reply to this reasoning, except by an appeal to the Council of Florence. The Pope, it is said, in holding that Council, sanctioned that very principle of corporate union, which our arguments would call into question altogether. We will consider that Council therefore carefully in a separate article.

We must not conclude, however, without noticing two points which may be plausibly raised against us by the Unionist party. Firstly, then, a member of that party may address to us the following objection:-"You have admitted, after all, in "this very article, that truth is not invariably to be placed "before peace; you have admitted that this or that doctrine "-even though infallibly sanctioned by the Church-may "yet under peculiar circumstances be legitimately waived "and put into abeyance, for the sake of Christian harmony. "But in admitting this, you emphatically condemn the course undeviatingly pursued by you gentlemen of the "DUBLIN REVIEW. Let me take two tenets, which you "have been forward in advocating: viz. (1.) The infallibility "of Papal Encyclicals or Allocutions; and (2.) The legiti"macy and advisableness, in certain countries, of the "Catholic ruler refusing civil toleration to heretics. You will certainly admit that no tenets can tend more powerfully "than these, to inflame differences and exasperate spirits. Let me grant, then, for argument's sake (what in fact I totally "deny), that these tenets are true; yet, have you not been arguing in this very article, that the Church will often, under "circumstances, forbear from insisting on what she regards as true, that Christian unity may be the better promoted? "From your own mouths we judge you, reckless and mis"chievous firebrands that you are.'

Such an objection may have occurred to many readers : it undoubtedly requires an answer, and we will express our answer with the utmost frankness. But we must first state our own principle somewhat more distinctly. There is a large body of truths, taught by God to the Apostles, and proposed by the Church as having been thus taught. These constitute the Deposit of Faith; and they are earnestly inculcated by the Church, in all places and under all circumstances. There is further a large body of doctrines, infallibly determined by the Church, which are intimately connected indeed with the Deposit, but are no integral part thereof. In regard to any one of these doctrines, there is a possibility, we admit, that under particular circumstances more harm than good may be done by its prominent exhibition. Supposing, therefore, a Catholic is called to account for bringing forward tenets, which cause

public prejudice against the Church;-he gives no sufficient answer to the charge, by proving that these tenets are true; or even that the Church has infallibly sanctioned them: he was bound also to consider, whether their enforcement at this particular moment were according to the rules of Christian prudence.

Now, this very principle is urged against us to our condemnation. But let our readers carefully observe the qualification, with which we have invariably accompanied it. Under particular circumstances, no doubt, the interests of the Church and of the Faith are better promoted, by waiving some indubitable doctrine, than by insisting on it. But who is to judge on the existence of such circumstances? We answer emphatically, the Church. The problem involved is so complex and intricate, that no individual can, without the wildest presumption, dream of solving it for himself. It is the Church, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, which alone is competent to point out the true course. We are speaking throughout, as above explained, not on the dogmata of faith, but on other doctrines connected with those dogmata. And just as it is to the Church alone that we look, when we desire to know which of these doctrines are infallibly true;-so it is to the Church alone that we look, when we desire to know which of these doctrines, being infallibly true, should, under particular circumstances, be prominently and urgently enforced.

Here, then, is our vindication. We have laid earnest stress on the two tenets, named above by our imaginary opponent. Why have we laid on them such earnest stress? Not through any trust in our own private judgment, but because the Church herself called on us so to do; because in these times a Catholic writer would have disloyally failed in his allegiance, had he acted otherwise. For several years past, the Holy Father has been energetically summoning all Catholics to hold interiorly a certain doctrine on his civil princedom. But this doctrine neither is, nor possibly can be, defined as of faith; he has therefore been energetically summoning all Catholics, to hold interiorly a certain doctrine which is not of faith. It is the Pope himself then, "the vicegerent of Christ," "the teacher of Christians," who has summoned Catholic writers to vindicate the due authority of those doctrinal determinations, which are not definitions of faith. Nor has he been less emphatic, whether by word or action, in denouncing that anti-Catholic principle, called "liberty of conscience," which he and his predecessors have so often condemned under its various shapes. The "Mirari vos "-the recent Encyclical and Syllabus-use expressions quite as strong as any which we have employed; or

rather considerably stronger. And here, indeed, is an inquiry, which we would earnestly press on the attention of those who think that our language on the Pope has been "extreme." Can any one statement be named, which we have made concerning the Pope, which he has not first made concerning himself? Any attribute or prerogative claimed for him by us, which he has not himself been the first to bring publicly forward? Any decision of his maintained by us to be infallible, which he has not himself enforced on the Church as uttered by an infallible voice? It has been our one wish, our highest ambition, to follow humbly his authoritative guidance,-not only as to what doctrines we shall believe, but also as to what doctrines we shall urgently proclaim and vindicate.

The second objection, above supposed, regards not doctrine but discipline; and it will come rather from a Catholic Unionist, than from an Anglican. "The Church, you admit,-specially "in her dealings with the East-has made several important "disciplinary concessions, in order that those barriers might "be more effectually removed, which would otherwise keep back "the light from its due access to their mind. Why then are "you unwilling that she should do that in favour of Anglican "Unionists, which she has done on so large a scale in favour "of Eastern schismatics ?"

