BR 15 ViSSE-^ ^- ^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Date Due 3 1924 092 357 866 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tile Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092357866 ESSAYS CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL JOHN HENRY NEWMAN FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD VOLUME II LONDON BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING 196, PICCADILLY 1871 Ptt' fl. a 10^^ V ORNEiJ 1-. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. PAGE ESSAY IX. THE CATHOLICITY OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I NOTE ON ESSAY IX 74 X. THE PROTESTANT IDEA OF ANTICHRIST. . 112 XI. MILMAN's VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY . . . l86 XII. THE REFORMATION OF THE ELEVENTH CEN- TURY . ...... 249 NOTE ON ESSAY XII 318 XIII. PRIVATE JUDGMENT 33^ XIV. JOHN DAVISON 375 XV. JOHN KEBLE 421 IX. CATHOLICITY OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. IN his recent work on the Apostolic Succession and the English Orders, Mr. Perceval has done us a ser- vice, which was very much needed, and had never been attempted. Many living writers haive treated of the Apostolical Succession as well as he ; but no one but he has had the opportunity, and been at the pains, of ex- hibiting to the general reader the evidence of the fact of the Succession in the English Church. We are referring to the elaborate Appendix to his Volume, in which he has brought together a great number of docu- ments and tables illustrative of some of the more im- portant points in the history of the spiritual descent of our existing bishops and clergy from the Apostles. He begins by enumerating the chief objections which the Roman Catholics have urged against our Succession, as passing through Archbishop Parker and his colleagues, and he lays before us some chief portions of the evi- dence in its favour, presenting us with the records of Parker's consecration as contained in the registers at Lambeth and in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and with the offices for consecration and ordination, according to the Antenicene, Eastern, Ancient Western, Coptic, and Queen Elizabeth's Ritual. VOL. II. I 2 Catholicity of the Next, he has printed a list of between 400 and 500 Eng- lish consecrations, from Cranmer and his consecrators in- clusive, down to the present time, containing name, see, date of consecration, and names of consecrators in the case of each bishop. After this we have the respective Episcopal descents of Parker and Pole traced back, by way of contrast, for four steps ; by which it appears that the proof from existing records of the transmission of the apostolical commission to Pole, is far less complete than what is producible on the side of Parker. Mr. Per- ceval next traces up the Episcopal descent of the present archbishop of Canterbury for four antecedent steps, all the consecrations being in this case known, and finds, to use his own words, that "in transmitting the Apostolical commission to the present Archbishop of Canterbury there were, in the first step, four bishops concerned ; in the second, twelve ; in the third, twenty-seven ; in the fourth, about fifty ; nearly enough to fill all the English dioceses twice over ; so that, not a single consecration here and there, but all the consecrations in England for successive generations, must be supposed to have failed, before the objection can be worthy of consideration, that the failure of the due consecration of anyone single bishop in a line would destroy the whole theory." — P. 218. Other tables are added ; among which not the least in- teresting is one containing the consecrations of the non- jurors, the last bishop of whom died as lately as 1805. We do trust and believe that the question of English Orders is now settled once for all. • If, indeed, members of our Church again forget the great privilege therein involved, as they have forgotten it in no slight measure more than once, then indeed the whole controversy will Anorlican Church. t> have to be run through again, as lately, at a miserable waste of time, labour, and peace. The world will become ignorant of the grounds on which we claim the privilege ; and will require fresh discussion upon its nature, its pro- bability, its evidence, and its place in the Anglican system. We hope better things of our Church than to anticipate such an event ; and at all events the con- troversy is at an end for the present. And so our oppo- nents seem to consider ; for they evince a disposition to concede to us the Succession " for argument's sake ;" or in other words they find that it is not safe or tenable in argument to deny it, since what they call " for argument's sake " really means " for their own sake." But though we have gained this point, it does not follow that we have driven the enemy from the field and put an end to the war. There is another important and difficult post which the Roman party have not yet surrendered, and from which we must dislodge them. Mr. Perceval does scarcely more than refer to it, nor does it properly fall in his way. That our Orders are good in themselves is indisputable ; but still they may be given and continued in schism ; our Church may be a true but a schismatical branch of the Catholic body, though ever so legitimately descended from the Apostles. She may at present have a bar upon her ordinances, Sacraments as well as Orders, which deprives them of grace^ as a son may be really a son yet disinherited, or a man in a fainting fit or in derangement is still a man, yet unable to use his func- tions. This is a ground which Roman writers have very commonly taken up, and with considerable advantage. Our writers, on the other hand, have not discussed it with the exactness and fulness which it requires at the hands of those who profess to defer to the opinions of the Fathers. We are not unmindful of what our learned 4 Catholicity of the champions have done long ago ; but every age has its owft character, its own mode of stating things, its own exigencies ; and cannot use, or at least cannot be con- tent with, the controversial efforts of a former time. The objection which we ,have in mind, concisely- stated, is this : on the one hand, that unity is the tenure of divine favour ; that communion with our brethren is the means of communion with our Lord and Saviour ; that the Church is not only Apostolic, but Catholic ; that schism cuts off the fountains of grace ; and that estrange- ment from the Christian world is schism ; and, on the other, that in matter of fact our Church is emphatically in a state of estrangement, having intercourse with no other Christian body in any part of the world, except- ing her own dependencies and offshoots. This is the point, which deserves, as we think, to be attentively considered ; we make no pretences and have no hopes of doing justice to it in the pages of a Review ; yet it is something to direct attention to it, and so much we propose to do in the pages which follow. 2. » Now the first step towards duly answering the objec- tion is to enter into it and master it ; and the best way of effecting this is to put it before our minds as strongly as we can. With this view, then, we shall first of all endeavour to make a strong statement of our opponents' case, and then bring forward what means we have for overthrowing it. And perhaps we shall best begin by setting down the pleadings on the one side and the other in the form of dialogue, which shall be con- ducted favourably to the Church of Rome, so as to bring matters to an issue. We are promising a great deal, but, our intentions being good, we have a sort of Anglican Church. "ii claim upon the kind feeling of all upholders of the Catholicity of the English Church. The Romati Catholic then begins thus : — There is but One true Church, and its characteristic, both in Scripture and in the Fathers, is, that it should be in many countries, or rather all over the earth. Thus it differs from what it was during the Dispensation of the Law ; then it was one in one country ; under the Gospel it is one in many countries. Anglo-Catholic. — I grant ; and that it is schism to separate from it, and that schism is a state of sin. Rom. — The flock of Christ is one, not two flocks ; though in many countries, is still but one flock, as sheep moving in a body over a plain. If there be two flocks claiming to be the true flock, it cannot be both of them. If it is the one, it is not the other ; if the other, it is not the one. It cannot be both the Church of Rome and the Church of England ; if the English Church is true, the Roman is a pretence ; and the English is a pretence, if the Roman is true. AKgL—This does not follow : a flock of sheep that straggles is still one flock. One part may be on one side of the hedge and yet the other on the other. Rom. — A flock of sheep may spread widely and yet be one ; but they would cease to be one if they formed into parties shunning and worrying each other. It is said " a house divided against itself cannot stand ; " if both you and we are the Catholic Church, the Church is falling or has even fallen. An£^/. — We do not differ from each other in all things ; we agree together in fundamentals, and where you agree with us, there we do not act hostilely towards you. Rom. — On the contrary, you, as a body, oppose and denounce us, as a body, in all possible ways ; and we too 6 Catholicity of the oppose and denounce you. Let us look at facts, and not speak by book. And you are small, we are large ; therefore we, not you, are the Church. Angl. — If we two cannot be at peace, the worse for you ; for your teaching is corrupt, and ours is pure. Rom. — No, we preach the whole gospel, and you halve it. Angl. — Our teaching is the true, because it is the primitive ; yours is not true, because it is novel. Rom. — Our teaching is the true, for it is everywhere the same; yours has no warrant, for it is but local and private. Angl — We go by Antiquity ; that is, by the Apostles. Ancient consent is our standard of faith. Rom. — We go by Catholicity. Universal consent is our standard of faith. Angl. — You are cut off from the old Fathers. Rom. — And you are cut off from the present living Church. Here each disputant has a strong point ; our strong point is the argument from the past, that of the Romanists is the argument from the present. It is a fact, however it is to be explained, that Rome has added to the Creed; and it is a fact, however it be justified, that we are estranged from the great body of Christians over the world ; and each of these facts is at first sight a grave difficulty in the respective systems to which they belong. The difficulty in the Roman view is as great as can well be conceived. The state of the case is this :— Scripture declares that there is one faith, that it is once for all delivered to the saints, that it is a deposit and is to be jealously guarded and transmitted. It gives in various places the particular articles of this faith, corre- sponding pretty nearly when put together to the articles of the Apostles' Creed. This Creed we find in substance Ans[lican Church. 'b in all the early churches, used at baptism as the substance of the revealed message brought to us in the Gospel, the privilege of every Christian and the foundation of the Church ; and declared by the Fathers, who speak of it, in various ages and countries, to be sacred and unalterr able, level to the most unlearned, sufficient for the most profound, the framework of faith, admitting indeed of development and enucleation, but ever intended to pre- . serve the outline and the proportions with which it was originally given. Moreover, when controversies arose, such as the Arian, this rule was prominently insisted on, not only "keep to what you have been taught," but " keep to what has been ever taught, keep to the old and first paths." Further, this Creed did remain thus inviolate till the time of the Deutero-Nicene Council, A.D. 787, when, for the first time, a General Council, or what is called so, made an article of faith, in addition to, not in developipent of, the Creed ; * and it did so under the following significant circumstances ; first, this said General Council was the first of the Councils which rested the proof of its decree on grounds short of Scripture ; the first that violated the doctrine of adherence to the practice or received opinion of Antiquity ; the first which was held in a divided state of the Church, as the events before it and after it show ; held with protests both from east and west ; and enforced not without something like rebellion at first sight on the part of the Pope against, the Imperial Power. Such is the history of * [It is surely a paradox to say that the simple words of the Seventh General Council in 787, " Credentes in unum Deum, in Trinitate coUauda- tum, honorabiles ejus imagines salutamus ; Qui sic non habent, anathema sint,"ortheTridentine wocds, " Imagines Christi in templis habendas, eisque debitum honorem et venerationem impertiendam," are sufficient to constitute an extrinsic addition to the Creed, and are not a mere carrying out in wor- ship, of faith in our crucified Lord, and in the communion of saints.] 8 Catholicity of the the departure itself from the primitive theory concerning the Creed ; such was the first step. Now what has it issued in ? in an assemblage of doctripes, which, as was observed above, whether right or wrong, have scarcely closer connection with the doctrines whether of the primitive Creed or the primitive Church than the doctrines of the Gospel have with those of the Law.' In Antiquity, the main aspect in the economy of redemption comprises Christ, the Son of God, the Author and Dispenser of all grace and pardon, the Church His living representative, the sacraments her instruments, bishops her rulers, their collective decisions her voice, and Scripture her standard of truth. In the Roman schools,* we find St. Mary and the Saints the prominent objects of regard and dispensers of mercy, purgatory or else indulgences the means of obtaining it, the Pope the ruler and teacher of the Church, and miracles the warrant of doctrine. As to the doctrines of Christ's merits and eternal. life and death, these are points not denied (God forbid !) but taken for granted, and passed by in order to make way for others of more present, pressing, and lively interest. That a cer- tain change, then, in objective and external religion has come over the Latin, nay, and in a measure the Greek, Church, we consider to be a plain historical fact ; a change indeed not so great as is common Protestantism, for that involves a radical change of inward temper and principle as well, as indeed its adherents are sometimes not slow to remind us, but a change sufficiently startling to recall to our minds, with very unpleasant sensations, * [Of these heads of accusation, the only one which will be allowed by Catholics is that "the Pope is the ruler and teacher of the Church ;" but this cannot be said to be a mere mediaeval or modem doctrine ; it seems to have been claimed as true and apostolic from the first in the Roman Church itself; vide the history of Popes Victor, Stephen, and Dionysius.] Anglican Church. "i> the words of the Apostle, about preaching any other Gospel besides that which has been received. So much on the difficulty on the side of Rome ; now let us consider the difficulty on our side : it is this. The Church was intended to be one kingdom or polity in all lands : this is its mark or note. Now there is a body mainly answering to this description, the communion of Rome, lineally descended from the ancient Church, and in possession of her territory. If there be a Church now, in nature and office like the ancient Church, and like her image in prophecy, the' Roman communion, it will be urged, and nothing but the Roman, is it. If there be Notes of the Church now, such as are given in prophecy and were fulfilled in Antiquity, she has them. If schism is separation from the body of Christians, we are schis- matical. If schism now be what schism was formerly, we are excommunicated from the grace of the Gospel. 3- This being the state of the case on both sides, divines of our Church are forced, as if from necessity, to make light of separation from Christendom, or to maintain that the few may be right and the many wrong ; and divines of the Church of Rome are forced, by a like necessity, to make light of the judgment of Antiquity, or to maintain that Revelation is progressive, and that Christians now know more than the Fathers. Thus Archbishop Laud says to Fisher, "As for the number and worth of men, they are no necessary concluders for truth. Not ?iumber ; for who would be judged by the many .■" the time was when the Arians were too many for the orthodox." — P. 302. His antagonist, on the other hand, says, " We acknowledge all due respect to the Fathers, and as much (to speak modestly) as any of our lO Catholicity of the adversaries' party. But they must pardon us, if we prefer the general interpretation of the present Church, before the result of any man's particular fancy!' — Stillingfleefs Grounds, i. v. § 19. On the one hand, Anglo-Cathohcs say, " Even though we were in schism, as we are not, such separation would not be disadvantageous, when faith is in danger ; " and Roman Cathohcs say, " Even though we had innovated, as we have not, such inno- vation is not in error, when the Church is the author of it." Such is the difficulty on either side of the con- troversy. There seems to be ■ but the alternative of saying, on the one hand, that the Church Catholic can go wrong ; on the other, that the faith of ages may be remodelled. It is a difficulty meeting every inquirer, which he must fairly look in the face and be content to begin with. And it is felt to be a difficulty by the two parties in the controversy ; by the Anglo-Catholic, as shown in the anxious endeavour of our divines, till the course of events made it hopeless, to fraternize with the Protestants of the Continent, which, considering the men who have evinced it, is quite unaccountable till we come to see what their sore point in the discussion was their separation from Christendom ; and by Roman Catholics, as is abundantly evidenced by their shufflings and shiftings to and fro on the question, whether they do or do not keep to Antiquity. On this subject it is plainly impossible to get an intelligible answer from them ; whether they have added to the articles of faith or not, go by the Fathers or not, keep to the ancient creed or not, — what they hold, what they do not hold, what is the true sense of their decrees, what their practical interpreters, and what the limits of interpretation. . But now, as to the respective views themselves, Roman and Anglican, the maintainer of the former has this ad- Anglican Church. 1 1 v> vantage, that the fact which he alleges against us, want of Catholicity, is far more level to the apprehension of men in general than that which we allege against him, want of primitiveness in doctrine, while the logical force of his fact is such as plausibly to throw discredit upon our contrary fact. It is very obvious to the whole world that the English Church is separated from the rest of Christendom ; it is not evident, except to a very few, that the faith of Rome is an addition to the primitive. Again, suspicion is thrown on the allegation that it is an addition, by the very fact, unquestionable as it is, that far the greater part of Christendom denies that allegation. Our argument then has to sustain the disadvantage both of the certainty in fact, and the apparent cogency in reasoning, of their argument. And while the argument of the Romanists is thus practically efficient, it has a simplicity in its form which is very plausible. It provides for the special difficulty which we urge against their religious system, before we bring it ; whereas ours does not similarly account for and dispose of the difficulty which they bring against our system. Roman Catholics urge against us that we are separated from Christendom ; now the fact of our keeping to the primi- tive faith had no tendency whatever to bring about their deflection from it,, that is, to explain how it comes to pass that we are practically estranged from the great Christian body. On the other hand, when we in turn urge against them that they have added to the faith, they are ijot unwilling in a certain sense to grant it ; they account for it by referring it to a cause recognized in their system, — to the power which they maintain is possessed by the great Christian body in matters of faith, of developing the faith. Their alleged fact, that they are the Church Catholic, serves to account for our 12 Catholicity of the alleged fact, that they believe more than the ancients. We bring little against them which is not at once solved on the supposition of their assumption being true ; they bring a charge against us which remains just where it was, though our assumption be ever so much granted. It is still a difficulty how the great body of Christians should have gone wrong, even granting our assumption that they have ; it is no difficulty that the great body should have added to the faith, when we grant their assumption that they have the power.* Yet, in spite of all this, they are in a difficulty, even in this portion of their theory, when it is narrowly considered, — not to go to other portions, which do not here come into notice. Allowing the Church Catholic ever so much power over the faith, allowing that it may add what it will, provided it does not contradict what has been determined in former times, yet let us come to the plain question. Does the Church, according to Romanists, know more now than the Apostles knew.' Their theory seems to be that the whole faith was pre- sent in the minds of the Apostles, nay, of all saints at all times, but in great measure as a matter of mere temper, feeling, and unconscious opinion, that is, implicitly, not in the way of exact statements and in an intellec- tual form. All men certainly hold a number of truths, and act on them, without knowing it ; when a question is asked about them, then they are obliged to reflect what their opinion has ever been, and they bring before themselves and assent to doctrines which before were but latent within them. We have all heard of men changing to so-called Unitarianism, and confessing on a * ["I am very far more sure that England is in schism than that the' Roman additions to the Primitive Creed may not be developments." — May 4, 1843. Vid. Apologia, 1841 — 1845.] Anglican Church. 13 review of themselves that they had been Unitarians all along without knowing it, till some accident tore the bandage off their eyes. In like manner, the Roman Catholics, we suppose, would maintain that the Apostles were implicit Tridentines ; that the Church held in the first age- what she holds now ; only that heresy, by rais- ing questions, has led to her throwing her faith into dogmatic shape, and has served to precipitate truths which before were held in solution. Now this is all very well in the abstract, but let us return to the point, as to what the Apostles held and did, and what they did not. Does the Romanist mean, for instance, to tell us that St. Paul the Apostle, when he was in perils of robbers or perils by the sea, offered up his addresses to St. Mary, and vowed some memorial to her, if she would be pleased "deprecari pro illo filium Dei".''