unconditional duty to obey, were promulgated to an astonished world.

3. Alleged non-interference of the Popes for Two Hundred Years.

It has been alleged on this occasion by a British Peer, who I have no doubt has been cruelly misinformed, that the Popes have not invaded the province of the civil power during the last two hundred

years.

I will not travel over so long a period, but am content even with the last twenty.

1. In his Allocution of the 22nd January, 1855, Pius IX. declared to be absolutely null and void all acts of the Government of Piedmont which he held to be in prejudice of the rights of Religion, the Church, and the Roman See, and particularly a law proposed for the suppression of the monastic orders as moral entities, that is to say as civil corporations.

2. On the 26th of July in the same year, Pius IX. sent forth another Allocution, in which he recited various acts of the Government of Spain, including the establishment of toleration for non-Roman worship, and the secularisation of ecclesiastical property; and, by his own apostolical authority, he declared all the laws hereto relating to be abrogated, totally null, and of no effect.

3. On the 22nd of June, 1862, in another Allocution, Pius IX. recited the provisions of an Austrian law of the previous December, which established freedom of opinion, of the press, of belief, of conscience, of science, of education, and of religious profession, and which regulated matrimonial jurisdiction and other matters. The whole of these "abominable" laws "have been and shall be totally void, and without all force whatsoever."

In all these cases reference is made, in general terms, to Concordats, of which the Pope alleges the violation; but he never bases his annulment of the laws upon this allegation. And Schrader, in his work on the Syllabus, founds the cancellation of the Spanish law, in the matter of toleration, not on the Concordat, but on the original inherent right of the Pope to enforce the 77th Article of the Syllabus, respecting the exclusive establishment of the Roman religion.*

To provide, however, against all attempts to take refuge in this specialty, I will now give instances where no question of Concordat enters at all into the case.

1. In an Allocution of July 27, 1855, when the law for the suppression of monastic orders and appropriation of their properties had been passed in the kingdom of Sardinia, on the simple ground of his Apostolic authority, the Pope annuls this law, and all other laws injurious to the Church, and excommunicates all who had a hand in them.

2. In an Allocution of December 15, 1856, the Pope recites the interruption of negotiations for a Concordat with Mexico, and the various acts of that Government against religion, such as the abolition of the ecclesiastical forum, the secularisation of Church property, and the civil permission to members of monastic establishments to withdraw from them. All of these laws are declared absolutely null and void.

3. On the 17th of September, 1863, in an Encyclical Letter the Pope enumerates like proceedings on the part of the Government of New Granada. Among the wrongs committed, we find the establishment of freedom of worship (cujusque acatholici cultûs libertas sancita). These and all

* Schrader, p. 80.

other acts against the Church, utterly unjust and impious, the Pope, by his Apostolic authority, declares to be wholly null and void in the future and in the past.*

No more, I hope, will be heard of the allegation that for two hundred years the Popes have not attempted to interfere with the Civil Powers of the world.

But if it be requisite to carry proof a step farther, this may readily be done. In his 'Petri Privilegium,' iii. 19, n., Archbishop Manning quotes the Bull In Conâ Domini as if it were still in force. Bishop Clifford, in his Pastoral Letter (p. 9), laid it down that though all human actions were moral actions, there were many of them which belonged to the temporal power, and with which the Pope could not interfere. Among these he mentioned the assessment and payment of taxes. But is it not the fact that this Bull excommunicates "all who impose new taxes, not already provided for by law, without the Pope's leave ?" and all who impose, without the said leave, special and express, any taxes, new or old, upon clergymen, churches, or monasteries? †

I may be told that Archbishop Manning is not a safe authority in these matters, that the Bull In Coenâ Domini was withdrawn after the assembling of the Council, and the constitution Apostolica Sedis substituted for it, in

* All these citations, down to 1865, will be found in Recueil des Allocutions Consistoriales,' &c. (Paris, 1865, Adrien Leclerc et C). See also Europäische Geschichtskalender,' 1868, p. 249; Von Schulte, 'Powers of the Roman Popes,' iv. 43; Schrader, as above, Heft ii. p. 80; 'Vering, 'Katholisches Kirchenrecht' (Mainz, 1868), Band xx. pp. 170, 1, N. F. Band xiv.

† O'Keeffe, Ultramontanism,' pp. 215, 219. The reference is to sections v., xviii.

See Quirinus, p. 105; and see 'Constit. Apostolicæ Sedis' in Friedberg's Acta et Decreta Conc. Vat.,' p. 77 (Friburg, 1871).

which this reference to taxes is omitted. But if this be so, is it not an astonishing fact, with reference to the spirit of Curialism, that down to the year 1870 these preposterous claims of aggression should have been upheld and from time to time proclaimed? Indeed the new Constitution itself, dated October, 1869, the latest specimen of reform and concession, without making any reservation whatever on behalf of the laws of the several countries, excommunicates (among others)

1. All who imprison or prosecute (hostiliter insequentes) Archbishops or Bishops.

2. All who directly or indirectly interfere with any ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

3. All who lay hold upon or sequester goods of ecclesiastics held in right of their churches or benefices.

4. All who impede or deter the officers of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in the execution of their duties.

5. All who secularise, or become owners of, Church property, without the permission of the Pope.

VIII. ON THE INTRINSIC NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF THE PAPAL INFALLIBILITY DECREED IN THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

I HAVE now, I think, dealt sufficiently, though at greater length than I could have wished, with the two allegations, first, that the Decrees of 1870 made no difference in the liabilities of Roman Catholics with regard to their civil allegiance; secondly, that the rules of their Church allow them to pay an allegiance no more divided than that of other citizens, and that the claims of Ultramontanism, as against the Civil Power, are the very same with those which are advanced by Christian communions and persons generally.

I had an unfeigned anxiety to avoid all discussion of the Decree of Infallibility on its own, the religious, ground; but as matters have gone so far, it may perhaps be allowed me now to say a few words upon the nature of the extraordinary tenet, which the Bishops of one half the Christian world have now placed upon a level with the Apostles" Creed.

The name of Popery, which was formerly imposed ad invidiam by heated antagonists, and justly resented by Roman Catholics,* appears now to be perhaps the only name which describes, at once with point and with accuracy, the religion promulgated from the Vatican in 1870. The change made was immense. Bishop Thirlwall, one of the ablest English writers of our time, and one imbued almost beyond any other with what the Germans eulogise as the historic mind, said in his Charge of 1872, that the

* Petri Privilegium,' part ii. pp. 71-91.