one, for union <jn that basis: rii.,
your own belief in that vital doctrine. For consider. Until you
believe it, the Pope cannot possibly admit you into his com­
munion, because he cannot admit heretics thereto ; but as soon
as you believe it, it binds you at once, ipso facto, under pain
of formally committing mortal sin, to give the Pope that un­
qualified and unreserved submission which Christ enjoins. To
promote re-union on the basis of Roman doctrine, is neither
more nor less than to propagate the doctrine that Christ re­
quires all baptized men to obey the Pope in spirituals abso­
lutely and unreservedly. Do you at this moment yourselves be­
lieve this doctrine? Again we entreat you to look the question in
the face, and answer yes or no. If you do believe it, you are
meriting hell every moment yon delay your resolve of sub­
mission; and if you die during that delay, or without repenting
of that delay, you will be eternally lost. But if at this moment
you do not hold the doctrine in question, then you are per­
petrating the unequalled absurdity, of labouring and praying
for the propagation of a doctrine which you do not yourselves
hold.
Meanwhile, never was anything moré preposterous than
your attempted justification of yourselves, by your appeal to
historical instances of attempted corporate union with Borne.
In all such cases a certain number of leading men, emperor or
bishops, profess themselves to be in search of further light.
They profess themselves to be in serious doubt, whether the
Roman See possess really by divine appointment supremacy
over all Christendom. Since the difficulties and circumstances
of these men are much the same, they think it probable that
combined consultation with Roman Catholic authorities will
be their most hopeful road to truth; while Rome on her side
may well judge, that certain seasonable concessions in pure
discipline may remove many prejudices and * open a wider
avenue for the entrance of truth. Then, since thé mass of
their fellow-countrymen is supposed to repose the greatest
confidence in their judgment, the idea of corporate re-union
may be far from a wild or improbable, dream. But the whole
procedure turns on this, that such men profess'themselves io
be in search of clearer light ; to have, at least, grave misgivings
on the tenableness of their present position. Point, if you
can, to one single instance, in which the Holy See has lent a
favourable ear to any society approaching it in yemr mental

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147

altitude. You hold confidently, you say, that you are now
within the Church's visible pale; but you seek re-union with
the Holy See, as a means of strengthening, elevating, and
instructing your “ Church.” Name, if you can, one single
instance in which such overtures have been made to Rome,
and she has answered otherwise than as in the recent decree
of the Congregation of the Inquisition.
No; if you would bring yourselves even approximately
.within the shelter of such precedents as you allege, we must
imagine some such case as this:—A very considerable and
influential number of Anglicans—headed, perhaps, by a Scotch
"bishop,” or, at least, by an archdeacon or two—would profess
most, serious doubt, whether you are not : external to the
Catholic Church while , out of communion with the Holy See.
You profess, nevertheless, that while you recognise the vast
weight of evidence in Scripture and Tradition for Rome's
divinely given supremacy, you are still oppressed with certain
difficulties as to this or that doctrine which she teaches. You
entreat of her, therefore, a full and free conference with her
authorities, in order that you may either be rescued from mis­
conception of her real teaching, or else may receive fresh
theological and historical evidence, for certain dogmata which
have hitherto staggered you. Meanwhile, you make thé hum­
bling confession that you cannot trust your own fairness and
impartiality of judgment, so; long as submission to Rome
involves certain ritual sacrifices which you are unwilling to
make. You beseech her, therefore, in compassion of your infir­
mities, to grant certain dispensations: to permit, e.g., commu­
nion under both species, or to permit certain vernacular offices
unconnected with the Mass. Under such circumstances (could
ve imagine them) it would not be incredible that Rome might
make such concessions ; that those- converts who chose might
be allowed the unenviable privilege, of separating themselves
from the common rite of their fellow-Catholics, and being
admitted to the Chalice ; and again, that Vespers, and perhaps
other parts of the Divine Office, might be chanted in English
m some few chapels, which the new comers might frequent as
mug as their crotchet should continue.
It must be observed, however, carefully, that such conces­
sions would be of pure discipline. You would be allowed,
(·?·> to gratify your idiosyncrasy by... communicating under
both species: but you would be obliged, under pain of
anathema, to believe interiorly with the assent of Divine faith,
JJat the reasons were legitimate which prevailed with the
Catholic Church to introduce the opposite discipline; and,
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Bowe, Unionism, and Indifferentisrt.

moreover, that Christ is received Whole and Entire, though
under the species of bread alone.
*
And there is one concession of discipline which most assu­
redly would never be made : a concession to which disgusting
prominence has been given in the Union Review. We refer,
of course, to clerical celibacy. The Holy Father has recently,
as you know, published a “ Syllabus,” " embracing the chief
errors of our age which are branded ” in various censures put
forth by him during his reign. These censures, moreover,
claim, under pain of mortal sin, the interior assent of every
Catholic. Now, this “ Syllabus ” refers us to a judgment put
forth by the Pope in his first Encyclical on the celibacy of the
clergy ; and we beg for this judgment the particular attention
of those few unhappy and degraded Cathohc priests who have
printed their revolting sentiments on this matter in the pages
of the Union Review
To thia appertains that most foul conspiracy against the sacred celibacy cj
clerics, which, grievous to relate, is fostered even by some ecclesiastics,
who, miserably forgetting the dignity to which they have been raised
(propriæ dignitatis misere obliti), permit themselves to be overcome and
seduced by the blandishments and charms of pleasure.

It is little to say that, after specially drawing attention to
this judgment, Pius IX. will most assuredly not act in an
opposite direction. The simple truth is this. Every one, not
excused by invincible ignorance, is required under pain of
mortal sin to accept interiorly this solemn judgment ; to believe
interiorly that the conspiracy against clerical celibacy which was
proceeding in 1846 was "most foul,” and that the priests who
fomented it miserably forgot the dignity of their sacred office.
.No one, we suppose, will allege any important difference, in this
respect, between the Europe of 1846 and the Europe of 1865;
and the Pope indeed rules to the contrary, by now republishing
his earlier decision. We can only infer, therefore, that the
opinion against clerical celibacy, to which the Union Review
gives such shocking currency, is in itself mortally sinful.
And now as to those Catholics in general who have unhappily
joined the A.P.U.C. It has been flippantly and ignorantly said
that the Roman Congregation made a mistake, in stating that
these Catholics sanction the heretical doctrine of the Church’s
divisibility. A very few words will suffice to expose this incre­
dible fallacy. Let us put a case. Let us suppose that English* Cone.' Trid., Sesa. xxi., can. 2 and 3. At last it may well be doubted
whether the Holy See would ever grant to such men communion “ssb
utrâque.” Why should they desire it, unless (unknown perhaps to thenselves) they are unsound as to the above-stated doctrine ? On this matter
emphatically the Church’s discipline protects the Church’s Faith.

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men are at this time jointly engaged in prayer against cholera ;
and Frenchmen in prayer for success in some just war. Aman
would be mad who should say, that, as regards these respective
petitions, the two nations are united with each other in prayer.
To be united in prayer, all would at once reply, signifies that
those so united are praying for the same object. Now an asso­
ciation starts up, of which far the larger portion is not Catholic ;
and these non-Catholics, as members of the association, give
themselves to prayer, that the "divided branches of the Catholic
Church ” may be " reunited.” Every one who chooses to look
must see, that no one can unite himself to such prayer, except
by praying for the same object; in other words, by implying
that there are " divided branches ” of " the Catholic Church.”
Catholics will pray most acceptably, as Cardinal Patrizi’s letter
reminds us, that certain heretics and schismatics may submit
to the one undivided and indivisible Church; but such a
prayer is no more united with the Anglican’s, than an English­
man’s prayer against cholera is united with a Frenchman’s
prayer for success in war. We do not deny—nor does the
Boman Congregation deny—that certain Catholics may have
joined the A.P.U.C. without observing : this circumstance ;
but we do maintain that such as we have mentioned is the one
legitimate significance of their act. A Catholic member of the
AP.U.C. is in effect—whether he intends it or no—a traitor
to his faith and a deserter of his religion. And now that
Borne has so clearly spoken, no room is surely left for ignorance
or inadvertence.
Good Catholics cannot be too grateful to thé Bishop of
Birmingham, for the lead which he has so successfully taken
against these enemies of the Church ; and for the zeal and per­
severance with which he has persisted in exposing the real
nature of their scheme.

