show by their perpetual alterations that they never have had hold of the truth. They move the ancient landmarks without themselves foreseeing whither their new principles will lead them; and so after a while, discovering their position to be untenable, they vainly try by constant changes to reduce their system to some semblance of consistency. Our Church, on the contrary, they said, ever teaches the same doctrine which has been handed down from the Apostles, and has since been taught everywhere, always, and by all.' Divines of our Church used to expose the falsity of this boast by comparing the doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome with that taught in the Church of early times, and thus established by historical proof that a change had occurred. But now the matter has been much simplified; for no laborious proof is necessary to show that that is not unchangeable which has changed under our very eyes. The rate of change is not like that of the hour-hand of a watch, which you must note at some considerable intervals of time in order to see that there has been a movement, but rather like that of the second-hand, which you can actually see moving.

The first trial of the faith of the new converts was the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in 1854, when a doctrine was declared to be the universal ancient tradition of the Church, on which eminent divines had notoriously held different opinions, so much so, that this diversity had been accounted for by Bishop Milner and other controversialists by the assertion that neither Scripture nor tradition contained anything on the subject.

The manner of that decree, intended to bind the universal Church, was remarkable. It was not a vote of a council. Bishops, indeed, had been previously consulted, and bishops were assembled to hear the decision; but the decision rested on the authority of the Pope alone. It was correctly foreseen that what was then done was intended to establish a precedent. I remember then how the news came that the Pope proposed to assemble a council, and how those who had the best right to know predicted that this council was to terminate the long controversy as to the relative superiority of Popes and councils, by owning the personal infallibility of the Pope, and so making

!

II.]

RECENT CHANGES IN ROMISH DOCTRINE.

21

it unnecessary that any future council should be held. This announcement created the greatest ferment in the Roman Catholic Church; and those who passed for the men of highest learning in that communion, and who had been wont to be most relied on, when learned Protestants were to be combated, opposed with all their might the contemplated definition, as an entire innovation on the traditional teaching of the Church, and as absolutely contradicted by the facts of history. These views were shared by Dr. Newman. His own inclinations had not favoured any extravagant cult of the Virgin Mary, and he was too well acquainted with Church History not to know that the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception was a complete novelty, unknown to early times, and, when first put forward, condemned by some of the most esteemed teachers of the Church. But when the Pope formally promulgated that doctrine as part of the essential faith of the Church, he had submitted in silence. When, however, it was proposed to declare the Pope's personal infallibility, this was a doctrine so directly in the teeth of history, that Newman made no secret of his persuasion that the authoritative adoption of it would be attended with ruinous consequences to his Church, by placing what seemed an insuperable obstacle to any man of learning entering her fold. He wrote in passionate alarm to an English Roman Catholic bishop (Ullathorne): 'Why,' he said, 'should an aggressive insolent faction be allowed "to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful"? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil? I assure you, my Lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet-one day determining to give up all theology as a bad job, and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to believe all the worst which a book like Janus says: ... Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come... And then, again, the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican ritualists, &c., who themselves perhaps at least their leaders-may never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denomi

nations and parties far beyond their own range, with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption with the Catholic Church. With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public: but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then it is God's will to throw back the "times and moments" of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom; and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His adorable inscrutable Providence.'* Abundant proof that the new dogma had, until then, been no part of the faith of the Church, was furnished by von Döllinger at the time deservedly reputed to be the most learned man in the Roman communion, and amongst others by two Munich professors, who, under the name of Janus, published a work containing a mass of historical proofs of the novelty of the proposed decree. These arguments were urged by able bishops at the Vatican Council itself. But the Pope carried out his project in the teeth of historical demonstration. A few of the most learned of the protesters against the new dogma refused to recognize the doctrine thus defined as that of the Catholic Church, and formed a schism, calling

* Letter published by permission' in the Standard, April 7, 1870. See Letters of Quirinus, authorized translation, p. 356.

