to recast their general form would probably mislead. I proceed, then, to deal with them on their merits.

More than one friend of mine, among those who have been led to join the Roman Catholic communion, has made this passage the subject, more or less, of expostulation. Now, in my opinion, the assertions which it makes are, as coming from a layman who has spent most and the best years of his life in the observation and practice of politics, not aggressive but defensive.

It is neither the abettors of the Papal Chair, nor any one who, however far from being an abettor of the Papal Chair, actually writes from a Papal point of view, that has a right to remonstrate with the world at large; but it is the world at large, on the contrary, that has the fullest right to remonstrate, first with His Holiness, secondly with those who share his proceedings, thirdly even with such as passively allow and accept them.

I therefore, as one of the world at large, propose to expostulate in my turn. I shall strive to show to such of my Roman Catholic fellowsubjects as may kindly give me a hearing that, after the singular steps which the authorities of their Church have in these last years thought fit to take, the people of this country, who fully believe in their loyalty, are entitled, on purely civil grounds, to expect from them some declaration or manifestation of opinion, in reply to that ecclesiastical party in their Church who have laid down, in their name, principles adverse to the purity and integrity of civil allegiance.

Undoubtedly my allegations are of great breadth. Such broad allegations require a broad and a deep foundation. The first question which they raise is, Are they, as to the material part of them, true? But even their truth might not suffice to show that their publication was opportune. The second question, then, which they raise is, Are they, for any practical purpose, material? And there is yet a third, though a minor, question, which arises out of the propositions in connection with their authorship, Were they suitable to be set forth by the present writer?

To these three questions I will now set myself to reply. And the matter of my reply will, as I conceive, constitute and convey an appeal to the understandings of my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, which I trust that, at the least, some among them may deem not altogether unworthy of their consideration.

From the language used by some of the organs of Roman Catholic opinion, it is, I am afraid, plain that in some quarters they have given deep offence. Displeasure, indignation, even fury, might be said to mark the language which in the heat of the moment has been expressed here and there. They have been hastily treated as an attack made upon Roman Catholics generally, nay, as an insult offered them. It is obvious to reply, that of Roman Catholics generally they state nothing. Together with a reference to "converts," of which I shall say more, they constitute generally a free and strong animadversion on the conduct of the Papal Chair, and of its advisers and abettors. If I am told that he who animadverts upon these assails thereby, or insults, Roman Catholics at large, who do not choose their ecclesiastical rulers, and are

not recognised as having any voice in the government of their Church, I cannot be bound by or accept a proposition which seems to me to be so little in accordance with reason.

Before all things, however, I should desire it to be understood that, in the remarks now offered, I desire to eschew not only religious bigotry, but likewise theological controversy. Indeed, with theology, except in its civil bearing, with theology as such, I have here nothing whatever to do. But it is the peculiarity of Roman theology that, by thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion. To quietminded Roman Catholics, it must be a subject of infinite annoyance, that their religion is, on this ground more than any other, the subject of criticism; more than any other, the occasion of conflicts with the State and of civil disquietude. I feel sincerely, how much hardship their case entails. But this hardship is brought upon them altogether by the conduct of the authorities of their own Church. Why did theology enter so largely into the debates of Parliament on Roman Catholic Emancipation? Certainly not because our statesmen and debaters of fifty years ago had an abstract love of such controversies, but because it was extensively believed that the Pope of Rome had been and was a trespasser upon ground which belonged to the civil authority, and that he affected to determine by spiritual prerogative questions of the civil sphere. This fact, if fact it be, and not the truth or falsehood, the reasonableness or unreasonableness, of any article of purely religious belief, is the whole and sole cause of the mischief. To this fact, and to this fact alone, my language is referable: but for this fact, it would have been neither my duty nor my desire to use it. All other Christian bodies are content with freedom in their own religious domain. Orientals, Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Nonconformists, one and all, in the present day, contentedly and thankfully accept the benefits of civil order; never pretend that the State is not its own master; make no religious claims to temporal possessions or advantages; and, consequently, never are in perilous collision with the State. Nay more, even so I believe it is with the mass of Roman Catholics individually. But not so with the leaders of their Church, or with those who take pride in following the leaders. Indeed, this has been made matter of boast :--

"There is not another Church so called " (than the Roman), "nor any community professing to be a Church, which does not submit, or obey, or hold its peace, when the civil governors of the world command."-The Present Crisis of the Holy See,' by H. E. Manning, D.D. London, 1861, p. 75.

