ART. IX.-THE COUNCIL

Constitutio Dogmatica de Fide Catholica.

WE purpose in the following article to treat briefly three

different questions; which have no other relation with each other, except as being more or less connected with the Vatican Council. We will begin with considering its first Dogmatic Constitution; secondly, we will confront the allegation, so assiduously put forth by disloyal Catholics, that the moral unanimity of the Bishops present is required for the infallible dogmatic definition of an Ecumenical Council; and thirdly, we will say a few words on a proposition laid down by one or two eminent writers, as regards a certain alleged note of an ex cathedrâ Pontifical Act.

I.

The first Dogmatic Constitution of the Vatican Council has so much importance, and in so many different ways, that it would well repay a most full and careful treatment: whereas circumstances compel us to attempt nothing more than the merest skeleton outline, of what we so much wish we could urge connectedly and at length. We will only therefore throw out a few hints of what we would say and we must beg our readers to take the trouble, which would legitimately devolve on ourselves, of working those hints into a connected whole.

We will begin with referring to the form and circumstances of the Constitution, and afterwards comment on its substance.

1. It is remarkable how uniformly it implies the dogma of Pontifical Infallibility. According to the precedent set by all Councils over which the Supreme Pontiff has presided in person,-in its form it issues from the Pontiff alone: the Council purporting to have no other office, than that of concurring with his Definition. "From this Chair of Peter, in the sight of all, we resolve to profess and declare the salutary doctrine of Christ"; "while the Bishops of the whole world, who have been collected in the Holy Ghost by our authority into Ecumenical Council, sit and pronounce judgment in company with ourselves." Then observe the preceding sentence," We have never ceased to reprobate [these] perverse doctrines in accordance with our supreme Apostolic Office." And finally Pius IX. "proscribes and condemns" the "errors

opposed" to the Council's teaching, "by the power given to HIM by God."* It will be evident to any one who reads carefully the whole paragraph, that the present Constitution is spoken of by Pius IX. as in no respect more final and peremptory than his former judgments; but as only differing from them, in regard to its greater emphasis and solemnity of promulgation.

Particular attention should also be paid to the sentence, which concludes the whole Constitution. It is essential, the Council declares, that "all those errors be diligently shunned, which approach more or less to heresy "; and the assembled Bishops "admonish all Catholics therefore of their obligation, "to observe the Constitutions and Decrees, whereby such evil opinions have been proscribed by the Holy See." The Council therefore proclaims an obligation, as incumbent on all Catholics, of yielding intellectual submission to those Constitutions of the Holy See, which condemn errors that are short of heresy. In other words, as we should be prepared to argue, the Council has virtually declared that the Holy See is infallible in such Constitutions.

2. The second inference which we would draw from the Constitution "Dei Filius," refers to the great multitude of Pius IX.'s ex cathedrâ judgments. Some Catholics really seem to speak, as though he had never defined ex cathedrâ any verity except the Immaculate Conception. On the contrary, he expressly declares that he has "never ceased" (nunquam intermisimus) from condemning ex cathedrâ "perverse doctrines"; and he had made, as our readers will remember, an entirely similar declaration in the “Quantâ cura.” If for more than twenty-three years he has never ceased from such condemnations, the number of his ex cathedrâ Acts must by this time be very considerable.

3. The third inference which we may fairly derive from this first Constitution of the Vatican Council, is against the allegation of various persons, who have criticised this REVIEW in one important particular. We have maintained from time to time, that very serious doctrinal errors are often advocated by writers who have not actually ceased to be Catholics; and that it is a great duty to protest against such errors. Certain persons, for whom personally we entertain the highest respect, have been of opinion that such criticism is most undesirable; as tending to foster division among Catholics, and to generate other serious evils. But the Vatican Council declares, that "many (plures) from among the children of the Catholic Church have erred from the path of true piety"; that among them "the Catholic sense has been weakened"; that they have been "led away by various foreign doctrines"; and, finally, that they

* "Potestate nobis a Deo traditâ." Cf. "Nos inhærentes prædecessorum nostrorum vestigiis."

"have depraved the genuine sense of dogma, as held and taught by Holy Mother Church.'

4. We are next to consider the doctrinal teaching of the Definition. Before the Public Session of Low Sunday, various Protestants and disaffected Catholics had alleged, with that assumption of exclusive information which is so characteristic of the class, that its wording had been so extraordinarily modified and softened down, in deference to episcopal objections, as to leave hardly any definite scope whatever. Its publication has apparently put to shame these otherwise shameless critics; for they have not ventured, since that event, to repeat their calumny. Certainly nothing can be more straightforward and pertinent, than the lessons which the assembled bishops have conveyed in this their first utterance.

Its direct purpose is to set forth those dogmata of the Catholic Faith, which are denied or jeopardized by that philosophy of "naturalism or rationalism," which is the fundamental speculative evil of the time. In other words, the Constitution condemns certain tenets, bearing on the above-named head, which are directly contradictory to the Faith. As to those errors on the subject, which are pregnant indeed with danger to the Deposit without actually contradicting it, the Council is silent; referring Catholics (as we have just seen) to the various infallible condemnations of those errors, which have already been issued by the Holy See.

