So far then, as already mentioned, we are on ground common alike to Ultramontane and Gallican. But here comes in an issue, always of much importance, and just now (as it seems to us) more practically important than ever. We have seen that there is ever flowing in the Church a certain theological stream, which issues in successive doctrinal decisions. We now ask, how is this stream preserved in freshness and purity? What is the Church's security, that her course of theology shall be in the way of legitimate development and not of corruption? In particular, what are those doctrinal decisions which are to be accepted as strictly infallible?

The Gallican answers thus :-"The great divinely appointed "security for pure doctrine is, that the various churches shall "be in active intercommunion; and that thus Italians and Germans, "Irishmen and Spaniards, French and Englishmen, shall supple"ment each other's traditions, and correct each other's character"istic mistakes. Accordingly those doctrinal decisions are strictly infallible, which have run the gauntlet (so to speak) of the whole "Catholic Episcopate."

The Ultramontane speaks differently. Doctrinal purity is preserved, not by the Roman Church consulting other churches, but by other churches conforming themselves to the Roman. The Pontiff, as he is supreme and irreformable in issuing disciplinary decrees, so is also supreme and irreformable in publishing obligatory doctrinal determinations; as he has the right, when he so thinks fit, to command all Catholics what they are to do, so he has the right, when he so thinks fit, to command them what they are to believe. And more generally, within the local Roman Church is preserved, by special assistance of the Holy Ghost, indefectible purity of doctrine and tradition; in such sense, that she is the standard and source of doctrinal purity to all other churches in Christendom. This doctrinal purity is exhibited, under one aspect, in her indefectible intolerance of heresy; in the circumstance that, by instinct as it were, or rather by guidance of the Holy Ghost, she indefectibly refuses all communion with those, at any given period, whose doctrine contradicts what she has taught as of faith. But this doctrinal purity is far more widely extended. Whatever there may be occasionally of incidental and minor mistake, the general course of theological thought within her bosom is ever infallibly sound; and the securest attainable test of theological truth, on a matter not yet expressly determined, is her judgment and testimony. Now, before we go further, one or two things are manifest on the surface. Firstly, this view is far more accordant than the Gallican with such texts as << pasce oves ; "confirma fratres." Then again this is certainly the more obvious-as, for our own parts, we are confident it is the one true-interpretation of S. Irenæus's well-known "convenire propter potentiorem principalitatem."

Moreover, the Ultramontane doctrine exhibits certainly most singular harmony with the whole past course of ecclesiastical history; whereas the Gallican is the merest theory, entirely unsupported by facts. Let us take as our stand-point those various verities, which the whole Church now recognizes as certain. If we look back on the past, we shall find that in every case it was Rome which at once pointed to the true decision of existing controversies; and that other churches have come more surely and more speedily to the truth, in proportion as they have followed with greater docility Rome's salutary guidance.*

From this general view, three consequences at once follow. In the first place, the Supreme Pontiff is infallible in every doctrine, which he commands the faithful to accept with absolute and unreserved interior assent; or in other words, in every doctrine which he teaches ex cathedrâ. This inference, we say, necessarily results from the doctrine just laid down. If the Pontiff were irreformable in issuing such command of interior belief,-and yet not infallible in the doctrine so taught,-the Church herself would no longer be infallible.

Then secondly, even in cases where no infallible determination has been given, the endemic and pervasive Roman doctrinal tradition carries with it the very greatest authority, which is compatible with the absence of strict infallibility. This is partly the reason of that humble interior submission, with which the well-instructed and loyal Catholic receives all doctrinal decrees of a Pontifical congregation. Short of the Pope's utterances ex cathedrâ, there is no one kind of pronouncement which approaches these, as authentic expositions of Roman doctrine.

