'4. That the Civil Powers of the Christian world have hitherto stood in peaceful relation with an Infallible Church, and that relation has been often recognised and declared by the Church in its Councils. The Vatican Council had, therefore, no new matter to treat in this point. 5. That the Vatican Council has made no decree whatever on the subject of the Civil Powers, nor on civil allegiance. This subject was not so much as proposed. The civil obedience of Catholics rests upon the natural law, and the revealed law of God. Society is founded in nature, and subjects are bound in all things lawful to obey their rulers. Society, when Christian, has higher sanctions, and subjects are bound to obey rules for conscience sake, and because the Powers that be are ordained of God. Of all these things the Vatican Decrees can have changed nothing because they have touched nothing. Mr. Gladstone's whole argument hangs upon an erroneous assertion, into which I can only suppose he has been misled by his misplaced trust in Dr. Döllinger and some of his friends. 'On public and private grounds I deeply lament this act of imprudence, and but for my belief in Mr. Gladstone's sincerity I should say this act of injustice. I lament it, as an act out of all harmony and propo⋅tion to a great statesman's life, and as the first event that has overcast a friendship of forty-five years. His whole public life has hitherto consolidated the Christian and civil peace of these kingdoms. This act, unless the good providence of God and the good sense of Englishmen avert it, may wreck more than the work of Mr. Gladstone's public career, and at the end of a long life may tarnish a great name 'Westminster, Nov. 10, 1874.' &c. &c. Having thus directly contradicted the main error of Mr. Gladstone's argument, I thought it my duty to wait. I was certain that two things would follow: the one, that far better answers than any that I could make would be promptly made; the other, that certain nominal Catholics, who upon other occasions have done the same, would write letters to the newspapers. Both events have come to pass. The Bishops of Birmingham, Clifton, and Salford have abundantly pointed out the mistakes into which Mr. Gladstone has fallen on the subject of the Vatican Council; and have fully vindicated the loyalty of Catholics. The handful of nominal Catholics have done their work; and those who hoped to find or to make a division among Catholics have been disappointed. It is now seen that those who reject the Vatican Council may be told on our fingers, and the Catholic Church has openly passed sentence on them. Having made these declarations, I might have remained silent; but as in my first letter I implied that I was prepared to justify what I had asserted, I gave notice that I would do so. Having passed my word, I will keep it; and in keeping it I will endeavour to deserve again the acknowledgment Mr. Gladstone has already made. He says that, whatever comes, so far as I am concerned, it will not be without due notice.' I will be equally outspoken now; not be cause he has challenged it, but because, so far as I know, I have always tried to speak out. In all these years of strife I have never consciously kept back, or explained away, any doctrine of the Catho lic Church. I will not begin to do so now, when my time is nearly run. I am afraid that in these pages I shall seem to obtrude myself too often, and too much. If any think so, I would ask them to remember that Mr. Gladstone has laid me under this necessity in these three ways: 1. He has made me the representative of the Catholic doctrine since 1870, as Bishop Doyle, he says, was in better days. 2. He has quoted my writings four times in cen sure. 3. He has appealed to me as Head of the Papal Church in England;' I may also add as 'The Oracle.' My words, however, shall not be ambiguous. The two letters given above contain four assertions. First, that the Decrees of the Vatican Council have changed nothing in respect to the civil obedience of Catholics. Secondly, that their civil obedience is neither more nor less divided than that of other men. Thirdly, that the relations of the Spiritual and Civil Powers have been fixed from time immemorial, and are therefore after the Vatican Council what they were before. Fourthly, that the contest now waging abroad began in a malevolent and mischievous intrigue to instigate the Civil Powers to oppress and persecute the Catholic Church. The two first propositions shall be treated in the first chapter, the third in the second chapter, and the last in the third. I will therefore endeavour to prove the following. propositions, which cover all the assertions I have made: 1. That the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of Civil Allegiance. 2. That the relations of the Catholic Church to the Civil Powers of the world have been immutably fixed from the beginning, inasmuch as they arise out of the Divine Constitution of the Church, and out of the Civil Society of the natural order. 3. That any collisions now existing have been brought on by changes, not on the part of the Catholic Church, much less of the Vatican Council, but on the part of the Civil Powers, and that by reason of a systematic conspiracy against the Holy See. 4. That by these changes and collisions the Civil Powers of Europe are destroying their own stability. 5. That the motive of the Vatican Council in defining the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was not any temporal policy, nor was it for any temporal end; but that it defined that |