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a most unfair limitation to papal infallibility to maintain that the appointed guide to Christians collectively is unable to conduct them safely if they consult him individually. Really believe that the Pope is an infallible guide, and nothing but the controversial exigency of relieving yourself from assent to certain erroneous papal decisions could induce you to put such a limitation on the office entrusted to him by Christ. But, further, this measure of relief to weak consciences is altogether too sweeping in its application. For over a thousand years of the Church's history no single decree of a Pope addressed to the universal Church is known. The Bull, Unam Sanctam,' of Pope Boniface VIII., in 1303, is the first addressed to the whole Church. I told you how a Jesuit writer urged it as an unanswerable reply to Dr. Pusey's theory of infallibility, that his condition that the Church should be undivided makes it necessary to maintain that the gift has been dormant for the last 1200 years-that is to say, for twothirds of the lifetime of the Church. And surely the objection is just as fatal if it was for the first 1200 years the gift was dormant, and if it were only in comparatively modern times that the Pope awoke to the exercise of his full powers.

To apply all this to the case of Honorius, if the defence be made for him that his erroneous doctrine was not propounded ex cathedra, the only distinction in this matter that I can recognize as rational is that between the Pope's official and non-official utterances; and in this Monothelite controversy the Pope's sentiments were undoubtedly expressed officially. The Eastern patriarchs would have troubled themselves little about the opinion of a private Italian divine named Honorius; but it was of the utmost importance to know what line would be taken by the bishop of Rome. But we need the less. contest this point, as it would pain the papal advocates of the present day to acknowledge that Honorius, even in his private capacity, was a heretic; and they maintain that the letters of Honorius are quite orthodox. Perhaps that may be my own opinion; but not the less do I protest against Dr. Manning and his coadjutors committing such an audacious exercise of private judgment as to approve as orthodox letters which

were burnt as heretical by the sixth General Council, condemned by the two succeeding Councils, and by all the Popes for centuries in their solemn profession of faith on their day of installation.

In our times, when so many unfavourable judgments of history are reversed or mitigated, it was only natural that the heretics of old should get the benefit of the same court of appeal. Many of them are only known to us by the writings of their opponents, men often most bitterly prejudiced against them and incapable of giving them what we should count fair play. Often, no doubt, they were made answerable for consequences which, whether truly following from their premisses or not, they themselves repudiated. The subjects in debate were often most abstruse, the terminology most difficult; and it is quite possible that in some cases the differences were only verbal, and that men were counted as heretics who did not really differ from the orthodox so much in faith as in their manner of expressing themselves. I can well believe that some who are counted as bad heretics were worthy, wellmeaning men, who had puzzled their heads with bad metaphysics, on subjects which the human understanding is ill able to grasp. Perhaps a Roman Catholic will say that it is because I am a heretic myself that I am inclined to think not very ill of heretics; and if I feel bound to class Pope Honorius under that denomination, I do not at all think unfavourably of him on the whole, nor am I disposed to deny that, heretic as he was, he may have been a very worthy man and a very good Christian.

In fact, I count that there are no heretics better entitled to charitable apologies than the Monothelites. Christianity was at the time fearfully weakened in the East by internal divisions on the question concerning our Lord's twofold nature. If by any mutual explanation union could be restored, undoubtedly the greatest benefit would be conferred on the Church. Now the most orthodox defender of Christ's twofold nature would grant, that in His sinless humanity there was not that conflict of two wills which we experience, but that in His case the law of the members' was

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in complete subjection to the law of the mind.' On the other hand, it seemed that all the Monophysites were contending for might be satisfied by an explicit recognition of the perfect harmony between our Lord's two natures. Thus there seemed to be a hopeful prospect of compromise, on the terms that both parties should agree in recognizing in our Lord a single will. The plan appeared for the moment successful; the Monophysites largely assented; the emperor adopted the scheme, and it was agreed to by the patriarchs of the four great sees-Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. The patriarch of Jerusalem alone held out, and by his strenuous opposition overturned the compromise. Certainly, then, on this occasion it was he, and not the bishop of Rome, who was the teacher of the Church.

The feeling of the present day on the question whether we ought to say that our Lord had a single will or two harmonious wills would be to condemn more strongly the raising of the question than the determining it wrongly. The majority, I imagine, have rather a Carbonarian faith in the Church's doctrine on this subject; and if they had been told that it was the Dithelites whom they were to condemn as heretics, would have been equally ready to assent. There is a sense in which Monothelism is certainly inconsistent with the truth of our Lord's twofold nature; and we must therefore rejoice that Sophronius of Jerusalem prevented the adoption of a formula which might have tended to undermine the doctrine of the Incarnation; but whether the heretical sense was that in which the doctrine was held by Sergius and other leading Monothelites is more than I will undertake to say. I have no harsh inclination to repel any excuses that may be offered for any of them; but I see no reason for making any special exemption in favour of Honorius, or separating his case from that of other Monothelites. One cannot do so without directly contradicting the sixth General Council, which declared that Honorius in all things had followed the opinions of Sergius and had sanctioned his impious dogmas.'

But the truth is, we have no interest whatever in debating the personal orthodoxy of Honorius, or in trying him for

heresy twelve centuries after his death. The question which has importance for our times is not whether this or that Pope was a heretic, but whether it is possible for a Pope to be a heretic. The case of Honorius shows that as late as the seventh century no suspicion had entered the mind of the Church that it was not. We need not go behind the acclamations of the Council, 'Anathema to the heretic Sergius, anathema to the heretic Honorius.' If these anathemas are not conclusive against the individual, they are conclusive against the Pope. They prove to demonstration that whether Honorius personally deserved condemnation or not, his official position was not regarded in men's minds then, either as securing him against the possibility of falling into heresy, or as protecting him against condemnation if he did.

For another reason, the question concerning the personal orthodoxy of Honorius or any other Pope is one with which we have the very slightest concern. When it was suggested that we might content ourselves with the guidance of the Holy Scriptures, Romanist advocates have replied, that though the Bible may be infallible it is not an infallible guide: that is to say, it does not protect those who follow it from danger of going wrong. Surely now we may say as much for the Pope. Let him be infallible if you please; let him be in his heart of the most admirable orthodoxy, still he is not an infallible guide if by his public utterances he leads Christian people wrong. If a guide misconduct us, it is not the least comfort to us to be told that this man has really a most thorough knowledge of the passes, and before being admitted as guide had passed a most brilliant examination. Now it is beyond controversy that cases have occurred when Christian people would have gone wrong if they followed the guidance of the bishop of Rome. Liberius may in his heart have had infallible knowledge that Athanasius was in the right and his opponents vile heretics; but the Christian world was not concerned with the thoughts of Liberius but with his acts; and they who were guided by them would find themselves ranged against Athanasius and on the side of his opponents. And not to go through a host of other cases, at which I have glanced already,

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where the Christian world avoided heresy by following some guidance different from that of the bishop of Rome, Honorius may have had in his heart, if you choose to say so, the most orthodox abhorrence of Monothelism. But all this supposed internal orthodoxy does not alter the fact that in his capacity of guide he did all that in him lay to lead the Christian world into that heresy. So it remains proved that even if it were possible to demonstrate that no bishop of Rome had ever entertained sentiments that were not most rigidly orthodox, still the Pope is not an infallible guide.