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There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031386422 ComcU Calbolic union Ubtaty THE CHURCH. T. LALOR, Censor Deput. Stjnjmmalar. ►p JOANNES, Epus. Southivarcmsis, Die 8 Martii, 1890. THE CHURCH OR, What do Anglicans mean by 'The Church'? Cornell Catholic ^^ Union Libraiy J. B. BAGSHAWE, D.D., Canon Penitentiary of Southwark, AUTHOR OF ' THE CREDENTIALS OF THE CHURCH," 'THE THRESHOLD OF THE CHURCH,' &C. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY ST. ANSELM'S SOCIETY. 6, Agar Street, Strand, W.C. 1890. PREFACE. The object of this book is to consider the question : What is ' the Church ' ? This question is always one of vital importance in the settlement of religious differences, but it assumes a special urgency at the present day. We hear of ' the Church ' and ' Church Authority ' in all directions, and it would seem that men are becoming more alive to the fact that, if Christianity is to be defended at all, it must be defended on the basis of some distinct Church Authority. If the Christian Revelation is to be represented by nothing more weighty and trustworthy than private judgment, how can it meet the attacks of its opponents ? Private judgment means an indefinite number of discordant opinions, no two of which precisely agree : what strength can it have to meet the flood of agnosticism and irreligion to be found in these days ? vi Preface. Revelation must rest on the authority of some divinely appointed association, or it cannot stand at all : on this theory it must be defended, or it cannot be defended at all. Our Lord made the Church the ' pillar and ground of the Truth : ' if that pillar is taken away, or put out of sight, no wonder if the Truth appears to be without a founda^ tion. Our Lord meant His Revelation to be defended by His Church ; if His Church is ignored, no wonder His Revelation appears defenceless. It is not much good to talk about things unless we know what we are talking abbut ; and yet a great many people who have much to say about 'the Church,' seem to have only the vaguest idea of what they themselves mean by the word. The object of this book is to urge upon all who believe in a Church to consider exactly what they understand by it ; to get them to look into the question, and see whether they have any definition of a Church in their own minds, and what that definition is. If they would only do this, I cannot but think that controversies would easily be settled. I have already written on parts of this subject,, in the Credentials of the Church, and the TJireshold Preface. vii of the Church, and I hope this book, Tlie Church,. the object of which is to consider more carefully the definition of the Church, will be found useful to inquiring minds. I have begun by discussing the best Anglican scheme of Church Authority which I have seen, and I endeavour to show that it is an impossible com- promise between Authority and Private Judgment,, and is liable to all the objections raised against the ' Roman System.' I then dwell upon what I consider the necessary and essential qualities of a Church, and try to prove that they are only to be found in the Roman Church. I ought to say that the first part of the book was written some years ago, though since revised. This will account for my discussing Dr. Mahan's Exercise of Faith, a book which, I dare say, is now out of date. However, I have been advised that my comments on his book, and answers to his difficulties, will still be useful, so I publish them as part of the consideration of the nature of a Church, which is my principal object. St. Elizabeth's, Richmond. December, i88g. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A SINGLE INFALLIBILITY. Introduction Anglican position Case for it stated The same considered Childliliie faith . An accurate balance . Counterpoise to infallibiUty The tutored ear Divine faith and miracles Intellectual cobwebs . Spiritual honesty Juiceless pastures Single infallibility Mere verbal consistency Galileo Teacher and Judge . Karl von Gebler CHAPTER II. THE NATUKE OF FAITH. The Anglican case stated . -PAGE Faith not necessarily sudden or miraculous . . 44 Cardinal Newman's account of it 47 Faith in those who err invincibly 47 Faith and argument . . 48 Nature of the Church's Infalli- biUty 51 Explicit faith . . . .52 ' Triple cord of witnesses ' . -33 Effect of religious certainty . 54 Faith and love , . . 54 Searching for a guide , . 55 The ' Mountain of Papal Infalli- biUty ' 57 Continued Divine, guidance . 60 Unity of spirit . . . .61 ' Altars of Joseph and Mary ' 67 Supreme and inferior honour . 68 CHAPTER III. THE FATHERS ON CHURCH AUTHORITY. ■34 The AngUcan case stated St. Vincent of Lerins . 74 74 Contents. ' Universality, Antiquity, Con- sent' 76 St. Jerome and St. Augustine . 78 The heathen coming to St.Chry- sostom 79 Divinely appointed governments 82 St. Cyprian and the Pope . 89 Firmilianus . . . -92 A ' Rhetorical age ' . -93 When the pilot came on board . 94 Argument for the Pope's Stipre- macy . . . . loi Infallibility defined too late — . 114 And comes with four 'special marks' 116 CHAPTER IV. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN THEORIES. Anglican case stated Analogy to science . The 'three -fold nature of man' ' Truly Catholic ' and ' Papal ' doctrines .... ' Counterpoise to the pulpit ' . ' Creature worship ' . The Jewish Church . ' Paternal guidance ' Apostolic teaching . The ' act of Baptism ' Grounds of faith ' Universal Supremacy ' What is the Church ? ' Unity of acquiescence A ' four-squared basis ' The ' Private interpretationist'" 132 133 135 136 138 139 141 143 144 I4S 14& 152 CHAPTER V. WHAT IS A CHURCH ? No definition attempted by An- glicans .... A body .... Prophecies Visible and conspicuous . Definite limits . Organization . Pillars .... Different ranks Central authority Purpose for which organized Witness .... Teacher .... Anglican Church Diocesan theory Cardinal Newman . The Catholic Church 159 161 162 163 164 i6s 167 16S 170 172 I7S 177 179 \Zz 183 193 CHAPTER VI. CHRIST'S WITNESS. A witness necessary . . 196. Provided in the Old Law • 197 The Apostles witnesses . 198 The kind required . . 200^ A corporate body . 201 Qualities . . 202 Identity . . 203 Cross-examination . 204 Consistency . . 204 Persistence • 205 The Roman Church . 20& Holy Scripture . 211 Contents. XI PAGE PAGE The Church of England . . 2X2 Her watchful rule . • 257 Is it a witness ? . 217 The Church of England as a The ' Branch Church ' . . 219 teacher. . 262 The Greek Church . 223 Her organs . 264 The Archbishop . 264 Convocation . . 265 CHAPTER VII. Many religions Missions . . 267 . 270 TEACHER AND GUIDE. ' Pan-Anglican ' Synods • 273 A teacher needed . The Old Law . Dogma and sacraments . • 23s . 240 242 The ' Branch Church ' Oriental Churches . Difficulties • 273 ■ 277 • 277 Moral teaching . 250 Commanding and exhorting Qualities of teacher . . 251 2SS APPENDIX. Seen in the Roman Church 2SS On Intention . . 280 ERRATA. P. 2, lines 12 and i5, for Lichfield read Lincoln. P. 276, line 16, ioT.gnviously read grievously . \ THE CHURCH: WHAT DO ANGLICANS MEAN BY IT ? CHAPTER I. A SINGLE INFALLIBILITY. Introduction — Anglican position — Case for it stated — Same considered — Childlike faith — An accurate balance — ' Counterpoise to In- fallibility ' — ' The tutored ear ' — Divine faith and miracles — ' Intellectual cobwebs ' — ' Spiritual honesty ' — ' Juiceless pas- tures ' — ' Single infallibility ' — ' Mere verbal consistence ' — Galileo — Teacher and Judge — Karl von Gebler. The position and opinions of the Anglican party in the Church of England, their progress and their difficulties, must always be a subject of great interest to Catholics. They do not like us very much, it is true, and some of their controversialists say very bitter things about us, but still we cannot help feeling a great sympathy with them. Their principles are true as far as they go — although the inconsistency of their position must ever prevent these principles from doing permanent work — and they love and reverence, as far as controversial exigencies will B 2 TJie Church. allow them, what we love and reverence — how then can we help sympathizing with them ? We have, moreover, a special duty towards them. We see them so near the Catholic Church, in one sense : professing principles which ought to lead them straight into the Church : are we not bound to keep on doing what little we can towards clearing up difficulties, and removing obstacles, so that their principles may be able to take their legitimate course and bring them into the fold of Christ ? At the present moment the case of the Bishop of Lichfield, which has excited so much public interest, can hardly fail to turn the attention of all thinking people to the position held by the Church of England, and the authority claimed for it. The Bishop of Lichfield is to be tried before the highest tribunals of the Church of England for certain external practices of ritual. Of course these external acts mean something, and are taken by both parties to imply certain principles and doctrines. If it were not so, no reasonable man would care very much whether the minister officiating wore vestments or not ; whether he lighted candles or burned incense or not; or at which side of the Communion-table he stood ; whether East or North. These things mean momentous doctrines. Is there priestly power or not in the Church of England ? Are there real sacraments, or mere external conven- tional forms, of no real efficacy? And then the question goes deeper — to the groundwork of all : Is A Single Infallibility. 3 there any authority on earth which men are bound to obey in such matters? Is there any authority able to decide questions of faith? Or is each one to go his own way? If there is such an authority, where is it to be found ? The question is being discussed whether the Archbishop has a right to sit in judgment on the doctrine or practice of another Bishop, or whether a synod of the province is the proper judge, or whether it should be referred to the Queen in Council ; and many Acts of Parliament are quoted, and many precedents cited, but surely when once the subject is started, no reasonable man can stop short of the real question at issue : Has any one a right to decide in religious matters? Can any one judge any one «lse ? If so, how is this authority derived ? Such an authority clearly must come from God, and every one has a right to ask for some theory, at any rate, as to how, to whom, and on what conditions this authority was bestowed ; and this involves the whole position of Anglicans, since they are the party who claim to possess a divinely appointed authority for what they consider their branch of the Church. It seems therefore a time when Catholics should carefully discuss these questions, not because we want to undervalue or ridicule our opponents, or to take advantage of what may appear to be an embarrassing situation, but because we want zealous and intelligerit men — as we believe a great many of them to be — to reconsider the whole position. We are confident 4 TJte Church. that if they can be prevailed upon to do this, a great many must necessarily be brought into the Catholic Church, and therefore every little effort in this direction is likely to do good, if only it is made in the right spirit. But now comes our difficulty. There can be no really useful controversy unless we descend to prin- ciples, and compare the logical and intellectual ground on which opposing systems rest ; and it is very difficult to find the Anglican position anywhere clearly put forward. There are indeed many contro- versial books and newspapers of one kind — that is,, like Dr. Littledale's Plain Reasons against Joining the Church of Rome — but these do not profess to give any statement of their own grounds, but content themselves with finding objections against us — as if any number of such objections would suffice to make their own position tenable. When we want, therefore, to get beyond the very unsatisfactory stage of finding fault with our neighbours, or answering objections, we are met by the difficulty that we do not know what their system really is, and how they propose to defend it. Our colours show out very plainly, but we can't make out theirs. Everybody knows exactly what the system of the Catholic Church is — whether he likes it or dislikes it — and can choose his own time and way of attacking it ; but when we, on our part, want to go a little deeper into the controversy, we have little more than guess-work to go by. A Single Infallibility. 5 The whole controversy appears to turn on the question : " What do you mean by a Church ? " We have to do with people who admit, and, indeed, loudly proclaim, that there is a visible Church, but the question arises, What does a Church mean ? What is its nature, and what are its essential attributes? It is clear that we cannot hope to arrive at any conclusion unless we begin by settling this point. We may go on for ever arguing about a Church, if, all the while, we mean one thing and they mean something else. I am convinced that if our opponents could be induced to bring clearly before their own minds what it is that they mean when they speak about the Church, and to give us a precise definition of their meaning, we should have advanced a long way in the settlement of our differences. I wish, therefore, in these pages to go, as carefully as I can, into the meaning of 'the Church,' and, to do so, I propose first to consider the position which Anglicans take up about the Church, and, secondly, to draw out as clearly as I can what must necessarily be the nature and characteristics of a Church instituted by God, and then to compare the position of the Roman Church with that taken by Anglicans, so as to see which agrees best with these essential characteristics. Our difficulty, however, is to find out precisely what is the position assumed by Anglicans. We can, of course, form our own ideas of what it 6 The Church. is, and must be; but this is very unsatisfactory.. It is like reckoning without your host. Instead of being a controversy wjth a living opponent, it is rather like setting up a lay figure in order to knock, it down again. I have therefore taken a book which I met with some years ago. It is, to be sure, rather antiquated by this time, but as far as I know, the line of controversy is now pretty much what it was then, and at any rate, the arguments are drawn out with considerable force, and are arguments which are likely to come up again and again. It is, at least, better than putting forward arguments of my own and trying to demolish thena. The book I mean is The Exercise of Faith : A Book for Doubters. By the Rev. Milo Mahan, D.D.. It appeared originally in 1851, but was republished in 1877, with a Preface by Rev. A. Brinkman, of All Saints, Margaret Street. It is a book of ability, and is written in a fair and argumentative spirit. There are, indeed, some passages which Catholics might have wished omitted, but still, especially considering that it was written at a time of religious excitement, there is not much to complain of. The general position of the author seems to be this. There is a place to be found between authority and private judgment. There must be a real teach- ing authority in religion, but it need not be of that, absolute, imperious character which Catholics attri- A Single Infallibility. 7 bute to it. The author thinks that there can be an authority appointed to teach — but subject to the personal opinion of those who are to be taught : that is, that it can be left to the judgment of indi- viduals how far they are to listen, and yet that the teaching authority will not necessarily become an empty form — or, as it has been concisely put — that ' authority may be real, without being absolute.' The writer brings forward a great many objections to the Roman theory, and the object of his book is to show that there can be a system of real teaching authority in religion which does not present the same difficulties. The consideration of difficulties, there- fore, forms an important part of the discussion. I have given the writer's argument, as fairly and as forcibly as I can, in a continuous form at the beginning of each chapter, and then I proceed to consider what it amounts to, and what has to be said on the other side. In the first chapter of the Exercise of Faith, Dr. Mahan states the question at issue in a passage taken from Father Penny's treatise, called The Exercise of Faith Impossible except in the Catholic Church. The passage is this : ' The principle of Catholics is to test what they read by what they hear, and that of others is to test what they hear by what they read. The one is faith, and the other is only opinion! This seems rather a vague statement of the question. I suppose it means that if God has ap- 8 TJie Church. pointed a guide, that guide must necessarily be our ultimate authority in matters of Faith, and its autho- rity must be the test of all religious opinions from whatever source they may be derived. On this passage Dr. Mahan proceeds to argue : and I condense his argument in the following way, putting it as forcibly as I can, and giving his own words as often as possible. He argues : I. Our Lord tells us we are to be 'like little children.' Here nature herself gives us an illustration of what our faith should be like. A child, at first, by instinct and nature, implicitly believes what its parents tell it. Later on, however, as its faculties strengthen, it learns, by observation and experience, that its parents are not the ultimate authority, although always to be respected. Its first faith is changed for a more dis- criminating belief as it 'gradually comes into possession of a system of morals and a law of action ' (p. 7)in some degree independent of its parents. This is a type of Christian belief Faith in the teaching of the Church is an instinct and a grace — and is like the implicit trust of childhood. As we grow older spiritually, other faculties besides that of trustfulness are brought into working order. We become better instructed, more scientific and intel- lectual, and then we learn that, though we are still to respect the teaching of the Church, we must test, confirm, and modify her teaching — so as to have not one single witness but many. All authorities ought to have their proper weight A Single Infallibility. g 'A child's soul is a balance, the scales of which are so clean, and so empty, and so equally poised, that a feather's weight, in either, will determine any question' (p. s). 'The scales of a man's soul are not so empty: if they are kept equally clean, however, from sordid considerations, they will vibrate with equal facility to the smallest weight of truth ' (p. S). If they are so kept, then, he is in a childlike disposition for faith. He should put into the balance the testimony of many witnesses, and allow his mind to be swayed impartially by the preponderating weight. The weight for these scales should be the testi- mony of all his faculties. He will be most childlike * who is sceptical with regard to none of his faculties ' (p. 6). To change the metaphor : a man ought to make of the three-fold testimony of his 'heart and mind and soul' (p. 6) a ' triple cord of witnesses which is not easily broken' (p. 5). If he does so he will be like St. John, who bears witness to ' that which was from the beginning, which he had heard, which he had seen with his eyes, and which his hands Itad handled, of tlu Word of Life ' (p. 7). It is manifest, indeed, that there must be more than one witness to be interrogated. St. Paul says : 'Though we or an angel from Heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be anathema ' (p. 9) ; and St. Peter significantly adds : ' We have also a more sure word of prophecy : whereunto ye do well to take heed ' (p. 9), by which he clearly 'makes the written Word 10 The Church. a co-witness of his own testimony and that of his successors. Nay, by calling it a " more sure word," he makes it the more reliable test of the two' (p. 9). The Apostles themselves, then, established a kind of 'counterpoise to the weight of their own infalli- bility' (p. lo). The moment they had written any- thing, that became fixed, and 'the Word written must test the Word spoken ' (p. lo). And to show that we are right in thus comparing witnesses, we see, in fact, that where this balance of testimony, and these different sources of knowledge have been used, the Holy Ghost enables a man ' to strike the balance among them with childlike facility' (p. 14). 'As in a fine piece of music an unmusical ear hears only a babel of basses, trebles, altos, and tenors, not knowing which is which, and is especially unable to catch the air which runs like a silver thread through all ; but an ear well trained, distinguishes each without effort, and picks out the air from the wilderness of sounds, and follows it with a glad and unhesitating facility: so faith is the divinely taught harmony of a well-balanced soul' (p. 15). On the other hand the Roman idea of making faith depend on listening to one infallible authority is 'an absolute dogmatic despotism' (p. i), and a 'mere will-worship and voluntary humility of pre- ferring the credulous ear to the more wakeful and critical understanding ' (p. 6). ' The bit and bridle of an absolute single infalli- A Single Infallibility. ii bility would imply that God's children are not to be guided but driven ' (p. 1 3). The natural result of this is that instead of making the simple and ignorant wise, as St. Paul boasts of having done, it makes the 'intellectual, and critical, and suspicious, such as are generally modern converts, become foolish enough to believe any fable' (p. 17). The effect of proclaiming the infallibility of one authority is to corrupt the very source of all know- ledge. Catholics generally must, in practice, receive the statements of fact made to them by their pastors — such as of the existence of certain indulgences (p. 22), or of the working of certain miracles, just as if these things were part of the Word once delivered to the Saints. St. Thomas Aquinas says, ' falsum non posse subesse fidei' — so whatever is taught as matter of belief must be true. How are the little ones to distinguish when two things are preached, one abstractedly de fide, the other abstractedly a mere matter of opinion, but both laid down with equal positiveness of assertion' (p. 21). It is clear, therefore, that Romanists must be led to give implicit trust to fables. 'In genuine childhood, a certain credulity is graceful and becoming. But when a man gets down on all-fours, and tries to play child, it excites only a feeling of disgust' (p. 17, note). Indeed, 'these practical and popular impostures rot the tree of spiritual honesty clear down to the root; and then 12 Tlie Church. new dogmas can " conquer History," as often as it may please the Pope and the Jesuits ' (p. 24, note). Therefore, Faith will be cautious. ' It will seek no easy solution by eliminating one or more of the witnesses. It will listen to them all. It will test them each by each' (p. 25). The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church answers questions about authority and private inter- pretation 'explicitly enough for practical purposes' (p. 11). She says, 'The Church Itath authority in controversies of faith,' but at the same time frankly commits the Creed and the Bible to all and each of her members, as containing all things necessary to salva- tion, and thoroughly to be believed and received. She says plainly enough, Hear us, but with equal distinct- ness she says. To the law and to the testimony ; for if they speak not according to them there is no truth in them. She says practically through all her teachings, ' He that heareth God, heareth us,' but with that noble disdain of mere verbal consistency, which is a mark of the true Catholic mind, she says, with equal fear- lessness of consequences of man's deducing, ' The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you ' (p. 1 2). Such is the line of argument pursued in Dr. Mahan's first chapter, which I have drawn out as well as I can, and it presents some interesting questions for discussion. Let us begin with the comparison between the belief which a little child has in what its parents tell it, and the faith which A Single Infallibility. 