Deposing Power, and on the claims of the Roman Church to employ force, is more than made good. It was, I suppose, to put what Burnet would call a face of propriety on these and such like tenets, that one of the combatants opposed to me in the present controversy has revived an ingenious illustration of that clever and able writer, the late Cardinal Wiseman. He held that certain doctrines present to us an unseemly appearance, because we stand outside the Papal Church, even as the most beautiful window of stained glass in a church offers to those without only a confused congeries of paint and colours, while it is, to an eye viewing it from within, all glory and all beauty. But what does this amount to? It is simply to say, that when we look at the object in the free air and full light of day which God has given us, its structure is repulsive and its arrangement chaotic; but, if we will part with a great portion of that light, by passing within the walls of a building made by the hand of man, then, indeed, it will be better able to bear our scrutiny. It is an ill recommendation of a commodity, to point out that it looks the best where the light is scantiest. VII. WARRANT OF ALLEGIANCE ACCORDING TO THE VATICAN. 1. Its alleged Superiority. 2. Its real Flaws. 3. Alleged Non-interference of the Popes for Two Hundred Years. NOT satisfied with claiming to give guarantees for alleIgiance equal to those of their fellow-citizens, the champions of the Vatican have boldly taken a position in advance. They hold that they are in a condition to offer better warranty than ours, and this because they are guided by an infallible Pope, instead of an erratic private judgment; and because the Pope himself is exceedingly emphatic, even in the Syllabus, on the duties of subjects towards their rulers. Finally, all this is backed and riveted by an appeal to conduct. "The life and conduct of the Church for eighteen centuries are an ample guarantee for her love of peace and justice.' "* I would rather not discuss this "ample guarantee." Perhaps the Bishop's appeal might shake one who believed: I am certain it would not quiet one who doubted. The inculcation of civil obedience under the sanction of religion is, so far as I am aware, the principle and practice of all Christian communities. We must therefore look a little farther into the matter in order to detect the distinctive character, in this respect, of the Vatican. Unquestionably the Pope, and all Popes, are full and * Bishop Vaughan, p. 28. emphatic on the duties of subjects to rulers; but of what subjects to what rulers? It is the Church of England which has ever been the extravagantly loyal Church; I mean which has, in other days, exaggerated the doctrine of civil obedience, and made it an instrument of much political mischief. Passive obedience, non-resistance, and Divine right, with all of good or evil they involve, were specifically her ideas. In the theology now dominant in the Church of Rome, the theology which has so long had its nest in the Roman Court, these ideas prevail, but with a rider to them: obedience is to be given, Divine right is to belong, to those Princes and Governments which adopt the views of Rome, or which promote her interests: to those Princes and Governments which do right, Rome being the measure of right. I have no doubt that many outside the charmed circle praise in perfect good faith the superior bouquet and body of the wine of Roman Catholic loyalty. But those within, can they make such assertions? This is not easy to believe. The great art, nowhere else so well understood or so largely practised, is, in these matters, to seem to assert without asserting. This has been well-known at least for near five centuries, since the time of Gerson, whose name for Vaticanism is Adulatio. "Sentiens autem Adulatio quandoque nimis se cognosci, studet quasi modiciore sermone depressius uti, ut credibilior appareat."* I must say that, if Vaticanists have on this occasion paraded the superior quality of the article they vend as loyalty, they have also supplied us with the means of testing the assertion; because one and all of them assert the corrective power of the Pope over Christian Sovereigns 1728. De Potest. Eccl.,' Consideratio XII. Works, ii. 246, ed. Hague, and Governments. I do not dispute that their commodity is good, in this country, for every-day tear and wear. But as to its ultimate groundwork and principle, on which in other places, and other circumstances, it might fall back, of this I will now cite a description from one of the very highest authorities; from an epistle of a most able and conspicuous Pontiff, to whom reference has already been made, I mean Nicholas the First. When that Pontiff was prosecuting with iron will the cause against the divorce of Lothair from Theutberga, he was opposed by some Bishops within the dominions of the Emperor. Adventitius, Bishop of Metz, pleaded the duty of obeying his sovereign. Nicholas in reply described his view of that matter in a passage truly classical, which I translate from the Latin, as it is given in Baronius. "You allege, that you subject yourself to Kings and Princes, because the Apostle says 'Whether to the king, as in authority.' Well and good. Examine, however, whether the Kings and Princes, to whom you say that you submit, are truly Kings and Princes. Examine whether they govern well, first themselves, then the people under them. For if one be evil to himself, how shall he be good to others? Examine whether they conduct themselves rightly as Princes; for otherwise they are rather to be deemed tyrants, than taken for Kings, and we should resist them, and mount up against them, rather than be under them. Otherwise, if we submit to such, and do not put ourselves over them, we must of necessity encourage them in their vices. Therefore be subject to the King, as in authority, in his virtues that is to say, not his faults; as the Apostle says, for the sake of God, not against God.'"* I cite the passage, not to pass a censure in the case, but for its straightforward exposition of the doctrine, now openly and widely preferred, though not so lucidly expounded, by the teaching body of the Romish Church. *Baronius, A.D. 863, c. lxx. may Plainly enough, in point of right, the title of the temporal Sovereign is valid or null according to the view which be taken by the Pope of the nature of his conduct. "No just prince," says Archbishop Manning, can be deposed by any power on earth; but whether a prince is just or not, is a matter for the Pope to judge of.* We are told, indeed, that it is not now the custom for the Pope to depose princes: not even Victor Emmanuel.† True he does no more than exhort the crowds who wait upon him in the Vatican to seek for the restoration of those Italian sovereigns whom the people have driven out. But no man is entitled to take credit for not doing that which he has no power to do. And one of the many irregularities in the mode of argument pursued by Vaticanism is, that such credit is constantly taken for not attempting the impossible. It is as if Louis XVI., when a prisoner in the Temple, had vaunted his own clemency in not putting the head of Robespierre under the guillotine. But there are other kinds of interference and aggression, just as intolerable in principle as the exercise, or pretended exercise, of the deposing power. Have they been given up? We shall presently see.‡ 2. Its real Flaws. Cooks and controversialists seem to have this in common, that they nicely appreciate the standard of knowledge in those whose appetites they supply. The cook is tempted to send up ill-dressed dishes to masters who have slight skill in or care for cookery; and the |