vWAjVl jM-iavf •RISCETON ntC. ju in 1883 THEOLOGICAL./ K r- ,J£ v r >— ,r -O vr^r *^Y t r ' -* - <■ * *■ y • ' J > < ■ 1 * % 5 PROFESSOR ARCHER BUTLER ON R OMANIS M. -prints at % fcitoitg ^xm, ghiblw. Published by MACMILLAN & Co., Cambridge. lEonbon : GEORGE BELL, 186, Fleet Street. 0xforb : J. H. PARKER. ©ttbUn: HODGES & SMITH. "EDinburgi): edmonston & douglas. ^lasgotu : JAMES MACLEHOSE. Macmillan and Co. having purchased the Copyright of the late Archer Butler's Works, published and unpublished , in issuing this work with a new Title-page, think it right to state that it differs in no respect from the book published by Messrs. Hodges and Smith, Dublin, in 1850, under the title “ Letters on the Development of Christian Doctrine, fyc.” LETTERS ON ROMANISM, IN HR. IRfoman’s feag on JMopent. BY THE REV. WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER, M.A., I.ATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. EDITED BY THE REV. THOMAS WOODWARD, M.A., VICAR OF MULLINGAR. “ Such is the looseness of reasoning, and the negligence of facts, which all writers more or less exhibit,' who consider that they are in possession of a sure hypothesis on which to interpret evidence, and employ argument.”—J. H. Newman. “It is visible wherein the strength of his performance lies, and what it is that he chiefly trusts to. It is not Scripture, it is not antiquity, but a Philosophical Principle, to which Scripture, Fathers, everything, must yield ”— Archdeacon Waterland. tfambrftp: MACMILLAN AND Co. 1854 . Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/lettersonromanisOObutl PREFACE. ♦ It was the intention of my lamented friend, Professor Butler, an intention expressed not long before his death, to have republished the following Letters, in a se¬ parate form, with corrections and additions. But a mysterious Providence has overruled that purpose, and an early grave has closed on all his promises of wide¬ spread usefulness. It has devolved upon the Editor to carry out the design, however imperfectly. Circum¬ stances, over which he had no control, have hitherto delayed the execution of this interesting, though melan¬ choly task, which he unaffectedly regrets has not been committed to a better hand. The Letters were originally published in the columns of that ably conducted periodical, the Irish Ecclesias¬ tical Journal; but a wish, too general to be disregarded, calls for their re-appearance in a more convenient form. They were written at intervals, between the close of 1845 and the commencement of 1847, and were the OV VI PREFACE. work of hurried moments, snatched from labours of beneficence to the starving crowds who daily flocked around their Author’s residence. The famine, which during that period was at its height, had visited with fearful intensity the parish and neighbourhood of Pro¬ fessor Butler, and he was indefatigable in remedial efforts. Such a scene, so beset with harassing inter¬ ruption, so far from intellectual converse, was indeed almost incompatible with calm processes of subtle rea¬ soning, and erudite investigation. The composition of such a work, under disadvantages so overwhelming, is in truth no small evidence of Butler’s extraordinary power of thought. That some few traces of haste should not be perceptible, it would of course be impos¬ sible to expect. Some oversights have been corrected in the notes. Several quotations, taken at second-hand from text books, have evidently not been considered in their context, and have been employed in a signifi¬ cance varying considerably from their real meaning. In throwing in guards and qualifications, in endea¬ vouring to place the quotations in the light originally intended, the Editor has been conscious that he was doing what Professor Butler would have earnestly desired to have done. That most candid and most truthful mind would have been the last purposely to support his argument by unfair citation, or overstrained interpretation, or by making the words of any author PREFACE. Vll seem to convey an impression different from what they were designed to produce. The appearance of Mr. Newman’s celebrated Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine a was the occa¬ sion which urged Professor Butler, at such inconve¬ nience to himself, to undertake the publication of these Letters. They treat, however, of topics which possess a general and perpetual interest. They are replete with arguments and principles which extend far beyond their primary object of refuting a particular disputant. It is, perhaps, an unavoidable result of our position between two opposite extremes, and on the defensive against both, that our Anglican Theology is cast, for the most part, in a controversial mould. Its richest treasures must be carefully picked up by the student, not arranged in didactic treatises, but scattered as they lie through Defences and Replies, through Apologies and Vindications. Thus the reader, who feels but little interest in their polemical bearings, may still peruse these pages with profit and delight; may find here disquisitions upon topics the most engaging, philoso¬ phical as well as ecclesiastical, adorned with the richest drapery of imagination, and clothed in language of un¬ exceeded power and beauty. a An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. By John Henry Newman, Author of Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church. London, 1845. Vlll PREFACE. But these Letters, although thus occasioned by it, are not to be regarded as a Reply to the single Essay of Mr. Newman. They are a comprehensive refutation of a System, of which he indeed was the ablest expo¬ nent, but which many other thinkers had partially propounded as absolutely necessary for the preserva¬ tion of the Romish cause. In the present state of cri¬ tical learning, the spurious authorities, and the misquo¬ tations from genuine writings, which too often formed the case of Romish controversialists when appealing to antiquity, can no longer obtain even a temporary currency. The Theory of Development is a last effort to buttress the novelties, which can find no sanction in ancient Catholicity, by a still more novel specula¬ tion. Mr. Newman is the spokesman of a powerful School , who have surrendered the claim of antiquity, and substituted this theory in its stead: that the Chris¬ tian Revelation was at first intentionally incomplete ; “ that the original doctrines of the Christian Church were intended by its founder to be subsequently deve¬ loped into a variety of new forms and aspects ; that such a development was antecedently natural and ne¬ cessary ; that the process was conducted under infalli¬ ble guidance; and that the existing belief of the Roman Communion is its mature result” 15 . To this entire School, b See infra, p. 3. PREFACE. IX and to their whole system of argument, the following pages supply a full, and still unanswered, refutation. Whatever novelty may justly be attributed to the performance of Mr. Newman, it is matter of history that he was not the originator of the Theory which he so elaborately advocates. He has, however, reduced to systematic form, and expanded into logical proportions, the rude outlines and imperfect sketches of other thinkers. “Though the evidence,” says Dr. Words¬ worth 0 , “is abundant and strong, that the Theory of Development is the only consistent theory of Romanism , ye tit has never, I believe, been propounded so distinctly, or worked out so elaborately, as by the author of this volume. Your theologians have sighed for it, and have cherished it secretly, but they have been afraid to own it publicly. This theory has had many a Copernicus among you, but he is its Newton ; and we would in¬ dulge a sanguine hope, that the cause of truth will be promoted in due time by the unreserved manner in which this theory, and this only theory, of Romanism, has been stated in this Essay.” The power of the pre¬ sent Church to develope new Articles of Faith has long been maintained by Romish theologians. It was alleged by a writer' 1 of the fourteenth century, as the preroga- c Letters to M. Gondon, p. 26. A Augustinus Triumphus de Ancona. Summ. de Eccl. Pot . q. 59, Art. 3. X PREFACE. tive of the Pontiff, novum symbolum condere , novos arti- culos supra alios multiplicare. “ That which I charge upon the Roman doctors,” says Bishop Taylor, “is, that they give to their Church a power of introducing and imposing new articles of belief — Diss. (p. 287 : Ed. Cardwell.) Such a claim was shown by our divines to be wholly incompatible with any settled Rule of Faith. It was proved to be an abnegation of the autho¬ rity both of Holy Scripture and of Catholic Tradition. “ Our most beloved Mother, the Church of England,” says the admirable Dr. Hammond 6 , “ is certainly soli¬ citous to avoid, with all cautious diligence, this rock of innovators. It is her ambition to be distinguished through the whole Christian world, and judged by an equitable posterity, under this character, that, in de¬ ciding controversies of faith and practice, it has ever been her fixed and firm resolution, and on this basis she has rested the British Reformation, that, in the first place, respect be had to the Scripture; and then, in the second place, to the Bishops, Martyrs, and Ec¬ clesiastical Writers of the first ages. Therefore, what¬ soever hath been affirmed by the Scriptures in matter of Faith; whatsoever, concerning ecclesiastical govern¬ ment, she hath discovered to be the appointment of the universal Church throughout the world, after the e Quoted by Bishop Jebb, Appendix to Sermons , p. 393. PREFACE. XI Apostles, these things she hath taken care to place, as fixed and established, among the Articles of Religion, determined never to permit her sons to alter or abolish what hath been thus decided.” (Translated from Ham¬ mond’s Works t Yol. iv. p. 470.) To the readers of this controversial work, it may be interesting to learn something of its author’s sentiments upon an important practical point, the desirableness of polemically assailing the faith of the simple and desti¬ tute Romanists by whom he was surrounded. The following pages, indeed, are sufficient evidence that Professor Butler was alive to the importance of the doctrinal differences between us and Rome ; that he was cordially attached to the principles of the Refor¬ mation ; and ready to spend his best powers, under circumstances of peculiar trial, in vindicating those principles against an accomplished and most formida¬ ble antagonist. But though he was thus zealous, before meet audience, to give a reason for his faith, and in its defence to bring forth out of his treasures things new and old, it was his opinion (an opinion which derives peculiar weight from the circumstance that he himself was a convert from Romanism, and intimately ac¬ quainted with the whole controversy), that no small degree of mental cultivation was required to under¬ stand the points in debate, and the arguments employed Xii PREFACE. in their discussion. In cases where universal ignorance overspread the mind, respecting the first principles of Christianity, he thought that there was room for instruction , but that it was absurd, ex vi termini , to talk of proselytism, for that there could be no change of creed, when no creed at all had been received. And with respect to those who were not uninstructed in their own system, and were endeavouring to serve God as they thought right, the minds of peasants such as these, he shrunk from disturbing and unsettling in their faith. He feared lest, in the attempt to pluck out the tares, he might root up the wheat also ; lest this process of disturbance might eventuate in total scepti¬ cism, and so the last state of the convert become worse than the first. He especially deprecated the idea of employing a season of unwonted distress as an oppor¬ tunity of controversy, and mingling temporal relief with exhortations to conformity. Such ill-timed pro¬ jects he deemed far more likely to corrupt the neces¬ sitous by hopes of gain, than to win them over to the pure and undefiled religion of the Gospel. His feelings on the subject are best expressed in his own language, which I am glad to embrace another occasion of re¬ peating. “ For my own part, I will not scruple to say, though, perhaps, it is scarcely wise to enter upon such a topic without more room than I can now demand, to PREFACE. Xlll explain and defend my meaning,—it is not without fear and trembling that I should at any time receive into the Church a convert from any of the forms of Christianity outside it, whom 1 had known to he sin¬ cerely devoted according to the measure of his light. The duty of so doing may arise ; and, when the duty is plain, it must of course be done ; I only say, that I should feel very great anxiety in doing it. Men ought never to forget how fearfully heavy is the responsibi¬ lity of a new convert. You have unsettled all the man's habitual convictions; are you prepared to labour night and day to replace them with others as effective over the heart and life ? If not, you have done him an irreparable wrong. Motives to righteousness, low, mixed, uncertain, as it may be, are greatly better than none; and there can be no doubt that he who has lost so many he once possessed, requires constant, earnest, indefatigable exertion on the part of the teacher who undertakes to supply their place. What care, what skill, what persevering patience does it need to repair the shattered principle of Faith in one whom you have succeeded in convincing, that all the deepest practical convictions of his whole past life are delusion !” My best acknowledgments are due to the Rev. Richard Gibbings, rector of Raymunterdoney, in the diocese of Raphoe, for most valuable assistance afford- XIV PREFACE. ed me in preparing for publication this work of our mutual friend. A considerable number of annotations, kindly furnished to me by that critical and accom¬ plished scholar, will be found in the sequel, and may be distinguished by the letter G., subjoined. CONTENTS. LETTER I. PAGE. Occasion of the present work, . .. 1 Object not detailed investigation of Mr. Newman’s authorities, and why,.2 Mr. Newman’s theory of development stated,.2,3 I. Opposed to the received doctrine of the Romish Church, . . . 3, 4 Mohler, De Maistre, and La Mennais,.4 Earlier forms of the theory already condemned,.5 Case of Petavius,.. . ib. Case of Bossuet,.6, 7 Opposed to the Tridentine Canons respecting the sole matter of Faith , and interpretation of Scripture ,.8 Council of Trent invariably appeals to perpetual tradition, . 9-11 The same is the doctrine of the chief expositors of Romanism, . 11 Mr. Newman’s attempted defence of his hypothesis from philo¬ sophical analogies, .12 Condemned by anticipation by the Romish authorities, . . . . ib. Disciplina arcani admitted by Mr. Newman to be inadequate to solve the “ difficulty” of the variation of mediceval from primi¬ tive Christianity ,.12-14 Mr. Newman’s theory is an attempt to account for this difficulty, 14 This variation is a “ difficulty” only to the Romanist, .... 15 II. Development theory is a plain surrender of the claims of Romanism to satisfactory evidence from antiquity,.16 Developments are admitted not to be themselves primitive doc¬ trine, .ib* “Deification of St. Mary,”.16, 17 Mr. Newman rejects the rule of Vincentius,.18 XVI CONTENTS. PAGE. Charges the Ante-Nicene Fathers with inaccuracy respecting the Trinity,.ib. His unfair treatment of the Fathers,.19 The Syrian School ..ib. Testimony of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Facundus, against Transubstantiation, resolved into peculiarities of that school, 20, 21 Mr. Newman’s instances of the completion of primitive views : “ Deification of St. MaryPurgatory, .21-24 It follows from Mr. Newman’s argument that it is positively inju¬ rious to study the early writers,.24 Mediaeval religion, according to him, an improvement upon pri¬ mitive Christianity: in doctrine, . . . ib. In practice,.25 “ Expurgating” Fathers is consequently the obligatory function of the growing Church,.ib. Application of this argument to the Bible,.26, 27 To the teaching of our blessed Lord,.27 Mr. Newman’s decisive admissions respecting the late introduc¬ tion of Image Worship,.28 Worship of Saints and Angels,.ib. Worship of the Virgin Mary,.ib. Purgatory,.29 Evidence of Ignatian epistles to the definiteness of doctrine from the very first ..30-32 Importance of Mr. Newman’s admissions,.32 Peculiarity of his position and value of his testimony, . . . 32_35 LETTER II. Mr. Newman’s theory contrary to the Tridentine Canons, ... 36 His Book formally implicated in the anathema of Trent, .... 37 His mode of Scriptural interpretation forbidden,.ib. Early anticipations of his theory,.38 Fisher on Purgatory and Indulgences,.38, 39 Cardinal Cajetan and Durandus on Indulgences,.39 Alphonsus de Castro on Transubstantiation,.40 Peter Lombard and Sirmondus on Transubstantiation, . . . . 40, 41 Similar views to Mr. Newman’s entertained by Salmeron, .... 42 Traces of Mr. Newman’s doctrine in Gregory VII.ib. Gregory I. traced his developments to a different source, .... 43 CONTENTS. XVII PAGE. Proved by Stillingfleet, that the assertion of unbroken Apostolical Tradition, as a separate source of articles of belief , is, in the Roman Church, comparatively modern,.44 Gradual elevation of Tradition to coordinate authority with the written Word,.44,45 Forgeries employed to gain credit for Romish Traditions, . . 45, 46 Effect of the forged Decretals,.46, 47 New measures rendered necessary by their exposure,.48 “ Mediaeval development” now substituted for “ Apostolical Tradi¬ tion,” .ib. Inconsistency of Mr. Newman respecting the “leading idea of Chris¬ tianity,” .49,50 Analysis of Mr. Newman’s argument,.50 “ Development of an idea” explained.ib. Kinds of development,.ib. “ Moral developments” explained,.51 Unfair citation of Bishop Butler,.ib. Instances of moral development,.51, 52 Tests of genuine development,.52, 54 Antecedent probability of developments, and of a developing autho¬ rity, in Christianity,.54, 55 Term development used ambiguously by Mr. Newman, .... 55 There are “legitimate developments” of doctrine in Christianity, . ib. Of two kinds, intellectual and practical,.56 Intellectual developments, or logical inferences, explained and illus¬ trated, . 57-60 Practical developments explained,.60 Two elements in their production, the Divine truth, and the human recipient,.60, 61 “ Practical developments” may grow from the corruption of human nature,.61-64 No universality or permanence, of admitted innovation can be suffi¬ cient to authorize it,.64 Example of idolatry,.65, 66 Mr. Newman’s principle an invention ; his facts cannot be reduced under even that invented principle,.67 His principle,.ib. His facts,.67, 68 He prepares the way for his principle by arguing the antecedent probability of developments in Christianity,.68 But he only proves that there are such developments as none deny, 68-70 Kind of developments which Anglicans deny,.70 b XV111 CONTENTS. PAGE. Mr. Newman’s alleged analogy of prophetic revelation, .... 71 Failure of the analogy ; prophecy distinguished from doctrinal teaching,.ib. Mr. Newman’s perverted use of the parables,.72 Scriptural statements respecting the completeness of the original revelation, irreconcileable with his doctrinal development, . . 72, 73 How far, according to him, the Apostles were acquainted with the developments of modern Romanism,.73, 74 Argument from their silence respecting them,.74, 75 Unfair appeal to Bishop Butler,.75 State of the case between Anglican antiquity and Roman develop¬ ment upon the supposition that the Apostles were ignorant of these new doctrines,.76,77 Application of the principle of development to our Lord’s own teaching,.77,78 Recapitulation,.78-80 LETTER III. Inadequacy of the development hypothesis unless combined with the farther hypothesis of an infallible directive authority, . . 81,82 Coincidence of Mr. Newman’s “ moral development” with various fanatical and heretical extravagancies,.82 Found in its perfection in Tertullian’s Montanism,.82, 83 Necessity of an external authority to warrant Roman developments, 84 Inconsistency of this authority with the theory of development, . . ib. Mr. Newman’s chief art is the substitution of historical eventuation for logical connexion of disputed with admitted doctrines, ... 85 Tendency of his theory to perplex all the evidences of religion, . . 86 Identity of Kant’s and Newman’s “ process of development,” . 86, 87 Positive tendency of Mr. Newman’s development does not vindicate it from Rationalism,.88 Formal nature of Rationalism,.88, 89 Rationalism of superstition,.89 Internal spirit and scope of Mr. Newman’s theory,.ib. The Church’s office of instruction lies not in unlimited development but in cautious moderation.90, 91 This alleged incompleteness is the perfection of practical wisdom, . 90 It was Christ’s intention to withhold information on certain subjects, 91 Real limits to our knowledge,.92 Claim of infallibility leads to irreverent scrutiny into the divine mysteries,.ib. CONTENTS. xix PAGE. Feeble and ambiguous decisions of Rome inconsistent with infallible authority,.93 Restraint within appointed limits is characteristic of the Church’s wisdom and humility,.94-96 Limitation and mystery the will of God for the discipline of man, . 96 Human pride and curiosity dissatisfied—twofold result, .... ib. Romish development debases the true sublimity of Christianity, 96, 97 True development would be a progress from simpler to sublimer things,.98 Romish developments, e. g. image-worship, are a descent and retro- gradation, .98,99 God’s reality sublimer than man’s imagination,.99 Apostolic and mediaeval Christianity contrasted, .... 100, 101 The “ dark ages” the great period of development, . . . 102, 103 Mediaeval Christianity Mr. Newman’s ideal of perfection, . . . 104 What was the character and condition of the average instructors of the middle ages ?.104, 111 Council of Aix-la-Chapelle,.106 Archbishop Hincmar,.106, 107 Theodulphus,.107 Ratherius,.107, 108 Gregory VII. 108-110 Application to the argument of this test of the intellectual and moral condition of middle ages,.Ill Mr. Newman’s hypothesis cannot be referred to any historical tests, 112 May be applied by any sect to the proof of anything, .113 This new rule of faith clouds the evidences of Christianity, ... ib. Mr. Newman’s gloomy picture of the difficulty of knowing what to believe,.114 Import of his maxim, that “principles are responsible for doctrines,” 115 Any doctrine may be thus proved by evidence of antiquity, ... ib. Illustrated by an imaginary sect of sun-worshippers. Application of Mr. Newman’s principles to prove sun-worship a true develop¬ ment of Christian doctrine,. 116-123 The burning of heretics proved to be a true development according to Mr. Newman’s principles,. 125-127 Application to this doctrine of his seven tests of a true development, 127-137 Fearful consequences of this theory of development.137 LETTER IV. The theory of development stamps with inspiration equally the whole succession of doctrines in the Latin Church,.138 XX CONTENTS. PAGE. All Romish developments authorized by the same authority, 139, 140 Mr. Newman’s hypothesis “accounts for” the Creed of Pope Pius as well as for that of Athanasius,...140 His rule of Faith must apply to all the Romish peculiarities, or can apply to none,.141, 142 Fundamental error of his system is, making history the law of doc¬ trine, .142 Confounds the functions of historian and divine,.143 Pernicious practical results of this fundamental error, . . 143, 144 “ Philosophy of Romanism” derived from this error,—definition of it,.144 The past history of the Church thereby made the model of perfec¬ tion,—examples,.145, 146 This criterion of Faith must be applied universally, . . . 146, 147 The development theory employed by Mr. Newman to defend the authority of the past, but really tends to endless alteration, 147, 148 Impossible to set any limits to this progression of doctrine, . . . 148 Examples of possible future developments,.148-152 Infallible decisions of the Church no check to innovation, . . . 152 Development theory sanctions other great changes, as well as the formation of Roman system,.153 Case of the Reformation,.154 From the beginning Christianity combined two powerful principles, individual Obedience and individual Inquiry,.ib. Principle of individual Inquiry sanctioned in the New Testament, . 155 Recognised by the primitive Church, Tertullian, Cyprian, Firmi- lian,.156, 157 Universal perusal of Holy Scripture enjoined by Chrysostom, Au¬ gustine, and Gregory I.,.158, 159 First synodical prohibition of the general use of the Scriptures, . 159 If the papal supremacy be the development of the principle of Obe¬ dience, the Reformation may be of the principle of Inquiry, 159-163 The cessation of the Papacy may be a development as well as its growth, .163 Gradual depression of the papal power correspondent to its rise, 163-168 Mr. Newman’s theory triumphantly vindicates the principle of the Reformation,.168 The same argument applies to place as well as time, .169 The bond of the Papacy has always slackened in proportion to the distance from Rome,.ib. The independence of the Anglican Church may thus be a develop¬ ment, as well as the first local extension of the papal connexion, 169, 170 CONTENTS. XXI PAGE. Phocas and S. Gregory the Great,.170 Genuine historical development to be traced in the progress of the Anglican Church,.171 Analogies of civil and ecclesiastical government,.172 Resemblance in their respective objects and means, . . . 172, 173 Presumption that nations may be left to see their way with the same comparative perspicacity in both,.173 Connexion and unrivalled excellence of the Anglican civil and eccle¬ siastical constitution,. 173-175 Mr. Newman’s limitations of progressive revelation are altogether arbitrary,.175 His system justifies all developments as well as the Roman, . 175, 176 Collateral supposition of Romish Infallibility is an abandonment of his principles,.177, 178 Those principles sanction Lutheran as much as Roman develop¬ ments, . 178-181 Gradual formation of the papal power,.182 Justification of the Anglican separation,.183 Mr. Newman’s theory is the philosophy, not of one form of Chris¬ tianity, but of all,.183, 184 Application of it to the Greek Church,.184 Difficulty of determining precise amount of difference between the doctrines of Greek and Latin Churches,.184-187 Theory of development inconsistent with the undeniable differences between East and West,.187-189 Their separation not a mere schism,.189 The East is in heresy, if Rome be infallible,.189, 190 Other important disagreements,. 190-192 Bearing of the single fact, that the East rejects the Romish unity on the theory of development,.193, 194 History furnishes a true experimentum crucis between .... 195 Rival suppositions of Rome and England to explain facts in the his¬ tory of Christianity,.195, 196 The testimony of the Eastern Church confirms the Anglican hypo¬ thesis, .196, 197 The theory of development, as an internal principle evolving truth by uniform processes, cannot stand the test of history to which it appeals,.197, 198 Mr. Newman has substituted a fond hypothesis about the Roman peculiarities for a theory of the universal Church,.199 Circumstances, under God’s high providence, have equally moulded the religious history of East and West,. 200, 201 XXII CONTENTS. rAGE. LETTER V. . 205, ise to and Principle of development in its nature unlimited, . Romanist restriction not only arbitrary, but destructive of the prin¬ ciple, . Mr. Newman’s system is Rationalism under Roman colours, . . His inconsistency, and probable causes of it, . Natural result of the development theory, .... Its inapplicability to Mr. Newman’s purpose, . . . The history of speculative philosophy has probably given 1 illustrates danger of this theory of Christianity, . . Variation of doctrine in the ancient teachers, They delivered not definite doctrines, but ideas to be developed, Analogy of Christianity, according to Mr. Newman, and consequent uncertainty,. The doctrines of Christianity alleged to be only samples of its ideas, . 209, If so, the Apostles had but a defective knowledge of Christianity, . Imperfect information of the first tcenturies according to this theory,.211- The Apostles knew and communicated all necessary doctrine, 214, Their account of the high attainments of the primitive Christians incompatible with this theory of development,.216 No speculative difficulties can disprove that all necessary doctrine was delivered by the Apostles, for it is asserted by them, . 219- Alleged errors of the Anti-Nicene Teachers,. 222, Function of the early Councils in respect of doctrine,—to define and condemn, but not to reveal, . 224, Grounds on which the four first (Ecumenical Councils professed to proceed. Council of Nice,. 225, Constantinople,. Ephesus, . . 226, Chalcedon, ........ 227- They re-stated and defined Church’s primitive belief,. Same principles avowed in subsequent Councils, .... 230, In the form and disposition of the doctrine, the resolutions of Coun¬ cils will differ considerably from Scripture expressions, Reason of this difference,.231, They may present Christian doctrine in new aspects and relations , . Special measure of divine blessing to be anticipated for Councils assembled under just conditions,. 233, 202 203 204 205 ib. 206 206 207 208 ib. 210 211 213 215 -219 -222 223 225 226 226 227 ■230 230 231 231 232 232 234 CONTENTS. XXlll PAGE. Peculiar claims of the early Councils to authoritative decision on fundamental doctrine,. 234-23* The controversy respecting the ancient digests of Christian doctrine resolves itself into two questions ; one, regarding the Obligation; the other, the Matter, of these dogmatic decisions, . . . 237, 238 The work of systematizing and applying doctrine, by Synods and Doctors, is the reality which Mr. Newman distinguishes under the term Development,.238 LETTER YI. Process by which Christian doctrines have become gradually syste¬ matized, .240 Concession that theological knowledge is capable of a real move¬ ment, .ib. This movement takes place in two ways : 1. By logical development,.241 2. By positive discovery,—examples of,. 241, 242 Process of logical development accounts for the history and the errors of dogmatic theology,. 242, 243 Unlikely, from nature of the case, that the form of Christian doc¬ trine should continue exactly the same during the inspired and subsequent uninspired period,. 243 Inspired men would not require a systematized creed, .... ib. Uninspired teachers would require formal scheme of doctrines, . . 244 Presumption against the inspiration of elaborate definitions of doc¬ trine, . 244, 245 General character of inspired teaching,—Prophets, our Lord, S. Paul,. 245, 246 Important that the unscientific statements of Scripture should come before their logical version, and why,. 246-249 Difficulty of regulating the proper exercise of this systematizing process by a priori canons,.249 In what senses logical development may introduce doctrines appa¬ rently new,. 250, 251 Difficulty in certain cases of deciding upon the novelty or antiquity of doctrines,. 252, 253 The conciliar determinations were the results of a process of syste¬ matizing begun by individual teachers,.253 Importance of a due estimate of these first systematizers, .... ib. Their advantage, in recent inheritance of original doctrine, . 254-256 Their disadvantage in inexperience, and its consequences, . 256, 257 XXIV CONTENTS. PAGE. The evidence of antiquity is not the same in amount for all the doc¬ trines we are bound to receive,.258 Quantity of historical proof varies in different cases,.259 Vincentian rule not to be strictly interpreted,. 259, 260 Judicious generality of terms in the canon “ Concionatores," . . . 260 Amount of evidence required for doctrine is not revealed, and must be determined inductively,.261 No antecedent reason to suppose that even the most important doc¬ trines will be sustainable by the same amount of proof, . 261,262 The apparent plausibility of the Romanist claim of certainty in reli¬ gion is traceable to an ambiguity of the word “ Faith,” . . . 263 This word Faith used in two senses,.ib. Both forms of belief equally applicable to all modifications, true or false, of revealed religion,. 263-265 A constant sophism of Romish controversialists is to confound these two senses of Faith,. 265, 266 LETTER VII. Mr. Newman’s attempt to sustain his hypothesis of Development by the auxiliary hypothesis of a “ Developing authority in Christia¬ nity,” .267 Statement of his argument,. 267, 268 His argument for the likelihood of developments framed with a view to the very developments to be accounted for, .... 268, 269 Antiquity would have disowned this a priori argument, . . 269, 270 His whole argument is a vicious circle ,.271 Examination of his arguments for a Developing Authority, ... ib. The Infallibility at issue is that alleged to be vested in the Church of Borne, . 271,272 Importance of remembering that the real question is the localization of Infallibility in Romish Patriarchate,.272 No connexion between Infallibility of the Universal Church and Romish Infallibility,.273 Theory of development viewed in connexion with loccd Infallibility: I. Alleged necessity of papal Infallibility to guide Development, . 274 And yet the Papacy itself admitted to be a development, 274, 275 II. Fallacy involved in making one development give authority to others,. 275, 276 III. The Roman tribunal, which is supposed necessary to guide Development, did not arise until after period when it would have been most necessary,. 276, 277 Such a tribunal most needed in first centuries, . . . 277, 278 CONTENTS. XXV PAGE. And no allusion is made to any such in those ages, . . 278-281 More needed in East than West,.281 IV. First development of the Roman Supremacy not doctrinal, but disciplinary,. 281, 282 V. The history of dogmas contradicts the fancy of regular deve¬ lopment guided by this local directory,.282 Examples of various developments inconsistent with such infal¬ libility of Rome,. 283-288 History of heresies contradicts infallibility of Roman See, 288, 289 VI. Christianity admits of “ Historical Development” (See Lett. II. p. 60),. 289 These historical developments are adaptations to diversities of circumstances,.ib. A local infallible authority incompatible with such develop¬ ments, . 289-292 Out of this incompatibility arose the Reformation, . . 292, 293 VII. This principle of local developments explains the exterior simi¬ larity between present and ancient Church of Rome, . 294-296 Probable impression which present Romanism would produce on primitive saints,. 296-298 This power of adaptation a proof of divine origin of Christia¬ nity, .298 Unalterable in doctrine, Christianity may vary in external pre¬ sentation, .ib. Rome exactly reverses this rule,. 298-300 VIII. The most specious claim of the Papacy, its expediency , really contradicts its permanence ,. 300, 301 Foregoing observations directed to the specific theory of Roman infallibility: Roman falsely assumed as synonymous with Catholic infallibility, 302, 303 Infallibility never consigned by the Universal Church to Rome, 303, 304 Such a consignment would involve the power to withdraw it, . . 304 Utter insufficiency of the alleged proofs that the Catholic Church thus surrendered its right to the Papacy,. 305-307 Permanence of Rome as a sacred locality not without parallel, . . 307 The Papacy, as an historical fact, not more unaccountable than the sacerdotal sovereignty of the Thibetian Lama, .... 307-310 LETTER VIII. The development hypothesis considered in connexion with Church infallibility in general. .311 c XXVI CONTENTS. PAGE. The principle of development in Germany is a general law of pro¬ gress equally serviceable to all schools, . 311-313 Limitation of the principle as connected with claimed infallibility, . 313 No contradiction in the abstract conception of a knowledge always right and always progressing,.314 But this sort of progress is essentially inapplicable to the history of the doctrines in controversy, for two reasons,.ib. Preliminary observations on the state of the question,.315 Comparison of development hypothesis with rival hypotheses, as a concession to Mr. Newman,.ib. Problem: to connect the actual facts of Church History with the original revelation, by some general view of the way it was meant to operate , 316 Three hypotheses for its solution : 1. The Anglo-Catholic,.316, 317 2. The Roman,.317, 318 3. The development, or Rationalistic-Roman,.318-320 Consideration of the positive merits of the development hypothesis combined with infallibility. Examination of the consistency of the combination,.320 Even granting progression of doctrine, and its danger without spe¬ cial direction, the alleged infallible guidance does not follow, 320, 321 Assuming infallibility, then progressive discovery of doctrines sup¬ poses previous errors of doctrine and practice, at variance with such infallible guidance. Examples. Divinity of Christ and Holy Spirit, 321 Corruption of human nature,.322 Invocation of saints and angels,. 322, 323 Separate state of the blessed,.323 Purgatory,.324 Adoration of the Host and images,. 324, 325 Five additional sacraments,.325 These are difficulties as regards the past in the hypothesis which connects perpetual infallibility with perpetual development: dif¬ ficulties as regards the future,.326 Decisions of a developing Church can be only provisional, . 326-330 May be set aside by the “ Church of the future,” .... 330-332 Practical working of infallible development as an ecclesiastical principle,.332 Use of infallibility is authoritative guidance ; but the exercise of authority is incompatible with hypothesis of development, . 332, 333 Three conceivable relations of an infallible authority to a develop¬ ing Church : examination of development hypothesis under each of these relations,.333 CONTENTS. XXV11 PAGE. 1. Supreme Authority viewed as dependent on general movement of the Church,.... 334 The infallible Authority cannot decide on a subject insufficiently developed, . 334, 335 Infallibility thus made dependent on the date of the decision, 336-340 2. The supreme Authority viewed as independent and controlling general movement of the Church,.340 But, by the hypothesis, the process of development is itself in¬ spired, . 341-343 No authority, therefore, can control what is itself divine, . 343, 344 3. The supreme Authority viewed as the organ declarative of the Church’s belief,.344 Such an organ is no directive authority; but varies as the Church itself,. 344, 345 Preceding observations refer to the exercise of authority in the regular way of Councils,.345 But infallible Authority, if essential to the Church, must have preceded Councils,.346 How exercised during the interval of Councils, i. e. during almost the entire existence of the Church ?. 346, 347 Authority, of any kind, an inconsistency within a developing Church,.348 Position of an individual speculator in the Roman Church on this hypothesis of development,. 348-351 Mr. Newman’s system incurably sceptical, . 351, 352 LETTER IX. Examination of Mr. Newman’s arguments for an infallible develop¬ ing authority resident in the Roman Church,.355 General object of the first, or theoretical, part of his treatise, . . 356 Summary of his arguments,. 356-358 Charge against Barrow of logical deficiency,.359 Mr. Newman’s self-contradiction with respect to the primitive evi¬ dence for the Papacy,. 359, 360 His instances of hypotheses similar to his own,. 360-363 Admission of Mr. Newman’s general principles respecting moral evidence,.363 They are applicable only under certain qualifications : Qualification 1,.363 Qualification 2,.364 Qualification 3,. 364, 365 xxviii CONTENTS. PAGE. Mr. Newman’s proofs of an infallible director of developments, . 366 1. Presumption that there must be such an authority to distinguish true developments, .367 Reason and sympathy as competent to decide on the developments as upon the authorizing infallibility,. 367, 368 Mr. Newman admits that the idea of a revelation includes all clear conclusions from the truths originally revealed, . . . 368, 369 2. His second and third heads of argument are answers to objections against infallibility resting upon moral certainty,.369 His misconception of this objection,. 370, 371 3. His answer to the objection that the supposed infallibility would destroy probation by dissipating all doubt,. 371-373 Bishop Butler has foreclosed all anticipations of what God will or must do in giving a revelation,.373 Mr. Newman’s attempt to show that Butler’s reasoning does not apply against his presumptions,.374 Plainly opposed to the assumption of a necessary infallibility, 375, 376 Analogy of the Jewish Church ; a developing system, yet without an infallible directory,. 376, 377 4. Main distinction, according to Mr. Newman, of natural and re¬ vealed religion, and consequent necessity of a visible and per¬ manent infallible authority,. 377, 378 Inaccuracy of his distinction between natural and revealed reli¬ gion; confounds rule of right and obligation of the rule, 378, 379 Special evil of this confusion ; exalts authority above conscience , 380 5. Various advantages alleged as secured by an infallible external directory,. 381, 382 The chief force of this hypothesis lies in contrasting it with an opposite extreme equally gratuitous,.383 Importance of Church decisions even without infallibility. Opi¬ nions of Vincentius,. 384-388 Superintending Providence, not absolute infallibility, is the Church’s true gift, and the true key to ecclesiastical history, . 389 Sublime ideal of Christianity to conceive it originally delivered in its full perfection,.390 Proof of its Divine origin that it provides for all possible variety of circumstances,.391 LETTERS •v^ &c. &c. LETTER I. Dear Sir, When I had last the pleasure of see¬ ing you, you were so good as to request me to give you an opinion of the work a of Mr. Newman, which has been so long and anxiously expected. I am at present obliged to undertake the fulfilment of my promise at some disadvantage as to time and leisure. I have, however, read the work with the attention which the performance of such a writer, at such a crisis, justly demands; and I trust I can answer, that any observa¬ tions I may offer you shall be the result of a tolerably unprejudiced estimate of its merits. Absolute impar¬ tiality can, indeed, seldom be secured, except at the heavy cost of absolute indifference ; and I cannot pre¬ tend to be indifferent to the fearful amount of evil, which (with of course the purest intentions) the Author of this work and his companions are exerting all the energies of accomplished minds to achieve. Mr. New¬ man, in a very solemn and affecting address at the a [Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Lond. 1845.] B 2 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OE [LETT. I. close of his volume, warns us against undue prepos¬ sessions ; bids us “ not determine that to be truth which we wish to be so, nor make an idol of cherished anti¬ cipations.” Alas! the Author is, doubtless, too humble- minded to think it strange, that many will rise from his work with the profound conviction, that had not the mournful delusion against which he cautions us been his own, the book itself had never been written! The reasonings and speculations of this remarkable volume suggest a multitude of considerations, for which it would be unreasonable to expect you could supply space. I shall, therefore, confine myself as much as possible to observations of a very general character, such as I may trust to make tolerably intelligible within a narrow compass. Detailed investigations of Mr. Newman’s citations and authorities will, I doubt not, be furnished abundantly in the progress of the contro¬ versy. This latter part of the inquiry, moreover, ap¬ pears to me of the less importance, that the volume does not seem to add many new contributions to the passages already so familiar to every student of the Romish controversy ; and because, granting the ge¬ nuineness and authenticity of every single passage cited, the conclusion intended by the Author appears as hopelessly inadmissible as it could be conceived to be by the denial of them all. The same limitation of space must induce me to depend, that a majority of your readers, having already perused the book, will not require a detailed exposition of its argument. Those who have not, must be content to learn, that Mr. Newman’s theory is simply this : — That the original doctrines of the Christian Church LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 3 were intended by its Founder to be subsequently “deve¬ loped” into a variety of new forms and aspects; that such a development was antecedently natural and ne¬ cessary ; that the process was conducted under infal¬ lible guidance; and that the existing belief of the Roman communion is its mature result. Those who have but this conception of Mr. Newman’s views can, of course, scarcely do full justice to his argument; I must, however, add, that this limited acquaintance with his performance is almost as injurious to the full ap¬ preciation of the objections to it. I should certainly desire no other reader than one who had carefully studied the whole volume from beginning to end; not only because such a perusal can alone make objections fully intelligible, but because I think I could safely rely, that on the mind of every such reader, if suffi¬ ciently unprejudiced, would crowd, in forms more or less palpable, the very objections I am about to state. I. I must, in the first place, observe that it is much more than doubtful, how far Mr. Newman’s doctrine is at all the received doctrine of the Roman Church, or would be regarded by its authorities as any other than a most perilous innovation. Convenient as it may now be to tolerate it (or anything else from the same author), for temporary purposes, and to meet the pre¬ sent state of speculation, I shall be much surprised if, as the controversy proceeds, it be not in substance disavowed 13 as a private and unauthoritative hypothesis. b [Mr. Newman’s Theory has been already denounced by the first authorities of American Komanism as subversive of the Catholic Faith, and of revelation itself. It has been assailed by their leading organ, Brownson's Quarterly Review (Boston, U. S.), in a series of very B 2 4 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. 1. It has been said that Mohler 0 and De Maistre 11 , to whom Mr. Newman refers as having adopted somewhat simh lar views (p. 27), have not at all met with universal concurrence among the members of their own com¬ munion ; yet, neither of them has dared to approach able articles. “We have consulted, says the reviewer (Jan. 1847,) as high living authorities on the subject as there are in this coun¬ try, and they all concur in saying that the Church can propose only what was revealed, and that the revelation committed to the Church was perfect.” This revelation is divided by Romish theologians into Scripture and Tradition, but all, except the new school of develop¬ ment, have agreed as to the perfection of the revelation. In direct opposition to the Americans, and to the consentient teaching of the Romish divines, Dr. Wiseman and the Dublin Review warmly espouse the cause of Mr. Newman, and assert the incompleteness of the ori¬ ginal revelation.] c [This celebrated Bavarian professor of theology was born in 1796, and died in 1838. In his Symbolic, Part i. chap, v., he ex¬ pounds his theory of development (edit. Tubingen, 1832; Munich, 1838).— Vid. ITagenbach’s Hist, of Doctrines , Vol. ii.] d Mr. Newman might, perhaps, have added the eloquent, enthu¬ siastic, wrong-headed La Mennais : “ On la voit (la religion) tou- jours ancienne et toujours nouvelle, conserver son unite au milieu des developpemens successifs par lesquels elle passe.” “Elle n’a pas change en passant d’une revelation a l’autre ; elle n’a fait que se developper et paraitre avec un nouveau degre de lumiere et d’au- torite, &c.” La Mennais, however, applies the principle chiefly (where it is perfectly legitimate) to the progressive character of the three dispensations in relation to each other; and but faintly and secondarily to any imaginary progression of doctrine in the last.— \_Essai sur VIndifference.'] [it is a mistake to regard De Maistre as a favourer of the theory of development. On the contrary, he contends “ that there is nothing new in the Church of Rome, and that she will never believe any¬ thing which she has not always believed.”— Du Pape , Liv. i., edit. Paris, 1841. See Dr. Wordsworth’s Letters to M. Gondon, p. 31.] LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 5 the candid and courageous avowals of Mr. Newman. The more cautious and long-sighted theologians of the Roman communion have always discountenanced the earlier forms 6 of the present venturous hypothesis. The case of Petavius f , and the cordial adoption 8 by the Gallican Church of even his heretical refuter, will at once occur to every one. [I have but to add, for the fact is instructive, that on the question then at issue e [For an interesting sketch of the rise and progress of the theory of development, see Dr. Wordsworth’s Letters to M. Gondon, pp. 23-36.] f [Petavius and Newman both employ depreciation of ancient Christianity as their best defence of modern Romish corruptions. They both contend that the Tridentine Creed is a correction of its errors, or an enlargement of its imperfect knowledge. The words of Bishop Bull respecting Petavius might have been written for a description of the development school. From the supposition, that the primitive fathers were in error, or imperfectly instructed in Christian doctrine, says the learned Bishop, “ Hasc duo facile conse- quentur ; 1. Patribus trium primorum saeculorum, quos imprimis appellare solent Catholici Reformati, parum tribuendum esse : ut- pote quibus nondum satis perspecta et patefacta fuerunt prsecipua Christianas fidei capita. 2. Concilia cecumenica potestatem habere novos fidei articulos condendi , sive (ut Petavius loquitur) constituendi et patefaciendi ; unde satis prospectum videatur additamentis illis, quae regulae fidei assuerunt. quaeque Christiano orbi obtruserunt Patres Tridentini. Sed istius scholae magistris nulla religio est pseudo-catliolicam suam fidem super fidei vere Catholicae ruinas aedificare.”— Def. Fid. Nic. Procem. § 8.] s [The thanks of the Gallican Church, synodically assembled at St. Germain en Laye, for Bull’s Judicium Ecc. Cath. (pour le ser¬ vice qu’il rend a l’Eglise Catholique en defendant si bien le juge- ment qu’elle a porte sur la necessite de croire la Divinite du Fils de Dieu), were communicated by Bossuet, in a letter to Mr. Nelson, who had presented the volume to the Archbishop, dated July 24, 1700. The letter is given in Nelson’s Life of Bishop Bull, p. 330, Oxford, 1846.] 6 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. Mr. Newman appears fully to sympathize with the re¬ jected doctrine of Petavius; e.g. p. 12, &c. 297, where he distinctly denies any Ante-Nicene consensus on the doctrine of the Trinity, “as the word ( consensus ) is now commonly understood”—whatever that qualifica¬ tion may import. See also p. 398.] In the memor¬ able first edition of Bossuet’s 11 “Exposition,” suppressed, and recovered 1 by our excellent Wake j , the following passage occurred ( Wake, p. xxiv.): h [Bossuet was, however, no favourer of the doctrine of progressive Christianity. In his controversy with the Calvinist, Jurieu, ( Aver - tissemens , passim ), he explicitly condemns the theory of a progressive religion, which was advocated by that minister, and which agrees in many particulars with the new theory of development.] * [Archbishop Wake should not receive credit for having been the earliest observer of the variations which are manifest upon a collation of the first and second editions of Bossuet’s book. The discovery had been made thirteen or fourteen years previously by M. de la Bastide ; and though the Reponse to Bossuet, published by this writer, appeared without the author’s name, yet the learned and accurate Bayle did not fail to trace its origin.—See his Epist. ad fin. Deckherri De Scriptt. adesp. Conjecture p. 398. Amstel. 1686_G.] •> [Archbishop Wake ( Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by M. deMeaux , &c., 3rd edit. London, 1687) states that Bossuet’s Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church first appeared in manuscript, and was composed either to “ satisfy or seduce the late Mareschal de Turenne,” want¬ ing then the chapters “ of the Eucharist, Tradition, the Authority of the Church and Pope, which now make up the most considerable part of it.” The other parts were so loosely expressed, that “ Pro¬ testants who saw it generally believed that Mons. de Meaux durst not publicly own what in his Exposition he privately pretended to be” the doctrine of the Church of Pome. In the beginning of 1671, the Exposition, having been approved by the Archbishop of Rheims and nine other bishops, was sent to press. Previously to LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 7 “ For M. Daille, he thinks fit to confine himself to the first three centuries , in which it is certain that the Church has left many things to be cleared afterwards, both in its doctrine and in its practice.” This was erased by the doctors of the Sorbonne, as wholly inadmissible, even with the authority of a Bossuet to back it: what would they have said to Mr. Newman’s enterprise, which risks the authority and obligation of nearly all the chief differences between us and the Roman Church upon the fortunes of a theory, itself a more novel “ development” of theologi¬ cal teaching than even they, by his own admission, are now conceded to be ? Where has the Church of Rome ever sanctioned such a solution of its controversial embarrassments ? Its authorized doctrine is unques¬ tionably that the very teaching of the present hour, in all its fulness and precision, has itself been uninter¬ ruptedly preserved from the days of the Apostles. “Hgec veritas et disciplina continetur k in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, quae ipsius Christi ore ah publication, Bossuet, anxious to obtain the imprimatur of the Sor¬ bonne, submitted it to some of their doctors, who “marked several of the most considerable parts of it, wherein the Exposition , by the too great desire of palliating, had absolutely perverted the doctrine of their Church.” At the end of the same year, an altered impres¬ sion was struck off, and published as the first edition. And Arch¬ bishop Wake adds : “ Since a copy of that very book so marked, as has been said, by the doctors of the Sorbonne, is fallen into my hands, I shall gratify the reader’s curiosity,” &c .—Prefix p. iv. At the end of the Preface follows, “ A collection of passages altered by Mons. de Meauxfi from which Professor Butler quotes in the text.] k [“Synodus Tridentina .... perspiciensque hanc veritatem et disciplinam contineri.”—G.] 8 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. Apostolis acceptce, aut ab ipsis Apostolis, Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per manus traditce, ad nos usque perve- nerunt.”.“ Traditiones ipsas, turn ad fidem, turn ad mores pertinentes, tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, et continud successione in Ecclesid Catholicd conservatas, pari pietatis affectu [ac reverentia] suspicit [et veneratur] (Synodus).”— Con¬ di. Trident. Sess. iv. And a little after this clear statement of the sole matter of faith, the Council adds, with relation to the interpretation of the Scriptures (a solemn prohibition, to which I beg to draw Mr. Newman’s attention, as bearing on his views of the vision in Rev. xii., the Second Commandment, and some other critical novel¬ ties he has hazarded or sanctioned), that no one “ con¬ tra unanimem consensum Patrum ipsam Scripturam sacram interpretari audeat.” Mr. Newman, himself, if admitted into the Roman communion according to the usual “ Form of reconciling Converts 1 ,’’ has solemnly sworn and professed that he would “ never take and interpret the Scriptures otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers a vow palpably irreconcileable with the theory, that on many most im¬ portant points of doctrine, proveable (as Mr. Newman asserts all true doctrine is by all admitted to be, p. 323) from Scripture, the Fathers had no definite conscious¬ ness at all. 1 [The absolution of an heretic is a matter specially reserved for the Pope; ( Sacerdotole , foil. 42, 44. Venet. 1579-) and in the Pon¬ tifical, where the “ Ordo ad reconciliandum Apostatam, Schismati- cum, vel Hsereticum” is found, there is not any such oath or obli¬ gation enjoined as that which was prescribed, in the year 1564, by the Bulls In sacrosancta and Injunctum nobis of Pope Pius IV.—G.] LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 9 Accordingly, to this test of perpetual tradition, rightly or wrongly affirmed, the Council invariably appeals: “ Ea verba {Bom. iii. 28, &c.) in eo sensu intelligenda sunt, quem perpetuus Ecclesise Catholicae consensus tenuit et expressit.”—Sess. vi. Cap. 8. In the administration of the Eucharist,—“ qui mos tan- quam ex traditione apostolicd descendens jure ac merito retineri debet.”—Sess. xiii. Cap. 8. [De Euchar.] Of Confession to a Priest. “UniversaEcclesia semper intellexit , institutam [etiam] esse a Domino integram peccatorum confessionem, et omnibus post baptismum lapsis jure divino neeessariam existere.”—Sess. xiv. Cap. 5. [De Poenitentia.] I cannot but interrupt my citations to ask Mr. New¬ man—does he, with his knowledge of ecclesiastical and ritual history, believe that assertion? To proceed—Of Extreme Unction [Sess. xiv. Cap. 1. De Extrem. Unct.] “ Quibus verbis [James, v. 14, 15,] ut ex apostolicd traditione per manus acceptd Ecclesia didicit, docet ma- teriam, formam, proprium ministrum, et effectum hujus salutaris sacramenti.” Once more I cannot help asking the writer who has found a theory of development absolutely necessary to account for the actual phenomena of Romanism, does he believe that affirmation of the infallible Council ? —does he believe that direct apostolic authority taught the Church in these words the matter, form, minister, and effect of a sacrament as real and univer¬ sal as the Holy Communion ; and that this belief, in all its fulness, was uninterruptedly held in the universal Church ? But again—Of the entire Doctrine of the Mass (including the ordination of priesthood at the 10 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I Last Supper, the celebration of masses to obtain the intercession of saints, the custom of masses in which the priest alone communicates, the custom of whisper¬ ing the words of consecration and other parts of the “ Canon Missae,” and the mixture of water with the wine), it declares—not merely that such beliefs and practices are legitimate, are allowable deductions from other tenets, are enacted by simple authority, are cor¬ rect developments of primitive beliefs, but that they are a “ fides fundata in sacrosancto evangelio, aposto¬ lorum traditionibus, sanctorumque patrum doctrina,” which last, it has been previously assumed, must be “ unanimis” to be authoritative. Sess.xxi. [xxii.] Cap. 9, [De Sac. Missae], et Canon. Of all the inferior orders of the ministry it declares that— “ Ab ipso initio Ecclesice sequentium ordinum nomina, atque uniuscujusque eorumpropria ministerial subdiaconi scilicet, acolythi, exorcistse, lectoris, et ostiarii, in usu fu- isse cognoscuntur.”