America, the birthplace of Spiritism. This most fatal heresy ―specially fatal, as lulling the conscience in a false reposeis that which is most commonly inculcated by the responses of both Magnetism and Spiritism, among those who hold universalism, or lean more or less to it; whilst before Catholics, or those Protestants who on this point hold the Catholic doctrine, the spirit communications, when touching on the subject, are of the very opposite import. What the devil wants, in the first place, is to get into communication with us; anything at all will do for a commencement: he knows how to improve the smallest opportunity: give him an inch, and he will gain ten ells. He greatly prefers to introduce himself with a lie, especially a heretical lie; but, if he sees that this is not feasible, he puts on truth and even breathes the very language of ardent and impassioned devotion. So all absorbing is his thirst for our ruin, he will, to ensnare us, become that which most he hates; he will become an angel of light, the Virgin Mary, the Saviour himself. He knows that the poison of his breath, though coming laden with the odours of sanctity, will in its own time do its deadly work. We need not go to the phenomena of Spiritism for examples of this; we have abundance of them in the most authentic lives of saints, in the Bible itself.*

The other remark is in reference to an objection made against our doctrine, namely, that we are trying to revive the superstitions of the middle ages about magic and witchcraft, which the world has long since exploded, and literally laughed out. To which F. Perrone justly replies that we have not revived any superstition; but it is this very world itself, this very nineteenth century, which has revived magic, and therefore revived the old superstition, not about, but of magic-for magic is one of the species of superstition. Magnetism and Spiritism are magic and divination in one, and in the middle. ages would have been so called. We need not stick so at names, when the things are in very essence and substance the same. This mighty world of the nineteenth century is, in its own way, about as bad as the worst of the fourteen that have preceded it, since Christianity was first enthroned on the imperial chair and it is decidedly and beyond comparison the most pharisaical of them all. It lifts up its round, gigantic frame, girded about with endless coils of iron rail, and crowned with a tiara of great exhibitions, and stands erect before the Almighty, and stretches out its jewelled hands and lifts up its voice and cries aloud, "I am the very best of all the worlds

:

* N. 437, note; 588-590, 715.

that have been before me, and I have done more wondrous works than they." "Works for myself," it should have said: as to works for God and for eternity, it has done nothing, but has undone everywhere and to an extent incalculable. In its own eyes it is rich and wealthy, and needeth nothing, but before Heaven it is poor and blind and naked. It is going fast to the devil; and but for the silent influence of that Church, which it hates and slanders and persecutes, would ere this have gone clean to him. clean to him. It is not likely to improve, and most certainly never will improve, until it falls down upon its knees and strikes its breast, and from its heart sighs out, "O God, be merciful to me a world of universal sin.' It boasts of having laughed out superstition: but we know what it has laughed out, and scourged out, and trodden out; and we know that, as there is a sorrow that shall be turned into joy, so there is a laughter that shall be changed into tears.

ART. II.-DR. PUSEY ON THE SYLLABUS. Appendix to the Eirenicon. By E. B. PUSEY, D.D. London: Parker.

UR two preceding articles on Dr. Pusey, which appeared respectively in the January and July of this year, have issued (we consider) in the following conclusions.

1. No doctrine which has ever been imagined on the Church's constitution-not even by the extremest Protestant or Rationalist is more contradictory to the whole tenour of Scripture and Antiquity, than is the Anglican theory in every one of the shapes which Dr. Pusey has devised. There is no fact whatever in ecclesiastical history-either on the surface or beneath the surface-which has the remotest tendency to support that theory. Those facts which present difficulty in the way of Roman Catholicism, tell (so far as they go) not in favour of Anglicanism at all, but of infidelity.

2. If you look back at the history, whether of the Apostles or of the Church which succeeded them, all those facts which stand prominently recorded on its surface, which constitute (as it were) its tissue and its general drift, point decisively to the Roman Catholic theory, and are inconsistent with every other whatever.

3. But there is a certain number of individual and isolated facts, which present a certain superficial difficulty to Roman

Dr. Pusey, which cannot by a very little attention be exhibited in perfect harmony with Roman Catholic doctrine. Yet we will not deny that there are facts to be found, though Dr. Pusey has not succeeded in finding them, which (whether from having been imperfectly recorded, or from whatever cause) constitute a real objection so far as they go. Considering, however, the enormous mass of historical events which have come into contact with Roman Catholicism during an existence of eighteen centuries, and considering the extraordinary peremptoriness of the Church's claims, it is most marvellous that the apparent objections are not far more numerous. historical conclusions, however certain, are encountered by this or that plausible difficulty; and certainly there is no historical conclusion of equal magnitude, to which the unsolved objections are nearly so trivial and insignificant.

All

As regards those particular objections which have occurred to Dr. Pusey's mind, there is not one (as we just now observed) which cannot be encountered easily and with complete success. Yet we will not here enter on their consideration, even in that limited degree which we had proposed. In our last number we pointed out (p.32) that we could not consider them all, unless we were to protract our controversy with him over a period of some ten or twelve years. We added that they are divisible into two different classes. On the first class, we said, it is very easy to lay down certain general principles, which apply in common to all, and which may readily be adapted to each individual case: and we proceeded (p. 33) to draw out those principles. But as to the second class, we showed that from their very nature no other reply is abstractedly possible, except a consideration of them one by one. Accordingly we proposed to treat in our present number, explicitly though briefly, what may be called Dr. Pusey's chief representative instances of either class. As appertaining to the former, we were to deal with SS. Cyprian and Augustine; as appertaining to the latter, with S. Liberius and Honorius.