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We have reserved to this place a very singular passage in
Mr. Ffoulkes’s preface. The italics are our own :—
What would be thought of the scholarship of that man who professed to
lectine on the speeches in Thucydides, the choruses of Æschylus and Euri­
pides, the satires of Persius, or the annals of Tacitus, while betraying every
sow and then his inability to construe and parse plain easy sentences in
latin and Greek Delectus î But this it surely just what Christendom has
hen doing, for some time past, by its inspired classics. It has been dis­
puting and expending a vast amount of apparent learning upon some pos­
tages of acknowledged intricacy, respecting the Infallibility of the Church,
the Supremacy of the Pope, Apostolical Succession, Inherent or Imputed
Righteousness, Original Sin, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Real Presence
-in all which, undoubtedly, there is a right interpretation to be upheld,

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and a wrong interpretation to be condemned ; one view which is true, sad
another view which is false ; one line of action which is in harmony with
the commands of Christ, and another line which is not. Still, as undeniably,
when all those passages have been brought together, and enumerated and
contrasted, they will be seen to be either few in number, or recondite in
meaning ; our conclusions will be found in each case to be based either upon
the literal sense of two or three isolated texts, or upon deductions from a
number of texts mutually supporting or balanced against each other. They
are, on the whole, like the obscure passages, or unique constructions, or
terms of rare occurrence, to be met with in Thucydides, Æschylus, Penins,
and other classical authors. Meanwhile, there are some simple sentences for
beginners occurring over and over again in the New Testament which it
would seem from our practice we are unable to parse or construe ; though,
with the help of grammar and dictionary, there must be few incapable of
penetrating to their full meaning. “A new commandment I give unto you,
that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
.... If ye love me, keep my commandments............ This is my command­
ment, that ye love one another. .... Owe no man anything, but to lore one
another. . . . .‘Love is the fulfilling of the law” .... and so forth.· Ii
not the grammar of these sentences sufficiently clear ? Is there one word in
them which is ambiguous) “Good Master,” said one, “what shall I do
that I may have eternal life ? ’’ And Jesus answered—first repeating the
question, that there might be no mistake about it—“ If thou wilt enter into
life ”—and then employing, in His reply, the very terms in which He
afterwards laid down the true criterion of our love to Him—“Keep the
commandments.”
>
In all other cases, common sense forbids our ever indulging in the sophistry
that by keeping one commandment we may break another, and not incur
punishment. Those who steal are-not let off because they do not commit
murder as well ; those who give way to their lusts, without violating truth,
are not supposed to escape .with impunity. Therefore, when I contemplate
Christendom obstinately quarrelling over its more recondite obligations fra»
age to age, and yet so notoriously, unmindful of this primary and mod
undoubted one, I can only suppose that we are all of us bad scholars (raft1
άπό/ιοναοί), unable to construe and parse those plain and easy sentences which
recur so often in the course of the New Testament, and whose construction
and whose terms are so trite that they can have but one meaning (p. viL-ix)

It is impossible to exhaust the various reflections suggested
to a Catholic by this strange piece of writing ; yet we cannot
avoid making on it some little comment. And we will begin
with this: either the passage is altogether unmeaning—just
as nonsense verses are unmeaning — or else it expresses
the Protestant rule of faith; it contains a demal of the
Catholic rule, and an affirmation of the Protestant. Mr.
Ffoulkes’s argument is this : (t One particular doctrine is most
manifestly contained in Scripture ; certain other doctrines are
but obscurely there contained; hence the former doctrine

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151

is very far more certain than these latter.” If the author
folds the Protestant tenet,—viz., that Scripture was given as
the one ; instrument for imparting knowledge of doctrine—
this argument is valid and forcible ; but if he follow the
Church’s teaching, the whole paragraph is a simple string
of absurdities. Firstly, the Council of Trent receives Scrip­
ture and Tradition “ with equal affection of piety, and [with
equal] reverence” (Sess. 10)à However obscurely, then,
any doctrine might be expressed in Scripture, if it were
clearly contained in Tradition, it would be just as certain to
every Catholic as though it were expressly stated in Scrip­
ture. But, secondly, all Catholics are required to regard
the Ecclesia Docens as infallible in every definition of
faith. Supposing, therefore, a doctrine to be defined by the
Church which is not clearly contained either in Scripture or
Tradition (as e.g,, the Immaculate Conception), they must
regard it as not less absolutely certain, than those which
Scnpture and Tradition most irrefragably testify.
The next comment which we must make carries our condusion still farther.Nothing can be more certain than that
the Ecclesia Docens—the Catholic Episcopate in communion
with the Holy See—has consistently pursued the very course
which Mr. Ffoulkes denounces. She has anathematized
ifose whom she accounts heretical on “ The Infallibility of the
Church, the Supremacy of the Pope, Original Sin,” or any
other revealed matter ; and by the very fact of thus anathema­
tizing them, she has separated them by an impassable barrier
from those whom she regards as free of heretical taint
*
It
appears, then, from the two last sentences of the preceding
extract, that, in Mr. Ffoulkes’s opinion, the Ecclesia Docens
»ss for many centuries instructed Christ’s people ■ ‘ to quarrel
obstinately over their more recondite obligations,” and mean­
while entirely to forget the "primary and most undoubted”
obligation of all. Now the Ecclesia Dpcens claims to be in all
spintual matters Christ’s one representative on earth. Plainly,
4 body which, in Christ’s name, has acted so consistently and
®ergetically against Christ as Mr. Ffoulkes supposes, must
deserve no less severe a censure than violent anti-Catholics
dlege ; she must be anti-christian, and a type of Antichrist.
We are far from being unfair enough to imply, that so misty
*ad inconsecutive a thinker as Mr. Ffoulkes really masters
file consequences of his own statement ; but such as we have
eaicL is its consequence, though he may fail to perceive it. ·.
That such opinions as these should, be expressed by a writer
who sincerely believes himself a Catholic, is a fact (we imagine)
without precedent in all the annals of puzzle-headedness and

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bewilderment. And we really hope the exhibition may be ofper­
manent service. Many men are under the practical impression
-—some excellent Catholics are not quite free from it—that
intellectual revolt against authority, however morally censur­
able, implies at all events the presence of great intellectual
power. Mr. Ffoulkes’s example must undeceive all such men.
It must show them that there is no imaginable amount of
intellectual feebleness and confusion, which affords a guarantee
against any imaginable amount of intellectual lawlessness and
■rebellion.
And what can be poorer than the author’s attempt at a
Scriptural argument in the passage just quoted? He applies
himself with great pretension to give Scriptural proof for the
opinion, that Catholics should love thosewho hold erroneousdoctrines. Was there ever, then, a Catholic in the world who denied
this ? Was there ever a Catholic who denied the obligation
of loving heretics and schismatics ?* But even when Mr.
Ffoulkes holds a true opinion, he seems unable to gives
good reason for it. He quotes our Lord’s injunction, e.g.,
that His disciples should love one another. Were any of His
disciples, then, heretics or schismatics ? Our Lord, by
exhorting them to mutual love, teaches Catholics in every age
to love their fellow Catholics; to love those who accept
- doctrine from the same infallible oracle, and who obey the
same spiritual authority. But by what possible interpreta­
tion can such texts be madeto inculcate the duty—unquestion­
able as that duty is—of loving those who are not fellow
disciples; who do not yield submission of intellect and will to
the same spiritual authority? If heretics and schismatics were
lineal descendants of Christ’s disciples, Mr. Ffoulkes’s text
would be to the purpose ; but since all Catholics hold the
reverse of this as a fundamental principle of their religion,
and since he addresses his argument to Catholics, it is difficult
to make out what he can be dreaming of.
The author’s argument further assumes, that to excommu­
nicate heretics is inconsistent with loving them ; and that
the whole Ecclesia Docens has, consequently, from the very
moment of her original foundation, violated habitually andon
principle the fundamental law of Christian love. As he merely
assumes the truth of this frightful charge against the Church,
without one argument in its behalf, he leaves nothing for
Catholics to do, except to deny the charge as peremptorily as
he makes it.
* Pius IX. has often expressed this duty in the strongest terms, “ Let oar
faith,” he says, “ be exclusive, but our charity expansive.” See also the
passage quoted in our last number, p. 460.

