prerogatives for the Pope beyond what is actually of faith in the Catholic Church, tends rather to weaken than to strengthen the cause of the Papacy. It is sometimes said that the Concordat between the first Napoleon and Pope Pius VII. gave a deathblow to the Gallican Church, and proved that the Pope had absolute power to make or unmake Bishops at his mere pleasure. But those who make such an assertion, whether they be friends or enemies of the Papacy, forget that it was the Gallican Church herself-represented by the French Emperor, and the actual resident Bishops of the French Church backed by the general consent of the faithful in France, that solicited that Concordat from Pius VII; and that the Pope only concurred therefore with the wishes of the Gallican Church herself, and but for those wishes would never have sanctioned the abolition of so many ancient Episcopal Sees.

The act therefore of the Pope, so far from overthrowing, confirmed the existence of the Gallican Church, and only proved, what no sound Catholic had ever doubted, that the Pope in concurrence with the Church could do whatever was necessary for the Church's welfare and the wellbeing of Christendom. While on the other hand, when the same Pope yielded unduly in sanctioning another and an improper Concordat, demanded by the same Napoleon, he afterwards acknowledged his error and atoned for it, but surely gave one more proof to so many others already existing, that the Pope has not any personal or separate infallibility apart from that which he shares, but eminently shares, with the rest of the episcopate of the Universal Church.

The great Bossuet in his masterly Explanation of the Catholic Faith lays it down that in reference to the Primacy of the Holy See our separated brethren are to distinguish clearly between what is to be held de fide, and the Scholastic opinions, which some authors have upheld as logical deductions from those premisses. The latter he expressly asserts are not to be confused with the former, and are by no means required to be held as a term of Communion. And it must be observed that this explanation of the Catholic Faith is of the very highest authority in the Catholic Church, so much so that it is solemnly approved by Pope Innocent the Eleventh in two distinct Briefs, not to mention a vast variety of other approbations from Bishops and Cardinals: and I believe it to be an indisputable fact that at the present day there is not a single Catholic potentate in the whole world who can be said to uphold any of the opinions to which Bossuet refers, and of which Dr. Pusey seems to think that they would be required to be accepted by the Anglican Church, if she were to return

to the Communion of the Holy See. Now, when it is certain that they are not only not held, but actually rejected by all the Catholic Sovereigns in communion with the Pope, it is obvious that there is but small probability of their ever being defined to be Articles of Faith.

On the other hand we may surely suggest, that persons who claim a privilege for those on open questions, should be ready to grant the same to those who, agreeing with them in Faith, differ in opinion. That the writers in the Dublin Review are men of incontestable ability will not be denied, and even though we cannot follow them in all their conclusions we ought not to quarrel with them for holding their own views, especially when we reflect that they are men of acknowledged piety and great learning. It is an old sentence of S. Augustine, "In dubiis libertas, et in omnibus caritas." Now it is to be regretted that there are writers, who while they advocate Union, write as if they would exclude from that very Union whole masses of Catholic Christians, merely because they do not sympathize with their opinions. There is a Russo-Greek periodical, published at Paris, entitled L'Union Chrétienne, but which from the character of its writing would seem rather to merit the title of Disunion Chrétienne. While advocating a general Union of Christians, it perpetually informs its readers, that it would carefully exclude from this Union every Latin Catholic who believes about the Pope what Bossuet believed, and especially every member of that illustrious Order-the Society of Jesus. The very mention of the latter never fails to excite in the Union Chrétienne a sentiment of rancour almost equivalent to monomania. We, on the contrary, looking to the whole history of that illustrious Society, hesitate not to claim them as the ablest and most intelligent supporters of corporate Re-union, and we could name some of the most learned and pious Fathers of the French Province, who have quite lately advocated the Re-union of the Russian Church.

Of one thing we are very sure, that there can be no lasting Union which is not based upon the Rock of Peter, because we know of no other centre of Unity, and no other intelligible principle of cohesion. If the Church of Christ was intended by its Divine Author to be organically one, there surely must be what there always has been, a Primate amongst all its pastors; a Church which, as S. Irenæus expresses it, "should be the central point round which all other Churches should meet." When we think of the vast variety of nations incorporated in the Christian Church, on what other principle could they be kept together in communion with one another? If amongst

VOL. IV.