* Does he mean to say that the same Apostle, during that period of his life when as yet he was not "perfect" or had "attained," was accustomed to pray that the merits of St. John the Baptist should be imputed to him .' Did he or did he not hold that St. Peter could give indulgences to shorten the prospective sufferings of the Corinthians in purgatory .' We do not deny that St. Paul certainly, does bring out his thoughts only in answer to express questions asked, and according to the occasion ; or that St. John has written a Gospel, on the one hand later, on * [No ; he need not so mean. " It is sometimes asked, ' Why do not the sacred writers mention our Lady's greatness ? ' I answer, she was or may have been alive when the Apostles and the Evangelists wrote ; there was just one book of Scripture, the Apocalypse, certainly, written after her death, and that book does (so to say) canonize and crown her. ... If in- vocation of her were necessary to salvation, there would be grave reasons for doubting of the salvation of St. Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, or of the primitive martyrs ; nay, I should like to know whether St. Augustine in all his voluminous writings, invokes her once." — Letter to Dr. Pusey. Invo- cations are matters of practice, usage, and discipline, not simply of dogma. ] 14 Catholicity of the the other more dogmatic, than his fellow-Evangehsts, in consequence of the rise of heresy. We do not at all rnean to affirm that the sacred writers said out at one time all they had to say. There are many things we can imagine them doing and holding, which yet, in matter of fact, we believe they did not do, or did not hold. We can imagine them administering extreme unction or wearing copes. Again, there are many things which they could neither hold nor do, merely from the circumstances of the times or the moment. They could not determine whether General Councils might or might not be held without the consent of princes, or determine the authority of the Vulgate before it was written, or enjoin infant baptism before Christians had children, or decide upon the value of heretical bap- tism before they were heretics, and before those heretics were baptized. But still there are limits to these con- cessions ; we cannot imagine an Apostle saying and doing what Romanists say and do ; can they imagine it themselves .-' Do they themselves, for instance, think that St. Paul was in the habit of saying what Bellarmine and others say, — " Laus Deo Virginique Matri " ? Would they not- pronounce a professed Epistle of St. Paul's which contained these words spurious on' this one ground .■' It may be objected that this argument proves too much for our purpose, since our doctrines also, as those of the Trinity and Incarnation, are developments ; so that it may in turn be asked of us, did the Apostles hold the Athanasian doctrine, or, on the other hand, do we know more than they.' But we avow they did hold the Athanasian doctrine ; they did hold those developments which afterwards were incorporated in the Church sys- tem. There is no paradox in maintaining of any in^i- Anglican Church. 15 vidual in the Apostles' lifetime that he held them ; for heresies arose while they were on earth, quite sufficient to lead to their holding and transmitting to the Church views as explicit and formal as those which were after- wards recognized and adopted in Councils and fixed in creeds ; not to say that a mystery naturally leads the mind of itself, without external stimulus, to trace it to -its ultimate points. There is nothing strange then in maintaining that the Apostles held just what the after centuries held ; it is natural that they should do so. On the other hand, there being nothing in the Apostles' day to elicit the worship of St. Mary or knowledge of purgatory, which did not also exist in the age immediately after them, — that age not having these portions of Christian truth, (as Romanists allege,) because there was nothing to elicit them, — it would be very strange to maintain that the Apostles had what the age immediately after them had not. If the argument of the absence of an external cause avails to account for the ignorance of the early Church, it is a reason for a similar ignorance on the part of the Apostles ; on the other hand, if the Apostles did teach the doctrines of purgatory or the worship of the Saints, as Rome teaches them, it is incredible that they should not have transmitted them to the generations immediately following.* As it is, the early Church not knowing, and the later knowing them, it is difficult to say which it is most congruous for such a system to * [The age following the Apostles did hold, in various parts of Christen- dom, one doctrine in particular about the Blessed Virgin, which, because of its proximity to the Apostles, and of its reception in such various parts, must reasonably be referred to their teaching, — which has been tanght con- tinously from that time to this, — and which contains in it all that Catholics hold concerning her intrinsic gifts and powers, viz., that " she is the Second Eve." This dogma required no heresy for its development. — Vid. Letter to Dr. Pusey.] 1 6 Catholicity of the maintain, that the Apostles did not know them, or that they did. To this must be added the exceeding and almost in- credible boldness of saying that popes and bishops, nay, private Christians, know now, what Apostles did not know then ; as if we are to St. Paul and St. John as they are to Moses. The feeling of this difficulty has led some • Roman writers to the theory of a disciplina arcani in the Church, as if this would serve to extricate them from it. 4- However, our object here is not to expose the difficulty which occurs in the Roman theory of the Church, but to solve that which is urged against our own. We said above that we considered the English difficulty had not been sufficiently met, and we promised some remarks upon it, to which all that has hitherto been said is but introductory. The difficulty is this : the Church being " one body," how can we; estranged as we are from every part of it except our own dependencies, unrecognized and without intercommunion, maintain our right to be con- sidered part of that body .' This is the objection : arid in discussing it we are of course to put out of question j the circumstance that our creed is sounder than the Roman. For we are not stating the grounds on which I we keep aloof from Rome, but have to meet an inci- i dental difficulty which that keeping aloof involves. If indeed we considered that the Pope was Antichrist, and had denied the foundation of the faith, then indeed our keeping aloof would justify itself If Rome is apostate, j she has no longer claims on us as a Church ; but while | she is allowed to be a Church, she has claims. In this I Anglican Church. 17 point of view it is, that the ultra-Protestant theory, which ignores or denies the Scripture promises made to the Church, becomes thereby much simpler than our own. It denies the Church of Rome to be a Church, and so gets rid of the question why we are estranged from it ; and this is why the theory that Rome is the city of Antichrist was so popular at the time of the Reforma- tion. It made short work with a number of questions, which else would have been perplexing. It would be a similar simplification of the Roman theory, if Rome gave up the Fathers. But while Rome, though not deferring to the Fathers, recognizes them, and England, while not deferring to the larger body of the Church, recognizes it, both Rome and England have a point to clear up. We are now to clear up our own difficulty ; and we repeat, it avails nothing towards doing so, to say that our faith is more ancient than the faith of Rome. Still the com- munion of Rome more nearly answers to the Church of the prophecies than ours. One point is acknowledged, one must be conceded, and one will be maintained, by all Anglo-Catholics ; — that the Church is One, is the point of doctrine; that we are estranged from the body of the Church, is the point oifact; and that we still have the means of grace among us, is our point of controversy. These points being set down, there are various ways of reconciling them, such as the following : — r. That intercommunion is not necessary to unity. 2. That, though it be, the absence of unity does not at once involve a state of schism. 3. That, though it do, yet that the grace of the ordi- nances is not necessarily suspended in a state of schism. Different minds will resign themselves to one of other of these solutions, or modify them by one another, accord- ing to their particular feelings and principle?. What we VOL. II. 2 1 8 Catholicity of the are going to say on the subject will bear on them all, in a measure embrace them all, and therefore in turn is exposed to be modified by all, and may be adapted to any of them ; but is intended, instead of following any one of them exclusively, rather as a statement of the general view maintained by our divines, whatever be the more correct analysis of it. ^ The Anglican view, then, of the Church has ever been this, that its separate portions need not be united toge- ther, for their essential completeness, except by the tie of descent from one original. They are like a num- ber of colonies sent out from a mother country, or as the tribes or nations which spring from a common parent. Jerusalem was the mother Church ; they all come from her ; they are Churches in that they come from her ; but they are not bound to any union together in order to be Churches, any more than branches of an extended family, or colonies of a mother country, need have a common table or common purse, in order to have the blood and name of their ancestor. The Apostolical Succession is necessary in order to their possessing claim of descent ; but that being secured, each branch is bound to conform to the country, and form alliance with the institutions, in which it finds itself^ quite irrespectively^ of all the rest. Each Church is independent of all the rest, except indeed so far as the civil power unites any number of them together. They are in consequence, as Churches, under the supremacy of the state or monarch whom they obey in temporals, and may be used by him as one of the functions of his government, as his minis- ters of public instruction. Further, it is a natural, though, of course not necessary, consequence of this view of the Church, to confine spiritual power to the sacramental or quasi-sacramental privileges. Ordination is the bishop's Anglican Church. ig prerogative ; but everything else save ordination comes from the king. The whole jurisdiction is his ; his are all the spiritual courts ; his the right of excommunication ; his the control of revenues ; his the organization of dioceses ; his the appointment of bishops. It is another extreme consequence of this theory, that our own Church was not allowed to reciDgnize her own daughters in Scotland and America ; nor was accounted as one Church with the Irish, till the Act of Union, in the beginning of this century, determined by the authority of Parliament, that the established Irish Church was the Church of England in Ireland. It was this same ex- treme view upon which Cranmer acted, upon the ac- cession of Edward the Sixth, and which is expressed in the commission which he took out for his archbishopric. " Whereas," says the king, " all authority of j urisdiction, and indeed jurisdiction altogether, that which is called ecclesiastical as well as secular, emanated from the first from the royal power as from a supreme head, and the source and spring of all magistracies within our king- dom, etc. : We decree that thou shouldst take our stead in the manner and form below mentioned, and shouldst be licensed to ordain whomsoever within thy diocese of Canterbury thou shalt find fitting in character and learning, etc., etc." Sometimes indeed this document has been supposed to claim to the king the power of Ordination ; so extravagant an assumption has of course no connection with the theory under review ; for the words need only be taken to mean, what has been usually held among us after Cranmer's time, — that the Church, though really possessed of powers, is precluded from exercising them without the leave of the State, and has no jurisdiction independent of it. Lord Thurlow, however, took a view of our Church's theory still more 20 Catholicity of the extreme than this imputed to Cranmer, when he main^, tained, as it is reported, against Horsley, that the Scotch Bishops were not Bishops, except by a play upon words, because they had no seats in the House of Lords. These extravagances serve to illustrate the English theory, even if it were only by way of contrast. But they also show what it will admit, without infringing its notion of what a Church consists in. If indeed the Church is essentially one and one only organized body in every age and country, then such an absorption of a branch of it into a nation i# nothing else but a formal state of schism. If, on the other hand, her essence consists in her descent from the Apostles, such an absorption, or such a suspension of intercommunion with other branches, as is consequent upon it, may be expe- dient or inexpedient, allowable or culpable, but does not touch the life of the Church, or compromise the tenure of its privileges. Each diocese is a perfect independent Church, sufficient for itself ; and the communion of Christians one with another, and the unity of them all together, lie, not in a mutual understanding, intercourse, and combination, not in what they do in common, but in what they are and what they have in common, in their possession of the Succession, their Episcopal form, their Apostolic faith, and the use of the Sacraments. Ac- cordingly Stillingfleet says : " We have not separated from the whole Christian world in anything wherein the whole Christian world is agreed ; but to disagree from the particular Churches of the Christian world in such things wherein those Churches differ among themselves, is not to separate from the Christian world, but to disagree in some things from such particular Churches, .... There can be no separation from the true Catholic Church but in such things wherein it is Catholicl Anglican Church. 2i now it is not Catholic in anything, but what properly relates to its being a constitution." — Grounds, ii. 4, § 2. In this extract it is implied that mutual intercourse is but an accident of the Church, not of its essence. The same view is strongly maintained by Barrow in his Discourse on the Unity of the Church. Prefacing it with a motto from Augustine, " Non habet? charitatem Dei, qui ecclesiae non diligit unitatem," he proceeds to determine in what this unity consists ; viz., first, in unity of faith ; next, in mutual charity and goodwill ; thirdly, in the gift of one and the same Spirit ; fourthly, in the mystical body of Christ ; fifthly, in the mutual inter- course of individual Christians, in mutual peace and love, in common works of piety and devotion, common prayer, Eucharist, conferences, and common defence of the truth ; sixthly, in agreement of all bishops in faith and good offices ; seventhly, in sameness of order and govern- ment; eighthly, in matters of prudential discipline. Then he adds : "All these kinds of unity do plainly agree to the universal Church of Christ ; but the question is, whether the Church is also necessarily, by the design and ap- pointment "of God, to be in way of external policy under one singular government or jurisdiction of any kind ; so as a kingdom or commonwealth are united under the command of one monarch or one senate.' That the Church is capable of such an union, is not the con- troversy ; that it is possible it should be so united, (supposing it may happen that all Christians may be reduced to one nation or one civil regiment, or that several nations spontaneously may confederate and com- bine themselves into one ecclesiastical commonwealth, administered by the same spiritual rulers and judges according to the same laws,) I do not question ; that 22 Catholicity of the when in a manner all Christendom did consist of subjects to the Roman Empire, the Church then did arrive near such an unity, I do not at present contest ; but that such an union of all Christians is necessary, or that it was ever instituted by Christ, I cannot grant ; and for my refusal of that opinion, I shall assign divers reasons."— P. 449, ed. 1836. These reasons are, first, that Scripture nowhere insists on a poHtical union, on " one monarch, or one senate, or one sanhedrim, which is a pregnant sign that none such was then instituted ;" next, that the Apostles took no pains to establish any such polity ; thirdly, that the Fathers " do make the unity of the Church to consist only in these virtues of faith, charity, peace, not in this political union;" fourthly, that it could not be without a sovereign authority, which is nowhere established by Christ or His Apostles ; fifthly, that the primitive state of the Church did not well comport with such an unity ;" sixthly, that the autonomy or liberty of the Churches long continued in practice inviolate ;" seventhly, that such a political unity is unevangelical ; eighthly, incon- venient ; ninthly, needless ; tenthly, not expedient for the design of Christianity ; eleventhly, not necessary to the idea of unity. In the course of his remarks he lays down the follow- ing principle, which other writers have improved upon, and which does admit of such improvement : " The case of bishops was like that of princes, each of whom hath a free superintendence in his own territory, but for to uphold justice and peace in the world, or between ad- jacent nations, the intercourse of several princes is needful. The peace of the Church was preserved by communion of all parts together, not by the subjectionl of the rest to one part." This is a statement which! Anglican Church. 23 writers like Dodwell and Hickes have illustrated with especial pains and fulness. They teach, agreeably with what has above been called the Anglican theory, that the Church is complete in one bishopric ; that a num- ber of bishoprics are but reiterations of one, and add nothing to the perfection of the system. As there is one Bishop invisible in heaven, so there is but one bishop on earth ; and the multitude of bishops are not acknowledged in the Gospel system as many, or as if (viewed as representatives of the Bishop invisible) they were capable of mutual relations one with another, but as being one and all shadows and organs of one and the same divine reality. If so, they are neither capable of direct communion one with another as bishops, nor of schism one from another, since their only communion as bishops is with Him whom they represent, and they have communion with each othet in and through Him ; and while they have communion with Him, they have communion one with another, though they never saw, never acted with each other. It is true they can act with each other in Synods, but then they form a sort of board of presbyters^ and are our Lord's Council, as Ignatius views them. Considered as bishops, each is the ultimate centre of unity and independent channel of grace ; they are all equal ; and schism consists in separating from them, or setting up against them in their particular place. Introducing one Church into the heart of another, or erecting altar against altar, is schism, in the ecclesiastical sense of the word, and forfeits the gifts of the Gospel : for it strikes at the principle of unity and touches the life of the Church. Such is the essence of unity, and the essence of schism ; but an organized union of Churches, though proper and fitting, does not enter into the formal notion 24 Catholicity of the of a Church ; and the fact of dissensions between Churches, though a breach of the law of love, as little avails to unchurch them, as lukewarmness, or corruption of doctrine, or ambition, or covetousness. Intercom- munion is a duty as other duties, but is not the tenurd or instrument of the communion between the unseen world and this ; and much more is the confederacy of sees and churches — the metropolitan, patriarchal, and papal systems — mere matter of expedience, or of natural duty from long custom, or of propriety from gratitude and reverence, or of necessity from voluntary oaths and engagements, or of ecclesiastical force from the canons of Councils, but not necessary in order to the convey- ance of grace, or for fulfilment of the ceremonial law, as it may be called, of Unity. Bishop is superior to bishop only in rank, not in real power; and the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic wofld, is not the centre of unity, except as having a primacy of order. Accord- ingly, even granting for argument's sake that the Eng- lish Church violated a duty in the sixteenth century, in releasing itself from the Roman Supremacy, still it did not thereby commit that special sin which cuts off from it the fountains of grace, and is called schism. It was essentially complete without Rome, and naturally inde- pendent of it ; it had in the course of years, whether by usurpation or not, come under the supremacy of Romey and now, whether by rebellion or not, it is free from it; and as it did not enter into the Church Invisible by join- ing Rome, so it was not cast out of it by breaking from Rome. These were accidents in its history, involving, indeed, sin in individuals, but not affecting the Churcl^ as a Church. I This view of the subject throws light upon the Oath| of Supremacy, which declares that " no foreign prelate Anglican Church. 25 hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, pre-emi- nence, or authority within this realm." In other words, there is nothing in the Apostolic system which gives authority to the Pope over the Catholic Church, more than to any other bishop. It is altogether an ecclesias- tical arrangement; not a point de fide, but of expedience, custom, or piety, which cannot be claimed as if the Pope ought to have it, any more than, on the other hand, the king could claim the Supremacy by divine right, the claim of both the one and the other resting, not on duty or revelation, but on specific engagement. We find burselves as a Church under the king now, and we obey him ; we were under the Pope formerly, and we obeyed him. " Ought " does not in any degree come into the question. 5- Dodwell has illustrated this subject at great length in his Discourse concerning the one Altar and one Priesthood ; and in his treatise De Episcopo Unitatis prin- cipio, which is the seventh of his Cyprianic Dissertations. In the former of these he is led to comment on the lan- guage of St. Ignatius, as in the latter on that of St. Cyprian ; both Fathers strongly confirming the view of unity which we have been drawing out, viz., that the Episcopal is the only divine jurisdiction. He begins the former treatise by referring to the constitution of the Jewish Church, and observes that the Apostolical Fathers consider Christianity to be in point of worship [ and Church government, what it is in other respects also, nothing else than a mystical Judaism ; that as bap- tism took the place of circumcision, so has the Bishop taken the place of the High Priest, and the Christian altar the place of the Jewish. Hence St. Clement of 2 6 Catholicity of the Rome deduces from the budding of Aaron's rod the sacredness of the episcopal office under the Gospel, and from the subordination of the Temple hierarchy infers the necessity of the Orders of the Christian ministry,; He next shows that among the Jews the altar had ever been the symbol and centre of unity, and a setting up a rival altar the essential mark of schism. This doctrine was first insisted on in their controversy with the Sama- ritans, and is sanctioned by our Lord in His discourse with the woman at the well. It was brought out into system by the Hellenistic Jews, who, on the ground of such commands as that made to Moses, to " make all things according to the fashion showed him in the Mount," held that the provisions of the Mosaic ritual "were adumbrations of things unseen, and felt that there was some deep mystical sense under the letter; and,, not having the true key which the Gospel afterwards^ supplied, made a conjectural interpretation, which at least serves to illustrate the true one ; — " They designed their visible altar," he observes, "as a means of com- municating with that which was mystical and invisibles,: They also allowed a mystical invisible priesthood of the Logos, with whom they were to communicate by maiiu taining a communication with their visible priesthood.