13 Christians have in the Church. There is indeed an analogy — but this analogy only serves to bring out the distinction more clearly. A child has, at first, an undoubting, instinctive, faith in its parents, and then, as its faculties develope, its intelligence points out that its parents cannot be the ultimate authority. It must see that they make no pretence to any special commission or means of knowledge which is not common to all around, itself included, that the subject-matter of their teaching is, as a rule, to be ascertained by experience, and, finally, that it would, on the face of it, be absurd to imagine that thousands of people all placed in a position similar to that of his parents can all be infallible — and therefore, whilst he continues with increasing faculties to respect his parents, he does so, subject to the teaching of other authorities. With regard to the teaching of the Church, the Christian begins also with an instinctive, unreflecting belief, but, as his faculties enlarge, he comes to see intellectually that if it be the Church of God, appointed by Him to teach men, it must be the ultimate authority. He will see that it has, and must have, a unique position amongst men, and, by the very force of that position, it must be infallible as to all the things it is appointed to teach. That faith therefore which was instinctive to begin with, as the understanding matures, changes — always with the assistance of God's grace — to faith resting on more intellectual grounds, in which all the powers of the mind have a part. 14 The Church. As for testing and confirming the teaching of the Church by bringing in other witnesses, there is abundant opportunity for doing so, in the sense of studying to see how the truth taught you by God in one way, corresponds, or tallies, if I may say so, with what He teaches in another. In the sense, however, of testing to see whether the Church is teaching you truly or not, it is plain that if you are competent to pronounce it to be wrong, it is no divinely appointed guide at all. 2. I next proceed to the rather strange idea that the Christian's soul is to be like a perfectly accurate balance into which different weights may be cast ; which is faithfully to proclaim the preponderance of weight, by the side to which it inclines. Does Dr. Mahan really consider this to represent faith ? If you have a slight preponderance of weight, for example, in favour of our Lord's Divinity — and are aware (as in such a case you clearly would be) that to-morrow the scale may turn the other way, can you be said to have any faith in our Lord's Divinity ? I think the very simile refutes itself more strongly than anything I could say. But our author says we are to use all our faculties, and to be 'sceptical about none of them,' so as to make them a triple cord of witnesses. Here we come to the grand fallacy which runs through the whole book. The author speaks as if, according to the Catholic system, it were necessary to shut out this witness or the other ; to neglect this or that faculty A Single Infallibility. ij or means of knowledge ; to let the understanding slumber, and to remain uneducated ; and then he fails to see that he is simply begging the question all the time ! If the Church is really what she professes to be, a guide appointed by God, and the message she teaches is a true one, why should we be obliged to shut our eyes, neglect witnesses and so forth ? It is plain then that he assumes that the Church is not such a guide, and that her teaching is not true. Once grant that, and obviously there is nothing more to argue about. 3. The next point is one which to me appears very conclusive — though, I am afraid, not as the author would wish. I would willingly rest the whole, con- troversy on it. He says the Apostles ' created,' in the very nature of the case, a kind of counterpoise to the weight of their own infallibility (p. lb), and quotes the passage, ' If an angel from Heaven,' &c. Does Dr. Mahan really mean to say that if St. Paul had taught the Corinthians (for example) any doctrine, it would have been open to them to answer, 'We will not receive your teaching because of such a passage in your first Epistle.' If, on his own showing, his present and his past doctrine did not agree, the logical result might be that he was not to be believed at all. It might be that he never had had the commission to teach, or that he had been deprived of it, and was no longer an Apostle of God — but to say that he had ' the weight of his infallibility ' on both occasions, but was not to 1 6 Tlie Church. be allowed to know the meaning of his own words previously uttered, is certainly a remarkable view of the case. It seems likewise a strange interpretation of St. Peter's words, ' We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,' to make it mean that his hearers were to judge of the truth of the doctrine he had taught to them by its correspondence with the prophecies, and that, indeed, the prophecies furnished a surer means of knowledge than his own words. Surely if St. Peter and St. Paul were the Apostles of God, they must have been perfectly aware that their doctrine was true, and was in agreement with the ,' prophetical word,' and that it never could be other- wise, and therefore that it must have been quite un- necessary for their followers to test it, and that any interpretations of Scripture not in accordance with their teaching must necessarily be false. They would have put the Scriptures freely and without fear into the hands of their disciples as •profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,' but certainly not that their disciples might test the truth of their teaching or find a ' counterpoise to the weight of their infallibility.' The only thing that would make them hesitate to put Holy Scripture before all men, would be the fear lest ' the unlearned and unstable should wrest them to their own destruc- tion ' (2 St. Peter iii. 16). This is precisely what the Catholic Church does now, and has always done. 4. Dr. Mahan goes on to make the assertion that A Single Infallibility. 17 the Holy Ghost enables the "well-balanced soul' to strike a balance of all the different testimonies presented to it, and to 'catch the air which runs like a silver thread through all ' the sounds it hears. Does Dr. Mahan mean to say that the Holy Ghost enables every ' well-balanced mind ' (that is, I suppose, every conscientious seeker after truth) to take the same view of faith that he himself takes? for instance, the views that he himself has of the Church — or of the Holy Eucharist? — or does he mean that the Holy Ghost has taught people to take a number of different views? or that one view is as good as another ? It is difficult to say which opinion is the most appalling. I believe there are some sects of Dis- senters who maintain that God must enable all who honestly look for the truth, to find it in the Bible, and therefore that all who do not there find the truth, i.e., their own particular religious opinions, are, ipso facto, condemned ; but I should hardly have supposed that Dr. Mahan would have taken a similar line, and yet, I think, he would hardly venture to deny that a very large proportion of the Christian world thinks differently from himself It is all very well, and very pretty, to talk about the ' air which like a silver thread ' runs through the confusion — but is there an air which can be detected by the ' tutored ear ' — that is, which a mind, however well disposed, can find for itself without some external guidance ? I think all experience is against it. C 1 8 TJu Church. I now come to the objections to the Roman theory of making faith depend on one infallible authority. Here, again, is conspicuous the fallacy which, as I before said, runs through the whole argument. If an authority is really appointed by Almighty God to tell men what is the truth — what can be more absurd than talking about 'absolute dogmatic despotism,' or ' will-worship,' or the ' credulous ear,' or being ' not guided but driven ' ? If your guide is really showing you the right way, and telling you how to avoid pitfalls and precipices, what is the good of talking in this way ? Of course if you assume that the guide is an impostor, and has no right to lead, and is telling you all wrong — then such language is intelligible — but that is, obviously, begging the question. It is quite conceivable, at any rate, that God should have appointed one definite authority to guide men. You may prove, if you can, that He has not done so in fact — but it is plain that if He has, all these objections fall to the ground, so they can have no weight in them. But, says Dr. Mahan, Catholics must in practice receive the statements of their pastors about matters of fact — and ' how are the little ones to distinguish ? ' (p. 21). All this is a complete misunderstanding founded on the original error of supposing that Catholics may not use their wits, and are obliged, not only to hear A Single Infallibility. 19 the authoritative teaching of the Church, but to believe whatever any priest tells them on any subject. ' How are the little ones to distinguish ! They must be very little ones indeed if they have any difficulty about it. Matters of doctrine are taught as things revealed by God and decided by the Church — they are learned in every Catechism from childhood upwards — they are explained and enforced by every priest, and they have duties of one kind or other, constantly connected with them. Facts, or sup- posed facts, such as miracles not recorded in Scripture, and so forth, on the other hand, are not taught as re- vealed by God — but as human history — depending for credit on evidence ; they are not taught as part of reli- gious education, but told in some pious books, or given by some individual priest as an illustration of well known truths, or to enforce some devout sentiment, and above all have, generally speaking, no religious duties dependent on them. Is it possible for people to be so simple as to confuse between such different things ? Certainly I never heard of their doing so. At any rate it is plain that if religion is to be taught at all, there must always be the same danger. If faith is to come 'by hearing,' it is aXways possible for the simple to confuse between what is part of the preacher's mission, and what is his private opinion. You may, of course, take the line of saying that Protestants are more intelligent than Catholics, and do not run the same risk : that, however, is, naturally* .a matter of opinion. But St. Thomas Aquinas says : 20 The Church. Falsum non posse subesse fidei. I cannot here quite follow the author's meaning. He cannot surely intend to bring under this axiom two classes of things which are ' matters of faith,' in a totally and widely different sense? I mean things which are matters of Divine faith, and things which are only of human opinion. We will hope not for logic's sake. But the ' Roman theory as expounded by recent writers' leads men to believe in fables. What on earth has the 'Roman theory' to do with it? Is the writer under the impression that miracles are defined as matters of faith? if not, how can the Catholic doctrine of the way in which faith is to be defined affect them? Of course it is the old story. The writer assumes that people are obliged to shut their eyes in order to become Catholics (which, obviously, he can only do by assuming that the claim of the Catholic Church is an unfounded one), and proceeds to argue that they must therefore believe fables. We see 'modern converts snared in the mazes of their own intellectual cobwebs, who suddenly become simple and believe in fables' (p. 17). This is a style of controversy which really is not worthy of Dr. Mahan. It comes pretty much to saying that your neighbours are fools, the moment they differ from you. Dr. Mahan begins by admitting of a number of converts that they are ' intellectual, critical, and suspicious.' Does it not occur to him that their view may possibly be the right one, or that there may be a good deal to say for it — or, at least. A Single Infallibility. 21 that the question cannot gracefully be got rid of merely by saying that they have ' suddenly become simple ' ? At any rate, they have the advantage of a practical knowledge of the Catholic system, and have seen both sides of the question. I now come to one of the passages which one would be glad to see expunged. It is not, however, Dr. Mahan, but an editor (apparently a Mr. Hopkins) who is responsible for it. The note to p. 17 speaks of Father Faber and the Oratorians in a tone which cannot but be considered offensive. It says : ' In genuine childhood a certain credulity is graceful and becoming. But when a man gets down on all-fours and tries to play child, it excites only a feeling of disgust.' And this, he says, because they appear to believe certain miracles. It would be interesting to know the intellectual line this gentleman takes. With infidels it is plain enough. They assume — they do not really attempt to prove, but they assume, that miracles have never happened, and are impossible : and then, when their neighbours believe in miracles, or speak of them, they think it reasonable to adopt a tone of supercilious insolence, because, according to their theory, such miracles are impossible. What is the theory of our over-zealous editor? He does not profess that miracles are impossible or have never happened. On the contrary, as a Christian, he fully believes that they have happened,, times without number ; and he does not pretend ta 22 The Church. have a shred of proof that they may not happen at the present day. He cannot deny that our Lord says : ' Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in Me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these he shall do' (St. John xiv. 12); and he does not appear to have troubled himself at all about the proofs of the alleged miracles. What, then, is the ground for the superb contempt which his zeal leads him to express for his neighbours ? But in another note the same editor tells us that ' these practical and popular impostures rot the tree of spiritual honesty clear down to the root.' If he thereby means that any one who imposes upon his neighbours, and deludes them by lying stories, 'rots idown to the root' his own honesty (such as he may have), I cordially agree with him :; but if he means that an injury is done to the spiritual honesty of men by believing things to have- happened — which very well may have happened, but which, in fact, turn out to have been mistakes — I cannot think he is right. If every time we believe a thing to be a fact^. which afterwards turns out to be a fiction, an injury is done to our 'spiritual honesty,' I am afraid we must all be in a very bad way in this world. I dO' not think that mistaking fiction for fact is at all peculiar to Catholics. ' Intelligent Romanists,' says Dr. Mahan, ' may be as ready as the most incredulous Protestant to laugh at the simplicity of the lamb who^ is beguiled into. A Single Infallibility. 23 feeding on such juiceless pasture. But considered honestly, and with the slightest play allowed to that righteous indignation which no reverence for authority can keep from rising up in arms at the sight of systematic fraud, are not such things a stumbling- block to the faith of the little ones of Christ ? ' (p. 22). It is rather a pity that our author's zeal would not allow him to pause to consider whether he has any sufficient ground for making this charge of ' systematic fraud.' It is the sort of charge which a conscientious man does not make without very good grounds, and here he has none except his own imagination. Does he really suppose that Catholics would have any difficulty in ' rising up in arms at the sight of systematic fraud'? If so, we can only regret that he doesn't know a little more about us. He goes on to draw a touching picture of the 'lambs' on their 'juiceless pasture,' or in other words, of a Catholic population which has just heard a story of a miraculous event — which (we are to suppose) after- wards turns out not to have been a miracle at all- ' No sooner do they hear the story than they pour in crowds from their homes and daily occupations. They begin perhaps a long and weary pilgrimage. They assemble in tumultuous excitement around the object of their devotion. And weeks, nay, months, are spent in a species of delirious joy, accompanied often with every kind of immorality, occasioned by faith in a thing which the authorities themselves at length pronounce to be a fable ' (p. 23). 24 The Church. Let us put all this into a little less poetical form and endeavour to see the harm really done. A Catholic population hears that a striking miracle has been worked in their neighbourhood. They know very well that God has worked many miracles, when the wants of men seemed to need them. They know of no reason why He should not do so again ; their own wants naturally appear very pressing, and they feel the need of something to encourage them : the evidence given appears to their minds sufficiently strong, and they believe the miracle. What is the consequence? They are full of gratitude to God for having condescended to them. They look upon it as an encouragement and as a ray of light vouchsafed in a dark time. They go to the scene of the supposed miracle with great fervour (possibly to the detriment of their business), they pray a great deal, they go in procession, they hear many Masses, they confess their sins, and receive the sacraments, and, no doubt, receive many spiritual graces in reward of their faith and prayer. Supposing the original miracle at last turns out a mistake, I do not see how the lambs are very much the worse, or that the pasture has been so juiceless, seeing it was prayer, devotion, and self-denial. Let us imagine it to be an imposture ; I will join heartily with Dr. Mahan in condemning the impostor, and have not a word to say in defence of his 'spiritual honesty,' but still I can't see how the lambs have been much injured. What, however, I should like to know, has A Single Infallibility. 25 all this got to do with the ' Roman rule of a single Infallibility'? Would not the people be just as ■easily deceived by false stories if the faith of the Church was to be settled by General Council ? or by Convocation? or by Act of Parliament? I cannot quite see how the broad question of the rule of faith is affected by such considerations. To conclude, Dr. Mahan says that faith is to be cautious, and to ' seek no easy solution by eliminating one or more of the witnesses. It will listen to them all.' I quite agree. We do not need to eliminate any of our faculties. We may and ought to use them all : in the first instance, to assure ourselves of the credibility and mission of the guide sent us by God, and afterwards, not, indeed, to test whether he is leading us astray, but to compare the truth as taught by our heavenly guide, with the truth as it comes to us from other sources. Dr. Mahan says that the Anglican Church answers questions about authority and private interpretation * explicitly enough for practical purposes.' I am sorry that I cannot see what the answer is. The Church of England seems to be trying to say yes and no at the same time, and after many eloquent words from Dr. Mahan, I cannot see that she commits herself to either yes or no. A 'noble disdain of mere verbal consistency,' may, very likely, be a mark •of a ' true Catholic mind,' but one really would like to know on what principle a number of discordant ideas and opinions are to be brought into harmony. 26 The Church. It is no use saying that they ought to harmonize into ' one air ' like ' a silver thread,' when it is manifest to all men that they do not in fact do so. In these remarks I have omitted a good many points touched on. Some I hope, with the reader's indulgence, to treat of when considering the rest of Dr. Mahan's book, such as the analogy of the Jewish Church (p. 8), and the question of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints. There are two things, however, for which I will ask a moment's attention. First, what does the author mean by saying (p. 20), ' It is said St. Bernard was a holy man : but St. Bernard devoted himself to the hyperdulia of the Blessed Virgin ; therefore it is argued, such worship cannot be mistaken.' It is argued, — who argues it? No Catholic would dream of saying anything of the sort. The opinions of holy men are of course to be respected, but no one imagines for a moment that they cannot be mistaken, as in fact very many saints have been mistaken. It is for the Church, not individual saints, to decide in cases- of doubt. The second point is that of Galileo (p. 19), in which his condemnation is brought forward as an objection to the Church's infallible authority in matters of doctrine. This case is — and I suppose will always remain — more or less of a difficulty to some minds, at any rate. As Cardinal Newman says : ' Here exceptio probat regulam ; for it is the A Single Infallibility. 27 stock argument.' By this I mean that it is not easy to put the Catholic view of the question in such a shape as to clear away all difficulty. The simple explanation seems to me to be this. There are, and must be, two distinct functions in the ruler of the Catholic Church. He is Supreme Teacher and Supreme Judge, and he acts differently in each capacity. For example, let us suppose some book to be brought before an ordinary ecclesiastical tribunal on a charge of heresy. How does that tribunal proceed? It examines the decrees of Popes and Councils, and considers how the doctrine of the book in question agrees with the wording of them. It hears what approved writers have to say on the . subject. This proposition is generally said to be rash, and presumptuous, the other is commonly considered heretical. In the same way the tribunal takes the Holy Scriptures, and asks : What is the interpretation commonly given to this or that passage by the Fathers and approved commentators? In this way the doctrine of the book is discussed, and is pro- nounced orthodox or heretical as may be. The case is appealed, and goes from tribunal to tribunal till it is brought before the highest, that of the Pope himself. How does he act ? On precisely the S3ime principle as the inferior courts, I should say. His decision carries with it a greater authority, and is, in the nature of things, without appeal, but still it is, in kind, just like the decision of the inferior tribunals. The Pope is acting simply as Supreme Judge. 28 T}ie Church. Now let us take another phase of the same or some other question. There is a considerable differ- ence of opinion amongst Catholic theologians ; a strong and weighty school of writers is maintaining views which, at first sight, appear new ; these writers- contend that the question has never really been brought up and considered, and that their views are strictly consistent with the teaching of the Church. The question, let us suppose, assumes considerable proportions, and the Holy See is called upon to decide. Now the Pope decides on a totally different principle. He is now no longer the Judge applying the ordinary laws and principles of the Church to a particular case, following commentators and approved writers, guided by precedent, and so forth. He is now speaking as authorized TeacJur of the Universal Church. He is now, in virtue of his office, deciding what is the teaching of the Church, because it may no longer be doubtful, and give an uncertain sound. He does so, using indeed all human means of in- formation and counsel, but relying on the guiding power of the Holy Ghost which has been secured to him in virtue of our Lord's promise to St. Peter. Here we see, I think, two plainly different styles of action. We may illustrate this, very imperfectly of course, from our own Legislature. The House of Lords sits as supreme court of appeal, and also as legislative assembly. In one capacity its duty is simply to interpret the existing law exactly as any inferior court would do : in its other capacity it has A Single Infallibility. 29 not to interpret, but to make law ; to say not what has been the meaning hitherto attributed to it by- lawyers, but to say, such ought to be, and such hence- forth shall be the law. The Pope must necessarily be infallible in his capacity of Teacher, but he need not be so, and certainly is not declared to be so, in his character of Supreme Judge. The Vatican Council expressly says that he is infallible 'in discharge of the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians.' The case of Galileo then rests on this question : Was the Pope deciding as ordinary Supreme Judge ? or did he intend to act as Supreme Pastor and "Teacher of all Christians? He might have assumed either capacity according to his own judgment, but Catholics hold that he was plainly acting, in the first capacity, as judge, and judge only. 1. It is not the habit of the Church to decide definitely such points as that proposed. 2. A great many very orthodox people held, and were allowed to hold, very similar doctrines, only in such a way as to avoid giving scandal. 3. Even the most zealous opponents of Coperni- canism never considered that the Church had intended to make the opposing doctrine an article of faith. 4. The decree condemning Galileo was not pro- nounced in such a manner as to make it an ex cathedra and infallible decree of the Pope. A Protestant writer, Karl von Gebler, in his very exhaustive work, shows this plainly enough. 30 The Church. ' According to these maxims (of Rome),' he says; ' a proposition can only be made into a dogma by " infallible " authority, namely, by the Pope speaking ex cathedra, or by an GEcumenical Council ; and on the other hand, it is only by the same method that an obligation can be laid upon the faithful to consider an opinion heretical. But a decree of the Congre- gation of the Index does not entail the obligation ; for, although by virtue of the authority conferred on it, it can enforce obedience and inflict punishment, its decrees are not " infallible." They can, however, be made so, according to ecclesiastical views, either by the subsequent express confirmation of the Pope by a Brief in his name, as Supreme Head of the Christian Catholic Church ; or by the decree of the Congregation being originally provided with the clause : ' Sanctissimus confirmavit et publicari man- davit,' but the decree of 5 th March, 1616, is neither confirmed by a subsequent Brief nor does it contain that special formula : and, therefore, in spite of this decree, which declared the opinions of Copernicus to be " false and contrary to Holy and Divine Scripture," it might still be considered as undecided and even probable, because the decree might be fallible, and did not entail the obligation to adopt its sentence as an article of faith ' (p. 236). The writer continues a little later : ' Undoubtedly Pope Paul V. wished the decree made and privately instigated it, as Urban VHI. did the sentence against Galileo; and in this sense the former may be attributed to A Single Infallibility. 