Charges to the clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes : delivered at the ordinary visitations from the year 1840 to 1854 ; with notes on the principal events affecting the church during that period ..

C H A R G P^ S

CLEEaY OF THE ARCHDEACONRY OF LEWES,

DELIVERED AT

4\t ^rMnarg il^isitations

FROM THE YEAR 1840 TO 1854.

WITH NOTES ON THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS AFFECTING
THE CHURCH DURING THAT PERIOD.

BY

JULIUS CHARLES HARE, M.A.

ARCHDEACON.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

EXPLANATORY OF HIS POSITION IN THE CHURCH WITH REFERENCE
TO THE PARTIES WHICH DIVIDE IT.

JK THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. HL

MAOMILLAN AND CO.

1856.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

My reverend Brethren,

How shall I speak to you, what shall I say to you,
at this our Annual Meeting? How shall I discharge
what on such occasions I have always deemed the duty
of my office, to call your attention to the principal
events whereby our Church has been affected, whether
beneficially or hurtfuUy, in the preceding year, and to
offer you such help as I can toward forming a calm
and right judgement upon them, and determining the
line of conduct which they seem especially to demand
from us. I have been compelled, as you are aware, by
illness, to defer this Visitation to a later season than
usual ; and I am afraid this may have been inconvenient
to some of you, and still more perhaps to some of the
Churchwardens, who are summoned along with you to give
account of the condition of their parishes. Should this be
so, I must beg those who feel this inconvenience, to excuse
a delay which has in no degree been caused by my will. As
soon as my health, under God's blessing, was sufficiently
restored for me to indulge the hope of being able to meet
you, my first act was to fix on the earliest day for our
Meeting. For I felt that it was of more than ordinary
importance this year, that all who are entrusted with any
office of exhortation or teaching in our Church, should
be diligent in saying and doing whatever the Spirit of God

B

10 THK CONTEST WITH ROME.

may enable them to say and do, in order to clear up and
disperse those dismal delusions, under the influence of which
so many members of our Church, nay, so many of her
ministers, have been forsaking her in the last eighteen
months, and have been throwing themselves into the arms
of Rome. As in a time of danger, when the enemy is
drawing near, every officer will long to be at his post, and
will be doubly distrest by any hindrance that keeps him
away from it, so must the officers of the Church feel, when
her enemies are assailing her. They must long to employ
their gifts, whatever they may be, in defending her against
her assailants.

These feelings were not indeed unmixt. There were
other causes which made me shrink more than ever before
from the task this day imposes upon me. There was the
difficulty of the task itself, the need of wisdom and sound
judgement and learning and practical knowledge to discharge
it worthily and usefully. There was the consciousness of
grievous deficiencies in all these essential requisites. There
was the exceeding delicacy of the task, from the feverish
state of men's minds, the fear lest one might do harm
instead of good, lest one might offend and irritate where
one meant to soothe and heal, lest one might weaken our
sacred cause by the feebleness of one's arguments in support
of it. Moreover there are personal circumstances which
render my position peculiarly painful. For we in this
Diocese, when we are speaking this year of those who have
abandoned their spiritual mother, to give themselves up to
the Romish Schism, are not speaking of strangers, are not
speaking of thuse who are personally indifferent to us.
Alas ! by a mysterious dispensation, through the dark gloom
of which my eyes have vainly striven to pierce, we have

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 11

to mourn over the loss, we have to mourn over the defection
and desertion, of one whom we have long been accustomed
to honour, to reverence, to love, — of one who for the last
ten years has taken a leading part in every measure adopted
for the good of the Diocese, — of one to whose eloquence we
have so often listened with delight, sanctified by the holy
purposes that eloquence was ever used to promote, — of one,
the clearness of whose spiritual vision it seemed like pre-
sumption to distrust, and the purity of whose heart, the
sanctity of whose motives, no one knowing him can question.
For myself, associated as I have been with him officially, and
having found one of the chief blessings of my office in that
association, — accustomed to work along with him .in so
many undertakings, to receive encouragement and help from
his godly wisdom, and, notwithstanding many strong differ-
ences and almost oppositions of opinion, to take sweet
counsel together, and walk in the house of God as brothers,
— I can only wonder at the inscrutable dispensation by
which such a man has been allowed to fall under so wither-
ing, soul-deadening a spell, and repeat with awe to myself,
and to my fiuends. Let him who thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall.

I have allowed myself to say thus much on a matter,
which some may think of too personal a character for
this public occasion. But it is not so. The tie which
bound me to my late brother Archdeacon, was connected
with all the duties of my office. It was especially con-
nected with the duties of our Annual Visitation. You
too, my Brethren, must feel that the loss is not merely that
of a personal friend ; though there are not a few amongst
you who feel that also, in a greater or less degree : for
our lost brother is a man whom it is scarcely possible to

B 2

12 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

know without loving him. But you will also feel that the
loss is one which the whole Diocese must needs deplore. It
is the loss of one who has been among the principal authors
of divers good works amongst us, as he has been the fosterer
of every good work : and the approaching anniversary of our
Diocesan Association recalls to our minds that he was one
of the most active assistants of our revered Bishop Otter in
founding it, as he has ever since been one of its most ener-
getic supporters, and the encourager and promoter of all the
good it has been allowed to effect. Nay, our whole Church
cannot but mourn over the loss of one of the holiest of her
sons, over one who seemed to have a special gift for winning
hearts to God. The thought that such a man, — of whom it
might have been expected that he would be specially secured
by the gifts both of nature and of grace from the blindness
which surrenders the reason and conscience to the corrup-
tions and tyranny of Rome, — has yet become a victim to
the pestilence which has been stalking through our Church, —
while it convinces us how terrible the power of that pestilence
must needs be, — should at the same time withhold us from
judging too severely of those who have deserted us along
with him. It may increase our horrour of the pestilence
itself : it may strengthen our conviction of the necessity of
guarding against its deadly fury : but it should at all events
teach us that we ought not to impute evil motives or
absolute silliness to those who have fallen into the selfsame
errour with Henry Manning.

From what I have said already, you will perceive that the
main point to which I purpose to call your attention to-day,
is the increase of the Romish Schism in our land. This,
it seems to me, is the most momentous, as well as the most
disastrous, among the events of the last two years. Indeed,

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 13

were it not for this, our other evils might be borne more
easily ; nay, we might hope and feel assured that, through
God's help, we should overcome them. I do not mean to
deny that there are many other evils, great evils, and formid-
able, and pernicious, in the social condition of England at
this day, evils which it requires all the might of Faith, and of
Hope, and of Love to contend against, and against which
even these heavenly powers will be almost powerless, unless
the Spirit of God animate them continually. This, however,
is only the great and arduous struggle in which the Church
is always engaged, in which it has fought against the world
from the beginning, and will have to fight against the world
until the end. But that which in all ages has rendered us
so weak and inefficient in this warfare, has been our
divisions, — that we have had evermore to fight, not only
against our avowed enemies, but against our brethren, — not
only against the bare -faced servants of sin, but against many
who profess to be the servants of Christ. Or at all events,
if we have not to fight openly against them, we have to keep
watch continually, lest they smite us privily in the side : we
cannot trust in them ; we cannot reckon confidently on their
aid in our contests against God's enemies. Moreover, though
among the occurrences of the last two years there have been
several which, from one cause or other, have troubled and
distrest oar Church, still, from whatever side these may have
proceeded, the reason which has rendered them so trouble-
some and distressing, has been this our want of union, this
our mutual distrust, this waste of our strength in internal
dissensions and quarrels. Yet the history of our land, like
all history, is full of warnings against the evils of such
divisions. Twice has England fallen under the yoke of the
foreiner by reason of them. It was by reason of our in-

14 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

ternal dissensions and divisions that the Saxon made himself
master of Britain. It was the same wretched source of
weakness that rendered the Saxon powerless against the
Norman. Nor is our early history devoid of admonitions
that union supplies the strength which disunion destroys.
For it was hence that Alfred and Athelstan drew the power,
which enabled them to repell the Dane. May God avert the
omen ! May He preserve us from falling, as our fathers of
old fell, by reason of our divisions, under the crushing
tyranny of the stranger ! To that end may He unite the
English Church, heart and soul, and mind and strength, to
resist and repell the emissaries of that tyranny !

But why are we to resist and repell them ? why are we to
hope and pray that God m,ay enable us to resist and repell
them ? Why are we not to prostrate ourselves before them,
and to welcome them, as Augustin was welcomed, and to
implore them to take possession of us ? Alas ! that there
should be occasion at this day to moot such a question in
England ! yea, to moot it in the bosom of the English
Church ! yea, to moot it among the ministers of that
Church ! We have seen indeed, during the last winter, that
the great body of the English nation do not regard this as a
questionable matter, — that their minds are made up on the
point : and for this we have good reason to give thanks. It
has been asserted, I am aware, by the ablest and bitterest of
those who have turned their former love for our Church into
hatred, that the hostility of the English nation to Rome
rests on vague, uncertain tradition, and is founded upon
fables (a. p. 73). To understand this extraordinary assertion,
we must call to mind that this writer has employed a large por-
tion of his time and of his ingenuity in the twofold process
of transmuting fable into history, and history into fable.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 15

until he seems to have almost lost the perception that there
is any real, abiding distinction between them, and to fancy
that they become one or the other at the touch of a sophist's
wand (b. p. 84). Of course it will be conceded to him that
no national feeling, which takes possession of a people, can be
grounded on a critical investigation by each individual con-
cerning the facts out of which it has sprung. Even when it
is a contemporaneous feeling, it will not be so. Even then
there will ever be much of exags;eration, much of errour,
mixt up with it. A nation has not the means of examining
into the details of facts : and when a feeling is strong
enough to take possession of it, that feeling will be incon-
sistent with the calmness and impartiality requisite for criti-
cal and judicial enquiries. Yet the feeling may on the whole
be righteous, may have adequate causes, may bear witness
that vox popuii is not seldom an expression, though a rude
and boisterous one, for vox Dei. In the present instance
there unquestionably are certain huge facts, staring out from
the surface of history, which the English mind, according to
the measure of its cultivation, would point to in warrant of
its prejudice. It would point to the Marian persecutions, to
the fires in Smithfield, to the attacks on the English Crown
and State by the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot,
to the imominious reisin of King John, to the monstrous
claim of a right to depose sovereins and to absolve subjects
from their allegiance. These and other like recollections
have become mixt up with the historical traditions, with the
ancestral faith of the English people : similar records from
forein countries have been combined with them, — the per-
secutions of the Waldenses, —

"the slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even they who kept God's truth so piire of old,"—

16 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

the massacre of St Bartholomew, — the murder of Henry the
Third and Henry the Fourth, — the cranes of the Inquisition:
and we have not yet allowed the sophist's wand to transmute
all these evils and crimes before our eyes into blessings and
acts of virtue. The conceptions of these facts will doubtless
be incorrect in divers particulars ; and yet they will be sub-
stantially true. Herein they differ essentially and altogether
from the notions entertained concerning Protestantism and
Protestants in Romish countries ; where, were it not for the
contradictions presented by our travelers, we should be lookt
upon as little better than ogres and cannibals, and, even as it
is, are generally supposed to be sheer atheists. Hence it
would be singular that our adversary should bring forward
such an accusation against us, were it not well known that
sophists, as is seen in every other page of the Platonic
dialogues, have a happy trick of cutting their own fingers.
For, if his accusation is to have any force, it should imply
that Romish countries are advantageously and honorably
distinguisht from Protestant ones by the fidelity of their
conceptions concerning Protestants. Yet ours, when
divested of their distortions and exaggerations, have a solid
basis of historical truth, which we have received from the
traditions of our fathers : theirs, on the other hand, are
mere fictions, derived from wilful, conscious, flagrant
falsehoods.

1 exprest my regret just now, that there could be any
occasion for asking in an assembly of English clergy, why we
are to reject and repell the emissaries of the Church of
Rome. It may be replied that the clergy, above other men,
should be ready at all times to give a reason for every par-
ticular of their faith concerning Christ and His Church, —
that thev, of all men, should not allow themselves to be

THE CONTEST WITH ROME.' 17

carried away by blind, unreasoning prejudices. Most true :
it is our special obligation and privilege to give a reason for
our faith. Others may rest mainly, — the bulk of mankind
needs must do so, — on tradition and the authority of others,
even in matters of the deepest concernment. But we are
especially bound to give clear, full, explicit, satisfactory
reasons for that which in the first instance we too must have
received from tradition and authority. Still, while it behoves
us to give reasons for our faith, it is of far greater moment
that we should hold that faith clearly, decidedly, unhesi-
tatingly. It is a sad time, a most sad time, for a Church,
when any of her ministers can feel it a questionable matter
whether they shall abide with her, or forsake her, and join
her enemy, — when they can dare to contemplate the re-
motest possibility of being led to forsake her, when they do
not feel an inmost conviction that they are united to her for
better, for worse, and that nothing but death shall part
them. True, there have been, and may again be, critical
epochs, revolutionary epochs, in the history of the Church, —
as there have been such in the political history of nations,
• — when the strongest, most sacred ties burst and are dis-
solved ; even as the marriage tie is burst and dissolved by
adultery. But nothing less than such a total corruption of
the moral life, such a violation of the primary principle
of the union, which binds men, whether to the government
of their State, or to their Church, nothing less than a poli-
tical or ecclesiastical adultery, can furnish a warrant for such
a disruption : and the very possibility of such a thing no
righthearted man will dare to contemplate, any more than he
would dare to contemplate the possibility of his wife's com-
mitting adultery. "When the shock of the earthquake comes,
it may rend the house or the temple in twain. But we must

18 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

not anticipate such a crash. To live in constant fear of it,
listening for its approach, looking out for it, trying to scent
it, cannot but mar all moral energy, as well as all peace and
happiness. By a merciful dispensation we cannot do other-
wise than rely stedfastly and undoubtingly on the permanence
of the laws of nature : and it is a disastrous condition of
society, when people have not a like stedfast, undoubting
reliance on the permanence of the moral laws which regulate
the constitution of their State and Church.

This seems to me one of the most deplorable symptoms in
the present aspect of our Church, that there should have
been persons amongst us, who could dare to speak of it, or
even to think of it, as a thing possible, that they might be
induced to leave her, to desert her, and to fly from her to
Rome. More safely may a man brood over the thought of
committing suicide : some outward shock may startle him
out of this morbid delusion. But he v/ho ogles and flirts
with another Church, he who looks at her to lust after her,
has already committed adultery with her in his heart. He
has broken his faith with his own Church : he is standing on
the verge of spiritual suicide. Yet we know that there have
been many instances of such doubleminded and double-
hearted men amongst us of late years. God grant that there
may be none such any longer ! If there are, may they seek
to become singleminded and singlehearted, to regain their
first love, and to be purged from the vagrant affections which
have led them astray !

To those who remember the feelings and thoughts with
which the Romish Church was regarded by the whole body
of our own Church during the first quarter of the present
century, it must needs seem one of the most extraordinary,
among the many extraordinary instances of the mutability of

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 19

human opinion, that the last five years in its second quarter
should be markt by the desertion of near a hundred of her
ministers, — one or two of them among her brightest orna-
ments,— to join what was then deemed an effete, decrepit,
worn-out,, exploded, crumbling superstition, which no man
could embrace without forfeiting his claim to be accounted a
reasonable being. If any prophet thirty years ago had ven-
tured to prognosticate such an event, he would have had to
encounter the fate of Cassandra. Even if he had told of the
wonders which have been wrought since then by the help of
steam and of electricity, he would not have found a more
incredulous audience. That these deserters from our Church
have proceeded in the main out of that school of theology,
which, for the sake of brevity, though averse to everything
like a nickname, I will designate by its common appellation
of Tractarian, is a fact which no one can deny. Indeed,
though several of them have come primarily out of the
opposite school, their course has lain mostly through Tract-
arianism, which has helpt them forward on their way. Nor
will any reasonable man now dispute that the tendency of
the doctrines, on which the Tractarian School laid the chief
stress, is toward Rome, at all events, when they are brought
forward prominently and exclusively. In fact, the leader of
that school, after maintaining for years that he was occupying
the true ground, and the only tenable ground, of the Church
of England, the only ground from which it was possible for
her to repell the attacks of Rome, — having himself followed
out his own principles step by step, till he found himself
almost unconsciously in the middle of the Roman camp,
fighting for Rome against his late associates, — has asserted
and urged, with his own wonderful subtilty, and with that
logical power by which he himself has so often been led

20 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

captive, that the only consistent issue of Tractarianism is
Romanism (c. p. 96). The contest against him on this score is
not one I feel any call to engage in. Assuredly so it is. The
principles which the Tractarian School made it their chief
business to enforce, if workt up into a system, and carried
out exclusively to their utmost consequences, do lead and
must lead their champions, or rather their blind victims, to
Rome.

This however is the very errour by which men have per-
petually been led astray, in speculation times without number,
and very often in practical life, the determination to follow
out a single principle, or a one-sided set of principles, to their
ultimate issue. What ! are we not to follow out our principles
to their ultimate issues, no matter what their consequences
may be ? There is a delusion here lurking under the equivocal
word principle, which has a wide range, and many shades of
meaning. The consideration of personal consequences to our-
selves ought not to withhold us from carrying out our principles
honestly and consistently and boldly, whenever Wisdom bids
us do so. But the due consideration of our own weakness,
of the narrowness of our minds, will ever check our confi-
dence in the absolute correctness of those principles, or at
least in their universal applicability under every variety of
circumstances ; and so will a due consideration of the order
of the world. For that order is not simple, but complex.
It does not result from the uncontrolled action of a single
force, but from the harmonious cooperation of several
forces, which check each other's excesses. Where would
the order of the universe have been, if each particle of
matter had surrendered itself to the absolute impulse of the
centrifugal force ? or to that of the centripetal ? It is by
the concordant operation of the two, under a number of

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 21

modifications, that this order is generated. So too, in the
political and moral world, it is not by the absolute, uncheckt
expansion of any one single principle that a right, harmonious
order is produced. Man, in the narrowness of his selfwill,
is ever desirous of converting the temporary rule of his own
mind into the law of the social system to which he belongs.
He refuses to recognise and appreciate the coordinate rules
and principles, by which other minds are regulated, and
which it is their special task to enforce. If it be in the
political frame of society, he would have an absolute
monarchy, or an absolute aristocracy, or an absolute demo-
cracy ; and it is only through the teaching of a higher
Wisdom than his own, guiding him through a series of gene-
rations, that he discovers how a combination of these three
principles may be wrought out into a constitution incom-
parably better than any single one of them could give birth
to. So too in the Church we find the champions of the
absolute Papacy, and of an absolute Episcopacy, and of an
absolute Presbytery, and those who would merge every other
power in the absolute supremacy of the Congregation.
Whereas very few recognise how, according to the true idea
of a Church, the Congregation, as well as the Presbyterate
and Episcopate, ought all to have their proper expression and
development. The same remark applies to the other princi-
pal controversies in the Church. The self-willed enforcement
of a single, insulated truth, of a peculiar, partial view, to the
disparagement of different and opposite truths, has ever been
the character and the cause of heresy, as the very name
implies : and on the other hand the Church, who by her
assumption of the name Catholic has declared herself to be
above these singularities, and free from these partialities, has
often, in her hostility to peculiar, dominant forms of heresy.

22 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

recoiled into the opposite, attempting to bottle up the free,
living, ever-flowing atmosphere of spiritual truth into a set
of positive, exclusive dogmas.

Now they who can carry their minds back to the first
origin of that which was subsequently called Tractarianism,
will remember that the founders of that School came for-
ward, not as teachers of the great body of Christian truth,
but as the asserters of a certain number of specific proposi-
tions, which they held to have fallen into undue neglect, and
as the impugners of that system of Christian doctrines and
practices, which they deemed unduly predominant. From
the first they had a twofold purpose, both a positive and a
negative one. Hence, as through our narrowmindedness
ever happens to persons who come forward with such
purposes, they at once forgot the true limits of their owai par-
ticular truths, and the degree of truth which lay in the views
they were impugning. Their whole course is full of exempli-
fications how " Vaulting Ambition doth o'erleap itself. And
falls on the other side." For instance, in contending against
certain Antinomian perversions of the doctrine of Justification
by Faith, they did not take up their stand in the true, Scrip-
tural, central position, where both Justification by faith and
Justification by works are seen in their mutual bearings and
coordination, but rusht over to the assertion of Justification
by works, and the denial of Justification by faith. Again, in
vindicating the power of the sacraments to confer grace, they
lapst into the denial of all spiritual influences, except as con-
ferred by a saci'amental ordinance. Again, in urging the
importance of tradition, under its various forms, as a help
and guide to a right interpretation of the Scriptures, they
grew to rail against private judgement, identifying its exercise
with its worst abuses, and seemed at last almost to speak as

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 23

if the corruption of man's nature lay in his having the gift of
reason and a conscience (d. p. 110). In all these assertions,
it will be seen, they started with having an important and ne-
glected truth to uphold : but by exaggerating its importance,
and denying the opposite, coordinate truth, they fell into the
system of Rome ; the Romish Church having through a
series of centuries been guilty of the same exaggerations, and
the same denials. For as the spirit of ancient Rome was
never speculative, but solely practical, that of modern Rome
has been no less so, and practical under the narrowest forms,
imperial and imperious, not winning men's minds by the
power of reason and love, but issuing its commands and
decrees, and enforcing submission to them by all the artifices
of diplomacy, and all the terrours of excommunication,
embodied finally in its two great weapons, Jesuitism and the
Inquisition.

Tractarianism, I have been saying, from the first, had a
strong tendency, a strong bias toward Rome. It set itself
to assert those portions of Christian truth, which the Church
of Rome especially asserted and upheld : and as the Church
of Rome had asserted these truths for centuries, in their
exclusiveness, to the disparagement of the opposite half
of Christian truth, thereby exaggerating them into falsehoods,
so Tractarianism undertook to vindicate the same truths from
neglect, to assert them in contradistinction and opposition to
the complemental body of Christian doctrine, and thus, from
its very position and circumstances, became prone to fall into
the same exaggerations. Of course it was not allowed to
carry on its work without notice. It came forward contro-
versially : it was actively, restlessly, provokingly polemical.
But the opposite truths were not left without their champions ;
and thus a controversy, a warfare sprang up, by which our

24 THE CONTEST M4TH ROME.

Church has been grievously distracted during the last eighteen
years.

For myself, as some of you may perhaps remember, ever
since I first had to appear publicly amongst you, and during
the whole of my official connexion with you, while I have
endeavoured on the one hand to assert and uphold those
portions of Christian truth, which Tractarianism, as it seemed
to me, unduly disparaged, and while I contended against
what I deemed the exaggerations and corruptions in its views,
I have also earnestly desired to recognise those portions
of truth which it had rescued from neglect. For it has ever
appeared to me to be the special duty of those who are
entrusted with any office of authority in the Church, to
do what in them lies for the preservation of her peace and
unity, — not to espouse any party, but to contend against the
spirit of party, against exaggeration, from whatsoever side,
against every form of exclusiveness. Authority should ever
be candid and catholic. Thus alone will it be just, with a
higher justice than the strict and literal. Even as the
Creative Power manifested itself by reducing the discordant,
contentious, pugnacious elements into order and harmony
and concord, such should be the aim of all to whom is com-
mitted the slightest effluence from that power, of the Father
in his family, of the Magistrate in his district, of the Soverein
in his kingdom, of the Bishop in the Church. I have
desired, you will remember, to defend our brethren from
the charge of Romanism ; but I have also desired still more
strongly to arrest them in their progress toward Romanism.
I have desired to shew that the truths which they hold, so far
as they are true, may be held in due coordination with the
opposite truths, and in subordination to the one great body of
the faith, within our Apostolical Church.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 25

Alas ! the course of events has not corresponded to my
wishes. In the seventeenth century similar opinions had
been held by a number of our chief divines, men of great
learning, of great piety, distinguislit by divers eminent intel-
lectual sifts. But the memory of the crimes of the Church
of Rome, of her tyranny, her corruptions, was then too fresh
and vivid, for the members of our Church to dream that they
could find rest or truth in her arms. Besides the fashion of
men's minds has changed since those days. They have
become more critical, more sceptical, more uncontrollable,
more self-confident and self-willed, more revolutionary. Their
movements are rapider : they are readier to distrust and
reject all establisht notions, every kind of authority. Even
those who came forward with the profest purpose of contend-
ing against tlie critical, sceptical spirit of the age, were them-
selves infected with it, and borne along by it. In their very
attempts to restore the reverence for authority, they were
combating against the recognised authorities of their own
time : and this it was that gave such a zest to their enter-
prise, and made them engage in it so busily and zealously.
In attacking the exercise of private judgement, they were
merely exercising their own private judgement ; with this
difference however, that, while the use of private judgement
which they condemned was that under the controU of reason
and laborious reflection, their private judgement acknow-
ledged no guide except their own casual impulses and
caprices. Thus, as their reading expanded, they shifted their
ground, first from the so-called Anglo-catholic divines to the
early Fathers, — then to the Fathers of the fourth and fifth
centuries ; then, as they could find no restingplace suited to
their likings here, they came down to the Schoolmen : and
at length, when this ground also gave way under their feet,

c

26 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

when tliey had sent out their spirit to roam over the earth,
and it came back to them with no oh ve -leaf in its mouth,
in a fit of despair they threw out an anchor, and tried to
fasten themselves on the infaihbihty of the Pope. Yet in
so doing they merely verified the Eastern tale, where the
storm -tost mariners think they have reacht a place of safety,
and landed on a rock, but find anon that they are standing on
the back of a huge sea-monster, whose heavings and tossings
and plungings ere long threaten them with destruction.

This, I think, my Reverend Brethren, many of you will
agree with me, has been the course by which not a few of
the deserters from our Church have gradually been drawn
away from her, — at first unconsciously and involuntarily, —
till they found themselves on a sudden at the very gates Oi
Rome, her captives in heart and mind. They had no such
intention at starting. There is no ground for doubting that
they were thoroughly sincere in the love which they then
profest for the Church of England, that their main desire
and aim was to uphold her, and to set her claims on what
they deemed an impregnable foundation. They wisht to
defend her, at once against Rome, and against the Protestant
Dissenters, but chiefly against the latter, whom they regarded
as at the moment her more formidable enemies. In con-
tending against these, they naturally laid great stress on the
advantages which she derives froiii her reverence for ancient
tradition. The temperate wisdom, which characterized our
Reformers, manifested itself in this respect, as in others, by
trying to combine the two truths, the excesses of each of
which could only be moderated beneficially by the action
of the other. While they asserted the rights of Reason and
of the Conscience, without the recognition of which the
Reformation would have been untenable ; at the same time

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 27

they acknowledged the value of tradition, as a cliart to guide
the vessel of the Church, when voyaging through unknown
waters (e. p. 115).

But it is ever perilous to engage in asserting a truth with
a polemical purpose, or in any other spirit than the pure
love of truth. The truth will soon be twisted about and
distorted, to suit that purpose. We connect our own repu-
tation with it. Our passions cling to it. It swells out to
a huge bulk, and absorbs all other truths, or hides them from
our view. Thus the partisan is deluded in course of time
by his own exaggerations, and grows to believe his own lies.
From contending against the extravagances of private judge-
ment, our brethren got to fancy that the only effect of man's
intellectual gifts is to lead him into errour. From insisting
continually upon the value of authority, they got to pine
after some absolute authority, which might preserve them
from the buffetings of their own loose, vagrant thoughts.
They began to long for an infallible Church. Hereupon, as
so often happens, the wish was father to the thought, that
such a Church must needs exist. Then a step further, and
he who had thus blinded his intellectual eyes, tumbled down
the precipice, and fell into the jaws of the dragon at the foot
of it. Thus we have heard it argued, that, as the Church
must needs be infallible, and as the Romish is the only
Church which lays claim to infallibility, the Church of
Rome must be the true one.

This argument, or rather this bewildering defiance of
everything like reason and common sense, has been one of
the chief means whereby the deserters from our Church
have been seduced into surrendering themselves to the
Romish usurpation : and if, as is too probable, there are
still any persons in our Church wavering whether they shall

c 2

28 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

not take the same course, some form of this flimsy fallacy
will doubtless be buzzing about in their restless, incoherent
minds. For while the dread of evil, in its twofold form of
sin and errour, is the fear which swallows up every other fear
in the healthy, soundrainded Christian, this fear in the weak
and morbid and timid assumes the form of a dread of
personal responsibility, both moral and intellectual. Their
desire is not to be freed from sin, but from being called to
account for their sins, — not to be delivered from errour by
knowing the truth, but to be saved from having to answer
for their errours, and from tlie labours and uncertainties
involved in the search after truth. Give them falsehood,
telling them that it is truth ; and they will be ready to accept
it as such. They want to make over their conscience and
their reason to some one who will take care of these trouble-
some, brittle pieces of furniture for them. As these weak
longings have ever been the support and the fuel of the most
abject superstitions, the Church of Rome has craftily come
forward with a promise to relieve both these wants, not by
the purification of the reason and the conscience, as Christ
through His Spirit relieves them, but by a twofold imposture,
holding out her absolution as a nostrum for the one want,
and her infallibility as an opiate for the other. By these
two baits she lures the silly sheep into her fold, and
beguiles them into fancying that they shall find rest and
peace there.

The Church of Rome, it is argued, is the only Church
that lays claim to infallibility ; and therefore it must be the
true one. A sounder logic would infer, that, because the
Church of Rome lays claim to infallibility, therefore it
cannot be the true Church, seeing that it lays claim to what
nothing human has, or can have. Vaunting, highflown, tumid

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 29

pretensions, whether in the mouth of the Mahometan or the
Mormonite impostor, — to take the first names that come
across my mind, — or whether in Ancient Pistol, have never
been deemed sufficient to establish their own validity. Divers
previous questions need to be askt. Have we reason to
expect that any Church will be endowed with the gift of
absolute infallibility? At all events the whole analogy of
Nature, the whole order of the universe, is against such a
presumption. It is not enough to say, that, because wc are
very fallible, very apt to err and go astray, and therefore want
an infallible guide, the existence of this want assures us that
it will be appeased. There ai'e indeed certain innate wants,
which form the grounds of a presumption that, in the Provi-
dential order of Nature, some means will be found for sup-
plying them. But until we know the manner in which,
according to that Providential order, they are to be supplied
and satisfied, we should scarcely divine it by any guesses of
our own, at all events unless we had the guidance of an
extensive analogy. Nay, without some such aid, we shall
very imperfectly understand the nature and purpose of the
wants themselves. It requires training and discipline to
understand the purpose and objects even of our physical
appetites, much more of our social and moral appetites.
How long, how many thousand years, would man, without a
higher teaching, have been in making out the object and
purpose of those appetites, which find their end and satisfac-
tion in the divine ordinance of marriage ? Would he ever
have discovered this ? Millennium after millennium has
rolled over the heads of the Asiatic nations ; and they have
not discovered it down to this day. Greece, with all her
philosophy, with all her poetry, with all her wonderful instinct
for beauty and for speculative truth, never discovered it.

30 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

Even after the original revelation had been renewed by the
Son of God, the Gnostics rejected that revelation ; Mahomet
rejected it • the largest portion of the Church for a thousand
years has refused duly to recognise it. The same dimness of
vision is peculiarly conspicuous in all our notions concerning
the remedies required by the various infirmities of our nature.
We are ready to assume that the blood of bulls and of goats
will take away sin. We cannot conceive how the blood
of Christ can take it away. We jump at the thought that
we can take it away by our own good works, by self-imposed
penances, by pilgrimages, by telhng rosaries, and mumbling
ave-maries. We are reluctant to believe that a living faith
will take it away. Nor is it otherwise with regard to our
ignorance. We shrink from the narrow, laborious path by
which God has appointed that it shall be remedied. We
exult at the prospect that it can be remedied, without any
exertion on our part, without any energy, moral or intel-
lectual, by placing our understandings, like a pail, for an
infallible teacher to pour his dogmas into them ; although
uniform experience shews that such understandings are like
the vessels of the Danaids, and that no living truth can abide
in them.

A number of pretended analogies are indeed brought
forward by Romish Apologists, with the intent of shewing
that, according to the Providential order of the universe, we
may reasonably expect the guidance of an infallible Church.
In every stage of human society, it is contended, we are not
left to ourselves to find out our duties, but are placed under
authority, — children under their parents, pupils under their
teachers, servants under their masters, a whole people under
its rulers. Nor are we allowed to question the authority
under which we are placed, but are bound to submit to its

THK CONTEST WITH ROME. 31

decrees. Thus, it is urged, we are also bound to submit to
the decrees of the rulers of the Church ; who therefore, by a
sophistical sleight of mind it is argued, must be infallible.
Surely it is marvellous that any one should be imposed upon
by such a bare trick ; and yet numbers are so. The whole
force of the analogy in fact bears entirely the other way.
Children are to believe and to obey parents ; and yet the
parents are not infallible ; though a humble child will for a
time almost suppose that they are so. In like manner a
humble pupil will for a while have a sort of belief in the
infallibility of his teacher ; and it is often a shock of pain,
when we are constrained to recognise that he is fallible :
yet so he is. So too are masters. So too, as all history
shews, are rulers and governors of nations, although they are
the ordinance of God, and although their subjects are bound
to honour and obey them. By leaning on these supports we
are to be trained gradually for w^alking without them. The
outward law fades away before its manifestation as the law
written on the heart. The scaffolding of ordinances is
removed, in proportion as the soul is built up of living
principles, and able to stand without it. This truth, which
our Lord declares in his discourse with the woman of
Samaria, the Church of Rome has never been able to
understand (f. p. 135).

In brief, tbe argument from analogy stands thus. Children
need guides, and have fallible ones. Pupils need guides, and
have fallible ones. Servants need guides, and have fallible
ones. Nations need guides, and have fallible ones. In like
manner the members of Christ's Church need guides ; and
therefore, according to this analogy, their guides will be fal-
lible ones. Stop, says the sophist : when you get into this
region, things veer round. Topsyturvy is the order of the day.

32 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

Yes becomes No, and N^o becomes Yes. The way in ivhich we
follow analogy, is by running against it. All other guides are
fallible ; therefore the guide of the Church is infallible.

The analogy of our moral nature leads to the same con-
clusion. For, if we need truth, we have no less need of
purity and holiness : and as truth is granted to us, so are
purity and holiness, in an ever increasing measure, to him
who seeks them diligently. Yet impeccability is unattainable
by man ; and so is infallibility. In fact, whatever analogy we
examine, whatever part of the order of Nature we consult, it
rejects the Papacy, aiid all its fictions. If we are seeking for
arguments in favour of the Papacy, we must look for them
beyond the sphere of God's Providence. The order of
Nature rejects it, even as History does. Catholic as both
these are, they are no less decidedly, vociferously Protestant.
How^ brightly does the meek and temperate wisdom of
our Reformers shine forth with regard to this point, when
contrasted with the audacious assumptions of Rome. The
Church, they laid down in the 20th Article, " hath authority
in controversies of faith." From these w'ords some persons
have attempted to deduce that we also assert the infallibility
of the Church : else how can she rightfully have authority in
controversies of faith ? For her having authority implies that
her members are bound to abide by her decisions (g. p. 151).
Even if there were no other declarations militating against
such a supposition, we might legitimately argue that, as
a father has authority to decide disputes among his children,
and they are bound by his decision, yet he is not infallible, —
and as judges and legislators have authority in controversies
of law to decide cases and frame new enactments, and the
whole nation are bound by their decisions, as long as they
stand, while yet both the judges and the legislature are

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 33

notoriously and acknowledgedly fallible, — so in the Church
likewise, it being requisite for the sake of peace and order
tbat means should be provided for settling controversies on
points of faith, there is a moral necessity for entrusting that
authority to some supreme tribunal, whose decisions must be
binding on her members. Even if this declaration stood
alone then, we might reasonably hold that it implies nothing
essentially different from that judicial and legislative autho-
rity, which inhere in all modes of government, but against
the abuses of which, from the knowledge how frail and
fallible man is, even in his highest estate, political wisdom is
ever devising checks and preservatives. The same 20th
Article however goes on to declare how the Church is bound
in the exercise of this her authority ; and the language of
the declaration clearly implies that those who framed it
conceived she might err in that exercise. '■' And yet it is
not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary
to God's word written ; neither may it so expound one place
of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another." These words
shew that the Church was not regarded as being preserved
by any inherent infallibility from ordaining anything contrary
to God's word, or from expounding Scripture contradictorily.
We do not waste words in declaring that a person must not
commit an offense, which he cannot commit.

Besides the 19th and 21st Articles are still more explicit.
In the former it is declared that, " as the Church of Jeru-
salem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the
Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and
manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith. In
like manner the 21st Article declares that General Councils,
" forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be
not governed with the Spirit and word of God, may err, and

34 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

sometimes have erred, even in tilings pertaining to God."
Attempts have indeed been made, as you are aware, to evade
and distort these plain words ; for, when the sophist has
cast off his allegiance to reason and truth, there are no
forms of words by which you can bind him (h. p. 165). But
I am not purposing to engage in a controversy on this point.
I merely cite these passages to shew how strongly and plainly
our Church in her Articles disclaims and repudiates the
notion of her being infallible. She confesses herself fallible ;
and therefore she may be a true Church. The Church of
Rome on the contrary, by asserting that she is infallible,
proclaims herself to be an impostor, to be assuming that
which God has not given to man. She does think it robbery
to be equal with God ; she thinks it a thing to be coveted
and snatcht at ; and in the spirit of a robber she assumes
that equality.

The difference between the two Churches in this point is
connected with the difference between the views they take of
human nature. The Reformation regards man as a reason-
able being, who, having been called to a participation in
Christ's redemption, and grafted into His Church, is to work
out his own salvation with the help of the Spirit of God.
The Church of Rome, on the other hand, would fain per-
suade men that she alone can work out their salvation for
them, and that, if they will submit implicitly to her, and do just
as she bids them, she will land them safe in heaven (i. p. 168).
No wonder that her conveyance picks up all manner of way-
farers, who are glad to be carried in this way to their
journey's end. This however is not God's mode of dealing
W'ith His human creatures. In the whole scheme of our
redemption, the help which is granted to us, is to elicit
a corresponding energy within us. The eye drinks in the

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 35

light, and puts forth its faculty of seeing. So every truth
communicated to the mind is the awakener and stimulater
of an intellectual energj'. Thus, and thus alone, truth
becomes power. We are not supplied with leading-strings
to draw us blindfold to the truth. But we have every help,
each according to his need ; and if we make a right use of
what we have, and seek for more, under the guidance of
God's Spirit, meekly, patiently, diligently, we shall assuredly
have more and more of the truth made manifest to us. Let
us trust in this Divine guidance, and seek for it, without
looking aside for a conjurer or sophist, for an infallible
Church, or an infallible Pope, to spare us the trouble of the
search.

I have said thus much on this point, because the infal-
libihty claimed by the Church of Rome, utterly baseless as it
is, and out of harmony with the whole order of God's dis-
pensations for the salvation of mankind, has exercised, and is
daily exercising, a delusive fascination on many of the weak,
the fainthearted, the cowardly, who desire, according to the
usual character of human wishes, to reach the end per saltum,
without passing through the means. The time will not allow
me to enter into any examination of the Scriptural argu-
ments by which the claim has been propt up. Indeed there
is no need of doing so. They are so futile, so utterly irrelevant,
they might as reasonably be brought forward to demonstrate
the law of gravitation, as the infallibility of the Pope (j. p. 185).
The authority of a General Council rests of course on very
different grounds. Such a Council, lawfully assembled and
rightfully constituted, we might trust, would be guided by
the Spirit to the truth, if it allowed itself to be so ; that is,
if it sought the truth with singleness of purpose, and sought
the help of the Spirit in that search, — if its members did not

36 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

suffer themselves to be swayed by any personal or party
motives, by any prejudices, by any interests. But as such a
Council cannot well be brought together, — as the Councils
which have been collected have mostly had an abundant
portion of human infirmities and frailties, — our Article most
rightly pronounces that they are not exempt from the pos-
sibility of errour (k. p. 190) ; although their authority is very
different from that of the Bishop of a single see, which at a
critical time may have such occupants as Leo the Tenth, and
Julius the Second, and Alexander the Sixth.

In fact the passages of Scripture which are brought forward
to bolster up this claim, have merely been pickt out from the
Sacred Volume to support a foregone conclusion ; as is the
case moreover with all the texts cited in defense of the
Papacy and its various corruptions. In no instance, I believe,
has the proposition to be establisht been derived even from
a misunderstanding of the Scriptural text, as a number of
sectarian errours have been. But, as the Tempter could
quote Scripture, so can the Papacy ; and with a like aim of
frustrating and defeating the purpose and end of Scripture.
This assumption of infallibility, which is of comparatively
modern origin, and which has been a subject of much contro-
versy even latterly among Romish theologians (l. p. 209), was
a part of the Papal usurpation of the rights and privileges of
Councils, a usurpation analogous to that by which the rights
and privileges of the Aristocracy, and of the Parliaments or
National Assemblies, were swallowed up by the absolute
monarchies in so many countries of Europe. By degrees
too, that which had been conceded symbolically to the
supreme power, in order to denote its absolute earthly
supremacy, was asserted to belong literally to the Papacy, in
the fullest sense of the term designating it. The most

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 37

zealous among the new champions of the Papacy, in liis
recent apology for it, has introduced a pretended attack on
our political Constitution for the sake of shewing how the
best things may be painted in the most odious colours. In
this invective, which, as a piece of buffoonery, as a parody of
Exeter-Hall oratory, is singularly clever and amusing, — a
supposed Russian declaims against the monstrous blasphemy
of ascribing omnipotence to Parliament, and of asserting that
the Soverein can do no wrong, and never dies. The writer's
evident intention is hereby to excuse and justify the ascrip-
tion of infallibility to the Papacy. But here again, without
being aware of it, he has cut his own fingers. For everybody
knows that these expressions are merely legal fictions, — that
the omnipotence of Parliament is an exaggerated designation
for its absolute, uncontrolled, legislative power, — that the
Soverein's doing no wrong, and never dying, are fictions, by
the first of which we not only declare that there is no earthly
tribunal for him to give account to, but divest him, in his
royal character, of all personal responsibility for any political
acts, transferring that responsibility, and by consequence his
power also, to his ministers ; while his never dying denotes
that, though the individual occupant of the throne dies like
other men, the throne does not thereby become vacant, but is
immediately, without any interval, taken possession of by his
successor, to whom his' whole prerogative is instantaneously
demised. If this were all that is implied by Papal infal-
libility, if it merely meant that the Bishop of Rome, during
the suspension of Councils, is the suprenie judge in theological
controversies, — it would still be a question whether it is
expedient to vest such a supremacy in a single Bishop ; but
the revolting imposture of the claim would then vanish, as
would the prestige whereby it fascinates the weak and un-

38 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

stable. The Pope Nvould merely stand in the place of the
supreme tribunal of doctrine, however constituted, in other
Churches, and would be no more infallible than they are ;
only that they, in their more scrupulous regard for truth,
refrain from such a pretension (m. p. 218),

Here it may be remarkt, that, though the supreme power
may rightfully demand the submission of our will and of our
conduct, it cannot in like manner demand the submission of
our thoughts and of our reason. An Act of Parliament may
command us to do this or that ; but it cannot command us
to think this or that. Ten thousand Acts of Parliament
would not add one tittle of certainty to anything that is true
without them ; nor could they take away one tittle of cer-
tainty from it. In this province Reason has more of omni-
potence, than all the Governments upon earth. Hence he
who would claim authority in matters of opinion, must take
Reason into his Councils. There are various degrees of
Wisdom ; but the highest has always been the first to
acknowledge its own fallibility. When Reason speaks to us
intelligibly, we cannot refuse to go along with her. Wlien.
Authority usurps her place, we are constrained by the laws of
our minds to rebell against her (n. p. 223).

Another delusive vision, by which some persons of late
years, as well as in former ones, have been drawn toward
Rome, is the notion that in the Church of Rome they shall
find something like a realization of that Unity, for which our
Lord so fervently prayed, and for which every one animated
by His Spirit must therefore long. But the Unity for which
our Lord prayed, the Unity which St Paul sets before us in
several passages of his Epistles, is totally and essentially
different from the only unity which can be promoted by the
self-exaltation of the Papacy. The Unity for which our

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 39

Lord prays, is that which arises from the indwelling of His
Spirit. In St Pciul's representation of the Church, the
Unity of the one Body springs from the Unity of the in-
dwelling Spirit, from the one Lord, who is the sole Head of
His Church, from the one Faith, whereby it is united to
Him, from the one Baptism, which is the initiation of that
union, and from the one universal God and Father, who
rules over all its members, and pervades them, and abides in
them. In like manner, when St Paul is speaking of the
manifold diversities of gifts and offices, and pointing out the
necessity of these diversities, he at the same time declares
that at the root of all these diversities there is a ground of
Unity, in that they are all the gifts and ordinances of one
and the same Spirit. Here everything is spiritual; and when
acting under this her heavenly Guide, the Cliurch will pre-
serve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. St Paul
does not say a word, nor is there a word in any part of
Scripture, about the unity of a temporal Head, which in fact
would turn the Church into a monster, like the hundred-
handed giants of ancient fable. With him the one Divine
Head is the Source, whence the spirit of life flows through
all the members, animating them all in their countless
diversities of form and function (o. p. 233). In fact Rome is,
and ever must be, so long as she asserts her present claims,
the chief outward obstacle to the Unity of the Church, and
renders all attempts to promote that Unity ineft'ectual. The
Papacy has always been too richly endowed with the wisdom
of this world, not to have learnt the maxim of the Roman
Commonwealth, Divide and Rule. Even the marriage-tie it
deemed a hindrance to its purpose, and therefore stript the
Janizaries and Mamelukes, who were to be the main instru-
ments in spreading its empire, of their natural affections, and

40 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

turned them into insulated units, that should have no bond
except that to their chief. Thus that which was the ground
of the true greatness of Pagan Rome, was rejected by Papal
Rome. In other respects, as the Roman Empire, after
crushing the resistance of those whom it vanquisht, trod out
their life, so that their growth into a living nation became
impossible, in like manner the Papacy has rather tried to
crush and extinguish the spiritual life of its subjects, than to
foster and cultivate it. During the Middle Ages, it is true,
the influence of Christianity was mighty in developing the
peculiarities both of individual and of national character ;
but so far as this influence was affected by the Papacy, it was
checkt : and since the Reformation, wherever Rome has
retained her dominion, she has operated as a blight ; beneath
which, if the mind of man attempted to rise and expand, it
rankled into infidelity. If we would discern what the
efficacy of the Papacy has been in promoting unity, let us
look at the history^ and at the present condition of Italy and
of the Italians ; who alone among the European nations have
never been able to coalesce into a national unity, not merely
through the political efforts of the Papacy to foment divisions
among them, but still more because they have always been
severed by mutual distrust, — because the constant, familiar
spectacle of a faith which was no faith, which was merely a
hypocritical juggle, — the dismal consciousness of which has
tainted so large a portion of Italian literature (p. p. 245), — has
rendered it difficult for any man to feel confidence in his
neighbour, — because, when that which ought to be the
central seat of Truth is known to be falsehood, the very
notion of Truth as dwelling in man becomes extinct. Every
way it is manifest that those who are bound together by
chains, or by any other outward compulsion, are not united.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 41

Unity is of the heart and mind, presupposes Freedom, is the
offspring of Love.

On some other fallacies, by which men's minds have been
beguiled of late years into thinking too favorably of Rome, I
have spoken in former Charges; and the time will not permit
me to recur to them today. But before I turn away from
this subject, it behoves me to give some sort of brief general
answer to the question which I propounded above : Why are
we to resist and repell those who desire to draw us into the
Church of Rome ? why are we not to hail them as our bene-
factors, and to bow our necks thankfully beneath the yoke
which they would impose on us ?-Because it is a yoke, and
not an east/ one, like that Divine yoke, which we are bid to
take upon us, but a heavy and oppressive human yoke •
• whereas we are commanded to call no man master upon
earth, seeing that we have One Master in heaven who
has called us all to be brethren and servants one to
another. Because the dominion of Rome is a usurpa-
tion, founded upon no divine right, upon no human
nght, repugnant to both rights, destructive of both,
destructive of the national individualities which God has
markt out for the various nations of the earth, and which can
only be brought to their perfection when the nations become
members of His Kingdom. Because history shews, what
from reflexion we might have anticipated, that the sway of
Rome is degrading and corruptive to the spiritual and moral
and even to the political character of every nation that sub-
mits to It. Because the pretensions of Rome are built upon
a primary imposture ; and such as the foundation is, such is
the whole edifice that has been piled upon it in the course of
centuries, imposture upon imposture, falsehood upon false-
hood. Because the evangelical truths, of which, from its

P

42 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

portion in Christ's Church, it has retained possession, have
been tainted and corrupted by its impostures, and thus have
been prevented from exercising their rightful influence upon
the moral growth of its members. Because it has gone on
debasing the relisiion of Christ more and more from the
religion of the Spirit into a religion of forms and ceremonies,
substituting dead works for a living faith, the nominal assent
to certain words for the real apprehension of the truths
exprest by them, interposing all manner of mediators between
man and the One Only Mediator, changing God's truth into
an aggregation of lies, and, at least in its practical operation,
worshiping the creature more than the Creator. Because so
many of its principal institutions are designed, not so much
to promote the glory of God, and the wellbeing of mankind,
as the establishment and enlargement of its own empire, no
matter at what cost of truth and holiness ; because its celibacy
is anti-scriptural and demoralizing, baneful to the sanctity of
family life, and a teeming source of profligate licentiousness
(q. p. 254) ; because its compulsory confession taints the con-
science, deadens the feeling of sin, and breeds delusive se-
curity (r. p. 264) ; because its Inquisition enslaves and crushes
the mind, stifling the love of truth (s. p. 265); because its
Jesuitism is a school of falsehood; because it eclipses the word
of God, and withdraws the light of that word from His people.
Therefore, because of these and divers other evils, inherent
in, and almost inseparable from the system of the Papacy, —
evils, each of which has bred an untold mass of sin and
misery, accumulated through centuries, and which have
grievously hindered the saving and sanctifying power of the
Gospel, — therefore did our ancestors at the Reformation,
under God's guidance, cast off" the yoke and bondage of
Rome, and deliver the State and people of England from it.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 43

Therefore has the protest against that yoke and bondage been
maintained by the heart and mind of England for three
centuries. Therefore, notwithstanding the softening in-
fluences of Time, has the protest been handed down from
father to son for nine generations ; and each generation has
renewed it with determined, unflagging zeal. Therefore, as
has been seen in the last winter, is it still the fixt purpose
of the English heart and mind to reject the advances and
to repeli the assaults of the Papacy. Therefore too do
we trust that, under God's blessing, we shall still have the
heart and mind to repeli them, yea, that, with His help, we
shall repeli them successfully, and shall preserve that pure
treasure of Evangelical Truth, which He has so graciously
committed to our keeping.

Hitherto I have been speaking mainly of that which seems
to me the most distressing feature in the present condition
of our Church, — the delusion, or rather the complication of
delusions, by which so many of our brethren, both lay and
clerical, have been drawn into the arms of Rome, Unless
this delusion be checkt and dispelled, its effects cannot be
otherwise than very disastrous. The Church must needs
mourn over every one of her sons and daughters who
forsakes the truth he has learnt from her, to embrace the
superstitions and the idolatrous corruptions recommended by
the practice, if not directly inculcated by the authoritative
teaching, of her subtile, insidious adversary. Still more bitter
is the sorrow, when those abandon her, who have been
ministering for years at her altars, and whom she has loved
as among her most loving and dutiful children. At such a
time a general distrust takes possession of men's hearts. We
scarcely know on whom we can rely. Even the members of
the same family suddenly find that a wide gulf of separation

JD 2

44 ' THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

has burst open betwixt them : child is severed from parent
brother or sister from brother, husband from wife, — in some
cases without the shghtest notice or anticipation of such a
calamity : so stealthily has the deceiver come upon them '
so craftily has he laid his snares, undermining all open-
hearted confidence, poisoning the very sources of truth in the
heart and the conscience. Among the evil effects of such a
state of things, is, that many become disheartened in their
work. They know not what their neighbours will do. How
then can they unite, how can they cooperate with persons
who in a few months may perhaps be found in the ranks
of the enemy ? Thus all public efforts flag ; joint enter-
prises are abandoned or neglected. Hence springs a fresh
crop of woes. The best remedy for the fainthearted is ever
to unite with the more vigorous in active exertion. When
the line is marching onward, they are borne along by it ; and
their hearts kindle at the touch of their comrades. But,
when a retreat is sounded, each one begins to think how he
can save himself. In this depression, they who see their
brethren falling aM'ay around them, begin to doubt about
their own standing : they fancy that the ground is slipping
away under their feet : they feel uncertain where they may
be in another year : they hardly dare ask themselves : they
resign themselves to the guidance of events. If everything
in the Church goes on exactly as they wish, they think they
shall probably stay where they are. But if anything happens
to annoy or offend them. — if the Crown, if the Parliament, if
the Ministry, if the Bench of Bishops, if the body of Deans,
if the Archdeacons, if the Clergy in their neighbourhood, do
not all do just what they think right and fitting, — if any one
of these persons has the presumption to hold an opinion at
variance with those of the waverer, and to act upon it, — then

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 45

what can he do but quit his house and home, his Church
and people, and join the Romish Schism ? In this morbid,
inflammatory state of mind, every gnat-bite is enough
to put him into a fever, and to drive him, Uke lo in the
Greek tragedy, a vagrant from land to land. In this state,
as we are told by one who well knew the perversities of
human nature, " trifles light as air Are confirmations strong
As proofs of Holy Writ." Hence it is not to be wondered
at, if certain recent events in our Church, of considerable
importance in themselves, have had that importance greatly
magnified, have been viewed with eyes which could not help
discolouring and distorting them, and have produced an
excitement far beyond their real significance.

I am referring, you will perceive, principally to the agita-
tion by which our Church was distracted last year through
its whole length and breadth, in consequence of the decision
pronounced by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
on the Appeal brought before them in a case involving the
doctrine of the efficacy of infant Baptism. Of course I am
not about to renew the controversy on that subject, in which,
as many of you, my Reverend Brethren, are probably aware,
I took some part at the time, from an earnest desire to do
what I could toward calming the agitation, by drawing people
to consider the real purport and effect of that decision. For,
owing to the feverish state of men's minds, it seemed to me
to be strangely misinterpreted ; and all my subsequent
reflexion, as well as my examination of what has been written
by others, has only confirmed this view. They who were
unfamiliar with the strictness and precision of our judicial
procedure, and knew not how our judges shrink, whenever
it is possible, from laying down any general principle, con-
fining themselves as closely as they can to the immediate

46 THE CONTEST WITH ROME,

facts proved in evidence before them, assumed that they had
taken upon themselves to determine the doctrine of our
Church concerning Baptismal Regeneration. Although the
Judges themselves declared that they had not determined any
doctrinal question, and that they had studiously abstained
from doing so, knowing they had no jurisdiction for such a
purpose, any more than they have for determining the law of
the land, — their office being solely to determine the bearing
of the existing law, whether of the land or of the Church,
on the specific cases brought before them, — it was asserted
that the Judges did not understand the meaning of their own
sentence ; and a cry p^ast from one end of England to the
other, that a body of laymen were taking upon themselves to
determine the doctrines of the Church, that the Govern-
ment, which might consist of Jews, Turks, Heretics, and
Infidels, was usurping what belonged of right to the succes-
sors of the Apostles, and that the Church of England was
on the point of forfeiting her position and privileges as
a branch of Christ's Holy Catholic Church.

Nay, even this was not enough. To magnify and aggra-
vate the offense of the Judgement, it was declared to contra-
vene an Article of the Nicene Creed. Thus it became of
a sufficiently gross and palpable nature to furnish fuel for a
popular cry. It mattered not that no reference, no allusion
had been made to this Article of the Creed in the long,
minute, exhaustive examination to which the appellant had
been subjected, — that no reference, no allusion had been
made to it in the pleadings on either side before the Court
of Arches, or in tire very able and elaborate Judgement
delivered in that Court, — that no reference, no allusion had
been made to this argunient, which, if it had been supposed
to have any real validity, would of course have been brought

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 47

forward from the first in the front of the case, till just before
the close of the speech of the last counsel before the Court
of Appeal. There could not indeed well be a stronger
presumptive proof that the bearing of the Article of the
Creed on the case was very remote and impalpable, than
that so many acute and ingenious divines and lawyers should
have been searching during a twelvemonth for all the argu-
ments by which they could support their cause, and yet had
not discovered this bearing. Nor, whatever may be con-
ceived to be the meaning of the Article by the theological
mind, which is habitually exercised in educing the utmost
quantity of meaning from a very few words, would any
person trained to the precision of our judicial logic have
dared to lay down that this Article defines the mode in
which the remission of sins is connected with the Baptismal
Act. All this however was overlookt. When this point
had once been taken, it served the purpose of agitation too
well to be let drop : and in the clamour which arose, the
principal, ever-repeated complaint was, that an Article of
the Nicene Creed had been contravened, and that our
Church was thereby forfeiting her Catholicity. Alas ! I am
afraid that even now there are many, who do not recognise
the fallaciousness of this complaint, who do not discern
that, in consequence of the principles which regulate our
whole judicial procedure, the Article of the Nicene Creed
could not have any force in swaying the opinions of the
Judges, and therefore that it could not be contravened by their
decision (t. p. 301). Doubtless, as has often been asserted,
the whole body of our faith may be said to lie in the germ
in the Apostles Creed. But a Court of Law would not
hold that even the Arian hypothesis was excluded thereby ;
and the Church herself evinced her conviction of this by

48 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

laying down more precise and fuller determinations of her
doctrine in this and other cases, as the need of them occurred.
On the other hand we may observe that, among those who
were foremost in complaining of this contravention of our
faith, several, having since gone over to the Romish Church,
have themselves contravened that very Article in the directest
manner by submitting to a second Baptism. For, even
admitting the absurdly extravagant notion that the Church
of England did forfeit her Catholicity by the decision of last
year, this decision could not act retrospectively, and invah-
date the Baptism they had received from her hands thirty or
forty years before. Thus we see how the most solemn argu-
ments in the most solemn matters are merely taken up to
serve the purpose of the moment, and may be cast away the
next moment, and trampled underfoot.

Another complaint, which had more of plausibleness in it,
was against the constitution of the tribunal by which the
cause had been decided. For it is clearly desirable and
right that the final decision on ecclesiastical causes, in which
doctrinal questions are involved, should not rest wholly with
a body of secular judges, who have no specific theological
training, many of whom have httle, if any, knowledge of
theological doctrine, or of the meaning of theological terms,
and with regard to whom there was no security for their
even being members of our Church. It is desirable and
right that, while the judicial calmness and precision of the
proceedings are ensured by our having a certain number of
persons in the tribunal, who have been disciplined by the
practice of our law-courts, it should also comprise an adequate
number of divines, familiar with the course and bearings of
theological and ecclesiastical controversies. Still, if the
complainants had been in a state of mind to exercise a sober

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 49

judgement, they must have perceived that, though they
might have urged this plea, not without reason, before the
Court came to its decision, they were barred from it after
the decision had been pronounced. If they themselves had
not discovered the unfitness of the tribunal, before it gave its
decision, they could not afterward legitimately condemn the
Court, or any one else, for not having found this out. It is
quite clear that the Act by which the present Court of
Appeal was constituted, was not framed with the slightest
purpose of wronging the Church, or usurping any controU
over her doctrines. No appeal, in which doctrine was con-
cerned, having occurred for more than a century, the framer
of the Act, as he himself has stated, had no intention or
thought of its bearing on such appeals, and, not contem-
plating such cases, made no special provision for them.

Hence this part of the jurisdiction of the Court was a mere
accident, whereat no reasonable man can feel indignant. In
fact a Bill for remedying this oversight had already been
brought before Parliament in three successive Sessions ; and
though its enactment had been postponed, partly from the
usual dilatoriness of our legislative proceedings, and partly
from the desire that it should be well considered before it be-
came law, there seemed to be no reason for doubting that
we should soon have a Court of Appeal rightly constituted.
What then, in such a state of things, was the conduct befitting
the faithful, loyal, dutiful sons of the Church ? Nay, what was
the conduct befitting reasonable, sober-minded men? Surely
an irregularity of this kind, which arose out of a mere acci-
dent, out of an inadvertence on the part of the representatives
of the Church in the Legislature, and which, there was ample
ground for hoping, would soon be corrected, could not afford
a plea for any one, who was not already labouring under

60 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

a morbid irritability, to cry out either against the Church or
the State, against the State as tyrannizing over the Church,
or against the Church as giving up to Cesar the things which
are God's. The plain course of duty was manifestly to
petition the Legislature to correct the anomalies in the con-
stitution of the Court of Appeal. Had this course been
adopted, had such an alteration been urged with calm, judi-
cious earnestness, the evil would probably have been redrest
before now.

I do not forget that the Bill, which was brought before the
House of Lords for this purpose in the month of June last
year, was rejected. But it seems to me that the Church has
reason to be veiy thanlcful to the House of Lords for rejecting
that Bill. Had the scheme for the constitution of the Court
of Appeal proposed in it resembled that of the preceding
Session, or that which was brought in at the beginning of the
same Session, to form a tribunal in which a certain number
of Bishops and eminent divines should sit along with a
certain number of the most eminent Judges, the fate of the
Bill would probably have been different. But unfortunately
a notion had got into vogue, that the determination of all
questions, even legal questions, connected with doctrine
ought to be entrusted exclusively to the Episcopal Bench, as
belonging to them indefeasibly by a Divine ordinance ; and
this assumption the House of Lords rejected, most rightly,
as it seems to me ; and judging wisely for the welfare of the
Church (u.p.302). For consider, my Reverend Brethren, what
the consequences would have been. A casual majority of the
Episcopal Bench, a majority which might be only of one, and
might often be inferior to the minority in wisdom and learn-
ing and piety, would have been invested with the authority of
determining points of doctrine, in a manner binding on the

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 51

Law Courts, and on the whole Church. Who, in such a
state of things, could have felt safe ? The majority might he
on one side this year, and on the opposite side the next, or a
few years later. Imperfect as the constitution of our Con-
vocation is, the Upper House is held in check by the Lower ;
and both, if they entered upon any injudicious, precipitate
course of legislation, might be arrested by the Crown, as the
representative of the Laity, either proroguing them, or refus-
ing its sanction. But the decision of the projected Court
was necessarily to be hasty, and was to be peremptoiy.
Moreover it appeared far from improbable that many of the
Bishops, — as might be expected from persons with no legal
training, and little accustomed to submit their convictions to
positive outward rules, — would be apt to regard the question
propounded to them as a matter which they were to decide,
not merely according to the Articles and Formularies of our
Church, but rather according to abstract principles, and to
the authority of the Bible. Nay, the likelihood of such a
result became the greater in proportion as a Bishop attacht
a paramount importance to what he, in his own mind,
regarded as the true exposition of Scriptural truth ; whereby
endless controversies would have been engendered (v. p. 304).
Hence the rejection of this Bill was no legitimate ground for
the Church to murmur against the State, but rather to be
thankful. Still, though the last Session, from being almost
entirely occupied by the discussion of a single measure, has
been allowed to slip away without any attempt to reform the
Court of Appeal, we may hope that, if a Bill, analogous in
the main to that of 1849, be brought forward next Session,
it will pass into law without much opposition. Only let our
conduct be that of reasonable, practical men, who desire
specific remedies for specific grievances, not that of vague

52 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

dreamers, or of revolutionists, who grumble and clamour
against the whole establisht order of things, and desire to
change and remould it in conformity to their own momen-
tary fancies.

On another very important and difficult question, which
arose out of this controversy, or rather was brought forward
more prominently in consequence of it, — concerning the
nature and extent and limits of the Royal Supremacy, — I can
only allow myself to touch very briefly. But I cannot pass it
over altogether ; since this has been one of the chief com-
plaints made against our Church of late years, not only by
her enemies from without, but also by her wavering mem-
bers,— that she allows the civil, secular power to exercise an
undue authority with regard to spiritual matters. Of course
this question cannot be otherwise than very intricate ; as all
questions touching the primary rights of the great powers in
the State and Church, and the relations between them, needs
must be. For these rights and relations were never defined
and determined with precision, any more than you can have
a straight line of demarcation between the land and the sea.
Like the great powers of Nature, those which act upon each
other in history, do not cut themselves off by rule and
measure. The boundary between them bears the rugged
marks of warfare, which continue during periods of mutual
peace ; and its evenness is broken by prominences and in-
dentures, by jutting rocks and headlands, and by insinuating
gulfs and bays. In the course of ages too this boundary will
vary, from encroachments, probably on both sides. Even if
the line of demarcation between the secular power and the
spiritual had ever been distinctly defined, the lapse of cen-
turies would have modified and changed it, not merely
through their strife and reciprocal aggressions, but also from

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 53

changes in the nature of the powers themselves, in that the
secular power is gradually more and more spiritualized, while
the spiritual power grows secularized, in a good sense, it may-
be, as well as a bad. Thus the relation between Anselm and
William Rufus is far from the same as that between Becket
and Henry the Second ; and immense was the change which
had past over it, when we examine the position of the Church
and of the Sovereins in the age of the Reformation. Nor did
the change cease then ; and of course it has been rapider in
the nations which adopted the Reformation, and recognised
the universal priesthood of Christians, and the right of all to
a free access to God and to His word. In fact, as the whole
community is brought more and more under the influence of
the Gospel, the separation between its various classes tends
to become less abrupt, to become a distinction of offices,
rather than a difference of essence, according to the grand
picture set before us in St Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians.
Even within our own memory, he who can look back thought-
fully on what England was at the beginning of this century,
and at the manifold wonders of its progress, will perceive
that enormous, incalculable changes have been wrought in the
relations of the various classes of society, from the highest to
the lowest, not merely by positive laws, such as the Reform-
Bill, but still more by the silent working of all manner of
social, economical, moral influences. Nor are these by any
means confined to our secular relations : they are of scarcely
inferior moment within the Church. Thus, at every point in
history, these relations are not what they were determined to
be by some positive enactment concerning them, it may be
centuries before : they are a combination resulting from two
distinct elements, what they have been in the past, and what
the heart and mind of the Nation or Church deem at the

54 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

time they ought to be. For, while the past has its rights,
and ought to retain them, the present also has rights of its
own, which, unless they are recognised voluntarily, will make
themselves recognised by force. With regard to our imme-
diate question, it seems to me that the discussions which
took place last year, lead on the whole to results, which are
no way inconsistent with the rightful claims, either of the
State, or of the Church ; at least unless we suffer ourselves
to be deluded by the notion, which, though perpetually dis-
claimed nowadays, may perpetually be detected exercising
a mischievous influence, not seldom upon those who are
unconscious of it, nay, who loudly disclaim it, — that the
Church is synonymous with the Clergy. Whereas it is made
up of the whole body of its baptized members, and, in a
higher sense, of the whole body of its communicants ; while
there cannot be a grosser perversion of the truth, than to
confine it to its ministers, to those who are specially ordained
to be the servants of the congregation. The baneful effects
of this errour may be traced through the whole histoiy of the
Church, in the demoralization and despiritualization of the
Clergy, no less than of the Laity. Indeed I know not
whether any errour has ever done half so much evil to
mankind : and the chief propagater of this errour, and of
the evil consequences that flow of it, has ever been the
Papacy (w. p. 305).

Here it seems as if I could hardly pass on without alluding
to a paper, which was circulated very generally among the
Clergy last year, and which most of you, my Reverend
Brethren, must doubtless have seen, — containing a declara-
tion with regard to the nature and limits of the Royal
Supremacy. This declaration was promulgated by three of
the most eminent among our brethren in the ministry ; and

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 55

it was supposed that on the assent of the Clergy to it would
probably depend whether the propounders would continue in
our Church or not. Some of you may perhaps have sent
answers to this paper : many of you, doubtless, took no
notice of it. In fact it did seem an extraordinary assump-
tion, for a trio of persons, however eminent individually, if
such was indeed their purpose, to require the whole body of
the Clergy to adopt their view on this very intricate and
complicated matter, and to express that view in a certain
definite form of words, with the resolution of quitting the
Church, if the answers were not conformable to their wishes.
This would be another deplorable instance of the manner in
which persons set up their own private judgement, not as the
rule of their own conscience and conduct, but as the law of
the Church and State ; as though a man were to say, unless
Parliament passes such or such a law^ I will throw ofF
my allegiance, and become a Frenchman, or an American.
Moreover the veiy mode in which the declaration was
drawn up, involving an express condemnation of the pro-
ceedings in the recent Appeal, and founded, as it seems to
me, on a total misconception of those proceedings, must
have prevented many from adopting it. Had the declaration
been worded simply and plainly, and confined itself to the
one essential point, whether the Royal Supremacy implies
that the Crown has authority to determine the doctrines of
the Church, — though many might still have declined to sign
it, whether from deeming it an indecorous assumption, or
from other motives, — at all events I feel sure that one con-
sistent response would have risen from the hearts of the
whole body of the Clergy, from ninetynine out of a hundred,
that no such authority is, or ever has been, involved in the
Supremacy of the Crown, — that they never did, and do not.

66 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

recognise such an authorit)^ — that the Crown itself has never
laid claim to it, — and that the only body which has any
real authority to determine the doctrines of the Church,
is the Church herself acting through her lawful Councils
or Synods (x. p. 307).

These words lead me to congratulate you that the prospect
of a rightly constituted Synod of our Church seems so much
nearer now, than when I last addrest you from this Chair.
Having repeatedly on these occasions given utterance to my
earnest wishes for such an assembly, and having endeavoured,
in a Note to my Charge for 1842, to reply to the chief
objections which at that time were urged against it, I will
not enter into any argument on the subject today. But I
cannot refrain from expressing my satisfaction that the
desire, in which ten years ago few joined with me, has now
become so prevalent, and still more that the right of the
Laity to an important share in such an assembly has already
obtained so general a recognition. It was with exceeding
pleasure that I heard our excellent Bishop declare at the
Visitation last year, that it was not only his own conviction,
but that of all his Episcopal Brethren, without a single
exception, that, if a Synod of the Church is to be convened,
it ought to contain a large admixture of laymen. Indeed,
without such an admixture, the Synod would be inefficient
and powerless. In this, as in all things, we greatly need the
help of our lay brethren. We need the help of their good
sense, of their sober, practical judgement. We need col-
leagues who will not be carried away by speculative notions,
by ecclesiastical theories, who will not look at questions
from a clerical point of view, who will counterbalance any
exaggerated reverence on our part for the traditions or the
dogmas of former ages, by their vivid consciousness of the

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 57

wants of the present time, by their greater familiarity with the
thoughts and feelings which are now stirring and agitating the
world, and which, while they cannot be calmed and brought
into order except by the power of the Gospel, often need some
new form and utterance of Evangelical Truth to still them. In
the Note just referred to, I have set before you a considerable
body of evidence, showing that in early ages the Laity bore
part in the Synods ; as they do now, with much benefit, in
those of the American Church. In course of time indeed
the Clergy deprived them of this, as of so many other rights ;
but, as is mostly the case with usurpers, they themselves were
ultimately the chief sufferers from the usurpation, both
socially and morally. For we can hardly injure others,
without injuring ourselves. During those centuries indeed,
when almost all the learning of the age was confined to the
clergy, there was less impropriety in their constituting them-
selves the sole judges with regard to matters, for the cog-
nisance of which some degree of learning is indispensable.
But when learning and knowledge became more widely dif-
fused, and clerkly acquirements were found in others beside
the Clergy, the exclusive system could no longer be upheld.
In truth this was among the principal causes of the discon-
tinuance of the Convocation, and of other like assemblies,
not in England only, but also in the other countries of
Europe. The secular mind had outgrown the tutelage of
the ecclesiastical ; while the latter, relying on its superiority
of position, had almost fallen asleep, and had neglected to
strengthen that superiority by a superiority of knowledge.
Moreover our Convocation was a very inadequate repre-
sentation of the Clergy themselves, in addition to its total
exclusion of the lay element of the Church. To maintain
this exclusion in our days would be impossible, at least in
Protestant countries, where the clerical monopoly of the

E

58 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

Scriptures can no longer be enforced. If a Synod is to have
any authority in the Church, the rehgious Laity must have
a voice in it. We may well be thankful to learn that this
necessity is recognised by the whole body of our spiritual
rulers ; and with this assurance we may entertain a reasonable
confidence that, when a Synod is allowed to meet, it will
exercise a real and salutary influence. Of course there will
be sundry difficulties in settling its constitution ; and a
number of jealousies may probably be aroused. But what
great work can be accomplisht, without many difficulties to
surmount ? If we set to work heartily and unitedly, we
shall soon overcome them (y. p. 310).

But, though I strongly desire, and, notwithstanding all the
dissensions and contentions in our Church, can look forward
hopefully to the assembling of a rightly constituted National
Synod, even as likely to promote peace, I am far from feeling
the same confidence with regard to a measure, which many
persons, I believe, view with favour, either as a preparative
for such an assembly, or as a less hazardous substitute for it.
The recent Meeting of the Exeter Diocesan Synod, which
appears from all accounts to have been conducted with great
ability and moderation, has inclined many to believe that the
disorders in our Church may be quieted, and her wants
relieved, by such Synods, with less risk than by one to
which our whole Church should send deputies. This infer-
ence however does not appear to me well grounded. I
should rather draw a different conclusion, even from the
proceedings of that Synod ; the unanimity displayed at
which was in some degree fallacious, inasmuch as it seems
to have arisen in great measure from the Synod's being consti-
tuted almost entirely of the representatives of a single party
in the Church, the Clergy of the opposite party having gene-
rallydeclined to vote at the elections for it (z. p. 312). Thus

THE CONTEST WITH ROME 59

this unanimity merely shows how zealously the members of
one party could work together, and certainly with no spirit
of supererogatory indulgence or conciliation toward those
who differed from them ; so that, if the latter had taken
part in the Meeting, there would probably have been a for-
midable collision. Besides that Meeting was mainly swayed
by the influence of a single powerful mind. But should
other similar Synods assemble, as that did, with the notion
that they represent the Church, and are entitled to exercise
the authority of the Church in pronouncing dogmatically
upon doctrinal questions, what result can be anticipated,
except a battling of contrary currents, and an ever-bursting
storm of confusion ?

Throughout the history of the Church it has been seen,
that one of her chief perils arises from the dogmatizing
spirit, which is inherent in human nature, springing from
our narrowmindedness and ignorance, pampered by and
pampering our self-will. Few visions are so flattering to
our vanity, as that of establishing the correctness of our own
judgement by imposing our opinions upon others, by com-
pelling all nations to worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar
the king has set up. If the Papacy has been the curse of
the Church, the Pope is only the huge symbol of what is
found within every breast. Every man has the spirit of the
Papacy within him. Everybody would fain be a Pope in his
own circle, and would stretch out that circle as widely as
he can. It is only from godly wisdom, from pondering the
lessons of history, from Christian meekness and sober-
mindedness, that we learn to distrust ourselves, and to
respect our neighbours. If we may look forward hopefully
to the assembling of a National Synod, it is because we may
trust that, under God's guidance, the members elected to
represent the Church in it would in the main comprise

e2

60 THE CONTEST WITH ROiME.

the persons who are most eminent for godly wisdom and
sobermindedness both among the Clergy and among the
Laity ; because it would not be under the predominant
influence of any one single mind ; and because, even if it
should allow itself to be carried away into any indiscreet
proceedings, the right of proroguing it would be vested in
the Crown. But in a Diocesan Synod we have none of
these securities. Even if there were a due proportion of
laymen in it, still it would always be liable to be swayed by
its Bishop, especially in theological discussions ; whereas in
the ancient Synods, even in the provincial ones, there were
ever a large number of Bishops, whose position would ordi-
narily betoken an improved intellectual or moral superiority,
and who stood on the same level. Nor would a Diocesan
Synod be less prone to issue hasty dogmatical decisions,
because it would seldom happen that there were more than
half a dozen or a dozen persons in a Diocese, at all qualified
by their character, their temper of mind, and their familiarity
with speculative divinity, and with ecclesiastical history, for
such a task. In nothing was the wisdom of the great early
Councils more apparent, than in the earnestness with which
they tried to check and bridle the dogmatical spirit, even so
far as to issue anathemas against any one who should pre-
sume to add to the Articles of the Creed (a a. p. 313). Such
caution is not likely to be found in a Diocesan Synod, least
of all in seasons when theological controversies are raging.
Each Synod would deem itself thoroughly competent to
settle all the controversies in the Church ; and its confidence
would probably increase in an inverse ratio to its real com-
petence. An active, energetic Bishop, with strongly markt
opinions, would often be able to carry his Synod along with
him. Thus the Church would perpetually be harast with
new dogmatical decisions, not seldom contradicting one

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 61

another ; and there are symptoms which threaten that these
decisions might ere long be enforced by a volley of anathemas.
The very want of authority to impose their decisions would
lessen the feeling of personal responsibility, which arises
within us when others are to be materially affected by our
deliberations and our acts. They who play at soldiers, knock
down their mimic armies far more rapidly than they fall in
actual war. In a word, if every Diocese were to have its
Synod, meddling with the doctrines of the Church, the
results would hardly be more satisfactory, than if the work
of legislation were transferred from Parliament to our
County-Meetings.