The Rome of the Middle Ages claimed universal monarchy. The modern Church of Rome has abandoned nothing, retracted nothing. Is that all? Far from it. By condemning (as will be seen) those who, like Bishop Doyle in 1826,* charge the medieval Popes with aggression, she unconditionally, even if covertly, maintains what the mediaval Popes maintained. But even this is not the worst. The worst by far is that whereas, in the national Churches and communities of the * Lords' Committee, March 18, 1826. Report, p. 190.

Middle Ages, there was a brisk, vigorous, and constant opposition to these outrageous claims, an opposition which stoutly asserted its own orthodoxy, which always caused itself to be respected, and which even sometimes gained the upper hand; now, in this nineteenth century of ours, and while it is growing old, this same opposition has been put out of court, and judicially extinguished within the Papal Church, by the recent decrees of the Vatican. And it is impossible for persons accepting those decrees justly to complain, when such documents are subjected in good faith to a strict examination as respects their compatibility with civil right and the obedience of subjects.

In defending my language, I shall carefully mark its limits. But al defence is reassertion, which properly requires a deliberate reconsideration; and no man who thus reconsiders should scruple, if he find so much as a word that may convey a false impression, to amend it. Exactness in stating truth according to the measure of our intelligence, is an indispensable condition of justice, and of a title to be heard. My propositions, then, as they stood, are these:

1. That "Rome has substituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith."

2. That she has refurbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused.

3. That no one can now become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.

4. That she ("Rome") has equally repudiated modern thought and ancient history.

II. THE FIRST AND THE FOURTH PROPOSITIONS.

Of the first and fourth of these propositions I shall dispose rather summarily, as they appear to belong to the theological domain. They refer to a fact, and they record an opinion. One fact to which they refer is this: that, in days within my memory, the constant, favourite, and imposing argument of Roman controversialists was the unbroken and absolute identity in belief of the Roman Church from the days of our Saviour until now. No one, who has at all followed the course of this literature during the last forty years, can fail to be sensible of the change in its present tenour. More and more have the assertions of continuous uniformity of doctrine receded into scarcely penetrable shadow. More and more have another series of assertions, of a living authority, ever ready to open, adopt, and shape Christian doctrine according to the times, taken their place. Without discussing the abstract compatibility of these lines of argument, I note two of the immense practical differences between them. In the first, the office claimed by the Church is principally that of a witness to facts; in the second, principally that of a judge, if not a revealer, of doctrine. In the first, the processes which the Church undertakes are subject to a constant challenge and appeal to history; in the second, no amount of historical testimony can avail against the unmeasured power of the theory of development. Most important, most pregnant considerations, these, at

IN THEIR BEARING ON CIVIL ALLEGIANCE.

7

least for two classes of persons: for those who think that exaggerated doctrines of Church power are among the real and serious dangers of the age; and for those who think that against all forms, both of superstition and of unbelief, one main preservative is to be found in maintaining the truth and authority of history, and the inestimable value of the historic spirit.

So much for the fact; as for the opinion, that the recent Papal decrees are at war with modern thought, and that, purporting to enlarge the necessary creed of Christendom, they involve a violent breach with history, this is a matter unfit for me to discuss, as it is a question of Divinity; but not unfit for me to have mentioned in my article ; since the opinion given there is the opinion of those with whom I was endeavouring to reason, namely, the great majority of the British public.