But thirdly, there is nothing in the doctrine we have laid down which militates against the supposition, that this or that Pontiff may make a doctrinal mistake, in cases where he is imposing no obligation of interior assent. As has often been urged by Ultramontanes, the Pope in becoming Pope does not cease to be a man,

The translator of the volume has given an illustration of this, the more valuable because so entirely unintentional. In looking back through all past history for instances in which an episcopal assembly has led Catholics astray, he has chosen (p. xi) the Latrocinium of Ephesus and the Council of Rimini. Now, of all the Councils calling themselves Ecumenical, these are the very two which the Holy See has, from first to last, consistently repudiated.

F. Newman, in his "Essay on Development," did not hesitate thus to speak of what was done at Chalcedon. "A doctrine . . . which the whole East refused as a symbol, not once but twice, patriarch by patriarch, metropolitan by metropolitan, first by the mouth of above a hundred, then by the mouth of above six hundred of its bishops was forced upon the Council. . . . for its acceptance as a definition of faith under the sanction of an anathema: forced on the Council by the resolution of the Pope of the day, acting through his legates and supported by the civil power" (p. 307).

and to have his own private opinions and since he is not infallible in these, by the very force of terms they may be mistaken. Even in the very act of irreformably imposing some doctrine, why may he not state the reasons which have led him to impose it? Yet, since it is the doctrine which he imposes on interior acceptance, and not his reasons, there is no ground for regarding the latter as infallibly just and cogent. So as regards his disciplinary decrees. If indeed any of his decrees at any given period were based on a doctrine, which the Holy See at that period had ruled to be unsound, no doubt a very serious controversial difficulty would arise. But it will happen again and again-as we just now pointed out that he is obliged to issue some disciplinary decree, say, e. g., on marriage, before the relevant doctrine has been duly explored in all its details: and it may thus possibly happen that the doctrine, which for the purposes of such decree he assumes as more probable, is at variance with that which the Holy See at a later period shall infallibly determine. On the one hand, since Popes are not impeccable, he may be carried away by levity, prejudice, or the like, and act without duly consulting his natural advisers and the traditions of his See. On the other hand, those traditions themselves may at the moment point to some other doctrine as the more probable, which later investigations will even put out of court altogether. That the enormous majority of Janus's instances (assuming for argument's sake their correctness) are precisely of this kind, is obvious on the most superficial inspection of his volume.

See then what Janus has to do, if he would adduce any solid objection against our doctrine. He has to show either (1) that some Pope has imposed on all the faithful an obligation of accepting some false doctrine with absolute and unreserved assent; or else (2) that the doctrinal mistakes, made by Popes when not teaching ex cathedrâ, have been such as to invalidate the view we have given, on the indefectible doctrinal purity of the Roman Church. We really doubt whether his warmest admirers will maintain, that he has done anything of the kind. Still we will examine the issue in greater detail.

In truth, the whole foundation of his case is his denial of the distinction, universally and emphatically made by Ultramontanes, between ex cathedrâ judgments on one hand, and a Pope's other doctrinal expositions or implications on the other. His argument is, that the distinction drawn by Ultramontanes is purely arbitrary, gratuitous, and capricious; invented for the mere purpose of glossing over an otherwise insurmountable difficulty. Yet surely nothing can be more obvious than their distinction, and nothing more easily intelligible than its ground. The Church's infallibility would be fatally compromised, if Catholics could be commanded by legitimate authority to accept

irreformably a false doctrine: but how is that infallibility compromised in the slightest degree by some Pope incidentally expressing or implying a false doctrine, where he imposes no obligation whatever of interior assent?

But why, asks Janus (p. 408), should "the Pope be held fallible when addressing himself to a part of the Church, but infallible when addressing himself to the whole?" Surely the answer is very evident. The question is not about "addressing himself," but about commanding interior assent. But the Pope never exacts absolute and unreserved assent to any doctrine from individual Catholics, except where he exacts such assent from the whole body of Christians otherwise he would himself destroy that unity of faith, which it is his very office to maintain. But no Catholic theologian has ever denied, that this or that pronouncement, addressed formally to a local church or to an individual, may be in real truth an utterance ex cathedrâ obliging all Catholics: as in the very familiar instance of S. Leo's letter to S. Flavian.