* — P. 190. "Accordingly He must be the invisible or spiritual Hierophanta and Priest, performing invisibl^ all that was visibly transacted by the High Priest in their visible ministry. He was to assist in the invisibl^ ideal altar, and to offer up mystical sacrifices, as the High Priest did visible ones on the visible altar. TheJ* title of 'A/Jxnd head, and the hand which crowned him." — Hist. v. 6, 7. And after his death, Gregory Nazianzen says of him jn, verse, which we must be content to render' in humble 64 Catholicity of the prose — " Of whom " the bishops in the Council " there was one man, the president, most religious, simple, straightforward, full of God, of calm aspect, blending boldness with modesty in the eyes of beholders, a field cultivated by the Spirit." — De Vit. sua, p. 24. He adds with reference to his death, which took place while he was attending the General Council, " After many exhor- tations to peace, he departed to the company of Angels, and with a divine attendance and the outpouring of the city." — Carin. Pp. 24, 25. Gregory Nyssen's funeral sermon, which begins by calling him a new Apostle, who has increased the number of Apostles, proceeds : — " We have lost our head, and together with our head have disap- peared our preciojis senses. No longer have we an eye, to gaze on things heavenly ; nor ear, hearing the divine voice, nor that tongue, the pure consecrated organ of truth. Where is the sweet sereneness of the eyes.' where the bright smile upon the lips? Where the ready hand, which moved its fingers in accordance with the blessing of his mouth ? I pity thee, O Church ; to thee 1 1 speak, O Antioch : who shall tell the children that they are made- orphans ? who shall take the news to the bride that she is a widowK Alas, for what they sent out and what they receive back ! They sent forward an ark, and they receive back a bier. An ark,, my brethren, was that man of God, an ark, containing in itself the divine mysteries ; there the golden pot of the divine manna, of the heavenly food. In it were the tables of the Covenant, inscribed on tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God, not with ink." Whatever is thought of such passages as these, so far is clear, that want of intercommunion with Rome, Italy, France, Spain, Africa, and Egypt, was thought no dis- advantage to his memory. The saint's body was taken; to Antioch, where a vast multitude met it, and was buried near his illustrious predecessor, St. Babylas, by the Orontes. The anniversary day seems to have been kept from the first, and the sermon of St. Chrysostom, which remains, was delivered by him on its fifth return. Anglican Church. 65 " It is the way," he says, " with those who love, to cherish the very names of the objects beloved, and to kindle at the very sound ; which is your feeling as regards this blessed saint. For from the time you first received him into this city, every one of you was wont to call his child after his name, thinking thus to introduce the saint into his own house ; and mothers, passing over fathers, grandfathers, and forefathers, gave the name of the blessed Meletius to the children they had borne. Nor was it towards his name only that you felt thus affectionately, but towards his person too. "What you did as to his name, that you were frequent in, as regards his like- ness. On the stones of rings, on cups, on jugs, on the walls of their ■chambers, many there were who had engraved his sacred likeness." Epiphanius, who was of the Roman party, and ac- knowledged Meletius's rival in his see, uses the same language in his lifetime. " His life is serious," he says, " his conduct kind ; he is entirely loved by the people, on account of his life, which all concur in extolling." We are told that, on occasion of his banishment for con- forming to the Nicene doctrine, the governor of Antioch, who was conveying him out of the city, was imprudent enough to pass through the market-place, and the peo- ple greeted him with a shower of stones. His prisoner threw his cloak round him, and so saved his life. Such was Meletius. It is remarkable how distinct and con- sistent is the picture which all accounts give us of this holy and most amiable man ; whose meekness, gentle- ness, sweetness of temper, and generosity of feeling, seem to have been notes of his churchmanship, which outweighed his separation from Rome and Alexandria, and prove that saints may be matured in a state which Romanists of this day would fain call schism, j 3. Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, and the main author of Meletius's unsatisfactory position, affords another instance to our purpose. His noble efforts and his sufferings in the cause of othodoxy against the \ 5 66 Catholicity of the Arians are well known. When Julian put an end to their ascendancy, Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercellje, Lucifer, and Hilary, seemed the four remaining beacons of the Church, "rari in gurgite," to whom her fortunes were committed. Yet in a very short time Lucifer had quarrelled with his brethren, and thrown himself out of communion with the whole of Christendom, on a ground not unlike that of the Donatists. The Bishops of the whole Catholic Church, with a few exceptions, had been seduced during the preceding two years, by Arian ad- dress, into signing the ambiguous formulary of Ariminum, Athanasius and the rest decided that, on submitting to the creed of Nicsa, they might be acknowledged in their sees. But Lucifer, refusing to hold any intercourse with bishops who had thus betrayed their trust, or with those who had intercourse with them, shut himself out from the whole Catholic world, and confined the Church of God to Sardinia. He died in this estrangement. Yet, in spite of the history of his latter years, he seems, after his death, to have been reverenced as a saint both in] Sardinia and some parts of Italy. In the Church of Vercellae he is named in an invocatory hymn with Eusebius, bishop of that city, and Dionysius of Milan; and, in the middle of the seventeenth century the dis- putes seem to have run so high concerning him, that the Pope of the day published a decree, in which he forbids "all and every, for the future, from daring to treat publicly, dispute, or controvert about the sanctity, wor- ship, and veneration of Lucifer, or write or print for it or against it, till it shall be otherwise ordered by his Holiness or the Holy See." — Vit. ed. Ven. But perhaps the strongest fact is St. Jerome's language \ about him, in his tract, written after Lucifer's deaths ' against his followers ; he calls him Beatus, a title which, Anglican Church. 67 while explained away by some as a mere appendage to his episcopal office, has been the main cause of others maintaining, against the concurrent testimony of history, that he was either reconciled before his death, or never seriously opposed himself to the Catholic body. What makes Jerome's evidence the more valuable, is the cir- cumstance that he felt the full difficulty of Lucifer's position, as having become the author of a real and serious schism ; and yet, far from deciding that the mere fact of his personal estrangement decided against him, he thinks it worth while to mention and deny certain minor charges against him, such as vain-glory and resent- ment, charges which it would be superfluous to notice, were he by his estrangement notoriously put out of grace and beyond hope. " I am come," he says, " to a most difficult point, in which, against my own will and design, I am compelled to judge of the blessed Lucifer, somewhat otherwise than is accordant with his merits and my own, kind feeling towards him. But what can I do .' Truth unlocks my mouth, and a conscious heart forces into words an unwilling tongue. In that crisis of the Church, amid that fury of the wolves, he withdrew his few sheep, and abandoned the rest of his flock, good shepherd as he was himself, yet leaving much prey to the beasts. I pass over the charge which certain cen- sorious speakers maintain to be true, viz., as that he acted thus from desire of notoriety and posthumous repute ; or again, from the resentment which he felt towards Eusebius, on account of the misunderstanding at Antioch. I believe no such thing of such a man. One thing I will firmly maintain about him even now, that he differs fi-om us in words, not in things, if he receives those who had obtained baptism from the Arians." — In Lucif., 20. !■ Now what do all these instances show but this, that in troubled times of the Church much allowance ought to be made on all hands for jealousies, misunderstand- ings, estrangements between the parts of the Church ; and that it is a very serious matter for any individual to 68 Catholicity of the pronounce what perhaps the whole Church alone can undertake, that this or that part of itself is in formal and fatal schism. Nor are we aware, taking Romanists on their own principles, that their Church has ever given such a sentence against ours. 4. Again, the Church of Rome has, in ancient and modern times, canonized persons who have lived and died in communion with' an anti-Pope, on the plea of involuntary ignorance. Some instances occur in the fourteenth century ;* but let us confine ourselves to one which Pope Gregory mentions, and which, by the way in which the doctrine of purgatory is introduced, shows incidentally, what we have had above to insist upon in another connexion, the unprimitive character of the Roman creed. Paschasius, a Roman deacon, took part with the anti-Pope Laurence against Pope Symmachus in the end of the fifth century ; he died in schism, so to name it, yet he is on the list of saints in the Roman catalogue. Gregory speaks thus of him in his Dia-< logues : — " ^Vhen I was yet quite a youth, and still had on my lay habit, I,, have heard from old and competent persons, that Paschasius,| deacon of the Apostolic See, whose most orthodox and perspicuous treatises on the Holy Ghost are still extant among us, was a man of singular sanctity, especially devoted to alms deeds, a cherisher of the poor, and a neglecter of self. However, in the dispute which took place from the kindling of zeal of the faithful between Symmachus and Laurence, he chose Laurence for Pontiff, and, -when he was worsted afterwards by the niianimify of all, yet lu persisted in his own opinion even to the day of his death, in loving and preferring him who, by the judgment of the bishops, the Church had refused as her president. He then dying in the time of Symmachus, bishop of the Apostohcal See, a possessed person touched his dalmatic, as it lay on the bier, and immediately was * Vide also Perrone, Prelect. Theol. t. i. pp. 263, 264. [p. 316.] Anglican Church. 69 Cured. After a long time Germanus, bishop of Capua, was ordered by the physicians for his health to bathe in the hot wells at Angolos, who, on entering the said Avells, saw the aforesaid deacon Pas- chasius, standing obediently in the heat. Exceedingly frightened at the sight, he asked what such a man was there doing. He made answer, ' For this sole cause I am placed here, because I sided with Laurence against Symmachus. But I pray thee, entreat the Lord for me, and thou wilt hereby know that thou art heard, if re- turning hither thou findest ine not.' Therefore that man of the Lord, Germanus, devoted himself to prayer, and on returning after a few days, found the said Paschasius plainly gone from that place. For since he had sinned not from fault of wickedness but of igno- rance, he could be purged from sin after death. We must believe, however, that it was through the largeness of his alms deeds that he obtained this power of thus meriting pardon, then when he could no longer work. Peter. — How is it that in these last times so many things dawn tipon its about souls, -wliich before lay hid, so that, by open revelations and disclosures, the world to come seems entering in and opening upon us ?" — Dial. iv. 40. Let Roman Catholics be consistent. If they accept part of this alleged disclosure, let them take all. If such supernatural appearances prove the doctrine of purgatory, at least they also prove .that schism is not necessarily a forfeiture of grace and hope. II. But enough of an argtinientiim act homiitem, which certainly is not the highest line of controversy. Look- ing at this instance in itself, as well as at the foregoing, which the Arian history furnishes, we seem to see this clearly : that, much as Roman Catholics may denounce us at present as schismatical, they could not resist us, if the Anglican communion had but that one Note of the Church upon it, to which all these instances point, — sanctity. The Church of his day could not resist Mele- tius; his enemies were fairly overcome by him, by his 70 Catholicity of the meekness and holiness, which melted the most jealous of them. He had the suffrages of all Christian people with him in life and death, and when the schism was happily ended at a late period, he was acknowledged as a saint by the whole Church. And so as regards our- selves ; in vain would a few controversialists taunt us in that case with the disorders of the sixteenth century, or attempt to prove our alienation from the commonwealth of Israel. The hearts of their own people would be with us ; we should have an argument more intelligible than any v.-hich the schools- could furnish, could we appeal to this living evidence of truth, in our bishops, our chapters, our clergy, our divines, our laity, causing men to glorify our Father which is in heaven. We should not be un- willing to place the matter on this issue. We are almost content to sa,y to Romanists, Account us not yet as a branch of the Catholic Church, though we be a branch, till we are like a branch, so that when we do become like a branch, then you consent to acknowledge us. Unless our system really has a power in it, making us neglectful of wealth, neglectful of station, neglectful of ease, munificent, austere, reverent, childlike, unless it is able to bring our passions into order, to make us pure, to make us meek, to rule our intellect, to give govern- \ ment of speech, to inspire firmness, to destroy self, we do not deserve to be acknowledged as a Church, and we submit to be ill-treated. And, on the other hand, we put the matter on the same issue as regards themselves. Without here speak- ing upon points of faith, without pressing on them what we account corruption in doctrine and cruelty in enforc-,; ing it, — we urge against them simply the lack of what ■ in other respects we desiderate in ourselves. Till we see in them as a Church more straightforwardness, truth, ■ Anglican Church. 71 and openness, more of severe obedience to God's least commandments, more scrupulousness about means, less of a political, scheming, grasping spirit, less of intrigue, less that looks hollow and superficial, less accommoda- tion to the tastes of the vulgar, less subserviency to the vices of the rich, less humouring of men's morbid and wayward imaginations, less indulgence of their low and carnal superstitions, less intimacy with the revolutionary spirit of the day, we will keep aloof from them as we do. In perplexed times such as these, when the land- marks of truth are torn up or buried, here is a sure guide providentially given us, which we cannot be wrong in following, " By their fruits ye shall know them." When we go into foreign countries, we see superstitions in the Roman Church which shock us ; when we read history, we find its spirit of intrigue so rife, so widely spread, that "Jesuitism " has become a by- word ; when we look round us at home, we see it associated everywhere with the low democracy, pandering to the spirit of rebellion, the lust of change, the unthankfulness of the irreligious, and the enviousness of the needy. We see its grave theologians connecting their names with men who are convicted by the common sense of mankind of some- thing very like perjury, and its leaders in alliance with a political party notorious in the orbis terrarum as a sort of standard in every place for liberahsm and infidelity. We see it attempting to gain converts among us, by unreal representations of its doctrines, plausible state- ments, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our fancies, our eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents smiling and nodding and ducking to attract at- tention, as gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gold 72 Catholicity of the gingerbread, and physic concealed in jam, and sugar- plums for good children. Who can but feel shame when the religion of Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal is so overlaid ? Who can but feel sorrow when its devout and earnest defenders so mistake its genius and our capabilities ? We Englishmen like manliness, openness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on us till she learns these virtues, and uses them ; then she may gain us, but it will be by ceasing to be what we now mean by Rome, by having a right, not to "have dominion over our faith," but to gain and possess our affections in the bonds of the Gospel. Till she ceases to be what she practically is, a union is im- possible between her and England ; but if she does reform, (and who shall presume to say that so large a part of Christendom never can T) then it will be our Church's duty at once to join in communion with the Continental Churches, whatever politicians at home may say to it, and whatever steps the civil power may take in consequence. And though we shall not live to see that day, at least we are bound to pray for it ; we are bound to pray for our brethren that they and we may be led together into the pure light of the Gospel, and be one as once we were ; that Ephraim may no longer envy Judah, or Judah vex Ephraim ; that " all who pro- fess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life;" "that all who do confess " God's " holy name, may agree in the truth of His Holy Word, and live in unity and godly love." It was most touching news to be told, as we were lately, that Christians on the Continent were pray^ ing together for the spiritual well-being of England. We are their debtors thereby. May the prayer return Anglican Church. 73 abundantly into their own bosom, and while they care for our souls may their own be prospered ! May they gain light while they aim at unity, and grOw in faith while they manifest their love! We too have our duties to them; not of reviling, not of slandering, not of hating, though political interests require it ; but the duty of loving brethren still more abundantly in spirit, whose faces, for our sins and their sins, we are not allowed to see in the flesh. I January, 1840. 74 Note on Essay IX. If the arguments used in the foregoing Essay did not retain me in the AngHcan Church, I do not see what could keep me in it ; yet the time came, when I wrote to Mr. Keble, " I seem to myself almost to have shot my last arrow [against Rome], in the article on English Catholicity." — Apolog. Ed. 2, p. 134. The truth is, I believe, I was always asking myself what would the Fathers have done, what would those whose works were around my room, whose names were ever meeting my eyes, whose authority was ever influ- encing my judgment, what would these men have said, how would they have acted in my position 1 I had' made a good case on paper, but what judgment would be passed on it by Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, Hilary, and Ambrose.' The more I considered the matter, the more I thought that these Fathers, if they examined;] the antagonist pleas, would give it against me. I expressed this feeling in my Essay on the Develop- 1 ment of Christian Doctrine. " Did St. Athanasius, or St Ambrose, come suddenly to life, it cannot be doubted," J I said ironically, "what communion they would mis- take for their own. All surely will agree that these, Fathers, with whatever differences of opinion, whatever protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home' with such men as St. Bernard, or St. Ignatius Loyola, or^ with the lonely priest in his lodging.s, or the holy sister-' Note on Essay IX. 75 hood of Charity, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the rulers or members of any other religious community. And may we not add, that were the two Saints, who once sojourned in exile or on embassage at Treves, to come moig northward still, and to travel until they reached another fair city, seated among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the holy brothers would turn from many a high aisle and solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way to some small chapel, where mass was said, in the populous alley or the forlorn suburb ? And, on the other hand, can any one who has but heard his name, and cursorily read his history, doubt for one instant, how the people of England, in turn, ' we, our princes, our priests, and our prophets,' Lords and Commons, Universities, Ecclesiastical Courts, marts of commerce, great towns, country parishes, would deal with Athanasius, — Athanasius, who spent his long years in fighting against kings for a theological term?" — P. 138. ^ I recommend this passage to the consideration of those more than friendly critics of mine, who, in their per- 'plexity to find a motive sufficient for my becoming a Catholic, attribute the step in me personally (without any warrant, I think, from anything that I have said or written) to a desire for a firmer ground of religious cer- titude, and a clearer view of revealed truth, than is fur- nished in theChurch of England* I should also venture ' ' Mr. Hutton, in his recently publislied most interesting Essays, speaking of converts, wonders " what is the charm which has power to retain them, afkr exfetience of Rome's coarse splendours and of her vigilant and oppres- : siverule." I suppose he is contemplating in Rome what I had in mind in 1850 when I spoke of her aspect as "peremptory, stem, resolute, over- ' ^bearing, and relentless ; " but this is what I felt, as I then expressly said, ' iefore "experience " of her "rule," and an impression which did not deter me ''; from becoming a Catholic, or rather helped me to become one, can have no a power to affect me unfavourably now, when I have been a Catholic so long. 76 Note on Essay IX. respectfully to offer the same passage to the notice of an eminent statesman and brilliant writer, who has lately- gone out of his way to observe that " the secession of Dr. Newman " is an " extraordinary event," which, "has been ' apologized for,' but has never been explained ; " except that I doubted whether a genuine politician could possibly enter into any motives of action, not political, and was not likely, even in the province of physics, to demand reasons of state or party interests in explana- tion of a chimpanzee being confined of a human baby, or a Caucasian man developing into an Archangel. But to our immediate subject : — The foregoing Essay calls on me for a reconsideration of its contents in three respects : as regards, first, the validity of Anglican Orders ; secondly, the unity of ec- clesiastical jurisdiction ; thirdly, the apparent exceptions to that unity in the history of the early Church. Arid first as to Anglican Orders. I. As to the Anglican Orders, I certainly do think them doubtful and untrustworthy ; and that, independent of any question arising out of Parker's consecration, into which I will not enter. Granting, for argument's sake, that that consecration was in all respects what its de- fenders say it was, still I feel a large difficulty in accepting the Anglican Succession and Commission of Ministry, arising out of the historical aspect of tlie Anglican Church and of its prelates, an aspect which suggests a grave suspicion of the validity of their acts from first to last. I had occasion to make some re- marks on this subject several years ago ; but I left them unfinished, as feeling that I was distressing, without convincing, men whom I love and respect, by impugning Note on Essay IX. 77 an article of their belief, which to them is sacred, in pro- portion as it is vital. Now, however, when time has passed, and I am opposing not them but my former self, I may be allowed, pace charissimorum virorum, to ex- plain myself, and leave my explanation on record, as ■regards some points to which exception was then taken. And, in so doing, I do but profess to be setting down a view of the subject which is very clear to my own mind, and which, as I think, ought to be clear to them : but of course I am not laying down the law on a point on which the Church has not directly and distinctly spoken, nor implying that I am not open to arguments on the other side, if such are forthcoming, which I do not anticipate. First of all, I will attempt to set right what I thought I had set right at the time. A mis-statement was made some time ago in Notes and Queries, to the effect that I had expressed " doubts about Machyn's Diary." In spite of my immediate denial of it in that publica- tion, it has been repeated in a recent learned work on AngHcan Orders. Let me then again declare here that I know nothing whatever about Machyn, and that I have never even mentioned his name in anything I have ever written, and that I have no doubts whatever, be- cause I have no opinion at all, favourable or unfavour- able, about him or his Diary. Indeed, it is plain that, 'since, in the letter in which I was supposed to have 'spoken on the subject, I had dismissed altogether what I called the "antiquarian" question concerning the con- secrations of 1559, as one which I felt to be dreary and interminable, I should have been simply inconsistent, hiid I introduced Machyn or his Diary into it, and should, in point of logic, have muddled my argument, fc That argument, which I maintain now as then, is as 78 Note on Essay IX. follows -.