If it is thought that the word violence was open to exception, I regret I cannot give it up. The justification of the ancient definitions of the Church, which have endured the storms of 1500 years, was to be found in this, that they were not arbitrary or wilful, but that they wholly sprang from, and related to theories rampant at the time, and regarded as menacing to Christian belief. Even the Canons of the Council of Trent have in the main this amount, apart from their matter, of presumptive warrant. But the decrees of the present perilous Pontificate have been passed to favour and precipitate prevailing currents of opinion in the ecclesiastical world of Rome. The growth of what is often termed among Protestants Mariolatry, and of belief in Papal Infallibilty, was notoriously advancing, but it seems not fast enough to satisfy the dominant party. To aim the deadly blows of 1854 and 1870 at the old historic, scientific, and moderate school, was surely an act of violence; and with this censure the proceeding of 1870 has actually been visited by the first living theologian now within the Roman Communion, I mean, Dr. John Henry Newman; who has used these significant words, among others: "Why should an aggressive and insolent faction be allowed to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful."†

III. THE SECOND PROPOSITION.

I take next my second Proposition: that Rome has refurbished, and paraded anew, every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused.

Is this then a fact, or is it not?

I must assume that it is denied; and therefore I cannot wholly pass by the work of proof. But I will state in the fewest possible words, and with references, a few propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned by the See of Rome during my own generation, and especially within the last twelve or fifteen years. And, in order that I may do nothing towards importing passion into what is matter of * Decree of the Immaculate Conception.

See the remarkable Letter of Dr. Newman to Bishop Ullathorne, in the 'Guardian' of April 6, 1870.

pure argument, I will avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed.

1. Those who maintain the Liberty of the Press. Encyclical Letter of Pope Gregory XVI., in 1831: and of Pope Pius IX., in 1864.

2. Or the liberty of conscience and of worship. Encyclical of Pius IX., December 8, 1864.

3. Or the liberty of speech. Syllabus' of Dec. 8, 1864. Prop. lxxix. Encyclical of Pope Pius IX., December 8, 1864.

4. Or who contend that Papal judgments and decrees may, without sin, be disobeyed, or differed from, unless they treat of the rules (dogmata) of faith or morals. Ibid.

5. Or who assign to the State the power of defining the civil rights (jura) and province of the Church. Syllabus' of Pope Pius IX., Dec. 8, 1864. Ibid. Prop. xix.

6. Or who hold that Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have transgressed the limits of their power, and usurped the rights of princes. Ibid. Prop. xxiii.

(It must be borne in mind, that "Ecumenical Councils" here mean Roman Councils, not recognised by the rest of the Church. The Councils of the early Church did not interfere with the jurisdiction of the civil power.)

7. Or that the Church may not employ force. (Ecclesia vis inferendæ potestatem non habet.) Syllabus,' Prop. xxiv.

8. Or that power, not inherent in the office of the Episcopate, but granted to it by the civil authority, may be withdrawn from it at the discretion of that authority. Ibid. Prop. xxv.

9. Or that the civil immunity (immunitas) of the Church and its ministers, depends upon civil right. Ibid. Prop. xxx.

10. Or that in the conflict of laws civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail. Ibid. Prop. xlii.

11. Or that any method of instruction of youth, solely secular, may be approved. Ibid. Prop. xlviii.

12. Or that knowledge of things philosophical and civil, may and should decline to be guided by Divine and Ecclesiastical authority. Ibid. Prop. lvii.

13. Or that marriage is not in its essence a Sacrament. Ib., Prop. lxvi. 14. Or that marriage, not sacramentally contracted, (si sacramentum excludatur) has a binding force. Ibid. Prop. lxxiii.

15. Or that the abolition of the Temporal Power of the Popedom would be highly advantageous to the Church. Ibid. Prop. lxxvi.

Also lxx.

16. Or that any other religion than the Roman religion may be established by a State. Ibid. Prop. lxxvii.

17. Or that in "Countries called Catholic," the free exercise of other religions may laudably be allowed. Syllabus,' Prop. lxxviii.

18. Or that the Roman Pontiff ought to come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. Ibid. Prop. lxxx.†

My rendering is disputed: and the passage is obscure.-W. E. G. Dec. 2, 1874.

For the original passages from the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX., see Appendix A.