31 the one, and the latter to the other, and the condem- nation of the Copernican theory to both. But in this they acted as private persons, and, as such, they were not (nor would they now be), according to theological rules, " infallible." The conditions which would have made the decree of the Congregation, or the sentence against Galileo, of dogmatic importance, were, as we have seen, wholly wanting. Both Popes had been too cautious to endanger this highest privilege of the Papacy by involving their infallible authority in a decision of a scientific controversy ; they therefore refrained from conferring their sanction, as Heads of the Roman Catholic Church, on the measures taken at their instigation, by the Congregation "to suppress the doctrine of the revolution of the earth." Thanks to this sagacious foresight, Roman Catholic posterity can say to this day, that Paul V. and Urban VIII. were in error "as men" about the Copernican system, but not " as Popes " ' (P- 239)- In confirmation of this statement the author sub- joins the following quotations : ' Gassendi remarks in his great work, De inotu impresso, published nine years after the condemnation of Galileo, on the absence of the Papal ratification in the sentence of the Holy Tribunal, and that therefore the negation of the Copernican system was not an article cf faith. As a good priest he recognizes the high authority of the decision of the Congregation, and subjects his personal opinions to it. Father Riccioli, 32 The Church. in his comprehensive work, Almagestum novum ^ published nine years after Gassendi's, reproduces Gassendi's statement word for word, and entirely concurs with it, even in the book which was meant to confute the Copernican system at all points. Father Fabri, a French Jesuit, afterwards Grand Penitentiary at Rome, says, in a dissertation pub- lished there, in 1661, against the Sy sterna Saturnium of Huyghens, that as no valid evidence can be adduced for the truth of the new system, the autho- rities of the Church are quite right in interpreting the passages of the Holy Scripture relating to the system of the universe literally ; " but," he adds, " if ever any conclusive reasons are discovered (which I do not expect), / do not doubt tJiat tJie Church will say that tJiey are to be taken figuratively" a remark which no priest would have made about a doctrine pronounced heretical by infallible authority. Cara- muel, a Spanish Benedictine, who also discussed the future of the Copernican theory, defines the position still more clearly than Fabri. In his Theologia funda- mentalis, published at Lyons in 1676, after defending the decree and the sentence of the Congregation, he discusses the attitude which the Church will take in case the system should prove indisputably true. In the first place he believes this will never happen, and if it does, it could never be said that the Church of Rome had been in en-or, as the doctrine of the double motion of the earth had never been condemned by an CEcumenical Council, nor by the Pope speaking A Single Infallibility. 33 ex cathedra, but only by the tribunal of Cardi- nals^ * The Pope, therefore, as far as he acted in the matter, either by condemning GaHleo, or causing him to be condemned by the Council of the Inquisition, plainly acted as judge and not as teacher of the Catholic Church, and refrained from that course which would have brought his infallible authority into action. * Note to p. 236, Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia, by Karl von Gebler. D 34 The Church. CHAPTER II. THE NATURE OF FAITH. The Anglican case stated — Faith not necessarily sudden or miraculous — Cardinal Newman's account of it — Faith in those who err invin- cibly — Faith and argument — Nature of the Church's Infallibility — Explicit faith— 'Triple cord of witnesses' — Effect of religious certainty — Faith and love — Searching for a guide — The ' Mountain of Papal Infallibility ' — Continued Divine guidance — Unity of spirit — ' Altars of Joseph and Mary ' — Supreme and inferior honour. In his second chapter Dr. Mahan goes on to discuss the nature of Faith, and I should put his argument into these words. Faith is indeed a gift of God, but not a gift suddenly and arbitrarily bestowed, or bestowed on ' compliance with some single specified condition ' (p. 27). Roman writers speak of it as a ' miraculous gift, a kind of new faculty bestowed upon him who submits to infallible guidance, enabling him to believe everything that is told him upon that autho- rity, and sealing his soul against all intrusion of doubt and mental perplexity. In this way Mr. Newman speaks of faith as something that he never had before his conversion to Romanism, but which he suddenly received then ' (p. 27). In common with The Nature of Faith. 35 the Calvinists, Romanists consider it, not as ' a mustard- seed, merely growing from the smallest of all seeds,' but as a ' spiritual Minerva springing all at once into life, and full armed from the beginning against every assault of error and doubt ' (p. 27). It is certainly a gift of God, like every other good gift ' which cometh down from the Father of Lights' (p. 11), but it does not come in this sudden and complete form, or necessarily imply a submission to an infallible teacher. It is, on the contrary, quite ■consistent with a great deal of reasoning. This is plain from the examples of faith we find in the Holy Scriptures. The Centurion in the Gospel was our Lord's own example of great faith. In what did his faith consist ? Not in ' mere submission to authority,' not in 'bare and naked hearing of one infallible teacher.' It was rather ' distinguished by that manly and vigorous good sense which first believing upon evidence (not merely upon authority) afterwards led the Centurion with a childlike facility of obedience to the spirit of that evidence, to be wiser, so to speak, than even his Infallible Teacher ' (p. 28), by bringing argument and common sense to bear on what had been told to him. Such a faith is ' childlike without being childish ' (p. 29). Childlike in facility of obedience, manly because ' this facility does not spring, as in a child, from the impulse of a single force upon the will, but is the result out of many forces ' (p. 30). The same thing is brought out in St. Peter's Confession. 36 TJu Church. He was blessed, not because he had received 'a dogmatic declaration ' from any one. Our Lord says : ' Flesh and blood hath not revealed it, but My Father in Heaven,' that is, ' his faith was the result of reflection on the testimony, in many respects conflicting testimony, of several ' (p. 30). Nathanael received a less approval. ' He had believed on small evidence and his reward was to be that he should hereafter believe on greater' (p. 3.1). Similarly with the Syro-Phoenician woman. So far was her faith from 'hanging on the lips of a single authorized witness ; ' that ' it was eminently a conviction of the heart and understanding, which outran, and (if I may so speak) outreasoned the Infallible Teacher, wrestling with Him and refusing to let Him go' (p. 31). Yet after all this she was rewarded with the blessing ! ' O woman, great is thy faith ; be it done unto thee even as thou wilt ' (P- 32). 'On the other hand, the censure upon Philip's slowness of belief, and that upon Thomas's doubt, are neither of them grounded upon any lack of submission, on their part, to positive and explicit teachings' (p. 32). On the contrary, it was because they were too eager to have some positive solution of doubts — the decision of some infallible tribunal such as Romanists consider necessary to faith. The Holy Scripture is full of instances of great faith in which we certainly do not find any of this submission to an infallible guide. We may take the The Nature of Faith. 37 Patriarchs of the Old Law, and St. Joseph in the New Testament, as illustrations (p. 42). Again, we may take St. Paul's definition of faith : ' Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' ' Here belief on authority, which with Romanists is the essence of faith, is not even alluded to' (p. 41). It is, moreover, * said by Romanists that nothing can be called faith which does not receive every article of revealed religion. In two senses this is true. i. Faith, like the mustard-seed, must contain within itself the prin- ciple of growth, and having once received Christ, it receives all truth with Him, He being all in all. 2. It must contain within itself the germ of all virtues, as knowledge, temperance, charity ; and this being the case, it receives at once, in confessing Christ, all articles of belief which it shall please Christ to reveal. But if the Romanists mean that belief in Christ is not faith till it has consciously and explicitly received the Creed in its logical and dogmatical development, so that nothing remains doubtful or obscure, the proposition is sheer nonsense, unworthy of a serious answer' (note, p. 33). It is plain that faith does not require this clearing up of all doubts. Our Lord's own teaching in the Gospels, is a combination of 'dogmatic teaching implicitly received, and more enigmatical instruction leaving room for opinion ' (p. 48). We constantly find our Lord giving /^a^-expla- nations, and speaking 'less plainly of the Father. 3? The Church. than human impatience demanded ' (p. 36). Of this a noteable example is to be found in the famous dogmatic passage which was such a ' hard saying to the Jews, " My Flesh is meat indeed, My Blood is drink indeed " ' (p. 36). Faith, too, is the more blessed when there is an element of uncertainty introduced, 'for if it is true that one part of man craves certainty, and suffers from any shade of doubt, it is equally true that there is another (the intellect we will call it), to which temporary doubt comes often as an angel of blessing ' (p. 35). 'A system which has no dogmatic certainty, but leaves everything in question, is ruinous to the spiritual part of our nature. On the other hand, one that bars the door against all intrusion of doubt, and allows no inquiry, is fatal to the intel- lectual part' (p. 35). If our Lord had given to His Apostles an explicit solution of their doubt it may be questioned whether His doing so would have had the effect of increasing their love, ' for faith and love are so connected in the soul that — as in the race between Peter and John — love must outrun faith, or faith will run to no purpose ' (p. 37). St. Peter says: 'In your faith include virtue, temperance, patience, . . . charity.' Faith is to be the leader of a band of virtues — and the exercise of faith is, to begin with, 'virtue' {i.e., manly vigour), to be ' kept steady by temperance,' and ' made perfect ' in charity (p. 40). ' The simple faith of implicit The Nature of Faith. 39 submission to visible infallibility is naturally averse to knowledge : it gives little scope to manly vigour ; it keeps men, wherever it can, to the utmost possible extent, in childlike dependence upon external guides ; it makes an irreconcileable and inexplicable difference between religious and scientiiic belief, allowing not even an analogy between them : while, in short, St. Peter's description sketches such a process as would inevitably separate faith from credulity, and carry it safely through the region of doubt into that of certainty in any human science, the Roman Catholic system practically denies the safety of such a process in religion' (p. 41). Romanists say that men ought to investigate, but that their inquiries should cease when once they have discovered an infallible guide. Dr. Newman, for example, using a beautiful simile, says : ' Investi- gation is the lantern which guides us to the palace of truth ; but being once there, we are in such a clear light that the lantern is no longer needed ' (p. 33). St. Peter, however, answers by telling men to take heed to the word of prophecy as ' unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in their hearts. If this be the case the lantern must still be needed ' (p. 34). The view thus put forward by Roman writers is indeed grossly inconsistent. If in religious investi- gation 'the examination of witnesses, the weighing of evidences, the wrestling with difficulties and seeming contradictions enable one to decide with unerring 40 Tlie Church. confidence that a certain teacher is absolutely and infallibly trustworthy, will not a similar course lead to similar assurances of faith in other doubtful questions ? And if so, is it anything but spiritual sloth to expect to arrive at a true and hearty faith in any other way?' (p. 32). 'The heaviest mountain that faith has ever been called upon to remove is that which lies in the way of a reception of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. This mountain, it is said, may be removed by a thorough examination of Scripture, consent, and antiquity : conducted, of course, in a patient and prayerful spirit. If so, why may not any other question be settled in the mind in a similar way?' (p. 33). Much stress is laid by the advocates of Papal Infallibility upon the promise of ' guiding the Apostles into all truth ' (p. 43), ' but if the promise covers the Apostles and their successors, ... it does not imply an exemption in the Church from temporary and widespread error. Faith borders ever on the region of credulity ' (p. 44). In the Apostolic times, and ever since, there has been a succession of errors, more or less extensive in the Church, and the same state of things is seen at the present day. 'Whatever errors prevail, they are still protested against and attacked ' (p. 45), so that there is no ground for alarm. ' It is enough for faith that the battle against error is still kept up ' (P-45)- The particular feature of error has generally been The Nature of Faith. 41 to force something into the Creed ; to give, for instance, circumcision a place beside Baptism, not to supersede it ' (p. 46). ' In the present day we are compelled to do battle against a system of additions to the Creed, unknown to the Apostles, which have gradually crept in, and which have a strong family likeness to the corrup- tions of heathenism which, at all events, are defended by precisely the same arguments that polytheism employed' (p. 4S). 'The polytheist, for example, would say that in a multitude of gods he worshipped the multitudinous attributes of the one true God : in Pallas, he worshipped wisdom : in Mars, terror : in the Furies, inexorable justice, &c., &c. In all which reasoning it would be enough to answer, that ' it is written, the Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve.' Or, if a more philosophic answer were required, we might say that God being One, His attributes in their perfection exist only in Himself In Himself alone, therefore, they are to be worshipped. The goodness of God is embodied as perfectly in a ' lily of the field ' as in Solomon with all his glory. Yet who would think of worshipping a lily ? Who does not feel that to worship goodness aright we must trace it to its source, and worship it there where it is enthroned, with all other perfections, in the bosom of Almighty God ? To worship it any- where else is not necessarily to deny, but to dis- < member the Godhead. So in the Roman Catholic maxim, ' God is just, but Mary merciful : ' the worship 42 TJte Church. of Mary as the embodiment and beauteous reflection of Mercy, may not be absolutely a denial of Him, but it is to sever from Him one of His choicest attributes ; it is to contemplate that attribute apart from Him : it is to pour upon Mary's head the precious ointment of those warm, affectionate feelings of devotion which are the sweetest sacrifice that man can possibly offer ' (p. 45, note). These ' various additions to the faith received from the beginning, do not intend to banish the baptismal creed ; their only aim is to be received with it. The altars of Joseph and Mary may not displace the altar of Jesus (for any show of irreverence in this mode of speaking I am not responsible), it is enough that they be placed alongside. To Joseph's altar we may carry the emotions which are inspired by a sense of paternal solicitude ; to Mary's the tender and enthusiastic feelings which the contemplation of virginal purity and female loveliness, in its highest spiritual type, excites in the human breast : but, in the meantime, to Thee, O adorable Jesus, what shall we bring, what shall we lay upon Thine altar, what shall we associate with that great name which is as the " ointment poured forth ? " Our gold is already spent ; the frankincense of all tender sympathies and emotions has been offered at a lower shrine. To Thee we give, there- fore, the tribute of the acknowledgment of justice. Thou art just ! To Thy altar, or to that of Thy Heavenly Father, we bring the Victim of Justice, the awful Sacrifice for sin! But I will pursue the The Nature of Faith. 43 painful subject no further. The God we worship is a jealous God. With all the explicitness that human speech allows, He has declared that He will not give His honour to another. And if the position in which we are placed, by what is now boldly called " the deifi- cation of St. Mary," is one that forces us to hearken to the truth through many organs, and to test what we hear by a more critical examination than we would desire, we should remember that the com- mandment of sole worship to God is laid upon each individual conscience ' (p. 46). Great stress is placed by Roman writers on the promise made by our Lord to Peter when He told him 'that He had prayed for him that his faith should not fail amid tJie sif tings of Satan. Yet, in spite of this prayer, he thrice denied his Master, with falsehood and prevarication, and with bitter and unnecessary oaths. If the same promise applies to the See of St. Peter, it may be fulfilled after the same apparent failure. Again, our Lord said, "When thou art converted, confirm thy brethren." If we apply one part of this to the Roman See, we should not over- look the other. Before the influence of the Roman Church shall be a healing and strengthening influence, binding Christendom together, it may require an entire conversion from the temper and policy of the last thousand years. The sword of physical coercion — a sword which directly or indirectly, has been so wielded by Rome as to cause more bloodshed than has ever stained any dynasty on earth — may have 44 The Church. to be put again into its place' (p. 50), and it may- be necessary for it to lay aside its meddling and ambitious spirit before it can claim, as its own, the promise made to Peter. To conclude, the infallibility which resides in the Church, as ' the Body of Christ,' depends not ' merely upon the preservation of a certain unity of organi- zation,' but ' upon the preservation of the " Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." ' ' There is no such unity as this in Christendom at large, or in the Roman Church particularly. The unity of Rome fails to command reverence because it is a unity of earthly empire: it is a despotic unity' (p. 51). Such being the case we cannot have sufficient confidence in its possessing infallibility to make faith solely dependent on what it says as infallible teacher. This is Dr. Mahan's line of argument, as closely as I can give it. A great part of what he says in this chapter is grounded on an entire misunderstanding of the Catholic doctrine. A good deal of this comes naturally enough from taking too literally Father Penny's treatise. The exercise of Faith impossible except in the Catholic Church. In point of fact, faith is not necessarily a sudden or miraculous gift. It may be granted in a sudden and wonderful way as it was with St. Paul, but, ordinarily, it follows on proof, argument, and con- viction. St. Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing, and it is plain that ordinarily faith was granted to The Natuj'e of Faith. 45 those who had listened to the preaching of the Apostles with good dispositions. Again, faith does not ' seal the soul against all intrusion of doubt and mental perplexity.' All men are liable to temptations against faith, which they must all bravely resist, and they often have occasion, as the Apostle did, to say, ' Lord, increase our faith ! ' Moreover, it is not true that faith essentially consists in submitting to infallible guidance, or that it is impossible to have any faith outside the Catholic Church. It is hardly necessary to show that faith did not mean following an infallible guide when no such guide had been appointed, and, on the other hand, it is suffi- ciently plain that ?y there is an infallible guide given by God, faith must ordinarily involve accepting the authority of that guide, as soon as it is made known. Faith implies the willingness of mind by God's grace to accept and believe whatever God has re- vealed, because He has revealed it, and under the conditions on which He has been pleased to reveal it, as soon as sufficient evidence has been given that He has revealed it. Faith requires a certain amount of evidence to rest upon, and there is a point beyond which it is a man's own fault if he resists conviction. It is impossible for men, however, to say exactly where that point is. The ordinary way in which this conviction comes in the Christian dispensation, at any rate, is by listen- ing to the voice of a teacher sent by God ; as 46 The Church. ' teaching ' was obviously the way appointed by which men were to become acquainted with the truth ; but any way in which real conviction is brought home to the mind may be the foundation of real faith. For example, in the Old Law God, by His own immediate voice, or by the voices of His prophets, gave His servants abundant grounds for being sure that He had spoken, and their believing His word was faith. Similarly, people out of the Catholic Church, at the present day, may have abundant grounds for a real faith, for example, in the Incarna- tion or the Blessed Trinity. But Dr. Newman speaks of it as something he never had before his conversion, and suddenly re- ceived then (p. 27). I can only say I have never seen any such passage in his writings. He says, ' I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self- command ' {History of my Religious Opinions, p. 238). On this point, I will quote a passage from Cardinal de Lugo, as high a theological authority as there is. He says : ' Those who err invincibly about some articles of faith, and believe others, are not formally heretics, but have supernatural faith, by which they believe the true articles of faith, and so from this faith acts of perfect contrition can proceed, by which they may be justified and saved' (De Lugo, xii. 350). The Nature of Faith. 47 This does not look much like the doctrine ascribed to us by Dr. Mahan. In his sermon on ' Illuminating Grace,' Cardinal Newman, after contrasting opinion resting upon reason, with faith resting upon Divine Grace, proceeds thus : ' I have been speaking as if a state of nature were utterly destitute of the influences of grace, and as if those who are external to the Church, acted simply from nature. I have so spoken for the sake of distinctness, that grace and nature might clearly be contrasted with each other ; but it is not the case in fact. God gives His grace to all men, and to those who profit by it. He gives more grace, and even those who quench it still have the offer. Hence some men act simply from nature ; some act from nature in some respects, not in others ; others are yielding themselves to the guidance of the assistances given them ; others may even be in a state of justification. Hence it is impossible to apply what has been said above to individuals whose hearts are a secret with God. Many are under the influence partly of reason and partly of faith, believe some things firmly, and have but an opinion on others ' {Discourses to Mixed Congregations, p. 199). This seems like the exact contrary of what Dr. Mahan makes him say. The essence of faith is to believe on God's authority trusting to His being the very truth. It is clear that you could not be really doing this if you consciously rejected the authority appointed by Him 48 The Church. to teach, or, what comes to the same thing, if you selected amongst the truths proposed to you by this authority, accepting some truths and rejecting others. It is clear, moreover, that if, consciously or otherwise, you have set aside this authority, there can be but few things on which you have sufficient grounds for a real conviction. Catholic writers naturally say, therefore, that outside the Church there are few things held with real faith, and many more held as mere matters of opinion, but it certainly does not follow from Catholic principles that those out of the Church without any fault, have not real faith in the funda- mental truths of religion. Dr. Mahan goes on arguing that faith is shown to be quite consistent with the use of understanding, with inquiring, arguing, asking many questions, and so forth. He speaks of it (p. 28) not as a 'mere submission to authority,' not a ' bare and naked hearing of an infallible teacher,' but 'manly and vigorous good sense,' 'first believing upon evidence (not merely on authority.)' This is one of the great mistakes that run through his book. There is nothing whatever in the doctrine of an infallible teacher to discourage any amount of inquiry, of critical research, and close investigation. No question of Catholic doctrine is ever decided by authority without long and patient investigation, without hearing, again and again, all that has to be said about it. Take the doctrines decided in our own days. For how many centuries have the Immaculate Conception and the Tlie Nature of Faith. 49 Papal Infallibility been discussed ? how many hun- dreds of writers have expressed their opinions on both sides ? Let us hear Cardinal Newman on this subject. ' It is the custom,' he says, ' with Protestant writers to consider that, Vhereas there are two great principles in action in the history of religion, they have all the private judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent pressure of authority. But this is not so ; it is the vast Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that awful, never- ending duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion, viewed in its large operations and in its history, that the warfare should be incessantly carried on. Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation of the reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a reaction of reason against it,' . . . and so ' Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of authority and private judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide ' {History of my Religious Opinions, p. 252). It may be said, perhaps, that although theological questions are closely sifted and thoroughly argued amongst the clergy, the lay Catholic, as Dr. Mahan says, ' must follow, as the heathen did " even as he is led." ' This is a complete mistake. Catholics, educated or uneducated, have, as a rule, a far more accurate E so The Church. and intelligent notion of what they themselves believe, and why they hold it, than the corresponding classes of Protestants. Do we not frequently hear people say, 'You Catholics are all so well up in controversy ; ' do they not complain of what they call our ' prose- lytizing ' propensities ? We constantly find Protestants who, for them- selves and their friends, avoid controversy with Catholics as carefully as possible. Why so? what does this mean ? It is clear that they are instinctively aware that Catholics generally, instead of being ' led like the heathen,' know much better where they are going than most of the people they meet This is ofEfcn true of the very poor. They may sometimes 'be ignorant in many things, but they generally have a pretty keen and shrewd notion of the principles of their religion, as many a man has^ discovered on trying a little controversy with an Irish labourer or servant girl. But it may be objected : how can there be any room for the exercise of reason if there is an authority able to answer questions infallibly? This objection comes from a misunderstanding as to the kind of infallibility our Lord has given to His Church. It is not a sort of inspiration enabling the Pope to explain, at his pleasure, any difficulty in religion, and to give infallible answers to any questions that may be pro- posed to him as an oracle might do. On the contrary, our Lord has left His faith to be worked out, as it were, by human means, and gave His own guarantee The Nature of Faith. 5 1 ■of infallibility, not to save His people the toil of reading and thought, but to secure them from being ultimately led wrong. It is very closely parallel with the way in which He established His Church upon earth. He co-operated with His Apostles, and guaranteed their ultimate success, but He did not therefore. spare them the toil and hard fighting by which the work was in fact achieved. To quote Cardinal Newman again : ' Nor was the development •of dogmatic theology which was taking place, a silent and spontaneous process. It was wrought out and carried through, under the fiercest controversies, and amid the most fearful risks' {Essay on Development, p. 447). The Infallibility of the Pope, then, is not a sort of inspiration which makes learning superfluous, but it requires and supposes the use of human means, the careful consideration of the Scriptures, the tradition of the Church, and so forth. Cardinal du Perron says, it 'does not consist in his always receiving at once from the Holy Ghost the necessary light to decide questions of faith, but in his deciding without error in matters in which he feels himself enlightened by God.' There is therefore plenty of room left for that exercise of faith (which Dr. Mahan rightly considers very profitable), which is given by half-explanations, by things less clearly told than they might be, by 'enigmatical instruction leaving room for opinion.' In short, there is no fear that faith will not always 52 The Church. be a 'light shining in a dark place/ casting a little light here and there, and leaving a great deal in darkness, and it is quite certain that in this life we shall always see 'as in a glass in a dark manner,' however many infallible decisions may be given. ' It is said by Romanists,' says the editor in a note (p. 33), 'that nothing can be called faith which does not receive every article of revealed religion.' True, but Romanists also explain what they mean, and do not say, ' that belief in Christ is not faith till it has consciously, and explicitly received the Creed in its logical and dogmatical development ' — a proposition of which the editor speaks with much zeal. It is undoubtedly true that nothing can be called faith which does not receive every article of revealed religion, as far as you have means of knowing it to be revealed, but you may have faith although many revealed truths have never been brought to your knowledge. I have given a rather full explanation of explicit and implicit faith, in the Credentials of the Catholic Church, and I need not now go into the question. I now come to what I consider the great point to be discussed with Dr. Mahan. He draws a dis- tinction between those who believe on ' one infallible authority,' and those who rest upon a number of distinct concurrent authorities, striking the balance,, and so forth, between them. This latter course he considers more intelligent, more manly, more con- ducive to the exercise of many Christian virtues than The Nature of Faith. 53 the other. What I want to ask is : can any line be drawn between the two without giving up the whole principle of authority ? Supposing you have tried all the different sources of knowledge — the different witnesses that Dr. Mahan talks about — and they don't agree, or you think they don't agree, which are you to follow? Are you to give up your own opinion and follow authority, or are you to disregard authority and follow your own opinion ? To take for example something which Dr. Mahan would consider as un- doubtedly decided : supposing a man by ' consulting witnesses,' by reading the Scriptures and the Ante- Nicene Fathers, by reasoning and so forth, had formed an opinion distinctly opposed to the decision of the Council of Nicea — that is, against the Divinity of our Lord ; is he to give up his own opinion, or to reject the decree of the Council ? If the first, how is he at all better off in regard to ' manliness,' and all the other excellent results of a ' triple cord of witnesses,' &c., than one who gives up his opinion to the decree of the Vatican Council, or to any ex cathedra decision of the Holy See ? On the other hand, if he ought to stand to his own judgment, and reject the decree of the Council, every idea of authority is surely at an end, and you have arrived at a ' system which has no dogmatic certainty, but leaves everything in question ;' which, as Dr. Mahan truly says, is 'ruinous to the spiritual part of our nature' (p. 35). You may say he ought to weigh well all the arguments, and consider deeply the authorities, but 54 The Church. that when the deliberate voice of the Church is against him, he ought to consider it as the pronounce- ment of God. True ; but that is exactly the Catholic system — and open to precisely the same objections — (if any). Dr. Mahan may also say that the ecclesiastical decisions which he recognizes, are such as to leave no room for differences ; that the doctrine they teach is so plain that the ' other witnesses ' he speaks of cannot contradict them. That, however, is a view which can hardly be maintained, and which a very slight know- ledge of real life would refute. I think, therefore, that he fails to show that there can be any kind of obedience to authority, more than a mere name, which is not liable to the objections he makes to the Catholic rule of faith, in exactly the same way. There is another point on which I should like to join issue. It is this. Dr. Mahan speaks of religious certainty as a thing rather prejudicial both to the intellect and to the heart. He says : a system ' that bars the door against all intrusion of doubt and allows no inquiry, is fatal to the intellectual part ' of man's nature (p. 35). Again, that 'faith and love are so connected in the soul that — as in the race between Peter and John — love must outrun faith, or faith will run to no purpose ' (p. ■i,'j'). Can any one seriously maintain that certainty, of any kind, is an injury to the understanding of men ? How can it possibly injure the intellectual part of our nature to be certain of any truth, whether in the TJie Nature of Faith. 55 natural or the supernatural order? If God had revealed for example the Divinity of our Lord in such a manner that it could not possibly be called in question, how could that be an injury to the under- standing? If He clearly reveals the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, does the intellectual part of our nature require that it should be left uncertain ? Again, if the doctrine of the Atonement is revealed so that we cannot doubt about it, is love thereby prevented from outrunning faith, so that 'faith will run to no purpose ? ' The whole argument seems such a paradox that one cannot help thinking that Dr. Mahan meant to say that a thing taught as certain, which was not really certain, was injurious — that is, that he is (as I said before) unconsciously begging the question and assuming that the claims of the Roman Church are unfounded, and her doctrines untrue — the very thing he is trying to establish. But, Dr. Mahan goes on to say, Romanists profess to allow investigation, but then they would limit its use to finding an infallible guide, and tell us to lay it aside the moment we have found him. Your investigation is only a ' lantern to guide you to the palace of truth,' whereas, in fact, if investigation can teach us that road, it ought to be able to teach us everything else. This is a long subject, and one which I have treated at length in the Credentials of the Catholic Church. 56 TJie Church. It does not at all follow that because reason can and ought to find the guide, it can also find the road this guide has to show. The characteristics of a guide, in the nature of things, must be such as to be apparent to mankind generally. He must, in some way or other, address himself to the very nature and senses of those to whom he is sent, so that all may be able to recognize him. In this way came the prophets sent by God. With such signs as this, the Apostles went out with authority to teach — and with the same, the Church now addresses herself to men. I do not mean that at some times, and under some circumstances, these signs, which ought to be so clear, may not become uncertain — still the nature of them is that they are meant to be judged of by human reason, and are calculated for the understandings of all men. It does not therefore follow that all men can judge of abstract truth. The truth of religion, and indeed, of all abstract truth, is far above the powers of the mass of men, and the sort of proof by which doctrines are to be judged is, of its own nature, quite in- accessible to them. This kind of investigation is, moreover, as I have tried to show, quite inconsistent with an authoritative guide. If you have a guide pro- vided for you whom you are to follow, you cannot also be called upon to find out the way. You may choose one or the other alternative, but you cannot have both. There is another reason against this sort of investigation to which I shall have to refer again. It The Nature of Faith. 57 is this. It is almost or quite impossible for men to have a real and accurate knowledge and appreciation of the truth till they have embraced it. For example, the Jewish and Pagan world could not possibly have judged to any purpose of the truths the Apostles came to teach them, so as to know whether to accept them or not — if for no other reason — because they could not form anything like a reliable judgment as to what those truths were, as to their real significance and bearing, until they had accepted them. So I consider it must always be : those outside can but form a very vague and inaccurate idea of what the truths taught really are : nothing can be a better illustration of this than the utter want of comprehen- sion of the Catholic Faith in the very book I am considering. Dr. Mahan says that ' the heaviest mountain that faith has ever been called upon to remove is that which lies in the way of a reception of Papal In- fallibility ; ' and that ' this mountain, it is said, may be removed by a thorough examination of Scripture, consent, and antiquity' (p. 33). This is quite a mistake ; no Catholic says anything of the kind. The mountain — if mountain it be — is not removed by examination of Scripture, or any other sort of private judgment, but by listening to the teaching of the Church. It is decided by exactly the same authority that defined the Divinity of our Lord at the Council of Nicea. No doubt in both cases there was plenty of examination of ' Scripture, consent, and antiquity,' 58 Tlie Church. but the acceptance of the doctrine, in each case,, depends upon the judgment of the Catholic Church. Dr. Mahan compares the doctrine of Papal Infallibility to a mountain — and yet those who follow his views profess some sort of authoritative and infallible teaching in the Church : can they point out any way in which the Church can teach infallibly, or really teach with authority, which is less mountainous? I mean, which does not present difficulties quite as- great? Would it be much easier to believe in the infallibility of a General Council ? Neither a Council nor one man can decide infallibly except by a direct gift from God. Is it much easier to believe that a majority in a Council of Bishops has received that gift, than to believe that it has been bestowed on the successor of St. Peter ? Dr. Mahan speaks of the 'stress which the advocate of Papal Infallibility seems to lay upon the promise of guiding the Apostles into all truth.' He says : 'If the promise refers to the guidance of inspiration, it was fulfilled of course in Apostolic times, and the entire Creed was then once for all delivered, nothing being kept back which could be profitable to Christians ' (p. 43) ; and he proceeds to argue that this was compatible, as we learn from Scripture and history, with a great deal of ' temporary and widespread error,' particularly in the shape of a tendency to making additions to the Creed. Such, he considers, is the state of things now, and, he says, moreover, that 'whatever errors prevail, they are The Nature of Faith. 59'. still protested against and attacked,' and that 'it is sufficient for faith that the battle against error is still kept up' (p. 45). How, it may be asked, can this 'guiding to all truth' be considered as sufficiently fulfilled by the Creed given to the Apostles, when it is plain that this Creed absolutely required subsequent explanation? For example : we all know the history of the Arian heresy. We know how large and powerful a body in the Church, three hundred years after the Apostles, taught that our Lord was not truly God, but was only a creature. Did the Church require Divine guidance in deciding this question or not? Are we to consider the decision of the Council of Nicea as simply the opinion of unauthorized individuals without any claim to Divine guidance ? If not, how can it be said that the promise, on which the Church relied, had been fulfilled and had come to an end, three hundred years before ? The world was then, as it is now, full of ' temporary and widespread error.' True, and how did the Church meet that state of things? The Church assembled its bishops,and pronounced definitively what was truth and what was error, and required all men to acquiesce in its teaching. It did so in the times of the Apostles, in the fourth century, and in most succeeding centuries, and certainly was not contented with ' protesting against and attacking ' error, in the sense of allowing individuals to write protests against what they personally considered wrong. 6o T]ie Church. There were plenty of errors, but surely it is a matter of obvious history that the course the early Church took with regard to error was precisely the course which the Roman Church takes to this present day, and which none but the Roman Church can venture to adopt. Dr. Mahan gives an explanation of our Lord's promise to St. Peter in the words, ' Thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren ' (St. Luke xxii. 32). This promise, he says, is quite compatible with St. Peter's fall, and took effect on his conversion : it may reasonably be considered also compatible with a grievous fall on the part of his successors, and may be waiting for its fulfilment till they are converted : that is till they have turned away ' from the temper and policy of the last thousand years ' (p. so). It would naturally be understood that the com- mission given to St. Peter would not come into force so long as Christ was visibly present Himself It was obviously given in anticipation of the time when ' the Bridegroom should be taken away ' from them. St. Peter's fall was one foretold, at the time, to happen before our Lord's departure. These circumstances do not therefore in any way interfere with a distinct commission to St. Peter and his successors, taking effect from the time of our Lord's Ascension. To say, however, that the promise was to depend upon the fall and conversion of his successors, of which no prophecy had been given, and on which it was left to The Nature of Faith. 6i the private judgment of individuals to decide, is to deprive the promise of all meaning. The question, however, of the Pope's infallibility, as I have said before, does not depend upon this or any other test, but ultimately rests upon the deci- sion of the Catholic Church. It is for the Church to say who is her appointed ruler, and what are his prerogatives. I am sorry to see Dr. Mahan speaking of 'the sword of physical coercion,' and of ' more bloodshed than has ever stained any dynasty on earth.' I thought that all sensible men, at the present day, were pretty well aware that persecution and 'the sword ' in one shape or other, was by no means peculiar to the Church of Rome. Surely it is well known that in those days all religious bodies used force, and that the Church was frequently compelled to do so in self-defence. The Church of England, at any rate, is not in a position to say much about persecution, and it seems better for all parties to avoid so unpleasant a subject of recrimination. Dr. Mahan concludes his chapter by arguing that the unity promised was to be ' unity of spirit in the bond of peace,' and that 'Rome fails to command reverence, because it is a unity of earthly empire : it is a despotic unity' (p. 51). St. Paul certainly does exhort the Ephesians to walk worthy of their vocation, and to be ' careful to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,' as our Lord Himself had said, ' Peace I leave' unto you. €2 The Church. My peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, do I give unto you ' (St. John xiv. 27). Notwithstanding this, however, our Lord was very far from promising that His disciples should always have peace externally. On the contrary, He says : ' Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth ; I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother ' (St. Matt. x. 34). The plain meaning of this clearly is that although His faith, if rightly received, was calculated to give that peace ' which surpasseth all understanding ; ' yet that, coming into a world which was not willing to receive it, and where men at times would ' not endure sound doctrine,' it would, in fact, very often bring ' not peace but the sword.' No one, I think, can deny that such has been the case since the commencement of Chris- tianity. Does Dr. Mahan really mean to say that our Lord's promises were to be dependent upon the union of professing Christians in the bond of peace, and were to be in abeyance till they were all so united ? I should think it hardly possible to take such a view of them. Of course he can maintain that the pre- tensions of the Roman Church have been opposed to that peace, because they were unfounded — which is begging the question : but it is manifest that, if the Supremacy of the Roman Pontiff was really appointed by Christ, all the dissensions arising from jt are due, not to the Holy See, but to the disobedience The Nature of Faith. 63 ■of those who reject a divinely established authority. I say this, assuming, for argument's sake, that the authority of the Holy See has been the cause of dissension, whereas, in fact, it has been the great instrument of the peace and unity which Christendom has enjoyed. What does Dr. Mahan mean by calling it a ' unity of earthly empire'? Does he maintain that the Catholic world is kept in obedience to the Pope by physical force ? It is certainly rather a large asser- tion to make considering that the Holy See has been almost without worldly power for centuries, and that, at this moment, there is not a Government on earth which is not openly or secretly opposed to it. I think it can hardly be denied that the Catholic Church is an empire, not by virtue of the power of the world, but in spite of it ; how then can it be called a ' unity of earthly empire '? I have left to the last the consideration of what Dr. Mahan and his editor say of the devotion to our Blessed Lady and the Saints. This is indeed a serious question. If the devotion paid to our Lady were really such as they describe it, there can be no question that it would be simple idolatry. But it is, in fact, nothing at all like it, and the accusations can only be met by positive denials. There is not a 'strong family likeness' between our devotion and the ' corruption of heathenism ' — except to those who know nothing about it — and it is not 'defended by precisely the same arguments,' or any resembling 64 The Church. them. We do not say that in the saints ' we worship the multitudinous attributes of the one true God ' as the pagans worshipped in Pallas, wisdom ; in Mars, terror ; and so forth : we do not worship our Lady as the ' embodiment and beauteous reflection ' of His mercy. We do not dream of worshipping good- ness otherwise than in its source, 'where it is en- throned with all other perfections in the bosom of Almighty God,' or contemplate any ' attribute apart from Him.' To do so would undoubtedly be to ' sever from Him one of His choicest attributes ' and to ' dismember the Godhead,' since, as the writer truly says, ' His attributes, in their perfection, exist only in Himself (p. 46, note), and to worship them apart from Him, and ' embodied ' in any creature whatso- ever, would be an act of detestable idolatry. We do not place the ' altars of Joseph and Mary ' alongside the altars of Jesus, in the sense in which our opponents mean, at any rate. We do not spend our gold and offer our frankincense at a ' lower shrine ' (p. 46), so as to have nothing left for the altar of Jesus, but 'the tribute of the acknowledgment of justice.' To do so would be an abominable impiety. Protestants do not seem to have the slightest notion of the constant and tender devotion to our Lord which is the very life of the Catholic Church. People who talk as Dr. Mahan does, cannot know anything of the incessant devotion which Catholics practise to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist ; of the thousands who hear Mass every day, and come to The Nature of Faith. 65 visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament all day long, or of the constantly recurring Benedictions and Expositions of the Blessed Sacrament, which the Church enjoins. On every occasion of joy or sorrow, hope or fear, the first idea of the Catholic Church is to call on her children to rally round our Lord in His Eucharistic Presence. The Blessed Sacrament IS exposed, and people come in thousands to pour out their troubles or their thanksgivings before Him. Again, they can know nothing of the numberless ways in which the Church excites our devotion to our Lord's Passion. The devotion to the Sacred Heart, to the Precious Blood, and many others, are direct and immediate addresses to our Lord, of the tenderest and most devotional kind. Of all this devotion, writers such as Dr. Mahan seem to know absolutely nothing. Who, for instance, could be familiar with the devotion of the ' Stations of the Cross,' so constantly practised amongst Catholics in public and in private, and yet venture to talk of our giving our affections, and 'spending our gold and offering our frankincense at a lower shrine ' ? I was saying just now how difficult it was for those out of the Church to form any accurate or adequate notion of what her doctrines really are. This is well illustrated by Dr. Mahan's remarks on devotion to our Lady. It is in vain that Catholic writers go on protesting against such views as those here put forward, and trying to explain what they really mean. It is in vain that hundreds, who have F 66 The Church. been themselves Protestants, and have entered the Church in mature life, join their protest. Protestant writers go on forming their own theories of what is, and must be, the Catholic doctrine, and its bearing and results. They judge from a theological expres- sion here, and a practical phrase there, and, by their deductions from these, they settle the Catholic doctrine. They are, in short, to use Cardinal Newman's simile, like the celebrated tailors in the island of Lapurta who suited their customers not by measuring them in a common-place way, but by taking their altitude with a theodolite, and calculating their pro- portions by algebra. It is, no doubt, the fault of their position ; they have no personal acquaintance with the Catholic faith about the saints, and other doctrines, and proceed therefore to deduce what it must be from such stray facts, and words, as may come under their cognizance, the real meaning and drift of which they cannot understand. Every Catholic, even the most ignorant, knows that such views of the Catholic faith are entirely false, and, though no doubt put forward by the writers in all good faith, are, in fact, a gross calumny. Cardinal Newman says : ' Only this I know full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacra- ment, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come between the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, solus cum solo, in all matters between man The Nature of Faith. 