—That the consecrations of 1559 were not only facts, they were acts ; that those acts were not done and over once for all, but were only the first of a series of acts done in a long course of years ; that these acts too, all of them, were done by men pf Certain positive opinions and intentions, and none of those opinions and views, from first to last, of a Catholic complexion, but on the contrary erroneous and heretical. And I questioned whether men of those opinions could by means of a mere rite or formulary, however correct in itself, start and continue in a religious communion, such as the Anglican, a ministerial succession which could be depended on as inviolate. I do not see what guarantee is producible for the faithful observance of a sacred rite, in form, matter, and intention, through so long a period in the hands of such administrators. And again, the existing state of the Anglican body, so ignorant of fundamental truth, so overrun with diversified error,, would be but a sorry outcome of Apostolical ordinances and graces. "By their fruits shall ye know them." Revelation involves in its very idea a teaching and a hearing of 'Divine Truth. What clear and steady light of truth is there in the Church of England .'' What candlestick, upright and firm, on which it has been set .' This seems to me what Leslie calls "a short and easy method ; •" it is drawn out from one of the Notes of the Church. When we look at the Ang-lican communion, not in the books, in the imagination, or in the affections of its champions, but as it is in fact, its claims to speak in Christ's Name are refuted by its very condition. An Apostolical ministry necessarily involves an Apostolical teaching. This practical argument was met at the time by two objections : first, that it was far-fetched, and next, that Note on Essay IX. 79 in a Catholic it was suicidal. I do not see that it is either, and I proceed to say why. y I. As to its being far-fetched or unreasonable ; if so, it is strange that it should have lately approved itself to a writer placed in very different circumstances, who has used it, not indeed against Anglican Orders, for he firmly upholds them, but against Swedish ; — I mean. Dr. Littledale. This learned and zealous man, in his late lecture at Oxford, decides that a certain uncatholic act, which he specifies, of the Swedish ecclesiastical Estabhshment, done at a particular time and place, has so bad a look, as to suffice, independent of all investiga- tion into documents of past history, at once to unchurch it, — ^which is to go much further in the use of my ar- gument than I should think it right to go myself "Sweden," he says, "professes to have retained an Apostolical Succession ; I am satisfied from historical evidence that she has nothing of the kind ; but the late 'chaplain to the Swedish embassy in London has been good enough to supply me with an important disproof of his own Orders. During a long illness, from which he was suffering some time ago, he entrusted the entire charge of his flock to a Danish pastor, until such time as his own successor was at length sent from Sweden . His official position must have made the sanction of the authorities, both in Church and State, necessary for a delegation of his duties ; so that the act cannot be classed with that of an obscure Yorkshire incumbent, the other day, who invited an Anabaptist minister to fill his pulpit. And thus we gather that the quasi- Episcopal Church of Sweden treats Presbyterian minis- ters on terms of perfect equality." — P. 8. Here then a writer, whose bias is towards the Church of England, distinctly lays down the principle, that a 8o Note on Essay IX. lax ecclesiastical practice, ascertained by even one formal instance, apart from documentary evidence, or ritual ob- servance, is sufficient in itself to constitute it an important disproof of the claim advanced by a nation to the pos- session of an Apostolical Succession in its clergy. I speak here only of the principle involved in Dr. Littledale's argu- ment, which is the same as my own principle ; though, for myself, I do not say more than that Anglican ordina- tions are doubtful, whereas he considers the Swedish to be simply null. Nor again should I venture to assert that one instance of irregularity, such as that which he ad- duces, is sufficient to carry on either me or (much less) him to our respective conclusions. To what indeed does his "disproof" of Swedish orders come but to this.'* that the Swedish authorities think that Presbyterianism,' as a religion, has in its doctrines and ordinances what is called " the root of the matter," and that the Episcopal' form is nothing more than what I have called above (vol. i. p. 365) "the extra twopence"? Do the highest living authorities in the Anglican Church, Queen or Archbishop, think very differently from this .? would they not, if they dared, do just what the late Swedish chaplain did, and think it a large wisdom and a true charity to do so .'' So much on the reasonableness of my argument. I conceive there is nothing evasive in refusing to decide^ the question of Orders by the mere letter of an Ordina- tion Service, to the neglect of more elementary and broader questions ; nothing far-fetched, in taking into account the opinions and practices of its successive ad- ministrators, unless Anglicans may act towards the Swedes as Catholics may not act towards Anglicans. Such is the common sense of the matter ; and that it is the Catholic sense, too, a few words will show. It will be made clear in three propositions :— First, the iSfote on Essay IX. 8 1 Anglican Bishops for three centuries have lived and died in heresy ; (I am not questioning their good faith and invincible ignorance, which is an irrelevant point ;) aext, it is far from certain, it is at the utmost only pro- bable, that Orders conferred by heretics are valid ; lastly, in conferring the sacraments, the safer side, not merely the more probable, must ever be taken. And, as to the proof of these three points, — as regards the first of them, I ask, how many Anglican Bishops have believed in transubstantiation, or in the necessity of sacramental penance ? yet to deny these dogmas is to be a heretic. Secondly, as to Orders conferred by heretics, there is, I grant, a strong case for their validity, but then there is also a strong case against it {vid. Bingham, Antiq. iv. 7) ; so that at most heretical ordination is not cer- tainly, but only probably valid. As to the third point, viz., that in conferring sacraments, not merely the more probable but the safer side must be taken, and that they must be practically considered invalid, when they are not certainly valid, is the ordinary doctrine of the Church. "Opinio probabilis," says St. Alfonso Liguori, " est ilia, quae gravi aliquo innititur fundamento, apto ad hominis prudentis assensum inclinandum. In Sacramentorum collatione non potest minister uti opinione probabili, aut probabiliori, de Sacramenti valore, sed tutiores sequendse sunt, aut moraliter certse." * Pope Benedict XIV. supplies us with an illustration of this principle, even as regards a detail of the rite itself In his time an answer was given from Rome, in the case \ * The principle of the " tutior " opinion applies also to the rule of three •bishops for a consecration, about which Hallier says : " An consecratio episcopi omnino nulla, irrita, et invalida sit, vel solum illegitima, qu£e a 'paucioribus tribus episcopis peracta fuerit : Caietanus, Bellarminus, Vasquez, ,et alii affirmantem partem sequuntur (nisi ecclesis dispensatid We are tempted to add one remarkable illustration in point, in addition to the above furnished to us by Dr. The Pyotcstant Idea of Antichrist. 153 Todd, from a treatise now in course of publication, which from circumstances has attracted some attention. A work indeed of such talent and such range as " An- cient Christianity" of course deserves attention on its own ground from persons interested in its subject, — that is, will deserve it when it is completed. At present it is dnly in an inchoate state, and if we attempted at this moment to master the author's argument, we might find on his finishing it in subsequent numbers, that it as little resembled our conceptions of it, as any complete copy of a work resembles its first rough draught. We have in consequence felt it right to be patient, and to wait and see where he ends, a resolution in .which we are confirmed by finding it adopted by others beside ourselves, and persons too not agreeing with us in theological views. The particular point for which we now refer to him, is his avowal, as Dr. Todd quotes him, that the state of the Church of the fourth century is the fulfilment of the prophecy in i Tim. iv., concerning ''the apostasy of some from the faith," in " forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Dr. Todd's remarks on this passage, which form the subject of his sixth lecture, are very valuable. He observes, (after Mede so far,) that the prophecy is a continua- tion of the train of thought begun at the conclusion of the foregoing chapter. The Apostle had said, "great is the mystery of godhness," and, after describing it, he [adds, "but the Spirit speaketh expressly that some shall apostatize from the faith," this faith once for all de- livered, — "the great mystery of godliness." If this be I so, it will follow that the falling away or apostasy to ; come is a denial of the Incarnation ; a conclusion which lis singularly confirmed by St. John's words, " Every < spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in 154 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of Anti^. Christ, whereof ye have heard that it shall come, and' even now already is it in the world ; " or, as St. Paul speaks, " the mystery of iniquity doth already work ; " — a pointed contrast being intended by the Apostle between the mystery of truth and the mystery of error. St. Peter confirms this yiew by prophesying, as the great evil which lies before the Church, "false teachers" who shall " privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them!' Then as to the two speci- fied points which mark the Apostasy, — of forbidding marriage and meats, — every one who can read his Greek Testament must know quite well, that the word rendered " meats " has as little to do with flesh specially, (which is what the Roman Church or the Nicene Church has in view when it enjoins fasting,) as the word sweet/wai in English has. " It denotes food" says Dr. Todd, whether animal or vegetable ; in short, whatsoever is, employed for the aliment and sustenance of man."— P. 309. But, independently of this, it is very wonderful how any one can see in this passage a condemnation of fasting, who professes to hold, with the English Church, its religious use, or can make it a peculiar badge either of the Roman or of the Primitive. Well may Mr. Mait- land say, — as Dr. Todd quotes him, — " I feel quite at a loss how to express my astonishment, that any expositor should have been hardy enough to carry on the interpre- tation, by applying this part of the prophecy to the fasts of the Church of Rome. Strange indeed it will be, if the predicted mark of apostasy ■ should turn out to be a practice commanded in the word of God, recognized as a religious duty by every Christian communion, and placed first and foremost in her list of 'good works ' by the purest Protestant Church in the world. (See the Homily ' Of Good Works, and first of Fasting.') To say that this, which the Church of England enjoins on her members as a ' good The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 155 work,' whose commendation is both in the law and in the Gospel,' changes its character so far as to become a badge of apostasy, when excessively or superstitiously performed, is a shift which it would not be worth while to answer, if the reply were not so close at hand. Has the Church of Rorhe ever commanded such ex- cessive abstinence as had beexi practised by voluntary superstition long before that Church was distinguished as the apostasy, or, in fact, distinguished at all from the rest of the Catholic Church? Aiid has the Greek Church never been excessive or superstitious on diis point?" — P. 341. On the other hand, it is a very observable fact that such an unnatural or rather murderous abstinence, as is spoken of in this text of the Apostle, did exist among the Albigenses. Our author says, — " The most remarkable instance, perhaps, of voluntary suicide recommended, under the name of religion, by a sect pretending to Christianity, was the etidura or fasting to death, practised among the Albigenses of Thoulouse, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It seems that these heretics recommended the etidura to such persons as were received into the communion of their sect during their last illness, or what was supposed to be so ; and that these unhappy dupes of a miserable superstition were taught to believe, that by submitting to be thus starved to death, their ever- lasting happiness was secured. Abundant proofs of the existence of this cruel and monstrous practice among these heretics, will be found in the Book of Sentences of the Inquisition The well-known superstitions of the natives of India exhibit numerous instances of self-immolation performed from a religious motive, and widely spread, nay popular, for centuries, among an intelligent, ^ and not in other respects an unciviUzed, people." — Pp. 309, 310. In like manner, the Manichees and Gnostics com- manded ^stinence from certain kinds of food, not for a moral end, but on the ground of their being unlawful or unfit for use, or, contrariwise to St. Paul, as if not "every creature of God was good." Dr. Todd also quotes St. Augustine, who says of the Tatianists, that " they condemn marriage, and hold it all one with for- 156 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. nication and other impurity ; and do not receive into tlieir number man or woman living in a married state. Nor do they eat flesh, but abominate it altogether."— P. 3 1 . As to this other characteristic of the Apostasy, that it shall forbid marriage, Dr. Todd observes, in behalf of the Church of Rome, what will apply still more strongly to the Nicene Church, that the words in the inspired text " imply, in their natural and obvious signification, an absolute pro- hibition of marriage, on som^ such principles as those which led to the prohibition of it in the ancient Gnostic and Manichsean sects ; or else, perhaps, on the licentious principlestwhich are not with- out their advocates in our own times Without attempting, therefore, in the least to defend or to excuse this part of the dis- cipline and doctrine of the Roman Church, — for I believe it inde- fensible, — I trust I may be permitted to express my doubts, whether the injunction or recommendation to celibacy to certain classes of persons in that communion, can in fairness and candour be repre- sented as equivalent to a general prohibition of the holy ordinance \ of matrimony, or a denial of its divine institution. I am persuaded ,| that the prophecy before us is intended to predict a much more fatal error than that of Romanism ; an error more destructive to morality and to society ; an error, which, if we are to seek for its antitype in modern times, would seem to be represented rather by what we have seen was always the result of infidel domination, both in our own country, — during the temporary overthrow of our religion 'and monarchy, — and in still later times, in France, where the marriage contract was capable of being legally dissolved at any time by the mutual consent of the parties ; and that infidel opinions of a similar tendency are not without their victims in our own nation, at the present day, none need be told who are acquainted;! with what is now commonly maintained on this subject, by the enemies of our faith and institutions. We have not indeed, as yet, seen men go to the length of prohibititig the ordii*nce of the Church, or the public recognition of the civil contract ; but we have seen in our own times a legal sanction given to a mode of entering upon this contract, wherein neither the blessing of the Almighty is besought, nor the Church admitted as a witness. How far this may be considered as a step to a inore anti-Christian state of things, it would ill become me to predict ; at present it can only be The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. i^y appealed to as one amongst many still more unequivocal indica- tions of the tendency of a certain class of opinions, now widely spread amongst us, and an earnest of what may fairly be expected from a national recognition of infidehty, and an overthrow of the Christian Church. " But the subject is one upon which it would be manifestly im- possible to enter here ; and I shall therefore only say that I believe the prophecy to have foretold an infidel prohibition of the ordinance of marriage, rather than a superstitious preference for a life of celibacy, and that a state of things is hereafter to be revealed, far, far exceeding in impiety and immorality any example of super- stition, hypocrisy, or mistaken devotion that has ever been tolerated in the darkest period or region of the Church." — Pp. 333 — 339. But now to return to the imputation upon Ancient Christianity cast by the author to whom we have referred in connexion with this text, an imputation which, in the case of writers of his cast of opinions, we do "really consider, as we have said, to be one of the Notes of the Church in every age. — Dr. Todd thus records and comments on it : — "This writer abandons as untenable the interpretation which supposes this prophecy to have been fulfilled in the Roman Church, on the ground that, in the sense in which the Apostle's words have been applied to that communion, they are equally appHcable to the Church Catholic, Eastern and Western, of the Nicene age. He says, 'but here again we are met by that Protestant habit of thinking, which has, in so many instances, impelled the anxious opponents of the Papacy to attribute specifically to the Romish Church what in truth belongs to it only in common with the Eastern and with the Nicene Church. . . . Protestant commen- tators, in referring to this prediction, have been wont to call it a striking prediction of Popery. But why of Popery ? as well say of Spanish Catholicism, or of Irish Catholicism. ... In our eagerness ... to attach this brand to Papacy we have too much forgotten that Rome only inherited and shared the more ancient Apostasy.' ■ . . The author of Ancient Christianity . . . not only admits, but broadly asserts, . . . that the Nicene Church was apostate. . . . ' Popery will live and triumph so long as those corruptions continue 158 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. to be called Popish, which, in fact, were much more ancient. In the present instance, I appeal to serious and candid minds, compe- tently informed in Church history, and ask, whether the brand of Apostasy be not herein fixed by the Apostolic hand upon . . . the Nicene Church?'" — Todd, pp. 516 — 518. Here then we have ancient and modern dissentients from the Primitive Church, Donatists, Luciferians, and the author of " Ancient Christianity," not satisfied with dissenting, but accusing her of apostasy. One sh6uld not wish the English Church to be other than a partner in a cross which Athanasius and Augustine have borne in their day and down to these times. And now let us see whether, for well-nigh three centuries, the Reformed Anglo-Catholic communion has not also in fact borne it The writings of Puritan and other authors will afford us abundant materials on this subject, of which the follow- ing may serve as a specimen, which are extracted from the works which first come to hand. For instance, these dissentients from us are in the habit of calling our Church Babylon, and Antichrist, es- i pecially on the ground of our Church's iinioji with the' State ; a more outrageous reason cannot well be con- ■ ceived, of course ; but we must beg our readers to bear with what is monstrous for the sake of the various lessons which the survey brings with it. " The kingdom of Christ," says the celebrated Robert Browne, founder of the Brownists, as quoted by Mr. Hanbury, in his late elaborate collection of " Historical Memorials reladng to the Independents,"—" The kingdom of Christ is His office of government, whereby He useth the obedience, of His people to keep His laws and commandments to', their salvation and welfare. The kingdom of Antichrist The Protestant Idea of Anticlu-ist. 159 is his government confirmed by the civil magistrate, whereby he abuseth the obedience of his people to keep his evil laws and customs to their own damna- tion." — P. 21. Barrowe, taking "a little view of the ec- clesiastical government and ordinances of" the Church of England, says, " Great hath been their craft and manifold their devices to cover their anti- Christian practices, and to uphold this their fuinous and tyran- nous kingdom. I had need express my meaning to be of their false ecclesiastical regiment, the Kingdom of the Beast ; lest they be my interpreters, and draw me with danger and treason." — P. 45. Again, to take a recent instance — " What I denounce as anti-Christian" says the late Mr. Walker, of Dublin, " is not this or that corruption in the Establishment, nor is it the religious establishment of England and Ireland, etc., etc. It is the generic thitig of a religious establishment, under the name of Christian, under whatever modifications and specific differences, the thing per se cannot but be anti- Christian; and when such a thing is put forward as Christianity, Christians are called to discern in it the man of sin usurping the prerogative of God." — Works, vol. i., p. 341. Again, he says that "One of the dis- tinguishing characters of the Christian religion is, that it cannot possibly be made a political establishment — cannot be made a national institution." " When the Church of Christ," he continues, " espoused as a pure virgin unto Him, becomes a common harlot, committing fornication with the kings of the earth, she ceases to be the Church of Christ."