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' 153

, We will say no more, however, on. the contradictoriness
between Mr. Ffoulkes’s opinions and his position : we will take
him as being, what he really is, a Protestant ; and we will con­
sider his argument on its own merits. It will furnish then
afresh illustration of that close affinity between unionism and
indifferentism which has been noted by the Roman Congre­
gation, if we observe his striking resemblance to Dean Stanley
in general spirit and drift. It is for this reason, as well as for­
ks own intrinsic importance as a sign of the times, that we
have mentioned at the head of our article a paper, read by this
most amiable and accomplished writer to a meeting of his
clerical brethren. In this essay the Dean states or implies (to
mention no other particulars) that "the theology of the nine­
teenth century” affords a far truer and more Christian bond
of union than is supplied by the Church's organization and
authority ; that the spirit of Dr. Dollinger and other “ liberal ”
Catholics is really more in accordance with that of the
"Essays and Reviews,” than with that of the Encyclical and
Syllabus ; * and that the real barrier to perfect sympathy be­
tween enlightened Catholics and Protestants, is not Catholic
doctrine in itself, but the dogmatizing and domineering spirit
of existing Catholic authorities. We have no space to con­
sider the essay as a whole ; yet before we join issue with the
argument in which he unites himself to Mr. Ffoulkes, we will
criticise one or two other statements which he puts forth in
opposition to Catholic doctrine.
For instance. " Is it possible,” he inquires (p. 256),“ that we
can now return from this higher knowledge of the Bible to
the grooves of the ‘ summa theologice ? ' ” Is it possible, one.
may as sensibly ask, that now railways are invented, men can
fall back on. simple beef and mutton? Scientific theology
aims at one end, scriptural exegesis at another ; each is good
in its place. Of course the Dean thinks quite otherwise ; but the
objection which we make is this : he is addressing his argument
to Catholics as well as to Protestants ; yet he takes no pains
to remember—it is really possible he may not know—the
most elementary rudiments of the Catholic religion. .. The
Church teaches that Christ imbued the Apostles with a vast
body of doctrine, which was to be the animating principle
of their lives ; that while they expressed a greater or less
part of this doctrine more or less clearly in Scripture, they
handed down the whole of it in its integrity by means alto­
gether independent of Scripture ; that a science has started into
existence, under the Church's watchful guidance, for the pur­
pose of giving to intellectual men an accurate knowledge of this
* Dr. Dollinger will not thank the Dean for this implication.

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doctrine, in its contents and bearing ; while it is admitted by
all that S. Thomas holds the highest place among the doctors
of this science. How can any Catholic, then, possibly say,
without virtually denying his faith, that exegetical criticism ,
will give man a "higher knowledge of the Bible’’ than is
derivable from scientific theology ? The Apostles, in every
word which they uttered bearing on faith and morals, were in­
fluenced by one vast, definite, profound, harmonious, mass of
doctrine. What key, then, to the true sense of their words
is even comparable in efficacy with a scientific study of that
doctrine itself ?
The Dean says, indeed, that an ordinary student of the
nineteenth century has a far greater “ enjoyment ’’ of the
Song of Deborah and the Book of Job than fell to fathers
and schoolmen. But the real question is, which of the two
classes is more able to penetrate the full depth of our Lord's
sacred utterances, or to seize the correct sense of S. Paul's
teaching. The Dean, of course, denies that Catholic theology
is a sure guide to doctrinal truth ; but we are here speaking
of Catholics who know the contrary. Surely it can need no
argument to prove, that those who already possess a full and
scientific acquaintance with doctrine in general, will be im­
measurably keener than any others, in appreciating the sense
and scope of any one doctrinal statement in particular.
*
What can possibly be Dean Stanley’s meaning, then, when
he says (p. 257) that “French Catholics and French Protestants,
and German Catholics and German Protestants . . .are em­
ployed in studying the same Book (the Bible) on the same general
' principles ” ? How can any two principles in the worldbemore
irreconcilable than the two before us ?—the Protestant, on the
one hand, which says that our knowledge of doctrine is purely
derived from our knowledge of the Bible; and the Catholic^
on the other hand, which leads to the immediate conclusion,
that our doctrinal apprehension of the Bible must be altogether
based on our scientific study of theology? The Dean is
sanguine enough to imagine (p. 257) that Roman Catholic
and Protestant are nearer to a mutual understanding than at
any previous time. Certainly if he is to be taken as a sample
of Protestants, facts directly contradict him: for the most
commonplace Protestant controversialist has a truer appre­
hension of Catholic doctrine, than any which he has dis­
played.
* On the inappreciable importance of studying scholastic theolcgr, »e
would refer to some most admirable remarks in the “Civiltâ Gattelita,"
which were analyzed by us in a recent number. See our number for July,
1864, pp. 207-212.
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155

But the Dean, flying off into an opposite extreme, implies
(p. 253) that the recent Encyclical opposes itself to exegetical
criticism altogether. We cannot imagine whereon he bases
such a fancy, unless it be on prop, xiii., censured in the
Syllabus. Now, what is that proposition ? “ That the method
and principles of scholastic theology are unsuited to the
necessities of our time.” Surely it is most possible to reject
this proposition energetically, and to hold, nevertheless, that
exegetical and linguistic criticism has also its own place of
nsefclness. To approve the one is not to condemn the other;
Every Catholic, no doubt, must in consistency hold that
scientific theology (and there is no scientific theology except
the scholastic) is absolutely requisite for any trustworthy
doctrinal exposition of Scripture. But when strictly sub­
ordinated to this science, critical study may produce very
valuable results, and the Church ever encourages its active
prosecution. Nor do we at all deny, but distinctly admit,
that on a number of questions, subordinate indeed yet highly
important, Protestant inquirers have supplied, by the result
of their labour, invaluable materials for a Catholic’s use.
Yet there is one important remark here to be made. Take
«ny one of those scripture texts which may be called em­
phatically doctrinal. Compare, on the one hand, such an
exposition of it as would be supplied by Catholic theology j
compare, on the other hand, the very best which Protestant
criticism can furnish. The purely linguistic and exegetical
critic must admit (if we could suppose him impartial) that the
former presents, of the two, a far deeper and more germane
comment on the passage; attaches a far more profound,
satisfying, and adequate sense to the sacred words. Just as the
Catholic Church alone authenticates Scripture and attests its
inspiration, so she alone can furnish the real key to its
doctrinal significance and drift.
In a similar spirit Dean Stanley states in effect (p. 262),
that scientific theology gives a less true and vivid representa­
tion of our Most Holy Redeemer, than would be obtained by
*o independent and critical study of the four Gospels. Now,
let us look at the case as it stands. Along series of most
touching acts and words is recorded concerning Christ. Who
is He who did those acts and spoke those words Î Is He, on
the one hand, a most pure and spotless creature, sinless and
incapable of sinning, filled with the treasures of Divine wisdom
•nd knowledge, entrusted by God with an all-important reve­
lation? Or is He, on the other hand, the Eternal Creator
Himself ? The distance is not less than infinite between Christ
M conceived in these two respective ways; nor can any end,