—Sess. xxiii. Cap.2. [DeSacr.Ord]. Of Marriage as a genuine sacrament, as real as Bap¬ tism, conferring an ineffable grace as certain as the Eucharist, the Council affirms, that “ Concilia et uni¬ versalis Ecclesice traditio semper docuerunt ” this truth, and that the heretics, who hesitate to admit that some¬ what startling proposition, “ multa ab Ecclesiae Catho¬ lics sensu et ab apostolorum temporibus probata consue- tudine aliena [scripto et verbo] asseruerunt.” — Sess. xxiv. [De Sac. Mat.] Of Purgatory it pronounces that it teaches it “ex antique,Patrum traditione.”—Sess.xxv. [De Pur.] Masses for souls in Purgatory are “juxta apostolorum traditionem;”as we are infallibly assured.— Sess. xxii. Cap. 2. [De Sacrific. Missae]. The interces- LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 11 sion of saints, the invocation of saints, the honour due to relics, and even the “ legitimus imaginum usus,” the Council gravely declares to be “juxta [Catholics et Apostolicte] Ecclesite usum a primcevis Christiance reli- gionis temporibus receptum .”—[Sess. xxv. De Invoc. &c.3 And even in admitting, as the notoriety of the fact compels, that the half-communion is an innovation, it reduces the alteration under the principle that the Church has power over the mere circumstantials of the sacraments (which, of course, in its right application, we all admit), “ licet ab initio Christianas religionis non infrequens{ !) utriusque speciei usus fuisset.”—Sess. xxi. Cap. 2 [De Com?nun.'] Such are most of the principal passages of the Coun¬ cil in which its views with regard to the rule of Catho¬ lic faith are stated or illustrated. And these are not to be mistaken. The distinct dogmatical enunciation of the fundamental principle at the outset, and all its subsequent applications to special cases as they arose, are quite sufficient to evince that between Mr. New¬ man’s theory and the views of the Tridentine Synod- ists there is an irreconcileable discrepancy; that they assuredly would never have tolerated his venturesome surrender of antiquity; that those who are induced by his statements to accept the theology of Tome, are in fact adopting for that theology an hypothesis her gravest authorities have, by their solemn and inspired m decision, for ever precluded. And this is notoriously the doctrine of the chief expositors of Romanism. They nearly all earnestly m [“ Sacrosancta Tridentina Synodus, in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata,” passim.~\ 12 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. maintain that all her tenets, not expressly delivered in Scripture, are, in the clear literal sense, genuine apostolic traditions; that the Holy Virgin was wor¬ shipped, that images were publicly bowed before in the churches, that saints and angels were solemnly invoked, by the immediate disciples of the apostles. How they have insulted at times, and in particular instances, the venerable writers of antiquity, is indeed well known 11 ; but it was only after the most laborious efforts to force upon their words the modern sense ; and always with the general assertion that the “ unani¬ mous consent of the Fathers” was strictly their’s. Indeed Mr. Newman himself seems in some degree aware that his hypothesis requires some apology. He proceeds to defend it by philosophical analogies; with¬ out at all remembering that, whatever may be its in¬ terest or value as a philosophical speculation, it is by anticipation condemned by the very authorities to whose support it is devoted. After admitting that the Disciplina Arcani °, so long the favourite resource of n See for a cluster of instances, the Fourth Part of James’s Trea¬ tise on Romish “ Corruption of Scripture, Councils, and Fathers,” &c. (p. 359, edit. 1688—On “ Contemning and Condemning of Fathers.” 0 [An excellent account of this matter may be found in Bing¬ ham’s Antiquities , Book x. Chapter v. The most celebrated treatises on the Romish side of the question were published by the Vatican librarian Schelstrate, and the Benedictine Scholliner ; the former, Romse, 1685, and the latter, typis Monast. Tegerns. 1756. Daille maintains that the ancient Discipline was not introduced previously to the year 260; (De libris suppos. Dion . et Ignat, i. xxii. 142.) but Tertullian has plainly spoken of the silence observed with respect to mysteries. ( Apol . Cap. vii.) It remains, nevertheless, for Romanists to adduce even the shadow of a proof that the peculiarities of their LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 13 Roman controversialists, is utterly inadequate to solve the admitted “ difficulty” of tlie “ variation” of medite- system were among the sacred truths in which catechumens were gradually initiated.—G.] [See Faber’s Apostolicity of Trinitarianism, Book i. Chap, viii., also Newman’s Arians , Chap. i. sect. iii. To the objection of the Re¬ formed, that the Roman peculiarities are not to be found in the early records of the Church, Schelstrate replied by this bold assertion, that all these (e. g. Transubstantiation, Seven Sacraments, Image Worship, &c.) formed part of the disciplina arcani, and were not committed to writing, lest they should come to the knowledge of the uninitiated. It is hard to say whether this or the development hypothesis is the more daring and comprehensive. “It is but work¬ ing with this admirable tool, called disciplina arcani , and then all the seeming contradictions between the ancient doctrines and prac¬ tices of the Church universal, and the novel corruptions of the modern Church of Rome, will vanish and disappear.”— Bingham , uhi sup . The origin of this secret discipline seems to have been the dis¬ tinction between prepared and unprepared hearers, in conformity with our Lord’s precept, “ Give not that which is holy unto the dogs.” This rule of communicating religious knowledge was deve¬ loped into a regular system. Allusions to a certain reserve occur in preceding writers, but Tertullian first speaks of the discipline as a formal system. He points it out as a characteristic of heretics ( De prcescr. Hcer. xli.) that they are “ without discipline ; it is doubtful who is a catechumen, who a believer ; they have all access alike, they hear alike, they pray alike. Even if heathens come in upon them, they will cast that which is holy unto dogs, and pearls, false though they be, before swine.”— Oxford Transl, , Vol. x. p. 476. In after ages we have a detailed account of the mysteries which were concealed from catechumens, viz.:—1. The manner of administering Baptism. 2. The unction of chrism, or Confirmation. 3. The Ordination of Priests. 4. The manner of celebrating the Eucharist. 5. The Divine Service of the Church. 7. The mystery of the Tri¬ nity, the Creed, and Lord’s Prayer, until they were ready for Bap¬ tism.] 14 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I val from primitive Christianity, or, in other words, to account for the difference between the general systems of doctrine of which Rome and England are the ex¬ isting representatives—he proceeds, p. 27: “ It is undoubtedly an hypothesis to account for a difficulty; and such are the various explanations given by astronomers, from Ptolemy to Newton, of the ap¬ parent motions of the heavenly bodies. But it is as unphilosophical on that account to object to the one as to object to the other. Nay, more so; for an hy¬ pothesis, such as the present, rests upon facts as well as accounts for them; and independently of the need of it, it is urged upon us by the nature of the case. Nor is it more reasonable to express surprise, that at this time of day a theory is necessary, granting for argument sake that the theory is novel , than to have directed a similar wonder in disparagement of the theory of gravitation or the Plutonian theory in geo¬ logy. Doubtless, the theory of the Secret and the theory of Developments are expedients, and so is the dictum of Vincentius, so is the art of grammar or the the use of the quadrant, it is an expedient to enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious problem.” And he adds, that “the reception of the Roman doctrine cannot be immediately based on the results” of the theory; an assertion which (however incom¬ patible with the declaration in the postscript to Mr. Newman’s prefatory advertisement, that a “ conviction of the truth of the conclusion to which the discussion leads superseded further deliberation” about joining the Roman communion), is undoubtedly true, if it be LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 15 certain the Roman doctrine of tradition flatly contra¬ dicts the new theory. It will, I think, be moreover admitted that the pas¬ sage just cited is somewhat obscure. The “ difficulty” of which Mr. Newman speaks as if it were a perplexity common to us all, is surely a difficulty to none but a person who has embraced the Romish theory; to him (and Mr. Newman abundantly discloses the feeling) the variations in question are indeed a most formida¬ ble difficulty ; to others they bring but the regret which charity must ever prompt when it witnesses the noblest gift of God—His holy and unchangeable truth—abused and sullied by the wanton perversity of man. And then the theory of Gravitation, in which the Principle and the Facts to be explained thereby are both unquestionable realities of experience, is com¬ pared to a solution resting upon two enormous hypo¬ thetical assumptions,—infallible guidance to a particu¬ lar Church, and a divine design of constantly manifest¬ ing new progressive forms and varieties of doctrine in the history of the Church at large p . What the nature of the analogy maybe between Vincentius’ Rule q ( which p “Some hypothesis,” says Mr. Newman, “all parties, all con¬ troversialists, all historians, must adopt, if they would treat of Christianity at all.”—p. 129* And he then mentions the supposi¬ tion of Papal Infallibility as a hypothesis of the sort that a historian must adopt. This is, in truth, to confuse the proper and undoubted office of the philosophical historian (to reduce his facts as well as he can to general principles of human nature or divine government) with that which is the very essence of false philosophy—the inven¬ tion of gratuitous and superfluous suppositions,—suppositions which can neither be previously proved to be facts, nor are required by the facts. q [In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id 16 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. simply expresses what he considered the ideal of per¬ fect historical evidence) and the hypothesis of devel¬ opment, I am really unable even to conjecture. II. In the mean time I am, I apprehend, perfectly justified in affirming, in the second place, that this theory—whatever judgment may be passed by the Roman authorities upon its prudence or validity —is in reality what I have called it, a plain surrender of the claims of Romanism to satisfactory evidence from Antiquity. The claim of antiquity and the hypothesis of development (in Mr. Newman’s application of the term) are absolutely incompatible. They are so ex vi terminorum. Even conceding (what no human inge¬ nuity will ever make commonly plausible to unpreju¬ diced minds,) that the mediaeval corruptions are legiti¬ mate developments of primitive doctrine, it is manifest that they are admitted not to be themselves primitive doctrine. Unless the acorn be the oak, the doctrine of the Incarnation is not “ the deification 1, of St. Mary;” teneamus, quod ubique , quod semper , quod ab omnibus, creditum est.— Advers. Hceres. Oxon. A. D. 1631, Cap. iii. fol. 8.] r I adopt Mr. Newman’s own most awful expression, p. 405, et seq. The phrase itself, except as a metaphor, belongs to the extrava¬ gances of mystical theology, in which it was built upon a prepos¬ terous application of 2 Pet. i. 4. Mr. Newman’s use of it is, how¬ ever, different from that of Rusbrock or Harphius; and infinitely more dangerous and unwarrantable. [Mr. Newman honestly confesses the “ Deification of S. Mary” to be the doctrine of the Romish Church, a confession which would have saved previous controversialists an infinity of toil. The Bishop of Exeter, in the second of his admirable “ Letters to Charles Butler , JEsq.” has proved but too clearly how correct is the term used by Mr. Newman to express the Romish cultus of the Blessed Virgin. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 17 LETT. I.] —unless the oak can be “ developed” from the acorn, yet be with it simultaneous, these doctrines did not originally exist together. I have, indeed, not the least doubt that this theory will but add another to Mr. Newman’s retractations before long, its controversial inconveniences being so pressing and palpable; but, in the mean time, be it remembered that the concession has been made —made by a writer whose competency in point of learning no one, I suppose, will doubt, and who has proved, by the most decisive of all tests, his attachment to the system whose peculiarities he thus candidly admits to have no distinct and definite model in antiquity. And having once adopted his theory, Mr. Newman But on no point have Romish polemics spent more subtilty, than in denying this deification, and reconciling the denial with their teach¬ ing respecting her whom we, as well as they, call blessed.] [Dr. Milner ( End of Controv. Letter xxxiii.) cites with approba¬ tion the following words which occur in Bp. Challoner’s abridgment of Gother’s Papist misrepresented and represented : “ Cursed is every Goddess-worshipper,” &c. It is remarkable, however, that Justus Lipsius, in his Virgo Hallensis , has frequently styled the Virgin Mary “ Goddess ;” (Molinasi Iconomach. 94. Tenison Of Idol. 230.) and Cardinal Bembo, writing in the name of Pope Leo X., has also given to her the same name. ( Epistt . viii. xvii. 294. Basil. 1566.) No longer then can it be said with truth, that “ inauditum est Ca- tholicis Mariam pro Dea colendam.” (Canisius, De Maria Deip. iii. x. 300. Ingolst. 1583.) Bellarmin does not hesitate to declare that the Saints are “ Dii per participationem( De cult. Sanctt . iii. ix.) and this is likewise the doctrine of Cajetan. (In S. Thomce Secundam Secundce . Qugest. lxxxviii. Art. v. fol. 145, b. Lugd. 1540. Conf. Hadr. Ly reei Trisagion Marianum , p. 10. Antv. 1648.) Accordingly in the preface to the second Booh of sacred Ceremonies mention is distinctly made of “Divorum nostrorum Apotheoses.” (fol. 148. Colon. Agripp. 1557.)—G.] C 18 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. is too candid, his unquestioning “ faith” too fearless, to evade the admission. We have already seen how he styles his hypothesis an “ expedient” to remedy the great and oppressive “difficulty” of the “apparent variation” of the Romanism of Pius IY. from that of Clemens Romanus. He follows the difficulty through all its details. At the outset he meets and rejects the time-honoured canon of Vincentius; how much trouble would have been spared our divines, had this honest policy been adopted in earlier days! The rule of Vincentius is “ hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result.”—p. 24. He argues, with abundance of references, that the ante-Nicene fathers spoke vaguely and inaccurately about the Trinity; apparently forgetting, that if these citations do not express positive error of doctrine, they can be of very little real service, in a question where the scriptural evidence is so clear, to his argument as against the Anglican Rule of Faith; and that if they do , they are utterly incompatible—1, with the doctrine perpetual infallibility; 2, with that of “ the unanimous consent of the Fathers;” and 3, with the theory of develop¬ ment itself , unless (admitting the early Church in par¬ tial error, and the latter wholly right) we hold that a germ can be “developed” into its own contradictory. Mr. Newman, indeed, seems to consider it a sort of proof of the vitality of (what he calls) Catholicism, that it can survive incessant self-contradictions. “ The theology of St. Thomas, nay, of the very Church of his period, is built on that very Aristotelism, which the early fathers denounce as the source of all misbe¬ lief, and in particular, of the Arian and Monophysite LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 19 heresies.”—p. 451. And he exults, that the Roman Church can achieve these mysterious transmutations of belief, with a dignity, grace, and security the various sects would emulate in vain : an argument of divine protection which can only be compared with its moral counterpart, the celebrated inference of Baronius 8 from the wickedness of the Popes of the tenth century, that the See of Peter must be the object of special favour from heaven, to have outlived such unparalleled mon¬ sters. As might be expected from this course of ar¬ gument, Mr. Newman treats the lights of the early Church with strong general approbation and keen particular censure. When it becomes apparently dan¬ gerous to admit a doctrine of great importance to be altogether a modern “ development,” the ancient tes¬ timonies that oppose it are easily resolved into the peculiarities of a “ school.” Thus there was (which, indeed, is true enough) the “ Syrian school” 1 , p. 287: and this Syrian school appears to have been strangely blind to the Lateran dogma of “ Transubstantiation;” for “certainly some of the most cogent passages brought s [See Ussher’s Works, Vol. ii. p. 69: Ed. Elrington.] [The allusion is to the Cardinal’s observations in his Annals of the end of the ninth and the commencement of the tenth age. He attributes the evils of that dismal period not, of course, to the Papacy itself; but he laments, as the greatest misfortune, the arro¬ gance of some ungodly Princes, who usurped the power of electing to the Pontificate, and through whose tyranny even into the see of Rome were intruded “ visu horrenda monstra.”—G.] t [The Syrian School is meant by Mr. Newman to express not any localized institution (such as the school of Alexandria), but a “ me¬ thod characteristic of the Syrian churches,” which method was an application to the critical and literal sense of Scripture, as distin- c 2 20 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. by moderns against the Catholic doctrine of the Eip charist, are taken from writers who are connected with that school in support of which Mr. Newman speci¬ fies St. Chrysostom’s memorable letter to Cmsarius", (of great importance, as being a direct dogmatical statement, of perfect clearness and simplicity, and so forming a key to all that great preacher’s lofty meta- guished from the mystical and allegorical. Of this school Dorotheus was one of the earliest teachers ; its great exegetical doctor was Theodore of Mopsuestia. Mr. Newman refers further to this school S. Cyril of Jerusalem, and also S. Chrysostom and Theodoret, both Syrians.] 11 [“Sicut enim antequam sanctificetur panis, panem nominamus; divina autem ilium sanctificante gratia, mediante Sacerdote, libera- tus est quidem ab appellatione panis, dignus autem habitus Dominici Corporis appellatione, etiamsi natura panis in ipso permansit, et non duo Corpora, sed unum Corpus Filii prsedicamus,” &c. {Opp. Tom. iii. p. 744. edit. Bened.) The Epistle of S. Chrysostom to the Monk Caesarius was adduced in controversy by Peter Martyr about the year 1548, and he deposited a transcript of it, taken from a Floren¬ tine manuscript, in the library of Abp. Cranmer. After this Pre¬ late’s death the document was destroyed or lost, and Cardinal Du Perron availed himself of the opportunity thus presented of pro¬ nouncing it to be a forgery. {Be VEuchar. pp. 381-3.) However, after much discussion and recrimination between the contending D parties, the letter was published at Paris, in 1680, by Emericus Bigotius, in company with Palladius’s Life of Chrysostom. This proceeding was not acceptable to some Doctors of the Sorbonne; and they actually caused the printed leaves to be exterminated, without providing anything to supply their place. An Expostulate with reference to this disreputable conduct of the Parisian Divines was prefixed by Peter Allix to S. Anastasius In Hexaemeron , Loud. 1682; and a very minute description of the mutilation may be found in the Preface to Mr. Mendham’s Index of Pope Gregory XVI., pp. xxxii-iv. Bond. 1840. Le Moyne put forth this important Epistle at the end of the first volume of his Varia Sacra , in 1685; and the LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, 21 phors in other places,) Theodore t’s v similar and irre¬ sistible statement, and Facundus w . At other times, he admits that the earlier writers were “ left in igno¬ rance ,” and subsequent teachers “ completed their work;” and he proceeds to specify the following in¬ stances of a “ completion” of primitive views, which will give your readers a fair exemplification of the meaning of the “ theory of development,” and its ad¬ mirable uses in controversy:— “ Clement may hold a purgatory, yet tend to con¬ sider all punishment purgatorial,. St. Hilary may believe in a purgatory, yet confine it to the day of judgment . Prayers for the faithful de¬ reprint by J. Basnage appeared in 8 vo., at Utrecht, in 1687. At length a Jesuit, ITardouin, came forward as a publisher of it in the year 1689; and in 1721 it was edited by the Marquis Maffei from a MS. in the library of the Dominicans of S. Mark at Florence. See it in the Lectiones Antiques of Canisius, according to Basnage’s impres¬ sion, Tom. i. pp. 233-237. Antverp. 1725. Cf. Routh, Scriptorum Eccles. Opusc. ii. 127. Oxon. 1840.—G.] v [’Afros' Tci opuopeva ov/ifioXa irj tov 'Siv/autos teal 'A ipaTos irpoGip 7 opia TeTijurj/cev, ov tyjv (fiijGiv peTaficiXivv, aWa rij (fivaei ttjv ^apiv 7rpoGTe0euciv$ —Dial. i. Tom. iv. p. 18: edit. Lutetian, 1642. (For a powerful argument on these words, see Taylor’s Real Presence , Sect. xii. 30.) And again (Dial. ii. p. 85) : O^e 7 dp paid tov cvyiaa- pov tci puGTued GvpfioXa oliceias e^cGTctTcu (fiijGetvs' pevei 7 dp evl Ttjs 7rpoT6pas ovGias kcu tov GyfjpciTO'i. ical tov eicovs, ical opcnct, cgtI ical cnrTa 01 a ical TrpoTepov 7 V.J w [“Potest Sacramentum adoptionis adoptio nuncupari, sicut Sa- cramentum corporis et sanguinis Ejus, quod est in pane et poculo consecrato, corpus Ejus et sanguinem dicimus: non quod proprie corpus Ejus sit panis, et poculum sanguis; sed quod in se mysterium corporis Ejus sanguinisque contineant.” (Facundus, Episc. Her- mianens., Pro defens, trium Capitulor. Lib. ix. Cap. v. p. 144. Paris. 1679: vel inter Opp. Sirmondi, Tom. ii. col. 507. Venet. 1728.)—G.J 22 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. parted may be found in the early liturgies, yet with an indistinctness which included St. Mary and the Martyrs in the same rank with the imperfect Chris¬ tians, whose sins were as yet unexpiated,.and succeeding times might keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient . x ”—p. 354. “ Deficient!” The belief that it might be right to solemnly commend the faithful dead to the care of God, and to include among the number the Virgin Mary, as one of God’s honoured servants who had de¬ parted this life “ in the true faith of his holy name,” was a deficient belief, because it did not add to that tenet and practice the further supplementary belief that the Virgin thus commended to God’s care and mercy in the general roll of His deceased, was, in reality, already exalted to the throne of the uni¬ verse, to be prayed to, not (without unspeakable in¬ sult) prayed for —“ the refuge of sinners,” the “ chan¬ nel of all graces to man,” the “ deified St. Mary!” In other words, the early notion was deficient, because it did not include its own direct contradiction. Again: it was “ deficient” because it commended to God the care of His holy servants as those who alone were fitly to be commemorated in the meetings of the Christian household, and forgot to add another completonj state- x Other instances of a different kind, and bearing no direct refer¬ ence to Roman doctrine, are mingled with these. Mr. Newman forgets that in those cases there is (so far as they were errors—one is not quite satisfied about corrective “developments” of the Atha- nasian Creed , ibid.) abundant contemporary evidence to oppose indi¬ vidual errors ; whereas the Roman innovations can produce none, or next to none, in their favour synchronizing with the testimonies that oppose them. LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 23 ment of a fact, in its whole spirit diametrically opposed to the former, and which, itself an absolute invention, is now formally founded upon a theory of satisfactions wholly unknown to primitive times. To take another of the cases specified,—among those who did, vaguely and indecisively, venture to speculate about possible purifications after death, St. Hilary 7 , as a private con¬ jecture, thought some passages in Scripture (as Mai. iii. 2.) seemed to point to some universal trial of all mankind (Hilary specially included the Virgin Mary) by fire at the day of judgment. Now St. Hilary’s no¬ tion was u deficient,” because he should have combined with his conception of an universal fire of probation at the day of judgment the additional idea of that fire not being universal at all but particular; not at all at the day of judgment, but directly after death, and for hundreds of thousands of years; not at all probatory, but punitive; as well as devising for it further reasons , objects, and purposes of which the good man never dreamed, and which were equally and manifestly in¬ consistent with his own notions; with (to crown all, in this simple and uniform process of natural develop¬ ment) a firm belief and clear perception that the sub¬ stituted doctrine was no longer, as his had been, a matter of free though interesting speculation, but a tenet of such fundamental importance, that no man could at all understand Christianity without it, and no man have the remotest chance of salvation who y [The language of St. Hilary (Homil. 22, 26) is wholly irrecon¬ cilable with the Romish Purgatory. “ He that can reconcile them will be a most mighty man in controversy.”—Bp. Taylor’s Dissua¬ sive , Part ii. Book ii. sect, ii.] 24 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. denied it. This is what Mr. Newman calls “ the Fa¬ thers fixing their minds on what they taught, grasping it more and more closely, viewing it on various sides , trying its consistency, weighing their own separate expressions,” and thus arriving at further perceptions of truth (p. 353). With such specimens as these (and these are far more plausible than some others on which Mr. Newman boldly tries to fit his theory) of the faci¬ lity with which modern Romanism may be seminally found in the records of early Christianity, who shall any longer regard as extravagant the u shoulder-knot ” argument in Swift’s ludicrous parody 2 ? There is a conclusion which must at once occur to every one in perusing such speculations as these of Mr. Newman; namely, that if things be really as he represents them, it must be not only useless but posi¬ tively injurious to study the early writers at all. Use¬ less, surely—for who that can enjoy the noonday would linger in the dawn?—but, moreover, pernicious, for in so faint a twilight not only the eyes are injured by straining the vision, but objects themselves are liable to be seen in the most mistaken and distorted aspects. Whether considered doctrinally or practically, Mr. Newman manifestly thinks the religion of the middle ages a vast improvement on the religion of St. Cyprian and St. Irenseus. As regards docthine, this is plainly and confessedly the substance and tendency of his whole argument; he, undoubtedly, holds it was given to Aquinas and Scotus to reach dogmatic apprehen¬ sions, of which those “ children in understanding” z [Tale of a Tub, sect. 3.] LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 25 above-mentioned had sometimes imperfect concep¬ tions, sometimes no conceptions at all. If there be a difference of any sort between Augustine and Liguori (and if there be not, what becomes of Mr. Newman’s theory?), it must manifestly be incalculably to the ad¬ vantage of the latter. Nay, as persons of feeble powers of vision, in the midst of a bright and abounding illu¬ mination, will see better than the strongest eyes in glimmer and haze, minds of very inferior faculties now¬ adays must be strangely wanting to themselves if they are not far advanced in theological attainments beyond such beginners as Basil and Chrysostom; to compare the catechetical schools of Alexandria, Antioch, Cmsa- rea, with our Irish Maynooth, would palpably be an insult to the latter, too gross for even the licensed bitterness of religious controversy. While again, as to practice, Mr. Newman explicitly speaks of such men as St. Bruno and his fellows as specimens of an excellence of which early days presented but imma¬ ture types; nor, indeed, if doctrine be eminently prac¬ tical, can it be doubted that with the increase of doc¬ trinal development piety must have, on the whole, proportionably increased; and thus the primitive mar¬ tyrs and confessors come to be but meagre models of perfection after all. It will also very plainly follow, that the custom of “ expurgating” Fathers, which we have so long ignorantly regarded as the vilest process of dishonesty extant in the history of religion, is no other than the obligatory function of the growing Church. What mature mind would allow its juvenile efforts at authorship to circulate uncorrected ? But, now, is this inference capable of no further applica- 26 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. tion? Have we yet seen the termination of the pros¬ pect it opens? An Object stands at the end of this long vista of the past history of the Church’s dogma¬ tical and devotional literature,—an Object venerable, indeed, yet scarcely more venerable than the Church’s own conscious belief at any epoch, if both be alike in¬ spired. What can subtract the Bible itself from the grasp of this argument? If the developed organism should fitly supersede the elementary germ, to no book does this latter character (according to the very spirit of this theory) more perfectly apply than to the Holy Scriptures themselves. If the Athanasian Creed, au¬ thenticated by an infallible Church, was, as Mr. New¬ man observes in a place already alluded to, susceptible of alteration, on what conceivable principle should the Bible be respected? Can one infallibly authorized do¬ cument rank higher than another? or is the Bible, consisting chiefly of insinuations and hints of doctrine rather than express enunciations, as we are perpetually told, clearer, plainer, more distinct as an expression of truth, than the Athanasian Creed? When we weigh all this, we can see some consistency in the principles which in the Roman expurgatory Index a led to the a [More accurately the Index of prohibited booics , issued by Pope Clement VIII., Romee, 1596. §. ii. De correct, libror.—The letter of this law, which may, perhaps, be considered scarcely objectionable, seems to be a carrying out of the Tridentine Decretum de editione et usu sacrorum librorum : (Sess. iv.) “ Post heec temeritatem illam reprimere volens, qua ad profana quasque convertuntur et torquentur verba et sentential sacrae Scriptures; ad scurrilia scilicet, fabulosa, vana, adulationes, detractiones, superstitiones, impias et diabolicas incantationes, divinationes, sortes, libellos etiam famosos, mandat et praecipit [Synodus,] ad tollendam hujusmodi irreveren- LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 27 jealous precaution, “Expungi etiam oportet verba Scrip¬ tures sacrce , quascunque ad profanum usum impie ac- eommodantur.” Why, indeed, should the “ verba Scrip¬ ture saerre” be treated with more ceremony than the words of any received doctor in a Church under guid¬ ance as constant and unfailing as the Scriptures them¬ selves could claim, and perpetually, as the new theory would maintain, growing in fuller and yet fuller know¬ ledge? Why should the authentic book of the apos¬ tolic age be regarded as any more than the authentic book of any other equally inspired age? Why so much , since it was the earliest, and, therefore, the most un¬ formed, and indecisive, and immature? There is a further application of these considera¬ tions which perhaps my last remarks will have sug¬ gested to your readers. I may yet refer to it; though, I confess, I scarcely like drawing forth, even in argu¬ ment, such inferences to the public view. Those who are at all acquainted with the views of modern neolo¬ gism relative to our blessed Lord himself will under¬ stand what I mean; and will observe this new and in¬ structive exemplification of the invariable law which (though she boasts to be our only preservative from such evils) evermore identifies the philosophy of Ro¬ manism and Rationalism as fundamentally one. Habit, or a kind of instinct of preservation, does in¬ deed induce Mr. Newman at times to bring together what proofs he can from the early ages, of practices that may countenance the Roman innovations. But tiam et contemptum, ne de csetero quisquam quomodolibet verba Scripturae sacrae ad haec et similia audeat usurpare.”—G.] 28 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. his admissions are nevertheless decisive. For example, 1st, of Image Worship, after telling us that the early Christians used the sign of the cross, that Constantine had a cross on his standard, and that Julian the Apos- • tate b charged them with worshiping the cross (a con¬ clusive authority, doubtless), he adds, with perfect simplicity, “ in a later age [he might have added, after violent struggles] the worship of images was in¬ troduced;’ —p. 357. Again : “ The introduction of images was still later, and met with more opposition in the West than in the East.” And he adds the hollow sophistry of Damascene 0 , who unfortunately became the defender of this lamentable corruption, that the worship of images was a sin only because the Gentiles made them gods ; whereas to Christians images are a triumph, &c.—pp. 362, 363. This, it will be remem¬ bered, was far in the eighth century. Again, 2nd, of the Worship of Saints and Angels he tells us (p. 400): “ The treatment of the Arian and Monophysite errors [in the fourth and fifth centuries] became the natural introduction of the cultus sanctorum.” 3rd, Of the Worship of the Virgin Mary: “ As is well known, the special prerogatives of St. Mary were not fully recog¬ nized in the Catholic ritual till a late date.”— p. 384. And again : “ There was in the first ages no public and ecclesiastical [as if there was any other!] recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the economy of grace.” 4th, Of Purgatory: “As time- went on”—[my readers know that the “public and b [Vid. S. Cyrill. Alex. Cont. Julian. Lib.vi. p. 194. ed. Spanhem. Lips. 1696_G.] c [Apol, pro veil, sanct. Imagg. L. ii. fol. 39. Paris. 1555.—G.] LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 29 ecclesiastical recognition” of Purgatory took place a full thousand years later than even St. Augustine’s vary¬ ing and contradictory speculations' 1 about its possibi- lity] —“ as time went on, the doctrine of Purgatory was opened upon the apprehension of the Church “ the mind of the Church working out dogmatic truths from implicit feelings .”—p. 417. But “Catholic principles” were even “ later in development than Catholic doc¬ trines ;” and “ to this dayf among other matters, “ the seat of infallibility remains more or less undeveloped, or at least undefined by the Church.”—p. 368. Why this last most important “ Catholic principle” should still remain “ undeveloped” we are not very satisfacto¬ rily informed : it certainly is not that the whole mind of the Roman Church has not been most anxiously, eagerly, and incessantly “working” on the subject; for there is scarcely any other which has so completely busied her from the Council of Constance to the pre¬ sent day. I cannot derive much light from Mr. New¬ man’s solution, that such a matter as this is rather her “ assumption than her objective profession.” Does he really mean to convey that the doctrine of infallibility and its accompaniments rank anywhere but among the most deliberate formal dogmas of the Roman Church? Does he mean to say that the seat of infallibility is only tacit “ assumption,” when he cannot but know that it is the ground of constant disputation, and of a bitter though decorous schism between the two great divi¬ sions of the Roman Communion ? d [For a full discussion of St. Austin’s Purgatorial opinions, see Bp. Taylor’s Dissuasive , Part ii. Book ii. sect, ii.] 30 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. To all these ample admissions that the primitive theology was destitute of the subsequent Romish ele¬ ments—admissions which are ill compensated by ap¬ parently anxious, but certainly not very successful, efforts to detect traces sufficient to supply some germ for the “ development” which is, at the distance of some centuries, faithfully to follow—Mr. Newman sub¬ joins, near the close of his volume, a very valuable illustration. He cites a former paper of his own upon those most remarkable and important relics, the Epistles of St. Ignatius. The object of the paper is to exhibit the maturity of doctrine contained in these epistles of a disciple of St. John; to shew how much which Dis¬ senters from the Church are in the habit of regarding as modern corruptions is there fully recognized. I need not recount the particulars, as I may take for granted your readers are acquainted with the Epistles themselves, and will readily admit the general asser¬ tion : — “ Let it be granted only so far as this,” argues Mr. Newman, “ that the substance of them is what Ignatius wrote, and those who deny this may wrestle as they best can with the greater difficulties in which they will find themselves, and is any further witness wanting to prove that the Catholic system [I am quoting Mr. Newman of 1839, it will be remembered], not in an inchoate state, not in doubtful dawnings, not in ten¬ dencies or in implicit teaching , or in temper , or in sur¬ mises, but in a definite , complete , and dogmatic , form was the religion of St. Ignatius ; and if so, where in the world did he come by it? How came he to lose, to blot out from his mind, the true Gospel, if this was LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 31 not it? How came he to possess this, except it be apostolic ? One does not know which of the two most to be struck with, his precise, unhesitating tone, or the compass of doctrine he goes through,” &c.—p. 395. It was characteristic of Mr. Newman’s fearless can¬ dour to quote this; for the application to the question before us is surely obvious. Here is a plain avowal of the definiteness of Christian doctrine from the very first; an admission that the future belief was even then no mere “ temper” or “ tendency;” yet here , with almost all the leading features of doctrinal and practical Ca¬ tholicism, there is not even a trace of any one of the distinctive peculiarities of Romanism. Not a trace, through the whole seven epistles of this propounder of a distinct and complete dogmatic Christianity 6 . If, as Mr. Newman afterwards urges, two or three sub¬ jects are not specially mentioned (“original sin, &c.”— p. 396), will this explain the fact that no allusion is made to topics that must (on supposition of their ex¬ istence) have lain directly in the writer’s way? Per¬ petually enforcing Church unity through cordial sub¬ mission to the Church’s governors, how does it happen that the blessed martyr makes not the remotest refer¬ ence to that which the authentic champions of Ro¬ manism have constantly affirmed to have been from the first the admitted guarantee of unity ? Even Mr. Newman endeavours to show that the Papacy was already in at least embryonic existence ; and conde¬ scends to revive the long-exploded argument from the e The Eucharistic passages, I need not say, are no where stronger in Ignatius than in our own Service and Catechism, and of course admit of exactly the same interpretation. 32 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. title of St. Clement’s contemporary epistle f . If, then, Clement was really a seminal Hildebrand, and de¬ scribed his Church as “presiding in the Roman region,” from some dim, half conscious, but real anticipations of future greatness, it is surely somewhat strange that the “ definite, complete, and dogmatic” system of Ig¬ natius’ theology should have been absolutely without this important element. Truly Mr. Newman had best adhere steadily to his “ development” theory; and not suffer himself to be thus at times betrayed into the fond dream of really verifying modern Romanism in the Catholicism of the Apostolic Fathers. Meanwhile, the Church of England is content with the theology which contented Ignatius. It is scarcely possible to overstate the importance of this admission, that, after all the long and earnest efforts of her devoted advocates to demonstrate that the Roman Church has delivered to us the simple Christianity of antiquity, the attempt must honestly be given up as hopeless. There is, indeed, something very providential in the case. Scarcely any one but a person situated just as Mr. Newman has been, could have prosecuted such an argument, and brought it so satisfactorily to this result. A professed Anglican theologian denying the antiquity of Romanism, would have been regarded as a mere partisan controversialist, f [Mr. Newman’s argument is not derived from the title of St. Cle¬ ment’s epistle, but from the fact that “St. Clement, in the name of the Roman Church, writes a letter to the Corinthians, when they were without a bishop.” —p. 22. The description of the Church of Rome as “presiding in the Roman region” occurs not in St. Clement, but in St. Ignatius —Epist. ad Rom. ed. Jacobson, Tom. ii. p. 344.] LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ‘ 33 echoing what others had said, and speaking rather what he wished than what he knew. A professed Romanist, on the other hand, would scarcely have ventured to risk his Church’s reputation upon the chances of a semi-philosophical theory of “ develop- mentknowing that, though the theory might go the way of a thousand theories before it, the fatal admis¬ sion it involved would not be readily forgotten. Mr. Newman being in a transitional state, neither Anglican nor formally and definitely Roman, was emancipated from both these restraints, and has accordingly opened his mind freely, fairly, and irrecoverably. His previ¬ ous education in our great Anglican University had fortunately expanded to him the whole field of anti¬ quity, without those perverting biasses by which Ro¬ mish training would have prepossessed his judgment; accordingly he could not be deceived by the hollow¬ ness of the common pretences of the Roman theolo¬ gians on behalf of their tenets ; whatever merits medi¬ aeval Romanism might claim, he knew antiquity too well not to know it could not really claim that. It might be (as he seems to dream) something better than antiquity, but it was not antiquity. Still,—if I may without presumption go on and venture to sketch what I have little doubt is nearly the true history of this case, and of many others,—his imagination and feelings were irreparably engaged; and reason, as usual, was soon busily active in devising subtle argu¬ mentative grounds to justify his choice. He had be¬ fore his fancy a bright ideal of Unity, Perpetuity, Ploliness, Self-denial, Majesty,—in short, that “ glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such D 34 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. I. thing,” which the Lord of the whole Church is yet to present to Himself “ holy and without blemish ;” in the impatience of desire he had come to identify his ideal with the actual Church of history; by constantly dwelling among the highly-wrought devotional works of holy men in the Roman communion—works which utterly spoil the taste for the calmer and more intellec- tualized piety of our divines (very much as romances debauch the taste for solid reading), his heart was se¬ duced into forgetting the vices of thousands in the heroic virtues of comparatively few, and (what is much worse) the gross doctrinal errors of those few for the sake of the ardent piety their effusions seemed to em¬ body ; until at length the errors became tolerable, be¬ came acceptable, became welcome, were received as truths; and then the work was accomplished. But all was not yet secure. In this crisis arose the necessity of accounting for the undeniable absence of certain prominent peculiarities of the system from the records, not only of inspiration but of antiquity for centuries. Others might not feel the difficulty; he could not escape it. And so by degrees the thought grew into shape, fitting itself as it grew with goodly apparel from the “ wardrobe” of one of the richest imaginations of our time, that the Church of Christ might perhaps , be meant to embody one living, growing, self-organizing scheme of belief; that it might have been intended spiritually to nourish itself by imbibing and assimilat¬ ing materials from all around it; incorporating into itself all the truths of all mankind, permeating them with its own transforming spirit, and moulding them into new shapes, so that what was before gentile error and worthless superstition became merely, by virtue of LETT. I.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 35 this regenerating adoption, high and holy truth ; nor this alone,—but that by brooding over its original store of doctrine, it might be endowed with a faculty of expanding it into totally new and unsuspected forms, even into collecting new Objects of Worship, legiti¬ mate sharers in divine adoration, from their relation to Him, whom it once seemed the first principle of all religion to maintain in sole and incommunicable su¬ premacy. Such was the “ theory of development,’ 7 — an hypothesis in many respects brilliant, attractive, imposing; having against it only such objections as these,—that it was utterly destitute of evidence beyond its utility for the explanation of the (unnecessary) difficulty that suggested it ; and that in somewhat alleviating that difficulty, it introduced others of ten¬ fold magnitude peculiar to itself. But the dimensions of your Journal are not calcu¬ lated for lengthy disquisitions, and I must pause. I have endeavoured to show, that Mr. Newman’s theory is profitless to Romanism, for it is flatly contradictory to her own recorded and unalterable decisions ; that it is dangerous to Romanism, for it surrenders her long- cherished claim to evidence from antiquity, and gives her in return only a precarious hypothesis which she has herself in substance repeatedly disavowed. With all this, however, I have only now approached the main theory itself, and its merits. With your permission, I will humbly attempt to estimate its intrinsic claims in my next communication. I am, my dear Sir, Your’s faithfully, W. Archer Butler, d 2 36 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. LETTER II. — ♦— Dear Sir, In the letter which appeared in your last Number I drew the attention of your readers to the very important fact, that the theory of Mr. Newman is absolutely inconsistent with the deliberate affirmation of the most authoritative of all Roman Councils ; that Council, whose definitions and Canons are, in the peculiar creed of the modern Romish Church, alone specially and by name commended to the undoubting reception of all her members a . Artfully ambiguous and elaborately qualified as are many of the declara¬ tions of Trent (for the prelates of that Council were a [The following are the terms in which all ecclesiastics and con¬ verts are required to profess their assent to the Tridentine Canons : “ Csetera item omnia a sacris Canonibus, et CEcumenicis Conciliis, ac prcecipue a Sacrosancta Tridentiuna Synodo tradita, definita, et declarata, indubitanter recipio, atque profiteor, simulque contraria omnia, atque hgereses quascunque ab Ecclesia damnatas, rejectas, et anathematizatas, ego pariter damno, rejicio, et anathematizo.” “ Pius IV. not only enjoined all ecclesiastics to swear to his new creed, but he imposed it on all Christians as ‘ veram fidem Catho- licam extra quam nemo salvus esse potest. 5 55 —Vid. Abp. Bramhall, Works, Vol. ii. p. 201, in Anglo- Cath. Lib.~\ LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 37 themselves not uniri£luenced b by the movement they met to resist), on this the deliverance is decided and unequivocal. Beyond all doubt, Mr. Newman’s book is formally implicated in the anathema of Trent ; the Council’s prophetic condemnation, to which time can set no limits, has already made it, ipso facto, heretical. The “ development” of this theorist is every where confronted by “ traditiones continud successions conser- vatceC Not only are such important matters as the seven Sacraments declared to be, every single one, “ a Jesu Christo Domino nostro institutum ,” [Sess. vii.], but even such minute particulars of discipline as secret sacramental confession (as distinguished from public) are “ a sanctissimis et antiquissimis Patribus magno unanimique consensu semper commendata,” and such as “ ab initio Ecclesia sancta usa est.”—Sess. xiv. c. 5. [De Pcenitentid.\ Interpretations of Scripture, in which an inventive genius, like our Author’s, would find a peculiarly fertile source of subsequent development, are stringently forbidden,—“ contra unanimem consen- sum Patrum” (Sess. iv. De Canonic. SS.) ; nay, the very thought of such, “ etiamsi hujusmodi interpretationcs nullo unquam tempore in lucem edendte forentand b [Cardinal Pole was one of the three legates commissioned by Paul III. to open the Council in 1542. Pole had been, along with the excellent Cardinal Contarini, engaged in preparing the “ Consi¬ lium delectorum Cardinalium et aliorum Prcelcitorum de emendanda Ec- clesidf which in 1537 was presented to the Pontiff as a plan tor the reformation of the Church. It was not until December, 1545, that the opening of the Council actually took place. u Contarini was now no more ; but Pole was present ; and there were in the as¬ sembly many others warmly attached to their opinions. ’ Ranke s History of the Popes.~\ 38 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. the expression of the decree is put yet more beyond the possibility of evasion in the Creed, where the divine, or the convert, solemnly promises “ never to take and interpret the Scripture otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.’ 7 The decision of the Council can, therefore, be made to square with the new theory only by the most palpable distortion of its express, repeated, and positive affirmations ; and the illustrious convert will require to apply to the creed of Pius IV. the same ingenious process by which he con¬ trived, some years since, to disembarrass himself of the burden of the Thirty-nine Articles. But though the authoritative doctrine of the Koman Church is thus unquestionable, Mr. Newman’s specu¬ lations, as might be expected, are not without what the technical phraseology of his theory would style some scattered “ early anticipations.” Some of these will, I dare say, have already occurred to your readers, as our divines have frequently cited them with no un¬ justifiable triumph. Such is the well-known admission of Fisher: “ Aliquando Purgatorium incognitum fuit, sero cognitum universal Ecclesias.” u Legat qui velit Grascorum veterum commentarios, et nullum , quantum opinor, aut quam rarissimum de Purgatorio sermonem inveniet. Sed nequeLatini simul omnes, at sensim , hujus rei veritatem conceperunt.”— Contr. Luther. Art. 18. But what avails the precipitate honesty of Fisher or Mr. Newman against the solemn verdict of Trent, re¬ vealing to us, with direct authority from Pleaven, that “Catholica Ecclesia ex antiqud Patrum traditione docuit Purgatorium esse”(Sess. xxv.); and that the Sacrifice of the Mass “ pro defunctis in Christo nondum ad pie - LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 39 num purgatis , rite, juxta apostolorum traditionem, offertur.” (Sess. xxi. cap. 2).—Or again,—of Indul¬ gences, the same candid Cardinal admits 0 , that “ Earum usus in Ecclesia videtur fuisse recentior , et admodum serd repertus and that “ coeperunt Indulgentiae post- quam ad Purgatorii cruciatus aliquamdiu trepidatum est” [Assert.Luther. Confut. 1523, p. Ill); and Cajetan d confesses, “ nulla sacrm Scripturm, nulla priscorum Doc- torum,Grmcorum autLatinorum,auctoritas scripta hanc [“ hunc’scil. ortum\ ad nostram deduxit notitiam;”( Opusc. Tom. i. Tractat. xv. c. 1.) and Durandus, that “ sancti etiam minime loquuntur de Indulgentiis.” (IV. Dist. xx. 2, 3.) But what profits all this ill-timed candour, ex¬ cept to excite strange heretical surmises, when the c [Bishop Fisher is here stating the opinion of others rather than his own : “ Multos fortasse movet Indulgentiis istis non usque adeo fidere, quod earum usus in Ecclesia videatur recentior, et admodum serd apud Christianos repertus. Quibus ego respondeo , non certo constare a quo priinum tradi coeperint: fuit tamen nonnullus earum usus, ut aiunt, apud Romanos vetustissimus; quod exStatio- nibus intelligi potest.” This passage is transcribed from the work of Polydore Vergil, De Rerum Inventoribus , Lib. viii. Cap. i. p. 484. Basil. 1550. It is a remarkable fact that the entire citation from Bishop Fisher, and Vergil’s words which accompany it, (in all thirty-six lines,) have been sentenced to expurgation by the Vatican Index in 1607, and by that of Cardinal Zapata, in 1632: an instance of the watchful jealousy of the Church of Rome respecting questions raised as to the date of the introduction of her novelties.—G.] [The entire passage from Polydore Vergil, including the citation from Fisher, will be found in Bishop Taylor’s Dissuasive, Part ii. B. ii. sect. ii. p. 391. Ed. Cardwell.] d [It must be acknowledged that Cardinal Cajetan’s expressions have reference to the difficulty of tracing the rise of Indulgences. He asserts in the same place that “ Indulgentiarum gratia antiqua est in Christi Ecclesia, et non nova adinventio.”—G.] 40 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. infallible Council, “ Spiritu Sancto adjuvante,” pro¬ nounces that the Church “ hujusmodi potestate divini- tus sibi tradita antiquissimis etiam temporibus, usa fuerit•” which, unless the Council be guilty of the grossest deception, we must, of course, understand of indulgences in the only sense in which they were at the time contested. Of even the characteristic Roman doc¬ trine of the physical annihilation of the bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist, the able Franciscan, Alphonsus de Castro, admits that “ de transubstantione panis [in corpus Christi] rara est in antiquis scriptoribus men- tio.” (Advers. Hceres. viii. [verb. Indulgentia]) ; and the oracular Master of the Sentences, in a well-known passage (iv. 11), declares that he cannot venture to pronounce anything definite on the subject, and would advise all pious persons to avoid the inquiry 6 . While the very learned Jesuit, Sirmondus, informs us that Paschasius “ ita primum explicuit genuinum Eccleske Catholicse sensum ut viam cmteris aperitif’ f .— Vit. e [Peter Lombard's words, “ definire non sufficio,” are not to be understood as intimating a doubt of the truth of the doctrine of Transubstantiation; for in the preceding sentence he had explicitly declared, “ substantiam panis in corpus, vinique substantiam in san- guinem converti.” The question discussed in this Distinction is “De modis conversionis:” and the advice about avoiding an inquiry into a mysterious subject is simply this; “ Mysterium fidei credi salubriter potest, investigari salubriter non potest;” an observation which is made in the following page, relative to the assertion that the body and blood of Christ are not increased by the continued ex¬ ercise of the sacerdotal office.—G.] f [In this extract we must read “ primus ,” and “ aperuerit” The passage is : “ in eoque” (scil. Libro) “genuinum Ecclesias Catholicse sensum ita primus explicuit, ut viam cseteris aperuerit, qui de eodem LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 41 Paschcis. But, once more, how can the pacific coun¬ sels of Lombard, or the plain admissions of many other Roman divines (to whose opinions, concerning the obscurity of early testimonies on the whole subject, Mr. Newman appears in no small degree inclined, pp. 19, 20), as to the absence from antiquity of any unequivocal evidence to a belief in the physical change of substance, avail against the distinct assertion of the Council, that the very special and particular mode of change, and no other, which is now styled “ transub- stantiation,” was that which “ persuasum semper in Ecclesia Dei fuit” (sess. xiii. cap. 4). Nay, some of the argumento multi postea scripsere.” (Sirmondi Opp. iv. 448. Venet. 1728.) It is scarcely fair to interpret this description of S. Rad- bert’s work otherwise than with relation to the manner in which he treated of the Sacramental question, in consequence of it having been “ a nonnullis temere jactata” in the reign of Ludovicus Pius. Bellarmin’s language, ( De Scriptt. Keel, ad an. 820.) which is fre¬ quently misquoted, is to the same effect : “ Hie auctor primus fuit, qui serio et copiose scripsit de veritate corporis et sanguinis Domini in Eucharistia, contra Bertramum Presbyterum, qui fuit ex primis qui earn in dubium revocarunt.”—G.] [Sirmondus and Bellarmine seem to intimate that Paschasius first reduced to dogmatic form what had always been implicitly believed. Mabillon suggests a very different explanation of the strangeness of his statements in the eyes of his contemporaries; namely, that they had lost the true doctrine once held by the Fathers, and now restored by him, “ Ante Paschasii librum confitebantur Catholici omnes Christi Domini verum corpus, verumque sanguinem revera existere in Eucharistia, itemque panem et vinum in ilia converti; at nemo Paschasii tempore illud corpus esse idem quod ex Maria Virgine natum est, tam directe asserere auditus fuerat. Id quidem antea ex Patribus tradiderant non pauci, sed ignota erant illo awo, aut certe non observata, eorum hac de re testimonial’—Vid. Du Pin, Yol. ii. p. 80, English Trans.] 