— /^z^., p. 339. Again, " Multi- tudes in anti- Christian Europe burn| with zeal for the false Christ, whom they have set up in their union of ICfmrck and State, while they scorn and detest the only true Christ, the Christ of God, and manifest this by their i6o The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. contemptuous rejection of the word that testifies of Him." — Vol. ii., p. 93. And to the same purport is the following avowal of Wesley's, as it occurs in a pamphlet from which we shall further quote below : " From the time that Church and State, the kingdom of Christ and of the world, were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, Christianity and heathenism, were so thoroughly incorporated with each other that they will hardly ever be divided till Christ comes to reign on the earth. So that, instead of fancying that the glory of the New Jerusalem covered the earth at that period, we have the terrible proof that it was then, and has ever since been, covered with tlic smoke of the bottomless pit." Another ground taken against us is the circumstance of our considering the Church as an hierarchy, a reli- gious, spiritual, or divine, and not a human society. For instance, Bishop Hall, in his answer to Robinson, tells us that the latter had cast " upon her honourable name blasphemous imputations of apostasy, anti- Christianism, whoredom, and 'rebellion ; " and Robinson thus defends himself : "The mystery of iniquity did advance itself by degrees, and, as the rise was, so must the fall be. That man of sin and lawless man must languish and die away of a consumption. . . . You have renounced many false doctrines in Popery, and in their places embraced the truth. But what if this truth be taught under the same hateful prelacy, in the same devised office of the ministry, ' and confused communion of the profane multitude .' If Antichrist held not many truths, wherewith should he countenance so many forgeries .? Or how mould his work to a ' mystery of iniquity; which in Rome is more gross and palpable, but in England is spun with a finer thread, and so more hardly to he discovered? I desire to know of you whether the office of archbishops, bishops,;^ The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. i6i and the rest of that rank, were not parts of that ac- cursed hierarchy in Queen Mary's days, and members of 'the man of sin'? All the Reformed Churches in the world renounce the prelacy of England as part of that pseudo-clergy and anti-Christian hierarchy derived from Rome." — Pp. i86 — 193. And Burton speaks in like manner of the bishops of his day : " Beware of all those factors for Antichrist, whose practice is to divide kings from their subjects and subjects from their kings, that so, between both, they may fairly erect Antichrist's throne again. . . . Herein have we cause to comfort ourselves and to bless the name of our God, who hath raised up faithful ministers of His word, who chose rather to lose all they had than to submit to the commands of usurp- ing anti- Christian mushrooms." — P. 555. And no less a man than Milton says, " Mark, readers, the crafty scope of these prelates ; they endeavour to impress deeply into weak and superstitious fancies the awful notion of a ' Mother ; ' that thereby they might cheat them into a blind and implicit obedience to whatsoever they shall decree or think fit. And if we come to ask a reason of aught from our 'Dear Mother,' she is invisible, under the lock and key of the Prelates, her spiritual adulterers. They only are the internuncios, or the go-betweens of this time-devised mummery. Whatsoever they say, she says must be a deadly sin of disobedience not to believe. So that we, who by God's special grace have shaken off the servitude of a great male tyrant, our pretended father, the Pope, should now, if we be not betimes aware of these wily teachers, sink under the slavery of a female notion ; the cloudy conception of a demi- island 'Mother;' and, while we think to be obedient sons, shall make ourselves rather the bastards, or the centaurs, of their spiritual fornications" — Hanb., p. 187. II 1 62 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. How precisely the fanatic spirit of the Donatist Cir- cumceilionists ! The Afiostolical succession and priesthood is another ground on which these modern heretics call us Anti- christ. " Our prelates," says Burton, " have no other claim for their hierarchy than the Popes have and do make ; which all our divines, since the Reformation, till but yesterday, have disclaimed, and our prelates cannot otherwise but by making themselves the very limbs of the Pope, and so our Church a member of that synagogue of Rome." — P. 553. In like manner, Mr. Walker : " It is now many years since I have renounced with abhorrence the title of ' Reverend,' and the whole clerical character connected with it. That character, under whatever name or modification, is one of the ungodly fictions of the man of sin, and one of the main pillars of A ntichrist's kingdom." — Vol. ii., p. 3 54. Again : " Stare not, when I assert that the distinction between clergy and laity is essentially anti-Christian, and in- deed one of the main pillars supporting the edifice of the man of sin. . . . The blasphemous titles assumed by the Pope of Rome go little beyond the profane arrogance of our English bishops in styling themselves ' Successors of the Apostles in the government of the Church. . . . From the prime ministers of Antichrist] all the inferior orders of clergy received their ordination,, their appointment, and their sacred function. . . . ' Thi$ do in remembrance of Me,' saith the Lord. 'No, no!" say the clergy, ' presume not to do it, unless ye have; among you one of the clerical caste, to consecrate the elements, and administer them to you." — Vol. ii., p. 520. Another ground taken by these writers is that off flur rites and litu7gical services. " Your temples," says Robinson, "especially your Cathedrals and Mother The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 163 Churches, stand still in their proud majesty, possessed by archbishops and lord bishops, liize tlie Flamens and Arch-flamens amongst the Gentiles, from whom they were derived, and furnished with all manner of pompous and superstitious monuments, as carved and painted images, massing copes and surplices, chanting and or- gan music, and many other glorious ornaments of the Romisli harlot, by which her majesty is commended to and admired by the vulgar ; so far are you in these respects from being gone, or fled, yea or crept either, out of Babylon!' — P. 197. " If a man," says the same writer, ~ " should set the Church of England before his eyes, as it differeth but from the Reformed Churches, it would be no very beautiful bird ; yea, what could it in that colour afford but Egyptian bondage, Babylonish confusion, carnal pomp, and a company of Jewish, Heathenish 3.nd Popish ceremonies?" — P. 205. "Shall we think that the services oi Antichrist," says Bastwick, " only taken out of the language of tJie Beast and put into English, and in French, or any other tongue, is ac- ceptable unto God ? And, that our services, the whole Prayer-book, is taken out of the Mass-book and other Popish pamphlets, I myself, being in Italy, compared them together. And for our Litany, if I do not forget myself, it is translated, word for word, out of the Litany to our Lady, as they call it : Lady being turned into Lord, as in the Lady's Psalter, Lord and God are turned into Lady." — P. 575. " These blasphemous wretclies" says Barrowe, " not to darken only, but to reproach the truth yet further, proceed and give out ' that the heavenly order and ordinances which Christ hath ap- pointed in His Testament,' the government of His Church, which they call discipline, ' are but accidental, and no essential work of the Established Church.' . . . 1 64 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. Thus is Antichrist extolled, and openeth his mouth against God and all His ordinances."— P. 45. And in like manner, Mr. Walker, in answer to Archbishop Whately's Tract on the Sabbath, '"The Church,' he _ (the Archbishop) tells us, ' has full power to sanctify any day that may be thought most fitting.' Power to sanc- tify ! the assumption of the man of sin can scarcely be carried higher than this. Here he appears indeed as God sitting in the Temple of God!' — Works, vol. ii., p. 144. Again, the mixture of good and bad men in our Church, and her injunctions to unity, are made a fresh proof of her kindred with Antichrist. " For your graces," says Robinson, " we despise them not, nor any good thing amongst you ; no more than you do such graces and good things as are to be found in the Church of Rome, from which you separate notwithstanding. We have, by God's mercy, the pure and right use of the good gifts and graces of God in Christ's ordinance, which you want. Neither the Lord's people nor the holy vessels could make Babylon Sion ; though both one and the other were captive for a time." — P. 201. Robinson, in a passage above cited, observes, that we have still the prelacy, the ministry, and the "confused conuniinion of the profane multitude," which are badges of Antichrist. And Mr. Walker observes to a friend, " You quote Eph. iv. 3 as warranting your tender apprehensions, lest you should disturb the tranquillity of that ungodly confederacy in which you are engaged, by the introduction of Scriptural truth. The 'unity of the Spirit' indeed ! let me freely tell you, that I view the unity of the Spirit which you are endeavouring thus to keep, as no other than the tmity of the Spirit of Anti- chtistr—?. 374. Much might be said in addition on the subject of faith Ths Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 165 and works, baptism, and other doctrines, by way of sh'ow- ing how fully our Church is practically involved in the charge of Antichristianism by those who adopt Luther's view of the "articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae." " Dissenters," says a clever pamphlet from one of them- selves, " whether justly or not, believe that baptismal regeneration, the exclusive validity of the Orders con- ferred by bishops, the consequent exclusive right of the clergy 'to be quite sure that they have the body of Christ, to give to the people,' the conversion of the Christian ministry into a priesthood, with the inevitable association of some mysterious nature connected with their services . . . they believe that that from which they naturally spring, really is contained and taught in the offices and canons of tJi£ Church ; and if not, they know that the things themselves are extensively assumed and circulated as if they were there ; and that, even when denied in the pulpit, the belief of them is fostered by the fact, that the uniform phraseology of the Book of Common Prayer is, apparently at least, founded upon them. They consider that pernicious and perilous errors lurk in the language and are supported by the use of the Confirmation Service and the form of Absolution, both public and private ; and they think that very much that is awfully deceptive is engendered or aggravated by the manner in which the Lord's Supper is dispensed to the dying, and the Burial Service read over the dead."* 9- Our object in making the foregoing selections has been mainly this, to show that the charge on the part of its enemies of being Antichrist, or verging on Anti- christ, is one of those notes or characteristics which go * What ? and who says it ? — P. 64. 1 66 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. to ascertain the true Church ; next, that in consequence, much as there is to condemn in the Roman communion, yet, if that communion is not proved on other grounds to be the Babylon of prophecy, the mere fact that it is so called, however startling at first sight, affords no presump- tion that it is so ; and lastly, and what most concerns members of our own body, that we should be cautious of calling Rome by the name of Babylon, inasmuch as we are certain of being so called ourselves if ours is the true Church,* and that, in matter of fact, we have ever been so called, — more so, since we became separate from Rome, than before, — and that down to this day. If any of us think to gain for ourselves some relief from the odious imputation, by casting it boldly upon Rome, he quite mistakes both our position and the feelings of our opponents. They will take what we give, and use it against ourselves. Let us be quite sure of the truth of the sacred and heathen proverbs in this case, one of which says, that stones cast into the air fall back upon the caster's head ; and the other, that curses, like young chickens, always come home to roost. Newton tells us in one place, that " The seeds of popery, sown even in the Apostles' day, were idolatry, strife, and division, adulterating God's word, making 'a gain o'f godliness, and teaching for filthy lucre s sake," (Oh, Dr. Newton !) " a vain observance of festivals, a vain distinction of meats, a neglecting of the body, and traditions and command- ments of men." How ill would the " plurima pietas," which suggested such an enumeration to this mild logician, have fared in the rude unmannerly hands of Henry Ainsworth, who, in his "Arrow against Idolatry" * [It is undeniable that the Anglican Churcli has retained large portions of the Catholic doctrine and ritual ; so far forth as it has done so, of course it will be called anti-Christian by those who call Rome pui-e Antichrist.] The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 167 reckons among its relics existing among its, our "Dio- cesan, Provincial, and National Churches," our " Litur- gies " and " organs," our holy days with their eves, our hierarchy, our "Churches, baptized bells, hallowed fonts, and holy churchyards," or, as he appropriately calls them, " high places," our " lands, livings, tithes, offerings, gar- ments, signs, gestures, ceremonies, courts, canons, cus- toms, and many more abominations wherewith have been enriched tlie mercliants of the whore and all that sail with shijTs in her sea." These and others, (he proceeds to say,) are " very Gilluhim, the loathsome idols and excre- ments of the Queen of Sodom and the filthiness of her fornication" with which "she defileth the consciences of men."* We desiderate in Newton's Treatise an answer to these railings ; and we think no English divine does us a service who so vaguely delineates Antichrist that at a little distance his picture looks not very unlike our- selves. He should be precise enough not to include England ivhile he includes Rome ; and this task, what- ever be the grievous errors of Rome, we hold to be impossible. All the great and hrodid principles on which she may be considered Babylon, may be retorted on us. Does the essence of Antichrist lie in interposing media between the soul and its God .^ we interpose baptism ; — In imposing a creed .'' we have articles for the clergy and creeds for all men ; — In paying reverence to things of time and place .' we honour the consecrated elements, take off our hats in churches, and observe days and seasons ; — In forms and ceremonies 1 we have a service book ; — In ministers of religion .■" we have bishops, priests, and deacons ; — In claiming an imperium in imperio? such was the convocation, such are elective chapters ; — In the high state of prelacy .•■ our bishops * Hanbury's Memorials, p. 238. 1 68 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. have palaces, and sit among princes ; — In supporting religion by temporal sanctions ? we are established ; — In the mixture of good and bad ? we are national ; — In dis- cipline of the body ? we fast. England does not differ then from Rome m principles, but in questions oljact, of degree, oi practice; and whereas Antichrist differs from Christ, as darkness from light, if one of the two Churches is Antichrist, the other must be also. Nay, let not even the Kirk be too sure that she has succeeded in ridding herself of the same frightful imputa- tion. So far as she still retains upon her the shadow of a Church, so far does she, in the eyes of those who have cast off all churchmanship, bear tokens of the enemy of truth. A Church, as such, as Mr. Walker confesses in his own case, is what Protestants really mean by Anti- christ. We have a strange paper before us, which has been widely circulated, and is written by a late Fellow of a College in the University of Oxford, which, after decid- ing that the first Beast is the Papacy, the seven horns the seven sacraments, war with the beast the Protestant league, the mouth speaking great things, the Council of Trent, goes on to say, that the second Beast is the Queen's supremacy, the two horns like a lamb, are the two Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, the image to the first Beast, the book of Common Prayer, the name of the second Beast the supreme head of the Church, and ends by warning the Kirk that the Queen's High Commissioner in the General Assembly "sits there, as in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God," (that is, supreme head of the Church in its ecclesiastical capacity,) and by asking "If the Church of England be an idolatrous Church, as was universally held by all Presbyterians in the reign of the Stewarts, identifying as they did, Prelacy with Popery throughout, upon what The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 169 principle does the Evangelical portion in particular of the Church of Scotland now seek a closer union with the Church of England, when the latter Church has noto- riously become more superstitious than ever, with her crosses, and candlesticks, and altars, and faldstools, and though last, not least, with her priestly robes and royal dalmatics ?" Let it be observed that this writer, as well as Ainsworth and the rest, accuses us of idolatry, the one point in which we might seem at first sight specifically to differ from Rome ; but it is a remarkable circumstance that, real as this difference is, as we should contend. Idolatry is not mentioned in Scripture as a mark of A nti- christ ; just the reverse. " Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers," says the prophecy, " nor regard a7iy god, for he shall magnify himself above all ; but in his estate he shall honour the god of forces." "Who opposeth and exalteth himself ai^o^'^ all that is called god or that is worshipped!' " He opened his mouth in blas- phemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in Jieaven" 10. Enough has. been said to show the deficiency of theo- logical principle, on which the attack upon Rome has commonly been conducted among us. Writers of our Church who call her Babylon, ought to have laid down definitely what they considered the essence of Antichrist, and have shown that our own was clear of it. They ought, before attacking the foundations of Rome, to have shown that we ourselves had not built upon them. Instead of this, in their eagerness to strike a blow at Rome, they have done no little to overturn all visible, all established religion in the world, and to involve the Primitive Church, our own, the Kirk — nay, all sects and 1 70 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. denominations whatever, — in one common ruin. And now we will make a suggestion towards remedying their deficiency, that is, towards analysing the principle on which alone Rome can logically be called the seat of Antichrist : whether such principle, when stated, will be satisfactory to ourselves, and available in our warfare with our Roman Catholic brethren, is another matter. Now, whatever has been said above to make it probable that the calumny of being Antichrist is in fact one of the Notes of the true Church, yet nothing has been suggested to account for the phenomenon that the Church, or what is like the Church, should be exposed to so strange an imputation. It is satisfactory indeed to be told that, if we are called Beelzebub, we are but fulfilling our Master's pattern ; but still the question remains liowmfo. come to call us so .' We conceive upon the following principle. We observe then that the essence of the doctrine that there is " One only Catholic and Apostolic Church " lies in this ; — that there is on earth a representative of our absent Lord, or a something divinely interposed between the soul and God, or a visible body with invisible privileges. All its subordinate characteristics flow from this description. Does it impose a creed, or impose rites and ceremonies, or change ordinances, or remit and retain sins, or rebuke and punish, or accept offerings, or send out ministers, or invest its ministers with authority, or accept of reverence or devotion in their persons .' — all this is because it is Christ's visible presence. It stands for Christ. Can it convey the power of the Spirit } does grace attend its acts .'' can it touch, or bathe, or seal, or lay on hands } can it use material things for spiritual purposes } are its temples holy } — all this comes of its being (so far) what Christ The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 1 7 1 was on earth. Is it a ruler, prophet, priest, intercessor, teacher? — it has titles such as these in its measure, as being the representative and instrument of the Al- mighty Lord who is unseen. Does it claim a palace and a throne, an altar and a doctor's chair, the gold, frankincense and myrrh of the rich and wise, an uni- versal empire and a never-ending succession .' — all this is so, because it is what Christ is. All the offices, names, honours, powers which it claims depend upon the determination of the simple question — Has Christ, or has He not, left a representative behind Him .