67 and his God. He alone creates ; He alone has redeemed ; before His awful eyes we go in death ; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude ' {History of my Religious Opinions, p. 195). Every one who has experience of the Catholic Church will acknowledge that this is strictly true, and would shrink with horror from any sort of devotion which really interfered with the supreme and incommunicable worship due to God, or our immediate dependence upon Him. But how about the ' altars to Joseph and Mary,' beside the altar of Jesus? Do not the beautiful altars to our Lady we sometimes see, prove that the worship paid to her is something like that given to God ? I might just as well argue that, in Richmond, for example, the Church of England has a Church of the Holy Trinity, and also one, twice as gorgeous, of St. Mathias, and that therefore there must be a parity between the honour it means to give to God and to the Saint. If Dr. Mahan condescended to answer such an argument at all, I think he would say the churches were those of the Holy Trinity, and of St. Mathias, in quite distinct senses ; that, in fact, every church was a Church of the Blessed Trinity, and that the worship of God was precisely the same in both churches. That is exactly the answer I have to give to him about altars. Altars are called the altars of Mary and Joseph, and those of our Lord Jesus, in totally 68 The Church. distinct senses. Every altar is the altar of Jesus, where, in the Mass, our Lord is High Priest and Sacrifice ; where the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving and Praise, the holocaust and sin-offering, is offered to the Eternal God alone ; and that, in point of fact, the Mass said at all altars is identical. I do not mean to say that tables are not sometimes set up before statues of our Lady, on which candles and flowers are placed, but they are not really altars at all. It is absurd to ^peak of these as ' altars of Mary ' in the smallest degree as comparing with the altar of Jesus, the altar of God. The doctrine of the Catholic Church in this matter is very simple. There are two sorts of honour- First, Supreme or Divine honour. This belongs to- God alone, and is incommunicable, and it would be- idolatry to give it to any creature whatsoever. This is given to Him as the beginning and end of all created things, as the source and fountain of all being^ and of all good, for ' of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things.' This is different from any other honour, not in degree, but in kind. It is manifest, however, and confirmed in every page of Scripture, that there is another sort of honour which may, and must, be given to creatures, All the rational creatures of God have a right to honour in proportion to what God has given to them. If God has bestowed upon them exceptional gifts, and made them His ministers, His stewards, and 'set them over many cities,' it is plain that they have The Nature of Faith. 6g a right to honour. ' Render to all men their dues, . . . tribute to whom tribute, honour to whom honour' (Rom. xiii. 7). There can be no possible ground for drawing a line, and saying, those who have received intellectual gifts and worldly position shall be honoured, but those who have received spiritual gifts and become the special friends of God may not be honoured. A man is the minister of God in temporal things, and he ought to receive due honour ; can any one say he ought not to receive as much honour if he is placed over spiritual things, and made the instru- ment of spiritual blessings ? If a sovereign is placed by God on an earthly throne, we may certainly honour him, and ask his favour : is there any reason why we may not honour those whom He has ap- pointed to 'sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ' ? We may ask and beg and entreat as much as we please of the ministers appointed by Him over temporal things, why may we not ask for spiritual things also from those whom He has made ministers of spiritual blessings ? Nothing is more plain than that God makes His ■creatures the channels of spiritual graces as well as ■of temporal blessings, and one of the means by which they are communicated is prayer. Constant mention is made of prayer as a means by which God's grace has been obtained for others, why then may we not ask it? "JO The Church. But cannot it be said that the honour given to creatures, the trust placed in thefn, the affection lavished upon them, interferes with the honour due to God? Certainly not. If it did so, it would plainly be unlawful to give any such honour, and the result would be that the Christian religion would have the effect of discouraging all the natural feelings of homage, reverence, and affection with which men ought to regard those who are set over them, whereas it certainly does not do so. ' Be ye subject to every human creature for God's sake,' St. Peter says, and everywhere we find religion encouraging such feelings. If it were true that wherever you gave way to tfender and loving and enthusiastic feelings for creatures you were necessarily ' spending your gold ' and ' offer- ing your frankincense at a lower shrine,' so as to have little left for Almighty God, such feelings would manifestly be wrong. Every one knows that it is. not so, and that these feelings do not clash. You may, for instance, have as tender, reverential, and devoted a love as you wish, for your mother, but it does not, or, at any rate, need not interfere, and ought not to interfere, at all with what you owe to God. The reverence given to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is, in its nature, exactly the same as the honour given to creatures upon earth. Of course it has a more distinctly religious character, as being more directly connected with religion and the spiritual world, and it is in proportion to the greatness of the- gifts we believe them to have received from God,, The Nature of Faith. 7 1 and to the share which we believe them to have in the dispensing of His favours. St. Paul says of the angels : ' Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation ? ' (Heb. i. 14). We need have no difficulty, therefore, in believing that the saints, reigning with Christ, have a share in continuing that great work which was their special occupation here, and ' minister for those who shall receive the inheritance of salva- tion.' The Blessed Virgin, of course, is placed in an exceptional position, and receives an honour above others, though of exactly the same nature. No one who really believes the Mystery of the Incarnation can fail to see that her position is one of pre-eminent dignity, and that she must always be ' blessed amongst women' and above all creatures. The more vivid the belief in the Incarnation is, the greater is, and always has been, the honour paid to Mary ; indeed, one of the great objects of the Church in encouraging special devotion to her is that this spirit necessarily keeps up a full and devout faith in the Incarnation. The chief difficulty of the Catholic doctrine about the saints is a difficulty about words. Human language is not able always to distinguish adequately between the different sorts of honour. The same terms are frequently used of both kinds of reverence, and are applied indifferently to God and to the saints. For instance, the people ' believed the Lord and His servant Moses' (Exodus xiv. 31); 'the sword of the 72 The Church. Lord and Gideon' (Judges vii. 19) ; they 'worshipped the Lord and the King' (i Chron. xxix. 30) ; to take expressions as found in the Anglican version. Such words as worship ' and adore ' are constantly found used of creatures, and indeed there is no reason from the derivation of the words why they should not be so employed. Catholic writers are therefore compelled, when they would be very accurate, to invent such words as Latria, Dulia, Hyperdulia, but these certainly have an alarming sound, and we cannot expect poets and preachers to use them, nor can we expect that they will adapt themselves readily to devotional purposes. I have two more things to say before concluding. The first is this : Dr. Mahan says ' the position in which we are placed by what is now boldly called " the deification of St. Mary." ' Boldly called by whom? He does not attempt to bring forward any proof that such a phrase is in use amongst Catholics, and such a statement, without any sort of proof, is a very serious charge for any author to make. Such an expression, or something of which it is supposed to be a translation, may possibly have been used by some writer, but I have no doubt the meaning was sufficiently plain from the context : at any rate, I should like to see the context, and if Dr. Mahan had any such passage in view, it would have been only fair to refer to it. In the absence of such reference, I can only say that I never heard of such an expression or anything like it. TJte Nature of Faith. 73 The other is concerning the text from the Revela- tions which is so often brought against us : ' See thou do it not : I am thy fellow-servant ' (Apoc. xix. 10). Now this text may mean (i) That it is unlawful to give to any creature the honour which is exclusively belonging to God. (2) It may mean that it is un- lawful to give any honour to any creature. (3) It may mean that the particular honour given on the particular occasion was, for some reason or another, an unbecoming and unfitting honour. The first explanation is one in which all Catholics will cordially agree. The second suits Protestants quite as little as ourselves, since all of them — with perhaps the exception of the Quakers — consider it quite lawful to show marks of respect to creatures. Therefore the obvious conclusion seems to be that the prohibition was uttered because, through a mistake, St. John was really honouring the angel as God, not with the sort of honour which may, and ought to be given to creatures, but with a Divine honour which may be given to God alone. From this text, there- fore, nothing can be deduced that really touches the question at issue. Cornell Catholic Union Libraiy 74 The Church. CHAPTER III. THE FATHERS ON CHURCH AUTHORITY. The Anglican case stated — St. Vincent of Lerins — ' Universality, Antiquity, Consent' — St. Jerome and St. Augustine — The heathen coming to St. Chrysostom —Divinely appointed governments — St. Cyprian and the Pope — Firmilianus — A ' Rhetorical age ' — When the Pilot came on board — ^Argument for the Pope's Supremacy — Infallibility defined too late — and comes with four 'special marks.' In his third chapter, Dr. Mahan discusses the testimony of early times. He argues thus : It is plain from the writings of the Fathers that 'the notion of a single infallible witness is one of very modern origin' (p. S3). If it were not so, we should of course find early writers appealing to this one infallible witness ; instead of which we see a number of different tests put forward by different writers for discovering truth, which are not consistent with the existence of such a witness. For example, St. Vincent of Lerins says : ' Often have I inquired, with great care and much earnest- ness, of very many men, eminent for holiness and doctrine, how I might, by some certain, and, as it were, general way, discern the truth of the Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity : and have always received from all of them, an answer The Fathers on Church Authority. ^^. of this sort : that I, or any other person, wishing to detect the frauds of heresies as they rise, and avoid their snares, so as to keep himself in a sound faith safe and sound, must, with the help of the Lord, fortify his faith in a two-fold manner : first, namely, 6y the authority of the law of God; and then, in the next place, by the tradition of the Catholic Church ' (P- S3)- St. Vincent goes on to explain this by saying : ' Here, perhaps, some one will ask : " What need is there — seeing that the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect, and in itself suffices to the full, and more, for all demands — that the authority of the ecclesiastical interpretation should be joined to it ? " Because the Holy Scripture, for its very depth is not taken of all, in one and the same sense ; but its expressions are interpreted diversely, by one man in one way, by another in another, so that it may seem as if almost as many opinions may be gathered out of them as there are men. ... It is, therefore, very necessary, on account of such windings of so various error, that the line of interpretation of Prophetical and Apostolical writings be drawn by the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense.' He continues : ' In the Catholic Church, also, great care is to be taken that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all: for that is truly and properly Catholic, as the very meaning and derivation of the word show, which embraces all as nearly as may be universally. This 76 The Church. we shall only then do, when we follow Universality, Antiquity, Consent. What, then, shall a Catholic Christian do, if some small part of the Church cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, indeed, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the pestiferous and corrupt member. Wliat if soine new contagion essay to spread its foulness over, not merely a small portion, but the whole Church at once? Then shall he take care to adhere to antiquity, which is now utterly incapable of being seduced by any fraud of novelty^ (p. 54). Now here we see that St. Vincent, instead of simply pointing out that they are to make their faith agree with that of the Bishop of Rome, and sending them to learn of some priest in communion with that Bishop, gives men an elaborate and difficult way of finding the truth. They are to go by the authority of tlie law of God, and the tradition of the Catholic Church: they are to learn what has been believed 'everywhere, always, and by all,' so as to go by 'Universality, Antiquity, and Consent.' Such a rule as this ' is in every way framed so as to meet the case of the protest of the Church of England and the Oriental Churches against the usurpations of the See of Rome, and as such it has been abandoned as utterly impracticable by the recent converts to Romanism' (p. 56). 'The single fact of a treatise like that of Vincent of Lerins being written at the time when, after these General Councils, and after the days of Cyprian, Athanasius, T]ie Fathers on Church Authority. yy Augustine, and Chrysostom, the mode of arriving at the truth ought to have been so well settled, is con- clusive as to those early ages. That a learned man, holding the modern Roman theory, should have to " inquire with earnestness, &c., . . . how to discern the Catholic truth from heretical pravity" is extremely^ improbable. That having inquired, he should be able to recommend nothing better for "himself, or any other person," than the difficult three-fold rule, is absolutely incredible. The book of Vincent, there- fore, is one of those " fixed facts " which there is no way of setting aside. It must either be proved that this rule is identical with that of testing everything by hearing a Roman Catholic priest, or it must be admitted that this plain and simple test was, for the first five centuries, and wh^n the Creed itself, and even the Holy Scriptures, were at stake, abso- lutely unknown ' (74, note). 'This rule was framed at comparatively a late period of Church history, when all the great con- troversies — controversies with which our modern questions are as nothing — had exhausted them- selves, and the truth had come forth as the broad light of day' (p. 56). It is not, however, as if St. Vincent of Lerins stood alone. We find the same rule used in the settlement of all the great con- troversies of the early Church. St. Cyprian, for instance, argues vehemently with Pope Stephen that authority for tradition ought to be sought for in the Holy Scripture, and says, 78 The Church. in ' words that seem almost prophetic of our times, and justify the effort of Churchmen since the Reformation : " It is easy for religious and single- minded persons to separate the error, and to discover and bring out the truth. For if the fountain-head of Divine tradition is maintained, the error of 7nan is at an end, and the scope of the celestial mysteries is no sooner seen, than everything dark and perplexing is brought into the light of truth. If an aqueduct which once flowed freely and abundantly, should suddenly fail, would we not go to the source, and ascertain the reason of the failure, and, wherever the defect might be, repair the breaches of the aqueduct, and the defects of the channel, till the water should come to us again in as great abundance and purity as when it first began to flow ? This is what the priests of God are now bound to do, keeping the Command- ments of God, so that if truth is shaken or observed, we should go back to the teachings of our Lord and to the Evangelic and Apostolic tradition, that as our order had its origin there, our conduct tnay receive its justification from the same source"' (p. 57). Here he tells us that the priests of God are bound to go, not to the authority of Rome, but to the original fountains of ' Evangelic and Apostolic tradition.' The great doctors, St. Jerome and St. Augustine, agree with St. Cyprian. They also send us to the Scriptures, not to the teaching of the Pope. St Jerome says : ' The error neither of parents nor ancestors is to be followed ; but the authority of The Fathers on Church Authority. 79 the Scriptures, and the government of God as our Teacher. . . . Whence the Scriptures are to be read by us with all earnestness ; and we should meditate in the law of the Lord day and night, that as experienced money-changers we may know what is good money and which is bad' (p. 64), and St. Augustine says : ' He hath appointed the authors of the Divine Scriptures to be the mountains of Israel. There feed, that you may feed with safety. Whatsoever ye shall hear from thence, let it be accept- able to you. Whatever is not in them, reject. ' Either with respect to Christ, or His Church, or anything else, which pertains to your faith or life, I will not say " we," because we are by no means to be compared to him who said, "Although we:" but certainly I will say what he has followed it up with : ■" If an angel from Heaven shall have preached to you anything beyond what ye have received in the Scriptures of the Law and the Gospel, let him be anathema " ' (p. 64). St. Chrysostom shows the work- ing of this. 'A heathen comes forward desiring to be a Christian. He consults so eminent and en- lightened a Bishop as St. Chrysostom. He says : " I desire to be a Christian, but to whom shall I attach myself? In the contention and division and confusion among you all, which dogma shall I take ? Which shall I prefer? Since all of you profess to hold the truth, which shall I believe? I know nothing at all of Scriptures ; and they who profess to know, produce the same proofs for their respective 8o The Church. tenets." In this Chrysostom replies : " I am glad that all parties agree thus far : for if we referred you only to reason, you might be justly at a loss : but if we send you to the Scriptures, and they are simple and true, your decision is easy : for whoever accords with them, he is a Christian: but whoever is at variance with them is very far from it." But the man rejoins : " I have searched the Scriptures, and find that they teach me one thing and you another. What, then, am I to do ? Must I make myself a teacher when I know nothing of the matter at issue, and desire merely to be a learner ? " Now, here is the point at which, if anywhere, the infallible guide is needed. This is the case which demands the simple and explicit answer to the question, "Whom and what shall I believe?" and if Chrysostom and other Church teachers of the first six centuries could give no such single test of truth, and no such absolute direction as the case demanded, it proves either that they knew no such simple direction : or else, if they knew it, that they handled the Word of God deceit- fully, and perplexed the simple souls whom it was their business to guide. In this particular instance St. Chrysostom, after asking the man whether he had not a mind and a judgment of his own, proceeds to give him such marks of the true Church as he could, and leaves him to make his way clear through the mazes of this complex guidance ' (p. 68). St. Cyprian, however, is not contented with ignor- ing the infallible guidance of the Bishop of Rome The Fathers on Church Authority. 8i He tells him that although he has brought certain things to his knowledge, yet ' we know that there are some whose mind is not easily changed. ... In which case we do no violence to any, nor prescribe any law, inasmuch as each and every prelate has a right to exercise his own discretion in the government of the Church, and must render the account of his conduct to God' (p. 59), and Firmilianus says plainly to the Roman Pontiff: ^ Whilst you imagine that all can be severed by you, you have merely severed yourself from air (p. 59). St. Augustine also seems to have had a very loose and unsettled opinion about this infallible guidance, since he plainly tells the people that, in the passage, ' On this rock I will build My Church,' they may interpret the rock to mean either Christ or St. Peter, as seems to them more probable (p. 63). 'It is true that a great many strong expressions are to be found in the Fathers favourable to the authority of the Roman See — but these can all be explained by the natural desire of the writers to get the Roman Pontiff on their side. 'The Roman Bishop was then unquestionably the first Prelate of Christendom,' and ' it was natural, that in seeking to gain the suffrages of the incumbents of that See, controversialists, in a highly rhetorical age, should not be sparing of terms of honour,' but they merely made use of this authority when it suited them, and did not consider it as ' absolutely decisive of religious questions ' (p. 60). G 82 The Church. It will not do to argue as Dr. Newman does, that 'no empire establisTies itself without resistance and rebellion ; ' since in ' all divinely appointed govern- ments, the first governors are those whose sway is most absolute, and their powers most clearly defined ' (p. 60, note), as for example in the governments of Moses and Aaron. You cannot, moreover, explain the resistance offered to the Roman Bishop by saying that the power was then in germ, but was afterwards more fully developed. ' If these early times were com- paratively a time of Christian childhood, as the Roman writers allege, they were a time when the notion of a guide ought to have been specially pro- minent' (p. 6^^ ' Surely if there was ever a time when the light of infallible guidance should have been on a candlestick, it was at times like those of the first six centuries. But we find, in fact, that it was all that time hid under a bushel. The Papal Infallibility was either not known, or, if known, was entirely lost sight of amid "running to and fro," and the cumbrous machinery of Provincial or General Councils. When the single word, " Hear the Pope," might have relieved men's minds of all practical difficulties, that word alone was never uttered ' (p. 68). According to the Roman system the Pope is the divinely appointed pilot, by whom the bark of the Church is to be safely steered through all dangers, and yet it is clear that 'the private Christian was The Fathers on Church Autliority. 83 •obliged to find his way through the reefs and quick- sands, near shore, by diligent study of the charts : the pilot came on board when these were passed in safety, and the vessel was comparatively in an open sea" &x\ow^y pretended X.O have the supreme rule over the Church. Why was this ? The bishops of those days were not wanting in ambition, and every bishop would naturally be anxious to advance the dignity of his own see. It can only be accounted for by the deep-seated feeling and tradition that the successor of St. Peter, and he alone, had received from our Lord authority to superintend the whole Church. There is not the slightest sign that the Pope's claim to supremacy was ever rejected by the Church. There is an abundance of strong passages, which any one may find, explicitly admitting that claim ; but where can you find any protest against it? By The Fathers on Church Authority. 