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therefore, be more important (here we thoroughly agree with
the Dean) than that the Gospels shall be studied with a true
apprehension of Christ. If the speeches and actions therein
recorded are meditated under the deep practical impression,
that in literal truth they are the very speeches and actions of
Almighty God—no meditation can tend so powerfully to elevate
and supernaturalize the mind. If they be read under a different
impression, they lose their one characteristic charm ; the salt
has lost its savour ; it is good for nothing any more but to be cast
out and trodden on by men. How, then, you may ask, does the
Catholic Church secure their being rightly contemplated? But
this is not our precise question. We are not here asking by what
means she obtains the desired result for her children in genend;
though on this we shall presently have a word to say: but we are
here asking what study she recommends *in this view to the
educated and intellectual. The answer is simple: she recom­
mends a mastery of the scientific doctrine on Christ’s Person
and Natures; nor can we conjecture what other intellectual
means is even imaginable. Dean Stanley, however, considers
such intellectual exercises as “ more or less barren both for
speculation and edification” (p. 262) ; and we are the more
curious, therefore, in inquiring what he would substitute in
their place. Strange to say, no answer is forthcoming. He
says again and again that we should study “ the character of
His acts down to the minutest details ;” that we should strive
to " delineate ” Him “ morally and historically ;” in fact, that
we should throw our whole mind on the Gospel narrative. But
all this is beside the question. His acts and words may be
studied, either as those of a perfect creature, or as those of the
Almighty Creator ; and we are asking what provision the
Dean suggests, in order that a student may carry with him
throughout a true practical impression, on this unspeakably
momentous alternative. The Dean regards scholasticism as
an unsuitable means for this. We ask what study does he
recommend in its place? The question is simple and ele­
mentary enough ; but we have read the essay carefully firom
beginning to end, without finding the remotest suggestion of
an answer.
We should expect, then, à prim, that Protestants would
suffer most serious mischief in their study of the Gospels, from
their ignorance of scholastic science: nor was there ever a case
in which theory was more amply confirmed by experience. The
great majority of Protestants sincerely believe themselves to
hold the doctrine of Our Lord’s Divine Personality; but we
believe that there is not one in a thousand who practically holds
what he has speculatively accepted. We are not speaking here

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157

of the Tractarians; whose exception, indeed, emphatically
proves the rule, because they do study scientific theology. Apart
from them, certainly that class of Protestant religionists in
England which might be expected most firmly to grasp this
vital verity, would be the Evangelicals; for they rest their
whole scheme on the Atonement. Yet it was shown many
years ago in the “ Tracts for the Times ” that Jacob Abbot,
whose book was welcomed with enthusiasm by Evangelicals
both here and in America, exhibited a picture of Our Lord
intermediate between the Arian and the Socinian. Passing to
the present time, and to take the first which occurs out of a
thousand instances, no Protestant has studied the Gospels
more accurately, more laboriously, with greater critical power,
in a more reverent spirit as far as intention goes, than
Professor Lange. He ' announces that “ Christ miraculously
attained to full consciousness of His calling as the Redeemer,
at His baptism in Jordan.” * The Omniscient God, it seems,
having taken our nature to redeem us, after many years of
comparative ignorance, at the age of thirty arrives mira­
culously (!) at a knowledge of what it is which He has come
upon earth to do. What can be the practical impression of
him who thus writes,—what can be the practical impression
derived from his work by those who unsuspiciously read it,—
except that Jesus Christ is something less—and if something,
then infinitely less—than the Creator ?
We are not unmindful of a logical reply which may be
attempted to our accusation : it may be alleged that Lange
«peaks of our Lord’s human knowledge ; and that the language
quoted is compatible with a belief, that He possesses a Divine
and Infinite Knowledge concurrently. We answer confidently
—and we are sure all impartial persons will agree—that no
one, practically impressed with the conviction that Our Lord is
the Omniscient Creator, could possibly have so written, with­
out, at the same time, expressing the supplementary truth of
Christ’s Infinite Divine Knowledge. It is even more obviously
indubitable, that the impression made on unsuspecting readers
must be such as we have described; while yet no murmur of
dissent has been heard from the Protestant world or from
the Protestant translator. But we are not sorry that the
supposed reply has occurred to us, because it will give
us opportunity for a few words on an important subject.
Scholastic theology has not merely analyzed with great
accuracy the doctrine of the Incarnation; it has also ex­
plored a supplementary body of truth, on the endowments of
» “ On S. Matthew,” Clark’s English Translation, p. 312.

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Christ’s human soul : nor is there anything which more claims
the attention of intellectual men, who would study the Gospels
with full fruit, than a study of this whole exposition. We
cannot here refer to other portions of it ; but we will speak of
its pronouncement on Our Lord’s human knowledge. The
Church attaches so great importance to true judgments on this
head, that she has actually anathematized as heretics those ,
who have held that Our Lord; even in His human nature,
was ignorant concerning “ the day and hour ’’ of Divine
*
Judgment.
Theology teaches, in accordance with this, that
Christ’s human knowledge was from the first complete and
perfect in its sphere ; that at the very moment of His soul’s
creation, it knew and actively apprehended all which it knew
and actively apprehended at any subsequent time; consequently, that neither in the earlier period was there imper­
fection, nor at a later period addition. Our first and most
obvious remark on this doctrine is in opposition to Dean
Stanley. If this doctrine be true, it is plain thatr Catholics
who study the Gospel history under its light, possess an im£ measurably clearer and truer view of what they read than is
accessible to Lange, however inferior they may be to him in
linguistic knowledge and exegetical skill. But, further, we
would suggest that this doctrine is, in practice, a necessary
supplement to the doctrine itself of the Incarnation. In
speculation, no doubt, a thinker may hold that Our Lord's
Divine knowledge is Infinite, while His human knowledge,
during His stay on earth, was rising from the poor and im­
perfect to a fuller and more perfect state. But let us imagine
any one to set about studying the Gospels under this belief.
He would find it impossible, we are persuaded, to retain the j
practical impression, that he is studying the words and acts of |
Almighty God ; though his speculative belief in that doctrine
might remain unaltered. We cannot here treat the subject i
thus opened, proportionately to its interest and importance; j
but as it has in some sense obtruded itself on our attention, we ;
have thought it better not entirely to pass it over.
Then the Dean makes another attack on scholasticism. “ In
older theology,” he says (p. 260), “ there seems (of course with
brilliant exceptions) to have prevailed this general defect, that
endless controversies, and defences and attacks, have gone
round and round these sacred terms [which express dogma]
without even asking what they mean.” There is no need for
replying to such a statement; we may safely leave it to the
amazement of those, who possess the most superficial acquaint
*
|
* See “ Petavius de Incarnatione,” L xi, c. 4,15.

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159

wee with scholastic writers. Nor, again, can we profess
surprise at any density oT ignorance displayed on such matters
by a Protestant divine. But we confess we do a little wonder
how it happened, that Dean Stanley, who must have been pro­
foundly conscious of his own ignorance, was rash enough to
commit himself so deplorably.
*
Perhaps no part of the paper before ns is more singular,
than that in which the author contrasts the “calmness”
of the new school with the “ alarm and vehemence ” of the
more orthodox. Firstly, we would submit to him (we mean no
offence by the illustration), that a burglar has no difficulty in
keeping his temper ; but that when the master of the house,
on rising, finds himself to have sustained grievous loss, he
deserves no small praise if he bear that loss with perfect
patience. In like manner, when an assault is made on the
object of a man’s dearest attachment;—the body of definite ·
and divinely revealed truth—he is, of course, tempted to anger
and excitement ; though he should undoubtedly fight against
that temptation. But the other party is on the aggressive ; it
has taken up a new theory, and is labouring to spread that
theory. Such men are tempted, not to harsh language,
but to other faults instead ; to inconsiderateness towards
simple piety, to random assertions, reckless insinuations^
flippant sophistry, and the like. How far they have been even
as successful as their opponents in guarding against their
peculiar dangers, we shall not here attempt to decide.
But now what are the instances given by Dean Stanley of
this “vehemence,” which he regards as so sure a mark of the
false and losing cause ?f Among members of his own com* Presently the Dean quotes this solemn warning from a Protestant Pro­
fessor (p. 261) : “ Consider the havoc which must needs follow if people,
without having clearly perceived the meaning of ‘Nature,’ without having
agreed among themselves on the strict meaning of the word, enter on a dis­
cussion on the ‘ Supernatural.’” Such, the Dean implies, was the habit of
scholastic writers. >Ve wish the author would accept at our hands a penance
for his random allegations. We should enjoin him to study accurately the
careful consideration io be found, in Itipalda’s great work “ De Ente SuperoatataK,”on the various.senses of the word “nature.” for the purpose of
explaining the scope of his own immediate subject (1. i., d. 3). And wo should
also enjoin the Dean not to bring any more of his theological speculations
before the public, till he could pass an examination on Ripalda’s argument.
+ The author at times uses these two epithets ns almost synonymous.
Thus (p. 266) he inquires which of the two contending parties “feel most
assured that tfuth and -victory are on his side.” One of these parties is the
Pope ; the Dean therefore seems really to think that Pius IX. is not confident
in his heart on the justice of his own cause ! But what we. are especially
pointing out, is the author’s matter-of-course assumption, that in this corrupt
and Men world the side of truth is certainly the side of victoiy.

