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The TniKD Pkoposition — "That Rome requires a convert, who now joins her, to forfeit his moral and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another." . Y. Being Tkue, ake the Propositions Material ? VI. pEiNG True and Material, were the Propo- sitions PEOPEK to be bet forth BY THE PRESENT Writer ? VII. On '!lW2 Home Policy of the Future. Appendices PAOR (> 13 16 21 47 57 62 69 THE VATICAN DECREES IN THEIR BEARING OM CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. I. The Occasion and Scope of this Tract. In the prosecution of a purpose not polemical but pacific, I liave been led to employ words wliich beloncr, more or less, to tbe region of religious con- trover°sy ; and wliicli, tliougli they were themselves few, seem to require, from the various feelings they have aroused, that I should carefully define, elucidate, and defend them. The task is not of a kind agree- able to me ; but I proceed to perform it. Among the causes, which have tended to disturb and perplex the public mind in the consideration of our own religious difficulties, one has been a certain alarm at the aggressive activity and imagined growth of the Eoman Church in this country. All are aware of our susceptibility on this side ; and it was not, I think, improper for one who desires to remove every- thing that can interfere with a calm and judicial 6 THE VATICAN DECREES H! !! temper, and who believes tlie alarm to be groiuid less, to state, pointedly tliougli l)riefly, some reasons for that belief. Accordingly, I did not scruj^le to nse the follow- ing language, in a paper inserted in the number of the ' Contemporary lieview ' for the month of Oc- tober. I was speaking of " the question whether a handful of the clergy are or are not engaged in an utterly hopeless and visionary effort to Romanise the Church and people of England." " At no time since the bloody reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But if it had been possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it would still have become impossible in the nineteenth : when Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith ; when she has refurbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she was fondly thouglit to have disused ; when no one can become her convert without re- nouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another ; and when she has equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history." * Had I been, when I wrote this passage, as I now am, addressing myself in considerable measure to my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, I should have striven to avoid the seeming roughness of some of ^:. ■I 4' * * Contemporary Review,' Oct,, 1874, p. 674. ; IN TIIEIU BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. nd Oils of •I 4, these expressious ; but a ; the question is now about their substance, from which I am not in any particular disposed to recede, any attempt to recast their general form would probably mislead. I proceed, then, to deal with them on their merits. More than one fi'iend of mine, among those who have been led to join the Koman Catholic commun- ion, has made this passage the subject, more or less, of expostulation. Now, in my o])inion, the asser- tions which it makes are, as coming from a layman who has spent most and the best years of his life in the observation and practice of politics, not aggres- sive but defensive. It is neither the abettors of the Papal Chair, nor any one who, however far from being an abettor of the Papal Chair, actually writes from a Papal point of view, that has a right to remonstrate with the world at large ; but it is the world at large, on the contrary, that has the fullest right to remonstrate, first with His Holiness, secondly with those who share his proceedings, thirdly even with such as passively allow and accept them. I therefore, as one of the world at large, propose to exj)ostulate in my turn. I shall strive to show to such of my Koman Catholic fellow-subjects as may kindly give me a hearing that, after the singular steps which the authorities of their Church have in these last years thought fit to take, the people u 8 THE VATICAN DECREES , : fl of tliis country, wlio fully believe iu their loyalty, are entitled, on purely civil grounds, to expect from them some declaration or manifestation of opinion, in reply to that ecclesiastical party in their Church who have laid down, in their name, principles adverse to the purity and integrity of civil allegiance. Undoubtedly my allegations are of great breadth. Such broad allegations require a broad and a deep foundation. The first question which they raise is, Are they, as tj the material part of them, true ? But even their truth might not suffice to show that their publication was opportune. The second ques- tion, then, which they raise is, Are they, for any practical purpose, material ? And there is yet a third, though a minor, question, which arises out of the propositions in connection with their author- ship, Were they suitable to be set forth by the pres- ent writer? To these three questions I will now set myself to reply. And the matter of my reply will, as I con- ceive, constitute and convey an appeal to the under- standings of my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, which I trust that, at the least, some among them may deem not altogether unworthy of their con- sideration. From the language used by some of the organs of Roman Catholic opinion, it is, I am afraid, plain that in some quarters they have given deep offence. f 1 I IN TriEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 9 Displeasure, iiidignation, even fury, might be said to mark tlio laii*xua£ce wliicli in the heat of the moment has been expressed here and there. They have been hastily treated as an attack made uj)on Koman Catlio- iics generally, nay, as an insult offered them. It is obvious to reply, that of Roman Catholics generally they state nothing. Together with a reference to " converts," of which I shall say more, they consti- tute generally a free and strong animadversion on the conduct of the Papal Chair, and of its advisers and abe+tors. If I am told that he who animadverts upon these assails thereby, or insults, Roman Catho- lics at large, who do not choose their ecclesiastical rulers, and are not recognised as having any voice in the government of their Church, I cannot be bound by or accept a proposition which seems to me to be so little in accordance with reason. Before all things, however, I should desire it to be understood that, in the remarks now offered, I desire to eschew not only religious bigotry, but like- wise theological controversy. Indeed, with theol- ogy, except in its civil bearing, with theology as such, I have here nothing Avhatever to d , But it is the peculiarity of Roman theology that, by thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion. To quiet-minded Roman Cath- olics, it must be a subject of infinite annoyance, that iO THE VATICAN DECREES i ij fi( t? tlieir religion is, on this ground more tlian any otLei', tbe subject of criticism ; more than any otLer, tlic occasion of conflicts witli the State and of civil dis- quietude. 1 feel sincerely how much hardship +heir case entails. But this hardship is brought upon them altogether by the conduct of the authorities of their own Church. Why did theology enter so largely into the debates cf Parliament on Roman Catholic Emancipation ? Certainly not because our statesmen and debaters of fifty years ago had an abstract love of such controversies, l)ut because it was extensively believed that the Pope of Pome had been and was a trespasser upon ground which be- longed to the civil authority, and that he affected to determine by spiritual prerogative o^uestions of the civil sphere. This fact, if fact it be, and not the truth or falsehood, the reasonableness or unreason- ableness, of any article of purely religious belief, is the whole and sole cause of tlie mischief. To this fact, and to this fact alone, my language is referable : but for this fact^ it would have been neither my duty nor my desire to use it. All other Christian bodies are content with freedom in their own re- ligious domain. Orientals, Luthe.ans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Nonconformists, one and all, in the present day, contentedly and thank- fully accept the benefits of civil order; never pre- tend that the State is not its own master; make no IN" TKEIR BEARING OX CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 11 religious claims to temporal possessions or advan- tages; and, consequently, never are in perilous col- lision witL the State. Nay, more, even so I believe it is witli tlie mass of Roman Catliolics individually. But rot so with the leaders of their Church, or with those who take piide in following the leaders. In- deed, this has heen made matter of boasi : — "There is not another Church so called " (than the Roman), '' nor any commvmity professing to be a Church, which does not srbmit, or obey, or hold its peace, when the civil governors of the world command." — " The Present Crisis of the Holy See," by H. E. Manning, D. D. London, 18G1, p. 75. The Rome of the Middle Ages claimed universal monarchy. The modern Church of Rome has abandoned nothing, retracted nothing. Is that all ? Far from it. By condemning (as will be seen) those who, like Bishop Doyle in 1826,* charge the medi- eval Popes with aggression, she unconditionally, even if covertly, maintains what the mediaeval Popes maintained. But even this is not the worst. The worst by far is that wherea. in the national Churches and communities of the Middle Acres, there was a brisk, vigorous, and constant opposition to these outrageous claims, an opposition which stoutly asserted its own orthodoxy, which always caused itself to be respected, and which even some- times gained the upper hand ; now, in this nine- * Lords' Committee, March 18, 182G. Report, p. 190. 12 THE VATICAN DECREES I I pi I i 'II teenth century of ours, and wliile it is growing oM, this same opposition has been put out of court, and judicially extinguished Avithin the Papal ChurcL, by the recent decrees of the Vatican. And it is impossible for persons accepting those decrees justly to complain, when sucb documents are subjected in good faitb to a strict examination as respects tbeir compatibility with civil right and the obedience of subjects. In defending my language, I sliall carefully mark its limits. But all defence is reassertion, which prop- erly requires a deliberate recousideration ; and no man who thus reconsiders should scruple, if he find so much as a word that may convey a false impression, to amend it. Exactness in stating truth according to the measure of our intelligence, is an indispensable condition of justice, and of a title to be heard. My propositions, then, as they stood, are these : — 1. That " RoQie has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem^ a policy of violence and change in faith." 2. That she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused 3. That no ore can now become her convert with- out renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at tlie mercy of another. '■fj- IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 13 4. That she (" Rome ") Las equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history. II. The Fikst aj^d the Fourth Propositions. Of the first and fourth of these propositions I shall dispose rather summarily, as they appear to belong to the theological domain. They refer to a fact, and they record an opinion. One fact to which they refer is this : that, in days within my memory, the constant, favoiite, and imposing argument of Roman controversialists was the unbroken and absolute identity in belief of the Roman Church from the days of our Saviour until now. • No one, who has at all followed the course of this literature during the last forty years, can fail i,o be sensible of the change in its present tenor. More and more have the assertiouG of continuous uniformity of doctrine re- ceded into scarcely penetrable shadow. More and more have another series of assertions, of a living authority, ever roady to open, adopt, and shape Christian doctrine according to the times, taken their place. Without discussing the abstract compatibility of these lines of argument, I note two of the immense practical differences between them. In the first, the office claimed by the Church is principally that of a witness to facts ; in the second, principally that of a judge, if not a revealer, of doctrine. In the first, the 14 THE VATICAN DECREES fill processes wliicli the Clmrcli undertakes are subject to a constant challenge and appeal to history ; in the second, no amount of historical testimony can avail against the unmeasured power of the theory of de- velopment. Most important, most pregnant consid- erations, these, at least for two classes of persons : for those who think that exaggerated doctrines of Church power are among the real and serious dangers of the age ; and for those who think that against all forms, both of superstition and of unbelief, one main pre- servative is to be found in maintaining the truth and authority of history, and the inestimable value of the historic spirit. ' So much for the fact ; as for the opinion that the recent Papal decrees are at war with modern thought, and that, purporting to enlarge the neces- sary creed of Christendom, they involve a violent breach with history, this is a matter unfit for mo to discuss, as it is a question of Divinity ; but not unfit for me to have mentioned in my article, since the opinion given there is the opinion of those with whom I was endeavoring to reason, namely, the great majority of the British public. If it is thought that the word violence is open to exception, I regret I cannot give it up. The justifi- cation of the ancient definitions of the Church, which have endured the storms of 1,500 years, was to be found in this, that they were not arbitrary or wilful, IN TIIEIU BEAPwING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 15 but tliat they wholly sprang from, and related to, theories rampant at the time, and regarded as men aeing to Christian belief. Even the canons of the Council of Trent have, in the main, this amount, apart from their matter, of presumptive warrant. Bui; the decrees of the present perilous Pontificate have been passed to favor and precipitate prevailing currents of opinion in the ecclesiastical world of Rome. The growth of what is often termed among Protestants Mariolatry, and of belief in Papal Infalli- bility, was notoriously advancing, but it seems not fast enough to satisfy the dominant party. To aim the deadly blows of 1854* and 1870 at the old his- toric, scientific, and moderate school, was surely an act of violence ; and with this censure the proceed- ing of 1870 has actually been visited by the first living theologian now within the Roman commun- ion ; I mean Dr. John Henry Newman, who has used these significant wovds, among others : " Why should an aggressive and insolent faction be allowed to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful ? " f * Decree of the Immaculate Conception, f iSee the remarkable letter of Dr. Newman to Bishop Ulla« thorne, in the ' Guardian ' of April 6, 1870. Ifi THE VATICAN DECREES III. The Second Proposition. I take next my second proposition: that Rome has refurbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused. Is this, then, a fact, or is it not ? I must assume that it is denied ; and therefore I cannot wholly pass by the work of proof. But I will state in the fewest possible words, and with ref- erences, a fev/ propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned by the See of Rome during my own generation, and especially within the last twelve or fifteen years. And, in order that I may do noth- ing toward importing passion into what is matter of pure argument, I will avoid citing any of the fear- fully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed : 1. Those who maintain the liberty of the press. Encyclical Letter of Pope Gregory XVI., in 1831, and of Pope Pius IX., in 1864. 