^ Now if He has, then all is easy and intelligible ; this is what churchmen maintain ; they welcome the news ; and they recognize in the CJiurch's acts but the fulfil- ment of the high trust committed to her. But let us suppose for a moment the other side of the alternative to be true ; — supposing Christ has left no representative behind Him. Well, then, here is an Association which ; professes to take His place without warrant. It comes forward instead of Christ and for Him ; it speaks for Him, it developes His words ; it suspends His appoint- ments, it grants dispensations in matters of positive duty ; it professes to minister grace, it absolves from sin ; — and all this of its own authority. Is it not forthwith, accord- ing to the very force of the word, "Antichrist "} He who speaks for Christ must either be His true ambassador or AnJchrist ; and nothing but Antichrist can he be, if appointed ambassador there is none. Let his acts be the same in both cases, according as he has authority or not, so is he most holy or most guilty. It is not the acts that make the difference, it is the authority for those acts. The very same acts are Christ's acts or Anti- christ's, according to the doer : they are Christ's, if Christ does them ; they are Antichrist's, if Christ does 172 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. them not. There is no medium between a Vice-Christ and Antichrist. It is no accident then or strange occurrence that the Church should have been called Antichrist. She must be called so in consistency by those who separate from her. Such an imputation is the necessary result of dis- belief in her commission. Her acts are known in all the world ; there is no mistaking them. Difference of opinion about them will be shown not in disputing against what is mere matter of history and public noto- riety, but in viewing them in a different light, and referring it to a distinct origin. Convince the Presby- terian or Wesleyan that the Church has spiritual powers, and he will find no great difficulty in her general con- duct : she does not act up to her commission. If the Church be from Christ, even her least acceptable words or deeds ex cathedrd may be taken on faith : if she be not, even her best are presumptuous, and call for a protest. She is an honoured servant in one case ; an usurper and tyrant in another. There is on the whole then but one issue in the controversy about the Church, and that a very plain and simple one. Its children and its enemies both understand that the Church professes to act for God, but the one party says rightfully, the other wrongfully. This then is the point on which the controversy turns, aqd before which all other questions sink in importance. All may easily be arranged when this one question is settled. Neglect it, and we shall be arguing without understanding where we are; master this one principle, and you may change your whole ] position in a day : the Church will be henceforth faith- ful for arrogant, diligent for officious, charitable for political, firm for violent, holy for blasphemous, Christ for Antichrist. If we believe she has a commission, we The Protestant Idea of Atitichrist. 173 shall be Catholics, and call her holy : if we make our inward light, or our reason, or our feelings, our guide, and set up Antichrist within us, then, with Gnostics, Montanists, Novatians, Manichees, Donatists, Paulicians, Albigenses, Calvinists, and Brownists, we shall, in mere ■ self-defence and mere consistency, call her Babylon, Sodom, sorceress, harlot, Jezebel, Beelzebub, and Anti- christ. A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church ; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of Antichrist. And thus we answer a gibe, we believe of Baxter's, which at first sight is not without its force. He said that " If the Pope was not Antichrist, he had bad luck to be so like him." Not " bad luck ; " but sheer ne- cessity. Since Antichrist simulates Christ, and bishops are images of Christ, Antichrist is like a bishop, and a bishop is like Antichrist. And what is the Pope but a bishop .■■ his peculiarity lying, not in his assuming to be ! omnibus nunieris a bishop, but in his disfranchising all , bishops but himself ; not in his titles nor in his pro- fessed gifts, which are episcopal, but in his denying these to other bishops, and absorbing the episcopate ,~ into himself. The only question then is this, " Has Christ, or has He not, appointed a body representative of Him on earth during His absence .■" " If He has, the Pope is not Antichrist ; — if He has not, every bishop in England, I Bishop Newton, Bishop Warburton, Bishop Hurd, is Antichrist ; every priest is Antichrist, Mr. McNeile, Dr. Jortin, and Dr. Faussett inclusive. We hold most firmly that He has, or of course we could not belong to the Church of England ; this, however, is not the place to prove it in extenso. We have done all that falls within the scope of Dr. Todd's lectures, if we have shown that 174 The Pj'otestant Idea of Antichrist. members of the English Church are not quite the persons to venture to speak of " that woman Jezebel," meaning thereby the Holy Church Catholic, sojourning in Rome; however, before concluding, we may be allowed to make one or two suggestions in behalf of our side of the main principle itself, which is in dispute, viz., that Christ has left behind Him a representative society. II. Now, that He has condescended so to do, is so clearly declared in the sacred volume, especially when its an- nouncements are viewed in the light of historical facts, that we could almost say that the argument did but require to be fairly brought out, in order to the con- viction of any serious and unbiassed mind. Not even the proof of our Lord's divinity is plainer than that of the Church's commission. Not even the promises to David or to Solomon more evidently belong to Christ, than those to Israel, or Jerusalem, or Sion, belong to the Church. Not even Daniel's prophecies are more exact to the letter, than those which invest the Church with powers which Protestants consider Babylonish. Nay, holy Daniel himself is in no small measure employed on this very subject. He it is who announces a fifth kingdom, like " a stone cut out without hands," which " broke in pieces and consumed " all former kingdoms, but was itself to " stand for ever," and to become " a great, mountain," and to " fill the whole earth." He it is also ' who prophesies, that "the Saints of the Most High i shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ' ever." He " saw in the night visions, and behold one i like to the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, ' and came to the Ancient of Days, and there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 175 people, nations, and languages should serve Him." Such too is Isaiah's prophecy, " Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the law from Jerusalem, and He shall judge among the nations and rebuke many people." Now Christ Himself was to depart from the earth : He could not then in His own person be intended in these great prophecies ; if He acted, it must be by delegacy. Let us then for a moment sup- pose that the Church has been really His vicar and representative. Supposing her so to be. He has as truly and literally judged among the nations, and rebuked many people, reigned in righteousness, promoted peace, taught the nations, repressed the wicked, as the sove- reign of England keeps the peace, administers justice, punishes offences, and performs other regal offices by his courts of law, magistrates, army, police, and other functionaries. All works indeed in which man has part are marked with imperfection ; divine promises and i counsels are but fulfilled on the whole and in due , measure in this sinful world. It is easy to point out ten thousand instances in which the functionaries of the Church have failed of their duty to their Lord and Master, when, according to His own announcement, the " wicked servant " has said " in his heart, my Lord delayeth His coming," and has begun " to beat the man- servants and the maidens, and to eat and drink, and be - drunken ; " still it is impossible surely to read the his- tory of the Church, up to the last four or five hundred years, with an unprejudiced mind, without perceiving that whatever were the faults of her servants, and the I corruptions of her children, she has on the whole been the one element of civilization, light, moral improve- ment, peace, and purity in the world. In the darkest times, with exceptions too brief or local to bear insisting 1 76 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. on, she has been far the superior, in those respects in which she was designed to be superior, of those earthly powers among whom she has moved. In the darkest times, and when the conduct of her organs was least defensible, and her professed aims and principles most extreme, she will be found, when contrasted with other powers, to be fighting the cause of truth and right against sin, — to be a witness for God, or defending the poor, or purifying or reforming her own servants and ministers, or promoting peace, and maintaining the holy , faith committed to her. This she was till she quarrelled with herself, and divided into parts ; what she has been since, what she is now, a future age must decide ; we can only trust in faith that she is what she ever has been, and was promised ever to be, — one amid her divi- sions, and holy amid her corruptions. But returning to the thought of former and happier times, what, we ask, are her acts as then displayed, so lordly and high, so maternal, so loving yet so firm, so calm yet so keen, so gentle yet so vigorous, so full of the serpent's wisdom yet of the dove's innocence ; what is all this but a literal accomplishment of the sure word of prophecy concerning the reign of Christ upon earth ? The writings of the Fathers, as they have come down to us, form an historical comment upon the inspired pages of Isaiah, supplying numberless instances of the execution of that high mission, whereby the spiritual Israel was set forth in the world, as the elect of God, created as an instrument of righteousness to set forth his Maker's glory, to teach truth and righteousness, "to relieve the oppressed, to judge the fatherless, to plead for the widow," to feed the hungry, to shield the im- perilled, to raise the fallen, to repress the tyrannical, to reconcile enemies, and largely to dispense benefits to The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 177 and fro. Even what is visibly exhibited in the page of history is an abundant and a most wonderful accom- plishment of the prophetic word. We find, for instance. St. Ambrose journeying across the Alps in the winter to protect Justina from the usurper Maximus ; we read of the bishops throughout France interceding with the latter for members of their flock or for others, who had taken part against him ; while Flavian, Bishop of Antioch, on that city having grievously insulted the emperor, betakes himself in his old age to Constanti- nople, presents himself before his offended sovereign, and gains his pardon. St. Basil founds an hospital for lepers in his diocese in Cappadocia, and his example is followed throughout the neighbouring country. He writes to Valerian to offer his mediation between Valerian and certain Csesareans ; to Elias, the imperial r collector, to gain longer time for his people's contri- bution ; to Callisthenes, to persuade him to deal mildly with certain slaves ; to the Count of the private purse, for a diminution of the tribute of iron exacted of the people of Taurus, and of mares exacted of another place ; to two parties going to law, offering himself as arbitrator, in order to save them expense ; to a civil officer, to save the country people from the oaths usual on paying taxes ; to Duke Andronicus, to soften his feelings to- wards ;Domitian ; to a commissioner of taxes, to relieve the hospitals from imposts ; and to Modestus, to relieve Helladius from a civil employment. I " Certain Circumcellianists and Donatist clergy," says St. Austin to Apringius, " have confessed horrible enormities of theirs against my brethren and priests, that they waylaid and murdered one, carried off from his home another, pulled out his eye, cut off his finger, and mutilated him. Finding that they would fall under your axe, I write in haste to your nobility, by way of deprecating, for the mercy VOL.11. 12 178 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. of Christ, any strict retaliation. Though the law's punishment can- not lie in the very same acts in which the offenders showed their fury, yet I fear lest they, at least the murderers, should meet with sentence at your hands. That they may not, a Christian petitions the judge, a bishop admonishes the Christian. You bear not the sword in vain ; but it is one thing when a province is the party injured, another when the Church. Fear with us the rigorous judg- ment of God our Father, and be a paftern of the clemency of your, mother. For when you act, the Church acts, for whom you act, whose son you are in acting. They with the sword of guilt drew blood of Christians ; you from their blood hold back even the sword of justice for Christ's sake. They robbed the Church's minister of his time for living ; do you prolong to her enemies their time for repenting." Or, to take another department of their high duties, St. Ambrose suspends the Emperor Theodosius from communion for a passionate massacre of the inhabitants of Thessalonica ; St. Athanasius excommunicated a mili- ^ tary chief of Libya, for immoral conduct, forbidding him throughout Christendom fire, water, and shelter at the hands of the faithful ; St. Basil interdicts a certain re- fractory person from the Church services.; and Synesius abandons to the divine anger Andronicus, president of Libya, a cruel tyrant, who had invented instruments of torture to extort money from the people. Or, let us view a third aspect of the episcopal character.! " I lived," said Theodoret when accused of heresy, " in a monas- tery up to the time of my episcopate, and received that charge against my will. Five-and-twenty years have I lived bishop, nor have ever been appealed against by any, nor any have I accused. Not an obol, not a cloke have I received from any. Not one loaf or one egg has domestic of mine ever received. Except the rags that cover me, nought have I endured to take. Public porticos have I erected out of my ecclesiastical revenue. Two bridges have 1 built of largest si~e ; I have taken the charge of public batlis. Find- _ ing the city wanting in supply from the river that runs near it,/' made the aqueduct, and have filled with «-ater this deficient city. i The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 179 To change the subject, eight villages of Marcionites and their neigh- bourhoods I have led with their good will into the truth ; another full of Eunomians, another of Arians, I have brought to the light of divine knowledge. By God's grace not one tare of heresy remains among us. And all this not without peril ; often have I shed my blood, often have I been stoned by them, and brought even to the very gates of hell. But I am become a fool in glorying, yet I speak of necessity, not of will. This the thrice-blessed Paul was forced to do once, to stop the mouth of accusers." These are but specimens of a varied and widely ex- tended phenomenon which rose up, like a plant out of the ground, from the very beginnings of the Gospel, wherever and whenever, and just so far as the iron hand of persecution relaxed its hold upon the infant religion. Shall we say it is a usurpation of His power from whom' all authority comes t or a delegated exercise of it .'' Is there a kingdom of Christ upon earth or not .'' This' is the simple question, on which all turns. And that there is, would be probable enough, merely considering it is said in Scripture that Christ shall reign, though He is gone away ; that there shall be a kingdom, while the Church has in fact fulfilled the objects proposed by it. But the case is far stronger than this ; a power short of Christ is expressly addressed in the Prophets, and dominion promised it ; a viceroy and vicar is named by them as ruling for Him. " Arise, shine, for thy light is come," says the inspired oracle, " and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. And 'the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising. The mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow into it." "A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in i8o The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. a weary land. The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand." " Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of afflic- tion, yet shall not thy teachers be removed itito a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers." " The spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, henceforth and for ever." " Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord ; men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gen- tiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves. I will make thy o&.c&rs peace, and thine exactors righteous- ness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders ; for thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise." " Be- hold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy walls are continually before me." "'^o weapon that is formed against thee shall ,prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." 12. One more remark shall we make, and that shall be the last. What is the real place of the Church of the middle ages in the divine scheme need not be discussed here. If we have been defending it, this has been from no love, let our readers be assured, of the Roman party among us at this day. That party, as exhibited by its acts, is a low-minded, double-dealing, worldly-minded set, and the less we have to do with it the better. No- thing but a clear command from above could make a member of our Church recognize it in any way. We are not speaking against the Church of Rome : it is a The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. i8i sister Church ; we are not speaking against individual members of it ; far from it : it is our dehght to think that God has many saints among them, it ought to be our prayer that among us may be as great saints as have been among them. But vi^hat we protest against and shrink from is, that secular and poHtical spirit which in this day has developed itself among them into a party, and at least in this country is that party's motive-principle and characteristic manifestation. We have no sympathy at all with men who are afraid to own the doctrines of their religion, who try to hoodwink the incautious and ignorant, whc^ ungenerously cast off their and our ancestors, the Church's great champions in former times, who take part in political intrigue, who play the sycophant to great men, who flatter the base passions of the multitude, who join with those who are further from them to attack those who are nearer to them, who imitate the low ways of the popular religion, who have music parties in their chapels, and festivals aboard steamers, and harangue at public meetings. Such was not Borromeo, such was not Pascal ; such was not Beckett, Innocent, Anselm, Bernard, Hilde- brand, or the first Gregory ; such were not the men of holy and humble heart, whom Rome commemorates in her services. With such we wish to be " better strangers," the longer we live ; and not a word of what we have said, or are about to say, against the notion of Rome being apostate, is spoken for the sake of the like of them. Dismissing them then with this protest, we pro- ceed to our proposed remark. } We take it then for granted, as being beyond doubt, that one main reason why Protestants are suspicious both of the Fathers of the early Church, and of the more or- thodox of our writers, is the dread that the doctrine and 1 82 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. system which these divines teach is denounced in prophecy as the element of Antichrist, and savours of the pre- dieted apostasy. When pressed with arguments from Scripture or reason, they cannot perhaps answer them, but they see, as they consider, the eitd to which the Catholic system tends. They judge that the teaching recom- mended to them is of Antichrist, because it has before now resulted in Popery ; and, under the impression that Popery is Antichrist, they say to themselves that some- where or other there must be a fallacy in the reasoning, for that the fruit is the proof of the tree. Their 'dread of what is really Apostolical doctrine mainly, nay often solely, rests upon a religious apprehension that the pro- phecies have denounced it. To persons in this state of mind we propose the following question : If we must go by prophecy, which set of prophecies is more exactly fulfilled in the Church of the middle ages, those of Isaiah which speak of the evangelical kingdom, or those of St. Paul and St. John which speak of the anti- Christian corruption .'' If the history of Christian Rome corresponds to the denouncements of the Apocalypse, does it not more closely and literally corresppnd to the promises of Isaiah } If there is a chance of our taking part with Antichrist, taking into account the Apocalypse, is there not a greater chance of our " speaking against the Holy Ghost," considering the booJ<: of Isaiah 1 To take a broad view of the subject, two traits of Antichrist, we suppose, will be particularly fixed upon as attaching to the see of Rome, pride and luxury, the one seen in its extravagant temporal power, the other in its splendour. For instance, St. Paul speaks of Anti- christ as " exalting himself above all that is called God,- or that is worshipped," sitting " as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Again, the beast The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 183 is said to have seven heads and ten erowned horns ; and the dragon gives him pozver. And Babylon is called " that ^^a^ city," and she has power over other cities, and over kings, because she is said to have " made all nations drink of the wine of " her "wrath," and "the kings of the earth had committed fornication with her." And the Beast " opened his mouth in blasphemy," and the woman was on a scarlet-coloured beast "full of names of blasphemy." All this, it is urged, is fulfilled in the Medieval Church's proclaiming herself (as the early Church did before her) to be Christ's vicar, in her assumption of power over kings, and her claim to define and maintain the faith, and to confer spiritual gifts. Now, as to the mode in which her functionaries did this, their motives, their characters, their individual know- ledge of the faith, with all this we are not here con- cerned'; but as to the ultimate facts in which the action of the whole system resulted, surely they far more literally correspond to the inspired prophecy of Isaiah than to that of St. John. " The sons of the strangers shall build up thy walls, and their liings sliall minister to thee. The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee ; and all they that despised thee shall bow tlumselves down at tlie soles of tity feet" " Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers ; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet!' " Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel. Behold I will make thee a new thrashing instrument having teeth ; and thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall 1 84 The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. scatter them." Surely if the correspondence, whatever it is, of the prophecies of Antichrist with the history of the Medieval Church should frighten us from that Church, much more should that of the prophecies con- cerning Christ's kingdom with her history draw us to her. The other point commonly insisted on is the Me-' dieval Church's wealth and splendour, the rich embel- lishment of her temples, the jewelled dress of her ministers, the offerings, shrines, pageants, and proces- sions, which were part of her religious service. All these are supposed to be denoted by " the purple and scarlet colour, and gold, and precious stones, and pearls," with which the sorceress in the Apocalypse is arrayed ; where mention is also made of the mer- chandize of gold and silver, precious stones, and of pearls and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and precious wood, and brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men, and the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters." All such magnificence would of course, in itself, as little prove that the Church is Anti- christ, as that any king's court is Antichrist, where it is also found. But, whatever cogency be assigned to the correspondence, still let a candid mind decide whether it can be made to tell more strongly against the Church, than the following account of the evangelical kingdom tells in her behalf " I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of precious stones!' " The multitude The Protestant Idea of Antichrist. 