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DISPUTES AS TO THE ORGAN OF INFALLIBILITY.

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theory that they really are so; but the lateness of the theory. which even yet is not included in the formula that converts must subscribe, is proof enough that from the beginning it

was not so.

I may, however, say a few words now, though I shall have to speak more fully on the subject by-and-by, about the disputes which have raged within the Roman communion for centuries, and which were only in our own time cleared up, and then only partially, as to the organ of the Church's infallibility. Does the gift reside in the Church diffusive, or only in its head, or in a general council, or in Pope and council together? The existence of controversy on such a subject is in itself demonstration of the unreality of the gift. If Christ had appointed an infallible tribunal, His Church would have resorted to it from the first; the tradition where it was to be found could never have been lost, nor could this have given rise to one of the most angry controversies in the Church. To recur to our old illustration: suppose we boasted that Dublin was not as other cities, where the cure of diseases was precarious; that we had an infallible authority, whence we could learn, without risk of error, the certain cure of every disease. Suppose that an invalid stranger, attracted to our city by our vaunts, inquired on his arrival whom he was to consult? The President of the College of Physicians,' says one; it is he who possesses the wonderful gift.' 'Nay,' says a second; he may make mistakes; it is in the council of the College that the gift resides.' 'Not so,' says a third; either separately may go wrong; but if you can get both to agree, you are sure of being rightly advised.' 'No,' cries a fourth; president or council may blunder separately or together; the gift belongs to the whole medical profession of Dublin: it is true, they wrangle at times among themselves, but they always manage to settle their disputes at last, and whatever remedies they unanimously adopt in the end are certain to be effectual.' Surely, when the stranger heard this disagreement, he would conclude without further inquiry, that he had been taken in by lying tales; that we were, in truth, no better off in respect of medical science than other cities, and that he might just as well travel back to his own physicians.

Accordingly, it was this disagreement as to the organ of infallibility which was the last stumbling-block to Dr. Newman on his journey to Rome. In the last book of his Anglican days, published not so very long before his formal surrender, in language which, in spite of its show of hostility, plainly betrays the attraction that Rome was exercising over him, he says: 'This inconsistency in the Romish system one might almost call providential. Nothing could be better adapted than it is to defeat the devices of human wisdom, and to show to thoughtful inquirers the hollowness of even the most specious counterfeit of Divine truth. The theologians of Rome have been able dexterously to smooth over a thousand inconsistencies, and to array the heterogeneous precedents of centuries in the semblance of design and harmony. But they cannot complete the system in its most important and essential point. They can determine in theory the nature, degree, extent, and object of the infallibility which they claim, but they cannot agree among themselves where it resides. As in the building of Babel, the Lord has confounded their language, and the structure remains half finished, a monument at once of human daring and its failure.' (Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 180.)

But you may ask, Is not the controversy over now? Did not the Pope, at the Vatican Council of 1870, bear witness to himself, and declare that every theory was wrong which made the organ of infallibility other than himself? But what time of day is this to find the answer to a question so fundamental? Can we believe that Christ before He left this earth provided His Church with an infallible guide to truth, and that it took her more than 1800 years before she could find out who that guide was? It seems almost labour wasted to proceed with the proofs I was about to lay before you, of the neglect or inability of the infallible judge of controversies to settle controversies, when it took him so long to settle that controversy in which his own privileges were so vitally concerned.

Let me trace, however, something of the history of that other dispute which, after it had raged for centuries, Pius IX. undertook to settle; the question about the Immaculate Con

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AMBIGUITY OF WORD

AUTHORITY.'

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ception of the Virgin Mary. In a future lecture, either this Term or the next, I mean to give you an explanation of this doctrine, which will make you acquainted with some of the most thorny speculations of scholastic theology. What I am at present concerned with is only the history of the doctrine, taken as a specimen history of a dispute within the Church of Rome. The history of a dispute is the best evidence as to what authority for settling disputes the disputants believe in.