2. Or the liberty of conscience and of worship Encyclical of Pius IX., December 8, 1864. 8. Or the liberty of speech. 'Syllabus' of March 18, 1861. Prop. Ixxix. Encyclical of Pope Pi^iS IX., December 8, 1864. 4. Or who contend that Papal judgments and decrees may, without sin, be disobeyed, or differed !•; tt!l IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 17 fvome tool from, unless they treat of the rules (dogmata) of faith or morals. Ibid. 5. Or who assign to the State the power of de- fining the civil rights (jura) and province of the Ciiurch. ' Syllabus ' of Pope Pius IX., March 8, 1861. Ibid. Prop. xix. G. Or who hold that Eoman Pontiffs and Ecu- menical Councils have transsjressed the limits of their power, and usurped the rights of princes. Ibid. Prop, xxiii. (^It must he home in mind^ that ^^ Ecumenical Councils " here mean Roman Councils not recognised hy the rest of the Church. The Councils of the early Church did not interfere with the jurisdiction of the civil ^ower.) 7. Or that the Church may not employ force. (Ecclesia vis inferendce potestatem non hahet.) 'Syl- labus,' Prop. xxiv. 8. Or that power, not inherent in the office of the Episcopate, but granted to it by the civil au- thority, may be withdrawn from it at tlie discretion of that authority. Ibid. Prop. xxv. 9. Or that the (immunitas) civil immunity of the Church and its ministers depends upon civil right. Ibid. Prop. xxx. 10. Or that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail. Ibid. Pivp. xlii. 3 ■'.s.',v7,jiifn 18 THE VATICAN DECREES 11. Or that any metliod of instruction of youtL, solely secular, may be approved. Ibid. Prop, xlviii. 12. Or that knowledge of things, philosophical and civil, may and should decline to be guided by Divine and -EI clesiastlcal authority. Ibid. Prop. Ivii. 13. Or that murriaore is not in its essence a Sac- rament. Ibid. Prop. Ixvi. 14. Or that marriage, not sacramentally con- tracted (si sacrament um excludatui')^ has a binding force. Ibid. Prop. Ixxiii. 15. Or that the abolition of the Temporal Power of the Popedom w^ould be highly advantageous to the Church. Ibid. Prop. Ixxvi. Also Ixx. 16. Or that any other religion than the Roman reliijion may be established by a State. Ibid. Prop. Ixx VI i. 17. Or that in " Countries called Catholic," the free exercise of other religions may laudably be allowed. ' Syllabus,' Prop. Ixxviii. 18. Or that the Roman Pontiff ought to come to terms w^ith. progress, liberalism, and modern civ- ilization. Ibid. Prop. Ixxx.* This list is now perhaps suflSiciently extended, although I have as yet not touched the decrees of 1870. But, before quitting it, I must offer three observations on what it contains. * For the original passages from the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX., see Appendix A. ill IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 19 tL, I • ■ • 111. leal '^ii. lac- Firstly. I do not place all the Propositions in one and tlie same category ; for there are a 2)ortion of them which, as far a^; I can judge, might, by the combined aid of favorable construction and vigorous explanation, be brought within bounds. And I hold that favorable construction of the terms used in con- troversies is the right general rule. But this can , only be so when construction is an ojien question. When the author of certain prop-sitions claims, as in the case before us, a sole and unlimited power to interpret them in such manner and by such rules as he may from time to time think fit, the only defence for all others concern '^d is at once to judge for them- selves, how much of unreason or of mischief the words, naturally understood, may contain. • Secondly. It may appear, upon a hasty perusal, that neither the infliction of penalty in life, limb, libert}", or goods, on disobedient members of the Christian Church, nor the title to depose sovereigns, and release subjects from their allegiance, with all its revolting consequences, has been here reaffirmed. In terms, there is no mention of them ; but in the substance of the propositions, I grieve to say, they are beyond doubt included. For it is notorious that they have been declared and decreed by "Rome," that is to say, by Popes and Papal Councils ; and the stringent condemnations of the Syllabus include all those who hold that Popes and Papal Councils THE VATICAN DECREES (iiii \ dh m (declared ecumenical) have trfinsgreased the just lim- its of their power, or usurped the rights of princes. What have been their opinions and decrees about l)er8ecutioii I need hardly say ; and indeed the right to employ physical force is even here undisguisedly claimed (No. 7). Even while I am writing, I am reminded, from an unquestionable source, of the words of Pope Pius IX. himself on the deposing power. I add only a few italics; the words appear as given in a trans- lation, without the original : "The present Pontiff used these words in replying- to the address from the Academia of the Catholic Religion (July 21, 1873) :— " ' There are many errors regarding the Infallibility : but the most malicious of all is that which includes, in that dogma, the right of deposing sovereigns, and declaring the people no longer bound by the obligation of fidelity. This rlffht has now and again, in critical circumstances,' been exercised by the Pontiffs: but it has nothing to do with Papal Infallibility. Its origin was. not the infallibility, but the authority of the Pope. This author- ity, in accordance with the public right, which was then vigor- ous, and with the acquiescence of all Christian nations, who reverenced in the Pope the supreme Judge of the Christian Commonwealth, extended so far as to pass judgmetit, even in civil affairs, on the acts of Princes and of Nations.'' " * Lastly, I must observe that these are not mere opinions of the Pope himself, nor even are they ♦"Civilization and the See of Rome." By Lord Robert Montagu. Dublin, 1874. A Lecture delivered under the auspices of the Catholic Union of Ireland. I have a little misgiving about the version : but not of a nature to affect the substance. IN TllEIIl IJEAIIING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 21 opiiiious wliicli he iiiiglit paternally recommend to the pious consideration of the faithful. With the promulgation of lils opinions is unhappily com- bined, in the Encyclical Letter, which virtually, though not expressly, includes tlie whole, a conmiand to all his spiritual children (from which command we the disobedient children are in no way excluded) to hold them : "Itaque omnes et singulas pravas opiniones et doctrlnas singillatim hisce Uteris commemoratas auc- toritate nostrd Apostolic^ reprobamus, proscribimus, atque damnamus ; easque ab omnibus Catholicie Ecclesite filiis, veluti reprobatas, proscrij^tas, atque damnatas omnino haberi volumus et mandamus." Encycl. Dec. 8, 1864. x\nd the decrees of 1870 will presently show us, what they establish as the binding force of the mart' date thus conveyed to the Christian world. IV. The Third Proposition. I now pass to the operation of these extraor- dinary declarations on personal and private duty. When the cup of endurance, which had so long been filling, began, with the council of the Vatican in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and learned living theologian of the Roman Communion, Dr. von Dollinger, long the foremost champion of his Church. m ■1: 22 THE VATICAN DECREES refused compliance, jmd submitted, Avitli liis ti'm])er undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the ex- treme and most painful penalty of excommunication. With him, many of the most learned and I'espected theologians of the Roman Communion in Germany underwent the same sentence. Tlie very few, who elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered iu like manner, deserve an admiration rising in propor- tion to their fewness. It seems as though Germany, from -which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that even now echoes through the land, still retained her primacy in the domain of conscience, still supplied the ceniuria prwror/ativa of the great comitla of the world. But let no man wonder or complain. Without imputing to any one the moral murder, for such it is, of stifling conscience and conviction, I for one cannot be surprised that the fermentation, which is working through the mind of the Latin Church, lias as yet (elsewhere than iu Germany) but in few instances come to the surface. By the mass of mankind, it is morally impossible that questions such as these can be adequately examined ; so it ever has been, and so in the main it will continue, until the principles of manufacturing machinery shall have been applied, and with analogous results, to intellectual and moral processes. Followers they are and must l)e, and in a certain sense ousjht to be. But what as to the leaders ill' II. 'M m IN THEIR UEAUINC} ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 23 of Hoelety, the men of ecluention and of leisnre ? I will try to suggest some answer in few words. A change of religious profession is under all circumstances a great and awful thing. Much more is the qn stion, however, between conflicting, or apparently conflict- ing, duties arduous, when the religion of a man iuip l)een changed for him, over his head, and without the very least of his participation. Far be it then from me to make any Roman Catholic, except the great hierarchic Power, and those who have egged it on, responsible for the portentous proceedings which we have witnessed. My conviction is that, even of those who may not shake off the yoke, multitudes will vindicate at any rate their loyalty at the expense of the consistency, which perhaps in difficult matters of religion few among us perfectly maintain. But this belongs to the future ; for the present, nothing could in my opinion be more unjust than to hold the mem- ])ers of the Roman Church in general already respon- sible for the recent innovations. The duty of obt^ervers, who think the claims involved in these decrees ar- rogant and false, and such as not even impotence real or supposed ought to shield from criticism, is franklj' to state the case, and, by way of friendly challenge, to entreat their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen to replace themselves in the position which five-and foity years ago this nation, by the voice and action of its Parliament, declared its belief that they held. I II:- m H. 24 THE VATICAN DECREES Upon a strict reexamination of the language, as apart from the substance of my fourth Proposition, I find it faulty, inasmuch as it seems to imply that a " convert " now joining tho Papal Church, not only gives up certain rights and duties of freedom, but surrenders them by a conscious and deliberate act. What I have less accur-itel/ said that he renounced, I might have more accurately said that he forfeited. To speak strictly, the claim now made upon Lim by the authority, which he solemnly and with the high- est responsibility acknowledges, requires him to sur- render his mental and moral freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another. There may have been, and may be, persons who in their sanguine trust will not shrink from this result, and will console themselves with tho notion that their loyalty and civil duty are to be committed to the custody o^ one much wiser than themselves. But I am sure that thercare also " converts " who, when they perceive, will by word and act reject the con- sequence which relentless logic draws for them. If, however, my proposition be true, there is no escape from the dilemma. Is it then true, or is it not true, that Rome requires a convert, who now joins her, to forfeit his moral and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of an- other ? In order to place this matter in as clear a light \- f; IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 25 as I can, it will be necessary to go back a little upon our recent history. A century ngo we began to relax that system of penal laws against Roman Catholics, at once petti- fogging, base, and cruel, which Mr. Burke has scathed and blasted with his immortal eloquence. When this process had reached the point, at which the question was whetlier they should be admitted into Parliament, there arose a great and prolonged national controversy ; and some men, who at no time of their lives were narrow-minded, such as Sh* Rob- ert Peel, the Minister, resisted the concession. The arguments in its favor were obvious and strong, and they ultimately prevailed. But the strength of the opposing party had lain in the allegation that, from the nature and claims of the Papal power, it was not possible for the consistent Ro.iian Catholic to pay to the crown of this country an entire allegi- ance, and that the admission of persons, thus self- disabled, to Parliament was inconsistent with the safety of the State and nation ; which had not very long before, it may be observed, emerged from a struggle for existence. An answer to this argument was indispensable ; and it was supplied mainly from two sources. The Josephine laws,' then still subsisting in the Austrian * See the work of Count dal Pozzo on the " Austrian Ecele 26 THE VATICAN DECREES m rn t> empire, and tlie arrangements wliieli had been made after the peace of 1815 by Prussia and the German States with Pius VII. and Gonsalvi, proved that the Papal Court could submit to circumstances, and could allow material restraints even upon the exer- cise of its ecclesiastical prerogatives. Here, then, was a reply in the sense of the phrase soloitur amhu- lando. Much information of this class was collected for the information of Parliament and the country.