wm. 
 
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 THE 
 
 CHFECH OF ENGIiAND 
 
 DOCTRINE OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY, 
 
 A. P. FORBES, D.C.L. 
 
 BISHOP OF BRECHIN, 
 
 " Che quegli e tra gli stolti bene abbasso 
 Che senza distinzione afFerma o niega 
 Cosi neir un come nell' altro passo : 
 
 Perch' egli incontra che piu volte piega 
 L' opinion corrente in falsa parte 
 E poi r affetto lo' ntelletto lega." 
 
 Dante, Paradiso, Canto xiii. 39, 40. 
 
 ©xfortr anti fontion: 
 
 JAMES PARKER AND CO. 
 
 1871.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 rriHE accompanying historical sketch is slightly ex- 
 tended from a Charge delivered to the Clergy 
 and Laity of the Diocese of Brechin, at the Annual 
 Diocesan Synod on the 13th of September of this 
 year. The author is aware that the treatment of 
 such a subject in this manner cannot satisfy the 
 rigor of method which so important a matter de- 
 mands; at the same time, he has endeavoured to 
 do justice on all sides.

 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE DOCTRINE 
 OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 
 
 TT is the duty of a bishop of the Church of Christ 
 to be '' apt to teach," as the Apostle bears witness, 
 and at his consecration he binds himself, so far as he 
 can, " to banish and drive away all erroneous and 
 strange doctrine." There are many points on which 
 I might address you, were I to search out occasions 
 for the exercise of this my office. In the surging 
 ocean of human thought, errors and heresies float 
 around us. Some deny the Lord who bought them, 
 reducing the conception of His person to that of a 
 deceived or deceiving man, like themselves; some 
 assault the inspiration and authority of the divine 
 oracles, submitting the very Word of God to sophis- 
 tical and arbitrary criticism : a great materialistic 
 school of science eliminates God out of His own crea- 
 tion ; and that of Hegel, in its theory of evolution, 
 has confounded the Creator with the work of His own 
 hands. In professed antagonism to these, and with 
 the view, among others, of meeting these errors, a 
 Council has lately been held at Rome, and since pro- 
 rogued, whose claims upon the Christian world are so 
 urgent, that no lover of his kind, no one charged with 
 the care of immortal souls, can fail to appreciate its 
 significance. It professes to cure some of the wounds 
 of the age. Is it a healing balin, or docs it meet one 
 error by another ? I feel sure that in view of the 
 deep interest which the Council has excited, if for no
 
 6 The Church of England 
 
 other reason, you will be glad to hear what your un- 
 worthy bishop has to say on the subject, and may he 
 speak to you wisely, dispassionately, and truly ! 
 
 Now it will be asked, What have we to do with 
 this ? What possible concern can we have in decrees 
 which relate to a religious community from which 
 Scotland separated in the year 1560 ? Let the Church 
 of Eome consolidate her system, or stultify herself, 
 as the case may be, without any concern of us. In 
 reply to this, one must say — 1st, That it is impos- 
 sible for any one calling himself a Christian, not to 
 be deeply concerned in the future of any branch of 
 the great family of Faith, especially of such a body 
 as the Eoman Communion, which has occupied so 
 prominent a place in the history of the world, which 
 has exhibited such fruits of sanctity, and which at 
 this moment, in its secular aspect, is the strongest 
 political organization in the world. Although schisms 
 and dissensions have torn the Body of Christ, we 
 must still believe the truth in the Creed, that there 
 is one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; and 
 though we conscientiously cannot hold communion 
 with Eoman Catholics, on account of what we esteem 
 to be very grievous errors, yet still we must re- 
 member that they and we are alike members of the 
 one body — that if one member suffer, all suffer with 
 it — and that it is our duty to pray for it and all other 
 branches, and therefore to take interest in it and 
 all other branches, in the intention of good Bishop 
 Andrewes, who in his Devotions has given us this 
 useful formula for our supplications in this matter : — 
 
 " Por the Catholic Church, 
 
 its establishment and increase ; 
 for the Eastern, 
 
 its deliverauce and union ;
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 7 
 
 for the "Western, 
 
 its adjustment and peace; 
 
 for the British, 
 
 the supply of what is wanting in it, 
 
 the strengthening of what remains in it." 
 
 A family is not the less one family because the 
 members of it are not on speaking terms with each 
 other. 
 
 But our concern in the fortunes of the Church of 
 Eome is not a matter of Christian faith and duty 
 only ; we must be concerned in her, whether we will 
 or no. By her claim to universal domination, by her 
 deep conviction, and by the expression of that convic- 
 tion, that out of her pale there is no salvation for 
 those who are not in invincible ignorance, every one 
 is bound, as a prudent man, and with regard to the 
 welfare of his own immortal soul, to examine that 
 claim, and to give an account of the faith that is in 
 him. The shallow, unbelieving last century settled 
 the matter in a short and easy method satisfactory 
 to itself — "Popery was a system of irrational dogmas, 
 which no person in his right senses could believe. 
 Those who accepted them were fools ; those who 
 pretended to accept them were rogues. It was either 
 a question of conscious deceit, or slavish fear, or 
 mawkish sentimentality." But matters are very dif- 
 ferent now. In the midst of the light of the nine- 
 teenth century we have seen the remarkable fiict of 
 one mind of the very first order, and many others 
 of power, learning, and refinement, drawn from very 
 different schools of religious thought into communion 
 with the Church of Komo ; we have seen a literature 
 spring up remarkable for its fertility, and as a result 
 there has been for the time a remarkable influx of 
 converts, many of them respectable in every way.
 
 8 The Church of England 
 
 I shall not detain you by attempting to account for 
 this remarkable phenomenon beyond saying that many 
 of the reasons lie on the surface. The dread of the 
 democracy and lawlessness that is pervading Euro- 
 pean society is enough of itself to throw men on 
 a system of absolute subordination and obedience. 
 The declension of popular Protestantism among think- 
 ing men into Eatioualism induces them to save their 
 faith by an entire submission of the reason. The 
 dryness and unimaginativeness of the official Angli- 
 canism send men to a system where heart, and sense, 
 and feeling meet with fuller satisfaction. The scan- 
 dals in the English Church, the unwisdom and short- 
 sightedness of the bishops, who seem disposed to mis- 
 manage the Oxford movement, just as their fathers 
 maltreated Wesleyanism in the last century, and, 
 lastly, the comfort of a system which saves men the 
 trouble of thinking and judging, and which takes 
 the responsibility of life much out of their hands, 
 are all apparent reasons why, now that the penal 
 laws are abrogated, they should freely embrace the 
 religion of Eome. 
 
