xv.] DR. PUSEY'S THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY. 273 a few words as to Dr. Pusey's theory of infallibility, which substantially agrees with that I have just examined, which places it in the Church diffusive. Dr. Pusey could find no language too strong to condemn the principle of private judgment, and was heartily willing to submit his own judgment to that of the Church; only it must be the united Church. If the whole Church agree in any statement of doctrine that must be infallibly certain. But unhappily, for the last twelve centuries the Church has been rent by schism, and does not agree with itself in its utterances. All that was decreed before the great schism between East and West is undoubtedly true, and no individual dare re-open these questions; and if now the Roman, Greek, and Anglican communions (for to these Dr. Pusey limited the Church) could be united again, the gift of infallibility would revive; but in the Church's present disunited condition the gift is dormant. I am not prepared to say that this is not a legitimate extension of the Gallican theory, for if universal consent is necessary to the propounding of an infallible decision, how can that condition be said to be satisfied when full half the company of baptized Christians dissent? But Pusey's Roman Catholic critics have seen very clearly that his theory is a reductio ad absurdum of the proof of the existence of an infallible guide. Most persons would agree that if God saw it to be necessary to bestow on His Church the gift of infallibility for several hundred years, it is likely she has the gift still; and, conversely, it is easier to believe that the gift was never bestowed than that it was given on such conditions that the exercise of it has proved for more than a thousand years to be practically impossible. One of Dr. Pusey's Roman Catholic critics says, very reasonably from his point of view, 'To say that the Church has practically ceased to be infallible for twelve centuries out of eighteen, is to say that the Holy Ghost has failed of His mission during two-thirds of the lifetime of the Church which He was by Divine promise to lead into all truth.'* * Harper, Peace through the Truth, 1. lxi. T XVI. GENERAL COUNCILS. I PART I. COME to-day to speak of that theory which makes General Councils the main organ of the Church's infallibility, a theory of historic interest, but which now is rapidly becoming obsolete. In fact the general arguments for the necessity of an infallible judge to determine controversies are not satisfied by such a judge as a Council, since that judge is not always at hand, there having been whole centuries without Councils; while the mode of settling disputes by consulting the decisions of past Councils is liable to the same objections as that by consulting the Scriptures, with the additional objection that the former are so much more voluminous. In the Roman Church at present there is so little disposition unduly to exalt the authority of Councils, that the topics which come before us to-day may almost be said to be no part of the Roman Catholic controversy, the greater part of all I wish to assert being not now controverted. The dispute in the Roman Church, concerning the organ of the Church's Infallibility, has had the natural effect that those who claim that prerogative for the Pope, and whose ascendency was completely established at the Vatican Council of 1870, have been quite as anxious as we can be, that no rival claim for Councils shall be allowed to establish itself. Consequently, when I shall presently produce evidence that even those Councils, to whose decisions we cordially assent, were composed of frail and fallible men ; that the proceedings of some of them were conducted in a way that does not command our respect, and that the ultimate triumph of orthodoxy was due to other causes besides XVI.] LOCAL COUNCILS. 275 the decisions of these Councils, I am trying to prove no more than has been asserted by eminent Roman Catholic divines, as, for example, by Cardinal Newman. But it would not be safe to take quite silent possession of territory which our adversaries have evacuated only in comparatively recent times; and it is necessary to give some examination to the claims of Councils, because it was to these venerable bodies that the attribute of infallibility first attached itself; and in the early stages of the Reformation those who resisted the authority of the Pope declared themselves willing to submit to the authority of a General Council freely assembled. Local Councils.