* But there were also measures taken to learn, from the liio^hest Ro-uan Catholic authorities of this coun- try, what was the exact situation of the members of that communion with respect to some of the better known exorbitancies of Papal assumption. Did the Pope claim any temporal jurisdiction ? Did he still pretend to the exercise of a power to depose kings, release subjects from their allegiance, and incite them to revolt i "VVas faith to be kept with heretics ? Did the Church still teach the doctrines of j^ersecu- tion ? Now, to no one of these questions could the answer really be of the smallest immediate moment siastical Lav." London : Murray, 1827. The Leopoldine Laws in Tuscan}' may also be mentioned. * See "Report from the Select Committee appointed to report the rature and substance of the Laws and Ordinances existing in Foreign States, respecting the regulation of their Roman Catholic subjects in Ecclesiastical matters, and their intercourse with th'~ See of Rome, or any other Foreign Ecclesiastical Juris- diction. Printed for the House of Commons in 1816 and 1817 Reprinted 1851. TX THEIR BEARING OX CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 2T to tliis powerful and solidly compacted kingdom. They were topics selected by way of sample; and the intention was to elicit declarations showing gen- erally that the fangs of mediaeval Popedom had been drawn, and its claws torn away; that the Roman system, however strict in its dogma, was perfectly compatible with civil liberty, and with the institu- tions of a free State moulded on a different religious basis from its own. Answers in abundance were obtained, tonding to show that the doctrines of deposition and persecu- tion, of keeping no faith with heretics, and of uni- versal dominion, were obsolete beyond revival ; that every assurance could be given respecting them, except such as required the shame of a formal retrac- tation ; that they were in offect mere bugbears, un- worthy to be taken into account by a nation which prided itself on being made up of practical men. But it was unquestionably felt that something more than the renunciation of these particular o2:)in- ions was necessary in order to secure the full con- cession of civil rights to Roman Catholics. As to their individual loyalty, a State disposed to gener- ous or candid interpretation had no reason to be uneasy. It was only with regard to requisitions, which might be made on them from another quar- ter, that apprehension could exist. It was reason- able that England should desire to know not only / t 28 THE VATICAN DECREES I what the Pope * might do for himself, but to what demands, by the constitution of their Church, they were liable ; and how far it was possible that such demands could touch their civil duty. The theory which placed every human being, in things spiritual and things temporal, at the feet of the Roman Pon- tiff, had not been an idolum specus, a mere theory of the chamber. Brain-power never surpassed in the political history of the world had been devoted for centuries to the sinsjle purpose of working it into the practice of Christendom ; had in the West achieved for an impossible problem a partial success; and had in the East punished the obstinate independence of the Church by that Latin conquest of Constanti- nople which effectually prepared the way for the downfall of the Eastern Empire, and the establish- ment of the Turks in Europe. What was really material therefor^ was, not whether the Papal chair laid claim to this or that particular power, but whether it laid claim to some power that included them all, and whether that claim had received such sanction from the authorities of the Latin Church, that there remained within her borders absolutely * At that period the eminent and able Bishop Doyle did not scruple to write as follows : " "We are taunted with the proceed- ings of Popes. What, my Lord, have we Catholics to do with the proceedings of popes, or why should we be made account- able for them ? " — ' Essay on the Catholic Claims.' To Lord Liverpool, 1836, p. 111. IX THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 20 no tenable standing-ground from whicli war against it could be maintained. Did the Pope then claim infallibility ? Or did he, either without inMlibility or with it (and if with it, so much the worse), claim an universal obedience from his flock ? And were these claims, either or both, affirmed in his Church by authority which even the least Papal of the mem- bers of that Church must admit to be binding upon conscience ? The two first of these questions were covered by the third. And well it was that they were so cov- ered. For to them no satisfactory answer could even then be given. The Popes had kept up, with com- paratively little intermission, for well-nigh a thou- sand years their claim to dogmatic infallibility ; and had, at periods within the same tract of time, often enough made, and never retracted, that other claim which is theoretically less but practically larger ; their claim to an obedience virtually universal from the baptised members of the Church. To the third question it was fortunately more practicable to pre scribe a satisfactory reply. It was w^ell known that, in the days of its glory and intellectual power, the ' great Galilean Church had not only not admitted but had denied Papal infallibility, and had declarea^ that the local laws and usages of the Church could net be set aside by the will of the Pontiif. Nay, further, it was believed that in the main these had . ■ .K I 80 THE VATICAN DECREES I J I been, down to the close of tlie last century, tlie pre- vailing opinions of tlie Cisalpine Clmrclies in com- munion witli Kome. The Council of Constance had in act as well as word shown that the Pojro's judgments, and the Pope himself, were triable by the assembled representatives of +he Christian world. And the Council of Trent, notwithstanding the predominance in it of Italian and Roman influences, if it had not denied, yet had not affirmed either proposition. All that remained was, to know what wf^ie the sentiments entertained on these vital points by the leaders and guides of Roman Catholic opinion nearest to our own doors. And here testimony was offered, which must not, and cannot, be forgotten. In part, this was the testimony of witnesses before the Com- mittee of the House of Lords in 1825. I need quote two answers only, given by the Prelate, wlio more than any other represented, his Church, and influ- enced the mind of this country in favor of concession at the time, namely, Bisho]) Doyle. He was asked,* " In what, and how far, does the Roman Catholic profess to obey the Pope ? " * (Tbmmittees of both Lords and Commons sat ; the former in 1825, the latter in 1824-5. The References were identical, and ran as follows : " To inquire into the state of Ireland, more particularly with reference to the circumstances which may have led to disturbances in that part of the United Kingdom." Bishop Doyle was examined March 21, 1825, and April 31, 1825, before the Lords. i: IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 31 He replied : " The Catholic professes to obey the Pope in matters which regard his religious faith : and in those matters of ecclesiastical discipline which have already been defined by the competent authorities." And again : " Does that justify the objection that is made to Catholics, that their allegiance is divided ? " " I do not think it does in any way. We are bound to obey the Pope in those things that I ha-e already mentioned. But our obedience to the law, and the allegiance which we owe the sovereign, are complete, and full, and perfect, and undivided, inasmuch as they extend to all political, legal, and civil rights of t]^e king or his subjects. I think the allegiance due to the king, and the allegiance due to the Pope, are as distinct and as divided in their nature as any two things can possibly be." Such is the opinion of the dead Prelate. "VVe shall presently hear the opinion of a living one. But the sentiments of the dead man powerfully operated on the open and trustful temper of this people to induce them to grant, at the cost of so much popular feeling and national tradition, the great and just concession of 1829. That concession, without such declarations, it would, to say the least, have been far more difficult to obtain. Now, bodies are usually held to be bound by the evidence of their own selected and typical witnesses. But in this instance the colleagues of those witnesses thought fit also to Speak collectively. First let us quote from the collective " Declara- tion," in the year 1826, of the Vicars Apostolic, who, 82 THE VATICAN DECREES 1^ n ■■ I- 1: '■•til ■k n. % with Episcoj^al authority, governed the Roman Cath- olics of Great Britain : "The allegiance which Catholics hold to be due, and are bound to pay, to their. Sovereign, and to the civil authority of the State, is perfect and undivided. . . . " They declare that neither the Pope, nor any other prelate or ecclesiastical person of the Roman Catholic Church . . . has any right to interfere, directly or indirectly, in the Civil Govern- ment, . . . nor to oppose in any manner the performance of the civil duties which are due to the king." Not less explicit was the Hierarchy of the Roman Communion in its '' Pastoral Address to the Clergy and Laity of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland," dated January 25, 1826. This address contains a Dec- laration, from Avhich I extract the following words : " It is a duty which they owe to themselves, as icell as to their JProtestant fellow-suhjecfs, whose good opinion they value, to endeavor once more to remove the false imputations that have been frequently cast upon the faith and discipline of that Church which is intrusted to their care, that all may be enabled to Tcnow with accuracy their genuine principles.''^ In Article 11 : — " They declare on oath their belief that it is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither are they thereby required to believe, that the Pope is infallible." And, after various recitals, they set forth — " After this full, explicit, and sworn declaration, we are utterly at a loss to conceive on what possible ground we could be justly charged with bearing towards our most gracious Sov- ereign only a divided allegiance." Thus, besides much else that I will not stop to quote, ti- IN* THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 33 Papal infallibility was most solemnly declared to he a matter on wliicli each man might think as he pleased ; the Pope's power to claim obedience was strictly and narrowly limited : it was expressly de- nied that he had any title, direct or indirect, to inter- fere in civil government. Of the right of the Pope to define the limits which divide the civil from the spiritual by his own authority, not one word is said by the Prelates of either country. Since that time, all these propositions have been reversed. The Pope's infallibility, when he speaks ex caiJiedrd on faith and morals, has been declared, with the assent of the Bishops of the Roman Church, to be an article of faith, binding on the conscience of every Christian ; his claim to the obedience of his spiritual subjects has been declared in like manner without any practical limit or reserve ; and his su- premacy, without any reserve of civil rights, has been similarly affirmed to include eveiything which relates to the discipline £ id government of the Church throughout the world. And these doctrines, we now know on the highest authority, it is of neces- sity for salvation to believe. Independentl} , however, of the Vatican Decrees themselves, it is necessary for all who wish to under- stand what has been the amount of the wonderful change now consummated in the constitution of the Latin Church, and what is the present degradation n\ t 34 THE VATICAN DECREES ■I;: .■A ■11: of its Episcopal order, to observe also the change, amounting to revolution, of form in the present, as compared witli other conciliatory decrees. Indeed, that spirit of central'^ation, the excesses of which are as fatal to vigorous life in the Church as in the State, seems now nearly to have reached the last and fur- thest point of possible advancement and exaltation. When, in fact, we speak of the decrees of the Council of the Vatican, we use a phrase wliich will not bear strict examination. The Canons of the Council of Trent were, at least, t^ie real Canons of a real Council : and the strain in which tbey are promulgated is this : Jlcec sacrosancta, ecumenica^ et generally Tridentina Sj/nodus, in Spiritu Sando le- gitime congregata^ in ed prcesidentihus eisdem trihiis rpostolicis Legatis^ liortatur^ or docet^ or statuit^ or decernit, and the like : and its canons, as published in Rome, are " Canones et decreta Sacrosancti eoume- nici Concilii Tridentini,'' * and so forth. But what we have now to do with is the Constitutio Dog- matica Prima de Ecclesid Ohristi^ edita in Sessione tert'id of the Vatican Council. It is not a constitu- tion made by the Council, but one promulgated in the Council, f And who is it that legislates and * ' Rorna3 : in Collegio urbano de Propaganda Fide.' 1833. f I am aware that, as some hold, this was the case with the Counoii of the Lateran in A. D. 1215. But, first, this has not been established : secondly, the v^ry gist of the evil we are dealing !;• IN TlIEIll IJEAIllNG ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 35 decrees ? It is Pius Ej^i8copu8^ servus servorum Dei : and tlie seductive plural of Lis doceinKS et de- claramus is simply tlie dignified and ceremonious " We " of Royal declarations. Tlie document is dated Pontificatus 7iostri Anno XXV: and tlie hum- ble share of the assembled Episcopate in the trans- action is represented by sacro approhante concillo. And now for the propositions themselves. First comes the Pope's infallibility : — " Docenius, ct divinit'is revelatum dogma esse defuiimus, Ronianum Pontificcm, cum ex Cathednl loquitur, id est cum, omnium Christianorum Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens, pro supremA sua ApostoliciX auctoritate doctrinam de fide vol uioribus ab universd Ecclesia teneudam definit, per assistcntiam divinam, ipsi in Beato Petro promissam, eA infallibilitate pollere, quit Divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definiendtl doctrind de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit : ideoque ejus Romani Pontificis definitiones ex sese non autem ex consensu Ecclesire irreformabiles esse." * "Will it, then, be said that the infallibility of the Pope accrues only when he speaks ex cathedra ? No doubt this is a very material consideration for those who have been told that the private conscience is to derive comfort and assurance from the emanations of the Papal Chair : for there is no established or accepted definition of the phrase ex cathedra, and he has no power to obtain one, and no guide to direct witli consists in following (and enforcing) precedents from the age of Pope Innocent III. * ' Constitutio de Ecclesia,' c. iv. -1. 