 But, 2nd, the concerns of the Church of Eome, and 
 the action of the Vatican Council in particular, greatly 
 concern us, in view of the attitude which the Church 
 of England took at the Eeforraation, and continues to 
 take now. Differing from the Protestant bodies in 
 that she retained her ancient hierarchical organization, 
 she felt compelled to cast off what she believed to be 
 a usurped jurisdiction. Eeceiving her faith and her 
 organization through St. Augustine from St. Gregory the 
 Great, she owed a filial obedience to the great mother 
 Church of the West; and had matters remained as 
 that great and wise Pontiff arranged them, we should 
 not have had this day to deplore in tears of compunc-
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibilitij . 9 
 
 tion the rending of the vesture of Christ. But it was 
 not so. In a measure, in consequence of the political 
 necessities of the Western world on the fall of the 
 Empire, the Pope, who already was the greatest land- 
 owner in Italy '', became a sovereign power; the hea- 
 then nations which were brought into the faith natu- 
 rally referred to that centre whence they received the 
 light of the Gospel ; deep religious seutiments con- 
 nected with the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul drew 
 all Europe to the threshold of the Apostles, and then 
 the action of a series of forged documents welded into 
 the most binding of laws what hitherto had been the 
 free religious sentiment of the peoples'". The domi- 
 nion of the earth, that had in heathen times rested on 
 the seven hills, still retained the place of its habita- 
 tion, but now stretched into the nobler dominion of 
 Ideas. The Italian instinct for consolidating power 
 exhibited itself in a series of singularly able Pontiffs, 
 who improved every success and turned the flank of 
 every opposition. The system of the Canon Law com- 
 bined iu a most marvellous manner the interests of 
 
 =' DiiUinger's "Church and Churches," p. 336. 
 
 '' "On a sudi^en (in the reign of Nicolas I., ob. 867), was pro- 
 mulgated, unannounced, without preparation, not absolutely xin- 
 questioned, but apparently overawing at once all doubt, a new 
 code, which to the former authentic documents added fifty-nine 
 letters and decrees of the twenty oldest Popes, from Clement to 
 Melcbiades, and the Donation of Constantine ; and in the thiid 
 part, among the decrees of the Popes and of the Councils from 
 Silvester to Gregory 11. , thirty-nine false decrees, and the acts of 
 several unauthentic Councils. In this vast manual of sacerdotal 
 Christianity the Popes appear from the first the parents, guardians, 
 and legislators of the faith throughout the world. The false De- 
 cretals do not merely assert the supremacy of the Popes, the diguity 
 and privileges of tlie see of Home, they comprehend the -w hole dog- 
 matic system and discipline of the Church," — Hi-storn of Latin 
 Chrhtianity, by Milman, vol. ii. p. 304.
 
 10 The Church of Eti gland 
 
 this world and of the next", and the result was that 
 a mighty power was erected in Eome, the natural 
 
 ^ "All these doctrines (the infallibility and autocracy of the 
 Ptoman see) were extended and corrohorated by another forgery. 
 This was produced in 1150, by Gratian, a Benedictine monk of 
 Bologna. It was entitled by him, Concordantia discordantimn Cano- 
 num ; but the name which has been assigned to it by common con- 
 sent is ' The Decree of Gratian ' {Decretum Gratiani). This work 
 superseded every other compilation. It was explained in the schools, 
 cited in the tribunals, and recognized everywhere as the sole authen- 
 tic Collection of the Canon Law." (p. 224.) 
 
 "Many collections were made of these papal edicts since the 
 publication of Gratian's work, but the only ane of which the autho- 
 rity has continned to our time is that of Gregory IX., composed in 
 1234, by Eaymond de Penafort, a Dominican monk of Catalonia. 
 This contains all the decrees of the great Council of Lateran in 
 1215, and the decisions of the Popes on a vast number of subjects, 
 distributed according to the subjects into five books. The lopics 
 are stated in the line — 
 
 "1. Judex; 2. Judicium; 3. Clcrus ; 4. Sponsalia ; 5, Crimen. 
 
 "These are called simply the Decretals. All that precede them 
 ore cited by the Canonists as ancient. 
 
 "In 1294, Boniface VIII. published a Sixth Book of Decretals, 
 called the Sextum, divided into five books, in the same order as the 
 Compilation of Gregory. This contains the decrees of the two 
 General Councils of Lyons (a.d. 1245 and 1274), also decrees of 
 several other Popes, from Gregory IX. to Boniface ,YIII. 
 
 "The next collection was called the Clementines, because it con- 
 tained the Constitutions of Clement V. adopted at the General 
 Council of Vienne, 1311. These were published in 1317, by 
 John XXII." (pp. 226, 227.) 
 
 ' ' All the decrees added to the Canon Law since that time are 
 called Extravagants. Thus the text of the Canon Law consists of 
 these books, in which the Popes did for the Church what Justinian 
 did for the Roman Empire. The Decretum Gratiani was the Pan- 
 dect. The Decretals were the Code. The Sextum, the Clemen- 
 tines, and the Extravagant were Novels of the Canon Law ; and to 
 complete the resemblance, in the year 1580, Paul IV. caused John 
 Paul Lancelot to compose the Institutes, which were added to the 
 Corpus Juris Canonici under Gregory XIII." (p. 227.) — Influence 
 of Canon Law, hy J. G. Phillimore ; Oxford Essays, 1858.
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal InfallihiUty. 1 1 
 
 expression of wliich was the Bull Unam Sanctam of 
 Pope Boniface YIII., wherein he " declaredj affirmed, 
 defined, and pronounced that it is altogether necessary 
 for salvation that every human creature should be 
 subject to the Eoman Pontiff." 
 
 That, by the permission of God, this system did 
 good for a time I should be the last to deny. The 
 great medieval Popes stand forth in history in a sin- 
 gularly grand attitude, Gregory YII. and Innocent 
 III. were men such as the world has seldom seen. 
 They fought the battle of Christian ideas against 
 brute force, and loved righteousness and hated ini- 
 quity. These were uncritical days, and the forgeries 
 were not always known to be such. Even the great 
 St. Thomas Aquinas was deceived by some new fabri- 
 cations of this sorf^. It was something to remove the 
 cause of the oppressed from local influences. But on 
 the strength of these very fabrications it was now 
 sought to turn the Church into an absolute monarchy, 
 of which the Pope was the head. Every decree of 
 a Council, therefore, was inoperative till it had re- 
 ceived Papal confirmation, and it was held that a ple- 
 nitude of power, even in matters of faith, rested in 
 the Pope alone, who was Bishop of the Universal 
 
 ^ " A Latin theologian, probably a Dominican, who had resided 
 among the Greeks, composed a Catena of spurious passages of Greek 
 Councils and Fathers, S. Chrysostom, the two Cyrils, and a pre- 
 tended Maximus, containing a dogmatic basis of these novel Papal 
 claims. ... It was thus, on the basis of fabrications invented by 
 a monk of his own order, including a Canon of Chalccdon giving all 
 bishops unlimited right of appeal to the Pope, and on the forgeries 
 found in Gratian, that S. Thomas built up his Papal System, with 
 its two leading principles, that the Pope is the first infallible teacher 
 in the world and the absolute ruler of the Church. . . . The por- 
 tion of his work against the Greeks on the primacy, he derived 
 entirely from these fiction?," — The Pope and the Council, hy Janus, 
 pp. 264—267.
 
 12" The Church of England 
 
 Churcli. He could be judged by no man. In the- 
 miserable tenth century, the century of Theodora and 
 Marozia, tlie Papacy was so morally impotent that its 
 power collapsed, though that it continued to exist at 
 all attests the toughness of the institution. Even in 
 South Italy the Patriarch of Constantinople was more 
 powerful than the Pope of Eorae % while over the East 
 the great Nestorian Church, at this day shrivelled 
 into a few communities in Kurdistan, outnumbered 
 in its own area both Greeks and Latins *^; but no' 
 sooner did the Hildebrandean era commence, tharb 
 the Eoman power attained a height that the early 
 Popes never dreamt of. It allied itself with righte- 
 ousness and truth in the crushing of simony and in 
 purifying the morals of the clergy. On the other 
 hand, it allied itself with frand and treacheiy, for 
 falsifications and perversions were freely made use of 
 to establish what was really a revolution in the con- 
 stitution of the Church of Christ, So mixed are the 
 best motives and purposes of man. 
 
 It is this system, in its grandeur and weakness, in 
 the sublimity of its idea, in the weakness of its actual 
 foundation, whieh the Vatican Council has stereotyped. 
 From the beginning of its assertion there has ever 
 been a current of opposition to it, notably exhibited 
 in the Ghibelliue spirit in Italy, in the great lawyer 
 movement in France (headed by William of Nogaret),. 
 and in the course of action which animated the Councils 
 of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, It greatly influenced 
 
 * For an account of this, see DelV Origine progresso e stato pre- 
 gente del Jiifo Greco in Italia^ osservato dai Greci Monachi Basiliani 
 e Alhanesi, lihri 3 scritti da Pietro Pominlio Rodota. Eome, 1758. 
 
 f " Their numbers^ with those of the Jacobites, were computed to 
 surpass the Greek and Latin Gommxinions.^'- — Gibbon's Decline and 
 Fall, ch. xlvii. p. 837, ed. London, 1834.
 
 and the Doclnne of Papal InfalUbiUt;/. 13 
 
 fthe Reformation, and has lived ou in the Galilean 
 school of theology within the Western Church to the 
 present day. But grand as was the ideal of a Theo- 
 cracy upon earth, — a reign of religion and justice in 
 whicli the Pope ruled as Yicar of Christ upon earth, 
 — not only did the system fail, but the abuses became 
 insupportable. The Popes themselves became sinful ^. 
 They were surrounded by a needy Curia, and it was 
 soon found that gold was the most potent advocate in 
 the Italian Court of Appeal. Besides direct bribes, 
 there was a constant drain of money from the dif- 
 ferent countries of Europe. Every privilege had to 
 be paid for, — confirmations of bishops and abbots, dis- 
 pensations in causes matrimonial, appeals, concession 
 €f privileges, — all had their tax. Annats ^, first-fruits, 
 and Peter's Penoe, all found their way to Eome. 
 Meanwhile the moral aspect of Eome became more 
 and more distressing ; the Pagan spirit penetrated 
 
 ^ The great Dante, exponent as he was of the Catholic Philosophj' 
 <of his age, thus speaks, addressing Pope Nicholas : — 
 " If reverence of the keys restrained me not, 
 AVhich thou in happier times didst hold, I yet 
 Severer speech might use. Your avarice 
 O'ercast the world with mourning, under foot 
 Treading the good, and raising bad men up. 
 •Of shepherds like to you, the Evangelist 
 "Was 'ware, when her, who sits upon the waves, 
 "With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld ; 
 ■She who with seven heads towered at her birtli, 
 And from her horns her proof of glory drew. 
 Long as her spouse in virtue took delight . . . 
 Ah, Constantino, to how much ill gave birtli 
 JS'ot thy conversion, but that plenteous dower 
 Which the first wealthy father gained from thee." 
 
 Inferno, c. xix. lOG, Cui'y's Trans. 
 ^ "Annata reditus unius anni ab eo qui recens in do mor- 
 tui Episcopi aut abbatis locum succedit exsolvi summo Pontifici 
 sditus." — Ducange, ad verb.
 
 14 The Church of England 
 
 the Vatican \ It was said that the man who went to 
 Kome returned with an empty purse, an injured con- 
 stitution, and a bad conscience. The Church was 
 heathenized by the Eenaissance. The Eenaissance was 
 consecrated in all its grace and refinement by Leo X., 
 but true piety had fled from the earth, and for a hun- 
 dred years before it was granted there was a cry 
 throughout all Europe for a Council to remedy the 
 abuses. The Curia resisted, until it was too late. 
 Germany, Scandinavia, and England revolted, and 
 then the Council was called— too late to prevent the 
 schism being consummated. The dogmatic import- 
 ance of the Councils of Constance and Basle cannot 
 be exaggerated. Their results are still in the womb 
 of futurity ''. Such were the scandals of the Church 
 and the cry for reform, that at Constance three Popes 
 were deposed, in spite of the faith in the system 
 which had been so sedulously taught by tlie Curial- 
 ists. Eeform in the head and members \s as the cry 
 of Europe. Nothing in history is so remarkable as 
 the able way in which Martin Y. recovered his posi- 
 tion. Still, in the Acts of these Councils, a denial of 
 the possibility of Papal infallibility being the uni- 
 versal tradition of the Church is written with a pen of 
 iron. At Trent, the whole energy of the Italian party 
 was exerted to prevent any definition of the power of 
 the Pope or of the bishops, and as a matter of fact, 
 they were able to stave off that reform in the Eoman 
 Court which they conceded to the rest of the Latin 
 subjection. Then rose the Jesuit order, with its ad- 
 mirable organization, bending everything to the great 
 
 ' Ranke's " Lives of the Popes," vol. i, p. 70, London, 1840. 
 
 '' "The momentous schism in the Church, the consequences of 
 which are incalculable, and the effects of which are felt to the 
 present day." — Dollinger's Church and Churclie-i, p. 354.
 
 and the Doctrine of Pcqml Infallibilltij . 15 
 
 purpose of the aggrandisement of the Eoman see. 
 Gradually, with the extension of the influence of that 
 wonderful institution, Ultraraontauism has advanced, 
 till the whole Latin Church lies bouud at its feet ; 
 and the nineteenth century, the age of science and 
 freedom, has seen the hierarchy of Germany, against 
 its expressed convictions, surrender at discretion ^ 
 Henceforth Christianity must stand on a new dog- 
 matic basis. The appeal to history is now heresy. 
 The consent of the peoples is nothing, all depends on 
 the will of one man, whose opinion, apart from the 
 opinion of the whole body of Christ, is in itself irre- 
 formable. In the Roman Church, the head, as in the 
 case of a hydrocephalous child, dwarfs the other mem- 
 bers. The bishops have ceased to be judges of doc- 
 trine, and are now the Pope's vicars. Their juris- 
 diction as ordinaries is infringed by the authority of 
 Rome, and by a strange irony, the instruments of 
 civilisation, the telegraph and the iron way, carry the 
 commands of the Apostle of reaction and obscurantism 
 into the most distant villages and hamlets. The quod 
 semper^ quod ubique, quod ab omnibus is discredited for 
 ever. There is one living oracle of God, from whose 
 lips all men are to receive the truth. What effect 
 this will have on the future dogma of the Church 
 can hardly be estimated. If we may take as a speci- 
 men the proposal to declare of divine faith the cor- 
 poral assumption of the Holy Virgin, we can only 
 anticipate with sorrow further declensions from the 
 simplicity of the Gospel ; and in the question of 
 morals, in view of the merging of the individual in 
 the universal, there is a danger of narrowing the 
 
 1 See Documenta ad illustrandum Concilium Vatican iiiii, anno 
 1870, Gesammelt imd Jierausgegehen von I- Friedrich, 1 abtheiluncj, 
 pp. 1—128, 247—262, 280.
 
 16 The Church of England 
 
 ethics of Christianity to one virtue and to one vice 
 — the virtue, submissive adherence to the Eoman 
 Church ; the vice, separation from the same. Surely 
 one may say of the dominant party, " Another such 
 victory, and you are lost." 
 
 Now, the question presents itself to us as Chric- 
 tians and as members of the English branch of the 
 Church Catholic, Is this, in its present manifestation, 
 the faith once delivered to the Saints? Is this the 
 real and true interpretation of the passages in Scrip- 
 ture which refer to St. Peter ? If it is of faith, it must 
 have been part of the original revelation. Did the 
 Apostles know anything of this ? Did St. Peter him- 
 self realize his high destiny ? There is not a trace in 
 the Holy Scriptures of St. Peter being the one living 
 oracle of divine truth. That our Lord gave him a cer- 
 tain primacy or pre-eminence ; that he took the lead in 
 the infant community, as is clear from the first chap- 
 ters of the Acts ; that he wrote from Eome, the mystic 
 Babylon, and there, according to a most ancient tra- 
 dition, sealed his testimony with his blood, we con- 
 cede ; but this is not the question at issue. In no 
 exclusive or precise sense was St. Peter the pastor and 
 doctor of all Christians, and his successor cannot claim 
 from the divine assistance promised to him {per assis- 
 tentiam divinam ei in Beato Petro promissam) to be 
 what he was not"". N^either can it be shewn that the 
 office of Pope, in the modern sense, existed till many 
 ages after Christ". The see of Eoine, on account of 
 
 ■" '' When St. Peter is referred to by name, in the early times, in 
 connection with the Pope, it is for a guarantee of apostolical doc- 
 trine or discipline, not as having possessed, conveyed, or authorized 
 to the Pope any personal supremacy." — Hussei/s Rise of the Papal 
 Power, p. 12, 
 
 " " It cannot be maintained with truth, that the principles which
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibilifij. 17 
 
 its civil pre-eminence as the capital of the world, as 
 the scene and martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 as a Church that never had faltered in the faith, as 
 the most important living embodiment of Christian 
 tradition, was as a city set upon a hill, and its occu- 
 pants were not slow in asserting^ these privileges to 
 the uttermost (according to the Brocard, — honi judicis 
 est ampliare suam jurisdictionem) ; but the most ambi- 
 tious of these never dreamt of claiming to be the 
 pillar and exclusive organ of divine truth, the vener- 
 able teacher of all Christians. The notion that cer- 
 tainty of faith is connected with the Pope, indepen- 
 dently of the consent of the Church Catholic, is entirely 
 foreign to the teaching of the early Church. For the 
 one institution that touched the certainty of the faith 
 was the Plenarium or General Council °. Synods were 
 the places in which dogmatic questions were decided, 
 and in the fourth century, when a Pope did speak, it 
 was as the mouthpiece of his synod ; nay. Pope Siri- 
 cius refused to judge Bonosus because he had no 
 right, and must await the decision of the compro- 
 vincial bishops. 
 
 And not only was this the common law of Chris- 
 tendom, but the Popes themselves rested their claims 
 upon Conciliar authority, and it is one thing to claim 
 power by Conciliar authority, another to possess it by 
 divine right. You know how the Sardican Canons, 
 regarded as a sort of outwork of those of Nicsea, were 
 worked, in their own interest, by the Bishops of Eome, 
 and rejected by those of Africa in the case of the 
 presbyter Apiarius ; and the Great St. Leo, at the 
 
 were asserted and acted on by later Popes were contained virtually 
 and were latent in the Papacy of the earliest ages." — Ibid., p. 200. 
 ° See S.Augustine Be Baptismo contra Bonatistas, lib. i. c. vii. 
 torn. ix. p. 57 ; also c. xviii. p. 63.
 
 18 The Church of England 
 
 Council of Cbalcedon, constant as was his assertion 
 of his being the representative of St. Peter, rests his 
 authority, not on any divine right, but, irrelevantly 
 indeed, appeals to the sixth Nicene Canon p. 
 
 Now, if Councils hold this position, what say the 
 General Councils on this subject ? At Nicsea Hosius, 
 Bishop of Cordova, presided, but two presbyters from 
 Eome represented that see. The sixth Canon merely 
 says: — "Let the ancient usages prevail in Egypt, 
 Libya, and Pentapolis, so that the Bishop of Alex- 
 andria has the command over them. Since such 
 is the custom of the bishop in Eome. So, in An- 
 tioch and the other Eparchies, the privileges are 
 to be guarded for the Churches." Another version 
 much quoted, but not in the original text, asserts 
 that the Church of Rome always had the Primacy. 
 At Sardica, not a General Council, but one of great 
 weight from the orthodoxy of the constituent bi- 
 shops, the power of appeal was granted personally 
 to Pope Julius, but in veneration of the memory of 
 St. Peter. At the first Council of Constantinople, the 
 West was not represented, but by the third Canon 
 a privilege of honour, after the Bishop of Eome, was 
 bestowed upon the Bishop of Constantinople, because 
 it is the new Eome. At Ephesus, Pope St. Celestine, 
 who took a prominent part in the Council, was re- 
 presented by three legates — Arcadius and Projec- 
 tus, bishops, and Philip, a presbyter — but no canons 
 touched on his power or prerogative. At the Council 
 of Cbalcedon it was different. It was convoked by 
 
 p "The Pope's argument in all this was, that the Decree of 
 Chalcedon concerning Constantinople, was contrary to the Canons 
 of Nicaea, and that no Council could change what was decreed 
 there." — Hussey's Rise of the Papal Potver, p. 71 ; see also S. Leon, ' 
 Epistolce, xl. p. 257, ed. Lugd., 1700.
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 19 
 
 the Emperor Marcian. St. Leo was represented by 
 four legates — Paschasinus of Lilyba?um, Bonifacius, 
 Liicentius, and Basilius, who took precedence of all 
 the other bishops. His letter to Flavian was ap- 
 proved by the Council. When Dioscorus was con- 
 demned, the legate acting for the Pope and Council 
 depriv^ed him of his episcopal office. In the fifth 
 Session, St. Leo's tome was accepted as symbolical, 
 "on the express ground of its conformity to orthodox 
 standards'*." In the fifteenth Session, thirty Canons 
 were passed, the twenty-eighth of which dealt with the 
 privilege of Constantinople, the New Eome. It as- 
 serted that the Fathers properly gave the Primacy to 
 the throne of the elder Eome, because it was the im- 
 perial city — that Constantinople was to be second after 
 her — that the metropolitan of the Pontic, Asian, and 
 Thracian dioceses, and the bishops of the aforesaid 
 dioceses among the barbarians, were to be subject to 
 Constantinople. The Koman legates refused to be 
 present, quoted the false version of the sixth Canon of 
 Nice, that the Eoman see hath always had the Pri- 
 macy; but they were overruled, and the Canon has 
 always stood among the Canons of the Universal 
 Church. St. Leo continued to oppose it, on the ground 
 that it did injustice to the see of Alexandria. The 
 legislation in these Councils shews a gradual increase 
 of power on the part of the Popes. They exhibit the 
 successors of St. Peter in a very dignified attitude, 
 but they offer no support — nay, they contradict — the 
 affirmation, that his decisions ex cathedra, on their 
 own account, and not on account of the consent of 
 the Church, cannot be reformed. 
 
 These four General Councils were regarded by 
 Pope St. Gregory as an authority equal to the Gos- 
 
 1 liright's "History of the Chui-ch," p. 101.
 
 20 The Church of England 
 
 pels, and it was the same St. Gregory who, in op- 
 posing the assumption by John of Constantinople 
 of the title of (Ecumenical Patriarch, not only re- 
 buked the Byzantinism and ambition of the prelate of 
 New Eome, but condemned by anticipation the as- 
 sumptions of his own successors. His words are: — 
 ^^John, Bishop of Constantinople, in opposition to 
 God and the peace of the Church, in contempt and 
 to the injury of all the priesthood (bishops), exceeded 
 the bounds of modesty and of his own measure, and 
 unlawfully took to himself in Synod the proud and 
 pestilent title of Q^cumenic, that is. Universal (bi- 
 shop) ^" Still, with every abatement, the position of 
 the Popes during what I may term the Conciliar age 
 was a very important one. The Edict of Valentinian 
 supported them in the West by the aid of the secular 
 arm. They had universally ascribed to them the duty 
 of watching over the observance of the Canons, and 
 informal appeals from the provinces, both of the East 
 and West, flowed freely into the Eternal City. They 
 were regarded, in view of their spiritual descent from 
 St. Peter, as the types of unity, and the see of Eome 
 was regarded confessedly as the first see and Patri- 
 archate of the Christian Church. 
 
 Although this was the constitution of the Christian 
 Church when St. Augustine converted the Saxons and 
 founded those hierarchies which now exist in Scot- 
 land and England, the unceasing assertion of the 
 Papal claims, aided, I mourn to say, by a series of 
 fabrications * which extend from the beginning of the 
 sixth century — such as the Donation of Constantino, 
 
 ' Greg., Epist. ix. 68. 
 
 * Eor an account of the forgeries after the Isidorian Decrees, see 
 the "Pope and the Council," by Janus, pp. 94 — 150.
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 21 
 
 the interpolation in tlie celebrated treatise of St. C}^- 
 prian on the nnity of the Church ^, the Liher Ponti- 
 ficalis of Anastasius, and, above all, the Isidorian 
 Decretals — gradually consolidated the Eoman power 
 through Continental Europe. And thus the institu- 
 tion of a primacy intended by God for the preserva- 
 tion of unity, as St. Cyprian bears witness, became 
 by exaggeration the great cause of schism. The 
 same fire which warms and sustains the body of man 
 reduces it to ashes. 
 
 Beside the cause just mentioned, in England, other 
 elements were at work. The insularity of its situa- 
 tion had always preserved there a strong national 
 feeling. The Popes having adopted the Kormans by 
 the influence of such great men as Lan franc and 
 Anselm, the national element had rather maintained 
 a conservative anti-Italianism, disturbed indeed by 
 the moral effect of Archbishop Becket's murder. The 
 bitter recollections of the national humiliation in the 
 reign of King John were kept alive. The English 
 kings carefully nursed the dislike to foreign inter- 
 ference ^ The Benedictine Order, existing in sepa- 
 rate autocephalous communities, was very powerful 
 in a conservative way. Above all, the schism in 
 the Papacy, in which the two nations in this one 
 
 * See Dr.Pusey's note to the Oxf. Trans, of St. Cyprian's Treatises, 
 p. 150. See also an important note in Dr. John George Krabinger's 
 edition of St. Cyprian's Treatise, p. 9, note 10 (Tubiiigoc, 1853), 
 and the " Testimony of St. Cyprian against Eome," by G. A. Pook>, 
 pp. 17 — 22. (London, 1838.) In the celebrated edition of Berthold 
 llerabolt, 1512, now very scarce, even the expression "super unum 
 eedificat ecclcsiam" is missed out. The Catechism of the Council 
 of Trent, in its exposition of the Article on the Church, uses the 
 unintcrpolated text. 
 
 " See the Epiatola Universitatis regni AnglicB, addressed to Inno- 
 cent IV. at the Council of Lyons, in Matthew Paris, p. 66G.
 
 22 The Church of England 
 
 island, England and Scotland, had taken different 
 sides, had greatly weakened the Eoman prestige, so 
 that when the Eeformation came there was more 
 to appeal to in the way of tradition than in any 
 country in Europe. There were more elements for 
 an orderly and legal resistance. They had legally 
 confirmed bishops and abbots without the Pope in 
 former years ; why not do so again ? 
 
 Scotland had been more entirely under Papfil in- 
 fluences ''. The Scottish Eeformation was a revolution. 
 It was a combination of the needy and grasping no- 
 bility, who coveted the Church lands, with the com- 
 monalty, who were sick of the vices of the clergy, 
 against the bishops and the Crown, which ulti- 
 mately made common cause with them^. The Eefor- 
 
 '^ See tlie privilege of the Scotican Church, that it was subject to 
 none but the Roman Pontiff, in a Bull of Pope Innocent to William 
 the Lion, given in Fordun {Scotichron, lib. viii. c. 67, vol. i. p. 522, 
 cd. Goodal) : see also confirmation of privilege, "that none in the 
 kingdom of Scotland shall exercise the office of Legate, except 
 specially designed a latere.'" — Theiner's Vetera Documenta Hiherno- 
 rum et Scotorum^ Eomse, 1864, p. 49. 
 
 y The corruption of our Church, I regret to say, was greater 
 than in any part of Europe, except perhaps in Scandinavia. In the 
 Provincial Council of Edinburgh, 1549, it is confessed, "Et cum 
 duae potissimum malorum causae et radices appareant, quae tantas 
 nobis turbas et haeresium occasiones excitavere, nimirum in per- 
 sonis Ecclesiasticis, omnium fere graduum, morum corruptela ac vitae 
 profana obsccnitas, cum bonarum literarum artiumque crassa in- 
 scitia." {Statuta Eccl. Scoticance, ed. Robertson, vol. ii. p. 81.) In 
 the very scarce book of Conaeus, De Duplici Statu Religionis, an 
 author who was Cardinal in petto, and devoted to the cause of the 
 Roman Church, we have the following sad picture : " Omnium ma- 
 lorum avaritia nobilium animos sensim invadens ita omnia infecit 
 atque corrupit . . . abbate et Episcopos liberos vix natos et adhuc 
 a matre rabentes designare . . . vulgus natura pigrum et iners . . . 
 nil mens quam sacrosancti muneris Episcopi cogitabant, sed. ventrem 
 implore, syrmata dilatare et sublimiora occupare subsellia . . . his
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal InfallihiUtij . 23 
 
 matiou of the Chiircli of England was in one sense 
 a change in the law of the land, brought about by 
 the Crown, with the aid of complaisant bishops, 
 against the wish of the old nobility and the mass 
 of the clergy, amid the indifference of the common 
 people. Of all the forms of the Eeformation, the 
 English Eeformation is the least interesting in a re- 
 ligious point of view ; but for that very reason it 
 was the most orderly. The substance of the old 
 religion was retained ; the Episcopate continued ; the 
 rectors and vicars lived on into the new system with- 
 out any default in their legal tenure of office ; the 
 old monks became the new canons ; the usurped 
 jurisdiction of the Bishop of Eome was removed in 
 face of an equally unseriptaral jurisdiction of the 
 King of England ; and, cleansed from many debasing 
 superstitions, stripped of much of the beauty of ex- 
 ternal worship, the Church of England, by statute 
 and by vote of Convocation, assumed that attitude 
 of isolation from the Churches of the rest of Europe 
 in which it has remained for more than 300 years. 
 
 A great act like the Eeformation cannot fail to 
 have its results both on the debtor and creditor side. 
 Against the removal of abuses and the abolition of 
 superstitions we must set the misery of schism and 
 the results in the way of unbelief that sooner or later 
 proceed therefrom. A carious tooth gives exquisite 
 pain, and the time comes when at any cost it must be 
 removed. The removal causes the pain to cease, but 
 the natural arch of the mouth is destroyed, and the 
 
 omnibus accedcbat libido impotens sacratioribus xiix morumque 
 lues tetcrrimoe. In multis sacerdotum actlibus scortum publicum : 
 pernoctabant in tabcrnis wi Deo dicati : nee e sacrilcgo luxu tutus 
 crat matronarum honos aut virginalis piulor . . . i)ro mcndiciintibus 
 manducantes dicti fratre?."
 
 24 The Church of England 
 
 foundation of the gradual destruction of all the rest 
 proceeds from that very removal. Now the carious 
 tooth at the time of the Eeformation was the aggres- 
 sion of the see of Eome into the jurisdiction of the 
 bishops, the drain on the finances of the country by 
 the costly exactions of the Curia Eomana, and the 
 gainful frauds countenanced by the friars, who by 
 such devices as the miraculous rood of Boxley and 
 the blood of Hales committed the high treason against 
 religion of bolstering up what they conscientiously 
 believed to be Christianity by lies. Much very alien 
 from true science has been said with regard to the 
 English Eeformation. One party have regarded it 
 as a second Pentecost, and a great mass of the Eng- 
 lish trace the first dawn of truth in England from 
 the burning of Oldcastle, its actual rise from that of 
 Latimer and Eidley in Oxford. Christianity became 
 hopelessly corrupted in the fifth, fourth, or perhaps 
 third century, as the intensity of the prejudice varies ; 
 and then there was total darkness till "Gospel light 
 first beamed from Boleyn's eyes." An opposite school 
 has from the days of Sanders denounced it as simple 
 and unmitigated schism, unredeemed even by those 
 qualities of national and religious enthusiasm which 
 gave dignity to the movement in Germany and Swit- 
 zerland. In every sense the separation was inexcus- 
 able ; everybody was good and holy before the Eefor- 
 mation — everybody corrupt, earthly, devilish, after it. 
 The truth lies between these two views. It was 
 neither so good nor so bad as people say. Indeed, in 
 the practical life of the people there seems to have 
 been little change either for better or for worse. The 
 changes, though rapid, were not estimated in their 
 real religious and political significance at the time. 
 Be it never forgotten that the actual severance be-
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal InfallihiUtij. 25 
 
 tween England and Kome, was not the work of the 
 Eeformers, but of Warham and Gardiner. It was in 
 the Convocation of 1531 that the clergy acknow- 
 ledged Henry VIII. as "(Ecclesise) singularem pro- 
 tectorem, unum et supremum dominuni et (quantum 
 per Christi leges licet) Supremum Caput ipsius ma- 
 jestatem recognoscimus." There was no great and 
 sudden outburst of godlessness, though it is known 
 that the morality of the country suffered much. On 
 the other hand, there was no great religious revival, 
 nothing like theWesleyau movement — for Puritanism 
 came from Frankfort and Geneva. But one impor- 
 tant thing must be borne in mind ; the Eeformation 
 was not in all senses a new movement ; it was rather 
 the precipitation of elements that had long been held 
 in solution in the English mind ; it was, in fact, the 
 separation of the traditional from the developmentistic 
 elements in English religion. Both had hitherto been 
 confused. The authority of the Church had welded all 
 these things together, and the great political upheav- 
 ing, aided by the revival of letters in the preceding 
 half century, became the solvent. The Bible was now 
 open, and men sought in vain for any support of that 
 practical system of foreign interference whereby they 
 were oppressed. They acted, as English do, in a prac- 
 tical and not theoretical way. 
 
 Henry VIIL, indeed, and Thomas Crumw^ell, had 
 their theory, and directed their efforts to one definite 
 end. They desired that the religion of England 
 should be Catholicism without the Pope. This would 
 have answered but for the foreign influences. First, 
 the charm which Luther exercised told profoundly in 
 the way of unsettling people, and then the genius of 
 Calvin erected a dogmatical system, so logical and 
 harmonious that his Institutes remained for more than
 
 26 The Church of England 
 
 a hundred years what the Schoolmen had been for the 
 two preceding centuries. Moreover, the misery of 
 the Marian persecutions did not end in the crime of 
 burning a certain number of persons; it lashed the 
 English into the fiercest Protestantism, and religion 
 got closely allied to politics — Protestantism meaning 
 the freedom and autonomy of England, Catholicism 
 subjection to the all-powerful influence of Spain. 
 Questions get hopelessly complicated. Men had not 
 to ask themselves whether there were seven sacra- 
 ments, but whether Elizabeth was an excommunicated 
 bastard. Hence, when the Council of Trent was held 
 too late, — and really treated theology in so scientific 
 a spirit that explanations of the letter of her canons 
 and decrees have been given so consonant with the 
 early faith that any true son of the Church of England 
 might accept them, — the Church of England, as she 
 then was, was not represented. It is deeply to be 
 regretted that she felt herself precluded from having 
 her delegates there. Had England readjusted the 
 balance between the diiferent parties in the "Western 
 Church, the predominance of the purely Italian and 
 Eomanesque element might have been greatly neu- 
 tralized, and more of the abuses would have been 
 cured. As it is, in the matter of residence and prac- 
 tical reformation, the Council did a great deal, and 
 it would be unjust and unphilosophical to ignore it. 
 The Church of England then went her own way, 
 and it cannot be denied that in doing so she suffered 
 greatly. The factitious beauty with which the Ee- 
 formation has been invested disappears before closer 
 historical investigation. The State became as great 
 a tyrant as the see of Eome had ever been. Disci- 
 pline gradually fell into abeyance ; the services and 
 churches were deplorably neglected; learning died
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallihilitij . 27 
 
 out in the universities^; open profligacy, especially 
 in high quarters, remained unchallenged. No doubt 
 some of the Puritans were personally religious men, 
 and matters began to mend with the rise of the 
 Caroline School. 
 
 But, accepting all this, there was something be- 
 hind that justified the English Eeformation, and that 
 justification is found in the late proceedings of the 
 Vatican Council. The English did not formulate any 
 theological propositions as to the relations between 
 the Pope and the Bishops, (if they had any definite 
 opinion it was that he was Antichrist or the Beast, 
 or the Man of Sin,) but they felt an intolerable abuse 
 which must be got rid of at any price. They did 
 what is now justified by the Council of 1870. That 
 Council casts a retrospective shadow on the last 
 three hundred years, indemnifying many irregulari- 
 ties. For the supremacy of the Eoman see, which 
 we have traced, finds its complement in the new doc- 
 trine of Infallibility, which asserts that " the Eoman 
 Pontifi", when he speaks ex cathedra^ (that is, when 
 exercising the office of the Pastor and Teacher of all 
 Christians, he defines by his supreme apostolic autho- 
 rity a doctrine on faith or morals to be held by the 
 whole Church,) by the divine assistance promised to 
 him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with 
 which the Divine Eedeemer willed that Ilis Church 
 should be instructed in defining doctrine on faith or 
 morals, and therefore the definitions of the said Eo- 
 man Pontiff are in themselves, and not on account of 
 the consent of the Church, incapable of being re- 
 formed." 
 
 ' Of the clergy of the reign of Elizabeth, Fuller says, "Alas! 
 tolerability was eminency in that ago." — Church History, vol. ii. 
 p. 459, London, 1837.
 
 28 The Church of England 
 
 This doctrine we utterly disbelieve. As members of 
 the Anglican Church, we are in no sense bound by 
 the Council. We were not summoned, and when no 
 summons is issued no obedience can be expected. 
 The Anglican Hierarchy was not summoned at all, 
 and the Eastern Church in such terms as were only 
 an insult. Whatever members of the Latin Church 
 must say, we and the Greeks cannot hold the Council 
 to be oecumenical. It is only a Council really oecu- 
 menical, and adjudged to be such by the after consent 
 of the Church, that we are bound to obey. Moreover, 
 the Council has plainly exceeded the powers even of 
 an oecumenical synod. A Council cannot create new 
 objects of faith. It may proclaim what is an article 
 of faith, but only in accordance with Holy Scripture 
 and tradition; and Christianity is a revelation, not 
 a philosophy. It is impossible for a doctrine with 
 such antecedents as the Papal Infallibility to have 
 the elements of antiquity, universality, and consent, 
 which the common law of Christendom has ever de- 
 monstrated as the guarantee of the truth of doctrine. 
 It is again and again contradicted by the fact of 
 History *. Its antiquity dates from St, Thomas Aqui- 
 nas, deceived by the forgeries of St. Cyril ; its uni- 
 versality has been all but confined to one school of 
 the Latin obedience ; and its consent is measured 
 by a tradition of continuous opposition from the day 
 of its first promulgation till now. 
 
 But beyond the fact of our being formally ex- 
 empt from the necessity of obedience to the Vatican 
 Council, much remains for our consideration. Such 
 an event is one of the most important in this re- 
 
 * For a list of errors of Popes, see Dr. Pusey's " Is Healthful 
 Ee-union Impossible," pp.186 — 246; also "The Pope and the 
 Council," by Janus, pp. 51 — 63.
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 29 
 
 markable century. It will have the most profound 
 influence on human thought. Its promoters have 
 rightly calculated this, and we must believe that 
 they have acted from a sincere desire of promoting 
 the interests of Christianity, This is their panacea 
 for the infidelity and materialism of the age. But 
 will it succeed ? I cannot think that the type of 
 Christian life produced by the school of Infallibility 
 will have the masculine strength to cope with the 
 errors of the times, putting aside for a moment the 
 truth or falsehood of the doctrine. On the contrar}', 
 I believe that it will tend to widen the gap that 
 exists already between the intellect and the piety 
 of Europe ; that it will drive the educated classes 
 into infidelity, and sap the foundations of the social 
 order by erecting into dogma an impossible theory 
 of life. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I cannot but think that 
 our Church may have an important mission before it, 
 if it be only true to faith and to itself. As, on the 
 one hand, she commits the laity as terms of communion 
 to nothing but the early simple Creed of the Apo- 
 stolic times, so she also unites us in the bonds of sacra- 
 mental union with the Church of the Fathers. Both 
 the interests of freedom and of obedience are satisfied 
 by her ; both the ascetic and domestic lives have their 
 place within her pale. To those whose natures in- 
 cline them to do without the earthly helps laid up in 
 the Church, she tells that perfect contrition takes the 
 place of all ordinances of repentance ; to those who 
 require further comfort or counsel, she supplies the 
 discipline of confession and absolution. Whatever is 
 good in Protestantism — 'the love of the Bible, the 
 magnifying the work of the Eedeemer in the justifi- 
 cation of the sinner, the individuality of the relations
 
 30 The Church of England 
 
 that exist between God and man's soul, — all j&nd free 
 expression in her ; on the other hand, all the tender 
 and exalted sentiments of Catholicity — death to self, 
 submission to external law, the cultivation of the 
 aesthetic and sentimental parts of the soul — find a 
 home within her. Still, there are many dangers 
 ahead which we must guard against. 
 
 1. I have no faith in the line of liberality which is 
 now being taken by many of our clergy. Liberality 
 in religion — I do not mean tender and generous allow- 
 ances for tlie mistakes of others — is only unfaithful- 
 ness to truth. There cannot possibly be two opposite 
 opinions on the same religious subject equally well- 
 pleasing to God. This is only conveying into theology 
 the sophism of M. Vacherot and his compeers, " Le 
 principe en vertu du quel une assertion n'est pas plus 
 vraie que Passer tion opposee," which has been so ably 
 exposed by the Abbe Gratry ^. The only other plea 
 for such liberality is the absolute uncertainty of all 
 religious truth whatsoever, a positive destruction of 
 everything in religion except the sentiment. 
 
 2. "We must take care to free ourselves from all 
 complicity in the false anthropology of the Eeforma- 
 tion period. The great theologian Mohler has pointed 
 out the similarity between the Protestant view of 
 human nature with the philosophy of Gnosticism. In 
 both was " there a glowing desire after eternal life, 
 the deepest sense of human misery in general, and of 
 the misery of sin in particular, but in both the sense 
 of sin tended to its own destruction." " The higher 
 the degree of objective sinfulness is considered, where- 
 in the subject sees himself involved without personal 
 guilt, the more the magnitude of subjective self-com- 
 mitted sin disappears, and human nature is charged 
 
 ^ See the Petit Ilmmel de Critique, Paris, 1866.
 
 and the Doctrine of Papal InfaltihilUij . 31 
 
 with the debt which the individual had contracted ^" 
 A more accurate estimate of the conditions of Para- 
 disaic man, and of his loss by the Fall, is necessary to 
 a due estimate of the blessings of our restoration in 
 Christ, and of the duties of love and service which 
 flow therefrom. One of the reasons why the Evan- 
 gelical system has failed is, that in the increased light 
 of education, men see that it fails to meet the actual 
 condition of the world. Both heathenism and Chris- 
 tendom exhibit phenomena which on its principles 
 cannot be accounted for. 
 
 3. Furthermore, we must cultivate a more scien- 
 tific spirit among our clergy. Unless they are well 
 grounded in systematic theology, they must fail in 
 doing their duty. "We see what wonderful influence, 
 both for good and for evil, Germany has had ui^on 
 religion by this cultivation of the scientific methods. 
 In spite of the evil which such books as Strauss's 
 Leben Jesu have done, on the whole, we owe a great 
 debt of gratitude to Germany in general in this 
 matter; and now that the Catholic school has, in 
 the main, been severed from the see of Rome, we 
 have a closer interest than ever in it. The study 
 of such books as those of Klee, Mohler, Dollinger, 
 Alzog, Hefele, will do more for the clergy of the 
 Church of England than any other course of study. 
 I recollect Mr. Keble pointing out to me a fact which 
 the Council has since verified, that the great work 
 of Mohler's Symbolism was really the philosophic ex- 
 ponent of the principles of the English High Church 
 party. 
 
 4. And such a scientific spirit will tell not only on 
 our clergy, but on the laity. The thorough grasp of 
 the Catholic system will not merely develope the reli- 
 
 <= MoUer, Symb., vol. i. p. 276, ed. llobcrtson.
 
 32 The Church of England^ ^c. 
 
 gious life of both, but it will do more to meet the 
 difficulties from physical science and biblical criticism 
 than anything else. The Church system creates a kind 
 of religious conviction which such objections as those 
 excited by theories of the age of man, &c., have little 
 influence upon. The difficulties are accepted just as 
 we accept the patent fact of the mass of sin and 
 misery by which we are surrounded. No one reason- 
 ing from the mass of sin and misery could arrive at 
 the conception of an all-good, who is also an -all- 
 powerful, God. In pure reasoning such a permission 
 would be a contradiction ; still, on other grounds, 
 all who call themselves theists accept the truth, the 
 difficulty notwithstanding. Now this applies to the 
 Catholic faith. We rest upon a sure foundation; 
 certain things have by legitimate authority been de- 
 fined to be true ; we accept that authority, and there- 
 fore any scientific or biblical difficulties adjust them- 
 selves to this. We say, there they are — possibly, 
 probably they may be true ; but, whether accounted 
 for or not, we take them simply as difficulties. From 
 this point of view physical science and textual criti- 
 cism become not merely innocuous, but highly useful. 
 Every true fact must increase our sense of the mag- 
 nitude of the glory of that God in whom on other 
 grounds we believe ; and, thus maintained in her 
 proper place. Science may ever remain the handmaid 
 of Faith. 
 
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