113; protest, I mean any plain statement that the Bishop of Rome is no more than any other Patriarch or Bishop, and has no right to interfere with other- bishops. Does any one attempt to answer the Pope, as we should answer the Archbishop of Paris, for instance, if he interfered with our English Bishops? or as the Episcopal Church of America would answer the Archbishop of Canterbury if he were to send his commands to them ? Of course there was plenty of grumbling. When the Holy See decided against people, they did not like it then any more than they do now. A great many people who are, in theory, extremely loyal to the Pope, consider it very hard when he condemns their favourite views, and easily find excuses for some degree of disobedience, and say disloyal things — in §hort, they grumble. Men always did so, and will do- so until we are all saints. Happily, however, there is a very wide gap between grumbling and deliberate rebellion. It is easy to find plenty of grumbling, but very hard to find real rebellion. Of course there was rebellion sometimes, but — this I think an important point, — those who rebelled, remained ever after cut off from the body of the Church. I am not talking of mere ebullitions of temper, and passing misunderstandings, but of real permanent rejection of the Pope's authority : in no case has any body of men cast off the Pope's authority and remained members of the Catholic Church. Could anything show more conclusively I 114 The Church. that the Papal Supremacy has been fully accepted by the Church of God ? I will conclude my sketch of the argument for the Papal Supremacy with this remark. Those who assert that the Papal rule was not the government intended by our Lord for His Church, ought to be able to show what was the intended government A mere negation of a great theory is not much good, unless you are prepared to put another in the place of it. Now, has any other scheme of government for the whole Church ever been seriously suggested ? Is any other possible, which can be made in any way to fit into the acknowledged facts of history ? I suppose our opponents would admit that our I>ord intended His Church to be ruled somehow. When He said : " There shall be one fold, and one shepherd," He clearly meant that there should be some form of government in the Church He was to establish. But there is no vestige, either in Scripture or history, of any other scheme for the government of the Church, so that the choice is between the Papacy and — nothing. After this long digression I must come back to my author, and treat of a difficulty which Dr. Mahan and others seem to consider a formidable one. It is that Papal Infallibility was defined at so late a period in the Church's history. ' The nature of this Infalll- bilityi' they say, 'should be no questionable thing." How can we ' receive what we know to be true only on the authority of a witness whose authority is not de fide?' I do not think that there is any real • The Fathers on Church Authority. 115 difficulty. The doubt about the Pope's personal Infallibility, as far as there ever was a doubt, was purely a speculative one, and never had any practical £ffect. It was always most strictly defide, and, indeed, the authoritative rule of faith — that the Pope's teach- ing, accepted by the Catholic Church, was infallible. All the doctrines which the Holy See asked Christians ±0 receive were accepted by the Church, so that the duty of receiving them was not affected by the question whether the Infallible authority which decided them was the decision of the Pope in itself , or the decision of the Pope confirmed by the accept- ance of the Church. What would happen if the Pope's decrees about faith were rejected by the Church is a purely speculative question. Those who taught the per- sonal infallibility of the Pope always maintained that such a thing could never happen : at any rate, it never has happened. When Dr. Mahan asks how we can receive the Nicene Creed upon the authority of an infallible teacher whose credentials and authority are not so well defined and proved as the truth of the Creed itself, the answer is obvious. The Nicene Creed was accepted, in the first instance, on the authority of the Pope, united in faith with the body of the Church, and it always has rested, and still rests, on the same authority. The definition of the Papal Infallibility does not make the smallest difference. Dr. Mahan concludes by saying that the Roman Infallibility comes before men with four special marks. Il6 TJte Church. These, he tells us, are : i. The division between the East and the West. 2. The stain of bloodshed. 3. The deification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 4. The ' childish and almost heathenish frivolity in all parts of the earth that are subject to the Roman sway.' It is perhaps desirable to speak of the first of these points. It is not true that the division between the East and the West was occasioned by the ' growth of absolutism.' It was not the result of any special claim on the Pope's part to supremacy, but proceeded from the jealousy and hatred of the Easterns against the Western nations, which grew stronger as the East declined in power. The Eastern Church had no par- ticular grievance, but had to invent causes of disagree- ment, because the feeling of the people compelled them to separate. For example, no exercise of authority at that time can be produced at all to be compared in peremptoriness with the conduct of St. Leo the Great at the Council of Chalcedon. On that occasion he not only presided by his Legates, but he sent a definition of the true faith, which the Fathers of the Council were not to discuss, but to accept. Does Dr. Mahan mean that the secession of a large number of bishops is sufficient to destroy the Church ? or if not to destroy it, at least to paralyze it so that it can no longer perform the functions of a Church ? If so, the Church is plainly established in such a manner as necessarily to break down the first time it has any serious work to do. On this theory the Church, in fact, ceased to exist, or to be in a position The Fathers on Church Authority. 117 to do anything from the first General Council. It cannot, I imagine, be denied that the great Arian heresy drew away from the unity of the Church a very large proportion of the then existing Catholic bishops. Whole nations became Arian and remained so for ages. Does Dr. Mahan assert that this was sufficient to render null the proceedings of the Council of Nicaea and all the Councils that came after it? If not, why should the secession of a number of Eastern Bishops, later on, nullify the action of the Church? The same is exemplified in the Eutychian heresy. Every one knows how very large a portion of the Church was infected by this Jieresy and by it withdrawn from the centre of unity, and, moreover, that the division has continued down to the present day. Did the secession of the Mono- physites annul the Council of Chalcedon ? People sometimes talk as if the ' division of the East from the West' was something quite unique, and unheard of, whereas, in fact, every great heresy from the commencement of Christianity has occa- sioned similar divisions. The 'Eastern Church' is, after all, merely a series of national Churches, with no bond of union amongst themselves, and united in nothing except in rejecting the Pope's authority. From the time of separation, moreover, there have always been portions of the Eastern Church which have kept up communion with the Holy See. I do not think it necessary to say much about the other things mentioned by Dr. Mahan. The ' stain of Ii8 The Church. bloodshed in wars and persecutions' is no doubt greatly to be deplored, but I think the time has passed when this can calmly be put down as a peculiarity of the Roman Church, or as occasioned by the 'growth of absolutism.' The 'deification of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a term which Dr. Mahan has introduced into the controversy without pro- ducing one shadow of justification from the words of any Catholic author, and only shows how little he understands the belief or practice of the Church. The charge of 'childish and heathenish frivolity' is one of a class which it is diflficult or impossible to meet. When controversialists begin to apply such terms as 'childish,' 'heathenish,' and 'frivolous,' to their adversaries passim, it is a sure sign that the controversy has reached its natural termination. There is plenty of childishness, frivolity, heathenism, and so forth, in Catholic countries, and so, I am afraid, there is here. It is the very work of religion to fight against the wickedness of human nature, but much evil will ever remain in spite of it. It is extremely difficult to know enough of the habits of other nations to be able to tell how much there is of real frivolity, and how much there is that offends us simply because we do not understand it, and it is unlike our ways. It is certainly a very bold thing to pronounce such a sweeping censure upon ' all parts of the earth that are subject to the Roman sway.' Anglican and Roman Theories. 119 CHAPTER IV. ANGLICAN AND ROMAN THEORIES. Anglican case stated — Analogy to science — The ' three-fold nature of man ' — ' Truly Catholic ' and ' Papal ' doctrines — ' Counterpoise to the pulpit ' — ' Creature worship ' — ^Jewish Church — ' Paternal guidance ' — Apostolic teaching — The ' act of Baptism ' — Grounds of faith — ' Universal Supremacy ' — What is the Church ? — ' Unity of acquiescence ' — A ' four-squared basis ' — -The ' Private interpre- tationist.' In this chapter Dr. Mahan sums up his account of the position held by Anglicans, and his objections to the Roman theory ; and I condense it as follows : ' In the Roman theory,' he says, ' and the Anglican, there is, on the whole, this much in common — that, whether we hear from one witness or from many, from an absolute infallibility, or from a conditional one, we, in either case, profess to hear God : that which we hear is the truth of God ; and the faith which cometh by this hearing, is a faith given by God. The question between us is. What is the appointed way of hearing God's voice?' (p. 'j'j'). Romanists answer : ' We are to learn by listening to St. Peter's successor.' This theory has the merit of clearness, but is open to the following objections : I. 'It is not the way in which we attain to a full assurance of belief in other matters of controversy. 120 The Church. ^ In everything else, we test one witness by another, and attain to no well-grounded certainty till we have heard, as it were, the spirit of all the evidence, and grounded our belief on that ' (p. "jj). 2. ' This intervention of the infallible voice,' more- over, ' is not in accordance with the three-fold nature of man ' (p. 79), that is, with his ' heart, mind, and soul ' (p. 6). The fact of making ' faith a mere act of submission' keeps the masses of men 'in a' state of perpetual childhood. Hence in Roman Catholic countries, ignorance is not an accident, but a " logical necessity " of their system.' ' The cultivation of their minds, especially that cultivation which is the fruit of acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, would inevit- ably lead to a modification of the present Roman system, if not to an entire revolution ' (p. 79). For example, the Roman Church teaches 'a system of creature worship as rich and varied in its details as any of the ancient mythologies ' (p. 79), which system is plainly contrary to the teaching of the Bible. It ■would be impossible for a person to read the Bible, and yet to hearken to a ' teacher, however great his authority might be, without some misgivings in those points where the written testimony seems to diiifer from the spoken. He cannot read at all without making his reading a test of his learning' (p. 80), and 'for this reason, education as a development of the mind, as well as of the conscience and affections, and above all, education as an exercise of tfte mind in the written Word of God, is utterly incompatible Anglican and Roman Tlieories. I2i with the Roman theory' (p. 81). 'A Jesuit priest- hood, possessed of an absolute mastery over all arts and sciences, and applying the whole of this terrible force to the subjection of a simple and unenlightened people, is the most perfect form of society that the Roman theory allows' (p. 81). It is true that 'other systems, the Anglican included, practically teach the truth according to the interpretation of the appointed teachers, and so, after all, bear witness to the Roman system ' (p. 8 1 ), but the difference between the two systems is, that Anglicans have a well-digested liturgy as a ' counter- poise ' to the ' influence of the pulpit' 'The lips of the priest must keep knowledge,' but the pulpit ought to be 'hedged round with a phalanx of incorruptible witnesses. The Creed, the Word written, the Word spoken, and the Word sacramentally or liturgically embodied, are so blended in each act of worship, that if any fail to hear, it can only be because there is no light in them ' (p. 82). It is not so in the Roman system. There 'the two most Divine of these witnesses, the liturgies and Scriptures,' are ' buried and hidden from the people in a dead language' (p. 82). 'Accordingly, we observe that between the articles of the Creed which the Church has everywhere received, and the additions which have been sanctioned by the Council of Trent, there is this striking difference : the former may be proved, and have been proved, point by point, and article by article, by most certain warrant of Scripture : 122 The Church. whereas the latter are utterly destitute of any such unquestionable warrant ' (p. 82). For example, the Divinity of our Lord can be plainly proved from Scripture, whereas the special doctrines of the Roman Church, such as the Immaculate Conception, the dulia and hyperdulia shown to the saints, and so forth, can produce no proof whatever. ' In everything which is truly Catholic, in every point of belief which has received the sanction of the whole Church, we appeal to Holy Scripture without the shadow of misgiving. We court investigation. We educate the people to the hearing of " two or three witnesses " without fear of the result. We feel and know that whoever searches Scripture not with " private interpretation," but with a meek submission of his mind to those rules of evidence which are stamped upon human nature, and which it is necessary to observe in every question of truth : such a person by God's help will inevitably be led to a firm belief in the Triune God Whom we worship ' (p. 83). ' In this way there is a broad distinction between those doctrines which are truly Catholic, and those which are merely Papal ' (p. 84). 3. ' The Roman theory is an absolutism utterly inconsistent with the types of Church government which we possess in the Word of God. It is not a parental guidance ' (p. 84). ' It is not a guidance like that of the Jewish Church. For in that, the written Word ever remained as a text of the authorized priestly teaching: and everything which accorded Anglican and Roman Theories. 123 not with it, though sanctioned by the authority of those who sat in Moses' seat, might be rejected even by individuals, as man's tradition. Is Holy Scripture now less perfect or less clear? Does the private Christian possess less of the spirit of wisdom and understanding in God's Word than the private Jew ? ' (p. 84). 4. ' Again, this absolutism of infallible guidance is not consistent with the Apostolic mode of teaching. The Apostles assured meris minds by reasoning ; and the basis upon which they argued was " the faith once delivered," " the Gospel once preached," the testimony of Holy Scripture, and the truly Catholic platform of common sense '(p. 85). Romanists may say that they also do this ; but, on their principles, such a course would make faith less perfect. A father who governs his family on such a theory as theirs, 'will never reason with his children, because he knows that by doing so he destroys the absoluteness of his authority. If he reasons, it is because he has a different theory of paternal government. It is in fact because he desires his children to hearken to reason' (p. 86), whereas that is what the Roman Church does not desire. 5. What is said of the Apostles applies with still greater force to the early Church. In the history of the first six centuries three important facts every- where ' stare us in the face. i. That during the whole of this long period there was no single test of truth which the private Christian could apply with 124 The Church. infallible certainty. 2. That everything proved and settled, during this long period, was proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture. 3. That no article was determined as de fide which was not implied in the very act of Baptism into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ' (p. 86). Thus ' the faith which we receive on peril of damnation is a faith which every Christian, in all ages of the Church, has received from the beginning ; a faith which is amply sustained by plain sentences of Holy Writ ; a faith which, allowing time for misapprehension and consequent discussion, has been invariably acknowledged as true by all Christians who hold to the Catholicity of the Church, and its unity on the basis of an Apostolic ministry ' (p. 87). ' Having this three-fold witness, the Creed may be received by different persons, and at different periods of life, on either or all of these grounds. One may receive it because he has been taught it by that branch of the Church which is his spiritual mother ; another because he has read it in the Bible ; a third because he finds it to be warranted by universal consent. Yet it may be doubted whether either receives it truly on Church authority, and still more, whether he has received it, in the fullest s^nse, from God, unless his belief has been tested, and made sure, by hearkening, so far as in him lies, to each of these witnesses. A mere Bible Christian is an absolutist of the worst kind, for he receives nothing but what the Spirit may reveal to him through the Anglican and Rojnaft Theories. 125 written Word, which he, a mere fraction of the Church, can understand, of course, only in a fractional way. On the other hand, he who determines to receive everything which he hears from the representative of the Church nearest at hand, whether it be war- ranted by the written Word or not, makes the Word of Inspiration superfluous, and practically of no value ' (p. 87). ' There are doubtless difficulties connected with the practical application of any rule of this kind, among which the greatest is that it leads Christians often into the straits and perplexities of doubt (p. 88), but this only makes it more necessary to believe in the abiding presence of the Invisible Head of the Church, and to find no resting-place for our faith short of His own Sacred Person ' (p. 89). ' By too great eagerness for peace, we may forget that the wisdom which comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, and so be led to submit to a despotism, whereas, in fact, a protest has been maintained for more than a thousand years by the Eastern Churches, and for upwards of three hundred years by a large portion of the Western, against an assumption which Pope Gregory the Great most explicitly denounced as Satanical and anti-Christian,' that is, against the ' Papal claim of universal supremacy in things temporal and spirituar (p. 90). Faith, as understood in the Anglican Church, ' differs from opinion or private judgm.ent in that it submits itself not only to the Scriptures, but to the 126 The Church. Creed of tlte Catholic Church (which is the faith once for all delivered at Baptism, and is likewise the spirit of Scriptural testimony), and to the sacraments and ordinances and ministry of the Church duly ordained upon the Apostolic foundation ' (p. 93). ' The only question between us and the Romanists is, "What is the Church?" We contend that it is that large body extending through East and West, and worshipping God in all languages,' they ' narrow it down to communion with the Roman See, to worshippers in the Latin tongue, and to the holders of a visible Head and centre' (p. 93). The result of this system of narrowing is that the Roman Church secures a ' unity of acquiescence, rather than of active, intelligent consent. Yet with all this, differences do occur in her communion' (p. 95). ' It is a political rather than a spiritual unity. And of such a unity it has been well said by an ancient political writer, that " it may endure for a time ; and, so long as it is kept together by a common interest, or by the pressure of some overpowering force, it may present a fair semblance of strength and prosperity ; but, as soon as an opportunity occurs, its real weakness is revealed by the readiness with which the subject masses throw off the mere outward restraint, and fly into anarchy and ruin " ' (p. 95). The results of the system of repression exercised in the Roman Church are to be seen in the violent controversies which perpetually arise. The violence of these is 'abundantly shown in the Galilean and Anglican and Roman Theories. 127 Ultramontane controversy. Is the Pope absolutely infallible, and by himself, or is his infallibility qualified by the condition of a General Council? This one would suppose is a question of some importance in a system which makes the Pope the rock of faith and the sacrament of the Church's unity. Yet to the present day, after innumerable controversies, it is still an open question ' (p. 97). If there is vagueness in the Anglican system, there is at least as much in that of the Roman Church. ' The Roman system, with an equal vague- ness of the definition of the ecclesiastical basis — allowing every grade of opinion between the rigid Ultramontane, who makes the voice of the Pope absolutely the voice of God, and the moderate Gallican, who regards nothing as fixed until it has been wrought into shape by the cumbrous machinery of an CEcumenical Council — has nothing as a counter- poise to its vagueness. It discourages the use of Scripture ' (p. 97). The Roman theory, moreover, introduces into the Church an element of lawlessness. It removes the Church from the broad, four-squared basis of twelve Apostolic foundations, and sets it upon the narrow pinnacle of one. It makes one man's judgment an ample reservoir for ' the fulness of Him Who filleth all in all ' (p. 94). The ' private interpretationist ' is also lawless, not because he judges for himself in matters of belief, but because ' he uses an arbitrary rule of judgment' 128 The Church. Instead of this, he should remember ' that the Spirit' which beareth witness, is that " one SPIRIT into which ALL are made to drink " in one body ' — he should stand ' upon the ground', and hold ' to the divinely appointed pillar, to which the Scriptures everywhere bear witness, as necessary conditions of a right under- standing of the truth ' (p. 94). This is Dr. Mahan's argument as clearly as I can put it. Let us consider these difficulties in detail, and see whether Dr. Mahan is able to make any objections to the Roman system, which do not apply, quite as strongly, to the position which he himself holds. The first difficulty is that the way of learning religion is not analogous to the way in which we learn other things. Is this a valid objection, sup- posing it to be true ? Dr. Mahan himself has pointed out, what is sufficiently manifest, that no strict analogy can be expected between the acquisition of knowledge, which professedly comes by direct revelation from God, and knowledge which is derived only from human reason and experience. We should expect, a priori, that there would be a vast difference in the principles on which these two kinds of knowledge are to be learned. But is it so ? Is there no analogy between religion, as taught by the Catholic Church, and a human science ? It seems to me that, mutatis mutandis, there is a close and striking analogy. In human science there is always something fixed for a basis, something which can always be used as a Anglican and Roman Theories. 129 test and correction to theory. You have documents which can be referred to, or experiments which can be repeated ; you can see and touch and examine, and so, at every stage, confirm or reject your scientific theories. If it were not so, science would lose itself in endless speculation and division. In religion you cannot have experiment from the nature of the subject-matter, but you must have something to supply its place, if you are to have any science at all — and this can be nothing but authority. To carry out the analogy, moreover, you must have an authority which can be appealed to again and again, as new questions arise, that is to say, a living authority. Each step in science is confirmed or rejected by fresh appeals to fact, by fresh experi- ments, by new researches, and so forth, so there must be an authority to which appeal can be made when necessary, if there is to be any science of theology. The place of such an authority is not supplied by the Holy Scriptures. They are undoubtedly susceptible of a number of interpretations. No fresh facts can be got from them, and no light beyond what has been before our eyes for centuries. Science could not go on, if all its data were certain experiments which had been already tried, on the bearing of which men disputed ; there must be a power of getting fresk decisions of authority (of some kind) at every step, and the only thing analogous to this in religion is a living authority. J 130 The Church. It is the want of such an authority that renders all theological controversies amongst Protestants so endless and so vague : they have not got those fixed points which are an essential condition of any scientific discussion. In the Catholic Church, on the other hand, there is a great science of theology, because there are a number of fixed points and principles on which all are agreed, and there is an authority always at hand to keep theory from losing sight of these principles. Those who are out of the Church will, naturally, call in question the soundness of these principles, but I do not think any one acquainted with the subject can deny that there is a science of theology, having a very close analogy to other sciences. We are told we 'ought to test one witness by another : ' so we do. No one can read any Catholic theology without seeing that there is a perpetual discussion carried on, and that every subject is most carefully argued out. Constant appeals are made to Scripture and tradition : the Fathers and the Councils are cited, and claimed, on this side, or on that, over a vast field of theory and of argument. It is, indeed, acknowledged, on all sides, that no one must pass the boundaries laid down by the Church, but there is plenty of room for discussion within those boundaries, and the Holy See is by no means inclined to interfere unnecessarily with fresh decisions. It never does so, indeed, as a general rule, until a decision is plainly necessary for the welfare of the Church. Anglican and Roman TJieories. 