I have been reminded that Newman, in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk, written five years later, speaks of himself as 'accepting as a dogma what he had ever held as a truth'; and I suppose that this word 'ever', if not to be understood quite literally, at least means that at the time he wrote his letter to Bishop Ullathorne, he believed the doctrine of the Pope's Infallibility to be a truth. But a reader of that letter may be pardoned for not suspecting this. Who could imagine that such panic apprehensions as the letter exhibits was caused by alarm at the intelligence that the writer was about to receive the highest assurance that what he had ever believed to be true really was true, and that this truth was about to be published to the world with such authority that thenceforth it would be inexcusable to doubt it? It was natural to attach significance to the fact that the words of Ezekiel should rise to Newman's mind: With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad,' and natural to suppose that it was only politeness which withheld him from quoting them in full.

No one who has read my lecture with any attention will need to be told that I never meant to impute to Newman insincerity in his professions of

II.]

THE OLD CATHOLICS.

23

themselves 'Old Catholics'. But the bulk of the people had no inclination to trouble themselves with historical investigations, and accepted, without inquiry, what their rulers were pleased to offer them; and a number of the eminent men, who had not only denied the truth of the new dogma, but had proved its falsity to the satisfaction of every reasoning man, finding no other choice open to them, unless they abandoned every theory as to the infallibility of the Church which they had previously maintained, and unless they joined a schism which, as was foreseen at the time, and as the event proved, would be insignificant in numbers, preferred to eat their words, and to profess faith in what it is difficult to understand how they could in their hearts have had any real belief.

I own, the first impression produced by this history is one of discouragement. It seems hopeless to waste research or argument on men who have shown themselves determined not to be convinced. What hope is there that argument of nine can convince men who are not convinced by their own arguments? As long as there was a chance of saving their Church from committing herself to a decision in the teeth of history, they struggled to avert the calamity; showing by rrefragable arguments that the early Church never regarded the Pope to be infallible, and that different Popes had made decisions glaringly false. But having clearly shown that

belief. What I have been speaking of all through is the effect of the reception of the doctrine of Infallibility-not on men's profession, but on their beliefs. External force may frighten a man into altering his outward profession, but has no effect on his inward belief. But if he comes to persuade himself of the existence of a guide incapable of leading him wrong, he is ready to surrender his previous beliefs in deference to that authority, to accept as true what he had before proved to be false, and to renounce as false what he had before proved to be true: even though he can point out no flaw in his previous demonstrations, and though he might find it hard to explain why he was not as liable to error in the process by which he persuaded himself of the infallibility of his guide as in his earlier reasonings. Newman's letter to Ullathorne, however, serves to illustrate what a different thing is the belief into which a man persuades himself in deference to authority from that which is the result of his own investigations. The former we have seen to be a thing which winces when it is pressed too hard, and which the holder shrinks from pressing upon others. This, in my opinion, does not deserve to be called real belief, though, no doubt, it may grow into it, when in process of time the opposing arguments come to be forgotten.

black was not white, no sooner had authority declared that it was, than they professed themselves ready to believe it.

But though it is, on the first view, disappointing that our adversaries should withdraw themselves into a position seemingly inaccessible to argument, it is really, as I shall presently show, a mark of our success that they have been driven from the open field, and forced to betake themse ves into this fortress. And we have every encouragement to follow them, and assault their citadel, which is now their last refuge.

In other words, it has now become more clear than ever that the whole Roman Catholic controversy turns on the decision of the one question—the Infallibility of the Church. We have just seen how the admission of this principle car. force men to surrender their most deep-rooted beliefs, which they had maintained with the greatest heat, and to the assertion of which they had committed themselves most strongly They surrendered these beliefs solely in deference to externa authority, though themselves unable to see any flaw in the arguments which had persuaded them of the truth of them And I must say that, in making this surrender, they were better and more consistent Roman Catholics than von Döl linger and his friends, who refused to eat their words and turn their back on their own arguments. For all their lives long they had condemned the exercise of private judgment, and had insisted on the necessity of submitting to the authority of the Church. Now, if you accept the Church's teaching just so long as it agrees with what you, on other grounds, persuade yourselves to be true, and reject it as soon as it differs from your own judgment, that is not real submission to the authority of the Church. You do not take a man as a guide, though you may be travelling along a road in his company, if you are willing to part company if he should. make a turn of which you disapprove. It matters not what Romish doctrines the German Old Catholic party may continue to hold. They may believe Transubstantiation, Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, and more. But from the moment they ventured to use their reason, and reject a dogma propounded to them by their Church, they were