185 of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah : all they from Sheba shall come ; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron." Pas- sages such as these, at least show that precious stones are no peculiar mark of Antichrist ; which is sufficiently clear even from a later chapter of the Apocalypse, in which jasper, sapphires, and other jewels are mentioned among the treasures of the New Jerusalem. On this ground then we would rest the matter with all serious students of Scripture. If they listen to the ' deep mysteries of St. John, they are inconsistent surely in being deaf to the uplifted voice of Isaiah ; and in saying this, we must not be supposed to be conceding that the words of St. John in the Apocalypse, or of St. Paul in his Epistles, have met yet with their due solution in the Church's history. How wide they fall short of it, has been shown in one instance from St. Paul, in the course of our remarks ; and in Dr. Todd's volume the reader will find similar instances, in the case of the other passages, whether in that Apostle or in Daniel, which relate -to Antichrist, but which cannot by any sober mind be applied to the ecclesiastical events or persons of the past ages of Christianity. October, 1840. i86 XI. MILMAN'S VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY. THE " History of Christianity " which Mr. Milmaii has lately given to the world, is a work of very considerable ability, and bears upon it tokens of much thought and varied research. No one could doubt that such would be the character of any publication of the author's, and the expectation raised by his name has been increased by the length of time during jvhich re- ports have been current of his having a work on Chris- tianity in hand. It consists of three ample volumes, but even these are but an instalment of the whole design to which he has devoted himself " If he should be blessed with life and leisure," says his Preface, " the author cannot but look forward to the continuation of this his- tory with increasing interest, as it approaches the period of the re-creation of European society under the in- fluence of Christianity." — P. lo. It is notorious that the English Church is destitute of an Ecclesiastical History ; Gibbon is almost our sole authority for sub- jects as near the heart of a Christian as any can well be. We do not indeed mean to say that Mr. Milman will supply this want ; rather we conceive him to hold that it is a want which ought not to be supplied. Our im- pression at least is, — we do not mean to state it as more than an impression, — that he considers Church histories, Milman^s View of Christianity. 187 as such, to be nothing better than " tolerabiles ineptis." His present volumes are rather the substitute than the supply of this desideratum in our ecclesiastical lite- rature, and are meant to supersede the history of the Church by the history of Christianity. But we acknow- ledge even this as a boon ; without agreeing to Mr. Milman's historical views or doctrinal opinions, as what we shall presently say will show, we consider it to be impossible even for a Gibbon to write an uninstructive history of the Evangelical Dispensation ; and much less can Mr. Milman, who is not a Gibbon, but a clergyman, fail to be useful to those who are in search of facts, and liave better principles than his own to read them by. We frankly confess that he has not pleased us ; nor, on the other hand, will he please any clear-headed, long-sighted adherents of that philosophy which he has allowed himself just to taste, — except, indeed, as far as, in the present state of things they will thankfully accept whatever is conceded to them, and welcome it as a precedent and pattern for fresh innovations. I. However, we shall be very unjust to Mr. Milman, unless we try carefully to place ourselves in the posi- tion which he has chosen for contemplating and deli- neating the Christian religion. Unless we succeed in this, we shall cruelly misunderstand him, as if he held certain opinions, when he does but state the premisses which practically involve them. It is obvious that the whole system of Revelation may be viewed in various, nay antagonist aspects. He who regards our Lord as man, does not in consequence deny that He is more than man ; and they who with Mr. Milman love to regard the whole Christian history as much as possible 1 88 MilmarCs View of Christianity. as a thing of earth, may be wise or unwise, reverent or irreverent, in so doing, may be attempting what is prac- ticable or impracticable, may eventually be led on to commit themselves to positive errors about it, and may accordingly be wantonly trifling with serious matters, but cannot without unfairness be charged with an ipso facto denial of its heavenly character. The Christian his- tory is " an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace:" whether the sign can be satisfactorily treated separate from the thing signified is another matter ; but it seems to be Mr. Milman's intention so to treat it, and he must be judged by that intention, not by any other which we choose to impute to him. Christianity has an external aspect and an internal ; it is human , without, divine within. To attempt to touch the human element without handling also the divine, we may fairly deem unreal, extravagant, and sophistical ; we may feel the two to be one integral whole, differing merely in aspect, not in fact : we may consider that a writer has not mastered his own idea who resolves to take liberties with the body, and yet not insult the animating soul. So we do ; but all this is another matter ; such a person does not mean any harm ; nor does the writer who de- termines, as far as he can, to view the Christian as a secular fact, to the exclusion of all theological truth. He gives a representation of it, such as it would appear to a man of the world. This, at least, is ovx prima facie view of Mr. Milman's book, and to draw it out shall be our first step, — in doing which we shall have an oppor- tunity, without unkindness to the author, of convicting him of what seems to us a want of clearness and definite- ness of conception in his original design. And first he shall state his object for himself, as it is set before us in his Preface : MilmarC s View of Christianity. 189 • "As the Jewish annals might be considered in relation to the general history of man, to the rank which the nation bore among the various families of the human race, and the influence which it exercised on the civilization of mankind : so Christianity may be viewed either in a strictly religions, or rather in a temporal, social, and political light. In the former case, the writer will dwell almost exclusively on the religious doctrines, and will bear continual re- ference to the new relation established between man and the Supreme Being: the predominant character will be that of the theologian. In the latter, although he may not altogether decline the examination of the religious doctrines, their development, and their variations, his leading object will be to trace the effect of Christianity on the individual and social happiness of man, its in- fluence on the polity, the laws and institutions, the opinions, the manners, even on the arts and the literature of the Christian world : he will write rather as an historian than as a religious instructor. Though, in fact, a candid and dispassionate survey of the con- nexion of Christianity with the temporal happiness, and with the intellectual and social advancement of mankind, even to the religious inquirer, cannot but be of high importance and interest ; while with the general mass, at least of the reading and intellectual part of the . community, nothing tends so powerfully to, the strengthening or weakening of religious impression and sentiment, nothing acts so extensively, even though perhaps indirectly, on the formation of reUgious opinions, and on the speculative or practical belief or rejection of Christianity, as the notions we entertain of its influence on the history of man, and its relation to human happiness and social improvement." — Pp. v. vi. In another place he tells us that the course of his hietory "will endeavour to trace all the modifications of Christianity, by which it accommodated itself to the spirit of successive ages ; and by this apparently almost skilful, but in fact necessary, condescen- sion to the predominant state of moral culture, of which itself formed a constituent element, maintained its uninterrupted do- ftiinion. It is the author's object, the difficulty of which he himself fully appreciates, to portray the genius of the Christianity of each successive age, in connexion with that of the age itself ; entirely to discard all polemic views; to mark the origin and progress of all I go Mailman! s View of Christianity. the subordinate diversities of belief ; their origin in the circumstances of the place and time at which they appeared ; their progress from their adaptation to -the prevailing state of opinion or sentiment: rather than to confute error or to establish truth ; in short, to exhibit the reciprocal influence of civilization on Christianity, of Christianity on civilization. To the accomplishment of such a scheme he is well aware that besides the usual high qualifications [of a faithfol historian, is requisite, in an especial manner, the union of true phi- losophy with perfect charity, if indeed they are not one and the same. This calm, impartial, and dispassionate tone he will con- stantly endeavour, he dares scarcely hope, with such warnings-on every side of involuntary prejudice and unconscious prepossession, uniformly to maintain. In the honesty of his purpose he will seek his excuse for all imperfection or deficiency in the execution of his scheme." — P. 47. These extracts, setti-ng forth the intellectual idea under which the author writes, contain matter more than sufficient for the limits within which we wish our remarks upon him to be confined. 2. Now let us see how much we are disposed to grant to Mr. Milman, and where we part company with him : in doing which we must be allowed to begin somewhat ab ovo, and .for a while to exchange a critical for a didactic tone. We maintain then, as we have already said, that Christianity, nor Christianity only, but all God's deal- ings with His creatures, have two aspects, one external, one internal. What one of the earliest Fathers says of its highest ordinance, is true of it altogether, and of all other divine dispensations : they are twofold, " having one part heavenly, and one part earthly." This is the law of Providence here below ; it works beneath a veil, and what is visible in its course does but shadow out at most, and sometimes obscures and disguises what is in- visible. The world in which we are placed has its own ■ MilmarC s View of Christianity. 191 system of laws and principles, which, as far as our know- ledge of it goes, is, when once set in motion, sufficient to account for itself, — as complete and independent as if there was nothing beyond it. Ordinarily speaking, nothing happens, nothing goes on in the world, iDut may be satisfactorily traced to some other event or fact in it, or has a sufficient result in other events or facts in it, without the necessity of our following it into a higher system of things in order to explain its existence, or to give it a meaning. We will not stop to dwell on excep- tions to this general statement, or on the narrowness of our knowledge of things : but what is every day said and acted on proves that this is at least the impression made upon most minds by the course of things in which we find ourselves. The sun rises and sets on a law ; the tides ebb and flow upon a law ; the earth is covered with verdure or buried in the ocean, it grows old and it grows young again, by the operatiofl of fixed laws. Life, whether vegetable or animal, is subjected to a similar external and general rule. Men grow to maturity, then decay, and die. Moreover, they form into society, and society has its principles. Nations move forward by laws which act as a kind of destiny over them, and which are as vigorous now as a thousand years ago. And these laws of the social and political World run into the physical, making all that is seen one and one only system ; a horse stumbles, and an op- pressed people is rid of their tyrant ; a volcano changes populous cities into a dull lake ; a gorge has of old time opened, and the river rolls on, bearing on its bosom the "destined site of some great mart, which else had never been. We cannot set limits either to the extent or to the minuteness of this wonderful web of causes and effects, in which all we see is involved. It reaches to 192 MilmarC s View of Christianity. the skies ; it penetrates into our very thoughts, habits, and will. Such is confessedly the world in which our Almighty Creator has placed us. If then He is still actively present with His own work, present with nations and with indi- viduals. He must be acting by means of its ordinary- system, or by quickening, or as it were, stimulating its powers, or by superseding or interrupting it ; in other words, by means of what is called nature, or by miracle; and whereas strictly miraculous interference must be, from the nature of the case, rare, it stands to reason that, unless He has simply retired, and has left the world ordinarily to itself, — content with having origi- nally imposed on it certain general laws, which will for the most part work out the ends which He contem- plates, — He is acting through, with, and beneath those physical, social, and moral laws, of which our expe- rience informs us. Now it has ever been a firm article of Christian faith, that His Providence is in fact not general merely, but is, on the contrary, thus particular and personal ; and that, as there is a particular Pro- vidence, so of necessity that Providence is secretly con- curring and co-operating with that system which meets the eye, and which is commonly recognized among men as existing. It is not too much to say that this is the one great rule on which the Divine Dispensations with mankind have been and are conducted, that the visible world is the instrument, yet the veil, of the world in- visible, — the veil, yet still partially the symbol and index : so that all that exists or happens visibly, con- ceals and yet suggests, and above all subserves, a system of persons, facts, and events beyond itself. Thus the course of things has a natural termination as well as a natural origin : it tends towards final causes MilmarC s View of Christianity. 193 while it springs from physical ; it is ever issuing from things which we see round about us ; it is ever passing on into what is matter of faith, not of sight. What is called and seems to be cause and effect, is rather an order of sequence, and does not preclude, nay, perhaps implies, the presence of unseen spiritual agency as its real author. This is the animating principle both of the Church's ritual and of Scripture interpretation ; in the latter it is the basis of the theory of the double sense ; in the former it makes ceremonies and observances to be signs, seals, means, and pledges of supernatural grace. It is the mystical principle in the one, it is the sacra- mental in the other. All that is seen, — the world, the Bible, the Church, the civil polity, and man himself, — are types, and, in their degree and place, representatives and organs of an unseen world, truer and higher than themselves. The only difference between them is, that some things bear their supernatural character upon their surface, are historically creations of the supernatural system, or are perceptibly instrumental, or obviously symbolical : while others rather seem to be complete in themselves, or run counter to the unseen system which they really subserve, and thereby make demands upon our faith. This may be illustrated from the creation of man. The Creator "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." He first formed a mate- rial tabernacle, and then endued it with an uns„een life. Now some philosophers, somewhat after the manner of the ancient Gnostics whom Mr. Milnian mentions (vol. ii., p. 113), have speculated on the probability of man's being originally of some brute nature, some vast mis- shapen lizard of the primeval period, which at length ■ VOL. II. 13 194 Milman's View of Christianity. by the force of nature, from whatever secret causes, was exalted into a rational being, and gradually shaped its proportions and refined its properties by the influence of the rational principle which got possession of it. Such a theory is of course irreconcilable with the letter of the sacred text, to say no more ; but it bears an analogy, and at least supplies an illustration, to many facts and events which take place in this world. When Provi- dence would make a Revelation, He does not begin anew, but uses the existing system ; He does not visibly send an Angel, but He commissions or inspires one of our own fellows. When He would bless us. He makes a man His priest. When He would consecrate or quicken us, He takes the elements of this world as the means of real but unseen spiritual influences. When He would set up a divine polity, He takes a polity which already is, or one in course of forming. Nor does He interfere with its natural growth, develop- ment, or dependence on things visible. He does not shut it up in a desert, and there supply it with insti- tutions unlike those which might naturally come to it from the contact and intercourse of the external world. He does but modify, quicken, or direct the powers of nature or the laws of society. Or if He works miracles, still it is without superseding the ordinary course of things. He multiplies the flocks or the descendants of Jacob, or in due season He may work signal or public miracles for their deliverance from Egypt; but still the operation of ordinary causes, the influence of political arrangements, and what is called the march of events, are seen in such providences as truly, and can be pointed out as convincingly, as if an Angel and a pillar of a cloud were not with them. Thus the great characteristic of Revelation is addition, MilmarC s View of Christianity. 195 substitution. Things look the same as before, though not an invisible power has taken hold upon them. This power does not unclothe the creature, but clothes it. Men dream everywhere : it gives visions. Men jour- ney everywhere : it sends " the Angels of God to meet them." Men may elsewhere be hospitable to their brethren : now they entertain Angels. Men carry on a work ; but it is a blessing from some ancestor that is breathing on and through it unseen. A nation migrates and seizes on a country ; but all along its proceedings are hallowed by prophecy, and promise, and providence beforehand, and used for religious ends afterwards. Israel was as much a political power, as man is an animal. The rites and ceremonies enjoined upon the people might be found elsewhere, but were not less divine notwithstanding. Circumcision was also practised in Egypt, frequent ablutions may be the custom of the East, the veil of Moses may have been the symbol of other rulers (if so be) before him, — though the fact has to be proved ; a Holy of Holies, an altar, a sacri- fice, a sacerdotal caste, m these points the Mosaic law resembled, yet as to these it differed from, the nations round about. The Israelitish polity had a beginning, a a middle, and an end, like other things of time and place ; its captivities were the natural consequences, its monarchy was the natural expedient, of a state of poli- tical weakness. Its territory was a battle-ground, and its power was the alternate ally, of the rival empires of Egypt and Assyria. Heathen travellers may have sur- veyed the Holy Land, and have thought it but a narrow slip of Syria. So it was ; what then .? till the compara- tive anatomist can be said by his science to disprove the rationality and responsibility of man, the politician or geographer of this world does nothing, by dissertations 196 MilmarCs View of Christianity. in his own particular line of thought, towards quenching the secret light of Israel, or dispossessing its angelic guardians of the height of Sion or of the sepulchres of the prophets. Its history is twofold, worldly to the world, and heavenly to the heirs of heaven. What is true of Judaism is true of Christianity. The kingdom of Christ, though not of this world, yet is in the world, and has a visible, material, social shape. It consists of men, and it has developed according to the laws under which combinations of men develop. It has an external aspect similar to all other kingdoms. We may generalize and include it as one among the various kinds of polity, as one among the empires, which have been upon the earth. It is called the fifth kingdom ; and as being numbered with the previous four which were earthly, it is thereby, in fact, compared with them. We may write its history, and make it look as like those which were before or contemporary with it, as a man is like a monkey. Now we come at length to Mr. Milman : this is what he has been doing. He has been viewing the history of the Church on the side of the world. Its rise from nothing, the gradual aggrandizement of its bishops, the consolidation of its polity and government, its relation to powers of the earth, its intercourse with foreign philosophies and religions, its conflict with ex- ternal and internal enemies, the mutual action for good or for evil which has been carried on between it and foreign systems, political and intellectual, its large ex- tension, its growth and resolution into a monarchy, its temporal greatness, its gradual divisions and decay, and the natural causes which operated throughout, — these are the subjects in which he delights, to which he has dedi- cated himself,— that is, as far as they can be detached from their directly religious bearing ; and unless readers \ Milnian^ s View of Christianity. 