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Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

inunion, he cites Dr. Pusey, in his commentary on Daniel ;
a ■work for which that learned Professor has earned the
warmest gratitude of every good Catholic, and in which, for
ourselves, we are quite unable to see any expressions of undue
severity towards.the Indifferentist party. But the author’s
principal instance is Pius IX.’s recent Encyclical; which he
.denounces as filled with
cries, lamentations, hyperbolical
nrhetoric, imprecations, and adjurations” (p. 265). Before
meeting this monstrous charge, we must seriously complain of
• Dean Stanley’s great inaccuracy : which is the less excusable,
; because it gives a most false impression on the nature of Pius
IX.’s act. He says that Dr. Dollinger and Sir J. Acton were
“the special objects so furiously attacked” (p. 266). The
special objects I Why, in the Encyclical neither of them is
directly touched at all ,· and as to the Syllabus, is it Dr.
Dollinger and Sir J. Acton who hold that there is no God;
that Jesus Christ is a mythical fiction ; that any wicked or
flagitious action is to be extolled, if done for love of
country ? Such are the tenets which Pius IX. denounces as
“ monstrous portents of opinion.” Would the Dean give them
a softer name ? As to Dr. Dollinger and Sir J. Acton, we are
not aware of any propositions which can be supposed directly to
concern them, except props, xii., xiii., and xxii. It appears then,
at starting, that the “special objects, so furiously attacked”
in the Encyclical and Syllabus,—are not mentioned in the
former at all, and in the latter only occupy three propositions out
of eighty. And it appears further on inspection, that these
three propositions are all extracted from one original document,
viz., the Munich Brief ; and that this Brief, so far from contain­
ing a “ furious attack,” is worded throughout in terms of most
guarded courtesy. The Dean himself, at all events, is by no
means averse from that “hyperbolical rhetoric” which he
ascribes to the Vicar of Christ.
But is it indeed at variance with the true Christian spirit, to
speak with extremo severity—with what an opponent may
choose to call “ hyperbolical rhetoric ’’——against doctrinal
error ? The error was not uncommon in Apostolic times, that
the Jewish lawis of permanent obligation. No one acquainted
with Dean Stanley’s writings will doubt what judgment he
would hâve formed on that error. He would have said that
none but the narrow and uncharitable could regard it as an
obstacle to Christian union; that the Judaizers accept all the
essentials of Christian , doctrine and morality (sée p. 259);
and that they are fellow-heirs of heaven with the rest. 8.
Paul’s judgment, however, differs from the Dean’s. He
teaches that these miserable men have been removed into

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

161

another gospel; that they who preach such a gospel are under
an anathema; that “as many as are of the works of the law
are under a curse/’ that if Gentiles “are circumcised
Christ shall profit them nothing” (Gal. i. 6, 8; Hi- 10;
v. 2). Had the Dean then lived, would he not have stigmatized
all this as “hyperbolical rhetoric” ? Then consider again such
passages as the following; from which, indeed, some of the
Holy Father’s strongest expressions are textually taken.

■

But these men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the snare and
to destraction, blaspheming those things which they know not, shall perish in
their corruption, Receiving the reward of their injustice, counting for a
pleasure the delights of a day : stains and spots, flowing in delights, rioting
in their feasts with you, having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceaseth
not : alluring unstable souls, having their heart exercised with covetousness,
diWren of malediction : . . . These are fountains without water and clouds
tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved. For,
speaking proud words of vanity, they allure by the desires of fleshy riotousmi those who for a little while escape, who converse in error : promising
them liberty, whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by
whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave!—2 Peter ii.
12—14,17—10.
. ,
But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not : and what things
soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.
Wo unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain : and after the error of
Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the
wntradiction.of Core.. These are spots in their banquets, feasting together
without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about
by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots,
ragwy wares of the sea, foaming out their own confusion, wandering stars ; to
rlom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. Now of these Enoch also, the
•erenthfrom Adam, prophesied, saying : Behold, the Lord cometh with thou®nds of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly
forall the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of
ώ the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. These
murmurera, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires,
•od their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain’s sake.—
Λ<& 10—16.

We ask the Dean in all seriousness one simple question.
Are these passages to be accepted as the accents of the Holy
Ghost? or, on the other hand, are they to be ridiculed and
denounced as replete with “ cries, lamentations, hyperbolical
rhetoric, imprecations, and adjurations”? It is not to his
honour, if he will refuse plainly and publicly to answer this plain
Md public question.
He may possibly reply, indeed, that these writers were
Apostles, commissioned by God to teach and govern tho
vou v.—no. ix. [jVew Series.}
K

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Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

Church, and who might well therefore use a freedom of speech
which in others would be condemnable. We fully concur in
such a statement ; but entreat him to remember that Pins IX.
claims the very same jurisdiction which was possessed by
S. Peter, and a higher than that possessed by 8. Paul and
8. Jude.
.
If anything could be more wonderful than the author’s cen­
sure of the Pope, it would be his eulogy of Sir J. Acton.
Sir John’s “farewell,” he thinks, was “manly and highspirited,” his “ attitude calm, dignified, and respectful ” (p.
266). We wish our readers would refer to a few extracts from
this “ farewell ” which we gave last July (pp. 66-69) ; here we
can but give a brief selection. “ Authority may be protected,”
he says—he means that ecclesiastical authority is protected—
“ by its subjects being kept ignorant of its faults and holding
it in superstitious admiration.” “ The timlight of opinion
enables it to assume the halo of infallibility.” “ Its arts are
simply those of all human governments which possess legisla­
tive power, fear attack, deny responsibility, and. therefore
shrink from scrutiny.”. This, forsooth, is a “ calm, dignified,
and respectful attitude ” towards the authority, which Sir John
admits to have received from God the keys of the Kingdom,
and the promise that whatever it binds on earth shall be
bound in heaven.

It is the main drift, however, of Dean Stanley’s essay, with
which we are mainly concerned : and in its bearing on Catho­
licism this drift may be stated as follows :—“ There is no im­
portant difference of interior character between a Catholic and a
Protestant. That familiar and friendly intercourse between the
two, which is so called for by the spirit of Christian love,
is impeded only by mutual misunderstanding, and by the un­
Christian stress laid on doctrine as such.” This is the phase
of indifferentism which is just now most fashionable among
educated English Protestants ; and there is much reason for
regret, that the existing works of Catholic controversy supply
little or no protection against its insidious assaults. When
these works were written, not indifferentism but dogmatic
Protestantism was the enemy in the field. In Ireland this
is still the case : in England, again, dogmatic Protestantism
exercises most powerful sway over multitudes of vulgar minds,
both in the upper and themiddle class; but we doubt whether
it now influences one single person of real thought and cul­
tivation. Meanwhile, according to the fablo of the sun and
wind, many unsuspicious Catholics, who would be proof against
the onslaughts of open hostility, are charmed and sent to sleep