5. Firstly, then, comes the head, "On God the Creator of all things." The Council is obliged, by the atheism and pantheism of the day, to define expressly, that there is One Self-existent God, infinite in all perfections, ineffably exalted above all other conceivable beings, essentially and absolutely distinct from the world. The Council further defines, that this God most freely called creatures into existence out of nothingness-not as deriving from them any kind of increase to His beatitude and perfection, which would be impossible -but as desiring to manifest through them His essential attributes. Lastly, that He interposes unceasingly by His providence in the events of that world which He has created; and particularly, that even the free actions of rational beings are objects of His prevision.

6. The second Chapter is entitled "On Revelation." It begins with laying down, that God can be certainly known, altogether apart from revelation of any kind, by the natural light of human reason; and the corresponding canon solemnly anathematizes those who deny this verity. The extreme French traditionalism, which

*The "Civiltà Cattolica" does not hesitate to say, "that the Liberal Catholics, whether they are in good or in bad faith, prove themselves in these days more injurious to the cause of God than the sworn enemies of Christianity. This is a severe truth, but a truth it is." (June 4th, page 534.)

began with Lamennais but by no means ended with him, has now therefore received a final and a fatal blow.

The Bishops proceed however to declare that, even as regards God's Existence and the other doctrines of natural religion, Revelation does most important service "in the present condition of mankind"; viz., by securing that these truths "shall be able to be known by all men readily, with firm certitude, and without the admixture of any error.

It is not in this respect however-so the Council continuesthat Revelation can be accounted absolutely necessary; but it is most strictly and absolutely necessary, in order that men may reach their supernatural end. God has most freely raised men to "a participation of divine blessings," the existence of which could never have been discovered by unaided reason, and which, nevertheless (by God's appointment), men must know in order to enjoy. Revelation therefore is absolutely and strictly necessary, for men's attainment of their supernatural end.

7. The Bishops next-following the Council of Trent-declare that the authentic utterances of Revelation are contained in the Word of God, written and unwritten, as handed down from Apostolic times. They are thus led to set forth some important doctrine concerning Holy Scripture.

Firstly. It is not sufficient to say that the Books of Scripture "contain Revelation without any error": it is further necessary to hold, that "they have God for their author, as having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost"; and that they have been delivered to the Church herself, as possessing that quality. This statement contains a condemnation of the doctrine, ascribed by many to Lessius and Du Hamel, which the Constitution mentions in an earlier clause of the sentence. This doctrine is, that a book of purely human origin may become canonical Scripture, if the Church should subsequently declare it entirely free from error and otherwise worthy to be so accounted.

Secondly. The assembled Bishops clear up a misapprehension which has arisen, concerning the Tridentine decree on the interpretation of Scripture. We are not sure that we rightly understand the words of their Decree in this particular; and we have found some difference of opinion on the subject among learned Catholics. Circumstances prevent us from duly investigating the matter, and we therefore pass on.

8. The next chapter is on Faith, and contains a most luminous exposition of the Catholic doctrine on that virtue. In an act of Faith, the Catholic, assisted by supernatural grace, accepts revealed truth, not on the ground of its intrinsic credibility, but exclusively on the authority of God its Revealer. On the other hand, in addition to the aids of grace, God has given other assistances towards belief-external evidences of various kinds, miracles, pro

phecies, and the like: "most certain signs of Divine Revelation, and accommodated to the understanding of all." Yet no supernatural act of Faith can be elicited, without "the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost." Faith, even divorced from charity, is God's gift, and tends towards salvation; indeed, without some act of Faith, no single adult can possibly arrive at justification and eternal life. Catholics, moreover, have an inappreciable advantage in respect to Faith over all other Christians. For, firstly, the Church herself, from her singular combination of endowments, is "a mighty and perpetual motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness to her own divine legation." "As a sign raised aloft in sight of the nations, she invites to herself those who have not yet believed; and she gives also ground of certainty to her children, that the Faith which they profess rests on a most firm foundation." Moreover, secondly, God gives, by a particular providence, a special illumination to the children of the Church, so that they can never lose the light of Faith, except by their own grievous sin. See especially Canon 6.-" If any one shall say that the faithful are in a like condition with those who have not yet come to that Faith which alone is true-so that Catholics can possibly have a just cause of suspending their assent to that Faith which they have already received under the Church's magisterium until they have gone through a scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of their Faith-let him be anathema." At the same time we should add that, as it seems to us, the case is abundantly possible -perhaps not infrequent-of a person fancying himself a convert to Catholicity, who has in real truth never accepted the Church's authority with divine faith. Such a man's defection is no real apostasy, and does not therefore, perhaps, fall under the words of the Canon.

9. An incidental declaration in this chapter is worthy of especial attention. "All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic Faith, which are contained in Scripture or Tradition; and which are proposed to belief by the Church as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium.' Incredible as it must appear, some Catholics have been found to maintain, that no truths are to be believed de fide Catholicâ, except those which the Church may have expressly defined. But the Vatican Council infallibly decrees, that the Church's ordinary and universal magisterium is no less sufficient foundation for a dogma of the Catholic Faith, than is her solemn judgment.

10. The fourth and last chapter is on Faith and Reason. There are two classes of known truths-the natural and supernaturaldiffering from each other both in principle and in object: in principle, because the former is known by Reason and the latter by Faith; and in object, because the former is entirely within, and the