131 2. Dr. Mahan considers that it is inconsistent with the three-fold nature of man to listen to one single infallible voice. But if one reason is sufficient, why- does the nature of man require more? Surely the whole of this argument is simply begging the question. He thinks that an infallible voice is inconsistent with nature, that it keeps mankind in childhood, that it renders ignorance a logical necessity, that it requires a ' Jesuit priesthood,' a ' priestly caste,' and so forth. But will Dr. Mahan, or any one else, gravely maintain that, if QoA has really given a revelation of the truth, by one infallible teacher, it can be otherwise than in accordance with the ' three-fold nature ' of man to accept it ? or that ignorance and ' absence of mental ■culture' are a 'logical necessity' for accepting it? If it were perfectly clear that certain revelations came from God (in whatever way they came) and •were undoubtedly true, how could the nature of man object to receiving them, except by sheer self-will? How can knowledge or cultivation (unless themselves false) put a difficulty in the way of accepting the truth ? The argument plainly assumes that the Church's claim to teach is unfounded, and her doctrine false : that is, begs the whole question. Without this assumption, the argument is absurd. The difficulty, such as it is, moreover, applies to all teaching equally. Those who think it false can always say that is only ignorance, or prejudice, or want of education, which make people believe it. There is not a word of 132 The Church. Dr. Mahan's objection which may not be turned against himself by those who differ from him. Dr. Mahan tries, it is true, to draw a ' broad distinction ' between ' those doctrines which are truly Catholic and those which are merely Papal,' between the ' articles of the Creed which the Church has every- where received, and the additions which have been sanctioned by the Council of Trent.' Of what he considers to be the doctrines which are truly Catholic, he says : ' We feel and know that whoever searches Scripture, not with " private interpretation," but with a meek submission of his mind to those rules of evidence which are stamped upon human nature, and which it is necessary to observe in every question of truth : such a person, by God's help, will inevitably be led to a firm belief in the Triune God Whom we worship.' This, again, is evidently begging the question. All those who believe more than he considers to be the 'truly Catholic' articles of faith, deny that a broad line, or any line at all, can be drawn : and those who do not accept those truths, deny that they necessarily follow from Holy Scripture ' by the rules of evidence which are stamped upon human nature.' He instances the Divinity of our Lord, but can any one say that no other possible view could have been taken of the question than that which the Church did actually adopt ? Is it not an undoubted fact of history, not only that other views could be Anglican and Roman Theories. 133 held, but that a very large body of learned men, did hold an opposite opinion? Every one knows that there was a tremendous controversy, and a great schism. So far from the definition of our Lord's Divinity being a thing which necessarily and inevitably followed according to the ' rules of evidence,' it was an act of the strictest and most authoritative teaching — and the question was one which nothing but a divinely appointed teacher could ever have settled. Dr. Mahan admits that in the Anglican system, as well as the Roman, the mass of the people must hear the truth ' according to the interpretation of the appointed teachers.' He thinks, however, that a great difference of principle is made by having 'a well digested liturgy,' in the vulgar tongue, as ' a counter- poise ' to the influence of the pulpit. The mass of men, he says, have neither time nor inclination for private study of the Scriptures, and, therefore, 'a Church truly Catholic takes care that it shall be heard, as well as commended.' I can quite under- stand his being attached to an English liturgy, but it seems strange that he should erect the possession of it into a note of the Church, especially considering its sufficiently modern origin, and that he should consider the Scripture lessons which the 'mass of men ' hear on Sundays sufficient to enable them to sit in judgment on their teachers, and to find a * counterpoise ' to the influence of the pulpit. It always has been, and is now, the desire of the Catholic Church to put the Scriptures before her 134 The Church. children, and explain them on suitable occasions — not ' as a counterpoise ' to her own teaching, but as the written Word of God, which it is her province to. explain. Would Dr. Mahan venture to say that this can be done in one way Oft/y — by having the liturgy in the vernacular ? Or would he venture to condemn that very large proportion of Christians amongst whom for ages the liturgy has not been celebrated in the vulgar tongue ? Dr. Mahan thinks that the Church buries the liturgy in an unknown language, because she does not think it proper to change the venerable forms which have come down to her from remote antiquity into numberless modern and changing dialects. It may be very convenient for an exclusively English- speaking Church to use the English language, but it would not be convenient to the mother of so many nations as the Catholic Church, to adopt a corres-- ponding number of languages for her liturgy. At the same time, as surely Dr. Mahan must know, every one, of the least education, can very easily become familiar with it by the means of translations. As for very ignorant and simple people, I am afraid that they would comprehend but little of it whether in Latin or in English : the style and ideas are beyond them. Let us ask, however, which liturgy really attracts the poor most ? I think any one who ever has been abroad, or in Ireland, or seen much of our churches here, will be compelled to admit that a common ' Low Mass ' is far more numerously attended Anglican and Roman Theories. 135 by the poor, and heard with far greater devotion than any ' vernacular ' service that can be found. Sundays and week-days, all the year through, the churches are attended by all classes, poor as well as rich, in numbers which the ' well-digested ' ritual of the Church of England has never been able to attract — for any length of time, at any rate. Protestants have a Gospel and Epistle every Sunday, which are substantially the same as those in the Missal. In the Catholic Church this Epistle and Gospel are generally read to the people in English, and, as a rule, form the text of the instructions given to the congregation. To be sure the Church of England reads chapters of the Bible, at different services, which, in some respects, may be an advantage — but does Dr. Mahan really think that the chapters read on Sundays to ordinary congrega- tions, — farm labourers, peasantry, and people generally — are sufficient to enable them to pass judgment on the sermons preached to them? If so, he must have a delightfully high idea of their powers of attention, memory, and intellect. He says, moreover, that the Roman Church teaches 'a system of creature worship,' which is plainly contrary to the teaching of the Bible, and that it would be impossible for a person to read the Bible and yet hearken to a 'teacher, however great his authority might be, without some misgivings,' and, therefore, that 'ignorance is not an accident, but a logical necessity,' and that an ' acquaintance with the 136 Tlie Church. Holy Scriptures would inevitably lead to a modifica- tion of the present Roman system, if not an entire revolution ' (p. 79). This is a charmingly naYve way of putting the subject. Can he possibly have been ignorant that all the apparent difficulties presented by passages of Scripture have been carefully, learnedly, and exhaustively considered, not once or twice, but hundreds of times over, by Catholic , theologians ? and that all moderately well-informed Catholics are perfectly acquainted both with the difficulties (when they are of importance) and their explanation ? Does not Dr. Mahan know that Catholics, though not deny- ing that there are occasional apparent difficulties in the way of any system, are perfectly convinced that the only system which agrees with all Scripture, is the faith of the Catholic Church — which is indeed the only key to an understanding of Holy Scripture ? It is intelligible enough that he should not agree to this view of the case, and should set up his private opinion against the Church : but it is really astound- ing that he should not even appreciate that the Catholic Church has a view of its own on the matter. 3. Dr. Mahan next objects to the Catholic system that it is not analogous to the Jewish Church, and that it is not a 'paternal guidance.' These are very sufficient reasons why the analogy between the Jewish Dispensation and the Christian Church should be very far from complete. The Jewish Church was not intended to teach all Anglican and Roman Theories. 137 nations, and was not to endure till the end of the world. Its special object was to keep alive the belief in the one true God, and to keep His worship before the eyes of men by a visible establishment and system of sacrifice. It was not intended to explain the truths of faith to men, but to keep mankind in a state of preparation for One Who was to come and teach them all truth. It was, moreover, ruled by a special and peculiar Providence, and directed from time to time by prophets sent from God. We cannot expect such an institution to have any close analogy with the new system established by our Lord, in which His Apostles are sent to teach all nations. We do not, I suppose, know exactly how far the teaching powers of the Jewish priests extended, and whether they were, strictly speaking, infallible ; but, at any rate, our Lord says : ' The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All things, therefore, whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do.' It is true that He blamed them greatly, but not, I think, for what we should now call false doctrine, but for allowing themselves, in practice, to be led away by vanity and envy, and by foolish maxims and traditions. But if the Jewish Church is not quite like the Roman system, has it any analogy at all with the Anglican idea of a Church? that is, with a body scattered throughout the world, with no distinct visible principle of union, with no sort of internal organization, and no recognized head or system of government? Surely if anything was characteristic 138 TJie Church. of the Jewish Church, it was its visible union and systematic government. But Dr. Mahan says it is not a ' paternal guidance,' because a father 'desires his children to listen to reason,' and ' instead of the one strong chain of simple hearing, he is willing to attach his children to himself by a multiplicity of cords, taking hold upon the mind, as well as upon the heart and conscience.' True ; but does not a father step in with authority whenever it is necessary for the good of his children? He may argue and advise as much as you will, but when his children are in danger of destruction, he must interfere authori- tatively, or he neglects his duty. This is precisely what the Catholic Church does. She encourages her children to make the deepest possible study of her teaching, to exercise both mind and heart in it, but, when there is any serious danger to faith, she comes in with her authoritative voice, and tells them what they must believe. Would it be more like a 'paternal guidance' if she looked on calmly when their reasonings were leading them astray, and did not say one authoritative word to direct them ? It is true the merit of faith consists in submission of the understanding to the authority of God, but it does not follow that it is less perfect because it is accompanied by an exact knowledge of the subject, and of the grounds of the faith. On the contrary, the more the powers of intellect are brought to bear, the more precious is the ' obedience of faith.' Anglican and Roman Theories. 139 4. Again Dr. Mahan says, 'The absolutism of infallible guidance is not consistent with the Apos- tolic mode of teaching.' It is not easy to see exactly what he means by this. St. Paul gives a specimen of what lie means by Apostolic teaching when he says to St. Timothy : ' Preach the Word, be instant, in season and out of season, reprove, entreat, rebuke, in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap to them- selves teachers having itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. Be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil thy ministry' (2 Tim. iv. 2 — 5), and in another place: 'These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth' (i Tim. iv. 11, 12). Is not this precisely what the Church has done in all ages, and IS now doing? Is it an 'absolutism' inconsistent with the Apostolic type that the Church does not allow her children to disregard her teaching? If, after all reasonings and exhortations, St. Paul's disciples had thought that they knew better than he did, and declined to accept his doctrine, what would he have done? would he have given way? or would he have been ' absolute ' ? 5. At any rate. Dr. Mahan thinks three things stare us in the face during the early ages. ' i. That during the whole of this long period there was no 140 The Church. single test of truth which the private Christian could apply with infallible certainty. 2. That everything proved and settled during this long period, was proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture. 3. That no article was determined as de fide which was not implied in the very act of Baptism into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost' I should be inclined to give a totally different version of these facts, and say : I. That the private Christian had exactly the same guide that he now has. He had then to follow the teaching of the ordinary pastors of the Church subject to the correction of the chief pastors, when need required and opportunity permitted : that those pastors, with the Bishop of Rome at their head, decided disputed points just as peremptorily as the Church now does, and allowed no one to dispute their authority. The Church then had no rule of faith but obedience to the teaching of her consti- tuted pastors, and she exacted this obedience from all, on pain of being cut off from her communion. Let us ask for example : How does the conduct of the Church at the Council of Trent, or the Vatican Council, differ from the mode of proceeding at the Council of Nicasa? How can it be said that when the decrees of the Council of Nicaea were made known to men, the 'private Christian' had no infaUible test of truth? Every such decision of the Church was a test of truth, after it had once been made known. Such tests of truth were multiplied Anglican and Roman Theories. 141 in the course of ages, the way was more clearly- marked out, but the principle on which the private Christian of the first ages found out his faith, was identical with that in use amongst Christians at the present day. 2. Everything was then decided consistently with the teaching of Holy Scripture. The faith was founded on the teaching of Scripture as understood, explained, and supplemented by the Church's living voice. It is plain, however, that it was not confined to what could be proved from Scripture in such a way as not to admit of any doubt. A large number of men, in fact, not only doubted, but rejected the decision of the Church, and were in consequence cut off from her communion. No one, I think, can seriously maintain that the doctrines of the Church about our Lord as defined against the Arians, Nes- torians, Eutychians, and so forth, were so clearly laid down in Holy Scripture as to leave no room for dif- ference of opinion. Again, on the subject of grace, can any one say that there was no room for the error of the Pelagians? When these doctrines were once settled by the Church, the faith was plain enough ; but if there had been no authoritative voice to decide, there would have been plenty of •■oom for divergence. The decisions of the early Church, therefore, were in accordance with the teaching of Holy Scripture in precisely the same sense as the later ones, and in no other. J. The ' act of Baptism into the Name of the 142 TJie Church. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ' is an act by \\hich men accept the Christian faith, and, in that sense, implies believing all that the Christian faith teaches. If you know what the Christian faith is, you know what Baptism implies. In any otJier sense, I do not see that it implies the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed any more than it implies the doctrines of the Council of Trent or the Vatican Council. Dr. Mahan follows with this rather strange sug- gestion, that ' having this three-fold witness, the Creed may be received by different persons and at different periods of life on either or all of these grounds. One may receive it because he has been taught it by that branch of the Church which is his spiritual mother ; another because he has read it in the Bible ; a third because he finds it to be warranted by universal consent ' (p. 87). Can such wavering and changeful opinions be called faith at all? To-day you believe a thing because it is taught you : to-morrow you cease to believe on this ground — that is, you give up your confidence in what you supposed was the Church of God, and believe in your own private interpretation of the Bible ; at another time you give up this also, and believe on the strength of some private historical views of your own as to universal consent. If you are at liberty to change your grounds of faith in this manner, is it not the most complete form of private judgment? Anglican and Roman Theories. 143 It is obvious that the ' grounds of faith ' must be those grounds on which our Lord meant the faith to rest. Can any one believe that He meant the grounds of His faith to be perpetually changing, and that there should be no one pillar and ground of truth ; but that each individual should stand on his own ground, one of authority, another of private judgment, and so forth ? If God meant us to depend upon a three-fold guidance, as Dr. Mahan would have us believe — i.e., on the teaching of the Church in which we happen to find ourselves, and our own interpretation of the Scriptures, and on what we consider to be universal consent — there can be no faith unless «//> these grounds of belief concur. You would have no right to suppress any of them, but must wait till your own opinion coincided with the teaching of the Church before you could have any faith at all. Dr. Mahan here introduces a protest against the ' Papal claim of universal supremacy in things tem- poral and spiritual,' an assumption which, he tells us, ' Pope Gregory the Great most explicitly denounced as Satanical and anti-Christian.' This refers to a very old story which has many times been discussed and answered. St. Gregory undoubtedly denounced the assump- tion of the Patriarch of Constantinople to call himself Universal Bishop, and declared that his predecessors had never accepted such a title, though it had been offered to them. For the first part, it is clear that 144 TJu Church. the Patriarch of Constantinople had no claim to any sort of universal jurisdiction ; and, as to the last, St. Gregory gives the reason, that it is a proud and ambitious title, and, moreover, that it would seem to imply that essentially there is but one bishop in the Church ; whereas the episcopacy, or union of many bishops, is clearly of Divine institution. Writing on the subject to the Bishop of Thessalonica, he says, ' If one is universal, it remains that you are not bishop.' What follows from all this ? Can we infer that because on these grounds he rejected the title of ' Universal Bishop,' he therefore repudiated the notion that the Pope had any jurisdiction over other bishops, or out of his own diocese? If not, to what purpose is it quoted? The plain question then is. Did St. Gregory himself, and his predecessors and successors, claim and exercise supreme jurisdiction over the Church, never mind by what name they called it ? The letters of the Popes from the time of St. Siricius, 384 A.D., are extant, and there is scarcely one of them who does not, in the plainest words, claim the right to interfere everywhere, and who does not declare, as a ground for this right that he has the charge of the whole Church. There is scarcely one of the Popes who did not, in fact, interfere in a peremptory manner in the affairs of the local Churches in both East and West. One of the chief things we know about St. Gregory is that he established the Hierarchy in England. That does not look much as if he repudiated any authority out of his own See. Anglican and Roman Theories. 145 The very fact of his writing to call the Patriarch of Constantinople to account implies that he considered himself to have a right to interfere. In the very- letter referred to, he says that his predecessor Pelagius had 'dissolved the Acts of the Council ' because of the title assumed by the Patriarch. How could he do so without claiming to have authority ? In a letter to Eusebius referring to the Council called by the Patriarch of Constantinople, he says : ' Although whatever is done has no force without the authority and consent of the Apostolic See.' Is not that claim- ing jurisdiction ? The attitude assumed by the Holy See, in word and action, during these centuries can only be ascer- tained by a careful study of the drift of the actions and writings of the Popes and other Fathers of the period. The subject has been treated at length many times by Mr. Allies, Father Botalla, and many others. If their conclusions are to be refuted, it must be by a corresponding detailed treatment of the subject ; and it is idle to imagine that any conclusion can be come to by dwelling on an isolated expression of St. Gregory or any other Father. Dr. Mahan sums up the difference between his view and that of the Roman Church in these words : ' In this regard the only question between us and the Romanists is, " What is the Church ? " We contend that it is that large body extending through East and West, and worshipping God in all languages, which rests upon many Apostolic stones, and has no centre K 146 The Church. nor head but Christ. They narrow it down to com- munion with the Roman See, to worshippers in the Latin tongue, and to holders of a visible Head and centre ' (p. 93). Before considering the claims of ' that large body,' however, another question arises : Is there any such body? Is there a multitude of men 'extending through East and West, worshipping God in all languages, and resting upon many Apostolic stones,' which can in any reasonable sense be called a body or association of any kind? If so, who compose it? Do the Catholics ? do the Greeks ? do Protestants ? How can any corporate body be formed of members who protest against belonging to it ? How can there be any association between people who entirely differ as to the terms of association ? How can those be united in one religious body who are completely at variance as to what are the truths necessary to be believed ? Catholics protest that they are not members of any such body as Dr. Mahan describes, and emphati- cally deny that any such body exists. Every word and action of the Church is a distinct condemnation of such a view. So does the Greek Church, so do Protestants generally. What proportion of the sup- posed members of the supposed body agree with Dr. Mahan in thinking that any such body exists ? We do not, indeed, deny that there are numbers of people all over the world worshipping God in all languages, consisting of such as are in good faith, Anglican and Roman Theories. 147 who are in a certain sense included in the Church. Such people may be admitted, by God's mercy, to a share of the blessings granted to the Church ; but they certainly do not form one visible body, and they are externally excluded from that Church on earth to which our Lord made His promises and entrusted His gifts. Before arguing, therefore, on the rights and claims of this ' large body,' Dr. Mahan ought to bring for- ward some proof of its existence. At present no one in the world believes it to exist except a small party of the Church of England, and these are unable to define, or cannot agree in defining, who are the members of it, what are the conditions of member- ship, how it is organized, or any of those things which it is essential to know about any corporate body existing amongst men. Dr. Mahan says that we ' narrow doVn ' the Church to communion with Rome. If a Church or any institution is to be a visible body on earth, it must be ' narrowed down ' to some visible conditions. You cannot have a visible body at all without some visible and tangible conditions of membership. What are the conditions necessary for union with the Church according to Dr. Mahan ? He speaks of those who ' hold to the Catholicity of the Church, and its unity on the basis of an Apostolic ministry.' Does this mean that he ' narrows down ' the Church to those who attach the same meaning to ' Catholicity ' and ' unity ' that he himself does ? If so, he narrows 148 The Church. the Church into very small limits indeed ; if not, the words seem to have no particular meaning. The boundaries within which the Catholic faith confines the Church are, at any rate, clear and intelli- gible, of undeniable standing in history, and of reason- able extent. I do not know whj' Dr. Mahan should speak of ' worshippers in the Latin tongue.' He can hardly have been ignorant that there is scarcely an Oriental language which is not represented in the liturgy of the Catholic Church. It is a pity that Dr. Mahan should have been driven, by the exigencies of his position, to talk of the unity amongst Catholics as a ' unity of acqui- escence rather than of active and intelligent consent.