this last statement he pointedly overthrows the letter of the Dutch Old-Catholics 1.

He then finds-curiously enough—that each of the three services of Anglican ordination possesses a prayer which contains these three requirements. They are all adequate then? Not at all. For he nevertheless rules—and we, in our turn, are inclined to see herein 'une très curieuse observation,'—that in each of the three services this prayer can neither itself be the 'forma,' nor even can contribute, in any degree, to make the service as a whole into an adequate 'forma'; because it is not sufficiently close to the laying on of hands. The manual action is accompanied and interpreted only by that fraction of the service which coincides with it (not quite indeed, for that would overthrow most Ordinals, but almost) when measured by minutes or seconds. The prayer then, which does fulfil all the conditions, being according to this ruling-for purposes of a 'forma' exactly as if it were not in the service at all, is there any prayer in juxtaposition with the manual act which might serve for a forma? There are indeed interpretative words which accompany the action directly, "Take thou authority,' &c., 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' &c. But these again, being not in the precatory but the imperative form, cannot be the 'forma'; and not being the forma, cannot contribute anything whatever towards bringing the total service into such a relation, of interpretation and supplication, with the laying on of hands, as would be necessary to make that laying on of hands effectual. So these also are-for the purpose as if they were not there at all. Once more, then, is there anything which could possibly serve as a 'forma'?

In the Ordering of Deacons there is nothing left to suggest. Then the Ordering of Deacons is hopelessly invalid. It is invalid, observe, because there is laying on of hands with no accompanying or interpretative form. It is a service of laying on of hands without 'prayer. Could anything be more external, more pedantic-to speak seriously as amongst grown men, more childish?

In the ordination of priests, there is a prayer at the required

1 'C'est ce qui doit faire entièrement rejeter l'opinion de R. P. Tournebize, et des vieux catholiques de Hollande`; p. 50.

2 'Nous devons commencer par une très curieuse observation'; p.51.

moment; but-when it is petitioning God it is not exactly for grace to the ordinands, and when it is speaking to God about His grace to the ordinands, the form of petition is transcended and translated into the form of grateful adoration and praise1, and therefore it is uncertain whether it is quite a prayer of the character required; and therefore - since of course all the contents of all the rest of the service put together count for nothing as constituting, or as contributing to the constitution of, a forma-the judicial conclusion must be 'que le presbytérat ainsi conféré est douteux, sinon invalide'; p. 57.

It is a controversy full indeed of surprises. Perhaps few surprises will be much greater, after the extraordinary processes by which the diaconate and the priesthood have been practically disallowed, than to find ourselves met with the astonishing phenomenon of an acquittal in respect of the service for consecration of bishops: 'Il faut avouer qu'ici la trame de nos prières catholiques est fidèlement suivie'; 'l'épiscopat ainsi conféré, à ne considérer que le rite, peut bien être regardé comme valide'; P. 57.

The italics in the last sentence are M. Boudinhon's own. But in truth it is not quite easy to see what points, other than the rite, he wishes to have considered. There are indeed two points more which he proceeds to examine the kind of intention which may be required, and the heretical meaning which the Ordinal by its omissions is said to imply; but on both these points he disallows the arguments of objectors. As to 'intention,' he quotes a passage at considerable length from the dissertation De hierarchia Anglicana by Messrs. Denny and Lacey (which chiefly seems to have occasioned his second brochure), a passage which goes very far beyond the contradictory dictum of Mgr. Gasparri; and he quotes it with apparent acceptance, if not even with some degree of enjoyment of the directness with which it refutes a position that Cardinal Vaughan had attempted to occupy. It may be well to give it as quoted by M. Boudinhon:—

'La Dissertatio accumule des citations de théologiens cat ho

1 'C'est une prière, sans doute; il y est question des ordinands, sans doute encore; mais je n'y retrouve pas, du moins pas assez clairement, la trame et la construction des prières catholiques, pour oser y voir une forme valable d'ordination au presbytérat'; p. 55.

...

liques pour bien déterminer la nature de cette "intentio generalis faciendi quod facit ecclesia" dont parle le Concile de Trente (sess. vii. can. 2). "Quod Ecclesia facit, dit d'abord Tournely, non quod Ecclesia intendit." Et Beilarmin: "Non est opus intendere quod facit ecclesia Romana, sed quod facit vera ecclesia, quaecumque illa sit. . . non tollit efficaciam sacramenti error ministri circa ecclesiam, sed defectus intentionis." Et après un long passage de Lehmkuhl, que j'ai reproduit moi-même pour la plus grande part, la Dissertatio cite des textes absolument concluants de Liebermann et de Franzelin. Le premier surtout est ad rem: "Non requiritur ut minister sacramenti effectum intendat " car les textes qui font autorité dans l'Église ne contiennent aucune mention "aut finis quam minister sibi proponit, aut effectus qui ex sacramento profluit." C'est ce qui a permis à l'Église de tenir pour valide le baptême conféré par des hérétiques ou des infidèles "quamvis illi effectum sacramenti negarent, aut id tantum intenderent facere quod sua, non quod Romana, facit ecclesia." Cette conclusion peut être corroborée par de nombreux textes des théologiens et par de très claires décisions romaines. J'en citerai deux seulement. Innocent IV. (comme auteur privé; cité par Franzelin, Dissert. n. 145) dit en parlant du baptême: "Non est necesse quod baptizans sciat quid sit Ecclesia, quid baptismus, vel unde sit, nec quod gerat in mente facere quod facit Ecclesia, immo si contrarium gereret in mente, scilicet non facere quod Ecclesia, sed tamen fecit, quia formam servat, nihilominus baptizatus est, dummodo baptizare intendat." Une récente décision du Saint Office est tout aussi explicite; je l'emprunte à la Collectanea de la Propagande, n. 539. "S. C. S. Officii, 18 Decem. 1872; Vic. Ap. Oceani Centr.-In quibusdam locis nonnulli (haeretici) baptizant cum materia et forma debitis simultanee applicatis, sed expresse monent baptizandos ne credant baptismum habere ullum effectum in animam : dicunt enim ipsum esse signum mere externum aggregationis illorum sectae . . . Quaeritur: utrum baptismus ab illis haereticis administratus sit dubius propter defectum intentionis faciendi quod voluit Christus, si expresse declaratum fuerit a ministro, antequam baptizet, baptismum nullum effectum habere in animam ?-R. Negative; quia non obstante errore quoad effectus baptismi, non excluditur intentio faciendi quod facit Ecclesia."'