42 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. contemporary and post-Tridentine schoolmen (of course without the slightest authority, after the conciliar deci¬ sion),—members of “ those modern schools in and through which,’ 7 as Mr, Newman, with incomparable coolness, observes, “ the subsequent developments of Catholic doctrines have proceeded” (p. 333),—have at times, in the stress of argument, ventured to approach the views of our author. “ This,” says Bishop Patrick (Discourse about Tradition , Part ii.), “is the doctrine of Salmeron, and others of his fellows g , that 4 the doc¬ trine of faith admits of additions in essential things; for all things were not taught by the Apostles, but such as were then necessary and fit for the salvation of be¬ lievers by which means,” as he adds, u we can never know when the Christian religion will be perfected.” Indeed, Mr. Newman might possibly find some traces of his doctrine in an authority which he, I doubt not, ranks among the very highest in the calendar of Boman hagiology, the meek, unworldly 44 Saint Gregory VII.” 44 Primitiva Ecclesia,” observes that Pope, “ multa dis- simulaverat , quse a sanctis Patribus, postmodum firmata Christianitate et religione crescente, subtili examina- tione correcta sunt. 11 (In his Answer to the Duke of g Bishop Patrick’s assertion is no exaggeration; e.g. “Non omni¬ bus omnia dedit Deus, ut qucelibet cetas suis gaudeat revelationibus .” Salmer. In Epist. ad Roman. Diss. lvii. “ Unius Augustini doctrina assumptions B. Deiparse cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit .”— Ibid. [The “ Liber de Assumptione beatae Virginis Marias,” here alluded to, is unquestionably spurious.—G.] [It is a sermon of some author of the twelfth century or thereabouts. — Vid. Du Pin, Vol. i. p. 404, English Trans.] Mr. Newman may compare this with his citation from this Jesuit, in p. 321, in proof of his having held an opinion of the supremacy of Ploly Scripture. LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 43 Bohemia, inter Epp.) Though, on the other hand, it must be confessed, his great namesake Gregory I., traced his developments to a different and more direct source. To an inquirer who bluntly asks how it hap¬ pens that, at the opening of the seventh century, “tarn multa de animabus clarescunt quce ante latuerunt ,” or, in Mr. Newman’s phraseology, how “ Purgatory was opened upon the mind of the Church,” the worthy Pope replies by referring the fact to the approaching end of the world : “ quantum prmsens sseculum propinquat ad jinem, tantum futurum sseculum signis manifestiori- bus aperitur” (Dial. 11 iv. 40, 41); a view of the case which, possibly, by some profound mystical interpreta¬ tion (such as Mr. Newman in this volume advocates so strenuously), may be made to square with the theory of development ; but the very allegation of which (with the numerous visions and supernatural revela¬ tions likewise affirmed) would, at first sight, and to superficial reasoners, appear to demonstrate how very little the patrons themselves of the innovations on Chris¬ tian doctrine, knew of the process by which our deeper theorist would account for their proceedings. The history, indeed, of the successive “ expedients” (to employ Mr. Newman’s term) for reconciling the Roman faith with primitive doctrine would be, had I time or space here to pursue it, exceedingly curious and instructive. It is not generally observed (what Bishop Stillingfleet has very clearly established), that the distinct and formal assertion of Unbroken Apos¬ tolic Tradition, as a separate source of articles of belief, h [The genuineness of these Dialogues cannot be safely as¬ sumed.—G.] 44 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. is itself, even in the Roman Church, comparatively modern. The great divine whom I have named has demonstrated this point convincingly, from the history of the discussions in the Council of Trent itself, as re¬ ported by Pallavicini; from the assertions of the divines of the Roman Church previous to the Council for many centuries; from the express statements of the Roman Canon Law, and from ancient offices of the Roman Church, and the glossers who have commented on them. Exactly in proportion as innovations grew more and more irreconcileable with Holy Scripture, we can trace the slow, gradual elevation of a vague, undefined tradition to a sort of co-ordinate authority with the written Word of God 1 , until at length, in the ’ Perhaps the first complete authoritative appeal to Tradition, in tacit preference to the written Word (though even then not dis¬ tinctly alleged as an absolutely separate ground for faith), may be considered to have occurred in support of the peculiarly unscrip - tural innovation of Image-Worship. “We,” say the Bishops of the Second Nicene Council, “ following the divine instructions of the holy Fathers, and the traditions of the Catholic Church, decree, with all accuracy, &c., that the venerable and holy images shall be placed in the holy churches of God. Thus, the instruction of our holy Fathers is established, to wit, the tradition of the Catholic Church, &c.”—Art. vii. \_Act. vii_The sentences here cited are not consecutive. It was an express declaration of this Council, while it boasted of its not adding to, or taking from, the truth of the Gospel, “omnes Ecclesiasticas, sive scripto , sive sine scripto , sancitas nobis Traditiones, illibate servamus.” ( Concill . Gen. iii. 661. Romas, 1612.) —G.] Yet at that time, and long after, the doctrine appears very undecided. For instance, at the Fourth Council [The eighth Ge¬ neral Council, probably the thirty-sixth Synod of Constantinople, was the fourth there held, to which the name of CEcumenical is commonly attached.—G.] of Constantinople (A. D. 869), a tradition is claimed to be obligatory, delivered “ etiam a qiiolibet Deiloquo LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 45 Council of Trent, which had been preceded by fierce Protestant discussions of the Rule of Faith, this con¬ venient voucher was deliberately exalted to share the same throne j ; and an expedient which itself grew out of innovation was made to authenticate the innovations that originated it. These imaginary Apostolic Tradi¬ tions for modern Romanism, were supposed to be partly oral, partly preserved in the written records of the Church; the latter having been long before (a fact now notorious, and admitted by all parties) flagrantly interpolated and corrupted in such instances as the forged Decretals k , and the numerous mediaeval treatises attributed to the early writers. In either sense of it, the plea of Apostolic Tradition in behalf of the me¬ diaeval dogmas could only pass current with the un¬ informed classes, and could never be expected to last very long. The shrewd and daring Jesuits, men fitted to grapple with the intellect and learning of the age, while making desperate efforts (Turrianus 1 , &c.) to vindicate the genuineness of the forgeries, plainly ma¬ nifest, by glimpses of the very views now given to the public, how little they really relied for permanent suc- patre ac magistro” (Can. i.)—an extension inadmissible on almost any conceivable theory. •> “ Traditiones ipsas, &c., pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur.”—Sess. iv. k [For an account of these Decretals , vid. infra, p. 47-] 1 \_Turrianus , or Francis de la Torre , a Jesuit of Herrera, in the diocese of Yalentia, in Spain, published a work in defence of the forged Decretals, entitled, “ Adversus Magdeburgenses Centuria- tores pro Canonibus Apostolorum, et Epistolis decretalibus Pontifi- cum Apostolicorum, Libri quinque.” Florent. 1572. Gieseler. ii. 335, in Clark’s For. Theol. Lib .] 46 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. cess on these spurious testimonies; though, fettered as they were by the unmanageable decisions of Trent, they were forced to tender a simulated allegiance to the doctrine of continuous primitive Tradition. But now, when, before the light of a just and honest criti¬ cism, the gloomy spectres of Decretal and Canon, that so long stalked through the twilight of the middle ages, have for ever vanished, and even the most reckless controversialist is ashamed to recall them,—when, as Mr. Newman deplores, u infidelity is in a more hopeful position as regards Christianity” (he means, more hopeful of gaining its object), because “ the facts of revealed religion present a less compact and orderly front to the attacks of its enemies,” and this again, because “ the state of things is not as it was when an appeal lay to the supposed works of the Areopagite m , or to the primitive Decretals 11 , or to St. Dionysius's m [These writings, ascribed to S. Dionysius of Athens, are now universally admitted to be spurious. Thorndike supposes them to have been composed in the fourth century (Works, in Lib. Anglo- Cath. Theology,Y ol. i. Part i. p. 321). Le Quien regards them as the work of a monophysite heretic. Du Pin considers that they must be subsequent to the fourth century, from various internal evidences. They were unknown in the west until much later. “ The Grecian Emperor, Michael Balbus, sent to Lewis the Meek, in the year 824, a copy of the pretended works of Dionysius the Areopagite, which fatal present kindled immediately the holy flame of mysticism in the western provinces.”— Mosheim, Lccles.Hist., Cent. ix. The work was translated into Latin by the order of Lewis. A new translation was made by John Scot Erigena, at the request of Charles the Bald, a very interesting account of which is given by him in a letter to the emperor, which is preserved in Ussher’s Sylloge Veterum Epistola- rum Hibernicarum. Works, Vol. iv. p. 476. Edit. Elrington.] n [For an able sketch of the vast and permanent effect of these LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 47 answers to St. Paul 0 , or to the Coena Domini p of St. Cyprian” q (p. 28); in other words, when, according Decretals in supporting the encroachments of the Papacy, see Allies’ Church of England cleared from the Charge of Schism, Ch. vii. sect. 2; and Gieseler., Eccles. Hist., ii. 330, etseqq., in ClarIds Foreign Theol. Lib. “ A new canonical jurisprudence began to be introduced into the Gallican Church, as well as into the other provinces of the west (from the year 836) by the invention for that purpose of the supposititious Letters of the ancient Roman Pontiffs, in which there are a great number of regulations altogether opposed to the statutes of the ancient Canons. These were edited in a collection of Canons which is commonly attributed to Isidore Mercator, which Riculph, Bishop of Mayence, brought from Spain into Gaul. .... It is indeed certain, and beyond all doubt, according to the judgment of all learned men, and also the Cardinals Baronins and Bellarmine, that those letters of the ancient Pontiffs, namely, Clement, Anterus, Euaristus, Telesphorus, Callistus, Julius, Damasus, and generally all those which precede the times of Siricius (384-398), and Inno¬ cent, were fabricated by this Isidore.”—De Marca, De Concord. quoted by Allies. Pope Nicholas I. warmly maintained the autho¬ rity of these Decretals, because they sanctioned his assumption in the celebrated dispute between the French Bishops and Rothadus, Bishop of Soissons, who appealed to the Pope against the sentence of his brethren. “ He wrote a large letter to all the Bishops to oblige them to receive Rothadus; and taking this occasion to greaten his authority, he claims as his due that all causes of the bishops should be brought to the Holy See. He upholds this pretence by the false Decretals, which he vouches to be genuine, ancient, and very authentic. This letter is dated January. Indict. 13. A. D. 866.” —Du Pin, Vol. ii. p. 62. The Magdeburgh Centuriators first gave copious proof of their spuriousness, which was admitted by Bellar- mine and Baronius. They were defended by Turrianus ; but “the question was decided by Dav. Blondelli Pseudo-Isidorus et lurri- anus vapulantes. Genev. 1628.”—Vid. Gieseler., Ecc. Hist., ii. p. 341, in Clark’s Foreign Theolog. Lib.'] 0 [Not “ S. Paul,” but “ Paul for the allusion evidently is to the disputable Answers of S. Dionysius of Alexandria to ten propo- 48 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. to Mr. Newman, Christianity is in great danger, be¬ cause she can no longer employ in her defence the most execrable weapons that hypocrisy and falsehood ever invented; in this alarming state of things for “ Christianity” new measures must be adopted; Apos¬ tolic Tradition lias had its day, and the Roman Pro¬ teus exhibits himself in a form not only different from, but absolutely incompatible with, the argumentative grounds on which, by infallible authority , the belief of centuries has been built. Apostolic Tradition, itself a comparatively modern pretext, slowly retires, and makes way for Mediaeval Development. To the brief consideration of this latest “ variation of Romanism” I now proceed. I am, however, well aware how arid and uninviting the cold process of argumentative dissection must ap¬ pear, when contrasted with the commanding preten- sitions of the heretic Paul of Samosata. Vid. Tillemont, iv. Notes, pp. 42-3. ed. Brux. Valesii Annot. in Lib. vii. Euseb. Cap. xxx.— G.J p [It is very well known that the tract De Ccena Domini is the sixth of twelve treatises De cardinalibus Operibus Christi, written by Arnoldus Carnotensis, Abbas Bonse-vallis, about the year 1160 .— G.] q On reperusing the entire of this extraordinary passage, I think I can plainly perceive that it was meant (though somewhat covertly), in anticipation of objections from the Romanist divines themselves. This is instructive, in relation to what has already been observed of the absence of all ecclesiastical authority for the new system. Meanwhile, it must be remembered, that Mr. Newman has solemnly committed his hazardous theory to the “judgment of the Church” (Pref. p. 11), and, utterly subversive as it is of all her theological bulwarks for centuries, “ the Church” has not ventured to dis¬ countenance it. LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 49 sions and engaging brilliancies of a speculation like Mr. Newman’s. Probably nothing would wholly de¬ stroy the effect of such a work but some equally clever rival theory. An intellectual romance of this kind is, in this respect, like a religious or political novel; you cannot meet it effectively by mere argument; to put it down at all you must win the public ear and fancy by a counter novel. Whether it would be very diffi¬ cult to string together an equally plausible series of opposing hypotheses, I shall not undertake to pro¬ nounce; I am certainly not about, for my own humble part, to attempt the unequal contest. I do not under¬ take to present Mr. Newman with a lofty and attrac¬ tive system like his own; unfolded with all the pomp of scientific method, and branching into its infinity of applications and illustrations. Hypotheses non jingo. I do not pretend to have penetrated all the minutiae of the providential government of the Church; nor can I dare to approach a subject so awful, except in the cautious and careful guise either (so far as it is at all practicable) of demonstrated theory—laws patiently educed from distinct and ascertained facts, or of hum¬ ble and confessed conjecture. Indeed, Mr. Newman himself furnishes me with a warning on this head, which it may not be the less prudent to adopt, that its author has himself rested the main pillar of his theory on neglecting it. “ Sometimes,” he tells us, with evident disapprobation, “ an attempt has been made to ascertain ‘ the leading idea,’ as it has been called, of Christianity: a remarkable essay, as directed towards a divine religion, when, even in the existence of the works of man, the task is beyond us.’ —p. 34. E 50 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. In which point of view unquestionably the author’s own is an exceedingly “ remarkable Essay,” inasmuch as its principal test of genuine development, and that on whose application the greatest amount of labour is bestowed, consists in the “ preservation of the idea ” of Christianity, which it is here previously pronounced chimerical to profess to determine at all. Let me first attempt to communicate some concep¬ tion (of course a very faint and ineffective one, within so limited a compass) of the course of the author’s argument. “ The Development of an Idea,” according to Mr. Newman, is u the germination, growth, and perfection of some living, that is, influential, truth, or apparent truth, in the mind of men, during a sufficient period.” —p. 37. And as this period closes, or advances to its close, “ the system or body of thought thus laboriously gained will, after all, be only the adequate representa¬ tion of the original idea.”—p. 36. The necessary cha¬ racteristic of this process is, that “ an idea cannot de¬ velop at all except either by destroying or modifying and incorporating with itself, existing modes of acting and thinking.” And as it modifies, so also “ it is mo¬ dified or at least influenced by the state of things in which it is carried out, and depends in various ways on the circumstances around it.” —p. 38. From this (which seems intelligible enough) Mr. Newman next proceeds to specify the kinds of development, and, after rejecting certain literal or physical significations, he insists chiefly on what he styles political, p. 45; lo¬ gical, p. 48; historical, p. 49; moral, p. 50; and meta¬ physical, p. 54, developments. I cannot say much for t\\e perspicuity of his eloquent exposition of these classes, LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 51 which principally consists in a rapid aggregate of il¬ lustrations, the precise point of which is not in all in¬ stances very obvious to readers of a fancy less excur¬ sive than the gifted author’s. It is not, difficult, how¬ ever, for such readers to perceive that the class of developments with which the work is likely to make them most familiar are those which it styles “ moral.” “Moral developments are not properly matters of controversy [a convenient maxim, as the reader will perceive, when admitted to the intended applications of this law or class of developments], but are natural and personal, substituting what is congruous, desirable , pious, decorous, generous , for strictly logical inference.” —p. 50. And after quoting a passage of Bishop But¬ ler, which he considers applicable to his argument, and stating from the “ Analogy,” as an instance of a “ moral development,” the obligation of worship which at once, even without express revelation, arises from the knowledge of the deity of the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity 1 ’, he adds (an analogical corol¬ lary which would have somewhat astonished the great q It is observable, that the very passage which Mr. Newman cites from the “ Analogy” contains (in his own quotation) a qualification which is all but a direct contradiction of the unbridled license of “ moral development” he contends for in religious worship. Even of such unquestioned duties as the worship of beings who are them¬ selves the very and eternal God, Bishop Butler adds : “ In what ex¬ ternal manner this inward worship is to be expressed is a matter of pure revealed command .” Whereas, if the worship of holy men and women deceased be but a mere development of the Church’s feelings, the “ external manner in which this inward worship is to be ex¬ pressed” must, it is pretty plain, be still more utterly resolvable into the same shadowy original. 52 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. philosophic theologian): u Here is a development of doctrine into worship, In like manner the doctrine of the Beatification of the Saints has been developed into their cultus; of the OeoToros, or Mother of God, into hyperdulia; and of the Real Presence into adora¬ tion of the Host.” Not content with this satisfactory deduction, Mr. Newman proceeds to observe, that there is a “ converse development” that still more completely overleaps the bounds of “ strict logical in¬ ference;” a development of feelings into the assumption of Objects; and (for I have no room here to analyse his other examples, and hasten at once to the main scope of his work) of this we have manifest and irre¬ sistible theological instances in “ the doctrine of post- baptismal sin, and the usage of prayers for the faithful departed, developing into the doctrine of Purgatory.” Accordingly, at the close of a section in which he carefully and scrupulously separates faith and reason, he observes that to those who hold this safe and digni¬ fied view of a Christian’s faith (p. 337) “ arguments will come to be considered rather as representations and persuasives than as logical proofs; and develop¬ ments as the spontaneous, gradual, and ethical growth, not as intentional and arbitrary deductions, of exist¬ ing opinions ” On a basis so wide as this, it obviously needs not an architect of Mr. Newman’s powers to raise any superstructure he pleases. After thus explaining the varieties of development, our author proceeds to investigate the tests by which a genuine development may be distinguished from a corruption. A multitude of illustrations, more or less applicable, make up the bulk of this discussion; the LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 53 general result of which, upon any candid reader, will, I am quite satisfied, be a conviction of the utter un¬ certainty of rules and applications so vague, shifting, and flexible; and the absolute unfitness of such a me¬ thod of inquiry for any man honestly desirous to know and adhere to the truth in the most momentous of all human concerns. Indeed, of the first and most im¬ portant of them all, the author admits that it is “ not of easy application in particular cases,” and that it im¬ plies what “ often will lead to mere theorizing”- —p. 66; requiring, in truth, nothing less than (I have alluded to the point already) an accurate and complete know¬ ledge of “ the essential idea of Christianity;” in other words, requiring what the loftiest faculties, and (what is better) the deepest habitual spirituality, will be the first to confess themselves poorly competent to grasp: and what, if grasped, would surely presuppose the point already settled, to which it is here made subor¬ dinate; for, what further has he to seek in the way of religious belief and knowledge who has already mas¬ tered, in the clear and perfect degree required for a secure application of this theory, “ the essential Idea of Christianity?” With regard to these tests, in general, they are bet¬ ter considered in their application in a subsequent part of the volume. It is there the lofty, various, and dis¬ cursive style of the author can best be fixed and inter¬ preted. Mr. Newman’s composition has great rhetori¬ cal merits, and among them that of often producing a strong general impression, without leaving anything very definite, in either fact or reasoning, to which the impression can be distinctly traced. With such 54 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. an adversary it is always of importance to come as speedily as possible to the specific case, or cases, to which all these imposing abstractions are skilfully meant to be subservient. Moreover, I presume, it is not the abstract theorist, but the Romanist polemic, that chiefly interests the public at present in Mr. Newman. Well had it been, if his soaring specula¬ tions had for ever remained unembodied in their na¬ tive regions of air; nor thus descended to earth and taken tangible form, in the vain attempt to give soul and spirit to the dull and lifeless dogmas in which the second half of his volume endeavours to realize them! Having enlarged on the tests which he considers adequate to distinguish between genuine development and corruption, Mr. Newman next argues for the an¬ tecedent probability of developments in Christianity. This he considers he has established from the neces¬ sity of the case; from the history of sects and parties in religion; and from the analogy and example of Scripture. Such is his own summary of his antece¬ dent argument (p. 113), which I purposely adopt, in order to avoid misapprehension of a style of disquisi¬ tion which is certainly somewhat liable to it. He adds the general analogy of developments in the natural and moral world. Your limited space will not allow me to extract the whole of this argument, which extends to twenty pages; and I should unfairly risk an effect, which so largely depends on power of style, by any awkward abridgments of mine. Your more thought¬ ful readers will, however, be probably at no loss to conjecture the general purport of the argument, when they remember the exceedingly vague and indefinite LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 55 sense in which Mr. Newman employs the leading term of his theory, and that he finds himself at liberty to cite nearly every variety of successive change to which the word development can be, with any plausi¬ bility, applied, as witnessing to the validity of his hypothesis of doctrinal development in the Christian faith. From this he proceeds to contend for the proba¬ bility of a developing authority in Christianity, a sup¬ position which I trust hereafter to show you is, by a singular combination of logical embarrassments, at once absolutely necessary to, and absolutely inconsis¬ tent with, his entire theory. And he then endeavours to establish a presumption in favour of the existing (Roman) developments of Christianity, as being its genuine products. And with this the abstract or theoretical part of his work concludes. I have just observed that it is, in a great measure, by the indefinite use of language, especial ly of the term Development itself (notwithstanding much apparent accuracy of distinction), that Mr. Newman gives colour and plausibility to his hypothesis. Let me, in all hu¬ mility, endeavour to remedy this; and without pro¬ fessing to state anything very new, very profound, or very complete, on the subject, let me, as the simplest way of opening the question, try to offer some brief answer to the problem—Are there admissible develop¬ ments of doctrine in Christianity? Unquestionably there are. But let the term be understood in its legitimate sense or senses to warrant that answer; and let it be carefully observed how much, and how little, the admission really involves. 56 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. All varieties of real development, so far as this ar¬ gument is concerned, may probably be reduced to two general heads, intellectual developments, wadi practical developments, of Christian doctrine. By “ intellectual developments” I understand logical inferences (and that whether for belief or practical discipline) from doc¬ trines, or from the comparison of doctrines; which, in virtue of the great dialectical maxim, must be true, if legitimately deduced from what is true. “ Practical developments” are the living , actual , historical results of those true doctrines (original or inferential), when considered as influential on all the infinite varieties of human kind; the doctrines embodied in action; the doctrines modifying human nature in ways infinitely various, correspondently to the infinite variety of sub¬ jects on whom they operate, though ever strictly pre¬ serving, amid all their operations for effectually trans¬ forming and renewing mankind, their own unchanged identity. Intellectual Developments, it is thus obvious, are in the same sphere with the principles out of which they spring: they are (even when regarded with a view to rite and practice) unmingled doctrine still: they are propositions. Practical Developments, on the other hand, essentially consist of two very different, though connected, elements; divine doctrine, and human na¬ ture as affected by it; they are historical events . I am not aware of any thing reasonably to be called a de¬ velopment of Christian doctrine which is not reduci¬ ble to either of these classes, the Logical or the His¬ torical. Let me exemplify. 1. In the former case, revealed doctrines may be compared with one another, or with the doctrines of LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 57 “natural religion;” or the consequences of revealed doctrines may be compared with other doctrines, or with their consequences, and so on in great variety : the combined ultimate result being what is called a System of Theology. What the first principles of Christian truth really are, or how obtained, is not now the question. But in all cases equally, no doctrine has any claim whatever to be received as obligatory on belief, unless it be either itself some duly authorized principle, or a logical deduction, through whatever number of stages, from some such principle of religion. Such only are legitimate developments of doctrine for the belief of man ; and such alone can the Church of Christ—the Witness and Conservator of His Truth— justly commend to the consciences of her members. To take one or two examples that present themselves at the first moment :—it is thus, that, when we have learned, on the infallible authority of inspiration, that the Lord Jesus Christ is himself Very God, and when we have learned from the same authority, the tremen¬ dous fact of His Atoning Sacrifice, we could collect (even were Scripture silent) the priceless value of the Atonement thus made; the wondrous humiliation therein involved ; the unspeakable love it exhibited ; the mysteriously awful guilt of sin ; which would again reflect a gloomy light upon the equally mysterious eternity of 'punishment :—and similar deductions of im¬ mense practical importance. These would be just and legitimate developments of Christian doctrine. But in truth, as our own liability to error is extreme, especially when immersed in the holy obscurity (“ the cloud on the mercy-seat”) of such mysteries as these, we have 58 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. reason to thank God that there appear to be few doc¬ trinal developments of any importance which are not from the first drawn out and delivered on divine autho¬ rity to our acceptance. Or again—to take another instance, the evidence of which the Author of the work before me has most lamentably laboured to involve in doubt and perplex¬ ity : —When Three Beings are, on divine authority, represented to us as acting with mysterious, but real, distinctness of operation, yet each possessing the attri¬ butes of supreme Godhead—that Godhead which is, and can be, but one—we can scarcely be said to “ de¬ velop, 7 ’ we do little more than express these combined truths, when we acknowledge, and bend in adoration before, the Ever-Blessed Trinity. And we can easily perceive, that wherever or whenever there may have been, or is, any difficulty in arriving at this truth, it is not as if in the nature of things this truth could be had only by long processes of conjecture and slow succes¬ sive contemplation,—it is not as if after it had been revealed in Holy Writ, men must err and stumble on the road to receive it, and pass through a discipline of centuries before they can arrive at admitting that Fa¬ ther, Son, and Holy Spirit are One God ; but simply from the fact (granting for a moment any such supposed or imputed charge of error), that the numerous and melancholy causes that impede the perception of valu¬ able truth in so many other departments of human knowledge, may be conceived more or less to have operated in this, incomparably the most precious of all. Or again—to come somewhat nearer the favourite region of false and spurious “development 77 —when we LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 59 remember the Divinity of Christ, combined in one per¬ sonality with His manhood, at His Incarnation through the Holy Virgin, we can readily deduce (with the An¬ gel) that she was indeed eminently “ blessed among women,” or (with herself) that she ought fitly to be “called blessed” by “all generations.” We cannot deduce by exactly the same process, that that blessed Person has been for eighteen centuries the “ Queen of Heaven,” exalted above every created thing, and to be worshiped with the veneration due to a being possess¬ ing all of Godhead, except its absolute infinity, as Mr. Newman proclaims (p. 406), that she is (as the present Bishop of Borne not long since declared, from the inmost sanctuary of infallible truth), “ Our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope !” s I have thus instanced what may exemplify legitimate “ intellectual developments.” Such justly carry autho¬ rity, for such bring with them their own credentials. To make such comparisons and conclusions with accu¬ racy, is, doubtless, a fruit of divine favour, blessing the just researches of faith (Prov. ii. 4, &c.); to perceive some of them more prominently than others, may be the characteristic of different ages or crises in the his¬ tory of theology, and unquestionably has ever been the object of a very special providence in the divine go¬ vernment of the Church*; to receive such conclusions with practical effect.on heart, spirit, and life, is above all, the peculiar and supernatural gift of God ; but as s Encyclical Letter, 1832. 1 I presume I need scarcely remind any reader of the numberless fine and profound suggestions on this interesting topic, that abound in the Remains of the late Mr. Knox. 60 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. truths of theology, evolved from its revealed principles, such developments are, in all cases, since the close of the Canon of Scripture, commended to us, through the ministry of enlightened and sanctified reason. 2. The other class I have called “ Practical Deve¬ lopments” of Christianity ; the innumerable instances which are furnished in the history of the Church, of the effects of revealed truth upon individuals, nations, man¬ ners, laws, institutions, and the like. These form a profoundly interesting subject of meditation ; beyond all doubt their course, whether in purity or corruption, is (like the former) under the special and over-ruling government of providence ; doubtless too, they fre¬ quently suggest valuable rules of Christian discipline, valuable results of Christian experience, noble exam¬ ples of Christian fortitude ; nay, sometimes tend, to a cautious, careful, and reverential inquirer, to throw some light upon God’s own purposes, and correct falla¬ cious anticipations as to his designs"; but they can have, simply as historical events, no authority in matter of faith, and they are utterly inadequate to warrant new articles of belief. The reason is abundantly obvious from what I have already observed in introducing them. In the production of every such “ practical develop¬ ment,” there are two elements conjointly at work, the u I would venture to refer to a Letter in this Journal (occasioned by some acute objections to a Visitation Sermon), in, I think, the latter part of 1842, or beginning of the following year, merely as helping to illustrate what I mean by this clause, which I have now no space to expand. [This Letter is reprinted in the volume of Sermons of Professor Butler, published some months ago.] LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 61 truth, which is divine, and the recipient, who is hu¬ man : the conclusion cannot be stronger than the weaker premiss ; the result (which is the development itself) cannot be trusted. That men in high authority in the Church have felt, after the lapse of centuries, ever and anon, a tacit, growing tendency (such as Mr. Newman so seductively pourtrays) to incorporate some new tenet into the primitive system of belief, can persuade us to credit their “tendencies,’ 7 only when we believe these men to have possessed the purity and the intelligence of angels. And if we are to argue from the analogy of providential dispensations in general, it is certain God never yet sent a gift into the world which man did not deteriorate in the using it. The treatment of Him who was to us the Gift of all perfec¬ tions embodied in one, is but the master instance of an universal principle ; the primeval revelation of Para¬ dise was corrupted; the patriarchal truth was corrupt¬ ed ; the Jewish religion was corrupted (and what ap¬ parently absolute promises of infallible guidance had Israel !); human reason and conscience, a sort of inte¬ rior revelation, are perpetually corrupted. To deny the analogy in the one case now before us, is to assume the Roman infallibility, which cannot, of course, be ad¬ mitted without distinct and separate proof; and which, in point of fact, is absolutely inconsistent with the long course of previous weakness, uncertainty, and error, which the theory of development supposes. But some one of these admitted innovations on the primitive belief and practice is, we will suppose, “ a practical development” of comparatively early growth, is of very general prevalence, is of very long continu- 62 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IT. ance ; have we not, in these characteristics of an inno¬ vation, some proof of its claims to being a genuine pro¬ duct of Christian principles and doctrines ? The ob¬ servations just made at once answer the question. It is manifest that if there are principles capable of deve¬ lopment in Christianity, there are parallel principles, equally capable of development, in frail and erring human nature. Both elements are busy in the history of the Church of Christ; and we have, first, and before we can concede one tittle to the demand, sternly and rigo¬ rously to determine, by appeal to some extrinsic stan¬ dard, of which is the innovation a product ? When the advocate of certain admitted innovations found in the Roman theology, pleads the universality or long con¬ tinuance of these errors as establishing their claim to the dignity and authority of truth, he commits the astonishing oversight of forgetting that the identity of human nature, and hence the similarity of human weak¬ nesses, already furnish an abundant ground for antici¬ pating the very result he pleads. “ Christianity,” he cries, u must itself tend to this result, for it has done so, soon, and generally, and for a long period.” “ Hu¬ man nature,” I reply, “ is inherently apt to lead to this result, and therefore we need not marvel that it has done so, soon, and generally, and for a long period.” “I undertake,” proclaims Mr. Newman, “ to account for these novelties (for I fully admit them to be such) out of the original fact of Christianity.” “ I undertake” (his critic will be permitted humbly to reply) “ to ac¬ count for them with infinitely more probability, illus¬ trated by the very history of the innovations themselves, and supported by a host of analogies in every other LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 63 department of religious history since the Fall, out of the inherent tendencies of human nature.” “ I will vindicate them,” declares the new theorist, “ out of Christianity, a fact absolutely unique in the world’s his¬ tory, and from its leading Idea (which I confess it is presumptuous for any man to profess to master).”— “ And I,” is the reply, “ will show them to be the mani¬ fest growth of that human nature with which every man is familiar every hour of his life, and of which all the volumes of all history are but repositories of the true and unquestionable developments.” This is the first stage of the pleadings ; no equitable judge will deny that the rejoinder is full, fair, and to the point : issue, therefore, must now be joined, and the question as to the real source of the innovation determined by appealing at once to some standard of truth distinctfrom either party s allegation, separate, and incorruptible. Nor could the pleader deserve for one moment the atten¬ tion of the tribunal to which he addresses his argument, should he refuse to advance beyond his first position, and, in the fancied security of his own private and ar¬ bitrary hypothesis, call aloud and at once for the judg¬ ment of the court in his favour. For example,—Man—and, above all, southern Man —has a strong tendency to a sensuous religion; no fact is, on the whole, authenticated by a more universal experience. The need is provided for in exactly the right degree by Him Who “ knew what was in man,” in the original draft of Christianity. But it is antecedently most improbable that, without direct divine interposi¬ tion (of course not to be assumed at this stage of the argument), the mass of men will limit themselves ac- 64 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. curately within the appointed boundaries. If, then, this tendency begin, in some form or other, early to shew itself, it is precisely what we might anticipate ; for the tendency was latently present, even when most restrained. If it begin generally to show itself, unhap¬ pily it is equally what we might expect; for the ten¬ dency was not that of one man or two men, but of Human Nature itself; and, as before observed (for it is most important), specially and peculiarly of the sec¬ tion of human nature—the countries, clime, and people in which the holy religion was first propagated, and which thence exercised so remarkable and almost ne¬ cessary an influence upon all its subsequent history among other races—the imaginative, symbolizing, pomp- loving children of the South. If the tendency continue long to operate, we can surely be just as little surprised, for it has a ground in man as permanent as his imagi¬ nation and feelings. Not to insist at present upon the obvious solution for the duration of all such unhappy phenomena in the fact, that the great Catholic principle of adhering to wliat has once been fixed and transmitted, which, in the fundamentals of faith, has ever been so invaluable a protection to every branch of the Church, must work to perpetuate circumstantial error, when such has unfortunately gained currency, and has se¬ cured the authority of commanding names. No universality , no permanence of admitted innova¬ tion, therefore, can simply, and of itself, authorize it. It may give a claim to respectful inquiry—no more. Whatever is not originally contained in the standard of truth, whatever ivas confessedly unnecessary to mail's salvation or spiritual well-being from the first, must make LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 65 good its claim upon other grounds than its existence ; and it is as justly liable to that demand at its twentieth century as at its first. Examples of the utter feeble¬ ness of a claim to absolute authority on such a basis, are innumerable ; the only difficulty is in selection. Take one—prominent and universal. What is all Idolatry but a corruption of primitive revelation ; a “ development” that, doubtless, began (for in religious belief, as in practical morality, nemo repente fit turpissi- mus ) exactly as the melancholy parallel “development” began in Christianity,—and was, we know, defended by the wiser heathens on precisely the same plea ;—a corruption early , general , permanent; —for it began in the infancy of the world ; it has, at one time or other, covered its whole surface, and to this day retains most of it; and it has in its favour a prescription of near six thousand years. What can the worship of Januarius or Dominic, the half-adoring invocation of men whose very salvation is too often doubtful, the prostration before the theatrical Virgins and imaginary relics of the religion of Italy and Spain, offer to our acceptance in comparison with the venerable antiquity—the “chro¬ nic continuance,” as Mr. Newman would style it—of idolatry itself ? Nor let men attempt to evade this by urging (comp. pp. 62, 63, &c.), that in this instance the “ development” proved itself a corruption by destroying the original; it did not, and in the case of cultivated heathens very seldom does, destroy the original belief of a single Supreme God. In all the long succession of heathen wisdom, from its earliest dawn in the twi¬ light of profane history up to the present hour,—up to the living sages of India and China, and the wild men F 66 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. of the western forests,—the recognition has ever, more or less directly, been preserved of a Great Spiritual Being who has graciously manifested Himself in these delegates of His omnipotence, and in their “ sacred images.” Even mere unassisted oral tradition, backed by the unconquerable affirmations of natural reason, has effected this ; can we in the least degree wonder that the corrupt element should exist side by side with the revealed truth without destroying or absorbing it, in a case where that original truth is everywhere af¬ firmed in the primary documents of the Beligion, and in fact, from the very nature of the Beligion, must con¬ tinue to be involved and assumed in its very existence —an existence guaranteed by the express promise of its Founder ? At the same time,—how far in Boman Christianity the corruption has eventuated in practi¬ cally superseding the rights of the supreme God, by intercepting the tribute of trusting and dependent af¬ fection due to Him from His children, wasting those precious impulses upon imaginary human mediators of intercession and even of grace, and thus reserving for the Heavenly Father only that residue of distant awe and terror that can reach Him after all the tenderness and confidence of the heart have been lavished away upon the intermediate agents between Him and His,— how far, especially among the mass of the people (learned divines have securities of their own in the very nature of their studies), in purely Bomish coun¬ tries, this is the case, it would indeed be very painful to dwell on, but, I fear, far too easy to determine. And now let me come closer to the exposition and the defences of the new theory. LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 67 Though Mr. Newman takes judicious care to eman¬ cipate himself from the bonds of the received logic of philosophical theory (pp. 179, 180), he must not be surprised if in a matter which involves the faith and peace of millions, his critics refuse to accompany him into those licenses of conjecture which his rhetorical skill would artfully substitute for the old-fashioned process of proving facts, and thence deriving princi¬ ples. I shall, therefore, in despite of his very natural disclaimer of the severity of the Baconian method, take the liberty of observing that his system violates every one of its rules of genuine philosophical proof, without a single exception. To bring the whole series of his logical offences to a head; his Principle is an invention, and—his Facts cannot be reduced under even that invented principle. What is his Principle ? It is the hypothesis, that God intended to reveal dogmas of overwhelming im¬ portance, only by degrees to His Church; in such a sense as that later centuries, by the mere process of dwelling on the primitive creed, and the insensible operation of moral feeling, were to find their way to a large body of most momentous speculative and practi¬ cal doctrine, of which the bishops, martyrs, and whole body of the faithful of the first ages, were wholly, or almost wholly, ignorant. What are his Facts to be explained by this principle? The special doctrines and practices of Komanism; its worship of the Blessed Virgin, Saints, and Angels— its religious prostration before images of wood and stone—its purgatorial fire—its gradual formation of a f 2 68 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. despotic spiritual monarchy—and the rest; all of which, he informs us, can be easily developed by pa¬ tient reflection and moral sensibility, out of the religion of the New Testament and the first Churches. The former of these assertions,—for this must first occupy our attention,—is not only a mere creation of the fancy, but is encompassed with manifold and ma¬ nifest difficulties. Mr. Newman, indeed, endeavours (of course) to prepare his way, by arguing the antece¬ dent probability of such developments in Christianity, in a chapter (pp. 94-114) to which I have already alluded. But not one of his arguments really reaches the required mark. For instance—“ Christianity is a fact, and can be made subject-matter of the reason.”— It is seen in “ aspects” that must vary to different per¬ sons ; and must, as a living, influential thing, “ expand” in the mind.—Again, we are told that it is an universal religion, and must have great varieties of local appli¬ cation.—Again, its peculiar phrases, such as “ the Word of God,” require much thought; and many de¬ duced and connected considerations will gather round mysterious expressions like these.—Again, there are very interesting questions not solved in Scripture— the Canon of Scripture, Sin after Baptism, the Inter¬ mediate State, and the like.—Again, Prophecy was a progressive thing, the Mosaic history was so, and our Lord’s sayings are remarkably brief and pregnant.— Again, the style of Holy Scripture is such that “ of no doctrine whatever , which does not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it be peremptorily as¬ serted, that it is not in Scripture!” (p. 110). Once more : Scripture itself proclaims Mr. Newman’s theory LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 69 in the parable of the Mustard Seed, and the Seed sown, and the Leaven. Now, I request the reader to recall the observations made above on the two classes, or senses, of real deve¬ lopment ; and I ask him, is there a single one of these considerations, giving them all the weight they can possibly claim, which establishes more than I have already abundantly conceded? Indeed, the accom¬ plished Author himself at times admits it. When he would, in this very chapter, describe how theological questions have arisen and been settled, he observes that in such cases “ the decision has been left to time, to the slow process of thought, the influence of mind upon mind, the issues of controversy, and the growth of opinion”—p. 99 w . Does Mr. Newman really sup¬ pose that any one denies the existence of such processes in the history of the Church, and of the heresies that have assailed or infested it? Were this the only ques¬ tion at issue, between what two individuals who had ever read a volume of any elementary Church history could there be a difference about it ? Or, if this were a fair account of his real theory, how could the very arguments that are used to refute it escape being its verification ? Truly, Mr. Newman must effect some¬ thing more for his adopted cause than thus elaborately prove what nobody denies, and then pass off this weighty conclusion for the proof of his real but un¬ manageable thesis. If his object be to demonstrate w u Argument implies deduction , that is, development ”—p. 97* Mr. Newman will, unquestionably, number a large sect ol disciples, if every man who holds that a theological deduction can be made, is to be regarded as a votary of “ the theory of development.” 70 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IT. that various theological questions have been raised and settled by discussion, and often by laborious, and animated, and protracted discussion, he is not likely to meet many adversaries. It has assuredly been the will of God that reasonable creatures should duly em¬ ploy their reason on His Divine Religion ; nor is any legitimate conclusion of the reason unacceptable to Him who gave the faculty that made it. No conclu¬ sion, that, by any reach or grasp of thought, can be logically deduced from the matter of faith as originally revealed, do we refuse. What we do refuse,—and refuse as the very principle of all the extravagances of fanatical heresy, as (so to speak) the very logic of enthusiam,—is the position, that doctrines unknown to the primitime creed of the Church, nay the know¬ ledge of actual facts in the realm of Spirits (as Pur¬ gatory or the Saints’ power of hearing prayer), were to be gained by processes, avowedly not ratio cinative, but emotional , impulsive , spontaneous; that men charged with the awful responsibility of guarding and ex¬ pounding God’s Truth were not logically to infer, but infallibly to feel; and to “feel” not merely moral con¬ victions, but downright physical facts, actual pheno¬ mena of the invisible world!—What we do yet further assert—we, “insulated” and heretical Anglicans—on behalf of the insulted Catholicity of primitive saints and martyrs, is, that no truth of the importance which the special Roman Dogmas , if true , must possess , was un¬ known from the beginning; that no doctrine granted to be thus unknown for ages, can now, on pretence of subsequent discovery, be pressed on the belief of all Christians on pain of everlasting damnation. LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 71 Any appeal to Holy Scripture, however vague, tran¬ sitory, and fanciful, has a claim to respectful attention. Mr. Newman alleges the analogy of the prophetic reve¬ lations. In every possible point of view the analogy fails. Prophecy was essentially mysterious and enig¬ matical ; doctrinal teaching was meant to be plain and intelligible. Prophecy was usually to grow in clear¬ ness as it advanced to the event, and there alone to find its full explanation ; but what imaginable ground is there for assuming that doctrinal exposition was thus to postpone its purport to the distant future ? The excellence, the adaptation of the doctrine would, indeed, perpetually receive new illustration as it ex¬ tended through peoples and ages; but the very marvel of its perfection, the growing authentication of its high celestial birth, would consist in the wondrous fitness by which, itself substantially unchanged, it matched itself to every race and people, transmuting them into its own likeness, not moulding itself after their carnal wants and wishes. Alas ! had the wilfulness of man always recognised this great office and high supremacy of Divine truth, should we have had such instances of the “development” of God’s awful Word, as are cited with approbation in the chapter before me,—“ develop¬ ments” which, by whatever weight of individual autho¬ rity they be recommended, God grant the conservators of His Truth grace ever to denounce with indignation and scorn,—“ Praise the Lord in Plis saints,” as a com¬ mand to worship men ; “ Adore his footstool’’ x , as a x “ Adorate scabelJum Ejus,” Ps. xcix. 5. Better “at—towards —His footstool.” It is thought to refer to the divine manifestation in the Jewish sanctuary. 72 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. command to fall down and literally worship in His honour the lifeless matter He has made! As to the parables which Mr. Newman cites, I hope it can hardly be necessary to observe how utterly they are perverted from their true signification to the profit of his theory of doctrinal innovation ; parables which manifestly shadow forth the spread of the Gospel among the na¬ tions of the earth, or in their internal application sym¬ bolize its gradually pervading and transforming power upon the souls of those who embrace it. But as the topic of scriptural proof has come before us, I can scarcely avoid, though I ought perhaps to apologise for, recommending to Mr. Newman’s medita¬ tion, in contrast to the convincing instances just quoted of what he styles “ the Church’s subtler and more pow¬ erful method of proof (p. 323) by mystical interpreta¬ tion, such unfortunately clear (and therefore, of course, miserably feeble and inconclusive) testimonies con¬ cerning his system as St. Paul’s memorable affirma¬ tions : “I kept back nothing that was profitable “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God ” “ I have showed you all things “ We use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his facebeing “ not rude in knowledge, we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things “ Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached—than that ye have received —let him be ac¬ cursed.” “ Keep that which is committed to thy trust.” “Hold fast the form of sound words —that good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost;” “ The things which thou hast heard of me the same LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 73 commit unto faithful men “ Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned “ Be not carried about with divers and strange (gem*?) doctrines/' Or St. John’s, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all thingsor the Lord’s own solemn pro¬ mise, “ the Comforter shall teach you all things “ the spirit of truth will guide you into all truth expressions which, to plain people, may possibly ap¬ pear somewhat inconsistent with the doctrine, that they who were thus “ taught all things,” and who “ kept back nothing” of what they were taught, left it to future centuries, to the prelates and monasteries of the middle ages, to discover and declare articles of transcendent importance to the very substance, and the whole practical operation of Christianity. Upon the obvious question which here arises, and which, indeed, must be one of the earliest to occur to every reader,—how far the Apostles themselves are held in this system to have known the developments of modern Romanism?—Mr. Newman delivers himself as follows, which is the only distinct reference I can remember to the subject in his entire volume: “The holy Apostles would know , without words, all the truths concerning the high doctrines of theology, which con¬ troversialists after them have piously and charitably reduced to formulas, and developed through argu¬ ment.”