Doubtless, if Diocesan Synods were precluded from
attempting to legislate upon doctrinal questions, if their
discussions were restricted to the practical wants of the
Diocese, and to practical measures for its improvement, they
would not do the same harm, and might become very bene-
ficial ;' more especially if a scheme were devised by which
a certain number of lay members should take part in them.
Otherwise in this respect they would be far inferior to our
Diocesan Associations, though in other points they would
have advantages of their own.

Much of what I have just been saying will apply still more
forcibly to those newfangled bodies, which have recently been
setting themselves up, with no slight pretensions, in various
parts of England, under the name of Church-Unions ; a name
very inappropriate, seeing that, in the instances which of late
have come most before the public eye, they have consisted
almost exclusively of the members of a single party in
the Church, bound together by some party shibboleth,
and combined to effect certain purposes, to which they
knew that a large portion of their brethren were strongly
opposed : so that they might more aptly be termed Church-

62 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

Disunions. These associations are embodiments of that
impatience and selfwill, which are such prominent elements
in the spirit of the age, even in those who are loudest in
declaiming against them. Everywhere, we find, people will
not wait for the ordinary, legitimate modes of carrying their
purposes into effect, in a manner consistent with the establisht
order of things, with the constitution of the Church, by
reasonable persuasion. Everywhere the revolutionary spirit
peeps out behind the mask, even of those who are inveying
against it. This spirit, and every form of party-spirit, are
inevitably fostered by these so-called Church-Unions. They
who combine and assemble for a party purpose, strengthen
each other in their prejudices, in their persuasion of their
own exclusive rectitude and wisdom, in their repugnance
and scorn toward those who differ from them. This has
been seen for instance in the Trades-Unions, in which even
well-meaning, conscientious men, by brooding over their
grievances, and talking of them continually with their asso-
ciates, have become so inflamed as to be ready for every form
of crime. In like manner these combinations in the Church,
fashioned as they are after the model of factious and sedi-
tious combinations in the State, can hardly fall to increase
and aggravate the evils of our condition ; more especially
when the opposite party, as is the natural, legitimate con-
sequence of such combinations, combine to resist them ;
whereby dissensions must needs be exasperated and pro-
longed. You will observe too, that the party which now
resorts to these associations for effecting its aims, is the very
party which a few years back strongly condemned the various
Religious Societies, which had been formed for benevolent
and religious purposes, because they had taken upon them-
selves to do this without the sanction of the proper eccle-
siastical authorities. In so many respects do we find the

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 63

severest condemnation of their present practices in the prin-
ciples which they formerly profest.

Here it behoves me to say a few words on a personal
matter. On two occasions, since I last addrest you from this
chair, a wish has been entertained by a considerable number
of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry that I should summon a
public Meeting ; and on both occasions I have declined com-
plying with this wish. The first was in the month of June
last year, when the Church was so agitated by the decision of
the Court of Appeal with reference to the Baptismal Question.
The second occasion was in the autumn, when the whole
people was stirred up to resist the aggression of the Pope on
the Crown and Church of England. The wish for a public
Meeting on the latter occasion was, I believe, strongest on
the part of the opponents of those who had been the most
desirous of taking some step to protest against the judgement
of the Court of Appeal. Thus it is plain, at all events, that
my refusal did not arise from any leaning toward one party
more than toward another. But it has never seemed to me that
any benefit to the Church has accrued from Meetings held
to debate questions on which the Church is much divided ;
whereas the evil of such a public display of our contentions
must ever be great. On the Baptismal Question, though
I did not know with certainty which way the scales would
turn, I did know that there would be a strong, probably a
violent collision, by which nobody would be edified. For,
while I was well aware that a very large majority of you, my
Reverend Brethren, hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regenera-
tion, and are convinced that it is the doctrine of our Church,
I knew also that many among the holders of that doctrine
were very thankful, as I myself was, that the Judgement of
the Court of Appeal had arrested an attempt, whereby so many
of the most pious and zealous among our brethren in the

64 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

ministry would have been driven out of it. By some persons
indeed I may be thought chargeable with inconsistency, in
objecting to Public Meetings of the Clergy, while I desire to
see a Synod of the Church. But the very reasons which
induce me to wish for the latter, make me deprecate the
former. In a Synod I should hope to see a solemn, orderly
assembly of the gravest, most pious, discreetest members of
our Church, acting under fixt rules, with the consciousness
of a deep responsibility. But what is there of this kind in a
Public Meeting ? in which the most violent are usually the
loudest, and often carry their partisans along with them.
The late Anniversaries of the National Society have shewn
what such Meetings tend to become. What good our
Diocese would have derived from such, I know not. In truth
one main benefit of a Synod would be, that it would silence
such irregular expressions of irritation ; even as the Meeting
of Parliament is so often powerful in stopping the irregular
expressions of political feeling (ab. p. 319).

On the former of the two occasions referred to, knowing
that the minds of the Clergy were very much divided, I did
not propose any measure for your adoption, thinking it
better to leave each Rural Deanei'y to act as it judged meet.
With regard to the Papal Aggression there was not the same
ground for hesitation. Here one might feel sure of finding
a general agreement, at least unless one chose to run foul
of some rock of controversy. But here again it seemed to
me that a Public Meeting would supply an opportunity,
which divers persons might be ready to seize, for vehement
condemnation of those among our brethren, whose opinions
have been so lamentably proved to have a fatal bias toward
Rome. Now the attack made by the Pope on the Church
and Crown of England ought to be regarded, it appeared to
me, as a warning sent to us by God, calling upon us all, upon

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 65

all who love our Spiritual Mother, upon all who have not
already apostatized from her in heart, to join heart and soul
and mind in repelling the insolent assailant. Hence I could
not but esteem it a counteraction of God's gracious purpose,
a perversion of His gift, if, instead of uniting cordially
together in defending our Mother, we were to take this
occasion for rebuking and triumphing over our brethren ;
whom this attack from our common enemy ought to have
brought nearer to us, while it opened their eyes to the perils
of the path they had been walking in. Nor could I feel
anything but the deepest pain in reading the accounts how
Public Meetings in other Dioceses had been turned into scenes
for railing accusations. On this subject however I was sure that
you would almost all be desirous of giving vitterance to your
feelings. Therefore, with the kind help of the Rural Deans of
the Archdeaconry, I drew up the addresses which they circu-
lated among you ; and I was very thankful to them, both for
the alacrity with which, at a moment's warning, the chief
part of them attended a Meeting convened for the purpose,
and for their anxious care to avoid every expression which
could give offence to the most sensitive feelings, or present an
obstacle to the unanimous concurrence of the Clergy of the
Archdeaconry (ac. p. 321).

I should have wisht to make a few observations on a
couple of important questions, which have been debated
during the last Session of Parliament ; but the time compells
me to pass over them (ad. p. 326). Already, I doubt not, many
of you, my Brethren, have been surprised that, though I have
been speaking so long about the events of the last two years,
I have made no direct mention till just now of that which you
probably regard as the most important among them, the
extraordinary attack made by the Pope on the English Church
and Crown. Yet, I would fain believe, you must have dis-

66 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

cerned that, though I did not expressly mention that attack,
it was standing before my eyes throughout in the dark back-
ground of our present condition ; inasmuch as I have been
speaking throughout of the various causes which alone render
it formidable. Were it not for the calamitous dissensions
amongst us, — were it not for the Romanizing tendencies
which have issued in so many deplorable apostasies, — were
it not for the notion, which these and other causes may
naturally have fostered, that the deserters, who have already
gone over from our ranks, would be followed by a far more
numerous body, — I can hardly conceive that the Papacy
would have ventured on so audacious a measure. At all
events, were it not for these favouring circumstances, its
conduct would have provoked little beyond ridicule and
scorn. If there is any real danger in that attack, the ground
of the danger lies wholly in ourselves.

If we call to mind what the position of the Papacy was,
when I last addrest you here two years ago, the changa
seems like one of the lawless scene-shiftings in a dream.
It was then a fugitive, an outcast, from the city, in which
for a thousand years it has been a moral pestilence (ae. p. 337).
It had taken refuge under a Government, which, above all
others, bears witness what its moral influence is, and which
has just been exposed to all Europe in its naked deformity,
known long ago to all persons well acquainted with its
workings, as reckless of every obligation, of every law, of
every principle, standing with one foot upon perjury, upon
cruelty with the other. Hence, after a while, the Papacy
returned, borne in by forein bayonets, and only protected by
the same from the hatred of the people who have had the
experience of a thousand years to teach them what it is.
The present wearer of the triple crown, having vainly
attempted to extricate his subjects and himself from the

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 67

evils and miseries which they have had to bear, in conse-
quence of their city's being the abode of the so-called Vicar
of Christ, was compelled to surrender his own better desires
and aims to the iron bondage of the system which placed him
there : for, a curse to all under it, it is so above all to him
whom it sets on its throne, and to whom, as to Kehama in
Southey's poem, the cup of divine honour and power becomes
the cup of helpless weakness and woe. Yet at this very
time, in the midst of this abject fall, the Papacy, by some
mysterious, inscrutable dispensation, has been rising to
greater power than it had wielded for centuries. The
nations of Europe have been falling down and worshiping
it. Under the panic produced by the revolutionary move-
ments of the last years, they have fancied they should find
help from the old magician, who had been so successful in
stifling the mind of man, wherever the word of God was
not held up to baffle his spells : and, in order to obtain his
aid, they have voluntarily given up the securities, by which
their more prudent fathers fenced themselves against his
encroachments. But that the wheel of time never goes
back, one might almost deem that the age of Hildebrand
and of Innocent was about to return. It was in the midst
of her pride, elated by these unlookt for triumphs, that the
Romish Church hurled her defiance against England, almost
expecting, as would seem, that England would join the rout
of Governments who were falling prostrate before her. To
this defiance however, as we know, the people of England
have made answer with united heart and voice, that they will
not bow down to Rome, — that, with God's blessing, they
are resolved to maintain that inheritance of Truth which
they have received from their ancestors, and to stand fast
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free.

or the measure by which our Legislature has repelled the

68 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

aggression of the Papacy, I need not speak. You have
all heard it canvast, and have canvast it yourselves, over and
over and over again, until you must be weary of the subject.
In judging of it, we should bear in mind that the difhculties
of Parliament arose in great measure from the righteous
resolution to adhere to those principles of toleration, which
have been graven of late years on the front of our Consti-
tution. While the attack of the Papacy was twofold, on the
Crown of England, and on the Church, the former was the
only part of it with which it behoved Parliament to interfere.
Now this consisted mainly in the assumption of a right
to parcel out England into Dioceses, as though it were a
Heathen country, and to bestow territorial titles on certain
intruders of its own appointment, without seeking the per-
mission of the Crown, — a right which it would not have
dared to usurp in any other State in Europe. The special
duty of Parliament therefore was to declare these titles un-
lawful, and to prohibit their assumption. Whether the
measure which has been adopted will effect this purpose,
time will show (af. p. 345).

For us, my Reverend Brethren, there remains a different,
a more arduous, but a godlier and more blessed task : and
in this task you too, my Lay Brethren, you especially who
have come as Churchwardens to this Visitation, are equally
called to bear part. Your name designates you as wardens
or guardians of the Church, immediately indeed in your
own parishes, and with reference to the preservation of the
fabric of your churches, and to other parochial matters, but
also with reference to the great principles of Christian truth,
which our Church and our churches are set up to maintain.
For what would be the worth of all the petty details of
parochial administration, what would be the worth of our
churches themselves, why should we repair and beautify

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 69

them, unless all these things were subordinate and instru-
mental to the upholding of Christian truth and order ? This
act of the Papacy is an open declaration of war against us, a
declaration of internecine war. It involves a denial of our
very existence as a branch or portion of Christ's Church.
For near three hundred years the Papacy has refrained from
such an extreme measure. It has been reserved to be the
closing act of the first half of the nineteenth century. Now,
when a person's existence is denied, the best refutation of
such a denial is, not by words and arguments, but by actions.
Therefore, it having been denied by the Papacy, before God
and man, that we are a part of Christ's Church, let us, my
Brethren, come forward in the sight of God and of man, and
prove, God helping us, by our actions, by our faith, by our
zeal, by our love, that we are so. We are all and each of us
called upon to prove, in our several spheres, before God and
man, that we are Christians, that we are members of Christ's
holy Church, and not in name only, but in power, yea, that
the spirit of Christ dwells in us.

In this age of universal competition, we are specially called
to a competition in good works. Our rivals are compassing
us about : we know not where they may be lurking, where
they may suddenly start up, not even whether it may not be
unawares in some bosom friend, in a brother. Even on the
hearts of our own families we cannot count with certainty ;
even they may be wrested from us, secretly, stealthily. One
of the best features in our English character, a truly Pro-
testant feature in it, is the repugnance to all underhand pro-
ceedings, the desire that everything should be above-board,
as the phrase is. Let this then be our course in contendin<y
with our subtile enemy. While he would outwit us by his
hidden arts and disguises, let us outwit him by our constant
frankness and straightforwardness. The victory will be with

70 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

the day, not with the night. God has committed His truth
to our keeping. Of this we feel, and ought to feel, an un-
doubting assurance. Let us bear witness of the truth in our
whole conduct : let us shew that the truth animates us, rules
in us : let us defend the truth in every way, but above all by
manifesting it in our lives.

An infinite field of work lies spread out before us, in which
we are called to labour, the hearts and souls and minds of
the whole people of England. All these are to be won from
the devil, to be won for God. They are to be brought to a
living knowledge of God, to a living faith in Him : they are
to be trained for lives of holiness and love. Their vices are
to be subdued ; their affections are to be cultivated ; their
social condition is to be bettered. If we are slothful or
careless then, it will never be for lack of work, — nor for lack
of motives to stir us up to it, even without the fresh motive
supplied by our Romish rivals. Nor shall we be slothful for
lack of help. It is most true, the mighty works to which we
are called, can only be accomplisht by God Himself ; even
as He alone can pour out the light from its fountains, and
can turn the wheel of the seasons, and can send out the sun
on his course, and can bid the moon keep her watch in
heaven. But in the application of that which these elemen-
tary powers effect, for the sustenance of human life, and the
increase of human comforts, we are chosen to be God's
instruments, yea, in a manner to be fellow-workers with
Him. So are we in everything pertaining and conducive to
the social welfare of mankind. No social good, no improve-
ment is effected without man's instrumentality, without the
help of man's thought and energy and goodwill. But we
have also a still higher work appointed for us, a divine work,
which angels might desire to share with us : we, my Reverend
Brethren, are especially called to be God's instruments, yea.

THE CONTEST WITH ROME. 71

His fellow-workers, in the spiritual regeneration of our
brethren, in the redemption and salvation of mankind.

Does Rome desire to take part with us in this blessed, this
divine work ? Let her do her best in it. Provided she
perform her work honestly, faithfully, lovingly, we will not
grudge it to her. If she will labour at saving souls, without
ensnaring them into deadly errours and corruptions, we will
not hinder her work by any outward impediment. Only let
us be diligent in performing our part, and in seeking God's
help that we may do so more diligently. He desires that this
work should be done. He has especially appointed us to do
it. Therefore we may be assured that He will help us, that
He will help and bless our weakest efforts, if they are indeed
made in faith and love.

Among other things, seeing that we have an undoubting
belief that the truth is on our side, let us strive to spread the
knowledge of the truth among all classes, by a diligent culti-
vation of the faculties whereby man receives it. Let it be
one of our chief aims to render the education of all classes
of the English nation a Christian education, to train up the
young of all classes in the knowledge and service of God.

Here I cannot refrain from referring for a moment to one
of the few bright spots which have shone out from the dark-
ness of the past year : I mean the foundation of the great
School for the Middle Classes at Hurstpierpoint. I was
allowed to take part in the proceedings on that occasion ; and
no event in the last twelvemonth has given me so much
pleasure, though there have been a few others also of hopeful
promise. If we desire to uphold our Church, the most
effectual mode of doing so, under God, must be to train up
her children, and especially those of the Middle Classes, who
must needs exercise a mighty influence over the future mind
and character of the English Nation, in her faith and

72 THE CONTEST WITH ROME.

worship, as dutiful, loving members of her communion.
This is the special purpose of that institution, the purpose
which its noblehearted founder, as our Bishop, when laying
the foundation stone, repeatedly called him, most earnestly
desires to accomplish, — to which he has solemnly pledged
and bound himself, — and to which he has dedicated himself
and everything that he has, being himself a most dutiful,
lovins; son of our Church, animated with a righteous hatred
of the falsehoods and corruptions of Rome. Should similar
institutions multiply and prosper, they promise to be among
the most efficient means for promoting the moral wellbeing
of the people of England, and for gathering the whole nation
under the wings of the Church (ag. p. 346).

In this, my Brethren, and in all things, let us bear in
mind, what we are especially admonisht of by the Gospel of
the week, that this is the time of the Visitation of our
Church, and that the attack of the Papacy upon us is among
the tests whereby we are to be tried. Our enemies are
gathering round us, are starting up in the midst of us. But
they cannot harm us, unless we are false to ourselves. If
we are faithless, if we shew no proofs of the boasted supe-
riority of the light vouchsafed to us, that light will be taken
away : our enemies will overcome us, will trample our
Church in the dust ; and the fate of Jerusalem will be hers.
But, if we are faithful, if we are dutiful, if we are diligent,
if we shew forth the fruits of faith in our lives, if we preach
the truth, and do it, if we are zealous in love and good works,
then, we may trust, our Church will ere long hear words like
those which were written to the Church of Smyrna : Fear
none of those things which thou shalt suffer : ye shall have
tribulation ten days : be thou faithful unto death: and I ivill
give thee a croivn of life. So be it : Amen.

NOTES.

Note A : p. 1 i.

The problem which Dr Newman has set himself in his recent
Lectures On the present Position of Catholics in England, is
certainly one of no ordinary difficulty. " T am going to enquire
(he says, p. 1) why it is, that, in this intelligent nation and in
this rational nineteenth century, we Catholics are so despised
and hated by our own countrymen." To a Protestant indeed,
who knows anything about history, many answers to this queiy
will suggest themselves. But what can a Romanist say ? Dr
Newman however is not a pereon to shrink from difficulties. He
rather seems to love a problem the more, in proportion to the
ingenuity he has to spend in solving it. In the present instance
he has undertaken to show that " Tradition is the sustaining
Power of the Protestant View of the Catholic Church," — that
" Fable is its Basis," — that " True Testimony is unequal to it," —
that it is " logically inconsistent," — that " Prejudice is its Life,"
— that "Assumed Principles are its Intellectual Instrument," —
and that " Want of Intercourse with Catholics is its Protection."
In vigour of style these Lectures are perhaps even superior to
any of the author's previous writings. His humour, which on
other occasions he has manifestly reined in, has been allowed
a free course. In ingenious combinations they are rich, and in
feats of his peculiar logical dexterity. No Chinese juggler, no
Indian tumbler can surpass him. He will whirl round like a
wheel, and then balance himself on his little finger. But, as
pieces of reasoning, the Lectures are disjointed and arbitrary
throughout, and often quite flimsy ; and they must be felt to be
unsatisfactory, I should think, by most of the intelligent even

74 NOTE A.

among those whose cause he is advocating. They abound too in
logical quicksands, on which if one tries to stand, one is in great
risk of being swallowed up.

To go through all the fallacies in these Lectures would require
a volume as large as they form. But it may not be altogether
useless to point out a few of them, by way of warning to the
incautious reader, lest he be deluded by their plausibilities, and
to shew the kind of arguments that the ablest champion of
Rome is driven to resort to.

I will begin with the first Lectui'e, in which the author
undertakes to prove the groundlessness of our English prejudices
against Rome in the following manner. " It happens every
now and then (he says, p. 11) that a Protestant, sometimes an
Englishman, more commonly a foreiner, thinks it worth while to
look into the matter himself ; and his examination ends — in his
confessing the absurdity of the outcry raised against the Catholic
Church, and the beauty or the excellence — of those very facts
and doctrines which are the alleged ground of it." He then pro-
poses to shew by " the testimony of candid Protestants, who have
examined into " her history and teaching on three points, that
" the bulk of the English nation are violent because they are
ignorant, and that Catholics are treated with scorn and injustice
simply because — they have never patiently been heard."

Here Dr Newman has the whole field of history and doctrine
open to him. He may pick out the grossest misrepresentations
he can find, and may search through the whole of Protestant
literatui-e for refutations of them. With such an amplitude of
choice, one might fancy he could hardly fail to make out a
specious case. What is it ?

In the first place, he draws a liighly coloured representation
of the Protestant view of the Romish Church during the Middle
Ages j and then, to refute that view, he professes (p. 1 4) to
quote, " what that eminent Protestant historian, M. Guizot, who
was lately Prime Minister of France, says of the Church in that
period, in which she is reported by our popular writers to have
been most darkened and corrupted." In a passage cited just
before from the Homilies, this period is said to extend " by the

NOTE A. 75

space of above 800 years " before the Reformation, that is, from
the sixteenth to the eighth centuiy : so, to shew the injustice of
this representation, Dr Newman brings forward an assertion of
Guizot's, that, " at the close of the fourth, and the commencement
of the fifth century, the Christian Churcli was the salvation of
Christianity." Nay, though this irrefragable testimony, bearing
so immediately on the point, with only a gap of three or four
hundred years, might be supposed to settle the whole question
about the abuses and corruptions of the Church during the ninth,
tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries, he resolves to strengthen his case still more by quoting
what Dr Waddington, in his Ecclesiastical History, observes to
the same purport : " At this crisis, when the Western Empire was
overthrown, and occupied by unbelieving barbarians, it is not too
much to assert, that the Church was the instrument of heaven
for the preservation of the religion." Thus the Lecturer per-
suades his credulous audience that he has parried his adversary's
attack, whereas in fact he has been lunging out in a totally
different direction. But doubtless it will ever be found to be the
most convenient way of vindicating the Papacy, to talk about
what the Church was and did before the Papacy existed, or at all
events before it grew up to that highth of power, when it ab-
sorbed the evil spirits of the world into itself, and shed them
abroad in a blighting mildew over the Church. After the words
just cited from Dean Waddington, Dr Newman adds : " And
then he goes on to mention six special benefits which the Chui'ch
of the Middle Ages conferred on the world." Here the interpola-
tion of the words, of the Middle Ages, gives an incorrect notion
of what Dr Waddington has said. The passage occurs at the
close of his thirteenth Chapter, and refers to the period which
intervened between the destruction of the Western Empire and
the reign of Charlemagne, that is to say, which preceded what
are especially termed the ^Middle Ages, as well as what we have
just seen defined to be the calamitous period of the corruptions
of the Papacy. In like manner it has been asserted that Nero
was a very amiable and beneficent soverein : but, when the
grounds of this assertion were examined into, it was found to rest

76 NOTE A.

mainly on his having been popular in his youth for the sake of
his grandfather, Germanicus, This kind of testimony in behalf
of the antenatal beneficence of the Papacy will hardly prove that,
as Dr Newman boastfully asserts (p. 1 G), while " the nursery
and schoolroom authors are against" Rome, "the manly and
original thinkers are in her favour," or that they confess that
*' the Church in the Middle Ages was the mother of peace, and
humanity, and order." It must be a drowning cause that catches
at such a straw.

Dr Newman's second attempt to rebut an evil report of his
Church is certainly less infelicitous. In opposition to the
common tradition and rumour concerning the Jesuits, he cites
Blanco White's favorable account of their influence in Spain ;
though, to be sure, one cannot well see how this account takes
the sting out of the Lettres Frovinciales, or refutes the charges
which induced so many Governments in the last century to
expell the Jesuits from their dominions, and the Pope himself to
abolish the order.

On the other hand, his third attempt of the same kind is just
fit to run in harness with the first. In order to shew the
erroneousness of the Protestant notions of monks and monachism,
he quotes (p. 19) what "the very learned, and thoughtful, and
celebrated German historian, Dr Neander, — a deep-read student,
a man of facts, as a German should be," says about the institution
of monachism, and about the habits and practices of the monks,
in the time of Chrysostom and Augustin and Basil. May we
not expect ere long to hear him rebuking the ignorance and folly
of the sanitary reformers, who complain of the pollution of the
waters of the Thames at London Bridge, because, when it rises in
the Cotswolds, the rill is very clear and pure 1

Among the paralogisms of most frequent occurrence in these
Lectures, one is that of arguing from a part to a whole ; another
is that of converting an effect into a cause. Where a general
strong aversion like that of the English people to Popery, exists,
there will ever be a proneness to believe reports injurious to the
objects of this aversion ; and with regard to the appetite for
slander, it is most certain that the demand will soon produce a

NOTE A. 77

plentiful supply. lu the third Lecture, the object of which is to
prove that Fable is the basis of the Protestant view, Dr Newman
again says (p. 92), that he is "going to put his finger on three
small fountain-heads of the Tradition. The first shall be a
specimen of the tradition of literature, the second of the
tradition of wealth, and the third of the tradition of gentlemen."
Here we may remark, in the first place, that the existence of
spurious coin does not destroy or impair the value of the
genuine : nor did Ishmael's being the son of a concubine
invalidate the legitimacy of Isaac. All history would have to
be cast to the dogs, if we may not believe any portion of it
with which erring tradition and fable have been mixt i;p. But
assuredly the first body that would then tumble to the bottom
of the pit, would be the Church of Rome. Doubtless the
English aversion to Romanism has given birth to a number of
fables, to many gross exaggerations and misrepresentations : but
England has also produced a series of eminent men, who have
desired to speak the truth about Rome, and have spoken it, —
who have carefully investigated the grounds of her pretensions,
and have examined her system of doctrines, their origin and their
development, — who have turned them round and round, scanning
them on every side, and have found the truth overgrown by
manifold eri-ours, and corrupted by large admixtures of false-
hood, the moral life denaturalized, and tainted with all manner
of evil.

The first of the three traditions which Dr Newman selects,
to make examples of them, for the sake of proving that Fable is
tlie Basis of the popular Protestant view of his Church, is the
misrepi'esentation of the sermon of Eligius, which had already
gained considerable notoriety from its exposure by Mr Maitland,
in one of his learned and entertaining Essays on the Dark Ages.
In that series it had an appropriate place, more so than when
occupying ten pages of Dr Newman's Lecture. For, though it
is a remarkable instance of the carelessness with which even
celebrated authors go on repeating one another, without taking
the trovible of looking into the grounds of their assertions, it can
hardly be conceived to have had much influence on the popular

78 NOTE A.

view of Romanism. Its interest is chiefly as an example how
still, as of old, araXai-n-wpos 17 rrj? uXrjOeias t,7]Tr]crL<;, a remark
which certainly does not apply less to Rome than to other
communions.

Here however it may be observed that, though the history of
this misrepresentation proves that Protestant authors, as well as
Romanist, will receive and repeat stories without taking the
trouble of ascertaining their correctness, it also proves that
among Protestants, at all events, there are laborious and con-
scientious lovers of truth, who will search after it, and will be
zealous in proclaiming it, even when it makes for their adver-
saries. How many such men are to be found among the
Romish saints, or their canonizers, or their historians, is not
recorded.*

* In this instance, at least, Dr Newman lias not shewn that he has any
right to reprehend Mosheim. The wrong done to Eligius consists in this,
that by Maclaine, Robertson, Jortin, and Mr Hallam, he is rei:)orted to
have taught that Christianity consisted in paying ecclesiastical dues, and
divers ceremonial observances, making no mention of the love of God, or
of our moral duties. This latter negative feature in the account originates
entirely with Maclaine. There is not a word of the sort in Mosheim ; who
merely says, in his account of the seventh century (Part II. cap. iii.) ;
" Illi (antiquiores Christiani) Christum morte ac sangiiine suo peccata
mortalium expiasse docebant : Hi (qui hoc saeculo Christiani dicebantur),
pai-um aberat, quin decernerent, nuUi, qui sacrum ordinem sen ecclesiam
muueribus ditaret, coeli fores occlusas esse." To these words he subjoins
the extract from Eligius, without any observation upon it. He quotes it
solely to bear out this particular assertion, as it does, especially by the
words, Redimife miimas vestras de poena, etc., and Da, quia dedinius, which
bring out the constrast to the expiation through the blood of Christ.
Whereas Dr Newman, exulting in the victory ga'ined over half-a-dozen
Protestant historians and divines, not by himself but by two Protestants,
says (p. 98) : " Now let us proceed to the first father of Mumpsimus, the
Lutheran Mosheim himself :^(To enliven his anecdotical Lecture he had
prefaced his story of Eligius by Bentley's celebrated one about Munvpsimus.)
— His words run thus in his Ecclesiastical History : ' The earlier Christians,
. . . taught that Chriet had made expiation for the sins of men by his death
and his blood ; the latter (those of the seventh century) seemed to incul-
cate that the gates of heaven would be closed against none who should
enrich the clergy or the church with their donations. The former were
studious to maintain a holy simplicity, and to follow a pure and chaste
piety, the latter place the substance of religion in external rites and bodily
exercises.' And then, in order to illustrate this contrast, which he has
drawn out, between the si:)irituality of the first Christians and the formality

NOTE A.

70

Dr Newman's other two stories relate to our owu days ; and,
after tearing them to pieces elaborately, he adds (p. 119) : " And
now I will state my conviction, which I am sure to have con-
firmed by every intelligent person who takes the trouble to
examine the subject, that such slanders as I have instanced are

of the Papists, he quotes the famous passage ^vhich has been the matter
of our investigation.- Here Dr Newman misrepresents Moshemn, whose
quotation, as we have seen, is appended to the former sentence, not to the
latter It is introduced to substantiate that particular assertion, which it
does substantiate; and this is apparent also in Maclaine's Translation.
But as Dr Newman's version of these words differs from Madame s, he
probably made use of the original ; and, if so, he is utterly unjustifiable
m imputing any portion of the blame to "the Lutheran Mosheim, who
had a Lutheran love of truth, and exhibited it wonderfully m his InsMutes
of Ecclesiastical History. Still less does the excellent Chancellor of
Gottingen deserve my friend, Dr Waddington's, vehement abuse, which
Dr Newman takes pleasure in repeating, and for which there is not the
slightest ground. Nay, there seems to be a fatality about this passage,
that they who come near it shall run foul of it; for even Mr Maitland,
one of the most accurate of men, who, in his second Letter to Mr Rose
has pronounced so high a eulogium on Mosheim's wondeiful leainimg and
accuracy, has joined here in condemning him, pronouncmg (p. 113) that
the Sermon of Eligius " seems to have been written as if hehad antici-
pated all and each of Mosheim's and Maclaine's charges, and intended to
furnish a pointed answer to almost evei-y one." Mr Maitland does indeed
notice one inaccuracy in Mosheim's text (p. 109), that, though he_ printed
the passage m such a way as to shew that there were some omissions, he
did not indicate cdl." But the most vigilant correction of the press will
not secure an author from these inaccuracies, least of all in such a book as

Mosheim's. ^ ,, . ^^^

For myself, I became acquainted with the history of these misrepre-
sentations accidentally five and twenty years ago. When Southey was
engac^ed on his Vindication of his Book of the Church, he wrote to my
Brother, then resident at New College, and begged him to look m the
locSeL; at the Sermon of Eligius, which Mr Butler and Dr Lmgard had
accused Mosheim of misrepresenting. In telling me of this, my B other
said he had found that the Sermon was a very good, pious, practical one ,
but that, amid much excellent moral exhortation, it contained a few sen-
tences a;out ceremonial and ecclesiastical matters; that these Mosheim
had extracted, very correctly for his purpose, but by so doing had misled
his Translator into supposing that these sentences formed the substane
of the Sermon; and that this unwarranted assertion of Maclames had
been repeated by Robertson and others. This -f^^^*;-' "^^"^^fj^^^^^^^^^
to Southey, was incorporated m Southey's Letters to Mr Butler, publi.
n 1826 (pp. 59-62); where he speaks in a mild and sensible tone about
the matter, advantageously contrasted with that of the other wr.ters on

80 NOTE A.

the real foundation on which the Anti-CathoHc feeling mainly
rests in England, and without which it could not long be main-
tained." Surely this is something like putting the cart before
the horse, as the phrase is, or rather like making the column

it. " I should express myself (he says) not less indignantly than you have
done, if ujjon due examination I had not perceived that it was evidently
unintentional, and in what manner it had arisen. It originated with
Mosheim, an author whose erudition it would be superfluous to commend,
and to vsfhose fidelity, as far as my researches have lain in the same track,
I can bear full testimony. — The passage from Eligius is strictly in point
to the assertion in the text ; and Mosheim cannot justly be accused of
garbling the original, because he has not shewn that these exhortations
were accompanied with others to the practice of -Christian virtues. To
have done this would have been altogether irrelevant ; but by not doing it
he has misled his translator, who, supposing that St Eligius had required
nothing more than liberality to the Church from a good Christian, observes
that he makes no mention of any other virtues. The misrepresentation on
his part was plainly unintentional ; and it was equally so in Robertson, who
followed him ; and however censurable both may be for commenting thus
hastily upon an extract, without examining the context, Mosheim is clearly
acquitted of all blame." How often do we see that an ounce of common
sense is worth pounds, nay, hundredweights of leai-niug and logic ! But if
Dr Newman had taken this reasonable view of the matter, what would
have become of his Lecture ? What would have become of his denunci-
ations against Protestant fictions and fables ? What would have become
of his argument, if he had not produced any fable in that Lecture anterior
to 1851, to account for the origin and growth and sjpread of the English
aversion to Rome ?

As to Dr Newman's burst of indignation, when he winds up his story
by saying (p. 102), that he "knew enough of the Protestant mind, to be
aware how little the falsehood of any one of its traditions is an effectual
reason for its relinquishing it," and that accordingly in the new edition of
Mosheim, publisht in 1841, the text with Maclaine's observation is left
standing, "without a word of remark, or anything whatever to shew that
a falsehood had been uttered, a falsehood traditionally perpetuated, a
falsehood emphatically exposed," — it really looks like an assumed bluster
to impose upon his hearers. It must be by a slip of memory, by a transfer
of the present to the past, that he charges his former co-religionists with re-
taining their traditions, notwithstanding the exposure of their falsehood ; and
surely there is a very simple way of accounting for the retention of the
errour in the new edition of Mosheim. Without having the least notion
who the editor may be, I feel sure he was not aware that Maclaine's state-
ment had been shewn to be erroneous.

A like petty, almost i^altry, imputation, utterly imworthy of Dr Newman,
occui's in the next Lecture, where he tells us (p. 137) that Blanco White's
Poor Man's Preservative against Popery, used to be on the catalogue of the

NOTE A. 81

stand on the cobwebs which arc spun round its capital. At least
two of his three stories, since they belong to the year 1851, can
hardly have had much hand in producing the excitement of last
autumn ; however powerfully the supposititious Sermon of poor
Eligius may have contributed to inflame it. But who knows / if
we wait a while, may we not be told that they were among the
causes which brought about the Reformation 1 Chronology has
divers uses ; and not the least of them is, that it will now and
then pull in those who are running riot in manufacturing history
out of their own brain.

Dr Newman however admits that these and similar stories do
not form the one sole ground of the English hatred of Rome.
" Doubtless," he says, with exemplary candour, " there are argu-
ments of a different calibre, whatever their worth, which weigh
against Catholics with half-a-dozen members of the University,
with the speculative church-restorer, with the dilettante divine,
with the fastidious scholar, and with some others of a higher
character of mind ; whether St Justin Martyr said this or that ;
whether images should be drest in muslin, or hewed out of stone;
what criticism makes of a passage in the prophets, — questions
such as these, and others of a more serious cast, may be con-
clusive for or against the Church in the study or in the lecture-
room, but they have no influence with the many." Now, since
Dr Newman, in his prior state of being, spent so many years at
Oxford, and took an active part in the theological controversies
there, he must be a thoroughly competent witness, both as to the
points on which those controversies turned, and as to the number
of persons who took part in them. Therefore, in some future

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, but that, on enquiring after it
recently, he was told it was out of print. Hence he infers that it can never have
been popular, because it was too temperate, and adds (p. 166), "Truth is not
equal to the exigences of the Protestant cause ; falsehood is its best friend." But
surely there was ample reason for the withdrawal of that work from the Society's
Catalogue, in its author's subsequent notorious infidelity. This motive Dr New-
man suggests, (p. 13o) but rejects. It would not serve his purpose ; therefore it
could not be true. ^\^e m;iy feel some satisfaction, when we see our enemy
reduced to use sueh brittle weapons against us.

a

82

NOTE A,

Romish History of England, it will be recorded as an irrefra-
gable fact, resting on the most indisputable testimony, even
that of the greatest controversialist in Oxford, that in the twelve
years from 1832 to 1844 there were just "half-a-dozen members
of the University" who had anything to urge against Rome of
greater weight than mere flagrant forgeries, — and that these
weightier arguments were, whether Justin Martyr said this or
that, — whether images should be drest in muslin, or hewn out of
stone, — and what criticism makes of a passage in the prophets.
This is a sample of the history we may expect, when Protestant
fictions and fables are swept away, and Romish truth has no
longer any one to check its flight over the subject universe. Or,
should some solitary surviving Protestant, who had spent his life
in learned enquiries, presume to contradict this assertion, saying
that in a secret corner of the Bodleian he had discovered a unique
copy of certain Lectures on Romanism and Popular Frotestantism,
which were delivered at Oxford during that very period, in the
year 1837, and in which a totally different line of argument was
taken against Romanism, and one of great depth and power, he
will be held to be utterly confuted, when he produces the book
and exhibits the name on the titlepage ; as it will be deemed a
palpable impossibility that the author of the above-mentioned
statement could have forgotten his having written such a work ;
which our unfortunate Protestant will therefore be pronounced to
have forged, and the guilt of which he will have to expiate by a
lifelong imprisonment in the dens of the Holy Office.

It is true, Dr Newman does just allow that there are also other
questions " of a more serious cast," which " may be conclusive for
or against the Church in the study or in the lecture-room."
These words may embrace his own Lectures on Romanism. They
may be meant to comprise all that has been said against Rome
by Jewel and Hooker and Field and Andrewes and Bramhall and
Jackson and Taylor and Chillingworth and Stillingfleet and
Barrow. These men have brought forward certain arguments
" of a more serious cast," which must needs " weigh against "
Romanism with a portion of the afore-mentioned " half-a-dozen

NOTE A. S3

members of the University." By this rhetorical artifice the
author preserves himself from saying what is absolutely false. I
do not mean to accuse him of intending to deceive his readers.
But it appears always to have been almost a law of his mind,
to see hardly anything but what he can colour with his own
opinions and feelings. The objects and facts which seem to
make for him, he multiplies and magnifies : those which are
adverse, he diminishes till they are almost imperceptible : and
thus, by exaggerating the common practice of marshaling a
host of Brobdignagians in opposition to a few scattered Lilli-
putians, he leads the unwary reader to believe that his victory
is certain and decisive. This process, exemplified more or less
in all Dr Newman's writings, has never been carried to such a
highth as in these last Lectures, in which almost everything is
out of place, out of keeping, out of sequence, out of proportion ;
his logical caleidoscope giving a semblance of harmony to objects,
which in themselves have neither significance nor connexion.

If we ask what Dr Newman has effected by these two Lec-
tures, the first and third, toward explaining the causes of the
English hostility to Popery, the answer is. Nothing. Of the story
of Maria Monk, about which he speaks in the fourth Lecture, I
am ignorant. If the statement, that above two hundred thousand
copies of it have been circulated in the last fifteen years, be
correct, it must needs have inflamed many prejudices. But
as to the stories I have referred to, you might as reasonably
assert that the wheel is impelled by the mud which flies off
from it. The great fact remains just as it was, unexplained,
unaccounted for. Doubtless, it has been fostered by traditions ;
but these, as I have said in the Charge, are great historical
traditions, such as brought about the Reformation, not only in
England, but in many other regions of Europe, and would have
done so more widely still, if it had not been supprest by the
sword of the civil power. If we would trace the origin of these
traditions, we may search in the records of the Councils of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we may search in the his-
tories, and in the literature of the Middle Ages. Both before and

G 2

84 NOTE B.

since the Reformation, the great adversary to the Papacy has
not been Fable, but History.

Note B : p. 7.

I HAVE already had occasion to shew, in my Vindication of
Luther, that Dr Newman's conception of the great German
Reformer, as exhibited in his Lectures on Justification, was no
more like him than it was like the man in the moon. In his
subsequent writings, whenever he speaks of Luther, the same
fabulous shadow reappears. This however is no more than an
instance of a practice which has been growing upon hira, that of
substituting the creations of his own mind for the realities of
history. In the very singular confession and retractation prefixt
to his Essay on Develop7nent, he has himself avowed that he was
wont to do so. After quoting some of the strongest passages
condemnatory of Rome from his earlier writings, he says : " If
you ask me how an individual could venture, not simply to hold,
but to publish such views of a communion so ancient, so wide-
spreading, so fruitful in saints, I answer that I said to myself, ' I
am not speaking my own words, I am but following almost a
consensus of the divines of my Church. They have ever used the
strongest language against Rome, even the most able and learned
of them. I wish to throw myself into their system. While I
say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary for
our position.'"

Now in this passage, I am persuaded, Dr Newman grievously
wronged his former self. He had not said to himself, " I am not
speaking my own words, I am but following a consensus of the
divines of my Church." He had not said to himself, " While
I say what they say, I am safe." He had not said to himself,
'* Such views are necessary for our position." He can never have
been guilty of such a flagrant violation of a writer's highest,
most sacred duty, as to bring such conduct distinctly before his
conscience, and to set up such an excuse for it. Still doubtless,

NOTE B. 85

though his words caricature, they do in some measure represent
his practice. He had done what he here charges himself with,
though he cannot have cheated his conscience with such a paltry
excuse for it. lu fact we are all too apt to do so, more or less.
When we have to speak, even on the most solemn and awful
subjects, instead of endeavouring earnestly and laboriously to
ascertain the truth, and to speak the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, we too often merely give utterance to
what we seem to perceive from our casual point of view,
under the dominant feelings of the moment, and often merely
echoing the voices of others. Nevertheless the evil of such a
practice has its gradations; and it will be worse, in a calm,
meditative, self-conscious, self-analysing mind, like Dr Newman's,
which is accustomed to watch its own movements, as is implied
in his confession. Even in this practice we may discern a
nascent tendency Eome-wards, both in the setting up of authority
instead of and above truth, and in the aptness to throw the
responsibility of his actions upon others. Thoroughly Romish
too is the notion, While I say what they say I am safe, — a
motive avowed by a number of our Romanizers, — as though the
purpose of man's mission here on earth were to cry Saiive qtd
jyeut, and to be the first in following his own cry. Dr Newman
might call these the germs of his subsequent development, the
indications that Rome was his destination : and such indications
and germs there are in all men, unless the Spirit of God enables
us to overcome and crush them.*

* Since these paragraphs went to the press, I have met with Dr Newman's
attempt to explain and vindicate his Retractation, in the Lectures on Anglicanism,
p. 1 17. But I do not find any reason in it for altering what I have written. Indeed
I myself had tried to defend his former self against him. He now says that what
he meant to apologize for was, not his holding, but his publishing his opinions
hostile to Rome. " He spoke what he felt, what he thought, what at the time he
held, and nothing but what he held, with an internal assent ; but he would not
have dared to say it, he would have shrunk, as well he might, from standing up,
a sinner and a worm, an accuser against the great Roman communion, unless in
doing so he felt he had been doing simply what his own Church required of him,
and what was necessary for his Church's case." With regard to these last words
I still feel inclined to question the correctness of his memory. A hired advocate

86 NOTE B.

Of course, in proportion as he approximated to Rome, this
habit of mind grew stronger. When a Church sets up herself as
the Truth, she must needs cease in time to perceive that there is
any essential difference between truth and falsehood. Both are
regarded as dependent on her will ; and such a will is soon
tempted to disport itself, and to display its absolute authority,
by decreeing each to be the other. He who would usurp God's
place, as is set forth in a number of mythological fables, makes
himself over to the Evil One.

Similar notions concerning historical truth are exprest in the
Advertisement prefixt to the second number of the Lives of the
English Saints ; about the authorship of which little doubt could
be entertained, even without the initials subjoined to it. " The
question," it is there said, " will naturally suggest itself to the
reader, whether the miracles recorded in these narratives — are to
be received as matters of fact ; and in this day, and under our
present circumstances, we can only reply, that there is no reason
why they should not be. They are the kind of facts proper to
ecclesiastical history, just as instances of sagacity and daring,
personal prowess or crime, are the facts proper to secular history.
And if the tendency of credulity or superstition to exaggerate
and invent creates a difficulty in the reception of facts ecclesias-
tical, so does the existence of party spirit, private interests,
personal attachments, malevolence, and the like, call for caution
and criticism in the reception of facts secular and civil. There
is little or nothing then, 'prima fade, in the miraculous accounts
in question to repell a properly taught, and religiously disposed

does indeed consciously ask himself what is necessary to make out his client's
case. But a divine's business is not to make out a case. He has to speak the
truth ; and when he has duly convinced himself that what he desires to say is
true, he has only two questions to ask himself, first. Is it desirable under tlie
present circumstcmces that this particular truth should he uttered ? and in what
ma?imr ? and secondly, A7n I the right person to utter this truth ? shall I be able
to utter it wisely, soberly, in such maimer that it shall exercise the Itealing, saving/
power of Truth ? or omjht 1 to leave it for some one better qicalifkd to bo TrutWs
spokesman and prophet. Dr Newman's temptation however is not to make out a
case, except for his own system. He builds up that ; and to that, as in Joseph's
dream, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars have to make obeisance.

NOTE B. 87

mind ; which will accordingly give them a prompt and hearty
acquiescence, or a passive admission, or receive them in part, or
hold them in suspense, or absolutely reject them, according as
the evidence makes for or against them, or is, or is not of a
trustworthy character."

Here thus much may readily be granted, that a wise lover of
Truth, will not take upon himself to pronounce absolutely a priori
against any of these ecclesiastical facts, as Dr Newman terms
them. In judging of them, he will be guided by the same
principles of criticism, which determine his decision with regard
to facts of secular history, modifying those principles, so far as
may be required by the nature of the subject matter. For in
secular history the main facts are on a large scale, are wrought
before the eyes of the world ; and the whole nation in a manner
takes part in them and witnesses them. Of that which is
anecdotical, and merely personal, the judicious historian will be
sparing; and, when he introduces it, he will exercise a strict
scrutiny of the evidence. But these ecclesiastical facts are mostly
anecdotical ; and their evidence is usually of the vaguest, mea-
grest kind, a mere rumour, a tradition proceeding from a witness
incapable of judging, and apt to be imposed upon ; and this
tradition is ever found to grow more marvellous in proportion
as it recedes from the fountain-head. If Dr Newman, and his
associates in the Lives of the Saints, had resolved to exercise the
strict principles of historical criticism on their facts, those Lives
would have remained unwritten, or would have shrunk up into
mere fragmentary skeletons. But they have lulled their con-
sciences, by saying to themselves, " These are the kind of facts
proper to Ecclesiastical History ; and in this day, and under our
present circumstances, we can only say that there is no reason
why they should not be true. When the race of Protestant
cavilers is extinct, it will be otherwise. We shall then be able
to speak out more boldly." Yet surely an ecclesiastical historian
ought to be quite as scrupulous about the correctness of his facts
as a secular. Religion gives no license for lying. Ought he not to
lay down the good old rule for himself? ovk en tou -KapaTv^ovTOQ

88 NOTE B.

Tvvvdav6jJie.voQ ij^itoaa ypd^etv, ovS' we £"oi e^ok'ei, a'XX' oIq t£ avroc
Traprjt^ KCti irapd twv dWwv oaov Zwarhv (iKpi^eia. inpi tKatxrov
kTTE^iXdujy. Ouglit he not also to keep diligent watch against
and to reject the temptation, that eV i^^v ctKpoamv ro fit) fivduSsc
avTioi' (XTtpirtaTEpoi' (ParElrai ;

That ro fivdiocitg exercises a mighty fascination on the mind of
Dr Newman and his followers, is seen far too clearly in those
Lives of the English Saints. Another extraordinary instance of
it occurs in his Sermon on the Establishment of the Romish
Hierarchy, last autumn, in which, after speaking of the conversion
of the Anglosaxons, he says : " The fair form of Christianity rose
up and grew and expanded like a beautiful pageant from north
to south ; it was majestic, it was solemn, it was bright, it was
beautiful and pleasant, it was soothing to the griefs, it was plea-
sant to the hopes of man, it was at once a teaching and a worship ;
it had a dogma, a mystery, a ritual of its own ; it had an hierar-
chical form. A brotherhood of holy pastors, with mitre and crosier,
and hand uplifted, walked forth and blessed and ruled the joyful
people. The crucifix headed the procession, and simple monks
were there with hearts in prayer, and sweet chants resounded,
and the holy Latin tongue was heard, and boys came forth in
white, swinging censers, and the fragrant cloud arose, and mass
was sung, and the saints were invoked ; and day after day, and
in the still night, and over the woody hills, and in the quiet
plains, as constantly as sun and moon and stars go forth in
heaven, so regular and solemn was the stately march of blessed
services on earth, high festival, and gorgeous procession, anc
soothing dirge, and passing bell, and the familiar evening call tc
prayer ; till he who recollected the old pagan time, would think
unreal what he beheld and heard, and conclude he did but see a
vision, so marvellously was heaven let down upon earth, so tri-
umphantly were chased away the fiends of darkness to their
prison below."

This page out of a Della-Cruscan novel, — who could suppose
that it was intended to describe a portion of real history ? Who,
remembering what he may have read in other books concerning

NOTE B. 89

the Anglosaxon Heptarchy and Monarchy, would imagine that
this could be a representation of that period ? To be sure, it
will do for that period, as well as for any other, and seems rather
designed for the Elysian fields, or the Islands of the Blessed.
Perhaps it may be deemed very beautiful by those who can con-
ceive Beauty as existing apart from Truth. Others it will rather
remind of the painted dolls, robed in pink muslin, with spangles
and beads, that are set up to be worshipt by the devotees of the
Virgin. To others it may seem that the Author has described
his own vision best in calling it " a beautiful pageant." After a
few more sentences, we are told that, " as time went on, the work
did but sink deeper and deeper into the English nature." — The
English did indeed " become a peculiar, special people, — I will
say a bold thing, — in its staidness, sagacity, and simplicity, more
like the mind that rules, through all time, the princely line of
Koman pontiffs, than perhaps any other Christian people whom
the world has seen." From which sagacity, and which simplicity,
— the simplicity of the serpent, — may God ever preserve us ! A
very hold thing indeed the writer has here said, with far more
of boldness, than of truth, — nay, a thing which could not be true.
What would a nation be, with a heart and mind like that of the
Popes, like that which is imposed upon the Popes by their training
and their awful position 1 " And so (the Sermon proceeds) things
went on for many centuries. Generation followed generation ;
revolution came after revolution ; great men rose and fell : there
were bloody wars, and invasions, conquests, slavery, recoveries,
civil dissensions, settlements." But all the while " boys came
forth in white, swinging censers ; and the fragrant cloud arose."
And so things went on down to the time of the Reformation.
Then people grew tired of all these pretty playthings, — as chil-
dren will grow tired of sugarplums and lollipop. "They preferred
the heathen virtues of their original nature to the robe of grace
which God had given : they fell back — upon their worldly integrity,
honour, energy, prudence, and perseverance :" wherein they were
not far wrong, if there was nothing more real and living in their
previous state than processions " with mitre and crosier," and

90 NOTE B.

chants in " the holy Latin tongue," and " boys in white, swinging-
censers."

I will quote another example, shewing how, in this mode of
painting, black becomes white, and white becomes black, just as
the artist's momentary fancy dictates. In the Essay on Develop-
ment, having composed a picture of the early Church, by a kind
of mosaic, out of the reports of Heathen writers, the Author sets
himself to shew how closely this corresponds with the present
aspect of the Church of Rome, desiring hereby to establish the
identity of the one with the other. The paragraph in which this
is done, is quite a prodigy of rhetorical ingenuity. " If there is
a form of Christianity now in the world which is accused of gross
superstition, of borrowing its rites and customs from the heathen,
and of ascribing to forms and ceremonies an occult virtue ; a
religion which is considered to burden and enslave the mind by
its requisitions, to address itself to the weakminded and ignorant,
to be supported by sophistry and imposture, and to contradict
reason and exalt mere irrational faith ; — a religion which im-
presses on the serious mind very distressing views of the guilt and
consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, one by
one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a
grave shadow over the future ; — a religion which holds up to
admiration the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons
from enjoying it if they would ; — a religion, the doctrines of
which, be they good or bad, are to the generality of men un-
known, which is considered to bear on its very surface signs of
folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance suffices to judge of it,
and careful examination is preposterous ; which is felt to be so
simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard and at plea-
sure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the accurate
distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or painfully
to determine how far this or that story is literally true, what must
be allowed in candour, or what is improbable, or what cuts two
ways, or what is not proved, or what may be plausibly defended ;
a religion such, that men look at a convert to it with a feel-
ing which no other sect raises, except Judaism, Socialism, or

NOTE B. 91

Mormonism, with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, as the case
may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he had had
an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with
dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which
claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, re-
duced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; — a religion
which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as
dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims
of government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the
enemy of human nature, and a ' conspirator against its rights and
privileges ;' — a religion which they consider the champion and
instrument of darkness, and a pollution calling down upon the
land the anger of heaven ; — a religion which they associate with
intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak about in whispers,
which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes wrong, and to
which they impute whatever is unaccountable ; — a religion the
very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad
epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they
would persecute if they could ; if there be such a religion now in
the world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed
it when first it came forth from its Divine Author" (pp. 240 — 242).
This marvellous sentence might suggest many remarks. I will
merely observe, that, if it is to be regarded as anything more
serious than a feat of rhetorical skill, the proof of identity is not
to be found in similarity of outward aspect at distant periods,
but in similarity of spirit and principle. Indeed it may be
said to be a moral impossibility that any living power on this
changeful earth should exhibit the same aspect at two periods,
with an interval of eighteen hundred years between them. The
aspect of dead things, such as the pyramids, may change but
little; but no man at seventy can look like what he was when a
boy : he who came nejyest to it would be a dwarf. The child
is the " father of the man :" he is not the man. Yet the full-
grown man is more like the boy, than a dwarf would be. Nor
can a nation, after a millennium, present the same form and
features. If the Church, after eighteen hundred years, during

92 NOTE B.

which nation after nation has been gathered into her^ during
which the kings of the earth have bowed down to her, during
which generation after generation has been proclaiming her doc-
trine by word and action, still appears in the eyes of those who
have watcht and traced her progress, as, when she first emerged
from Judea, she appeared in the eyes of those who knew nothing
of her, and merely hated her as an alien intruder, what must have
become of all the power with which she was entrusted for the
regeneration and purification of the world 1 Has she been
wrapping it up in a napkin, and burying it in the ground 1 Has
she been unable to make it apparent in any way that the King-
dom of God is come upon earth 1 Such powerlessness could
only have proceeded from the fact, that the Prince of this world
had gained dominion within her, and over her ; whereupon he
would triumph by trampling her in the dust.

But my purpose in citing this passage was to shew how
rapidly, when it suits the rhetorician's purpose, everything is
changed. He waves his wand ; and a totally different vision
starts up. In his recent Lectures, as we have seen, Dr Newman
undertakes to explain how it has come to pass that the Church of
Rome is regarded with such scorn and hatred in England. Now,
if there were any truth in the picture we have just been contem-
plating, if this were the aspect that she presents, the explanation
would be ready at hand. If the idea and presence of Christianity
is still as strange and alien in all the nations of Europe, as it was
in the time of Tacitus, no wonder that it should still be termed
and treated as " a pernicious superstition." But, as I have just
said, the rhetorician waves his wand ; and what do we see now 1
" Considering, what is as undeniable a fact as that there is a
country called France, or an ocean called the Atlantic, the actual
extent, the renown, and the manifold influence of the Catholic
religion, — considering that it surpasses in territory and in popu-
lation any other Christian communion, nay, surpasses them all put
together, — considering that it is the religion of two hundred mil-
lions of sovils, that it is found in every quarter of the globe, that
it penetrates into all classes of the social body, that it is received

NOTE IJ. 93

by entire nations, that it is so multiform in its institutions, and
so exuberant in its developments, and so fresh in its resources, as
any tolerable knowledge of it will be sure to bring home to our
minds, — that it has been the creed of men the most profound
and the most refined, and the source of works the most bene-
ficial, the most arduous, and the most beautiful ; and, moreover
considering that, thus ubiquitous, thus commanding, thus intel-
lectual, thus energetic, thus efficient, it has remained one and the
same for centuries, — considering that all this must be owned by
its most virulent enemies, explain it how they will ; — surely it is
a phenomenon the most astounding, that a nation like our own,
should so manage to hide this fact from their minds, — as habi-
tually to scorn, and ridicule, and abhor, the professors of that
religion. — Was there ever such an instance of self-sufficient,
dense, and ridiculous bigotry^ as that which rises up and walls
in the minds of our fellow countrymen from all knowledge of one
of the most remarkable phenomena which the history of the
world has seen 1 This broad fact of Catholicism, as real as the
continent of America, or the Milky Way, which they cannot deny.
Englishmen will not entertain ; they shut their eyes, they thrust
their heads into the sand, and try to get rid of a great vision, a
great reality, under the name of Popery; — they will not recognise,
what infidels recognise as well as Catholics, the vastness, the
grandeur, the splendour, the loveliness of the manifestations of
this time-honoured ecclesiastical confederation" (pp. 41, 42).

If there were truth in the preceding picture, all this perplexity
would vanish. It is not to be wondered at that Ulysses was not
recognised when he came to his home in rags, after twenty years
of absence. Our poet however has here chosen to strip off his rags,
and to exhibit him in his majesty and beauty. Were the latter
picture a whit truer than the former, the recognition must needs
be instantaneous : but I am afraid the resemblance in Rome
hardly extends beyond her desire to inflict summary justice on
her enemies.

If we desire to account for these strange incongruities, a clue
is supplied to us by what Dr Newman has said, in his Essay on

94 NOTE B.

Development, concerning ideas. Ideas with him are not the
objects of intellectual intuition, but judgements formed by
comparison, contrast, abstraction, generalization, adjustment,
classification (p. 30). This peculiarity of his intellectual vision
manifests itself in all his writings from the very first, and has
had a powerful influence in determining the whole course of his
life. It may even be said to have carried him to Rome. If he
had ever had an intuition of a Divine idea, of a Divine truth, he
could never have gone to Rome. But this was wanting ; and
therefore, with all his wonderful power of logical combination,
and with all his wonderful subtilty of analysis, he has gone on
receding further and further from the Truth. In fact this is
the Romish habit of mind ; and therefore, whenever during the
Middle Ages men gifted with the power of intellectual intuition
arose, they were apt to stray away, or at least to diverge, from
the Church, and fell under her censure. Tlhey who had seen the
Truth as a living Presence, could not be content to receive it
swathed up in a multitude of dogmatical decrees. They knew
that there is a higher criterion of truth than any human autho-
rity ; and they could not submit to the latter, when it impugned
the former.

The whole practice of the Catenae Patrum, by which the
Tractarians from the first tried to establish their propositions,
arose from the same intellectual want. When ideas are merely
the results of comparison, and abstraction, and generalization,
and classification, we need a multitude of witnesses to help us in
constructing them. But what would the Duke of Wellington
have said to a man who brought him a Catena of Generals to tell
him what he was to do 1 or what would Shakspeare have made out
of a Catena of Poets and Critics ? The intuitive mind proceeds
at once to the truth, and bursts the Catenae by which Authority
would bind it. Nay, Dr Newman himself had too much life in
him to submit permanently to this bondage. In his Essay on
Development he has burst all his old Catenae asunder ; though,
from not knowing what better to substitute for them, not know-
ing that the Truth makes us free, and that this freedom is its

NOTE B. 95

own divine law, he has taken shelter from the waywardness and
frowardness of his own understanding by girding himself with
the chain of an absolute authority. Yet in this Essay also the
old tendency displays itself. In every part of it he tries to
establish his propositions by scraping together every kind of
authority with which his great reading will supply him ; and
these are often constrained to bear witness to propositions they
never dreamt of. For he rejects all the processes of ordinary
criticism. He seldom thinks of cross-examining his witnesses,
of asking what they meant to say, what in their position, in-
tellectual and moral, they c juld not but say ; though very often
he puts his own meaning, not seldom a very incongruous one,
into their words. Indeed this mode of dealing with history, and
with the writers of former times, is that which is habitual among
Romanists, as any one familiar with their writings must be aware.
They rake up whatever they can find that appears to favour
their purpose. Whether it be really favorable, they do not
enquire. They repudiate criticism as uncatholic, as Protestant.
Their canons are, that all opinions held by their Church must be
true, and that everybody who ever spoke the truth, must have
said what their Church says. This is their mode of obtaining-
what they call a Catholic consensus. This process, in another
region of literature, is exemplified continually, and often very
beautifully, in the Broad Stotxe of Honour, and still more in the
later writings of its Author.

Let me cite a curious instance of this procedure, which hap-
pened just now to strike me. In page 263 of the Essay on
Development, Dr Newman argues that, the Bishops of the Church
" were not mere local officers, but possessed a power essentially
ecumenical." Among a number of sayings and facts, real or
imaginary, alledged to prove this, he says, " The see of St Hippo-
lytus, as if he belonged to all places in the orhis terrarinn,
cannot be located, and is variously placed in the neighbourhood
of Rome and in Arabia." Now this is a very strange statement,
which stands quite alone, and is at variance with all we know of
ecclesiastical history; wherefore a man who cared about the

96 NOTE C.

accuracy of his statements, would have taken some pains to
ascertain its validity. But what is the fact ? Hippolytus, as
has just been proved most convincingly by my friend, the
Chevalier Bunsen, was Bishop of Portus, near Rome; and the
notion of his having been a Bishop in Arabia is a mere blunder of
certain ecclesiastical historians, as has also been shewn in the
clearest manner. Yet Dr Newman has caught hastily at this
blunder, and bearing it in his hand has jumpt to the conclusion,
that Hippolytus " belonged to all places in the orbis terrarum."

That such a method, if method it can be called, is altogether
lawless and chaotic, that it may be made to favour any arbitrary
result, is plain. Take a sentence or two here and there from
this Father, and a couple of expressions from another, add half a
canon of this Council, a couple of incidents out of some eccle-
siastical historian, an anecdote from a chronicler, two conjectures
of some critic, and half-a-dozen drachms of a schoolman, mix
them up in rhetoric qucmt. suff., and shake them well together, —
and thus we get at a theological development. But who except the
prescriber can tell what the result will be ? and may not he
produce any result he chooses ? Yet this is held out as the
method by which we are to be preserved from drawing false
inferences from the words of Scripture.

Note C: p. 12.

Everybody who has any acquaintance with the theological
literature of the last eighteen years, must be aware that, at least
durino- the former half of that period, it was continually asserted
by the writers of the Tractarian school, that their position sup-
plied the only sure ground for resisting the arguments of Rome.
Protestantism they derided : it had no power of coherence, no
consistency, no deep roots, no ancient foundations ; it was ca-
pricious, variable, ephemeral, the creature of wilfulness, depend-
ing on each man's private judgement. But, as for themselves,
they were planted on the rock of Antiquity, upheld by the

NOTE C. 97

concurrence of ages, with the whole learned body of Anglican
Divines to form their main line, and the Fathers, as their tri-
arians, in the rear. With such a host at their back, how could
they fail to conquer 1 In the confident assurance of success, they
rusht on so impetuously as ere long to leave the Anglican
Divines far behind ; and several of the foremost fell into an
ambush, and were made captive.

When he who was the chief leader of the Movement, delivered
his Lectures on Romanism and Popular Protestantism in 1837,
his aim was to mark out this very ground. Protestantism, or the
bugbear which he called by that name, he disliked and despised.
The main purpose of his Lectures is to strengthen his position
against Rome ; and he tries hard to persuade himself and his
readers that he has done so effectually. For instance, at the end
of the Lecture on Antiquity (p. 98), he writes : " Enough has
been said to shew the hopefulness of our own prospects in the
controversy with Rome. We have her own avowal that the
Fathers ought to be followed, and again, that she does not follow
them ; what more can we require than her witness against her-
self, which is here supplied us 1 If such inconsistency is not at
once fatal to her claims, which it would seem to be, at least it is
a most encouraging omen in our contest with her. We have but
to remain pertinaciously and immovably fixed on the ground of
Antiquity ; and, as truth is ours, so will the victory be also. We
have joined issue with her, and that in a point which admits of a
decision, — of a decision, as she confesses, against herself Abstract
arguments, original views, novel interpretations of Scripture, may
be met by similar artifices on the other side ; but historical facts
are proof against the force of talent, and remain where they were,
when it has expended itself. How mere Protestants, who rest
upon no such solid foundation, are to withstand our common
adversary, is not so clear, and not our concern. We would fain
make them partakers of our vantage ground ; but since they
despise it, they must take care of themselves, and must not com-
plain if we refuse to desert a position which promises to be
impregnable, — impregnable both as against Romanists, and

H

98 NOTE C.

against themselves." Again he says (p. 25) : " At this day,
when the connexion of Protestantism with infidelity is so evident,
what claim has the former upon our sympathy ? and to what
theology can the serious Protestant, dissatisfied with his system,
betake himself, but to Romanism, unless we display our cha-
racteristic principles, and shew him that he may be Catholic and
Apostolic, yet not Roman 1 Such, as is well known, was the
service actually rendered by our Church to the learned German
divine, Grabe, at the end of the seventeenth century, who, feeling
the defects of Lutheranism, even before it had lapst, was contem-
plating a reconciliation with Rome, when, finding that England
ofiered what to a disciple of Ignatius and Cyprian were easier
terms, he conformed to her creed, and settled and died in this
country." So again, in p. 253, he writes : "These distinctions —
are surely portions of a real view, which, while it relieves the
mind of those burdens and perplexities which are the portion
of the mere Protestant, is essentially distinct from Romanism."

Other passages to a like efiect might easily be adduced ; but it
is needless. He who ought to know the strength and worth of
these opinions, better than any one else, now declares that they
are utterly strengthless and worthless. He not only rejects them,
but scouts and spurns them. His chief business at present is to
build again the things which he destroyed.

Quod petiit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit,
Diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.

The main object of his Lectures on the Difficulties of Anglicanism is
to shew the feebleness and untenableness of the opinions of which
seventeen years ago he was the main promulgator and champion.
Nothing can exceed the contempt, the scorn, with which he
speaks of those opinions. To all other modes of opinion he can
be indulgent. " T can understand (he says, p. 128), I can
sympathize with those old-world thinkers, whose commentators
are Mant and D'Oyly, whose theologian is Tomlin, whose ritualist
is Wheatly, and whose canonist is Burns. — Those also I can un-
derstand, who take their stand upon the Prayerbook ; or who

NOTE C. 99

honestly profess to follow the consensus of Anglican divines, as
the voice of authority and the standard of faith. Moreover I can
quite enter into the sentiment, with which members of the liberal
and infidel school investigate the history and the documents of
the early Church. — But (he adds, turning to his own quondam
associates and followers), what a Catholic would feel so prodigious
is this, — that such as you, my brethren, should consider Chris-
tianity given from Heaven once for all, should protest against
private judgement, should profess to transmit what you have
received, and yet, from diligent study of the Fathers, — from
living, as you say, in the atmosphere of antiquity, should come
forth into open day with your new edition of the Catholic Faith,
different from that held in any existing body of Christians, which
not half-ardozen men all over the world would honour with their
imprimatur ; and then, withal, should be as positive in practice
about its truth in every part, as if the voice of mankind were
with you, instead of against you. You are a body of yesterday ;
you are a drop in the ocean of professing Christians ; yet you
would give the law to priest and prophet ; and you fancy it a
humble office forsooth, suited to humble men, to testify the very
truth of revelation to a fallen generation, — which has been in
unintermittent traditionary error. You have a mission to teach
the National Church, which is to teach the British Empire, which
is to teach the world. You are more learned than Greece ; you
are purer than Rome ; you know better than St Bernard ; you
judge how far St Thomas was right, and where he is to be read
with caution, or held up to blame." By these, and similar stinging
words he lashes his credulous admirers, if so be he may again
prevail upon them to follow him whom they have found so
unerring a leader. The objections, which others have frequently
urged against the Tractarian doctrines, but which were repelled
with indignation, he himself brings forward in the most cutting
form. He tells them that they " have an eclectic or an original
religion of their own" (p. 132), that their rule of faith is " their
own private judgement."

For the sake of efiecting some sort of reconciliation, or rather

100 NOTE C.

compromise, between these and his former opinions, and of
accounting for their gross apparent inconsistency, much con-
temptuous abuse is poured upon the Church of England, which
is called throughout by the degrading name of the Estahlishment,
and is asserted to have developt its Erastian character more and
more during the last twenty years ; so that, though it might be
mistaken for Catholic and Apostolic by the profoundest and
most sagacious divines, when Tractarianism entered upon its
mission, no intelligent man can suppose it to be such now.
" During the last twenty years (he says, p. 58) — the National
Church lias changed and is changing with the Nation." As to
this fact there cannot be a question. Perhaps twenty years never
pass over a Nation, unless it be the Chinese, without some kind
of change in it. At least it has never been so in Christendom,
since Christianity introduced the great spring of all improvement,
of all progress, into humanity. What indeed must be the con-
dition of a Church, if it makes no advance in twenty years ? Of
the Church, above all, as of our spiritual life generally, may it be
said, that non progredi est regredi. Nor could the Church remain
unaffected by the ever increasing, almost multiplying velocity in
every other sphere of human action. The only question therefore
is, What is the nature and character of the changes that have
taken place in the Church during the last twenty years ? Nor, 1
think, can any candid man, who has observed what has been
going on, and who has any information as to what was the state
of things twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago, hesitate a moment
in replying, that, under God's blessing, the condition of our
Church has been continually improving during the last half
century. The information with which my oflScial position sup-
plies me, enables me to state that the improvement in this
Archdeaconry has been very considerable during the last ten
years : nor have I any reason for supposing that we have been
more favoured than other parts of England. It may be that the
increase in the power of the world, in the power of Mammon,
during the same period, has been still greater, and that both
parties have been gathering their forces for some great and

NOTE C. 101

terrible conflict. This however is a different point. If our
Church had a claim to the love, the zeal, the devotion of her
children twenty years ago, she has a still stronger claim now, which
is only hightened, not lowered, by the increast strength of her
enemies. In the general character of our pastors the improve-
ment has been great, in their zeal and love for their people,
in their attention to the education of their flocks. To speak
of outward, visible, and tangible facts, the multiplication of
churches and schools, the institution and erection of Training
Schools, bear witness that the Church is not forgetful of her
pastoral office. The large increase of our Colonial Episcopate,
and of the ministry under it, the addition to our Episcopate at
home, which, we may trust, is only the first step toward a further
increase, are facts that claim our gratitude. Dr Newman indeed
speaks derisively of these facts. Ascribing almost everything
that has been effected to his own party, he says (p. 93) : " The
movement succeeded in gaining an increase in the number of
Episcopal sees at home and abroad : " but, to impair the value of
this fact, he adds : " If the Apostolical Movement desired to
increase the Episcopate, it was with a view to its own Apostolical
principles : it had no wish merely to increase the staff of Govern-
ment officers in England or in the Colonies, the patronage of a
ministry, the erection of rural palaces, and the Latitudinarian
votes in Parliament," This merely exemplifies his usual trick
of giving every fact whatever shape and hue he chooses, by
bringing out and exaggerating its accidents. He ought to
have known that the number of Episcopal votes in Parliament
has not been increast. As to the ordinary adjuncts of an
Episcopal See, they who wisht to see an increase of the Sees,
can hardly have been such visionaries as not to have known
that those adjuncts would accompany the increase.

With regard to doctrine also we may say, with hearty thanks-
giving to God for the grace vouchsafed to us, that an immense,
ever-widening improvement has taken place since the beginning
of the century. The Socinian leaven has almost disappeared
from our pulpits. The meagre moral essays with which our

log NOTE C.

fathers were so poorly dieted, are hardly to he heard. The
distinctive doctrines of our faith are brought forward, more
or less prominently, in almost every church. At the same time
the Antinomian extravagances, which were not uncommon at
the first revival of Evangelical preaching, are become rare ; and
a better appreciation of the Church, and of her rites and ordi-
nances, has been gaining ground among the disciples of that
School. The strange, perplexing fact is, that, while our Church,
through God's blessing, has in this manner been putting on her
strength, and girding herself with her apparel, so many of her
ministers, and those too who profest to love her most, have been
casting away their love for her, and joining her enemies and
revilers. Such is the power of wilfulness in our days : If thou
wilt not do everything that I hid thee, I will throw myself into the
arms of the harlot.

This extraordinary inconsistency has been pointed out with
his usual force by the Bishop of St David's in his recent ad-
mirable Charge : " The Church of England (he says, p. 19)
stands at this moment in a very peculiar situation ; one, I
believe I might say, without example in her own history, or in
that of any other Church. At no previous epoch, since the
recovery of her purity and her independence, has she displayed
more evident signs of life, vigour, and energy. Whether we
look abroad, or at home, — whether we consider the increasing
zeal, activity, and success, with which she has been carrying
forward her vast missionary work, the new and enlarged pro-
vision which she has made for its future progress, both in her
domestic institutions, and in the great number of completely
organized Colonial Churches which she has planted within the
course of a very few years, — or — observe the efforts which she has
been making to supply the wants of her growing population, the
rapid multiplication of churches and schools and training in-
stitutions, the exertions of the societies which collect and dispense
a large part of her resources for pious uses, the examples of
selfdenying charity and munificence exhibited by her individual
members, the ready and liberal answer which is made to every

NOTE C. 103

appeal on her behalf, the lively interest which is manifested in
every question that affects her welfare, the earnestness and ability
with which her cause is maintained at every disputed point of
theological controversy, — look whichever way we will, we find
sure tokens of health and strength, from which it might seem
safe to augur, not only lasting stability, but increasing prosperity.
These are not the exaggerations of partial friends, but indisputable
facts, attested by the reluctant admission of her adversaries. To
whatever degree her system may be justly charged with defects
or abuses, at least it cannot be said that there is any want of
will to investigate and correct them. It would of course be quite
consistent with such a state of things, that the Church should, at
the same time, be assailed by the most violent attacks from
without. But the strange thing is, that in the midst of all these
grounds of thankfulness, hope, and confidence, there should be
heard from many quarters within the language of alarm and
despondency, gloomy forebodings of impending disasters, com-
plaints as of men labouring under almost intolerable evils, which
must either drive them out of our communion, or force them to
seek a remedy in organic changes of indefinite extent, and of
very uncertain and perilous issue."

We say not these things boastingly : God forbid ! We know
and confess that what has been done is but a small part of what
ought to have been done by a Christian people, on whom such
wonderful blessings have been bestowed. But when our Church
is reproacht and reviled, as she is perpetually, we may allowably
appeal to these signs that God has not deserted her, nay, that He
is stirring her up to the performance of those great works for
which her position as the Church of England marks her out.