Our article was in the printer's hands before the end of April, and consequently before we had the slightest expectation of F. Ryder's pamphlet ; and it is plain that the appearance of that little volume must importantly affect our plans. As to the four last-named anti-Roman difficulties, they have been again and again both urged and refuted in controversy: there is no greater reason for treating them now, than for treating them at any other time; and no reason why they should be taken in hand by ourselves, rather than by any other Catholic controversialist. Moreover, there is every hope that before very long F. Harper will examine them, far more profoundly

than we should have had the leisure to attempt, or indeed than the present writer possesses the learning to effect. On the other hand, F. Ryder's various arguments have a peremptory claim for consideration on ourselves in particular; and moreover will not conveniently admit of delay. We must terminate therefore our earlier controversy, in order to enter on our later.

There is one portion however of Dr. Pusey's argument, which does possess a peremptory claim on our own attention, as having been specially addressed to ourselves. But it happens most opportunely, that in addressing ourselves to this argument, we shall be at the same time making important way in the newer controversy also. Its consideration then shall be the theme of our present article. We allude, of course, to his comment on the Syllabus of December 8, 1864.

More than one Catholic writer has misunderstood him on this head. It has been fancied that his assault was directed, not against the highest, but against the humblest of Catholics; not against Pius IX., but against a writer in the DUBLIN REVIEW. It is quite impossible however for any one so to interpret Dr. Pusey, who reads his comment with the slightest care. For instance

The writer in the DUBLIN REVIEW has shown that the Encyclical of 1864 does claim this [infallibility] in the name of Pius IX. (p. 289).

The main principle which Pius IX. appears to have assumed, that he is infallible [&c.] (p. 288).

The doctrine of infallibility laid down by Bellarmine is declared in the Encyclical of last year to be inadequate (p. 303).

This theory [on Papal infallibility] is contained in the Encyclical of 1864 (p. 318).

On the principle involved in the Encyclical of 1864 and the Syllabus, that historical statements, made by the Pope, are infallible (p. 331).

Again: he says in one place (p. 294, note) that "the DUBLIN REVIEW argues rightly" on the meaning of one condemned proposition; and in another place (p. 302, note) that we have understated the Holy Father's doctrine on his civil sovereignty. And, he adds finally (p. 305) that "this extension of Papal infallibility" must "embarrass the defence of the system." Of course, no imaginable theory of this Review could embarrass the defence of Catholicism; because any defender of Catholicism might throw our private theories to the winds: that which embarrasses the defence of Roman Catholicism, must be something recognized by the standard authorities of that religion. But we have almost said too much on a matter which really does not admit of a second opinion. Dr. Pusey

treats the DUBLIN REVIEW throughout, not at all as the object of his attack, but as having brought prominently before the public eye those particular features of modern Roman teaching, which he desires to criticize.

Towards the beginning of his comment (p. 290) he drags in the old question of Gallicanism; though what in the world that controversy can have to say on the objectmatter of infallibility, it is difficult to guess. We are very confident it would have been fully as axiomatic to Bossuet as to Bellarmine, that the Syllabus, so soon as accepted by the Episcopate, became an infallible Rule of Faith: and, at all events, Dr. Pusey has not said one syllable to prove the contrary. It so accidentally happens, indeed, that Gallican doctors-e. g., Regnier and Montagne-have spoken more emphatically and explicitly on the extent of the Church's infallibility, than have Ultramontanes themselves.

Our author's main propositions are these two: (1) “Pius IX. has extended the limits of infallibility far beyond those laid down by Bellarmine;" and (2) "the latter claim is even more obviously refuted by history than the earlier." Our first business then must be to consider, what is the amount of infallibility which has been claimed by Pius IX.

And here at first reading Dr. Pusey's characteristic mistiness becomes apparent. In p. 292 he lays it down, as Pius IX.'s judgment, that various Pontifical statements are infallible, which are neither "connected with the substance of Revelation," nor "in any way formal in their character." You would suppose him to mean, that Pius IX. claims infallibility for the Pope's casual remarks on the prospect of rain or the probable heat of the summer. Yet only four pages earlier (p. 288) he had limited the Pope's claim to the case of "formal utterances on "matters connected with the well-being of the Church." And though even this limitation, as we shall presently show, is insufficient, yet surely it renders inexcusable the mis-statement contained in his later passage. We will not however dwell further on these incidental flaws, but occupy ourselves with the substance of his argument. And on the extent of infallibility claimed by the Pope, we are glad to find ourselves agreeing with Dr. Pusey's two main propositions; though, no doubt, we differ importantly on one or two consequences which he would thence deduce.

His first main proposition is, that Pius IX. claims infallibility for the Encyclical and Syllabus. We have so often in these pages expressed our reasons for assenting to this proposition, that here we need say no more on the subject.

So far then we are in perfect accordance with our author.