—p. 83. And he then proceeds, as if somewhat afraid of so delicate an inquiry, to talk about the knowledge St. Justin and St. Irenceus “might” have of (it is one of the usual artifices of his rhetoric to class such things toge¬ ther) Purgatory or Original Sin. Meanwhile the above 74 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. sentence affords all the light Mr. Newman is pleased to furnish us as to his views of St. Paul’s knowledge of the propriety of invoking, in religious worship, St. James after his martyrdom ; or St. John’s conceptions of the duty of depending for his “ entire hope,” with Pope Gregory XVI.,upon the boundless influence in Heaven of her whom he “ took unto his own home or St. Pe¬ ter’s notions of the absolute supremacy of himself, and of a line of prelates professing to occupy his place; or St. Matthew’s thoughts about the utility of bowing in “ relative adoration” before wooden images of deceased men and women. The Apostles would know all these things “ without words.” But now, if the Apostles not only “ woidd know”— a form of expression which I do not pretend precisely to understand — but really did know these things, it may be permitted me, without presumption, to ask, on what conceivable ground is their silence regarding them to be explained ? Their love of souls was unquestionable; the practical importance of the doctrines in question, if true, was equally so. If souls elect, saved, forgiven, are, after death, to be tortured for thousands of years in Purgatorial flames, and depend for their sole chance of alleviation or release upon masses on earth, how in¬ comprehensible was the abstinence of earnest, loving Paul (knowing all this thoroughly) from any allusion to the necessity of such helps for these wretched spi¬ rits ! If the invocation of the Blessed Virgin be one of the chief instruments of grace in the Gospel, how inexplicable that, in all the many injunctions of prayer and supplication, no syllable should ever be breathed of this great object of prayer ; on the contrary, that LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 75 numerous apparent implications should occur of the sole and exclusive right of the Deity to such addresses! If the Bishop and Church located at the city of Rome were, by Divine appointment, ever to carry with them a gift of infallible guidance to itself and all Churches in their communion,-—how utterly inconceivable that the Apostles, knowing this, above all that St. Peter himself, the conscious fountain of all this mighty stream of living waters ordained to flow to the end of time should, while constantly predicting the growth of here¬ sies, the prevalence of false knowledge, the glory of steadfastness in the faith, never, even by incidental al¬ lusion, refer to this obvious, safe, immediate security against error ! And so of the rest. Nor let Mr. Newman here interpose with the dictum of that great divine, whom, I fear, he rather affects to quote than loyally follows 57 , “We are in no sort judges y There is something, to me, unspeakably melancholy in the re¬ peated and respectful mention that occurs in this volume of Bishop Butler. Bishop Butler ! between whom and his still lingering dis¬ ciple there is now, in that disciple’s estimation, a barrier fixed everlasting as eternity; whom, with all his early associations ol veneration for one to whose deep sayings no thoughtful mind was ever yet introduced, for the first time, without acknowledging the period an epoch in its intellectual history, he must now regard as, after all, a poor benighted dreamer, falling ever and anon upon fragments of truth, and binding them together into the illusory harmony to which alone heresy can ever attain; in reality inferior for spiritual vision to the paltriest inditer of “ Devotions to the Heart of Mary,” or the most verbose schoolman that ever compiled his page of indistinguishable distinctions 1 Thoughts like these would lead me far. What a horrible confusion ot all the standaids of true and false, valuable and worthless, yea, even right and wrong, must be produced in any consistent mind by the unfortunate step 76 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. H. of how a revelation would be made.” Mr. Newman cannot, with any argumentative justice, first violate that just and profound maxim by assuming the way in which the revelation was made (namely, in his own way of so-called development), and then retreat behind the principle he has disregarded, in order to shelter him¬ self from the manifest improbabilities of his own arbi¬ trary scheme. No; let the truth be plainly spoken. Mr. Newman knows well the Apostles knew none of these things. And yet, by no human ingenuity can it be proved that these things were not as needful to be known at first as they could ever be. By no art can it be shown that, if real, they must not ever have been among those “ things profitable” of which St. Paul declares he kept back none. By no subtlety can the ignorance of such things be reconciled with the express promise of Him who was Himself substantial truth, that the Spirit should lead His Apostles into all truth. And now see, on this supposition that the Apostles had no real knowledge of these doctrines, how the case stands between Anglican antiquity and Roman develop¬ ment. The English Church, it appears, is content to believe as Paul and John believed ; as those believed who heard and transmitted their teaching ; as those who followed them for centuries (equitable allowance made for necessary change of circumstances, for mere private opinions, for incidental fashions, and even that allowance requisite, in a very trifling degree, for at least a period more than equal to our own distance this gifted but mistaken man has taken, and would seduce others to take! LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 77 from the Reformation), expounded and delivered the original belief. Rome, on the other hand, must , on the new theory, maintain that the Gospel, imperfect in the hands and hearts of Paul, and Peter, and John, has since their day advanced in purity, perfection, complete¬ ness ; that men in the mediaeval monasteries, literally and in all the fulness of the phrase, understood and unfolded it better than the disciples of inspired Apos¬ tles, better than inspired Apostles, better than—I pause. There is a great future event, of which it is written, that neither the angels know it nor the Son of Man. There was a sense in which the knowledge of the Son of Man was progressive. He grew in wisdom and sta¬ ture 2 ; He “ learned obedience tie was “ perfected through sufferings and, having suffered, was thence qualified to help them that suffer. There was a sense in which the believers on Him were to do even “greater works” than He. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (the Church’s inspirer) was to be a more fearful crime than that against the Son of Man. There is a Christian communion in which it has been gravely maintained, and formally decreed a , that a man, in the z “ The Church,” says Mr. Newman, to illustrate its development, “ grows in wisdom and stature”—p. 96. Is my application unwar¬ rantable after this suggestion ? a The Liber Conformitatum (between S. Francis and the Lord), in which this was done, was solemnly approved by the Chapter of Assisi, in 1390,* and was for a long period a performance of un- * [Aug. 2, 1399. The author was Barth. Albizi, or De Albizis, (Lat. Albicius,) who was surnamed De Pisa. The words of the Approbation of this woi'k by the general Chapter of the Franciscan Order may be seen in L'Alcoran des Cordeliers , Tome i. 78 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. thirteenth century, surpassed the Lord himself; a fact which may at least be admitted to indicate a tendency. Considering the mysterious but manifest distinction which the Incarnation, as unfolded in the Gospel his¬ tory, involves, between that Godhead in which Christ was equal to the Father, and that manhood in which He was to the Father inferior, men of less ingenuity than the author before me might extend his theory somewhat further than he has yet ventured to carry it. Apostolic inspiration and knowledge once undervalued, who shall protect from dishonour unspeakable the at¬ tainments of the Son of Man Himself—the Teacher of those half-illumined Apostles, the Inspirer of that im¬ perfect inspiration ? If the development of Gospel in Epistles (p. 102) be the adequate justification of the development of the middle centuries from the primi¬ tive, who shall say that the reason, mode, and process of improvement were not the same ; or, rather, is it not strongly insinuated that they ivere ? The Ger¬ many where Mr. Newman found the seeds of his theory will also supply him with its.fruits. But here I must, for the present, cease. Let me recapitulate. Mr. Newman’s system, we have seen, to restricted circulation and popularity. This is the Church whose advocate, in the volume before me, charges us with being called by the names of men ! p. 344. A Amst. 1734. It may be added, that this last-named book is the French version, with additions, by the Genevan printer Conrad Badius, (the volumes were afterwards illustrated with Picart’s plates,) of the original, Der Barfusser Munch Eulenspiegel und Alcoran , 1531, which was composed by Erasmus Alberus of Bran¬ denburg ; not Alhertus , as he is styled by Gesner, Simler, Oudin, Bayle, Du Pin, and others_G.] LETT. II.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 79 be even nominally a theory, must consist of two ele¬ ments ; the supposition of real and important doctrinal innovation in the Christian Creed to be attained in the way of development; and the attempt to reduce the peculiarities of Romanism under a developing process. The latter of these points I have, as yet, scarcely touched at all; on the former I have offered you some observations in this paper, and more remain. But we must remember that that supposition of development (as I have already intimated) does not stand alone ; it is conjoined with another supposition —infallible guid¬ ance for the Roman Church in the developing process. Nor can Mr. Newman’s hypothesis, in its full integrity, be understood without combining them both. I shall do so, and it will then remain for me to show you (as concerns this first division of his general argument) that not only is the supposition of development (in Mr. Newman’s sense of it) itself gratuitous, unsup¬ ported, improbable—as, I think, we may have already in some degree collected—but that, when united to the notion of constant infallibility, the theory adds to these characteristics the further attributes, partly, of assum¬ ing, in the most important stage of the whole argument, the very point to be established—partly, of involv¬ ing, even after the assumption has been made, direct and manifest self-contradiction. Such, unless I have strangely misconceived the purport of Mr. Newman’s own exposition, may that theory be shown to be before which the theology of England is to crumble into dust; and which has certainly been attractive enough to re¬ place that theology in the convictions of one of the 80 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. II. most accomplished, if not always the most judicious, of its expounders. Certainly such a case as this is not without its lesson to us all. With what renewed caution, with what re¬ verent dread of substituting in matters of religion our imaginations for divine ideas, our wishes for God’s will, ought we to walk—we ordinary men—when the spectacle is here presented to us of a man such as this, of genius the most brilliant, subtle in reason, affluent in fancy, prompt, various, and versatile in the use of all the mental powers, diligent too, and eager in the pur¬ suit of knowledge, industrious in moulding and re¬ producing it in all the forms of literary labour ; thus, in the very restlessness of his own high gifts, abandon¬ ing a faith which even he himself can hardly avoid implying to be a closer copy than his adopted creed of the belief with which Paul and Peter went to martyr¬ dom,—and abandoning it to risk his own salvation, and that of the numbers his personal influence and autho¬ rity can sway, upon the solidity of a phantom like the theory I have been exposing—it being a most awful but inevitable fact, that if this daring theory be not true, he has, in the very conditions and construction of it, completely cut off his own retreat upon any other! I remain, my dear Sir, Your’s faithfully, W. Archer Butler. LETT. Ill ] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 81 LETTER III. Dear Sir, The hypothesis of Mr. Newman in reality consisting in the assumption that the mere his¬ torical eventuation of dogmas in a certain particular division of the Christian Church, is a sufficient evi¬ dence of dogmatic truth , and a sufficient ground for the absolute authority of these dogmas over the belief and conscience of all mankind ; and its power of persua¬ sion consisting almost wholly in a dexterous substitu¬ tion of this mere historical eventuation—or, at best, of some imaginary connecting process of moral and emo¬ tional impulse—for plain logical deduction ; he him¬ self soon saw that his hypothesis must ever be feeble and inadequate (indeed must differ in nothing, except its imposing garb of learning and research, from the most pitiful enthusiasm that ever bewildered igno¬ rance ) a , unless combined with the further supposition * The complete coincidence between Mr. Newman’s u moral deve¬ lopment,” and the ordinary ground on which enthusiastic separa¬ tists have ever vindicated their fantasies, it would not be very edifying, and, I presume, must be nearly unnecessary to evince by examples. No reader who has ever studied (surely one of the sad- G 82 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. III. of an infallible directive authority to govern the course of these vague spontaneous evolutions of doctrine.— dest chapters in the story of our race) the melancholy history of such leaders and their disciples, can require to be told that the substitution of vague impulse (under claim of divine direction too) for intelligible deduction, is the very basis of all fanaticism. But Mr. Newman’s sovereign alchemy of the “ sacramental principle” (by which, according to his exposition, p. 359—for so sacred an expression requires explanation in its new significancy—heathen and heretical extravagancies are suddenly transmuted into Church truths) will, of course, stand him in good stead in this strait. The doctrine itself of progressive development (we shall presently see it in its infidel aspect) is also no novel form of Christian heresy. Mr. Newman admits it is to be found in all its perfection, in the Montanism of Tertullian ; whom he censures solely, it would seem, for having arrived at perfection too soon (p. 351); for having am¬ bitiously presumed to be a mediaeval saint before his time: perfect excellence in the tenth century being palpable heresy in the second. Few of our author’s positions are more characteristically courageous than this. “ Equally Catholic in their principle, whether in fact or anticipation, were most of the other peculiarities of Montanism. The doctrinal determinations , and the ecclesiastical usages of the middle ages, are the true fulfilment of its self-willed and abortive at¬ tempts at precipitating the growth of the Church,” &c. &c. There is, by-the-by, a happy prophetic ambiguity in one of Tertullian's expositions of development,*whicli suits it perfectly to Mr.Newman’s Papal Montanism, and would form a good theme for his ingenuity of mystical interpretation. ( De Virgin , Veland, c. i.) “ Quoniam humana mediocritas omnia semel capere non poterat , paulatim dirige- * [Though Tertullian believed that Montanus was commissioned to perfect the Christian dispensation, it is evident that in the passage referred to lie is not speaking of him, but of the Holy Spirit, who, after the ascension of our Lord, was substituted in His place. The w r ords in the original are not “ Vicario Dei,” but “ Vicario Do¬ mini, Spiritu Sanctoand they relate only to the Saviour’s declaration, (S. John xvi. 12, 13.) “ I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Ilowbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.”—G.] LETT. III.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 83 (See p. 117, &c.) Had the ‘‘developments” for whose defence the theory was constructed, been logical de- retur, et ordinaretur, et ad perfectum perduceretur disciplina ab illo vie a rio dei” [tlie Paraclete]. “Summits Pontifex proclaims Innocent III., “ non hominis puri sed veri Dei Vicarius appellatur.” (Lib. i. Epist. 326, ad Faventin.)* [The original title having been “Vicarius PetriF which was gradually thus “developed,” and the former indignantly rejected.]j - Mr. Newman will also find some instructive exemplifications of his principle in the remains of the teaching of the spiritualist followers of the Abbot Joachim, and of Peter J. Olivi; whose highly philosophical developments enlight¬ ened the thirteenth century. It must be confessed, however, these resolute Franciscans^ were not content with the more decorous process of making Scripture speak their mind by “ mystical inter- * [Faventinus was not a man’s name, but signifies the Bishop of Faenza. Another Epistle of this same Pope, which is found in the Canon Law, ( Decret . Greg. IX. Lib. i. Tit. vii. Cap. Quanto personam.) contains the following similar decision: “Non enim homo, sed Deus separat, quos Rom. Pontifex (qui non puri hominis, sed veri Dei vi- cem gerit in terris,)” &c_G.] f [This observation has been taken from Gieseler: (ii. 254.) but though “ Christi Vicarius” is, as might be expected, among the fifty titles of honour assigned to the Pope by Bzovius, {Pont. Rom. Colon. Agripp. 1C19.) yet Bishop Barlow ( Brututn Fulmen , pp. 54-61.) has abundantly shown that there is no extraordinary peculia¬ rity nor “ Development” connected with this name. “We pray you in Christ's stead ” is the earnest language of S. Paul. (2 Cor. v. 20.) A Bishop, says S. Cyprian, ( Ep. lix.) is “Judex vice Christi;” and Firmilian (lxxv.) dwells upon the fact of episcopal succession from the Apostles “ ordinatione vicarid .” The Council of Trent itself assures us, that “ Dominus noster Jesus Cliristus, e terris ascensurus ad coelos, Sacerdotes Sui Ipsius Vicarios reliquit.” (Sess. xiv. De Poen. Cap. v.)—G.] [For the distinction of Petri et Christi Vicarius, see Allies, p. 231. “ The power of the Roman Pontiff in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, stood on a different basis from his power in the middle ages. The difference, perhaps, may be summed up by saying that in the former he was Vicarius Petri, in the latter Vicarius Christi; in the former he had a more or less defined Primacy, in the latter he laid claim to a com¬ plete Supremacy; he was exalted as a Monarch above his Councillors. A Primate is one idea, a Monarch is another. It seems to be the great tour de force of Roman writers to prove the second by the first.”] J [Joachim, Abbot of Flora in Calabria, was not a Franciscan, but of the Cister¬ cian Order.—G.] G 2 u ^ 84 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. III. ductions from revealed principles, and so, capable of approving themselves to candid reason, this, of course, could scarcely have been required ; they would, in that case, have vindicated themselves. But the actual Roman developments being too manifestly such as can claim little or no internal validity in preference to a hundred other conceivable forms of doctrine, it became abso¬ lutely necessary to warrant them by some constant ex¬ ternal authority; an authority which, at the same time, if it exist, renders the whole elaborate theory of deve¬ lopment superfluous, except as a matter of speculative curiosity. A Church absolutely infallible can need to vindicate its decisions otit of a theory of development no more than St. Paul would have needed to prove the resurrection of the body out of the books of Moses. Such theories as these, indeed, with whatever air of submissiveness propounded, are almost always in rea¬ lity the work of half-believing disciples of the systems pretation“ adveniente Evangelio Spiritus Sancti, evacuabitur Evangelium Christi,” is their decisive maxim.* (Eccardi Corp. Hist. Medii JEvi, ii. 850). It is certainly plainer speaking. * [Eymericus the Inquisitor has thus set down the entire sentence : “ Undecimus error, quod adveniente Evangelio Spiritus Sancti, sive clareseente opere Joachim, (quod ibidem dicitur Evangelium iEternum, sive Spiritus Sancti,) evacuabitur Evan¬ gelium Christi.” ( Director. Inquis. Par. ii. p. 189. Romae, 1578.) This writer and his annotator Pegna (p. 57.) concur in the ascription of the Evangelium JEternum , commonly attributed to the Abbot Joachim, (for whose Life, Acts, and Prophecies see Wolfius, Lectiones Memorabiles , i. 361-409. Francof. 1671.) to Joannes de Parma, an Italian Monk. It would appear certain, however, that the language above quoted belongs not to the original fantastic book, but to the Introduction to, or Ex¬ position of, it, which was condemned by Pope Alexander IV. in the year 1255, and has been since prohibited. Consequently the person upon whom censure must fall is the Franciscan Friar Gerhard. Vid. Quetif et Echard Scriptt. Ord. Freed, i. 202. Lut. Par. 1719. Moshemii Instt. Hist. Eccl. SaTi^ovmv, ‘ there are that affirm,’ and teach for doctrine, ‘ all marriage to be fornication,’ that is, utterly unlawful, ‘ and that it is brought in and delivered by 192 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IV. hibition was based by Siricius, by Innocent, by Gre¬ gory VII.; that their views on the Image and Picture Question are at palpable variance with Pome ; their “mystery” of Confirmation different, their “mystery” of Unction different;—not to enumerate their Infant Eu¬ charist and other peculiarities on which they are wont to contrast, and witli no small pride, their beliefs and doctrines with those of the Roman Communion. It is indeed only wonderful, that with their ignorance, their superstitious tendencies, and their constant exposure to powerful Western influences and example,they have retained even these remains of differences formerly wider and more pervading. the Devil.’ ”— Hammond on Tim. I. iv. 3. The Pontiffs alluded to in the text, in their injunctions of celibacy upon the clergy, seem to have approached the heresy of regarding the state of holy matri¬ mony as in se impure. “ Although,” says Dr. Todd, “ the Church of Pome has taken higher ground in her estimation of marriage than Protestants have done, inasmuch as she makes matrimony a sacra¬ ment, and its bond indissoluble; yet, it must be confessed that con¬ troversialists and mystics of that communion, in their zeal to defend the necessity of clerical celibacy, and the merit of virginity, have often expressed themselves as if they held marriage to he unclean. Thus the celibacy of the clergy is defended on the ground of the obligation of purity in them that minister in holy things, and the marriage state is spoken of as inconsistent with chastity. For ex¬ ample, Pope Innocent I., in his Letter to Exuperius, Bishop of Thoulouse ( Decret . Gratiani , p. 1, distinct. 82, c. 2, Proposuisti ), reasons thus : “ Nam si B. Paulus Apostolus ad Corinthios scribit, dicens, abstinete vos ad tempus ut vacetis orationi , et hoc utique laicis prsecepit; multo magis sacerdotes, quibus et orandi et sacrificandi juge officio est, semper debebunt ab hujusmodi consortio abstinere, qui si contaminatus fuerit carnali concupiscentia, quo pudore vel sacrificare usurpabit, aut qua conscientia quove merito exaudiri se credit, cum dictum sit, omnia munda munclis , coinquinatis auiem et LETT. IV.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 193 But omitting all inferior differences (though it is the very principle of Rome to admit none such to be com¬ patible with unity and salvation) let the reader restrict himself to such as are principal and undeniable ; nay, to the rejection of the Roman Unity alone; and let him ponder how this great Fact bears on the hypothesis before us. Here is a whole side of Catholic Christen¬ dom, a vast Church, ancient as Rome itself, and for a long period much greater in territorial extent, in num¬ ber of episcopates, and in reputation for sanctity and learning; the Church of innumerable recognised Saints and Martyrs ; the Church of all the General Councils injidelibus nihil mundum.”—Discourses on the Prophecies relating to Antichrist , p. 334. The same ground of enjoining celibacy, namely, the impurity of the married state, was advanced some years before by Pope Syricius: (Epistola Decretalis Syricii Papce ad Himerium Tarraconensem , Har- douin. Cone., Tom. i. fol. 849,) “ Plurimos enim Sacerdotes Christi atque Levitas, post longa consecrationis suae tempora, tarn de con- jugiis propriis, quam etiam de turpi coitu, sobolem didicimus procre- asse, et crimen suum hac praescriptione defendere, quia in Vetere Tes- tamento sacerdotibus ac ministris generandi facultas legitima attri- buta.... Hi vero qui illiciti privilegii excusatione nituntur ut sibi asserant veteri hoc lege concessum, noverint se ab omni ecclesiastico honore, quo indigne usi sunt, Apostolicae sedis auctoritate dejectos, nec unquam posse veneranda attrectare mysteria, quibus se ipsi, dum obscenis cupiditatibus inhiant, privaverint.” The same idea is perpetuated by Gregory VII., who speaks of the marriage of the clergy as “ inveteratum morbum fornicationis clericorum.”— Epist. ii. 30.] [Lib. ii. Epist. xxx. apud Binii Concill. Tom. iii. P. ii. p. 289. Colon. Agripp. 1618. — In this letter Pope Gregory VII. commends King Henry IV. for his endeavours to extirpate Simony, and for his anxiety to correct “inveteratum morbum fornicationis Clericorum.'” There is not any express mention of marriage.—G.] O 194 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IV. for a thousand years. This Church, it is strenuously asserted, was for a long period in general accordance with Rome ; or, in Mr. Newman’s phraseology, it was divinely brought through the same series of develop¬ ments, and thus manifested the same abiding spirit. If all these developments infer one another, and infer those that are to follow ; if they be all the members of one divine system ; if we are, on that ground, to be permitted no choice, but forced to embrace the whole or none ; if the “ historical” contemplation of Christia¬ nity is truly to tell us what it was meant to be, and the historical facts of the successive centuries are sufficient proof of obligatory doctrine,—I ask, in what conceiva¬ ble way is this great historical phenomenon to be ex¬ plained,—that a Church of this high and commanding character, possessing, quite as truly as Rome, the alleged infallible marks of divine guidance in the production of doctrine, developed (as they tell us), through exactly the same stages, and on exactly the same principles, as Rome itself, remains, and has remained through its entire history, utterly blind to the truth of several points made of momentous importance by Rome, and, above all, to that point on which the entire character and working of the Kingdom of Christ upon Earth is held to depend ! I do not hesitate to say, that this single consideration is absolutely fatal to the entire theory. The theory appeals to History, and History condemns and rejects it y . y The only reference I remember to this important subject in the “ Essay,” is comprised in the following words, in which the reader will admire the easy flexibility of the theory; the lion prostrates LETT IV.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 195 It is not often that History furnishes a true expert - mentum crucis. When two plausible hypotheses are alleged, it is not always that, in a field where we can only observe, not experimentalize, we can lay our hand upon some discriminating fact which pronounces deci¬ sively for the one and utterly excludes the other. But this seems a perfect instance of that rare and precious test. Observe how it applies. To explain certain facts in the history of Christianity two suppositions are ad¬ vanced. The one conceives that the Christian Creed was intended by its Founder to enlarge by successive incorporations of doctrines mutually connected and involved, and to form at last by these developments, internally necessary and inevitable, a harmonious sys¬ tem of organized truth ; and on the simple fact that doctrines have been incorporated, and that this hypo¬ thesis would make the incorporation legitimate, it de¬ mands our assent to the doctrines on pain of everlasting perdition. The other supposition, acknowledging that the fact of the existence of such doctrines and their gradual introduction, is historically true, is satisfied with conceiving that these doctrinal phenomena, in themselves no unlikely growth of human nature tam¬ pering with revealed teaching—may have been per¬ mitted by the same gracious Providence which has preserved the Church itself and the Fundamentals of Christianity in the world, but which has never pro¬ mised wholly to suspend the operation of human folly, his strongest antagonist with a casual sweep of the tail. “ Doctrine without its correspondent principle seems barren, if not lifeless; of which the Greek Church seems an instance .”—p. 72. This is to deter¬ mine Christianity “ historically.” o 2 196 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IV. and absolutely prevent all error from gaining influence in Ilis Church. Were Rome and England alone on the Earth, the rival suppositions might perhaps stand for a long while in presence of the facts ; the former pointing to her tenets and practices, as, though not di¬ rectly commanded in Holy Writ, yet the sure unerring results of the Christian spirit in the world ; the latter professing itself unable to trace this inevitable con¬ nexion, and lamenting to detect in the process—as it deems—much more of human than divine. But another Witness demands to have her depositions recorded. If the Roman development be, indeed, the genuine growth of certain primitive principles, that growth will be uniform ; and the further the alleged growth has ad¬ vanced, the more certainly may we count on the rest. If what the Anglican calls superstitions be but detach¬ ed yet intimately connected portions of a vast scheme of Catholicity, then, surely, wherever this scheme, in all its alleged principles, has grown up exactly in the same way as it has done at Rome, and still exists in all its vigour, there must the rest of the Catholicity infallibly appear; if not, the process is not one of internal, unerring development at all, and the other supposition [of the providential permission of error] at once takes its place as the true theory of the facts. On this principle let the Eastern Church be inspected. The history of this Greek Church furnishes one body of facts, which are said to identify its developments with those of Rome, and another which absolutely separates the two; those first phenomena which resemble cannot then be, in any internal, natural, or necessary way, bound up with these others that differ. To revert to the great difference LETT. IV.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 197 already noted,—it is manifest that the principle of Unity can have no true divine or necessary connexion with a Roman papacy, or how should it fail to develope thus in the Catholic East as well as in the Catholic West ? But “circumstances prevented it in the East.” Why then circumstances may have produced it in the West. Once admit the control of circumstances, and where will you limit it ? or how will you escape gradually resolving your hypothesis into the very one you op¬ pose, that is, into that simpler hypothesis of a special but permissive Providence which we Anglicans think quite sufficient to account for the facts ? Meanwhile, by these facts, test your theory. If the West be right, the East is involved in error most damnable and deadly; if the East be right, the West builds its whole Church system upon a gross and presumptuous falsehood ; either one or the other is fatally, mortally, in error ;— and yet both these divisions grew up under the same series of developments, both possess the unfailing marks of Catholic teaching and spirit—monks, paintings, pom¬ pous vestments, relics, stern anathemas against heretics (including each other), and the rest; and “the Ca¬ tholic developments” are all so exquisitely harmonious with each other, so intimately inwoven, so mutually correspondent, that the parts inevitably suppose the whole, nor can any Church enter into the spirit of some without being won to recognise the beauty and autho¬ rity of the rest ! The theory of Development, then, which supposes, if I understand this Book, an internal principle in the Church of Christ at large, evolving important truths by uniform processes, cannot stand the test to which it 198 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IV. so urgently appeals; it breaks down under—not recon¬ dite facts, but the most obvious and prominent fact in all Church History. That this mysterious growth of truth upon truth—this exosmose [exogenous] vegetation in Theology—should seem to answer for the history of the Roman Church, is indeed no great marvel; for it was imagined chiefly as a vindication of that particular Church’s corruptions. But it answers for no other. This, however, is a common mistake ; we have it in every form in the new converts’ vindications of their change. They all “ enter the Catholic Church.” No one, indeed, who remembers by what accidents (so to speak), and by how much of mere human policy, the religious profession of whole nations—papal and anti- papal—was determined at the great crisis of the Six¬ teenth Century, and how utterly incompetent the mass of Christians are to determine the matter upon argu¬ mentative grounds at all,—will regard the question of mere numerical majority of voices much more impor¬ tant in the modern balance of religions than it is in politics. But even on this ground these men strangely delude themselves and others. The proximity and the presumption of the Roman Communion unite to make men forget that—notwithstanding all the efforts of force and of intrigue—it is the Church of hardly half the nations of Europe, its predominance in these seem¬ ing (on the whole) to grow most remarkably in the inverse proportion of general intelligence and morality, and of such other imperfect colonies as—like other communions—it has continued to plant—in a great measure schematically and in defiance of recognised authority, elsewhere. It is of this forgetfulness that LETT. IV.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. ] 99 the present Author—himself no doubt the sincere en¬ thusiastic victim of the pretensions he would impose on others—takes advantage, when he substitutes a fond hypothesis about the Roman Papacy and peculiarities for a theory of the Universal Church. But we have now seen that even that more limited object the system cannot really effect; that that cannot be considered a divine, pre-ordained, and internally necessary develop¬ ment in one part of the Church, which under the same training and discipline is found totally to fail in another. To listen to the new converts—whose views, I must say, have really been somewhat too rapidly formed to give much promise of solidity—the Papacy is a sort of perpetual miracle that supersedes all further examina¬ tion of the religion it teaches. They repose under the quiet shadow of that everlasting throne. The true genius of history looks coldly upon these pompous mys¬ tifications. The permanence of the Roman patriarchate is in some respects less wonderful than that of almost any other in Christendom ; that is to say, History can more distinctly account for it than it can for most others. The permanence of the Church at large is indeed di¬ vinely secured; there is the miracle, if any; not in the continuance of one among the special forms in which the great promise has been fulfilled; though of course it is easy for dexterous declaimers thus to transfer the glory of the substantial truth to its circumstantial mani¬ festation. But the real lover of truth knows no such antecedent preferences. Having fixed his belief immu¬ tably upon that which alone is immutable, he can afford to survey the subsequent historical developments of Christianity with an interest deep indeed but unbiassed. 200 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. IV. God over all, and Events His ministers, lie sees ; and he sees both universally. Circumstances, under God’s high Providence, have moulded the religious history of the East ; circumstances have, under the same pre¬ siding Providence, formed the history of the West; circumstances, under a Providence still more auspicious and benign, have secured her purer Catholicity to an empire nobler than either includes. Greece, Rome, England, in inherent authority all perfectly on a level, by a Common Standard equally and immeasurably above them all, shall all three be one day tried! I feel that these disquisitions make a somewhat dis¬ proportionate demand upon your limited space. You would pardon me if you knew how much I purposely omit in order to abridge them. In selecting only what seem to me the simplest and most obvious illustrations of the hollowness of this system, I am at the same time well aware that I must be traversing ground familiar to its Author, and stating objections his sagacity cannot but have anticipated. Yet even he will excuse the critic who undertakes the humble task of directing public attention to difficulties for which, however ma¬ nifest they be, it is quite certain he has no where in this Volume provided the solution. The fervour of his attachment to the religious system to whose support this theory is dedicated may be such as to have con¬ sumed all these obstacles in its blaze ; Faith glories in such sacrifices ; and since it could not make any other terms with the Reason than these (for certainly this theory excludes all the ordinary and received Roman systems), may have been resolved to take the Triden¬ tine Creed even on this precarious hypothesis rather LETT. IV.] CHRISTIAN DCCTRINE. 201 than not at all. Faith, however, will not constitute argument, though it may supply the want of it; and those who have still command enough of their faculties to consider Romanism matter of reasoning, may be allowed to express their deliberate conviction that there is no solution for the palpable difficulties of this new scheme of the Christian Revelation, except such as will be found to involve additional assumptions as arbitrary as the old, and thus to complicate improbabilities in¬ stead of removing them. This may perhaps appear more evident in the obser¬ vations I hope to present in your next Number. I remain, my dear Sir, Yours faithfully, W. Archer Butler. 202 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. L E T T E R Dear Sir, I have spoken of the obvious applica¬ tions which open in all, even the most opposite, direc¬ tions, for those who adopt the hypothesis of a Develop¬ ing energy perpetually moulding the original principles of Christianity into new forms of doctrine. The religion of the New Testament, thus regarded as not so much a body of definite doctrine as a prolific “ Idea,” is of course equally visible in all the diversified products of that Idea ; it becomes a Genus branching into many Species, a Species capable of many Varieties ; mani¬ festing itself under endless modifications, even as the physiologist beholds a single fundamental Type govern¬ ing all the manifold organisms in each division of the animal and vegetable Kingdoms. It thus becomes diffi¬ cult to determine when the type begins to be lost, what degree of aberration will constitute a total departure from the Ideal of Christianity ; and it is a negation of the essential spirit and principle of the theory to affect to apply any rigorous test for discriminating among all the possible results of Christian teaching upon human minds. He who honestly accepts this theory of Reve- LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 203 lation, must feel that every such limitation is not only arbitrary, but contradictory ; to say that only one ele¬ ment, or group of elements, in Christianity, shall deve- lope, is in substance to retract the principle of Deve¬ lopment itself; to say that only one selected age and locality of Christianity shall exhibit the true unfolded Idea, is to deny the Idea any true unfolding power. It will not do to lay your foundation with the Sceptic, and build your superstructure with the Romanist! For the former, the religion “ must develope in some way;” and for the latter, “ it did develope in this ” Absurd and unwarrantable restriction ! Why not develope “ some ways ” as well as some way ? Why affirm that it did develope in this alone, when we all know it has in fact developed in twenty others ? How has the development of one century or one latitude, merely as such , the slightest internal prerogative over any other, past, present, or to come ? If Christianity be by divine promise everlasting and universal, and if this imaginary Development be the inseparable token of life, what antecedent prohibition is producible, which shall strike with sterility that Christianity, in one period or nation, whose pregnant womb is teeming with new and mul¬ tiplied and unexpected births in another? And then, to judge by their application, how sure, irrefragable, and instantaneous must be those “ tests,” how satisfac¬ tory a security for Christian Faith, which in this uni¬ versal competition of developments, are brought to discriminate between the legitimate offspring and the spurious: how confidently an inquirer can rest his sal¬ vation upon the unerring accuracy and easy application of the philosophical “ test” that at once pronounces the 204 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. devotion ofheart and soul to St. Mary, though unknown for centuries, to have been manifestly involved in the original Christian religion, and (for example) the An¬ glican Article on Justification to have been as mani¬ festly excluded as a palpable heresy! How safe a position for a Christian to occupy, to have the “ test” that does this the only barrier between him and infi¬ delity ! I have been, even within my own limited studies, too habituated to observe that, if men are often inferior, they are also sometimes very much superior to their own theories, to desire or presume to intrude any infe¬ rences whatever from the contents of this volume as to * Mr. Newman’s own mental history ; but, assuredly, this wdiole system might well be the system of a man whose Intellect was diseased with a radical tendency to Scepticism, while his better Heart owned the nobler necessity of Belief. However this may be, it is certain the system will never remain where he has placed it. He has brought, under Roman colours, the Rationalism of Germany among us; and though he may have forced the uncouth monster to labour at the Roman oar, he may rely there are those in England who will not be long in teaching the slave the secret of his strength, and the folly of his unnatural bondage. How it has come to pass that he has preferred to devote the ration¬ alistic principles of his book to the exclusive service of Romanism, is doubtless to be traced to circumstan¬ tial influences distinct from mere argument, of which, as so often happens, he is probably himself altogether unconscious. Perhaps strong imaginative impressions, —or exclusive habits of Roman theological reading, LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 205 which would naturally make Rome and its affairs at last occupy the whole field of vision,—or that quick sense of the imperfections a man sees, which is so often united to the most delusive credulity as to the imagined per¬ fections he does not see,—or again, the apparent sym¬ metry and completeness of the Roman theory (so like the artificial work of man, so unlike the vast half-seen dispensations of God),—or, above all, that very weari- • ness of a mind overwrought, which unfortunately, be¬ yond any other state, makes it at last the easy prey of whatever system talks loudest and will promise most : I say that some extrinsic influences of this kind (with¬ out venturing more than the humblest conjecture as to their possible nature) must have directed and con¬ trolled the current of his thoughts, because he has manifestly not given to his principles their natural and unconstrained development. The natural result of the theory of the perpetual evolution of new doctrine under new circumstances, is unquestionably,—in quiet tem¬ pers, an easy latitudinarianism, welcoming all forms of the Christian, and almost of any other, religion as alike acceptable to God, whose repose is in the meagreness of its belief, settled in their very unsettledness ;—in more ardent and energetic dispositions, a doctrine of the perpetual expansion and intended progressiveness of Christianity, such as has so long been fashionable in Germany. But to attempt on such a principle to vin¬ dicate a system which equally excludes both these con¬ ceptions of Christianity,—which fortifies itself against the former with a rampart of exclusive anathemas and all the apparatus of a theology that affects to leave nothing undefined—which, in the face of the latter, invokes the 20G ON THE DEVELOPMENT OP [LETT. V. Past (or what it thinks to be the Past) as its sole au¬ thority and absolute model of perfection, is an under¬ taking which really seems likely to prove little but the very undecided state of the mind that conceived it, and the pressing difficulties of a cause for which a Heart altogether devoted to its service could only extort from its subservient Intellect this strange contradictory jus¬ tification. I. It happens that the literature of Philosophy has for many years back abounded with a species of dis¬ quisitions which, as they may remotely have occasioned the rise of such a theory of Christianity as this, so also present the most vivid and varied exemplifications of its inherent uncertainty and danger. I allude to that multitude of elaborate treatises with which the German press—and, of later years, the French—has enriched the learned world on the History of Speculative Philo¬ sophy. The explorers of this interesting though intri¬ cate region of inquiry, make it of course their object to detect* as far as possible the leading Ideas in the ori¬ ginal conception of each system, and to trace the modi¬ fication of these ideas in the subsequent fortunes of the School. This is a perfectly legitimate subject of investigation ; and even when the positive results are scanty or doubtful, it enjoys the advantage which hap¬ pily belongs to all elevating studies, that in them the mere search is often more truly beneficial than palpable success in other inquiries. Nor indeed is this consola¬ tion superfluous ; for in truth these innumerable theo¬ rists of the history of Speculation seldom do coincide, except in fixing the most general features of the diffe¬ rent systems ; and many seem hardly to disguise.their LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 207 belief that it is vain to think of tracing the perpetuity of any one fundamental Idea in almost any succession, —nay in almost any individual, though his entire re¬ mains—of the ancient teachers. The causes of this discrepancy in results are obvious enough. 1. The original Idea or Ideas (supposing we can detect them), were usually very vague and undefined. 2. The sub¬ sequent teachers in the school being thus under the control not of a definite, unalterable scheme of doc¬ trine, but of these indefinite generalities, did themselves alter the doctrine they inherited, and that in direct proportion to their individual ability; so that it at last arrived at forms more or less irreconcileable with its first beginnings. 3. The very same writers sometimes appear to have themselves embraced inconsistent views, which give room for opposite theories as to their real opinions. 4. In some cases different schools arose out of one comprehensive teacher ; some of these being at first nearly eclipsed by their companions, and not till long after fully asserting their place. 5. While it is not the least of these sources of variance, that the modern explorers themselves do constantly, whether unconsciously or purposely, modify the old records so as to enlist them in the support of their own modern views.—These causes will operate in varying degrees; but it is evident that the main ground, both of the variation of the doctrines, and of the difficulty of reduc¬ ing them to any precise or uniform law of progress, will ever be the first I have named,—the fact that the Founder delivered to his pupils not any distinct scheme of unalterable doctrines (whenever he did pretend to do so the pretence being a failure, for the doctrines, 208 ON TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. being really unproved, remained essentially alterable), but a body of undefined though active and energetic “ Ideas/’ In other words, the reason why the elder philosophical schools were ever in fluctuation, and the determination of their fundamental principles remains to this day obscure and contested, was just because the original teaching and the subsequent growth were con¬ ducted on the very principles which the present author would persuade the world were those that regulated the revelation and history of Christian Doctrine a . As the Ionics had their single Physical Elements, and the Eleatics their principle of Unity, and the Pythagoreans their Principle of divine Numbers, so Christianity has its analogous fundamental Ideas and developable Prin¬ ciples, as undefined in their import, as progressive in their evolution. The Revelation was really (according to this system) a revelation of Ideas and Principles, exemplified in some chosen instances, which mere in- a It is thus that Mr. Newman adopts the very dialect of philo¬ sophical speculation when speaking of the variations of Christian Doctrine. “ On the subject of Purgatory, there were, to speak generally, two schools of opinion.” —p. 18. “Two schools of opi¬ nion 1” on a doctrine which is “ the necessary complement of Bap¬ tism ;” among canonized Saints and under the direct superinten¬ dence of an infallible authority, which is argued to exist at all solely because rival claims to development need to be decided, pp. 14, 131); “two schools of opinion,” “one of which reseinbled the present doctrine of the Roman Church,” on a question about which the same author believes that no man can entertain a doubt and be saved ; on a doctrine which he argues (p. 423) to be indis¬ pensable to produce heroic endurance, though martyrs and confes¬ sors, it seems, could win eternal crowns by thousands without any distinct belief, say rather, in the vast majority of cases, undoubtedly without any belief at all about it ! LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 209 stances the Christian Church was for ages dull enough to mistake for the Revelation itself; the truth beinor 1 o (as now at last has been fortunately discovered) that the Doctrines of the Creed were merely a sort of exhi¬ bition, in the way of sample , of the vast unfathomable “ Ideas” that lay hidden behind them ; a kind of tem¬ porary parables embodying the Ideas in an emphatic tangible form, until the time should come that men would find their way to the abstract Maxims themselves, and thence fetch new doctrines at their pleasure. It is like the transition from Arithmetic to Algebra; from single cases to theorems and formulas in theology. Thus,—to apply this to one or two instances,—we are henceforth to understand, that the original Revelation was not (except in the way of exemplification), “ the dead shall rise,” but “ there is a great sanctity about human bodies ; and thus, as it is one of the leading exhibitions of the Principle, that the dead shall rise, so likewise every thing else shall be equally true that shall anywise appear to illustrate the sanctity of bodies, and be, by whatever means, connected with that Principle.” Or again, the real Revelation was not “ Baptize,” or “ Do this in remembrance,” but, “ It is a principle of the Gospel to adopt ritual observances with spiritual significations and effects : therefore all manner of ob¬ servances shall in virtue of this law be obligatory in the highest sense of Sacraments, whenever the Church shall appoint them ; Baptism and the Eucharist being for the present given as striking specimens of this future process.” Or once more, the Revelation was not at all the simple and limited fact that the Holy Ghost shall dwell in the followers of Christ, but the “ Principle” 210 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. of Divine Presences at large and in the abstract; inso¬ much that every possible aspect of a Divine Presence, and every conceivable consequence of that Presence in all its senses, even unto the divinizing of its subject, and the consequent right to religious worship, is therein included quite as really and as certainly, as the fact above noted, though (by some accident) that alone and its immediate accompaniments happen to be selected for special notice in Scripture. In short, the Revela¬ tion itself is contained in no existing Creed ; the first approach to a summary of it is probably to be found in a work of the Nineteenth Century on the Develop¬ ment of Christian Doctrine ; though scattered frag¬ ments of the original Teaching may, by persevering explorers, be here and there caught among the folios of the schoolmen. The Revelation itself was the de¬ claration of a number of abstract principles of religion, some important cases of which constitute the Apostles’ Creed ; the doctrines of that Creed being only a few of the earlier growths of the “ Idea” of Christianity, paradigms (as in Grammar or Arithmetic), by which the master would show his pupils how to work out new doctrines to an indefinite extent for themselves. The reader may start at this, which I assure him I sincerely present as the import (so far as I can com¬ prehend it) of the first half of the volume before me. But let him be tranquil : he is not among the Licht- freunde, he is not perusing Hegel or Strauss. It is the leading Divine of the Roman Communion in England, the recognised champion and apologist of the whole group of its converts, who, with the strict and solemn anathemas of the Council of Trent in one hand, is with LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 211 the other sketching the outlines of a theory which de¬ prives Christianity of a Creed, in order to elevate it to the dignity of a Philosophy. If the Apostles truly under¬ stood all Christianity, this, according to the new system, must have been the form in which they received it; for this—a body of abstract Principles and of Doctrines expressly given as exemplifying others to come—alone, on that system, is complete Christianity. While, on the other hand, if they only knew the doctrines their records express, and their disciples inherited,—nay, even if they knew the general fact that other most im¬ portant doctrines were to come, but had no distinct conception of those doctrines,—they then unquestion¬ ably did not know all Christianity, and they wrote what was untrue when they asserted or implied that they did. I have already observed (Letter II.) how cautiously indeterminate are Mr. Newman’s positions regarding the knowledge 13 the Apostles possessed of such funda¬ mentals of Christianity as the cultus of Saints or the rescue of Souls from Purgatory. There is less deli¬ cacy required in conjecturing the condition of “ the first centuries and the following illustration helps us to estimate their unenviable state of perplexity : “ The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christia¬ nity. Both in the one case and the other there is the gradual formation of a directing power out of a prin- b [Vid. supra , pp. 73, 74.] p 2 212 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. ciple. The natural voice of Conscience is far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and that the right must be followed ; but it is variously, and therefore errone¬ ously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes error for truth ; and yet we believe that, on the whole, and even in those cases where it is ill- instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it will gra¬ dually be cleared, simplified, and perfected ; so that minds starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one and the same truth. I would not imply that there is indistinctness so great as this in the knowledge of the first centuries,” &c.—p. 348. The indistinctness was not “ so great,” it seems; but, if the “illustration” is to illustrate, the cases must have borne a general resemblance. We are therefore to con¬ ceive that the first centuries—of course avowed here¬ tics are not now T in question—had a sort of rule which taught them that there was “ a right and a wrong” in religious belief, but gave them comparatively feeble light as to what was the right and the wrong ; they were more or less variously, and therefore more or less erroneously, trained; they mistook error for truth (in whatever degree , which is in this place left undecided), but happily they could look forward (as honest igno¬ rant men can do in matters of Duty), to some future period, when “ in course of time,” their descendants— at Lateran, at Florence, at Trent, as it might be—would in all probability eventually converge to some one and the same truth, whatever that truth might prove to be. LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 213 Thus the possessors of Revealed Religion, expressly given to supply the deficiencies and infirmities of Na¬ tural Reason and Conscience, remained in just the same position (or one closely analogous to it) as those who have Natural Reason and Conscience alone to guide them. II. But of all the obvious objections to this theory, which I have already enumerated—above all, of the manifest facility with which (by simply detaching the one hypothesis of Roman infallibility, no more demon¬ strated in this volume than in any other it has been my fortune to see) it lends itself to the purposes of any school of theology indifferently, I cannot imagine the penetrating understanding of its author not to have been through the whole course of his work abundantly aware. Doubtless he has set aside all such intrusive suggestions with the general reply, that upon these low grounds of mere intellectual disputation, the question between all rival schemes is in some respects a choice of logical difficulties, and we must only select the opti- mus qui minimis urgetur. He will hardly deny that there are some difficulties in a theory which only one unproved assumption rescues from extravagant latitu- dinarianism,—a theory which can scarcely be said to be abused, rather used in its most obvious and natural application, when employed to sustain any variety of successive or even collateral forms of Christian Doc¬ trine ; but he will probably reply that greater difficulties will be found to attach to the ordinary views of the history of dogmatic theology, whether Roman or An¬ glican. Between the Roman theory (of perpetual tra¬ dition for all the disputed peculiarities) and Mr. New- 214 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. man’s refutation of it, I shall not now undertake to decide ; but as regards what I presume to be the most usual way of conceiving the matter among English theologians, I would venture to sketch (I can at present only sketch) its outlines as follows ; and I confess I perceive nothing inconsistent or contradictory in its elements, and no uncertainty in its grounds, beyond that which belongs to every thing alike which rests on a basis, however firm, of moral probabilities,—an un¬ certainty (if it is to be called such) which no theory ever yet proposed (Roman or any other) has in any degree succeeded in showing us how to escape. I begin, then, by saying,— 1. The Apostles knew all doctrine at any time neces¬ sary for man’s belief, growth in holiness, and ultimate salvation. And, 2. They communicated all that doctrine. These are affirmations grounded on the express de¬ clarations of our Lord and the Apostles themselves ; to which, as I formerly drew attention, I need not now recur. The apostolic knowledge c , indeed, will hardly be directly denied. But to the delivery of it they them¬ selves as distinctly testify d . Indeed, from the very c [For an argument similar to that in the text respecting the Apostolic knowledge, see Taylor’s Dissuasive^ p.279- Ed. Cardwell.] d “ Solent dicere (hgeretici), Non omnia Apostolos scisse; eadem agi- tati dementia, qua rursus convertunt, Omnia quidem Apostolos scisse, sed non omnia omnibus tradidisse : in utroque Christum reprehen- sioni injicientes [subjicientes,—G.] qui aut minus instructos, aut parum simplices Apostolos miserit.”