H

the various nations that belong to the Eastern Church dogmatic and ritual unity is preserved, as it undoubtedly is, that fact may surely be traced mainly to the recognition on the part of them all of the spiritual primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Russian Church, the Church of the Kingdom of Greece, and other national churches of the Oriental rite, are indeed for local purposes governed by their own respective national synods, but they all, notwithstanding, look to the Patriarch of Constantinople as their spiritual chief, and so they call him, and have called him for centuries "The Ecumenical Patriarch." But if the unity of the Eastern Churches among themselves is to be traced to the recognition of the central authority of the See of Constantinople, which even the Greeks themselves acknowledge to be merely an ecclesiastical appointment, how much more necessary for the union of the whole Church must be the recognition of that still higher primacy, which before the division of East and West was acknowledged both by Greeks and Latins to reside in the Apostolic See! and why? because it was the See of S. Peter, holding "this more powerful principality." (to use again the words of S. Irenæus,) antecedently to the very first of the Ecumenical Councils, and therefore not deriving its authority from them. If, then, this Primacy was already existing when the Blessed Irenæus wrote, -and who can deny it without denying his words—to what origin are we to ascribe it but to that Apostolic and universal tradition, of which there could have been no other author but Christ Himself? And if those words of our Divine Redeemer

66 I say unto Thee that thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against It"-be not the original fountain of this Primacy, we know not why they were spoken, or to what else to trace it.

In conclusion let us thank Dr. Pusey for the admirable work, which we have thus ventured to review, and in the main object of which we have ever cordially concurred. We believe that its publication marks an epoch in the ecclesiastical history of the nineteenth century, and that it is the first grand step towards a corporate and organic healing of the deplorable divisions in the Christian Family.

These divisions have borne their fruit, and the scepticism and depravity, which everywhere are poisoning the social system, have at length opened the eyes of all men, who care either for public morality, or who reflect that it can have no intelligible foundation save in the revealed will of the Almighty, to acknowledge that Religion cannot stand without Unity, and that a house divided against itself must inevitably fall.

It will not we trust be otherwise than acceptable to this

illustrious author to receive a tribute of hearty sympathy and earnest admiration from a member of the Catholic Apostolic Roman Church, who cordially desires every grace and blessing for the Anglican Church, and who in advocating the great cause of corporate Re-union, humbly submits all his writings to the judgment of our Holy Mother, and herein especially to that of the Apostolic See of the Blessed Peter.

AMBROSE LISLE MARCH PHILLIPPS DE LISLE.

FRAGMENTA VARIA.

No. I.-ADDRESS FROM ANGLICAN CLERGY TO CARDINAL
PATRIZI AND HIS EMINENCE'S REPLY.

WE gladly comply with the request of the General Secretary of the A. P. U. C. to publish at length the following documents:

EMINENTISSIMO ET REVERENDISSIMO IN CHRISTO PATRI ET DOMINO C. CARDINALI PATRIZI, S. OFFICII PRÆPOSITO,

Eminentissime Domine,

Nos infrascripti Decani, Canonici, Parochi, aliique Sacerdotes, Ecclesiæ Anglo-Catholicæ, Reunionem, juxta Christi voluntatem, Visibilem inter omnes partes Familiæ Christianæ vehementer desiderantes, Litteras ab Eminentia Tuâ "Ad omnes Angliæ Episcopos" emissas magno morore perlegimus.

In his litteris Societas nostra, ad Reunionem totius Christianitatis promovendam instituta, inculpatur, quod in programmate suo "Tres communiones, scilicet Romano-Catholicam Orientalem atque Anglicanam, æquo jure Catholicum nomen sibi vindicare" affirmet.

De quâ quæstione nullam prorsus programma nostrum tulit sententiam. Quod diximus quæstionem facti non juris tractavit. Affirmavimus solummodo, Ecclesiam Anglicanam nomen sibi Catholicum vindicare; quod omnibus, tam a Liturgià quam ab Articulis Religionis, abunde patet.

Quin etiam, quod ad Societatis nostræ intentionem attinet, in hisce litteris asseritur, nos hoc potissimum agere, "ut tres memoratæ communiones integræ, et in suâ quæque persuasione persistentes, simul in unum coeant."

Longe à nobis et a Societate nostrâ tale propositum absit, ex quo non unitas ecclesiastica, sed discordia fratrum sub eodem tecto comminus pugnantium, foret speranda.

Id quod a Deo O. M. enixe rogamus, quod toto corde desideramus, non aliud est, quam illa, quæ ante Orientis et Occidentis scissionem, intercommunio Ecumenica extitit, unius ejusdemque Fidei Catholicæ professione stabilita atque compacta. Societas immo illa supra dicta eo minorem invidiam apud vos movere debet, quod, ab agendo abstinens, solummodo oret, ut, secundum Domini nostri Christi verba, "Unus Pastor fiat, et unum Ovile." Hoc tantum in votis nostris collocatur, et hanc sententiam et desiderium Eminentiæ Tuæ corde sincero et voce non fictâ pro virili parte profitemur.