Dr Newman himself is constrained to acknowledge these tokens
of vitality in our Church, though he tries to render his admission
as depreciatory as he can. " If life (he says, p. 40) means strength,
activity, energy, and well-being of any kind, in that case doubt-
less the national religion is alive. It is a great power in the
midst of us ; it wields an enormous influence ; it represses a
hundred foes ; it conducts a hundred undertakings. It attracts

104 NOTE C.

men to it, uses them, rewards them : it has thousands of beautiful
homes up and down the country, where quiet men may do its
work and benefit its people : it collects vast sums in the shape of
voluntary offerings ; and with them it builds churches, prints
and distributes innumerable Bibles, books, and tracts, and sustains
missionaries in all parts of the earth. In all parts of the earth
it opposes the Catholic Church, denounces her as antichristian,
bribes the world against her, obstructs her influence. — If this be
life, — if it be life to be a principle of order in the population,
and an-'organ of benevolence and almsgiving toward the poor, —
then doubtless the National Church — overflows with life. But the
question has still to be answered. Life of what kind 1 Heresy
has its life ; worldliness has its life. Is the Establishment's life
merely national life 1 or is it something more 1 Is it Catholic
life as well ? Is it a supernatural lifel" To these questions we
answer confidently, Yes. Knowing whence every good gift cometh,
and how poor in herself human nature is, we answer, that it
is " supernatural life." Inasmuch as we hold the Creeds of the
Church, and have been realizing them more and more of late
years in our teaching, while we reject all unwarranted, uncatholic
additions to them, we answer that it is " Catholic life." But when
Dr Newman goes on to put another test, whether the life of our
Church is " congenial with those principles, which the movement
of 1833 thought to impose or to graft upon iti" we refuse the
test ; we deny the authority of that Movement to impose or graft
its principles upon our Church : we bid that Movement abide by
its professions of receiving its principles from the Church : we
repudiate the pretensions of such a Papal Directory to give the
law to the Church, which God has set up in England, and has
purified, and has maintained in its purer form for three centuries,
and which He has of late been so signally blessing.

Dr Newman indeed has a strange course to pursue in dealing
with his former associates and disciples, a course which needs all
the subtilty of his tortuous understanding. While on the one
hand, as we have just seen, he speaks of them in language of
unmeasured scorn, on the other hand he represents them as

NOTE C. 105

Laving been sent by God to revive the truth in our Church.
When he was with them, they were the latter : when he left
them, they became objects of scorn. " It is scarcely possible to
fancy (he says, p. 81) that an event so distinctive in its character
as the rise of the so-called Anglo-Catholic party in the course of
the last twenty years should have no scope in the designs of
Divine Providence. From beginnings so small, from elements of
thought so fortuitous, with prospects so unpromising, — it sud-
denly became a power in the National Church." It would be
strange, — were it not for his peculiar faculty of seeing just what
he likes, — that a person, so well acquainted with the contagious-
ness of heresies, should urge the rapid spread of Tractarianism
as a proof of its having "a scope in the designs of Divine
Providence." In a certain sense doubtless this argument mio-ht
be admitted ; only in that sense it would apply equally to
Mormonism. But in the sense which Dr Newman intends, how
are we to discriminate between them ] why are we to concede
that to Tractarianism, which we deny to Mormonism ? Yet he
will not allow the same argument, though incomparably stronger,
to prove the Divine mission of Lutheranism, or that of the
English Church. The Reformers, both here and in Germany,
brought forward primary truths, which had been neglected, violated,
trampled upon. God stirred the hearts of His chosen, of those
who were appointed to be heirs of the Truth, in England and
in Germany : they listened to the sound of the heavenly trumpet,
and heard the truth gladly, and received it, and handed it down
under God's guidance to their children : and so it was trans-
mitted from generation to generation, and is preserved amongst
us at this day. Yet this Dr Newman pronounces to be contrary
to God's purpose. He is not silly enough to fancy that our
Church can have forfeited her Catholicity by the consecration of
Dr Hampden to his see, or the institution of Mr Gorham to his
living. " No sober man (he says, p. 44), I suppose, dreams of
denying that, if the National Church be impure and unapostolical
now, it has had no claim to be called ' pure and apostolical' last
year, or twenty years back, or for any part of the period since the

106

NOTE C.

Reformation;" — not even in the age of the Nonjurors; not even
in that of the Anglo-catholic divines. The Anglo-catholic divines
themselves are now pronounced to be uncatholic. It is well to
have the sentence drawn out in all its length and breadth, in all
its arrogance and outrageousness. When we read the sacred
words, No man cometh to the Father, hut hy Me, we recognise the
miserable weakness which compells us to need this Mediation,
and we bless the Divine Mediator, who came down to bring us to
the Father. But when the Papacy applies these words to itself,
or its minions do so for it, our hearts and souls and minds revolt
at the blasphemous usurpation, and cry Thou, Lord, Thou alone
art the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Thou, in Thine infinite
lovinghindness hast called us to Thee : to Thee we come, and will
not give Thy glory to another.

Dr Newman's main argument however, which runs through the
whole series of Lectures, is, that his quondam followers, who
adopted the original principles of his School, are bound to follow
them out to their logical consequences. Logic is ever his
favorite weapon, his Harlequin's sword, with which he works
whatever transformations he pleases. Now Logic, it is well
known, or rather the abuse and perversion of Logic, has ever been
a fruitful source of all manner of errours. By logical deductions
from an abstract conception, which can never at the utmost be
more than a shadowy ghost or a skeleton of a living idea,
the physical philosophy of Antiquity and of the Schoolmen
was led into those extravagances from which Bacon delivered
it. By logical deductions from premisses imperfectly appro*
hended, all the heresies by which the Church has been troubled,
sprang up ; as a very little reflexion will prove to us with
regard to the Arian, the Unitarian, the Nestorian, the Pelagian,
the Manichean. Thus, even in speculative matters. Logic is a
mere Cyclops, one-eyed, looking straight before it. But still
more delusive is its guidance in practical life. If you put one
foot forward, the logical inference would be, that you are next to
put the other foot forward. But what if you have put the first foot
forward in a wrong direction 1 what if the right path turns aside

NOTE C. 107

at the next step? what if the next step would be down a
precipice? These are things concerning which Logic cannot
enlighten us ; and they are to be decided by the exercise of our
other faculties : which are to be consulted continually, at
every step, not merely at the first and the second, but again at
the third, and again at the fourth. For we do not live in a
vacuum, but amid the living fulness of the world, where at
every step we may meet with some fresh obstacle bidding us halt
or turn aside. Dr Newman speaks now and then as if he were
the slave of logic, as if he were in its bondage, in its chains, and
must go onward whithersoever it drives him. In the Essay on
Development he says (p. 29) : " That the hypothesis here to be
adopted accounts not only for the Athanasian Creed, but for the
Creed of Pope Pius, is no fault of those who adopt it. No one
has power over the issues of his principles ; we cannot manage
our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more."
But we may re-examine our hypothesis : we may analyse and
resolve it into its elements, and find out how to modify and
regulate its application. We do so in all the applied sciences.
The arrow would fly on to infinity, if the force of gravity were
not acting upon it at every moment to bring it back to the earth ;
and so, with regard to the issues of our principles, we have all
manner of practical considerations, above all we have a moral
gravitation, to keep them in bounds. "We are not forced to say
B, because we have said A ; we may say D, or C, or X, or Z.
The great use of our dialectic faculty is to serve as a corrective
for the logical, as we see continually in the Platonic dialogues.
The Sophist rushes on from one proposition to another, " over hill,
over dale, over park, over pale," sometimes like a hunter hearing
the sound of the horn, sometimes like a mad bull : for madmen
are often very logical ; and this is the method in their madness.
But how does Socrates by his dialectical power compell them
continually to exhibit the fallaciousness of logic, often by letting
them run on from proposition to proposition till they fall into
some gross absurdity, often by denying their premisses, specious
as they may seem, and constraining them to sift these thoroughly I

108 NOTE C.

" Logic is a stern master," Dr Newman says in another place
{Diffimdties of Anglicanism, p. 28), speaking of our modern Pan-
theistic infidels ; " they feel it ; they protest against it ; they
profess to hate it, and would fain dispense with it; but it is the
law of their intellectual nature. Struggling and shrieking, but
in vain, will they make the inevitable descent into that pit from
which there is no return, except through the almost miraculous
grace of God, the grant of which in this life is never hopeless."
He writes here as having himself felt the sternness of the same
master, though in another direction. It drove him to Rome ;
and under its spell, as its slave, he is using all the powers'of his
mind to force others to follow him. Robespierre acted under a
like spell : he too was the slave of Logic, which bad him guillotine
two millions of his countrymen. In fact, it is the Jacobinical
principle, which throws everything else overboard. But surely
even Robespierre might have checkt himself, might have laid hold
on some affection, on some principle, on some habit, on some
conventional practice or decorum, to break his fall : and still more
so may every one who has been called to the liberty of the Gospel.
The absolute tyranny of Logic has no more place than any other
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Among the opinions and principles held by the Tractarians,
from which Dr Newman would infer the necessity and duty of
their following him to Rome, how many were exaggerated, how
many erroneous, distorted, drawn from other ages and circum-
stances, and ill-suited to the present ! How many errours has he
himself confest to ! and is he quite sure that these are the only
ones which he or his party committed 1 The very things to which
he devoted his whole intellect, his whole heart, he now tells us
he entirely misunderstood, — that our Church is something totally
different from what he then believed her to be, — that Rome is totally
different, — that the testimony of the Fathers is totally different.
Surely, even logically, it is a strange inference, Yoio followed me
formerly when I was utterly wrong ; therefore you ought to follow
me now. Moreover, if he was so mistaken about the things which
he had studied the most and loved the best, is it not probable

NOTE C. 109

that he was at least as grossly wrong with regard to things which
he had never studied, which he had always viewed with disgust,
about which he had nothing but blind prejudices.

Therefore I would earnestly entreat his quondam followers to
give no heed to his logical war-cry. If there be any extravagance
of private judgement, it would be this. This is Rationalism in
its baldest, wildest form. God has placed them where they are.
He has given them the duties of their calling. He has girt them
round with affections, that they may take root where they are,
and not be blown about by every wind of Logic. Some outward
necessity may indeed come, as it came to our ancestors at the
Reformation, some revolutionary force, which may compell
them, without their own act and deed, to quit their immediate
position, or to make some material change in its relations. In
such a case, of which however I cannot see a likelihood, it
would behove them to yield to the necessity, which they cannot
change. We must not violate our conscience ; we must not do
what our conscience declares to be wrong. But so long as this
lord of our being continues inviolate, we may bid Logic mind
its own business, and content ourselves with doing our duty in
that state of life to which it has pleased God to call us.

The same arbitrariness, which in the last Note we have seen
manifested by Dr Newman in his selection and representation of
facts, is equally prominent in his Lectures on Anglicanism. Thus,
in a very eloquent and highly wrought passage, he professes to
draw a contrast between the Church of Catholic antiquity and
our present Establishment ; and, as a sample of the former, he
selects the dispute at Milan between Ambrose and Valentinian
(p. 47) — as a sample of the latter, the riot at Exeter seven years
ago, occasioned by the attempt to preach in a surplice, or, as he
curiously terms it (p. 53), " because only the gleam of Apostolical
p?'inciples, in their faintest, ivannest expression, is cast inside a
building which is the home of the National Religion." This is
just as fair a parallel as if he had pickt out Hector for the
pattern Trojan, and Thersites for the pattern Greek. The
squabbles and conflicts at Constantinople under the Empire,

110 NOTE D.

and many of those in Rome itself, would have furnisht less
inappropriate materials for a comparison. But, even with regard
to these, we should have to bear in mind that distance veils over
what nearness vulgarizes : and one of the consequences of the
progress of order and civilization is, that great social questions
are not decided now by such majestic movements as the Secession
of the Plebs to the Sacred Mount, or the war of the Parliament
against Charles the First, and that mere riots are meaner, both
in their origin and their conduct.

Note D : p. 16.

As I am merely stating these matters historically, without any
thought of discussing them, or entering into an argument on the
subject, there does not seem to be any necessity for citing specific
passages in support of these statements. Their correctness will
hardly be disputed by any person conversant with the controversies
of the last seventeen years ; and he who wishes for particular
proofs, will find such collected in the principal attacks on the
Tractarian theology.

Note Da: p. 19 : 1.23.

I have been somewhat amused, in reading over Dr Newman's
Lectures on the Difficulties of Anglicanism for the sake of these
Notes, to find that he has used this same image in nearly the
same manner, though with an opposite purpose. After speaking
of the way in which his party tried to support their opinions,
first by the Anglican divines, and then by the Fathers, he adds
(p. 124) : " Their idea — was simply and absolutely submission to
an external authority : to it they appealed, to it they betook
themselves ; there they found a haven of rest ; thence they looked
out upon the troubled surge of human opinion, and upon the
crazy vessels which were labouring, without chart or compass,

NOTE Da. Ill

upon it. Judge then of their dismay, when, according to the
Arabian tale, on their striking their anchors into the supposed soil,
lighting their fires on it, and fixing in it the poles of their tents,
suddenly their island began to move, to heave, to splash, to frisk
to and fro, to dive, and at last to swim away, spouting out inhos-
pitable jets of water upon the credulous mariners who had made
it their home." Only, in this application of the image, it seems
to me, he has yielded to the common delusion of travelers, who
transfer their own motion to the objects around them. For the
Anglican divines, whose opinions have been stored up in bulky
folios for the last hundred and fifty or two hundred years, could
not well take to heaving, and splashing, and frisking about ;
not to mention that this was not much their fashion when they
were composing those folios. This habit is far more like the
theological pamphleteers of our days, who, when their boats
rebounded from their rash impact on our old divines, began
fancying that the divines had run away from them. Yet Dr
Newman half implies that this notion was confined to himself and
a few others. " If only one (he says), or a few of them, were
visited with this conviction, still one was sufficient to destroy
that cardinal point of their whole system, the objective perspicuity
and distinctness of the teaching of the Fathers." Here it is
difficult to pronounce which is the strangest hallucination, the
original assumption, or the abandonment of it on such a ground.
1 may take this opportunity of answering a question ^yhich
Dr Newman puts to me in the same Lectures : After quoting
a couple of sentences from my Letter to Mr Cavendish (in p. 39),
with a courtesy for which I return him my thanks, he asks, what
I mean by faith 1 whether I do not mean something very vague
and comprehensive 1 whether I do not mean, as I might say, " the
faith of St Austin, and of Peter the Hermit, and of Luther, and
of Rousseau, and of Washington, and of Napoleon Bonaparte ? "
Why he has strung together this odd medley of names, I know
not. I might reply by referring him to my Sermons on the
Victory of Faith, where I have attempted to set forth my own
conception of Faith, expressly distinguishing it from that which

112 NOTE Da.

he had laid down in his Lectures on Justification. But he does
not seem to have much acquaintance with my writings, since he
merely quotes me as a writer in the Record. Nay, I should have
thought that the very combination in which I use the word,
" personal faith and holiness," when taken in connexion with
the rest of his quotation, might shew that it is not a quality in
which Eousseau and Bonaparte had much share. But I may as
well state that I certainly do not mean by faith, what Dr Newman
means, as he has expounded his view in his ninth Lecture. " Faith
(he says, p. 39) has one meaning to a Catholic, another to a
Protestant." God be thankt that it has, that we have been
delivered from the miserable debasement of the Romish notion.
Of the Protestant conception Dr Newman, here as elsewhere,
proves himself to be strangely ignorant. " Protestants (he says
p. 223) consider that Faith and Love are inseparable : where
there is Faith, there, they think, is Love and Obedience ; and in
proportion to the strength and degree of the former, is the
strength and degree of the latter. They do not think the in-
consistency possible of really believing without obeying ; and,
where they see disobedience, they cannot imagine the existence
of true faith." From what sources Dr Newman derived this
representation of the Protestant view, I know not. It certainly
is different from that of the chief Protestant authors. They
hold indeed that, whenever Faith is real and lively, it must
manifest itself in some measure by love and good works. Thus
we read, in the Apology for the Confession of Augsburg, at
the beginning of c. 3, De dilectione et impletione legis, " Quia
fides aiFert Spiritum Sanctum, et parit novam vitam in cordibus,
necesse est, quod pariat spirituales motus in cordibus. Et qui
sint illi motus, ostendit Propheta, cum ait: Dabo legem meam
in corda eornm. Postquam igitur fide justificati et renati sumus,
incipimus Deum timere, diligere, petere, et expectare ab eo
auxilium, gratias agere et praedicare, et obedire ei in afflic-
tionibus. Incipimus et diligere proximos, quia corda habent
spirituales et sanctos motus." I quote these words, because they
may be regarded as the most authoritative exposition of the

NOTE Da. 113

Protestant view. Faith, we hold, a living faith, a ftiith which
is the work of the Holy Spirit, cannot be utterly inactive, must
begin at least to manifest its divine power, must shew that it
does really believe in God, our Creator and Redeemer, and in
the Sacrifice offered up for our sins, by loving Him who so mer-
cifully gave His Only-begotten Son for us. A faith, unaccom-
panied by any such motions of love, we regard as a mere belief,
such as the devils themselves may have. As Melanchthon says,
when we have faith, Tncipimus Deum thnere, cUligere, — inci-
jiimus et diligere proximos. There must be a beginning of
such love; or our faith must be dead, as St James declares. But
St Paul's words, 1 Cor. xiii, 2, are quite enough to convince us
that we may have a high degree of faith, without much true
love. Nor am I aware of any Protestant author of note, who
denies the possibility of the case here put by St Paul. " Hie
locus Pauli (says Melanchthon, a little further on in the same
chapter, § 98) requirit dilectionem: banc requirimus et nos. — Si
quis dilectionem abjecerit, etiam si habet magnam fidcm, tamon
non retinet earn." A living faith, we maintain, ought to produce
love and obedience, and, if it be really living, will produce them.
But, since the miserable disruption of our nature by the Fall, we
know too wellthatwhat God has joined together, man perpetually
rends asunder.

At the same time we do altogether reject the Romish
notion of faith, which Dr Newman expresses in these words :
" Catholics hold that faith and love, faith and obedience, faith
and works, are simply separable, and ordinarily separated in
fact ; that faith does not imply love, obedience, or works ; that
the firmest faith, so as to move mountains, may exist without
love, that is, true faith, as truly faith in the strict sense of the
word as the faith of a martyr or a doctor. In fact it contem-
plates a gift which Protestantism docs . not imagine. Faith is a
spiritual sight of the unseen; and Protestantism has not this
sight; it does not see the unseen; this habit, this act of the
mind is foreign to it ; so, since it keeps the word, faith, it is
obliged to find some other meaning for it ; and its common ,

I

114 NOTE Da.

perhaps its commonest, idea is, that faith is substantially the same
as obedience ; that it is the impulse, the motive of obedience, or
the fervour and heartiness which attend good works. In a word,
that faith is hope or love, or a mixture of the two. It does not
contemplate faith in its Catholic sense ; for it has been taught
by flesh and blood, not by grace." Here, as in other places,
the lessons which Dr Newman ascribes to Divine Grace, are not
those which rise above, but those which sink below humanity.
A still more subtile logician, Bayle, in his account of Caligula,
says of that monster, " A I'imitation du Diable, il croyoit qu'il
y a un Dieu, et il en trembloit ; et neanmoins il vomissoit des
blasphemes epouvantables centre la Divinite. II usurpa fiere-
ment tous les honneurs de la Religion : et il n'y avoit aucun
crime qu'il fit conscience de commettre." Bayle, when he penned
these words, was perhaps thinking of some of the Popes : biit
he who reads Dr Newman's attempt, in the ninth Lecture, to
maintain the coexistence of the divine gift of faith with habitual
immorality and profaneness, will find what might almost have
served as an apology for Caligula.

Now to this conception of faith, we reply in the words of
St James, that faith without love, that faith without obedience
is dead ; and as we do not call a dead body a man, so we do
not call dead faith, faith, but merely belief. This is no dispute
about words : the consequences of this distinction run through
the whole of theology, and are most momentous. The awful
consequences which Dr Newman deduces from it, will come before
us in Note I. As to the impertinences which he here pours
out on Protestants, they are utterly groundless, and mere Romish
fictions. Faith, according to the Protestant conception, is not
indeed a magical gift, to which there is nothing corresponding,
no analogon, in the natural man. As spiritual love has its
counterpart, its fore-shadowing, in the various modes of human
love, so has spiritual faith in moral faith. But, in all its mani-
festations, faith, we assert, is the apprehension of the unseen, of
the invisible. Without faith no great human work was ever
accomplisht. As to religion, without faith it cannot exist at

NOTE E. 115

all. It is only by faith that wo apprehend the Unseen, Invi-
sible God. It is by faith that wc apprehend His Only-begotten
Son, His Incarnation, His Crucifixion, His Exaltation, His con-
stant Intercession for the Church. It is by faith that we receive
and apprehend the sanctifying influences of the Spirit. It is by
faith that we behold and receive the Body and Blood of our
Lord in the Holy Communion. We do not, we dare not, tran-
substantiate them into the visible elements of bread and wine.
In fact this is why we are separated from Rome, who, indulging
and pampering the carnal tendencies of our nature, is ever bringing
the visible, yea, the ornate, and even the tawdry, before the eyes
of her people, in order to supply them with visible substitutes
for the Unseen, in which they cannot believe. Doubtless there
have been many persons of heroic faith in the Church of Rome ;
but in that which is peculiarly and distinctively Romish, we
mostly find some mode of idolatry or superstition, each of which
is ever a mere ccqmt mortuuni of faith.

Note E : p. 20,

In the very first Act of the reign of Elizabeth, the original
Act of Uniformity, it is ordered (§ 36), that the Court which
shall be appointed to try cases of heresy, " shall not in any wise
have authority or power to order, determine, or adjudge any
matter or cause to be heresy, but only such as heretofore have been
determined, ordered, or adjudged to be heresy, by the authority
of the Canonical Scriptures, or hy the first four general Councils,
or any of them, or hy any other general Council wherein the same
tvas declared heresy hy the exjjrcss and plain words of the said
Canonical Scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be ordered,
judged, or determined to be heresy by the High Court of
Barliamcnt of this Realm, with the assent of the Clergy in thtir
Convocation." Here we find a solemn recognition of the au-
thority of the early Church. It was of great importance that
the Court of Heresy should have some clue to guide them in

I 2

116 NOTE E.

determining the legal meaning of Scripture^ with reference to the
cases brought before them. Nor was it of less moment thus
from the first to declare the connexion and continuity between
the doctrine of our Church and that of the first ages. This
clause was also of much value, in that it imposed a limit on the
construction of heresies, which were previously multiplied at
will by the temporary rulers of the Church. We must bear in
mind too that this Act was past eleven years before the final
legislative enactment of the Articles, which then became the
authoritative rule "for the avoiding of diversities of opinion,
and for the establishing of consent touching true Religion."
After this the previous criterion was of less moment; and hence
no mention is made of it in subsequent Acts bearing on the
same matter. From that time forward the Articles, along with
the Liturgy, became the authoritative criterion of heresy, a far
plainer and more definite than the former one.

One of the most remarkable instances of deference for An-
tiquity is Jewel's challenge, in his famous Sermon at Paul's
Cross, which led to his controversy with Harding, and thus be-
came an important act in the history of our Church. In this
Sermon he recites a number of propositions, — ultimately they
amounted to seven and twenty, — with regard to which he
declares that, " if any learned man of all our adversaries, or if
all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one
sufficient sentence out of any old catholic doctor or father, or out of
any old general council, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or
any one example of the primitive Church, whereby it may be
clearly and plainly proved that there was any private mass in
the whole world at that time, for the space of six hundred years
after Christ, — or that, &c. &c. &c. — if any man alive were able to
prove any of these Articles by any one clear or plain clause or
sentence, either of the Scriptures, or of the old doctors, or of any
old general Council, or by any example of the primitive Church,
— I promised then that I would give over and subscribe unto
him." The boldness and confidence of this pledge were start-
lino- : as Jewel himself expresses it, " I said, perhaps boldly, as

NOTE E. 1 17

it might then seem to some man, but, as I myself, and the learned
of our adversaries themselves do well know, sincerely and truly,
that none of all them tliat this day stand against us, are able, or
shall ever be able, to prove against us any one of all those points,
either by the Scriptures, or by example of the primitive Church,
or by the old doctors, or by the ancient general Councils." The
establishment of this proposition was one of the greatest services
ever rendered to our Church by a single man, proving that we
are the faithful transmitters of the tradition of the early Church,
that, as Jewel himself well said in his answer to Dr Cole's
Second Letter, " we have the old Doctors Church, the ancient
Councils Cliurch, the primitive Church, St Peter's Church, St
Paul's Church, and Christ's Church; and this ought of good
right to be called the Apostles Church."

An official recognition of the authority of the Fathers is
contained in the often quoted Canon of 1571, drawn up by
the same Convocation which issued tlie forty Articles then for
the first time confirmed by Parliament. With regard to
Concionatores, that Canon lays down, " Inpriiuis videbunt ne
quid unquam doceant pro condone, quod a populo religiose
teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrinae Veteris
aut Novi Testamenti, quodqice ex ilia ipsa doctrina Catkolici
Patres et veleres Ejuscopi collegerint. Et quoniam Articuli illi
Religionis Christianae, in quos consensum est ab episcopis in
legitima et sancta Synodo, jussu atque auctoritate serenissimae
principis Elizabethae convocata et celebrata, baud dubie coUecti
sunt ex sacris libris Veteris et Novi Testamenti, et cum coelesti
doctrina, quae in illis continetur, per omnia congruunt ; quoniam
etiam Liber Publicarum Precum, et liber de inauguratione archi-
episcoporum, episcoporum, presbyterorum, et diaconorum, nihil
continent ab ilia ipsa doctrina alienum ;* quicunque mittentur

* Archdeacon Wilberforce, in his History of Erastianism, says (p. 15), that
the Canons of lO'OS " were plainly a turning point in the history of the Church
of England ; for they first required the Clergy to give their assent to the Book of
Common Prayer (hy Canon 3G), which, having been composed and emphiyed
under Royal order, was now for the first time accepted by the Spiritual Body."

118 NOTE E.

ad (locendum populum, illorum Articulorum auctoritatem et
fidem, non tantum concionibus suis, sed etiam subscriptione
confirmabunt."

If we attend to tlie wording of this Canon, in connexion with
the time when it was drawn up, we shall perceive that its
immediate purpose, like that of the clause on the determination
of heresies, was negative and restrictive, as is evident on the
face of it. A main part of our controversy with Rome was,
that Rome had added a number of Articles, which she enjoined
as Articles of Faith, but which were without any warrant
in Scripture, or in the teaching of the ancient Church. The
refutation of these spurious additions to the Faith had been
Jewel's great work, both in his Reply to Harding, and in the
Defense of the Apology, the second enlarged Edition of which was
publisht in 1570. Hence it seems plain that the Canon of 1571 was
specially designed to forbid the inculcation of these spurious Ar-
ticles of Faith. This too is the reason why Grotius, in his treatise
De Imperio Summaruni Fotestatum circa Sacra (c. vi. § 9), when
he is protesting against the multiplication of dogmas, extolls this
Canon : "Non possum non laudare praeclarum Angliae Canonem."
In the rudimental state of our Church at that time, it was very
expedient to lay down this rule, and hereby to mark out the
great principle which had been followed in our Reformation, as
on the whole in the Lutheran also. For in that too the protest
was chiefly against the later additions and corruptions of Rome.
Herein they both differed from that brought about under the
direction of Calvin, in whom the systematic, dogmatic spirit was
predominant. In 1603, on the other hand, when we had had an

He seems to have overlookt the mention of the Common Prayer in this Canon of
1571. In the Canon of the same Convocation about Deans, it is also enjoined
that they shall take care " ne qua alia forma observetur in canendis aut dicendis
.sacris precibus, aut in administratione sacramentorum,praeterquam quae proposita
et praescripta est in Libro Publicarum Precum." The Chancellors also are to
take care that all persons under their jurisdiction " observent ordines et ritus
descriptos in Libro Publicarum Precum, tam in legendis Sacris Scripturis, et
precibus dicendisj quam etiam in administratione sacramentorum, ut neve
detrahaut aliquid, neve addant, neve de materia, neve de forma."

NOTE E. 119

adequate experience of the sufficiency of our own formularies, the
rule laid down for preachers, in the 51st Canon, is much simpler
and more definite, and therefore better, not to " publish any doc-
trine, either strange, or disagreeing from the word of God, or
from any of the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the
Convocation-house anno 15G2, or from the Book of Common
Prayer."

In the Dedication of Jewel's Works to James the First by
Bishop Overall, the coincidence of our Canon with the Apology
is noticed. The principal end of Jewel's writings, he says, is to
shew, "that this is and hath been the open profession of the
Church of England, to defend and maintain no other Church,
faith, and religion, than that which is truly Catholic and
Apostolic, and for such warranted, not only by the written word
of God, but also by the testimony and consent of the ancient and
godly Fathers. For further proof whereof, the Church of
England in a Synod, Ann. 1571 (soon after the second im-
pression of the Defense of this Apology), did set out, together
with the Articles of Religion repeated and confirmed again by
subscription, this canon — for the direction of those which were
preachers and pastors, viz : ' That they should never teach any-
thing as matter of faith religiously to be observed, but that which is
agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and
collected out of the same doctrine by the ancient fathers and catholic
bishops of the Church.'' Whereby the public profession of our
Church for consent with antiquity, in the articles of faith and
grounds of religion, doth plainly appear ; howsoever particular
men may have otherwise their private opinions, and take some
liberty of dissenting from the ancient Fathers, in matters not
belonging to the substance of faith and religion, and in diverse
expositions of some places of Scripture, so long as they keep
themselves within the compass of the Apostle's rule of the
proportion of faith and platform of sound doctrine."

On this point Jewel himself speaks excellently, among other
places, in his Treatise on the Holy Scripticres (Vol. iv. p. 1173).
" But what say we of the Fathers, Augustiu, Ambrose,

1^0 NOTE E.

Jerome, Cyprian, cfec? What shall we think of them, or what
account may we make of them 1 They be interpreters of the
word of God. They were learned men, and learned Fathers ; the
instruments of the mercy of God, and vessels full of grace. We
despise them not, we read them, we reverence them, and give
thanks to God for them. They were witnesses to the truth ;
they were worthy pillars and ornaments in the Church of God.
Yet may they not be compared with the word of God. We may
not build uj^on them : we may not make them the foundation
and warrant of our conscience : we may not put our trust in
them. Our trust is in the name of the Lord. And thus are we
taught to esteem of the learned Fathers of the Church by their
own judgement. — St Augustin said of the doctors and fathers in
his time : Neque — qtiorumlihet disputationes, quamvis catholicorum
et laudatorum hominum, velut scrlpttiras catholicas habere debemus;
xd nobis non liceat — aliquid in eorum scriptis improbare aut re-
spuere, si forte iiivenerimus quod aliter senserint quam Veritas habet.
Talis sum ego in scriptis aliorum : tales esse volo intellectores
meoruni. — Some things I believe ; and some things which they
write I cannot believe. — Cyprian was a doctor of the Church ;
yet he was deceived. Jerome was a doctor of the Church ; yet
he was deceived. Augustin was a doctor of the Church ; yet he
wrote a book of Retractations ; he acknowledged that he was
deceived. God did therefore give to His Church many doctors,
and many learned men, which all should search the truth, and
one reform another, wherein they thought him deceived. St
Augustin saith : Auferantur de medio chartae nostrae : procedat
in medium codex Dei : audi Christum dicentem : audi Veritatem
loqimiteiyi. — In this sort did Origen, and Augustin, and other
doctors of the Church speak of themselves, and of theirs, and the
writings of others, that we should so read them, and credit them,
as they agreed with the word of God. Hoc genus literarum non
cum credendi necessitate, sed cum judicandi libertate [that is, with
the exercise of private judgement] legendum est. — The Fathers
are learned : they have preeminence in the Chui'ch : they are
judges : they have the gifts of wisdom and understanding ; yet

NOTE E. 121

they are often deceived. They arc our fatlicrs, but not fathers
unto God. They are stars, fair, and beautiful, and bright ; yet
they are not the sun : they bear witness of the light ; they are
not the light. Christ is the Sun of Righteousness : Christ is the
Light which lightcth every man that cometh into the world."*

Surely this is a reasonable, intelligent, and sufficient recognition
of the worth of the Fathers. The value of their testimony is
indeed of a twofold kind, that which they may have as witnesses
of the general belief of the Church in their age, and that which
they derive from their individual gifts. In the latter respect
they differ greatly, according to the diversity of their gifts.
Chrysostom and his School have their value, Origen and Jerome
theirs, Athanasius and Basil theirs, Augustin, Ambrose, Hilary
theirs. As usual too, their peculiar gifts often become their
peculiar temptations; as we see most conspicuously perhaps, or at
all events with the greatest regret, in Augustin, the worth of
whose writings, were it not for this, would be doubled. Herein
however the Fathers do not differ essentially, nor even

* Jewel, it is notorious, was a special object of dislike and invective to the
llippant railer, of whom Dr Newman s^ys {Lectures on Anglicanism, p. 32) that
he, " if any, is the author of the movement altogether." He, whom Hooker
(II. vi. 4,) calls " the worthiest divine that Christendom hath bred for the space
of some hundreds of years," was insolently termed " an irreverent dissenter."
In an Article in tJie British Critic for July 1841, ascribed to a minister of our
Church who some time after quitted us for Rome, where his heart had long
been, an attempt is made to justify Mr Fronde's abuse. That Ai'tide was one of
the first announcements of the purpose of utiprotestaniizinf/ our Church (p. 45) ;
and Jewel's chief sin is his being a Protestant, and agreeing with the Protestants
abroad ; of whom the writer seems to know about as much as the rest of his
School. For one charge against Jewel is, that he past nearly the wiiole period
of Mary's reign " in close and confidential intercourse with Peter Martyr, as well
as with Bullinger, Zuingli, and the rest of the congregation at Zurich " (p. 34).
Now Zuingli was killed at the battle of Cappel in 1531, whereas Jewel did not
go to Ziu-ich till 1556; so that, his intercourse with the living Zuingli can
hardly have been more intimate than that of the Reviewer with Zuingli's
writings or life. This is a blunder into which a person, having the slightest
knowledge of the Swiss Reformation, could not have fallen. But it is not a
very unfair sample of the learning with which the Tractarians thought fit to arm
themselves for their warfare against the forein Protestants. Ignorance often
stands us in stead, by keeping us from knowing how ignorant we are.
Polypherausj when his eye was out, could not even see his own misses.

122 NOTE E.

specifically, from the divines of later ages, from Lutlier and Calvin,
from Jewel and Hooker. The divines of the seventeenth century
also have their own gifts ; and so, scanty as they may be, have
those of the eighteenth. On each of these his peculiar gifts have
been bestowed by one and the same Spirit, dividing to each
severally as He will ; and they all work together under His
direction for the edifying of the Church.

The English good sense, and respect for that which is and
which has been, — the desire, so signally exemplified through our
whole history, to connect that which is with that which has
been, — our preference of the real and practical to the abstract
and theoretical, as they have been the regulating principles of
our Church in all things, have also determined our mode of
dealing with the Fathers. In this matter there has been a
remarkable agreement among all our writers who have any
claim to the name of theologians. As Field expresses it (b. iv.
0. 1 6), " Touching the interpretations which the Fathers have
delivered, we receive them as undoubtedly true, in the general
doctrine they consent in, and so far forth esteem them as
authentical ; yet do we think that, holding the faith of the
Fathers, it is lawful to dissent from that interpretation of some
particular places, which the greater part of them have delivered,
or perhaps all that have written of them, and to find out some
other not mentioned by any of the ancients." Of course too this
liberty has increast along with the wider range and improved
method of Philology.

In like manner Jeremy Taylor, in the Dissuasive from Popery
(P. 1. c. 1. § 1), proves the identity of our Church with the
primitive. " The religion of our Church is therefore certainly
primitive and apostolic, because it teaches us to believe the whole
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and nothing else, as
matter of faith; and therefore, unless there can be new Scrip-
tures, we can have no new matters of belief, no new Articles of
Faith. Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence, we disclaim
it, as not deriving from the fountains of our Saviour. We also
do believe the Apostles Creed, the Nicene, with the additions of

NOTE E. 123

Constantinople, and that which is commonly called the Symbol of

St Athanasius : and the four first general Councils arc so entirely

admitted by us, that they, together with the plain words of

Scripture, are made the rule and measure of judging heresies

amongst us : and in pursuance of these it is commanded by our

Church, that the Clergy shall never teach anything as * matter of

Faith, religiously to be observed, but that which is agreeable to

the Old and New Testament, and collected out of the same

doctrine by the ancient Fathers and Catholic Bishops of the

Church,' This was undoubtedly the faith of the primitive

Church. They admitted all into their communion that were

of this faith. — That which we rely upon, is the same that the

primitive Church did acknowledge to be the adequate foundation

of their hopes in the matters of belief : the way which they

thought sufficient to go to heaven in, is the way which we walk :

what they did not teach, we do not publish and impose : into

this faith entirely, and into no other, as they did theirs, so we

baptize our catechumens : the discrimination of heresy from

Catholic doctrine which they used, we use also; and we use no

other; and in short we believe all that doctrine which the

Church of Rome believes, except those things which they have

superinduced upon the old religion, and in which we shall prove

that they have innovated. So that, by their confession, all the

doctrine which we teach the people as matter of faith, must be

confest to be ancient, primitive, and apostolic ; or else theirs is

not so. For ours is the same ; and we both have received this

faith from the fountains of Scripture and universal tradition ;

not they from us, or we from them, but both of us from Christ

and His Apostles."

In the second part of the Dissuasive (B. 1. § 2), Taylor shews
that the rule adopted by our Church is also the rule laid down
concurrently by the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries :
and unless the passages which he alledges are proved to be
fallacious, — which they never have been, and cannot be, — his
conclusion as to the identity of our Church with the primitive
must stand fast, and cannot be shaken. In fact he is merely the

124 NOTE E.

spokesman of the whole body of our cliviues down to our times.
One after another, they have taken up their parable, and have
demonstrated this same truth ; which indeed is so manifest and
palpable, that all attempts to rebut it have been utterly futile.
This too at first was the position taken up by the Tractarians,
the position which Dr Newman himself tried to maintain in his
Lectures on Romanism, as is apparent even in the passage quoted
above in p. 97.

At present, on the other hand, he asserts the very contrary.
Nay, in the last of his Lectures on Anglicanism, he tells us that
it was by the study of the Fathers that he was led to Home.
How was this revolution brought about 1 In my Vindication
of Luther, when touching on this change, I have cited a pro-
phetic passage from Coleridge's Remains, where that great
intuitive philosopher foretells, that students of the Fathers, who
have no deeper philosophy than that of our ordinary English
systems, are almost sure of falling into the arms of Rome; and
I have tried to suggest some explanation why this should be so.
In fact, even in Dr Newman's most confident assertion of the im-
pregnableness of his original position, we may discern the germs
of his subsequent development. As he has shewn so much skill
in developing, not opposites out of opposites, — which would be
in conformity to an ordinary law of Nature, — but contraries out
of contraries, so in his own life he had just been doing the same
thing. He allowed the enemy to enter by a mine into his
impregnable position, as Camillus entered into Veii ; and then
he surrendered at discretion.

From the first, as I have observed in the Charge, the party,
who afterward obtained the name of Tractarians, set themselves
to maintain what they regarded as the peculiar position of the
English Church, against two opposite enemies, on the one side
against the Church of Rome, on the other against our English
Dissenters ; and in doing the latter they laid a special stress on
that portion of her characteristics whereby she is chiefly
distinguisht from our Dissenters, her discipline, and her respect
and deference for Antiquity. With this view they extended the

NOTE E. 125

application of the clause in the Act of Uniformity concerning
Heresies, and of the Canon of 1571, somewhat beyond their
original purpose ; which, as we have seen, was mainly negative
and restrictive, to prohibit the enforcement of any doctrine as
necessary, and the condemnation of any as heretical, except where
such a decision was confirmed by the consent of the early Church.
Dr Newman, on the other hand, and his followers, try to make
these rules positive and directive, as repressive of private judge-
ment, and enjoining the teaching of all that the early Church
taught. Thus in the Lectures on Romanism (p. 322), where he
cites both these enactments, he says that we, unlike both the
Romanists and the mere Protestants, " consider Antiquity and
Catholicity to be the real guides, and the Church their organ."
Now, after what has been said above, it will easily be seen that
the prohibition, You must not inculcate any doctrine as an Article
of Faith except wliat the early Church teaches, is by no means
convertible into the injunction, Yoit must teach ivhatever the early
Church teaches : not to mention that both these rules were
omitted, and, as it were, dropt by our Church, when she had
drawn up her own Formularies to supersede them, the Canon of
1571 in the collection of 1604, and the clause concerning
Heresies in the subsequent enactments on the same subject.
Still less can we recognise the true spirit of our Church in what
Dr Newman said in the next page : " Explicit as our Articles are
in asserting that the doctrines of faith are contained and must be
pointed out in Scripture, yet they give no hint that private
persons may presume to search Scripture independently of
external help, and to determine for themselves what is saving.
The Church has a prior claim to do so ; but even the Church
asserts it not, but hands over the office to Catholic Antiquity.
In what our Articles say of Holy Scripture as the document
of proof, exclusive reference is had to teaching. It is not said
that individuals are to infer the faith, but that the Church is to
prove it from Scripture ; not that individuals are to learn it, but
are to be taught it. — It does not say what individuals may do, but
what the Church may not do. — The question whether individuals

12G NOTE E.

may exercise a right of Private Judgement on the text of
Scripture in matters of faith, is not even contemplated." But
surely it is a complete misapprehension of the nature of laws, to
require that they should be distinctly and specifically permissive.
A law does not say, You may do this : the rule for its interpre-
tation is, Qicod non prohibetur permittitur. Surely too our
Church did assert her right to search Scripture, — not indeed
" independently of external help," but making use of such help
as she could obtain, though without fettering herself thereby, or
resigning her right to exercise her own judgement upon that
help, under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth, — by her own
act, when she drew up her Articles and Formularies, and when,
having proved their sufficiency, she cast aside her previous
leading-strings. Moreover, by laying down that it is not lawful
for her " to ordain anything contrary to Scripture," or " to enforce
anything besides Scripture," she in a manner challenges the
examination of her teaching, and almost invites her members to
ascertain its congruity with Scripture. She never feared this test,
never shrank from it. She durst not contradict her Lord's
exhortation to the Jews to search the Scriptures ; nor did she
doubt that, if those of the Old Testament would be found on a
careful examination to testify of Him, a like testimony would be
derived from those of the New Testament by every conscientious
enquirer. She did not conceive that the Apostolic precepts, to
prove all things, to try the siyirits, to give a reason for our faith,
were to be translated, for the great body of the faithful, into
commands, under pain of excommunication, to prove nothing,
to take all things upon trust, and to give up our reason blindfold
into the hands of a selfstyled infallible guide. By taking this
view of our position, and by his vehement repudiation of Pri-
vate Judgement, Dr Newman shewed from the first, that he
was likely to quit the ground of our Church, and to migrate to
Rome : and as these tendencies in his writings involved him and
his partisans in severe controversies, which are mostly bitterest
when among the members of the same household, while Ro-
manists rather welcomed such hopeful auxiliaries, they became

NOTE E. 127

stronger and stronger, according to the wonted effect of contro-
versies, while the estrangement from the whole Protestant side of
our Church became more complete.

A similar tendency may also be observed iu the passage
quoted above in p. 97, where he says: "Abstract arguments,
original views, novel interpretations of Scripture, may be met by
similar artifices on the other side ; but historical facts are proof
against the force of talent, and remain where they were, when it
has expended itself." The shallowness of this passage might
be deemed marvellous, as proceeding from so acute a logician ;
were it not continually found that the logical faculty is totally
distinct from the apprehensive and the intuitive, and often
subversive, or at least perversive of them. It is not easy to
say which member of the foregoing sentence implies the great-
est number of fallacies. Is it not the old rigmarole against
Copernicus and Kepler, against Galileo and Newton, that abstract
arguments, original views, novel interjjretations of Nature, may he
met hy similar artifices on the other side ? hut 2yhysical facts
are proof against the force of talent, and remain tvhere they were
when it has expended itself. — Do you not see that the sun moves ?
do you not feel that the earth stands still 1 So argues the Church
of Rome. These are plain facts, simple facts, i^cdpahle facts, facts
proof against the force of talent ; and in spite of all your mathe-
mxitics they remain just where they were. Therefore Copernicus,
Galileo, Newton are to be condemned, or, at the utmost, allowed
to pass as clever dealers in " abstract arguments and original
views." Has Dr Newman never felt that there is a truth in
philosophy, in ethics, in religion, nay, in history, and even in
poetry, of a totally different character from "abstract arguments,"
and " original views," a truth in which the old and the new blend
into one, in which fact and idea become identified ? Is it indeed
the case, that, as has been reported, Dr Newman believes that the
Ptolemaic and the Copernican system of the world arc both true %
or that one of them is true one day, and the other the next, in
ever-recurring alternation, much like Anglicanism and Romanism?
Or how could any man, who has reflected for an hour on the

138 NOTE E.

course of his own life, on the processes of his own mind, on
the manifold transitions from the thoughts of the child to those
of the man, or on the events which have been going on in the
world around him, — not to speak of those which have been the
objects of the continually ebbing and flowing controversies of
historians, — pronounce that " historical facts are proof against
talent, and remain where they were, when it has expended itself."
True, the objective facts do so remain ; but what is he speaking
of here, except the subjective view of those facts, the view which
he had previously taken, and which has now been superseded by
a directly contrary view? This abjuration of Reason, this con-
founding of Reason with abstract arguments and original views,
and this setting up of arbitrary conceptions of facts, of pseudo-
miracles and imaginary saintship, as the tests of truth, are
essential characters of Romanism ; and when we meet with them
in the adversary of Romanism, they portend that, if he is not
mercifully preserved from following the tendencies of his own
mind, he will ere long become its captive. In sooth what do
we know of a fact, beyond the conception which we form of it,
and which is subject to all manner of influences 1 or how is
it possible to draw any inference whatsoever from a multitude of
facts, such as is presented by the writings of the Fathers, and
the traditions of the early Church, except so far as the dead
sticks, which lie scattered about, are pickt up and gathered
into a fagot, or organized into a structure, by the ecclesiastical
historian 1

How far historical facts are from being " proofs against the
force of talent, and remaining where they were when it has
expended itself," Dr Newman must have found out long ago.
For this is the main topic and argument of his Ussay on
Development ; in which he takes the self- same materials as in his
Lectures on Romanism, professes to draw his arguments from the
Fathers, and comes to a directly contrary conclusion. The
Fathers, he said in 1837, are against Rome, and with us : but
now they have veered round : East is become West, and West
East : the Fathers reject us, and recognise Rome as their lawful

NOTE E. 129

offspring. Still, after all, we have this plain advantage : the
direct testimony of the Fathers is in our favour ; and it is only
when they have been submitted to sundry processes of development,
that evidence in behalf of Rome can be extorted from them.
Therefore, in spite of this modern apology for Romanism, we may
still maintain, as confidently as ever, that our Church is one
with that of primitive Antiquity. What we used to call Romish
additions are now termed developments by their own champion,
and thus admitted to be novelties ; and, even if they could be
shewn to be legitimate developments, this would not prove them
to be necessary. Hence the rule of the early Councils condemns
and rejects this augmentation of the Articles of Faith.

In the last Lecture on Anglicanism indeed Dr Newman assumes
a bolder tone, and pronounces (p. 296) that "no candid person
who has fairly examined the state of the case can doubt that, if
we (the Romanists) differ from the Fathers in a few things,
Protestants differ in all, and if we vary from them in accidentals,
they contradict them in essentials." Here the distinction,
if it be relevant to his argument, ought to be between the
Church of England and that of Rome : but in that case his
assertion would be too glaringly false, too gross a contradiction
to his own former teaching. Therefore he uses the indefinite,
comprehensive term, Protestants, which must here be meant to
comprise the Church of England ; and thus a charge is in-
sinuated against her, which he has himself shewn to be directly
contrary to truth.* He then complains that our controversialists

* Professor Butler has pointed out (p. 86), that one of Dr Newman's rheto-
rical artifices in liis Essay on Development is his " vividlj' describing infidelity,
and calling it Protestantism, and under the Protestantism so described covertly
leaving to be included the Catholic Church of England." Now I do not in the
slightest degree mean to disclaim the title of Protestant in its application to our
Church, if only it be rightly understood. Our Church is Protestant, in that it
protests against the usurpations and the corruptions of Rome. Nor is it a name to
be ashamed of, under the fancy that Protestantism is a mere negation. Every
prophet, every preacher of truth and righteousness from the beginning, has been a
Protestant, has had to lift up his voice in protesting against the vices and follies
of his contemporaries. The false prophets, who cry peace where there is no peace,
are not Protestants : but he who cries that there is no peace to the wicked, is, in
so doing, a Protestant. The Law, with its imperative Thou shdt not, is 'Protestant.

130 NOTE E.

call upon the Romanists to shew why they differ at all from the
Fathers, " though partially and intelligibly, in matters of dis-
cipline and in the tone of their opinions /' and adds that Jewel
" tries to throw dust in the eyes of the world," by making " an
attack on the Papacy pass for an Apology of the Church of
England ; and more writers have followed his example than it is
worth while, or indeed possible, to enumerate. And they have
been answered again and again ; and the so-called novelties of
modern Catholicism have been explained, — at the very lowest —
as far as to shew that we have a case against them." The names
of our apologists, as well as of the Romish answerers, he prudently
omits : they would have indicated too plainly which scale had
kickt the beam, and what sort of a case has been made out
against us. For does he mean Harding's answer to Jewel? or
Brerely's to Field ? or Smith's and Serjeant's to Bramhall % or
the same doughty Serjeant's to Jeremy Taylor, and to Stilling-
fleet 1 or Knott's to Chillingworth ? in most of which combats
the Romish champion gained much such a victory as the
famous one of Goliath over David, like to it not only in the
issue, but also in the meekness of the tone which preceded it.
Or was he perchance rather thinking of his own answers to
his previous censures of Rome % in which he certainly is very
forbearing and indulgent toward his opponent, — a happy ex-
ception therein to the ordinary fulminations of Romish polemics.

So too is the Gospel, in that the ligld sMneth in darkness, and llie darkness
comprehendeth it not. There is a mode of Protestantism indeed, which is a mere
negation : but true Protestantism is only that assertion of the truth, which involves
a denunciation of the opposite errours, that proclamation of the light, which not
only ditFuses the light, but drives away the darkness. Dr Newman, in his
former state, took the lead in dressing up Protestantism as a scarecrow, at which
he and his followers took fright ; and for a time they were continually exclaiming
that they were not Protestants, but Anglicans. Now however, in trying to lure
those whom he deserted to follow him, he tells them {^Lectures on Anglicanism,
p. 132) that "nearly all our divines, if not all, call themselves Protestants."
Doubtless so they do, even Laud, on the most solemn occasions, in his speeches
both before the Lords and before the Commons, and in that on the scaffold.
The strange thing is, that a person should have had any acquaintance with our
divines, and not have found this out. This is the way in which talent is proof
against facts.

NOTE E. 131

— while he reserves all his severity for the Church he has for-
saken : and yet even in these skirmishes, we may maintain, the
advantage, if there be any, is oftenest on our side. Doubtless
however the Romanists have a case. But who has not % Judas
Iscariot has had his apologists ; and we have just seen
a case made out in defense of Louis Bonaparte's atrocious
crimes. Dr Newman seems to hold that no victory can be
decisive, unless the adversary is driven from his position,
and confesses it. This however can rarely be effected in in-
tellectual warfare, where practical interests are concerned. The
Byzantine Empire lingered on for centuries after its moral life
was almost extinct : and so may it be with the Papacy. At
all events so it has been with several of the Eastern branches of
the Church. But in fact the Essay on Development is a virtual
abandonment of the long- contested position.

As to the assertion that our divines charge Rome with differ-
ing from the Fathers, " partially and intelligibly, in matters of
discipline and in the tone of her opinions," it is true that a large
part of Jewel's twenty-seven propositions relate to circumstantial
details connected with Transubstantiation and the Adoration of
the Host ; these having been the most prominent points in the
disputations which preceded the martyrdom of Cranmer and his
companions. But his Ajyology takes a wider ground ; and if we
turn to Jeremy Taylor's Dissuasive, we find that the first chapter
treats of the controverted Articles in which the doctrine of the
Roman Church "is neither catholic, apostolic, nor primitive;"
and, to look only at the table of its various sections, he exemplifies
this with regard to the power of making new Articles claimed
by Rome, and in the Roman Doctrine of Indulgences, the
Doctrine of Purgatory, the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, the
Half-Communion, the denial of Public Prayer to the Common
People in a language they understand, the Veneration of Images,
the Pope's Universal Bishopric, the Invocation of Saints, the
Insufficiency of Scripture without Traditions, &c. Now will
Dr Newman dare to assert, that these innovations, with which
we charge Rome, are " partial and intelligible, in matters of

K 2

132 NOTE E.

discipline, and in the tone of her opinions V He dares not assert
it directly ; but he does assert it indirectly. Who then is it that
" tries to throw dust in the eyes of the world V His excuse must
be, that he had previously thrown it into his own eyes, so as to
blind his understanding, and almost to blind his conscience.

To discuss the Essay on Development, and to point out its
numerous fallacies, would be inconsistent with the scope of these
Notes, and would require a separate volume, which is hardly
needed. For its utter hollowness was exhibited in the most
convincing manner, as it seems to me, soon after its publica-
tion, by my brother-in-law. Professor Maurice, in the Preface
to his Lectures on the Hebrews; and its principles were sub-
jected to a searching analysis, which detected all manner of
fallacies, by the late Professor Butler, in a very able series of
Letters, which were printed in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal,
and have now been collected. Several years ago, in Note G to
the Mission of the Comforter, I made some observations on the
necessity of progressive developments in the expansion of
Theology, and on the regulative principles by which they must
be determined ; and the correctness of those observations does
not seem to have been invalidated by Dr Newman's subsequent
Essay, or by the Replies to it. Hence I cannot take the ground
of denying his first principle, that Theology is a science designed,
like other sciences, to be developt gradually under the influence
of those circumstances which determine the expansion of the
human mind. But, this being conceded, two important questions
remain. Are Dr Newman's developments legitimate? and I
think nothing can well be more arbitrary and confused than the
process by which he elicits the main part of them : they are
rather accretions, than developments. Besides, even if this were
not so, if his developments were indeed legitimate, there is
still another question : Are they of such a kind, of such
manifest truth, of such primary moment, so clearly derivable
from Scripture, and so essential to the entireness of our Chris-
tianity, as to justify the Church in imposing them as additional
Articles of Faith, or in insisting on their practical reception ?

NOTE E. \3S

Whereto we may reply with the utmost confidence, that they
are not. In fact most of them are contrary to primitive truth,
contrary to purity of faith, contrary to holiness of life.

After what has been said in this Note, we may fairly
pronounce that Dr Newman's assertion, that " Protestants differ
from the Fathers in all things," and "contradict them in
essentials," — if by Protestants he means the Church of England,
as exhibited in her formularies and in the teaching of her chief
doctors, — is directly contrary to the truth, as he well knows,
having himself proved it in his Lectures on Romanism : and
assuredly this is one of the historical facts, which remain just
where they were, after all the resources of controversial ingenuity
have been expended upon it. Yet, among the gross delusions by
which the deserters from our Church have been drawn away, one
is, that she is not a legitimate successor of the Apostolic Church,
that she is not connected with the Apostolic by any continuous
tradition, — nay, that she is the creature of the sixteenth century.
The impudent old question, — Where was your reliyion before
Luther ? — is still askt ; and though the assertion implied in it
has been refuted a thousand times over, it is still able to gull
some of those who have distorted their intellectual vision by
poring over ecclesiastical and theological controversies. As
Jeremy Taylor well replies (Dissuasive, c. 1. § 12), "It is much
more easy for us to shew our religion before Luther, than for
them to shew theirs before Trent. And although they can shew
too much practice of their religion in the degenerate ages of the
Church, yet we can and do clearly shew ours in the purest and
first ages ; and can and do draw lines, pointing to the times and
places where the several rooms and stories of their Babel were
builded, and where polisht, and Avhere furnisht. — When almost
all Christian princes did complain heavily of the corrupt state of
the Church, and of Religion, and no remedy could be had, — then
it was that divers Christian kingdoms, and particularly the
Church of England, — being ashamed of the errours, superstitions,
heresies, and impieties, which had deturpated the face of the
Church, lookt in the glass of Scripture and pure Antiquity, and

134 NOTE E.

waslit away those stains with which time and inadvertency and
tyranny had besmeared her, and, being thus cleansed and washt,
is accused by the Roman parties of novelty, and condemned
because she refuses to run into the same excess of riot and
deordination. But we cannot deserve blame, who return to our
ancient and first health, by preferring a new cure before an
old sore."

As to the argument which Mr Newman has brought for-
ward several times over in his recent writings under one form
or other, — that the Church of Rome is the only Church now
existing which resembles that of the Fathers, and that, if any
of them were to visit the earth, they would own it as their
communion, — it has been excellently answered by Professor
Butler in his Seventh Letter ; with a few extracts from which
I will wind up this Note. Both Athanasius and Augustin, he
says (p. 278), when they have any point to establish, do not
appeal to the decision of Rome ; but " go to work with their
Bibles in the most unequivocally Protestant fashion, and appeal
to the common belief of their predecessors, like simple Catholics,
who knew no better. Their Scripture texts are not confir-
mations, but principles. The Syrian exegetics, — were never
declined by — Chrysostom, or Cyril of Jerusalem, or Ephrem, or
Basil. There is no one of the dogmatic treatises of those times,
(allowance made for peculiarities of style and incidental allu-
sions— ) which might not have been the production of our
Hammond, or Pearson, or Taylor. There is not one of them, —
that could by any possibility be conceived written, as it stands,
by Romish divines." Further, — after some remarks on the
exterior resemblance arising from identity of climate and race, —
he adds (p. 296) that, were Athanasius and Ambrose to come to
Oxford, as Dr Newman supposes, he should not be " confident of
a verdict, if the illustrious strangers were forced to a decision
within an hour after their arrival. But Athanasius and Ambrose
were both men of distinguisht intellectual powers ; and with
a reasonable time for enquiry I should have no doubt at all of
the issue. And even as regards the first immediate aspect of

NOTE F. 130

Romanism, Mr Newman will never persuade me that St
Athanasius would have joined ' the unlettered crowd before the
altar,' when he heard that crowd utter the prayer of enthusiastic
devotion to creatures,— to himself, — he who has so emphatically
declared that ' Angels themselves are not worshipt, but
worshipers, and God alone to be adored,' and built on the exclu-
siveness of the right the proof of the Divinity of his Lord ; or
that Ambrose, who proclaims that ' the Church knows no such
idle forms of images/ would have willingly bowed his mitred head
to the drest and painted statue of a holy woman. But — an
appeal lies to mightier authorities still, Ambrose and Atha-
nasius vail before Paul. I conduct the Apostle from an English
country church, with its noble and intelligible Liturgy, and the
expressive simplicity of its ritual, and the chastened ardours of
its Communion, to the procession of the Host, and the incensing
priests chanting in an unknown tongue, and the crowd of wor-
shipers prostrate before the God beneath the canopy, — and I
confidently ask, which communion would he take for his own 1 "

Note F : p. 25.

We have just been witnesses of the hugest act, and one of the
hugest facts, one of the most saddening and dismal in the whole
history of the world. Seven millions of men, almost the entire
mass of a mighty nation, of a nation that boasts of standing
at the head of all civilization and culture, and that has been
striving and panting and grasping after Liberty, and wading
through fire and through blood, through every mode of death
and of crime, for the last sixty years in pursuit of it, have just
been exercising the privilege they have thus acquired, — and
for what purpose ? — to cast away their liberty, and to set up
a master, who shall rule over them with absolute, despotic
sway. And who is the man whom they have set up for such
an end 1 to make a constitution for them, to order and renovate
the whole fabric of their state, to dispose of their families, their

136 NOTE F.

wives, their children, their possessions, according to his arbitrary,
uncontrolled will. The Spartans of old, we read, set up Lycur-
gus for such a work, — the Athenians, Solon, — their wisest, justest,
most faithful, most upright, most generous, most temperate and
sober-minded, most patriotic citizen, of whom they knew that
he loved his country better than himself, that he would seek
no selfish aim, but only justice and the public good, that for
these he would joyfully sacrifice himself. This however was
in barbarous, heathen times. "We, in this nineteenth century
of the Catholic Church, and of modern civilization, have learnt
a different lore. The nation now is to be sacrificed to the lusts
of the Prince, whose claims to his exaltation are founded on
triple perjury, and on the massacre of thousands of his peaceful
fellow-citizens, and the pledges and prognostics of whose legis-
lation are to be sought in the seizure, imprisonment, transporta-
tion, murder, of whomsoever he, or any of his officers, chooses
thus to honour, and in the suppression of every utterance,
whether by writing or speech, except of such as are willing to
lick the dust at his feet. So inveterate a part is it of man's
weak, corrupt nature, to desire to be ruled by a master, and
to dread and shrink from the dangers of liberty and personal
responsibility.

As an appropriate accompaniment of this most dismal fact,
we have seen the governors of that Church, which in like
manner abhors liberty, and crushes personal responsibility,
ready and eager to applaud the most outrageous crimes, and
to fraternize with the most atrocious criminals, if they will
seek her favour by varnishing over their crimes with a coating
of religious hypocrisy. And is not this huge act, which has
just taken place in France, a sort of parallel to what has been
going on in England of late years, and in Germany during the
earlier part of the last half century 1 Of the excuses which
the deserters from liberty and truth may have found in the
latter country, from the previous licentiousness of a shallow,
all-confounding rationalism, I will not here speak. But surely,
if we marvel at the zeal with which the French nation are

NOTE F. 137

bending their necks under their new yoke, it is still more mar-
vellous that, in the present state of the English nation and of
the English Church, her sons, without any such excuse, should
be rushing over to a somewhat similar despotism, beseeching
it to put out their eyes, and to manacle their reason, and to
gag their conscience. So singular is the analogy between these
facts, that every other newspaper furnishes us with some fresh
illustration of it. No one is to print, no one is to speak, no
one is to think, save what the political Pope wills and com-
mands. Already the process has commenced of castrating the
literature of former times, lest any manly voice from better
days offensive to the new Hierarch should be heard among the
people. Meanwhile the Church looks on, and smiles, and blesses
the holy work.

One lesson imprest on us by these events, a lesson confirmed
by the whole of history, is, that freedom, whether political or
intellectual, cannot exist, except in union with moral temperance
and selfcontroll. The repugnance to freedom, the wish to be
rid of it, arises in most cases from the conscious want of self-
controll. Men know not what to think ; their loose thoughts
drive them to and fro ; they hesitate, and doubt, and falter,
and slip about ; and hence they crave after infallibility, to fasten
and pin them down, and tell them what they are to think,
and what they are to do. It is in this morbid craving for a
master, for a rule, for something that shall deliver us from the
burthen of exercising our own reason and will, that the claim of
Papal infallibility finds its main support.

This claim, as asserted specifically for the Bishop of Rome,
is notoriously of comparatively recent origin, No trace of it
whatsoever is to be found for many centuries, no hint of a notion
that there was any infallible guide, by whose wisdom the diffi-
culties and perplexities of the Church, in her innumerable
harassing controversies with all forms of heresy, might be set
at rest.* There was no hos locutus even at Rome itself. The

" Banow urges this argument repeatedly. " Why did not tiic Council of
Trent itself, without more ado, and keeping such a disputing, refer all to his

138 NOTE F.

oracles were dumb ; or rather there was one oracle, one infal-
lible Guide, to which all the teachers of the Church resorted,
which Athanasius and Chrysostom and Basil, and Ambrose
and Augustin and Hilary consulted, with equal diligence and
patience and submission, and from which they had a sure and
certain hope that, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, they
should learn the truth. Afterward, when the mind of the old
world had burnt out, and that of the new, modern world was
yet in its infancy, and through the centuries during which it
continued in its nonage, it received the lessons it was taught,
with implicit, unquestioning credulity, after the manner of
childhood, and did not think of examining into the grounds
or limits of the authority of its teacher. It was during these
centuries that the Papacy grew up, and, being the chief possessor
of religious truth, and wielder of religious power, absorbed
that power without difficulty more and more into itself. How
easily might Hildebrand, might Innocent, looking abroad from
his spiritual watch-tower on the world around him, and behold-
ing the selfishness, the cruelty, the reckless ambition of the
princes and lords, and the blindness and misery of their subjects
and vassals, — feeling in himself too that he was called to alleviate
and remedy these evils and miseries, and to establish the majesty
of Truth and Righteousness upon earth, — how easily might he

oracular decision ? — Concord was maintained and controversies decided without
him in the ancient Church, — in Synods, wherein he was not the sole judge,
nor had observable influence." p. 650. " The ancients— in case of contentions,
had no recourse to his judgment ; they did not stand to his opinion ; his authority
did not avail to quash disputes. They had recourse to the holy Scriptures, to
Catholic tradition, to reason ; they disputed and discussed points by dint of
argument. Ireneus, TertuUian, Vincentius Lirinensis, and others, discoursing
of the methods to resolve points of controversy, did not reckon the Pope's
authority for one. Divers of the Fathers did not scruple openly to dissent from
the opinions of Popes ; nor were they wondered at or condemned for it."
p. 736. " The ancients knew no such pretender to infallibility ; otherwise they
would have left disputing, and run to his oracular dictates for information. Tliey
would have only asserted this point against heretics. We should have had
testimonies of it innumerable. It had been the most famous point of all,"
p. 738. The facts being indisputably such, Barrow's argument is quite
unanswerable. It has been well put by Professor Butler, pp. 277-2(il.

NOTE F. 139

grow to regard himself as charged with a divine mission to
overthrow the tyranny of the Prince of this world, and to set
up Christ's Kingdom in its stead ! How much of truth was
there in this belief ! and how easy was the transition, how
manifold the temptations, to conceive that, in the warfare, which
he almost alone was waging against the powers of earth and
hell, he was Christ's vicegerent, empowered to use all the weapons
of Ilis spiritual armory, and to conquer armies by anathemas.
That this was an erroneous view of the nature of Christ's
Kingdom, and of the means whereby it was to be spread, — that
it was beset by a number of almost irresistible temptations, —
that he who entertained it would be prone to exalt himself
inordinately, and to open his heart to the very spirit he was
combating, — we now know. Still more certain was it, that
successors of a less grand type of character would abuse and
pervert the power thus acquired, and, instead of devoting them-
selves to the holy work of bringing mankind into the Kingdom
of Christ, would employ the weapons of that Kingdom in setting
themselves up as lords over the earth. To their rule however
the mass of the people submitted, not unwillingly. The dominion
of the crook was milder than that of the sword. Men's thoughts
were scarcely out of the shell, their desires narrow, their know-
ledge next to nothing. They were ready to believe what they
were told by God's messengers and priests. Even if a Bible
had been procurable, and they had had the power of reading
it, how could they dare to take it in their hands, to turn over
its magical pages, to frame notions of their own about its mystic
words'? The use of a learned language, different from that of
the people, was itself an effectual mode of keeping off the
profane vulgar, of making religion a thing of distant wonder
and awe. As to those whose understandings had been trained
to habits of reflexion, the philosophy of the ]\Iiddle Ages led
them rather to spin notions about things, and to build up
castles in the air, than to take hold of them, and look at them,
and search into them, and interrogate them. They who scarcely
condescended to look at outward objects, except when seen in

140 NOTE F.

Aristotle's mirror, were readily contented to seek for revealed
truth in the canons of Councils and the decretals of Popes.
Or, if any soul was kindled by a living spark from the altar,
there were divers means of quenching and extinguishing it,
which were used without scruple.

These remarks may help us in accounting for the fact that
the claim of Papal infallibility was not distinctly asserted until
the dawn of the Reformation. The supremacy of the Popes
had rather been exercised in disciplinary and ritual matters,
which pertain more appropriately to such a tribunal, than on
questions of doctrine. But the transition from the former to
the latter was easy, and almost unavoidable; and how dazzling
are the temptations of an empire, which is to be wielded over
the hearts and souls of men, which is to make their reason,
their conscience, the innermost springs of the will, bow down
to it ! When the first gleams of the Reformation began to break
through the darkness, the relations between the various classes
of society, between the secular power and the spiritual, between
secular and spiritual knowledge, were entering upon a great
change, which has been going on ever since. The modern world
was coming of age, was no longer to be in the same manner
under tutors and governors. Self-consciousness was awakening,
and asserting its awful, its terrible rights. Men were becoming
more alive to the sense of their own personality, of their own
individuality, and, as involved therein, of their own responsi-
bility. When the blessed art of printing multiplied the copies
of the Bible, and the revival of ancient literature, and the
growth of philology enabled persons to study it, they began to
feel that it was no longer allowable to take religion upon trust,
that it was their duty to go to the fountain-head, to search
the Scriptures, which God had so graciously thrown open to
them. Hereby the authority, which had previously been sub-
mitted to unquestioningly, was shaken to its base. It could
no longer uphold itself by a bare Ipse- dixit. It had to seek
for some ulterior support, for that of Reason, — if Reason could
be enlisted to support it, — if not, for some plausible substitute.

NOTE F. 1 I 1

Everybody assumes that, what has long been his de facto, is
his de jure also. The possibility of an abuse, when our pre-
scriptive rights are called in qiiestion, docs not enter our heads.
Thus it may not have been a very wide step, — yet it was a
very bold one, — one of the most audacious ever taken by man, —
to assert that the authority in doctrinal matters, which tlie
Papacy had hitherto exercised during tlie intermission of Coun-
cils, on the strengtli of its supremacy, belonged to it by an
inherent, divine right on account of its infiiUibility. Seldom
has a grosser imposture been practist, never a cleverer, or one
which shewed a more piercing insight into the weaknesses of
the human heart. How must the Italians have laught in their
sleeves, when they asserted the infallibility of the Pope ! How,
above all, must the Popes themselves have laught in their
sleeves, when they proclaimed their own infallibility ! Ilildc-
brand may have believed himself inspired ; Innocent may have
believed himself inspired; but what faith could Alexander the
Sixth, or Julius the Second, or the classical voluptuary, Leo tlio
Tenth, or the tortuous politician, Clement the Seventh, have in
his own infallibility with regard to things spiritual and divine 1
If they did not deem Christianity itself a lie, — as no small
number of the Popes must have done, — to be upheld for the
sake of their own power or pleasures, or, at best, for the sake
of social order and morality, at all events they assuredly knew
themselves to be mere lies, lies in all things, above all in the
pretension to an infallible discernment of religious truth. Surely
it is a terrible thought, that a man, — it may be a good man, —
should be doomed to spend his whole life in acting out sucli
an imposture. Of all the snares of the Papacy this has been
the most delusive, of all its plagues the most pernicious. Its
tendency has been to eradicate the very idea and principle of
truth from the soul. They who live under its influence lose
the faith that anytliing is true in itself, lose their faith in that
Reason, whicli God has given us as an organ for the discernment
of Truth. Truth becomes dependent on the fiat of a mere man.
Hence in nations, over which the Papacy has exercised an

142 NOTE F.

uncontested sway, the love of truth has faded from the con-
science ; and a sort of indifference to truth, as such, has become
a characteristic of Romanism, as contradistinguisht from Catho-
licism, especially of the Jesuit order, constituted as it was for
the sake of asserting and vindicating the unlimited claims of
the Papacy.

What an awful example of this is afforded by the manner
in which the Church of Rome has dealt with Physical Science !
The infallible Pope, under the bondage of his infallibility, com-
pelled Galileo to recant. Probably the Pope himself was well
aware that he was compelling him to lie : but what mattered
one more lie, in a world the very element of which was falsehood'?
At all events Galileo knew that he was betraying the truth,
which he had been chosen to proclaim to mankind. Had he
been a German, had he been an Englishman, he could not have
done so : even if he had tried to utter the words, they would
have " stuck in his throat." But, having been bred up as an
Italian, in an atmosphere of falsehood, he solaced himself with
that bitter jest, which ought to have wrung his heart's blood
from him, e inir si muove. Must he not have felt, when he
said this, as though the very foundations of the world were
out of course, as though something still more solid than the
earth were tottering under his feet ? and what must have been
his thoughts of God, whose archpriest had forced him to utter
this absolute falsehood ? of a God who was to be propitiated
by lies about His works 1 We know too that this was not an
insulated act, but a sample of a system, a link in a chain of
falsehood, if such a chain or system can be. With good reason
then might Barrow, who felt the preciousness of Truth, both
scientific and religious, declare (vol. I. p. 641, ed. 171G) : "The
greatest tyranny that ever was invented in the world, is the
pretense of infallibility. For Dionysius and Phalaris did leave
the mind free, pretending only to dispose of body and goods
according to their will: but the Pope, not content to make
us do and say what he pleaseth, will have us also to think
so, denouncing his imprecations and spiritual menaces if we

NOTE F. 143

do not." Can any one look at the declaration by wliich the
Jesuit editors of Newton disclaim any participation in his
theories, without feeling that he has entered into the dominions
of the Father of lies ?

Yet this is the region into which our Romanizers are rushing
back; and this is the charm that fascinates them. They will
not follow the divine music of the Orpheus wlio calls them
into the upper realm of spiritual light and truth. The light
is too painful to their eyes ; Can this be truth, they exclaim,
so unlike tvhat I supposed it to he i They look back, and are
lost. Nay, like the Dunolly eagle in Wordsworth's sonnet,
they fly back out of the light "into the castle-dungeon's
darkest mew." The new converts to Romanism are huseina'
their chains more, and drawing them tighter, than those who
had grown up under them. They rejoice in the bondage which
delivers them from the rationalism and scepticism of their own
minds. They wanted an authority to tell them Avhat they
were to think, an infallible authority, lest they should have
the trouble of examining the rectitude of its decisions. Bind
my eyes, and lead me, or drag me along, that I may not have
to exercise my private vision in deciding where I shall walk:
so cries the Romanizing fledgeling. How can I find otit my
oxvn way, when there are so many paths, and so many imddles
in the paths, and so many ditches and pitfalls beside them, into
which I may sli^); or my feet may get wet, and I may catch
cold ! What a pity it is that God gave us eyes to see for our-
selves ivith ! How happy shall I be, when I get U'here there
are no j^uddles, and no mud, and no ditches or p^iffdls, and
where an 2merri7ig priest will carry me on his back into heaven !

The complaint of the want of guidance in our Church resounds
on every side, and becomes louder every year. Dr Newman
himself set it up long ago, when he was amongst us, by com-
plaining of the "stammering lips" of our Formularies. That
blessed providence, which, by means of a singular combination
of political and ecclesiastical sagacity, preserved our Church,
in the midst of a dogmatizing age, from the snares of the

144 NOTE F.

dogmatizing spirit, and tlirew her gates wide open, as wide as
those of the New Testament itself, became an object of reproach.
Block uj) those huge archways ! was the cry, as hig as those of
Peterborough Cathedral ; and mahe a p?'ii;afe door in the side
for me and my folloivers. Divers parties had taken up this cry
in generation after generation ; and now at last it was taken
up by those who called themselves Catholics. They too betrayed
their affinity to Rome, by clamouring that their brethren ought
to be compelled to think just as they did.

For this, after all, we mostly find, is the guidance which
people really desire, — to be bid to follow their own will, and
to have the power of making others follow it. This came out
prominently a year and a half ago in the correspondence between
Mr Maskell and the Archbishop of Canterbury. If Mr Maskell's
wish had been to be guided by the Primate of his Church, to
know what are the principles of her teaching, the Archbishop's
answer would have supplied him with hints for the purpose.
But his wish was to be told that he might impose his own
opinions upon his neighbours, nay, upon our whole Church.
His spirit was the Tridentine spirit : Qui secus dixerit, anathema
sit. Dr Newman, in his Lectures on Anglicanism, p. 8, cites
the Archbishop's answer, in a passage where he asserts that
our Church, "as a thing without a soul, does not contemplate
itself, define its intrinsic constitution, or ascertain its position;"
that "it has no traditions ; it cannot be said to think; it does
not know what it holds, and what it does not ; it is not even
conscious of its own existence."* As though it were essential
to the existence of a soul, that it should be busied in defining
its intrinsic constitution, and ascertaining and circumscribing
its position. As though it were not the constant characteristic
of an energetic, genial soul, that it pours itself out in action

* It is somewhat curious that ten years ago, in his Letter to Dr Jelf, Dr
Newman himself contended strongly in behalf of the proposition, that our Church
"allows a great diversity in doctrine, except as to the Creed," supporting himself
by quotations from Bramhall, Stillingfleet, Laud, and Taylor. In fact however
the liberty he then desired to establish was all on his own side. For even then
he complained of the stammering lips of our ambiguous Formularies.