30 THE VATICAN DECREES i J? . 1: :-k fe liim in liis choice among some twelve theories on the subject, which, it is said, are bandied to and fro among Roman theologians, except the despised and discarded agency of his private judgment. But while thus jorely tantalised, he is not one whit protected. For there is still one person, and one only, who can unquestionably (declare ex cathedrd what is ex cathedrd and what is not, and who can declare it when and as he pleases. That person is the Pope himself. The provision is, that no docu- ment he issues shall be valid without a seal ; but the seal remains under his own sole lock and key. Again, it may be sought to plead, that the Pope is, after all, only operating by sanctions which un- questionably belong to the religious domain. He does not propose to inv^ade the country, to seize Woohvich, or burn Portsmouth. He will only, at the worst, excommunicate opponents, as he has ex- communicated Dr. von DoUinger and others. Is this a good answer ? After all, even in the Middle Ages, it was not by the direct action of fleets and armies of their own that the Popes contended with kings who were refractory; it was icdnly by inter- dicts, and by the refusal, which thev entailed when the Bishops w^ere not brave enough to refuse their publication, of religious offices to the people. It was thus that England suffered under John, France under Philip Augustus, Leon under Alphonso the 1 1- LV THEIR BEARIXG 0!^ CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 37 Noble, and every country in its turn. But the in- ference may be drawn that tlicy who, wlule ushig spiritual weapons for sucli an end, do not employ temporal means, only fail to employ tlieni because they liavc them not. A religious society, which de- livers volleys of spiritual censures in order to im- pede the performance of civil duties, does all the miscLief that is in its power to do, and brings into question, in the face of the State, its title to civil protection. Will it be said, finally, that the Infallibility touches only matter of faith and morals 'i Only mat- ter of morals ! Will any of tlie Roman casuists I'.indly acquaint us what are the departments and functions of human life which do not and cannot fall within the domain of morals ? If they will not tell us, we must look elsewhere. In his work entitled " Literature and Dogma," * Mr. Matthew Arnold quaintly infoi'ms us — as they tell us nowadays ho^v many parts of our poor bodies are solid, and how many aqueous — that about seventy-five per cent, of all we do belongs to the department of " conduct." Conduct and morals, we may suppose, are nearly co- extensive. Three - fourths, then, of life are thus handed over. But who will guarantee to us the other fourth? Certainly not St. Paul; wdio says, Pages 15, 44. 38 THE VATICAN DECREES ''^ 4r I I. ^■ Ik " Whether therefore ye eat, or driuk, or whatsoever ye do, do oil to the glory of God." And " Whatso- ever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of tlie Lord Jesus."* No! Such a distinction -vvouhl be the unworthy device of a shallow policy, vainly used to hide the daring of that wild ambition which at Rome, not from the throne but from b^^- liind the throne, prompts the movements of the Vat- ican. I care not to ask if there be dregs or tatters of human life, such as can escape from the descrip- tion and boundary of morals. I submit that Duty is a jiower which rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is co-extensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shad- ow which cleaves to us, go where we w^ill, and wdiich only leaves us \vlien we leave the light of life. So, then, it is the supreme direction of us in respect to all Duty, ^^•hich the Pontitf declares to belong to him, sacrc approhante concillo : and this declaration he makes, not as an otiose opinion of tlie schools, but cunctls fidellhis credendam et tenendam. But we shall now see that, even if a loophole had at this 2^oint been left unclosed, the void is supj^lied by another pro^'ision of the Decrees. While the reach of the Infallibility is as wide as it may please the Pope, or those who may prompt the Pope, to * 1 Cor. X. 31 ; Col. iii. 7. IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 39 make it, tLere is sonietliiug wider still, and tliat is the claim to an absolute and entire Obedience. Tliis Obedience is to be rendered to liis orders in the cases I shall proceed to point out, without any qualifying condition, sucli as tlie ex catltedrcL The sounding name of Infallibility lias so fascinated the public mind, and riveted it on the Fourth Chapter of the Constitution de Ecdesid^ that its near neighbor, the Third Chapter, has, at least in my opinion, received very much less than justice. Let us turn to it : " Cujuscuiique ritds et dignitatis pastorcs atque fideles, tarn seorsu' singuli quam simul omiics, officio liierarchicoB subordi- imtionis veraeque obedientiic obstriuguntur, non solum in rebus, qua3 ad fidem ct mores, sed etiam in iis, quas ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclcsiffi per totum orbem diffusae pertinent. . . . H:ec est Catliollcaj veritatia doctrina, a qua deviare, salva fide atque salute, nemo potest. . . . " Docemus etiam et declara\iius cum esse judicem suprcmum (ideiium, et in omnibus causis ad examen ecclesiasticum spec- tantibvis ad ipsius posse judicium recurri : Sedis vero Apostolicn?, cujns auctoritate major non est, judicium a nemine fore rr^trac tandum. Neque cuiquam de ejus licere judicare judicio." * Even, therefore, where the judgments of the Poj)e do not present the credentials of infallibility, they are unappealable and irreversible : no person may pass judgment upon them ; and all men, clei'ical and lay, dispersedly or in the aggregate, are bound truly to obey them ; and from this rule of Catholic truth no man can depart, E-a\ iit the peril of his salvation. * " Dogmatic Constitutions," etc., c. iii. Dublin, 1870, pp. 30-33. 40 THE VATICAN DECREES It*. >' It ., • rk hi Surely, it is allowaljle to say that tLis Tliird Cliapter on universal obedience is a formidable lival to the Fourth Chapter on iDfallibility. Indeed, to an ob- server from without, it seems to leave the dignity to the other, but to reserve the stringency and efficiency to itself. The Third Chaj^ter is the Merovingian Monarch ; the fourth is the Carol ingian Mayor of the Palace. The third has an overawing sj^lendor ; the fourth, an iron grij)e. Little does it matter to me whether my superior claims infallibility, so long as he is entitled to demand and exact conformity. This, it will be observed, he demands even in cases not covered by his infallibility ; cases, therefore, in which he admits it to be possible that he may be wrong, but finds it intolerable to be told so. As he must be obeyed in all his judgments though not ex catJiedrd, it seems a pity he could not likewise give the com- forting assurance that they are all certain to be right. But why this ostensible reduplication, this ap- parent surplusage ? Why did the astute contrivers of this tangled scheme conclude that they could not afford to rest content with pledging the Council to Infallibility in terms which are not only wide to a high degree, but elastic beyond all measure ? Though they must have known perfectly well that " faith and morals " carried everything, or everything worth having, in the purely individual sphere, they IN TIIEir. BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 41 ) also knew just as well that, even where the individual was subjugated, they might and would still have to deal with the State. In mediaeval history, this distinction is not only clear hut glaring. Outside the borders of some narrow and proscribed sect, now and then emerging, w^e nevor, or scarcely ever, hear of private and per- sonal resistance to the Pope. The manful "Prot- estantism " of mediseval times had its activity almost entirely in the sphere of public, national, and state rights. Too much attention, in my opinion, cannot be fastened on this point. It is the very root and kernel of the matter. Individual servitude, however abject, will not satisfy the party now dominant in the Latin Church : the State must also be a slave. Our Saviour had recognised as distinct the two provinces of the civil rule and the Church : had no- where intimated that the spiritual authority was to claim the disposal of physical force, and to control in its own domain the authority which is alone respon- sible for external peace, order, and safety among civilised communities of men. It has been alike the ■ ) ^ealiarity, the pride, and the misfortune of the 9 >man Church, among Christian communities, to allow to itself an unbounded use, as far as its power would go, of earthly instruments for spiritual ends. We have seen with what ample assurances* this * See further, Appendix B. t2 THE VATICAN DECREES I [S h I 1 m, \B H it: 1 nation and Parliament were fed in 182G ; liow well and roundly tlie full and undivided riglits of the civil power, and the separation of the two jui'isdie- tions, were affirmed. All this liad ut length been undone, as far as Popes could undo it, in the Syl- labus and the Encyclical. It remained to complete the undoing, through the subserviency or pliability of the Council. And the work is now truly complete. Lest it should be said that supremacy in faith and morals, full dominion over perr-i'al belief and conduct, did not cover the collective , 'U of men in States, a third jDrovince was opened, not indeed to the ab- stract • assertion of Infallibility, but to the far more practical and decisive demand of absolute Obedience. And this is the proper work of the Third Chapter, to which I am endeavoring to do a tardy justice. Let us listen again to its few but pregnant words on the jwint : "Non solum in rebus, quqe ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quas ad disciplinam et regimen Ecelesioe per totum orLem diffusa^ pertinent.' Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the Pope, at the peril of salvation, not alone in faith, in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church. Thus are swept into the Papal net w^hole multitudes of facts, whole systems of government, prevailing, though in ♦ . IN THEIR BEARIXG ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 43 different degrees, in every country of the world. Even in tlie United States, where the severance be- tween Churcli and f^l-ate is supposed to be comjolete, a long catalogue niiglit be drawn of subjects belong- ing to the domain and competency of the State, but also undeniably affecting the government of the Churcli ; such as, by way of example, marriage, bur- ial, education, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor-re- lief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy and obedience. In Europe the cir- cle is far wider, the points of contact and of inter- lacing almost innumerable. But on all matters, re- specting which any Pope may think proper to de- clare that they concern either faith, or morals, or the government or discipline of the Church, he claims, with the apj)roval of a Council undoubtedly Ecumenical in the Roman sense, the absolute obedi- ence, at the peril of salvation, of every member of his communion. It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to l^ledge the Council in terms to the Syllabus and the Encyclical. 'L.'hat achievement is probably reserved for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the meantime it is well to remember, that this claim in respect of all things affecting the discipline and gov^- ernment of the Church, as well as fiith and con- duct, is lodged in open day by and m the reign of a Pontiff, who has condemned free speech, free writ- •9f Jiff I III M THE VATICAN DECREES ni!_ IK it" li I ing, a free press, toleration of nonconformity, lib- erty of conscience, tlie study of civil and philosophi- cal matters in independence of tlie ecclesiastical au- thority, marriage unless sacramentally contracted, and the definixion by the State of the civil rights (jwa) of the Church ; who has demanded for the Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil rights, together with a divine right to civil immuni- ties, and a right to use j)hysical force ; and who has also proudly asserted that the Popes of the Middle Ages with their councils did not invade the rights of princes : as for example, Gregory VIL, of the Em- peror Henry IV. ; Innocent III., of Raymond of Tou- louse ; Paul III., in deposing Henry YHI. ; or Pius V., in performing th§ like paternal office for Elizabeth. I submit, then, that my fourth proposition is true : and that England is entitled to ask, and to know, in what way the obedience required by the Pope and the Council of the Vatican is to be reconciled with the integrity of civil allegiance ? It has been shown that the Head of their Church, so supported as undoubtedly to speak with its high- est authority, claims from Eoman Catholics a plenary obedience to w^hatever he may desire in relation not to faith but to morals, and not only to these, but to all that concerns the government and discipline of the Church: that, of this, much lies within the domain of the State : that, to obviate all misappre- IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 45 heusion, the Pope demands for himself the right to determine the province of his own rights, and has so defined it in formal documents, as to warrant any and every invasion of th civil sphere ; and that this new version of the principles of the Papal Church in- exorably binds its members to the admission of these exorbitant claims, without any refuge or reservation on behalf of their duty to the Crown. Under circumstances such as these, it seems not too much to ask of them to confirm the opinion which we, as fellow-countrymen, entertain of them, by sweep- ing away, in such manner and terms as they may think best, the presumptive imputations which their ecclesiastical rulers at Rome, acting autocratically, appear to have brought upon their capacity to pay a solid and undivided allegiance; and to fulfil the engagement which their bishops, as political spon- sors, promised and declared for them in 1825. It would be impertinent, as well as needless, to