Such is the condition in which he is content to leave the statement of the doctrine of intention, on the hypothesis that the form used is adequate, and in such condition we may be content to leave it too. For himself, he thinks that he has shown the inadequacy of the form. But, if the form sufficed, he holds that no objection about intention could invalidate it 1. Nor, again, is he willing to allow that doctrinal omissions in the Ordinal itself, even on the assumption that their motive and meaning was heretical, could invalidate the Ordinal, so long as those facts of the Ordinal were still preserved, which had been ruled to constitute the essentials.' To omit 'essentials' is to destroy the whole. But if the 'essentials' are maintained, their validity cannot be invalidated by the omission, however wrong in itself, of points which are admitted to be non-essential 2.

Such is the position to which, after so mature a reconsideration, he finally brings his argument upon these points.

Now how do we stand? The position is surely a very curious one. M. Dalbus had got rid of the prima facie objections to Anglican validity, but had put forward two reasons nevertheless for disallowing it. Both of these M. Duchesne put quietly aside,

1 'Les erreurs, les hérésies, de Barlow ou de l'Église Anglicane, qu'elle qu'en soit Pétendue; la négation de la Présence réelle, et du pouvoir de consacrer, dût-on la regarder comme certaine, ne sont pas un obstacle à la suffisance de l'intention des évêques anglicans, à commencer par Barlow. Et si, professant ces mêmes hérésies, ils avaient employé les rites de l'ordination catholique, il n'y aurait même pas lieu de poser la question : on leur appliquerait sans hésiter les règles de la théologie relatives aux sacrements administrés par les hérétiques'; p. 64.

2 Une omission de cette nature modifie-t-elle la valeur d'une prière, en restreint-elle la portée et l'efficacité? Il est permis de le nier. Le sens et l'intention externe demeurent les mêmes, et de plus, comment une omission, même coupable, d'éléments non essentiels, pourrait-elle être nuisible? Une omission est chose négative; si ce qui est omis n'est pas requis, pourquoi ce qui reste deviendrait-il inefficace?

'Car l'intention personnelle des auteurs de l'Ordinal ne pouvait influer sur la validité des ordinations que dans la mesure où elle se produirait dans l'Ordinal lui-même. Ils n'étaient pas, eux, les ministres de l'ordination, et c'est l'intention du ministre qui est requise et peut compromettre l'ordination, si elle est viciée; or, elle ne peut l'être par une hérésie de prétermission.

'En résumé, les arguments tirés du défaut de l'intention de Barlow et des évêques anglicans contre la validité des ordinations anglicanes ne sont valables que dans la mesure exacte où ils impliquent l'objection principale, l'insuffisance du rite'; p. 67.

-implying that there were no others to take their place, but that the matter waited in simple dependence upon the unfettered discretion of the majesty of Rome. The first M. Boudinhon pulled M. Dalbus' objections completely to pieces; and with a somewhat solemn word to M. Duchesne ('si l'Église pouvait accepter les Ordinations elle devrait le faire') built up a fatal case against our Orders, which combined inadequacy of form with inadequacy of intention—the inadequacy of the form clinched by the 'heretical' surroundings and purposes-the 'heretical' character of the surroundings and purposes made fatal in the fact of unauthorized alterations of form. The second M. Boudinhon (whilst refuting by the way the Dutch Alt-Katholiks, and the English Romanists in general, and Cardinal Vaughan in particular) knocks quietly away all the substance of the argument of the first M. Boudinhon, setting aside all arguments about 'intention' or heresy not as untrue, but as irrelevant; but trying instead to consolidate anew, by means of a new major premiss (itself on examination quite untenable), a case against the adequacy of the Anglican services as they stand.

Such phenomena are strangely significant. The writers are all able men, and are all in earnest. But if not a shadow of a suggestion is hinted against them, what do the phenomena mean? They mean that these gentlemen, for all their ability and earnestness, are not free. Consciously or unconsciously, they work with the fetters of certain presuppositions-slender it may be in seeming but adamantine in constraining force-upon their minds and consciences. It is the working of the Nemesis which must follow upon submission, intellectual and moral, to a primary untruth. They are paralyzed by the hypothesis of the infallibility of Rome.

There is yet one more brochure that I wish to refer to. The argument is taken up, still in 1895, by the Abbé Delasge. To begin with, he cannot but be struck with this aspect of the controversy: 'Une chose curieuse à noter, c'est que la question a souvent été déplacée . . . il est bien rare que les adversaires des ordinations anglicanes aient donné, suivant les temps et même aussi suivant les personnes, les mêmes raisons d'invalidité. On paraît surtout s'être préoccupé d'une seule chose, la non-validité, sans trop se soucier de la valeur des preuves fournies. Peu