NOTE F. 115

upon the world around, without wasting its time in defining
its intrinsic constitution, or ascertaining its position. As thouo-h
this itself were not indicative of a checkt, represt action. Is
it not the grand and blessed peculiarity of our political Con-
stitution, that all our institutions, all our liberties, have grown
out of particular emergencies, — that we have never set ourselves
down, like our neighbours on the other side of the Channel,
to define our intrinsic constitution, and ascertain our position ?
Yet for this very reason do we understand our position better ;
because we know it practically, from acting in it, — not specu-
latively, from theorizing about it. Nay, was not this the spirit
and principle of the whole Catholic Church in its best ages ?
as it continued more or less until the Anticatholic Council of
Trent set about defining its intrinsic constitution, and ascertain-
ing its position, and building circumvallations around it, wall
beyond wall, and bastion beside bastion, with batteries of
anathemas mounted upon them, desolating the country round.
Our Reformers cared for truth, cared for Scripture. They
knew the perils that environ all attempts to construct systems
out of words, and aimed at correctness, rather than com-
pleteness. They were very scrupulous too not to go beyond
Scripture in any of their assertions. They desired that the
Church should be what it had been from the befrinninc; :
they only wanted to demolish the walls and lines by which it
had been turned into a castle, and to throw the anathemas
down into the abyss from which they had risen. I can never
look into the Canons of the Council of Trent, without thinking
of the contrast to our own Articles, and blessing God that I
was made a member of the English Church, and not of the
Roman Castle, with its perpetual cannonade of anathemas. If
this is, "not to know what we hold, and what we do not," we
may well be content with such ignorance ; and we may thank
God that He endowed our Reformers with that rare and ex-
emplary wisdom, which was content to be assured from His
word that they were right, without drawing the presumptuous
inference that all such as differed from them were wrong, — which

L

146

NOTE F.

knew that difference is not opposition, and that opposition is
not contrariety.

That Mr Maskell's questions to the Archbishop were addrest
to him with any purpose of being guided by his answer, no
one can suppose. His own decision was made up. If the
Archbishop's had coincided with his, he would have accepted
it : as it differed, he repudiated it, and the Church of which
he was the metropolitan, because it did not agree with what
he, by his own private judgement, had determined ought to be the
doctrine of the Church. This inconsistency pervades the con-
duct of our seceders. They invey against private judgement,
and then exercise it in the most momentous act of their lives. I
do not blame them for exercising it. They cannot help doing so.
But how can one do otherwise than blame those who forsake their
Church for admitting of private judgement, to be exercised
soberly and reasonably, when they themselves are exercising
it intemperately and unreasonably, in order to be rid of it
once for all, by jumping into the gulf, where their private
judgement blindly promises them they shall find an infallible
teacher 1

Dr Newman himself has written concerning infallibility from
opposite sides, first as its strenuous adversary, and latterly as its
advocate. If we compare the two arguments, we may be
tolerably well satisfied : for our champion is decidedly superior
to the Roman, and has unhorst him more than once by anticipa-
tion. Of the Lectures on Romanism the two ablest are employed
on this topic. After admitting (p. 102), as he was bound to do,
that " in Romanism there are some things absolutely good, some
things only just tainted and sullied, some things corrupted, and
some things in themselves sinful," he adds : " but the system
itself so called, as a whole, and therefore all parts of it, tend
to evil. Of this evil system the main tenet is the Church's
infallibility."* He then sets forth a number of the mischiefs

* These Lectures were publisht in 1837. In 1841, in his Letter to Dr Jelf,
the author exprest the same conviction no less strongly (p. 14). "Is its infalli-
bility a slight characteristic of the Romish, or Ronianistic, or Papal sj'Stem ? — Is
it jiot — tliat on which all the other errours of its received system depend ? "

NOTE F. 147

which result from this evil source j and though there are clivers
symptoms of those partial and erroneous views which characterize
his works, though one finds indications of the harm which the
exaggerated admiration and misapplication of Butler's Analogy
have done to so many of our modern divines, I know few portions
of his writings, unless it be among his Sermons, more valuable
than these two Lectures.

On the other hand, in the Essay on Develojmient, Dr Newman
has found out that this central evil of Popery, " the main tenet
of this evil system," is a necessity ; as it may be for the
upholding of that "evil system," although utterly incompatible
with a sound state of Christianity. He maintains that it is
indispensable for the consolidation of his whole scheme of
Developments, that there should be a Developing Authority ;
and this Authority, he pronounces, must be infallible ; though
it would rather appear as if by the word ivfallihle he did
not mean that it really is so. But on this point I shall have
to speak in Note M. The fallaciousness of the reasoning by
which this proposition is supported, has been very ably ex-
posed by Professor Butler in his last three Letters. I myself
on a former occasion (in Note A to my Charge for 1842) have
pointed out how Dr Newman in this argument gives a plausible
appearance to his case by a couple of ordinary sophisms, by his
indefiniteness in the use of the words hypothesis and theory,
substituting them one for the other, as if they were equivalent,
and by bringing forward two or three extravagantly absurd
alternatives, as though these were the only means of escaping
from the hypothesis he is defending. Some of the argutuents
in this section come before us in the shape of answers to objec-
tions urged by himself in his Lectures on Romanism, and are
curious specimens of the diamond-cut-diamond mode of reasoning.
The following, in p. 124, shews what a Nvrench a strong mind
must undergo when it plunges into the Romish abyss.

" It must be borne in mind that, as the essence of
all religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction
between natural religion and revealed lies in this, that the

H8 NOTE F.

one has a subjective authority, and the other an objective.
Revelation consists in the manifestation of the Invisible Divine
Power, or in the substitution of the voice of a Lawgiver for
the voice of conscience. The supremacy of conscience is the
essence of natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope,
or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed; and when
such external authority is taken away, the mind falls back
again upon that inward guide which it possessed even before
Revelation was vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the
system of nature, such is the voice of Scripture, or of the
Church, or of the Holy See, as we may determine it, in the
system of Revelation."

In this passage there is a chain of sophisms by which we are
led to the most revolting conclusions. The primary assertion,
that " the essence of all religion is authority and obedience," is a
partial truth, exprest with such vague generality that it may
subserve to any amount of fallacies. All religion does indeed
imply a relation, which in one sense must be that of authority
and obedience. But it no way follows from this, as Dr Newman's
argument would infer, that every relation of authority and
obedience is, as such, religious. This will depend upon the nature
and character of the authority ; so that the very point on which
the question hinges, is assumed in this way of stating it. When
Eve obeyed the Tempter, it was not religious obedience. When
our Lord resisted him, it was not an act of irreligious disobedience.
Among the highest acts of faith, many have ever involved disobe-
dience to some lawless, evil power. Nor are we destitute, as a
Romanist might pretend, of the means of discerning when we
ought to obey, and when to disobey. A conscience enlightened
by the Gospel will guide a simple peasant aright, as was seen,
for instance, in Tell. Again, though there is a sort of truth in
the assertion that " Revelation consists in the substitution of the
voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of Conscience," that truth, as
is often the case with Romanism, stops short at the Mosaic
dispensation. If the proposition is extended to the Christian, it is
contradicted by the declaration that, while the Lcm was given hy

NOTE F. 1 II)

Moses, Grace o.nd Trulli came by Jestis Christ, — Grace, the illu-
inination of the Conscience by the Spirit, and Truth, which
through that illumination it apprehends. What the beloved
Apostle designates as the glory of the better Dispensation, Dr
Newman casts back into the period of Natural Religion, whenever
that may have been. Were it true, that " the supremacy of Con-
science is the essence of Natural Religion, the supremacy of
Apostle, or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, the essence of revealed,"
we should be unable to withstand the argument of the Ration-
alist, that Revelation is a mere step in the development of Natural
Religion. But the character of Christianity, as announced by
the prophets, is just the reverse. The Law is not to be
proclaimed by Pope or Bishop, but to be written in the heart;
and all men are to know their Heavenly Lawgiver. The Truth
was not to make us bondmen to the Pope, but free. When lie
■ who was the True Light of every man, and had been so from
the beginning, came into the world, He <^nve potver to as many
as received Him to become the sons of God, that is, to them that
believed in His name. He did not say, / tvill set up My Lijhl
here, on the hill of Zion, or there, on the seven hills of Rome. He
said, The hour cometh when neither on this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father, — neither here nor there,
as if these were the only places upon earth set apart for His
worship. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor-
shipers shall worship the Father in Sjnrit and in truth, — in all
places, without distinction. Hence the antithesis in the last
sentence of the passage just quoted ought not to be between
Conscience and Scripture, or the Church, or the Pope, but between
Conscience acting under the guidance of our own intellectual
and moral faculties, assisted by the traditions of mankind, and
Conscience with the superadded light of Scripture, and of the
Church, and of the Spirit of God.

The difficulties, which, the Romanists are wont to urge, inca-
pacitate the individual conscience for pronouncing judgement,
are greatly increast by Dr Newman's whole scheme of Develop-
ment. His Essay manifests an eminent revolutionary capacity

150 NOTE F.

for throwing all things into confusion, — a capacity not seldom
found largely developt in a froward child ; but it does not bear
witness to a similar faculty for restoring order and reorganizing.
There is little light in it, except what the flints strike from
being flung against each other. Hence, being utterly unable to
untie the knots, which he himself has tied, he wants a developing
Authority to do so. This is in keeping with the usual artifice of
Roman controversialists, who, after exaggerating the difficulties
presented by Christianity to the critical mind, assume that it
must present the same difficulties to all minds, and thus make
out a necessity for bringing in a Deus ex machina. At the
bottom of these proceedings, as of so many others of the same
Church, lies an erroneous conception of Faith, and the want
of it. Confounding faith with belief, she lays down that a
belief in every dogma is of the essence of Christianity, and
that they must all be believed under pain of damnation. But,
as the literal carrying out of this proposition would lead to
consequences equally absurd and horrible, she has invented the
makeshift of an implicit faith in all that she may teach ;
whereby such as surrender their reason and conscience to her
keeping shall obtain a ticket of free admission into heaven.
What however is there in all this, but a dreary want of faith
in spiritual realities? Dr Newman, in the passage quoted in
p. 113, and elsewhere, taunts Protestants with the want of
Faith, in the sense of "a spiritual sight of the unseen." In
the Notes on the Mission of the Comforter I have had frequent
occasion to remark how the want of that spiritual sight of the
unseen is a peculiar characteristic of Romanism ; for instance in
pp. 198, 342, 349, 435, 473 (2d Edit.). The same conviction forced
itself upon me in my Vindication of Luther, when replying
to Dr Newman's censures of him. In like manner, if we ex-
amine the arguments which are brought forward to establish
the infallibility of the Church, or of the Pope, we can hardly
fail to perceive that they imply a deplorable want of faith in the
gift of the Spirit, as granted to all who earnestly and devoutly
seek His illumination to guide them to the truth. He who

NOTE F. 151

sincerely desires to find help, that he may be enabled to discover
the way of salvation, will find it, according to his need, in our
Church, quite as sure, quite as infallible, or rather far more
so than in the Church of Rome. For, even if the Papacy were
infallible, he could not benefit by that infallibility ; he could
not have access to the Pope, so as to propound his private
difficulties for the decision of the oracle. His own minister
would be to him, as with us, the interpreter of the voice of the
Church. The main difference would be, that with us he would
be allowed and exhorted to train and refresh his mind and
spirit by the constant study of the Book of Life ; while Rome
would interdict his reading what, she knows, if freely examined,
must ever prove fatal to her pretensions.

In fact the faith of the Romish Church, so far as it differs
from ours, is not in spiritual powers and acts, but in magical.
A spiritual power acts upon the will and the conscience, and
through them. A magical power produces its changes arbi-
trarily, independent of the will and conscience. Such is the
belief which Dr Newman calls faith, and which he supposes to
manifest itself by outward acts, by the repetition of prayers by
rote, without any renewal of the spirit. Such is the baptismal
change of nature, as substituted for the new birth. Such is
the belief of a string of propositions on the authority of
another, without any inward personal conviction of their truth,
Such is the infallibility ascribed to Popes, without any reference
to their moral and spiritual condition. The Pope is nothing
but a hierarchal Archimagus.

Note G: p. 2G.

In the third volume of Coleridge's Remains (p. 17), there is
the following remark on the twentieth Article. " It is mournful
to think how many recent writers have criminated our Church
in consequence of their own ignorance and inadvertence, in not
knowing, or not noticing, the contradistinction hero meant

152 NOTE G.

between power and authority. Rites and ceremonies the Church
may ordain jure 2^^"02irio : on matters of faith her judgement
is to be received with reverence, and not gainsaid, but after
repeated enquiries, and on weighty grounds."

This seems to have been written in 1831, when the
ecclesiastical current, which had so long been ebbing away, was
just flowing back with springtide force. During the last twenty
years, if this Article has been deemed unsatisfactory, the com-
plaint has rather been that it does not sufficiently magnify the
authority of the Church ; and attempts have been made to
strain its words into a meaning very different from that which
its authors put into them. Thus the simple wisdom of our
great Christian philosopher, which stood out almost alone during
the neap-tide, has since been submerged by the rush of the
waters. But that rush will pass away; and then bis simple
wisdom will be seen to express the true sense of our Article,
marking out the right boundary between the undue depreciation
and the inordinate exaggeration of the authority of the Church.

Here again Dr Newman, in his Lectures on Romanism, though
he denounced the Romish doctrine of the infallibility of the
Church with much logical as well as rhetorical power, yet
prepared the way for the inculcation of the same doctrine with
regard to our own Church. " In the 20th Article (he says,
p. 22 G) we are told that the Church has ^ authority in. contro-
versies of faith.' Now these words certainly do not merely mean
that she has authority to enforce such doctrines as can historically
be proved to be Apostolical. They do not speak of her power
of enforcing truth, or of her power of enforcing at all, but say
that she has ' authority in controversies.' — But how can she
have this authority, unless she be certainly true in her decla-
rations ? She can have no authority in declaring a lie."

Now surely it is marvellous that so expert a logician should
have presented us with such a dilemma, — that he should not
have discerned how there are a number of intermediate alter-
natives, between declaring the truth with absolute certainty,
and declaring a lie. May we not have a strong, a very strong

NOTE G. 153

presumption that the Church, after a patient, devout consideration
of the controversies of faith, will be enabled to pronounce rightly
concerning them 1 although this presumption may fall short
of absolute certainty. Yet it may be sufficient to warrant her
in interposing her decision for the sake of peace, when con-
troversies of faith are raging among her ministers : and this
is why, in claiming that authority, she defines its application
to " controversies of faith." Hence, in drawing up her Articles,
she declared them to be "for the avoiding of diversities of
opinions, and for the establishing of consent touching true re-
ligion." In this also she followed the practice of the early
Church, not laying down a scholastic system of doctrine, like
the Tridentine, but confining the exercise, and even the
assertion of her authority to those doctrines which had become
the subject of controversies. Moreover her earnest desire not to
fetter the individual conscience was manifested in this, that
her Articles were not designed to be Articles of Faith, or
terms of Communion ; nor did she invent any such fiction as
Implicit Faith, to salve over the wide-spread sore of general igno-
rance and unbelief : she merely desired to keep her appointed
teachers from preaching the prevalent errours of Kome, and from
running after the extravagances which the shock of the Re-
formation had let loose. So long as she put forth her authority
thus 'judiciously, her ministers might bow to it, at least in silent
submission, with perfect conscientiousness, provided no essential
doctrine was involved ; or, if they felt their own sense of truth
trencht upon, they might retire into lay communion.

The other arguments used by Dr Newman in the same
Lecture may be refuted by the same simple remark. While he
claims certainty for the decisions of the Church, our Article im-
plies nothing more than a high degree of probability. "To say
the Church has authority (he argues in p. 227), and yet is not
true, as far as it has authority, were to destroy liberty of con-
science." Yes : to say it is not true. But who says that ?
We say, that we have very strong grounds for trusting that her
decisions will be true, though still there is a possibility of her

154 NOTE G.

erring. Nor does this fallibility invalidate her authority, any
more than that of parents and other governors, as I have pointed
out in the Charge,

In his views on this point there seems to have been no little
confusion. The passage just cited is not easily reconcilable with
all that is urged so strongly in the previous Lectures against the
infallibility claimed by Rome. In a subsequent Lecture (pp.
320 — 324), on the other hand, he maintains that our Church, in
claiming authority, does not claim it as a judge, but as a witness
of primitive truth ; and he tries to support this assertion by the
Canon of 1571, which we have discust above in Note E. That
Canon however was not laid down as an absolute rule for the
Church, but merely for the guidance of individual preachers, in a
time of intellectual convulsions ; and even for them it is merely
negative and limitary. In the 20th Article the Church, in the
consciousness of her spiritual privileges, does not recognise any
absolute rule for her own direction, except that of Scripture ;
though, when we turn to the Canon, we may feel convinced that,
in forming her judgement, she will gladly take advantage of
whatever help may be afforded by the teaching of Antiquity.
The Article does not state that the primitive Church alone had
authority in controversies of faith, but that in every age, as con-
troversies arose, the Church, by her lawful organs, has authority
to decide them ; and the only condition prescribed for the 'exer-
cise of this authority is, that it must be in conformity to
Scripture. How the Church is to interpret Scripture, the Article
does not define, further than that she must not " so expound one
place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another." All beyond
this is left open : and why should it not be so ? In every age,
we may trust, the Spirit will teach the Church, what use she
is to make of her various human helps.

Without engaging in the dispute about the manner in which
the first sentence of the 20th Article obtained a place in it, I
may here remark, that, in determining the meaning of that
Article, we should bear in mind that this first sentence is a later
addition, whether made in 1562, or in 1571. In its original

NOTE G.

155

form, this Article, like many of the others, was merely negative
and restrictive, laying down the limits of the authority of the
Churuh, r— that it is not lawful for her to ordain anything
contrary to God's word written, or to expound one place of
Scripture so that it be repugnant to another, or to enforce
anything, besides what is derived from Scripture, to be believed
for necessity of salvation. Thus it was meant as a protest
against the Papal assumption of a right to fabricate new Articles
of Faith, and to impose them as necessary to salvation. This
was one of the main principles of our Reformation ; and
therefore it is also asserted in the Gth Article, and again in the
21st. In the course of the controversy occasioned by Tract
XC, it was contended that the insertion of these words, "necessary
to salvation,'' in the 21st Article, was indicative of a compromise,
and of a purpose to leave it an open question, whether General
Councils might not be infallible with regard to such truths as
are not necessary to salvation. But, if we look at them rightly,
in connexion with the circumstances of the age, they merely
shew that our Reformers here also were acting with their wonted
selfcontroU, and confined themselves to the assertion of that
which was requisite for the deliverance of the Church from
the bondage of human, arbitrary Articles of Faith. They did
not indulge themselves in laying down general propositions
concerning matters that were not requisite for their immediate
purpose : but surely, if they did not hold General Councils to be
preserved from the possibility of errour with regard to truths
necessary to salvation, they can never have had any intention of
implying that such Councils might have an immunity from
errour with regard to other less momentous truths. At the same
time, in the very act of drawing up the Articles, they were
exercising authority in controversies of faith ; and when this
authority became a matter of dispute, it was clearly expedient
and right that it should be distinctly asserted, as well as the
power of decreeing rites and ceremonies ; which was so vehemently
impugned, that one of Hooker's main purposes in writing his
great work was to vindicate it.

156 NOTE a.

In this assertion however, while there certainly was not the
slightest thought of claiming infallibility, — as the 21st Article,
by itself, would suffice to prove, — I am equally unable to discern
any pretension to a right of binding consciences ; which indeed,
strictly speaking, could not exist, unless it were accompanied by
infallibility. Authority may require the obedience of our
actions ; but no human authority, as such, can demand more than
the deference of our thoughts : nor can we really render more
without betraying our humanity. It was with a wise recognition
of this truth, that our Reformers did not draw up their Articles
as Articles of Faith, but merely as Articles of Peace, " for the
avoiding of diversities of opinions." This distinction is pointed
out by Bramhall, in his Replication to the Bisliop of Chalcedon
(Vol. ii. p. 201), where he contrasts our practice with that of
Rome : " Pius the Fourth did not only enjoin all ecclesiastics —
to swear to his new Creed, but he imposed it upon all Christians, as
veram fidem Gatholicaim extra quam nemo salvus esse x>otest.- — We
do not hold our Thirtynine Articles to be such necessary truths,
ext7'a quam non est salus, — nor enjoin ecclesiastic persons to swear
to them, but only to subscribe them as theological truths, for the
preservation of unity among us, and the extirpation of some
growing errours." When Dr Newman, in his Letter to Dr Jelf,
urged this important distinction, and supported it (in pp.
18 — 23) by the testimonies of some of our chief divines, he, for
once, was contending for a great Protestant liberty.

Hence I cannot adopt, what Archdeacon Wilberforce, in his
History of Erastianisni (p. 29), calls "the ancient principle,"
which he strenuously maintains, " that the interpretation of
doctrine as given by authority has a claim upon the conscience ;"
if the claim is to anything more than to respectful deference and
consideration. In fact our Church herself expressly denies such
a claim, unless it be enforced by the clear testimony of Scripture.

In the Sermon on the Princijyle of Church Authority subjoined
to this Sketch of Erastianism, the excellent writer tries to
vindicate his view of that principle by a comparison between the
processes by which we acquire the knowledge of natural and that

NOTE G. 157

of spiritual things. The conception was a happy one; and, if he
had workt it out more closely and distinctly, he would have
arrived at different, and, as it seems to me, correcter results.
After speaking of the great importance ascribed by philosophers,
ancient and modern, to the common consent of mankind, as a
testimony to the truths for which it vouches, he tells us that, in
the sphere of revealed truth, the place of this common consent is
occupied by the authority of the Church. Undoubtedly : but,
precious as is the value of this common consent, so far as it
expresses the deep, hidden consciousness of humanity in behalf
of moral truths, it not seldom misunderstood itself, was often
tainted and perverted by errours springing from the inherent
sinfulness of our nature, seldom attained to more than a semi-
consciousness of its own meaning, and needed some spokesman or
interpreter, some heaven-sent prophet, to give it utterance. This
was the office of the great lawgivers and moral teachers of
Antiquity, nay, of every man in whom the voice of Conscience
spake out and delivered its messages, whether by word or by
deed. Among these prophets of the Heathen world, the first
place by general accord is granted to Socrates, whose great work
was to give utterance to the truths of man's innermost conscious-
ness ; and in whose life we see how the common consent of his
age had become encrusted with a number of traditionary and
dogmatical errours, so that it required the death-plunge of an
immortal spirit to burst through it. Now it is very certain that
in the written word of God we have an incomparably clearer,
distincter enunciation of moral and spiritual truth, than that
which the common consent of Antiquity had to bear witness and
give utterance to. But, as the power of Sin, although it had been
overcome once for all, has still been awfully mighty, even in the
Church of Him who overcame it, so has it been with Errour,
which from the first has always been its correlative, its inseparable
Siamese twin. All forms of errour, both traditionary and doo--
matical, have been perpetually springing up and spreading
through the Church ; and divers of these have been taken up
from time to time by the common consent of particular ages,

158 NOTE G.

through the elective affinities of Sin, until some new witness or
witnesses to the Truth, as declared once for all in the word of
God, have been called up to establish it, often by their
martyrdom. Doubtless the truths of revealed religion have been
apprehended from time to time more distinctly, and have been
exprest in definite propositions with more or less of scientific
order, by those who have exercised authority in the Church ;
even as the truths of our moral consciousness were apprehended
and enunciated by the ancient sages : but in neither case has the
human liability to errour been wholly excluded. Though the
Spirit would assuredly have directed the Church to the truth,
if the Church had allowed herself to be directed by Him, yet
in this, as in so many other instances, the Divine promise
has been more or less baffled, not from any slackness on the part
of the Giver, but through the manifold obstacles opposed by the
recipients. Still, in the main, the Spirit did so far prevail over
the reluctances of man's carnal, sinful nature, that the primary
principles of Christian truth, those which are embodied in the
Creeds, have obtained a catholic recognition in the Church.
With regard to these then she is a sure witness and a safe
guide to the truth ; and of this we may feel a confident conviction,
in that she proves her declarations to be in accordance with
Scripture. So far as she does this, and so far as she awakens
a response in the heart and mind of the individual believer,
so far her authority is binding on his conscience ; but no further,
that is, with regard to points of faith. In ritual and ceremonial
matters, and all things indifferent, he will owe her obedience :
but in faith he cannot render such, except so far as his own
spirit is awakened and aroused to receive what she would pour
into it. If the Church would bind the conscience, she must do
so, according to St Paul's method (2 Cor iv, 2), bi/ manifestation
of the truth.

Hence I cannot but regret that Archdeacon Wilberforce, in
the same Sermon, should have given his sanction to the hankering,
the morbid hankering, it seems to me, after leading-strings,
which has been beguiling so many persons of late to listen

NOTE G. 159

to every bold pretender, wbether he would lead them to Rome or
to the land of the Mormons. His Sermon being on St Paul's
'declaration, that he who is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he
himself is judged hy no man, he warns us that these words must
be received with great caution, inasmuch as they are a favorite
text with enthusiasts and impostors : and then, after citing the
analogous verses of St John, — Ye have an unction from the Holy
One; and ye know all things: — the anointing which ye have
received from Him abideth in you ; and ye need not that any man
teach you: — he adds (p. 126): "Such expressions harmonize
with that longing for some principle of guidance, which is deeply
rooted in the heart. We can classify and catalogue the material
treasures of mankind. — And is the higher region of thought and
intellect to be vext for ever by unsatisfying contentions ? are
systems of belief to follow one another like the waves of the
deep, without umpire and without end 1 Is there no test of
moral and religious truth, — no criterion for interpreting God's
word ? "

This umpire, and test, and criterion, he bids us seek and find
in the authority of the Church. Yet the more I examine the
passages here cited, along with the context, the clearer it seems
to me, that both St Paul and St John are not speaking of the
authority of the collective body, or of the Church, but of the
personal, individual illumination vouchsafed by the Spirit to
every faithful Christian, who seeks His holy communion. This
is t\\Q 2)rima facie meaning of these passages ; and it is confirmed
by the whole tenour of St Paul's Epistle, one main topic of which
relates to the various gifts of the Spirit bestowed on individuals :
To one is given hy the Sinrit the word of wisdom ; and so on.
It is only by foisting in considerations which are quite alien
from these passages, that we can wrest them from this meaning.
One of the worst mischiefs of that which is called the Sacra-
mental System, is, that its advocates are apt to disparage and
lose sight of all spiritual influences, except such as are conveyed
ecclesiastically through some sacramental ordinance. A like
tendency, I have had occasion to remark in the Notes on

160 NOTE G.

the Mission of the Comforter, is often found in the divines who
belong to what is called the Anglocatholic School. I am not
urging this as an argument against that system, — a question far
too large for this place : I readily concede that the evils which
may result from the perversion and misapplication of a truth, do
not impeach it. But in like manner we have a right to demand
that the evils alledged to result from false pretensions to a
spiritual illumination must not be allowed to weigh against the
reality of such illuminations. If the abuse of a thing disproved
its use, man would long ago have forfeited every blessing that
God has granted him.

I cannot admit therefore that these texts refer, as Archdeacon
Wilberforce contends (p. 137), "not to the individual, but to
the collective Christian." Assuredly they do refer to the in-
dividual Christian, not indeed in his frail, sinful, erring
individuality, but, as some would say, to the ideal Christian,
to that ideal Christian who is one and the same with the real
Christian, to the individual, so far as he avails himself of his
Christian privileges, and fulfills his Christian character, so far
as he lives, not by his own selfish, insulated life, but by the
spirit of Christ dwelling in him. It is true, St Paul " does not
mean that each man may believe what he chooses for himself."
But who ever did mean this ? Who can ever have asserted
anything so grossly and glaringly absurd 1 The wonder is,
that anybody should ever have set up such a man of straw to
knock down, that anybody should ever have identified this
absurdity with the claim to the exercise of private judgement.
No one in his senses can ever have maintained " that each man
may believe what he chooses for himself" in theology, any more
than in any other branch of knowledge. In all branches our
conceptions must be regulated and determined by their objects.
Nor is such a proposition implied in the denial of our being
bound to believe what others choose for us. Will and choice
have nothing to do with the matter ; except so far as the will
may be needed to suppress the interference of personal likings
and prejudices, and to make us submit our minds obediently to

NOTE G, IGl

that which is appointed for our belief by the various laws of
thought.

But, though St Paul does not mean " that each man may
believe what he chooses," he is just as far from meaning, what
Archdeacon Wilberforce (p. 137) imputes to him, "that each
man is safe, while he holds that which is accepted of all." This
is a miserable modern notion, a miserable modern anxiety, this
vexing and worrying ourselves about what it is safe for us to
believe and to think. This phrase, — for surely it is nothing
else : even those who make use of it cannot really mean what
they say, — is brought forward perpetually nowadays, even by
those who talk grandly about an objective system of Truth, and
boast of having set up this to supersede the merely subjective
views of the last generations. Yet, if the divinity of our fathers
was too apt to pass by many of the deepest truths of Christianity,
and to fix its attention too exclusively on those which bear
immediately on our own personal salvation, it was left for their
successors to make this the test of truth. When St Paul
exhorted us to meditate on whatsoever things are true and
honest and just and pure and lovely and of good report, he
omitted to mention whatsoever things are safe. This omission
must seem unaccountable to our new divines, who, passing over
all the other grand and glorious objects of contemplation, set
whatsoever things are safe before us as the one class we are to
think on. Yet assuredly, if we seek what is true, honestly and
earnestly, with such helps as God has given us, and if we believe
and act up to the truth Avhich we may thus find, we shall be
safe. Whereas, if our main purpose is merely to find out what
we may believe with safety to our own puny selves, we shall
miss the truth, and our safety along with it. In no point of
view is it more certain, that he whose anxiety is to save his
life will lose it, and that he alone who is ready to lose his life
will save it. When we read St Paul's stirring account of the
manifold perils he had past through, we there see how he saved
his life, and won it. Had he shrunk from them, he would have
lost it. To us indeed it is not granted to walk in the footsteps

162 NOTE G.

of that great Apostle, who trod, so to say, from pinnacle to
pinnacle, from mountain-top to mountain-top, in the spiritual
world : but the rule of our walk ought to be the same as his.

I have already had occasion to cite another instance of this
perversity in p. 85 ; and I have said thus much on it here,
because this notion, that we are not to seek after that which
is true, but merely that which is safe, — akin, as it is, to the
Romish disbelief of any real truth, and to the intellectual
despotism of the Papacy, — is a fosterer of those delusions
which lead people to despair of ascertaining any truth for
themselves, and to bow their hearts and minds under any dogmas
that Rome may impose on them, deeming themselves safe if
they can but get quit of their own personal responsibility.
Archdeacon Wilberforce seems to think that, by thus putting
on the yoke of authority, we may be delivered from the un-
satisfying contentions which are " for ever vexing us in the
higher region of thought and intellect." But surely, if he
had followed out his own comparison with the processes of
thought concerning physical objects, he would have perceived
that, so long as systems and dogmas and traditions were held
to be authoritative. Science was full of contentions, and impro-
gressive ; but, since it has cast off all bondage except that
which is imposed upon it by the laws of thought, — in other
words, since it has become free, — its progress has been im-
measurable, subjugating new worlds one after another, and yet
on the whole with a wonderful consent and unity. This consent
and unity have not resulted from the authority of Academies, but
from the power of Truth, and from the longing of the human
mind to know and acknowledge it. The last summer ought to
have taught all nations, though the Governments have blinded
their eyes to the lesson, that the freest nation is also the most
orderly, and the readiest to recognise the majesty of Law.

Here I may suggest an answer to a question, which has been
put by Archdeacon Wilberforce, as well as by others before him,
with reference to the declaration in our Articles, that the
decisions of the Church are not valid, unless they are agreeable to

NOTE G. 1G3

Scripture. "By whom (he aslcs, p. 144) is Scripture to be
interpreted 1 " Who is to determine whether this agreement
exists or not 1 Ultimately, no doubt, the Church herself, by
whom alone her authoritative decision can be authoritatively
modified or set aside ; just as an Act of the Civil Legislature can
only be modified or set aside by a subsequent Act of the same.
As to the tribunal by which the decisions of the Church are to be
interpreted, I shall have to speak of it in Note U. But in that
the Church appeals to the test of Scripture, and disclaims all
authority, except as derived from Scripture, she herself authorizes
her individual members to examine her decisions by that test.
She does not forclose enquiry, but invites it. Hence, as in Science
the common consent of philosophers, however firmly establisht it
may appear, is not held to debar gifted thinkers from questioning
any of the propositions which that common consent has recog-
nised, if a sufficient cause for doing so is shewn, so may he, who
has the proper spiritual gifts, if he perceives any defects in the
teaching of the Church, point out what seems to him erroneous.
How far this may be done consistently with the obligations
incurred by the exercise of a ministerial office, must be
determined by the conscience in each particular case : but, if such
objections are brought forward in a right spirit, — a spirit of
reverence toward the Church, but of still higher reverence for
Truth, — religious truth will be promoted thereby, even as
scientific truth is by the ever-renewed researches of competent
enquirers. Thus we return to the proposition of Coleridge's,
which stands at the opening of this Note.

This assertion of the rights of the individual Christian no way
implies, as the impugners of private judgement are wont to
assume, that every man may set about building up a scheme
of religion and theology for himself out of the Scriptures ; any
more than every man of science begins constructing a new system
of Natural Philosophy. To maintain that each man may be
guided by the Spirit to the truth, is not inconsistent with, but
on the contrary involves the recognition that the faithful in
all ages have had the same Divine guidance vouchsafed to them ;

M 2

164 NOTE G.

and he who truly desires and seeks that guidance, and feels its
constraining power, should be the first to look with childlike
reverence for every manifestation of His working in the history
and teaching of the Church,— with a reverence like that of St
Paul for the prophetic lessons of the Old Testament. Nor does
our conviction that no philosopher who ever lived was infallible,
prevent our having a reasonable certainty with regard to the
great body of the knowledge stored up for us, — a certainty
fully adequate for all the practical wants of life, and which we
ourselves, if duly qualified, shall not hesitate to make use of as
the groundwork for further discoveries.

Several of the questions toucht on in this Note, and in some of
the preceding ones, have been treated by Jeremy Taylor with
admirable logical power, and with his own wonderful eloquence,
in his Dissuaske from Po'pery, especially in the first Sections of
the second Part. In this, as in his other later writings, his
eloquence has risen from that of imagery to that of thought.
He no longer spreads out his plumage, after the manner of
young writers, to display its bright and gorgeous colours, but
uses it to soar and fly through the air to the truths he desires
to reach. An abridgement of this work, if well executed,
omitting such portions of it as bear mainly on the specific con-
troversies of his own time, and supplying the most important
quotations, might be of much service in dispersing the delusions
of our days. Many of them are so thoroughly exploded here,
that one might have deemed they could never have lifted up
their heads again, more especially as the opposite truths are
set forth so vividly and forcibly. But England has still many
blessings to receive from her great writers of former ages.
They will still help her to confound and scatter modern follies ;
andj alas ! she needs their help.

NOTE H. 165

Note H : p. 28.

Among the most curious phenomena of inconsistency, it may
be recorded, that the very persons who were continually striving
to exalt and exaggerate the authority of the Church, to claim
a g'MasJ-infallibility for her, and to make it binding on con-
sciences, were at the same time exercising all the arts and
artifices of logic to evacuate her decisions of their meaning, and
to turn them into mere strings of nerveless words. Thus pal-
pably did they betray that their purpose was, not to establish the
authority of the Church, but their own, not to render the deci-
sions of the Church, but their own opinions, binding on the
consciences of their brethren.

In the notorious Tract, which terminated the series of the
Tracts for the Times, there are divers attempts to enervate our
Articles ; of which the most sophistical is perhaps the one
brought to bear on the 21st, — that " General Councils may not
be gathered together without the commandment and will of
princes ; and when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they
be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the
Spirit and Word of God, they may err, and sometimes have erred,
even in things pertaining to God." That this is a plain, direct
denial of the infallibility of General Councils, I cannot see how
a reasonable man can question. The Article does not assert
that every General Council has erred : it contents itself with
asserting that no such Council had an absolute gift of infal-
libility : and it gives the sufficient reason which prevented
Councils from having that gift, that their members were "not
all governed by the Spirit and word of God," — a fact, the truth
of which is grievously establisht by ecclesiastical history. Well !
the ingenious author of the Tract, to get rid of this obvious
meaning, expounds the Article thus : " General Councils may
err, \(is such; — may err], unless in any case it is promised, as a
matter of express supernatural privilege, that they shall not err;

166 NOTE H.

a case which lies beyond the scope of this Article, or at any rate
beside its determination." This, forsooth, is the way in which
the authority of the Church is to be binding on the conscience !
binding it to fraud by fraud ! What form of words can have
real force, if we are allowed to destroy that force by such a tacit
restriction ? / ivill obey the King, — unless the Po2oe bids me not
do so. — / will be a dutiful subject, — unless it will j)t'omote the
interests of the Church to blow up King, Lords, and Commons. I
cannot believe that Mr Newman himself ever subscribed our
Articles with such a mental reservation. He cannot at that
time have been, — I trust he is not now, — such an adept in the
school of Loyola. But why did he suggest such a fraud to
others ? Could there be a better preparation for Rome 1 Nor
does the case which he contemplates, " lie beyond the scope of
the Article," or even " beside its determination." The clause in
which it is said that the members of Councils are "not all
governed by the Spirit and word of God," contains a plain and
direct reference to the promise of the Spirit, by whom, if they
had been so governed, they would have been led to the truth.

The sophist continues : " Such a promise however does exist,
in cases when General Councils are not only gathered together
according to ' the commandment and will of princes,' but in the
Name of Christ, according to our Lord's promise. This Article
merely contemplates the human prince, not the King of Saints."
But, though the Article speaks of the human prince, wdth
reference to a point which was sanctioned by ancient and almost
universal practice, assuredly it did contemplate at the same time
that the Council was to be assembled in the Name of Christ.
Nay, what else could it mean ? What could a General Council
be, which was not professedly assembled in Christ's name 1

Further : " While Councils are a thing of earth, their infal-
libility of course is not guaranteed : when they are a thing of
heaven, their deliberations are overruled, and their decrees
authoritative. In such cases they are Catholic Councils. — Thus
Catholic or Ecumenical Councils are General Councils, and
something more. Some General Councils are Catholic, and others

NOTE H. IG7

are not. — If Catliolicity be thus a qualiti/ found at times in
General Councils, rather than the diferenlia belonging to a cer-
tain class of them, it is still less surprising that the Article
should be silent about it." What purpose is answered by the
logical terminology here, except that of throwing dust into
people's eyes 1 When a person talks about the differentia, it is
supposed he must understand what he is writing about ; but
very often he is only mystifying himself as well as his readers.
The phrase General Councils in the Article is evidently used in
its comprehensive sense, as distinguisht from Provincial or
Diocesan, but assuredly with no intention of excluding the
Catholic or Ecumenical Councils. Had there been any such
purpose, it would have been exprest. Indeed what would the
Article mean, according to this interpretation ? Of course there
is one exception implied in it, but only one, the case, if any
such there ever was, in which the great majority of the members
were truly governed by the Spirit and word of God.

To confirm the interpretation of this Article, the opinion of
Gregory Nazianzen is referred to, who, the writer says, "well
illustrates the consistency of this Article with a belief in the
infallibility of Ecumenical Councils, by his own language on the
subject on different occasions." Now Gregory's often quoted
words, — " My mind is — to keep clear of every conference of
bishops ; for of conference never saw I good come, or a remedy
so much as an increase of evils : for there is strife and ambition ;
and these have the upperhand of reason :" — do indeed fully
justify the statement in the Article, that the members of
General Councils " are not all governed by the Spirit and word
of God." But as to the expressions cited in the Tract from his
21st Oration, his speaking of "the Holy Council in Nicea," and
" that band of chosen men whom the Holy Ghost brought together,"
they no more imply a belief in the infallibility of that Council,
than a like belief is implied in the addresses prefixt by St Paul
to his Epistles, for instance, in the first verses of that to the
Ephesians.

In the controversy occasioned by Tract XC, other sophisms,

168 NOTE I.

of no greater cogency, were brought forward for tlie same purpose
of destroying the force of this Article, by some of those zealous
worshipers of Antiquity, whose laborious researches into Anti-
quity had hardly extended beyond the writings of the illustrious
Fathers, Mr Newman and Mr Froude : but there is nothing in
them to call for a specific refutation.

Note I : p. 29.

1 have already had several occasions to refer to Dr Newman's
Lectures On the Difficulties of Anglicanism. His object in those
Lectures is twofold. In the first seven he presents his former
disciples, whom he has forsaken, and whom he tries to lure after
him, with a highly coloured, exaggerated picture of the difii-
culties of their position in the English Church, difficulties the
chief part of which they have brought upon themselves by
following his misguidance. In the last five Lectures he attempts
to remove certain objections, which, he thinks, even after he has
done all he can to disgust them with the Church of England,
may still keep them from joining him in the Church of Rome.
Thus the aim of the eighth Lecture is stated to be, to prove
that " the political state of Catholic countries is no prejudice to
the sanctity of the Church," — that of the ninth, to prove that
"the religious character of Catholic countries is no prejudice to
the sanctity of the Church." One might have expected that
he would have entered into a like course of argument with regard
to their moral state, either along with the other two, or in lieu
of the former. But, though he may gain some advantages by
speaking of this somewhat less directly, in part under the poli-
tical, partly under the religious state, there would perhaps have
been some awkwardness in treating it by itself: and we shall
see presently that he is not a person to be deterred by any
difficulties in his case, or to distrust the power of his logic to
prove that black is white.

On the argument with regard to the political state of Romish

NOTE I. 169

countries, I shall have to say a few words in a subsequent Note.
In that on their religious state, the Author undertakes (p. 221)
to apologize for the familiarity and coarseness, the levity and
profaneness, as it seems to us, with which the most sacred objects
are treated and spoken of in the Church of Rome. Now doubt-
less in this respect great allowances are to be made in consequence
of the .greater loquacity and externality of southern nations,
their greater proneness to give utterance to their momentary
feelings and impulses in words and gestures, as contrasted with
our Northern, Teutonic inwardness and reserve. In truth such
allowances, or rather recognitions, should be mutual. The
Italian should not demand or expect his vivacity and exube-
rance of expression from us, any more than we should look for
our suppression of our feelings in him. Dr Newman however
rejects this plea. In fact it would not serve his purpose. " To
no national differences (he says, p. 222) can be attributed a
character of religion so specific and peculiar : it is too uniform, too
universal to be ascribed to anything short of the genius of Catho-
licism itself; that is, its principles and influence acting upon
human nature, such as it is everywhere found." He does not
seem to have bestowed much attention on the modern speculations
concerning the diversities and peculiarities of races. Indeed these
are matters with which Rome meddles not, which she does not
recognise. She only recognises herself, and her subjects, and
her enemies : and all who are not her subjects, all who
will not wear her livery, are her enemies. As Dr Newman
observes, these characteristics of Romanism are not found in
Southern nations merely, but to a large extent in Belgium, as
they formerly were in England and throughout Germany. This
however is easily accounted for from the Roman propensity to
impose the same laws and manners, and even speech, on all
nations, a propensity which the Church inherited from the
Empire : and the insurrection of the Teutonic spirituality and
individuality against this alien yoke was a main cause of the
Reformation, as is shewn even by the limits of its success. It
may be that, if Dr Newman had meditated more on that which is

170 NOTE I.

accidental in Romanism, on that which has resulted from peculiar
circumstances of time and place, he would not have desired to
revive what is so uncongenial and repugnant to the English
mind. At all events the Essay on Development exhibits a strange
medley of mere accidents, which he tries to invest with per-
manence and necessity. Nor can it well be doubted, that many
of these accidental peculiarities in Komanism have exercised a
strong attraction on the lighter minds that have left us. For
while our sturdy, homebred nationality rejects whatever is forein
and unenglish with somewhat of insolent disdain, that dilet-
tantism, which often intervenes between the exclusive exaltation
of our own nationality, and the just estimation of other nation-
alities along with our own, is apt to find a charm in novelty, which
it cannot discover in what is familiar, and to fancy it shall be-
come religious all at once, if it can get where there are monks and
nuns, and matins and vespers, and boys in white swinging censers,
and priests to hear confession and give absolution.

However we certainly have no reason to complain that Dr
Newman has thought fit to transfer the argument to another
field. He has turned it on a point, which is not a mere acci-
dental, but an essential difference between the two Churches ;
and with his wonted boldness he has chosen to assail our very
strongest position. It is here that he introduces that contrast
between the Protestant and the Romish view of Faith, which I
have cited above in Note Da (pp. 112, 113), and the ex-
aggerations and erroneousness of which I have there pointed out.
Still, while we disclaim the doctrine " that faith and love are
inseparable," as manifested in our fallen nature, we strenuously
maintain that Faith, in its Scriptural sense, as the condition of
salvation, as able to move mountains, as manifested in the heroic
exploits recorded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, is a practical
principle, which, if it be living and real, must shew itself forth
in works, and which, without works, is dead. The assertion of
this fundamental truth was the first great act of the Reformation :
and this view has been that of all those among our divines, who
have most fully imbibed and exprest the spirit of the Reformation.

NOTE I. 171

When Dr Newman however said, that Protestants " do not think
the inconsistency possible of really believing without obeying,
andj where they see disobedience, cannot imagine the existence
of true faith," he must strangely have forgotten the favorite
missiles of his party in their invectives against Luther for
antinomianism. This exemplifies his aptness, in his logical
vagaries, to assert any fact that may suit his argument,
without pausing to ask himself whether it is correct or no.
On the other hand, when he tells us that Romanists hold
" that faith and love, faith and obedience, faith and works,
are simply separable, and ordinarily separated in fact, — that
faith does not imply love, obedience, or works, — that the firmest
faith, so as to move mountains, may exist without love," — we are
tempted to ask, can this faith, which is able to move mountains,
exist without works ? To a large extent, though the hypo-
thetical case put by St Paul is not necessarily a possible one, we
know from experience, faith may exist without works of love
toward our neighbours. But can it exist without any of those
works which proceed from love toward God 1 Can we really
have a living, strong faith in God, our Maker, our Father, our
Guardian and Preserver, our Saviovir and Protector, who gave
His Only Son to live and to die for our sins 1 — can we have a
real, living, strong faith in that Eternal Son, who came down
from the bosom and the glory of the Father, to live as a
Servant, and to die as a Criminal, for our sins, that we
through His life and death might be redeemed from eternal
death, and might inherit eternal life ? — can we have this faith,
firmly, strongly, livingly, without any of the stirrings, any of
the works of love toward Him who has so loved us ] And if
we say that this cannot be, is this indeed a sign that, as Dr
Newman taunts us, " Faith is a spiritual sight of the unseen ;
and Protestantism has not this sight?" that we do not "see the
unseen 1 " whereas the proof, according to him, that Romanists
have this sight, and do " see the unseen," is, that it exercises no
sort of moral influence over them. This too shews, he tells us,
that we have been " taught by flesh and blood, not by grace."

172 MOTE I.

Doubtless we know very well, from the witness of our own
consciences, as well as of the world around us, that we may
entertain strong persuasions and convictions concerning many
things, and so far may believe them, without their wielding any
moral power over us. Flesh and blood will teach us this, with-
out need of Divine grace ; unless it be to grave the lesson
on our hearts, and to make it bear fruit in our lives. As the
devils believe and tremble, so may men ; so have many men
done ; and there are a number of shades and degrees of this
faithless belief. But this -belief is not faith. To many persons
indeed it may seem that this is little more than a dispute
about words, that we use the word faith in one sense, and
the Ptomauists in another, and that it is not worth while to
argue about the matter. But, when we call to mind how great
are the power and the blessings promist to faith by the Gospel,
it surely is a question of the highest moment, whether that
power and those blessings belong to a lifeless, inert, inanimate
notion, or to a living, energetic principle. This is the great
controversy between Romanism and Protestantism. Their stay
is the opus operatum, ours fides operans, Faith, the gift of God,
apprehending Him through Christ, renewing the whole man,
and becoming the living spring of his feelings and thoughts
and actions.

After such an outset, one cannot be surprised at any extrava-
gances the champion of Rome may run into. Having endowed
her people with this Divine gift of a faith, which seeing does
not perceive, and hearing does not understand, and believing
does not believe, he has little difficulty in explaining how
they may fall into' all manner of inconsistencies. " This cer-
tainty (we are told, p. 224), or spiritual sight, which is included
in the idea of faith, is, according to Catholic teaching, perfectly
distinct in its own nature from the desire, intention, and power
of acting agreeably to it. As men may know perfectly well
that they ought not to steal, and yet may deliberately take
and appropriate what is not theirs ; so may they be gifted
with a simple, undoubting, cloudless belief, that, for instance.

NOTE I. 173

Christ is in the blessed Sacrament, and yet commit the sacrilege
of breaking open the tabernacle, and carrying ofF the consecrated
particles for the sake of the precious vessel containing them."
So that this Divine gift of Faith is just what might have been
found in a worshiper of Hermes, and what a heathen moralist,
being taught, as we are, by flesh and blood, would have con-
demned, or derided as an impious mockery. According to
the lessons of the same blind teachers, we should also hold
that this "simple, undoubting, cloudless belief," if it could
exist in such a person, would have awfully aggravated his
crime. Nay, we should have fancied that this judgement is
implied in the words, that the servant who kneiv his lord's ivill,
and preixired not himself, nor did according to his ivill, sliall
he beaten with many stripes. But the infallible Church has
overruled this, as well as so many other declarations of Him whom
she professes to call her Lord. Of such a soul as that just
described, Dr Newman says (p. 226), " There are certain remark-
able limitations and alleviations in its punishment ; and one
is this, that the faculty or power of faith remains to it," to
exhibit still further that it has no power. " Thus the many
are in a condition, which is absolutely novel and strange in
the ideas of a Protestant : they have a vivid perception, like
sense, of things unseen, yet have no desire at all, or affection
toward them." It has been imagined that, if Virtue could
be seen, all men would be rapt by love for her ; but this
must be because they were not under grace. Still there is, " in
spite of this moral confusion, in one and all a clear intellectual
apprehension of the truth"* (p. 228) : which, one may think,

* I know not on what evidence Dr NewTuan grounds his assertion, so often
repeated in this Lecture, concerning the high religious knowledge of the lower
orders in Romish countries. My own acquaintance with them is far too slight to
warrant me in contradicting his statement ; which however is at variance with
the accounts given by almost every traveler, even by those who have resided
many years amongst them. Hundreds of witnesses might easily be cited : I
will merely cite one, whose veracity will hardly be impeacht ; and though his
testimony refers to the condition of Ireland two centuries ago, I am not aware that
there is any reason for supposing that the state of things in this respect is much

174 NOTE T.

is far more than their apologist here evinces. " Just as in
England, the whole community knows about railroads and
electric telegraphs, and about the Court, and men in power,
and proceedings in Parliament, — so, in a Catholic country, the
ideas of heaven and hell, Christ and the evil spirit, saints, angels,
souls in purgatory, grace, the blessed Sacrament, the sacrifice
of the Mass, absolution, indulgences, the virtue of relics, of
holy images, of holy water, and of other holy things, are facts,
by good and bad, by young and old, by rich and poor, to be
taken for granted." In this enumeration there is an omission
which may surprise us. No mention is made of Ilim, who,
above all, ought to be in all our thoughts, and who will not
give His glory to another. Nor is the omission accidental.
It is forced upon the apologist by the fact, that in the Romish

changed now. In fact the picture does not perhaps differ essentially from Dr
Newman's.

Jeremy Taylor, in the preface to his Dissuasive, says : " We have observed,
amongst the generality of the Irish, such a declension of Christianity, so great
credulity to believe every superstitious story, such confidence in vanity, such
groundless pertinacity, such vicious lives, so little sense of true religion and the
fear of God, so much care to obey the priests, and so little to obey God, such
intolerable ignorance, such fond oaths and manners of swearing, thinking themselves
more obliged by swearing on the mass-book than the four Gospels, and St Patrick's
mass-book more than any new one, — swearing by their father's soul, by their
gossip's hand, by other things which are the product of those many tales are told
them, — their not knowing upon what account they refuse to come to Church, but
now they are old and never did, or their countrymen do not, or their fathers or
grandfathers never did, or that their ancestors were priests, and they will not
alter from their religion, — and, after all, can give no account of their religion, what
it is, — only, they believe as their priest bids them, and go to mass, which they
understand not, and reckon their beads, to tell the number and the tale of their
prayers, and abstain from eggs and fish in Lent, and visit St Patrick's well, and
leave pins and ribands, yarn or thread, in their holy wells, and pray to God, St
Mary, and St Patrick, St Columbanus, and St Bridget, and desire to be buried
with St Francis's cord about them, and to fast on Saturdays in honour of our
Lady. These and so many other things of like nature we see daily, that we,
being conscious of the infinite distance which these things have from the spirit of
Christianity, know that no charity can be greater than to persuade the people to
come to our Churches, where they shall be taught all the ways of godly wisdom,
of peace and safety to tiieir souls : whereas now there are many of them that
know not how to say their prayers, but mutter like pies and parrots, words which
they are taught, but they do not pretend to understand."

NOTE I. 175

system His glory is given to others, not indeed to His Son,
wliom we exalt far more than they do, but to the Virgin Mary,
and to saints, and to relics, and to images. The latter of course
are not familiar notions with us ; because our Church has wisely
rejected them, knowing from the unvarying lessons of Christian
history, as well as of Jewish and Heathen, that these media
ever intercept the Divine Vision from the eyes of weak humanity.
These objects of a superstitious, idolatrous worship are familiar
to the common Romanist, just as the grosser fables about their
deities were to the Heathens in early ages, just as his Fetishes
are to the African. Thus the creatures of superstition and
idolatry have ever been treated with irreverence ; because the
worshiper, after all, retains an unquenchable consciousness of
his own superiority to them. But the name of God cannot be
treated profanely by those who attach any living meaning to
it. There must still be something analogous to the putting
off our shoes, when we feel that the ground we are treading
is really holy.

Soon after our apologist takes us into a church (p. 235).
" There is a feeble old woman, who first genuflects before the
Blessed Sacrament, and then steals her neighbour's handkerchief
or prayerbook, who is intent on his devotions. Hei-e at last,
you say, is a thing absolutely indefensible and inexcusable.
Doubtless ; but what does it prove ? Does England bear no
thieves'? or do you think this poor creature an unbeliever?
or do you exclaim against Catholicism, which has made her
so profane ? But why 1 Faith is illuminative, not operative ;
it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility ;
it heightens guilt ; it does not prevent sin ; the will is the
source of action, not an influence from without, acting mechani-
cally on the feelings. She worships and she sins : she kneels
because she believes ; she steals because she does not love." Can
it be that these words, "an influence from without, acting
mechanically on the feelings" are meant to be a description of
Faith 1 One should deem it impossible, — though I see not
in what other way to interpret them, — were it not that the

176 NOTE I.

whole passage seems to prove that Dr Newman's conception of
Faith must be just this, and nothing else, a magical influence
from without, acting mechanically on the feelings, having nothing
spiritual in it, never touching the will, never reaching the
conscience. Illuminative he terms it : but what does it illumine 1
It does not even make the poor creature's darkness visible. He
does indeed allow that it hightens her guilt : this admission is
extorted from him by the remnant of his Protestant conscience :
but it does not amount to much : for a few pages afterward this
very Faith, which has been violated and outraged through life, is
represented as exercising a last magical influence mechanically on
the feelings, and becoming the instrument of salvation, just as
any charm might do in a fairy tale.

We are then presented with a description of the Protestant
conception of Faith, some portions of which may perhaps be
recognised by his own former associates, but which Luther and
every Protestant would repudiate as a godless fiction. " I sup-
pose it might be, as Luther said it was, had God so willed it, —
that faith and love were so intimately one, that the abandonment
of the latter was the forfeiture of the former (p. 239)." That
this is utterly repugnant to Luther's teaching, all who know
anything of it, must be aware. And what a mechanical con-
ception of the moral order of the world is implied in those
words, "I suppose it might be, had God so willed it!" as
though the deepest essential truths were mere arbitrary ordi-
nances. He continues : " Now did sin not only throw the soul
out of God's favour, but at once empty it of every supernatural
principle, we should see in Catholics, what is, alas ! so common
among Protestants, souls brought back to a sense of guilt,
frightened at their state, yet having no resource, and nothing to
build upon, [that is, no saintly intercession, no priestly absolution].
Again and again it happens, that, after committing some sin
greater than usual, or being roused after a course of sin, or
frio'htened by sickness, a Protestant wishes to repent ; but what
is he to fall back upon 1 whither is he to go ? what is he to
do ? " Can it then indeed be, that, so long as Dr Newman was

NOTE I. 177

in our Church, he was unable to answer these questions] Would
he have hesitated a single moment about the answer he was to
give. Then was it indeed time for him to go to Rome, if he had
not yet learnt the very first principles of evangelical truth. Or
rather it is not surprising that he should have gone thither : for
there he will hardly learn them. Had he never heard of the
Cross, until he began to worship the Crucifix 1

Further: "But the Catholic knows just where he is, and what
he has to do : no time is lost, when compunction comes upon
him ; but, while his feelings are fresh and keen, he can betake
himself to the appointed means of cure. He may be ever falling;
but his faith is a continual invitation and persuasive to repent."
He goes to his medicine-chest, and takes his dose of magnesia,
or his drachm and opium pill, and fancies himself well again.
" The poor Protestant adds sin to sin ; and his best aspirations
come to nothing." He knows that he was shapen in iniquity,
and conceived in sin ; and he feels how awful all sin must needs
be in the sight of Him who desires truth in the inward parts.
But he also knows that there is a hyssop with which he may be
washt, and One who will purge him therewith. On the other
hand, " the Catholic wipes off his guilt again and again [just as
he might wash his hands] ; and thus, even if his repentance does
not endure, and he has not strength to persevere, in a certain
sense he is never getting worse, but ever beginning afresh." This
is in direct contradiction to the whole experience of mankind,
that a relapse is worse than the original disease, and that a suc-
cession of relapses becomes incurable. Dr Newman adds indeed :
" Nor does the ' apparent easiness of pardon operate as an en-
couragement to sin ; unless repentance be easy, and the grace of
repentance to be expected, when it has already been quencht; or
unless past repentance avail, when it is not persevered in." But
this sentence seems hardly reconcilable with the one before it :
and everything depends on what he means by "repentance'" and
" the grace of repentance^ We, who are " taught by flesh and
blood," feel that real repentance is very diflRcult, and that the
difficulty increases with every repetition of sin : but, if Dr

N

178 NOTE I.

Newman's "grace of repentance,'' as his words seem to imply, is a
mechanical outward thing, like his grace of faith, it may be no
less easy and manageable.

It is the end however that proves all things ; and it is then
that we are to find the real power and worth of Faith. It is
then that the magical charm puts forth its virtue, to save him in
whom it has been asleep and torpid all through his life. The
Romanist " has within him almost a principle of recovery, certainly
an instrument of it. He may have spoken lightly of the
Almighty, but he has ever believed in Him : he has sung jocose
songs about the Blessed Virgin and Saints, and told good stories
about the evil spirit, but in levity, not in contempt : he has
been angry with his heavenly patrons when things went ill
with him, but with the waywardness of a child who is cross with
his parents. They were ever before him, even when he was in
the mire of mortal sin, and in the wrath of the Almighty, as
lights burning in the firmament of his intellect, though he had no
part with them, as he perfectly knew. He has absented himself
from his Easter duties years out of number ; but he never denied
he was a Catholic. He has laught at priests, and formed rash
judgements of them, and slandered them to others, but not as
doubting the divinity of their functions and the virtue of their
ministrations. He has attended Mass carelessly and heartlessly;
but he was ever aware what was before his eyes, under the veil of
material symbols, in that august and adorable action. So, when
the news comes to him that he is to die, and he cannot get a
priest, and the ray of God's grace pierces his heart, and he yearns
after Him whom he has neglected, it is with no inarticulate con-
fused emotion, which does but oppress him, and which has no
means of relief. His thoughts at once take shape and order ;
they mount up, each in its due place, to the great objects of
faith, which are as surely in his mind as they are in heaven. He
addresses himself to his crucifix; he interests the Blessed Virgin
in his behalf; he betakes himself to his patron Saints; he calls
his good angel to his side ; he professes his desire of that sacra-
mental absolution, which for circumstances he cannot obtain ;

NOTE I. 179

he exercises himself in acts of faith, ho2)e, charity, contrition, resig-^
nation, and other virtues suitable to his extremiti/. True, he is
going into the unseen world ; but true also, that tftat unseen
world has already heeti with him here. True, he is going to a
forein, but not to a strange place; judgement and purgatory
are familiar ideas to him, more fully realized within him even
than death. He has had a much deeper perception of purgatory,
though it be a supernatural object, than of death, though a
natural one. The enemy rushes on him, to overthrow the faith
on which he is built [that faith which was an influence from with-
out, acting mechanically on his feelings] : but the whole tenour
of his 2^ast life, his very jesting, and his very oaths, have been over-
ruled, to create in him a habit of faith, girding round and pro-
tecting the supernatural principle. And thus even one who has
been a bad Catholic may have a hope in his death, to which the
most virtuous of Protestants, nay, my dear brethren, the most
correct and most thoughtful among yourselves, however able,
or learned, or sagacious, if you have lived, not by faith, but by
private judgement, are necessarily strangers."

In the last sentence of this astounding passage, there is an
ambiguity, which would almost seem to be intentional, and
which leaves it somewhat obscure what is the contrast really
meant. They who have lived "?io« by faith','' might be supposed
to be mere unbelievers, and, as such, to have no share in the
promises of the Gospel. But even the expression, ''private
judgement" would direct our view toward a peculiar mode of re-
ceiving the truths of Christianity; although there is no real
contrariety between private judgement 2ind faith : nay, faith, if it
be living and powerful, involves an act of private judgement, an
individual, personal recognition of the truths which it receives.
The act of proving all things is not contrary, but the reasonable,
legitimate antecedent to holding fast that which is good. More-
over, if the whole passage is to have any force, any meaning, the
contrast in it must needs be between the deathbed of a Romanist
and that of a member of the Church of England ; and so far as
one may venture to pronounce anything positive with regard to

N 2

180 NOTE I.

sucli a complex of wild extravagances, the writer would seem by
the words, "the most virtuous of Protestants," to refer to the
Evangelical portion of our Church, and by " the most correct and
thoughtful" of the persons he is addressing, to the Tractarians
or Anglocatholics, for whom his Lectures are especially designed,
and whom he would bribe to come to him by telling them that
" a bad Catholic" may have a better hope in death than they can
have.

Yet, even if Dr Newman had meant to speak of a con-
scientious, " virtuous" unbeliever, assuredly one might look with
more of satisfaction, yea, with more of hope, on his death, than
on that of the " bad Catholic," of whom he draws what he means
to be an alluring, but what to a lover of truth and righteousness
must be such a revolting picture. For observe: the contrast is
not between him who has lived by faith, and him who has lived,
"not by faith, but by private judgement:" it is between him
who has lived by private judgement, correctly and virtuously,
and him who, according to the supposition, having the Divine
gift of faith, has lived in continual violation of it. Of such a
man Dr Newman pronounces, that he may have a hope in his
death, to which the most virtuous of Protestants, the most cor-
rect and thoughtful of Anglocatholics, are necessarily strangers.
Observe the scale here : at the bottom stands the " virtuous " Pro-
testant ; he has the reality, and is therefore cast down in this
world of phantoms and shams: next comes the "correct" Anglo-
catholic, with his formal morality: but the highest place is
reserved for the " bad Catholic," who has neither the reality, nor
the form. He knows what is right, and does it not ; he knows
what is wrong, and does it ; and therefore he shall be saved.
According to the principles of all law, the justice of which the
conscience instantaneously recognises, and which the Gospel has
repeatedly sanctioned, the light of knowledge is a grievous and
terrible aggravation of sin committed under it and in despite of
it. If ye were blind, ye would have no sin : hut now ye say. We
see : therefore your sin remaineth. Dr Newman, on the contrary,
tells us that this light, in his bad Catholic, is " almost a principle

NOTE I. 181

of recovery, certainly an instrument of it.— The Almighty, the

Blessed Virgin and Saints, — were ever before him, even when he
was in the mire of mortal sin, — as lights burning in the
firmament of his intellect." The writer feels no hesitation in
controverting that great law, according to which sin dulls and
deadens our spiritual faculties, and bedims and darkens our
spiritual perceptions. If ye will come and join me, if ye will fly
for refuge to Rome, ye shall be angels and devils at the selfsame
moment. Of yore those who knew God from the manifestation
of His power and Godhead in the outward world, yet glorified
Him not as God, were given up to a reprobate mind, and lost the
knowledge they had abused ; but it shall not be so with you
Through the Divine gift of faith, even while you are lying in the
mire of mortal sin, ye shall have the beatific vision ; and, though
this revelation produces no effect on you, still it shall abide in
the firmament of your intellect ; and, when the fear of death
comes upon you, it shall enable you to see all that you are
to do. When Dr Newman's Catholic is told that he is to die,
he immediately begins packing up his clothes for his journey :
he knows just how many shirts and how many pair of stock-
ings he shall want ; and he begs or borrows them of his
patron saint. The same mechanical, formal course of thought,
which we have seen in the former parts of this Lecture,
reaches its consummation at the close, both in the account of
the bad Catholic's sins, and still more in that of the good
deeds, by which he is to get a ticket of admission into
heaven. All the mysterious powers and weaknesses of the
heart and will, the agonies and the deadness of the con-
science, the palsying force of habit, the craft and subtilty of
evil, are ignored and forgotten ; and he on whom the heavenly
lights burning in the firmament of his intellect, while he was
lying in the mire of mortal sin, produced no effect, except
that of "overruling his very jests and oaths to create in him
a habit of faith," is so roused by the prospect of death, tliat
he can all at once lay in a store of " acts of faith, hope,
charity, contrition, resignation, and other virtues suitable to

182 NOTE I.

his extremity." He blows his whistle, and anon collects a
whole pack of virtues, which come at his calling, they who
are wont to be so retiring, so reserved, they who grow up
slowly even in the ground of an honest and good heart. But
I mistake : it is not the virtues he collects : he merely "exer-
cises himself in acts of faith, and acts of hope, and acts of
charity, and acts of contrition, and acts of resignation." He
who had been more or less of an actor all his life, becomes a
consummate actor at the point of death, and puts on his last
mask, for his last masquerade, and hopes thus to beguile and
deceive Him who seeth the heart, and desireth truth in the
inward parts. Verily, to a discerning eye, a deathbed tor-
mented by the reproachful stings of conscience would be far
less dismal and hopeless than such a theatrical daub, such a
melodramatic pantomime.

The pernicious, demoralizing character of the Romish teaching
on these subjects is forcibly represented by Jeremy Taylor in his
Dissuasive, Part 1. c. 2. § 1. Having laid down the proposition,
that "the Church of Rome, as at this day disordered, teaches
doctrines, and uses practices, which are in themselves, or in their
true and immediate consequences, direct impieties, and give
warranty to a wicked life," he proceeds to illustrate this in the
first instance by her doctrine of repentance. " For the Roman
doctors teach, that, unless it be by accident, or in respect of
some other obligation, a sinner is not bound presently to repent
of his sin, as soon as he has committed it. Some time or other
he must do it ; and if he take care so to order his aifairs that
it be not wholly omitted, but so that it be done one time or
other, he is not by the precept or grace of repentance bound
to do more. Scotus and his scholars say that a sinner is bound,
viz. by the precept of the Church, to repent on holy days, espe-
cially the great ones. But this is thought too severe by Soto
and Molina, who teach that a sinner is bound to repent but
once a year, that is, against Easter, These doctors indeed do
differ concerning the Churches sense : — but they agree in the worst
part of it, viz. that, though the Church calls upon sinners to

NOTE I. 183

repent on holydays, or at Easter, yet that by the law of God
they are not tied to so much, but only to repent in the danger
or article of death. — If it be replied to this, that, though God
hath left it to a sinner's liberty to repent when he please, yet
the Church hath been more severe than God hath been, and
ties a sinner to repent by collateral positive laws ; for, having
bound every one to confess at Easter, consequently she hath tied
every one to repent at Easter, and so by her laws he can lie
in the sin without interruption but twelve months or there-
abouts ; yet there is a secret in this, which nevertheless
themselves have been pleased to discover for the ease of tender
consciences, viz. that the Church ordains but the means, tho
exterior solemnity of it, and is satisfied if you obey her laws by
a ritual repentance ; but the holiness, and the inward repentance,
which in charity we should have supposed to have been designed
by the law of festivals, — is not that which is enjoined by the
Church in her law of holydays. So that still sinners are left
to the liberty, which, they say, God gave, even to satisfy our-
selves with all the remaining pleasures of that sin for a little
while, even during our short mortal life: only we must be sure to
repent at last. —

" But this, though it be infinitely intolerable, yet it is but
the beginning of sorrows. For the guides of souls in the Roman
Church have prevaricated in all the parts of repentance most
sadly and dangerously. The next things therefore that we shall
remark, are their doctrines concerning contrition: which, when
it is genuine and true, that is, a true cordial sorrow for having
sinned against God, — a sorrow proceeding from the love of God,
and conversion to Him, and ending in a dereliction of all our
sins, and a walking in all righteousness, — both the Psalms and
the Prophets, the Old Testament and the New, the Greek Fathers
and the Latin, have allowed as sufficient for the pardon of our
sins through faith in Jesus Christ, — as our writers have often
proved in their Sermons and Books of Conscience, — yet first
the Church of Rome does not allow it to be of any value, unless
it be joined with a desire to confess their sins to a priest.

184

NOTE I.

saying that a man by contrition is not reconciled to God, without
their sacramental or ritual penance, actual or votive ; and this
is decreed by the Council of Trent : which thing, besides that
it is against Scripture and the promises of the Gospel, not only
teaches for doctrine the commandments of men, but evacuates
the goodness of God by their traditions, and weakens and dis-
courages the best repentance, and prefers repentance toward
men before that which the Scripture calls repentance toward
God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."

After touching on a couple of other points, Taylor concludes :
" The sequel is this, that, if a man live a wicked life for three-
score or fourscore years together, yet, if in the article of his
death, sooner than which God hath not commanded him to re-
pent, he be a little sorrowful for his sins, then resolving for the
present that he will do so no more, — and though this sorrow
hath in it no love of God, but only a fear of hell, and a hope that
God will pardon him, — this, if the priest absolves him, does
instantly pass him into a state of salvation. The priest with two
fingers and a thumb can do his work for him ; only he must be
greatly disposed and prepared to receive it : greatly, we say,
according to the sense of the Roman Church ; for he must be
attrite ; or it were better if he were contrite ; one act of grief,
a little one, and that not for one sin more than another, and this
at the end of a long wicked life, at the time of our death, will
make all sure."

The groveling immorality of these speculations and calcu-
lations, this bargaining and chaffering with Almighty God in the
spirit of an old market-woman, this attempt to trick the All-
righteous into letting you into heaven with still more and more
of sin upon your shoulders, this notion that you are help-
ing and benefiting a soul by getting leave for it to continue so
much longer in the hell-pools of sin,— these symptoms of an
intellect that has been sharpened by casuistry until every moral
perception has been rubbed away from it, and that deals with
good and evil by the pound and the yard, trying to adulterate
virtue with the foulest garbage of vice, and exulting in passing

NOTE J. 185

it off as of the first quality, — these things are too gross for Dr
Newman. No one who has had the education of an English
gentleman, could dahble in such iniquity ; still less a person who
has been brought up in a Protestant Church, and has been an
eminent preacher of holiness and righteousness therein. Never-
theless there is the same leaven in the passage last quoted from
his Lectures on Anglicanism : the tendency of that passage is in
the same direction, though it is not pusht to the same loathsome
extremes. It shews us too how the same evil spirit is still active
and dominant in the Church of Rome. We cannot however do
her full justice, without calling to mind what Dr Newman was.
Let a person turn to some of those glowing exhortations to
holiness and godliness, which shine forth in his Sermons, and
then judge between the two Churches. Here, in these Ser-
mons, we find Mr Newman, the minister of the Church of
England. There, in that Lecture, you see Dr Newman, the
priest of the Church of Rome. What ! you ask j has a moral
paralysis struch him ? Alas I so it must be. His intellect
is keen and bright as ever. What then can have thus
paralysed him ? The gripe of Rome.

Note J : p. 30.

Bellarmin {De Romano Pontifice, L, iv. c. 3), having laid down
this proposition — that " the supreme Pontiff, when he is teaching
the Church in matters pertaining to faith, cannot err in any
case," attempts to prove it by four texts of Scripture. The first
is our Lord's words to Peter (Luke xxii. 31, 32), Simon, Simon,
behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as
wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and
when thou art converted, strengthen the brethren. The second is
the celebrated passage in St Matthew, xvi. 18 : Upon this rock I
will build j\ly Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. The third is the charge in St John, xxi. 16, Feed
My sheep. The fourth is the ordinance in Exodus, xxviii. 30 :

186 NOTE J.

Thou shalt put on the breastplate of judgement the Urim and the
Thummim. On these four texts he seems to fancy he shall
drive his polemical chariot home to the goal, through the midst
of the Protestant host : but, when we look at the wheels, we
perceive that not one of them is really attacht to the chariot;
and as soon as he tries to set it in motion, they drop down,
and leave him on the ground.

To us, the more closely we examine these four texts, the
clearer it appears that no one of them bears in the remotest
manner on the proposition professedly deduced from them, —
that in no one of them is there the slightest reference to any
mode of infallibility, — that in no one of them is there any
contemplation, direct or indirect, of the See of Rome, except
so far as that See is comprised in the general body of the
Christian ministry. In Bellarmin's application of these texts
there are at least two audacious and wholly groundless assump-
tions,— first, that our Lord's words to St Peter involve the
promise of infallibility to him personally ; and secondly, that
the special gifts alledged to have been bestowed on St Peter were
to be transmitted by him, as an heirloom, to his alledged
successors in the See of Rome ; assumptions, in favour of which
there is nothing even like an early tradition to be cited. In
fact St Peter is the only Apostle, of whom it is recorded that
he was mistaken on an important question, subsequently to
the day of Pentecost ; so that in this case, as well as in that
of the Virgin Mary, and in the direction that all shall drink
of the Cup in the Lord's Supper, the writers of the New Tes-
tament seem to have been especially guided to warn and guard
the Church against the corruptions which Rome after many ages
was to introduce.

Hence one might deem it surprising that so able and clear-
headed a thinker as Bellarmin should have supposed that there
was any real force in such arguments. But in judging of his
writings, and of those of others in a similar position, it behoves
us to make large allowances for the force of inveterate pre-
judice, which is aljnost overwhelming in behalf of a proposition

NOTE J.

187

regarded as well nigh axiomatic, nay, as a fundamental religious
truth. That tendency to project itself into its objects, which
accompanies all the operations of the human mind, belongs to
its prejudices, quite as much as to its principles, — nay, far more;
because its principles supply a corrective for their own aberra-
tions ; whereas the greater the aberration, the more fondly our
prejudices cherish it. Thus we are enabled to understand the
otherwise inexplicable inconsistency, when, as not seldom happens,
especially in members of the Jesuit order, we find great holiness
of life allied to a seemingly utter disregard of truth. As we all
fancy that our senses perceive a number of things, of which
they have no inkling whatsoever, so is it with our intellectual
and moral perceptions, unless they have gone through a long and
severe purgatorial discipline.

Accustomed as we are to look at the words of Scripture
with the naked eye, to us it seems incontrovertibly clear, that
our Lord's words to Peter, in the passage cited from St Luke,
bear immediately and exclusively upon him, — except so far
as they may be transferred by analogy to persons in a similar
condition, — and that they relate directly to his denial of the
Lord, and to the help which he was to receive through his
Master's prayer that he might rise out of his sinful fall,
and might shew forth the increast strength derived from the
knowledge of his weakness in calling others to accept the for-
giveness which he himself had found. This is Augustin's
interpretation of the passage, and Chrysostom's, and Theophylact's,
as cited by Bellarmin himself Nor do they give the slightest
hint that any power of infallibility was conferred on St Peter
by our Lord's words, or that they had any bearing on the See
of Rome. Field, who, in his fifth Book Of the Church (c. 42),
has an able discussion and refutation of Bellarmin's arguments,
points this out especially with regard to Theophylact, who, he
says, " doth not attribute the confirmation of the brethren by
Peter, which he is commanded to perform, to his constancy in
the true faith, and in the profession of it, but to the experience
that he had of the tender mercy and goodness of God toward

188 NOTE J.

him. — For who will not (as the same Theophylact fitly observeth)
be confirmed by Peter in the right persuasion of the mercies
and goodness of God toward repentant sinners, when he seeth
him whom Christ had so much honoured, after so shameful a
fault, and so execrable a fact, of the abnegation of his Lord
and Master, the Lord of Life, not only received to mercy, but
restored to the dignity of the prime and chief Apostle."