suggest what should be said. All that is requisite is to indicate in substance that which (if the foregoing argument be sound) is not wanted, and that which is. What is not wanted is vague and general asser- tion, of whatever kind, and however sincere. What is wanted, and that in the most specific form and the clearest terms, I take to be one of two things ; that is to say, either — I. A der'.onstration that neither in the name of i6 THE VATICAN DECREES H \mi M ■ i I nv«! m 3i ■'■' ! Iff"' 1 i'lV m faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the government or discipline of the Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim upon those who adhere to his communion, of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their civil alle- giance ; or else, II. That, if and when such claim is made, it will, even although resting on the definitions of the Vati- can, be repelled and rejected ; just as Bishop Doyle, when he w^as asked what the Roman Catholic clergy would do if the Pope intermeddled with their reli- gion, rejilied frankly, " The consequence would be, that we should, oppose him by every means in our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual author- ity." * In the absence of explicit assurances to this ef- fect, we should appear to be led, nay, driven, by just reasoning upon that documentary evidence, to the conclusions : — 1. That the Pope, authorized by his Council, claims for himself the domain (a) of faith, (5) of morals, (' • hit : t erected on the «islies of me city, and amidst the whitening bones of the people. * It is difficult to conceive or contemplate tLc effects of such an endeavor. But the existence at this day of the policy, even in bare idea, is itself a portentous cil. I do not hesitate to say that it is an incentive to general disturbance, a premium upon European wars. It is in my opinion not sanguine only, but almost ridiculous to imagine that such a project could eventually succeed ; but it is difficult to over-estimate the effect which it might produce in generating and exasperating strife. It might even, to some exte^^t, disturb and paralyse the action of such Governments as might interpose for no separate purpose of their own, but only with a view to the maintenance or restoration of the general peace. If the baleful Power which is expressed by the phrase Curia Homana, and not at all adequately rendered in its historic force by the usual English equivalent *' Court of Rome," really entertains the scheme, it doubtless counts on the supj^ort in every country of an organised and devoted party ; which, when it can command the scales of j^olitical power, will promote interference, and, when it is in a minority, will work for securing neutrality. As the peace of Europe may be in jeopardy, and as the duties even of England, * Appendix C. '■■' -■ IN" THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 53 , as one (so to speak) of its constabulary authorities, might come to be in question, it would be most interesting to know the mental attitude of our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen in England and Ireland with reference to the subject; and it seems to be one on which we are entitled to solicit infor- mation. For there cannot be the smallest doubt that the temporal power of the Popedom comes within the true meaning of the words used at the Vatican to describe the subjects on which the Pope is authorized to claim, under awful sanctions, the obedience of the "faithful." It is even possible that we have here the key to the enlargement of the province of Obe- dience beyond the limits of Infallibility, and to the introduction of the remarkable phrase ad disciplinam et regimen J^cclesiee. No impartial person can deny that the question of the temporal power very evi- dently concerns the discipline and government of the Church — concerns it, and most mischievously as I should venture to think ; but in the opinion, up to a late date, of many Roman Catholics, not only most beneficially, but even essentially. Let it be remem- bered, that such a man as the late Count Montalem- bert, who in his general politics was of the Libera] party, did not scruple to hold that the !ii?nions of Roman Catholics ■*^hroughout the world were co partners with the inhabitants of the States of the ill .11 m ■h I •■-fi' \4 ? ill' m I'M nhr I' I? m 54 THE VATICAN" DECREES Churcli in regard to tlieir civil government ; and, as constituting the vast majority, were of course entitled to override them. It was also rather commonly held, a quarter of a century ago, that the question of the States of the Church was one with ^vhich none Ijut Pom an Catholic powers could have any thing to do. This doctrine, I must own, was to me at all times unintelligible. It is now, to say the least, hopelessly and irrecoverably obsolete. Archbishop Manning, who is the head of the Papal Church in England, and whose ecclesiastical tone is suj)posed to be in the closest accordance with that of his headquarters, has not thought it too much to say that the civil order of all Christendom is the offspring of the Temporal Power, and has the Temporal Power for its keystone ; that on the de- struction of the Temporal Power " the laws of nations would at once fall in ruins ; " that (our old friend) the deposing Power " taught subjects obedience and princes clemency."* Nay, this high authority has proceeded further; and has elevated the Temporal Power to the rank of necessary doctrine : " The Catholic Church cannot be silent, it cannot hold its peace ; it cannot cease to preach the doctrines of Revelation, not only of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, but likewise of the Seven Sacraments, and of the Infallibility of the Church of * ' Three Lectures on the Temporal Sovereignty of the . Popes,' 1860, pp. 34, 46, 47, 58-9, 63. I * * it IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 55 God, and of the necessity of Unity, and of the Sovereignty, both epiritual and temporal, of the Holy See." * I never, for my own part, heard that tlie work containing this remarkable passage was placed in the 'Index Proliibitorum Librorum.' On the con- trary, its distinguished author was elevated, on the first opportunity, to the headship of the Eoman Episcopacy in England, and to the guidance of the million or thereabouts of souls in its communion. And the more recent utterances of the oracle have not descended from the high level of those already cited. They have, indeed, the recommendation of a comment, not without fair claims to authority, on the recent declarations of the Pope and the Coun- cil ; and of one which goes to prove how far I am jrom having exaggerated or strained in the foregoing pages the meaning of those declarations. Especially does this hold good on the one j^oint, the most vital of the whole — the title to define the border line of the two provinces, which the Archbishop not unfair- ly takes to be the true criteri of supremacy, as between ri-al powers like the Church and f he State. " If, then, the civil power be not competeuL to decide tbt limits of the spiritual power, and if the- spiritual power can de- fine, with a divine certainty, its own limits, it is evidently su- preme. Or, in other words, the spiritual power knows, tli divine certainty, the limits of its own jurisdiction : and it k uws * 'The present Crisis of the Holy See.' By H. E. Manniijj^. D.D. London, 1861, p. 73. TV ft 56 THE VATICAN DECREES II n0 \.-,i m I'" !■■•; ■I -I sift' •V' ,;l m therefore the limits and the competence of the civil poAver. It is thereby, in matters of religion and conscience, supreme. I do not see how this can be denied without denyiiig Christianity. And if this be so, this is the doctrine of the Bull Unam Sanctum* and of the Syllabus, and of the Vatican C >uncil. It is, in fact, Ultramontanism, for this term means neither less nor more. The Church, therefore, is separate and supreme. " Let us then ascertain somewhat further what is the mean- ing of supreme. Any power which is independent, and can alone fix the limits of its own jurisdiction^ and can thereby fix the limits of all other jurisdictions^ is, ipso facto, supreme^ But the Church of Jesus Christ, within the sphere of revelation, of faith and morals, is all this, or is nothing, or worse than nothing, an imposture and an usurpation — that is, it is Christ or Anti- christ." I But tlie whole panipl'let should be read by those who desire to know the true sense of the Papal dec- larations and Vatican decrees, as they are understood by the most favored ecclesiastics ; understood, I am bound to own, so far as I can see, in their natural, legitimate, and inevitable sense. Such readers will be assisted by the treatise in seeing clearly, and in admitting frankly that, whatever demands may here- after, and in whatever circumstances, be made upon us, we shall be unable to advance with any fairness tiie plea that it has been done without due notice. There are millions upon millions of the Protestants * On the Bull Unam jSanctam^ " of a most odious kind ; " see Bishop Doyle's Essay, already cited. He thus describes it. t The italics are not in the original. I ' Caesarism and Ultramontanism.' By Archbishop Manning, 1874, pp. 35-6. ;.(*« i:^ THEIR B.EARING OX CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 57 of this conntiy who would agree with Archbishop Manning, if he were simply telling ns that Divine truth is not tc be sought from the lips of the State, nor to be sacrificed at its command. But those millions would tell him, in return, that the State, as the power which is alone responsible for the external order of the world, can alone conclusively and finally be competent to determine what is to take place in the sphere of that external order. I have shown, then, that the Propositions, espe- cially that which has been felt to be the chief one among them, being true, are also material ; material to be generally known, and clearly understood, and well considered on civil grounds : inasmuch as they invade, at a multitude of points, the civil sphere, and seem even to have no very remote or shadowy con- nection with the future peace and security of Chris- tendom. m VI. Were the Propositions proper to be set FORTH BY the PRESENT WkITER ? There remains yet before us only the shortest and least significant portion of the inquiry, namely, whether these things, being true, and ijeing material to be said, were also proper to be said by me. I must ask pardon, if a tone ot egotism be detected in this necessarily subordinate portion of my remarks. \m m 'I m fi mm »' ■ ? ■ ^'1 Iv'.'i- ■'ill ; fi . m . ■^|il ■ -if 111 hi m m HI 58 THE VATICAN DECREES For thirty years, and in a great variety of circum- stances, in office and as an independent Member of Parliament, in majorities and in small minorities, and during tlie larger portion of tlie time* as the repre- sentative of a great constituency, mainly clerical, I have, with others, labored to maintain ana extend the civil rights of my Roman Catholic fellow-country- men. The Liberal party of this country, wdth which I have been commonly associated, has suffered, and sometimes suffered heavily, in public favor and in influence, from the belief that it was too ardent in the pursuit of that policy; while at the same time it has always been in the worst odor w^ith the Court of Rome, in consequence of its (I hope) unalterable attachment to Italian liberty and independence. I have sometimes been the spokesman of that party in recommendations w4iich have tended to foster in fact the imputation I have mentioned, though not to warrant it as matter of reason. But it has existed in fact. So that while (as I think) general justice to society required that these things which I have now set forth should be wTitten, special justice, as toward the party to which I am lo^^ally attached, and which I may have had a share in thus placing at a disadvan tage before our countrymen, made it, to say the least, becoming that I should not shrink from writing them. In discharinm? that office, I have )ugh per- From 1847 to 1865 I sat for the University of Oxford. , 1 IN THEIR BEAPvING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 59 form tlie part not of a theological partisan, but sim- ply of a good citizen ; of one hopeful that many of his Roman Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen, who are, to say the least of it, as good citizens as himself, may perceive that the case is not a frivolous case, but one that merits their attention. I will next proceed to give the reason why, up to a recent date, I have thought it right in the main to leave to any others, who might feel it, the duty of dealing in detail witli this question. The great change, which seems to me to have been brought about in the position of Roman Catholic Christians as citizens, reached its consummation, and came into full operation in July, 1870, by the pro- ceedings or so-called decrees of the Vatican Council. Up to that time, opinion in the Roman Church on all matters involving civil liberty, though partially and sometimes widely intimidated, was free wherever it was resolute. During the Middle Ages, heresy was often extinguished in blood, but in every Cisalpine country a principle of liberty, to a great extent, held its own, and national life refused to be put down. Nay, more, these precious and inestimable gifts had not infrequently for their champions a local pre- lacy and clergy. The Constitutions of Clarendon, cursed from the Papal throne, were the work of the English Bishops. Stephen Langton, appointed di- rectly, through an extraordinary stretch of power, CO THE VATIOAIT DECREES if. m If ,!i: ,;t it--' I by Innocent III., to the See of Canterbury, headed the Barons of England in extorting from the Papal minion John, the worst and basest of all our Sover- eigns, that Magna Charta whicb the Pope at once visited with his anathemas. In the reign of Henry VIII., it was Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, who first wrote against the Papal domination. Tunstal was followed by Gardiner ; and even the recognition of the Royal Headship was voted by the clergy, not under Cranmer, but under his unsuspected predeces- sor Warham. Strong and domineering as was the high Pa2:)al party in those centuries, the resistance was manful. Thrice in history, it seemed as if what we may call the Constitutional party in the Church was about to triumph: ,first, at the epoch of the Council of Constance; secondly, when the French Episcopate was in conflict witli Pope Innocent XI. ; thirdly, when Clement XIV. levelled with the dust the deadliest foes that mental and moral liberty have ever known. But from July, 1870, this state of things has passed away, and the death-warrant of that Constitutional party has been signed, and sealed, and promulgated