Now, if ecclesiastical authority were, in fact, to make any such concessions as are here advocated, we should have no doubt at all that they were expedient; so strongly are we convinced that, on such a matter, the judgment of authority is immeasurably more trustworthy than our own. But as yet neither has it done so, nor shown the slightest disposition to do it; and we are left, perforce, to our own private judgment. Now, our own private judgment strongly points to the conclusion, that nothing could well be more injurious to Christian union, than the slightest concession of the kind. Never was there a broader contrast of character on the face of this earth, than between a Greek schismatic of the fifteenth century, and an Anglican Unionist of the nineteenth. No men were ever less addicted to private judgment than the former. They received, with most unquestioning belief and veneration, the traditions of their fathers; the teachings of their bishops and priests; the time-honoured observances of their communion. The Church's main end, then, was this: that as far as possible every object of their veneration should remain in itself untouched; while they should gradually learn more and more to look up to the Roman See, as to the one earthly authority, from which the whole derives its ultimate sanction. To enforce changes, therefore, in their ritual and practice, would have

been to damage that very temper of loyal submission, which was Rome's best security for the permanence of union.

*

But if any man ever lived, who exhibited the principle of private judgment in its most naked features and its extremest shape, it is the Anglican Unionist. We are not here speaking at all of Dr. Pusey: on the contrary, his reverence for Anglicanism-greatly as it astounds us-is, to our mind, one of his most attractive and hopeful characteristics. But, as to the ordinary Unionist, he spends his life in setting ecclesiastical authority at defiance. He despises the tradition of his fathers; he despises his own bishops; he despises Rome; and, if he were brought into contact with Greeks, he would, no doubt, despise them equally. He has instituted an agitation for a scheme of union hitherto unheard of, and is busy in getting proselytes for this scheme of his own invention. Then consider the ritualistic movement. It is carried on, against the vehement protest of all whom he accounts his spiritual governors; and it must be the means of more and more hardening him, against the very idea of humble and unquestioning submission. Such a man cannot become an endurable Catholic, until he have learned to distrust profoundly his own private judgments and impressions; to seek earnestly for supernatural guidance; to realize the all-important truth, that the Church is commissioned to teach him, and not he to teach the Church. If a large body of men, otherwise minded, obtained unhappily admission among us, we can anticipate nothing but violent and relentless conflicts against authority, issuing in some widely-extended apostasy. Now every disciplinary concession, even the very slightest, made in favour of such men, does but confirm them in that wild delusion about "negotiations" and "conditions," which (so long as it remains) must utterly incapacitate them for permanent Christian unity.

A very few words will sum up our general argument. Since Rome is infallible, union with her cannot be accomplished, except on her own dogmatic basis; i.e., by the method of absolute and unreserved submission to her authority. Those who deny the obligation of such submission, are contending

*For instance, see the Union Review of last November (p. 635). "With Rome... the older the child grows, the heavier become the restrictions; and every year Papal Encyclicals narrow the limits beyond which the utterance of thought is forbidden. . . The consequence is that a powerful and energetic mind is necessarily ill at ease in the Roman communion ... its Döllingers are suspected, its Passaglias are sickened, its Lacordaires are treated coldly, its Oxenhams meet with contempt, and every departure from the ever narrowing groove is regarded as an act of rebellion."

against God's ordinance, and are the enemies of Gospel Truth. To say that, in opposing these men, we betray indifference to the blessedness of Christian unity, is simply unmeaning. As well might it be said that S. Athanasius betrayed such indifference, when he laboured to eject Arian bishops; or S. Paul, when he anathematized even an angel from Heaven, who should preach any other Gospel than that already delivered.

ART. VI.-CHAMPAGNY'S ROMAN EMPIRE.

Les Césars. Par le Comte FRANZ DE CHAMPAGNY. Paris: Ambroise Bray. Rome et la Judée au Temps de la Chute de Néron (ans 66-72 après JésusChrist). Par le Comte F. DE CHAMPAGNY.

Les Antonins (ans de Jésus-Christ 69-180). Par le Comte DE CHAMPAGNY.

E owe our readers an apology for not having earlier inde Champagny. They have for some years obtained a degree of popularity in France which would render any recommendation there quite needless. In England we have been surprised to find them unknown, not merely to persons of general intelligence, but to some whose attention has been specially directed to the Roman empire. This is the more to be regretted because we have no work in our own language which exactly supplies their place. Neither is it at all likely that such a work will be written. We have, indeed, from Mr. Merivale an able, learned, and interesting history of the "Romans under the Empire." But no man whose eyes have not been opened by the gift of faith can fully understand the history of those centuries, of which the one great and distinguishing event was the fulfilment of that prophecy of our Divine Lord, "The kingdom of Heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened.” Mr. Merivale's tone, of course, is as different as possible from that of Gibbon. Dr. Newman quotes (in "The Church of the Fathers," if we remember right) a sentence from a distinguished Anglican, regretting that the best English writer upon ecclesiastical history should be an infidel. The fact is, that Gibbon's history is in great measure ecclesiastical, because his hatred of Christianity made him instinctively feel its presence, even where it was not prominently put forward, as