— Tertidl. De Prescript. \_Hceret.~\ Cap. xxii. He confutes these heretics by abundant scriptural proof. See also Cap. xxv. xxvi. xxvii. Compare Iren. III. iii. v. [See Ter¬ tidl. i. 455. Oxf. trans. Library of the Fathers , x. 1842.—G.] LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 215 nature of the case, when we remember the abundant time the Apostles had for training and indoctrinating their disciples (from the Pentecost following the Ascen¬ sion to the death of St. John),—the growth, sufficiently intimated, of many of these disciples in the discernment of spiritual mysteries, and the plain unquestionable manner in which they are all declared to be instructed in every thing necessary for the attainment of consum¬ mate glory,—the lofty and profound character of many of the Apostles’ own writings (such as the Gospel and Revelation of St. John, the Epistle to the Ephesians, and to the Hebrews, and part of that to the Romans, &c.) we can scarcely doubt that it was not their inten¬ tion to “keep back” anything that could be “profitable” to any class of their disciples. To which is to be added the important consideration,—that no announcement whatever is made of this momentous power of autho¬ rizing new doctrines, as distinct from the power (which we fully concede to be inherent in the very function of instruction) of reasoning out inferences, or exhibit¬ ing harmonies and contrasts of doctrine, by the ordi¬ nary use of the understanding ; but, on the contrary, very manifest exclusions of any such subsequent reve¬ lations®. e It is remarkable enough, that in 1 Cor. xiii. within the compass of a few verses, the cessation of supernatural inspiration is ex¬ pressly predicted (prophesies shall fail, tongues shall cease, and knowledge vanish), and the next great accession of spiritual enlight¬ enment distinctly referred to the future world. So in Ephes. i. 14, the promised Spirit then possessed was an earnest until “ the re¬ demption of the purchased possessionno intervening stage of ex¬ traordinary spirituality or illumination foretokened. I he same eager anticipation of the heavenly world as the true scene of the 216 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. Indeed, if any one were to take the trouble of re¬ flecting calmly on the account given by the Apostles themselves of the state of spiritual attainment which the Christians they taught and exhorted had actually reached, and the further degree to which they ardently urged them to aspire as their proper privilege, as the natural result which the teaching they received was perfectly adequate, under divine blessing, to accomplish —he would be somewhat puzzled to determine what more the successors of these first believers could have fairly expected, either of doctrine to enlighten, or of holiness to sanctify. To convey this in the full mea¬ sure of its irresistible force against the speculation I am combating, would require the transcription of a large proportion of the New Testament. Fortunately, it is a topic on which, above all others, I rejoice to think I can trust to the memory of most of my readers. I request them then to conceive Christianity maintain¬ ed to have been a merely germinant Idea, or even a formal body of explicit doctrine, but only in its earliest stage of growth, among men characterized, as they cannot fail to remember the Saints of the first Churches were characterized by their inspired teachers ; among men described as, in virtue of their justification, enjoy¬ ing complete “peace with God, 7 ’ “rejoicing in hope of His glory, 77 and glorying even in their “ tribulations living “ in the Spirit, 77 and by the Spirit “ witnessed 77 to be “ the children of God and joint-heirs with Christ; 77 being enfranchised by “ the law of the Spirit of Life, 77 development of the doctrine of faith into the fulness of immediate knowledge, is seen in 2 Cor. v. 2-7, 1 John, iii. 2, &c. LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 217 “ more than conquerors,” and inseparable from the love of God in Christ; “ perfecting holiness free citizens of a “ kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghostso that “ all things were their’s, and they Christ’s,” even as “ Christ was God’s ;” “ new creatures in Christ,” “ crucified and risen with Christ,” and already, even on earth, “ set in heavenly places with Him,” and enjoying a life “hid with Christ in God —in short “ complete in Christ “ rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls;” “ walking in the Light, even as God Himself is in the light;” and so having “ the love of God” in them “ perfected ,” inso¬ much that they u could not sin “dwelling in God, and God in them.” And all these wonderful attainments traced directly to the power of the teaching they had already received ; they were thus “ established according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, accord¬ ing to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifestthey had “heard the word of truth, the Gospel of their salvation;” they had “ received the word of God, which effectually worked in them ;” they had been “ chosen to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth , to the obtaining of the glory of Christ,” on which ac¬ count (“therefore”) they are in the immediate context besought to hold fast “ the traditions they had been taught —they were “enriched in all utterance and coming behind in no gift,” having “ Christ made unto them wisdom and so, “righteousness and sanctifica¬ tion and redemption ;” “ beholding with opjen face, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and changed into the 218 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. same image ;” “ blessed with all spiritual blessings” from God, Who “ had abounded towards them in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto them the mystery of His Will”—that “ now unto the hea¬ venly powers might be known by the Church the mani¬ fold wisdom of God ;” “ taught in all wisdom,” and as “ spiritual, judging all things,” “ having received the Spirit of God, that they might know the things freely given to them of God,” insomuch that “ they needed not that any man should teach them having received “ all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who had called them ;” having re¬ ceived “ great and precious promises,” of such power that by them they were already capacitated to enjoy the greatest blessing conceivable to the thought or utter- able by the language of man, even that of being “ par¬ takers of the Divine nature ;”—the old fathers waiting to be “made perfect” with them; the prophets “ prophe¬ sying of the grace that came unto them , and ministering not unto themselves but unto them the very things now reported unto them by the preachers of the Gospel the Apostolic Revelation being the great central Light ol the last days to which the prophets looked forward as we look back; already it was “ the Faith,” “the Truth,” “ the Gospel,” u the Word”—one, distinct, exclusive, complete. And when in the secrecy of prayer—the ineffable communion of such a spirit as Paul’s with his God—the great Apostle besought on behalf of the Church the gift of more and yet more of light and love, was it to some dim and shadowy future he pointed his glance, when that which was now but indistinctly known might be fully disclosed to the maturer saints LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 219 of ages to come? Not so; his prayer—surely the sub- limest supplication that ever broke from human lips — was, “ that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might BE FILLED WITH ALL THE FULNESS OF GOD !” 3. Whatever was essential to be known for man’s belief and salvation in respect of any particular doc¬ trine (as, for instance, in the doctrine afterwards fitly named the Trinity f ), was therefore undoubtedly deli¬ vered by the Apostles and received by their disciples. No speculative difficulties whatsoever, no difficulties f I do not for a moment mean to insinuate that any real portion of that doctrine is non-essential; but it is, I conceive, our duty to distinguish between those elements which are really necessary to constitute the doctrine, and certain illustrations and inferences con¬ nected with the essential mystery itself, which, even though pro¬ foundly interesting, and authorized by eminent fathers, do not ap¬ pear absolutely necessary to a sufficient conception of the doctrine. Mr. Newman evidently regards the doctrine of the Trinity as a distant vision towards which the Church was slowly struggling for centuries ; a heresy being sure to arise whenever (one would think a pardonable ambition !) she became too precipitate in her anxiety to attain to necessary and fundamental truth. “ The efforts of Sabellius to complete the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity failed ; it became a heresy ,” &c. (p. 352). Now in order to settle this point, is it unfair to request Mr. Newman, instead of thus clouding a most important question in vague phraseology, to propose to himself, and then state to others explicitly, and with the necessary proofs, of what precise element of the doctrine he considers a disciple of St. Paul or St. John was ignorant (not to raise the painful question about St. Paul and St. John themselves)? Let him speak out plainly. Was it the Unity of God ? Was it the Divinity of Christ? His co-eternity as the Word and Son of God ? The Divinity or Perso- 220 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OE [LETT. V. even about the exact amount of scriptural proof for special points, can be allowed in the least to disturb nality of the Holy Ghost ? Let him tell us this distinctly; people will then know his real opinions, and how to meet them. Meanwhile it may be useful to observe, with a view to this point —that no one professes to maintain that the disciples of St. John habitually used such words as “hypostatic,” “consubstantiality,” &c.—what proportion of the whole multitude of perfectly orthodox believers on earth, even at this hour, habitually use them, or have ever used them ? It may be further admitted, that when a doc¬ trine has come to be intellectually analyzed and measured, certain relations may be seen to be involved in it, the distinct expression of which may become thenceforth useful and even necessary; and that until circumstances, usually heresy, have led to this close in¬ tellectual survey, these relations, though involved in the existing belief, and logically deducible therefrom, may not occupy a promi¬ nent position in the common expositions of the faith. In what precise degree this holds in such a statement of the doctrine of the Trinity as the Athanasian Creed, is another question ; the principle is exemplified in every stage of the history of theology. Those— not even to investigate their expressed dogmatic belief—who were taught to equally worship the mysterious Three into Whose single Divine Name they had been baptized,—to look on them habitually as Protecting Powers equally because infinitely above them, sepa¬ rate in their special titles, offices, and agency, and so a real Three, yet One (as the very act of supreme Worship implied) in the One Godhead,—would probably see little in even that elaborate Creed beyond the careful intellectual exhibition of the truths necessarily involved in that Worship. They would easily see that to contradict explicitly any proposition of that Creed would be directly or indi¬ rectly to deny the faith ; while at the same time they may have held, as the infinite majority of the Christian world have since held, the pure faith of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, without perpetually retaining a distinct explicit recollection of all the separate proposi¬ tions that Creed contains. In fact, may we not be justified in say¬ ing, that that admirable Symbol—itself among the most precious documents in the archives of the Church—is in its very nature ad- LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 221 the certainty of this proposition, expressed or implied as it is in every page of the apostolic writings. And dressed to a class whose intellectual powers are cultivated ? It is, in truth, only such who can understand the very import of several of its terms. This does not make it either less true in itself, or less necessary for those in view of whose mental needs it exists; but surely such a consideration implies this at least, that whatever it added to the original belief was not absolutely but relatively neces¬ sary; in short, that that creed gives us, as it were, the intellectual edition of the doctrine held from the beginning—the doctrine ex¬ pressed (as mathematicians say) “ in terms of” the pure intellect. It would probably illustrate this process if any one were to reflect upon the quantity of minute and refined thought, and the extreme accuracy of expression, required to fix and secure, so as at once to discriminate them from all rival hypotheses, some of those elemen¬ tary and fundamental notions of simple Theism , which yet no one doubts to be the real belief,\ not merely of all classes of Christians, but of the greater portion of the civilized world. For example, to fix the precise and formal notion of Creation out of Nothing (so as to distinguish it absolutely from, e. g., the hypothesis of Emana¬ tion) ; to state the precise relation of the Divine Power to the Divine Rectitude,—such, that the Almighty God can never do but what is right ; to deliver with an accuracy liable to no evasion the exact relation of the Divine Omnipotence and Goodness to the ex¬ istence of Moral Evil, &c. On all such subjects every ordinary Christian has a sufficiently decisive practical belief, a belief which would at once be shocked by any express assertion of its contradic¬ tory: he tells you, “God made all things from nothing;” “God can never do wrong;” “ God makes no man sin, it is the Devil who tempts him, it is man’s own corrupt choice to do evil:” and yet it is easy to conceive how very different an aspect these simple but profound truths would assume in an Atlianasian Creed of Theism ; how novel might appear doctrines, before almost too universally recognised to be laboriously insisted on, if it became necessary to exhibit them guarded at all points against the subtlety of some Arius or Sabellius of Natural Theology. I need not add, that the same general principle (of the distinction 222 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V- therefore whatever errors are alleged [a disputed mat¬ ter of fact, into which I do not now enter at g all] to occur in extant remains of Ante-Nicene Teachers, either did not affect necessary doctrine on the Divine Nature, or was a departure from the apostolic Teaching and the previous belief of the Church, for which those Teachers alone are answerable. And further (as in¬ sisted on below), if the alleged errors did affect neces¬ sary doctrine (or indeed if they were errors of any between the belief of truths and the accurate and scientific state¬ ment of them against all direct and indirect impugners,) applies to all the maxims of the practical life. A perfect system of ethical principles would be the Athanasian Creed of that common morality which every good man already acknowledges and exemplifies. g It must be remembered (so far as the matter of fact is con¬ cerned), that on this point Mr. Newman differs from, with a few remarkable exceptions, the divines reputed soundest in his own communion as well as in our’s, and in substance agrees with the Arians ; between whose judgment of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and that of Mr. Newman there appears no material difference, except that the latter carefully prefixes the title Saint before the Teachers whose dangerous errors he exposes, and adds a solemn disavowal of any imputation that they meant the heresies he cites them as ex¬ pressing. In a question of Criticism, which must stand on its own merits, it would be unfair to prejudge the case from its supporters ; it is not unfair, however, but both just and important, to direct atten¬ tion, to this instance among many, of the unfortunate tendency of Koman Controversy, which makes it, in every step but its last , exert all the powers of reasoning and erudition to do the work of either absolute Infidelity or of the more qualified unbelief of the Arian or Socinian. Every one knows that the work of the Roman Divine whose views Mr. Newman here adopts, has been, ever since its appearance, the arsenal of Arian polemics; and there is no reason to doubt that his own volume will in due time share the honour. Can he really LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 223 importance in any view), their existence uncorrected for so protracted a period is absolutely fatal to the Roman theory of Infallibility, unless on the supposition that the infallible Spirit never instructs except by 0 Universal Councils, a supposition which would involve the Roman Church in hopeless embarrassment,—im¬ plying, for example, that Transubstantiation and Pur¬ gatory were mere current conjectures, destitute of all divine sanction, until the thirteenth and fifteenth cen¬ turies. I observe,— imagine that, so far as his statements have any effect at all, the ma¬ jority of his readers will not rise from them rather persuaded that the Doctrine of the Trinity is either non-essential or altogether post-scriptural, than induced to become Romanists in order to be¬ lieve it ? Indeed, unless strangely short-sighted, they will see that the latter course would be far the more illogical of the two ; they will conclude (what Mr. Newman altogether evades), that such error and such uncertainty, for three hundred long and important years of the Church—error and uncertainty which were at last (if even then) terminated, not by any spontaneous act of the Church itself—its only great act of that kind (at Antioch) was, it seems, a blunder, p. 13—but by the incidental excitement of a particular heresy arousing the incidental interference of a Civil Sovereign, who required a Council to be held to restore unanimity—that such facts as these are utterly incompatible with the Roman doctrine of absolute and 'perpetual infallible guidance! And this is, of course, the true reason why the Roman theologians in general have shrunk from adopting the desperate and self-destructive tactics of Petavius and his followers. It is perhaps worth adding here, with regard to Petavius, that Nelson tells us ( u Letters to a P. Priest”), Bossuet had informed him that Petavius altered and retracted before his death. Nelson even speaks of some “ edition” in which this was done. Among the multitude of Roman defences of the Ante-Nicene orthodoxy, the reader may be referred to the ardent vindication of Le Nourry; Apparat. ad Biblioth. Max. PP. [Paris. 1703. — G.] 224 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. 4. That the function of the early Councils 11 was, however, a very important one—namely, to define re¬ ceived doctrine, to elucidate obscured doctrine, to con¬ demn false doctrine. But it was not to reveal 1 new doc¬ trine. This is established: From the very object and occasion of their doctrinal definitions, the suppression of a heresy, which presupposes an anterior truth de¬ parted from, and requiring to be restated. 2. From their own express declarations, in which they allege (and, if infallible, cannot have falsely alleged) their objects to be exclusively as above, and distinctly, in their very condemnation of all novelties as false, dis¬ avow any mysterious faculty of evolving truths sub¬ stantially new. 3. From the entire tenor of their pro¬ ceedings, and the arguments on which their conclu¬ sions wholly rest, which are always the Written Word, and the continuous Belief of the Churches ; both of them available only to fix doctrine already revealed, or h [For a similar view of the functions of the early Councils, see Bishop Taylor’s Dm., p. 270, et seqq.; Archbishop Laud Against Fisher , pp. 25, 26. (Oxf. 1839) ; Leslie, Works > Vol. iii. p. 248. (Oxf. 1832); and for a statement of the manner in which the pri¬ mitive Creed may legitimately be enlarged, not to declare new credenda , but to guard the essentials of the Faith against the per¬ versions of heretics, see Waterland, Works , Vol. iii. p. 254, et seqq. See also S. Athanasius, Treatises against Arianism. Oxford Trans. pp. 80, 81.] 1 [Thus S. Athanasius, speaking of the Nicene Fathers: “ About the Faith they wrote not, ‘it seemed good as follows,’ but ‘thus believes the Catholic Church;’ and thereupon they confessed how the Faith lay, in order to show that their own sentiments were not novel but Apostolical; and what they wrote down was no discovery of their’s, but is the same as was taught by the Apostles.”— Treatises against Arianism. Oxf. Trans, p. 80.] LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 225 to ground logical inferences therefrom, so far as might seem expdient; but neither of them capable of being thus made the entire and exclusive sources of evidence to a Council met to receive and issue new revelations. Thus, the first, the Council of Nice, declares ( Epist . Synod.) [Concitt. Gen. i. 31-2. Romm, 1608.—G.] that it has “ anathematized all these tenets [of Arius], not enduring so much as to listen to such impious senti¬ ments, and such madness, and such blasphemous say¬ ings a tolerably clear intimation of the instantaneous perception of its error with which the Bishops met the new heresy k . And when deciding a dispute about k I cannot here in fairness omit an argument of Mr. Newman’s, whose force, as I am sincerely perplexed to determine even its meaning, I must leave to some more sagacious reader fully to ap¬ preciate. “ It is plain,” he says (p. 344), “ that what the Chris¬ tians of the first ages anathematized, included deductions from the Articles of Faith, that is, developments, as well as those Articles themselves. For since the reason they commonly gave for using the anathema was that the doctrine in question was strange and startling, it follows that the truth which was its contradictory had also been unknown to them hitherto ; which is also shown by their tempo¬ rary perplexity, &c.” Probably there are few things which would “ startle” us more than to hear a preacher from his pulpit gravely lay down and argue the proposition that there is no God ; how triumphant, according to this principle (if I indeed understand it), would be his rejoinder, that the very intensity of our shock proved the depth of our Atheism, demonstrating clearly that the being of a God was “ unknown to us hitherto 1” The ignorance imputed to the orthodox in these loose, incautious words, would, of course, apply only to the case of some very remote and curious deduction; but as such an error is the very last that could be described as peculiarly “ startling,” I am still somewhat puzzled to harmonize Mr. Newman’s meaning. This uncertainty is increased by the fact that the expressions apparently cited to prove * 226 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. ecclesiastical prerogative in a Canon 1 , which has since indirectly become of much controversial importance, they lay down, as every one will remember, their me¬ morable maxim, which I presume it will hardly be said was more applicable to a question of discipline than to a fundamental of the Faith,—“ Let the ancient customs be maintained.” Of the Creed of Nice and the subsequent completion at Constantinople, it has been shown, that every single expression is contained either in previous Creeds, or in other authentic re¬ cords, antecedent to the Council 111 ; the homo-ousios itself was a term in received use, and other phrases fully equivalent to it are easily adducible. The second, the Council of Constantinople, declares”, in reporting its proceedings to the Emperor, ( Epist . Synod.) that it has “pronounced some short defini¬ tions ratifying the faith of the Nicene Fathers , and anathematizing the heretics who have sprung up con¬ trary to itand in its Canons pronounces, that “ the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers as¬ sembled at Nicma in Bithynia is not to be made void, but shall continue established , and that every heresy shall be anathematized, especially those of the Euno- mians, Semiarians, Sabellians, &c — Canon 1 . The third, the Council of Ephesus, proclaims the “perplexity” of the reprovers of the heresies (which indeed alone would be in point), “ who ever heard the like ?” &c., most distinctly evince that there was no perplexity at all. 1 [Can. vi.—G.] m The reader may consult a very learned and useful digest of this evidence in the Oxford Translation of Tertullian, p. 490. n \_Concill . Gen, i. pp. 86, 87.—G.] LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 227 ( Canon 7)°, “ that no person shall be allowed to pro¬ pose, or to write, or to compose, any other Creed besides that which was settled by the holy Fathers who were assembled in the city of Nicsea with the Holy Ghost.” And it denounces deposition against any cleric, and anathema against any laic, who shall dare to do so. And, like the Council to which it appeals, it decides the claims of Provinces, by that which “ has been heretofore, and from the beginning.”—Canon 8. The fourth, the Council of Chalcedon, declaring (Defin. of Faith in Act. v.) that “ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ confirmed the knowledge of the Faith to His disciples,” but that “ something new had been in¬ vented against the truth,” pronounces that it “ renews the unerring faith of the Fathers , by publishing to all the Creed of the Three Hundred and Eighteen, and adding to them as of the same family the Fathers who have received the same form of religion, and particu¬ larly those Hundred and Fifty who assembled in the great city of Constantinople, and ratified the same Faith.” And it subjoins the remarkable expressions, that “ this wise and saving Creed of the Divine Grace would be sufficient for the full acknowledgment and con¬ firmation of the true religion; for it teaches completely the perfect doctrine concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and fully explains the Incarnation of the Lord to those who endeavoured to make void 0 [The first six Canons are decisions contained in a circular Epistle written by the Ephesine Council, (ubi sup. p. 499.) What is called the seventh Canon is the Decretum deFide , p. 442; and the eighth, which is found elsewhere, (497-) is a Synodical determina¬ tion relative to the Bishops of Cyprus.—G.j % Q 2 228 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. the preaching of the truth p , some daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation for us q , and refusing to the Virgin the appellation of Theotocos, others bringing in a confusion and mixture, &c.; there¬ fore, the present holy, great, and (Ecumenical Synod, wishing to shut out all devices against the truth, and to teach the doctrine which has been unalterably held from the beginning , has in the first place decreed that the faith of the three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers should remain free from assault. Further, on account of those who in later times have contended against p [As the translation of this passage is not correctly set down, it may be well to give the Latin version from Sirmondus. (ii. 315.) “ Sufficeret qnidem, ad plenam cognitionem et confirmationem pie- tatis, hoc sapiens et salutare divinte gratite Symbolum ; de Patre enim, et Filio, et Spiritu Sancto perfectionem docet, ac Domini noslri inhumcinationem fideliter accipientibus reprcesentat. Sed quoniam hi qui veritatis reprobare prsedicationem conantur, per proprias hsereses novas [vanas] voces genuerunt; alii qnidem mysterium dis- pensationis [ai/covo/a/as^ Domini, qua? propter nos facta est, corrum- pere prsesumentes . . . . et confirmat doctrinam, quas de substantia Spiritus Sancti a Patribus centum quinquaginta posteci congregcttis in regia civitate tradita est, propter illos qui Spiritui Sancto repug- nabant: quam illi omnibus notam fecerunt, non quasi aliquid de- esset prioribus adjicientes, sed suum de Sancto Spiritu intellectum, contra illos qui dominationem Ejus respuere tentaverunt, Scriptura- rum testimoniis declarantes.”—G.] q Few of my reasons will require to be reminded how clearly this clause gives the true ground of the controversy about the title theotocos , the security, namely, of the single Personality* of Christ, as against the gross disingenuousness (for they cannot be ignorant * [“Quoniam, ut supra dictum est, jam in ejus 3acrato utero sacrosanctum illud mysterium perpetratum est, quod propter singularem quondam atque unicam Per¬ sona unit at em, sicut Verbum in carne caro, ita homo in Deo Deus est.” (Vincent. Lir. Advers. Hares, fol. 21, a. Conf. fol. 16, b. Paris. 1561.) —G.] LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 229 the Holy Spirit, it confirms the doctrine concerning the substance of the Spirit which was delivered by the hundred and fifty holy Fathers who were assembled in the royal city, which they published, not as adding any thing that was wanting to the things which they had before received, but declaring by written testimonies their sentiments concerning the Holy Spirit against those who endeavour to destroy His dominion.” And they then proceed to refer to the new heresy imme¬ diately before them ; and sanction with their conciliar authority the Letters of Cyril and Leo as orthodox expressions of the truth. Defining their belief 1 ', they declare that “ we following the holy Fathers , all with one consent teach men to confess, &c. Even as the Prophets from the beginning have declared concern¬ ing Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and the Creed of the Holy Fathers has deli¬ vered to us.” In their Canons 8 they pronounce that “ the Canons which have been issued by the Holy Fathers in each Synod up to the present time should continue in force.”— Canon 1. And in giving Constan¬ tinople equal privileges with Rome, each declared to be exalted simply on the ground of its political posi- of the real state of the case) of the Roman Controversialists in ge¬ neral. Mr. Newman, in his mysterious way, talks somewhere in his volume of this phrase as being the greatest addition ever made to the Christian belief. What he means I cannot pretend even to conjecture. r [Ut sup, p. 316.—G.] 8 \_Concill. Gener. ii. 409, 414.—Canon xxviii. has not been in¬ serted in the Codex of Dionysius Exiguus ; (p. 133. Lut. Paris. 1609.) and the fraudulent omission of it was continued by Isidorus Mercator, (Merlini Cone. Tom. i. fol. lxxiv. Colon. 1530.) and others. (Bp. Barlow’s Brutum Fulmen , p. 64. Lond. 1681.)—G.] 230 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. tion, they repeat that they “ follow in all things the de¬ cisions of the holy Fathers .”—Canon 28. Such are the grounds upon which the first four (Ecumenical Councils professed to proceed. The reader will decide whether a modern theologian’s opinion of their function, or their own conception of it, has the better claim to acceptance. He will reflect, too, whe¬ ther if, in incorporating substantially new elements into the body of the Faith (by which I mean elements as new in their nature as Purgatory, or Virgin Worship, or the like, which alone will answer the requirements of this argument), they imagined themselves to be only re-stating and defining the Church’s primitive belief,— whether z/they thus palpably misapprehended their own work, and really drew conclusions which confute their own declared principle, their decisions in any point of view can continue any longer to be regarded as of moment. It would be needless to allege citations to the same effect from subsequent Councils ; the same general principles will be found decisively avowed in them also ; urged indeed with such pertinacity, that even when (as at 2 Nice) an error most perilous and prac¬ tically debasing to the character of Christian Worship received sanction, it was under the mistaken pretext of tradition it was established; and the occasion above all others on which a claim of the prerogative of expound¬ ing old doctrine into new revelation would have been, in the manifest default of Scripture warrant, the most convenient and appropriate, happens to be above all others the occasion on which traditional evidence was most strenuously celebrated. Centuries after, in the CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 231 LETT. V.] Florentine Synod of the Fifteentli Age, the whole ques¬ tion of the legitimacy of additions to the Creed was ardently contested; abundant memorials of the discus¬ sions remain ; and it is most observable that no ap¬ proach seems to have been even then made by the acute and able managers of the controversy for the Latin Church, towards hazarding the claim now advanced or insinuated in its behalf. 5. It may nevertheless be fairly anticipated, that the Resolutions of Councils will in the form and disposition of the doctrine differ considerably from the arrange¬ ments and expressions of Holy Scripture. For, mani¬ festly, the Council’s statement of mere Scripture could effect no more than the Scripture itself had effected ; and had the Scripture expressions availed to prevent dissension, no Council would have been held at all. And, therefore, it must be the very scope of the Council to express the ancient truth, not in the ancient words, but in that special form which shall directly meet the modern error 1 . And it may be added, that, in what- t Which will naturally lead to a peculiarly —probably an unpre¬ cedentedly—distinct expression of the orthodox belief on the con¬ tested point. And thus the remarkable words of S. Paul (“ there must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest ,” 1 Cor. ix. 19-) are almost as applicable to the in¬ direct influence of heresy in bringing the received doctrine , as in bringing its defenders, into clearer manifestation. Every one will remember how earnestly St. Athanasius* assures us that the Nicene Council desired to use the simple expressions of Scripture, with simple negations of the Arian forms avvoSov (5ov\ofievv)<} 7a9 yev twv ’ApeuivCov 7tjs aae^eia9 Xe^ets avekeiv, tcis Ce 7wv yyafpwv o/LioAoyopevas ftpoAoyovpeva^ —G.[] (f)txva9 ypdfai, * [Epist. de Deer. Nic. Syn. Opp. i. i. p. 224. edit. Bened_G.] 232 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. ever degree the error is one which rather contradicts inferences from Scripture, or from the common Formu¬ lary of the Church’s belief, than the very words of either; in the same degree we must expect that the Council, to meet that false inference, shall have to put forth decisions which shall themselves be inferences also, and which therefore will appear still more removed from the ipsissima verba of Scripture, or the very and actual phraseology habitual in the Church. Nay, fur¬ ther, it is very possible and natural, when we consider the great amount of reflection devoted to the subject at issue, the earnest anxiety for correctness, and the varied gifts called into action, that a Council should, in the discharge of its office, come, by God’s providence, to present Christian Doctrine in new aspects and relations of great interest; even as by the same Divine blessing eminent Teachers in all ages have in their individual labours more or less achieved the same object, and brought the “ new” as well as “ the old” out of their treasures. It being still understood, that neither did the said Councils, however venerable, ever claim, nor do we concede to them, any absolute authority for such new aspects and relations of old Doctrine, except so far as the same may be justified upon intelligible grounds k. t . \.J; but were necessitated [^ijva^KdaOr/aav] to use this peculiar test-term [e/c ovolai^, in order to avoid evasion. It seems the Council was so little aware of its high function of infallibly deve¬ loping Scripture into new doctrine—of completing the mystery of the Trinity” beyond the feeble rudimental conceptions of S. John,— that it considered the Doctrine it declared to require no positive ex¬ pressions but those of Holy Writ ; negative expressions must of course be as numerous as the heresies that evoke them. LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 233 of deduction from the primitive articles of the Faith, and by the warrant of Holy Scripture 11 . 6. But I think I am justified in adding, that, from the general promise of peculiar favour to all united Chris¬ tian labours, a farther special measure of Divine bless¬ ing may be reverently anticipated for such Councils (as contrasted with mere individual research), when assembled under just conditions,—for example, as to occasion, (when their interposition seems urgently de¬ manded by the conjuncture); as to impartiality (when the whole Church is honestly invited, and candidly heard); as to object , (the restoration of obscured or im¬ perilled truth); as to motive , (when the greater glory of God is disinterestedly sought). And that these cha¬ racteristics (even should some allowance be required u The office of the rulers of the Christian Church in relation to Doctrine seems to be clearly exhibited in the remarkable passage, Ephes. iv. 11-16. Their objects are to be, the attainment of the Unity in Faith and Knowledge, which is the proper perfection of the Body of Christ,—the measure of the stature of His fulness (verse 13); the protection of the simple from deceptive teaching (ver. 14); and so, the increase of the Body itself edified in love (ver. 15, 16). The passage probably involves reference to a conti¬ nued ministry (the general ep^ov hiaicovias of verse 12), from the continuance (aey/n) of the object to be realized; and indeed the very offices specified in verse 11 seem to be in substance perpe¬ tuated in the Bishops, eminent Doctors, Missionaries, Parochial Clergy, and School-Instructors of a modern fully organized Church. It is, in this view of the passage, remarkable how purely ministerial and conservative is the dogmatic function here described; “the faith” (emphatically “the faith”) and the knowledge are manifestly presupposed; it is the unity of doctrine, and the prevention of no¬ velties, and the edifying of the growing Body, which are exhibited as the chief aim of “ the stewards of the mysteries of Christ.” 234 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. for human infirmity) seem on the whole to belong to the early Councils, and fully justify the respect in which they have ever been held by the universal Church. While the same characters seem grievously lacking in those later assemblies of the Papal obedience, in which (not to speak of motives) the occasion was often an ima¬ ginary necessity ; the partiality manifest, a large por¬ tion of the Church being wholly unrepresented ; and the object (though this indeed was never distinctly avowed, so wholly modern is the new system that as¬ sumes it), not the elucidation or recovery of primitive truth, but the establishment of superadded doctrines, and the unjust and tyrannical excommunication of those who questioned them. That, consequently, we cannot, on the same grounds, anticipate any peculiar blessing as attaching to these assemblies. But even beyond this strong claim to our respect, those who maintain (a question I do not now specially discuss) that the Lord must be understood to have pledged Himself in His promises to the preservation of all necessary doctrine in the Church—all such doctrine as is necessary to the Being of the Church—will natu¬ rally regard the early Councils as specially under pro¬ vidential control* in fixing and confirming it ; and will, w Which yet, it must be carefully remembered, is altogether dis¬ tinct from infallibility. The special providential control here in¬ tended, is that which may be properly conceived to guide the steps of any manifest instrument in the hands of God for maintaining or recovering Divine truth—an Athanasius, for example, or an Augus¬ tine. A Council is, in this respect, but a sort of corporate Athana¬ sius, or Augustine ; meeting in the same unpresumptuous depen¬ dence on Divine assistance in which they wrote; with, of course (as >} LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 235 on this account, give their decisions a measure of con¬ sideration to which later Synods can make no preten¬ sions. But in such an inference, it must be still remem¬ bered that the Council is presumed to have enjoyed this degree of Divine favour because the doctrine is, on distinct grounds, known to be fundamental and true, not the doctrine known to be either true or fundamen¬ tal, simply because the Council has so declared it. In order to deduce the latter proposition from the original principle (of the covenanted preservation of all neces¬ sary doctrine), the reasoner would be forced to assume already observed), an additional degree of encouragement in the promise of peculiar blessing to united endeavours, but still an addi¬ tional degree only. It is necessary to insist on this; for the confu¬ sion between a just hope of God’s special assistance in the greater matters of a Council, and a gift of inherent and absolute infallibility in all matters, great and small, is the source of endless fallacies in the Romish controversies about Church authority in matter of Faith; arguments which really conclude for the probability of the former , being hastily conceived to make the latter certain. Should a man argue that so far as the Church’s retention of truth absolutely necessary and fundamental was really dependent on the decision of the Council of Nice (a matter fully known to God alone), a holy confidence is justifiable that God would not suffer it to go astray, I have no desire to contest an assertion which comes recom¬ mended by many consoling probabilities. But it must be remem¬ bered that the same gift of inerrability, under the same limitations, would belong to any Divine instrument, whether body or individual, on whom the same tremendous issue was permitted to rest; and that it would require a vision beyond man’s to convert this hypothetical / confidence into an absolute rule of Faith. How far divine promises to “ the Church” can be considered pro¬ mises to Councils of its prelates, the reader will find very acutely canvassed in Dean Sherlock’s “ Discourse concerning the Nature, Ac., of the Catholic Church.” 236 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. that God has tied Himself to the exclusive means of a Council so and so constituted, in order to signify and to maintain fundamental truth ; an arbitrary supposi¬ tion, altogether destitute of proof, besides being fatal (when we remember the small number and the long intervals of even all the reputed General Councils) to that security of continuous doctrine which }^et is the very principle of the whole argument. It may be asked, then, whether we do not, in this account of the respect due to the greater Councils (from their provi¬ dential office of fixing and fortifying fundamental truth), take away with one hand what we give with the other? By no means; for it is unquestionable that a man who believes a certain doctrine (as the Trinity) fundamen¬ tal, and sees plainly that a Council (as that of Nice or the other Trinitarian Councils) was providentially em¬ ployed as the main instrument in securing it, will justly attach a peculiar degree of veneration to its labours ; and exactly as we do in the case of all eminent indivi¬ dual servants of God—an analogy often luminous in the obscurities of this controversy—will regard its de¬ cisions as coming with a certain special presumption in their favour, a presumption of great force to minds of humility and prudence, in many points where he cannot readily follow the logical grounds on which the decision was originally made. On the precise amount of this special presumption it is quite impossible to lay down any universal rule ; quite as impossible as in the parallel instance of high individual authority. But while of course it could not (were there any real oppo¬ sition of the two) for a moment stand against any ex¬ press declaration of the written Word, of whose meaning LETT. V.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 237 we could properly consider ourselves perfectly certain, it may yet exert a legitimate and most valuable prac¬ tical influence in strengthening and tranquilizing the inquirer’s belief. The recognition of this just claim of the early ecclesiastical decisions on fundamental doctrine (their disciplinary views are essentially vari¬ able with circumstances and times) to deep respect and gratitude, constitutes indeed the chief element of what is rightly understood by a “ Catholic” spirit in theology; a phrase which, though it has been, and continues to be, beyond all others, misapplied in one direction or other, does not therefore cease to possess a real, and intelligible, and important meaning. With regard, then, on the whole, to the ancient digests of Christian Doctrine, whether by collective Council or individual Teacher,—when we shall have set apart this peculiar species of authority on which I have just spoken, arising out of character and provi¬ dential position, and real in its nature though hardly definable in its degree,—we shall probably perceive that the controversy truly at issue resolves itself into two questions, one regarding the Obligation , and the other the Matter , of these dogmatic decisions. 1. Is there any absolutely binding authority for those systematic exhibitions of Christian Doctrine beyond the authority due to a just and appropriate work of human Reason, making its comparisons, combinations, and deductions in dependence on God, and for the general benefit of the Church ? 2. Can these more methodical forms of primitive belief ever rightly include any addition to the original deposit, of essential doctrine before substantially unknown; or any addition at all but that which is ob- 238 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. V. tained by the ordinary processes of reasoning, and in which every step of the process in each case is capable of being exhibited and tested by the universal canons of legitimate inference ? These are the points really at issue ; and on which, as on the one hand nothing approaching satisfactory proof has been offered for the Affirmative (which Affirmative, even if granted, would but remotely prepare the way for the theory of Roman ism now before us), so on the other, the adoption of the Negative (which must be absolutely fatal to that theory) does not appear to deprive the Anglican theologian of one item of the interest or utility that belongs to the historical study of theology ; while it certainly releases him from numerous and complicated embarassments under which the opposite hypothesis labours in the attempt to make it quadrate with the actual facts of history. On the nature of this whole work of systematizing and applying doctrine , by the Synods and Doctors of the Church, which seems to be the reality of that vague, unlimited process of innovation which the present au¬ thor disguises under the term Development, and on the circumstances under which it takes rise, I should be glad to hazard some additional observations ; indeed they are the natural complement of the statement I have already offered. But I must not intrude further for the present. I am, my dear Sir, Your’s faithfully, W. Archer Butler. 7 LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 239 LETTER VI. ♦ Dear Sir, You have reminded me that I owe the balance of an account still undischarged to your read¬ ers. I had desisted from prolonging these criticisms, partly because I thought it hardly warrantable to con¬ tinue making so disproportioned a demand on your space ; and partly, too, I may perhaps pardonably con¬ fess, because the argument itself under review, the more it was reflected on, really seemed more and more such as might be safely left without detailed reply. The very slight amount of controversy (slight, consi¬ dering the acknowledged ability and singular position of its author) which the work has succeeded in pro¬ ducing, now abundantly evinces that the general ver¬ dict of the public is not far from coinciding with this impression. Force of style will always produce a sort of mechanical effect upon the imagination, but pre¬ mises so manifestly devised to “ argue a foregone con¬ clusion,” and on a principle so obviously applicable to prove any conclusion, are not likely to give much dis¬ turbance to those who are not yet seduced into con¬ ceiving the imagination, or those vague preferences 240 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. which we are expected to dignify by the title of “ moral” inspirations, the supreme arbiters in matter of faith. While, however, this work can hardly be considered as very formidable in its polemical aspect, the hypo¬ thesis it advocates undoubtedly tends to suggest—as anything from a mind so fertile and ingenious might well be expected to suggest—some very interesting matters of consideration relative to the history of re¬ vealed truth. Among them is that general question about the process by which Christian doctrines have become gradually systematized a , to which, I believe, I alluded at the close of my last communication, and on which I shall now attempt to offer a few remarks ; though the renewed consideration of it only impresses more forcibly how little my present limited space (not to speak of limitations of knowledge and faculties more difficult to be remedied) allows me to do justice to such a topic, or even to my own imperfect notions of it, peculiarly liable, as would be even the most care¬ ful and elaborate statements on so very delicate a sub¬ ject, to misconception. Before introducing this matter, let me, however, make room for it, by again repeating the concession often and cordially admitted or implied in my former communications. I have no disposition to conceal or question— That theological knowledge is capable of a real movement in time, a true successive history, through the legitimate application of human reason. This a [Vid. S. Cyril. Oxford Translation, p. 58.] LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 241 movement may probably be regarded as taking place in two principal ways: The first is the process of logical development b (a very innocent term, which will answer as well as any other) of primitive truth into its consequences 0 , con¬ nexions, and applications ; the reality of that undefined, irregular operation of feeling and conjecture by which the present author labours to account for innovations which can neither be deduced by reason, nor have ever willingly recognised its authority. The second is—positive discovery. Members of the English Church which (by a strange dispensation of Providence) has, since its lapse into “ heresy,” done more to benefit Christianity in this way than all others put together, will not find much difficulty in conceiv¬ ing many classes of these precious gifts of God to His Church conveyed through the ministration of human sagacity. Such are— Unexpected confirmations or illustrations of revealed doctrine from new sources ; as from unobserved appli¬ cations and collations of Holy Scripture ; or from pro¬ found investigations of natural religion, and the phi¬ losophy of morals, as in some parts of the researches of Bishop Warburton. New proofs in support of the evidences of religion ; such as the conception and complete establishment of the analogical argument by Bishop Butler, or the in¬ vention and exquisite application of the test of unde¬ signed coincidence by Paley. b [That deductions from Scripture are as necessary as Scripture itself for a complete Rule of Faith, see Jackson, Vol. iv. p. 399-] 0 [Comp. Field, Of the Church , Book iv. Ch. 12.] It 242 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. Discoveries regarding the form and circumstances of the revelation itself; such as those of Bishops Lowth and Jebb on the remarkable structure of the poetical and sententious parts of Holy Writ. Discoveries of divine laws in the government of the Church and world, so far as the same may lawfully be collected by observation and theory. Discoveries, through events disclosing the meaning of prophecy, or correcting erroneous interpretations of Scripture. And others, either already exemplified in the history of divine learning, or which possibly may still remain unexplored and even unimagined, designed to reward the noble ambition of those who shall yet search for the “ hid treasures” of wisdom. Why Human Reason, which will hardly be deemed incompetent to the latter of these two divisions of theological labour, should be so to the former; or how the former process is not in fact performed by uninspired faculties in every thoughtful preacher’s sermon ; or how that which one thoughtful preacher can do without inspiration, one Church may not do; or how that which one Church may do, the whole fa- mily of Churches, the Catholic communion, may not do ; or how the latter reasonable supposition should not, under divine Providence, sufficiently account for the history of dogmatic theology (besides, which is a special advantage, accounting for the errors also), Mr. Newman may perhaps some time or other find leisure to inform us more distinctly. Meanwhile my immediate business is of course only with that division of the general subject upon which his treatise is engaged ; the former of those specified LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 243 above, and just now alluded to ; that operation begin¬ ning with the earliest times, and in all times more or less actively manifested, by which, under God’s high providence, divine truth is arranged, unfolded, applied, by the natural faculties of that human Intelligence which, hardly less than the human Affections, it was no doubt designed to nourish, awaken, and delight. And this will naturally justify a few remarks also on the nature of the evidence for doctrine derivable from the earlier records of this process. I trust I may de¬ pend upon the sagacity of your readers to see the im¬ portant bearing of both those topics upon the theory of Mr. Newman, and the logic of Roman controversy in general. I.—1. I think, then, it will be easily seen, that from the very nature of the case it was unlikely that the form of Christian doctrine should continue exactly the same during the inspired and the subsequent unin¬ spired period; that it was inevitable that a great change should, in this respect, take place in the tran¬ sition from direct divine instruction to the human conception of revealed truth. It would seem that that truth must , in the hands of its new trustees, acquire more of a systematic shape. Men who write by im¬ mediate inspired guidance are the last to feel the want of a systematic organization of their convictions ; their beliefs being suggested and preserved to them under direct divine operation, they are not personally sen¬ sible of the need as other men. They will probably draw up and set forth for the benefit of others, some brief collective statements of the capital truths of reli- r 2 244 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. gion, as we see occasionally in the Epistles of St. Paul (such as 1 Cor. xv. 3-8 ; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Phil. ii. 6-11); or, as was exhibited in that common original—what¬ ever it was, if not a portion of the Apostles’ Creed itself—from which all the first summaries of the faith seem to have been derived : but they will not be pressed to do so by an interior necessity. “It is given unto them what they shall speak,” according as they need it. But with the cessation of direct inspiration, with the close of this exalted intimacy with Heaven, another and an humbler state of things inevitably arises. The uninspired teacher will soon come to feel the necessity of some formal scheme of doctrines mutu¬ ally related and rigorously defined, as a guide to his teaching. The Patriarchs,under supernatural guidance, might go forth “ not knowing whither they went the ordinary traveller requires a map of the country. Walking by his own strength, the uninspired instructor must have a staff to steady him; he who could lean wholly upon the everlasting arms was independent of such aids. In this way of reflection we shall be led to see that the religion must almost necessarily assume more of a systematic and dogmatical exterior in the keeping of uninspired men ; and it is manifest the process will be accelerated according as it has to repel heresy no longer by force of mere authority but by allegation of proof, and according as, becoming diffused among the cultivated and reflective classes, it has to meet their intellectual needs. On the other hand, this view of the case tells against the direct inspiration of the elaborate definitions of doctrine that succeeded the original simple abstracts LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 245 of the faith. It cannot be denied that, though true in substance, they are very unlike all the genuine products of undoubted inspiration. Inspired teaching (explain it how we may) seems comparatively indif¬ ferent to (what seems to us so peculiarly important), close logical connexion, and the intellectual symmetry of doctrines. Even in the Jewish Church, when it began to outgrow its old institutes, and already its loftiest spirits caught the faint beams of the unrisen sun,—at a period when we can hardly doubt that numbers were busy upon the internal relations and ulterior scope of the national doctrines (as indeed the very multitude and complication of their traditional distinctions and decisions—a sort of scholastic theo¬ logy in its own way—evinces), how little do their inspired instructors, the Prophets, minister to such a craving. And the same general character is palpably applicable to the instructions of the great Author and model of inspired teaching Himself, even when in some cases (as in conference with the Scribes) a methodical deduction of doctrine might seem peculiarly adapted to the conviction of Ills hearers. The necessity of confuting gainsayers at times forced one of the greatest of his inspired servants, St. Paul, to prosecute conti¬ nuous argument; yet even with him how abrupt are the transitions, how intricate the connexion, how much is conveyed by assumptions such as inspiration alone can make without any violation of the canons of rea¬ soning—for with it alone assertion is argument; in short, how utterly unlike is the whole texture of his exposition to the technical exactness of an ecclesias¬ tical definition. The same may be said of some pas- 246 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. sages of St. John, supposed to have been similarly occasioned. Inspiration has ever left to human Reason the filling up of its outlines, the careful connexion of its more isolated truths; the two are as the lightning of Heaven, brilliant, penetrating, far-flashing, abrupt— compared with the feebler but continuous illumination of some earthly beacon. But, as the inspired promulgation of truth, on the one hand, and its reduction to methodical system, and translation into a more scientific phraseology, on the other, however different in dignity, have both their uses, so I imagine that a little reflection will show it more beneficial that the unscientific statements should come first , and the precise logical version of them in its due time afterwards. And for this plain reason, that the logical phraseology is absolutely worthless except so far as its meaning is absolutely certain, and only thus (so far as we can see), could its meaning be placed beyond doubt. It is by recalling the history and scope of the heresies that the true import of the orthodox fixation of doctrine is ascertained ; any other mode of determining which (as by etymology, popular usage, &c.) would have been undoubtedly found as unsatis¬ factory as in the parallel inquiries into the precise meaning of many of the technical terms of ancient phi¬ losophy or law. Can we doubt that had St. Paul, for example, originally, and prior to all controversy, de¬ livered some sentences of the Nicene or Athanasian creeds in his Epistles, the meaning of these sentences, which now, discerned in the light of the controversy that produced them, appears so unquestionable, would have been, subsequently to the Apostle’s day, disputed LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 247 by numbers unwilling, in the pride of the sensual un¬ derstanding, to accept the doctrine d . And then hardly any conceivable remedy would have remained ; for where should the guardians of the truth have found plainer or preciser language to express it ? At all events since heresies, as predicted, were sure to arise (for the seeds of such are implanted in the perversity of man), and since they would have found little diffi¬ culty in distorting any language that Inspiration had adopted ; it does not appear that Inspiration would have gained much by descending from its usual style, which conveys the doctrine clearly enough to those who are willing to receive it; while, through the interven¬ tion of the heresies, the phraseology finally adopted by common consent and authority, as best expressing the A Even in the Nicene Creed itself, there is a point which the Homo-ousios is by some maintained to have left undetermined,* though commonly supposed to imply it. The history of this dis¬ pute, however, would, I conceive, only illustrate the main point here insisted on (that controversy is almost indispensable for fixing the sense of Church definitions); for the ambiguity seems to have arisen from the distinction in question not having been prominent in the controversy at the Nicene stage, and so overlooked. * [“The true reason,” says Waterland (Vol. i. 543-4), “why the Nicene Fathers laid so great a stress upon the homo-ousion was not because this alone was sufficient to make Father and Son one God, but because they could not be so without it. 