No less manifest is it that our Lord's words in St Matthew
contain no promise of infallibility to St Peter, of whose fallibi-
lity subsequently to that promise we have such proof, — still
less to any branch of the Church, or even to the whole Church.
Of the indefectibility of the Church we have indeed a full
assurance in that promise : but this is a very different thing
from infallibility, though the two are often confounded.

With regard to the charge by which St Peter is reinstated in
his apostolical office, as Field says, " we know, and all that are
in their right wits do acknowledge, that a man may be a pastor
in the Church of God, and yet subject to errour; and therefore
Christ's requiring Peter to do the duty of a pastor, will not prove
that the Pope cannot err."

It is perhaps owing to Bellarmin's fourth text, that the later
Roman apologists have been led to detect an anticipation of the
Papal infallibility in the Jewish High-Priest. But the history
of the Jewish Church furnishes no warrant for such a supposi-
tion, unless it be the unintentional prophecy of Caiaphas : and
in this sense we might doubtless find many expressions of self-
condemnation in the language of Popes, and many glimmerings
of truths which they resisted, instead of following them out. In
truth, as Thorndike remarks (Vol. II, p. 71)," he that from
hence [from the prophecy of Caiaphas] concludes the Church
infallible, must first maintain that Caiaphas erred not in
crucifying our Lord Christ."

The monstrous fallacy and imposture of identifying the See
of Rome with St Peter, and of investing it with all the privileges
which have been ascribed to St Peter, whether truly or falsely,
has never been set forth more forcibly than by the Bishop of St

NOTE J. 189

David's in his Sermon On the Centre of Unity, with an extract
from which 1 will close this note. Preaching on St Paul's words
1 Cor. i. 12, 13, he says: "If it had been given to St Paul
to pierce with prophetic eye through the long vista of ages
which separates his time from ours, and to foresee in what sense,
and under what circumstances, men would continue to say, / am
of Peter,\t is hard to determine which aspect of this mournful
history would have filled his soul with deeper emotions of
astonishment, shame, and grief. It would no doubt have
appeared to him marvellous enough, that his brother Peter,
Peter whom he had withstood to his face because he was to be
blamed, Peter to whom he would not allow any degree of
authority, which might not be as rightfully claimed by himself,
Peter who had himself admonisht his fellow elders not to
carry themselves as being lords over God's heritage, but being
examples to the flock, — that Peter, I say, should ever be sup-
posed, not only to have possest, but to have transmitted to
others, a title to absolute dominion over the whole Church of
Christ, that each of his pretended successors should receive
divine honours, should be adored upon the altar, should be
solemnly proclaimed Vicar of Christ, Ruler of the World, should
be acknowledged as Lord of Lords, as the Almighty, the Infalli-
ble, as Vicegerent of God, as God upon earth, as our Lord God :
this, I say, would have appeared to St Paul marvellous enough.
And yet I venture to think that even this awful blasphemy
would not have been the thing which would have excited in
him the highest degree of amazement and horrour. I believe that
he would have shuddered still more, if he had contemplated
the means by which this usurpt dominion was maintained and
propagated, the manner in which it was exercised, and the ends
which it was made to serve. And even among these would it
have been the violence of persecution, the rivers of innocent
blood, the dark and loathsome dungeons, the instruments of
lingering torture, the manifold forms of agonizing death, by
which this unrighteous sovereinty was enforced, from which he
would have turned away with the deepest abhorrence? Or

190 NOTE K.

would it have been that this cruel tyranny, exercised in the
name of Christ, was employed to supersede Christ's religion by
another Gospel, to set up other mediators in Christ's stead, to
make Christ's word a dead letter, and to replace it with the
traditions and inventions of men 1 to decree new articles of
faith, to impose doctrines of which Paul never heard, and which,
if he had known, he would have withstood even to the death 1
I believe not so. For he would have had before his eyes
something still worse than this. He would have seen these
attributes of Omnipotence assumed for still more unhallowed
ends, — to do that which, with reverence be it spoken, God Himself
could not do, even to subvert the first principles of truth and
justice, to confound the eternal distinctions of right and wrong,
to sever the most sacred ties by which society is knit together, to
stifle the voice of reason and conscience, to make evil good, and
good evil, darkness light, and light darkness."

The central principle of this evil system, the Bishop finds,
even as Dr Newman did when he was amongst us, in the claim of
infallibility. " Whatever changes " (he says,) " it may undergo
in its outward aspect, whatever variety of forms it may develope,
still, so long as the principle of an omnipotent infallible autho-
rity is retained, — and it was never asserted more boldly than
at this day, — the spirit of the religion must continue the same ;
and each new addition is bound upon every conscience as tightly
as any article of its original creed."

Note K : p. 30.

I have spoken above (in Note H) ol the extraordinary
sophistry by which it has been attempted to prove that our
21st Article does not deny the infallibility of General Councils.
Why the Tract-writer indulged himself in this exhibition of
his logical dexterity, is not very clear. For our Article is in
accordance with the opinions of Christian Antiquity, and is
supported by the almost unanimous consent of our own divines.

NOTE K. 191

A few pages will not be misemployed in establishing the latter
point by the evidence of some of the chief amongst them.

One of the very first Acts of our Reformation is a Judgement
pronounced by the Convocation of 1536, and printed by Lord
Herbert, by Burnet, and by Collier. " As concerning General
Councils, like as we, taught by long experience, do perfectly
know that there never was, nor is anything devised, invented, or
instituted by our forefathers more expedient or more necessary
for the establishment of our faith, for the extirpation of heresies,
and the abolishing of sects and schisms, and finally for the
reducing of Christ's people unto one perfect unity and concord in
His Religion, than by the having of General Councils, so that the
same be lawfully had and congregated in iSpiritu Sancto, and be also
conform and agreeable — to that wholesome and godly institution
and usage, for the which they were at first devised and used in
the primitive Church ; — even so on the other side, taught by
like experience, we esteem, repute, and judge, that there is, nor
can be, anything in the world more pestilent and pernicious to
the common-weale of Christendom, or whereby the truth of God's
word hath in times past, or hereafter may be, sooner defaced or
subverted, or whereof hath and may ensue more contention, more
discord, and other devilish effects, than when such General
Councils have or shall be assembled, not Christianly, nor charit-
ably, but for and upon private malice and ambition, or other
worldly and carnal respects and considerations, according to the
saying of Gregory Nazianzenus," already quoted in p. 167.
Here, as in the Article, the value of the Council is regarded as
dependent on the character of its members, without reference to
any supposed infallibility.

Of Jewel it will not be expected that he should speak with
any excessive reverence of General Councils. In his Answer to
Dr Cole's Second Letter, he writes : " Whereas you say we could
never yet prove the errour of one General Council, I think your
memory doth somewhat deceive you. For, to pass by all other
matters, Albertus Pighius, the greatest learned man, as it is
thought, of your side, hath found such errours to our hands :

192 NOTE K.

for in his Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, speaking of the Second
Council holden at Ephesus, which you cannot deny but it was
General, and yet took part with the heretic abbot Eutyches
against the Catholic father Flavianus, he writeth thus : Concilia
universalia, etiara congregata legitime, ut bene, ita perperam^
injuste, impieque judicare et definire possunt." In his Answer to
Dr Cole's Third Letter, Jewel, after defending his previous
remarks, adds : " When ye have sought out the bottom of your
learning, I believe it will be hard for you to find any good
sufficient cause why a General Council may not as well be
deceived as a Particular. For Christ's promises, Ecce ego vohiscuvi
swn, and Uhicunque duo aut tres convener iiit in nomine Meo, ibi
sum Ego in medio illorum, — are made as well to the Particular
Council as to the General."

In his Defense of the Apology (c. ii. § 9) Jewel quotes the
remarkable passage from Augustin's Treatise on Baptism against
the Donatists (b. ii. c. 4) : " Quis nesciat Sanctam Scripturam
Canonicam, tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, — omnibus
posterioribus episcoporum litteris ita praeponi, ut de ilia omnino
dubitari et disceptari non possit, utrum verum vel utrum rectum
sit quidquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit ; episcoporum autem
litteras — et per sermonem forte sapientiorem cujuslibet in ea re
peritioris, — et per concilia licere reprehendi, si quid in eis forte
a veritate deviatum est ; et ipsa concilia quae per singulas
regiones vel provincias fiunt, plenariorum conciliorum auctoritate
quae fiunt ex universe orbe Christiano, sine ullis ambagibus
cedere ; ipsaque plenaria saepe priora posterioribus emendari,
cum aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat,
et cognoscitur quod latebat." Here there is no notion of a
supernatural infallibility, but the very reverse, the fallibility and
corrigibility which belong to human decisions.

Jewel also quotes the words of Panormitanus : Plus credendum
est uni private fideli, quam toti concilio et Papae, si meliorem
haheat auctoritatem vel rationem.

In Hooker's excellent remarks upon General Councils (E. P. I.
X. 14), we find a complete agreement with the Judgement of the

NOTE K. ir>3

Convocation of 1530, but no intimation of their possessing any
special privilege of infallibility. " As one and the same law
divine is to all Christian Churches a rule for the chicfest things,
— by means whereof they all in that respect make one Church, as
having all but one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism,— so the
urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our
unity in these things, as also for order in some other things
convenient to be everywhere uniformly kept, maketh it requisite
that the Church of God here on earth have her laws of spiritual
commerce between Christian nations, — laws by virtue whereof all
Churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend, religious,
and sacred consultations, which are termed Councils General :
a thing whereof God's own blessed Spirit was the Author ; a
thing practist by the holy Apostles themselves ; a thing always
afterward kept and observed throughout the world; a thino-
never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride,
ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile endeavours
to abuse that divine invention to the furtherance of wicked
purposes. But as the just authority of civil courts and par-
liaments is not therefore to be abolish t, because sometime there
is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents
of men over-potent in the commonwealth; so the grievous
abuse which hath been of Councils should rather cause men to
study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that
first perfection, than in regard of stains and blemishes sithence
growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace." He adds:
"Whether it be for the finding out of anything whereunto
divine law bindeth us, but yet in such sort that men are not
thereof on all sides resolved, — or for the setting down of some
uniform judgement to stand touching such things, as, being
neither way matters of necessity, are notwithstanding offensive

and scandalous when there is open opposition about them, be

it for the ending of strifes touching matters of Christian belief,
wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of
dissenting from the other, — or be it concerning matters of polity,
order, and regiment in the Church,— I nothing doubt but that

0

194 NOTE K.

Christian men should much better frame themselves to those
heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour vpith so great
instancy gave as concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur
in desire to have the use of ancient Councils again renewed,
rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all
contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and
that of all others the worst, which is by sword."

It was not however till the seventeeth century that this
question was brought forward very prominently, and became one
of the chief heads of controversy. The disputes in the sixteenth
turned rather on the particular errours and corruptions intro-
duced by the Church of Rome. Feeling their weakness, as they
could not but do, on these points, the Roman apologists adopted
the plan of laying the stress of their argument on the general,
formal topics of the authority and infallibility and other
attributes of the Church, which, they asserted, manifestly
belonged to no Church except that of Rome. In the fifth
book of Field's Treatise Of the Church, these questions are
discust with great learning and sobriety of judgement, calmly
and convincingly. In the 51st chapter, which treats "of the
assurance of finding out the Truth, which the Bishops assembled
in General Councils have," he writes : "There are that say that all
interpretations of Holy Scriptures agreed on in General Councils,
and all resolutions of doubts concerning things therein con-
tained, proceed from the same Spirit from which the Holy
Scriptures were inspired ; and that therefore General Councils
cannot err, either in the interpretation of Scriptures, or resolving
of things doubtful concerning the faith. But these men should
know that, though the interpretations and resolutions of Bishops
in General Councils proceed from the same Spirit from which the
Scriptures were inspired, yet not in the same sort, nor with like
assurance of being free from mixture of errour. For the Fathers
assembled in General Councils do not rely upon immediate
revelation in all their particular resolutions and determinations,
as the writers of the books of Holy Scripture did, but on their
own meditation, search, and study, the general assistance of

NOTE K. 19")

Divine Grace concurring with them. — Secondly, when we desire
to have things made known to us by immediate revelation from
God, we go not to them that are most learned, but to them that
are most devout and religious, whether they be learned or
unlearned, whether of the Clergy or the Laity, whether men or
women ; because for the most part God revealeth His secrets not
to them that are wiser and more learned, but to them that
are better and more religious and devout. — But in Councils men
go to them that are more learned and have better place in the
Church, though they be not the best and holiest men. There-
fore questions touching matters of faith are not determined in
Councils by immediate revelation.— It is no way necessary to
think that the Fathers are any otherwise directed by the Spirit
of Truth in General Councils, than in Patriarchal, National,
or Provincial ; seeing General Councils consist of such as come
with instructions from Provincial, National, and Patriarchal
synods, and must follow the same in making decrees, and con-
sequently that they are not led to the finding out of the truth
in any special sort or manner, beyond that general influence that
is required to the performance of every good work. So that, as
God assisting Christian men in the Church only in a general
sort to the performance of the works of virtue, there are ever
some well-doers, and yet no particular man doth always well ; —
so, in like sort God assisting Christian men in the Church in
seeking out the truth only in general sort, as in the performances
of the actions of virtue, and not by immediate revelation and in-
spiration, as in the Apostles time, there are ever some that hold
and profess all necessary truth, though no one man or company
of men, do find the truth ever and in all things, nor any assu-
rance can be had of any particular men, that they should always
hold all necessary truths ; and therefore we may safely conclude
that no man can certainly pronounce that whatsoever the greater
part of Bishops assembled in a General Council agree on, is
undoubtedly true."

These propositions Field supports by the testimony of pre-
ceding writers and of facts, and then proceeds : " Yet, when there

0 2

196 NOTE K.

is a lawful General Council, — if there appear nothing to us in it
that may argue an unlawful proceeding, nor there be no gain-
saying of men of worth, place, and esteem, we are so strongly
to presume that it is true and right, that with unanimous con-
sent is agreed on in such a Council, that we must not so much
as profess publicly that we think otherwise, unless we do most
certainly know the contrary ; yet may we in the secret of our
hearts remain in some doubt, carefully seeking, by the Scripture
and monuments of antiquity, to find out the truth. Neither is
it necessary for us expressly to believe whatsoever the Council
hath concluded, though it be true ; unless by some other means
it appear to us to be true, and we be convinced of it in some
other sort than by the bare determination of the Council only, —
But concerning the General Councils of this sort that hitherto
have been holden, we confess that, in respect of the matter about
which they were called, so nearly and essentially concerning the
life and soul of the Christian faith, and in respect of the manner
and form of their proceeding, and the evidence of proof brought
in them, they are and ever were expressly to be believed by all
such as perfectly understand the meaning of their determination."
Then, after speaking of the first six Councils he concludes :
"and therefore, howsoever we dare not pronounce that lawful
General Councils are free from danger of erring, as some among
our adversaries do, yet do we more honour and esteem and more
fully admit all the General Councils that ever hitherto have been
holden, than they do ; who fear not to charge some of the chiefest
of them with errour, as both the second and the fourth, for
equaling the Bishop of Constantinople to the Bishop of Rome,
which I think they suppose to have been an errour in faith."

As among the arguments made use of in our days to con-
vert the weak and unstable and vacillating, it is found that none
is more impressive and effective than the promise that they
shall have an infallible guide to save them from the perils and
dangers of personal responsibility, so was it in the seventeenth
century. Archdeacon Wilberforce, in a passage already quoted,
speaks of " that longing for some principle of guidance, which

NOTE K.

197

is deeply rooted in the heart." Now this longing, like every
natural appetite, has its diseased, as well as its healthy con-
dition. When it impells us to make use of our own intellectual
faculties, diligently, soberly, orderly, and to take advantage of
all the helps and means wherewith God has supplied us, it is
healthy : but when it disposes us to shake off this labour and
care and anxiety, to repine against the divine ordinance that
in the sweat of our understanding and of our heart we must
eat our bread, and to crave for some magical aid whereby we
may be relieved from this labour, it is utterly morbid, no less
morbid than the analogous longings for the philosopher's stone
and the elixir of life. Assuredly an infallible guidance, if it be
anything else than that illumination of the Spirit which is to be
obtained by holiness and earnest prayer, is quite as visionary as
these phantoms, by which so many in former ages were lured
and deluded, — quite as visionary as the Mahometan paradise, by
which the Arabian impostor fascinated his followers : and it is
only by reason of our weakness and sinfulness that it exercises
such a charm over us.

Hence this became the main argument in the controversy be-
tween Laud and Fisher, in which Laud, then Bishop of St
David's, tried to rescue the Duke of Buckingham, as well as his
wife and mother, from the clutches of the subtile Jesuit. We
are told that, in some previous conferences between Fisher and
White, afterward Bishop of Ely, "all the speech was about par-
ticular matters, and little or none about a continual, infallible,
visible Church, which was the chief and only point in which a
certain lady [the Countess of Buckingham] required satisfaction,
as having formerly settled in her mind that it was not for
her, or any other unlearned persons, to take upon them to
judge of particulars without depending upon the judgement
of the true Church." To this Laud replies (§ 3. 17): "If
that lady desired to rely on a particular infallible Church, it
is not to be found on earth." He argues (§ 10, 3) : "Since
you distinguish not between the Church in general and a General
Council, which is but her representation for determinations of the

198 NOTE K.

faith, — tliougli I be very slow in sifting or opposing what is
concluded by lawful, general, and consenting authority, — though
I give as much as can justly be given to the definitions of
Councils truly General, — nay, suppose I should grant, which I
do not, that General Councils cannot err, — yet this cannot down
with me that all points even so defined are fundamental. For
deductions are not prime and native principles ; nor are super-
structures foundations : — Therefore nothing is simply fundamental
because the Church declares it, but because it is so in the nature
of the thing which the Church declares" (§§ 10, 7).— "For full
Church authority is but Church authority; and Church authority
when it is at full sea is not simply divine; therefore the sentence
of it not fundamental in the faith ; and yet no erring disputer
may be endured to shake the foundation which the Church in
Council lays. But plain Scripture, with evident sense, or a
full demonstrative argument, must have room, where a wrangling
and erring disputer may not be allowed it. And there is neither
of these but may convince the definition of the Council, if it be
ill founded" (§ x. 11). "Now Catholic maxims, which are pro-
perly fundamental, are certain prime truths deposited with the
Church, and not so much determined by the Church, as publisht
and manifested, and so made firm by her to us. — Where all
that the Church doth is but that the same thing may be be-
lieved, which was before believed, but with more light and
clearness, and, in that sense, with more firmness than before. —
But this hinders not the Church herself, nor any appointed by
the Church, to examine her own decrees, and to see that she
keep the principles of faith unblemisht and uncorrupted. For
if she do not so, but that new doctrines be added to the old,
the Church, which is sacrarmm veritatis, may be changed in
lupanar erroriiyn'''' (§ x. 15). — "The Church of England
grounded her positive Articles upon Scripture ; and her negative
do refute there, where the thing aflfirmed by you is not afiirmed
by Scripture, nor directly to be concluded out of it" (§ xv. 1).

In the course of his argument Laud strenuously maintains,
and proves, that the Church is not infallible, not even the

NOTE K. 199

Church general, much less that of Rome. " Every assistance of
Christ and the Blessed Spirit is not enough to make the autho-
rity of any company of men divine and infallible, but such and
so great an assistance only as is purposely given to that effect.
Such an assistance the Prophets under the Old Testament, and the
Apostles under the New had ; but neither the Highpriest with
his clergy in the Old, nor any company of prelates or priests
in the New, since the Apostles, ever had it" (§ xvi. 26). In
the 25th section (4. 5), Laud shews that, though the whole Church
cannot universally err in any point of faith simply necessary
to salvation, yet it may err on points which are not fundamental,
and that the passages of Scripture alledged to prove the infal-
libility of the Church, merely prove her indefectibility, and
convey a promise of Divine assistance. — " To settle controversies
in the Church, there is a visible judge and infallible, but not
living; and that is the Scripture pronouncing by the Church.
And there is a visible and a living judge, but not infallible ; and
that is a General Council, lawfully called, and so proceeding"
(§ XX vi. 1).

In the 33rd section, the longest and most elaborate of the
whole book. Laud enters into a full consideration of the argu-
ments adduced to prove the infallibility of General Councils,
and displays their utter untenableness and futility. When we
examine these arguments, the work may seem not to be a
difficult one; but it could not well be better executed; and,
as far as reasoning is concerned, the victory is complete. The
texts of Scripture alledged in behalf of their infallibility are
shewn to be wholly irrelevant, the authority of the Fathers,
and the evidence of history, to be adverse.

This argument is followed by some remarks on the still more
groundless, and far more irrational and revolting assumption,
which ascribes infallibility to the Pope. Of this he says : " I
am persuaded, many learned men ampng yourselves scorn it at
the very heart ; and I avow it, I have heard some learned and
judicious Roman Catholics utterly condemn it. And well they
may; for no man can affirm it, but he shall make himself a

200 NOTE K.

scorn to all the learned men of Christendom, whose judgements
are not captivated by Roman power. For my own part, I am
clear of Jacobus Almain's opinion : ' A great wonder it is to
me that they who affirm the Pope cannot err, do not affirm
likewise that he cannot sin. And I verily believe they would
be bold enough to affirm it, did not the daily works of the
Popes compell them to believe the contrary.' For very many
of them have led lives quite contrary to the Gospel of Christ,
nay, such lives as no Epicurean monster storied out to the world
hath outgone them in sensuality or other gross impiety, if their
own historians be true. — Yet these must be infallible in their
dictates and conclusions of faith." To this argument the Romish
apologists are wont to reply, that it is mere Protestant dulness
to confound infallibility with impeccability, which is something
totally different, being a moral gift, instead of an intellectual.
So that here again we find the same rending asunder of the
heart and mind, which characterizes the Romish conception of
faith, a separation belonging to the region of sin, but which
is to be overcome more or less in the Kingdom of Grace. Yet
we have been taught by our Divine Master that the true way
of attaining to the knowledge of religious truth is by living-
according to it. But in this respect also Romanism substitutes
a magical for a spiritual power, and seems to regard it as dero-
gatory to the arbitrary omnipotence of the Deity, if we speak
of the illumination which ever goes along with purity of heart,
of the wonderful discernment which is granted to godliness,
and of the manner in which sin, under all its forms, darkens
our spiritual vision. We hold these opinions, we are told, be-
cause we are taught by flesh and blood, not by grace. When
we come under this higher teacher, we shall discover that this
is one of the ways in which God shews that, in the distribution
of His gifts. He is no respecter of persons, that, though accord-
ing to the law of the natural world more is given to him who
hath, in the spiritual world this law is reverst, and that the
most signal demonstration of the Divine Omnipotence is, that
the miraculous gift of infallibility is often bestowed upon those

NOTE K. 201

■who might otherwise have been supposed to have derived their
conception of Christianity from the Gospel of Judas Iscariot.

Again, when Lord Falkland's mother tried to draw him over
to the Church of Rome, the main argument of the controversy in
which he had to engage, was the infallibility of that Church. It
was to defend Lord Falkland's Discourse, that Hammond entered
into the discussion, who, in the Preface to his Treatise, writes
thus : " The sad effects of the present differences and divisions of
this broken kingdom having made Peace and Unity and In-
fallibility such precious desirable things, that, if there were but
one wish offered to each man among us, it would certainly be
laid out on this one treasure, the setting up some catholic um-
pire or daysman, some visible, infallible definer of controversies,
the pretenders to that infallibility, having the luck to be alone
in that pretension, have been lookt on with some reverence, and,
by those who knew nothing of their grounds or arguments, ac-
knowledged to speak, if not true, yet seasonably ; and having so
great an advantage upon their auditors, — their inclinations and
their wishes to find themselves overcome going along with every
argument that shoiild be brought them, — they began to redouble
their industry and their hopes ; and, instead of the many par-
ticulars of the Eomish doctrine, which they were wont to offer
proof for in the retail, now to set all their strength upon this
one in gross, — the very gains and conveniences that attend this
doctrine of theirs, if it were true, being to flesh and blood, which
all men have not the skill of putting off, mighty topics of
probability that it is so."

There is something very disheartening in the contemplation
of the manner in which errours and fallacies, after having
been in great measure supprest, and apparently almost extin-
guisht, at least within certain limits, will sprout up again, it
may be, after centuries, as vigorous and delusive as ever. It is
sad and disheartening to think how closely these words of Ham-
mond's apply to what has been going on in our Church in these
last years. The triumphant learning and reasoning of our great
divines in the seventeenth century had so completely demolisht

202 NOTE K.

all the arguments alledged in behalf of the infallibility either
of the Pope or of Councils, that for a century and a half few
voices ventured to lift themselves up in defense of such an ex-
ploded errour in England. Yet now it is become rampant
again, and is welcomed equally by weak and by over-subtile
minds, by those who have not strength to grasp any truth, and
by those who have undermined all truth. Only we have not the
same excuse for this morbid craving in our days, which Ham-
mond finds in the divisions and dissensions of his. On the con-
trary, while we have had such wonderful proofs of the power of
Truth in establishing consentient conviction, not only in the
whole old world, but also in so many new continents, of Science,
there were also divers indications of an approaching recon-
ciliation in the sphere of moral and political and social philosophy,
and even in religion, when it was proclaimed anew at Oxford,
that man has no faculty of discovering, or even of discerning and
recognising moral and spiritual truth, and that the fallibility of
Reason must be superseded by the infallibility of Authority;
much as though a person should take disgust at the multitu-
dinous complicated operations of the laws of Nature, and should
call up Chaos, the " anarch old," to set things in order.

Hammond continues : " To discover the danger of this sweet
potion, or rather to shew how far it is from being what it pre-
tends, and so to exchange the specious for the sound, the made-
dish for the substantial food, — allowing the Universal Church
the authority/ of an irrefragable testimony, and the present age of
the Romish Church as much of our belief as it hath of conformity
with the Universal of all ages, but not a privilege of not being
able to say false whatsoever it saith, — and so to set us in the
safer though longer way, thereby to whet our industry in the
chase of truth, instead of assuring ourselves that we cannot
err, — this Discourse of Lord Falkland's was long since designed ;
as also to remove the great scandals and obstacles which have
obstructed all way of hope to that universal aim of all true
Christians, — the universal peace of Christendom. For to this
nothing is more unreconcilably contrary than pretensions to

NOTE K. 203

infallibility in any part of it ; all such making it unlawful either
for themselves to mend, or others to be endured, shutting out
all possibility either of compliance or charity or reformation
in their own, or mercy to other men's errours."

Dr Newman, in his Letter to Br Jelf in Exjolanation of Tract
XC. enumerates a variety of opinions, which had been
held by some of our principal divines, and the lawfulness of
which he had desired to vindicate ; and among these he deems
it should be allowable " to hold with Hammond that no General
Council, truly such^ ever did, or shall err in any matter of
Faith." No authority is cited for this statement, which, carefully
as it is worded, may produce an erroneous impression ; for at
the utmost it can only be correct under very strict limitations.
In his Vindication of Lord Falkland's Discourse (c. xi. §. 2),
Hammond says : " It being supposed that Councils are not
deciders of controversies, — meaning thereby infallible ones, — they
be yet of good authority and use in the Church, to help to decide
them, and — be only denied by us the privilege of infallihility,
not that other of being very useful and venerable in a lower
degree, and, — such the Council may be, — even next to the word
of God itself."

In his Discourse Of Fundamentals (c. xii.), speaking of "the
doctrines that hinder the superstructing of good life on the
Christian belief," he singles out " especially the infallibility and
inerrableness which is assumed and inclosed by the Romish
Church, without any inerrable ground to build it on, and, being
taken for an unquestionable principle, is, by the security it
brings along with it, apt to betray men to the foulest whether
sins or errours, whensoever this pretended infallible guide shall
propose them. — For of this we have too frequent experience,
how hard it is to dispossess a Romanist of any doctrine or prac-
tice of that present Church, for which he hath no grounds
either in Antiquity or Scripture, or rational deductions from
either, but the contrary to all these, as long as he hath that one
hold or fortress, his persuasion of the infallibility of that Church,
which teacheth or prescribeth it. And indeed it were as

204 NOTE K.

unreasonable for us to accuse or wonder at this constancy in
particular superstructed errours, — whilst this great first compre-
hensive falsity is maintained, as to disclaim the conclusion, when
the premisses that duly induce it are embraced. And then that
other errours and guilts of the highest nature neither are nor
shall be entertained by those that are thus qualified for them,
must sure be a felicity to which this doctrine hath no way en-
titled them, and for which they can have no security for one
hour, but by renouncing that principle which equally obligeth to
the belief of truths and falsehoods, embracing of commendable
and vicious practices, — when they are once received and proposed
to them by that Church."

But it is in the Paraenesis, the fifth Chapter of which treats on
Heresy, that Hammond most fully discusses the various questions
concerning the authority of Councils. To the first four General
Councils he ascribes the highest authority (§. 7), " because, these
being so near the Apostles times, and gathered as soon as the
heterodox opinions appeared, the sense of the Apostles might more
easily be fetcht from those men and Churches to whom they had
committed it." As to other General Councils, he shews (§ 13) that
there is no scriptural ground for deeming them infallible, and that
the texts alledged in behalf of such a notion, — Matth. xviii. 20,
John xvi. 3, Acts xv. 28, — do not bear it out ; and then (in § 14)
he adds : " This then of the inerrableness of General Councils being
thus far evidenced to be no matter of faith, because not founded
in any part of Scripture or Tradition, — the utmost that can be
said of it is, that it is a theological verity which may piously be
believed. And so I doubt not to pronounce of it, that if we
consider God's great and wise and constant providence and care
over His Church, His desire that all men should be saved and,
in order to that end, come to the knowledge of all necessary
truth, His promise that He will not suffer His faithful servants
to be tempted above what they are able, nor permit scandals and
false teachers to prevail to the seducing of the very elect, His
most pious godly servants, — if, I say, we consider these, and
Some other such like general promises of Scripture, wherein this

NOTE K. 205

question seems to be concerned, we shall have reason to believe
that God will never suffer all Christians to fall into such a
temptation, as it must be in case the whole Church representative
should err in matters of faith, by way of ellipsis, define against
or leave out of their Creed any Article of that body of Credenda,
M'hich the Apostles delivered to the Church, and therein find
approbation and reception among all those Bishops and Doctors
of the Church difi'used, who were out of the Council. And
though in this case the Church might remain a Church, and so
the destructive gates of Hades not prevail against it, and still
retain all parts of the Apostles dejoosihim in the hearts of some
faithful Christians, who had no power in the Council to oppose
the decree, or out of it to resist the general approbation, yet
still the testimony of such a General Council, so received and
approved, would be a very strong argument, and so a very dan-
gerous temptation, to every the most meek and pious Christian :
and it is piously to be believed, though not infallibly certain,
(for who knows what the provocations of the Christian world,
of the Pastors, or the flock, may arrive to, like the violence of
the old world, that brought down the deluge upon them 1) that
God will not permit His servants to fall into that temptation."
This is but a scanty measure of infallibility; and thus much
many might be ready to concede : yet after all it must remain
questionable whether the proposition rejected by the General
Council be indeed a fundamental point of faith. And who is to
ascertain and determine this 1 What will be the practical use
of such an infallibility to the simple Christian 1

Hammond's greater contemporary, Jeremy Taylor, discusses
the same questions concerning the infallibility of the Church, of
General Councils, and of the Pope, very fully in the second Part
of his Dissuasive (Book i. § 1), with his own wonderful brilliancy
of logic and of wit, scattering the arguments of the opposite
party like dust before a March wind. They had previously
undergone a thorough process of pounding in Chillingworth's
logical crucible.

Thorndike, one of the most strenuous champions of

206 NOTE K.

ecclesiastical authority, treats of the same topics at large in the
first Book of his Ejyiloiiue to the Tragedy of the Church of
England; and he too is a master of reasoning. In the
fourth Chapter he shews that there is no passage in Scripture
containing anything like a promise of infallibility to the Church.
The same subject is resumed in the 27th Chapter, where he
writes (§ 7) : "I say not that the Church cannot determine
what shall be taught and received in such disputes as will
divide the Church unless an end be put ; but I say that the
authority of the Church can be no reason obliging or warranting
to believe that for truth, which cannot be reasonably deduced
from the motives of our common faith." Again (§ 14), "Neither
will it be strange that 1 allow not any Council, in which never
so much of the authority of the present Church is united, to say,
in the same sense and to the same effect as the Synod of the
Apostles at Jerusalem, It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to
us : though I allow the overt act of their assembling to be a
legal presumption that their acts are the acts of the Holy Ghost,
so far as they appear not to trangress those bounds upon which
the assistance of the Holy Ghost is promist the Church." Further
(§ 18), "Though, granting the Church to be subject to errour,
salvation is not to be attained without much difficulty, —and
though division in the Church may create more difficulty in
attaining salvation than errour might have done, — yet, so long as
salvation may be and is attained by visible communion with the
Church, so long is Christ ivlth His, nor do the gates of hell 2^revall
against His Church; though errour, which escludeth infallibility,
though division, which destroyeth unity, hinder many and many
of attaining it." See also § 25 : " Suppose the Church, by the
foundation of it, enabled to maintain both the truth and the
sufficiency of the motives of faith against infidels, and also the
rule of faith against heretics, by the evidence which it maketh
that they are received ; what is this to the creating of faith
by decreeing that which, before it was decreed, was not the
object of faith? — Surely the Church cannot be the pillar that
sustains any faith but that which is laid upon it, as received from

NOTE K. 207

the beginning, not that which it layeth upon the foundation of
faith."

In the 28th Chapter he shews that this view of the authority
of the Church is alone consistent with the general opinion of the
Fathers J and here, among other things, he writes (§ 11): "I
know nothing in all antiquity more peremptory against the
infallibility of the Church, than that of Vincentius, denying that
the rule of faith can ever increase, or Councils do any more in it
than determine that expressly and distinctly, which was simply
held from the beginning."

That the labours of our divines with regard to this question
were not ineffectual, we learn from Pearson's Preface to Lord
Falkland's Treatise, where he says : " The great defenders of the
doctrine of the Church of England have, with more than ordinary
diligence, endeavoured to view the grounds of this controversy,
and have written, by the advantage either of their learning
accurately, or of their parts most strongly, or of the cause itself
most convincingly, against that darling ivfaUib'dity. How clearly
this controversy hath been managed, with what evidence of truth
discust, what success so much of reason hath had, cannot more
plainly appear than in this, that the very name of infallibility,
before so much exalted, begins now to be very burthensome, even
to the maintainers of it; insomuch as one of their latest and
ablest proselytes, Hugh Paulin de Cressy, in his Exomologesis,
hath dealt very clearly with the world, and told us, that ' this
infallibility is an unfortunate w^ord,' that Mr Chillingworth ' hath
combated against it with too, too great success,' so great that ' he
could wish the word were forgotten or at least laid by,' — that not
only Mr Chillingworth, but we, the rest of the poor * Protestants,
have in very deed very much to say for ourselves when we are
prest unnecessarily with it.' And therefore Mr Cressy's advice
to all the Romanists is this, ' that we may never be invited
to combat the authority of the Church under that notion.' 0
the strength of reason rightly managed ! 0 the power of
truth clearly declared ! that it should force an eminent member
of the Church of Rome to retract so necessary, so fundamental

208 NOTE K.

a doctrine, to desert all their schools, and contradict all their
controvertists. But indeed not without very good cause : for
he professes withal, that, 'no such word as infallibility is to
be found in any Council : neither did ever the Church enlarge
her authority to so vast a wideness : but doth rather deliver the
victory into our hands when we urge her decisions.' — It cannot
therefore be the word alone, but the whole importance and sense
of that word infallibility, which Mr Cressy so earnestly desires
all his Catholics ever hereafter to forsake, because the former
Church did never acknowledge it, and the present Church will
never be able to maintain it. This is the great success which
the reason, parts, and learning of the late defenders of our
Church have had in this main architectonical controversy."

This collection of testimonies might easily be enlarged : but it
is already sufficient to prove that the great body of our eminent
divines concur in holding that, neither in the reason of the
thing, nor from any declaration of Scripture, direct or even
implicit, is there the slightest ground for deeming that the
Councils of the Church have been, or would be, endowed with
any miraculous gift of infallibility; wherefore we may safely
pronounce that the existence of such a gift is a fond and vain
imagination. At the same time they hold that Councils right-
fully convened may be regarded, according to the expression of
our Article, as having authority in controversies of faith; though
their decisions, to have legal force, require to be adopted by each
particular Church. Moreover they deem that the first four
General Councils have a special paramount authority, as
witnesses of the faith committed by the Apostles to the first
ages of the Church; and many would probably incline to
believe, with Hammond, that the decisions of every lawful
General Council would be so far overruled by that superintending
Providence which watches over the welfare of the Church, as
that they would not be allowed to contravene any fundamental
article of faith.

NOTE L. 209

Note L : p. 31.

The denial of the absolute infallibility of the Pope is well
known to be one of the main principles of the Gallican Church,
set forth in the four Articles of their famous Synod in 1G82.
The second of those Articles is, that " the full power in spiritual
things is so vested in the Apostolical See, in the successors of St
Peter and Vicars of Christ, as that the decrees of the Holy Ecu-
menical Council of Constance, approved as they have been by the
Apostolical See, and confirmed by the use of the Roman Pontiffs,
and of the whole Church, and having always been religiously
observed by the Gallican Church, shall retain their full force, as
they were enacted in the fourth and fifth Sessions concerning the
authority of General Councils, and that the Gallican Church does
not approve of those who would impair the force of those decrees, as
though they were of doubtful authority, or referred solely to the
period of the Schism." Now the most important of the decrees
here referred to was a declaration that " the Assembly, being
legitimately gathered together in the Holy Ghost, constituting
a General Council, and representing the Catholic Church, has
its power immediately from Christ, and that every person, of
whatsoever state or dignity, even though it be the Papal, is
bound to obey the Council in those things which pertain to faith,
and to the extirpation of the said Schism, and the reformation of
the said Church in its Head and members." This declaration
of the Council of Constance, in which we see a kind of dawn of
the Reformation, was adopted in the Gallican Church in its
fullest sense: and the fourth Article adds, that, "in contro-
versies of faith, the office of the Pope is the chief, and that his
decrees pertain to all Churches; nevertheless that his judgement
is not irreformahile, unless it is confirmed by the consent of the
Church."*

* These Articles are of such importance that I will subjoin the originnl
words. The Second is : " Sic autem inesse Apostolicae Sedi, nc Petri

210 NOTE L.

If any doubt could exist as to the purport of these Articles, it
would be removed by Bossuet, who took the leading part in the
Synod where they were drawn up, and who spent a large portion
of his subsequent life in composing an elaborate Vindication
of them, perhaps the ablest and most valuable of all his works.
The main object of the last seven books of this Vindication,
which he went on correcting and improving down to his death,
was to prove that the infallibility of the Pope was altogether a
modern doctrine, that for many centuries it had never been held
under any form, and that even down to the sixteenth century
there were abundant proofs of its not having been regarded as
an article of faith. He proves this by the decrees of Councils, by
the testimony of Fathers, Doctors, and Schoolmen, by the
declarations of Popes themselves, — among others, in the first
book of the Appendix (c. xii.), by those words of that truly
honest Pope, Hadrian VI. who, when he was professor at Louvain,
wrote: "Si per Ecclesiam Romanam intelligatur caput ejus,
puta Pontifex, certum est quod possit errare, etiam in iis quae
tangunt fidem, haeresim per suam determinationem aut decre-
talem asserendo ; plures enim fuere Pontifices Romani haeretici."
These words sufficiently prove that the Pope cannot then have
been generally regarded as infallible. The meaning of the

siiccessoribus, Christi vicariis, rerum spiritiialium plenam potestatem, ut simul
valeant atqre iramota coiisistant sanctae oecumenicae Synodi Constantiensis a
Sede Apostolica comprobata, ipsoque Romanorum Pontificum ac totius ecclesiae
usu confirinata, atque ab ecclesia Gallicana perpetua religione custodita, decreta de
auctoritate Conciliorum generalium, quae sessione qiiarta et quinta continentur;
nee probari a Gallicana ecclesia, qui eorum decretorum, quasi dubiae sint ^ucto-
ritatis ac minus approbata, robur infringant, aut ad solum schismatis tempus
Concilii dicta detorqueant." The fourth Article is " In fidei quoque quaestionibus
praecipuas summi Pontificis esse partes, ejusque decreta ad oranes et singulas
ecclesias pertinere, nee tamen irreformabile esse judicium, nisi Ecclesiae consensus
accesserit."

I will add the words of the Council of Constance : " Prime declarat quod
ipsa in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata, concilium generale faciens, et ecclesiam
catholicam repraesentans, potestatem a Christo immediate habet, cui quilibet
cujuscumque status vel dignitatis, etiam si papalis existat, obedire tenetur in his
quae pertinent ad fidem, et exstirpationem dicti schismatis, et reformationem
dictae ecclesiae in capite et in membris."

NOTE L. 211

declaration that the Pope's judgement is not irreformabile, Bossuet
explains (L. vii. c. 1) by saying that the word is taken from
Tertullian : "Judicium illud irreformabile esse dicimus, quod
immobile, irreiractahile, irrefragahile ab antiquis, postremo
denique aevo infaUibile appellatum est."

Bossuet's view on this matter was maintained by Fleury, the
Ecclesiastical historian, by Dupin, in the last generation by
Cardinal Bausset, his biographer, and by the great body of the
French Church, by all those who were especially called Galli-
cans. It has been impugned by De Maistre in his book Du
Pape, a considerable part of which is employed in replying to
Bossuet. Having explained his own conception of infallibility,
on which I shall say a few words in the next Note, he remarks,
that, from not having seized his principles, " des theologiens du
premier ordre, tels que Bossuet et Fleury, ont manque I'idee de
I'infaillibilite, de maniere a permettre au bon sens laique de
sourire en les lisant. Le premier nous dit serieusement que
la doctrine de I'infaillibilite n'a commence qu'au concile de
Florence ; et Fleury encore plus precis nomme le dominicain
Cajetan, comme I'auteur de cette doctrine, sous le pontificat de
Jules II. On ne comprend pas comment des hommes, d'ailleurs
si distingues, ont pu confondre deux idees aussi difFerentes que
celles de croire et de soiitenir un dogme. L'Eglise catholique
n'est point argumentatrice de sa nature : elle croit sans disputer ;
car la foi est une croyance par amiour; et I'amour n'argumente
point. Le catholique salt qu'il ne pent se tromper ; il sait de
plus que s'il pouvait se tromper, il n'y auroit plus de verity
revelee, ni d'assurance pour I'homme sur la terre. — Mais si Ton
vient a contester quelque dogme, elle sort de son etat naturel,
etranger k toute idee contentieuse ; elle cherche les fondemens
du dogme mis en probleme ; elle interroge I'antiquite ; elle cree
des mots surtout, dont sa bonne foi n'avait nul besoin, mais qui
sont devenus necessaires pour caract^riser le dogme, et mettre
entre les novateurs et nous une barriere eternelle." Pp. 11-13.

Now it will not be difficult to defend Bossuet against these
objections. For, though I readily acknowledge the truth of De

p 2

2\2 NOTE L.

Maistre's remark concerning social institutions, that it is not
given to us to discern and trace the woi'kings of the generative,
assimilative, and expansive processes in society, any more than in
nature, this applies only to those institutions which spring from
the general instincts of human nature, not to those which are
derived from an express positive fiat. De Maistre himself seems
here to have been somewhat misled by the grand analogy which
he detects between the infallibility of the supreme power in the
Church, and that which he ascribes to human governments. In
the Preface to the second edition he tells us that he had been
charged with having too much humanized the infallibility of the
Church ; and he asserts that he had not been unmindful of its
divine origin. This objection to Bossuet seems to prove that,
for a moment at least, he did lose sight of it, being carried
away by the fascinations of his theory concerning the analogy
between the natural and spiritual world. For, if the claim of
infallibility was really drawn from a certain number of verses in
Scripture containing an express promise of it, we have a right to
expect that an institution which proceeded from a distinct
ordinance, and the authors of which therefore must have been
aware of that ordinance and its bearings, should exhibit and
express this consciousness. If it was infallible only because all
governments are infallible, then it might be so without telling
us ; but if it was infallible, because our Lord promist St Peter
that it should be so, then its ground can no longer have been
hidden: it must have come distinctly before the consciousness : and
the consciousness of it must have found an utterance. It cannot
have continued in an intermittent state for fourteen centuries.

Moreover De Maistre's arguments seem to indicate that he
cannot have read Bossuet's great work, or at all events that he
had forgotten its contents. Perhaps he was writing during his
exile in Russia, of which he speaks so beautifully in the Soirees
de Saint-Petersbourg : at least he tells us (in p. 147), that he v/as
unable to refer to it for the sake of verifying a quotation. His
references are to Bausset's Life of Bossuet, from which he derives
the statement he so strongly objects to, that the doctrine of papal

NOTE L. 2[o

infallibility originated at the Council of Florence, on occasion of
the quarrel between Pope Eugenius IV. and the Council of
Basle. I have not observed any such express assertion in
Bossuet; but that is immaterial. De Maistre's objection might
have some weight, if Bossuet's argument had merely been,
that we do not find any enunciation of the doctrine of infalli-
bility anterior to the Council of Florence. But if De Maistre
had reflected, he must have bethought himself that this merely
negative argument, even in the hand of a much prolixer writer,
could never have filled the main part of two portly volumes. In
fact Bossuet's argument is a totally difi'erent one. He disproves
the infallibility of the Pope, not merely by negative, but by a
long and strong chain of positive evidence, by adducing a
number of instances, as well as direct assertions, of his fallibility
from generation after generation, by shewing from a large
induction of facts that during a series of centuries he was
regarded and treated as fallible, and never as otherwise than
fallible, and that, when an opposite opinion began to gain
ground, it arose mainly from the exercise of that authority,
which belongs to a supreme power, and which De Maistre terms
i7ifallibility. This demonstration is so clear and cogent, nay,
irrefragable, that, were it not for the cleverness and pertinacity
with which the Jesuits have gone on mustering routed and
scattered arguments, and filling their ranks with the skeletons of
such as had been slain a dozen times over, the notion of the
infallibility of the Pope must have been utterly exploded, even
in his own Church, at least to the north of the Alps.

Here I will take leave at once to illustrate and to reinforce
Bossuet's argument, by citing a witness who has recently been
disinterred : 1 mean Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, and a presbyter
of the Church of Borne, whom my friend, the Chevalier Bunsen,
has proved, with a power of critical combination scarcely to be
found except in Niebuhr and his disciples, to be the author of
the recently publisht Refutation of all JItresies, ascribed by the
Editor to Origcn. Now it might easily have happened that,
though Hippolytus does not say a word ascribing infallibilify lo

214 NOTE L.

the Bishop of Rome, there might have been nothing in the work
distinctly impugning his infallibility ; as of course there would
not be, if, according to our belief, no pretension to such infalli-
bility had ever been brought forward. Let us see then what he
actually does say, neither laying stress on the want of an express
assertion, if what he says is consistent with the notion of such an
infallibility, nor demanding the denial of a claim, which could
not be disputed, unless it had previously been made. He
lived as a Christian minister at Rome during the episcopate of
Zephyrinus and that of Callistus, at the beginning of the third
century : and in his ninth Book he treats of the heresy of Noetus.
This, he says (§ 7), was brought by his deacon and disciple,
Epigonus, to Rome, where it was adopted by Cleomenes, " at the
time when Zephyrinus thought he governed the Roman Church,
a rude and avaricious man (iSio)TtjQ kuI aicr)(^poKepdr}Q), who, being
induced by bribes, allowed such as chose to study under
Cleomenes, and himself, being drawn away in course of time,
adopted the same opinions, having Callistus for his counsellor
and complice in his evil deeds. — During their episcopates the
school continued growing and gaining strength from being
patronized by Zephyrinus and Callistus, although I never gave
way to them, but repeatedly withstood and refuted them, and
compelled them to acknowledge the truth : which they confest for
the moment through shame, and through the power of truth ; but
after a while they rolled back into the same mire (eVt top ahroi
jiop^opov dvLKvKiovTo).^' This is the way in which a presbyter and
bishop of the Roman Church speaks of two Bishops of Rome, two
of our so-called Tnfallibiliiies: the writer's official position is evident
on the face of the book itself : what the Chevalier Bunsen has
effected is to prove the identity of this Roman presbyter and
bishop with St Hippolytus.

After giving an account of the opinions held by Noetus, and
of their derivation, not from the Gospel, but from the doctrines
of Heraclitus, our heresiographer proceeds : " This heresy was
supported by Callistus, a man who was an adept in wickedness
and crafty to deceive (aV»)p iv KaKitjc irapovpyotj km TrouiXoc

NOTE L. 215

Trpoc 7r\dvt]v), and who was aiming at the episcopal throne. He
prevailed on Zephyrinus, a rude, illiterate man, ignorant of
ecclesiastical definitions, Avhom he could lead to do whatever
he chose, and who was also a bribetaker and money-lover, to
excite a series of controversies among the brethren ; and then, by
cunning sleights, he contrived to win the favour of both parties,
pretending in private that he agreed with the orthodox, and
again with the followers of Sabellius. For when Zephyrinus was
admonisht by us, he was not obstinate ; but as soon as he was
alone with Callistus, the latter impelled him to incline to the
views of Cleomenes, saying that he thought the same. — Bringing
forward Zephyrinus publicly, he persuaded him to say, / hiow
one God Jesus Christ, and beside Him no other who was born and
suffered ; and at other times saying. The Father did not die, but
the Son, he thus maintained a ceaseless controversy among the
people. When I perceived his thoughts, I did not assent to
him, but confuted and resisted him in behalf of the truth :
whereupon, being stung to madness because, while all others
concurred in his pretenses, I withstood them, he called us
ditheists, vomiting forth the venom hidden within him."

Hippolytus next gives us a history of the strange and
disgraceful adventures by which Callistus mounted from the
condition of a slave to his high eminence, — his embezzling the
money deposited in his master's bank by Christian widows and
brethren, — his flight on being detected, — his throwing himself into
the sea, — his being pickt up and condemned to the treadmill,
— his exciting a riot in a Jewish synagogue, — his condemna-
tion to the mines in Sardinia, — his escape from thence and
return to Rome during the episcopate of Victor, — how, after
Victor's death, Zephyrinus made use of him in canvassing the
Clergy, — and how, after the death of Zephyrinus, he obtained the
object of his ambition. Hereupon, " being a conjuror and trickster
{y6r)Q KOI nai'ovpyoc), he imposed for a time upon many. But,
having the venom lying in his heart, and designing nothing
straightforward, being moreover ashamed to speak the truth,
because he had publicly taunted me with being a ditheist, and

216 NOTE L.

was himself frequently accused by Sabellius of having abandoned
his first faith, he devised the following heresy, saying that the
Word was the Son, and also the Father, so called in name, but
in fact one indivisible Spirit [we should probably read tv St
ovra TTy£vixa a^iaiptTOv, instead of ei' Se ov, to irvEVfia ciEiulperov];
that the Father was not One, and the Son Another, but that they
were One and the Same, that all things above and below were
filled with the Divine Spirit, and that what became Incarnate in
the Virgin was not another Spirit beside the Father, but One
and the Same: and that this is what is said, Believest thou not that
I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ? for that the Visible
Human Being was the Son, but the Spirit contained in the Son was
the Father : for, he said, / will not speak of two Gods, but One. For
the Father who was in Him, taking to Himself flesh, deified it,
uniting it to Himself, so that One God was called Father and
Son, and that this One Person could not be two, and that thus
the Father suffered along with the Son. For he would not say
that the Father suffered, and was One Person, desiring to avoid
blaspheming the Father, the senseless trickster, tossing about
blasphemies at random (6 dvorjroQ KaiTroiKiKog, oavoj kutu) a-^Elid^i3)v
^\aa<pr]fxlac), — sometimes falling into the doctrine of Sabellius,
sometimes into that of Theodotus, These things the impostor dared,
and establisht a school over against the Church, where he taught
thus : and he first devised the plan of allowing men to live as
they pleased, saying that he could forgive their sins to all. For
when a Christian of any other congregation committed a sin, his
sin was not imputed to him, if he went over to the school of
Callistus. — He decreed that, if a bishop committed a sin, even a
sin unto death, he ought not to be deposed. In his time persons
who had been married twice and even thrice, began to be ordained
bishops, priests, and deacons."

Hippolytus further speaks of the moral corruptions which
gained entrance among the Christians through his laxity. It
may be that the picture is somewhat too highly coloured from
his antipathy to his theological opponent. But throughout the
work the writer appears to be an honest man, desirous of speaking

NOTE L. 217

the truth : and assuredly he could not have written as he did,
if there had been the slightest notion that the mitre of the Roman
See invested a man with infallibility, or with any of the
extravagant endowments afterward ascribed to it. Zephyrinus
and Callistus were simple bishops of Rome, just as liable to the
worst moral failings and intellectual errours as the meanest of
their brethren : and we see from this account what was the value
of the canonization which they subsequently received. In the
net of Romish saintship, which gathers together the bad as well
as the good, there are no more worthless stockfish than these two
bishops of Rome. At a time when so many restless, discontented
spirits are opening their hearts fondly to the fascinations of
the Romish imposture, it may be regarded as a providential gift,
that this revelation of the state of the Roman Church at the
beginning of the third century has been set before us. The more
light we gain on the early centuries of the Church, the more
complete will be the discomfiture of all the Papal claims to
special privileges bestowed on the successors of St Peter.

Even Dr Newman himself, in his Essay on Development
(p. 368), says : " To this day the seat of infallibility remains, I
suppose, more or less undevelopt, or at least undefined, by the
Church." In earlier and wiser days he had written, in his
Lectures on Romanism (p. 61), illustrating the incongruity
between the abstract system, of Rome, and her practical teaching :
" In the Creed of Pope Pius not a word is said expressly about
the Church's infallibility : it forms no Article of Faith there.
Her interpretation indeed of Scripture is recognised as authori-
tative; but so also is ' the unanimous consent of the Fathers.*
But when we put aside the creeds and professions of our
opponents for their actual teaching and disputing, they will be
found to care very little for the Fathers, whether as primitive or
as concordant ; they believe the existing Church to be infallible;
and if ancient belief is at variance with it, which of course they
do not allow, but if it is, then antiquity must be mistaken : that
is all." Again (p. 68): "There is this remarkable diflTerence,
even of theory, between them and Vincentius, that the latter is

218 NOTE M.

altogether silent on tlie subject of the Pope's infallibility, whether
considered as an attribute of his See, or as attaching to him in
General Council. If Vincentius had the sentiments and feelings
of a modern Romanist, it is incomprehensible that, in a treatise
written to guide the private Christian in matters of Faith, he
should have said not a word about the Pope's supreme authority,
nay, not even about the infallibility of the Church Catholic. He
refers the enquirer to a triple rule, difficult surely, and trouble-
some to use, compared with that which is ready furnisht by
Romanism. Applying his own rule to his work itself, we may
unhesitatingly conclude that the Pope's supreme authority in
matters of faith is no Catholic or Apostolic truth, because he
was ignorant of it,"

In Germany, where Truth is held to be the most precious of
all possessions, even by members of the Catholic Church, the
conviction of the mischiefs produced by the doctrine of the
infallibility of the Pope is so strongly felt by many, that one of
the greatest philosophers of the last generation, Baader, who was
a zealous champion of Christian truth, and himself an earnest
Catholic, used perpetually to repeat the pregnant words of St
Martin, Le Papisme est la faiblesse du Catholicisnie ; et le Catho-
licisnie est la force dio Papisme: and one of his latest essays,
publishtin 1839, was On the Practicability or Impracticability of
emancipating Catholicism from the Roman Dictatorship in
reference to Theology.

Note M : p. 32.

De Maistre's Treatise Du Pape opens with an argument pro-
fessedly in maintenance of the infallibility of the Pope; but
when we examine that argument, we find that it does not touch
the real question at issue. Having laid down that " les verites
theologiques ne sont que des verites generales, manifestees et
divinisees dans le cercle religieux," he proceeds thus (p. 2) :
" LHnfaillibilite dans I'ordre spirituel, et la souverainete dans

NOTE M. 219

I'ordre temporel sont deux mots parfaitement s}'nonymes. L'uu
et I'autre expriment cette haute puissance qui les domine toutes,
dont toutes les autres derivent ; qui gouverne et n'est pas
gouvernee, qui juge et n'est pas jugee. Quand nous disons que
VEglise est infaillihle, nous ne demandons pour elle — aucun
privilege particulier ; nous demandons seulement qu'elle jouisse
du droit commun k toutes les souverainetes possibles, qui toutes
agissent necessairement comme infaillibles ; car tout gouvernement
est absolu ; et du moment ou Ton peut lui resister sous pretexte
d'erreur ou d'injustice, il n'existe plus. La souverainete a des
formes difFerentes, sans doute. Elle ne parle pas k Constantinople
comme a Londres ; mais quand elle a parle de part et d'autre a
sa maniere, le hill est sans appel comme \efetfa."

Now these last words shew the fallacy of the whole argument.
In fact, in governments as well as in individuals, one of the
first tokens of true wisdom is the conviction of our fallibility ;
and the more we increase in wisdom, the stronger this con-
viction becomes. The laws of the Babylonians and Modes
and Persians, whether enacted by the godless pride of Nebu-
chadnezzar, or elicited from the self-indulgent weakness of
Darius, were accounted absolute and infallible and without
appeal. On the other hand, though our laws, according to the
principle of our Constitution, cannot be enacted without ample
consideration by the two branches of the Legislature, which
ought to comprehend a large portion of the wisdom of the nation,
yet so strong is our conviction that our Legislature is not in-
fallible, but fallible, that it is customary for our Acts of
Parliament to have a clause added to them, providing that they
may be amended or repealed within the same Session, — a clause
especially honorable as containing an acknowledgement of human
liability to errour. So that the sovereinty which essentially
belongs to government, is not identical with infallibility, as De
Maistre says, but totally distinct from it; though the identity
is asserted by the lawless magnifiers of their own arbitrary will.
There is indeed a necessity for governments to decide and to
act, even as there is for individuals ; and their decisions, after

,^20 NOTK M.

being preceded by mature deliberation, ought to be decisive :
but, as wisdom ever involves a balancing of opposites, so of
governments may it be said, that, while they ought to stand
stoutly and boldly on the only true rock, that of faith in the
principles which they endeavour to carry into act, they ought
also continually to take heed lest they merely think they are
standing, and so slip and fall.

Carrying on the same line of argument, De Maistre contends
that in every judicial system we must come at last to a final
Court of Appeal, " auquel on ne puisse dire, Vous avez erre."
That such a Court is not always attainable, we have had sad
experience of late. Indeed its unattainableness is implied in the
maxim, which so forcibly expresses the impossibility of measur-
ino- and adjusting the infinite varieties of moral being by any
definite forms of words, Siimmum jus sumnia injuria : and it is
to prevent the injustice which would result from adhering too
closely to the letter of the law, as though it were infallible, that
the higher power of mercy, which is a solemn recognition that
God is the only Infallible Judge, is vested in the soverein.

Moreover there is another weighty fallacy closely connected
with De Maistre's argument, namely, that government, sovereinty,
is a great and primary and indispensable want of the Church.
The State does indeed need an ever active, ever vigilant go-
vernment ; though even with regard to the State we are
learning that its most important function is to set free the
expansive instincts of society, and to protect them from ob-
structions and injuries. But this is far more the case in the
Church. Thus the work of the Council of Jerusalem was to
protect the Church from the usurpations of arbitrary, imperious
will, from the bonds which that will would have imposed upon
her. Seldom however has this principle been observed by
subsequent Councils. Our Lord's warning, in those words
which set forth the distinction between the civil and the
spiritual Kingdom, — The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship:)
over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called
benefactors; hut ye shall not he so, — has been deplorably

NOTE M. 221

forgotten. De Maistre thinks he can establish the necessity of
the Papacy by a remark, which, he says (p. IG.), " ne souffrepas
le moindre doute : (Test qyCune souverainett 'periodique ou in-
termittente est une contradiction dans les termes ; car la souve-
rainete doit toujours vivre, toujours veiller, toujours agir."
Therefore, he argues, Councils are inadequate to govern the
Church. . But, not to speak of the contradictions to this pro-
position supplied by the history of all well-constituted nations,
— in which, though an administrative sovereinty is entrusted to
a permanent functionary, the judicial sovereinty is studiously
separated from it, and still greater care is taken to preserve the
legislative sovereinty from the fluctuations of individual caprice,
vesting it mostly in impermanent bodies, — our Lord's words,
which I have just quote 1, seem to declare that the Church
will not require anything like a permanent, regular govern-
ment ; and if we examine the history of the Apostolic Church,
as set forth in the Book of Acts and the Epistles, we see
that, at a time when, above all, according to the calculations
of human policy, a vigorous central government would have
been needed, no example of such a government is exhibited;
but the Church is taught that, in times of urgent difficulty,'
the questions which agitate her are to be referred to the
decision of a Council. Surely too, if we bear in mind that
the dealings of Religion are with the heart and conscience,
and only with outward acts, so far as they are the ex-
pression of the heart and conscience, — thus reversing the order
of civil government, which has to regulate outward acts, and
meddles not with the heart and conscience, except so far as they
find vent in outward acts,— we must perceive that, in the spi-
ritual kingdom, anything like an absolute, regulative authority
must be out of place. When outward order is the primary con-
sideration, the exercise of sovereinty is required, even though it
may now and then be at the cost of individual rights'^and
liberties : but when Truth stands before and above all °hings, it
is impossible to admit a fictitious infallibility, such as de Maistre
would set over us. Here the Reason and the Conscience are

222 NOTE M.

God's only Vicegerents. Hence the dormancy of the legislative
sovereinty for centuries in the Church, if it has in some respects
been injurious, has not been fatal, as such a suspension would
have been in a State.

I do not forget that, as was observed in the last Note, De
Maistre declares, in the Preface to his second edition, that he
believes in the divine origin of the infallibility of the Church.
The objections I have been urging only refer to the political
arguments by which he tries to justify it. The religious ones
have been examined, as far as was needful, in previous Notes.

At the beginning of his 15th Chapter De Maistre complains
that Protestants have magnified the idea of infallibility, so
as to make a ridiculous scarecrow of it. Perhaps we have
better reason for complaining that there is so much vagueness
and indefiniteness and ambiguity in the Romish use of the
word, that, if one tries to lay hold on it under one shape, it
slips away, and rises up under another. Pearson, in the Preface
cited above (p. 207), observes that, after Cressy had abandoned
the notion of infallibility as untenable, he reasserts it under
the form of authority. A like ambiguity runs through De
Maistre's views on the subject. Dr Newman's definition, in his
Essay on Development (p. 117), — " By infallibility I suppose is
meant the power of deciding whether this, that, and a third,
and any number of theological or ethical statements are true,"
— admits of either interpretation. Thus, in order to bolster
up the claim of infallibility by political analogies, it is identified
with the power of giving a final, irreversible decision ; and the
ascription of infallibility to the tribunal is compared with that
of omnipotence to our Legislature. Such an infallibility how-
ever would not serve the purposes of the usurping Church. It
would have no more force or value than the omnipotence of
Parliament; which is oftener mentioned in reproof of the extra-
vagance of the expression, than for any other purpose. It
would hold out no lure to weak minds tormented by doubts,
and desirous of getting rid of their tormenters. Such an
infallibility, which is none, is to be found in the Church of

NOTE N. ^ 223

England just as well as in the Church of Rome. Hence the bait
held out to those who are to be caught in the Popish trap, is,
that here they will find a real, true^ perfect infallibility, which
will enable them to feel quite certain about every momentous
religious doctrine, whether it be the efficacy of a sacrament, or the
breadth of a phylactery or of a pair of bands. All this they shall
know, and everything else, if they will only come and bury
their heads under the apron of the infallible Church.

It might have been thought that such oj^enmouthed receptive-
ness for all the deceivableness of unrighteousness would hardly
be found among educated Englishmen. But education does not
deliver us from the proneness to set up our own idols and fetishes,
and to bow down and worship the idols and fetishes, which we
ourselves have set up. Dr Newman, in his Lectures on Angli-
canism (p. 112), describing the progress of Tractarianism, says,
" The principle of these writers [of whom he himself was the
chief] was this : an infallible authority is necessary ; we have it
not ; for the Prayerbook is all we have got. But, since we have
nothing better, we must use it, as if infallible." Verily it was
high time that Mr Carlyle should rise up, and preach a crusade
against all shams, when the ministers of the God of Truth
thought it beseemed them to promote His worship by setting
up a sham Infallibility. Of course they who could take pleasure
in thus imposing upon themselves, were ready to be snatcht up by
the Arch Impostor, and to swell his ghastly procession. Nor is
it a new thing to see the worshiper of idols break the idols of
his own making, when they will not conform to his wishes.

Note N : p. 33.

One of the chief motives which actuated the founders of
Tractarianism from the outset, was a vehement aversion to the
exercise of the intellectual faculties, which they perpetually
censured and condemned under the name of Private Judgement.
Herein, as is so often the case, they were in the main rebuking

224 NOTE N.

in others, what they had a morbid consciousness of in themselves.
For seldom has speculation been more arbitrary and capricious
than in some of thom, especially in Mr Froude : seldom has it
disported itself more wantonly in bidding defiance to received
opinions. At the very beginning of the Introduction to his
Lectures on Romanism, Mr Newman said : " Though enquiry is
left partly open in order to try our earnestness, yet it is in
great measure, and in the most important points, superseded
by Revelation, — which discloses things which reason could not
reach, saves us the labour of using it when it might avail, and
sanctions the lyrinciple of dispensing with it in all cases. Yet
in spite of this joint testimony of nature and grace, — we exult
in what we think our indefeasible right and glorious privilege
to choose and settle our religion for ourselves ; and we stigma-
tize it as a bondage to be bid take for granted what the
wise, good, and many have gone over and determined long
before, or to submit to what Almighty God has revealed."

These last words are an eminent instance of that logical form,
which is termed begging the question : for of course the very
matter in dispute would be, what has Almighty God revealed ?
what is the meaning and purport of His revelation 1 When
that has been made out clearly, we will gladly submit to it. As
to " the wise, good, and many," the latter class have never been
deemed the safest guides to Truth. Nor does it seem a very
rational ground of complaint, if we in our days have to plow
up the same fields, which our ancestors plowed up before us,
or if, in doing so, we make use of modern improvements in
husbandry, or if in this also it be our doom, that, unless
we plow, we shall reap no harvest. The mind of man was
not made to take truths for granted : when it does so, it will
soon let them fall. It will come under the condemnation, that,
he who hath not, from him shall he taken away even tvhat he hath.

Again, what strange conceptions of Reason and Revelation are
implied in the words, that Revelation " saves us the labour of
using Reason, — and sanctions the principle of dispensing with
it ! " as though Revelation transported us into an intellectual

NOTE N. 225l

land of Cokayne, where the fruits drop into our mouths without
our being at the trouble of gathering them. Here we see the
germ of that passage in the Essay on Develojyment, (quoted above
in p. 148), where the special dignity and blessing of Revelation
is represented as consisting in the substitution of the supremacy
of a Pope or Bishop for that of Conscience. Is this then the
lesson which Dr Newman has learnt from his intimate acquaint-
ance with the history of the Church 1 Mahometanism dreads
Reason, and supersedes it, and quenches it. So, more or less,
do all corrupt forms of Religion. On the other hand, the whole
history of the Christian Church shews that Christianity elevates
the intellectual faculties, and raises them above themselves, and
glorifies them with a glory beyond their own. Christianity does
this ; although Popery, as such, does the contrary, herein, as in
so many other respects, betraying its affinity to Heathenism. In
one sense indeed Christianity does " save us the labour " of using
our Reason, by turning that labour into a blessing, by setting
higher objects before us, and by helping us in mounting up to them,
so that our labour may now be sure of attaining to its reward.

Where Mr Newman discovered that Revelation " sanctions the
principle of dispensing with reason in all cases," he did not inform
us. Did St Paul ever tell him so, in some Epistle which has
escaped the researches of all other theologians 1 On this head a
sufficient answer is supplied by the following words from Chilling-
worth's Preface (§ 12), where he addresses his opponent thus :
" You say that, if the infallibility of the Church be once impeacht,
every man is given over to his own wit and discourse : which,
if you mean discourse not guiding itself by Scripture, but only
by principles of nature, or perhaps by prejudices and popular
errours, and drawing consequences, not by rule, but chance, is by
no means true. If you mean by discourse right reason, grounded
on divine revelation and common notions written by God in the
hearts of all men, and deducing, according to the never failing
rules of logic, consequent deductions from them, — if this be it
which you mean by discourse, it is very meet and reasonable and
necessary that men, as in all their actions, so especially in that of

226 NOTE N.

greatest importance — slioulcl be left to it : .and he that follows
this in all his opinions and actions, and does not only seem to
do so, follows always God ; whereas he that follows a company of
men, may ofttimes follow a company of beasts. And in saying
this, I say no more than St John to all Christians in these
words, Dearly beloved, believe not every sjnrit ; but try the spirits,
whether they be of God or no : and the rule he gives them to
make this trial by, is, to consider whether they confess Jesus to
be the Christ, that is, the Guide of their faith and Lord of their
actions. — I say no more than St Paul, in exhorting all Christians
to try all things, and holdfast that which is good, — than St Peter,
in commanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the
hope that is in them ; than our Saviour Himself in forewarning
all His followers that, if they blindly followed blind guides, both
leaders and followers would fall into the ditch, — and again in
saying even to the people. Yea, and why of yourselves judge ye not
what is right ? And though by passion, or precipitation, or prejudice,
by want of reason, or not using what they have, men may be, and
are oftentimes, led into errour and mischief ; yet they cannot be
misguided by discourse, truly so called. For what is discourse,
but drawing conclusions out of premisses by good consequence 1 —
Therefore by discourse no man can possibly be led to errour ]
but, if he err in his conclusions, he must of necessity either
err in his principles, or commit some errour in his discourse ;
that is indeed, not discourse, but seem to do so."

Hooker also, in the 8th chapter of his third Book, asserts the
rightful use of Reason in questions pertaining to Religion, with
his own peculiar majesty of thought and language, against
enemies who were assailing it from the opposite side, the
fanatical decriers of all light, except that which glared through
the fumes of their own ignorance, and which they confounded
with the light of the Spirit.

But the Tractarian denunciations of private judgement, and of
the exercise of the intellect in religious questions, were no less
alien from the spirit of those whom they especially profest to
follow, and whom they set up for the standards of Anglocatholic

NOTE N. 227

divinity; as is sufficiently evinced by this extract from Laud's
Conference with Fisher (§ xvi. 13), where he is arguing the
question how we are to ascertain the Divine authority of Scripture.
" The last way, which gives Reason leave to come in and prove
what it can, may not justly be denied by any reasonable man.
For, though Reason, without Grace, cannot see the Avay to heaven,
nor believe this Book, in which God has written the way, yet
Grace is never placed but in a reasonable creature, and proves,
by the very seat which it has taken up, that the end it has is to
be spiritual eyewater, to make reason see what by nature only
it cannot, but never to blemish reason in that which it can
comprehend. Now the use of reason is very general; and man,
do what he can, is still apt to search and seek for a reason why
he will believe; though, after he once believes, his faith grows
stronger than either his reason or his knowledge. — The world
cannot keep him from going to weigh it at the balance of Reason,
whether Scripture be the word of God or not. To the same
weights he brings the tradition of the Church, the inward
motives in Scripture itself, all testimonies within which seem to
bear witness to it ; and in all this there is no harm : the danger
is when a man will use no other scale but Reason, or prefer
Reason before any other scale. For the word of God, and the
book containing it, refuse not to be weighed by Reason. But
the scale is not large enough to contain, nor the weights to
measure out, the true virtue and full force of either. Reason
then can give no supernatural ground into which a man may
resolve his faith that Scripture is the word of God infallibly :
yet Reason can go so high, as it can prove that Christian religion,
which rests upon the authority of this book, stands upon surer
grounds of nature, reason, common equity and justice, than
anything in the world which any infidel or mere naturalist hath
done, doth, or can adhere to against it, in that which he makes,
accounts, or assumes, as religion to himself."

Thus the hostile attitude which the Tractarians from the
first took up with regard to private judgement, set them in
opposition to the whole body of our Englisli divines. In

228 NOTE N.

the fifth Lecture on Anglicanism, Dr Newman gives an ac-
count, half sad, half ludicrous, how they roamed about, like
the children lost in the wood, searching after an authority that
would deliver them from their homeless wanderings, how they
were reduced to the dire necessity of setting up an authority
for themselves, and how they were fain to invest this authority of
their own choosing with an infallibility of their own making.
"If you say (he remarks, p. 116) they were untrue to their
principles, and — selected partially and on private judgement, so
much the more for my purpose. How clearly must the principle
of an ecclesiastical and authoritative, not a private judgement,
have been the principle of the movement, when those who
belonged to it were obliged to own that principle, at the very
time that it was inconvenient to them, and when they were driven,
whether consciously or not, to misuse or evade it!" A more
legitimate inference would have been, that they, who had gone
out in search of what could not be attained, except by a
violation of the very principle they were trying to establish, had
fallen into a wrong track from the outset, and that their so-called
principle was not a reality, but a delusion. Dr Newman however
(p. Ill) finds a warrant for their procedure in the practice of
Rome herself : " They had too much common sense to deny
the necessary exercise of private judgement, in one sense or
another. They knew that the Catholic Church herself admitted it,
though she directed and limited it to a decision upon the organ
of Revelation." That is to say, with regard to those passages
of Scripture, where he who runs may read, and where a plain
understanding and honest heart cannot go materially wrong,
nobody must presume to exercise his own judgement. But on
one of the most difficult, tangled questions ever proposed to man,
requiring a combination of historical with theological knowledge,
and a fine critical discrimination, to separate the true from the
false, and to draw right conclusions from the mass of materials,
— on a question which has occupied the most learned scholars
and the ablest reasoners in Europe for three centuries, without
having been brought to a conclusive determination, — on this

NOTE N. 229

question everybody, wise or simple, learned or ignorant, is
competent to pronounce. He who is warned against the audacity
of attempting to swallow a gnat, is exhorted to swallow a camel ;
after the performance of which feat, his throat contracts again to
its previous dimensions. In a passage already quoted (above, p.
110), Dr Newman tells us that the idea of his party was "simply
and absolutely submission to an external authority : to it they
appealed ; to it they betook themselves ; there they found a
haven of rest." That they did not find a haven of rest, he
himself adds immediately after. Nor could they ; because they
were seeking for that which is contrary to the order of the world,
contrary to the course appointed by God for man, — because man
was not made to be a limpet sticking to the rock of an outward
authority. Our somewhat singular coincidence in applying the
same image from the Arabian tale to them may be regarded as
an indication that their desire was for something which is not to
be attained, something which will slip away from us if we try to
gain a footing upon it. In fact however Dr Newman's account
of them proves that their idea was anything but " submission
to an external authority." They started with impugning the
prevalent authorities of their own times, and only betook them-
selves to the Caroline divines, in the hope of being supported
in that attack.