-Local Councils took their origin almost inevitably, as you will easily see, from the fact that Christian Churches in different towns regarded themselves as all belonging to one great society. We know that in apostolic times a Church would separate from her communion a member who had disgraced himself by immorality of a scandalous kind; so in like manner would one be rejected who denied the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Now in modern times excommunication has ceased to be an effective penalty, on account of the want of harmonious action between the different bodies into which Christendom is divided. If a man is put out of communion by one body, he finds quite a welcome reception in another. It was not so in the early Church. A Christian migrating from one town to another had only to take with him credentials from his original Church, and he was received on equal terms in his new abode. But one whom his own Church censured found the doors of other Churches also closed to him until those censures had been withdrawn. This mutual recognition of each other's acts made it necessary that one Church should be permitted to review the acts of another. If a bishop were arbitrary and wrong-headed, and excommunicated an innocent man, it were surely unreasonable if no redress were possible; and a Church could scarcely insist on keeping out of communion a man elsewhere condemned for false doctrine, without investigating his case, if he protested that he was perfectly orthodox, and that it was the bishop who had censured him whose views were eccentric. My belief is, that it was the review of excommunications for ratification or rejection which constituted the chief business of the Councils of neighbouring bishops, which we know to have met periodically in very early times. One of the most interesting examples I know of an attempt, by means of local Councils, to collect the opinion of the universal Church, was in the case of the Quartodeciman controversy at the end of the second century. You all, no doubt, know how the attempt of Victor of Rome to put the Asiatic Churches out of the communion of the Church universal was frustrated by the resistance of Irenæus. There is reason to think that Victor did not move in this matter without provocation. Churches distant from each other might celebrate Easter on different days without serious inconvenience; but it would evidently be intolerable if some members of a Church made it a matter of conscience to refuse to conform to the prescribed rule of that Church, and insisted on holding their feast, while their brethren around were still keeping the preliminary fast. I consider that it was the schismatical attempt of a presbyter, Blastus, thus to force Quartodecimanism on the Church of Rome, which moved Victor to endeavour to put an end to diversity of practice. Now it is important that you should know that Victor did not make his attempt without first writing to the leading bishops in different parts of the Christian world, asking them to report to him the practice of their Church; and it was only when he had thus obtained evidence that the Asiatic Quartodecimanism was a mere local custom, and that the practice of the rest of the Christian world was to keep Easter on the Sunday, that he thought himself strong enough to call on the dissentients to conform or be excommunicated. Obviously it was only by a number of separate Councils that the opinion of the collective episcopate could be ascertained in heathen times. The collection into one city of such a representation of the Christian episcopate as was assembled * This appears from the letter of Polycrates (Euseb. H. E. v. 27). XVI.] EVIL RESULT OF EXCESSIVE CLAIMS. 277 under the Christian emperors would, in heathen times, have been a challenge for persecution; and even if the meeting had been safe, a majority of the bishops could not have borne the expense of the long journey. When Constantine afterwards gathered all the bishops to Nicæa, he had them conveyed free of charge, putting all the posting resources of the Empire at their disposal. General Councils.-Coming now to speak of General Councils, I feel it to be a disagreeable thing that the extravagant claims made by our adversaries for both Popes and Councils force me to dwell on the frailties and imperfections of what is on the whole entitled to the respect and gratitude of the Church. It is a disagreeable thing when a man for whom you have on many grounds respect and liking is proposed with extravagant laudations as a candidate for a situation for which you believe him to be totally unfit. If it is impossible for you to acquiesce, the mistaken zeal of his friends may then force you to give proof of his unfitness, by stating things over which, if you might, you would gladly have cast a veil. It would be a disgrace to Christianity if the bishops of its principal see did not include among them many men of piety, learning, and zeal, who had done much benefit to the Church. Much rather would I dwell on the services bishops of Rome have rendered to the Church, than on the frailties, immoralities, or heresies which have disfigured that chair; but when Rome is made the hinge on which the whole Church turns-the rock on which it reststhen it is necessary to give proof that Rome has not strength to bear the weight which it is proposed to lay upon it. Similarly I should be glad to dwell altogether on the services rendered by Councils to the Church; but when claims are made for the authority of Councils to which they have no pretensions, we are forced to give evidence how unfounded these claims are. It is no pleasure to me to bring before you the proofs that those who took part in the early Councils were men of like passions with ourselves. Many of them, I doubt not, were holy men; several of them learned and wise men. When they met together in assemblies there was good reason |