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163

by the voice of professing fidendship ; and under the specious
delusion of pursuing Christian charity, lose all the freshness,
simplicity, and energy of Christian faith. No more grievous
intellectual need exists in England, than a full exposure of in­
differentiam, in itself and in its innumerable ramifications.
We can here of course attempt no more than the merest
skeleton of a reply to our author ; and what little we do attempt
will be addressed exclusively to Catholics. How to make the
Catholic reasoning intelligible to Protestants, is an important
question, on which, however, we have no space to touch.
At starting let us suppose, merely for argument’s sake, that ·
in one or two exceptional cases the Dean’s supposition held
good ; that here or there a, Catholic might be found whose
interior character * differs in no important respect from that
of a Protestant. Still we must maintain that this fact is,
firstly, his own fault ; and, secondly, his unspeakable mis­
fortune. It is precisely our wish that this misfortune be not
indefinitely extended—our wish that the purity of faith and
of Catholic instinct may not suffer more grievous and extensivo
injury,—which leads us to protest with our whole soul against
the detestable theories of Dean Stanley and Mr. Ffoulkes. We
will begin,then,with recitingsome principal doctrines and autho­
rized usages, tending most powerfully to influence the interior
character, which are integral portions of the Catholic religion,
and to which all Protestants are more or less strangers ; and
we will afterwards draw various inferences from this enumera­
tion. Moreover, as we must carefully consult for brevity, we
will not consider the case of Photians and other Eastern
heretics or schismatics ; but only of European Protestants and
English Tractarians. Lastly, we confine our examination to
matters which directly and importantly affect tho interior
character ; there being other doctrines, truly momentous in
varions other respects, on which we do not touch.
(1.) Catholics practically hold, no less than speculatively
believe, that He who died on the cross is the Eternal God.
We have already stated that, putting aside the Tractarians, we
believe the number of Protestants to be extremely small who
practically hold this doctrine ; though the great majority of
them consider themselves to believe it. And we shall see tho
reason of this, when we consider the principal means whereby
the Catholic Church secures its true presentation to the mind of
* It can hardly be necessary to warn our Catholic readers, that in the
following discussion the word “character” has its ordinary and Mpmar
meaning ; totally distinct from that theological sense, m which it u said that
certain sacraments impart a “ character.”
M 2 t

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Home, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

her children. We do not here speak on books of meditation, nor
again of scientific theology ; because these, though instruments
of signal efficacy, are available, of course, only for the educated
classes. Nor again do we speak of the Catechism ; which is
amply sufficient for engendering speculative belief in the
great doctrine, but not always for ensuring its full practical
apprehension. The means whereby the great body of Catholics
is duly trained in this respect, seem to us mainly two ;—devo­
tion to the Blessed Sacrament, and to Our Lady : and since
Protestants, in their blindness and ignorance, have abandoned
both, it is no matter of surprise that the treasure has escaped
from their grasp. The belief that, by a stupendous miracle,
the Redeemer is personally present in every Tabernacle, im­
presses the mind with a sense of His indefinite greatness ;
while the divine worship, internal and external, which Catholics
offer to the Blessed Sacrament^ day after day, preserves in
k their mind the fresh and vivid impression of His Divine Personality. Then as regards ’ devotion to our Blessed Lady.
/1 The practice, so peculiar to Catholics, and at the same time so
' J universal among them, of uniting themselves with Mary in the
e contemplation of Jesus, unspeakably elevates their conception
‘ Λ of His Divine Majesty. Yet we cannot wonder that Protestants
Λ reprobate devotion to our Lady altogether ; for their own pracβ. tical conception of Christ rises hardly (if at all) above the
f Catholic’s conception of Christ’s purest creature.
(2.) Firm belief in the Real Presence, and the habit of
frequent communion, as is known by all who try the experi­
ment, produce in the mind a profound and incommunicable
effect of their own.
(3.) Devotion to our Lady is the peculiar heritage of Ca­
tholics. The immense majority of Protestants regard it with
reprobation and horror; those more lenient,·with indulgence
and excuse : but Catholics cherish it as among their dearest
possessions and their highest privileges. We will here appeal
to those Catholics who have once been Protestants. We will
suppose them to have accepted on faith that fully-developed
Marian devotion which is there encouraged, whither all sound
believers look for light and guidance—viz., in Rome ; and we
will further suppose that they have practised assiduously the
devotion thus learnt. Let us even put the case that these
men have been Tractarians ; and therefore, even in their pre­
Catholic days, have really embraced and practically appre­
hended the doctrine of our Lord’s Divine Personality. These,
however, no less than others, find that their devotion to Mary,
while unspeakably intensifying their awe and reverence, has,
at the same time, given a quality of tenderness, confidingness,
Ψ II

Home, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

165

intimacy, to their love of Him, which has been an absolutely
new experience ; and, generally, that it has imparted a fami­
liarity with the invisible world, a realization, of supernatural
truth, an unworldliness of thought and affection, a practical
belief in the efficacy of prayer, a power of self-control, to
which otherwise they would have been strangers.
(4.) All Catholics recognize the Evangelical Counsels ; and
consider that those who follow them pursue a higher and
more heavenly method of life than any other.
(5.) Consider, again, the Saints of the Church: how sin­
gularly like to each other ! how singularly unlike to all besides !
It is part of Catholic doctrine that the Church is actually
infallible in proposing these holy beings to the love and re­
verence of the faithful. Moreover the practice is earnestly incul­
cated on every Catholic of studying carefully their acts and
lives, as.the one highest and truest exhibition of Christianity;
as presenting the one type'of character most acceptable to
God—the type of character, by approximating to which, and
in no other way, can men become better Christians.
(6.) Whether in perusing these lives, or in studying works
of ascetic theology, all Catholics are taught that the one true
way of rising in true holiness is to unite diffidence in self with
confidence in God; in other words, to labour energetically
towards fulfilment of His Will, in the spirit of simple reliance
on His strength as enabling them , to do so. One school of
Protestants denies this doctrine, by affirming that all our
efforts for consistent obedience are vain, and, indeed, antiChristian ; and that our best acts are in God’s sight but as
filthy rags. The opposite school, ignoring or denying original
sin, holds that we can really advance to our true end, by works
done in our natural strength, and in the spirit of self-reliance.
(7.) It is an essential truth of Catholicism, that the one
end for which man was created is the love and service of God ;
that men are more admirable, more excellent, more perfect as
men, not at all in proportion as they are more intellectual,
, or more gifted with practical power, or more nobly descended,
but exclusively as they are more morally and spiritually
advanced. On no point is there more real difference than
on this, between the respective morality of Catholics and
Protestants.
(8.) All Catholics are required to go annually to confession ;
and are earnestly exhorted, both to go much oflener,. and also
to practise regularly and systematically a rigid examination of
conscience. Moreover, in the confessional they submit them­
selves to the priest, both as their judge and their physician ;
while he is obliged to adjust his counsels and decisions by a . ,
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Rome, Unionism, and Indiffer entism.

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

whole system of moral and ascetical theology, which he is
authoritatively taught in his ecclesiastical education.
(9.) Catholics hold that even the smallest sin is a greater evil
than any other in the world except sin ; that for each smallest
iiin future suffering (in purgatory) is justly due ; that efficacious
repentance for venial sin is far from easy ; that men cannot in
this life obtain (whether by indulgences or otherwise) remission
for the punishment of any one such sin, without efficaciously
repenting it. We are not denying that after death the penalty
may be shortened, or even removed altogether, by the prayers
of survivors or by the indulgences' which these may gain;
but still the doctrine which we have mentioned stands out in
startling contrast with Protestant misbelief. Even the ever­
lasting punishment of mortal sins is fast disappearing out
of the Protestant’s creed ; and a Catholic’s sensitiveness to
small offences was always unintelligible to the Protestant
world. Matt. v. 17—19 may be thought to have been specially
pronounced by anticipation, against those frightful heresies
introduced by Luther, which have pervaded Protestantism in
all its phases like a besetting plague.
(10.) Catholics have also a very real and influential belief,
in the constant battle to be waged, by those who would obtain
salvation, against the attacks of those evil spirits who are so
crafty and sagacious, and, at the same time, such malignant
enemies to God and man. Such a belief has now hardly any
practical existence with most Protestants.
(11.) An English Catholic has a very far closer corporate
connection with a French or Italian Catholic, than with an
English Protestant. He owes immeasurably more unreserved
attachment to the Church than to the State;
*
and holds,
moreover, as of divine faith, that the Pope is by God’s
immediate appointment the Church’s supreme ruler. Con­
sequently his one reasonable attitude of mind towards the
Holy Father is an immeasurably more ardent and (as it were)
chivalrous loyalty, than was due, e. g., to the Stuarts even on
the highest theory of divine right.
We need not continue our enumeration further; and we are
obliged to confine our remarks on it within tho briefest pos­
sible space:—
I. A very little consideration will show, that a habit of
pondering on those truths, and diligently practising those
* See this doctrine drawn ont in our number for lost October, pp. 379—
382.