in form. Before that time arrived, although I had used ex- pressions sufficiently indicative as to the tendency of things in the great Latin Communion, yet I had for very many years felt it to be the first and para- mount duty of the British Legislature, \vhatever I !3« Mi IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 01 Roniv might say or do, to give to Ireland all that justice could demand, in regard to matters of con- science and of civil equality, and thus to set herself nght in the opinion of the civilized world. So far from seeing, what some believed they saw, a spirit of unworthy compliance in such a course, it appeared to me the only one which suited either the dignity or the duty of my country. While this debt re- mained unpaid, both before and after 1870, 1 did not think it my province to open formally a line of ai'gu- ment on a question of prospective rather than imme- diate moment, which might have prejudiced the mat- ter of duty lying nearest our hand, and morally in- jured Great Britain not less than Ireland, Church, men and Nonconformists not less than adherents of the Papal Communion, by slackening the disposition to pay the debt of justice. When Parliament had passed the Church Act of 1869 and the Land Act of 1870, there remained only, under the great head of Imperial equity, one serious question to be dealt with — that of the higher education. I consider that the Liberal majoiity in the House of Commons, and the Government to which I had the honor and satisfac- tion to belong, formally tendered payment in full of this portion of the debt by the Irish University Bill of February, 1873. Some indeed think that it was overpaid ; a question into which this is manifestly not the place to enter. But the Roman Catholic pre- 62 TUE VATICAN DECREES Pl^' I* ' ',i m J' lacy of Ireland thought fit to procure the rejection of that measure, by the direct influence which they exercised over a certain number of Irish Members of Parliament, and by the temptation which they thus offered — the bid, in effect, which (to use a homely phrase) they made, to attract the support of the Tory Opposition. Their efforts were crowned with a com- plete success. From that time forward I have felt that the situation was changed, and that important matters would have to be cleared by suitable explana- tions. The debt to Ireland had been paid : a debt to the country at large had still to be disposed of, and this has come to be the duty of the hour. So long, indeed, as I continued to be Prime Minister, I should not have considered a broad political discussion on a general question suitable to proceed from me ; while neither I nor (I airf certain) my colleagues would have been disposed to run the risk oi" stirring popular passions by a vulgar and unexplained ap- peal. But every difficulty, arising from the neces- sary limitations of an official position, has now been removed. i^ VII. On the Home Policy of the Future. I could not, however, conclude these observations without anticipating and answering an inquiry they suggest. " Are they, then," it w411 be asked, " a IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE. 63 recantation and a regret ; and what are tliey meant to recommend as tlie policy of tlie future ? " My reply shall "be succinct and pLain. Cf "svhat the Liberal party has accomplished, by word or deed, in establishing the full civil equality of Koman Catho- lics, I regret nothing, and I recant nothing. It is certainly a political misfortune that, during the last thirty years, a Church so tainted in its views of civil obedience, and so unduly capable of changing its front and language after Emancipation from what it had been before, like an actor who has to perform several characters in one piece, should have acquired an extension of its hold upon the highest classes of this country. The conquests have been chiefly, as might have been expected, among women ; but the number of male converts, or captives (as I might prefer to call them), has not been inconsiderable. There is no doubt, that every one of these secessions is in the nature of a considerable moral and social severance. The breadth of this gap varies, according to varieties of individual character. But it is too commonly a wide one. Too commonly, the spirit of the neophyte is expressed by the words which have become notorious : " a Catholic first, an Englishman afterward." Words which properly convey no more than a truism ; for every Christian must seek to place his religion even before his country in his inner heart. But very far from a truism in the sense in which we C-i THE VATICAN DECREES '■VI' I, Hi' ■ if* 4 1' •' m l *■ -' have been led to construe tlieni. 'We take tlieni t-) mean that tlie " convert " intends, in case of any con- flict between the Queen and the PopCj to foHow th(» Pope, and let the Queen shift for herself; which, haj;- pily, she can well do. Usually, in this country, a movement in the high- est class would raise a presumption of a similar move- ment in the mass. It is not so here. Humors have gone about that the proportion of members of the Papal Church to the population haS increased, espe- cially in England. But these rumors would seem to be confuted by authentic figures. The Roman Cath- olic Marriages, which supply a competent test, and which were 4*89 per cent, of the whole in 1854, and 4*62 per cent, in 1859, were 4*09 per cent, in 18G9, and 4*02 per cent, in 1871. There is something at the least al)normal in such a partial growth, taking eifect as it does among the wealthy and noble, while the people cannot be charmed, by any incantation, into the Koman camp. The original Gospel was suj^posed to be meant espe- cially for the poor ; but the gospel of the nineteenth century from Rome courts another and less modest destination. If the Pope does not control more souls among us, he certainly controls more acres. The severance, however, of a certain number of lords of the soil from those who till it, can be borne. And so I trust will in like manner be endured the IN TIIEIll BEAKIXG ON CIVIL AIXKOIANCE. G'o new aiiiance. That which we are entitled to desire, we are entitled also to expect : indeed, to say we did not expect it, would, in my judgment, be the tiue way of conveying an " insult " to those con ;l 0g THE VATICAN DECREFO, ETC. cernecl. In this expectation we may he partially disappointed. Shonld those to whom I appeal, thus imhappily come to bear witness in their own persons to the decay of sound, manly, true lite m their Church, it will be their loss more than ours. The inhabitants of these islands, as a whole, are stable, though sometimes credulous and excitable ; resolute, though sometimes boastful : and a strong- headed and sound-hearted race will not be hindered, either by latent or by avowed dissents, due to the foreign influence of a caste, from the accomplishment of its mission in the world. If, • ' ll ]»•• ) I ■•{•' ill'. j ' ' {■. I: ,1.. ,nv- APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. The numbers here given correspond with those of the Eighteen Proposi- tions given in the text, where it would have heen less convenient to cite the originals. 1, 2, 3. "Ex qua omnino folsa socialis regiminis ided hand timent erroneam illam fovere opinionera, Catholicse Ecclesise, animarumque sduti raaxirae exitialem, arec. mem. Gregorio XIV. prsedccessore Nostro deliramentum appella- tam (eadem Encycl. mirari), niminira, libertatem conscien- tiee et cultuum esse proprium ciijuscunqueliominisjus, quod lege proclamari, et asseri debet in omni recte constitute so- cietatc, et jus civibus inessc ad omnimodam libertatem nulla vel ecelesiastica, vel civili auctoritate coarctandam, quo sues conceptus quoscumque sive voce sivc typis, sive alia ratione palam publiceque manifestare ac deckrare valeant."— ^wc?/- clical Letter. 4. " Atque silentio pm^terire non possumus eormn auda- ciara, qui sanam non sustinentes doctrinam ' illis Apostolicse Sedis judiciis, ct dccretis, quorum objectum ad bonum gene- rale Ecclcsite, ejusdemque jura, ac disciplinam spectare dccla- ratur, dummodo fidei morumquc dogmata non attingat, posse assensum et obcdientiam detrectari absque peccato, et absque ulUi Catholicee professionis jactura.' '''—Ibid. X-,-' w fli W- 1 1'^! 1 ■ 1 1 1 --I"*' ^ ^C> Wl M K\, An i ID. YO APrFN^DICES. 5. " Ecclesia non est vera perfectaqiie societas plane li- bera, nee pollet suis propriis et constantibus juribus sibi a divino suo Fundatore collatis, sed civilis potestatis est dcfi- nireqnse sint Ecclesice jura, ac limites, intra quos eademjura exercere queat." — Sijlldbus v. 6. " Roman i Pontifices et Concilia oecumenica a limiti- bus sure potestatis recesserunt, jura Principum usurparunt, atque etiara in rebus fidei et morum definiendis errarunt." — • Ihid. xxiii. • 7. " Ecolesia vis inferendas potestatem non liabet, neque potestatem uilam temporalcm directam vel indirectam." — Ih'id. xxiv. 8. " Praeter potestatem episcopatui inhaerentem, alia est attributa temporalis potestas a civili imperio vel exprcsse vel tacite concessa, revocanda propterca, cum libuerit, a civili imperio." — Ihid. xxv. 9. " Ecclesise et personarum ecclesiasticarum immunitas a jure civili ortum babuit." — Ihid. xxx. 10. "In conflictu legum utriusque potestatis, j as civile prsevalet." — Ihid. xlii. 11. "Catliolicis viris'probL i potest ea juventutis insti- tuendae ratio, quos sit a Catholica fide et ab Ecclesice potestate sejuncta, quoeque rerum dumtaxat, naturalium scientiam ac terrense socialis vita3 fines tantummodo vel saltern priniarium spcctet," — Ihid. xlviii. 12. " Philosopliiearnin rerum moruraque scientia, item- que civiles leges possunt et debcnt a divina et ecclesiasticsi auctoritate declinare." — Ihid. Ivii. 13. "Matrimonii sacramentum non est nisi contractui accessorium ab eoque separabile, ijosumque sacramentum in uuii tantum nuptiali benedictione situm est." — Ihid. Ixvi. " Vi contractus mere civilis potest inter Christianos con- stare A'eri nominis matrimonium ; falsumque est, aut contrac- tum matrimonii inter Christianos semper esse sacramentum, aut nullum esse contractum, si sacramentum excludatur." — Ihid. Ixxiii. APPENDICES. Tl 14. " Do temporalis regni cum spiritual! compatibilitatc disputant inter se Christians et Catholicse EcclesiiG filii." — Syllabus Ixxv. 15. "Abrogatio civilis imperii, quo Apostolica Sedes potitur, ad Ecclesire libertatem felicitatemque vel maximc oonduceret." — Ihid. Ixxvi. 16. " iEtate liae nostra non ampli us expedit religionem Catholicam liaberi tanquam unicam status religionem, casteris quibuseumque cultibus exclusis." — lUd. Ixxvii. 17. " Ilinc laudabiliter in quibusdam Catliolici nomini-s regionibus lege cautum est, ut liominibus illuc immigranti- bus liceat publicum proprii cujusque cultus exercitium lia- bere." — Ihid. Ixxviii. 18. " Komanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progrcssu, cum liberalism© et cum recenti civilitate sese re. onciliare et componere." — Ihid, Ixxx. APPENDIX B. I liave contented myself with a minimum of citation from the documents of the period before Emancipation. Their full effect can only be gathered by such as are acquainted with, or will take the trouble to refer largely to, the originals. It is worth while, however, to cite the following passage from Bishop Doyle, as it may convey, tlirough the indigna- tion it expresses, an idea of the amplitude of the assurances which had been (as I believe, most honestly and sincerely) given : " There is no justice, my Lord, in thus condemning us. Such conduct on the part of our opponents creates in our bosoms a sense of wrong being done to us ; it exhausts oui patience, it provokes our indignation, and prevents us from reiterating our cfibrts to obtain a more impartial hearing. We are tempted, in such cases as these, to attribute unfair APPENDICES. I motives to those who differ from us, as we cannot conceive how men gifted with intelligence can fail to discover truths so plainly demonstrated as, " That our faith or our allegiance is not regulated by any such doctrines as those imputed to us ; " That our duties to the Government of our country are not influenced nor affected by any Bulls or practices of Popes ; " That these duties are to be learned by us, as by every other class of His Majesty's subjects, from the Gospel, from the reason given to us by God, from that love of country which ]N'ature has implanted in our hearts, and from those constitutional maxims, which are as well understood, and as highly appreciated, by Catholics of the present day, as by their ancestors, who founded them with Alfred, or secured them at Hunnymede.'' — Doyle's ' Essay on the CatJioliG Claims,' London, 1826, p. 38. The same general tone, as in 1826, was maintained in the answers of the witnesses from Maynooth College before the Commission of 1855. See, for example, pp. 132, 161-4, 272-3, 275, 361, 370-^, 381-2, 394-6, 405. The Commis- sion reported (p. 64), "We see no reason to believe that there has been any disloyalty in the teaching of the college, or any disposition to impair the obligations of an unreserved allegiance to your Majesty." APPEi^DIX C. jii. % Compare the recent and ominous forecasting of the future European policy of the British Crown, in an Article from a Romish Periodical for the current month, which has direct relation to these matters, and which hns every appearance of proceeding from authority : " Surely in any European complication, such as may any APPENDICES. 