'O yoovaiog the Son must_be, or he could not be God at all, in the strict sense; and yet, if he was barely oyoovcnog, like as one human person is to another, the two would be two Gods. And, therefore, the Nicene Fathers, not content to say only that the Son is byoovcnog, insert likewise ‘ God of God, Light of Light, begotten,’ &c., and ‘ of the substance of the Father and this they are known to have declared over and over, to be ‘ without any divisionall which taken together expresses a great deal more than oyoovmog would do alone; and are, as it were, so many qualifying clauses, on purpose to prevent any such misapprehension and misconstruction, as the word might otherwise be liable to.”] 248 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. original truth, was placed beyond the possibility of mis¬ conception. And thus both the depositories of doctrine were suitably provided for. Scripture (in which there are doubtless higher objects than mere perspicuity), was left to its native and transcendant style; eccle¬ siastical definitions (in which the chief object is perspi¬ cuity) were secured from misinterpretation by the only infallible means for fixing their purport. The revela¬ tion having been given by God himself, the rest of the process was in His high overruling providence distri¬ buted between the two great parties of His professing servants; the false and disloyal, who indirectly, by their gainsayings, gave the impulse; the faithful and devoted, who to meet the attack were led (and thus only, as I have argued, could have been with enduring benefit led), to methodize 6 their beliefs, and fortify them at all points against all assailants. It was after the Fall the flaming sword turned every way to guard the gates of paradise, and prohibit the unworthy, who had daringly tampered with its Knowledge, from tasting of its Life. Heresy 1 —and that not the rapid, transitory, obscure e [“ Quid unquam aliud Ecclesia Conciliorum decretis enisa est, nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur, hoc idem postea diligen- tius crederetur?”—Vincent. Lirinens. ( Adv. Hceres. c. 32.)] f [“ As to the primitive Churches, their constant way was to en¬ large their creeds in proportion to the growth of heresies ; that so every corruption arising to the Faith of Christ might have an im¬ mediate remedy.” “ As more and more of the sacred truths, in process of time, came to be opposed or called in question, so Creeds have been enlarged in proportion.”—Waterland, Works, Vol. iii. pp. 249-254. (Oxford, 1843.) Compare Beveridge, Codex Can. vind. Prooemium , p. 25. ( Works, Vol. xi. in Lib. of Anglo-Catholic Theo- %y-)] LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 249 heresy proper to the apostolic age, but a movement ex¬ tensive, public, historical—was just the necessary pre¬ liminary to the authoritative restatement of the funda¬ mentals of the faith. Nor was there any antecedent probability that this secondary work should either wait for or receive inspiration, in the high and peculiar sense of that gift; such paraphrases of divine utterances in the feebler, cautious dialect of human reason, are emi¬ nently a work for man ; God would be honoured in the faculties that had offended Him ; a sanctified use of Reason was the appropriate corrective of Reason misused. But now, though it be perfectly evident that this process of systematizing Divine Truth by Human Rea¬ son, may become not only useful but necessary, and, as both useful and necessary, a manifest duty on the part of those who are intrusted with the charge of teaching and defending it, yet it is also very evident, that, like many other imperative duties (which do not, therefore, cease to be duties), its discharge is accompanied with special difficulties ; and that , as for other reasons so for this, that it is nearly, if not altogether, impossible to propound any single a priori Canon which shall dis¬ tinctly regulate and test its proper exercise in all cases. Suppose it granted that the Church is bound to intro¬ duce no new doctrine, yet there is a variety of senses in which a doctrine may be styled “new;” and the dis¬ cussion would probably be endless, whose object was to fix by any one inflexible and universal rule, at what precise stage in a complicated process of deduction the epithet should begin to be applied in the sense of un¬ warrantable innovation. It can hardly be questioned, 250 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. that before that point is reached, numerous instances are adducible in which novelty might be with equal inno¬ cence, because in different senses, affirmed or denied. For instance,— A doctrine may be apparently new, which is new only in the language expressing it , as when a technical or scientific phraseology is employed instead of the previous simple and inartificial expression of the same substantial import; which naturally occurs (as we have seen), when some perverse interpretation of the com¬ mon form of statement forces the orthodox to substi¬ tute some more precise philosophical equivalent capa¬ ble of no second meaning. Or it may be styled new, when, though so fully be¬ lieved as to be always acted on (as the duty of a reve¬ rential manner in prayer, &c.), it happens to be for the first time formally propounded to the intellect; in which sense the common axioms of geometry are new; and the man who could never have made a rational use of his limbs without assuming it, learns a “ new” truth, when informed that a straight line is the shortest dis¬ tance between two points. Or a doctrine may appear new, when detached truths are carefully grouped together , ami some brief term for the first time employed to keep them in that conjunction; as when the word Trinity is adopted to express the combination revealed in Scripture of the numerical singleness of the substance of Deity with the distinction of the three personal agents therein mysteriously com¬ prised, and mutually related ; or when a precise and methodical declaration is issued of the combination of the single Personality with the double nature. LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 251 Or it may seem new, when a truth involved in the public doctrine of the Church, and in a manner assumed by all who receive that doctrine in its integrity, though no special act may have yet separated it from the mass, is put forth prominently and alone , and thenceforth, of course, designated by some appropriate term; a truth which, however, is still rested upon this basis of plain inference, that to deny it can be shown to contradict some unquestionable principle, and ultimately to con¬ found the harmony of the system of belief; such was the determination of the Monothelite Controversy. Whether such statements of doctrine as these—novel only in their Phraseology, their formal Affirmation, their Combination, their Deduction—are to be called new or old , is a question rather of words than of things; as long as it is admitted by those who prefer to call them new , that these determinations, however unlike the exterior form and language of Scripture, really con¬ tained nothing essential to belief, sanctification, and salvation, which was not accepted from the beginning (a principle which, I need not reiterate from my last Letter, the framers themselves of these determinations energetically affirm); and so long as it is fully conceded by those who celebrate the exclusive claims of the ori¬ ginal inspired documents, and so would prefer to pro¬ claim all the Church’s doctrines to be as truly old as they g , that the substance of divine truth, retaining its identity under many varieties of form, may lawfully and ^ “We look upon this tradition [of the Church in all ages] as nothing else but the Scripture unfolded; not a new thing , which is not in the Scripture, but the Scripture explained and made more evident .”—Patrick on Tradition , p. 18. (Ed. 1683). 252 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. usefully assume those varieties, and that all legitimate conclusions from truth, by whomsoever made, are them¬ selves unquestionably true. Nevertheless, while in the history of theology, it is thus easy enough to instance what was not essentially new, and unfortunately too easy likewise to instance what unquestionably was ,—between these extremes a large territory of unauthorized, though often interest¬ ing, reasoning and speculation, has ever spread, in which it might sometimes be found perplexing enough to pro¬ nounce to which of these divisions particular points of theology belong. It is in this obscure border-land that the advocate of the unquestionable novelties delights to range ; endeavouring to draw his opponent into a position where he can avail himself of all the difficulties of the ground, and claiming as a victory to his own arms the mere bewilderment of an adversary who should never have suffered himself to be betrayed into these fastnesses at all. Such are some of the subtle problems connected with—though not essential to—the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Sacraments, of Original Sin, and the like ; the artful tactician skilfully exposing and heightening the difficulty of settling the question be¬ tween novelty and antiquity there; and then triumph¬ antly challenging his opponent to say where he will halt and affirm that real novelty begins. His opponent should demur to the legitimacy of the question. It may be impossible — I would certainly advise all con¬ cerned to be cautious how they undertake—to lay down any general canon for determining this issue, in all cases alike. There is nothing more dangerous than to make the truth dependent on our theories of it. It may be LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 253 irresistibly manifest that certain alleged doctrines are real innovations, and yet no easy matter to achieve the very different object of furnishing some one universal test by which all innovations shall be instantly discri¬ minated from ancient truths and their legitimate conse¬ quences. I shall have to return to this point presently. 2. I have hitherto been speaking principally (because it is the most immediately important) of the Conciliar determinations of antiquity. But, it must be remem¬ bered, that the spirit and language of these determina¬ tions were themselves, in no small degree, the results of a process of systematizingdoctrine,which had already gone on from the earliest period in the hands of indi¬ vidual teachers. The Conciliar Definitions, if imme¬ diately occasioned by heresy, are also the monument of a very extensive and varied process of exposition by the orthodox. Councils were temporary and inciden¬ tal ; but systematic teaching was, in some form or other, inevitable from the beginning. It thus becomes a very interesting question to consider—if the original doc¬ trine committed to the first disciples, and comprised in Scripture, was, in all ages, sure to be systematized in some way, what would be the probable characteristics of the earlier manifestations of this natural, inevitable process in the Christian Church ? Now it appears to me that in the prosecution of this work (of organizing doctrines into system), the early teachers would possess a considerable advantage, ba¬ lanced by some disadvantages ; and I doubt not that it is in the due comparative estimate of these charac¬ teristics that most of the skill of genuine criticism in the ancient theology consists. Their great advantage 254 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. would be their recent inheritance of the original doc¬ trine, and that reverential solicitude for its correct transmission, always, except by heretical parties 11 (and sometimes, such was the prevalence of the feeling, even by them), strenuously professed ; a solicitude the more earnest (and thence reflecting the more value upon their concurrent testimonies), that the preservation of the faith was for a considerable period almost wholly in the charge of the bishops of the Churches, with far less help than we habitually derive from the collective Scriptures. No one can doubt that the Canon was gra¬ dually fixed, and probably not wholly and finally fixed, before the beginning of the third century 1 ; and it is manifest, on the very face of their writings, and from their own express affirmations, that the earlier teachers rested their teaching not alone on the inspired docu¬ ments, but upon a distinct body of inherited doctrine, h The general characteristic of heresy from the very beginning was the assertion of either secret traditions* committed to the ex¬ clusive keeping of the heretical bodies, or new and refined develop¬ ments of the apostolic teaching. Tertullian, who himself became a melancholy example of the latter, records in his better writings the prevalence of the former of these two remarkable contemporary an¬ ticipations of the very two forms of vindication now at once exhi¬ bited by the defenders of the Roman peculiarities. 1 [Bishop Cosin proves that the Canon was determined at a much * [Basilides, of the first or second century, and his partisans, claimed tradition in their favour. Valentinus, of the second century, and his disciples, “ fetched their doc¬ trine by one Theodades, as they said, from the Apostle S. Paul.” The Marcionites pretended to derive their doctrines by tradition from the Apostle Matthias. The Artemonians of the third century pretended tradition from the Apostles themselves. The Arians claimed tradition equally with the Catholics. The Macedonians also pleaded tradition for their rejecting the Divinity of the Holy Ghost—See Waterland, Works, iii. pp. 658-9.] LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 255 perfectly concordant and co-extensive (as we now fully see), but not verbally identical with Scripture. One of the most eminent of them, indeed, (S. Irenmus), in a well-known passage k , where he states the chief heads of this body of doctrine, starts, for argument sake, the supposition, that there had been no written instructions left by the Apostles, and insists that, in such a case [than which, ultimately, no doubt there could have been no greater misfortune to the Church], it would still have been men’s duty to have adhered to the line of traditional belief, which had originated in the very same authority. The guides of the early Church, then, being circumstanced as I have described, we can hardly doubt that the anxiety to preserve tra¬ ditionary truth in all points, must have been more earnest and zealous than, with our ready recourse to the whole inspired volume, and our innumerable other earlier period. “ After the Apostles, in whose time the whole Canon of Scripture was determined, the hour was past, and the door was shut; no addition might be made, nor any other book taken in, but what they had first received, and left sacred to the Church. Which is not only acknowledged by S. Augustine, but likewise by the Doctors of the Church of Rome itself, both those that lived be¬ fore the Council of Trent, and those that have written since.”— Scholas. Hist, of the Canon , Works, (in Lih. of Anglo-Catholic Theol .) Vol. iii. p. 31. The Bishop refers to Melchior Canus, who thus states the Apostolical origin of the Canon: “ Non enim alios libros Canonicos habemus, sive veteris sive novi Testamenti, quam quos Apostoli probaverunt, atque Ecclesise tradiderunt.”—( DeLoc . Theol. p. 37 .) The language of Bellarmine is equally explicit. — De Verb. Dei , Tom. i. col. 80.] k S. Iren. iii. 4. [See Beaven’s Account of the Life and Writings of S. 1t ’enceus , pp. 142—156. Lond. 1841. Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants , Chap. ii. Works, pp. 121-2. Ib. 1742.—G.] 256 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. resources of confirmation and refutation, we can at once or easily conceive. And this reverential anxiety would naturally form a strong check upon undue im¬ pulses to systematize ; not to add, that these men’s earliest systematic conceptions of divine truth may, with fair probability, claim an authority higher than their own ; furnished to them, very possibly, by their apostolic teachers for the purpose of teaching others, and thus, perhaps, transmitting to us the last declining beams of Inspiration itself. On the other hand, I should expect of such men that they would evince a certain degree of inexperience in the human work of systematizing doctrine, which, not improbably, might betray them into (1.) occasional mistakes of its real internal connexions, into (2.) pre¬ cipitancy, it might be too, in the filling up of the out¬ lines of revealed doctrine by pure speculation ; into (3.) a laxity of phraseology (unaware as they were of the importance of every syllable of those rapid expres¬ sions of their’s, on whose interpretation rival folios were yet to be written!), a laxity for which, in the in¬ firmity of man, controversy seems to be the only sure corrective ; and sometimes (4.) into misconceptions of the most eligible methods of proof. To calculate on such abatements as these, really seems only to admit that, unless able and honest men invariably write under miraculous guidance, there must be something left for them to learn from experience. And we cannot fail to see, that the ability of the individual must not, in the just investigation of traditional doctrine, and its authority, occupy at all the same rank which it holds in the history of a human and progressive philosophy; LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 257 it being certain, that in proportion to the ability, un¬ less where we can presume a strong intellectual re¬ straint, will be the temptation, to mingle the private speculations of the teacher with the original deposit committed to his charge. Such a case as that of Origen will at once occur to every reader as a palmary instance in point. At the same time, the multitude of consenting witnesses will proportionably correct this evil; that multitude (though even here the powerful personal influence of authoritative leaders must not be forgotten), tending to eliminate the private element in theology, and present us with the public tradition, as that alone in which all can be expected to coincide. And, if the systematic expositions of antiquity give us, as they surely do, this substantial sameness, we may justly see in their endless circumstantial peculiarities the proof of their genuineness,—in their very aberra¬ tions a mark of the independence of their testimony on the great truths in which they agree. II. If this be at all a fair account of what we might anticipate, and may observe, in those writings in which the first uninspired teachers of Christianity undertook to dispense their awful trust to mankind,—undertook humbly but resolutely (for it was their duty, and it is our’s), to connect by the links of human reason, and arrange in didactic order, and unfold in their logical consequences, those mighty elements of truth which inspiration had delivered, as it ever has done, briefly and in the mass,—I would venture again to suggest how it confirms the observation already made upon the inadmissibility of those broad and universal maxims so constantly hazarded in the controversial use of their s 258 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. testimony. Such maxims are utterly inapplicable to the sort of complex evidence with which divines, whe¬ ther Anglican or, if they would honestly confess it, Homan, have really to deal in establishing doctrines. The evidence of Antiquity, like the evidence of Scrip¬ ture itself, is not accurately the same in amount for all those doctrines which, nevertheless, we are bound with equal and unhesitating cordiality to receive. Let me dwell for a moment on this, a perpetual source of unnecessary perplexity. I would say, that while, no doubt (as a simple mat¬ ter of fact), the common doctrinal tradition of anti¬ quity is found to tally with the received interpretation of Scripture in all essential matters, and the soundest scriptural criticism in its turn confirms that vener¬ able tradition ; that while (to adopt the philosophical phraseology of our times), that old inherited theory of doctrine is found to embrace all the phenomena of Scripture texts, and the latter to fall in with, and mar¬ shal themselves readily under that old theory,—yet, from the very nature of the evidence, no single uni¬ versal rule can be strictly enforced to define the pre¬ cise amount of testimony to be fairly required in every instance for the proof of this, from the extant remains of antiquity. Whatever we can plainly see to be true and important, no doubt, was always held, but the quantity of proof now actually adducible to establish this, if always sufficient, may yet differ considerably in different cases. We can as little fix under a single in¬ flexible formula the necessary amount of uninspired confirmation as of original inspired proof, for any theo¬ logical proposition; when men shall have agreed how LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 259 many verses of Scripture shall be required to make a doctrine certain or fundamental, they may settle how many corroborative Fathers or Synodical Canons shall be deemed exactly sufficient to sustain it in that rank. The custom of treating all points of belief as if they must necessarily possess the same precise amount of producible documentary evidence (in rivalry of the affected simplicity of the Roman “ rule”), instead of being content with demanding for them all (what they all ought really to obtain, and what alone concerns us as Christians), the same amount of habitual acceptance and practical influence , is a common weakness with de¬ fenders of Catholic truth, and easily taken advantage of ( see p. 8, &c.) by a dexterous disputant like the author before us. It is really inconsistent with the very nature of complex historical proof; nor does this position expose primitive Catholicity to any objection whatsoever, which cannot with the greatest ease be retorted upon Romanism, so far as it ventures to rest its “ rule” upon that species of proof. It is true we are accustomed, with no unworthy pride, to employ some general expressions that seem to import this uni¬ versal equality of evidence, but it is as general expres¬ sions they must be interpreted. The semper , ubique , expresses what no doubt is a matter of fact as to all important doctrine, and is commonly affirmed as such by our divines, in refuting those peculiarities which now at last are ingenuously confessed to be Vincentian heresies ; but I conceive that such a rule, as applied to the remaining writings of antiquity, can as little be interpreted with absolute metaphysical strictness, as the analogous assertion that a doctrine is s 2 2G0 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. “universally delivered in the New Testament” can be unde^tood to import that it is expressly stated, or even implied, in every single document of the twenty- seven contained in the Holy Volume. The Bishops of England, in the remarkable Canon of 157L 1 , limiting the doctrine to be taught by preachers, with judicious reserve employed the general expressions” 1 , “ quod ex ilia ipsa doctrina Catholici patres et veteres episcopi col- legerint,” without thinking it necessary to exhibit the criterion in any more rigorous form ; without, that is, undertaking to pronounce on the complicated questions of criticism— how many of these Fathers and Prelates, at any one time, and for each specific tenet; who pre¬ cisely were “ Catholic Fathersand still more, at what period “ ancient Bishops” must be considered as giving place to mediaeval or modern ; content, and rightly content, with a general standard, and a general injunc¬ tion of reverence for the old traditional “ collection” from Scripture doctrine, and reserving their stricter obligation for where it is justly required to the letter, for the Articles, Liturgy, and Ordinal that follow in 1 [Sparrow’s Collection , p. 238. Lond. 1671. BooJce of certaine Canons , p. 23. Lond. Iohn Daye, 1571. In the latter very rare volume this celebrated ordinance appears in the original English. —G.J m j-u Imprimis ve ro videbunt (concionatores) ne quid unquam do- ceant pro concione, quod a populo religiose teneri et credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit doctrine Veteris et Novi Testamenti, quodque ex ilia ipsa doctrina Catholici Patres et veteres Episcopi collegerint.” This Canon is styled by Bishop Cosin, “ The Golden Rule of our Church, the Doctrine of Holy Scripture, and the In¬ terpretation thereof by the ancient Fathers.”— (Works, Vol. iii. p. 317, in Lib. of Anglo-Catholic Theology .) LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 261 the Canon. The plain truth is, that to multiply ideal standards is only to multiply advantages for the adver¬ sary ; each tenet claiming to be a portion of the Chris¬ tian Faith must first be decided (by the few who are qualified, and no others have a right, to entertain such inquiries at all) on its own exclusive evidence ; whe¬ ther it reach a conceived standard or not, if it be proven , it demands to be believed. If Scripture fur¬ nish sufficient proof, it is idle to complain that it does not furnish more ; if antiquity incline the balance of probability to the belief that the doctrine in question was the doctrine received, it is equally idle to demand farther evidence from that source, or feebly continue to dwell upon difficulties which, once fairly overba¬ lanced, should be suffered to disturb the calculation no more. The prudent inquirer knows, that the pre¬ cise amount of evidence required for doctrine has been nowhere revealed, and can only be determined induc¬ tively, as a conclusion, in each instance, from the in¬ quiry, not as a preliminary to it ; he will try every case by its individual merits, remembering that the true and only question is —for this specific doctrine (whatever it may be), is there evidence enough to make a reasonable man accept it as a real portion of the truth of God ? For (I repeat) it is to be observed—and I think very important to be observed,—that, even among the most momentous doctrines, we have no antecedent reason whatsoever to presume that all would be sus¬ tainable by exactly the same amount of proof; that some one may really be more evident than some other; and yet, that (on this supposition) no right- 262 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. minded man who remembers the conditions of all human belief and duty, would think of permitting himself practically to doubt either, or attempt to sug¬ gest such a course to others, by invidiously exhibiting the supposed lack of absolute, or inferiority of relative, proof. Both are certain enough to ground the duty of belief and action, and even of equally energetic action 11 , and this once clear, it becomes the direct duty of one who must either act or not—with whom inac¬ tion is itself a real choice —to discountenance any ten¬ dency to dwell upon the positive or comparative un¬ certainty of either. n I say advisedly, of equally energetic action ; for it may be, that the less certain demands (from the immense importance of the issue, &c.) action so energetic that the other cannot exceed it. A matter so manifest wh6n stated, can hardly need illustration. If a man had a very strong chance of a large estate by expending a trifling sum of money, he would not hesitate to do so; were the prospect even to brighten by some additional chance of success, it would not be physically possible for him to be more eager in staking his pit¬ tance than he had been already. He would stare at the friend who should admonish him, that active energy requiring to be directly as probability of success, he was now bound to hasten to his agent with a new velocity, accurately graduated to correspond to the new accession of probability. Simple as this is, it is upon forgetting it that half the Romish arguments for the necessity of absolute cer¬ tainty in religion are founded. Faith, as a practical principle, may retain its habitual confidence, and so its equal operative influence, under very different degrees in the mathematical estimate of proba¬ bilities. It should never be forgotten, by those who are perpetu¬ ally demanding infallible certainty in all matters of faith, that it is infallibly certain that we ought to act, and act strenuously, upon moral certainty . Now, has any man a right to demand more infal¬ libility than an infallibly certain rule of action? [See Jackson’s Works, i. 608—13. (“Proportion of Certainty in Assent of Chris¬ tian Faith.”) Lond. 1673.—G.] LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 263 I can easily understand that such a representation as this may appear cold and unsatisfactory when con¬ trasted with the pompous claims of instant and abso¬ lute certainty in religion, which are so triumphantly advanced by the advocates of Romanism, as the ex¬ clusive privilege of their communion. The apparent plausibility of these exclusive claims seems usually traceable to a fallacy of no great depth ; an ambiguity of the word “ faith,” and a dexterous, sometimes per¬ haps an unconscious, alternate substitution, according to occasion, of the two very distinguishable ideas which are conveyed by it. This important word, and all the synonymous and connected terms,—Belief, Conviction, Certainty, and the like,—are theologically employed in two different senses,—for a purely intellectual con¬ viction, and for an habitual practical assent. The na¬ ture of the former of these mental states is to admit (and, doubtless, in many instances pardonably) many degrees of conviction—as of evidence—below the highest; of the latter, to admit habitually no hesita¬ tion or indecision at all ; and this apparent inconsis¬ tency is not only paralleled by the most ordinary facts of every day’s experience, but strictly justifiable upon the soundest principles of logic and philosophy. And both these concurrent forms of belief are universal phenomena, applicable to all practical matters depen¬ dent on testimony, and so to all modifications, whether true or false, of revealed religion. Thus (having first excluded those special spiritual influences, which, in this case, to assume for any one party, would be to assume the question at issue),—as regards the former notion of faith, all systems of belief must consent to 264 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. claim by the same general title, however different the real merits of their claim ; none can pretend to rise beyond the simple ground of historical, or other, evi¬ dence of strong probability, and the species of belief, it produces ; if, to apply the principle to the matter immediately in hand, the Romanist is dull or daring enough to attempt evading this, he may be asked to account for the mere fact of infidelity in any province of his Church ; to explain how, if by virtue of his po¬ sition he possesses a hind of intellectual proof of the Christian Religion that admits of no possibility of doubt, it has actually come to pass that it has been and is doubted by thousands of deists within his commu- V nion ; to reflect, in which of the Christian Churches, for example, arose the great and popular school of un¬ belief which poisoned all the literature of the eigh¬ teenth century ? In the latter sense, again, all systems of belief, as before, stand on the same basis ; for all, whether right or wrong, equally claim unqualified in¬ fluence, unhesitating practical “ faith,” as the proper consequence of the assent, to whatever degree informed or convinced, if it but be, on the whole, the assent of the understanding. So that, in that purely intellectual sense of belief, in which it weighs and accepts what it takes to be high testimonial proof, and in that prac¬ tical sense in which it imports habitual influential as¬ surance, it is not easy to see how any one division of Christianity can claim to occupy a different basis from any other. The comparative justice of their respective claims is, indeed, another and a very different ques¬ tion ; but the only point that now concerns us is this, and it seems sufficiently manifest,—that all alike, the LETT. VI.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 265 pettiest subdivision of American Independency, no more, and no less, than the Church of the Vatican 0 , appeal, if they profess to reason at all, to the merely moral certainty of historical proof for the understand¬ ings, while they demand unhesitating practical affiance from the hearts, of their adherents. Now it will be intelligible enough, that if a skilful controversialist can contrive so to perplex this distinc¬ tion as, whenever it is his object to expose uncertainty , to insist largely upon the intellectual difficulties of the “faith” he rejects, and, whenever it suits his purpose to magnify the security of “ faith,” to dwell on the ful¬ ness of that practical assurance of which I have spoken; if he can manage by this artifice to throw into the shade at once the real deficiencies of his own grounds of intellectual certainty (deficiencies at the least as unquestionable as his antagonist’s) and the real prac¬ tical assurance of his antagonist’s faith (at the least as vigorous and unhesitating as his own), he may thus, by a sort of logical sleight-of-hand, succeed in exhibit¬ ing to the dazzled eyes of his admiring disciples an uniform impression of some sublime and unalterable stability of faith which it is the exclusive privilege of his own communion to afford. Simple as is this sophism, the substance of voluminous treatises of school divines on this endless topic, seems to resolve into nothing better 15 . It is hence, too, that, as another mo- 0 1 say this, to avoid all discussion of that “ assent inevident” and “ assent obscure,” by which some of the schoolmen have, with a miserably obvious aim, laboured to mystify the nature of Faith.* p An unsteady hold of the same manifest distinction (no doubt * [Jackson, ut sup., pp. 608, G18.—G.] 266 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VI. dification of the same fallacy, when Romanists argue the uncertainty of the common process of determining religious truth by evidence, they conceive of inquiring men, forgetting that to such men their own rule (which must circuitously travel to the same point in the end) could not bring one whit more real satisfaction ; and when, on the other hand, they declaim on the ease and excellence of their own, they conceive of uninquiring men, forgetting that to such men, whose belief is con¬ tingent on the circumstances of their position, all rules are alike. Our present Author was of course obliged by the nature of his general argument to attempt to contri¬ bute something to this question of continuous Infal¬ lible Authority. Ilis contribution, however [Chap. ii. Sect. 2], is remarkably brief, and on the whole, hardly worthy of his genius. We are, probably, to attribute it to the humility of the catechumen, that he has not yet permitted himself to be original upon this vener¬ able common-place. However it be explained, there is certainly no part of his argument in which he has been more signally ineffective than in this, by far the most indispensable of all. I shall endeavour to offer a few observations upon it in another communication. I remain, my dear Sir, Your’s faithfully, W. Archer Butler. exhibiting itself in a style of eloquent disquisition, considerably more agreeable than school divinity), seems to be at the bottom of our author’s unsatisfactory chapter about Faith and Reason, pp. 327-337. LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 267 LETTER YII. Dear Sir, I have to offer you a few remarks on that indispensable portion of Mr. Newman’s argument, in which he attempts to sustain his hypothesis of Deve¬ lopment by the auxiliary hypothesis of a “ Developing Authority in Christianity.” I am not aware that I do any real injustice to the course of this author’s reasoning, when I exhibit it somewhat unceremoniously in this fashion. Certain doctrines and practices exist which have little or no express authority in Scripture or countenance in Eccle¬ siastical Antiquity. They are attractive, or at least connected with a system which has become so ; and it would be exceedingly pleasant to be able to believe and to justify them. They may be justified by sup¬ posing the Christian revelation designed to be commu¬ nicated to men in the way of successive additions in the course of ages. Therefore it was so designed. But as endless additions are conceivable, and numerous opposing additions have actually been made, it would be useful that there were some authority to decide among them. Therefore there is such an authority. 268 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. Connecting the commencing and closing links of the chain, we obtain the highly satisfactory inference : cer¬ tain agreeable tenets exist; therefore they are infallibly guaranteed, and infallibly certain. The author may object to this : he may urge that I omit a collateral link ; his independent proofs (pp. 94- 114) of the probability of development in Christianity. I will insert it, when I can discover a single candid reader of either communion who will declare that he honestly believes that this argument about the likelihood of developments (in the present extent and import of the term) would ever have been concocted except in view of the very peculiarities to he accounted for a , and in consequence of the felt impossibility of accounting for them without such assumption ; who will declare his belief that (to reduce the matter to an intelligible test), if the doctrine of the universal Christian Church now stood precisely as it stood in the first ages, Mr. New¬ man, or any other speculative divine, would ever have prospectively demanded for that Church any future a “ An hypothesis to account for a difficulty ,” as he himself can¬ didly confesses, p. 27. But how did the difficulty arise which only this hypothesis can save ? He compares his hypothesis (as I believe I have before noticed), to “the explanation given by astronomers of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies.” What should we have thought of some astronomer of superhuman powers, who should first contrive to derange the heavenly bodies, and then gravely devise an astronomical hypothesis to account for the diffi¬ culty; or a geologist (to take another of his illustrations, p. 28, and a more manageable one) who should take for natural strata the fragments of a mine dislocated and disordered by the workmen, and set about inventing an hypothesis to account for the sadly “ diffi¬ cult” facts he had to deal with ? LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 269 right of “ development,” beyond that right, or duty, of logical inference and practical application, which, in common with those ages, I have every where abun¬ dantly conceded and claimed. Nay, I will grant his antecedent argument, when Mr. Newman himself shall distinctly state his conviction that any prelate or doctor of the Nicene age, who should have professed to regard the doctrine of the Trinity as a matter of Church reve¬ lation, neither known nor intended to be known in the first ages, and resting for its real security on the infal¬ lible authority of the Church alone—would have es¬ caped the instant anathema of that very Church as a scoffing Arian. Is this too much to ask—too much to demand of one who, in deserting the principles of Ca¬ tholicism, still, at least, clings to the name,—that he should distinctly affirm a belief that his book would not have been condemned as heterodox by the saints he prays to ? And yet I am perfectly willing to abide the issue. Mr. Newman is deep—few of our time more so—in Athanasius and Hilary; let him tranquilly reflect what either of these holy men—what Basil, again, or Nazianzen,—would have thought of the follower who had dared to insinuate that the truth they dedicated their time and toil to establishing on Scripture warrant, and confirming by inherited tradition, was, after all, the tardy growth of their own age ; a truth which Sabel- lius was a heretic for attempting too hastily to antici¬ pate (p. 352)—a heretic for presuming to penetrate what Athanasius was a saint for defending ; in itself only one hypothesis among many, and demanding but provisional acceptance until—if even then—a Church 270 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. decision—a Roman decision—should fix and authorize the floating mass of conjectured It is idle, then, to speak of probabilities prior to the facts, which in times prior to the facts would have been dismissed by all men as dangerous and chimerical; idle to speak of arguments as independent, which are, themselves, attempts at illustrating an arbitrary hypo¬ thesis, and derive all the little plausibility they possess solely from their understood subservience to the object the hypothesis is brought to maintain. I will not admit that to be in itself and antecedently probable which Athanasius or Augustine would never have suspected as possible. I will not admit that light to be “indepen¬ dent” which is wholly reflected from the object it is brought to illumine; or consent to admit for “ antece¬ dent” proof the forecast shadow of the fact itself to be proved ! But when, instead of this imposing scheme of pro¬ babilities, independently constructed in dependance on b Not such was the opinion of one whose singularly solid judg¬ ment gives great weight to his testimony as to a matter of fact on which the written and traditional evidence must have been more abundant in his day than it can be in our’s. “ Who, before the profane Pelagius, ever claimed such power for the will as to deny that the grace of God was necessary to aid it in the particular acts of obedience ? Who, before his marvellous [“prodigiosum”] disciple Celestius, ever denied that the whole human race was brought under the guilt of Adam’s sin ? Who, before the blasphemer [“sacri- legum”] Arius , dared to divide in his creed the Unity of the Trinity ? Who , before the wretched [“ sceleratum”] Sabellius , to confuse the Trinity of the Unity?”— Vincent. Lirin. Commonit. c. 34. [foil. 32-3. Paris. 1561.—There is nothing in the original corresponding to the words “in his creed.”—G.] LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 271 the very innovations they were to recommend, we sub¬ stitute the manifest, the hardly disguised fact, that the probability of the hypothesis is solely to be found in the service it can render towards making the innova¬ tions tolerable, we find the whole argument revolve in as pretty a circle as any the schools can furnish. I believe certain doctrines, because of infallible autho¬ rity. I believe infallible authority, because of its ante¬ cedent necessity. I believe it antecedently necessary, because of developments wanting to be directed. I believe developments to want direction, because they must exist in great variety. I believe they must exist, because certain doctrines exist which I cannot other¬ wise prove to be part of the Christian religion. I believe them to be part of the Christian religion, be¬ cause of infallible authority. This again, as before, I conclude from its antecedent necessity. And so on, the theological cycloid is anew described, as the circle rotates in omne volubilis cevum. But it is time to proceed to some closer examina¬ tion of our author’s arguments for his developing AUTHORITY. It is to be carefully observed in this question of In¬ fallible Authority, that the infallibility to be made good is not any infallible authority of the diffusive, or even the representative, universal Church, as such, (though, even on this ground, as we shall presently see, the pe¬ culiar positions of the author would be almost equally inconclusive). It would be a waste of time to go about proving that no such universal voice has spoken col¬ lectively for ages. The infallibility exclusively at issue in this controversy is that which is alleged to be by 272 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. special divine gift vested in the Church in connexion with the bishop of the city of Rome. The localization of the gift, its concentration in and around a particular patriarchate, its identification with the decisions or opi¬ nions of one exclusive line of prelates, uttering itself by one fixed and definite organ (whether Pope, or Pope and Western Council), as distinct from all others, or from all together ,—this is the thing to be proved essen¬ tial to all revealed religion (p. 124),—the thing with¬ out which, sternly rejected though it be by fully one half of those now on earth, who name the name of Christ, it is to be proved antecedently impossible for Christianity to exist. This, I say, must be carefullv remembered as the real question ; because Mr. New¬ man, in that inspired abandonment which is the privi¬ lege of genius, has unfortunately chanced to overlook it. Humbler inquirers will find time to observe that, from the very nature of the new theory, even granting that a special promise protects the Christian Church at large in the possession of fundamental truths, the real argument has not even begun , until the author has in¬ structed us at what time this Christian Church at lame O formally, or even constructively, consigned—or how it could ever have had the power to consign, and that in new and enlarged terms—its corporate gift to the Church of the western patriarch. Unless he can do this—which I may take the liberty of reminding him he perfectly well knows he cannot do,—the unity of his professing historical development is shattered to pieces ; and with —to go no further—the whole Eastern Church resolutely, amid all its many weaknesses, deny¬ ing the transference, what is it, to speak plainly, but a LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 273 gross imposition on the part of those advocates whom Mr. Newman has too confidingly followed, to keep as¬ suming that there is any connexion at all between the alleged infallibility of the consenting Universal Church (whatever that amounts to), and the perpetual inspira¬ tion of any single 0 communion within it, as long as all the rest strenuously disclaim the usurpation ?—Does he, then, intend by his authoritative sanction of deve¬ lopments the voice of the Church ? It has never once delivered sentence in his favour. Does he intend the infallible decision of the Boman Church ? Let him but distinctly say this, and steadily keep to it ; and his hypothesis of a developing authority rises in all the un¬ enviable singularity (I can hardly recall another theo¬ logical invention that has contrived to combine both) of being at once an assumption of the point to be proved, and even then internally inconsistent; of purchasing contradiction at the price of begging the question. # _ I shall endeavour to explain this more exactly. Let me first view the theory in connexion with the doctrine really in question, the local Infallibility; and afterwards c [Archbishop Bramhall points out the same assumption in the argument of La Milletiere. “ I presume this is one of the idiotisms of your language, in which by the Church you always understand the Roman Church, making Roman and Catholic to be convertibles. . . There is a vast difference between the Catholic Church, and a pa¬ triarchal Church. The Catholic Church can never fail; any pa¬ triarchal Church may apostate and fail. We have a promise that the candle shall not be put out; we have no promise that the can¬ dlesticks shall not be removed.”— Works , Vol. i. p. 43, in Lib. of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Compare Leslie, Works , Vol. i. p. 386, seqq ., iii. p. 91. Oxford, 1832.] 274 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. more generally, in its relation to infallible guidance in general. I shall dedicate this Letter to the former. I. In assuming that Christian Doctrine was to “ de¬ veloped that the Apostles’ Creed was originally intended in due season to expand into the Creed of Pius IV., Mr. Newman admits that many opposing developments of the New Testament were possible or probable; and as one only series, among innumerable coexistent lines of development, could be true , and this true series of value only as we could be ascertained of its truth, he concludes that an infallible guide must have been pro¬ vided to pilot the mind of the Church through these tempests of conflicting developments, and give us the requisite assurance. Correct development alone is to be accepted as divine ; and this alone can secure its correctness. This infallible guide, we have seen, is to be heard in the decisions of the Western Patriarch in a council of his prelates ; if the theory is ever to prove its point, no other is in question, for no other will ever involve the conclusion to which the whole theory is subordinate—the claims of the existing papal supre¬ macy. Now Mr. Newman admits,—abundantly admits, —what indeed it would be perfectly idle to deny in the present state of historical knowledge,—that the Roman primacy and its prerogatives were themselves a subsequent formation ; “ the Church was first Ca¬ tholic, then Papal,” is his own memorable affirmation. In other words, the Roman infallibility—the infallibi¬ lity denied by England and the East, by the Church of Andrewes and Taylor, by the Church of Chrysostom LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 275 and Basil—is admitted to share, along with the Wor¬ ship of Images, the Trinity, Original Sin, and other Church revelations, the character of a gradually deve¬ loped doctrine, a slow, however sure, discovery in fun¬ damental truth. That is to say,—the security of deve¬ lopment resolves into that which is itself a development; we are satisfied that development is a divine law, and that an otherwise uncertain body of doctrine is legiti¬ mately developed, because the chief development in the whole mass of uncertainty says so. We must first assume the whole line of developments perfectly cor¬ rect, in order to be sure of the Roman infallibility— for it is but one among them; and we must first assume the Roman infallibility certain, in order to pronounce the developments perfectly correct—for it is this very necessity that makes the infallibility indispensable. II. That this collateral security for the development process is thus not (as Mr. Newman seems strangely to have persuaded himself) “ external to the develop¬ ments” (p. 117), but itself included among them, and, therefore, no more authorized to guide them than they to guide themselves ; that a development directive of all others cannot claim authority on this pretext of the uncertainty of all developments, without itself requir¬ ing an antecedent guarantee, to be similarly warranted, without end ; that thus mutually confronted, the Deve¬ lopment and the Infallibility hang their heads like two detected witnesses, who appeal to each other for a cha¬ racter ;—all this, no doubt, appears more palpable when the infallibility is understood (as it ever ought in this controversy to be understood) in its peculiar Roman sense; for few at this time of day will have the courage t 2 276 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. to maintain that that can be regarded as more really primitive than any other of the developments to be defended. But it must not be forgotten that, in truth, the same fallacy is involved in every view in which the development hypothesis is connected with the alleged necessity of a visible , unerring guide , of whatever kind, corporate or individual, local or universal. For as the authority of such a tribunal was assuredly never, even once, the ground on which the primitive teachers rested their dogmatic determinations, we are still forced to view the recognition of such an arbiter of faith (wher¬ ever situated), the public admission of it for a sole and all-sufficing medium of proof in theological reasonings, as itself a development, and a late one ; and we are again brought, as before, to the inevitable paralogism of an infallible development, the child of the Church’s later years, authorizing its own elder brethren, and that belief obtaining currency and acceptance at a period comparatively modern, without which we are, never¬ theless, expected to admit that no previous belief, in the long chronology of development, could ever have been safe or certain! III. But besides this manifest confusion inherent in the attempt to make a tardy infallibility the regulator of antecedent development, it is impossible not to ob¬ serve how poorly the speculation matches with the his¬ torical facts. The [Homan] infallible tribunal is main¬ tained to be required from the variety and discordance of developments. Now no person, moderately informed in the history of the Church, can fail to see that the probability founded in this alleged want was infinitely stronger at a period before the Roman authority arose LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 277 at all ; that authority having been first commonly ac¬ knowledged in the West at a time when the controver¬ sies here held to necessitate it were beginning to dis¬ appear in the growing barbarism of the age, and to be lost in the fiercer tumults that accompanied the forma¬ tion of the new political divisions of Europe. If an infallible See was ever required to direct doctrinal development, it was at the very period when, it is now hardly denied, the gift was never claimed or suspected; the history of fundamental development was closed before the authority was recognised, without which, we are now instructed, that no right development can ever proceed. Through all the endless perplexities of the Gnostic reveries, through the imposing austerities of Montanism, through the important and difficult discus¬ sions connected with the question of Heretical Bap¬ tisms, through the conflict with Manicheism, through the various stages of the long Trinitarian controversy— from Theodotus and Artemon,fromNoetus and Praxeas and Sabellius, to the Council of Chalcedon, and later —not to add the practical difficulties of Novatianism, Donatism, and other incessant schisms—the Church, under that Divine Providence which has guaranteed its indefectible perpetuity, made its way, altogether u.nassisted d by the u Developing Authority” of an infal- d [“ It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the Fa¬ thers against heretics, (the Gnostics, Valentinians, Marcionites, Mon- tanists, Manichees, Paulianists, Arians, &c.), they should not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the universal Pastor and Judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing them. . . . Whereas divers of the Fathers purposely do treat on methods of confuting heretics, it is strange they should be so blind or dull as 278 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. lible See. The labour was great, but the Church knew no way of abridging it; the responsibility was tremen¬ dous, but the Church knew no way of evading it. Not even once, through all those periods of trial, not once through the fifty or sixty enormous folios that still re¬ main as the memorials of the men who preached, and wrote, and struggled through those critical times, is mention made of this ultimate court of appeal, whose judgment was to be the unerring test of truth, whose voice an echo from the inmost sanctuary of heaven. No where is Athanasius heard to proclaim “ Rome has de¬ cided for the consubstantial Son, and infidels alone can now prolong the dispute ;” never once declares Augus¬ tine, u Rome has pronounced against Pelagius 6 , and further argument is superfluous.” Both, like all their contemporaries, go to work with their Bibles in the most unequivocally “ Protestant” fashion, and appeal to the common belief of their predecessors, like simple Catholics who knew no better. Their Scripture texts are not confirmations, but principles. The Syrian ex- egetics, against which our author deals such unmea¬ sured reprobation f , (as if a revelation in human language not to hit on this most proper and obvious way of referring debates to the decision of him, to whose office of universal Pastor and Judge it did belong.”