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usages, which we have now mentioned, must necessarily en­
gender a most peculiar.and pronounced interior character—
one most widely different from any other. It may be alleged,
indeed, that certain extreme Tractarians, by pondering on
their own doctrines, would be similarly affected; we will
remark, therefore, that, though we cannot agree with this
statement, its truth would in no respect affect our argument.
II. Further, God revealed Catholic doctrine for the very
end that men should
*
contemplate and dwell on it’ Since,
therefore, the duly.pondering on Catholic doctrine leads to a
certain most definite interior character, this character must
be singularly pleasing to God. It cannot be saying too much,
to affirm that the production of this character is one principal
end for which God revealed Catholic dogma.
III. Again, as this character would infallibly be produced
by the contemplation of Catholic dogma, so the converse also
holds : those who possess it will understand far better than
any others the true force and bearing of such dogma ; and on
various matters of thought will instinctively cleave to sound
opinions, while they shun those which are unsound.
IV. Indeed, this interior character may be considered as
substantially identical with what are called “ Catholic instincts.’’
Those who possess it have a most special gift (supposing them
to possess adequate knowledge of facts) of seeing on each
occasion which is God’s Preference, and. how they can best
please Him. It ranks them among a Catholic’s most precious
possessions.
V. Here occurs a vital question. Great multitudes have
really not the opportunity or the gift of contemplating
Catholic doctrines one by one. Have these men no means
of acquiring this most precious possession ? On the contrary,
God has specially provided for their need, by enjoining that
duty on which we laid stress at the outset of our article;
viz., docility to the Church’s “ juge magisterium.” By un­
reservedly surrendering themselves to the Church’s influence
in every shape; by being diligent in the Catholic duties of
their station; by reading those books which have the Church’s
sanction; by seeking the company of priests, and of those
laymen who are called abroad in derision “ clericals ;” by
avoiding familiar intimacy whether with persons of a different
religion, or with unsound and disloyal Catholics; by exercising
extreme caution and reserve in all intercourse with Protestants
and all study of Protestant literature ;-—by these and a thousand
similar methods -all may imbibe that true Catholic spirit, which
places them in real sympathy with the Church’s mind; gives
them the instinctive habit of obedience to ecclesiastical

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Home, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

authority; and constitutes them the Church’s trustworthy
defenders. J··-.·.·.··.·
VI. Since the season of childhood and youth is immeasurably
the most impressible of all, it is impossible to exaggerate the
importance of preserving the purity of a Catholic atmosphere
throughout the whole of education. Far better for Catholic
youths to be in constant contact with men sick of the plague,
than with men aliens to the Church.
VII. Even intellectually speaking, no result can be more
contemptible than that which ensues on mixed education.
There is no surer mark of an uneducated and uncultivated
mind, than that a man’s practical judgment on facts as they
occur, shall be at variance with the theoretical principles
which he speculatively accepts. Suppose, e. g., a politician,
who is busy in forwarding measures, condemned by that
theory, on political economy which he professes to accept.
What would result ? We should all cry out against his shal/ J lowness, and lament that he had received no better intellectual
training. Now, this is the necessary result of mixed educa­
tion. The unhappy Catholic who (whether from his own fault
or that of others,) is so disadvantageously circumstanced,
becomes a contemptible mongrel : Catholic in his speculative
convictions, non-Catholic in his practical judgments ; holding
one doctrine as an universal truth, and a doctrine precisely
contradictory on almost every particular which that universal
truth comprises.
VIII. Further, we can thus discern (see prop. Ixxix. of
the Syllabus) the deplorable nature of that calamity which
overspread Europe, when unhappy circumstances necessitated
in so many countries the civil toleration of religious error.
The Catholic atmosphere, instead of pervading the nation, is
withdrawn, as it were, within the more purely ecclesiastical
sphere: a wide and ever increasing gulf opens between the
clergy on one hand, and the great body of the laity on the
other : religious indifferentism eats like a cancer into the very
vitals of society ; a disease, perhaps, by the very reason of its
impalpableness and subtlety, more perilous than almost any
other by which the body politic can be affected.
IX. Lastly, as has been more than once implied, fraterni­
zation and familiar intercourse, whether with Protestants or
with unsound and disloyal Catholics, tends inevitably to
destroy, not indeed all speculative belief) but at least all
practical apprehension, of those great truths which Christ came
to teach us.
Now, men of all parties will agree, that the principles
here stated, if true, give abundant reason for the detestation

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

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169

and abhorrence which we feel both for Déan Stanley’s views and
(
Mr. Ffoulkes’s projects. The former, indeed, is more compte|
hensive than the latter, as to those whom he would include;
ί
while the latter proposes more complete union with those
whom he does comprehend. But both writers proceed on the
same principles. Both writers are profoundly ignorant of thé
■
effect produced by true doctrine on the interior character.
[
Both assert that the undue stress laid on distinctive doctrine
i
is the one unhappy barrier, to that unity which the spirit of
(
Christianity so peremptorily requires. Both virtually deny that
submission is due to the “ juge magisterium” of the Church.
t
Both hold that the Ecclesia Docens has acted in a narrow and
. domineering way. ’Both understand, by that much-abused
word “union,” the “ agreement to differ;” instead of using it
:
to signify that harmony of heart, spirit, and affection, which
i;
can only be based on unity of faith.
s
The Catholic’s answer to them both is most simple. Either
U
Christ did, or did not, commit a large body of momentous
<
dogma to the infallible guardianship of the Holy See and the
st
Catholic Episcopate. To believe that He did not, is to abant
don Catholicism. If He did—as every Catholic is required
to believe that He did—Catholics have nothing for it but to
it
accept with humble submission that body of dogma, precisely
as it is taught them by that authority which Christ has erapowered infallibly to propose it. We do not deny that there
i f
are many open questions ; that various tenets, held firmly by
individual Catholics, are nevertheless in no sense obligatory
' f
on a Catholic’s belief ; but we must maintain that no privat e
i· ~ Catholic can even guess, by his own judgment, what questions
’
are or are not open. The good Catholic submits his judgment
unreservedly to the Holy See; he holds those tenets to be
respectively heretical, unsound, improbable, which the Holy
;■
Father declares to be such; he thinks independently for
himself on those questions alone, which the Holy Father leaves
i
perfectly free. Mr. Ffoulkes, we suppose, would admit (so far
=
as words go) that the Holy See is the centre and principle -of
doctrinal unity : we cannot imagine what such words signify,
unless they mean that precise verity which we have now stated.
It is urged by many, as an argument against denuncia­
tion of unsound Catholics, that members of the Church should
; /
at least live in union with each other, if they would succeed in
their aggression on the world. No end, we reply, can be more
< y...
inestimably important, than that sound and loyal Catholics—
those heartily submissive both in intellect and will to tho Holy
See—should be bound together in firmest union. But are
all Catholics such ? Certain persons will reject, indeed, any '
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Home, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

tenet as heretical which the Church so denounces, but will
not ascribeto a proposition, as infallibly deserved, any lesser
censure with which the Church may have branded it : nor
will they accept as. infallibly true those instructions of the
Holy Father (such as the " Mirari Vos/·’ or the “Quantâ
Curâ ” with its appended Syllabus) which are not definitions
of faith. These men do not, therefore, actually cease to be
Catholics; but they are unsound and disloyal Catholics ; and
they commit, moreover, as we must maintain, (materially at
least) mortal sin. So far from its being desirable that a private
Catholic should be in “ union ” with such men, his attitude of
mind should be simply antagonistic to their whole position ;
he should regard them as mischievous and dangerous rebels.
Certainly he should tenderly love them, as he should tenderly
love heretics and schismatics.
Certainly he should dwell
admiringly on their good qualities, and give their every act
the most favourable interpretation of which it is reasonably
susceptible : but this again is also his duty towards heretics
and schismatics. And-his love for one -class, as for the
other, should be exhibited, not by fraternizing with them
(God forbid !), but by endeavouring (if he have the oppor­
tunity) to awaken in them a sense of their error and peril.
The writers in the Union Review, whether Catholic or Protes­
tant, show no great “ union” of heart, either with what they
call "the ultramontane party ” (i.e., loyal Catholics), or with
this Beview, which they are pleased to regard as its “leading
organ in England.”* We may be permitted, we suppose, to
abhor their principles as cordially as they abhor ours.
The great mass of Catholics, as we observed at the outset
of this article, have no such intellectual cultivation, as to be
tempted towards that miserable disloyalty to the Holy See of
which we have just spoken. And among educated Catholics
there is a large and (we really believe) an increasing class,
who look to Borne as to their one guiding star amid the tempests
of life ; who obey her every command and wish ; who are docile,
not merely to her smallest expressed instructions, but to her
whole practical “ magisterium/' That these men may come
more and more to know each other, to understand each other,
to love each other ; that those otherwise minded may be led
in ever increasing numbers to see the error of their ways; that
such loyal and devoted subjects may form an impregnable

J

I
a■1

* As one instance out of a thousand, the Union Review for March, 1SS5,
after commenting on this Bbvibw, concludes that “the advance of ultraniontanism means the advance of intolerance, both political and intellectual, in Us
wry worst sense of the word ” (p. 209).

