v.] BOSSUET, HOW THOUGHT OF NOW. 87 Church of England. He might say, 'Dissenters plainly show that they are wrong by their differences among themselves. Protestant Dissenters accuse us of believing too much, and Roman Catholic Dissenters accuse us of believing too little. When such opposite charges are brought, it is plain we must be just right.' The fact is, what the existence of variations of belief among Christians really proves is, that our Master Christ has not done what Roman Catholic theory requires He should have done, namely, provided His people with means of such full and certain information on all points on which controversy can be raised, that there shall be no room for difference of opinion among them. But it is ridiculous to build on these variations an argument for the superiority of one sect over another. But my purpose in now mentioning the subject is to tell how Bossuet, whose name is specially connected with the argument from the variations of Protestantism, has himself become the most signal instance of the variations of Romanism. Bossuet was, in his time, 'the Eagle of Meaux': the terror of Protestant sectaries, the most trusted champion of his Church. But he fought for her not only against the Protestants, but against the theory of Infallibility, then called Ultramontane, because held on the other side of the mountains, but rejected by the Gallican Church. In another lecture I shall speak more at length of the principles of Gallicanism and of its history. Suffice it here to mention that one of its fundamental doctrines was, that the doctrinal decisions of the Pope were not to be regarded as final; that they might be reviewed and corrected, or even rejected, by a General Council or by the Church at large. A formal treatise of Bossuet in proof of this principle was a storehouse of arguments, largely drawn on in the controversies of the years 1869-70. But this principle of his was condemned with an anathema at the Vatican Council of the latter year. Now observe, this was not a difference of opinion on a minor point-some point on which the guide had given no instruction, and with respect to which, therefore, his followers were free to take their own course. The question here at issue was the vital one-who the guide was that was to be followed. A man does not follow another as his guide, though he may be walking along the same road, if he takes that road only because he himself thinks the road to be the right one. And so, though on a number of questions Bossuet might side against the Protestants and with the Pope of his day, it is plain that he was not, on principle, following the Pope's guidance consequently, Bossuet is treated by the predominant Roman Catholic school of the present day as no better than a Protestant. Just as he himself had argued that outside the Roman Church there was no truth or consistency, and that Protestantism was but an inconsistent compromise with infidelity, so Cardinal Manning says nearly the same things of that theory of Gallicanism of which Bossuet was the ablest defender. 'It was exactly the same heresy,' Manning declares, 'which in England took the form of the Reformation, and in France that of Gallicanism.' Dr. Brownson's Review, the chief organ of American Romanism, treated Bossuet's opinions with even less ceremony. It said, Gallicanism was always a heresy. The Gallicans are as much alien from the Church or Commonwealth of Christ as are Arians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Methodists, Spiritists, or Devil-worshippers.' Could the irony of events give a more singular refutation than this? A man writes a book to prove that Protestantism is false because Protestants disagree among themselves, and Romanism is true because its doctrines are always the same, and its children never disagree; and in a few years he is himself classed with Devil-worshippers by the most accredited authorities of the religion which he defends, and whose doctrines he supposes himself, and is supposed by everyone else at the time most thoroughly to understand. For all we can tell, the Romanist champions of the present day may be in no better case. Can Cardinal Manning be secure that, as the development of Roman doctrine proceeds, he may not be left stranded outside the limits of orthodoxy, and be classed with Devil-worshippers by the Romanist champions of the next century? We seem now to have arrived at a most uncomfortable conclusion. We have agreed that Christ must have given v.] NECESSITY OF MENDING MILNER'S AXIOM. 89 His people some rule, and we have tried all the rules that have been proposed, and found that all must be pronounced, on Milner's principles, fallacious. We are forced, then, to try back on Milner's axioms, and see whether we were not over hasty in admitting them. You will find on examination that Milner's argument, in substance, reduces itself to this: There is an infallible guide somewhere-no one claims to be that guide but the Church of Rome, therefore it must be she. When you ask, How do you know that there is an infallible guide somewhere? he answers, That is a proposition of which no rational Christian can doubt. I have already shown you how easy it is to make an argument in favour of a false opinion, by proving laboriously any true propositions it may be convenient to you to make use of; but getting quickly over the false propositions that are introduced, and treating them as self-evident principles which no rational person can dispute. I have already expressed my opinion that if you concede Milner his axioms, and then try to take your stand on the Bible as a guide which satisfies the conditions which these axioms impose, you will certainly be defeated. But, in real truth, Milner might have spared himself the trouble of writing the rest of his book, when he begins by taking for granted that God has provided us with an infallible guide, or, to use his own words, 'with a never-failing rule, which is never liable to lead a sincere inquirer into error of any kind.' Observe the monstrous character of the claim. We are to be supernaturally guarded not merely against deadly error, but against error of any kind. But, in truth, this monstrous claim is absolutely necessary in order to make out Milner's case; for we should not want the help of the Church of Rome if we might be content in matters of religion with that homely kind of certainty which is all that God gives us for the conduct of the most important affairs of life: an assurance that may well be called certainty as to substantial matters, shading off to high probability when we descend to the leading details, and leaving room for doubt and difference of opinion when we come down to subordinate details. I do not see how any Roman Catholic can seriously defend Milner's axiom unless he first mend it by claiming supernatural protection, not against error of any kind, but only against error inconsistent with holding the truths necessary to salvation. I shall not quarrel with anyone for holding that if God required men to believe certain doctrines on pain of damnation, He would propound these truths so plainly that no one should be able to mistake them. This is a maxim of which I have already taken the benefit against the Church of Rome. For, while it is said that Christians are bound, under pain of damnation, to submit to the Church of Rome, that doctrine has been taught so obscurely that more than half the Christian world has not been able to find it out. But we say that the revelation God has given us is, in essential matters easy to be understood. Roman Catholics dwell much on the difficulty of understanding the Scriptures, and quote St. Peter's saying, that the Scriptures contain many things difficult and 'hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction.' But we say that the obscurities of Scripture do not hide those vital points, the knowledge of which is necessary to salvation; and we have the authority of many ancient fathers to support us in so thinking. Chrysostom, for instance, says, 'all things are plain and simple in the Holy Scriptures; all things necessary are evident.' 'The Apostles and Prophets have made all things proceeding from them plain and evident to all; in order that each person, even by himself, may be able to learn what is said from the mere reading of it.' He gives this as a reason why God chose men in humble station to be the writers of books of Scripture. In like manner,' says St. Augustine, 'God hath made the Scriptures to stoop to the capacities of babes and sucklings.' 'Scarcely anything is drawn out from the more obscure places of Scripture which is not most plainly spoken elsewhere.'§ Accordingly, when any of the early Fathers has occasion to make an enumeration of the truths which Christians ought to know, he usually contents himself with a summary of doctrines nearly identical with that con * In 2 Thess., Hom. III., vol. xi., p. 528. v.] EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT BELIEF. 91 tained in the Apostles' Creed, all the Articles of which contain truths that lie on the very surface of Scripture, and do not require any laborious investigation of texts in order to arrive at them. But, for thus holding that the list of truths necessary to be known in order to salvation is short and simple, we have the authority of the Roman Church herself. No one is so unreasonable as to expect ordinary members of the Church to be acquainted with all the decisions of Popes and Councils, in the correctness of which they are nevertheless obliged to believe. Take only one Council-the Council of Trent. Has any Roman Catholic that is not a professed theologian, studied its decrees? If an unlearned Roman Catholic were asked to explain the doctrines of Justification and Original Sin, steering clear of Lutheranism on the one hand and of Pelagianism on the other, taking care not to give any countenance to the Jansenists, but also taking care not to fall foul of St. Augustine, we may be sure that if he was mad enough to undertake the task, he would not go far in his statement without finding himself involved in some of the anathemas of which that Council was so liberal. There are, on a rough calculation, one hundred and fifty doctrines condemned by it, with a formal anathema. An anathema is, in fact, the way by which the Council indicates that the doctrine which it propounds is 'de fide'. But an unlearned person is not expected even to understand the terms in which the doctrine is conveyed. Dr. Newman has been so good as to furnish me with an example. 'What sense,' he asks, 'can a child or a peasant, nay, or any ordinary Catholic, put upon the Tridentine Canons, even in translation, such as "Si quis dixerit homines, sine Christi justitia per quam nobis meruit justificari, aut per eam ipsam formaliter justos esse, anathema sit." Yet these doctrinal enunciations, he adds, are de fide, Peasants are bound to believe them as well as controversialists, and to believe them as truly as they believe our Lord to be God.'* I do not know that the canons of the Council held since Newman's book * Grammar of Assent, p. 142. |