73 day arise, nay, such as must ere long arise, from the natural gravitation of the forces, which are for the moment kept in check and truce by the necessity of preparation for their inevitable collision, it may very well be that the future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle, and that the side which she may take may be determined, not either by justice or interest, but &y ajmssionate resolve to keep iqy the Italian Ungdom at any hazard:'— "YIxg ' Month' for ISovembcr, 1874: 'Mr. Gladstone's Durham Letter,' p. 20:.. This is a remarkable disclosure. With whoin could England be brought into conflict by any disposition she might feel to keep up the Italian kingdom ? Considered as States, both Austria and France are in complete harmony with Italy. But it is plain that Italy has some enemy ; and the writers of the 'Month' appear to know who it is. APPENDIX D. Notice has been taken, both in this country and abroad, of the apparent inertness of public men, and of at least one British Administration, with respect to the subject of these pages. See Friedberg, ' Griinzen zwischen Staat und Kirche,' Abtheilung ili. pp. 755-6; and the Preface to the Fifth Volume of Mr. Greenwood's elaborate, able, and judicial work, entitled ' Cathedra Petri,' p. iv. : " If there be any chance of such a revival, it would be- come our political leaders to look more closely into the pecu- liarities of a system, which denies the right of the subject to freedom of thought and action upon matters mosi mate- rial to his civil and religious welfare. There is no mode of ascertaining the spirit and tendency of great institutions but in a careful study of their history. The writer is profoundly K 'l if t. I \r u APPENDICES. impressed with the conviction that our political instructors have wholly neglected this important duty: or, which is perhaps worse, left it in the hands of a class of persons whose zeal has outrun their discretion, and who have sought rather to engage the prejudices than the judgment of their hearers in the cause they have, no doubt sincerely, at heart. .t!f, . EEPLY OF ARCHBISHOP MANNING. To the Editor of tfts Times : SiRj__The gravity of the subject on which I address yon, aiFecting as it must every Catholic in the British Empire, will, I hope, obtain from the courtesy that you have always shown to me the publication of this letter. This morning I received a copy of the pamphlet enti- tled " The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegi- ance." I find in it a direct appeal to myself, both for the office I hold and for the writings I have published. I gladly acknowledge the duty that lies upon me for both those rea- sons. I am bound by the office I bear not to suffer a day to pass wi-iiout repelling from the Catholics of this country the lightest imputation upon their loyalty; and, for my teaching, I am ready to show that the principles I have ever taught are beyond impeachment upon that score. It is true, indeed, that, in page 57 of the pamphlet, Mr. Gladstone expresses his belief " that many of his Eoman Catholic friends and fellow-countrymen " arc, " to say the least of it, as good citizens as himself." But as the whole pamphlet is an elaborate argument to prove that the teach- K ?/'''■■■; 1 '■} J 76 REPLY OF ARCIII3ISII0P MANNING. ing of the Vatican Council renders it impossible for tlicm to be 80, I cannot accept this graceful acluiowledgment, which implies that they are good citizens because they arc at vari- ance with the Catholic Church. I should be wanting in duty to the Catholics of this country and to myself if I did not give a prompt contradic- tion to this statement, and if I did not with equal prompt- ness affirm that the loyalty of our civil allegiance is not in spite of the teaching of the Catholic Church, but because of it. The sum of the argument in the pamphlet just publislied to the world is this : That by the Vatican Decrees such a change has been made in the relations of Catholics to the civil power of States that it is no longer possible for tlienj to render the same undivided civil allegiance as it was pos- sible for Catholics to render before the promulgation of those Decrees. In answer to this, it is for the present sufficient to affirm : ' 1. That the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of civil al- legiance. 2. That the civil allegiance of Catholics is as undivided as that of all Christians and of all men who recognize a divine or natural moral law. 3. That the civil allegiance of no man is unlimited, and therefore the civil allegiance of all men who believe in God, or are governed by conscience, is in that sense divided. In this sense, and in no other, can it be said with truth that the civil allegiance of Catholics is divided. The civil allegiance of every Christian man in England is limited by iti: REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP MANNING. 17 conscience and tlie law of God, and tlie civil allegiance of Catholics is limited neither less nor move. The public peace of the British Empire has been con- solidated in the last half century by the elimination of religious conflicts and inequalities from our laws. The Em- pirc^of 0<-rmany might have been equally peac.ful and stable if its statesmen had not been tempted in an evil hour to ralce up the old fires of religious disuiuon. The hand of one man more than any other threw this torch of discord into the German Empire. The history of Germany will record the name of Doctor Ignatius von Dollingcr as the author of this national evil. I lament not only to read the name, but to trace the arguments of Dr. von Dollinger in the pamphlet before me. May God preserve these kingdoms from the public and private calamities Avhich arc visibly impending over Germany 1 The author of the pamphlet, in his first line, assures us that his "purpose is not polemical, but pa- cific." I am sorry that so good an intention should have so widely erred in the selection of the means. But my purpose is neither to criticise nor to controvert. My desire and my duty as an Englishman, as a Catholic, and as a pastor, is to claim for my flock and for myself a civil allegiance as pure, as true, and as loyal as is rendered by the distinguished author of the pamphlet or by any sub- ject of the British Empire. I remain. Sir, your faithful servant, HENKY EDWAED, Archbishop of Westminster. November 1. I' ,1 w r V REPLY OF LOED ACTON. I?' 7b ATHENiEUM, November 8. Dear Mr. Gladstone,-! Avill not anticipate by a sin-le word the course wbicb tbose wlio are immediately concerned may adopt in answer to your challenge. But there are points which I think you have overlooked, and which maybe raised most fitly by those who are least respon- sible The question of policy and opportuneness I leave for others to discuss with you. Speaking in the open day- licrht, from my own point of view, as a Roman Cathohc born in the nineteenth century, I cannot object that focts which are of a nature to influence the belief of men should be brouo-ht completely to their knowledge. Concealment is unworthy of those things which are Divine and holy in re- iS; ; ■Uv IlEPLY OF LORD ACTON". 70 t' Hrrion, and in tlio^e things wliicli arc liunian mid profane publicity lias value as a check. I understand your argument to bo substantially as fol- lows: The Catholics obtained Emancipation by declaring that they were in every sen- > of the term loyal and laithfui subjects of the realm, and that Papal Infallibility was not a dogma of their Church. Later events have lalsilied one declaration, have disturbed the stability of the other ; and the problem therefore arises whether the authority which has annulled the profession of fiiith made by the Catholics • .would not be competent to change their conceptions of po- litical duty. This is a question that may be i\iirly asked, and it was long since made ftimiliar to tbe Catholics by the language of their own Bishops. One of them has put it in the follow- ing terms : " How shall we persuade the Protestants that wl are not acting in defiance of honor and good faith, if, having declared that Infallibility was not an article of our faith while we were contending for our rights, we should, now that we have got what we wanted, withdraw from our public declaration and affirm the contrary % " The case is, 2yrima facie, a strong one, and it would be still more serious 'if the whole structure of our liberties and our toleration was founded on the declarations given by the English and Irish Bishops some years before the Relief Act. Those documents, interesting and significant as they are, are unknown to the Conrtitution. What is known, and what was for a generation part of the law of the country, is something more solemn and substantial than a series of miproved assertions-namely, the oath in which the political essence of those declarations was concentrated. That was 80 KEPLY OF LORD ACTON. I u Jl: t*! $ the security wliicli Parliament required ; tliat was the pledge by which we were bound ; and it binds us no more. The Legislature, judging that what was sufficient for Eepub licans was sufficient for Catholics, abolished the oath, foi the best reasons, some time before the disestablishment of the Irish Church. If there is no longer a special bond for the loyalty of Catholics, the fact is due to the deliberate judgment of the House of Commons. After having surren- dered the only real constitutional securit , there seems scarcely reason to lament the depreciation of a less substan- tial guarantee, which was very indirectly connected with the action of Parliament, and was virtually superseded by the oath. The doctrines against which you are contending did not begin with the Vatican Council. At the time when the Catholic oath was '•epealed the Pope had the same right and power to excommunicate those who denied his author- ity to depose princes that he possesses now. The writers most esteemed at Eome held that doctrine as an article of foith ; a, modern Pontiff had affirmed that it cannot be abandoned ■without taint of heresv, and that those who questioned and restricted his authority in temporal matters ^^ere worse than those who rejected it in spirituals, and accordingly men suffered death for this cause as others did for ^blasphemy and Atheism. The recent decrees have r.either increased the penalty nor made it more easy to inflict. That is the true j.nswcr to your appeal. Your indict- ment would be more just if it was more complete. If you pursue the inquiry fnicher, you will find graver matter than all you have enumerated, establis^ied by higher and more h REPLY OF LORD ACTON. 81 ' Ancient authority than a meeting of bishops half-a-century ago. And then I think you will admit that your Catholic countrymen cannot fairly be called on to account for every particle of a system which has neA-er come before them in its integrity, or for opinions whose existence among divines they would be exceedingly reluctant to believe. I will explain my meaning by an example : A Pope who lived in Catholic times, and who is famous in history as the author of the first Crusade, decided that it is no mur- der to kill excommunicated persons. This rule was incorpo- rated in the Canon Law. In the revision of the Code, which took place in luj I61I1 century, and produced a whole vol- ume of corrections, the passage WivS allowed to stand. It appears in every reprint of the ' Corpus Juris.' It has been for 700 years and continues to be part of the ecclesiastical law. Far from having been a dead letter, it obtained a new application in the days of the Inquisition, and one, of the later Popes has declared that the murder of a Protes- tant is so ^ood a deed that it atones, and more than atones, for the murder of a Catholic. Again, the greatest legislator of the Mediaeval Chu7*cb laid down this proposition, that allegiance must not be kept with heretical Princes — cum ei qid Deo fidem non servat fides servanda non sit. This prin- ciple was ad* pted by a celebrated Council, and is confirmed by St. Thomas Aquinas, the oracle of the schools. The Syl- labus which you cite hac assuredly not acquired greater authority in the Church than the Canon Law and the Lateran Decrees, than Innocent the Third and St. Thomas. Yet these things were as well known when the oath was repealed as they are now. But it was felt that, whatever might be the letter of Canons and the spirit of the Ecclesiastical 6 S2 EEPLY OF LORD ACTON. Laws, tlie Catholic people of tin's country might be honor- ably trusted. But I will pass from the letter to the spirit which is moving men at the p;*esent day. It belongs peculiarly to the character of a genuine Ultramontane not only to guide his life by the example of canonized Saints, but to receive with reverence and submission the words of Popes. Now, Pius Y., the only Pope who has been proclaimed a Saint for many centuries, having deprived Elizabeth, commissioned an assassin to take her life ; and his next successor, on learn- ing that the Protestants were being massacred in France, pronounced the actic ^ bvious and holy, but com.parative- ly barren of results i*. u implored the King during two months, by his Kunc^L- and his Legate, to carry the work on to the bitter end until every Huguenot had recanted or perished. It is hard to believe that these things can excite in the bosom of the most fervent Ultramontane that sort of admiration or assent that displays itself in action. If they do not, then it cannot be truly said that Catholics forfeit their moral freedom, or place their duty at the mercy of another. There is waste of power by friction even in well-con- structed machines, and no machinery can enforce that degree of unity and harmony which you apprehend. Little fellow- ship or confidence is possible between a man who recognizes the common principles of morality as we find them in the overwhelming mass of the writers of ouj* Church and one who, on learning that the murder of a Protestant Sovereign has been inculcated by a saint, or the slaughter of Protestant subjects approved by a Pope, sets himself to find a new in- terpretation for the Decaloguo. There is little to apprehend REPLY OF LORD ACTOiT. 