—Barrow. (Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy , p. 171. Ed. Cardwell.)] e [S. Prosper, (Carmen de Ingratis ,) whatever interpretation be put upon his words, has said, with reference to Pelagianism : * .“ Pestem subeuntem prima recidit Sedes Roma Petri: quae pastoralis honoris Facta caput mundo, quidquid non possidet armis Relligione tenet.”—G.] r See p. 282, &c. The simple fact appears to be, that the Syrian LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 279 is not to be fairly examined by the laws of language,) were never declined by such Catholic disciples of the critical school instructed quite as many Catholic doctors as heterodox teachers; a pretty manifest indication, one would think, that Scrip¬ tural criticism can exist and flourish without any inherent heretical tendency; that the heresy, when it does come, is rather in the soil than in the seed. I can hardly regard it as very respectful to Reve¬ lation to maintain that “ comments, clear, natural, methodical, apposite, and logically exact” (p. 284), naturally lead to heresy; or that “ Nestorianism is founded on the literal interpretation of Scripture” (p. 290), for any mind that would not have got at he¬ terodoxy under any interpretation. Of course hypercriticism in Scripture interpretation is an abuse; and just so is extravagant submission to human authority an abuse; and an ingenious disquisition on the evils of the one proves, for the point at issue, precisely as much as a similar display of rhetoric on the evils of the other. The writer of the following sentence does not seem to have con¬ templated the task of biblical criticism with these apprehensions. “Preemunitus scientia linguarum, ne in verbis locutionibusque ignotis haareat; prsemunitus etiam cognitione quarundem rerum necessariarum, ne vim naturamve earum quee propter similitudinem adhibent.ur, ignoret; adjuvante etiam codicum veritate, quam sollers emendationis diligentia procuravit; veniat ita instructus ad ambigua Scripturarum discutienda atque solvenda,” &c.— S. August. De Doc- trin. Christ. Lib. iii. Cap. 1. \_Opp , Tom. iii. i. 33. ed. Ben. Amst. — G.^] Mr. Newman observes (p. 287), “that the Syrian critics tended as to Nestorianism, so by a parallel movement to Sacramentarianism;” and attempts to evade under this pretext the well-known testimony attributed to St. Chrysostom, and that of Theodoret, against the Roman dogma. Tie ought to have carried the speculation a step farther. The truth is, that the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies seem remarkably enough reflected in the rival errors about the Holy Supper; the cold symbolism of the one party, the transubstantiation of the other. And we all know how irresistibly the recognized fact of the permanence of the elements in the Eucharist was employed 280 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. school as Chrysostom, or Cyril of Jerusalem, or Ephrem, or Basil, whenever they thought that biblical criticism could be turned to a Catholic account. There is no one of the dogmatic treatises of those times (allowance made for peculiarities of style and incidental allusions nowise relevant to the present question) which might not have been the production of our Hammond, or Pearson, or Taylor ; there is not one of them, say Athanasius’s Discourses against the Arians, Augustine’s general sum¬ maries of the faith in his work on Catechizing, or the like, that could by any possibility be conceived written, as it stands, by Romish divines g . I will not now insist how fatal, beyond all hope of evasion, is this universal blank h in one of the alleged essentials of Christianity and Christian Church membership to the Roman pre¬ tensions to antiquity. It is unnecessary to argue what is at last confessed ; but I must now beg to press it as for the very purpose of denying the Personal Transnbstantiation imagined by Eutyches for our Lord Himself; employed by a Pope in the fifth century to condemn by anticipation the doctrine of his own Church in the thirteenth. [Gelasius Papa I. De cluabus Naturis in Christo: Scripta Veterum Latina, fol. 84, b. ed. Simler. Tiguri, 1571_Gr.] g A convenient, though imaginary, test, which I beg my reader carefully to remember in reference to a similar supposition of Mr. Newman’s to which I shall have presently to introduce him. h [“It is matter of amazement, if the Pope were such as they would have him to be, that in so many bulky volumes of ancient Fathers, living through many ages after Christ, in those vast trea¬ suries of learning and knowledge, wherein all sorts of truth are displayed, all sorts of duty are pressed, this momentous point of doctrine and practice should nowhere be expressed in clear and peremptory terms.”—Barrow. ( Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy , p. 174. ed. Cardwell.)] LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 281 a consideration no less fatal to the new shift than to the old. If the need of this central infallibility infer— make even plausible—the fact of its existence, how is it that the fact never arose until the need had in a great measure ceased ? The controversies, which Rome has actually undertaken by her authority to decide, were incomparably less important than those which the Church contrived to decide without it. “ Popes are summoned into action at the call of the dogmatic prin¬ ciple” (p. 348). Whatever this precisely means (and doubtless it is a highly satisfactory account of the origin of a power which no man can doubt, and be saved), how is it to be explained that the dogmatic principle never dreamed of calling for “ Popes” until the best and hardest of its work was well nigh done? One might add that, as at all times, the genius of the East was more inclined than that of the West to theological disputation, if the need of the tribunal be the argument of its existence, the tribunal was strangely misplaced. But in truth its origin was very different. IV. The first development of the Roman supremacy was not doctrinal, but disciplinary ; it was not as an inspired arbiter of faith, but as an ecclesiastical sove¬ reignty, that (except incidentally) it strove to enforce its precedence. From the very nature of the disputes that accompanied its claims to power, which were ne¬ cessarily to a considerable degree theological, claims to primacy among the Christian dioceses would be (as in St. Leo) naturally attended with lofty celebrations of the unshaken orthodoxy of the See; but the real object of ambition was not doctrinal ascendancy, but some¬ thing very much more congenial (it is to be feared) to 282 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. the temper of “ those firm-minded Latins.’’ The sup¬ posed necessity of a single central tribunal of theology, in any distinct or matured form, was the conception of a far later age ; it arose when the ecclesiastical usur¬ pation began to be disliked on doctrinal grounds, and when it thus became absolutely necessary either to give up the supremacy of power or to assert a parallel supre¬ macy of inspired knowledge. There cannot be a greater historical mistake than to date the dogmatic supremacy of Rome as if it synchronized with its ecclesiastical monarchy ; the distinct recognition of this mysterious gift really ranks among the latest of those develop¬ ments, which, nevertheless, if this perilous advocate is to be credited, were in all probability (a probability so great that the chance of the infallible gift itself rests upon if) a tissue of mistakes, until this tardy luminary arose, to light the Church to doing what was done be¬ fore it appeared. V. And how completely, at whatever time its rise be dated, the history of dogma, in connexion with this local infallible directory, contradicts the superficial fancy of a regular and consistent development of seminal truths k into maturer doctrine, I am sure I need hardly remind any intelligent student of historical theology. 1 For since the probability of the Infallible Gift is grounded on its utility or necessity to prevent error, it must of course be exactly equal to the probability that as long as it was wanting there would be, and was , error. k As Stapleton expresses it, (in a violent effort to explain away St. Augustine’s celebrated saying about subsequent plenary Coun¬ cils frequently correcting their predecessors’decisions): “Concilia posteriora ‘emendant,’ id est, perfectius explicant(l) fidem in semine antiquse doctrina3 latentem,” &c_ Relect. Controv. vi. q. 3. A. 4; LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 283 What shall we say of a “ development” that formally denies the earlier truth out of which it is said to spring; and what shall we say of the infallibility that guaran¬ tees both ? Take the establishment of the Canon of Holy Scripture; a great and momentous object, surely, for the exhibition of this supernatural prudence, and one which we are perpetually told could never other¬ wise have been securely attained. Yet it is notorious (not to speak of the universal and uniform belief of the Eastern Church, the express declarations 1 of such men as Eusebius and Athanasius, and Epiphanius and Na- zianzen, in opposition to the ultimate Roman decision,) that St. Jerome 111 (whom St. Hilary 11 corroborates,) con¬ fessedly the highest authority in such matters in the Latin Church, repeatedly and energetically denies the canonicity of books sanctioned at Trent; it is notorious \_Princip. Fidei doct. Relectio , p. 612. Antverp. 1596_G.] where Mr. Newman may find some anticipation of his theory by a very voluminous, and sometimes an acute controversialist. I [For a full account of these a express declarations” of Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Nazianzen, see Cosin’s Scliolastical History of the Canon. Works (in Lib. of Anglo-Catholic Theology ), Vol. iii. Numb. liii. lv. lxiv. lxvi.] m [“ Nonnulli Scriptorum veterum hunc (librum Sapientios) esse Judasi Philonis affirmant. Sicut ergo Judith, et Tobiae, et Machabee- orum libros legit quidem Ecclesia, sed eos inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipit; sic et haec duo volumina legat ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem Ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirmandam.”— S. Hier. Prazf. in Lib. Salom ., Tom. ix. Col. 1296. Twelve other testimonies against the Tridentine addition to the Canon are pro¬ duced by Bishop Cosin, ubi sup. out of the writings of Jerome.] II [St. Hilary gives a catalogue of the canonical books, according to the Jewish division into twenty-two books— S. Hilar. Prol. Ex- planat. in Psal., pp. 335, 336.] 284 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. tliat Pope Gregory the Great himself, at a much later period, has done the same 0 . Take, again, the common belief of the separate locus refrigerii for the souls of the blessed 1 ’, developing into a positive doctrine of their pre¬ sent sovereignty with Christ in supreme glory. Take 0 See Stillingfleet on all this question of the Canon, “ Council of Trent Examined,” &c. [Page 36. edit. 2. Lond. 1688—G-.] The holy Pope employs, I may add, nearly the language of our Article; his expression having been, perhaps, formed like our .own on St. Jerome : “ Libris, licet non canonicis, sed tamen ad ®dificationem plebis [Ecclesi®.—G.] editis.”— Moral, in Job. lib. xix. s. 34. \_Opp. Tom. i. col. 622. edit. Ben.—G.] Compare the decision of Canus: “ Oportet judicem vivum in Ecclesi aesse, qui fklei controversias deci- dere possit. (Siquidem Deus in necessariis Ecclesi® su® non defuit.) At librum esse canonicum necne, fidem maxime tangitP—De Loc. Theol. 11. [ii. p. 30. Lugd. 1704_G.] vii. (quoted, Thorndike, “Princ. of Chr. Truth, 1. ii. §. 4.) [page 23. Works, Vol. ii. P. i. Library of Anglo-Cath. Theol. Oxf. 1845.—G.] Of course the old subterfuge of the pope quatenus “ private doctor,” may be employed to salve this difficulty; but what shall be done with his manifest testimony, even as a private doctor, to the belief—at the lowest, the uncer¬ tainty, in despite of previous alleged decisions—of his Church on this important point, and at so late a period of her infallible legis¬ lation ? p “Fideles omnes reservabuntur in sinu scilicet interim Abrah® collocati, quo adire impios interjectum chaos inhibet, quousque in- troeundi rursum in regnum coelorum tempus adveniat.”— HU. in Ps. cxx. [. . . . “ futuri boni exspectatio est, cum exeuntes de cor- pore ad introitum ilium regni coelestis per custodiam Domini fideles omnes reservabuntur,” &c. (S. Hilarii Opp. 383. ed. Bened.)—G.] And this seems to have been, on the whole, the customary conjec¬ ture of the times. Pope John XXII., long after, fell into the heresy , and had in some imperfect way, when dying, to recant it, of reviv¬ ing the supposition that the fulness of the Beatific Vision is post¬ poned till after the Judgment. [For the last sentence in this note, and the reference to Fleury, compare Maclaine’s Mosheim, Cent. xiv. ii. ii. §. 9-—G.] (See Fleury, xciv. xxi.) LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 285 the admission of the impossibility of penitential satis¬ faction after death' 1 , developing into an elaborate system of purgatorial pains, and their remission. The universal belief, that none but God ought to be the object of religious supplication 1 ’, developing into the worship of q “ QuocI munus* [apparently the “ purgatio salubri satisfac- tione” which he has just before mentioned] in corpore non rece- perit, consequi exutus came non poteritP &c .—Leo M. JEp. xci. [alias lxxxiii.—G.] ad Theodor. r St. Augustin. De vera Eelig. c. lv. [ Opp. Tom. i. 587.—G.] De Civit. Dei , Lib. xxii. c. 10 : “ Suo ordine nominantur, non invo- canturT [“ Suo loco et ordine nominantur, non tamen a Sacerdote, qui sacrificat, invocantur.” (col. 1355. Basil. 1570.)—G.] So the Greeks commonly; Origen.c. Cels.Y. iv. [p. 239. Cantab. 1658.—G.] Atlianas. contr. Avian. III. xxv. §. 6. \_Orat. iii. cont. Arian. §. 12. p. 561. ed. Ben—G-] S. Chrysost. et Theod. on Col. ii. [and Theod. on Col. iii. 17, (Opp. Tom. ii. 138. Colon. Agripp. 1573.) as the Oxford editor presently mentioned informs us; and he, be it remembered, was Mr. Newman himself.—G.] Passages of plain doctrinal expla¬ nation, which no bursts of oratory, or passing conjectures of writers inexperienced in the peril of all conjectures on such matters, (as the single word so often cited from St. Ambrosef), can properly coun- * [There is not any such reading as this either in an old (Colon. Agr. 1569.) or in Quesnel’s (Lugd. 1700.) edition of S. Leo’s works. The word “manens,” not “munus,” is found in both, as well as in the Canon Law, to which part of this Epistle has been transferred. ( Decret . ii. Par. Caus. xxxiii. Qiuest. iii. De Pcen. Dist. i. Cap. xlix.) It is access to sacramental communion, by means of reconcilia¬ tion, that the Pontiff declares cannot be obtained by any one after death.—G.] f [See Gieseler, i. 288—It is an erroneous and mischievous assertion of this writer, that S. Ambrose “ is the first who seems to recommend” the worship of Angels. In proof of his supposition he adduces these words, to which Professor Butler evidently alludes, from C. ix. De Viduis: “obsecrandi sunt Angeli [pro nobis,] qui nobis ad presidium dati sunt.” (S. Amb. Opp. iv. 505.) This passage exhibits more than a “ passing conjecture” of S. Ambrose, but much less than a re¬ commendation of the propriety of rendering religious worship to Angels. As well might it be said that Jacob prayed to an Angel when he desired that a ministering Spirit might be employed to “ bless the lads;” or that David invoked a created being when he used the denunciation, “Let the Angel of the Lord persecute them;” or 286 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. real or imaginary saints. The custom of commending to God’s merciful care the Virgin Mother, with other saints departed this life 8 , developing into praying to her terbalance ; even if any amount of traditional testimony could dis¬ turb the assurance Holy Scripture must convey to every candid mind on the question. The late Editor of the Oxford English Athanasius thinks it necessary to warn us that such places as I have referred to do not contain “the whole doctrine of Origen, &c. on the cultus angelorum ;” and that of “ course they are not inconsis¬ tent with such texts as 1 Tim. v. 21,” [Select Treatises , Sfc. pp. 417, 418]; as if that text did , in any conceivable way, warrant any such cultus! and “ such texts,” as if the place were one of a large class of proofs, and not notably peculiar. Perhaps the commentator meant to include among “ such texts” as demonstrate the cultus angelorum , the “ let no man beguile you in worshiping of angels” (the very cultus itself without a shadow of difference, except that Opgaice/a is Greek, and cultus is Latin), of Col. ii. 18 ; and the “See thou do it not,” of Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 8. It is a real pity that this very profound, able, and diligent per¬ formance, which recals in our days the learned labours of St. Maur and the Oratory, should be stained by such unhappy blemishes as these. s Customary in the Liturgies :* “Be mindful, Lord, of thy Saints, who have pleased Thee in their generations, &c., patriarchs, pro- that we worship the “ Angels of the Lord,” and the “ Spirits and Souls of the Right¬ eous,” when we publicly read the Benedicite. Assuredly a very great distinction should be made between the Romish direct solicitation of assistance from Angels and Saints, and the earnest expression of a wish that Angelical protection may be granted through the favour of God, according to His promise, and that the heavenly host may pray for us, which is all that S. Ambrose intended. “ Tu, vidua,” (he continues,) “ invenis qui pro te supplicent, si quasi vere vidua et desolata in Deum speres, instes obsecrationibus, insistas orationibus,” &c. The true doctrine of S. Ambrose is con¬ tained in his solemn declaration, “ Sed tamen Tu solus, Domine, invocandus es.” (Cone, de obitu Theod. Imp. Opp. v. 122.) Compare Tyler’s Worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, p. 254. Lond. 1846. Palmer’s Fifth Letter to Wiseman, p. 50. Oxford, 1841.—G.] [Vid. Renaudotii Liturg. Collect, i. 18. Paris. 1716. Taylor’s Dissuasive from Popery , Part ii. Book ii. Sect. ii. p. 504. Lond. 1673_G.] LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 287 as all but supreme in heaven. The abhorrence of Images, whose veneration was condemned so late as by Gregory the Great on the eve of the seventh cen¬ tury 1 , developing into their erection as objects of public prostration in Christian churches. The belief of the equality of bishops 11 , developing into papal supremacy by original divine right. The belief of the danger and impiety of half-communion w , developing into making it phets, and every just spirit departed hence in the faith of Christ; especially of the holy, glorious, Virgin,” &c. And after a celebra¬ tion, in the glowing style of the age, of the amazing favour done her in the Incarnation, whereby, as they say, “her womb was made the seat of Him whom the Heavens cannot contain,” St. John the Baptist, St. Stephen the proto-martyr, and sometimes the saint by whom the Church had been first founded, are similarly commended to divine protection. Sometimes God is besought to hear the prayers offered to him on behalf of the Church militant by His de¬ parted servants, (See Cyrill. Catecli. Mystagog. v. 6.) [p. 539- Paris. 1609-—G.] as being still one with us in the mystical communion of the Body of Christ; an introduction of a later date, so far as ex¬ tant liturgies attest, into the public service of some churches ; and perhaps an instance of that too ambitious “intrusion into things not seen,” hardly pardonable in private speculation, quite unjustifi¬ able in public offices, but essentially and manifestly distinct from the Roman Invocation. 1 “Adorare [adorari vero.—G.] Imagines modis omnibus veta.”—- Epist. ix. 9- [Epistt. Lib. xi. Indict, iv. Ep. xiii. Opp. Tom. ii. 1101. edit. Bened—G.] He had himself, however, criminally departed from primitive prudence in tolerating them in the churches as me¬ morials, against the universal judgment of earlier times. u See Epist. of Roman Clergy to S. Cyprian. [Ep. xxx. p. 56. ed. Fell.— G.] So Pope Symmachus adJEonium Arelat. [Binii Con¬ cilia, Tom. ii. P. i. p. 511. Colon. Agripp. 1618.—G.] So again Greg. M. Epist. vi. 30. [S. Greg. Epistt. Lib. ix. Indict, ii. Ep. lix. Opp. ii. 976.—G.] w PopeGelasius inDecret. iii. P. de Consecr. Dist. ii. §. 12. [Cap. 288 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. heresy to deny it. The assertion of papal secular su¬ premacy by Gregory, and Innocent, and Boniface (as real a development as the religious papacy itself), deve¬ loping into a still later abdication of it. The condem¬ nation of the peculiarities of Montanism, developing (according to this author, p. 351) into their universal dissemination and adoption. Nay, the condemnation of the very principle of “ development’ 7 by the Roman representatives, in common with others, at the Council of Ephesus, developing into its triumphant establish¬ ment. These are only brief and transient hints, but they are easily verified and easily enlarged ; and do they not, even as they stand, suffice to establish the exquisite harmony of the progressive development, and the value of the infallible developer ? Who can pardon Sabellius for allowing his untimely ardour for truth to hurry him too fast for such a guide ? Nor this alone—but, as if purposely to preclude the notion of an infallibility concentrated around the Ro¬ man See, it is remarkable how, notwithstanding the comparative disinclination to the subtleties of contro¬ versy so characteristic of the Western Church, the names of several of its Popes did , unfortunately, get so far entangled in the history of heresies as, in Mr. New¬ man’s gentle confession, to “ leave to posterity the xii.—G.] “ Comperimus autem,” &c., “quia divisio unius ejus- demque sacramenti [mysterii.—G.] sine grandi sacrilegio non potest provenire .” [Bp. Taylor, ut sup. p. 303.—G.] Concil. Trident . Sess. xxi. Canon 2: “Si quis dixerit sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam non justis causis et rationibus adductam fuisse, ut laicos, atque etiam clericos non conficientes, sub panis tan- tummodo specie communicaret, aut in eo errasse; anathema sit!” LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 289 burden of their defence.” Liberius, Zosimus, Yigilius, Honorius, represent the infallible accuracy of the papacy of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, and in the most pressing and important controversies of their respective times. Such accuracy upon the points on which we agree, may well dispose us to yield to the same authority upon those on which we difFer. VI. The Roman authority has not, then, very effi¬ ciently discharged its office of infallible superintendent of developments. But (as I intimated in a former let¬ ter) there is a real and important sense in wdiich Chris¬ tianity does admit of varieties which may, if we please it, be termed developments, and these distinct, too, from mere logical deductions; I mean those allowable adap¬ tations which, in the second of these Letters, I have included, with other facts of the same kind, under the general head of “ historical developments,” by which it justifiably meets and admits the diversities of indi¬ vidual and national character. It is one of the peculiar excellencies of this universal dispensation that it can bear all climates. But it usually receives, as the heal¬ thiest constitutions will, the outward complexion of the climate it inhabits. Here then it is that the local* “ developing authority” now in question, so far from x [Compare Barrow. “ Whereas all the world in design and obli¬ gation is Christian (the utmost parts of the earth being granted in possession to our Lord, and His Gospel extending to every creature under heaven), and may in effect become such, when God pleaseth, by acceptance of the Gospel; ... it is thence hugely incommodious that all the Church should depend upon an authority resident in one place, and to be managed by one person .”—Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy , p. 190. Ed. Cardwell.] U 290 ON THE DEVELOrMENT OF [LETT. VII. being necessary or even expedient, is almost invariably mischievous in its operation. Instead of assisting such developments, it cramps, and fetters, and distorts them. We may be assured, (however indirectly useful now and again), it was never designed as a permanent divine provision in that dispensation, when “ all flesh should come to worship” before the Lord; when “ the isles afar off, that had not heard Ilis fame nor seen His glory,” should be brought to hear and to behold ; “ when the abundance of the sea should be converted, and the forces of the Gentiles” won to the Church of God. The Christianity, for example, of the North and South of Europe, will ever tend to characteristical dif¬ ferences of exterior ; and this may help us to do more charitable justice to both. I have little sympathy with the narrow superciliousness that objects to the Italian his preference of a symbolical and picturesque religion; his imaginative temperament, his tendency to reduce the abstract to the concrete, and all to visible form, will make any religion in his hands assume that aspect. Who could even conceive the “platform” of the Scotch Kirk taking permanent root, and becoming the recog¬ nised worship, in Naples, or Florence, or Home ? This may seem an extreme case, but it would be only a higher degree of what is too natural and customary with us all, the attempt to refer all the varieties of per¬ spective under which the same great Object is beheld to our own exclusive point of standing. The true ob¬ jection to this Southern Christianity, as it has stood for ages, is not that it delights in gorgeous temples and pompous processions, in the popular legend and the ready miracle ; these things, so far as they are weak- LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 291 nesses, are probably no worse than our own, though they may be somewhat different from our own ; they are inherent in the very nature of the people, and he miserably underrates the native energy of Christianity who deems it must expire under the burden of this gaudy costume. The real objection is twofold. We object, in the first place, that these teachers have suf¬ fered the imagination not merely to adorn doctrines but to invent them ; we permit it to colour as brightly as it may the original outline of the faith ; and wil¬ lingly abjure the bigotry of making our distaste, how¬ ever decided, for such florid decorations, an authorita¬ tive standard to others ; but we cannot tolerate the audacity that has dared to alter the outlines themselves. Our second objection is to the arrogance which not only idolizes those peculiarities which to a certain ex¬ tent we have as little desire to assail as to imitate, but insists upon imposing them , and the unhappy dogmas that accompany them, upon the world on pain of uni¬ versal anathema. The very liberality which concedes to national temperament its fair (because its inevitable) influence in colouring the exterior of Christianity, is just what obliges us to resist the presumption which would make these local prepossessions a law to the world. Hanc veniam petimus damusque vicissim. Now it is in this view that the subject connects with the general question under discussion. For it is thus that Rome is not the protectress, but the narrow and timid enemy of all legitimate local “ developments” of Chris¬ tianity. A central infallibility of this kind—the infal¬ libility of a given latitude and longitude—is essentially incompatible with the free and healthy expansion of an u 2 292 ON TI1E DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. universal religion. The Developing Authority” for the globe is a petty Italian Prince, who has spent his life in the cloisters of a monastery or the cabals of a conclave ; a respectable ecclesiastic of rather limited faculties 37 is the legislator of a planet; the destined religion of a thousand millions, or more, of immortals, is to be Roman Catholic. The God of the Gospel, who is also the God of Nature and her laws, can hardly have intended this. But it has succeeded ! Emphatically I deny it. In this very incompatibility was rooted the movement of the Sixteenth century ; a movement, observe, which commenced the very moment that the opposing tem¬ peraments of the North and South found room fairly to exhibit themselves in the world of intelligence ; for till then the semi-barbarous North had taken its reli¬ gion almost altogether upon trust ; instructed by mis¬ sionaries, and largely officered by functionaries, in the interest of Rome ; receiving its entire ecclesiastical literature from the South, and possessing neither means nor inclination to detect an old and learned imposition. And even granting that, to a certain extent, this Ro¬ man monarchy has as yet kept together, and is likely for a considerable period to do so, how precarious and 1 The present occupant of the position is regarded as an excep¬ tion ; and the journalists are exhausted in devising expressions for an admiration which too surely testifies to the novelty of the object that excites it. Awkwardly enough, the good works of Pius IX. are without exception borrowed from heterodox models; the super¬ natural wisdom of the Roman See rises to its highest manifestation in venturing a feeble, though very praiseworthy, imitation of the ordinary spirit and policy of heretical nations. LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 293 uncertain is it to argue from the history of some thirty or forty generations of men, to the real design and ul¬ timate fortunes of a dispensation such as the Christian, that may extend (for aught any living man can tell) to ten times the number ; that yet, dating its annals by a “ year of our Lord” comprising a hundred centuries, may have abandoned Europe to feebleness and barbar¬ ism, and erected its proudest patriarchates in Australia or Japan. As the case now stands, the Roman supre¬ macy has retained in adherence nations whose physical temperament and habits naturally united them around a common centre; it has even among these become gradually less and less powerful, exactly in proportion as the natural influences diminish in power ; it has for ages wholly failed where alone supernatural interfe¬ rence might have been plausibly inferred from success. This inherent incompatibility of a single human mo¬ narchy with the diversities of national position and temper, points at once to the true and only Sovereign 2 for the Universal Church of God, in Him who took not on Him so much the nature of a man as of humanity; who, though He was pleased to assume that nature from a Jewish stock, has not borne with Him to Hea¬ ven the special influences of any clime or class, but, universal Himself as Mankind, can feel for all, and un¬ derstand all, and appropriately distribute to the needs of all. VII. This is a subject far too extensive for my pre¬ sent purpose, and I shall restrict myself to a brief attempt to illustrate one further observation which may z [Compare Barrow, pp. 176, seqq.] 294 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. be thought of some importance. It is to this very prin¬ ciple of local developments of Christianity, their simila¬ rity in the same, their discrepancy in different regions, that Roman Controversy really owes almost all its plau¬ sibility in discussions about antiquity. It has been perpetually observed that the strength of the Roman case consists in the attractive resemblance which it exteriorly presents to the Church of the Fathers, even under unquestionable changes of substantial doctrine. The chief force of the very work before me consists in its highly coloured representations of this; its danger, too, for the majority of readers are superficial, and this is precisely an argument for superficial thinkers 3 . Now it is the incidental good fortune of the Roman centre of influence, that it occupies the very ground which itself was the theatre of ancient ecclesiastical history. * Some parts of Mr. Newman’s labours in this way are, I must, however, confess, greatly beyond the “superficial thinker.” Much of his “Application of the First Test” really requires no small sharp¬ ness to penetrate its aim at all. The patient reader is at length re¬ warded by discovering that a series of rapid and clever sketches of early Church history is entirely intended to demonstrate a perfect resemblance between our Restored Catholicity and the doings of the Arians (p. 273, &c.), the Nestorians (p. 291, &c.), the Eutychians (p. 308, &c.), and others; the Church of Hooker and Herbert thus affording a sort of concentrated essence of all the heresies—and even the mutually opposed heresies—that have gone before it. I am not sure that this is quite creditable. The real and great abi¬ lities of Mr. Newman might, methinks, find some more dignified occupation than allegorizing history into polemical puzzles, twisting the pages of Eusebius and Theodoret into prophetic enigmas ; a vexatious and often inexpressibly unfair mode of attack, which might, without any material loss, have been left where it was found — to infidelity and Gibbon. LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 295 Besides other results of this, which Italian ecclesiastics know well how to turn to use, we can at once perceive that whatever be the influence of race and clime, these it must inherit; these , at least, must be the same, and operate in the same way, for both. If, then, there was anything of this kind to affect Hilary, or Jerome, or Leo, or Augustine himself, or their Eastern contempo¬ raries too,—if there was anything in these secret but potent local influences, that predisposed to certain modes of life, that heightened men’s habitual views of the pomp and splendour proper to religious services, that inclined to dreamy conjecture about matters super¬ natural, that tended, if not carefully controlled, to en¬ thusiastic extremes, that modified the style of oratory and exposition, that gave a warm, imaginative colour¬ ing to all things religious,—if, I say, there was in those glowing Southern climes, whether of verdure or of wilderness, any tendency at all to beget such a tone of thought and action as this,—and if the holy men of old were men, not angels, and so, liable to the influences that necessarily move men,—and this the more readily that they had no past, and no diversified experience to preach caution,—is it not natural that the Christian movement they directed should have exhibited some exterior influences from a source so constant and power¬ ful ; and is it not equally natural that with those exte¬ rior influences, under any amount whatever of interior change, the Church and population of the same clime , temper , and habits , should habitually sympathize, and so sympathizing, that it should diffuse the same exter¬ nal garb of Christianity through the sphere of its autho¬ rity, as long as an equally powerful opposing tendency 296 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. suffered that authority to flourish ? And lastly, where that opposing tendency—a national character of colder and more cautious texture—existed,—is it impossible that the divine and immortal elements of Christianity might be more accurately possessed and more reve¬ rently treasured; and yet the external form of religion be far less similar than in the last case to that exhibit¬ ed in those earlier writers, whom, nevertheless, all equally agree to regard with respect and affection ? This consideration supplies the true key to the diffi¬ culty which Mr. Newman starts against us, in a charm¬ ingly-written passage of his book (p. 138), where he imagines Athanasius and Ambrose at Oxford, or else¬ where ; and triumphantly urges that “ it cannot be doubted what communion they would mistake for their own.’ 7 Not to hint what would be the probable judg¬ ment of the two Saints with regard to even the exterior of innumerable matters that they might see without leaving Italy itself, I will candidly admit that I should be by no means confident of a verdict, if the illustrious strangers were forced to a decision within an hour after their arrival. The modifying influences of an interval of fifteen hundred years are not to be judged by even Saints in an hour. A certain antique style of expres¬ sion familiar to their ears, nay, the old Latin phraseo¬ logy itself; the monastic circle in which they were wont so often to find retreat and refreshment; the pomp of services grateful to the glowing imaginations of Alexandria and Milan ;—these things, and the like, would attract; for who is there among us that does not attribute something more than is due to such habitual associations as these ? But Athanasius and Ambrose LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 297 were both men of distinguished intellectual powers ; and with a reasonable time for inquiry I should have no doubt at all of the issue ; there could never have been a doubt, were it not for the external resemblance I have noted and accounted for ; and in such hands a very short time would suffice to penetrate that. And even as regards the first immediate aspect of Roman¬ ism, Mr. Newman will never persuade me that St. Atha¬ nasius would have joined “the unlettered crowd before the altar,” when he heard that crowd utter the prayer of enthusiastic devotion to creatures—to himself \—he who has so emphatically declared that u Angels them¬ selves are not worshipped but worshippers, and God alone to be adored” b , and built on the exclusiveness of the right the proof of the divinity of his Lord ; or that Ambrose, who proclaims that “ the Church knows no such idle forms of images” 0 , would have willingly bowed his mitred head to the dressed and painted statue of a holy woman. But as Mr. Newman indulges his fancy in imagining the Saints of the Fourth Century upon their travels, he will pardon me for reminding him that an appeal lies to mightier authorities still. Ambrose and Athanasius vail before Paul; I conduct the Apos¬ tle from an English country Church, with its noble and intelligible liturgy, and the expressive simplicity of b Orat. contr. Arian. II. Ch. xvi. §. 7. [“ Therefore to God alone appertains worship, and this the very Angels know, that though they excel other beings in glory, yet they are all creatures and not to be worshipped.” (S. Ath. Opp. i. i. 491. Orat. ii. cont. Ar. §. 23.)—G.] c De Fuga Sseculi, §. 27. [Cap. v. Opp. i. 358. Lut. Par. 1661.— “ Ecclesia inanes ideas, et vanas nescit Simulacrorum figuras.”—G.] 298 ON TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. its ritual, and the chastened ardours of its Communion, -—to the procession of the Host, and the incensing priests chanting in “an unknown tongue/’and the crowd of worshippers prostrate before the God beneath the canopy,—and I confidently ask—which communion would he mistake for his own ? I cannot but think that it will by this time be tole¬ rably evident whose is the narrow and confined theory of development; which view of Christianity it is that limits it to a single exclusive type, and fetters its grow¬ ing limbs, and freezes its vital energies. Had it not been, indeed, for this iron ligature compressing the Roman theology as soon as it had reached a certain stage, and never since allowing it to expand, it might possibly have developed into simplicity ; for there are “ developments” in organized bodies that consist in throwing off excrescences as well as in adopting foreign material; and no one wfill say that the former is not in itself as conceivable as the latter. But, to view the case more generally—Christianity is in nothing more signally divine than in its marvellous power of adapta¬ tion ; inflexible as to substantial truth, nothing is more happily flexible as to circumstantial attire. Now here is the essential error of the present theory. The author has got hold of this great truth of legitimate variation; but he has got hold of it (as we say) by the wrong end. To this, however, he is bound by the articles of his ser¬ vice ; for it is precisely the error of the Roman Church herself. Christianity, unalterable in doctrine, admits considerable variation in its external presentation ; Romanism just reverses this,—it alters the doctrine, and insists rigorously on a single exterior of ceremony, LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 299 and a single type of the Saintly life. Catholicism is the religion of a world ; Roman Catholicism is the religion of a tribe or race of man d . It has spread, doubtless, and doubtless it will still spread ; but its diffusiveness is in the truth it holds in solution ; and its remoter sway invariably weakens and expires in pro¬ portion as its dependencies become civilized. Not at all that Romanism is hostile to a civilization of a cer- d Mr. Newman insists at considerable length (p. 248, &c.) on the appropriation of the title “ Catholic” by the South-Western Church of Europe. I am not aware that this has ever been a fact, to the exclusion of the orthodox Eastern communion ; though certainly, as far as we of this Church are concerned, it is sometimes permitted to approach nearer to a fact than it ought. With a sad recollection, no doubt, of the mutual jealousies of Dominican, and Franciscan, and the rest, he pities those who, instead of the common and glori¬ ous title of Catholic, are styled by the names of men. Yet after all, which was the Body that first dared to contract the majestic uni¬ versality of the title ? Is it in itself much more sectarian to glory in the name of a man than in that of a town ? Let it be remem¬ bered that local denominations for heretical sects (Cataphryges, &c.) were not at all uncommon in Antiquity. I am afraid I cannot retract this charge even under such over¬ powering proofs of the primitiveness of this famous prcenomen as the fact that Gregory of Tours (towards the end of the sixth century) found it absolutely necessary to explain to the world [“ for they call men of our religion Romans,”— Newman , p. 276,] that certain bar¬ barians contemptuously distinguished the Western Christians by the name of their chief city. Stapleton, in treating this old topic, boldly commences : “ Apud veteres pro eodem habita fuitEcclesiaRomana etEcclesia Catholica;” but his more modest reason is, that “ejus connnunio erat evidenter et certissime cum tota Catholica.”*— Relect. Controv. I. v. 3. * [“ Sola Romana Ecclesia adeo est Catholica, ut apud veteres pro eodem habita fuerit Romana Ecclesia, tides,societas, et Catholica Ecclesia, tides, societas.”—. “ sed quia ejus communio erat evidenter et certissime cum tota Ecclesia Catholica,” &c.—( Principior . Fid. doct. Relect. pp. 150, 151. Antv. 1596.)—G.] 300 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. tain kind. But civilization, viewed abstractedly and on the whole, is the development of humanity; it in¬ variably calls out the distinctive genius of peoples; and the thorough assertion of that distinctive genius is fatal to the permanent domination of any foreign influence whether political or religious. VIII. Accordingly, the only solid claim the Papacy ever could advance—its expediency, is a claim which really contradicts its permanence. That the Church should monopolize power in the mediaeval period, was not so much blameworthy as it was inevitable ; the power must be where the knowledge is; and it is best it should be there. For my own part, I can never be¬ lieve that it was not on the whole better that Church¬ men should govern medimval Europe, than the weak and ignorant tyrants who occupied its thrones, and their semi-barbarian feudal nobles. This will not, indeed, excuse criminal ambition and secularity, but it will tend to explain its success, and tend to vindicate the mercy of Providence in permitting it. In the same way, the ascetic Saint of the middle ages was often the appropriate holy man of that time ; the temptation, to a Church of great wealth, and power almost absolute, would ever be to luxury and love of ease ; while the gross state of domestic society, and the separation of the clergy from even such influences as it could afford to refine and civilize, may have necessitated a model of ecclesiastical piety which would now be unnatural and extravagant. The work of the stern Carthusian and his fellows may, it is probable, be achieved in other days by other means ; but he was—perhaps is—a me¬ morial of unworldliness not without real value in his time and place. But neither the Pope nor the Monk CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 301 LETT. VII.] is an immortal element in the Church of the New Co¬ venant ; seen beside that great Idea and the essential truth on which it reposes, Canterbury is as genuine a reality as Rome, and George Herbert’s holy parsonage as true a development as the Grande Chartreuse. Let us never dare to tamper with the immutable, in order to eternalize the temporary ; let us beware of altering the landmarks of that Truth which “ was in the begin¬ ning, is now, and ever shall be,” in order to give a pre¬ posterous perpetuity to such accidents as a papacy and the special theology that grew up to maintain it. Above all, in the advocate of Christian Development is this unpardonable; arbitrarily to fix what his own principle admits to fluctuate ; arbitrarily to arrest in mid-flow, and congeal into one cold unyielding mass, the majestic stream whose free and abounding current he has him- O self undertaken to trace and celebrate ; arbitrarily to suppose (again to return to the immediate question), that a Power, often useful as a common and stable centre of intelligence in the long and turbnlent transi¬ tion period of Europe, had any claim to the same kind of attachment when, in the general diffusion of know¬ ledge, and the formation of separate centres of national life, the conditions that alone gave it value had expired; and to fancy he has proved this (and not proved pre¬ cisely the contrary), when he has elaborately shown how, out of those conditions it naturally enough arose. The foregoing observations are directed to the spe¬ cific theory of infallibility which is maintained by the Roman theologians ; that, namely, which concentrates the infallible gift in or around a special line of prelates 302 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. and a special locality; which, whatever other conditions it contemplates for the exercise of the power (and I do not at all forget its endless variations on the subject, or how the oracle, infallible in all else, has marvellously continued to this day unable to identify itself), at least makes the Roman element some way or other essential. To this papal conception of Church Infallibility Mr. Newman fully subscribes ; this , and no other, is his real “Developing Authority.” “All Catholics,” he pro¬ claims from Bellarmine (p. 125), “ agree that the Pope with General Council, cannot err, &c., and that the Pope, when determining anything in a doubtful matter, by himself or with his own particular Council, whether it is possible for him to err or not, is to be obeyed by all the faithful.” This notion, then, I have been justified in comparing with the hypothesis of development; sug¬ gesting how manifestly, as itself a posterior formation, it assumes the great question at issue—the legitimacy of post-Scriptural essentials of Christianity, and the in¬ fallible certainty with which they successively arose ; that is, assumes the very certainty it is introduced to confer ;—and again, how little the history of dogmas attests its necessity ; and, after all, how really hostile such a directory—local, limited, prepossessed by cir¬ cumstances and position, must ever be to the fair and free expansion of Christianity, to the genuine “ deve¬ lopment” of its inherent energies among the diversified tribes of mankind. Still, it may be urged that I have hardly done jus¬ tice to the theory in restricting its application to the Roman form of developing authority, and detaching the latter from the trunk on which it grew. The Ro- LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 303 man infallibility, it will be said, is not to be viewed as an isolated phenomenon; no doubt it was a late evo¬ lution of Christianity; but the Catholic Church, in the exercise of its corporate infallibility, grew to be iden¬ tified, in the course of centuries, with the Roman, and so became, as it were, gradually transfigured into the Roman, retaining all its original gifts and graces. Before this vague conception (which I presume to be the common one with the few among Romanists who are permitted to be aware of the total absence of infal¬ lible papacy from the records of antiquity) can be re¬ ceived, not merely as justifying anathemas against all who doubt it, but as commonly intelligible,—it will be necessary (as I have partly intimated before in this letter) to make some attempt to satisfy the following plain inquiries. 1. What were the exact nature and limits of this pri¬ mitive Catholic Infallibility,—to what doctrines (funda¬ mental only, or detailed) did it extend, and how were its decisions collected ? What has Scripture intimated about it ; and how far were the early doctors of the Church accustomed to rely upon it as a sufficient test of truth, and a bar to all further discussion ? 2. Supposing the nature and extent of this Catholic Gift settled and conceded, did the possession of the Gift involve the totally distinct privilege of consigning it to any communion less than that Universal Church in which it is supposed to have been originally vested ? 3. Supposing the special privilege demonstrated, of thus alienating the Gift, and confining it under condi¬ tions confessedly unknown to antiquity,— at what time , and by what recorded process , did the Universal Church 304 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. ever consign the benefits of its corporate blessing to any particular communion,—as the Roman ? These are three very material inquiries; of which not one but all must be solved, before we can admit the Catholic and the Roman senses of the divine su¬ perintendence of the Church’s Faith to be convertible. And even supposing them all answered and substan¬ tiated ; that the fact and amount of the Infallibility were distinctly settled, that the right to transfer it were made good, and that the records of that momentous Council of the Church Universal were exhibited in which the solemn transference was made ,—I cannot but think that another legitimate subject of inquiry would still remain, to something of the following effect : 4. Supposing that the Church Universal ever did make the transference, that in the recesses of some un¬ explored chronicler of the seventh or eighth century the deed of conveyance should even be detected and dragged to light,—does not the right to make the con- signment apparently involve the right to withdraw it; or can the Church of one age and region, by a purely arbitrary act, bind irrevocably the Church of all ages and all regions ? And if the corporate gift were trans¬ ferable only by corporate consent, and the transference perpetually dependent thereon,—is not the manifest cessation of that consent a signal that the gift has lapsed back to its original depository. Flow can it be proved that the Catholic infallibility which is maintained by mere force of common consent to have developed into Rome, may not,—rather, must not—by subsequent dis¬ sent of the parties, develope back into a purely Catholic endowment again ? LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 305 But I must not tempt my readers’ patience by push¬ ing this into farther minutiae. They cannot but know how little has ever really been done to establish the requisite proofs of this portentous development, to forge the indispensable connecting links between the Chris¬ tianity that was “ first Catholic, then Papal.” A few strong expressions in the epistles of Roman bishops about the unequalled majesty and mightiness of their gee,—arrogations which, whenever they involved any actual usurpation of supreme preeminence, seem to have been constantly resisted,—witness the failure of even such a man as Leo e at Chalcedon f ; and the rejection— or what is as good, the equal s arrogation—of which by e [See an able account of the Pontificate of Leo in Allies ( Church of England Guarded, Chap, iv.) In that Pontiff’s mode of stating his own Primacy, Mr. Allies conceives that the “ germ of something very like the present Papal system, without, however, such a wonderful concentration and absorption of all power, is discernible.”] f [For a full discussion of the proceedings at Clialcedon, in their bearing upon Leo’s claims, see Allies , ubi sup. “It is much to be observed,” concludes Mr. Allies, “ that the acts and the words of the Council give no countenance to the present Papal theory, for they declare that in whatever sense Rome is first , in that same sense Constantinople is second. If the primus inter pares becomes a mo¬ narch, it is not a development but an usurpation.”—p. 302.] s [“ At the end of this period (A. D. 451), the four Patriarchs of the East were held in their patriarchates for ecclesiastical centres, to which the other bishops had to attach themselves for mainte¬ nance of ecclesiastical unity, and, in conjunction with their patriar¬ chal synod, they formed the highest tribunal of appeal in all ecclesi¬ astical matters of the patriarchate.”— Gieseler , i. Pt. ii. pp. 191-2. Mr. Allies has shown that the same kind of evidence, which is relied on by Romanists to prove the papal supremacy, may be adduced in favour of the Patriarch of Constantinople and other eastern Patri- X 306 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. others, we should probably discover much more amply if all the records of the rival Patriarchates had been as carefully preserved and skilfully edited by their own servants, as those of the Latin Church ;—a few flat¬ tering compliments to the throne of Peter from eccle¬ siastics endeavouring to ingratiate themselves with an influential Bishop, and in an age when such flattering courtesies to great Prelates were universal 11 ; such are the testimonies on which we are to rely in proof that a transition into a new and unalterable form of being, was, at one time or other, effected, under divine com¬ mand, by the conjoint energy of the whole Church; that archs. They received the same titles of respect; they were the highest tribunal of appeal in their provinces ; they occupied the same place in the eastern liturgies as the Pope in the Homan. “ The similar authority exercised by other bishops, especially that of Constantinople, nay, solemnly committed to him by the largest (Ecumenical Council, (Canons of Chalcedon, 9 and 17,) is carefully put out of view.”— Allies , p. 342.] h It is one of the incurable evils of a controversy like this, which deals with enormous masses of historical documents, that, usually consisting in the array of rival regiments of quotation, it is hardly ever conducted with perfect fairness, and can never possibly be brought to an end. To some readers the mere title of “ blessed and holy Pope,” applied to an early Homan Bishop, brings all the asso¬ ciations of the triple crown and the Vatican; because their little bundle of “ testimonies from Antiquity” does not enable them to turn the page and find the same paternal designation applied to a Patriarch of Alexandria or Constantinople. (Sirmond, if I remem¬ ber rightly, shows that the word was first authoritatively limited to the Homan Prelate by Gregory VII. in 1079).* We must remem- * [The statement here made is founded on a note in Gieseler, i. 339, and this writer has inaccurately named the year 1075 as the date of the peculiar application of the title “ Papa” to the Bishop of Rome. Sirmondus wishes to make it appear that LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 307 a great vital and essential transformation of the mysti¬ cal Body of Christ took place, from which thenceforth no member can insulate itself and retain life. No doubt the Papacy is a Fact—a “great Fact” if you please it; but it is no very unlikely fact, under any hypothesis as to its cause ;—nor perhaps, as a mere historical pheno¬ menon viewed on ordinary human principles, is the permanence of Rome as a sacred locality more really wonderful than that of Medina or Cairouan, for some twelve hundred years back, not to speak of Jerusalem itself; or the permanent throne of its Pope more inex¬ plicable (still as a mere historical fact) than that which bears to it so curious an analogy, the popedom of the ber that in the early times it was universal to insist with extraor¬ dinary pertinacity upon the rights of sees and the order of episcopal precedence ; to a somewhat unhappy degree, indeed, when we recall our Lord’s memorable injunction to His disciples contending for supremacy. Now this being the case, it naturally followed, first, that the celebration of the special claims of a see became an obvious mode of adulation on the part of clients or supplicants of influential bishops ; and, secondly, that in that age any recognised supreme au¬ thority would have exhibited itself with a prominence impossible to be mistaken. Lavish as they were in titles of respect in all their public acts, we may conjecture how profusely they would have de¬ corated the ecclesiastical sovereign with all the insignia of his office: when the most ordinary bishop was “ the most blessed Lord, the bishop beloved of God,” &c., how would language have been ex¬ hausted in addressing or describing the Vicar of Christ !* * Ennodius, early in the sixth century, specially assigned this appellation to the Roman Pontiff; (Not. in Ennod. Epistt. iv. i. Sirmondi Opp. i. 857. Venet. 1728.) and it was A. D. 1076 that Hildebrand’s appropriation of the name took place. (Binii Concill. Tom. iii. Par. ii. p. 398.)—G.] * [Respecting this title see before, p. 83. Bingham has plainly shown that all Bishops were anciently styled “ Vicars of Christ.” ( Antiqq . Book ii. Chapter ii. Sec¬ tion x.)—G.] 308 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. far East—the long successive line and mystic sacerdotal sovereignty of the Thibetian Lama 1 . 