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171

barrier of defence to the Holy See; that through their co­
operation. the Chair of Peter may be, in a' constantly
increasing degree, revered through the world as the one
Chair of Truth, and as the highest seat of legitimate autho­
rity;—this is a wish and prayer for Christian "union,”
which we -express with deep sincerity and from the bottom
of our heart. Such is that "union” which alone is healthy
and stable, because it is based on the principle of sub­
mission. Let those who desire union remember, that the Holy
See has been established by Christ as the one bond and means
of unity.

The preceding article had beep sent to press, when we ac­
cidentally met with "A Few Words on the Pope’s Encyclical
Letter,” by Bev. F. Maurice,
*
and with the strange statement
there contained, that the Pope has now shown himself "not
the uniter of Christendom,” but " emphatically its divider ”
(p.277). The extraordinary shallowness of this remark lies
in Mr. Maurice’s strange notion, that the sharp and uncom­
promising rebuke of error is a new fact in Papal history.
Arians, Nestorians, Pelagians, Lutherans, have successively
exclaimed that the Pope of their day is not the uniter but the
divider of Christendom. In fact, Mr. Maurice has given to that
word “religious union” the same paltry sense affixed to it by
Dean Stanley and Mr. Ffoulkes—-as signifying “ the fraterni­
zation of men who mutually differ on doctrine and prin­
ciple ;” whereas the true meaning of "religious union ” em­
phatically and prominently includes the idea of “ interior agree­
ment on religious questions.” In the case of rude and uncul­
tivated minds, or again of men who do not apply their culti­
vated intellect to religion at all, such agreement may be
sometimes produced by the mere force of inertia,by the merely
passive reception of hereditary beliefs. But wherever there is
both activity of thought and an application of such thought to
the moral and spiritual order, no mode can be imagined (not
openly miraculous) for securing religious union, except a
common belief in some authority, as having the gift of infal­
libly deciding on each question as it arises. Nothing, then,
can be more intelligible, and nothing more obvious, than our
Statement that the Pope is the one “imiter” of Catholic
Christendom, in the only adequate sense of. that word. And
we may here further add, that since the chief questions con* Macmillan's Magazine for Feb., 18C5.

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ΜΒίΜΠΤ

172

Rome, Unionism, and Indifferentism.

nected with religion which now agitate the human mind are
not directly doctrinal—though there are important doctrinal
controversies also—but rather those philosophical and political
questions which are indissolubly mixed up with dogma, the
Holy Father could no longer fulfil the high office of “ uniter ”
entrusted to him by God,unless his infallibility extended to these
latter questions also. But, then it does thus extend : and his
recent Encyclical, therefore, has in no other sense tended to
“ division,” than did his predecessors’ condemnation of Arian­
ism or Pelagianism. On the other hand the Encyclical has
directly and importantly promoted "union,” because it has
tended to diffuse among Catholics far greater unity of belief
on various important matters, than had hitherto existed.
We cannot, indeed, for the life of us understand what special
quarrel Mr. Maurice has with the Encycb'cal and Syllabus.
We willingly concede to him, that if these were not infallible
pronouncements, their promulgation would have had a mis­
chievous and schismatical tendency. But he must surely in
his turn concede to us, that, if they be infallible, it is a great
blessing that the Holy Ghost has inspired them, because they
give to mankind an infallible knowledge of various momentous
truths. Mr. Maurice does not believe in the Pope’s infalli­
bility, and we do; but we can really see no other point at
issue.
We are very glad, however, of the opportunity to place
before our readers an important line of thought, expressed
by the illustrious Monseigneur Pie, Bishop of Poitiers, in a
“ mandement ” issued shortly before the Encyclical.

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“Here is interposed,” says the bishop, “an objection which has become
familiar to the men of our time, even to good sort of men. If it is the
Church’s duty to guard the truth, it is also her duty to save souls. Now
may not too great attention to one of these duties interfere with the fulfilment
of the other 1 Is the moment well chosen for affirming more strongly and
putting forth more precise statements, when the susceptibility of men’s mind
and the delicacy'of their case require rather a tender treatment ? Why not
leave in their obscurity those practical or speculative questions which the
last generation never examined very attentively ? In particular, at a time
when human society is sick with the one widely-spread malady of naturalism,
why so accurately set forth, develope, emphasise, the principles, laws, and
whole economy of the supernatural order? Is not this to widen the gulf
of existing separations ? ”
Such was the almost universal cry during the period of Arianism ; and the
ambassadors of secular princes held similar language during the deliberations
of the Council of Trent. “ Why a new and unreasonable declaration, which
wears the appearance of aggression? Why a stricter definition or more
absolute symbol than in times past ? ' Should not the Church, in order to

Proposed Manual of English History.

173

tuintain her character of visibility and Catholicity, have regard to her
umbers i * What will be the advantage of separating from the Church
fiat multitude of vacillating minds, which might be maintained in her comtnwm by a less explicit formula ? ” Oftentimes those great bishops, on
whom weighed the care of sacred interests, found these protests on the lips
eren of friends and defenders of the good cause. Animated by, the Spirit
of God, which is a spirit both of love and of strength, those illustrious
champions of the Church knew how to reunite that consideration which is
due to the weak with that inflexibility which orthodoxy demands ; and with­
out pronouncing any decrees of exclusion which would have overpassed the
end desired, maintained, nevertheless, the special word of doctrine with
indomitable tenacity ; and defended it with so much authority, interpreted
it with so much knowledge, that the doctrine assailed shone forth in irreristible lustre.”+
“Would you know to what point learned men should by preference direct
their studies I.... Observe on what side error directs its attacks, its denials,
its blasphemies. That which in every age is attacked, denied, blasphemed,
b what the same age should principally defend, affirm, profess. Where sin
abounds, grace must superabound. .... When the world contests, then it
is that the Church analyzes, fathoms, defines, proclaims. .... The love
ef doctrine, the passion of truth, are inflamed in faithful hearts ; and the
sacred deposit, far from undergoing any diminution, exhibits in full light the
treasure of its wealth." J

Aet. VI. — PROPOSED MANUAL OF ENGLISH

HISTORY.
1 Abridgment of the History of England. By J. Lingard, D.D. With
continuation from 1688 to the reign of Queen Victoria. Adapted for the
use of schools by James Burke, Esq., AB. London : C. Dolman. 1855.
’ A Manual of British and Irish History. By the Rev. Thomas Flana­
gan. London : Richardson & Son. Second thousand. 1852.
3·-4 Sist°ry of England for Family Use and the Upper Classes of Schools.
By the Author of “ The Knights of St. John,” &c. London : Burns &
lambert. 1864.

Τ/Γ7Έ have not named these works as specimens, each in its
’ ’ respective way, of such a complete production as we
’Wderate ; but rather the contrary. It would be both needfes and invidious to give our reasons for this statement;
it is obvious, of course, that treatises may be most learned
^dinoat accurate which do not nevertheless succeed in arrest* Here is an anticipation of Mr. Ffoulkes.
j
f “ Instruction synodale sur les principales erreurs du
16—-18. "
.
·
î Pp. 15, 16.

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