If we look with any scrutiny at the Catenas, in which they
profest to set forth the opinions of the chief Anglican divines, this
becomes apparent. They are not chains of cogent argument, but
ropes of sand with which the compilers have surrounded them-
selves. A person familiar with the writings of our old theologians
will easily perceive that the extracts from them in the Catenas
are very far from expressing their real, settled convictions.
In fact the compilers of those Catenas did not set themselves to
read through the authors from whom they gave extracts, with
the view of making out what their mature, deliberate convictions
were. This might have been a work of some use, but would
have required painstaking, and thought, and fairness. They
rather contented themselves with turning over the pages of the

230 NOTE N.

old writers, and picking out svich passages as favoured their
own views, without heeding the limitations and restrictions
under which those views had been exprest, or the passages of
an opposite tendency by which they were often counterbalanced.
Not seldom too, as is perpetually the case with regard to quota-
tions from the Fathers, oratorical passages, in which a preacher
strives to enforce the particular point he is urging with all the
exaggerations of rhetoric, to the temporary disparagement of every-
thing else, are brought forward as though they had a substantial,
dogmatical worth. In this manner it came to pass that those
who gave out all the time that they were following our Anglo-
catholic divines, often ran far ahead of them, often diverged into
devious paths, and thus found themselves anon rushing counter
to them. In the Lectxires on Anglicanism (p. 132), Dr Newman
points out divers matters, where their simple and absolute sub-
mission to an external authority, which they had unhappily been
forced to choose for themselves by an exercise of the evil spirit
of private judgement, was thus transformed into opposition, " You
dare not stand or fall (he says to them) by Andrewes, or by Laud,
or by Hammond, or by Bull, or by Thorndike, or by all of them
together. There is a consensus of divines, stronger than for Bap-
tismal Regeneration or the Apostolical Succession, that Rome
is, strictly and literally, an Antichristian power : liberals and
Highchurchmen in your communion in this respect agree with
Evangelicals ; you put it aside. There is a consensus against
Transubstantiation ; — yet many of you hold it notwithstanding.
Nearly all your divines, if not all, call themselves Protestants;
and you anathematize the name." He adds some other special
points, which, like the first two, seem to belong to the later
phase of Tractarianism : but the aversion to Protestantism
characterized it from the first, and, one may suppose, in so
learned a body, must have arisen from their identifying Pro-
testantism with Exeter Hall. At all events it is quite certain
that almost all our old divines, as I have observed already
(in p. 130), called themselves Protestants, and regarded our
Church as united in a common cause with the Pi'otestant

NOTE N. 231

Churches on the Continent, though peculiarly favoured in
matters of discipline. This negative principle of Tractarianism,
drawing it away from those living fountains of Truth, which
were reopened for the Church primarily and mainly by the
German Reformers, drew them away also from the Anglican
divines : and it was this repulse of their Anti-Protestantism,
that made them fancy the Anglican divines had run away
from them. The reasonable, conscientious exercise of private
judgement, with its proper helps, and under its proper restraints,
will naturally breed a loyal reverence for authority, pro-
portionate to its rightful claims ; but he who will not let his
neighbours think for themselves, is likely ere long to grow
impatient that his superiors or forefathers should have done so.

Of course the right of private judgement may be abused, as
every other kind of liberty may. Like every other right, it may
be perverted by man's exaggerations and exorbitancies into a
wrong. But if liberty has its lawless excesses, so has rule ;
which are often still more pernicious, because apt to be more
enduring, and more crushing to the moral character of such as
live under it.

After all however the question is entirely misrepresented by
being treated as a contest between Private Judgement and
Authority. Science, in its dealings with the physical world,
is not the antithesis to experience, but the synthesis of experience
and of reflexion on the materials which experience supplies us
with. It makes use of those materials, and discerns the laws
by which they are regulated. In like manner there is no
antagonism or antithesis between Reason and any Authority
derived legitimately from the traditions and testimonies of
former ages. Arbitrary, irrational Authority Reason rejects ;
but reasonable Authority it admits ; and this will naturally
be great in questions pertaining to history, and to the order
of God's Providence as manifested therein. Every wise man, in
considering what ought to be, will take count of what has been,
and what is ; though no wise man will be hasty in pronouncing
that what has been, or what is, ought to be.

23^ NOTE N.

There are some good remarks on this question in Professor
Butler's fourth Letter (p. 154). "From the very outset of
Christianity, we observe in it the combination of two powerful
principles, the duty of individual Obedience, and the duty of
individual Enquiry. The accurate conciliation of these con-
trasted principles — is indeed a great problem. — If the New
Testament abounds (as it amply does) with earnest admonitions
to humility, obedience, subjection, and earnest denunciations of
them that cause divisions, it is equally certain that the Lord
of the Church has bad the mingled multitudes who heard him
beware of false i-)rox)heU, personally testing and judging them
hy their fruits, — that He subjected His own doctrine to the
standard of Scripture examined and applied by His Jewish
hearers, — that He askt them with sorrowful indignation, tvhy
even of themselves they judged not what was right, — nay, that
His whole mission and office consisted in an appeal against
establisht ecclesiastical authority, against that very authority,
of which it was said (what surely no so authentic voice from
Heaven has ever said of Rome), Thou shalt not decline from
the sentence which the Priests and the Judge shall shew thee to
the right hand nor to the left: thou shcdt observe to do according
to all that they inform thee. It is certain that His Apostles,
acting on the same principles, applauded those who individually
searcht the Scri^ytures daily, and so decided tvhether these things
were so, — that they hesitated not to exhort the whole mass of
their hearers to 2^^ove all things, — that they besought them to
try the sini'^its whether they were of God, — that they desired that
every man should be fidly persuaded in his own mind, — that
they bad them be ready to give an answer to every man that askt
them a reason for their hope, which necessarily implies a complete
previous examination of all the intellectual grounds of faith."
This is followed by proofs that the same principle was recognised
by the Fathers. In a subsequent Letter Professor Butler rightly
urges (p. 382): "The final decision of deliberate Reason in
matter of Obligation is to be always obeyed, because, from
the very nature and necessity of the case, there never can be

NOTE O. 2o3

any higher standard of action : if any higher could be imagined,
it would instantly enter into the calculation of Reason, and
become only a new element in a new final decision of the moral
Reason itself. Manifestly nothing can ever be higher than that
which, in its own nature, is highest of all : nothing can claim
authority to supersede that, which, by inherent and indefeasible
prerogative, judges every other authority whatever."

Note 0 : p. 34.

De Maistre [Du Pape, p. 4) lays down the following proposition.
" S'il y a quelque chose d'evident pour la raison autant que
pour la foi, c'est que I'Eglise universelle est une monarchie.
L'ideeseule de V universal ite suppose cette forme de gouvernement,
dont I'absolue necessite repose sur la double raison du nombre
des sujets et de I'eteudue geographique de I'empire."

Seldom has a thinking man uttered a rasher defiance both of
reason and of fact. In truth throughout this work, as well as
through its two offsets, that on the Gallican Church, and that
on the Inquisition, De Maistre seems to be walking in fetters. The
freedom of his mind is crampt ; and we find very few of those
profound and genial thoughts, which refresh us so frequently in
the Soirees de Saint Petersbourg. It is true, the idea of universality
involves that of unity, of something whereby the multitudinous,
manifold parts are combined into a whole ; and this necessity
is as it were a shadow cast by the unity of the Divine Author
upon the minds of His creatures. But as this is no waiTant
for a universal monarchy in the temporal order of things, and
as the ambition which aims at such a monarchy is one of the
many modes in which man usurps the attributes of God, and
would seat himself on His throne, so has it ever been a like
audacious, godless usurpation, when attempts have been made to
establish a universal monarchy in the spiritual world. The
whole history of the Church refutes such a pretension. For
every fresh ellbrt to set it up has been suicidal, in a twofold

234 NOTE o.

manner, — by driving large portions of the Church to cut
themselves off from the unrighteous despotism, — and by the
spiritual degradation of such as submitted to it. Nor does any
analogy from the history of civil governments favour De Maistre's
conclusion. Doubtless the largest empires that have existed
upon earth, the Roman, the Chinese, the Spanish, the Russian,
the English, have been monarchal, more or less, in form : but in
all these instances, except the last, the curse of the monarchy
has been felt in the abject degradation of the great mass of its
subjects, and in the impossibility of their coalescing into a
nation. On the other hand, if there is any prospect that the
English Empire may be preserved from a like inward decay,
this must rest on the hope that its various members may be
allowed and encouraged to develope themselves freely, each
according to its peculiar nature. This argument, I know, would
not have much weight at Rome. The main aim of the Papacy has
ever been " the number of its subjects, and the geographical
extent of its empire." If it gains the surface, it cares for little
else. The lower the moral and spiritual condition of its subjects,
the more easily can it drive its car over them. That the vigour
and energy of a great empire are no way dependent on its
monarchal form, is proved by the history of those two States,
which are the great storehouses of political ideas, the chief
studies of every political philosopher. Under the Roman Com-
monwealth, so long as those who were subjected by conquest
were incorporated into the nation, the Empire continued to
expand, and became so vigorous, that its energy outlasted its
liberties for two centuries. The power of the Empire was not
the offspring of the Empire, but of the Republic : when the
Republic expired, that power began to wane ; but such had
been the energy of its life, that its slowly mouldering corpse
cumbered the earth for half a millennium. In like manner the
power and vigour of England have continually increast, and her
empire has expanded, along with the expansion of her liberties,
and in proportion as a larger part of her members has been
incorporated into the governing body. Wherefore, if a type for

NOTE o. 235

the government of Christ's Church is to be sought in any form
of civil government that has hitherto existed, it should rather
be in our present English Commonwealth, than in the
Russian or Spanish despotism. This too accords much more
nearly with the model presented to us by the history of the
Church herself during the first five centuries, when, as has
been well observed, we find a sort of example and prototype of
a representative government in her Councils.

De Maistre asks indeed (p. 5) : " Qu'est ce qu'une republique,
des qu'elle excede certaines dimensions 1 C'est un pays plus ou
moins vaste, commande par un certain nombre d'hommes qui se
nomment la republique, Mais toujours le gouvernement est un;
car il n'y a pas, et meme il ne pent y avoir de republique dis-
seminee. Ainsi, dans le temps de la republique romaine, la
souverainete republicaine etoit dans le /or«»i ; et les pays sou -
mis — etoient une monarchic, dont le forum etoit I'absolu et
I'impitoyable souvcrain. Que si vous utez cet etat dominateur,
il ne reste plus de lien ni de gouvernement commun, et toute
unite disparoit."

Now, without discussing the question, which is of little con-
cern to our argument, whether the nations under the lioman
Republic were really in a worse condition than those under the
Roman Emperors, or those under the Persian kings, — nay, even
supposing it certain that they Avere so, — De Maistre entirely
abandons his position, when he makes the Forum the soverein or
monarch of the Roman territories. This might supply a parallel
for a government vested in a College of Cardinals, but overthrows
the necessity of a unity embodied in an individual ruler. Besides,
while we acknowledge and deplore the narrowness and selfishness
which prevented the free development of the ancient Republics,
we are no way compelled to admit that these vices are neces-
sarily, still less exclusively, inherent in the republican form.
Many of the selfish vices which are found in individuals,
though not the worst of them, are also found in corporate bodies :
and even granting that the reigns of the Antonines were on the
whole, — which is exceedingly questionable, — more propitious to

2S6 NOTE O.

the happiness of mankind than the times of the Republic, it is
incontrovertible that the reigns of Caligula and Nero and Vi-
tellius and Commodus were infinitely more pernicious. But it
should not be forgotten that the Gospel, — in addition to every-
thing else that it has effected for the purifying and humanizing
and ennobling of human society, — has by its principles done
away the wall of separation between nations, so that Greek and
Jew, Roman and Barbarian, are no longer severed from each
other by an insuperable national antagonism : and weak though
the Gospel has hitherto been in eradicating national antipathies
and animosities, we will not limit its future powers by the past,
nor close our eyes to the various symptoms, which, in spite of all
manner of disturbances and confusions, hold out the promise of
a nearer, more intimate union among nations. If that national
pride, and those national jealousies and repugnances, which find
their main source and replenishment in our personal self-suffi-
ciency and cupidity and hatred^ were to be abated, — if they were
to be subdued, — and why should we despair of such a result,
when all the considerations of human morality, as well as of
social expediency, are working in unison with the influences
of the Gospel 1 — the principal hindrances, which have hitherto
impeded the establishment of a Federal Commonwealth, would
vanish.

De Maistre continues (p. 6) : " Des qu'il n'y a plus de centre,
ni de gouvernement commun, il ne peut y avoir d'unite, ni par
consequent d'Bglise tmiverselle (ou catholique), puisqu'il n'y a
pas d'Eglise particuliere qui ait seulement, dans cette supposition,
le moyen constihdionnel de savoir si elle est en communaute de
foi avec les autres."

It seems really marvellous that a man, capable of reflecting,
and who had reflected deeply on political institutions, should
have attacht any weight to the difficulty urged in this sentence ;
as if a score of modes might not be devised, by which the fact, that
two independent Churches are in communion, may be satis-
factorily ascertained ! As if there had been any great difficulty
in doing this during the first centuries of the Church ! As if the

NOTE o. 237

chief obstructions in the way of it had not arisen from the
arrogant, exclusive assumptions of particular Churches, especially
of the Roman I The assertion that there can be no unity,
without a centre, or a common government, is only true, as I
have already hinted, in a sense which no way helps De Maistre's
argument. When St Paul is reproving the divisions at Corinth,
he does. not set himself up as the centre of unity : nor does he
tell them that they must seek a centre of unity in St Peter. He
tells them that Paul is nothing, that Apollos is nothing, that
Peter is nothing. But is his inference, like De Maistre's, that
they are therefore left to hopeless divisions? He does not say
that there is no foundation for them to rest on, nor that
Peter is the foundation whereon the Church is to be built. He
says merely that none can lay any other foundation than that
which has been laid already, and that this Only Foundation
is Christ. In truth this Romish inability to recognise the unity
of the Church, without the help of a visible human centre, is
only another instance of that miserable incapacity for faith in
spiritual realities, which, we have repeatedly observed, is the
pervading character of Romanism. As the Jews, under the old
Dispensation, shewed their carnalmindedness in asking for a
king, ivhen the Lord their God was their King, so does the sinful
unbelief of Rome manifest itself in the demand for a visible Head
and Centre of the Church, when Christ is its Head and
Centre.

In fact, as the usurpation of the Papacy is the hugest,
most monstrous example of that pride of our fallen nature,
which inclines every man to set himself up as the lord and
ruler of the universe, according to his conceptions of it, and
which renders self-restraint, selfcontroll, one of the rarest and
most difficult virtues, — so has it a counterpart in that intel-
lectual infirmity, through which all men inevitably contem-
plate themselves as the centres of their own system of the
universe, and according to which we are ever prone to conceive
that the world was made for us, and that its whole order was
framed and is regulated with a special adaptation to our own

238 NOTE o.

personal wishes and wants. We are the centre of our own
universe; and the most difficult of all things is to transfer
ourselves from this our false centre to our true Centre in God.
For even when our natural false centre is shaken from under
us, we are apt to leap from it to some factitious centre, in
which we ourselves are comprehended, and which therefore is a
kind of expanded self. Every nation believes itself to be the
leading, central nation of mankind. All men believe the earth
to be the centre of the universe. So that Joseph's dream is only
an expression of everybody's self-delusion. Nor is it unconnected
with this tendency, that we are so prone to believe that some
single proposition, especially if it be one with which we have in
any way identified ourselves, contains the key to all the mys-
teries of knowledge. Our narrow, crampt, hidebound intellect
shrinks with a kind of instinctive repugnance from the thought
of the fulness of the Universe, from the infinite Fulness of the
Godhead, from the infinite Fulness of Him in whom all Ful-
ness dwells, and who fiUeth the Church, which is His Fulness.
We are fond of systematizing, and schematizing, and formulizing
everything, so that we may put it wrapt up and ticketed into
one of the pigeon-holes of our understanding, to be taken out
when we want it. Thus we lay down grand, sweeping pro-
positions, like those of De Maistre's, which I have been exa-
mining : " S'il y a quelque chose d'evident pour la raison autant
que pour la foi, c'est que I'Eglise universelle est une monarchic.
L'idee seule de I'universalite suppose cette forme de gouverne-
ment. — Des qu'il n'y a plus de centre, ni de gouvernement
commun, il ne peut y avoir d'unite, ni par consequent d'Eglise
universelle." Such propositions make us fancy we know a great
deal, and enable us to pronounce positively and peremptorily, while
in fact they only mislead us, and teach us nothing aright.

Here I will insert a passage from a greater philosopher, who
teaches us a far higher lore, and had dived down far deeper
to the principles of things, and whose speculative flights were
regulated and directed by his strong, practical, English under-
standing. I have quoted the passage already in another work ; but

NOTE O. 239

it contains such a complete refutation of De Maistre's plausibilities
about the unity and universality of the Church, that, at a time
when so many are deluded by those plausibilities, it should be
quoted again and again. Coleridge, in his invaluable Treatise
On the Constitution of the Church arid State (p. 128), lays down,
as one of the essential characters of the Church of Christ, " the
absence of any visible Head or Soverein, and the non-existence,
nay, the utter preclusion, of any local or personal centre of unity,
of any single source of universal power. This fact (he says) may
be thus illustrated. Kepler and Newton, substituting the idea
of the infinite for the conception of a finite and determined world
assumed in the Ptolemaic astronomy, superseded and drove out
the notion of a one central point or body of the universe. Finding
a centre in every point of matter, and an absolute circumference
nowhere, they explained at once the unity and the distinction that
co-exist throughout the Creation by focal instead of central bodies;
the attractive and restraining power of the sun, or focal orb, in
each particular system, supposing and resulting from an actual
power, present in all and over all, throughout an indeterminable
multitude of systems. And this, demonstrated as it has been by
science, and verified by observation, we rightly name the true
system of the heavens. And even such is the scheme and true
idea of the Christian Church. In the primitive times, and as long
as the Churches retained the form given them by the Apostles and
Apostolic men, every community, or, in the words of a Father of
the second century (for the pernicious fashion of assimilating the
Christian to the Jewish^ as afterward to the Pagan ritual, by
false analogies was almost coeval with the Church itself), every
altar had its own bishop, every flock its own pastor, who derived
his authority immediately from Christ, the Universal Shepherd,
and acknowledged no other superior than the same Christ,
speaking by His spirit in the unanimous decision of any number
of bishops or elders, according to His promise, Where two or three
are gathered together in My name, there am I in the 7nidst of them.
Hence, the unitive relation of the Churches to each other, and
of each to all, being equally actual indeed, but likewise equally

240 NOTE O.

ideal, that is, mystic and supersensual, as the relation of the
whole Church to its One Invisible Head, the Church with and
under Christ, as a One Kingdom or State, is hidden ; while in
all its several component monads (the particular visible Churches
I mean), Cesar receiving the things that are Cesar's, and con-
fronted by no rival Cesar, by no authority, which existing
locally, temporally, and in the person of a fellow-mortal, must
be essentially of the same kind with his own, — notwithstanding
any attempt to belie its true nature under the perverted and
contradictory name of spiritual, — sees only so many loyal groups,
who, claiming no peculiar rights, make themselves known to him
as Christians, only by the more scrupulous and exemplary
performance of their duties as citizens and subjects." The
analogy here pointed out between the true idea of the Church
and the Copernican idea of the universe is singularly appropriate ;
and one might almost fancy that some lurking semiconsciousness
that her own fate is identified with that of the Ptolemaic concep-
tion, is among the causes which still keep the Church of Rome
from giving up an exploded fiction, and acknowledging what the
scientific researches of three centuries have determined with one
voice to be the truth ; though, to be sure. Truth, even in matters
of Science, is one of the last things cared for at Rome.

So much importance is ascribed to De Maistre's arguments
on the Unity of the Church, as involving the recognition of
the Papacy, that it may not be useless to glance at two or
three more of them. In p. 6 he says : " Soutenir qu'une foule
d'Eglises independantes forment une Eglise une et unlverseUe,
c'est soutenir, en d'autres termes, que tons les gouvernemens
politiques de I'Europe ne forment qu'un seul gouvernement iin et
iiniversel. Ces deux idees sont identiques ; il n'y a pas moyen
de chicaner." Yet it is very easy to shew the ineptitude of this
parallel for proving what De Maistre would infer from it.
Doubtless the Unity of the Church is in a very broken condition.
But is there less imperfection in its other attributes, for instance,
its holiness 1 The Apostolic Epistles teach us that both these
qualities were miserably wanting, in the very first age of the

NOTE O. 241

Churcli; and her whole history bears witness that, in her out-
ward visible form, she has in all ages been very different from
what she ought to have been. Therefore we do not, nor can we,
say that the present outward aspect of Christendom exhibits a
realization of the Unity of the Church : nor can Rome say
that the Unity of the Church is realized in her Communion,
except by an audacious disregard and denial of facts. Yet we
contend that there is an inward, latent Unity among all
Christians, who are really united by faith to the One Head
and Centre of the Church, — that there is such, even though
they may be unconscious of it, even though they may deny
it, — and that this Unity would be much greater and more
manifest, were it not for the grievous deficiency of all the other
Christian graces in every branch of the Church. If her Unity
is wanting, it is because her other attributes are still more want-
ing. Our divisions, like those at Corinth, prove that we are
carnal. But assuredly, in despite of all the divisions and con-
trarieties, of which the Papacy is the chief breeder and fomenter,
there is a unity in Christendom. Christendom is not a mere
arbitrary abstraction, but implies an essential oneness, whereby
it is distinguisht from all the rest of mankind, — the oneness
produced by our common bond to our One Lord, by the One
Spirit given to all the members of His Body, by the One Hope
of our calling, by our One Faith, by our One Baptism, — by our
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,
and in us all. What is the Roman Unity, resulting from a
visible government, to keep the members in subjection, compared
with this 1 except the unity of a fagot, compared with that of a
tree. And what stark blindness to spiritual powers is involved
in the assertion that all these mighty principles of unity are of
no avail, unless you can stick the impress of a Papal head upon
them !

Among the governments of Europe, on the other hand,
viewed politically, there are no such principles of unity : and
since governments deal with outward things, which exclude one
another, they cannot coalesce in the same manner in which a

B

242 NOTE O.

number of Churches coalesce into one Church. The purposes of
each government are distinct and separate, bearing reference to
the peculiarities of each nation : the purposes of the Church are
the same everywhere, bearing on that which is essential in man,
and upon his essential immutable relations. Yet attempts have
been made to combine the states of Europe into some sort of
federal union. This was the idea of the Empire in the Middle
Ages, but was baffled in consequence of the incongruity between
a number of independent sovereins and a supreme Emperor over
them : whence a variety of conflicting, clashing rights led to
interminable struggles. A somewhat similar idea may in our
own age have flasht across the minds of some of the statesmen
who establisht what they called the Holy Alliance : only, from
the condition of Europe at the time, that Alliance inevitably
took a mere party character, and was converted into a kind of
conspiracy of Governments to keep down the liberties of their
subjects.

Surely however the world is not brought to such a pass,
that we are compelled to pronounce that what has never been
yet, can never be hereafter. The powers of creation and pro-
duction and organization are not yet worn out. On the contrary,
as the elements and conditions of society are undergoing changes
every year, under the action of manifold economical, intellectual,
moral, and religious influences, we may feel confident that the
future, while it will bear divers analogies to the past, will also
have differences and peculiarities of its own. Still less are we
bound to limit the possibilities of the Kingdom of Heaven, even
in its earthly manifestation, the Church, by any rules abstracted
from the observation of what men have been and have done,
in the political relations of nations, in which Might has mostly
been regarded as the main constituent of Right, while Law, till
latterly, has hardly been allowed to lift up her voice amid the
contentious tumult of selfish passions. Hooker, after speaking
of the evil of important differences among Churches, has well
said (viii. c. 3. §. 5) : " The way to prevent it is not, as some do
imagine, the yielding up of supreme power over all Churches

NOTE O. 243

into one only pastor's hands, — but the framing of their govern-
ment, especially for matter of substance, everywhere according to
the rule of one only Law, to stand in no less force than the Law
of Nations doth, to be received in all kingdoms ; all soverein
rulers to be sworn no otherwise to it, than some are to maintain
the liberties, laws, and received customs of the country where
they reign. This shall cause uniformity even under several
dominions, without those woful inconveniences whereto the state
of Christendom was subject heretofore through the tyranny and
oppression of that one universal Nimrod who alone ruled all.
And till the Christian world be driven to enter into the peace-
able and true consultation about some such kind of general Law
concerning those things of weight and moment wherein now we
differ, — if one Church hath not the same order which another
hath, — let every Church keep as near as may be the order it
should have, and commend the just defense thereof to God, even
as Judah did, when it differed in the exercise of religion from
that form which Israel followed."

Again De Maistre says (p. 7): "Si quelqu'un s'avisoit de
proposer un roycmme de France scms roi de France, un empire de
Russie sans enipereur de Russie, on croiroit justement qu'il a
perdu I'esprit ; ce seroit cependant rigoureusement la meme idee
que c'elle d'une Eglise universelle sans chef." Here the fallacy is
palpable to the dimmest perceptions. The idea of a kingdom
implies its being governed by a king, or a queen ; that of an
empire, in this sense, involves that of an emperor. But that of
the Church does not contain the slightest hint with regard to its
peculiar form of government. Or, if etymology is to have any
force, that of Eglise, iKKXrtdia, points to a popular assembly.

Once more : " II seroit superflu de parler de I'aristocratie ;
car n'y ayant jamais eu dans I'Eglise de corps qui ait eu la
pretention de la regir sous aucune forme elective ou hereditaire,
il s'ensuit que son gouvernement est necessairement monarchique,
toute autre forme se trouvant rigoureusement exclue." It is
difficult to understand how De Maistre could overlook the
analogy between an Aristocracy and the Episcopate, which for

244 NOTE o.

several centuries was the only body exercising anything like an
authority of government in the Universal Church.

I have not observed any other argument on this point, to
which the Author himself attaches any weight.

On the other hand we need not hesitate to assert, on the
strength of what we know of man, as his nature has manifested
itself in all ages, whether individually, or in his social and
political relations, that the assumption of a right to govern
the whole Church must ever be destructive of its unity, and
incompatible therewith ; unless indeed the persons invested
with the sovereinty were to be raised by a perpetual succes-
sion of miracles above all the weaknesses and frailties and
narrownesses of humanity. Even if we were to take the most
favorable supposition, — one which the whole history of the
Papacy contradicts, — that a mode of electing the soverein could
be devised such as to ensure the choice of an unbroken series of
men eminent for intellectual and moral energy, as well as for
sanctity and earnest faith, still, unless they were all endowed
with a superhuman wisdom, guiding their decisions in every
question of discipline, no less than of doctrine, it cannot but be
that the spiritual soverein will desire to stamp the impress of his
own mind, of that which he deems best and most expedient, on
the whole body of the Church. But while human nature con-
tinues under its present limitations, it is no less certain that the
most capacious intellect will never be able to comprehend and
recognise the fitness of the innumerable modifications of human
thought and feeling, expanding under the innumerable varieties
of character, temperament, and circumstances, and fostered by
the genial warmth of religion : and such a capacity seems always
to be contracted, where there is a strong, resolute will, and where
power elicits the action of that will. On the opposite side, in
every branch of the Church there will ever be numbers of men
holding strong conscientious convictions more or less at variance
with those of the spiritual soverein, who will also be convinced
of the lawfulness of their convictions, and that it is their duty
not to allow their Christian liberty to be infringed and violated,

NOTE P. 245

but to defend their convictions even though by suffering martyr-
dom for them. Thus no Popes have inflicted greater breaches on
the unity of the Church, than two of the greatest in the whole
list, — Gregory the Seventh, and Innocent the Third : I do not
mean especially by their conflicts with the temporal powers of
their days, — but the former by his obstinate enforcement of
celibacy and other disciplinary rules, the latter by his unrelent-
ing persecutions. What then must happen when there is no
security for the intellectual or moral character of the soverein !
when, as has been so often seen in the history of the Papacy, he
may be taken from among those who are the scandals of human
nature. History declares that every fresh attempt to extend the
authority of Rome has been followed by a schism in the Church.
The Greek Church separated from her a thousand years ago :
half Europe asserted its Christian liberty at the Reformation :
and yet Rome boasts that she is the only ground and support of
the unity of Christendom.

Note P : p. 35.

The proofs of this would furuish materials for a long and
interesting essay, which would be a mournful illustration of the
truth exemplified in the whole history of the Romish Church,
that corru/ptio optimi fit pessima. Here I will only quote the
following passage from Professor Maurice's Preface to his Lectures
on the Epistle to the Hebrews (p. lxv) : " When it was proclaimed
in terms, ' Christ has given His authority to the chair of St
Peter,' then did the hearts of the humble and meek begin more
and more to utter the cry. They have taken away our Lord from
His universe; and we hyiow not ivhere they have laid Him. That
cry may be heard, not in the sixteenth century, not in Witten-
berg, not in Geneva, but throughout the middle ages, from the
most vehement, — modern Protestants would say, the most idol-
atrous Churchmen. We are worthily punisht for our dishonesty
in not doing justice to what was right and holy and noble in

246 NOTE Pa.

those ages. The testimonies they bear on this subject, to those
who will read them fairly, outweigh, it seems to me, all the
tomes of anti-pontifical controversialists. Bishop Lowth, in his
Prelections, speaking of the tyranny which was establisht in
Rome after the death of Julius Cesar, and of the means by which
it might have been check t, exclaims Plus, mehercule, valuisset
unmn 'Ap/uo^lov fxeXog quam Ciceronis Philippicae omnes. Those
who are dallying with the theory of Papal Supremacy in our day,
who are fancying it means something very real and reconciling,
may perhaps learn more of its true nature from a few cantoes of
the Inferno than from the Treatise of Barrow."

Note Pa : p. 36, 1. 27.

Coleridge's Treatise On the Constitution of the Church and State
was publisht as a kind of apology for what was called Catholic
Emancipation. It was his last work, written in the fullest
maturity of his judgement, the result of the observation and
meditation of his whole life ; and in it he pronounces an opinion
(p. 146) not unfavorable on the whole to the "rites and doc-
trines, the agenda and credenda of the Roman Catholics, could
we separate them from the adulterating ingredients combined
with them, and the use made of them by the sacerdotal Mame-
lukes of the Romish monarchy, for the support of the Papacy
and Papal hierarchy." Hence, in such a book, we are not likely
to find the expression of any blind, hasty, inconsiderate preju-
dices against Rome. Yet here he writes thus (p. 130) : "As
the mistaking of symbols and analogies for metaphors has been
a main occasion and support of the worst errours in Protestan-
tism, so the understanding the same symbols in a literal or
phenomenal sense, notwithstanding the most earnest warnings
against it, the most express declarations of the folly and danger
of interpreting sensually what was delivered of objects super-
sensual, — this was the rank wilding on which the Prince of this
world, the lust of power and worldly aggrandizement, was

NOTE Pa. 247

enabled to graft, oue by one, the whole branchery of Papal super-
stition and imposture. A truth not less important might be
conveyed by reversing the image, — by representing the Papal
monarchy as the stem or trunk circulating a poison-sap through
the branches successively grafted thereon, the previous and
natural fruit of which was at worst only mawkish and innu-
tritious. Yet amonff the dogmas or articles of belief that contra-
distinguish the Roman from the Reformed Churches, the most
important, and in their practical effects and consequences the
most pernicious, I cannot but regard as refracted and distorted
truths, profound ideas sensualized into idols, or at the lowest
rate lofty and affecting imaginations, safe while they remained
general and indefinite, but debased and rendered noxious by
their application in detail : for example, the doctrine of the
Communion of Saints, or the sympathy between all the members
of the Universal Church, which death itself doth not interrupt,
exemplified in St Antony and the cure of sore eyes, St Boniface
and success in brewing, and other such follies. What the same
doctrines now are, used as the pretexts and shaped into the
means and implements of priestly power and revenue, — or rather,
what the whole scheme is of Romish rites, doctrines, institutions,
and practices, in their combined and full operation, where it
exists in undisputed sovereinty, neither represt by the prevalence,
nor modified by the .light, of a purer faith, nor holden in check
by the consciousness of Protestant neighbours and lookers-on, —
this is a question which cannot be kept too distinct from the
former. And as, at the risk of passing for a secret favourer
of superannuated superstitions, I have spoken out my thoughts
of the Roman Theology, so, and at a far more serious risk of
being denounced as an intolerant bigot, 1 will declare what, after
a two years residence in exclusively Popish countries, and in
situations and under circumstances that afforded more than
ordinary means of acquainting myself with the workings and the
proceeds of the machinery, was the iinpression left on my mind
as to the effects and influences of the Romish (most uncatholic)
religion, — as it actually and practically exists. — When 1

248 NOTE Pa.

contemplate the whole system, as it aifects the great t'uudameutal
principles of morality, the terra Jirma, as it were, of our huma-
nity,— then trace its operation on the sources and conditions of
national strength and well-being, — and lastly consider its woful
influences on the innocence and sanctity of the female mind and
imagination, on the faith and happiness, the gentle fragrancy and
unnoticed everpresent verdure of domestic life, — I can with
difficulty avoid applying to it what the Rabbins fable of the
fratricide Cain, after the curse, — that the firm earth trembled
wherever he strode, and the grass turned hlack beneath his feet."

In a subsequent passage (p. 147), Coleridge gives this as the
result of a recent tour in the Romish provinces on the Rhine,
"Every fresh opportunity of examining the Roman Catholic
religion on the spot, every new fact that presents itself to my
notice, increases my conviction that its immediate basis and the
true grounds of its continuance are to be found in the wicked-
ness, ignorance, and wretchedness of the many, — and that the
producing and continuing cause of this deplorable state is, that
it is the interest of the Romish priesthood that so it should
remain, as the surest, and in fact only support of the Papal
sovereinty and influence against the civil powers, and the re-
forms wisht for by the more enlightened Governments, as well
as by all the better informed and wealthier class of Roman
Catholics generally. And as parts of the same policy, and
equally indispensable to the interests of the Papal Crown, are
the ignorance, grossness, excessive number, and poverty of the
lower ecclesiastics themselves, the religious orders included.
When I say the Pope, I understand the Papal Hierarchy, which
is in truth the dilated Pope : and in this sense only, and not of
the individual priest or friar at Rome, can a wise man be sup-
posed to use the word. I feel it as no small comfort and con-
firmation to know that the same view of the subject is taken,
the same conviction entertained, by a large and increasing
number in the Roman Catholic Communion itself, in Germany,
France, Italy, and even in Spain ; and that no inconsiderable
portion of this number consists of men who are not only pious
as Christians, but zealous as Roman Catholics."

NOTE Pel. 249

This testimony might be strengthened by that of a host of
other witnesses, whose means of observation have been abundant,
and whose veracity is indisputable.

Now the profest object of Dr Newman's eighth Lecture On the
Difficulties of Anglicanism is to shew that "the Political state of
Catholic Countries is no prejudice to the sanctity of the Church."
Ilis way of proving this is singular and characteristic. He
ingeniously diverts his argument from what would seem to be
the legitimate issue, the political and social condition of Romish
and of Protestant countries, as compared with each other ; and
pushing aside what he could not deny, though he does not
expressly acknowledge it, he contends that the aims of the
Church are totally different from those of the world, — that the
world desires and seeks to gain such ends as order, peace,
tranquillity, national wealth and prosperity, social culture, —
whereas the Church "contemplates, not the whole, but the
parts, — not a nation, but the men who form it, — not society in
the first place, but in the second place, and in the first place
individuals : it looks beyond the outward act, on and into the
thought, the motive, the intention, and the will : it looks beyond
the world, and detects and moves against the devil, who is sitting
in ambush behind it. It has then a foe in view, nay, it has a battle-
field, to which the world is blind : its proper battle-field is the
heart of the individual ; and its true foe is Satan" (p. 196).

All this is true, and excellently said, as is much more to a like
effect in the same Lecture. The strange thing is, that Dr
Newman should speak of this as a novelty, as a truth which had
only been " brought home to him closely and vividly," since he
joined the Church of Rome. For surely the designation of the
Gospel for the salvation of individual souls is not a truth un-
known or unspoken of in the Church of England. Nay, is not
this the central principle of our whole Evangelical Theology?
and has it not often been a matter of complaint against that
Theology, on the part of the School of which Dr Newman was
the head, that it neglected every other view of the Gospel, to
dwell solely on such as bore immediately on the salvation of

250 NOTE Pa.

individual souls, — that it overlooktandneglectedalltliemysterious
truths revealed to us concerning the Trinity, and the relations of
the Divine Persons to each other, and the Incarnation, confining
its attention exclusively to the work of Mediation and Re-
demption, and the manner in which that work is to be rendered
effectual for as many as possible of those who are called to par-
take in its benefits 1 that it was too narrowminded to embrace
any other end along with this, and thus cared not about nature
or art, or learning or science, or the social and political relations
of mankind t

When we read the common apologies for Romanism, we are
wont to find it urged, that Protestantism, that Evangelicalism,
may indeed have some power in their dealings with individual
souls, but that they are utterly unfitted for dealing with nations
and states, and that the Church of Rome alone possesses the
power and the wisdom requisite for political action, for operating
upon Governments and nations, and for moulding society in a
Christian form. That she has utterly failed in this work, her
great champion seems now to admit, though he chooses rather
to transform his admission into an assertion that she never
attempted it, that she deemed the aifairs of this world unworthy
of her attention, and felt bound to keep her eyes and thoughts
ever fixt immovably on the affairs of another world. How
precisely the evidence of History tallies with this account of the
principles and practice of Rome, it remains for him to shew
hereafter ; when perhaps he will have occasion to renew his
observation, that " historical facts are proof against the force of
talent, and remain where they were, when it has expended
itself." At all events Coleridge's statements just cited, which
might be corroborated by hundreds of similar ones, hardly
indicate that Rome has been very successful in fitting her mem-
bers for another life, except so far as that end may be promoted
by unfitting them for the chief duties of this life.

A sophism runs through this eighth Lecture : while its
profest theme is to explain the grounds of the inferiority of
Roman Catholic nations to Protestant, the argument turns on

NOTE rb. 251

the different ends aimed at by the Church and by the World;
and it is assumed that the influences acting on the Romish side
are purely religious, those on the Protestant or English side purely
political. Thus we are brought to the conclusion that Godli-
ness no longer has the promise of the life that now is, and that, as
is especially exemplified in the Roman State, it is no longer true
nowadays, that happt/ is the peojile tvho have the Lord for their
God. If we keep watch against this sophism, we may readily
acknowledge the truths which are set forth with such powerful
eloquence in this Lecture ; and yet we shall perceive that they
no way impair the force of the argument against Romanism,
drawn from the political and moral superiority of Protestant
countries and nations.

Pb: p. 37,1. 18.

This has been urged by Barrow with tremendous force (p. 642),
where he shews that " Christianity by the Papal influence— has
been modeled to a system of politic devices— serving to exalt and
enrich the Pope, with his Court and adherents, clients and vassals.
What doctrine (he asks) of Christian Theology, as it is inter-
preted by their schools, hath not a direct aspect, or doth not
squint that way? especially according to the opinions passant
and in vogue among them. To pass over those concerning the
Pope, (his universal pastorship, judgeship in controversies, power
to call councils, presidency in them, superiority over them, right
to confirm or annull them, his infallibility, his double sword,
and dominion, direct or indirect, over Princes, his dispensing in
laws, in oaths, in vows, in matrimonial cases, with all other the
monstrous prerogatives, which the sound Doctors of Rome with
encouragement of that Chair do teach) : what doth the doctrine
concerning the exempting of the Clergy from secular jurisdiction
and immunity of their goods from taxes signify, but their entire
dependence on the Pope, and their being closely tied to his
interests ? What is the exemption of mouastical places from the

252 NOTE Pb.

jurisdictiou of Bishops, but listing so many soldiers and advo-
cates to defend and advance the Papal Empire 1 What meaneth
the doctrine concerning that middle region of souls, or cloister
of Purgatory, whereof the Pope holdeth the keys, opening and
shutting it at his pleasure by dispensation of pardons and
indulgences, but that he must be master of the people's con-
dition, and of their purse 1 What meaneth the treasure of merits
and supererogatory works whereof he is the steward, but a
way of driving a trade, and drawing money from simple people
to his treasury? Whither doth the entangling of folks in
perpetual vows tend, but to assure them in a slavish dependence
on their interests eternally, without evasion or remedy, except
by favorable dispensation from the Pope? Why is the opus
operatum in sacraments taught to confer Grace, but to breed a
high opinion of the Priest, and all he doth ? Whence did the
monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation (urged with so furious
zeal) issue, but from design to magnify the credit of those, who
by saying of a few words can make our God and Saviour 1 and
withal to exercise a notable instance of their power over men,
in making them to renounce their reason and their senses ?
Whither doth tend the doctrine concerning the mass being a
propitiatory sacrifice for the dead, but to engage men to leave
in their wills good sums to offer in their behalf? Why is
the cup withholden from the laity, but to lay it low, by so
notable a distinction, in the principal mystery of our religion,
from the Priesthood ? Why is saying private mass or celebrating
the communion in solitude allowed, but because priests are paid
for it, and live by it? At what doth the doctrine concerning
the necessity of auricular confession aim, but that thereby the
priests may have a mighty awe on the consciences of all people,
may dive into their secrets, may manage their lives as they
please. And what doth a like necessary particular absolution
intend, but to set the Priest in a lofty state of authority above
the people, as a judge of their condition, and dispenser of their
salvation? Why do they equal ecclesiastical traditions with
Scripture, but that on the pretense of them they may obtrude

NOTE Pb. Q53

whatever doctrines advantageous to their designs ] What drift
hath the doctrine concerning the infallibility of Churches or
Councils, but that, when opportunity doth invite, he may call a
company of Bishops together to establish what he liketh, which
ever after must pass for certain truth, to be contradicted by
none ; so enslaving the minds of all men to his dictates, which
always suit to his interests 1 What doth the prohibition of Holy
Scripture drive at, but a monopoly of knowledge to themselves,
or a detaining of people in ignorance of truth and duty ; so that
they must be forced to rely on them for direction, must believe
all they say, and blindly submit to their dictates, being disabled
to detect their errours, or contest their opinions 1 Why must the
sacraments be celebrated, and public devotions exercised, in an
unknown tongue, but that the Priests may seem to have a
peculiar interest in them, and ability for them 1 Why must the
priesthood be so indispensably forbidden marriage, but that it
may be wholly untackt from the state, and rest addicted to him,
and governable by him ? that the persons and wealth of priests
may be purely at his devotion 1 To what end is the clogging
Religion by multiplication of ceremonies and formalities, but to
amuse the people and maintain in them a blind reverence toward
the interpreters of the dark mysteries couch t in them, and by
seeming to encourage an exterior show of piety (or form of
godliness) to gain reputation and advantage, whereby they might
oppress the interior virtue and reality of it, as the Scribes and
Pharisees did, although with less designs 1 Why is the venera-
tion of images and relics, the credence of miracles and legends,
the undertaking of pilgrimages and voyages to Rome, and other
places more holy than ordinary, sprinklings of holy water,
consecrations of baubles (with innumerable foppish knacks and
trinkets), so cherisht, but to keep the people in a slavish credulity
and dotage, apt to be led by them whither they please, by any
sleeveless pretence, and in the meanwhile to pick various gains
from them by such trade ? What do all such things mean, but
obscuring the native simplicity of Christianity? whereas, its
being represented intelligible to all men, would derogate from

254 NOTE Q.

that high admiration, whicli these men pretend to from their
peculiar and profound wisdom. And what would men spend for
these toys, if they understood they might be good Christians, and
get to Heaven without them 1 What doth all that pomp of
religion serve for, but for ostentation of the dignity of those who
administer it ? It may be pretended for the honour of religion ;
but it really conduceth to the glory of the Priesthood, who shine
in those pageantries. Why is Monkery (although so very
different from that which was in the ancient times) so cried up
as a superlative state of perfection 1 but that it fiUeth all places
with swarms of lusty people, who are vowed servants to him, and
have little else to do but to advance that authority by which
they subsist in that dronish way of life. In fine, pursuing the
controversies of Bellarmine, or any other champion of Romanism,
do but consider the nature and scope of each doctrine main-
tained by them ; and you may easily discern that scarce any of
them but doth tend to advance the interest of the Pope, or of his
sworn vassals."

Note Q : p. 37.

Among the many strange and startling assertions in Dr
Newman's two recent courses of controversial Lectures, none is
stranger or more startling than what he says in those delivered
at Birmingham, when vindicating the enforcement of clerical
celibacy. After a generous admission that the few married
clergymen whom he has known, are " of such excellence and
consistency of life, that he would feel it to be absurd to suspect
them of any the slightest impropriety in their conduct," he adds :
" but still the terrible instances of human frailty, of which one
reads and hears in Protestant bodies, are quite enoiigh to shew
that the married state is no sort of warrant for moral correctness,
no preventive, whether of scandalous offenses, or much less of
minor forms of the same general sin. Purity is not a virtue
which comes as a matter of course to the married any more than

NOTE Q. 255

to the single." Thus much no one will dispute. But he con-
tinues : " Though it is impossible to bring the matter fairly to
an issue, yet for that very reason I have as much a right to my
opinion as another to his, Avhen I state my deliberate conviction
that there are, to say the least, as many offenses against the
marriage vow among Protestant Ministers, as there are against
the vow of celibacy among Catholic Priests" (p. 129).

Dr Newman here resolves to set an example of moderation in
his statements : he will only " say the least," the very least part
of what he might have said, of what the history of the Church
would of course have justified him in saying. At all events how-
ever he has a somewhat large notion of the rights of private
judgement. " I have as much a right (he says) to my opinion,
as another to his :" for the restriction implied in the conditional
clause, that " it is impossible to bring the matter fairly to an
issue," is just nothing. Though it is impossible to get an exact
statistical enumeration of the offenses committed in the two
cases, yet, where, as in all practical questions, absolute certainty
and precision are unattainable, proximate conclusions are bind-
ing on the judgement. In fact it is rank scepticism to say,
/ have as much a right to my opinion as another to his. A legal
right doubtless a man has to think that the moon is made of
green cheese ; inasmuch as the law has never prohibited such an
opinion, and will not punish him for holding it, unless perhaps
by a strait waistcoat. But morally no man has a right to any
opinion, except it agree with the truth, or with the most correct
estimate of the truth he can frame. Right has nothing to do
with the matter. We have no right, except to think rightly ;
and this right is also a duty, imposed upon every being endowed
with the faculty of thinking by his indefeasible allegiance to
Truth. No wonder however that Dr Newman, having formed
such notions of the right of private judgement, should entertain
so inveterate a hostility to it.

But is it indeed so ? Is the evidence of facts with regard to the
moral effects of compulsory celibacy so scanty, or so ambiguous,
that history has never been able to pronounce a positive verdict

25G NOTE Q.

on the subject? I had thought that we had the concurrent
testimony of more than fifteen centuries, proceeding from divers
countries, under divers social forms, exprest in divers ways, more
copiously indeed at one time than at another, but without any
variation as to the result ; which throughout has confirmed the
wisdom of St Paul's injunctions to the Corinthians (Ep. i. c.
vii), not to attempt to counteract the laws of Nature. I will not
defile these pages with details of the revolting evils which
have arisen from that attempt : but since this audacious as-
sertion has been made, which the asserter himself at all events
must believe, and which therefore may find some credulous
hearers, in an age when the want of firm convictions disposes so
many to seek support in prohibitive ordinances, it becomes a
duty to point to certain heads of evidence, which at all events
will shew that, in protesting against compulsory celibacy, we are
not influenced by the vague traditions or the fables which
Dr Newman declares to be the grounds of the English aversion
to Rome.

The Councils, at least from the ninth century downward, bear
witness by many of their Canons to the scandalous immorality of
the Clergy, which hardly shrank from the most unutterable
horrours. For instance, it had been ordained by several of the
earlier Councils, — by that of Nicea, by those of Carthage in 348
and 398, by that of Tours in 567, by that of Lyons in 583, by
that of Toledo in 633, — that no priest should have any woman
living in his house, unless she was his mother, or sister, or aunt.
But the Council of Mayence, in 888, makes the rule universal,
on the ground of the incestuous acts which had arisen from the
allowance of those exceptions : " Ut clericis interdicatur mulieres
in domo sua habere. Quamvis enim sacri canones quasdam
personas feminarum simul cum clericis in una domo habitare
permittant, tamen, quod multum dolendum est, saepe audivimus
per illam concessionem plurima scelera esse commissa, ita ut
quidam sacerdotum cum propriis sororibus concumbentes filios
ex eis generassent." A like Canon was enacted at the Synod
of Metz in the same year, — where the prohibition is expressly

NOTE Q. 257

extended to the mother, — and again, a few years after, at the Synod
of Nantes, where it was forbidden that any priest sliouldhave any
woman living in his house, "neque illas quas canones couceduut:
(quia instigante diabolo etiam in illis scelus frequenter perpe-
tratum reperitur, aut etiam in pedissequis illarum) : scilicet
matrem, amitam, sororem."

Another subject of frequent legislation was the sons of the
clergy, a large class of whom are designated by Benedict the
Eighth in a preliminary address to the Council of Ticino about
the year 1020, as Jilii coucubinarii. The same letter gives an
awful picture of the licentiousness of the clergy : and his testi-
mony might be confirmed by that of hundreds of unimpeachable
witnesses speaking of the character of the clergy during the five
centuries anterior to the Reformation. I will merely quote a
passage from one of Petrarch's Letters, the 20th of his Epistolae
sine titalo, in which he speaks of the Papal Court at Avignon :
" Quis, oro, non irascatur et rideat illos senes, pueros coma Can-
dida, togis amplissimis, adeoque lascivientibus animis, ut nihil
illuc falsius videatur, quam quod ait Maro : Frigidus in Venerem
senior. Tam calidi tamque praecipites in Venerem senes sunt :
tanta eos aetatis et status et virium cepit oblivio : sic in libidines
inardescunt : sic in omne ruunt dedecus, quasi omnis eorum
gloria non in cruce Christi sit, sed in comessationibus et ebrieta-
tibus, et quae has sequuntur cubilibus impudicis. Sic fugientem
manu retrahunt juventam; atque hoc unum senectutis ultimae
lucrum putant, ea facere quae juvenes non auderent. IIos ani-
mos et hos nervos tribuit hie Bacchus indomitus, hie orientalium
vis baccarum. — Spectat haec Sathanas ridens, atque imparl tri-
pudio delectatus, interque decrepitos ac puellas arbiter sedens,
stupet plus illos agere quam se hortari. — Mitto stupra, raptus,
incestus, adulteria, quae jam pontificalis lasciviae ludi sunt.
Mitto raptarum viros, ne mutire audeant, non tantum avitis
laribus, sed finibus patriis exturbatos, quaeque contumeliarum
gravissima est, et violatas conjuges et externo semine gravidas
rursus accipere, et post partum reddere ad alternam satietatem
abutentium coactos. Quae omnia non unus ego, sed vulgus

s

258 NOTE Q.

novit." This sounds like an account of the Court of Commodus
or of Elagabalus : it is that of the Court of a man who called
himself the Vicar of Christ upon earth.

Dr Newman indeed contends that this licentiousness was no
way connected with celibacy. " If matrimony does not prevent
cases of immorality among Protestant ministers, it is not celi-
bacy which causes them among Catholic priests. It is not what
the Catholic Church imposes, but what human nature prompts,
which leads any portion of her ecclesiastics into sin. Human
nature will break out, like some wild and raging element, under
any system : it bursts out under the Protestant system : it bursts
out under the Catholic." This, alas ! cannot be denied. But,
though a river of itself may at times overflow its banks, a dam,
which excludes it from its proper channel, will make it do so
always. I believe there can be no question that, even among
the laity, simple fornication is a far more frequent sin than
adultery : and surely, were it not for this contra-natural institution,
there is nothing in the character or office of the Christian ministry
to increase man's proneness to fall into licentiousness, but on the
contrary every motive, every inducement, every help to draw him
away from it. Moreover, though I know of no ground, and have
not the slightest wish, to impeach the moral character of the
Romish priesthood now in England, — and though in this, as in
other respects, the Church of Rome has derived much benefit from
the influence of the Reformation, so that generally, where the two
Churches have existed in juxtaposition, the priesthood has been
delivered from the foul spots which previously stained it, — yet, I
believe, no candid enquirer can come to any other conclusion, than
that the increast licentiousness of the clergy has generally been
coincident with the stricter enforcement of celibacy, and that, where
the ministers of the Gospel have been allowed, they have set a
right example of the holy relations of family life to their people.

This coincidence has been pointed out repeatedly by Gieseler,
in the sections in which he speaks of ecclesiastical discipline,
— for instance, in the Second Portion of his Third Period
(extending from 8,58 to 1073), §. 30. "The licentiousness

NOTE Q. 259

of the clergy, produced by their celibacy, (Die durch den
Colibat hervorgerufene Unkeuschkeit der Geistlichen), which had
always been a standing subject of synodal legislation, rose in
these ages of rudeness to the most unnatural crimes. The bishops
set the example ; — the lower clergy followed without scruple."
In the notes on this Section, Gieseler gives the most shocking
evidence of the truth of his statement. Again, in the Third
Portion of the same Third Period (from 1073 to 1305) §. Go:
" The celibacy of the Clergy, which was now enforced still more
extensively than before, could not be thoroughly carried out in
many countries before the thirteenth century, but brought the
grossest excesses in its train, the more so because many of the
bishops overlookt them;" where again the notes supply terrific
evidence of the facts. The same statement recurs, with evidence
equally appalling, in the fourth Portion of the same Period (from
1305 to 1409) §. 108: where, among other things, it is stated
that in several countries the laity, in order to preserve their
wives and daughters from the impure solicitations of the clergy,
compelled them to keep concubines. This is said to have hap-
pened in Spain, in Flanders, in Ireland, in Norway.*

Of the general prevalence of this depravity in Scotland at the
age of the Reformation, an awful account appeared in the
Quarterly Review for June last. The writer, who seems well
acquainted with the family history of that period, goes through a
long list of the Bishops, and shews how, one after another, they
lived openly and avowedly with concubines. " The most culti-
vated (he says), the most amiable among them, were in this re-
spect not a whit purer than the others. — Such of them as were
contented with one woman were esteemed virtuous ; nay, ladies
of good condition thought it no shame to live as their avowed

• The same thing happened in parts of Switzerland. Sleidan, in the Third
Book of his Commentaries, under the year 1522, tells us that Zwingli, in a
Letter to the Swiss, "monet ne verae doclpnae cursnra impediant, neqiie
sacerdotibus maritis ullam faciant molcstiam : coclibatus enim praeceptum
auctorem haliere Siithanam : noninillis in ipsonim pagis hunc esse ninrom, cum
novum quenipiam ecclosiae ministrum recipiunt, ut jiibeant eiim iiabere
concubinam, no pudicitiam alienam tentet."

260 NOTE Q.

concubines, and found the sympathy of society not averse to such
a departure from the celibacy which the Church pretended to
enforce. These things are brought more home to us in the
domestic history of a narrow kingdom : but the condition of the
clergy was not materially different in other countries of Christ-
endom, before the Reformation produced a change of morals far
beyond the widest spread of its doctrines" (p, 42). Thus Car-
dinal Beaton " lived with a concubine, the daughter of an old
baronial house, during the greater part of his life. — The offspring
of that connexion were numerous : some of the sons were dig-
nified churchmen, others laymen, who founded families in Fife
and Angus. Three of these gentlemen had letters of legitimation
under the Great Seal. For not less than four of their sisters,
all taking their father's name, and all in recorded documents set-
ting forth his style and rank as honorable to them, large dowers
found matches among the best of the Scotch nobility and gentry."
Again, Archbishop Hamilton, Beaton's successor in the See of St
Andrews, *■ lived openly with the wife or widow of his kinsman,
Hamilton of Stenhouse. That lady, known as Lady Stenhouse,
or Lady Gilstown, aflfected no concealment. Among the goods
and chattels inventoried in her testament, confirmed at Edin-
burgh in 1575, are specified three grants of legitimation in favour
of as many bastard children by his Grace." Bishop Chisholm of
Dumblane gave large portions " of the ecclesiastical patrimony of
this church to his natural son and to his two natural daughters."
Soon after (p. 46) we are told of Bishop Leslie, " the faithful
servant of Queen Mary, and the elegant historian of his country,
a person so admirable in all other respects, that his breach of his
ordination vows shews both the sad effects of the example of a
whole society, and the danger of making a law so hard upon
human nature that the sympathies of mankind are in favour
of breaking it." Hepburn Bishop of Moray " lived long enough
to dilapidate his great Bishopric, and to provide for a very large
family, whose several legitimations stand on record." In 1543
letters of legitimation were granted in favour of Michael, Robert,
and Hugh Montgomerie, " bastard sons of the Reverend Father in

NOTE Q. OQl

Christ Robert Bishop of Argyll." Alexander Gordon, Bishop of
Galloway, "joined the Reformation, that he might marry Barbara
Logie, his mistress, and make his children by her legitimate."

When this was the condition of the hierarchy, what must have
been that of the inferior clergy I The fantastical delusions of
our modern lovers of darkness have thrown such a gaudy haze
around- the evils of Rome, that people are forgetting how terrible
was the curse from which they were delivered by the Refor-
mation, and are calling upon the Pope to return and renew his
withering despotism in England. Hence it becomes necessary to
bring forward facts, which in a healthier state of the public mind
one might gladly suffer to lie in oblivion. " The effect of the
Reformation (the Reviewer concludes, p. 5Q) upon the manners
of the clergy, whether of the old faith or of the new, was signal
and immediate." Thus the Church of Rome herself owes an
enormous debt of gratitude to the Reformation. For it was only
through the shock of the Reformation that she was roused out of
her deadly torpour, and that the efforts of the reformers, who
continued within her pale, became less abortive than those of
their predecessors in previous centuries.

I will merely hint at a part of the evidence to be drawn from
general literature. Of the Italian Novelle, the main part seems to
have been derived from anecdotes of real facts, either pertainino-
to earlier times or contemporaneous. At all events we may be
sure that, in the representation of contemporary occurrences, they
exhibit the opinions and the feelings of the age. Now the
licentiousness of these Novelle is notorious ; and a large portion
of the grossest and most licentious stories are told of priests and
monks. The same is the case in the French Fabliaux. Nor
are these pictures set before us as monstrous violations of order
and decency, but rather as ordinary occurrences, merely remark-
able for some humorous peculiarity. Yet Dr Newman, after
asserting his right to think what he chooses, states it as his
deliberate conviction, " that there are, to say the least, as many
offenses against the marriage vow among Protestant ministers, as
there are against the vow of celibacy among Catholic priests."

262 NOTE Q.

How then does he account for this fact 1 Assuredly the general
literature of the last three centuries has not been led, either in
England or in Germany, to cover the sins of the clergy through
any excessive reverence for their sacred office. If the facts had
afforded a warrant for such representations, there would have
been numbers to take advantage of them. But had such tales
been written, the public mind would have revolted from their
extravagant falsehood* Doubtless Dr Newman says truly;
" Passion will carry away the married clergyman as well as the
unmarried priest :" and this has been represented in fiction, for
instance, in the tale of Adam Blair. Doubtless too there are
many instances of grosser offenses among Protestant ministers,
some of which acquire notoriety from proceedings in courts of
justice : but, whatever the number may be, it is not such as to
make licentiousness an ordinary characteristic of the Clergy in
public estimation, as it used to be before the Reformation, in
consequence of the institution of compulsory celibacy. Or
does Dr Newman merely mean, as his words taken literally might
be interpreted, to confine his assertion to the moral character
of the Romish clergy in England, or generally, at the present
day 1 If so, we certainly have not adequate grounds for deciding
the question. I have no wish to impugn the moral character
of the Romish priesthood, either in England or in Germany :
in France it would seem to have improved greatly since
the beginning of the Revolution : and though one hears evil
rumours from Italy and Spain, — and these have received
terrible confirmation from Scipio Ricci and from Blanco White,

* This has been urged by Southey, in his Letters to Butler (p. 302). " Upon
this point we may appeal to popular opinion, being one of the few points on which
it may be trusted. Before the Reformation the Clergy in this country were as
much the subjects of ribald tales and jests for the looseness of their lives, as they
were in all other Roman Catholic countries, and still are in those wherever any
freedom of speech can be indulged. Wherever the Reformation was establish t,
this reproach has been done awaj'. Amid all the efforts which are made to
bring the Church of England into contempt and hatred, there is no attempt to
revive it. The general decorimi and respectability of the Clergy as a body of
men is so well known and undeniable, that even slander and faction have not
assailed them on that score."

NOTE Q. 263

whose statements are far from having been invalidated by Dr
Newman's objections, — I know of no sufficient body of authentic
evidence for building a stable conclusion upon. But when an
institution has been tried during a dozen centuries in all parts of
the world, and has uniformly been found productive of the same
evil effects, there cannot well be a doubt what sentence ought to
be pronounced on it : Cut it down. That the Papacy should
have refrained from pronouncing this sentence, — that on the
contrary it should have retained and upheld that institution with
dogged pertinacity, notwithstanding the horrours which streamed
in whelming torrents from it, — is perhaps the most damning
proof how the Papacy recklessly sacrificed every moral considera-
tion, recklessly sacrificed the souls of its ministers, for the sake of
maintaining its own power by surrounding itself with an innu-
merable host of spiritual Mamelukes, bound to it by that which
severed them from all social ties. And this is the Church for
which our modern dreamers claim the exclusive title of Holy !
a church headed by his Holiness Pope Alexander the Sixth !

This whole question of the celibacy of the Clergy has been
treated in a masterly manner by Jeremy Taylor, in that wonder-
ful book, his Ductor Dubitantium (B. iii. c. iv. Rule 20) : where
(in §. 28) he gives the following summary of his objections.
" The law of the Church was an evil law, made by an authority
violent and usurpt, insufficient as to that charge. It was not a
law of God ; it was against the rights, and against the necessities
of Nature : it was unnatural and unreasonable : it was not for
edification of the Church : it was no advantage to spiritual life.
It is a law that is therefore against public honesty, because it
did openly and secretly introduce dishonesty. It had nothing of
the requisites of a good law, no consideration of human frailty,
nor of human comforts : it was neither necessary, nor profitable,
nor innocent, neither fitted to time, nor place, nor person : it was
not accepted by them that could not bear it ; it was complained
of by them that could : it was never admitted in the East ; it
was fouglit against and declaimed and railed at in the West ;
and at last it is laid aside in the Churches, especially of the

264f NOTE R.

North, as the most intolerable and most unreasonable tyranny in
the world. For it was not to be endured, that, upon the pre-
tense of an unseasonable perfection, so much impurity should be
brought into the Church, and so many souls thrust down to hell."
That the North should have taken the lead in opposing it, not
merely at the Reformation, but almost throughout, is easily
understood, when we call to mind that the Northern and Teu-
tonic nations have ever had a much deeper feeling of the moral
and spiritual character of marriage, — though they did not turn
it into a sacrament, — and that they could not find a compensation
for the want of it in the sensual indulgences, to which Southern
nations more readily abandon themselves.

NotbR: p. 37.

There are divers questions connected with Confession, which
are grievously troubling our Church, and urgently require the
calmest, most thoughtful consideration. But I cannot enter
upon them here ; nor is this the place for them. I will merely
quote another powerful passage of Jeremy Taylor {Dissuasive,
P. i. c. ii. §. 2), where he enumerates some of the evils, which re-
sult from its practice when compulsory. " For confession, it is
true, to them who are not used to it, as it is at the first time, and
for that once, it is as troublesome, as for a bashful man to speak
orations in public. But where it is so perpetual and universal,
and done by companies and crowds at a solemn set time ; and
when it may be done to any one besides the parish priest, to a
friar that begs, or to a monk in his dorter, done in the ear, it
may be to a person that hath done worse, and therefore hath no
awe upon me, but what his order imprints and his viciousness
takes off" ; when we see women and boys, princes and prelates do
the same every day, and, as oftentimes they are never the better,
so \hey are not at all ashamed, — but men look upon it as a cer-
tain cure, like pulling off" a man's clothes to go and wash in a
river, and make it, by use and habit, by confidence and custom,

NOTE s. 265

to be no certain pain, — and the women blush or smile, weep or
are unmoved, as it happens, under their veil, and the men under
the boldness of their sex ; when we see that men and women
confess to-day, and sin to-morrow, and are not affrighted from
their sin the more for it, — because they know the worst of it,
and have felt it often, and believe to be eased by it ; — certain it
is, that a little reason, and a little observation, will suffice to
conclude that this practice of confession hath in it no affright-
ment, not so much as the horrour of the sin itself hath, to the
conscience. For they who commit sins confidently, will with less
regret, it may be, confess it in this manner where it is the fashion
for every one to do it. And when all the world observes how
loosely the Italians, Spaniards, and French do live in their car-
nivals,— giving to themselves all liberty and license to do the
vilest things at that time, not only because they are for a while
to take their leave of them, but because they are, as they suppose,
to be so soon eased of their crimes by confession, and the circular
and never failing hand of the priest, — they will have no reason
to admire the severity of confession ; which, as it was most
certainly intended as a deletory of sin, and might do its first
intention, if it were equally managed, so now certainly it gives
confidence to many )uen to sin, and to most men to neglect
the greater and more effective parts of essential repentance."

Of the influence which such a system of discipline exercises
in deadening the conscience, we have had a most lamentable
example in Note I.

Note S : p. 37.

We have seen Dr Newman's method of dealing with the
argument concerning the moral effects of compulsory celibacy.
There are some cases of sins against chastity in the members of
a married ministry : we cannot tell what the number of these
may be : therefore, he says, I have a right to exercise my private
judgement in the matter, and to " state my deliberate conviction"

266

NOTE S.

that these sins of licentiousness among Protestant ministers are,
" to say the least," as numerous as those among Catholic priests.
It matters not that these sins of Protestant ministers are pro-
nounced by the public voice to be flagrantly heinous and
exceptional, while those of the Romish priests and monks were
deemed for several centuries in divers countries to be general, if
not ordinary, and were often declared to be so by the chief
teachers of the church, and even by popes, and by councils. Dr
Newman is determined to make up for the restraint of his private
judgement on other matters by letting it run riot on this, and
asserts his right to " state a deliberate conviction " repugnant to
all the evidence of history. So great too is the satisfaction he
feels at the dexterity of this achievement, that, after boasting of
his triumph at the beginning of his fifth Lecture, he sets about
applying the same method to clear Rome from another stigma
affixt to it by popular errour, the charge of having been ani-
mated with, and of having fostered a persecuting spirit, of having
persecuted, and encouraged persecution.

Here again he performs his favorite feat of turning white
black, and black white. His method, as I have said, is the same
which he adopts with such brilliant success in vindicating
celibacy. He shews that Protestants also have persecuted, and
do exercise certain modes of persecution ; wherefore " Protestants
are just the very last persons in the world who can with safety
or consistency call Catholics persecutors, for the simple reason,
that they should not throw stones, who live in glass houses"
(p. 175). In this case however he is not content with saying
the least. Emboldened by his previous victory, he resolves to
annihilate his adversary, and to set up his client on a pinnacle of
solitary glory. The tone of this whole Lecture is overbearing
quite to a pitch of insolence against Protestants, of whom he
declares at the conclusion (p. 211), that "they have persecuted
whenever, wherever, and however they could, from Elizabeth
down to Victoria, from the domestic circle up to the Legislature,
from black looks to the extremity of the gibbet and the stake."
With similar accuracy and impartiality he pronounces (p. 212);

NOTE s. 267

" Far other is the wisdom of the Church [which with him of
course means that of Rome]. It is plain, if only to prevent the
occurrence of persecution, she must head a movement, which it is
impossible to suppress. And in the course of eighteen hundred years,
though her children have been guilty of various excesses, though
she herself is responsible for isolated acts of most solemn import,
yet for one deed of severity with which she can be charged, there
have been a hundred of her acts repressive of the persecutor, and
protective of his victims. She has been a never-failing fount of
humanity, equity, forbearance, and compassion, in consequence
of her very recognition of natural impulses and instincts, which
Protestants would vainly deny and contradict: and this is the
solution of the paradox stated by the distinguisht author I just
now quoted (Balmez), to the effect, that the religion which for-
bids private judgement in matters of Revelation, is historically
more tolerant than the religions which uphold it. His words
will bear repetition : ' We find, in all parts of Europe, scafiblds
prepared to punish crimes against religion : scenes which sadden
the soul, were everywhere witnest. Rome is one exception to
the rule, — Rome, which it has been attempted to represent as a
monster of intolerance and cruelty. It is true, that the Popes
have not preacht, like the Protestants, universal toleration; but
the facts shew the difference between the Protestants and the
Pope, The Popes, armed with a tribunal of intolerance, have
scarce spilt a drop of blood : Protestants and philosophers have
shed it in torrents."

It would take a volume to unravel all the entanglements, to
straighten all the distortions, and to correct all the misrepresen-
tations in this strange medley of confusion : but I cannot refrain
from saying a few words on some of the steps by which Dr
Newman arrives at his extraordinary conclusions. Both of
them are equally at variance with our usual notions, and with
the views taken by the whole body of the historians of the last
three centuries : they both exemplify their author's fondness for
indulging in the most violent paradoxes: what else do they
exemplify 1

268 NOTE s.

As the main part of the argument, according to the fashion of
every man who has a desperate cause to defend, is that which
is aggressive against Protestantism, let us begin by looking at
the grounds for the charge which Dr Newman brings against
us. We have persecuted (he tells us) " whenever, wherever, and
however we could, from Elizabeth down to Victoria, from the
domestic circle up to the Legislature, from black looks to the
extremity of the gibbet and the stake." Now to this charge, we
cannot hesitate to reply, the moment we hear it, — nor do we feel
more hesitation after the most careful perusal of all the counts of
Dr Newman's indictment, — that it is so enormously exaggerated,
as to be utterly false ; and whatever speciousness it may gain in
his statement results from a series of fallacies.

In the first place the whole Lecture is pervaded by this fallacy,
that, while the legitimate comparison ought to be between our
Church and the Church of Rome, between the acts performed
in each by the ecclesiastical authorities, or by the civil authorities
under the direction or the influence of the ecclesiastical, the
main part of the charges brought against us are grounded on the
acts of private individuals, or of mobs in a state of ferment.
Much of this argument is as though a person were to assert
that all Englishmen talk the wildest nonsense, and are more
than half mad, and then tried to substantiate his assertion by a
record of conversations and actions in Bedlam and St Luke's.
When we say that the Church of Rome is a persecuting Church,
we mean that she is so by the acts of her rulers, by her prin-
ciples embodied in her institutions, such as the Inquisition, by
the acts of civil governments under her sanction and direction.
There is no fair analogy between such acts and those of the mob
in last November, or a father's casting off his son for going over
to Rome. This confounding of totally different acts will never
help us to form a correct judgement.

Dr Newman lays great stress on the treatment which persons
quitting our Church for that of Rome receive, children from
their parents, servants from their masters. " Protestants (he says,
p. 177) have felt it right, just, and necessary to break the holiest

NOTE s. 269

of earthly ties, and to inflict the acutest temporal suffering on
those who have exercised their private judgement in the choice of
a religion." This is a main proof and instance of the persecuting
spirit that animates us. He has unluckily omitted to give us
the opposite side of the picture, to contrast our cruelty with
the mild, gentle, loving treatment of those who quit the Church
of Rome, . the caresses of the rack, the embraces of the mdo da
fe. Nor does he say anything as to the principle by which
our conduct ought to be regulated in such a case. He merely
describes certain scenes of parents scolding their children some-
what roughly, and turning them out of doors, with other ex-
pressions of individual passion. If we withdraw these things,
which belong to peculiarities of temper, the gravamen of the
offense seems to lie in this, that parents and masters of fami-
lies deem it their duty to preserve their children and house-
holds from the influence of those who are likely to exert every
kind of influence in drawing them over to Rome. And is not
this their duty? Dr Newman is continually complaining that
we look at everything exclusively from our own point of view,
and will not conceive that any other can be taken by an
honest, reasonable man. Now surely he must admit that a
member of our Church may be honest and reasonable, and can-
did and tolerant to boot, and yet may feel that there are so
great evils in Romanism, — even though he confine himself to
those which Dr Newman pointed out in his Lectures fifteen
years ago, — that he may desire most earnestly to secure his
children and servants from being led into them. Surely such
a desire is no indication of a persecuting spirit. Persecution
is aggressive, attacks others, and is totally distinct from self-
defense and self-protection. Most painful will be the wrench
which the separation from an erring son will cause to the
father's heart ; and yet he may feel that it is a solemn duty
to endure it for the sake of his other children. This Dr
Newman leaves entirely out of sight. In his pictures of Pro-
testant parents, — which are laughable enough, and shew his emi-
nent talent for buffoonery, — he represents them as animated

270 NOTE s.

solely by wilfulness, and implies that they cannot have any
real principle, any reasonable conviction, to determine their con-
duct. Whereas, such is the wall of separation by which Rome
has cut herself off from all the rest of Christendom, that the
converts themselves, — as 1 have known happen in several cases,
and as has doubtless happened in many others, — at the very
time when they inform their parents of the change, have violently
snapt the holy ties of nature and natural affection.

Dr Newman complains that parents, who would have allowed
their children to join any form of sectarianism, cannot bear
that they should join the Church of Rome. But is not this
itself a proof that their conduct does not spring from a per-
secuting spirit, to which all modes of deviation from their own
opinion would be almost equally offensive 1 that there must be
something in Romanism, which renders its presence, in families
as well as in states, especially in times of excitement, danger-
ous and alarming 1 Nor need we go far to seek for this. Dr
Newman himself points it out, when, adopting an expression
of Hume's (p. 188), he speaks of its "zeal of proselytism." Dr
Newman indeed hails this expression exultingly : " we do sur-
pass in zeal every other religion, and have done so from the
first. But this surely ought to be no offense, but a praise."
We have been admonisht however that it is of no slight moment,
what is the nature of the cause in which zeal is shewn. Nor
did those predecessors of Rome, who compast sea and land to
make one proselyte, and made him twofold more the child of
hell, obtain a blessing, but a woe.

Now this zeal of proselytism renders a person a dangerous
inmate in a family. Dr Newman represents his proselytizer as
a man who " cherishes zeal, and deals the blows of reason and
argument," and speaks of him as highly to be commended. Yet
he who does this, who troubles the peace and calm of domestic life
by perpetually dealing about such blows, will be a pestilent
nuisance in a family, as Dr Newman himself would have been
the first to declare ten years ago, and as he would declare now,
were it not for the sake of his aro-ument. Not that we are afraid of

NOTE S. 271

" the blows of reason and argument," at their proper time and
place. With the strength of our good cause, and with God to
uphold it, I know not why we should dread the Goliath of Rome,
with his helmet of brass, and his logical coat of mail, and the spear
of his redoubtable rhetoric : we will not fear him even though
he bring all his brother giants along with him. Yet we will
not expose our women and children to them, or the simple mem-
bers of our flock. The spirit of a convert makes him eager
to win fresh converts. During his own change he will have
gained some sort of familiarity with controversial topics. Besides
there are other characteristics of Romanism, which make one
shrink from exposing a person to its polemics. Its unscrupulous-
ness is too notorious : so is its laxity with regard to truth,
especially in dealing with heretics, and when the soul of a brother
may be saved by the infusion of some drachms of falsehood into
the potion that is to heal him. How sadly too is the feeling of
personal responsibility paralysed by subjection to a ghostly coun-
sellor ! how does the conscience become deadened, when a priest
at any time may put his extinguisher upon it !

Our assailant then proceeds to more general indications of our
feelings toward the Church of Rome. He asks, whether we
would not close all their churches and chapels tomorrow, if we
could. Doubtless; most thankfully, if we could do it by legi-
timate means, by persuasion, through the power of the Spirit.
He says (p. 1 83) : " You know what an outcry is raised, because
the Roman Government does not sell or give ground to Pro-
testants to build a Protestant Church in the centre of Rome.
That Government hinders them there, because it is able; Pro-
testants do not hinder us here, because they are not able. Can
they, in the face of day, deny this ? " Rather may we ask, is
Dr Newman so shortsighted, so incapable of seeing anything but
the mere point he fixes his eyes on, that he cannot perceive how
this very contrast implies a wide difference between our Church
and theirs on this matter 1 For why are we not able to hinder
the Romanists from building Churches 1 except because our
Nation and Church has in this adopted the principles of an

272 NOTE s.

enlightened toleration ; while Rome sticks to her old rule of
suppressing and stifling every mode of opinion diverging from
her own. It is true, our laws and institutions, in this, as
in many other respects, are wiser than the great body of the
people. The selfwill, the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, the
various elements of the persecuting spirit, — which Rome took
up and embodied in her Inquisition, and still embodies in so
many laws and institutions, — have not been eradicated from the
hearts of Protestants. There is still too much of that spirit in
all of us : in many its bitterness and fierceness are such as can
hardly be surpast in the Church of Rome. Nay, perhaps it may
be bitterer and fiercer with us than in Romish countries ;
because, where freedom is greater, it is necessarily liable to
greater abuses; and religious controversies among Romanists
are mostly confined to a few, while in England nowadays one can
hardly find a family untroubled by them. Nevertheless that
Freedom is favorable, not only to energy and activity, but also
to peace and order, we have seen exemplified in the wonderful
blessings granted to England, while so many despotical states
have had to pass through such a series of convulsions. In like
manner, notwithstanding the occasional excesses of our mobs, the
principles of toleration are far better recognised in England, by
the English Church and Nation, than in any Romish country.
Dr Newman's own recent works are a proof of this. Before he
dares talk again of the tolerant spirit of Rome, and of the per-
secuting spirit of England, let him produce a book printed and
freely circulated at Rome, saying half as much evil of the Church
of Rome, as he says of that of England.