83 from combinations between men divided by such a gulf as this, or from tlie unity of a body composed of such antago- nistic materials. But where there is not union of an active or aggressive kind, there may be unity in :lefcnce ; and it is possible, m making provision against the one, to promote and to confirm the other. There has been, and I believe there is still, some exag- geration in the idea men form of the agreement in thought and deed which authority can accomplish. As far as decrees, censures, and persecution could commit the Court of Rome, it was committed to the denial of the Copernican system. jS'evcrtheless, the history of astronomy shows a whole catena of distinguished Jesuits ; and, a century ago, a Spaniand who thought himself bound to adopt the Ptolemaic theory was laughed at- by the Roman divines. The submission of Fenelon, which Protestants and Catholics have so often celebrated, is another instance to my point. "When his book was condemned, Fenelon publicly accepted the judg- ment as the voice of God. He declared that he adhered to the decree absolutely and without a shadow of reserve, and there were no bounds to his submission. In private he wrote that his opinions were perfectly orthodox and remained unchanged, that his opponents were in the wrong, and that Rome was getting religion into peril. It is not the unpropitious times only, but the very nature of things, that protect Catholicism from the conse- quences of some theories that have grown up within it. The Irish did not shrink from resisting the arms of Henry II.. though two Popes had given him dominion over them. They fought against William III., although the Pope had given him efficient support in his expedition. Even James 84 REPLY OF LORD ACTOX. :ll;; -^ Ml: . II., when he could not get a mitre for Petre, reminded Inno- cent that people could be very good Catholics and yet do witliout Rome. Philip II. was excommunicated and de- prived, but he despatched his army against Rome with the full concurrence of the Spanish divines. That opinions likely to injure our position as loyal sub jects of a Protestant sovereign,, as citizens of a free State, as memberb of a community divided in religion, have flour- ished at various times, and in various degrees^ that they can claim high sanction, that they are often uttered in the exas- peration of controversy, and are most strongly urged at a time when there is no possibility of putting them into prac- tice — this all men must concede. But I affirm that, in the fiercest conflict of the Reformation, when the rulers of the Church had almost lost heart in the struggle for existence, and exhausted every resource of their authority, both politi- cal and spiritual, the bulk of the English Catholics retained the spirit of a better time. You do not, I am glad to say, deny that this continues to be true. But you think that we ought to be compelled to demonstrate one of two things — that the Pope cannot, by virtue of powers asserted by the late Council, make a claim which he was perfectly able to make by virtue of powers asserted for him before ; or, that he would be resisted if he did. The first is superfluous. The second is not capable of receiving a written demonstra- tion. Therefore neither of the altemat'ves you propose to the Catholics of this country opens to us a way of escaping from the reproach we have incurred. Whether there is more truth in your misgivings or in my confidence the event will show, I hope, at no distant time. I remain sincerely yours, ACTON. [from the LONDON TIMEe.] ARCHBISHOP MANNING ON ROMAN CATHOLIC POLITICS. A LARGE meeting of Roman Catholics assembled at Arcli- bisliop Manning's house at AVestminster on Thursday night to hear his inaugural address to the Roman Catholic Aca- demia in reference to the future policy of the Catholic world. In the course of his observations he said they were all aware that the Catholic Academia was formed at the close of the last century to unite Catholics throughout the world in opposing the Atheistical teaching of the so-called Free-thinkers of Franco and Germany, whoHo thoughts were disseminated by the free Pres? of England. Thirteen years ago it was found necessary to extend the wo'lc of tho A?iio- ciation to England, and he was glad to say, though ht did not like to use exulting words, that they had done much to correct and t* I INFALLIBILITY OF THE TOPE. 89 of God ; tliat Clmrcli being none other than the communion under the authority of the Sec of Rome. 2. That this gift of infallibility was exercised both by the teaching body of the Church united to its head, whether that Church was dispersed throughout the world, or assembled in General Council. By this no Catholic meant to imply that infallibility was identical with inspiration, much less that the Church was spotless, either in its individual pastors or in its head, but only that the Spirit of God so overruled her utterances that she could not teach the faithful any thing at variance with the truth. As to the object or sphere of this infallibility, every Catholic was further bound to believe that it extended to all truths bearing upon faith and the eternal welfare of mankind, or, in other words, to the whole of faith and mor- als. Every instructed Catholic further knew and held that the belief ex animo in these discussions of the Church was the primary and necessary condition for his communion with her. He believed, however, that until she spoke he had a perfect right to discuss undecided questions, but always sub- ject to the suppressed premise in his mind that he would obey whatever she w ould declare. !Now, we ask what change after the decision by the Yati- can Council was eftected in the creed of a Catholic ? ^None as to the gift of infallibility ; none as to the object of infalli- bility; none as to the double exercise of the infallibility mentioned ; but only that the ex cathedra^ or official utter- ances of the Head of the Church, were so directed by the Holy Gliost that they could not be at variance with the truth. In fact, the Yatican Council declares that the Head of the Church when teaching ex cathedra is as unerring as she herself is in General Council, or when dispersed through- out the world. By this, what had been the unvarying prac- tice of the Popes for so many centuries was declared to be an infallible rule of action for the Church. How, then, Mr. Gladstone can assert that an essential IS 90 INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. X^:. f i il f*' il |ji |!f| fi] 1 p '^ti J f.\ 1 11.'.- ; ^'i'.;F i <■'• 1. ■ *.: 1' ^ 11 1 change in lier constitution has tal if i£3 1 «■ f . s ?'■ ^1! W m m Pi m m l! ;)■•» I' 1 ; ^U; 02 INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. See, let it be a, law for all. " The Emperor Justinian calls the Bishops of Kome caput omnium Dei sacerdotum, omnium ecdesiarum ; and the Church of K^me Apex Pontijicatus^ by whose judgment heretics were at all times overthrown (Cod. Justin, de summa Trinib., T. i., Ex. 7 and 8, novel 9, at the beginning). When King Theodoric summoned a Synod " to meet at Eome, a. d. 503, for the purpose of pass- ing judgment upon Pope Symmachus, who had been accused of various misdemeanors, the assembled Bishops cried out that the idea of ' suhjecting the Head of the Church to the judgment of his inferiors was entirely unheard of.'' The reply of the Eastern Bishops was of a similar character." (Cf. Socrat h. e. ii. 8, cited by Alzog, p. 673.) "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo," said the Fathers at Chalcedon in 451, when the letter of S. Leo was read to them. Fourteen centuries later the assembled Bish- ops at Eomc on S. Peter's Day cried, " Peter has spoken ty the mouth of Pius." In the Council assembled at Florence in 1439, a decree condemning the opinions professed at Constance to the det- riment of the Papal supremacy ran thus: "Moreover, we find that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff possess the primacy over the whole world, and the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of S. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and that he is the true Yicar of Christ, and Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all Christians ; and that to him, S. Peter, was delivered by Jesus Christ our Lord the full power of feeding, ruling, and gov- erning the Universal Church: as also is con ained in the acts of (Ecumenical Councils and in the Sacred Canons." Need Mr. Gladstone be reminded that it was Innocent the Tenth, in 1653, that condemned the propositions of Jan- senius; that it was Innocent the Eleventh who, in 1682, raised his voice in condemnation of the GalHcan opinions, which were published for the first time since the Councils of Constance and Basle. Space would fad us to note the I ^ w INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE 93 unceasing exercise of supremacy by the Apostolic See in matters of doctrine, of morals, and of discipline. The previ- ous cases are sufficient for our purpose, and we v.'ould refer our readers for further instances to " Kenrick on the Pri- macy of the See of S. Peter," or to the invaluable little work of Father Knox, of the Oratory, entitled " When does the Church Speak Infallibly ? " from whose pages we have freely citeJ. We think that our readers will candidly avow that, notwithstanding the assertions of Mr. Gladstone, the power and pretensions of the Papacy have been always the same. But the right honorable gentleman feels much concern lest this power of the Pope should trespass on the civil domain. We need only remind him that after the decision of 1870 the field over which Infallibility extends was neither increased nor diminished ; since, as before, the Church has held that " politics, or the science which treats of the State, most necessarily from its ethical character present many points of contact with revealed truth. The principles on M'hich it is based flow from the natural law. They can never, therefore, be in real contradiction with the precepts of the Divine and positive law. Hence the State, if it only remain true to its fundamental principles, must ever be in the com- plctest harmony with the Church and Revelation. Now, so long as this harmony continues, the Church has neither call nor right to interfere with the State, for earthly politics do not fall within her direct jurisdiction. The mo- ment, however, the State becomes unfaithful to its prin- ciples, and contravenes the Divine and positive law, that moment it is the Church's right and duty, as guardian of revealed truth, to interfere, and to proclaim to the State the truths which it has ignored, and to condemn the erroneous maxims which it has adopted. Unhappily the State has too often given the Church occasion for interference, and false doctrines in politics have always found adherents, because they pandered to the greed of power and money, as well as 94 INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE, ?!t"; i: ■ B'''.* . il. k ' !!■ U ^ Ih to tlie abhorrence of control, wliich are so deeply rooted in our tallen nature. In former days, when civil society was leavened with the principles of the Faith, the Church, by entering into direct communication with the rulers of differ- ent States, could often quietly impede the spread of error, and allay, by personal influence, the evil consequences aris- ing from false principles of government. But what was possible then is not possible now, when society is unchris- tianizing itself more and more every day, and kings and statesmen habitually assume a position of open hostility or haughty distrust toward the Church. Therefore of late years she has been forced to lift up her voice, and from the Chair of Peter to cry aloud to the faithful throughout the world, in accents of solemn warning, against the pernicious errors with which the political atmosphere is everywhere loaded."— Knox on " The Infallibility," p. 70. His mind may bo quieted by reading the following letter, addressed by Pope Gelasius, at the close of the fifth century, to the Emperor Anastasius : — " God forbid that a Roman Prince should feel offended at the declaration of the t;ruth ! There are two things, au- gust emperor, whereby this world is governed, namely, the sacred authority of Pontiffs and the royal power, wherein the weight of priestly authority is so much the greater, as in the Divine judgment Priests must render to the Lord an ac- count of themselves. For you know, most clement son, that although you preside over men, you devoutly bend the neck to the dispensers of the Divine Mysteries, and ask from them the' means of salvation: and in the reception and proper administration of the heavenlv Sacraments, you know that you should be subject to them according to the religious rule, rather than preside over them. You are aware, then, that as to these things you depend on their judgment, and that they are not to be forced to compliance with your will. For if, as regards public order, the prelates of the Church, knowing that the empire has been confided to l.i ! INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 96 .1 you l)y Divine Providence, obey your laws, lest tliey slioiild appear to oppose your will in things of this world, with what affection should you obey them who arc appointed to dis- pense the awful mysteries I AYherefore, as the Pontiffs in- cur a serious responsibility if they suppress what they should declare for the honor of the Deity, so the danger is great of others who insolently refuse obedience. And if the hearts of the faithful should be su? missive to all priests in general who treat Divine things properly, how much more should assent be yielded to the Prelate of this See, M'hom the Supreme Lord ordained to preside over all priests, and whom the piety of the universal Church has always honored I You clearly understand that no one can, by any human device, op- pose the prerogative of confcssi9n of him whom the voice of Christ preferred to all others, whom the Holy Church Las always acknowledged, and whom she now devoutly regards as her Primate." " This," says Dr. Kenrick, from whom we cite, " has been deservedly regarded as an admirable exposition of the rela- tion of Catholic princes to the prelacy. The power of the prince is supreme in the civil order ; the power of the Pon- tiff is ."supreme in things spiritual. The civil and the ecclesias- tical powers are from God ; the former by his implied sanc- tion of the means of maintaining social order ; the latter by the direct institution of Christ. In both the sovereignty of God must be honored. Tne civil power extends to all things necessary for the maintenance and welfare of society, but it cannot command anything opposed to the Divine law. The ecclesiastical authority is engaged in the promulgation of truth and the maintenance of discipline, with a due respect for public order as regulated by the civil power." . . . " The Pope, as head on earth of the Church, exercises, by Divine right, authority over Catholic princes in the things that arc of salvation. "When by flagrant crimes they cause the name of God to be blasphemed, he may admonish and reprove them, as l^athan reproved David by the Divine 96 INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. i: W" ' ! ..Vl; ||- m ■I: f command ; and, in case of contumacy, he may inflict on them ecclesiastical censures. The exercise of this power peculiarly suits the Chief Bishop, since local prelates could scarcely venture to say to their prince — ' Thou art the man.' The majesty of the Sovereign is guarded by reserving cases in which he is concerned to the mature and unbiassed judg- ment of the Pontiff." — (Primacy of the Apostolic See, p. 326.) These extracts, so clearly stating the relations of the primacy to the civil power, will doubtless establish, to the satisfaction of many, that, instead of seeking the destruction of the State, the Church has always been her cooperator, and that in condemning, as she has in her Syllabus, a liher- tas which is synonymous with licence, and in maintaining the supremacy of Divine authority in declaring the sacred- ness of marriage, and asserting the necessity of religion in the instruction of youth (see the IStli proposition, cited on page 16 of the pamphlcl;)^ she is but throwing a safeguard around society, and upholding the absolute sovereignty of God over man. "We should have expecfted that a High Churchman like Mr. Gladstone, and a statesman of such great experience, who, doubtless, recognises the necessity for enactments such as Lord Campbell's Act, would, instead of questioning these truths, be the first to give them his cordial asrient. He must not blame us if, instead of accepting his views on these points, we prefer to be guided by the unerring instinct of the Church of God. THE END. m. iTanB'iitt"iTr- I : 9 n