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Here we should further add, that Janus entirely misplaces, and thereby enormously exaggerates, the difference which indubitably exists among Ultramontane theologians, on the tests of an ex cathedrâ Act. They are unanimous in holding that the Pope is infallible, only and always, when his intention is cognisable, of imposing an obligation of absolute and unreserved interior assent. Their differences all turn on the point, what means are sufficient for knowing the Pope's intention. On this point undoubtedly there is much diversity: and the obvious inference to our mind is, that no universal criterion can be laid down; no cut-and-dry rule, which can at once be applied to every instance: but that theologians are often left to judge, from the circumstances of some individual case. This is the Archbishop's inference also. "No other con

ditions," he says (p. 61), "are required than this: that the doctrinal Acts be published by the Pontiff as Universal Teacher, with the intention of requiring the assent of the Church." Of course, by the very necessity of the case, the Archbishop is interpreted as speaking, not of the Pope's purely interior intention, but of an intention discoverable and ascertainable.

It is physically impossible, within our limits of space and time, to go one by one through Janus's instances of objection. This impossibility indeed does not arise from any surprising numerousness of his allegations on the contrary, considering that a learned and unscrupulous writer was culling from the whole field of ecclesiastical history, it is really amazing that he has been able to lay his hand on so few. Still, to examine them thoroughly, would involve an investigation of the Church's doctrine on Marriage, on Ordination, and, in one instance (p. 55), on the Eucharist. We must necessarily therefore make a selection: but

one case

we believe his readers will readily admit, that our selection comprises all on which he lays especial stress, and all which on the surface appear most formidable. There is no on which he speaks so peremptorily and so triumphantly, as on Eugenius IV.'s Decree to the Armenians. From this Decree, he says, it follows, on Ultramontane principles, "that the Church, whether Latin or Greek, for a thousand years had neither priests nor bishops; and consequently no sacraments, except Baptism, and perhaps Marriage" (p. 61). It is a decree, he adds, "with which [either] Papal infallibility," on the one hand, "or the whole hierarchy and sacraments of the Church on the other, "stand or fall." Here at all events we have a large quantity of very tall talk indeed. How far this tall talk corresponds with fact, we are now to consider.

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Firstly, we are to inquire whether this Decree was issued ex cathedra. That it was not formally addressed to the whole Church, is of course manifest on its surface. Still there have undoubtedly been very many ex cathedrâ Acts, not formally addressed to the whole Church; and our inquiry therefore is, whether this belongs to the number. Long before Janus's work appeared (January, 1868, p. 105 and note) we gave reasons for inclining to answer this question in the negative. Here we will further say, that the onus probandi rests entirely on Janus. The Decree purports to be a practical and catechetical instruction, addressed for their guidance to certain Armenian converts, who were prepared both to enter the Catholic Church and to accept the Latin rite. It has every appearance of being precisely this, neither more nor less of being such an instruction as might have been given by individual bishops or priests; the same in kind, though of course possessing much greater authority. It is not occupied with deciding any point of controversy which had arisen at the moment; but on the contrary, as even Janus points out (p. 61, note), it goes through the whole body of currently-received Latin dogma. This is done, as Eugenius himself states, "in a certain brief compendium," "under a certain most brief formula." And these very expressions indeed would almost suffice to decide the question before us because it is undoubtedly "brief" if considered as a catechetical instruction; whereas surely it is the very reverse of brief, if intended as a dogmatic definition. It is for Janus to show cause, why we are to suppose that the Pontiff intended more than he said or hinted; why we are to suppose that he was issuing a lengthy definition of faith, for the purpose of obliging all Catholics to interior assent.

*The impatient reader may omit the following pages on the Decree to the Armenians, without losing any part of our general argument.