Yet I do not mean to deny the enormity of our offenses against
charity. Dr Newman himself had to endure their violence for
years, before he left us, far more than since. For our domestic
enemies, whether real or supposed, are those on whom we pour
out the worst vials of our wrath. In fact almost every month
furnishes some fresh proof that the evil spirit of religious hatred
and jealousy has not been extinguisht or tamed, but will start
up at every alarm as blind and rabid as ever. In the recent

NOTE S. 27,'}

anti-papal agitation these feelings were nggravated by the notion
which was entertained, not without reason, that the Papal Bull
was a wanton insult to the Crown and State of England. At
such a season one cannot expect that mobs will always be care-
ful not to overstep the bounds of decorum.

Of course Dr Newman makes the utmost of the laws against
the Papists in the reign of Elizabeth ; and he enforces his ar-
gument by some harrowing accounts of the cruelties committed
in the execution of those laws. For those cruelties I offer no
apology, except that they were wofully in accordance with the
whole spirit of the age, and that those who perpetrated them
were inceust by the various acts, whereby the Papacy had as-
sailed the English Crown and Commonwealth and Church. But
I know not well how to account for Dr Newman's having omitted
to state that these statutes were not enacted on religious grounds,
but on political. Nor can I understand how, though he must
have been aware of this, he could wind up his account of these
cruelties with asking (p. 209) : " What will the Protestants bring
against the Holy See comparable to atrocities sucli as these 1 Not
surely, with any fairness, the burnings in Queen Mary's reign, the
acts, as they were, of an English party, inflamed with revenge
against their enemies, and opposed by Cardinal Pole, the Pope's
Legate, as well as by the ecclesiastics of Spain." For few facts in
history can be more firmly establisht than that the martyrs in
Queen ]\Iary's time were put to death on account of their religious
opinions, — which is persecution, — by the Romish party in the
Church of England ; whereas Elizabeth, for the first twelve years
of her reign, acted in a wise spirit of toleration, desirin«^ to in-
clude all her subjects in the National Church. It was only after
the Bull of Pius V. excommunicating and anathematizing the
Queen, pretending to depose her, and to absolve her subjects from
their oath of allegiance, and anathematizing all who thence-
forward should obey her, that the Legislature, in consequence of
this lawless and wicked act, found it necessary to enact certain
penal statutes for the protection of the Government. Nor did
any one suffer the loss of life by these statutes for more than six

T

274 NOTE s.

years, until the insurrection in the North, Alva's cruel perse-
cutions in the Netherlands, and those of the Huguenots in France,
with the crowning crime of the massacre of St Bartholomew's,
shewed what a Protestant nation and government had to expect
from the Vicar of Satan and his subjects and tools. It is not to
be wondered at, however it may be deplored, that the officers of
justice, at such a time, should have exhibited too much of the
ferocity of human nature in dealing with persons who, by violating
the laws, incurred the suspicion of being parties to like crimes
in England, crimes which excited the more indignation from
being perpetrated under the mask of religion.

This important distinction was pointed out in the clearest
manner by Bramhall in his Just Vindication of the Church of
England (c. 3). " I have often wondered how any rational man
could make the severity of our laws, or the rigour of our princes,
since the Reformation, a motive to his revolt from our Church.
Surely the Inquisition was quite out of his mind. But I meddle
not with forein affairs. He might have considered that more Pro-
testants suffered death in the short reign of Queen Mary, men,
women, and children, than Roman Catholics in all the longer
reigns of all our princes since the Reformation put together, —
the former merely and immediately for religion, because they
would not be Roman Catholics, without any the least pretext of
the violation of any political law, — the latter not merely and im-
mediately for religion, because they were Roman Catholics. For
many known Roman Catholics in England have lived and died in
greater plenty and power and reputation in every prince's reign
since the Reformation, than an English Protestant could live
among the Irish Roman Catholics since their insurrection. If a
subject was taken at mass itself in England, which was very rare,
it was but a pecuniary mulct ; no stranger was ever questioned
about his religion. I may not here omit King James affirma-
tion, that no man in his reign, or in the reign of his predecessor,
Queen Elizabeth, did suffer death for conscience sake, or religion.
But they suffered for the violation of civil laws ; as either for
not acknowledging the political supremacy of the king in

NOTE s. 275

ecclesiastical causes over ecclesiastical persons, which is all that
we assert, which the Roman Catholics themselves in Henry the
Eighth's days did maintain as much, or perhaps more, than we ;
—or else for returning into the kingdom so qualified with for-
bidden orders, as the laws of the land do not allow (the state
of Venice doth not, the kingdom of France hath not, abhorred
from the like laws); or lastly, for attempting to seduce some of
the king's subjects from the religion establisht in the land. In
all these cases, besides religion there is something of election :
he that loves danger doth often perish in it. The truth is
this : a hard knot must have a heavy mall : dangerous and
bloody positions and practices produce severe laws. No king-
dom is destitute of necessary remedies for its own conservation.
If all were of my mind,— I could wish that all seditious opinions
and over-rigorous statutes, with the memory of them, were buried
together in perpetual oblivion, I hold him scarce a good Chris-
tian that would not cast on one spadefull of earth toward their
interment."

In his Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon, c. 3, § 4,
Bramhall states the reasons of these laws. " First let it be ob-
served that, after the secession of the English Church from the
Court of Rome, the succeeding Popes have for the most part
lookt upon England with a very ill eye. Witness that terrible
and unparalleled excommunication and interdiction of England
and deprivation of Henry VIII. Witness the bull of anathema-
tization and deprivation by Pius V. against Queen Elizabeth and
all her adherents, absolving all her subjects from their oaths of
allegiance. — Witness the Pope's negotiations with the English,
Spanish, French, and Portuguese, to have Queen Elizabeth
taken away by murder, and the frame of the government altered,
publlsht at Rome by Hieronymo Catena, secretary to Cardinal
Alexandrino in the time and with the privilege of Sixtus V.
Witness the Legantine authority given to Sanders, and the
hallowed banner sent with him and Allen, two Romish priests,
to countenance the Earl of Desmond in his rebellion, and the
phenix plume sent to Ter Owen, to encourage him likewise in

T 2

276 NOTE s.

his rebellion, and a plenary indulgence for him and all his
adherents and assistants, from Clement the Eighth. Lastly
witness the two briefs sent by the same Pope to exclude King
James from the inheritance of the crown of England, unless he
would take an oath to promote the Roman Catholic interest."

Bramhall proceeds to enumerate various other grounds which
constrained the Government to look upon the Romanists with
extreme suspicion. The Pope had sacrilegiously commanded
them to commit treason. They would not deny his right to
demand their obedience. Many of them were guilty of exciting
and fomenting treason and rebellion ; many took part therein.
Their brother Romanists on the Continent were perpetrating
acts of the basest perfidy, of the most atrocious cruelty, for the
extermination of the Protestants, with the approbation and
applause of the Popes. In such a state of things it is not to be
wondered at if the people of England felt abhorrence for those
whom they had cause to regard as the agents and instruments
of similar crimes, or if the Legislature deemed it their duty
forcibly to suppress the system which encouraged them, and
endangered the life of the Queen and the very existence of the
State. During such an internecine war, the enemy's spies cannot
expect much mercy. At all events these penal statutes were
not religious, but political. Men were not punisht for their
opinions, but as the servants and tools of the deadly foe of
England, who was abusing his spiritual powers to overthrow and
enslave her.

Were it not for the many instances we have seen of Dr
Newman's Circean talent for metamorphosing historical facts,
we should feel some astonishment that, in the passage where he
details the cruelties inflicted on certain Romanists in the reign
of her whom he calls " bloody Elizabeth," he speaks of them
solely as examples of the persecuting spirit of Protestants,
without the slightest intimation of the political grounds, which
indeed were the only ones, of those punishments ; while on the
other hand he pleads that " the burnings in Queen Mary's reign"
were "the acts of an English party inflamed with revenge

NOTE S. 277

agaiust their enemies, and opposed by Cardinal Pole, the Pope's
Legate, as well as by the ecclesiastics of Spain." To wit :
Elizabeth is called "bloody" because for twelve years she
earnestly tried to conciliate the Romanist portion of her subjects,
and did not take any penal measures against them, until she
was compelled to do so by the fierce war waged against her by
the Pope. " The English party " was the whole body of the
English Romanists with the Queen and the chief Bishops at
their head. Cardinal Pole, one of the wisest and best men of
the age, did indeed advocate a sounder policy, as he had done
previously at Trent : but, as at Trent he incurred suspicions of
entertaining opinions too favorable to the Protestants on the
great doctrinal questions there agitated, and was forced by these
suspicions to quit the Council, so in England his milder policy
was condemned by the Pope, who sent another legate to supersede
him.. As to "the Spanish ecclesiastics," if their opposition to
the Marian persecutions is to be regarded as a proof that there
were some among the Spanish clergy who had discovered that
the flames of an aiUo da fe are not of the same kind as the
flames which descended on the day of Pentecost, the general
conduct of the Spanish Church and Government during the
reign of Philip the Second shews that this conviction was con-
fined to a very few.*

But Dr Newman's boldness increases : vires acquirit eundo.
Not content with proving Protestantism to be the main, if not

* Southey's statement of this question, in his Booh of the Church (c xv), is
incontrovertible. After spealcing of Pius the Fifth's Bull of excommunication and
deposition, he adds: " Hitherto the conduct of Elizabetli's government toward the
Romanists had been tolerant and conciliatory, in accord with her own feelings,
and with those of her statesmen and prelates. — Severer statutes were now made
necessary. It was made treasonable to deny that Elizabeth was the lawful soverein,
— to affirm that she was a heretic, schismatic, or infidel, — and to procure or intro-
duce bulls or briefs from the Pope. Still the Government continued its forbear-
ance, till it was compelled, by the duty of self-preservation, to regard its
Papistical subjects with suspicion, and treat them with severity. — Against the
propagandists of such doctrine as was contained in the Bull of Pius V. and
inculcated in the seminaries, Elizabeth was compelled, for self-preservation, to
proceed severely. They v/ere sought for and executed, not for believing in tran-
substantiation, nor for performing mass, but for teaching that the Queen of

278 NOTE S.

the sole, principle of persecution in England, he thinks he may
as well prove it to be the same over the whole world. And
verily, according to his mode of reasoning, the proof does not
take much trouble. Protestantism, he says (p. 209), has " ever
shewn itself a persecuting power. It has persecuted in England,
in Scotland, in Ireland, in Holland, in France, in Germany, in
Geneva." To be sure ! did not the Dutch burn Alva and his
army in the Netherlands 1 did not the Huguenots massacre
Charles the Ninth, and Catherine de Medici, and every Roman
Catholic in Paris, on the famous night of St Bartholomew 1 Dr
Newman is over-indulgent in selecting his poor, paltry examples
of insulated acts of individuals, when, without much greater
cost of truth, he might have brought forward such grand ones.
He merely tells us, that " Calvin burnt a Socinian, Cranmer
an Anabaptist, Luther advised the wholesale murder of the
fanatical peasants, and Knox was party to bloody enactments
and bloody deeds." It was said of old that one swallow does
not make the spring : but, according to our Neo-catholic logic,
one act of persecution is enough to brand a whole Church, and
that too even though this act be no act of persecution at all.
I will not discuss the question as to the degree of Calvin's
complicity in the execution of Servetus : at all events his act,
and Cranmer's, was one which the whole spirit of the age de-
manded, and which the mildest men approved, and only indi-
cates that all must more or less be under the contagion of that
spirit. As to the assertion about Luther, it exhibits the same
strange ignorance of what Luther was and did, which I have had
to remark in Dr Newman on former occasions. Whatever judge-
ment we may form on Luther's writings during the Peasants
War, the offenses of the peasants did not lie in their opinions,
in their faith ; which are the objects of persecution. They were

England ought to be deposed, that it was lawful to kill her, and that all
Popish subjects who obeyed her commands were cut oif from the communion
of their Church for so doing." The same questions are discust with great
clearness and impartiality by Bishop Short in his History of the Church of
Enc/land, §§. 437—445.

NOTE s. 279

committing the most outrageous crimes, burning, pillaging, mur-
dering : thej had risen in open insurrection against the laws and
the government, and thus rightfully incurred civil punishment.
But Dr Newman has been picking up one of those innumerable
fabulous traditions, which are the main stay of the Romish
hatred of Protestants.

Were, it not for this blinding prejudice, he might have
remembered that there were other acts in Germany, in Flanders,
in France, which to vulgar eyes look more like persecution,
and bear more of the character of proceeding from a nation or
a Church. In Germany, it is calculated that thirty thousand
Protestants were put to death before the year 1560. In the
Netherlands, the Duke of Alva boasted that in six years he had
put eighteen thousand persons to death by the hands of the
executioner : Grotius, in his time, estimates the number of
victims at a hundred thousand. In France, the Church recruited
her strength by the massacre of fifty thousand Huguenots; for
which massacre Pope Gregory the Thirteenth went in proces-
sion to St Mark's to return thanks to Almighty God.* These

* Strype, in his Life of Parker (Append. Ixviii), gives the French version of
the Pope's Bull, enjoining a jubilee " pour I'heureux succes du Roi Treschrestien
contre les heretiques," as well as for the preservation of Flanders, and the
victory over the Turks. " Notre Sainct Pere le Pape Gregoire treziesme, —
prenant peine, par la grace de Dieu, de veiller sui- le troupeau des ouailles de
Jesu Christ, — ayant este bien adverty que nostre Seigneur Dieu, qui maine le
cceur des roys et des princes comme bon luy semble, a magnifie sagrande misericorde
envers son Eglise par ce qu'il a excite son tres cher fils en Jesu Christ Charles
neutiesme Treschrestien Roy de France a venger les injures et outraiges faictz a
Dieu et a son Eglise Catholique par les heretiques appellez Huguenoz, et a punir
les chefs principaux des rebelles, qui ces annees passees, d'une rnige sanglante et
implacable, par meurdres, voleries, sacrileges, et ravaiges, ont trouble, pill4, et
degaste ce tres tlorissaut royaulme de France. — Pour cette occasion lui accompai'm^
du college de tons Messieurs les Cardinaux en I'Eglise de S. Marc a Rome de la
plus grande devotion qui luy a este possible a rendu action de graces a Dieu le
Create ur pour ceste grande misericorde envers son Eglise, le priant de donner
grace et vertu audict Roy Treschrestien de poursuivre une tant salutaire et
heureuso entreprise, et repurger son royaume jadis tant religieux et catholicque
entre toutes nations, de toutes heuresies, et y remectre et restituer la religion
Catholique en son integrite et splendour encienne,"— wherefore he appoints a
jubilee, that all Christians may give thanks to God for the happy success of the

280 NOTE s.

wholesale massacres however, — and a score of similar ones might
be enumerated, — are among the proofs, I suppose, that, as Dr
Newman says (p. 212), "for one deed of severity with which
the Church [of Rome] can be charged, there have been a hundred
of her acts repressive of the persecutor, and protective of his
victims ;" and that " she has been a never-failing fount of
humanity, equity, forbearance, and compassion." To kill one
man makes a murderer ; to kill a million, they say, makes a
hero. This is the scale on which we are henceforward to deter-
mine the difference between an ever-persecuting Church, and one
that is a never failing fount of humanity, equity, forbearance, and
compassion. Alas for those who have to drink of that fount ! It

most Christian King against the said heretics and rebels, and may pray to God
to grant the King virtue and the means entirely to perfect the work which through
God's grace he has so happily commenced.

To bring out the full contrast between this " never failing fount of humanity,
equity, forbearance, and compassion," and the "ever-persecuting Protestants,"
I will add an extract from the prayers which were appointed to be offered up
by our Church on hearing of the massacre of the Huguenots. " O Lord our
God, and Heavenly Father, look down, we beseech Thee, with Thy Fatherly
and Merciful Countenance, upon us, Thy people and poor humble servants,
and upon all such Christians as are anyAvhere persecuted and sore afflicted for
the true acknowledging of Thee to be our God, and Thy Son Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent, to be the Only Saviour of the world. Save them, 0
merciful Lord, who are as sheep appointed to the slaughter, and by hearty
prayers do call and cry to Thee for Thy help and defense : hear their cry, 0
Lord, and our praj'ers for them and for ourselves. Deliver those that be oppressed ;
defend those that be in fear of cruelty ; relieve them that be in misery ; and
comfort all that be in sorrow and heaviness ; that by thy aid and strength
they and we may obtain surety from our enemies, without shedding of Christian
and innocent blood. And for that, () Lord, Thou hast commanded us to pray for
our enemies, we do beseech Thee not only to abate their pride, and to stay the
cruelty and fury of such as either of malice or ignorance do persecute them that
put their trust in Thee and hate us, but also to mollify their hard hearts, to open
their blind eyes, and to enlighten their ignorant minds, that* they may see and
understand, and truly turn to Thee, and embrace that holy word, and unfeignedly
Ije converted to Thy Son Jesus Christ, the Only Saviour of the world, and believe
and love His Gospel, and so eternally be saved." (Strype's Parker, iv. c. II).

We may stake the whole question on the contrast between the Papal Bull,
which calls on all people to pray for the destruction of their supposed enemies, and
the Protestant prayer for their conversion and salvation. It will not be difficult
to perceive wliich lias most of the Spirit of Chrii^t.

NOTE S. ggl

would have been happy for them had they never been born. The
truth is, that, in this as in other respects, whatever good the
Church of Rome has effected, has been effected by the spirit of
Christianity, by the Spirit of God working in the Church, which
the system of Popery has not wholly quencht and extinguisht,
deplorably as it has hindered that Spirit, and perverted its
operations.

I am not purposing to assert that Protestants generally, or
that our own Church, are exempt from the guilt of religious
persecution. The spirit, from which even the familiar intercourse
with the Saviour could not deliver the sons of Zebedee, can-
not be expelled from the heart of man by the clearest intellec-
tual conviction of the evils of persecution. The English Church
has persecuted, alas! lamentably, unjustifiably, inexcusably;
but this spirit has been evinced more in her conduct to the
various Nonconformist sects, than to the Romanists : nor has
Nonconformity availed to suppress it. Even now hardly a month
passes without some fresh eruption, or at least ebullition of it.
But when Dr Newman charges us with the inconsistency that,
while we boast of our toleration, we indulge in all modes of
persecution, there seems to be some confusion in his view. The
chief advocates and wisest upholders of religious liberty amongst
us, from the author of the Liberty of Prophesying downward, are
in the main a distinct body from those who pamper their own
pride and selfwill by persecuting their brethren on account of
their religious opinions. The reverence for the liberty of the
conscience is of slow growth in any heart, of still slower in a
nation ; though doubtless, as it gains in public estimation, many
will profess it, who are totally devoid of it.

Dr Newman however has had the good luck to discover that
there is one spot upon earth where a reverence for the liberty of
conscience is a native growth, one heart in which it has always
been inherent : and it is the very last place, the very last heart,
in which one should have lookt for it,— at Rome, in the Pope.
To the Pope has the glorious privilege been granted of transmitting
the sacred principle of toleration from age to age. Nor has he

282 NOTE s.

ever hid his light under a bushel : that which was whispered
into his ear, he has proclaimed from the housetops. Such is the
new fashion of ecclesiastical history, which the fathers of the
Oratory are to teach us. The Popes are the highpriests of
religious liberty ; and Satan is the angel of light. " Doubtless
(Dr Newman admits, p. 203), in the long course of eighteen
hundred years, there are events which need explanation, or
which the world might wish otherwise : but the general tenour
and tendency of the traditions of the Papacy have been mercy
and humanfty. It has ever been less fierce than the nations, and
in advance of the age : it has ever moderated, not only the
ferocity of barbarians, but the fanaticism of Catholic populations."
Thus, for instance, was Cardinal Campeggio "repressive of
the persecutor and protective of his victims," when, being sent
by Clement VII to the Diet of Augsburg, he represented to the
Emperor, that " if there be some persons, which God forbid,
who obstinately persevere in this diabolical way, your Majesty
may make use of fire and the sword to extirpate this venomous
plant by the root." Thus did the Papacy " moderate, not only
the ferocity of barbarians, but the fanaticism of Catholic popu-
lations," when Pius the Fifth, on sending a body of troops to
assist the French Catholics against the Huguenots, gave their
commander. Count Santatiore, a special charge "not to take
any Huguenot prisoner, but to kill every one immediately who
fell into his hands." In a like spirit, it must of course have
been to reward Alva for his exceeding lenity in the Netherlands,
that Pius sent him a consecrated hat and sword.* And was it

* Mr Mendham, in his Life of Pius the Fifth (pp. 65 — 69), gives some extracts
from his Letters to Charles IX. to Catherine de Medici, and to the Duke of
Anjou, written in the first years of the wars against the Huguenots. They shew
how exemplarily he followed out "the general tenour and tendency of the traditions
of the Papacy toward mercy and humanity," with what gentle wisdom he "mode-
rated the fanaticism of Catholic populations." To the King, on occasion of the
battle of Jarnac, he writes : " Quanto benignius tecum nobiscumque egit Deus,
tanto diligentius hujus occasione victoriae enitendum est tibi, ut eorum qui
restant hostiuni reliquias persequaris atque conficias, omnes tanti tamque corroborati
mali radices, atque etiam radicum libras, funditus evellas. — Hoc autem facias, si

NOTE S.

28i3

not to inculcate loyalty, and a reverence for the sanctity of
oaths, that he absolved the subjects of Queen Elizabeth from
their allegiance, and commanded them not to obey her under
pain of his anathema ? So true too is it that " the general
tenour and tendency of the traditions of the Papacy have been
mercy and humanity," that Gregory XIII seized the torch of
love which Pius V had clencht in his dying hand, and endea-
voured for years to instigate France and Spain to invade England,
and afford an occasion for the English Romanists to display
their loyalty. Nor did the genius of Sixtus V discover any
better mode of manifesting his mercy and humanity, than that
which God confounded by the destruction of the Armada.

nullarum personarum rerumque humanarum respectus te in earn mentem adducere
poterit, ut Dei hostibus parcas, qui Deo neque tibi unquam pepercerunt. Non
enim aliter Deura placare potcris quam si Dei injurias sceleratissimorum hominum
debita poena severissime ukiscaris." He then reminds Charles how Saul forfeited
his kingdom by sparing Agag. — Again, in another letter soon after, he repeats
the same benign exhortations. '' Si — ea de quibus Deus oifenditur insectari
atque ulcisci distuleris, certe ad irascendum ejus patientiam provocabis ; qui quo
tecum egit benignius, eo debes acrius illius injurias vindicare. Qua in re, nullius
preces admitterc, nihil cujusquam sanguini et propinquitati concedere, sed om-
nibus qui pro scelestissimis hominibus rogare audent, inexorabilem te praebere
oportet." To the Queen Mother he writes : " NuUo modo, nullisque de causis
hostibus Dei parcendum est : sed severe cum illis agendum, qui neque Deo neque
filiis tuis unquanr pepercerunt. Neque enim aliter Deus placari potest, nisi ipsius
injurias justa ultione vindicaveris. — Qua de re eo studiosius — cum mnjestate tua
agendum esse existimaviraus, quod dari operam istic ab aliquibus audimus, ut ex
eorum haereticorum qui capti sunt numero quidam liberentur, inultique abeant :
quod ne fiat, atque homines sceleratissimi justis afficiantur suppliciis, curare te
omni studio atque industria oportet." The Duke of Anjou he admonishes in the
same strain. " Nihil in ea re indulgentia peccetur. — Nam si, in tot tantisque
Dei oranipotentis offensis inultis omittendis, aliquid aut indulgendo, aut con-
nivendo vel negligendo peccaretur, periculum esset ne, quemadmodura adversus
Saiilcm, pro simili Amalecitarum justa animadversione ab eo omissa, sic ad-
versus Christianissimum Rcgem, fratrem tuum, teque ipsum etiam, eo gravius
ira Dei exardesceret, quo benignius atque clementius ad banc usque diem
cum utrisque vcstrum divina sua bonitas egisset." When the Highpriest of
Moloch, installed in the Vatican, kept on pouring such bloodthirsty blasphemies
into the ears of his credulous worshipers, it is not to be wondered at that the
fruit of these exhortations sprang up ere long iii the general massacre of the
Huguenots : and surely a large share in the guilt of that massacre falls on the
pontiif who thus inflamed the perpetraters of it, or at least on the atrocious
system which produced and fashioned him.

284 NOTE s.

I must add a few words with regard to what Dr Newman says
about the Inquisition (p. 201), " in proof of the utterly false view
which Protestants take of it, and of the Holy See in connexion
with it." He quotes Balmez, as asserting " that the Roman Inqui-
sition has never been known to pronounce the execution of capi-
tal punishment, although the Apostolic See has been occupied,
during that time, by Popes of extreme rigour and severity in all
that relates to the civil administration." He then tells us that
the " Spanish Inquisition, which really was bloody, is confest by
great Protestant authorities, such as Ranke and Guizot, to have
been a political, not an ecclesiastical institution. The Protestant
Ranke distinctly maintains that it was even set up against the
Pope and the Church." Now I have not seen the work of
Balmez, and so can only judge of him by Dr Newman's extracts;
from which he would appear to have just such a respect for
historical truth as one may look for in a champion of the
Papacy. The extract does not make it clear what is the period
during which he asserts that the Roman Inquisition has never
been known to pronounce the execution of capital punishment:
but Dr Newman himself observes, that he is "rather surprised
that this is stated so unrestrictedly," adding however, that " the
fact is substantially as stated, even though there were some
exceptions to the rule."

Dr Newman's quotation from " the Protestant Ranke " seems
to have been taken from the Dublin Revieiv. He does not give
a reference to the passage ; nor have I lighted upon it : but
as the Protestant Ranke truly deserves that honorable name
from his unswerving, indefatigable love of truth, I will give
some of his statements concerning the Roman Inquisition, to
shew the accuracy of that cited from the Romanist Balmez. He
speaks on the subject in one of the latter sections of his Second
Book.

Soon after the Conference at Ratisbon, Clement VII one day
askt Cardinal Caraffa (who was afterward Pope Paul IV), what
was to be done, to check the increase of heresy. Caraffa answered
that an energetic Inquisition was the only method. Cardinal

NOTE s. 285

Burgos concurred with him. The old Dominican Inquisition
had long before fallen into decay. The monks had been allowed
to choose the inquisitors ; and it happened at times that they
held the opinions which were to be supprest. In Spain the
original form was abandoned by the appointment of a supreme
tribunal for that country. Caraffa and Burgos, both of them
old Dominicans, gloomy zealots for pure Catholicism, severe in
their own lives, inflexible in their opinions, advised the Pope to
erect a supreme tribunal of tlie Inquisition at Rome, on which
all others Avere to depend, after the model of the Spanish. The
Bull was issued in 1542. It appointed six Cardinals to be
general Inquisitors in matters of faith within and beyond the
Alps. Everybody was to be subject to them. They were to
imprison the suspected, to punish the guilty with loss of life
and property. Caraffa lost no time in carrying this into effect.
He took a house, out of his own means, fitted up the chambers
and the prisons with bolts and locks, with blocks, chains, and
bonds, and all that terrible furniture. Then he appointed general
commissioners for different countries. The first at Rome was
Teofilo di Tropea, of whose severity even cardinals, for instance
Pole, had to complain.

Caraffa laid down the following rules : first, " that in matters
of faith one must not delay a moment, but proceed immediately
on the slightest suspicion of the heretical plague, and use all
force and violence to extirpate it: — next, to pay no regard to
any prince or prelate, however high he might stand: — thirdly,
to proceed with more severity against those who tried to shelter
themselves under the protection of any soverein, and that none
should be treated with mildness and fatherly mercy, except such
as confest their errour: — fourthly, that they inust not disgrace
themselves by any toleration toward heretics, especially Cal-
vinists." Such are the rules laid down by that Church which
is "a never-fiiiling fount of humanity, equity, forbearance, and
compassion." The Protestant Ranke's remarks do not exactly
coincide with this. " Everything here (he says) is severity,
uncompromising, absolute severity, until a confession has been

286 NOTE s.

obtained. Terrible was this, especially at a moment when
opinions were not yet fully developt, when many were seeking to
reconcile the deeper doctrines of Christianity with the institutions
of the existing Church. The weak gave way and submitted :
the stronger-minded were driven into embracing the opposite
opinions, and tried to withdraw from the reach of the Papal
power."

Ochino left Italy. So did Pietro Martyre, Celio Secundo
Curione, Filippo Valentino, and Castelvetri. For persecution
and terrour spread throughout Italy. It is scarcely 2^ossible, said
Antonio dei Pagliarici, to he a Christian, and to die in one's bed.
The Academies at Modena and Naples were dissolved. The
whole of literature was subjected to the severest inspection. In
1543 Caraffa ordered that no book, ancient or modern, on what-
ever subject, should be publisht without the permit of the Inqui-
sition. By degrees they came to the Indices Lihrorum Prohibi-
torurn, of which the earliest in the present form appeared at Rome
in 1559. This rule was enforced with incredible strictness.
"Thus the stirrings of diverging religious opinions in Italy
were forcibly stifled and destroyed. Almost the whole order
of Franciscans was compelled to retract. The chief part of the
followers of Valdez consented to recant. At Venice a degree of
liberty was allowed to strangers, to Germans, who were living
there for the sake of trade or of study : the natives on the
contrary were compelled to abjure their opinions ; their asso-
ciations were destroyed. Many fled : in all the towns of Germany
and Switzerland we meet with these fugitives. Those who
would not yield, and could not escape, were punisht. At Venice
they were sent in two boats out of the lagunes into the sea. A
plank was laid between the boats ; they who had been condemned
were placed on it : at the same moment the boats rowed away
from each other: the plank fell into the sea: once more the un-
fortunates called on the name of Christ, and sank. At Eome the
antos da fe were celebrated before San Maria alia Minerva in due
form. Many persons fled from place to place with their wives and
children. We can follow them for a while ; then they disappear:

NOTE s. 287

probably they fell into the nets of their merciless pursuers"
(Book, ii, pp. 205-213). Such was the conduct of that Church
which " has been a never-failing fount of humanity, equity,
forbearance, and compassion." 0 how long shall these impos-
tures circulate amongst us? Is the Father of lies about to
regain his empire over the world 1 These men had committed
no crime against the laws : they were arraigned for no moral
guilt : they were merely charged with holding opinions at
variance with those enjoined by the rulers of the Church : and
this was their treatment. Never was there a more complete
illustration of the truth, that the tender mercies of the wicked
are cruel.

We may make out from this statement how it came to pass
that the executions for heresy at Rome have not been numerous.
It is true, the Papal Government has not been bloody during the
last two centuries. Indeed it has become a prominent feature of
the later Italian character, to abhor shedding bloody at least one's
own blood, or running the risk of shedding it, whether in poli-
tical conflicts, or in moral and religious : although that this is
no sign of any improvement in humanity, is proved by the fre-
quency of assassinations. Moreover the policy of the Conclave,
and that of the forein Governments that have exercised influence
in it, has generally tended to the election of a mild Pope, and
has shrunk from men of energy and vehemence. Nor has there
been provocation to violent measures. A people that recoils
from hazarding its life in battle, will not be over-ready to hazard
it at the stake. Nay, why should it ? how could it have such a
spirit, when Truth was not a Divine reality, to be recognised by
the Reason, and enshrined in the Conscience, but was fabricated
by the word of a mere man. Thus Galileo's recantation became
a national act. What mattered it Avhat one said ? when one
might shrug up one's shoulders, and mutter aside, E pur si
muove. But when the main stem of a man's mind has been cut
off, it will not grow again. Hence the moral and spiritual life
of the nation was stunted and dwarft from the cradle upward;
and when this is so, the intellectual life must partake in the

288 NOTE s.

degradation. Above all has this been the case at Rome, as was
set before us two years ago in the deeply interesting essay on
Leopardi in the Quarterly Review, ascribed with evident justice
to the accomplisht translator of Farini. Hereby pettiness has
become the characteristic of the countrymen of Michael Angelo
and Dante. This is one of the precious boons conferred on
Italy by the Papacy. Freedom of thought has been crusht,
though with no diminution of licentiousness. False as the as-
sertion is, that " the Popes, armed with a tribunal of intolerance,
have not spilt a drop of blood," whatever semblance of truth
there is in it, arises from their having drained all the blood from
the hearts and souls of the Roman people, whose authors now
write little beyond dissertations, sometimes ingenious ones, on
petty archeological questions, — even on such matters scarcely
venturing beyond details, — or folio volumes on the history of
some church. Whatever might bring an author into the clutches
of the Inquisition is carefully eschewed. How the effects of this
jealousy cramp every branch of knowledge, appears from what
the editor of Leopardi says, " that in Italy it would be almost
hopeless to find a printer for a Greek book, and quite impossible
to find five readers for it."

That the assertion of Balmez is untrue, unless it be limited
very narrowly, would be proved by the history of Giordano
Bruno, who, if his mighty intellect had not been driven awry
by growing up under the blighting shadow of Popery, might
have been one of the greatest of philosophers, and who was burnt
at Rome in the year IGOO, when his murder was celebrated with
frantic yells of exultation by the genuine Papist Scioppius. But
I will add a few more facts taken out of Ranke. When CarafFa
became Pope Paul the Fourth, he was naturally zealous in
supporting the Inquisition. He insisted on its being conducted
with the utmost severity. He subjected new offenses to it : he
gave it the cruel right of using the torture for the sake of dis-
covering complices : cardinals, such as Morone and Foscarari,
who had previously been employed in examining the contents
of important books, he threw into prison, because he had

NOTE s. 289

conceived doubts of their orthodoxy. He imprisoned, excommu-
nicated, and held autos da fh. The people were so incenst by
his severity, that, on his death, they pillaged th^ buildings of
the Inquisition, and then set fire to them.

Pius the Fifth, who had himself been a zealous inquisitor,
was not content with making the Inquisition punish recent
offenses; he ordered that they should enquire into those com-
mitted ten or twenty years before. Carnesecchi was given up
to him by the Duke of Florence, thrown into the dungeon of the
Inquisition, and died at the stake. Guido Zanetti was given up
to him by the Venetians. Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, the
first ecclesiastic in Spain, who had been a member of the Council
of Trent, and who was Pole's chief assistant in establishing
Catholicism in England under Queen Mary, could not escape the
Inquisition. " I have never had any other view," he said, " than
to fight against heresy. God has helpt me in this matter. I
myself have converted many heretics. I have had the bodies of
some dug up and burnt. Catholics and Protestants have called
me the chief defender of the faith." But this thoroughly Catholic
declaration did not avail him against the Inquisition. Sixteen
articles were found in his works, in which he seemed to approach
to the opinions of the Protestants, especially in regard to justi-
fication. After he had been imprisoned a long time in Spain,
he was brought to Rome and condemned.*

It is true, the Roman Inquisition never attained to the un-
utterable atrocities of the Spanish. Dr Newman, following Balmez
and other Roman apologists, pleads that the guilt of the latter
falls solely on the civil Government, and not on the Popes, who at
times tried to check its violence. Yet assuredly the acts of the
Spanish Inquisition were those of the Spanish Church : and
though a Pope of a milder disposition may now and then have

* A fuller account of the crimes of the Inquisition at Rome and throughout
Italy may be found in M'Crie's History of the Progress a7id Suppresdon of the
Reformation in Italy, especially in the fifth Chapter ; where we see that, if the
Inquisition slied little blood at Rome in later years, it was because the spirit
of the Reformation had been extinguisht bj' the destruction or expulsion of all
who held opinions favorable to it.

V

290 NOTE S.

been shockt by its enormous cruelties, the Papal system, the
system of the Romish Church, at all events, is justly answerable
for them. This argument is well put by Southey in his Letters
to Butler ; and as Southey's veracity and accuracy are equal to
his immense learning, which on matters concerning the Spanish
Peninsula is almost unrivaled, I will quote a few sentences from
that work on the subject.

"There is proof (he says, p. 418) that the Popes themselves,
with few exceptions, thought this mode of dealing with the Jews
unnecessary ; for they did not pursue the same course in their
own dominions. There is evidence even that one of them thought
it impolitic, at least, if not inhuman. But they never interposed
to prevent it. We know from the most moderate calculations,
founded upon authentic papers and sure data, that in Spain alone,
from the year 1481 to 1808, more than 30,000 persons had been
burnt by this tribunal, more than 17,000 burnt in effigy, more
than 290,000 condemned to punishments short of death, but
which involved utter ruin, and entailed perpetual infamy upon their
families. — The Inquisition in Portugal was equally alert in the
same Catholic pursuit. In the latter kingdom there were kings
who would gladly have put a stop to these horrors, one especially,
Joam IV. But the Clergy and the friars were too powerful.
There was a Jesuit living at that same time, who possest and
deserved the friendship of that king, a man whose single virtues
might almost redeem his order, whose single genius might alone
ennoble his country, if it had no other boast : it is of Vieyra
that I am speaking ; and for exerting himself in behalf of the
New Christians, he was brought under the power of the Inquisi-
tion himself. Some fantastic notions connected with Sebastianism
afforded a pretext ; but this was the cause. — The Popes might at
any time have stopt this wickedness. At any time they might
have put an end to the enormous evil, the unutterable cruelties,
the incalculable sum of human sufferings, sufferings whereof the
rack and the stake are the least part, which the Holy Office was
producing. If any misunderstanding or dispute arose concerning
the asserted privileges of the Papacy, the Popes were ready to

NOTE S. 291

exert their power without delay. But when humanity was thus
outraged, when religion was thus blasphemed and injured, when
Christianity was thus perverted and made an object of hatred and
horrour, they were silent : not a whisper of disapprobation was
heard from the Vatican, which was wont to express its displeasure
in thunder ; not a breath came from the brazen Bulls, which had
breathed fire against the Waldenses, the Lollards, and the Protes-
tants. The Popes acquiesced in these things ; they suffered them
to be done, to be approved, to be applauded, as the triumphs
of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic faith ; they allowed
the pictures of the victims in their san henitos, which had been
displayed as part of the pageantry while those victims were in the
flames, to be suspended as ornaments and trophies in the Churches.
Year after year, and generation after generation, the Inquisition
immured its victims in solitary dungeons, stretcht them on the
rack, consumed them at the stake for a holiday spectacle, — for
horrible as it may seem, an auto-da-fe was considered as a fes-
tival,— and scattered their ashes upon the winds and waters. — The
Popes could have prevented these things ; but they permitted
them : a large portion of the guilt therefore is upon their heads ;
and the infamy is upon that Church, that Roman Catholic
Church, whose principles made persecution a duty, — that Roman
Catholic Church, which, till this hour, has neither retracted the
principle, nor exprest its contrition for the practice."*

After reading such accounts as these, the correctness of which
is indisputable, if we turn to De Maistre's Letters on the InqiH-
sition, we can hardly help thinking that he must be mocking us,
when he professes (p. 67), " pour nous faire connoitre les procedes
de rinquisition," to cite a couple of stories from Townsend's Travels
in Spain, as instances of these proceedings. One of them is of a

* This was publisht in 1826. Southey had ah'eady written an exceedingly
interesting account of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition fifteen years before
in the twelfth number of tlie Qimrterly Revieio. — It is to be hoped that we may
soon have a collection, or at least a copious selection, of Southey's contributions
to our Periodical Literature. It would contain a most valuable mass of solid,
well-digested information, in a style which gives grace to whatever it touches,
and in a spirit which delights in bringing out every form of human virtue.

u 2

292 NOTE s.

beggar, who for administering philtres was condemned to be led
through the streets of Madrid on an ass, and to be flogged, the
latter part of which punishment was remitted. — This is gravely
represented as a sample of the proceedings of the Inquisition. Can
De Maistre then have been the one man of education in Europe
ignorant of the truth in this matter 1 or did he too surrender his
conscience to the maxim that any amount of misrepresentation is
justifiable to serve the interests of the Church 1

Nor is the rest of these Letters of greater value. He does not
scruple to say (p. 6) : " L'Inquisition est, de sa nature, bonne,
douce, et conservatrice : c'est le caractere universel et ineiFa9able
de toute institution ecclesiastique. Vous le voyez a Rome; et
vous le verrez par tout ou I'Eglise commandera. Mais si la puis-
sance civile, adoptant cette institution, juge a propos, pour sa
propre surete, de la rendre plus severe, I'Eglise n'en repond plus."
Does our apologist really mean that a tribunal may pronounce a
sentence, which in 30,000 cases is followed by the punishment of
death, and yet may plead that it has not pronounced the sentence
of death 1 that it has only given over the culprit to the secular
arm 1 Surely the hypocrisy of such a pretense would render
the act still more hateful. What could be baser, more disgrace-
ful to the Church, than such a subserviency to the cruelty of the
secular government 1 This however is one of the pervading evils
of Popery, that it renders persons ready to shift their own indi-
vidual responsibility on their neighbours, so that they care not
what they spend, if others are to be the paymasters.

No less contrary to all sound principle is De Maistre's decla-
ration (p. 48), that it does not matter what a law is, provided it
be executed without respect of persons, — that a soverein has
a right to impose any punishment he pleases, while nobody is
entitled to ask him why he does so, — and that, if death be in-
flicted on any one for opposing the religion of a country, " per-
sonne ne doit plaiudre le coupable qui aura merite ces peines; et
lui-meme n'a pas droit de se plaindre: car il y avoit pour lui
un moyen bien simple de les eviter, celui de se taire." Such
maxims would justify the most atrocious tyranny, the extreme

NOTE s. 293

of persecution. We know a man who felt that it was zvoe to him
if he did not preach the Go&pel. Many others have had a like
feeling. They cannot avail themselves of De Maistre's shift to
escape death, " celui de se taire :" nor would he himself have done
so : nor did he, when he felt that necessity in a time of danger.
They must speak,— as he himself did. If in speaking they com-
mit a civil wrong, they may of course be punisht. But a positive
law is not necessarily just : it is contrary to the principles of
justice, if it renders that which is meritorious, or merely innocent
in itself, illegal by a positive enactment. The principles here
advocated by De Maistre would have extinguisht Christianity in
its cradle. Herod would have given thanks for them. There
seems also to be a confusion in what he says about the irre-
sponsibility of the supreme power. Its subjects cannot call it to
account, except by a revolutionary earthquake. Nor is there
any tribunal at present, by which Christendom can take cogni-
sance of crimes committed by sovereins against the primary laws
of social morality. But surely the moral reason of mankind, and
history are justified in condemning them; and there is no wisdom
in desiring to suppress or check these judicial voices.

The most extraordinary argument however in apology for the
Inquisition is that exprest in these words (p. 89) : " Voyez la
guerre de trente ans allumee par les argumens de Luther, les
exces inouis des Anabaptistes et des paysans, les guerres civiles de
France, d'Angleterre, et de Flandres, — le massacre de la St Bar-
thelemy, le massacre de Merindal, le massacre des Cevennes,
I'assassinat de Marie Stuart, de Henri III, de Henri IV, de
Charles I, du prince d'Orange, etc. etc. Un vaisseau flotteroit
sur le sang que vos novateurs ont fait repandre : I'lnquisition
n'auroit verse que le leur." One is puzzled to make out whether
this passage savours most of insanity or of imbecillity. Cain
might as reasonably have protested that Abel, by offering up a
more acceptable sacrifice than his, was the guilty cause of his own
murder. The Reformers caused the Thirty Years war ! the mas-
sacre of the Cevennes ! the murder of Henry IV ! Even so He
who came to reconcile man to God, declared of Himself that He

294 NOTE S.

came not to bring j^eace, btit a sword. The world will not hear
truth, closes its ears and heart against truth, takes up fire and
sword against it. So it did in the first ages of Christianity : so it
did at the Reformation : and then, as the Prince of this world is
also the father of lies, he exclaims that the preachers of truth are
the disturbers of the peace of the world, the cause of all the
bloodshed, of all the cruelty, of all the crimes, which the world
has wrought to stifle and cast out the truth. Yet may we
not ask, what would have been the state of Europe, if there had
been no Reformation, or if the Papacy had been able to suppress
it ? Would there have been no wars then ? Were there no wars
anterior to the Reformation, — no crimes, no ambition, no lust, no
cruelty 1 Surely too, when we compare the mass of the crimes
committed, of the slaughter perpetrated, by the opponents and
the supporters of the Reformation, justice requires us to make
the latter party answerable only for their own share, for what they
themselves did : and how small a portion does this embrace of the
atrocities enumerated by De Maistre ! Hence we are fully war-
ranted in saying that the main part of these crimes arose, not
from the Reformation, but from the obstinacy, the wilfulness, the
recklessness of Popery in repudiating and trying to hinder the
Reformation, by fair means and by foul. The contrary notion is
one of the forms of that monstrous proposition, that the virtues
of the good are the cause of the sins of the wicked ; which is the
intermediate step to that terrible summit of blasphemy, that God
is the Author of evil.

Yet Dr Newman does not shrink from a proposition which is
very nearly akin to this absurdity of De Maistre's. Not content
with quoting the passage where Balmez says, " The Popes, armed
with a tribunal of intolerance, have not spilt a drop of blood ;
Protestants and philosophers have shed torrents" (p. 201), he
winds up his Lecture (p. 213) by repeating and appropriating the
same words with a slight correction : " It is true, that the Popes
have not preach t, like the Protestants, universal toleration; but the
facts shew the difference between the Protestants and the Popes.
The Popes, armed with a tribunal of intolerance, have scarce

NOTE s. 295

spilt a drop of blood ; Protestants and philosophers have shed it
in torrents." This closing claptrap contains a double falsehood.
The attempt to whitewash the Popes is as futile as that to white-
wash an Ethiop. On the other hand the combination of Protes-
tants and Philosophers in this same category is evidently meant
to insinuate that there is a connexion between them of such a
kind as to make Protestantism answerable for the torrents of
bloodshed here imputed to Philosophy. Such an insinuation in
the mouth of a Spaniard, whose acquaintance with modern lite-
rature may perhaps be limited by the national boundary, with
the exception of that refuse of French literature, which, we
learn from Blanco White and others, has made its way through
the cordon sanitaire of the Inquisition, may in some degree be
excusable. But in an Englishman, familiar with all that Oxford
could teach in history and philosophy during the first half of the
nineteenth century, this assertion implies that the author is deter-
mined to say whatever he chooses, in despite of facts and of reason.
He, at all events, must know that the blood said to have been
shed by Philosophy, was not shed in Protestant lands, but in
lands from which Protestantism had been expelled by a series of
massacres and other acts of cruel oppression, in generation after
generation. The torrents of blood shed under the garb of
Religion were not shed by Protestants, but by Papists, with
the approbation, with the command, with the blasphemous
blessing of the Popes. Whatever sins Philosophy may have
been guilty of in Protestant countries, bloodshed is not one of
them. But even Philosophy, when nurtured in the lair of the
tiger, among those who deemed it lawful and holy to shed the
blood of heretics, and to enforce truth by fire and the sword,
caught the taint, and learnt to adopt the same course. Here too
let me again ask what would have been the condition of Europe, if
the Reformation had not burst the leprous crust which Popery
had cast over it, had not roused it out of the slough in which it was
sinking 1 It would have gone on weltering in all manner of evil,
rottenness and corruption within, hypocrisy and gaudy ceremonies
without, until it had become as Sodom and like to Gomorrah.

296 NOTE sa.

Therefore, even if torrents of blood were the necessary price of the
Reformation, even at that price it would not have been dearly
purchast. Our bodily life is not to be secured at the cost of our
moral and spiritual life, but to be given for it readily and cheer-
fully, if needful ; as is declared in the noble saying, that the
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

With regard however to the main question discust in this
Note, the comparison between Popery and Protestantism on the
score of persecution, I know no arguments, among those brought
forward by the modern champions of Rome, that should prevent
our repeating what Southey exprest so grandly (p. 423), when
Butler "adjured him as a Christian and a gentleman to say on
which side the balance of religious persecution lies, the Roman
Catholic or the Protestant : Put the Inquisition in the scale ;
and nothing can he found to counterpoise it, unless Hell he
pluckt up hy the roots."

Note Sa : p. 37. 1. 25.

I cannot enter into any general discussion about the Jesuits :
but there is a passage in the fifth of Dr Newman's Lectures at
Birmingham, on which I wish to make a couple of remarks. In
speaking about the Protestant inconsistencies, he says (p. 173) :
" When James II went out, and William came in, there were
persons who refused to swear fidelity to William, because they
had already sworn fidelity to James : and who was to dispense
them from their oath 1 Yet these scrupulous men were the few :
the many virtually decided that the oath had been conditional,
depending on their old king's good behaviour, though there was
nothing to shew it in the words in which it ran, — and that
accordingly they had no need to keep it any longer than they
liked. And so, in a similar way, should a Catholic priest, who
has embraced the Protestant persuasion, come over to this
country and marry a wife, who among his new co-religionists
would dream of being shockt at it? Every one would think it

NOTE sa. 297

both natural and becoming, and reasonable too, as a protest
against Romish superstition : yet the man has taken a vow •
and the man has broken it. 0 but he had no business to
make such a vow ! he did it in ignorance ; it was antichris-
tian ; it was unlawful. There are then, it seems, after all, such
things as unlawful oaths ; and unlawful oaths are not to be
kept ; and there are cases which require a dispensation : yet
let a Catholic say this, and he says nothing more,— rather he
says much less than the Protestant ; for he strictly defines the
limits of what is lawful and what is unlawful ; he takes a
scientific view of the matter, and forbids the man to be judge
in his own case : — let a Catholic, I say, asf^ert what the Protes-
tant practises; he has furnisht matter for half a dozen platform
speeches, and a whole set of Reformation tracts."

This remark seems designed to point to the grounds of an
apology for the Jesuit casuistry. But, — not to speak of the
misrepresentation involved in the words that " they had no need
to keep it any longer than they liked," — the oath of allegiance
taken by a subject implies a reciprocal obligation on the part of
the soverein, that he will observe his Coronation oath, and govern
according to the laws and constitution of the realm. Thus in the
marriage vow no express exception is made ; yet adultery on
either side is rightly held to absolve the other party from the
vow. In this case, it being one of frequent occurrence, rules
may be laid down to regulate the proceedings ; and a court of
law may pronounce accordingly. But in the contract between
the soverein and his subjects there is no arbiter. This is one of
the cases in which the reason and conscience of the nation must
pronounce for themselves, in which the vox populi must in a
manner claim the authority of the vox Dei, even though it may
in fact be more like a vox diaboli. In the middle ages the Pope
assumed the right of acting as arbitrator in such cases : but then
the old question recurred, Quis custodiet ipsos Cmtodes ? The
arbiter, it was found, himself needed a higher controll, could
not resist the temptations held out by such a paramount, irre-
sponsible power, and was a still less apt expounder of the voice

298 NOTE sa.

of God than the vox 'populi. Hence, however unsafe it may be
for men to be judges in their own affairs, it is at all events far
better than to have one universal judge seated a thousand miles
off, and unable to take cognisance of the merits of the case.
What acts shall constitute a breach of the soverein's fealty and
allegiance, it is difficult to determine generally. We have seen
several glaring instances of such acts in the last few years, as
might rightfully be deemed to have absolved the subjects from
their allegiance and fealty : but what the issue may be, God
alone can determine : and we may be sure that He will determine
far more wisely and more righteously than the Pope ; whom we
have seen prodigal of his approbation of treason, when enacted
by the possessor of authority.

Now the Jesuit casuistry, it is well known, has undertaken
to lay down rules for all similar exceptional cases, the essential
peculiarity of which is, that they do not recognise any rule,
that they spring from some overpowering necessity, that they are
cast up by some earthquake of the heart or the conscience.
That there is a necessity which supersedes ordinary law, our
Lord Himself has taught us, when He appeals to the example
of David's eating the shewbread. But if David had set out
with the determination of supplying the wants of his followers
in this manner, the necessity would have been factitious, and
would have been no justification of his conduct. In like
manner we may argue how far Brutus was justified in putting
Cesar to death. But the moral guilt or innocence of the act
depends upon a number of imponderable circumstances, wholly
personal and peculiar; and he who would set up to copy
Brutus, would be a shallow and odious coxcomb. Indeed, in
almost every man's life, there occur crises when he is called to
dive into the innermost depths of his being, and to look beneath
the moral law, into the central principles which on ordinary
occasions it covers and conceals. The only safe guidance we
can give to persons with regard to such crises, is by enlighten-
ing them on the principles of morality, by instilling that love
on which the law depends, not by laying down rules ; which is

NOTE sa. 299

as vain as trying to muzzle a thunderbolt, or to bind an
earthquake with chains,

Pascal has exposed the absurdity and immorality of many of
these moral paradoxes : but I will not go back to his Letters.
The reader may find a sufficient number of instances in Mr
Connelly's recent Letter to Lord Shrewsbury; where, among
other things of the same kind, this horrible proposition is
quoted (p. 15) : " If a wife knows that in the night she is to be
killed by her husband, if she cannot escape, she may anti-
cipate him." What a wife, what a Christian wife would do in
such a case, what she would think herself justified in doing,
none can pronounce for her. In the horrour of the moment,
if attackt unawares, she might repell the attack by like violence,
and her doing so might be forgiven. But if she did so of pre-
meditation, she would be without excuse. It was a far deeper
wisdom, however imperfect, that led the dying Desdemona to lie
for the sake of saving her murderer. Surely the only resistance
which a Christian wife could oppose in such a case, would be
that of Christian love.

Having had occasion to cite Mr Connelly's most well-timed
letter, I cannot refrain from expressing my thankfulness that one
of our Romish renegades has been enabled to see through the
impostures by which he was surrounded, and that, after fifteen
years spent amidst them, under the most favorable circumstances
for seeing them in no unfair light, he should have publisht this
exposure as a warning to those who may be fascinated by the
same delusions. In regard to what was said in Note Q about
the purity of the present Romish Clergy, he gives a shocking
testimony as to the licentiousness caused by compulsory celi-
bacy (p. 21). " I have read to the pure and simple-minded Cardi-
nal Prefect of the Propaganda a narrative, written to a pious lay
friend by a respected Roman priest, of such enormities of lust
in his fellow priests around him, that the reading of them
took away my breath, — to be answered, Caro mio, I hnow it,
I know it all, and more and worse than all ; hut nothing can he
done. — I have seen priests of mean abilities, of coarse natures,

oOO NOTE Sb.

and gross breeding, practise upon pure and highly gifted
women of the upper ranks, married and unmarried, the teach-
ings of their treacherous and impure casuistry, with a success
that seemed more than human. I have seen these *priests im-
pose their pretendedlj divine authority, and sustain it by mock
miracles, for ends that were simply devilish. I have had poured
into my ears, what can never be uttered, and what ought not
to be believed, but was only too plainly true. And I have
seen that all that is most deplorable is not an accident, but a
result, and an inevitable result, and a confessedly inevitable re-
sult of the working of the practical system of the Church of
Rome with all its stupendous machinery of mischief."

The following assertion (in p. 24) shews that the abominable
practice spoken of above (in p. 259), as having prevailed exten-
sively in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, still prevails
in America. " Were it not for the Protestant monarchy of
England, — ostentatious concubinage would be in Europe, as it
is in Mexico and parts of South America, a grateful and
respected promise of moderation in the Clergy."

Note Sb. : p. 37. 1. 27.

Chillingworth (c. ii. §. 1) has given an enumeration of the
evils of the Romish system, of its anti-scriptural tenets, which
may stand here as a body of reserve. " The Holy Scriptures
being made, in effect, not your directors and judges (no further
than you please), but your servants and instruments, always
prest and in readiness to advance your designs, and disabled
wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach them,
it is safe for you to put a crown on their head, and a reed
in their hands, and to bow before them, and cry Hail King
of the Jews ! to pretend a great deal of esteem and respect
and reverence to them.— But to little purpose is verbal reve-
rence without entire submission and sincere obedience ; and
as our Saviour said of some, so the Scripture could it speak.

NOTE T. 30[

I believe, would say to you, WJuj call ye me Lord, Lord,
and do not that ivhich I command you ? Cast away the vain
and arrogant pretense of Infallibility, which makes your
errours incurable. Leave picturing God, and worshiping Him
by pictures. Teach not for doctrine the commandments of
men. Debar not the Laity of the testament of Christ's blood.
Let your public prayers and psalms and hymns be in such
language as is for the edification of the assistants. Take not
from the Clergy that liberty of marriage which Christ hath left
them. Do not impose upon men that humility of worshiping
angels which St Paul condemns. Teach no more proper sacri-
fices of Christ but one. Acknowledge them that die in Christ to
he blessed, and to rest from their labours. Acknowledge the sacra-
ment after consecration to be Bread and Wine, as well as Christ's
Body and Blood. Acknowledge the gift of continency without
marriage not to be given to all. Let not the weapons of your
warfare be carnal, such as are massacres, treasons, persecutions,
and, in a word, all means either violent or fraudulent. These,
and other things which the Scripture commands you, do; and
then we shall willingly give you such testimony as you de-
serve: but till you do so, to talk of estimation, respect, and
reverence to the Scripture, is nothing else but talk."

Note T : p. 43.

I cannot forbear mentioning the great pleasure it gave me to
find that the view which, in my Letter on the occasion, I ven-
tured to express as to the operation of the Judgement given by
the Committee of Council, was confirmed in all its parts by one
of the most valuable pamphlets which that controversy elicited,
the Letter hy a Layman to the Bishop of Exeter. The writer of
that Letter is well known to be one of the highest authorities on
the Judicial Bench ; and his theological opinions are shewn by it
to be very remote from Mr Gorham's on the point in dispute :
but his intellect is far too clear, and his knowledge of law too

.S02 NOTE U.

masterly, for him to let himself be carried away by the delusions
which blinded so many persons otherwise clearsighted : and this
Letter of itself is enough to prove of what inestimable importance
it is that our ecclesiastical Court of Appeal should contain a large
admixture of legal minds. In opposition to all the persons, who,
with the Bishop of Exeter at their head, raised such an outcry
about the evils brought on our Church by that Judgement, he
shews, with the utmost clearness, in a dozen pages, first that the
decision, standing alone, scarcely affects the law of the Church,
inasmuch as it might be overruled tomorrow by another decision
of the same Court, or set aside even by an inferior Court, — and
secondly, that the decision itself, whatever its authority may be,
goes no further than to cover that form of opinion which the
Court has given as a summary of Mr Gorham's doctrine ; which
summary contains nothing incompatible with the teaching of
our Church. To the argument, as here stated, I see not how
any intelligent person can refuse his assent ; wherefore all the
clamour about our Church as having forfeited her Catholicity,
and about the violation of an Article of the Nicene Creed, vanishes
into smoke. It is grievous to think how many wellmeaning men
were carried away by these mere blunders, some even into
quitting our Church, and throwing themselves into the arms of
the Roman deceiver.

Note U: p, 46.

When we look at our Lord's thrice-repeated charge to St
Peter, to feed His lambs and His sheep, in connexion with the
question which precedes it, and with what we know of Peter's
previous conduct, we can hardly fail to perceive that its imme-
diate purpose is personal, that the question refers to Peter's over-
forward profession, that its triple repetition corresponds to his
triple denial, and that by the triple charge he is at once rein-
stated in his ministry, and admonisht how he is to manifest his
love for his Master, by a diligent fulfilment of his pastoral ofl^ce.

NOTE u. 303

In this last sense the charge bears in like manner on all ministers
of the Gospel. But this triple charge, while its real meaning has
been less attended to, has been interpreted so as to serve very
different purposes. By the Church of Rome, as we have seen
in Note J, it has been turned into a main prop of the Papal
authority, and even of the claim to infallibility : and in our own
Church also there are writers who strain this charge far beyond
what the words convey. Thus, for instance, Mr Gladstone, in
his Letter on the Royal Supremacy, after a very able, candid,
and elaborate argument in defense of the view of the Supremacy
taken by our Church at the Reformation, when he turns away
from this general historical argument to its immediate occasion,
the recent Judgement of the Court of Appeal, alledges this charge
to Peter, as though it settled the question against the validity of
the tribunal. It cannot be admitted, he says (p. 60), " that, if the
justification of the Reformers is to rest on such grounds as the
foregoing, their reputation can owe thanks to those who would
now persuade the Church to acquiesce in a disgraceful servitude,
and to surrender to the organs of the secular power the solemn
charge which she has received from Christ, to feed His sheep
and His lambs : for the real feeder of those sheep and those
Iambs is the Power that determines the doctrine with which
they shall be fed."

Now surely it is a strange inference to draw from these three
simple words, so beautifully fitted to convey consolation and com-
fort to the penitent Peter, that they were also designed to lay
down with what body of men it would rest to determine the doc-
trine of the Church to the end of time. In one respect the
Church of Rome might plead that her interpretation has more of
speciousness, in that the words are evidently spoken to Peter in-
dividually, not to the body of the Apostles. So far as Peter was
the representative of every minister of the Gospel, every minister
may rightfully take them to himself : but there is nothing in
them indicating with what body, what tribunal, it should rest in
after ages to determine questions of doctrine. Doubtless the
Church is to determine her own doctrine : but who shall form the

304 NOTE V.

judicial tribunal must be settled by totally different considera-
tions ; nor does our Lord's charge to Peter throw any sort of
light on the question.

Note V : p. 47.

In the feverish state of many minds at the time, the rejection
of the Bishop of London's Bill excited a good deal of irrita-
tion; and that I might do what in me lay toward abating it, I
publisht my Few Words on the subject. It is probable that
some, who at the moment were pained by the decision of the
House of Lords, will have recognised ere this that it was just
and wise. The Bishop of Salisbury, in his last Charge, after
stating that he had " concurred with the great majority of the
Bishops in supporting the Bill," adds, with his usual candour :
" I am free to confess that some of the objections urged against
that Bill were very grave : and I should myself be disposed to
look rather to some other solution of the question, than to the
re-introduction of a precisely similar measure in a future Session
of Parliament."

The Session of 1852, it is evident, will pass away without any
enactment on this point. But I cannot refrain from expressing
my regret, that from the notice which the Bishop of London has
just given, on the 10th of May, of his intention to bring in a
Bill next year, it would appear, according to the report in the
newspapers, that he still adheres to his plan of referring theolo-
gical points to the Bench of Bishops, or to the Upper House of
Convocation, with the proviso however that " the opinion of the
Bishops is not to be binding on the Court, but merely to be com-
municated to them in the way of advice." It is to be hoped that
this statement may be incorrect, or at all events that the scheme
may undergo further alterations before it is brought forward. For
it does not escape from the objection, that we shall thus be liable
to have frequent definitions of doctrine emanating from a mere
casual majority of the Episcopal Bench, which, without having

NOTF, w. 305

any real authority, will be assumed to have it by those who
agree with them. Besides it seems derogatory to the dignity of the
Bench, that a formal opinion pronounced by it on a theological
question is to be treated by a body of lawyers as a mere piece of
advice, which they may adopt or reject as they please. Surely this is
not the way to allay the jealousies entertained by so many about
having, questions of doctrine decided by a lay tribunal.

Note W : p. .50.

Even those who are most strenuous in asserting the true
idea of Baptism, and of the Church, as comprehending all its
baptized members, are often misled by the unconscious influence
of the delusion, which restricts the Church to the Clergy. This
delusion seems to have been operating secretly in Mr Gladstone's
mind, when he wrote the passage cited in Note U, complaining
of the Church as acquiescing in a disgraceful servitude, if it sur-
rendered to the organs of the secular power the solemn charge it
had received from Christ. For the secular power also in a
Christian nation is a portion of the Church, no less than the
ecclesiastical : and any tribunal lawfully appointed by the Go-
vernment of a state, with the concurrence of the secular power
and of the ecclesiastical, according to the existing forms of the
constitution, would be a Church-tribunal, even if it did not
comprise a single ecclesiastic among its members.

In like manner Archdeacon Wilberforce, in his History of
Erastianism, after having stated that a certain degree of spiritual
power had been ascribed ever since the Reformation to Christian
kings, remarks (p 47) : "This would seem to imply that a
Christian king was not, strictly speaking, a layman ; but that his
divine commission to rule transferred him in some way from the
kingdom of nature to the kingdom of .grace." One should have
thought that Archdeacon Wilberforce would have been one of
the last men to forget, for a single moment, that every baptized
Christian,— and such the Christian king must needs be, — has

X

S06 NOTE W.

already beeu transferred by his baptism from the kingdom of
nature to the kingdom of grace, and that there was no need of
the supervening of his royal commission to effect that transfer.
Yet this is not a mere casual oversight. For the same notion lies
secretly at the bottom of his whole book, and runs as an under-
current through it. The comparison which follows, wnth a
scientific society, which " is amenable to the laws of the land for
any contracts into which it enters," but does not recognise any
such superintendence with regard to questions of science, is based
on the supposition that the civil power is extrinsic to the Church,
as it is to Scientific Associations. Again (in p. 77) he tells us
that the question brought before the Committee of Council was
not referred to " the Church," but to " the world ;" a distinction
which, in this sense, if he had remembered his own view of Bap-
tism, he must have deemed inadmissible, and which is no less
mischievous practically, than it is theoretically false.

In fact this same confusion has been the main source of the
irrational clamour ihat has been excited on this occasion. I do
not mean that our Court of Appeal is rightly constituted, I
have repeatedly exprest my persuasion, not only, as is admitted
almost universally, that it ought to consist exclusively of members
of our Church, but that greater care should have been taken
to provide that there should be an adequate portion of the
judges, of whom it might reasonably be expected that they would
be duly qualified by professional learning for pronouncing on
theological and ecclesiastical points. But this last matter, how-
ever important, is not one in which any vital principle is imme-
diately concerned, and might be settled calmly and without much
discrepancy of opinion, were it not for the prevalent confusion
about the idea of the Church.

NOTE X. 307

Note X : p. 52.

The preceding Notes have swollen to such a bulk, that I must
pass cursorily over the subjects to be toucht on in those which
remain. In the paper referred to it is stated that " it is now
made evident by the late appeal and sentence in the case of
Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter, and by the judgement of all the
Courts of Common Law, that the E.oyal Supremacy, as defined
and establisht by Statute Law, invests the Crown with a power
of hearing and deciding in appeal all matters, howsoever purely
spiritual, both of discipline and doctrine." Wherefore the Clergy
are called upon to declare, that they " do not, and in conscience
cannot acknowledge in the Crown the power recently exercised
to hear and judge in appeal the internal state or merits of
spiritual questions touching doctrine or discipline, the custody of
which is committed to the Church alone by the law of Christ."

Here, — not to speak of the vague, erroneous notion of the Church,
■which peeps out in the concluding antithesis with the Crown,
as though the Crown were not rightfully a part of it, — I cannot
refrain from expressing my surprise that the eminent composers of
this declaration should have taken upon themselves in this man-
ner to pronounce that the Crown by its Court of Appeal has been
exercising the power of "judging the internal state or merits of
spiritual questions touching doctrine or discipline," and should
not have hesitated to call upon the whole body of the Clergy to
concur in this assertion ; when the Court of Appeal itself had so
positively and repeatedly disclaimed their right of doing so, and
declared that they would not attempt it. Surely the Court of
Appeal did not consist of such blockheads, that they should be
supposed to be totally ignorant of what they were doing; although
they were charged with this ignorance in a sermon which most
indecorously applied our Lord's prayer to them. Father, forgive
them ; for they know not what they do. Nor will an intelligent
person, who reads the Letter to the Bishop of Exeter referred to in

308 NOTE X.

Note T, along with the Second Letter by the same Layman,
question that they were quite right. If a Court, as now and
then happens, has to decide a cause in which some geological or
chemical question is involved, it will endeavour to collect the
best information on that question, and will pronounce accord-
ingly : but no sane person will accuse it of attempting to lay
down the laws of chemistry or geology. Thus our learned Layman
has shewn us that the effect of the sentence pronounced by the
Court of Appeal was to remit the spiritual question to be decided
by the Archbishop.

As to any usurpation on the part of the Crown, the constitution
of the Court of Appeal was determined by the Legislature, in
which, as the supreme organ and expounder of the national will,
the real supremacy is vested. An oversight has indeed been
made in the construction of the Court : but History does not
teach us that monarchs are less fallible than a Legislature like
ours. Though a good deal of outcry has been raised, because the
power, originally vested in the Crown, is now exercised by the
Prime Minister, much of this outcry seems to be mere childish-
ness. For the power vested in the Crown was not vested in
Edmund Ironside, or in Henry Plantagenet, or in George Guelph,
personally and individually, but merely on the ground of his
being the supreme impersonation of the national will. Now
surely we have as good security for a wise exercise of discre-
tion by a person who, after going through the probation of
Parliament, comes forth as the man deemed worthy to be en-
trusted with the actual administration of the English Government,
as by a person who wears the Crown by the mere title of birth;
not to mention that under the latter also the power will often
be exercised by some mere personal favorite. Of course, if the
Prime Minister were not a Member of our Church, it would be
requisite to make some fresh provision for the due exercise of
the ecclesiastical power of the Crown. But there does not seem
to be much likelihood of such an event at present ; and it could
hardly occur without other changes which would lead to a
remodelino; of the relations between the Church and the State.

NOTE X. 309

On this subject I will merely cite the following passage from
Bramhall's Answer to La Milletiere, which states the real nature
of the Royal Supremacy very correctly and clearly. " It may be
that two or three of our princes at the most (the greater part
whereof were Roman Catholics), did style themselves, or give
others leave to style them, the Heads of the Church within their
dominions. But no man can be so simple as to conceive that
they intended a spiritual Headship,— to infuse the life and
motion of grace into the hearts of the faithful : such a Head is
Christ alone : no, nor yet an ecclesiastical Headship : we did
never believe that our Kings in their own persons could exercise
any act pertaining either to the power of order or jurisdiction :
nothing can give that to another, which it hath not itself. They
meant only a civil or political Head, as Saul is called the Head
of the Tribes of Israel, — to see that public peace be preserved, —
to see that all subjects, as well ecclesiastics as others, do their
duties in their several places, — to see that all things be managed
for that great and architectonical end, that is, the weal and
benefit of the whole body politic, both for soul and body. If
you will not trust me, hear our Church itself : ' When we attri-
bute the soverein government of the Church to the King, we do
not give him any power to administer the word or sacraments,
but only that prerogative which God in Holy Scripture hath
always allowed to godly princes, to see that all states and orders
of their subjects, ecclesiastical and civil, do their duties, and to
punish those who are delinquent with the civil sword.' Here is
no power ascribed, no punishment inflicted, but merely political :
and this is approved and justified by S. Clara, both by reason, and
by the examples of the Parliament of Paris. Yet, by virtue of
this political power, he is the keeper of both Tables, the preserver
of true piety toward God, as well as right justice toward men,
and is obliged to take care of the souls as well as the skins and
carcasses of his subjects."

310 NOTE Y.

Note Y : p. 54.

The Bishop of St David's, in his last Charge, has given some
weighty reasons (pp. 51 — 60), — such as might be expected from
one to whom the study of history has taught statesmanly wisdom
and caution, — for checking over-sanguine anticipations of good
from the meeting of Convocation, for which so many are calling :
and he winds up by declaring, " For my own part, I cheerfully
accept my full share of all the obloquy incurred by those who
shrink from the responsibility of exposing the Church to such a
danger." Now assuredly no soberminded man will venture to
assert that the desired measure is one to be contemplated with
unmixt confidence. Nor could much real good accrue from the
assembling of Convocation in its present very defective form ;
while the construction of a Synod, adapted to the circumstances
of our age, after the lapse of centuries, during which such
momentous changes have been wrought in the whole frame and
order of society, must needs be a problem of no little difficulty.
Nor is it to be questioned that a great part of the vehement
cry for a Convocation proceeds from an ignorant and presump-
tuous impatience. Still, seeing that no one can deny the many
evils of divers kinds which spring from our present anarchal
condition, and for which, by reason of that anarchal con-
dition, it is impossible to devise any remedy, we may justly
entertain a wish, which the Bishop himself pronounces (p. 52) to
be " natural and reasonable," and from which, he tells us, he
"cannot withhold his sympathy." Seeing too that, as he ad-
mits, " the power of deliberating on its own affairs seems
inseparable from the very notion of a corporate body, which is
not a mere machine or passive instrument of a higher will, and
therefore most especially to belong of right to a Christian Church,"
I should incline to hold that, even on prudential grounds, it
would be best that our Church should be allowed to exercise this
power, " inseparable from the very notion of a corporate body."

NOTE Y. 311

At the same time I should entirely concur with my honoured
Friend in deprecating all attempts to narrow the pale of our
Church by more precise and stringent dogmatical definitions of
doctrine : and doubtless, as he says, it is to Councils convened
for such a purpose that Gregory Nazianzen's well-known censure
applies. Doubtless too dogmatism and metaphysical subtilty are
natural parasites of the theological mind : but these grew much
more rankly in Greece, than they do in England ; where, owing
in great measure to the practical bent of our understanding, we
have acquired the faculty of minimizing the evil and maximizing
the good of deliberative assemblies. Hence I should not apprehend
much mischief from the dogmatizing spirit in a Synod of our
Church, at all events, if there be a corrective for it in the infusion
of an adequate proportion of lay common sense. In fact it has
rarely been mischievous in the Councils of the Latin Church,
the working of which on the whole was beneficial, considering
how they were hampered and opprest by the Papacy, and by
false notions of priestly authority and sanctity. In every age
indeed, while the vulgar and shallow are the slaves of its spirit,
and are ever trying, bustlingly, and with clamorous self-importance,
to drive on its wheels by shouting, Get on ! Get on ! there is
also a class of more valuable minds, that have gathered up the
riches of the past, and are revolted by the vulgarity of their noisy,
self-conceited contemporaries. These men perform an important
task in reminding us that the present rests upon the past, and
will topple over if its foundations are withdrawn from it. In
this way the Oxford School has rendered much valuable service
to our Church ; and in this way they would be very useful in a
Synod. Nor have we reason to fear that they will exercise too
much influence in such a body. The impulses which drive the
age onward, are not likely to be overpowered by any attempts to
drive it backward in a free general assembly of the Church.

I will not go over the questions which I have already discust
at some length in Note J to my Charge for the year 1842, espe-
cially with reference to the necessity that the Laity should form
an important element in a rightly constituted S}'uod. The

312 NOTE Z.

conviction of this necessity has been gaining ground every year
since, and has recently been helpt on greatly by Mr Gladstone's
valuable Letter to Bishop Skinner.

Note Z : p. 55.

In the Times of August the 15 th 1851, there is a letter from
Mr Conybeare, the Vicar of Axminster, contradicting a previous
statement, that two representatives of each deanery had been
elected for the Synod by an absolute majority of the beneficed
and licenst clergy in each district. " Had this been really the
case (Mr Conybeare very reasonably says), it would have made
the unanimity of the 60 elected members of the Synod a very
remarkable fact : but the very reverse was the truth ; for the repre-
sentatives were elected by an absolute minority of the clergy in
each district, so far as I have been able to ascertain. In the
Rural Deanery to which I myself belong (that of Honiton), the
clergy present at the election were 10 ; and one proxy was sent :
thus the representatives were elected by only 11 out of 27 clergy
entitled to vote. The majority declined to take any part in the
election, and left it in the hands of the minority. This was the
case almost universally throughout the Diocese, except in those
two Deaneries which refused to send any representatives at all."

Such loud songs of triumph have been chanted on account of
the unanimity of the Exeter Synod, that it ought to be generally
known how delusive that unanimity was. That the declaration
on Baptism, — considering how that question has been contested
for centuries, and how it is agitated nowadays, — should have been
adopted without a single dissentient voice by the representatives
of a whole Diocese, would indeed have been little short of a
miracle. But when we know the mode in which the Synod was
actually constituted, it loses the main part of whatever im-
portance might else have attacht to it. That Mr Conybeare's
statement is correct, I feel justified in assuming, not only from
what I have heard of his high character as a fellow of my own

NOTE AA. 313

College, but also because, I believe, it has remained without
contradiction.

Mr Conybeare adds : " The reason why the majority of the
Clergy and the dignitaries of the Cathedral declined to take part
in the Synod, was not, so far as I can learn, from disapproving of
such assemblies in general, but because the Bishop of Exeter, in
his Pastoral Address convoking the Synod, renounced communion
with the Archbishop, to whom he had formerly taken an oath of
canonical obedience. In the same Address he (not obscurely) in-
timated his wish that the Synod should support him in this
course ; although, when it came to the point, he made no proposal
to that effect."

Note AA : p. 57.