When I speak of authority for settling disputes, it is well to remind you of a little ambiguity about this word authority. We might mean the authority of superior knowledge, or merely of official position. Any judge may have authority to decide a question of law, in the sense that his decision will bind the parties, and that they must submit to it; but there are some judges who, on account of their knowledge and ability, rank as legal authorities, and have set precedents from which their successors differ with reluctance; while, in this sense of the word, other judges are of no authority at all. Now everyone will grant to the Pope the authority of official position. He has power to declare the doctrine of his Church, to depose any ecclesiastic who rejects his decision, or even to excommunicate any lay person who opposes himself to it. But we might say as much for the Synod of the Church of Ireland. It, too, can declare the doctrine of that Church, and can make the acceptance of that doctrine a condition of clerical or lay communion. But now there is this difference between these two kinds of authority, that the interference of the authority of confessed superior knowledge is welcomed and willingly submitted to, while it is often just the reverse with the other kind of authority. If two of you were disputing on a subject of which you had little knowledge; suppose, for instance, that you knew nothing of anatomy, and that you had a difference of opinion how many ribs a man has; if a skilled anatomist were present, you would dispute no longer, but ask him; and then the dispute would be at an end. There has been long and warm controversy as to the authorship of the letters of Junius. Suppose a sealed volume were discovered, to which the author had committed his secret, people would

N

not refuse to break the seal because they had misgivings whether their own theory were the true one. All parties would say, let us know the truth; and when the truth was known the controversy would be at an end.

It is quite the reverse when the interference is on the part of the authority, not of knowledge, but of official position. Then those who are likely to get the worst deprecate interference; they threaten not to submit to the decision, and the fear of such a refusal of submission is apt to inspire great caution in the authority whose interference might be solicited. If it were proposed that the General Synod should make a new decision of doctrine condemning the views now held by some members of the Church, I can tell from experience what would be likely to occur. Those who felt themselves to be in a minority would struggle that the Synod should abstain from making any decision on the question; they would threaten to leave the Church if their views were condemned; and then a number of cautious moderate men, thinking the evils of a schism greater than those of the toleration of opinions from which they themselves dissented, would join the minority in preventing any decision from being pronounced.

Remember this distinction, for it will serve as a test guide your study of history. If you are fully persuaded that a man on any subject knows a great deal more than yourself, you do not want to stop his mouth. The more he speaks the better you are pleased, and you willingly give up your own previous opinion when he tells you it is wrong. It is quite different when a man who is your superior in authority wants to interfere with your opinions on a subject which you believe he knows no more of than yourself. Then you want him to hold his tongue. If he does speak, you, perhaps, refuse to listen to him, and if he sees that you are likely not to be afraid to make your dissent public, then, if he wants his authority to be respected, he will probably have the good sense to discover that to hold his tongue is the most discreet course. You may test in this way whether the Church of Rome believes in her own infallibility. Do the members of that Church show that they believe they have got an infallible

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guide, who on things of faith knows much better than themselves; and do they accordingly, when they have a theological problem, meekly come to him to be told the solution of it, or do they work out the problem for themselves, and merely invoke the higher authority to reduce their opponents to submission? And does the higher authority himself speak with the confidence of superior knowledge, or rather, with the caution of one who knows that his subjects would not believe him if he pronounced their opinions to be wrong, and who must take care not to strain his authority too far, lest he should cause a revolt? Examine the history of any dispute in the Roman communion, and you will find that the heads of the Roman Church act exactly as the leading members of the Synod of the Church of Ireland would act in a like case, neither showing any belief in their own infallibility themselves, nor any expectation that their followers would believe it; proscribing only such opinions as had become offensive to the great majority of their body, but restrained by a wholesome fear of schism from straining their authority too far.

I take, as I have said, the history of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as a typical case. From the beginning of the fourteenth century vehement disputes on this subject had been carried on, the leading parts being taken by two powerful Orders; the Dominicans, following their great doctor, Thomas Aquinas, holding that, though cleansed from original sin before her birth, Mary had been conceived in sin like others; the Franciscans, after their great teacher, Scotus, exempting her from the stain by a special act of God's power. The Dominicans went so far as to accuse the assertors of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of heresy, and even charged with mortal sin those who attended the Office of the Immaculate Conception, although that Office had been authorized by papal sanction; and they charged with sin also those who listened to the sermons in which the doctrine was preached. The annual recurrence of the Feast of the Conception was a signal for the renewal of hostilities, and gave birth every year to scenes of the most scandalous kind. All this time private Christians, puzzled by