1 Of whom travellers tell ns that “ he is esteemed the Vicegerent of the only God , the mediator between mortals and the Supreme. They [the vast population and innumerable tribes of Eastern Tartary and Thibet] view him as perpetually absorbed in religious duty, and when called on to attend to the concerns of mortals, as being em¬ ployed only in the benign office of distributing comfort and conso¬ lation, forgiveness and mercy. He is also the centre of all civil government, &c. He is the head of the whole system, which is a regular gradation from the most venerated Lama, through the whole order of Gy longs, to the young noviciate.For the per¬ formance of daily service in the temple of Teshoo Loomboo, there are 3700 gylongs or priests.Youth intended for the service of the monastery are received into the establishment at the age of eight or ten years. They are then called tuppa , and are occupied in receiving instruction suited to their age. At fifteen they are usu¬ ally admitted into the order of tohha, if found sufficiently qualified; and thence into the order of gylong between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-four. They are then eligible to the superintendence of some endowed monastery, of which there are multitudes spread all over Thibet, with lands assigned them for their support; their pro¬ motion depending on their interest or their character. In this sta¬ tion as chief of a flock, they are honoured with the appellation of lama. Those who enter the religious order are enjoined sobriety, celibacy, and all the austere practices of the cloister. [Immense numbers of mendicant brethren also live on the charity of the de¬ vout.] There is a considerable number of nunneries as well as monasteries; and the strictest prohibitions exist against any woman even accidentally passing a night within the walls of the one, or a man within those of the other. The ecclesiastical class who hold intercourse with heaven are entirely divided from the lay class, who carry on the business of the world, and no interference ever inter¬ rupts the regulated duties of the clergy. Their religion is divided into two sects ; .... the red differ from the sectaries of the yellow in admitting the marriage of the priests, but the latter are con¬ sidered as the more orthodox, as well as possessed of greater in- LETT. VII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 309 The difficulties of the hypothesis of Infallible Deve¬ lopment are not, however, confined to its application in fluence.But the spiritual influence of the lamas has been much weakened by that of their earthly protectors, the emperors of China,” &c. [From a summary in the Encycl. Britann ., Vol. xxi. p. 257. Seventh edit.] I had not designed to have extended this quotation so far; open¬ ing as it does a new and distinct field of thought; but I have really been drawn on from sentence to sentence by the singular force of the analogy it suggests. Peruse it as it stands ; make even allow¬ ance for some exaggeration (in truth the resemblance might be drawn closer—even to such characteristics as ritual service in a sacred tongue not understood by the votaries, &c.), and what re¬ flections does it awaken! Far should I be from commenting harshly upon disciplinary societies or practices which have been thought valuable by men whom I am not worthy to praise, but I would strenuously resist the artful and seductive eloquence which is now employed to make them essentials of Christianity, as if exclusively exhibiting the workings of its peculiar and matchless spirit. Flow does the instance before us apply ? Here is nearly, if not altogether, the most degrading, and immoral, and often pitiless idolatry on the face of the earth ; one, observe, which, however some slight details may, possibly, have been affected at some time or other by Christian intercourse, could never have got at its general polity and dis¬ cipline—its Papacy, its monasteries, its celibacy, and the rest— by awkwardly parodying any Western model ; one which, in mere multitude of votaries, is perhaps nearly equal, if all its varieties be added together, to all Christendom twice over. Can any man, with the free use of his reason, believe that to be essential to the Chris¬ tian Church, a form of thought and practice so peculiarly and eminently Christian that those who lose it forfeit all the specicd excellencies of Chris¬ tian sanctity, —which in its fullest vigour has so grown up and flou¬ rished as to constitute an essential and indispensable characteristic in the most powerful and extensive province in the whole kingdom of Satan ? And let me observe that it would be a great mistake to despatch this coincidence as external only ; if the asceticism of these votaries differ from that of the Roman monastics, it is in being much more rigorous in practice, and much more subtle, refined, and 310 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VII. that peculiar Roman sense of Infallibility which has been the subject of this Letter. They will be found, I imagine, in every attempt to combine the notion of a Development capable of covering the doctrines to be defended, with any consistent sense whatever of perpe¬ tual infallible guidance of the Christian Church. To this I shall venture to request the attention of your readers in another Number of this Journal. I am, my dear Sir, Your’s faithfully, W. Archer Butler. exalted in the mysticism which forms its doctrinal and philosophic basis. The tone of thought itself, and the practical life that em¬ bodies it, are in no wise peculiar to Christianity. No doubt—God forbid I should deny—that Christianity has frequently animated the institute of the solitary and the cenobite with a far better spirit, and can turn all those things to its own blessed profit; but since it is clear, that the grossest superstition on earth can quite as readily, instinctively, congenially, permanently , do so, is it not palpable that they are of no necessary and inherent excellence, but to be esti¬ mated in each case by the degree in which they subserve some ulte¬ rior and extrinsic end? Test by this rule the rapturous encomiums I allude to, scattered in this Volume and elsewhere ; they will almost universally be found encomiums not of the object to be gained (which can be gained in many ways), but of the visible ma¬ chinery itself, as if it were something peculiarly and incommunicably Christian , the one true and exclusive development of the religion of Christ; that which alone exhibits it, that which it alone can ex¬ hibit. The silent cell, the stern rule, the superhuman indifference to physical pain, the heroic penitence,—or again, the majestic sacer¬ dotal monarchy, the ritual pomp, the vast array of ecclesiastical strength,—these, in and for themselves, are the things which are triumphantly contrasted with the mean and timid rationality of our Anglican spirit. I confess I cannot but think that such a descrip¬ tion as I have quoted (and the points of resemblancce might be easily multiplied), is fairly calculated to administer a salutary check to this strain of unbridled exultation. LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 311 LETTER VIII. ♦ Dear Sir, I have promised to consider the hypo¬ thesis of Development in connexion with the doctrine of Church Infallibility in general. I shall endeavour in the following paragraphs to perform this task. This supposition of Development, so long as it re¬ mained on German ground, served, or might serve, an important end. It answered admirably to give a sort of superficial unity to any of those innumerable “ His¬ tories of Dogmas,” which, rivalling each other in daring plunges for originality, form a regular and stated por¬ tion of the academic labours of theological lecturers in that country a . The cool speculative indifference—say a The taste for this species of German manufacture has manifestly- set in of late; especially in Scotland, and among the teachers of the English Dissenting Academies. The translators of these works are not very likely to heed the advices or warnings of the Irish Eccle¬ siastical Journal; they are, however, shrewd enough to interpret a plain and palpable “ sign of the times;”—let them study the “ Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” and then calmly reflect ivliat party they are now likely to benefit most by multiplying among us treatises to expose the ignorance and super¬ stition of early Christianity, and the precariousness of all evidence, 312 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. rather, the shocking frigidity—with which these teach¬ ers undertake, in presence of their young and unin¬ formed hearers, to demonstrate on the venerable frame of the old Christian Creed, might be animated into some degree of warmth by the announcement of a great general law of progress , redeeming the tedious historic detail from utter confusion, regulating its tardy growth, and preparing its triumphant maturity ; the possible Future might receive the homage which was denied to the ignorant and blundering Past. Whether the deve¬ lopment were to proceed, as some might maintain, by successive additions, or, as others and the greater num¬ ber, by successive ejections, of doctrine ; whether by taking on new integuments, or by stripping off the old, or (as in the only producible analogy—that of Judaism) by both ; whether the Creed of the martyrs were to be made to expand into that of Aquinas, or contract into that of Paulus b ;—was indeed to be altogether deter- mined by the accidental position and circumstances of the teacher ; for the principle itself is absolutely indif¬ ferent to either application ; both have been largely ex¬ emplified in the history of Christianity ; and neither form of the theory can claim any antecedent authority either for the canon of Scripture or the fundamentals of received doctrine, derived from that source. I do not hesitate to affirm that under the form this controversy must now assume, there is not one of these works (superficial as they often are, with all their affecta¬ tion of elaborate research) which is not of more real utility to the cause of Romanism in England than reprints of Bossuet and Bellar- mine. b [Dr. H. E. G. Paulus, the “ Coryphaeus of Rationalism,” Pro¬ fessor of Theology at Heidelberg, was born A. D. 1761. For an account of him, see Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, ii. p. 381. An LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 313 above the other, so long as no clause of the original re¬ velation pre-signifies in which direction the Gospel of Christ was intended to travel into perfect truth. But this easy flexibility of the principle would, of course, only make more precious a discovery which was so hap¬ pily at the service of all parties; so long as temporary effect was the real object of competition, so long as the instructor was satisfied to secure the crowded lecture- room and the admiring train,—no doubt, a theory (how¬ ever really illusive, because equally pliable to all facts, and even all possibilities) would soon become univer¬ sally popular for this very reason, that it afforded to every school alike an endless field for ingenuity in de¬ vising the connexions of doctrines with each other, and with that Ideal of consummate truth in the remote fu¬ ture, to whose ultimate realization (different though it must be to every school respectively) all partial move¬ ments in the history of theology were at last to be seen to contribute. But the case becomes very different when, along with this principle of indefinite transition from doctrine to doctrine, is maintained the concomitant gift and exer¬ cise of a perpetual and rigorous infallibility. interesting and learned series of Essays on the German Rationalism will be found in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, commencing De¬ cember, 1848, contributed by the Rev. William Lee, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin. “ The Commentary of Dr. Paulus,” says Mr. Lee, (Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, December, 1848, p. 178.) “published in 1800, first brought into general notice the so-called c Rationalistic’ Theory, which professed to explain the Scripture narrative by- showing that what is there recorded relates to merely natural events.”] 314 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OE [LETT. VIII. It is true that there is no contradiction in the abstract conception of a knowledge that shall always be right and yet always increasing ; the progress of a pure sci¬ ence,—of Geometry, for example, or Algebra,—is an unequivocal instance in point; perhaps (speaking with reverent timidity of a subject so greatly beyond our faculties as the mental history of the Incarnate Son) such too may have been the human knowledge of Him who, while incapable of error, yet “ increased in wis¬ dom and stature.” But this sort of movement in which every step shall be a step gained, perpetual advance¬ ment without a falter,—this light ever equally pure and intense in quality, and increasing in quantity only be¬ cause, while maintaining that equal brilliance, the sphere itself of its radiance is perpetually enlarging,—this is essentially inapplicable to the history of the doctrines really in question in this controversy. Such a notion is inapplicable, in the first place, from the very scope and nature of those doctrines themselves , in which partial knowledge must have involved either grievous positive error, or omissions of essential duty quite incompatible with any tolerable notion of the state in which the original revelation left its recipients. While again, secondly, the internal infallibility is supposed to he ma¬ nifested and embodied in a corresponding authority , with a view to which the infallibility itself has been given ; but no real exercise of authority over the Church’s faith can ever be made compatible with the process of doctrinal development imagined in this author’s pages. I shall endeavour in this communication to illustrate both these considerations. LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 315 Let me, first, however, be permitted to premise one or two observations on the state of the question now di¬ rectly at issue. I. We are now viewing this question less as one to be determined by the strict criterion of plain, positive testimony, than as a competition of rival hypotheses. This is to descend from a vantage-post, and give the author the choice of his own ground and weapons. He constantly impresses on his reader, as the main recom¬ mendation of his scheme, that we must all have some hypothesis or other about the Church and its history 0 . It is possible that, in insisting so earnestly upon this, he extends to inferior minds an intellectual necessity pe¬ culiar to faculties like his own. But let it be granted; and assuming that we must have—at least that many of us are apt to carry about us—some such favourite master-key to unlock the manifold difficulties of God’s providence in the story of the Church, let me again recall what I have partly exhibited already, and once more place side by side the hypotheses that are ad¬ vanced to satisfy the phenomena of Christian history. c “ Those who find fault with the explanation here offered of the historical phenomena of Christianity, will find it their duty to pro¬ vide one of tlieir own.” —p. 29. This is “ an hypothesis to account for a difficulty.”—p. 27. “ Some hypothesis all parties, all contro¬ versialists, all historians must adopt, if they would treat of Chris¬ tianity at all.”—p. 129. “ The question is—which of all these theories is the simplest, the most natural, the most persuasive ? Certainly the notion of development under infallible authority is not a less grave, a less winning hypothesis ” than others here exclu¬ sively specified as being the received notions of those who reject it, namely, “chance and the coincidence of events, or the oriental phi¬ losophy, or the working of Antichrist.”—pp. 129, 130. 316 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. The problem in this view may, I suppose, be stated thus :—Given a revelation such as that which our Lord and His Apostles delivered, to connect with it as its practical results in the world, by some general view of the way it was meant to operate , the actual facts of Church history since its date. For this purpose, perhaps others also, but at least the three following hypotheses are offered by divines: The first supposes d that all the essentials of Chris¬ tian belief were known to the Apostles, and by them delivered to their disciples ; being, in fact, contained, in a sufficiently clear though unsystematic form, in the writings of the New Testament. That the reason of man, rightly exerted under God’s blessing, is capable of exhibiting these truths in various new forms, by comparison and deduction; all which new forms, standing the usual tests of sound reasoning, become, of course, to those to whom they are made known, as authoritative as the principles from which they are drawn. That in this way, though no new doctrine in itself necessary to salvation is anywise to be anticipated, yet the general Church of Christ, or particular branches thereof, may, in fact, possess a fuller light upon diffe¬ rent points in different ages ; even as any individual believer, by divine grace, increases his spiritual know¬ ledge in different points at different times, through social conference or private meditation. That whereas the same process (of discussion and d [Compare Appendix to Bishop Jebb’s Sermons, where will be found a noble expansion of the views stated in this first hypothesis.] LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 317 reflexion) by which spiritual knowledge is thus in¬ creased, is also, from human weakness, liable to error of greater or less magnitude, God has made no promise to his Church at large that it should be secure from all degree of error,—often the just and appropriate punish¬ ment of its own moral guilt,—any more than from all sinfulness , itself a powerful cause of doctrinal error ; and no promise to any individual Church that it should be secure from even the greatest. And that thence great varieties may be expected in the comparative enlightenment , no less than in the comparative holiness , of the Church in various ages and places. To which is added by many—and, I would hope, justly—the comfortable belief that, nevertheless, God’s promises of abiding stability to his Church warrant a holy confidence that, however it may sin, and for its sin be more or less given over, in the sinning member, or even in all its members, for a time, to its own de¬ vices (a judicial abandonment perpetually testified for a law of the divine operation in the former Church of God), He would not, and will not ever suffer it, uni¬ versally and as one body , totally to fall away by directly denying that faith which is essential to the very being of the Church of Christ on earth. The second hypothesis supposes all the essentials of Christian belief known by the Apostles and delivered to their disciples ; but that several of them were pre¬ served only by an extra-scriptural tradition, continuous from the apostolic age ; which tradition, and all other theological truths, the Church in connexion with the See of Rome has an exclusive divine gift of infallibly declaring ; all matters so declared, whatever their im- ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF 318 [LETT. VIII. portance, becoming thence obligatory, on pain of sepa¬ ration from the body of Christ. The third hypothesis (arising, at length, out of the overwhelming difficulty of establishing the apostolic tradition assumed in the last, just as the last itself, long before, arose out of the similar difficulty of establishing the same doctrine from Scripture e ), supposes that the full scheme of Christian truth was not known at all (to the Apostles it would seem f —or, however) to the first disciples, and even to many generations of the Fathers that followed them ; but was, in slow succession of ages, progressively discovered and completed, under the infallible inspiration of the Church, more especially of the Bishop of the Boman See and the doctors in connexion therewith. Thus disclaiming, in behalf of the Boman Church's infallibility, that Church’s own infallible settlement of its standard of faith. Now there is one fact which must strike every one e There is no novelty in this double transition. The following observable passage of Athanasius will show the respectable prece¬ dent it may claim :— T Cbv h’ApeiojuaviTivv ttjv aAoyiav ical vvv eTreyvwv. ovhev yap ovt ’ evAoyov, ovt6 7 rpos cnrohei^iv etc tijs Oeias ypafijs fnjTov eyovaris Tijs aipecreivs aincvv, del pev 7rpo(J)d(Tei 9 civaia^vvTovs eTTopl^ovTO ical Go^lafxaia TrtOavd. vvv he ical hiaf3ctAAeiv to vs tt aj e p as T6T oXjMj/caai. —De Sentent. Dionys ., p. 243, Edit. Benedict. \_Opp. Tom. i. P. i. Paris. 1698_G.] f [“ Who then of sound mind can believe that they [the Apostles] were ignorant of anything, whom the Lord appointed as masters, keeping them undivided in attendance, in discipleship, in compa¬ nionship ; to whom, when they were alone, He expounded all things that were dark, saying, that to them it was given to know the mysteries, which the people were not permitted to understand?”— Tert. {De Prcescrip. Hcer ., in Lib. of the Fathers , Vol. x. p. 454.) ] LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 319 in reviewing these three suppositions ; namely, that in comparing them with the actual working of the religion of Christ in the world, the first has the advantage—the great philosophical advantage in any hypothesis—of explaining the leading phenomena on the fewest as - sumptions. The objection to the Roman scheme as a key to Church history, is, that it does indeed give ac¬ count of some of the facts, but it is by an hypothesis which has no root in the original revelation ; which, after all, is little more than a statement of the facts themselves which it professes to explain (the rise and progress of the Roman claims and power), and that it leaves others (the history of the Church antecedent to its own power, of the Oriental, Anglican, and other Churches since) wholly unprovided for. The objection to the new—the Rationalistic-Roman —hypothesis is like the last; its principle has no independent basis, irrespectively of its service to explain the facts, and is then little more than a statement of the particular facts it explains (the growth of certain new doctrines in one large province of the Church); besides the additional difficulties of being apparently precluded by the very terms of the original revelation (always representing itself as once for all sufficient and complete), and being chargeable with grave internal inconsistencies (as we shall presently see) in the supposition itself. But the first view assumes no principle at all beyond what all must admit to exist, to be (in the dialect of Newton) “ verce causm” anterior to, and independently of any temporary application whatever ; to wit, the Revelation itself,—and the agency of human reason ,—and the spe¬ cial superintendence of Providence, trying, rewarding, 320 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. punishing, but ever and equally in mercy, justice, and wisdom, governing—his universal Church. II. So much for the comparative claims of the new theory, as solving difficulties no other supposition can effectually overcome. I have now to weigh (still con¬ sidering it simply as an hypothesis) its positive merits, the internal consistency of this combination of the two suppositions, of perpetual Infallibility, and constant Progression of doctrines, in the Church of Christ. 1. In the first place, it is obvious enough,—even granting this progression of doctrine, and even granting its uncertainty and danger without special direction,— that, unless we imagine the “development” to be a mere euphemism used to disguise revolutions of doctrine as fundamental as the first inspired teaching itself, the alleged mfallible guidance is still no necessary inference. That providential superintendence, which guides the course of an earnest individual explorer of religious truth (a principle of divine government perfectly dis¬ tinct from infallibility, but everywhere strangely for¬ gotten in this work), may be conceived to oversee the theological movement of the Church at large ; to leave it liable, indeed, in case of wilfulness, negligence, and presumption, to error, but justly hopeful of truth ; and never advancing into either error or truth without a high divine purpose of good, under the control of that great transcendent maxim of Christian Providence (far more certain than any infallibility, and really compris¬ ing all the practical consolations infallibility could ever bring), that in every dispensation alike, whether of mercy or judgment, “ all things work together for good to them that love God.”—This, I say, is still a sufficient 321 LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. supposition, even though we should concede the Deve¬ lopment Process to be the real law of divine enlighten¬ ment : that process does not necessitate infallibility at all more certainly than any other progression of impor¬ tant knowledge does. If you imagine it must, it is only because at that instant you are unconsciously exchang¬ ing the notion of “ development” for that of absolute and unqualified new revelation. But, assuming the Infallibility into alliance with the Development, let us reflect how the two suppositions hang together. I am much mistaken or this ponderous auxiliary will be found, like the elephants of old, some¬ what apt to charge back upon its own lines ; or like those allies invoked by distressed nations, who have sometimes remained to destroy the liberties they came to succour. 2. I observe, then, that very manifestly the progres¬ sive discovery of doctrine imagined in this theory sup¬ poses gross errors of omission antecedent to the disco¬ very ; and with those errors serious errors of practice necessarily involved ; both utterly incompatible with a perpetuity of infallible guidance. This is a topic upon which I must limit myself to suggesting or recapitu¬ lating heads of inquiry. To several of these, indeed, I have had occasion to refer already; they now, how¬ ever, re-appear under a new aspect, and in a new rela¬ tion to the general argument; and even as mere facts they cannot be too urgently and repeatedly impressed upon the reader. Regard, then, for example, the belief of the absolute Divinity of our Lord and the Holy Spirit, and any other essentials of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. If this Y 322 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. great belief (as our author seems, though somewhat indistinctly and irresolutely, to intimate) were only gathered by degrees, then, before its full revelation, men, under infallible direction, must either not have given supreme adoration to the three Holy Persons, or done so criminally , because without any divine authority. Regard the Doctrine of the Corrupt and Guilty State of every Man by Nature. If this doctrine (p. 19, &c.) was only gradually discovered, then not only was the real value of Redemption, and the real excellence of the sinless Humanity of Christ, unknown, but men must even have baptized the Church’s children without any real intelligence of the meaning of the rite they employed ; and this in a Church strictly, absolutely, and in all things, even as now, infallible. Regard the Doctrine of the legitimacy and utility of the Invocation of Saints and Angels in religious wor¬ ship. If this important doctrine, which must have been always as true as it ever was, became only gradually known to Christians, then an absolutely infallible Church must have been for ages defrauding these crea¬ tures of their due; and, what is more important, losing in the most trying times all the advantages of the prac¬ tice ; and, what is as singular as either, carrying on its warfare more triumphantly and successfully before it began to claim these succours than these succours ever afterwards enabled it to do. But this is far from the whole. The Church not only forgot them by igno¬ rance, but insulted them by refusal. For (notwith¬ standing all the natural temptations to practices of this kind, and the degree in which the first seeds of corrup- LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 323 tion are apt to deceive the wisest, until they have seen them in the blossom and in the fruit) the earlier wri¬ tings do happen to abound with disavowals of religious devotion addressed to any being but the One that u heareth prayer.” And all this—both the loss and the insult—must, of course, apply with tenfold force to (what appears to have first shown itself above ground at a much later period than addresses to Angels, or to Martyrs at their tombs g ), to the worship of the Mother of our Lord, the all-powerful “ Queen of Heaven.” Kegard the Doctrine (nearly connected with the last) of the Separate State of the Blessed. The prac- g Of all these practices of creature-worship, the addresses, or respectful homage, to Angels was, no doubt, the most plausible; as these holy creatures, in their capacity of “ ministers to the heirs of salvation,” might possibly be considered present in the assemblies of Christians, and with good men in their distresses. Accordingly it is in this form that these unauthorized practices probably first appeared, arising, no doubt, in the first instance, out of an inward feeling of respect for a holy presence , (see such expressions as that in Origen c. Cels. viii. p. 385, Edit. 1677, &c.) [p. 400. ed. Spencer. Cantab. 1658.—G.] which afterwards may have passed into some direct form of address; and this, too, (it is remarkable,) is the spe¬ cial form of the general error which, as if foreseeing its seductive¬ ness to even holy men, inspiration has explicitly recorded and for¬ bidden in the person of St. John himself,—of St. John, too, who saw (what we can never pretend) the angel he sought to worship. The utterly unwarrantable invocation of martyrs began in a similar notion of their presence at their tombs; and, however vain and ima¬ ginary, was quite distinct from that “ deification” (to employ our author’s phrase) of the spirits of the dead, by imagining them capable of hearing and helping their votaries at all times and places, which long afterwards so miserably darkened the Church, by eclips¬ ing the glory of the one ever-present and ever-sympathizing Friend of Man. 324 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. tical bearing of this doctrine became in many ways im¬ portant. Yet here the Church, infallible then as now, commonly admitted and acted on a belief the direct contradictory of the existing alleged development. What claim has the development beyond its own seed, the superstructure more than the basis ? Whether does the infallibility end with the ancient doctrine or begin with the modern ? Begard the doctrine of Purgatorial Pains, and their remission by the present suffrages of the Church Mili¬ tant, or the authority of the Boman Bishop. Here the Church, by numbers of its influential doctors, unques¬ tionably taught a doctrine directly contradictory to this authoritative development; though some of them, after the lapse of ages, began to hint something like a part of it as a confessed conjecture ; but, meanwhile, in the exercise of its sovereign and immutable infallibility, universally and notoriously neglected for centuries a work of piety, equally and urgently obligatory at all times, in behalf of wretched and suffering spirits 11 . Consider, again, the fearful impiety of neglecting, for so many successive ages, to worship with supreme latria ,—with the absolute worship of God—the Eucha¬ ristic elements. Consider the doubtful infallibility of Apostles who neglected, of a Church that was unable, h Even in the Roman Canon of the Mass, (a venerable relic, which, with some corruptions, bears remarkable testimony against several of the medieval innovations,) there is no mention whatever of the souls in Purgatory, but a commemoration alone of those who “have gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in the sleep of peace.” [“ qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pacis.” (Commemoratio pro defunctis.) —G.] LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 325 to instruct its disciples, on this great, imperative duty of religion ; a duty which grows as necessarily out of the infallible truth on which it is based as the worship of the Deity in any case grows out of His existence. Consider the use of Images as objects of religious veneration ; so infallibly necessary now, that a Church cannot be admitted to that communion and fellowship on which salvation irrevocably depends, which rejects them ; so unnecessary under the infallibility of that day, that their use was commonly execrated and condemned. Consider similarly (for I must abridge) the necessity of five additional Means of supernatural Grace,—of grace deep and mysterious as that which gives and sus¬ tains the regenerate Life,—either not used as means of grace at all, in the seed-time of development, or used with an inferior degree of respect which would now be a sinful, and must then have been a strangely igno¬ rant, irreverence. Consider the extraordinary reve¬ rence and universal submission due to the succession of St. Peter, which, if inherent in the See, must have been due to St. Clement of Rome, as absolutely as to Innocent III., but which was so inexplicably neglected by the earlier infallibility. And consider, to crown the heap of perplexity, that the earlier Church did un¬ questionably, and (according to the hypothesis under examination) infallibly, believe and assert itself to be in the full possession of all needful doctrine, indepen¬ dent of any kind or degree of enlargement (beyond the inevitable accessions of experience and reason) before the second coming of its Lord. 3. These are difficulties of some moment in the hypothesis which combines perpetual Infallibility and 326 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. perpetual Development; difficulties as regards the Past. Are there none as regards the Future ? If the infalli¬ ble development of any given age must look back with some misgivings upon the equally infallible Past it abandons, how must it regard the infallible Future that may similarly abandon it ? It is manifest that a developing Church, honestly realizing its own position, can never pretend to state the complete truth on any subject. Not merely the complete truth, absolutely considered, which is proba¬ bly beyond human faculties under any earthly enlighen- ment; but the complete amount of that truth which is to be expected under the existing dispensation, and which, it is commonly imagined, the children of the Church have a right to demand from their spiritual mother. Its best decisions can be but provisional. Granting it can pronounce “the truth, and nothing but the truth,” it can never rise to the calm assurance of “the whole truth.” For, indeed, it can never absolutely limit a proposition; if it could limit any one, there can be no internal reason why it should not be equally em¬ powered to limit all; and then where is room reserved for “ development” ? Once enter thoroughly into the spirit of this theory, and where is the extravagance of the mocker’s supposition, who scoffingly professed his desire that the number of the Holy Persons could be increased , in order to give more scope to faith ? The Church has as yet only seen its way to a Trinity of Divine Persons ; but there was a time (we are appa¬ rently to understand) when it knew not of so many ; and there may be a time when it shall know of more. Nay, is not the discovery—for such it surely, such it LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 327 now avowedly 1 was, of that “ wonder in heaven,” as Mr. Newman justly styles it, the Virgin and her “ dei¬ fication,” almost as great a stride in advance of apostolic teaching as the direct revelation of a new divine agent; or rather, in the sense in wfiicli the “ deification” must needs be understood k , is it not all but the very same ? ’ The Arian controversy “ discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to ivhich the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant —P. 405. Were not the subject so exceedingly me¬ lancholy, there would surely be something to move a smile in this grave assumption of the Church having a function to “ discover” new regions in heaven, and “ assign inhabitants” to them at its earliest convenience! k I need scarcely stop to say (indeed I believe I noticed the sub¬ ject before), that the sense in which St. Athanasius repeatedly speaks of Christ as “ deifying” the nature of man ( eOeoTrolyoev ) by assuming it,—(e. g. in answer to an Arian objection, he writes that “the Word was not impaired in receiving a body, but rather He deified that which He put on,”— Orat. c. Arian . I. §. 42.) [p. 446. Opp. i. i.—G.] and as exalting us all in Himself as members of His body, so that the heavenly powers are no longer amazed at seeing human beings introduced among them [ibid.],—that all this has no resemblance at all to the extravagant sense of a literal participation of the prerogatives of Godhead (unless we are to construe Athana¬ sius’s strong, but justifiable, figure into gross Eutychianism), and the still more monstrous inferences of worship which Mr. Newman labours (pp. 402, 403) to extort from this simple and very innocent sentiment. St. Athanasius, indeed, manifestly refers not to any special divinizing of saints in glory (which alone would suit the purpose); but to a gift, in one sense belonging to human nature in the abstract, to all mankind, as sharing in that common humanity which was so wondrously made the shrine of God ; in another and higher sense, to the collective body of the regenerate, his thoughts evidently running much more upon the present than the future state of the latter. Finely applying 1 Cor. xiv. 25, he observes: “Because of our relationship to His Body, we, too, have become 328 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. But I have enlarged sufficiently upon this in a former letter. I am now viewing the same topic strictly in its 4ft God’s temple, and, in consequence, are made God’s sons; so that even in us the Lord is now worshiped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, ‘ that God is in them of a truth.’ ” What is to be thought of the perspicacity which discovers in this passage (which might issue, for aught I can see, from the most ultra-Protestant pulpit in Europe) “ a doctrine which both interprets and accounts for the invocation of saints and the observance of relics ?” To speak plainly,—more plainly than I should ever desire to speak of one whose superiority in learning and abilities those are not least willing to admit, who the most distinctly recognise in him one more of the thousand instances which Church history fur¬ nishes of the melancholy perversion of both,—I really do not be¬ lieve the entire literature of theology can produce a more prodigious sample of rhetorical sophistication than the whole discussion in the place I have alluded to; in which the author labours to show that the Arian controversy led the Church to perceive the propriety of worshiping departed spirits, and deifying the Virgin. The reader has already had a slight specimen of the argument on the former topic. On the latter, the reasoning is to this effect. Because the Arian devotion to the Son, however nominally boundless, was not enough to satisfy the orthodox, as long as He was not also confessed to be very and substantial God, therefore that boundless degree of devotion may be properly given to a creature, without practically making that creature God, or encroaching upon the rights of God. Try it in a parallel case. To take up arms, and perform all other duties of loyalty in defence of the king, is not enough as long as you continue steadily to deny him to be the legitimate king; there¬ fore, any man has a perfect right to devote all those same exertions, which are the king’s due, to some other personage, without any imputation upon that man’s exclusive loyalty to the throne ! Try it again. Owing a benefactor a large sum of money, I am strictly bound to pay the whole; therefore , so long as I refrain from squan¬ dering the entire, I may make a present of half my means of paying it to some one else, without defrauding my creditor. No doubt the Catholics said, and said justly, that that adoration was to count for LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 329 connexion with infallibility, and the formal decrees in which infallibility is embodied. Now it is most certain nothing which still denied the perfect Godhead of its object; but does the commentator on Athanasius require to be reminded that they also argued that the adoration itself was inconsistent and un¬ warrantable which was offered to any but the Godhead ? The error of the Arian was twofold. He denied the proper Deity of the Son, and he gave (or some of the party gave) an adoration to the Son so contemplated, which, on that supposition, became an infringement on the rights of the Father. The adoration did not infer the belief of Godhead, only because the Arian persisted in denying the God¬ head; of itself and naturally (like the parallel extravagancies of Bonaventure and Alphonsus) it did infer that belief;—because of the denial the devotion was insufficient; but also, because of that same denial, the devotion was preposterous and contradictory. In short, the Lord demands two forms of submission, which are God’s, and God’s alone; the Intellect confessing Him to be truly divine, and the Heart and Will adoring Him as such. The Arian (we are supposing) gave the latter, and refused the former. How can it possibly be pretended, that when the Nicene Doctors denied this to be sufficient , they, even in the remotest way of inference, sanctioned the monstrous principle, that such adoration was not, after all, the exclusive right of God ? that because it is wrong to refuse God all His due, it can ever be, therefore, allowable to give others the greater part of it ? I do not know that it is worth while to follow out so plain a matter any farther. It will probably be found that the source of the fallacy is in the confusion between the objects of worship and man’s capacities of adoration. It is true that the Infinite must be infinitely beyond the greatest creature ; the two are incommensur¬ able. But it is false (indeed contradictory) that a finite mind can make a proportionate distinction in its affections; man’s religious faculties, like all his other faculties, are limited; just because he is finite he has but (so to speak) a certain amount, or fund, of devo¬ tion to expend; and it is hence that what is unduly given to ano¬ ther is necessarily withdrawn from that “jealous God,” to whom 330 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. —certain as a mere matter of fact—that if the modern Church of the Developments be alone continuously identical with the Church of Antiquity, the one Church Catholic has actually reversed its own feelings, or deci¬ sions, on several points of momentous importance at issue between England and Rome. We have only then to invert the point of view in each of the instances cited in the last article ; to stand at the remoter end of the vista, where the younger Church actually stood ; and reflect how that Church could have been justified in establishing dogmatic canons on these points , and arm¬ ing them with terrific anathemas ; then to reflect that just such a Church, comparatively young and inexpe¬ rienced, may the present be in relation to the “ Church of the Future;’’ that even as Laodicea denouncing angel- worship, or Nice slighting the Roman Bishop, are to Lateran and Trent, just so may Lateran and Trent be in their turn to the developments of councils yet to come. What right has such an instructress as this to deal in the canon and the curse ? How can she profess to utter the fulness of eternal verity, whose conjectural truth of one century is but the formless embryo of the truth of another ? Methinks that, after all, it is of such a teacher, “ the stammering lips of ambiguous formu¬ laries” are the appropriate organs 1 ; the first lesson of all the wealth of the religious affections, and all the corresponding fulness of adoration, are exclusively due. 1 I am not aware that the obvious remark has been distinctly made, that the effort to show that the English Articles were “ pa- ' tient of” a Roman sense, could never have been imagined practicable, except through, at least , an equal ambiguity in the Roman decrees LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 331 her infallibility must be, never to dare profess or ex¬ ercise it! It is evident, then, that in such points as those at issue in this controversy—points of vital moment both in the doctrinal scheme and the practical life of reli¬ gion—points, in all of which there must have ever been a right and a wrong, and both from the first of tremen¬ dous importance—that in such points, I say, if the de¬ velopment be infallible, it must have been preceded by perilous error; and that, as there is no period at which the development-process can be determined to cease, the antecedent period of possible error is similarly pro¬ tracted to an indefinite duration. The infallible deve¬ lopment is itself immersed in an abyss of fallibilities ; it is fallible in relation to the past and the future, if themselves. Both were to be brought to meet midway; because both were held to admit of compromise. And this the detail of the attempt itself (of February, 1841) actually proves; in which (if I remember rightly a performance not very well calculated to secure a place in the recollection, and which always appeared to me not more singular in any other respect than in its marvellous inferiority to the admitted abilities of its author) reference is continually made to the Tridentine judgments; the author, in his capacity of mediator, endeavouring to disprove their imagined hostility; in short, endea¬ vouring to demonstrate that they “ stammer” pretty much like our¬ selves. In this point of view, the contemptuous expression quoted in the text was, at least, somewhat misplaced where it first appeared. An infallible Church must always assume a certain external air of deci¬ siveness; this is the infallible style , and as cheap and easy as any other verbal artifice; but, as regards the substance of the decisions, —that the expression is far more applicable to the Council of Trent than to that of London, few who have ever candidly studied the history of both, and the decrees of both, will entertain the smallest doubt. 332 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. these be infallible (which, however, fortunately for it, are similarly fallible in relation to each other); while, as regards the present —the instant of its hasty and trembling utterance—it cannot dare profess to speak the full truth without usurping the rights of the Church unborn, and thereby implicitly destroying its own. It is, I hope, unnecessary to insist further upon the internal consistency of the conjoint hypotheses of Infal¬ libility and Development; the theological student will have little difficulty in filling for himself the outlines which alone I have here space to design. I proceed at once to that other aspect of the same supposition which I have intimated above—the practical working of Infallible Development as an ecclesiastical prin¬ ciple. II. The end and use of Infallibility is absolute autho¬ ritative guidance; but the lowest exercise of authority is incompatible with the consistent adoption of this theory. A developing Church, fully conscious of its position, can neither itself rigorously affirm nor restrain others from affirming. I have no pleasure in attempt¬ ing to invest a very grave subject with ridicule ; but surely a Church which avows itself as much an ex¬ plorer as any bold critic within its domain, which repre¬ sents itself as sailing down the ocean of successive centuries, upon a voyage of theological discovery,— now falling in with the unsuspected region of Saint- Worship,—now touching upon the gloomy shores of the intermediate Purgatorial realm,—now obtaining a dim—a clearer—a full and distinct view (as of some Mount of Transfiguration in the far horizon), of the in¬ effable glories of the deified St. Mary,—nay, discovering LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 333 facts about the past existence of that blessed person, utterly hidden for centuries from the most persevering inquirers (as her deathless Assumption to heaven, to which, by celebrating its festival, a Church incapable of error is as unequivocally bound as to the fact of the Incarnation)—a Church which thus admits that it is but an humble student in the mysterious volume of unknown possible development—what claim can it consistently make, of submission to its definitive un¬ certainties ? But we have to sift this a little more closely. The supreme unerring Authority which demands the obe¬ dience of individual members of the Church, may be viewed either as an authority controlling the belief and judgment of the Church at large, and that too, depen¬ dency, or independently,—or as the organ and mouth¬ piece which simply utters that belief and judgment. I will briefly examine the present hypothesis in rela¬ tion to each of these conceptions of the exercise of a Supreme Authority in matters of Faith. In doing so I must confess to making some little demand upon the steady attention of my readers ; a demand which, how¬ ever, they may be inclined to concede, when they re¬ member that they are now in front of the last and inmost citadel of the new fortress. Disclaimed as is the sys¬ tem by history,—nay, by the common notorious facts of history,—we are now inquiring whether it can pass muster on even the poor ground of a merely conceiva¬ ble hypothesis ; whether it is in itself compatible with any notion at all of Church Infallibility; or (as we are now to discuss) with any notion at all of such Autho¬ rity as that Infallibility implies; or even with any notion 334 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. at all of any real ecclesiastical authority of whatever kind. But this very question, just because it is so entirely abstract and hypothetical, may possibly require a little of that stricter attention which purely abstract reason¬ ings commonly claim. 1. It is admitted, it is involved, in this theory, that the Supreme Authority, wherever it reside, is not qua¬ lified to treat an undeveloped, or insufficiently deve¬ loped subject; if it were, the whole hypothesis would be superfluous. The conception of infallibility, and the authority corresponding thereto, with which we have to deal, must therefore be so understood as to be com¬ patible with this condition. If, for example, any early Council, such as that of Nice, could have been properly expected to utter a deliverance upon the Papal Supre¬ macy (supposing the question proposed to it), with full mediaeval orthodoxy, then the papal supremacy, when it was actually proclaimed, was no development, which necessarily presupposes a previous comparative obscu¬ rity, but a direct unconditional inspiration, appertaining to any infallible Council as such; and all the labour is wasted which is devoted to exhibiting, or conjecturing, how circumstances gradually opened the mind of the Church to the apprehension of this great fundamental truth. Since, then, what the authority cannot rightly do it certainly has no right to do, it is strictly bound to pronounce on no subject until that subject has been thoroughly ripened for decision by development; now the authority, in its capacity of authority, has really but a temporary and occasional existence, whether pre¬ lates in council or Pope ex cathedra ; and the develop¬ ment process must, therefore, be understood as that LETT. VIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 335 which perpetually proceeds in the Churcli at large . Hence, even though the Pope and collective Roman bishops were supposed alone to possess the infallible directive authority ; and still more on any other theory of that obscure and undecided question; yet it is an essential assumption in this hypothesis that the authority finally decisive and obligatory, however supreme over all others, is yet never independent of the general move¬ ment of opinion in the Church, but in even its highest exercise influenced and predisposed thereby. Other¬ wise (I repeat) the decision is no result or index of “developmentMr. Newman gives way to the Council of Trent; and the old notion of direct inspiration, irre¬ spective of times and circumstances, resumes its place. And plainly, the more energetic that universal move¬ ment, the more likely are its true character and bearings to become palpable, and to be influential for good upon the ultimate decision ; if there be indeed a spirit that agitat molern et magno se corpore miscet , the more uncon¬ strained the motions of the body, the more irresistibly and unequivocally will this pervading spirit exhibit its influence. How then does the case stand? Before a certain indefinite period the guides of the Church are supposed to have known little or nothing with cer¬ tainty upon the question at issue, for if they did, the basis of the new theory disappears, the doctrine is no “development.” At a certain period these same guides, or their descendants, are to pronounce infallibly upon it. But dependent as they are indefinitely but really (by virtue of the system under examination), upon the general progression of thought in the Church, and at a certain assignable date maintained to be absolutely in- 336 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. competent to meet the question supposed to be at issue, by what signal shall they know when discussion ought to cease, when the preliminary operation of the Church’s mind is complete, and their own function is to begin ? They are not absolutely infallible until they have met in assembly, and are actually deciding the question ; and they are certain not to decide even then with in¬ fallible correctness unless their meeting has taken place at the exact crisis of consummate development in rela¬ tion to the question (whatever it be) that is at stake. The mere consent to meet, in obedience to the com¬ mand of a Constantine or a Theodosius, a Leo or an Innocent, will hardly be held an inspired revelation ; and yet it is certain that infallibility itself must fail— fail as Nice or Constantinople would confessedly have failed on the question of Images or the Half-Commu¬ nion—if it undertake to decide on any candidate doc¬ trine one hour before that critical moment when the Church by its doctors and debates has been brought to a certain point upon its march of progressive develop¬ ment. Any primitive (Ecumenical Council, it is now hardly denied—it is assumed ,—would have gone wrong upon most of the Roman peculiarities : the power of infallible decision must therefore strictly depend on the age — nay , on the year , month , and day , of the Council; and all that infinite multitude of Roman theologians are henceforth to be disavowed, who in their simpli¬ city have held that a plenary Council is inherently com¬ petent, at any moment that it is duly constituted, to decide all questions of importance agitated in the Church. The infallibility being thus absolutely depen¬ dent on the epoch of the Council, unless each individual 337 LETT. YIII.] CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. personage, antecedent to any combined session, have been in the most absolute sense of inspiration inspired to determine this precise period,—unless the dates of the Councils accepted by the Church of Rome are all held to have been the results of immediate revelation from Heaven to the Emperors and Popes who con¬ vened them,—the time of assembly as really a super¬ natural communication as the doctrine determined,— unless (for example) Trent was known to have become specially infallible in 1545, while it could have had no certainty of infallibility in 1544,—such Councils could not, in consistency with this theory , have claimed un¬ erring insight, or without tyranny authoritatively inter¬ fered to suppress the delivery of views which might have been, for aught they could know, the necessary preliminaries of some great approaching ecclesiastical development. And no assembly which has not claimed a specific inspiration upon this point,—not a mere pro¬ vidential leading, not an ordinary spiritual instinct, but absolute supernatural inspiration in the highest sense, fixing the precise day and hour of congregation, in which divine illumination —before which only obscurity and error—was to be expected,—that is, no assembly (so far as I know) ever yet by any party held and re¬ puted a Catholic Council, could, on the terms of an hypothesis which wholly rests the infallibility on the date, have exercised the smallest degree of legitimate authority over the teaching of the Church’s doctors or the consciences of its members. It is no answer to this, to plead (as some possibly may), the general principle that whenever the Council meets, in the Fourth century or the Sixteenth, it will z 338 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF [LETT. VIII. pronounce, if not the same truth, yet exclusively what is true ; and that this is equally supposable under all hypotheses as to the stationary or progressive discovery of the truth itself. This is a generality plausible only while general; practically it is quite inapplicable as a solution of the difficulty. Were the Councils of the Church to meet without cause or object, to await vague and fortuitous inspirations upon subjects which neither they nor others could anticipate, it might be conceiva¬ ble that, though knowledge were necessarily gradual, yet at all periods a Council might be able to enunciate a complete truth of some sort. But it is notorious that this has never been the real history of Church deci¬ sions. The verdict which the Council is to pronounce is already limited to fixed points of inquiry ; the ques¬ tion in dispute already exists; the points to be decided have already agitated the Church ; the Council does not meet to cast about for new revelations 111 on unknown topics ; it assembles to make a distinct and definite deliverance on previous distinct and definite issues. The question pre-exists, it has called the Council into m [“ The benefit derived by the Church from Councils” is thus well stated by Dr. Hammond, in a manner very similar to the views of Professor Butler : “In a word, that which was before the con¬ stant belief of the whole Church, received from the Apostles’ times and preaching, and by conciliar discussions and search found to be so, is thus delivered down to us by those Councils, and testified by them to be that which they found in the Church universally. 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