Grotius, in his Treatise De Iminrio Summarum Potestatum
circa Sacra, c. vi. § 9, wisely mentions this as the first caution
to be observed in order to uphold the peace of the Church :
" Prima, ut a definiendo abstineatur quantum fieri potest : hoc
est salvis dogmatibus ad salutem necessariis, aut valde eo facienti-
bus. Omnem in jure definitionem periculosam esse tradunt
Juris auctores. De theologicis idem quis merito dixerit. Vetus
enim est sententia : De Deo etiam vera dicere pericidosum est.
Hue illud Nazianzeni spectat monitum, to onug fj.!] TroXvTrpay-
fiofti. Multoque magis illud Augustini, Sunt in quibus inter se
aliquando etiam doctissimi atque ojitinii regidae Catholicae de-
fensores salva fidei compage non consonant. Hanc definiendi
modestiam secuti sunt Patres in Nicaena et Constantinopolitana
prima Synodo, et qui has Synodos moderati sunt Imperatores. —
Dogmata ergo definienda sunt paucissima, et necessaria quidem sub
anathemate, alia vero sine anathemate. — Plurimum vero ad reti-
nendam Ecclesiae Catholicae concordiam primis istis saeculis
valuit, quod dogmaticae definitiones nullae fieri solebant nisi
in Conciliis Oecumeuicis ; aut bi quae factae essent in minoribus
Synodis, eae non erant ratae autequam ad alias Ecclesias missue

314 NOTE AA.

atque ita communi judicio approbatae forent: quern morem si
reducendum curarent, qui nunc in Christiano Orbe imperium
habent, nullum sane possit ab illis beneficium majus exspectari."

The sagacity and importance of this remark will be imprest
upon us, I fear, by grievous experience, if the practice of holding
petty Synods gains ground. For assemblies are still less apt than
individuals to acknowledge their own incompetence for any pur-
pose : and what will be the confusion of the Church, if such
declarations as that of the Exeter Synod on Baptism are scattered
to and fro ? The mere fact that a declaration of this sort, so
explicit, so full, so positive, on a question which has agitated the
Church for centuries, was adopted by the unanimous consent of
sixty clergy, after a discussion which cannot have occupied much
more than an hour, shews that the members of the Synod must
have come with their minds previously made up, and ready to
echo the dictates of the presiding Bishop. Nay, does it not also
imply that they can hardly have had a proper sense of the many
great difficulties in which the subject is involved 1 Yet, without
such a sense, how can a person be qualified to pronounce judge-
ment on any question whatever 1 In fact, this is the difference
between a prejudice and a judgement: a prejudice is anterior to
and without a previous thorough investigation of the subject
matter : a judgement involves that previous investigation. We
are informed indeed that the declaration had already been sub-
mitted to" the members of the Synod for their consideration. Still
their unanimous consent in such a decision will be regarded, by
those who have reflected on the inevitable diversities of human
thought and feelings, as materially detracting from the value of
their voice.

It would take me much too far to examine that declaration in
detail, and to discuss the various questionable propositions in it.
But no one can look at it without perceiving that the Article
of the Nicene Creed, which it professes to expound, has been
enormously expanded, so that it rivals the prodigies which we
sometimes see drawn out of a nutshell. A more careful ex-
amination will shew us that, though a large part of the

NOTE AA. 315

propositions may actually be latent in the Article, they only lie
there along with their coordinate and limitary propositions ; the
wisdom of the framers of the Article having manifested itself
especially in this, that they contented themselves with asserting
the primary, essential truth, the 6Vt, but did not TroXuTrpay/noveli'

TO OTTiOQ.

For my own part, if I may take leave to express an opinion,
without entering into a detailed argument on the matter, while I
am unable to adopt the notion of Archdeacon Sinclair, although
supported by the high authority of the Bishop of St David's, that
the assertion in the Creed concerning the unity of Baptism was
intended to forbid its repetition, I am equally unable to find all
that the Bishop of Exeter evolves from it. For, if the purpose
of prohibiting the repetition of Baptism had stood distinctly
forward in the mind of the Council, it would rather have found
utterance in a disciplinary Canon, than in an Article of the
universal Creed. Or, at all events, it would have been exprest in
plainer, less ambiguous words. If they had spoken of the other
sacrament, surely they might have said, / believe in one Sacrament
of the Body and Blood of Christ ; but this would no way have
implied a condemnation of frequent communion. Yet I am still
less able to believe, with the Exeter Synod, that the assertion of
the unity of Baptism was designed to imply that Baptism in all
cases produces the same wonderful effects.

Surely in asserting the unity of Baptism, the Council was
merely adopting St Paul's expression in the Epistle to the
Ephesians, yet did not, any more than St Paul, distinctly pur-
pose thereby to signify that Baptism must not be repeated, or
that in all cases it will produce the same mighty spiritual effects.
It is One especially as being the one appointed entrance into the
Kingdom of Christ, whereby all who desire admission into that
Kingdom are received through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Moreover, as it is only through Christ, as members of His
Church, through His all-prevailing sacrifice and intercession,
that we become reconciled to the Father, and receive forgiveness
of our sins, so this One Baptism is the One Baptism for the

316 NOTE AA.

remission of sins. But, as in all things there are diversities in the
operations of the One Spirit, so is it in Baptism, where, though
the gift conferred may be essentially the same, it is modified
diversely by the nature of the recipient. Hence there seems to
be much confusion, when the Exeter Declaration goes on to say,
" We hold, as implied in the aforesaid Article of the Creed, all
the great graces ascribed to Baptism in our Catechism. For bi/
one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body, even the body of
Jesus Christ : we are made to be His Body, Menibers in parti-
cular of His Body, Members of Christ. And being thus baptized
unto Hi)ii, loe ivere baptized into His death, who died for our sins :
we are dead with Him, — dead unto sin, — buried with Him in
Baptism, — wherein also we are risen with Him, — quickened to-
gether with Him, — made to sit together in Heavenly places in
Christ Jesus : — our life is hid with Christ in God.''

In this passage we have an example of the mischief of using
words dogmatically, to assert positively what is, which, in the
passage whence they are taken, are rather used rhetorically, — if
I may be pardoned for the expression, — to exhort people to be-
come what they ought to be, by telling them what God has
called them and enabled them to be. All who have been
baptized ought to be dead to sin, ought to be buried with Christ,
ought to be risen with Him, ought to be quichened together with
Him, and made to sit together in heavenly places. But are they
so 1 all ? how many of them are so 1 Alas ! it is by this
careless abuse of language, by the misapplication and perversion
of the words of Scripture, by our asserting, as divine truths,
what everybody, even the asserter himself, must know to be contra-
dicted by universal experience, that men's consciences are sorely
troubled, and nothing is fostered but infidelity, lurking in some,
opened and avowed by others. This will ever be the effect of
binding the human mind by absolute dogmas. As easily may
you bind the strong man with withes. Even if you shave off his
hair, and put out his eyes, he will rise and destroy you, and him-
self, in one tremendous convulsion. But let us all endeavour to
walk in the light, and we shall have fellowship one with another.

NOTE AA. 317

In the Exeter Declaration indeed these words seem to be
applied solely to "adults, with fit qualifications, duly baptized."
Of such persons, if they avail themselves of their baptismal
privileges, what St Paul says, and what is here said, will indeed
be true. That is, they are true of him who is a true Christian
in heart at the time of his Baptism, and from that time forward.
But what is the number of these, even among the few who re-
ceive baptism as adults 1 and why, in explaining the power of
baptismal grace, does the Declaration dwell chiefly on these rare
and exceptional instances, about which there is no controversy,
when the whole controversy turns upon the power of baptismal
grace in infants ? Besides the terms which our Catechism applies
to children,— members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors
of the Kingdom of Heaven, — are included among those applied in
the Declaration to adults : nor is it hinted which of the others
belong to infants also. In our service, both for infant and for
adult Baptism, St Paul's words about the baptismal death to sin,
are rightly used in the concluding exhortation as setting forth
what the baptized ought to be, not what they are : so should
we, who are baptized, die from sin and rise again to righteousness.

These arguments may suffice to shew how unwise and
hazardous it is to attempt such explicit determinations of
doctrine as those contained in the Exeter Declaration on Baptism.
At all events that Declaration is totally at variance with the
practice of the early Councils. Jeremy Taylor, in the second
Part of his Dissuasive (B 1. § 4), shews how carefully the Nicene
Fathers refrained from dogmatical definitions : still, he adds,
"the Council's adding something to the Creed of the Church,
which had been the avdevria of the Christian faith for three
hundred years together, was so strange a thing, that they would
not easily bear that yoke. — That the inconvenience might be cut
off, which came in upon the occasion of the Nicene addition, —
(for it produced thirty explicative Creeds more in a short time,
as Marcus Ephesius openly affirmed in the Council of Florence),
— in the Council of Ephesus, which was the third General, it was
forbidden that ever there should be any addition to the Nicene

318 NOTE AA.

Faith, — * that it should not be lawful from thenceforward for any
one to produce, to write, or to compose any other Creed, besides
that which was defined by the holy Fathers meeting at Nice in
the Holy Spirit,' — This canon was renewed in the next General
Council, that of Chalcedon, — The case is here, as in Scripture, to
which no addition is to be made, nothing to be diminisht from
it. But yet every doctor is permitted to expound, to enlarge the
expressions, to deliver the sense, and to declare, as well as they
can, the meaning of it. And much more might the doctors of
the Church do to the Creed ; to which although something was
added at Nice and Constantinople, yet from thenceforward they
might, in private or in public, declare what they thought was the
meaning, and what were the consequents, and what was virtually
contained in the Articles ; but nothing of this, by any authority
whatsoever, was to be put into the Creed. For in Articles of
Belief simplicity is part of its excellency and sacredness ; and
those mysteriousnesses and life-giving Articles, which are fit to
be put into Creeds, are, as Philistion said of hellebore, medicinal
when it is in great pieces, but dangerous or deadly when it is in
powder. — For if that faith be sufficient, — whatsoever is added to
it is either contained in the Article virtually, or it is not. If
not, then it is no part of the faith. — But if it be, then he that
believes the Article, does virtually believe all that is virtually
contained in it : but no man is to be prest with the consequents
drawn from thence, unless the transcript be drawn by the same
hand that wrote the original. For we are sure it came in the
simplicity of it from an infallible Spirit ; but he that bids me
believe his deductions under pain of damnation, bids me, under
pain of damnation, believe that he is an unerring logician : for
which, because God hath given me no command, and himself can
give me no security,— if I can defend myself from that man's
pride, God will defend me from damnation. — We find by
experience that a long Act of Parliament, or an indenture and
covenant that is of great length, ends none, but causes many
contentions ; and when many things are defined, and definitions
spun out into declarations, men believe less, and know nothing

NOTE AB. 319

more." In these last words our admirable Bishop has in a
manner pronounced judgement bj anticipation on the Declaration
of the Exeter Synod.

Note AB: p. 61.

Our own part of England has been visited with the misfortune
of having what is called a South Church Union establisht in it ;
which, though it contains a few eminent names, does not seem
likely, from such of its acts as have come under my observation,
to be more beneficial to the Church than similar associations
elsewhere. In the Report of this Body adopted in July 1851,
I am taxt with having been, most unintentionally and unwit-
tingly, the cause of its establishment. " A requisition (it is
said) for a General Meeting of the Archdeaconry [on occasion of
the Judgement of the Court of Appeal], signed by about 70 of
the Clergy, was forwarded to the Archdeacon, and was refused !
This refusal seemed to have the effect of opening the eyes of
some to the utterly defenseless state in which they were placed
(by the want of Synodical action); and in default of a more
Ecclesiastical organization, the more irregular form of a Church
Union was decided upon. It was considered at the time as an
evil, but a necessary one. The more regular synodical proceeding
being by such an unwonted stretch of arbitrary power refused,
what wonder if the first weapon at hand were seized for
defense ! "

Perhaps a reasonable man will think that I do not need any
better justification of my conduct than this statement. For if
the party who desired a Public Meeting were in such a state of
irritation, that, when they could not obtain it, they resorted
to a measure which they themselves regarded as irregular and
"an evil," what prospect was there that, supposing I had con-
vened the Meeting, it would have been conducted with the
calmness and temperance and decorum befitting an assembly
of the Clergy 1 more especially as I knew of a good many

320

NOTE AB.

clergymen, who, if a Meeting had been summoned to condemn
the Judgement, would have been no less vehement in vindicating,
and even extolling it. What good would have resulted from
such a conflict, I know not, whatever the issue might have been.
As far as I could judge, from my acquaintance with the Clergy
of the Archdeaconry, the condemners of the Judgement would
have been in a minority ; which would hardly have pleased
them more than my refusal, or left them less prone to take up
the irregular, evil course which they adopted. I do not mean
that a majority of the Clergy concurred in Mr Gorham's views :
very few did so : but I believe that a considerable majority had
been grieved by the proceedings against him, had dreaded a
condemnatory sentence, and were thankful for the Judgement
which averted a disruption of the Church.

With regard to the censure of my conduct as " an unwonted
stretch of arbitrary power," the writers of the Report must have
been aware, I should think, of a letter which I was compelled,
by certain gross misrepresentations, to write about a year before
to the seventy Petitioners, explaining the reasons of my refusal.
In that letter I stated that I had good reason for believing
that my decision was in accordance with the wishes of the great
majority of the Clergy of the Diocese. For I had heard from
divers quarters that the utmost activity had been exercised
during several weeks in canvassing the Clergy, in order to get
every attainable signature to the Petition, with the view of
forcing the reluctant Archdeacon to call the Meeting. Yet
after all the signers only amounted to about a fourth of the
Clergy of the Archdeaconry. Among them were only two out
of the twelve Rural Deans, by whose counsel, in a question of
difficulty, I should chiefly desire to be guided. Of the excellent
body of Clergy at Brighton, whose position gives them a con-
siderable advantage for forming a correct judgement on practical
questions, only two, the two youngest, out of twenty, signed the
petition ; of the Hastings and St Leonard's Clergy not one. On
the other hand almost every Clergyman I had seen or corre-
sponded with since the question had been started, had concurred

NOTE AC. 32\

with me in deprecating a Meeting, from apprehension of the
almost inevitable collision, which would only have afforded
triumph to the enemies, while it saddened the friends of the
Church. I had been informed too by one of our Rural Deans
that at his recent Chapter, when the Requisition was brought
forward, eleven out of the twelve Clergy present thought it
desirable that the peace of the Archdeaconry should not be
disturbed.

Hence I cannot admit that the South Church Union are
justified in accusing me of " an unwonted stretch of arbitrary
power," or in charging me with the sin of having driven them
to take that evil course, which they adopted solely out of their
own impatience and irritation.

Note AC : p. 63.

We resolved to send up an Address from the Clergy of the
Archdeaconry to the Queen, and one to the Bishop of the Diocese.
The former was as follows : —

May it please your Majesty :

We, the undersigned Clergymen of the Archdeaconry of
Lewes, humbly crave permission to approach your Majesty with
the expression of our loyal attachment to your Person, and our
faithful allegiance to the British Crown.

We deem it our duty to give utterance to the indignation
excited in us by the act of the Bishop of Rome, whereby, in
violation of your Majesty's Prerogative, and of the ancient prin-
ciples and laws of our Constitution, he has taken upon himself
to parcel out your Majesty's Kingdom of England into a number
of Dioceses, and to bestow those Dioceses, designated from certain
cities and towns situate therein, on divers Ecclesiastics, who re-
cognise him as their spiritual head. By this act he has attempted
to exercise a jurisdiction within this realm, altogether without a
parallel since England became a Christian State. None of your
Majesty's Royal Predecessors would have submitted to such an

Y

322 NOTE AC.

intrusion, even in the ages anterior to the Reformation : the
whole nation would have risen up in arms against it. No Sove-
rein of any other European State would brook it. No Bishop
of Rome since the Reformation has dared thus to insult the
Crown and Church of England. It has been reserved for these
days, as a return for the manifold concessions and privileges
granted by your Majesty, and by your Majesty's immediate
Predecessors, to your subjects of the Romish persuasion. We
humbly hope and pray that your Majesty will not allow the
rights of your Crown, and of that Church, of which your Majesty
is the supreme temporal Head, to be thus openly assailed and
infringed.

Under a deep conviction that, among the many blessings
granted by Almighty God to this highly favoured nation, the
Reformation of Religion in the sixteenth century, whereby we
were delivered from the unscriptural doctrines and idolatrous
practices of the Church of Rome, is second only to the original
introduction of Christianity into this land, — while we desire that
a full toleration may be extended to every form of Religion, so
far as is consistent with morality and social order, — we pray your
Majesty to take such measures as may seem best calculated to
repell this aggression, by which the Bishop of Rome has assumed
the exercise of absolute ecclesiastical dominion in this realm, and
to uphold that pure scriptural Faith, which is the only living
source, not merely of individual virtue and wellbeing, but also of
national greatness and prosperity.

And we beseech Almighty God to enrich you abundantly with
His grace, that in all your thoughts, words, and works, you may
ever seek His honour and glory, and study to preserve His people
committed to your charge in wealth, peace, and godliness.

This Address was sent to the Bishop of the Diocese, along with
the following to himself : —

We, the undersigned Clergymen of the Archdeaconry of Lewes,
in your Lordship's Diocese, feel called upon by the attack which

NOTE AC. 323

has recently been made on your spiritual rights, as well as on
the whole Church of England, to express our dutiful affection
to your Lordshij^ personally, and our reverence for your sacred
Apostolical Office.

In consequence of this unprecedented aggression of the Bishop
of Rome, we have deemed it our duty to draw up and sign an
Address to our most Gracious Queen, the Prerogative of whose
Crown has been thus invaded ; and Ave place our Address in
your Lordship's hands, requesting that you will present it
to her Majesty at such time and in such manner as you may
think fit.

To her Majesty we have exprest our conviction that this
act is a direct violation of her Royal Prerogative, and of the
fundamental principles of our Constitution, — that it is an assump-
tion of authority such as no Bishop of Rome has attempted to
exercise, unless at the first introduction of Christianity, in this
or any other European Nation. Our ancestors, even in ages long
anterior to the Reformation, found themselves under the necessity
of guarding jealously against the introduction of Papal Bulls,
touching the rights of the Crown, without the consent of the
Government ; and this act proves that such precautions are no
less necessary now than ever. Moreover it is expressly provided
in the Act of the 10th of George IV, for the Relief of the
Roman Catholics, whereby they were admitted to the highest
offices of the State, that no person should assume the name or
title of Archbishop of any Province, or Bishop of any Bishopric
in England or Ireland. The wisdom of this provision is clear,
as by it alone can the ecclesiastical Supremacy of the Crown be
preserved unimpaired. Without it, the declaration in the Oath
of Supremacy, " that no forein prince, person, prelate, state,
or potentate, hath or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power,
superiority, preeminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual,
within her Majesty's realms, dominions, or countries," — a decla-
ration the principle of which is indispensable to our national
independence, — becomes a mere mockery. It has been attempted
to evade this provision by the adoption of the names of other

324 NOTE AC.

towns than those belonging to our ancient Sees. But, though
we cannot feel certain in what manner the Courts of Law may
interpret this provision, it seems manifest to us that the purpose
of the Legislature was to prevent the occupation of any territorial
Sees in England, We therefore hope that your Lordship will
take counsel with your Right Reverend Brethren, and with her
Majesty's Government, concerning the best mode of repelling
this attack on the rights of the Crown, as the sole Fountain
of Honour in this Kingdom.

To your Lordship we would further submit that this act is an
attack on our Church, such as no previous Bishop of Rome has
dared to commit. It has been represented indeed, in some
quarters, as a mere matter of harmless internal arrangement and
administration, whereby no one, except the members of the
Romish Communion, is anywise affected. These representations
however are directly refuted by the tone in which the intrusive
ecclesiastic, usurping the title of Archbishop of Westminster,
has declared that he will govern, and continue to govern, divers
counties, among others that of Sussex, which forms your Lord-
ship's Diocese of Chichester. So too are they refuted by the
triumphant notes with which this act has been hailed as annulling
and annihilating the Church of England. That such is its
real intent and purpose, will hardly be questioned by those
who remember how carefully it was provided in the ancient
Canons of the Church, sanctioned in Council after Council, that
no second Bishop should intrude into a Diocese already occupied
by another. Such an intrusion was ever regarded as a schis-
matical act, and condemned as such : wherefore the Bishops of
Rome have shrunk till now from sending any Bishops as occu-
pants of English Sees to England. Their authority has hitherto
been exercised with greater deference to the Crown of England,
and with a kind of tacit recognition of the validity of the
succession in her Church : and it can hardly be unknown to
the very persons who are denying the importance of the recent
act, that it must either be a gross schismatical violation of
the fundamental Laws of the Church, or else that it is an

NOTE AC. 325

implicit declaration by which the Church of England is set aside
as non-existent. In our eyes it is the former, and, as such,
a consummation of the schismatical acts by which the Bishops
of Rome in the sixteenth century cut themselves off from
the pure Apostolical Church of this land ; and as He, who
then purified us, has ever since wonderfully holpen and upheld
us through the manifold conflicts and perils of the last three
centuries, and of late years especially has been shewing forth
His grace by strengthening and deepening our spiritual life
at home, and by spreading out our branches from East to
West, and from the sea to the end of the world, we feel a
humble reliance that, as there are still such great works which
He calls us to perform. He will prosper our endeavours to
perform them.

Under this persuasion, we desire to assure your Lordship
that we are no way troubled by this attack upon our Church.
She who is in God's hands cannot fear. She whom the Heavenly
Bridegroom is preparing in such manifold ways, and calling to
such glorious tasks, cannot be afraid, unless of her own weak-
ness and unworthiness. We would fain hope that, as a forein
invasion has so often caused the various parties in a nation
to unite heartily in repelling the common enemy, so, in this
case likewise, the attack upon our Church may prove a signal
blessing to us, by healing our divisions, by calling on us and
impelling us to unite against those who are striving to destroy
her, by opening the eyes of those who, from whatsoever motive,
have been led to look favorably on our assailant, by proving
to them that the spirit of Rome is still as ambitious, as grasp-
ing, as imperious and overweening as ever, and that none can
safely dally with her, or with any of her superstitious practices.
We earnestly hope and pray that we may not be defrauded
of this blessing by ebullitions of intemperate violence on any
side, but that we may all be directed, under God's guidance, to
exercise mutual forbearance in the spirit of love ; that we
may be led, each of us, to examine our own faith, the ground
of our hope, and the manner of our lives; and that we may

326 NOTE AD.

become more earnest in fulfilling our own pastoral duties, and in
waging war against evil, under all its terrible forms of unbelief,
ignorance, and vice, as it spreads in such huge masses through
the length and breadth of the land. This, we feel assured,
will, under God's blessing, be the best mode of contending
against Rome, of resisting her emissaries, and of preserving
the hearts of our people in the pure faith of Christ, as establisht
amongst us at our blessed Reformation.

May God grant your Lordship a long life, with health and
strength, bodily and spiritual, to lead and guide us in this holy
warfare.

Note AD : p. 63.

Had the time allowed, I should have wisht to express my
thankfulness that the attempts made to procure the admission
of Jews into the House of Commons had again been frustrated :
but, as I have not noticed any fresh arguments in favour of their
admission requiring refutation, I will not renew the discussion
of this question, which has already been treated at sufficient
length in my Charges for 1848 and 1850, and the Notes
appended to the former.

The other subject on which I wisht to touch, was the rejection
of the Bill for legalizing marriages with a deceast wife's sister.
By a judicious arrangement the Bill was brought this time in
the first instance before the House of Peers, so that it might
have the advantage of being discust by the Spiritual and the
Law Lords. The debate was a very able one ; and the majority
was such, including every English and Irish Bishop present, that
we may trust the question is set at rest for many years to come.
For this being a matter in which the social and moral feelings
of the nation, if they can be clearly ascertained, ought to exercise
a paramount influence, — it being now indubitable that an
enormous majority of the educated classes, who are the only safe
expounders of that feeling, view the alteration of the existing
law with intense repugnance, — it is plainly desirable that these
feelings, on questions touching the very heart of our social life

NOTE AD. 327

should not be liable to perpetual disturbance and assault. As
it is, they have been confirmed and strengthened by the shock
they have received.

On this subject however, the opinions which I exprest in my
last Charge and the Notes to it, have been so strangely misun-
derstood and misrepresented, that I am compelled to make a few
remarks in explanation of them. Owing to these perversions of
my meaning, I have had to sustain several attacks, the viru-
lence of which would have surprised me, if anything of that kind
could surprise one amid the present confusions in our Church.

Of my opponents the fiercest, who has come forward with his
name, is Mr Forster, the Rector of Stisted, who has denounced
me in a Sermon preacht in Canterbury Cathedral, and in some
twenty pages of Notes subjoined to it, wherein he would fain
cut me to pieces and throw me to the dogs, but, luckily for me,
has only been lavishing his blows on a man of straw of his own
construction. I conceive that he must be the author of a work
on Mahometanism publisht a score of years ago, and of some
recent Essays on primeval languages ; and I have heard the
former work spoken of as able. If it be so, he would seem to
have sadly impaired his logical faculty, as many have done
before, in his etymological researches ; and whatever capacity
he may have acquired in deciphering the primitive tongues,
he must have lost his insight into his own language, while
poring over them. At all events, whether it be this, or his
indignation that has blinded him, there are but few of the sen-
tences he has extracted from me, the meaning of which he has
been able to make out. To be sure, this may be my fault : but
still, when I compare my words with the meaning he ascribes
to them, it sometimes passes my ingenuity to discover by what
mode of interpretation he has extorted it. Hence, were it not
that he has a name of some respectability, I might dispense with
further notice of his attack. As it is, I am led to give a few
samples of it; since few are likely to take the trouble of ascertain-
ing whether I have really been guilty of all the wickedness he
imputes to me.

328 NOTE AD.

To Lis Notes he prefixes the first words of my Dedication to
the Clergy : " In publishing this ChargOj in compliance with your
wishes, I feel bound to state that there are some opinions exprest
in it, from which many of you strongly dissent." The meaning of
these words seems plain, and hardly needs to be brought out by
the grand rhetorical emphasis of italics and capitals : but one
thing at all events Mr Forster might have learnt from them, that,
in publishing my Charge, I acted in deference to the wishes of
the Clergy. In that case he would hardly have said, in p. 40:
" I especially allude to Mr Hare's Archidiaconal Charge, imhlisht
api^avently for the "purpose of advocating the Marriage Bill. I
speak advisedly when I say that this appears to have been his
chief object in publishing his Charge ; for, although he states at
the opening 'that he has not seen his way clearly to any satisfactory
conclusion,' and assigns this confession as a sufficient reason for
' neither himself taking a part in the agitation, nor inciting his
brethren to do so, in the way of petitioning the Legislature, or
otherwise^ yet his conduct has been exactly the reverse of this
statement. He has not indeed given his Clergy an opportunity
of expressing their condemnation of the Bill ; but he himself has
taken a most earnest part in the agitation in favour of the Bill,
if not by petitioning the Legislature, at all events otherwise by
every means in his power. For, just at the critical time when
the Legislature is discussing the Bill, and about to decide upon
it, he has publisht a very long and elaborate treatise in its
favour, employing whatever may be the weight of his name, and
all the influence of his office in the Church, to persuade men
that the proposed change is right and holy."

Now, if the confusion in my opponent's mind were not so
evident as to exempt him from a large part of the responsibility
for what he says, I should tax this paragraph with a series of
misstatements. Having himself cited my reason, a very simple
and ordinary one, for publishing the Charge, what right has he
to assert, and that too " advisedly," that my purpose was something
totally different 1 though, if it had been, I cannot perceive what
is the evil of bringing out a discussion on a legislative measure

NOTE AD. 3^

"just at the critical time when the Legislature is discussing it."
A reasonable man would have thought that this was the very
time when a person who fancied he could throw any light on
the question, or on any branch of it, was bound so to do. Mr
Forster however tells us that he is " an Irish Churchman :" and
in Ireland, it is said, the custom is to look after you leap, first
to decide on a matter, and then to discuss it. How again, unless
through a like interchange of the past and the future, was my
conduct "the reverse of my statement?" I stated what my
conduct had been up to the delivery of the Charge. Was it
inconsistent with this statement, that I publisht the Charge
subsequently ? How too does the publication of my Charge,
with a somewhat laborious enquiry into the meaning of a verse
of Scripture, and into the manner in which that verse had been
interpreted in various ages, deserve to be stigmatized with the
name oi agitation, and that too "by every means in my power"?"
In fine I have to protest against the description of my argu-
ments as an " elaborate treatise in favour of the Bill," and an
attempt "to persuade men that the proposed change is right
and holy." If Mr Forster had done me the honour, — the
justice I may say, seeing that he was about to make such an
onslaught upon me, — to read what I have written on the
subject connectedly to the end, he must have seen that I
pronounce no positive opinion, one way or the other, on the
proposed change of the marriage-law, — that the main part
of my discussion is on the meaning of the passage in Leviticus,
xviii. 1 8, and its bearing on our question ; though I do indeed
express my conviction that this text does not forbid the
marriage of two sisters, except contemporaneously, and that
therefore we are no way bound by this text to prohibit such
a marriage to a Christian people. My desire was to clear the
controversy from this irrelevant topic, so that the argument might
rest on its proper grounds, the social and moral expediency or
inexpediency of the law. I am aware that this is contrary to the
practice of our ordinary partisans, who scrape together whatever
they can find to make a show in favour of their cause, seldom

3'SO NOTE AD.

scrupling about distorting it to serve them, when there is need ;
wherefore, if they see a person discarding a bad argument, they
fancy he must be an adversary: but I have learnt to believe that
nothing can yield any lasting strength, save truth, — that this
will be stronger in proportion to its purity, — and that every
particle of falsehood, helpful as it may appear at the moment, is
rottenness to the bones. On the main subject itself, the expe-
diency or inexpediency of the Law, I declared repeatedly that I
did not feel qualified to pronounce a judgement ; it did not seem
to me that we had sufficiently precise information for legislating :
but, so far as I could form a conclusion, I say, that " the bias of
my mind would incline strongly to maintain the existing law,
with its sanctions of ancient usage and moral opinion, and
whereby we are made partakers of great blessings, — while it is
impossible to estimate the mischiefs of a change" (p. 31) ; —
that, " with regard to the higher classes — the present state of the
law may justly be esteemed a great blessing" (p. 30) ; — that,
" were it allowable to look at the question with reference to the
higher classes solely, I should wish that the present law should
be retained, both on account of the precious domestic blessings
which we derive from it, and because, in matters concerning
the primary relations of family life, the course of wisdom is
quieta non movere, unless under the pressure of some strong,
manifest, urgent cause" (p. 90). Now surely, if Mr Forster
had vouchsafed to read the writer whom he was attacking, —
unless he had left his understanding swampt in the morass of
some antediluvian language, — he could never have said of a
writer who summed up his opinion in this manner, even though
he acknowledged that there were other elements to be taken
into account, which might modify his conclusion, that he " has
taken a most earnest part in the agitation in favour of the
Bill by every means in his power," and that he was "hotly
advocating" (p. 33) the marriage with a wife's sister.

Let me cite another instance of the same intellectual ofFus-
cation. The first Note (p. 29) opens with the following extract
from my Charge. " The main argument of all, that which has

NOTE AD. 331

been drawn from the injunctions of the Levitical Law, has
seemed to me wholly untenable ; and that too, without any need
of enquiring how far, and in what parts, and in what manner
and degree, the Levitical Law is to be regarded as still binding
upon Christians, after our having been expressly releast from it
by the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem." In these words, which,
as they stand in the context, seem to me perfectly clear, I meant
to say, that the argument, on which so much stress had been
laid, from Leviticus xviii. 18, seemed to me quite untenable, as
I try to shew immediately after, from the very wording of that
verse, without any necessity for our entering into the wider argu-
ment on the mode and extent of the obligatoriness of the Levitical
Law upon Christians. The reader may judge then of my sur-
prise, when I found it stated : " The passage here quoted presents
a fair specimen of certain very grave defects, which run through
the whole of that portion of Mr. H's Charge, which relates to the
marriage question. I mean that he too generally ignores the
arguments of the opposite side ; either assuming that none
such exist, or barely inferring that opinions opposed to his own
are unworthy of notice ; and, on the other hand, equally with-
out an attempt at proof, he endeavours to convince by bold,
undoubting, and reiterated assertion. Thus the passage of his
Charge referred to, put into a logical form, contains the following
syllogism : — 1. The prohibitions in Lev. xviii. form part of the
Levitical, as distinguisht from the moral Law of God. — 2. The
Council of Jerusalem releast Christians from all parts of the
Levitical Law, as distinguisht from the moral law of God. — 3.
Therefore, the Council of Jerusalem releast Christians from the
prohibitions of Lev. xviii."

It has been said that we only find in a book what we put
into it, — an assertion which, though quite false in its ordinary
application, has found its realization in Mr Forster, whose grafts
are strangely different from the original stock. How this
sentence can shew that I " ignore the arguments of the opposite
side/' it is difficult to understand, I could not make mention
of them parenthetically in the sentence itself; but they are

332 NOTE AD.

cited and examined in the Notes, such of them at least as my
library enabled me to discover. In the Notes I have tried to
weigh what seemed most important in the arguments used by
Dr Pusey and Mr Keble, by Jewel,* by Willet, by Basil, by
Hammond and Patrick. Indeed, so far was I from ignoring
them in that very sentence, the words which Mr Forster
italicizes, — I suppose, to mark the egotisticalness of my way of
speaking, which others have reproved on the same ground, —
it seemed to me, — were adopted because this mode of speech
appeared to me to convey less of assumption than a naked as-
sertion would, on a matter on which certain eminent persons
had held a different opinion. Nor is it much easier to detect
how the sentence quoted exemplifies the practice laid to my
charge of " endeavouring to convince by bold, undoubting, and
reiterated assertion ; " seeing that the only thing like an as-
sertion in it is exprest as a mere personal opinion. As to the
syllogism spun out of my sentence, the minor is the only part
to which there is anything corresponding. I decline enquiring
into the validity of the major, and so draw no conclusion.

My castigator's next accusation (p. 31) is, that I have said,
" The rendering (of Levit. xviii. 1 8) adopted by the Caraites,
' one wife to another,' is not only destitute of all authority, but
discordant with the spirit of the sacred language : " and he
complains that I have " settled the matter in this ofF-hand
positive way." Now I grant I should justly have been liable
to his censure, if, without having the slightest pretensions to
Hebrew scholarship, I had taken upon myself so to speak. But
the words are not mine. If Mr Forster's irritation had allowed

• From a letter publisht in the new Edition of Jewel (vol. iv. p. 1262),
it appears that the good Bishop had changed his mind on this question, a year
and a half after he delivered the opinion given by Strype in his Life of him.
Writing to Archbishop Parker about a case, which had come before him and the
Archbisliop, and which had been carried by appeal before the Court of Delegates,
he says : " I would they would decree it were lawful to marry two sisters ; so
should the world be out of doubt : as now it is past away in a mockery." The
last words seem to mean that the habitual violation of the prohibition rendered
it " a mockery."

NOTE AD. 333

him to look beyond the sentence which offended him, he would
have seen that it is part of the opinion of Dr Adler, the chief
Rabbi, given in the Appendix to the Report by the Commis-
sioners, who justly thought that his opinion on a question of
Jewish law and usage was entitled to high consideration.

Again Mr Forster reproves me (p. 35) for wishing to introduce
these "two elements into our new national morals, the one as a
substitute, the other as a superseder of law, namely ' the con-
science of individuals' (p. G6), and 'the self-relying will'" (p.
71), and pronounces that "once admitted into play they would
open the flood-gates to antinomianism." I will not lengthen
this discussion by quoting the passages in which these expres-
sions stand, but will merely remark, that it is strange to find
a person, who has ever reflected on any moral question, ignorant
of the important part which the conscience of individuals must
act in the whole regulation of their moral life, and unable to
perceive how this is implied in those words of St Paul, which
enunciate one of the primary principles of all morality. Let every
man he fully persuaded in his own mind. As to "the self-relying
will," instead of introducing it as an element of social morality,
I merely use the expression in the way of warning, when urging
the necessity of bringing positive ordinances into agreement
with the conscience of a nation, as else " they will be under-
mined by the encroachments of the sceptical reason, and the
self-relying will."

There is a good deal more of the same sort of stuff, coloured
with more or less invective : but these samples are quite
enough to shew the value of my castigator's censure ; and I
should waste no more words on him, but that he accuses me (in
p. 4G) of "a libel on the village-poor of England," because I
have said that, in the present condition of the lower classes,
which we can hardly hope to see materially changed, " while a
widower, when left with young children, will naturally and
rightly invite his wife's sister to replace their mother's care over
them, the intimacy thus bred will have a strong tendency to
terminate in concubinage, if it may not in marriage." This

334 NOTE AD.

passage Mr Forster denounces with the utmost vehemence : nor
has anything in his pamphlet surprised me more than his doing
so. For he tells us he has had " the charge of two large village
parishes : " and I have been informed on good authority that
he has distinguisht himself in them most honorably by his
zealous endeavours to suppress the sins of the flesh. Therefore
he, of all persons, one should think, cannot be ignorant of the
terrible evils which arise from the smallness of our cottages, and
the want of a proper separation between the sexes. At all
events, they have been set forth over and over again in various
recent publications concerning the condition of our lower classes :
and if one converses with the clergymen who go about much
amongst them in London, one is almost sure to hear shocking
accounts of cases of incest even between the nearest blood-
i-elations. Now I did not deem it an improbable supposition
that a widower, left with young children, would be likely to
invite his wife's sister, if she had an unmarried one, to come
and take charge of them. Nor did it seem a violent presump-
tion, considering the circumstances, to infer that such an intimacy
must have a tendency to terminate in concubinage, if it may not
in marriage. That it does at times terminate in marriage, I
have reason to know from several cases that have come before
me, some of them officially through presentments made at the
Visitation ; though no proceedings have ensued from those pre-
sentments, owing partly to the illregulated state of our Diocesan
Courts, and partly to the unwillingness of the presenters to
incur the inevitable expense of a prosecution. This is the reason
that made those exemplary parish ministers, Dr Hook, Dr Dale,
Mr Champneys, Mr Villiers, Mr Gurney, come forward in support
of the late Bill. They had so deep a sense of the evils they
found around them, that they did not shrink from encountering
the fury of the Pharisees, who would burn and crucify all such as
deem truth and righteousness more precious in God's sight than
their traditions. If such be the state of the case, I cannot see
how there is any reverence toward God in concealing it, or any-
thing like impiety in speaking of a great social evil with the
view of having it remedied. Mr Forster indeed calls my remark

NOTE AD. 335

' a fearful proposition ; " because " it asserts that the law wliich
forbids a man from marrying his wife's sister must, in the nature
of things, universally have a strong tendency to lead to immo-
rality and improper intercourse among the poor, i. e., among the
immense majority of mankind." Of course it asserts nothing
of the kind. If the law be a law of God, and the horrour of
incest, which protects a sister, cannot be aroused to protect a
sister-in-law, the consequence is plain : people must beware of
exposing themselves to avoidable temptations. Hence I am no
way dismayed by the assertion, that my "conclusion would
involve an impiety from which I should shrink with horrour."
My conviction that God is the author of all good, that His law
is good and holy, and that whatever of evil may arise from its
application, springs solely from man's corruptions and perversions
of it, is far too strong, for me to fear anything that can result
from an honest search after truth. Only let us seek it strenu-
ously and singleheartedly, and, though He may allow us to stray
and stumble for a while, He will bring us out at length to a spot
where the way will spread out before our eyes; and He will
help us to contend against evil, even against that which we
ourselves may unwittingly have occasioned.

The strain of Mr Forster's invective had scarcely ceast, when
it was taken up by a writer in the 69th number of the Christian
Remembrancer, who has more vigour and smartness and know-
ledge, but displays his gifts with that flippancy and insolence and
unscrupulousness which often characterize the writers in that
Review. If he is superior to my previous castigator in clever-
ness, he makes up for this by his inferiority in honesty : for
while the former, as I have said, is only half responsible for his
misrepresentations, those of the latter bear an evident stamp
of malice. Of course I shall not think of replying to an anony-
mous assailant. The same general misrepresentations of my
purpose, which I have noticed in Mr Forster's Notes, run throuo'h
the Review : and if any one will compare the passages quoted
with the originals, he will find that in almost every instance they
are distorted in one way or other, and that what may seem
reprehensible in them is stuck in by the Reviewer.

336

NOTE AD.

On one point only will I add a word. In the Charge I have
said (p. 29), that we are not " to be overruled and fettered in
the interpretation of a passage like this (Levit. xviii. 18), by any
alledged consent of the Church. For in the first place there is
no such consent, as may be ascertained without much trouble."
In the Notes I have shewn that the prohibition in this verse was
interpreted as applying solely to the lifetime of the first wife by
Philo, by Augustin, by Nicolaus de Lyra, whose authority is the
more valuable from his having been a Jew, by Cornelius a Lapide,
by Caietan and Bellarmin, by Fagius, by Tostatus and Lorinus,
by Selden and Grotius, men whose combination of legal with
theological and philological learning fitted them especially to
pronounce on this question, by Jeremy Taylor, by Le Clerc, by
Rosenmliller and Baumgarten, by Chalmers, and by the two
most eminent jurists of our age in Germany. I have contended
too, on the authority of Grotius, that the Apostolic Canon, as it
merely prohibits a man who marries two sisters from becoming a
clergyman, seems to imply that laymen in that age were not
precluded from such marriages. Surely this is a sufficient body
of evidence that there is no general consent in the interpretation
of this passage as prohibiting such marriages. Yet on the
strength of this denial the Reviewer thinks himself warranted in
discharging several pages at me full of flippant and insolent
abuse : meanwhile he himself adopts an interpretation very
different from the received one, and then, some time after, says
(in p. 168), "Had Archdeacon Hare's negative of general consent
been applied to this verse, he would be right." Yet to this verse
I did apply it, and to this verse solely j except so far as the
number of authorities for interpreting this verse as sanctioning the
marriage of a wife's sister implies that there was no consent in
holding that the Levitical Law forbad it. This is the verse which,
from the beginning of my argument, I profest to discuss, and the
only verse with regard to which I have attempted to collect the
opinions of divines and jurists. The general question as to the
obligatoriness of the Levitical law I have not argued ; though I
have quoted Jeremy Taylor to shew that it is not a point to be

NOTE AE. 337

taken for granted. With regard to Levit. xviii. 18, I have been
glad to find ray opinion confirmed in the House of Lords in the
excellent speeches of the Bishops of St David's and Norwich.

Note AE : p. G4.

In earlier ages, before the love and dutifulness of the Christian
Bishop was swallowed up by the ambition of the Pope, the pre-
sence of the Bishop of Rome, — for instance, that of Gregory the
Great and of Leo the Great, — was an inestimable blessing to the
imperial city. For the last ten centuries it has rather been a
curse. The earth itself bears witness to it, as every traveler feels
on passing from the bright and rich fields of Tuscany to the
dreary wastes of the patrimony of St Peter. The aspect of the
people, in whom the same contrast is seen, bears a like testimony :
and the reports of those who have had opportunities of knowing
them, declare that their intellectual and moral and spiritual
character is too aptly typified by their outward appearance.
This is the case in our days : it has been so more or less for cen-
turies : and there appear to be the strongest reasons for believing
that the character of the people has been moulded in great
measure by that of the Government.

How deeply this conviction had imprest itself on the great Ita-
lians of the fourteenth century, we see from a number of passages
in Petrarch's Letters, especially in those sine titulo. I Avill quote
an extract from the 15th, in which he also speaks of the manner
in which the Papacy had carried its train of abominations along
with it in its migration to Avignon, making that still worse than
Rome. He is writing to a friend who was going from the former
place to the latter ; and he thus describes the two seats of the
Papacy : " Ecce jam oculis vides, jam manibus palpas, qualis est
Babylon ilia novissima, fervens, aestuans, obscena, terribilis, quam
nee Cambysis opus Babylon Niliaca, nee ilia vetustior regia Semi-
ramidis Babylon aequet Assyria : Nilum et Euphratem Rhodanus
vincit, nerape qui Tartarea flumina, Cocytum vincit et Acheron-
tem. Quicquid uspiam perfidiae et doli, quicquid incleraentiae

338 NOTE AE.

superbiaeque, quicquid impudicitiae efFrenataeque libidinis audisti

aut legisti, quicquid denique impietatis et morum pessimorum

sparsim habet aut habuit orbis terrae, totum istic cumulatim

videas acervatimque reperias. Nam de avaritia deque ambitione

supervacuum est loqui ; quarum alteram ibi regni sui solium

posuisse, unde orbem totum populetur ac spoliet, alteram vero

alibi nusquam habitare compertum est." Such is Avignon : thence

he carries his friend to Kome. " Vides en populum non modo Christi

adversarium, sed, quod est gravius, sub Christi vexillo rebellantem

Christo, militantem Sathanae, et Christi sanguine tumidum atque

lascivientem, et dicentem, Labia nostra a nobis sunt : quis noster

dominus est ? — populum duricordem et impium, superbum,

famelicum, sitientem, hianti rostro, acutis dentibus, praecurvis

unguibus, pedibus lubricis, pectore saxeo, corde chalybeo, plumbea

voluntate, voce melliflua ; — populum, cui non modo propria

convenire dixeris evangelicum illud atque propheticum, Pojndus

hie labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me ; — sed illud

etiam Judae Scariothis, qui Dominum suum prodens et exosculans

aiebat, Ave Bahbi, et Judaeorum, qui indutum purpura, coro-

natum spinis, percutientes et conspuentes, illusione amarissima

flexis poplitibus adorabant, et salutabant ^w Rex Judaeorum !

— Quid enim, quid, oro, aliud assidue geritur hos inter Christi

hostes et nostri temporis Pharisaeos? Nonne etenim Christum

ipsum, cujus nomen die ac nocte altissimis laudibus attollunt,

quem purpura atque auro vestiunt, quem gemmis onerant, quern

salutant et adorant cernui, eundem in terra emunt, vendunt,

nundinantur, eundem quasi velatis oculis non visurum et impiarum

opum vepribus coronant, et impurissimi oris sputis inquinant,

et vipereis sibilis insectantur, et venenatorum actuum cuspide

feriunt, et, quantum in eis est, illusum, nudum, inopem, flagellatum

iterum atque iterum in Calvariam trahunt, ac nefandis assensibus

cruci rursus affigunt 1 Et 0 pudor ! 0 dolor I 0 indignitas I

talium hodie, ut dicitur, Roma est — De qua non illepide jocans

quidam ait :

Roma, tibi fuerant servi domini dominorum,
Servorum servi nunc tibi sunt domini."

NOTE AE. S39

Let us come down now from the fourteenth century to the
nineteenth. I will give a few extracts from Niebuhr's Letters,
shewing what that great observer saw in Italy, and especially at
Rome, where he spent so many years. On the 24th of September
1816 he writes: "I have become acquainted with two or three
literary men of real ability ; but they are old men, who have only
a few years longer to live; and when they are gone, Italy will
be, as they say themselves, in a state of barbarism. No one feels
himself a citizen. Not only are the people destitute of hope, they
have not even wishes respecting the affairs of the world, except
as they concern their several cabinets ; and all the springs of great
and noble thoughts and feelings are choked up. The three genuine
and intellectual scholars of my acquaintance are all ecclesiastics ;
they are however only ecclesiastics by profession ; for I have not
found in them the slightest trace, either of a belief in the dogmas
of Catholicism, or of the pietism which you meet with in Germany.
When an Italian has once ceast to be a slave of the Church, he
never seems to trouble his head about such matters at all."

Again, on the 30th of October : " Rome is a terrible place for
any one who is melancholy ; because it contains no living present,
to relieve the sense of sadness. The present is revolting ; and
there are not even any remains of the Church of the Middle Ages. —
There is only one man of talent and mental activity here, at least
among the philologers and historians, — an old ex-Jesuit on the
borders of the grave : and he repeats the verdict which I have
already heard from the lips of the few old men, in whom I have
become acquainted with the relics of a more intellectual age :
Italia e spenta, e un coi"po viorto : and I find it so."

Again, on the 7th of February 1817 : — "Today begins the wild
buffoonery of the Carnival, to us a melancholy spectacle. It is a
question whether even the Romans will enact it with any real
gaiety of heart. — A people of utterly vacant mind is capable of
childish enjoyment, as long as it has outward comforts ; but when
a period of agitation and calamity comes, when its playthings
are broken, and it has to go hungry, it must inevitably become
heavy and stupid."

z 2

340 NOTE AE.

On the 16th of February, 181 7 :— " The old Greeks were pretty
near the mark, when they pictured our coasts (i.e. those of Italy)
as the land of Cimmerian darkness, and fabled Apollo as wander-
ing between Delphi and the noble Hyperboreans. It has already
come to this with me, that I feel I am growing as superficial
and ignorant as a modern Italian, and look up to all that you
can send me with sorrowful humility. The genuine native
Italians would indeed have to look up to it from the depths,
those here I mean, for whom I always feel angry that there is
no other name than the shamefully profaned one of Romans.
For the old men at Venice, Bologna, and Florence, said with
bleeding hearts, that all was over with their nation and their
literature, and that their departed greatness was but an agonizing
remembrance."

On the 26th of June 1818 : — " About the Italians you will have
heard Ringseis testimony ; [He was an enthusiastic and pious
Roman Catholic :] and we Protestants can leave it to him to
paint the clergy and the state of religion in this country. In
fact we are all cold and dead, compared to his indignation. —
The most superficial prophet of so-called illumination cannot
have a more sincere aversion to enthusiasm than the Roman
priesthood : their superstition bears no trace of it. I know that
I am perfectly correct in saying that even among the laity
you cannot discover a vestige of piety. The life of the Italian
is little more than an animal one ; and he is not much better
than an ape endowed with speech. There is nowhere a spark
of originality or truthfulness. Slavery and misery have even
extinguisht all acute susceptibility to sensual enjoyments ; and
there is, I am sure, no people upon earth more thoroughly
ennuye, and opprest with the burthen of their own existence,
than the Romans. Their whole life is a vegetation. — While
whole families sleep round the charcoal pans in winter, and
often get suffocated out of sheer idleness, the nobles carry on
conversazioni, which are not much better, and in which most
are neither speakers nor listeners. The universal knavishness
and thievishness are also the effect of laziness : people must

NOTE AE. 341

eat and clothe themselves ; and this must be done without
interruption to their sloth. The present government has
undertaken the task of introducing tolerable civil security by
a police, in the midst of ever increasing wickedness and degra-
dation,— a system of constraint and terrour that may impose fetters
on the wild passions of the animal man. They never think of
making him comfortable : he may sink deeper and deeper into
wretchedness; but he shall fear blows and the gallies, rather than
follow his own lusts. Surrounded by an incalculable body of
spies, and knowing how he himself would be ready to accuse and
betray any one for gold. Fear is to be his highest deity. There
is no criminal code ; the punishments are quite arbitrary.
Cardinal RufFo is dead ; and a historical personage, who equals
any of the commissioners of the Convention, relates with lively
chuckling how his Calabrians treated the towns, and even the
convents, which had been Jacobinical. Even the murder of a wife
is very lightly punisht. — The effect of this severity is seen in the
absolute inertness of the common people. The nobles, who
have nothing to fear, spend their days in lifeless inaction, and in
glutting their lowest lusts. — The destruction of Bonaparte's rule,
— you know how I hate it elsewhere, — has been the greatest
misfortune for Rome. To extirpate priestcraft, as it was and
is, was a necessary amputation ; and on the whole it was performed
with discretion, forbearance, and moderation. The people were
employed and cared for : the number of births increast rapidly;
the priests were no longer able to command or permit abortion :
the number of deaths diminisht incredibly. The conscription
was disliked, but did good. A French regiment was a school of
honour and morality for an Italian, as it was of corruption for a
German. Some life was awakened among the higher classes :
people began to take an interest in something; and very much,
perhaps all that is possible for a Roman, would be gained, if he
recovered animation. There were a good number of criminals
executed without the attendance of a priest, consequently con-
demned to eternal damnation ; whereas now, in the opinion of
the common people, every criminal who is executed goes fully

342

NOTE AE.

absolved into Heaven. The officials set the Romans a pattern of
liberality and conscientiousness; and the purveyors vi^ere models
of strict integrity and humanity to the managers of hospitals :
all this you will not misunderstand."

On the 2 1 St of May 1819, he writes thus from Tivoli : "The
priests are generally very poor, and incredibly bad. In Rome
there are parish priests who go about begging. The monks are
unquestionably nearly all good for nothing, although I know
one very estimable Franciscan. Learning and literature are at
a lower ebb than perhaps in any other country. Devotion is
merely external ; and this has much diminisht. I have been
assured by Italians themselves that the young men have
scarcely any faith at all. From the highest to the lowest, all
unite in hating and despising the Government. — I have been
talking here with an intelligent landowner about the city and
its inhabitants ; and he drew a frightful picture of one after
another of the most eminent men, which had quite an air of
truth. As he had just been blaming the Government, unhappily
with too much reason, I askt him, what good he hoped for,
if those who would come into power on the fall of the priestly
domination were so bad. He acknowledged that no improvement
could be expected."

On the 14th of October 1820, after having been four years
at Rome, Niebuhr writes : " It is impossible but that the
coquetting with Catholicism, which is now in fashion among
a certain class, should come to an end : it is altogether too
untruthful and revolting a comedy. Here in Italy the faith of
the Church has so died out, that the mummy would fall into
dust at the first hard blow. But what will replace it, God
knows ; since there is not a human throb in the heart of the
people, nor is any want felt beyond those of the animal nature.
It is just the same among the educated classes in Spain, where
religion is regarded as an insupportable yoke." Niebuhr's pro-
phecy has not been fulfilled so soon as he probably expected ;
though, to be sure, now that the coquetting with Romanism in
Germany has reacht its acme in the Countess of Hahn-Hahn, we

NOTE AE. 343

may trust that the boil is on the point of bursting. But he
would never have thought that the English mind would have
caught the infection.

From Florence, after finally leaving Rome, he wrote on the
22nd of May 1823 : "Here in Tuscany the traveler is gladdened
by the general aspect of prosperity and cheerfulness. The people
appear to be in the very condition best suited to their character
and temperament. Their moral superiority to the Romans strikes
you immediately, above all, their piety, as contrasted with the
utter want of it at Rome. You must not take it ill of us Pro-
testants, if, after spending seven years at Rome (though many
people go to church there every day), we fancied that this virtue
was quite extinct among the Italians, because it is so absolutely
at Rome. We were much edified here on Whit-Tuesday, by the
real devotion of an immense multitude. It is not dilficult to
explain why at Rome, above all places, religious services are now
become a painful taskwork."

There cannot be a completer refutation than these extracts
give to Dr Newman's sophistical attempt to prove, in the
Lecture cited in Note I, that the moral and social debasement of
the Roman people is the natural result of the exclusive power
which Religion exercises at Rome. Rather is it the natural, the
inevitable result of a corrupt religion, of a hollow religion,
of religion worn as a mask. A mass of evidence to the same
effect has recently been set before us in Farini's History of
the Roman State. I cannot stop here to collect even a tithe or
a scantling of that evidence, but will merely transcribe the
conclusions drawn from it by an able writer in the 74th
Number of the Christian Remembrancer, who, from the character
of that Journal, cannot be suspected of any ultra-protestant
rancour.

Speaking of the moderate and religious class of Italian liberals,
he says (p. 364) : " Good Catholics as they are, and because
they are such, their moral sense has been deeply shockt by that
absence of morality, both in what is neglected, and in what is
done, or allowed to be done, by authorities which claim most

§44 NOTE AE.

loudly the sanction of religion. In the home and centre of
Roman Catholicism, in that Italy whose faith has never been
shaken in the traditions of antiquity, and under the eye of the
guardian of that faith, the methods of governing are the by- word
of Christendom. And this is no mere question of political
philosophy or party ; it is something much more elementary
than a comparison of different theories or models of government.
It means that such is the system which has grown up and taken
root in many parts of that country, in the employment of
political power, that neither truth, nor fairness, nor mercy,
nor honour, nor justice, nor integrity, are reckoned among
its essential and indispensable laws and conditions. It means
that no one expects these, as a matter of course, at the hands
of those in authority ; and that rulers never shew any hesitation,
or scruple, when it is convenient, in departing from them. It
means that, where religion is alledged to be purest and most
influential, fraud, falsehood, corruption, and every form of loath-
some and base villany, vex and pollute the civil and social
relations of men, more widely, more systematically, and more
hopelessly than in any other Christian people ; because those who
have the welfare of their fellows in their hands, cannot, after
many attempts, be divested of the idea that these disgraceful
expedients are lawful and justifiable. It means further, that
those who, in times of difficulty, meet discontent and resistance
with vindictive and cruel measures, cannot be got to take the
trouble, in times of peace, to consult seriously for the happiness
and improvement of their subjects. This is what is meant by
the political degradation of Italy ; that authority, in a race of so
much intelligence and such high cultivation, is without dignity
and without principle ; that the very ideas of truth and justice
between the governors and the governed have been obliterated
by the immemorial and incurable contempt of them ; this, and
not the mere admiration of constitutions and representatives, —
this it is which makes men liberals in Italy j not only the
violent and impetuous, but the religious, the temperate, and the
well judging ; those who know how the Bible speaks of cruelty

NOTE AF. 345

and oppression, of treachery and denial of justice ; and that
these are not the less sins against religion, because contrary to
a civilization itself not always religious."

Note AF, p. 66.

I know not whether it has been remarkt, that Coleridge, in his
invaluable Essay On the Constitution of the Church and State, — a
work which arose out of a correspondence on the expediency of
what was termed Catholic Emancipation, and which especially
treats of the securities requisite to justify that measure, — lays a
main stress on the very enactment, which the Papal Bull, ap-
pointing the Romish hierarchy in England, violated. After say-
ing that " the principle, the solemn recognition of which he
deemed indispensable as a security, and would be willing to
receive as the only security, is not formally recognised in the
Bill," he adds, (p. 10) : "It may, perhaps, be implied in one
of the clauses, — that which forbids the assumption of local titles
by the Romish bishops ; — but this implication, even if really con-
tained in the clause, and actually intended by its framers, is not
calculated to answer the ends, and utterly inadequate to supply
the place, of the solemn and formal declaration which I required."

From Sir James Graham's speech on the late Bill, it would ap-
pear that neither Sir Robert Peel, nor even the Duke of Welling-
ton, attacht any great importance to the clause in their own Act ;
and I remember how Coleridge at the time was derided as a mere
visionary, who always magnified his molehills into mountains,
and made so much of what every reasonable practical man must
needs deem insignificant. Well ! after twenty years the Papacy
attacks England on this very point. The Government, the Church,
the Nation, from one end to the other, are exasperated by the
attack : they all feel its enormous importance : and lo ! what was
called a molehill, now proves to be a mountain, the magnitude of
which the prophetic seer discerned in the distance, while from
others it was hidden, even from the Duke of Wellington. Thus,
among the freaks of Time, it now and then comes out, that the

346 NOTE AG.

unpractical philosopher, looking into the heart of things, sees far
beyond the vision of all his practical contemporaries.

Of the late Bill I will not speak. He who questions its justice
or its necessity will find a very able and complete vindication of
both in the Bishop of Ossory's late Charge.

AG. p. 70.

On these Schools for the Middle Classes, I have already spoken
so much, and so earnestly, in my Charge for 1849, and in my
Sermon on Education the Necessity of Mankind, and the Dedica-
tion prefixt to it, that I will content myself here with commend-
ing them again to the help and support of all who love England
and her Church. A noble work was never undertaken in a nobler
spirit ; and, though it has had many jealousies and suspicions to
contend with, a blessing has rested upon it ; so that there is good
reason to believe that a large building, capable of holding three
hundred boys, will be completed before the end of 1852, and will
have its full complement of pupils. Ere long, I trust, the sus-
picions and jealousies will be in great measure allayed, through
the manifest benefits conferred by the school ; and we may hope
to see others like it rising in every county in England.

In p. 78 I have erroneously followed Dr. Newman in mentioning Mr. Hallam
among the repeaters of the story about Eligius, not having his work at hand to
refer to, nor having noticed that Dr. Newman at the end of his volume states
that Mr. Hallam in a later edition had corrected the mistake. To the list of
Protestants who have taken pains to expose it, I should have added Dr. Arnold :
see his first Lecture on Modern History, p. 102,

A CHAEGE

THE CLERGY OF THE ARCHDEACONRY OF LEWES,

DELIVERED

At Hastings, Scidcmhi-.r 26^//, and at Lewes, Septemhpr 28//;!, 1854.

AT)VEE,TLSP]MENT.

The Author of this Charge had wished to en-
large the part of it which reUites to Convocation.
He had revised nearly half of it, when he became
unequal to any further work upon earth.

It is now therefore published without the benefit
of his final corrections.

Herstmokceux Rectory,
Jan. 1855.

a2

A CHARGE,

ETC.

My Reverend Brethren,

I cannot see you around me on this occasion,
when, after an interval of three years, I am allowed once
more to enjoy the happiness of meeting you, without offer-
ing up my thanks to God, who has mercifully enabled me
at this momentous time to confer with you concerning the
matters which are of the most pressing interest to our
Church. The year before last I was compelled by illness
to request one of our Rural Deans to occupy my Chair at
the Visitation. Last year, when the Archdeacon's Visita-
tion was superseded, according to the custom of this Diocese,
by the Bishop's, I was again constrained by the same cause
to be absent. This year, too, as you are aware, after fixing
the Visitation to be held in the month of July, necessity
compelled me to postpone it ; and till the last fortnight I
have scarcely dared to cherish the hope that my health
would permit me to appear amongst you even now. Great
cause therefore have I for thankfulness, that during the last
few days my strength has been so much restored, as to per-
mit me to address you from this place on some of the
questions which are at present stirring and agitating our
Church. Many such there are; and the weakness which
still clings to me, will not allow me to do more than touch
briefly and summarily on a part of them. Yet I cannot but
feel that it would be a blessing, if we might, some of us,

6

gather a few gleams of light from this conference, which
might help us to discern in what path it behoves us to walk,
wheu there is such a mass of confusion to conceal it, and so
many temptations to draw us astray, — or if we might, some
of us, glean fresh motives for activity and zeal in the work
which the critical state of the Church and of the world calls
on us to perform.

For surely we cannot recollect and reflect on the events
which are going on in these days, without being convinced
that this is indeed a critical time, a time of trial for the
Church. Every time, it is true, is so: every time has its
own peculiar trials, as for the individual Christian, so like-
wise for the Church, and for every branch of it. For every
time, every day, every moment of time has its peculiar
duties, the complete discharge of Avhicli, requires constant
watchfulness, constant diligence, fortitude, self-control, and
a constant reliance on that aid, which, if we seek it, we are
sure to find. Every trial, owing to the weakness of our
nature, is arduous: but there are some that seem to be
greater and more arduous than others, some that are more
manifest; though, seeing that the strength granted to us
(vill be in proportion to our need, the most arduous trials
may prove the most efficient in confirming and assuring
our faith, by convincing us at once of our weakness, and of
the true source of our strength.

Thus, for instance, we are reminded, by the special
prayers which we ofl'er up in every service, of two great
trials which have come upon us recently. For doubtless
all will acknowledge that the terrible pestilence, which is
again stalking through the land, brings with it many ardu-
ous trials to our Church and nation. It comes attended
with pain, with fear, with anguish and agony, with death,
sudden and rapacious. Yet, if it be received and met with

Christian faith, and with the all-healing energies of Chris-
tian love, it may prove an occasion of manifold and en-
during blessings. As in the Christian life of individuals
sickness is so often one of the most fruitful among the
means of grace, so may it be with a Avhole people, by Ufting
up their thoughts and aims from temporal things to eternal.
Moreover, as a time of sickness is wont to call forth the
deepest powers of our human affections, so should the
visitation of a national plague arouse and call forth the
utmost assiduity of Christian love. In this manner, if we
make a right use of the season of mercy granted to us, if
we especially, the ministers of the Church, endeavour to
exercise and call forth those transmuting powers of faith
and love, by which sufferings are changed into blessings,
this present pestilence will be made to fulfil the divine pur-
pose of turning the heart of England from frivolous and
transitory things to that which is elevating and enduring;
and it may also serve to draw the hearts of the ministers
to their people, and of the people to their ministers, so as
to be a bond of sacred union amid the divisions of the
Church and of the nation. A pestilence, as we know, from
the records of history, ancient and modem, may indeed be
a dissolver of the bonds of society, letting loose all those
wild and fierce passions which in ordinary times are kept
chained and caged by the bonds of law and custom. But
every evil spirit may still be tamed and subdued by the
power of Christ: and they who go forth in His name,
standing between the living and the dead, and bearing the
gospel of peace and the cup of salvation to the sick, must
needs win hearts for their Master and for their Church.
The disease has not indeed as yet made its appearance
in our Diocese in any of its devastating forms; so that we
are not immediately summoned to engage in the more

8

painful modes of struggling against it. But all experience
seems to show that the most efficacious mode of resisting it
is by prevention; and for this end we may find much to be
done in almost every parish, much that will hardly be under-
taken, or at all events will not be done efi'ectually, unless
we, the Clergy, use our influence for the purpose, and un-
less you, my friends, who are come as Churchwardens to
this Visitation, are diligent in urging your neighbours and
friends to exert themselves in abating and removing what-
ever is injurious to health. If this be done, the alarm
produced by the present pestilence will be beneficial for
many years to come.

In like manner, it will not be disputed that War is a trial
to a nation, and to a Church. With the view of proving
that war is one of the worst of evils, it has sometimes been
alleged that this is one of the three plagues proposed to
David; and that the Jewish king shows such a sense of its
calamities, as to choose a pestilence in preference. Here,
liowever, there is a little confusion. The plague propounded
to David was not war generally, but that he should flee
three months before his enemies while they ivere pursuirig
him. Of the miseries of such a state of things David had
already had experience ; and terrible they ever must be.
We, through God's merciful Providence, have been preserved
from everything of the kind for centuries — at least, since the
Civil Wars ; nor can anything be more unlike the war we are
at present engaged in. On the contrary, he who considers
it aright will feel that it is a high honour and privilege
granted by God to the English people — a divine com-
mission, to be the champion of the weak, to redress the
wrongs of the oppressed, and to uphold righteousness and
law amid the commonwealth of nations. So, too, it would
seem like a special divine interposition that, at a time when

17

from their parochial duties, seems to have arisen from the
notion that Convocation would continue to sit during the
whole session of Parliament, and in that case would have
great weight. But this vanishes when we rememher that
the questions which will come before it in the course of a
year will not be very numerous, that these will be referred
in the first instance to Committees, which will have to
examine into them in detail and to report upon them, and
that the two Houses will only assemble occasionally at
long intervals to receive the reports and to pronounce upon
them.

There are indeed divers good men who readily admit
that Convocation, so long as it confined itself to practical
matters, might be an instrument of much good to our
Church, in remedying or removing the evils which have
grown up or come forward during its suspension. Only
they are afraid of its meddling with doctrine, of its attempt-
ing to make some of the definitions of doctrine more
precise or stringent. This fear, however, is merely
suggested by what is altogether accidental in the circum-
stances which have led a certain party in the Church to
take the lead in advocating the revival. Some thirty years
ago, when there was a movement, though a much slighter
one, in our Church for a like purpose, it proceeded mainly
from the opposite side, from those who felt their con-
sciences wounded by certain expressions in the Burial
Service and the like matters ; while the High Church-
men, as they were termed, were strongly opposed to it.
So that there is no natural leaning in Convocation toward
one party more than another; but each, as it feels itself
specially galled, is desirous of finding a remedy. For
myself, as I earnestly wish that all tender consciences
should be relieved, so far as it can be done consistently

18

with the obligation of the Church to uphold all essential
Truth, I should deem it my duty to join each party in its
eiforts to obtain that relief. For the business of the Church
is not to work out a dogmatical system into its details,
and impose it on its members, but to bring its members
to Christ, and through Him to the Father; teaching and
inculcating what is essential for this work, and whatever
tends to promote holiness and godhness. Hence, I cannot
myself share in the fear of which I have just spoken. In fact,
we have the most ample securities against any attempts
to render our theological definitions narrower and more
stringent. The habit of the English intellect and character
has never been to pursue speculative truth to its first
principles, as is evinced, among other things, by the fact
that we can hardly produce a single Enghsh treatise of
dogmatical theology, at least since the time of the School-
men. Our tendencies have ever been practical, whence we
have acquired our peculiar pre-eminence in all the provinces
of practical life. When a speculative truth is brought
prominently forward by some occurrence crossing the path
of our practical life, we examine into it, so far as seems
requisite for the special occasion, and then, having satisfied
ourselves, we leave it. Thus I believe it was a relief to
the whole nation when they found, by the recent decision
of the Court of Appeal, that they were not under the
necessity of pronouncing on behalf of any more definite
doctrine concerning baptismal regeneration. Moreover it
is to be remembered that, even if the passion for dogmatical
speculation should ever take possession of our Convocation,
which assuredly it would be unreasonable to anticipate, the
Convocation may at any time be prorogued by the Pre-
sident with the consent of his brother Bishops, or by the
directions of the Crown. Nor would the decisions of the

19

Convocation have any legal force, unless they were adopted
by Paiiiament. Now I know not what fear can be more
visionary or preposterous than that the Crown and the two
Houses of Parliament should concur with a Synod of the
Clergy in imposing a narrow and stringent dogmatical
definition upon the Church.

On the other hand, as of course it would be impossible to
prohibit our Ecclesiastical Synod permanently from the
examination of our Liturgy and Articles, it may be after a
time, when it felt itself at home in the work, and looked
around on the manner in which the nation is divided among
so many religious denominations, it might take thought
whether a large number of the Nonconformists in the land
might not be gathered into the unity of the Church. How-
ever inaccurate the official Religious Census may be in a
multitude of its details, the broad fact is undeniable, that a
vast part of the nation — if not half, a third or a fourth —
are not joined with us in that unity: and every true lover
of the Church, all who remember our Lord's earnest prayer
for that unity, all who bethink themselves how St. Paul
speaks of it, all who see daily how our work is cramped and
hindered by the want of it, must needs yearn for the recon-
ciliation of our brethren who are now worshipping apart
from us. Doubtless, the true and only effectual mode of
bringing about such a reconciliation will be by our endea-
vouring more and more to manifest the power of Christian
truth and of a Christian life in the Church ; and this mode
is continually producing that effect. But there are also
certain special hindrances, which were laid down with the
palpable purpose of excluding the Puritans at the Eestora-
tion; and these might and ought to be removed: for I trust
that we should not now follow the example of that age in
stickling for every particle of what we regard as truth, and

20

insisting that our opponents should recognise it. I trust
we should bear in mind that the real and only important
question is, not whether such and such a proposition is true,
but whether it is a truth of such weight and urgency that it
is absolutely necessary to insist upon it, even at the immi-
nent risk of driving those who cannot receive it into schism.
Nor need we fear lest we should thus be led to surrender
any really essential article of the faith. The tendency of
synodical bodies has ever been much rather to condemn
heresies than to be indulgent to them. Men who work
together in the cause of the faith, strengthen each other in
it; a remarkable instance of which was seen last year in
the Synod of the German Protestant Church at Berlin,
which, on the question what Confession of Faith it would
behove that Church to adopt, decided by an overwhelming
majority — indeed with only half a dozen dissentient voices
— in favour of the Confession of Augsburg, the Confession
drawn up by the Reformers, and which served in many
respects as the model of our own Articles. This decision
was scarcely less astonishing than delightful to those who
desire the prosperity of Christ's kingdom, and who know
through what dreary wildernesses the German Protestant
Churches have had to travel during the last centuiy and a
half.

I am well aware that the Convocation of our Province,
according to its present constitution, is not a body of suffi-
cient weight and authority to transact the momentous affairs
I have been speaking of with any prospect of bringing them
to a satisfactory result. On this all persons are agreed.
The Committee appointed to consider what changes are
requisite in its constitution, confined themselves — perhaps
wisely — to some minor points; but it was intimated that
far greater changes would probably be necessary, before the

21

Convocation of the Province of Canterbury could become a
Synod duly qualified to treat of all matters pertaining to the
wellbeing of the English Church. The Convocation of the
Province of Canterbury must be united into one body with
that of York, it being manifestly inexpedient that there
should be two co-ordinate, independent Synods, who might
occasionally come to opposite decisions on the same points.
Some scheme too must be devised by which the Church of
Ireland may be duly represented in that which is, we trust,
to be the supreme Ecclesiastical Synod of the United
Churches of England and Ireland. Moreover, seeing that
our Church has been so fruitful of late years, and that so
many daughter churches have sprung up in our Colonial
Empire, it is clear that their voices also ought to be heard
in an assembly which will not seldom have to frame regula-
tions, whereby they will be more or less affected. Nor will
there be any great difficulty in devising ways of doing this,
while their own immediate affairs are discussed by each
Diocese in its own Synod, or, for the Churches of Canada
and of Australia, by a joint Synod of each.

There is another change, however, in the constitution of
Convocation of far greater moment, which, I have the
fullest conviction, is absolutely necessary, if our Synod is
to discharge those high functions which the wants of the
Church in our age would impose on our ecclesiastical legis-
lature ; I mean the introduction of a large body of lay
members. Without this addition the Convocation will
never possess much authority, or enjoy the confidence of
the body of the Church. In a Note on one of my former
Charges,* I brought forward a number of precedents, shoAv-
ing that in various ages and countries laymen had taken
part in the Synods of the Church. If in earlier ages their
* The Means of Unity, Note J.

22

influence was inconsiderable, this was natural in times
when almost all the learning in the Church was confined to
the Clergy ; nor should this supply a measure for our
days. My conviction on this point, I believe, is now
become pretty general, even among the Clergy ; and I have
a strong persuasion that, if an opportunity had occurred
for ascertaining the opinion of the present Lower House of
Convocation, a decided majority would have been in favour
of admitting our lay brethren to assist us in our delibera-
tions. So, it has been stated on high authority, would a
considerable majority of the Upper House. If this is
indeed so, and this opinion of the two Houses finds a
distinct utterance, the obstacles which still stand in our
way, would soon be removed. An apprehension is enter-
tained in many quarters, which, if we bethink ourselves of
the testimony of history, cannot be termed very unreason-
able— that the secret aim of the advocates for the revival
of Convocation is to lord it over the Church. Only let it
be made clearly manifest that our earnest desire is to unite
heart and hand with our lay brethren in labouring for the
extension and expansion of the Kingdom of Christ, so that
every family, yea, every individual soul in the land, shall
have the Gospel preached to it, and shall be taught to
believe and to do all the things that our Lord ordained
for His people — the main part of those who now oppose us
from religious motives would join us ; and for the opposition
of those who oppose us from other motives, we need not
care. Let Christ's soldiers unite under one banner, they
need not fear the issue. The Prince of this world has been
conquered once for all ; and the more we strive to follow
up that victory, the more will the power and the glory of
it be made manifest over the earth. Our lay brethren are
already taking an active part in the proceedings of our

23

Religious Societies, which would be grievously maimed,
were they deprived of this help. Let this union be
extended to the highest Council in the Church, we shall
find that its blessing does indeed descend to the skirts of
Aaron's garment. When the laity see this full recognition
that they too are called to be Christ's ministers, the con-
viction will gain strength in them, and show itself by an
activity that will spread through the land.

For the mere purpose of showing that there would be no
insuperable difficulty in devising a plan for the combination
of a sufficient body of laymen with our Convocation, I will
merely throw out the suggestion, that a number of Peers,
equal to that of the Bishops, might be nominated by the
Crown to sit in the Upper House, and that two members
for the Lower House might be elected by the Communicants
in each Archdeaconry, either directly or indirectly, each
Parish sending one or more deputies to the County town
for the election. This, however, is a mere hint.

In concluding these remarks, which have hardly served
for more than to express my own deep interest in the
subject, I would fain recommend you, my Reverend
Brethren, to take these various matters into your considera-
tion at your Rural Chapters, where the Report of the Com-
mittee appointed to consider the best means of enabling
the Church to meet the demand for increased action arising
from the enormous increase of the population, would be
especially fruitful of matters for your discussion; and any
recommendations you may have to make might be presented
to Convocation either in the way of petition, or as grava-
mina et reformanda. Thus the Convocation would be
enabled to profit by the united experience of the whole body
of the Clergy.

It may be deemed by some that I have been attaching

24

too much moment to the outward means for extending the
Kingdom of God. These are, indeed, the means of which I
am especially called upon to speak on the present occasion.
But if I were to suppose that the Kingdom of God would
come upon us in its power, as a consequence of the revival
of Convocation, I should be under as gross a delusion as
those who are looking out for its coming, to the last
new interpretation of the Book of Daniel, or of the
Apocalypse, to what is going on at Constantinople, or on
the Nile, or on the Euphrates. To both these modes of
idolatry, to the idolatry of outward means, and to the
idolatry of outward signs, the complete answer is contained
in those divine words — the Kingdom of God is within you.
Then alone will outward signs and outward means have
any power. 0 let us ever pray that that Kingdom may
thus come to each of us individually, and, through the
mutual help and labour of each, to the whole Church.

THE END.