* It is difficult to see what this can mean when said of bishops and priests, at any rate, unless it means in plain English that, ^\■hereas they declare before God and man that they believe certain truths, in reality they do not believe them. Seven hundred bishops at the Vatican Council solemnly declare certain truths to be articles of the Catholic faith ; bishops, with their clergy, at their synods habitually swear on the Gospels that they accept and believe these truths ; and Catholic writers, clergy and laity, are perpetually asserting the same belief ; and yet people outside the Church, who know nothing in the world about the matter, and have not a particle of evidence to pro- duce, consider themselves justified in calmly stating that Catholics do not believe their own professions. It is plain that this is simply an i priori view of Anglican and Roman Theories. 149 the matter. Dr. Mahan and such writers think that it must be so, and therefore without a shadow of proof, they do not hesitate to say that it is so. The present is certainly a very bad time to talk about the unity of the Church as a ' political, rather than spiritual unity,' and for saying that the Church is kept together by the 'pressure of some over- powering force,' considering that every external, political influence in the world is, at this moment, exerted against the union of the Catholic Church. Whilst no external pressure can keep the Anglican Church in any sort of doctrinal union, the Catholic Church remains one, in spite of all efforts to break it in pieces. One is sorry to hear such a writer as Dr. Mahan talk of ' infidelity ' ministering at the Church's altars, * as is abundantly shown at such times of commotion as the Reformation or the French Revolution' (p. 95). I suppose in every violent persecution a certain number will always fall away ; but I think every impartial person will admit that, as a rule, the French clergy behaved with great heroism during the Reign of Terror in France. The clergy were required to take an oath to the civil Constitution on pain of losing their livings, and being prosecuted as disturbers of the public peace. Alzog says : ' Of the three hundred ecclesiastical deputies, about eighty consented to take the required oath ... of the one hundred and thirty-six bishops, only four were to be found faithless to their trust. ... At least fifty 150 TJie Church. of the sixty thousand pastors and vicars then in France, absolutely refused to take the oath. . . . The King was shortly after deposed and imprisoned, and the decree against the clergy carried out in its extremest rigour. Although six hundred priests had been slaughtered at Avignon by the soldiers of Jourdan, the beheader, they still heroically refused to take the oath. . . . They massacred, amid scenes of revolting barbarity, three hundred ecclesiastics, including one archbishop and two bishops. The atrocities perpetrated at Paris were repeated at Meaux, Chalons, Rennes, and Lyons ' (Alzog's Uni- versal Church History, vol. iv. pp. 118 — 120). A vast number of exiled priests were to be found in England at the beginning of the century, and to the present day many of the Catholic missions bear testimony to their zeal and piety. Dr. Mahan may remember that Macaulay calls attention to the fact that, of the countries which fell away at the Revolu- tion, all returned to the Roman obedience, and none could be induced to receive Christianity in any other shape. That does not seem to agree with Dr. Mahan's theory that people are kept in her communion by an external despotism. The reproach does not come very well from a member of a body which, whatever may be its good qualities, has not as yet produced any great number of martyrs. Let us see what will happen if a storm like the French Revolution falls on the Church of England ; in the meantime, let us not be too hard Anglican and Roman Theories. 151 on those who may have been found wanting when called on to resist ' even unto blood/ since we do not know how we should ourselves behave in time of trial. Dr. Mahan has a great deal to say about the violence of the Ultramontane and Gallican controversies, and the vagueness of the Roman Church, which allows every grade 'between the rigid Ultramontane,' &c., but the question really is this : Was there ever a time when any member of the Roman Church could refuse to accept the Pope's decree concerning faith or morals, and still remain a Catholic ? Certainly not ; and this is well shown by the whole Jansenist controversy. The errors of the Jansenists were condemned by decree after decree, driven, as it were, from point to point by the supreme judgment of the Holy See, and by that alone. Of course, in times of excitement, people were not always obedient and loyal ; sometimes they evaded on one pretext or another, or ignored these decrees for a time ; but no one ever ventured to profess that he was not bound by them, because they were not decrees of a General Council. Any one who Jtad ventured to do so, would at once have been cut off from the Church. There might have been some latitude for speculative opinions as to how, why, and when, in the abstract, the Pope's decrees were infallible, but there never was any latitude, even in the extreme Gallican view, as to the duty of at once accepting them, in the concrete, whenever they were issued and tacitly accepted by the Church. But the Roman theory introduces an ' element of 1 52 The Church. lawlessness.' ' It removes the Church from the broad four-squared basis of twelve Apostolic foundations, and sets it upon the narrow pinnacle of one ' (p. 94). 'The broad four-squared basis;' this sounds very nice, and one would be glad to understand the meaning of it. Is it only a poetical way of saying that the 'Anglican Church rests on Scripture?' The Apostles, or at least six of them, were amongst the writers of Scripture : the Anglican Church rests on Scripture, or thinks it does, therefore on the 'four-squared basis?' I think, however, that there is some deeper meaning. Not long since I had a controversial diagram sent me as a circular. It represented a pyramid resting on its apex, which was supposed to be the Roman Church 'set upon the narrow pinnacle oione' Apostolic foundation ; to which was contrasted another pyramid — in its usual position — representing the Church of England standing on its 'broad four-squared basis.' I should like to know in what sense the Church of England can be said to rest on ' twelve Apostolic foundations.' Certainly not historically. I suppose that Church — or at least the Catholic Church in this country, of which it claims to be the continuation — was founded by St. Augustine, sent here by Pope St. Gregory, and no other ' Apostolic foundation ' has supported it from that day to this. There are indeed no other ' Apostolic foundations ' existing in this world, except perhaps the Church of Jerusalem, which may possibly be derived from St. James, who was the first Bishop of the Holy City. The Church of Anglican and Roman Theories. 153 Jerusalem, however, has always held an inferior position. The great patriarchates of the Church were Antioch and Alexandria, which claimed their rank from their connection with St. Peter, since Antioch was the city in which St. Peter placed his first epis- copal throne, and Alexandria was founded and governed by St. Mark, his disciple. To these were added, at a later date, the patriarchate of Constanti- nople, which certainly claimed no Apostolic origin. St. Innocent writes almost within the fourth century (A.D. 402 was the date of his election) : ' We note that this privilege was given to Antioch, not so much on account of the city's magnificence, as because it is known to be the first seat of the first Apostle, where the Christian religion received its name, where a great meeting of Apostles was held, and which would not yield to the See of the city of Rome, except that the latter rejoices in having received and retained to the end that honour which the former obtained only in transition ' (Rivington's Plain Reason, p. yG). St. Gregory says : ' For who does not know that the Holy Church has been established on the solidity of the Prince of the Apostles ? . . . And thus, though there be many Apostles, yet, in virtue of its very principate, only the See of the Prince of the Apostles, which is the See of one in three places, received supreme authority. For he made that See sovereign, which he honoured by resting in it, and there ending the presen life. He distinguished the See to which 154 "^^^^ Church. he sent his disciple the Evangelist. He strengthened that in which he sat himself for seven years, though he was to leave it ' (Rivington, p. 40). St. Gregory plainly thinks that there is only one ' Apostolic foun- dation,' and that all the Churches claiming, in any sense, to be supreme, Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, all derive their authority from St. Peter. I never heard that the Church of England rested on the succession derived from St. James. The only connection it ever had with Jerusalem, as far as I know, was the establishment of an Anglo-Prussian bishopric in Jerusalem, in opposition to the episcopal succession derived from St. James — supposing that it is derived from him. Nor did I ever hear that the Church of England was in any way distinguished by particular devotion to the Apostles. I cannot, there- fore, imagine in what way the Church of England can claim to rest on the ' broad four-squared basis of twelve Apostolic foundations.' Dr. Mahan seems rather hard upon what he calls the ' private interpretationist' He ' also is lawless,' not because he judges for himself in matters of belief, but because he 'uses an arbitrary rule of judgment.' But if it is a man's right and duty to judge for himself in matters of belief, and, as we may presume, he exercises his judgment to the best of his power, using the best means of information which come in his way, why is he lawless ? It is not reasonable to tell a man that he must judge for himself, and then find fault with him because his conclusions differ Anglican and Roman Theories. 155 from yours. The very idea oi judgment is to be arbitrary, and if he does not think that ' the Scriptures everywhere bear witness ' to your view of the Church, why should you blame him ? I now come back to the consideration of the question with which I started. Have the Ritualists any real and substantial principle as a foundation for all they are doing? or, is their idea only like the mirage of the desert, without any tangible existence ? I. Does Dr. Mahan succeed in establishing any real standing-ground between the system of the Catholic Church, and the extreme Protestant doctrine of private judgment ? After all that he has to say about ' three-fold witnesses ' and so forth, does not the question resolve itself into this : either there is a distinct definite faith given to men, which all are absolutely bound to receive as a matter of duty and obedience, from which nothing but 'invincible ignorance ' can excuse them — or not ? If he holds that there is, he is putting forward precisely the Catholic system, except that to suit his theory, it is utterly wanting in those things necessary to give to such a system of revealed truth a concrete existence. It has no formulary of faith on which it is agreed, and accepts no authority capable of defining what that faith is to be. It is a theory which absolutely requires a complete profession of faith, and yet which has not got one, and has no means of getting one. IS6 The Church. If there is no such clear faith given to men, and there is no such obligation of believing a distinct faith, then there is clearly nothing left but for each one to believe according to his own private judgment, and objectively, at any rate, it does not very much matter what he believes. In this latter case, all the talk about ' the Church ' is quite unmeaning. 2. If there is such a definite faith, the Anglican system is liable to all the difificulties and objections which are brought against the Roman system. All that has been said about ' spiritual despotism,' ' intel- lectual slavery,' 'absolutism,' 'dwarfing the reason,' and so forth, applies to both equally. If you have to give up your own deliberate opinion, and believe what you are told in spite of it, it really does not matter whether you do so in deference to the judgment of the Pope or in obedience to the decree of a General Council. If it is a slavery to accept the decrees of the Vatican Council, or the Pope's decree defining the Immaculate Conception, it would also be a slavery to accept a decree made unanimously by all the bishops in the world ; so it is also a slavery to believe in the consubstantiality of the Word defined by the Council of Nicaea. In either case the submission is just and reasonable if the authority is appointed by God, and a slavery if made to unauthorized men. All the objections made to the principle of the Catholic Church apply just as forcibly to the system the Ritualist party would establish. Of course objections may be made to particular doctrines Anglican and Roman Theories. 157 taught by the Catholic Church, but the considera- tion of such difficulties does not belong to the question of the nature of religious authority, of which we are now speaking. 3. Ritualists again try to establish a distinction between faitJi, as they maintain that it ought to be, and opinion, or private judgment. This distinction, as Dr. Mahan puts it, consists in this, that ' it submits itself, not only to the Scriptures, but to the Creed of the Catholic Church (which is the faith once for all delivered at Baptism and is likewise the spirit of Scriptural testimony), and to the sacraments and ordinances and ministry of the Church, duly ordained upon the Apostolic foundation.' This, however, is no distinction of principle. It is merely an enlargement on the materials on which private judgment is exer- cised. If each Christian is to judge for himself the meaning of the Scriptures, and also what is the Creed of the Church, and what it means : if he is to form his own judgment as to the nature, meaning, and authority of 'the sacraments and ordinances and ministry of the Church,' it is hard to see how his system is, in any degree, less ' private judgment ' than if he simply formed his opinions by reading the Bible only. It is plain that any number of views can be held, and are held (and are held by intelligent and conscientious people), as to the Creed, sacraments, and ministry of the Church, just as different opinions are held as to the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. 158 Tfie Church. If there is no authoritative voice to declare which of these views is the correct one, there is nothing left but simple private judgment All this is borne out by the history of the Ritualist movement. It has now been many years at work, and if it had had any substantial principle of its own — any real standing-ground between the principle of the Catholic Church and of private judgment, it could hardly have failed to work out its principle into some tangible shape. It would not have been contented for so many years with vague generalities, but would have, in some degree at any rate, settled the working details of its principle. This is illustrated by the book of which I have been speaking. It was published in 185 1, and in the present edition, in 1877, the notice 'to the reader' says: 'This tract does not pretend to define the limits either of Church authority or of private judgment with theological accuracy.' Why not? If, after twenty-six years, nothing has been done to define those limits, without which the system can logically have no concrete existence, may it not fairly be assumed that the principle on which it is founded does not admit of definition, and is merely a vague theory, too unsubstantial to be brought into the region of fact? What is a Church? 159 CHAPTER V. WHAT IS A CHURCH? No definition attempted by Anglicans — A body — Prophecies — Visible and conspicuous — Definite limits — Organization — Pillars — Dif- ferent ranks — Central authority — Purpose for which organized — Witness — Teacher — Anglican Church — Diocesan theory — Cardinal Newman — The Catholic Church. After discussing Dr. Mahan's views about authority, I should like to go a little more in detail into the great question, What is the Church? and what authority has it received from God ? If we are once agreed as to this, all other questions are easily dis- posed of We have an authority, then, to settle them definitively, and there need be very little more dis- cussion. On the other hand, if we are not agreed on this point, we may go on disputing for ever without any hope of getting nearer. One great difficulty we meet in arguing about the authority of the Church is that you cannot get people to say precisely what they mean by the Church ; apparently they cannot bring themselves to look closely into the subject, and settle for themselves what is their own precise definition of a Church. It is clear that we may go on as long as we like speak- ing about ' the Church ' and ' Church authority,' but i6o The Church. we shall never get any nearer until we begin to define our terms. If you mean one thing by the Church and I another, it is plain that we are talking about different things, and that every argument used must be more or less beside the question. There is no party who ought to feel more acutely the necessity of clearly defining what they mean by the word ' Church ' than the Anglican party, because the sense in which they use it is undoubtedly very novel. All mankind are familiar with the idea of the Catholic Church, or the Church of England, or the Russian Church'; but when you come to talk about a Church in a sense distinct from these — to mean, as Dr. Mahan puts it, ' that large body extending through East and West, and worshipping God in all lan- guages ' — when you talk in this way, surely we have a right to ask a definition of what you mean by a Church, what constitutes a Church according to your ideas ? It is precisely this definition that we cannot get. I do not mean that an Anglican clergyman when pressed in a controversy will not throw out a sketch made for the occasion. It is easy enough to hear such hastily hazarded ideas of what the Church ought to be, and must be ; but what we want is a well- considered definition of the Church compatible with the position they hold, on which their party or any considerable number of them will agree, and by which they will stand. They have had plenty of time to do this, if it can be done ; but we do not What is a Church? i6l seem any nearer now than when the party first started. Dr. Mahan says the Romanists ' narrow down the Church to communion with the Roman See.' Cer-' tainly, but we want to know to what he ' narrows it down.' It is plain he must narrow it down to some- thing, if the word is to have any meaning at all. The very term ' definition ' implies narrowing down, and we cannot get on any further till we know the precise definition, or 'narrowing down,' which our opponents would suggest. Now I think we all are agreed that the Church must be a body : ' One body and one spirit' Let us, then, consider what we mean and must mean by ' a body.' A ' body ' evidently must mean some collec- tion of men which has a sufficient analogy to a living body of some sort, to warrant the use of the figure of speech. Now, what are the essential charac- teristics of a living body ? Clearly the first essential of any description of ' body ' is that it should have distinct limits. No one ever heard of a ' body ' of any kind which had not a definite boundary, so that it could be clearly said what belonged to it, and what did not. This is true of everything that can be called a body in any sense, but is most emphatically and obviously true of every living body, so that the idea of a living body with uncertain, undefined limits is almost an absurdity. It is plain that a collection of men without any such distinct limits cannot in any reasonable sense be L 1 62 TJte Church. called a body This characteristic is shown in all collections of men which are usually called bodies — for instance, a City Corporation, a University, an army, and so forth ; all of these have distinct bound- aries. A man must either be a member or not a member of such a body, and the conditions of mem- bership are well known. Now in the Catholic Church there is no difficulty about this. Everybody knows what is required to make a man a member of it, and how he ceases to belong to it. But what are the limits of the Church according to the views of Anglicans ? How do you propose to define that ' large body extending through East and West ' ? That is what we cannot so well answer. If it is necessary that the Church should have clearly defined limits because that is in the very essence of a living body, this necessity is made more clear by all that is said of it in Holy Scripture. The Prophet Micheas says : ' It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of mountains, and high above the hills, and people shall flow to it ' (Mich, iv. i). I suppose all Christians would agree that this refers to the Church our Lord was to establish, and what is the quality about it which is most dwelt upon? Its conspicuousness — on the top of mountains. It is something evident to all mankind which no one can mistake. There is to be no difficulty in telling where it is or what it is — no indefiniteness about it. W/ia( is a Church? 163 So again with the still more striking prophecy of Daniel. When the Prophet has described the great statue which the king had seen in his dream, and has given the interpretation of the dream, he concludes with these words : ' But in the days of those kingdoms the God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall break in pieces and shall consume all those kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever ' (Dan. ii. 44). Here, again, the one particular quality of the kingdom is that it is to be visible and conspicuous to all mankind. Now let us see what our Lord Himself says of the Church which He is to establish. He describes it by a number of figures which correspond most accurately with the idea given us by prophecy. He tells us that it is to be like a great tree — all the birds of the air are to take refuge in it. ' The Kingdom of Heaven,' He says, ' is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which is the least indeed of all seeds, but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof (St. Matt. xiii. 31, 32). Can we find any figure which better expresses the visible, tangible character of the Church ? So of His other figures : The Kingdom of Heaven IS like a net cast into the sea, enclosing a vast multi- tude of fishes, good and bad. The one special idea contained in this figure is that of a clearly marked 164 TJie Church. boundary between those who are within and those- who are without. It does not follow that all who are- within are good, but they are distinctly marked off. from all who are without. This remark is equally true of the most striking, of all His figures — that of the fold. A 'fold' is nothing if it has not boundaries. If the sheep- cannot see quite clearly where the boundaries are,, it cannot be called a fold, because it is plain that invisible, intangible boundaries are of no possible use. It is clear, moreover, from our Lord's words that these boundaries are not dependent on the dispo- sitions of those within or without, because He dis- tinctly speaks of those who are His sheep and yet,, for the time, are without the fold. ' Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, these I must bring,, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.' The proper and natural place for the sheep is within the fold, but they may accidentally be without it ; that however does not make the place in which, for the moment, they are, the fold of Christ. It is obvious, then, that a clear, tangible, external line of demarcation is an essential condition of the Church ; it is so, because you cannot imagine any living body without such an exact definition, and because it is specially pointed out in Holy Scripture as one most marked characteristic of the Church which our Lord was to establish. An external limit and definition is essential to- WAat is a Church f 165 r anything that can be called a body in any sense, but to be a living body something more is required : it must be organized. The great characteristic of every- thing possessing life is that its parts should be arranged with a dependence one on another. A mass of stone, •for instance, is a mere aggregation of particles quite 'independent of each other : it may be great or it may 'be small ; but that is a mere accident, and it makes no difference to each part whether the mass is increased •or diminished. With a living body it is different. From the "highest to the lowest, each living body is made up of parts which share the life of the whole, and in their turn, minister to the wants of the whole. It has organs of some kind, simple or complicated : that is, it is organized. The Church, therefore, if it is to have any claim ■to be called a living body, must be organized in some -way, and this organization must be made subservient to the spirit or life which is in it. What we read in the Holy Scripture about the establishment of the Church fully bears out what we should antecedently •expect ; it is not only a body with distinct tangible limits, but with a very distinct organization. In the first place, it is to have a life intimately connected with its exterior organization, as every living body has. No words can express this idea more plainly than St. Paul's words, ' One body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord,