is enriched with a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice usually termed the mass.

12. Catholics renounce all divine worship and adoration of images and pictures; God alone we worship and adore; nevertheless we place pictures in our churches, to reduce our wandering thoughts and to enliven our memories towards heavenly things. Further, we show a respect to the images of Christ and his saints, beyond what is due to every profane figure; not that we can believe any divinity or virtue to reside in them, for which they ought to be honoured, but because the honour given to pictures is referred to the prototype, or thing represented. In like manner,

13. There is a kind of honour and respect due to the Bible, to the cross, to the name of Jesus, to churches, to the sacraments, &c. as things peculiarly appertaining to God; and to kings, magistrates, and superiors on earth; to whom honour is due, honour may be given, without any derogation to the majesty of God, or that divine worship which is appropriate to him. Moreover,

14. Catholics believe, that the blessed saints in heaven, replenished with charity, pray for us their fellowmembers here on earth; that they rejoice at our conversion; that seeing God, they see and know in him all things suitable to their happy state: But God may be inclinable to hear their requests made in our behalf, and for their sakes may grant us many favours; therefore we believe that it is good and profitable to desire their intercession. Can this manner of invocation be more injurious to Christ our mediator, than it is for one Christian to beg the prayers of another here on earth? However, Catholics are not taught so to rely on the prayers of others, as to neglect their own duty to God; in imploring his divine mercy and goodness; in mortifying the deeds of the flesh; in despising the world; in loving and serving God and their neighbour; in following the

footsteps of Christ our Lord, who is the way, the truth, and the life: to whom be honour and glory for ever and Amen."

ever.

NOTE II; referred to in p. 109 of Vol. II.

Answers of the Six Catholic Universities, to the Questions proposed by Mr. Pitt.

LOUVAIN.

QUERIES.

1st. HAS the pope, or cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of the church of Rome, any civil authority, power, jurisdiction, or pre-eminence whatsoever within the realm of England?

2d. Can the pope, or cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of the church of Rome, absolve or dispense with His Majesty's subjects from their oath of allegiance upon any pretext whatsoever?

3d. Is there any principle in the tenets of the catholic faith, by which catholics are justified in not keeping faith with heretics or other persons differing from them in religious opinions, in any transactions either of a public or a private nature?

The faculty of divinity at Louvain having been requested to give her opinion upon the questions above stated, does it with readiness; but is struck with astonishment that such questions should, at the end of this 18th century, be proposed to any learned body by inhabitants of a kingdom, that glories in the talents and discernment of its natives.

The faculty being assembled for the above purpose, it is agreed with the unanimous assent of all voices, to answer the first and second queries absolutely in the negative.

The faculty does not think it incumbent upon her, in this place, to enter upon the proofs of her opinion, or to shew how it is supported by passages in the holy scriptures, or the writings of antiquity; that has already been done by Bossuet, De Marca, the two Barclays, Goldastus, the Pithæuses, Argentre, Widrington, and his Majesty king James the first, in his dissertations against Bellarmin, and Du Perron, and by many others. The writers of the present times, who have treated of the independence of the civil power, have proved the above positions with abundance of learning. The faculty esteems the following propositions to be beyond controversy:

I. That God is the author of the sovereign power of the state in civil matters*,

II. That the sovereign power of the state is, in civil matters, subordinate to God alone †.

III. It follows, that the sovereign power of the state

* Hear therefore, O ye kings, and understand; for power is given you of the Lord. Wisdom of Solomon, vi. v. 1. 3. The same Omnipotence that constituted an emperor, called into existence the man, ere he ascended the throne; his power and his life he derives from the same divine source. Tertull. Apologet. 130.

66

↑ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. Ps. 51, v. 4. Cassiodorus, commenting on this text, says: "Whenever any individual of the community commits an error, he is amenable both to God and the king; but when the king is wanting in his duties, he is responsible to "God only, inasmuch as there is no man competent to sit in judgment 66 upon his actions." It is finely observed by Tertullian, in the same place: "Emperors are aware to whom they are indebted for their authority; they know it is God alone who has power over them, "and to whom they are second, taking the lead under him."

is in no wise (not even indirectly, as it is termed) subject to or dependent upon any other power, though it be a spiritual power, or even though it be instituted for eternal salvation.

IV. It also follows, that no power whatsoever, even a spiritual power, or a power instituted for eternal salvation, not even a cardinal or a pope, or the whole body of the church, though assembled in general council, can deprive the sovereign power of the state of its temporal rights, possessions, government, jurisdiction, or pre-eminence, or subject it to any restraints or modifications.

V. It also follows, that no man, nor any assembly of men, however eminent in dignity and power, not even the whole body of the catholic church, though assembled in general council, can, upon any ground or pretence whatsoever, weaken the bond of union between the sovereign and the people, still less can they absolve or free the subjects from their oath of allegiance.

VI. Therefore, as in the kingdom of England, the sovereign power of the state stands upon the same foundation, and its nature is well known, the faculty of divinity at Louvain has, no doubt, to apply what has been said before, in its utmost extent, to the kingdom, and the sovereign power of the kingdom of England.

Such is the doctrine which the faculty of divinity has imbibed from the holy scriptures, the writings of the antients, and the records of the primitive church, a doctrine she will maintain with her last breath, and by the help of God, will imprint it on the minds of all her scholars.

She is not ignorant that, in the middle ages, some things were done not reconcileable with the doctrine here laid down; and that the contrary doctrine was favourably heard by the court of Rome, and even found

its way into the councils of kings, with some restriction, however, as appears from the saying of St. Lewis upon the proceedings of the council of Lyons.

But to Bellarmin, the champion of these proceedings, we must answer in his own way: These things have been done; for their justice, let the doers of them be answerable. (Vol. I. of his works of general controversy, 3 B. 2. ch. 29.)

And when, in the history of those ages, the sacred faculty of divinity of Louvain finds the evils which have been produced from the circumstances alluded to, the infinite detriment they have been to the church and republic of christianity, and the rivers of blood with which they have more than once coloured the fair face of Europe, she wishes the torch of history extinct, that this disgrace of the christian name might be buried in oblivion. She wishes it erased from the records of history, and would blot out the remembrance of it even with her own tears. But the doctrine of truth, of the apostles, and the church, delivered down by tradition from the fathers and holy prelates, founded in the eternal nature and fitness of things, and established on the positions above-mentioned, though, in the times we speak of, it was defaced and obscured by the filth, as it may be called, which was heaped upon it, yet it could not be obliterated; nothing could injure it, no arts could prescribe against it; hence, on the revival of letters, all its light and splendour were restored to it.

The faculty of divinity of Louvain holds, that the principles laid down by her upon the positions before stated, are not peculiar to herself; she believes that, at this day, there is no society of learned men, nor any one learned man in the whole catholic world, who would not be ready to subscribe to them, as it is said, with both hands; and should any one, led away by preconceived opinions, withhold his assent from them, she