197 understand this, they will think that what is but a con- templation of what is outside, is intended by him for a denial of what is itiside. Whether such denial has in any measure resulted, even in Mr. Milman's own mind, from such contemplation, is a farther question, after- wards to be considered ; but, anyhow, it is to be feared that too many persons will unfairly run away from his book with the notion that to ignore the Almighty in ecclesiastical history is really to deny Him. -3- Some specimens of Mr. Milman's peculiarity will serve further to explain what we mean. The follow- ing, for instance, are some of his observations on the resemblance between the Magianism of the East and Judaism after its return from captivity there : " The earliest books of the Old Testament fully recognize the ministration of Angels, but in Babylonia this simpler creed grew up into a regular hierarchy, in which the degrees of rank and subordi- nation were arranged with almost heraldic precision. The seven great archangels of Jewish tradition correspond with the Amschas- pands of the Zendavesta ; and in strict mutual analogy, both systems arrayed against each other a separate host of spiritual beings with distinct powers and functions. Each nation, each individual had in one case his Ferver, in the other his guardian angel, and was exposed to the! hostile Dev or Dsemon. . . . The great imper- sonated Principle of Evil appears to have assumed much of the antagonist power of darkness. The name itself of Satan, which in the older poetical book of Job is assigned to a spirit of different attributes, one of the celestial ministers who assemble before the throne of the Almighty, . . . beca7ne appropriated to the prince of the malignant spirits, — the head and representative of the spiritual world, which nded over physical as well as moral evil." — Pp. 70—72. Our object in quoting this passage is neither to deny the similarity between the two theologies, nor to inquire igS MihnarCs View of Christianity. how this came to pass, but to give an instance of Mr. Milman's peculiar manner, and the facility with which he may be taken, not unnaturally, but still over-hastily, to be saying what he does not say, that the Jewish theo- logy is worth no more than the Magian. He as little says it as, in asserting that man is an animal, he would be denying that he is rational. And in like manner when he calls the Magnificat " Jewish," he need not mean more than to be an " his- torian rather than a religious instructor ; " we take him to be merely stating what he considers a fact, whatever comes of it, whatever theory is to be built upon it, what explanation is to be given of it, viz., that the language which the Blessed Mary uses, is such as the Scribes and Pharisees, Judas the Zealot, or Caiaphas the High Priest might use also ; in spite of this, he may consider the spirit and meaning in each party to be quite different. " It is curious" he says, " to observe how completely and exclusively consistent every expression appears with the state of belief at that period ; alt is purely Jewish, and accordant with the prevalent expectation of the National Messiah." — Vol. i., p. 102. Again, when he says that the Baptist "partook of the ascetic character of the more solitary of the Essenes, all of whom retired from the tumult and licence of the city," vol. i., p. 141, no one can reasonably suppose that he means to be more than an historical relator, keeping clear of religious principles and doctrinal theories, and stating facts, external facts. In like manner he parallels Christian asceticism to Oriental ; whatever theory he does or may proceed to erect upon this fact of a correspondence betVveen the two, still, as far as the profession of his Preface goes, he is not bound to consider it at all in a "strictly religious" MilmarCs View of Christianity. igg but "rather in a temporal, social, and political light." A supernatural cause for it may exist in Christianity, a divine authority ; but this does not conflict with the fact that the Christian athlete may externally resemble the heathen ; unless indeed, which no one will maintain, the parallel fact of the heathen or Jewish ceremonial ablu- tions be an argument against the divine appointment of evangelical baptism. He says, — " On the cold table-lands of Thibet, in the forests of India, among the busy population of China, on the burning shores of Siam, in Egypt and in Palestine, in Christianised Europe, in Mahomme- tanised Asia, the worshipper of the Lama, the Faquir, the Bonze, the Talapoin, the Essene, the therapeutist, the monk, and the dervish, have withdrawn from the society of man, in order to abstract the pure mind from the dominion of foul and corrupting matter. Under each system, the perfection of human nature was estrangement from the influence of the senses, those senses which were enslaved to the material elements of the world ; an approximation to the essence of the Deity, by a total secession from the affairs, the interests, the passions, the thoughts, the common being and nature of man. The practical operation of this elementary principle of Eastern reUgion has deeply influenced the whole history of man. But it had made no progress in Europe tiU after the introduction of Christianity."— Vol. ii., pp. 86, 87. Again he says, speaking of the time of Christ's coming, " Man, as history and experience teach, is essentially a religious being ; there are certain faculties and modes of thinking and feeling apparently inseparable from his mental organization, which lead him irresistibly to seek some communication with another and a higher world. But at the present juncture the ancient religions were effete ; they belonged to a totally different state of civilizatian ; though they retained the strong hold of habit and interest on dif- ferent classes of society, yet the general mind was advanced beyond them ; they could not supply the religious necessities of the age. Thus, the world, peaceably united under one temporal monarchy, 200 Milmafi's View of Christianity. might be compared to a vast body without a soul : the throne of the human mind appeared vacant; among the rival competitors for its dominion, none advanced more than claims local, or limited to a certain class." — Vol. i., p. 8. These instances will be sufficient of Mr. Milman's manner. We proceed next to observe that, as if in order that there may be no mistake, he often gives his readers intimation, more or less express, of the external view he is taking of his subject ; as a few out of the many instances, which might be quoted in point, will show. Thus he says of the Jews, that " to the loose manner in which religious belief hung on the greater part of the subjects of the Roman empire, their recluse and un- compromising attachment to the faith of their ancestors offered the most singular contrast!' — Vol. i., p. 345 ; and that " the Jews stood alone, according to the language and opinion of the Roman world, as a nation of religious fanatics. — Ibid. Again, " so long as " the Christians " made no visible impression upon society, their unsocial and self-secluding disposition would be treated with con- tempt and pity rather than with animosity." — Vol. ii., p. 144. Words like these bear on their very face the writer's intention merely to describe how Christians appeared to the heathen. Still more expressly he speaks of " One who appeared to the mass of mankind in His own age as a peasant of Palestine," vol. i., p. 35 : he says that the establishment of the Mosaic Law was " accompanied, according to the universal belief, with the most terrific demonstrations of Almighty power," ibid., p. 168 ; and he makes the solemn '. announcement, " in the stable of the inn or caravansera was born the child . . . who has been for centuries con- sidered the object of adoration as the divine Mediator MilmarCs View of Christianity. 201 between God and man by the most civilized and en- lightened nations of the earth." — Ibid., p. 108. Speaking of the Greeks who came to Christ at the feast, he says, " to their surprise . . . the somewhat ambiguous language of Jesus dwells at first on His ap- proaching fate, etc." — P. 306. Speaking of our Lord's injunction to secrecy on occasion of His miraculous cures, he says, that this was so frequent "that one evangelist considers that the cautious and unresisting demeanour of Jesus, thus avoiding all unnecessary offence or irritation, exemplified that characteristic of the Messiah so beautifully described by Isaiah, ' He shall neither strive, etc' " — P. 224. That one evangelist considered a prophecy exemplified, is quite consistent, of course, with a belief that at the same time inspira- tion pronounced it to be fulfilled. Mr. Milman need not mean more than to state an external fact. In the same spirit he calls our Saviour's miracles "preternatural," not "supernatural works." — Vid. vol. i., pp. 283, 389. The latter word would assume the point in debate between the world and the Church, their divinity, whereas he is taking up an impartial or philosophical position between the two. He speaks of Christ as a man " who as far as he [Pilate] could discover, was a harm- less, peaceful, and benevolent enthusiast." — P. 346. And, in describing the attempt of the Nazarenes to cast our .Lord down the brow of their hill, he cautiously says, in the same historical tone, " they found that the intended victim of their wrath had disappeared." — Ibid., p. 188. And in another passage where he is led to compare Budhism with Christianity, he expressly "deprecates imisconstruction." "The characteristic of the Budhist religion," he says, " which in one respect may be con- :sidered (/ deprecate misconstricction) the Christianity of 202 MilmarC s View of Christianity. the remoter East, seems an union of political with re- ligious reformation." And then he even takes the trouble to mention where Christianity, in his opinion, parts company with Budhism, as well as what it shares with it. " Its end," he observes, " is to substitute purer morality for the wild and multifarious idolatry into which Brahminism had degenerated, and to break down the distinction of castes. But Budhism appears to be essentially monastic ; and how different the supersti- tious regard for life in the Budhist from the enlightened humanity of Christianity ! "■ — P. 98. Thus Christianity certainly is superior to Budhism. 4- We have said nothing to imply that we approve of the judgment which has determined Mr. Milman to this mode of writing. Still less can we speak well of it, considering it has led him to that apparent suppression; of doctrinal truth which we are now to notice. For the fact is undeniable, little as Mr. Milman may be aware of it, that this external contemplation of Christianity necessarily leads a man to write as a Socinian or Uni- tarian would write, whether he will or not. Mr. Milman has not been able to avoid this dreadful disadvantage, and thus, however heartily he may hate the opinions of such men himself, he has unintentionally both given scandal to his brethren and cause of triumph to the enemy. A very few words will account for this. The great doctrines which the Socinian denies are our Lord's divinity and atonement ; now these are not external facts ; — what he confesses are His humanity and cruci- fixion ; these are external facts. Mr. Milman then is bound by his theory to dwell on the latter, to slur over the_former. Nay, further still, the forgiveness of sins is. Milmaris View of Christianity. 203 not an external fact ; but moral improvement is ; con- sequently he will make the message of the Gospel to relate mainly to moral improvement, not to forgiveness of sins. Again, those who maintain most earnestly the divinity of Christ as a matter of doctrine, must yet admit that what is "manifested" in Him, is not, cannot be, more than a certain attribute or attributes of the divinity, as, for instance, especially love. Accordingly, Mr. Milman, speaking mainly of what is externally seen, j will be led to speak almost in a Sabellian fashion, as ■ if denying, because not stating, the specific indwelling which Scripture records, and the Church teaches. Hence the general effect of Mr. Milman's work, we cannot deny, though we wish to give as little offence as possible, is heretical. On these considerations, for instance, we account for the following passages :• — he says that the " structure of the. new faith" is "a temple to which all nations in the highest degree of civilization may bring their offer- ings of pure hearts, virtuous dispositions, universal cha- rity" and that " our natural emotion on beholding it, is "the recognition of the Divine goodness in the promul- igation of this beneficent code of religion, and adoration of that Being in whom that Divine goodness is thus em- bodied and made comprehensible to the faculties of man. In the language of the Apostle, God is in Christ r^ci3«- a7?«^ the world unto Himself." — Vol. i., p. 51. I We all know it to be an essential and most practical doctrine that the Person of Christ is Divine, and that into His Divine Personality He has taken human na- ture ; or, in other words, the Agent, Speaker, Sufferer, Sacrifice, Intercessor, Judge, is God, though God in our flesh ; not man with a presence of Divinity. The latter doctrine is Sabellianism, Nestorianism, and Sociniariism. 204 Milmari! s View of Christianity. Yet it is adopted to the letter by Mr. Milman, who, ad- mitting nothing but what is of this world when he coii' templates Christ's person, is obliged to see in it by his very theory nothing more than a man. Thus, he says, that " Jesus declared " " that the Son of God . . . had descended from heaven," and was " present in His Per- son!' — Vol. i., p. 173. Again, what could be more lax and unsatisfactory than such discrimination as the following between the Gospel and the religions of the East, but for the salvo that Mr. Milman's very object and only object is to show how like Christianity is to heathenism .'' I " The incarnation of the Deity, or the union of some part of the Divine Essence with a material or human body, is by no means an uncommon religious notion, more particularly in the East. Yet in the doctrine as subsequently developed by Christianity, there seems the same important difference which characterizes the whole system of the ancient and modern religions. It is in the former a mytho- logical impersonation of the power, in Christ it is the goodness of of the Deity, which associating itself with a human form assumes the character of a representative of the human race ; in whose per- son is exhibited a pure model of human perfection, and whose triumph over evil is by the slow and gradual progress of enlighten- ing the mind and softening and purifying the heart." — Vol. i.,p. 97. The concluding words of this extract should be well observed ; the victory of the Cross and the free pardon of sin are not mentioned among Christ's " triumphs." The author adds presently that the sole design of the " Christian scheme is to work a moral change, to establish a new relation between man and the -Almighty Creator,.., and to bring to light the great secret of the immortality ' of man." It is said that the exception proves the rule ; now it so happens that the vague words put into italics are the nearest approach which we have observed in Mr. - Milman's volumes to the doctrine of forgiveness of sins,. Milman! s View of Christianity. 205 let alone that of the atonement. We are far from pro- nouncing for certain that there is nothing more definite to be found in them, but we are sure that we are faithful to the general tone of his work in thus speaking. Again, he speaks of the more opulent Romans being "tempted to make themselves acquainted with a religion, the moral influence of which was so manifestly favourable to the happiness of mankind, and which offered so noble a solution of the great problem of human philosophy, the immortality of the soul." — Vol. ii., p. 156. Surely this account of the great problem awkwardly fits in with the real and deep cry of human nature embodied in the jailor's words, " What shall I do to be saved .'" I- ' Again, he speaks of Christ as one " whose moral doc- trines, if adopted throughout the world, would destroy more than half the misery, by destroying all the vice and mutual hostility of men," vol. i., p. 108 ; where the last phrase is perhaps intended as an explanation of Christ "having made/mci?." Elsewhere he dwells upon the beauty of the picture presented to us in Christ's removing bodily afflictions ; and on the other hand, " gently instilling into the minds of the people those pure, and humane, and gentle prin- ciples of moral goodness to which the wisdom of ages has been able to add nothing ;" and God's condescend- ing "to show this image and reflection of His own in- conceivable nature for the benefit of" men, "to restore them to, and prepare them for, a higher and eternal state of existence." — Pp. 197, 198. He is, it seems, pre- cluded by his position from expressing definitely the idea conveyed in the proclamation, " Repent ye," and in the announcement, " Thy sins be forgiven thee." In another place he expressly sets himself to interpret the last-mentioned words. When the woman that was 2o6 MilmarC s View of Christianity. a sinner washed our Saviour's feet with her tears, He said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" Mr. Milman para^- phrases, " the reply of Jesus intimates that His reUgion was intended to reform and purify the worst" — P. 233. That is, Christ's reply hints less than it expresses. Again, speaking of what he considers the growing illumination of society, he says : — " Even if (though I conceive it impossible) the imagination should entirely wither from the human soul, and a severer faith enter into an exclusive alliance with pure reason, Christianity would still have its moral perfection, its rational promise of immortality, its approxima- tion to the one pure, spiritual, incomprehensible Deity, to satisfy that reason, and to infuse those sejttiments of dependence, oi gratitude, of love to God, without which human society must fall to ruin, and the human mind, in humiliating desperation, suspend all its noble ac- tivity, and care not to put forth its sublime and eternal energies." — Vol. i., p. 132. Again, he speaks of baptism as being a mark of the convert's " initiation into the new faith," while " a secret ', internal transmutation was to take . place by divine ; agency in his heart, which was to communicate a new principle of moral life!' — Vol. i., p. 172. Still no mention of the forgiveness of sins. Again, he tells us that the object of the Temptation was "to withdraw" Christ "from the purely religious' end of His being upon earth, to transform Him from the author of a moral revolution to be slowly wrought by the introduction of new principles of virtue, and new rules for individual and social happiness . . . who was to offer to man the gift of eternal life, and elevate his nature to a previous fitness for that exalted destiny." — Vol. i., p. 156. s. Now it is very far from our intention indeed to say MilmarC s View of Christiatiity. 207 that the solemn topics of atonement, and forgiveness, and of our Lord's divine nature, are to be introduced upon all occasions, and especially in an historical work such as Mr. Milman's. He is, as he truly says, "an his- torian rather than a religious instructor." But still, when he is engaged in specifying expressly what the revealed doctrine consists in, and what the object of Christ's coming was, we consider it to be a very unhappy view of historical composition, which precludes him from mentioning what all members of the Church hold to be fundamental in that doctrine, and primary in that pbject. ^ Yet, singular to say, Mr. Milman makes this mode of writing a subject of especial self-congratulation ; and this is a phenomenon which deserves dwelling on. It is impossible then to mistake the satisfaction which he feels in adopting the external view of Christianity, and the sort of contempt, we are sorry to say it, in which he holds theological science ; yet we really do not see what the merit is, which he seems to claim for his historical method. Not that we cannot conceive many reasons for contemplating 'sacred things as they show themselves externally ; but there is a broad intelligible difference between throwing one's mind into the feelings of a cer- tain state of society, or into the views of certain persons, for an occasion or purpose, and habitually taking their feelings or views as one's own, and making what is not the true position for surveying them the centre of our own thoughts about them. Men may take this external view of sacred things by way of putting themselves into the place of unbelievers, and entering into their diffi- culties, and so assisting them in finding the truth. Such is the case with Paley and other writers on External Evidence. Again, there is certainly a silent and soothing 2o8 MilmatCs View of Christianity, pleasure in viewing great things in the littleness and feebleness in which they appear to the world, from the secret feeling of their real power and majesty, and an exulting anticipation of their ultimate and just triumph. Such is the pleasure excited by the recognitions or dis- coveries of Greek tragedy, which, as being generally foreseen from the beginning, feed the imagination. Moreover, a mean exterior cast over what we admire and revere acts as a veil of mystery heightening our feeling of its greatness. And again, the very keenness and fulness of our feelings may often act, in leading us in very despair or from deep awe to use simple and homely words concerning what is more constraining with us, and more affecting, than anything else in the world. None of these considerations, however, will serve to explain Mr. Milman's course of proceeding. Neither as a conscientious exercise of mind, nor except very par- tially in the way of evidence, nor from any poetical pleasure, nor to gratify the love of mystery, nor in admiration, nor from a principle of reserve, does he display the earthly side of the Gospel ; but, strange to say, from a notion of its being philosophical to do so. It is quite undeniable, and quite as astonishing, that he thinks there is something high and admirable in the state of mind which can thus look down upon a Divine Dispensation. He imagines that it argues a large, liberal, enlightened understanding, to be able to gene- ralize religions, and, without denying the divinity of , Christianity, to resolve it into its family likeness to all ■ others. He thinks it a sign of an acute and practised , intellect to pare down its supernatural facts as closely as ^ possible, and to leave its principal miracles, the multi- plying bread, the raising Lazarus, or the Resurrection, standing alone like the pillars of Tadmor in the wilder ^. MilmarC s View of Christianiiy. 209 ness. He evidently considers that it is an advance in knowledge to disguise Scripture facts and persons under secular names. He thinks that it is so much gain if he can call Abraham an Emir or a Sheik ; that it is a victory to be able to connect Church doctrine with Magianism, or Platonism, or Judaism, or Essenism, or Orientalism ; and to liken holy Basil or Bernard to Faquir, Bonze, Talapoin, and Dervish. This is what meets us on the very surface of his book, and it is, we must speak frankly, no promising trait. What, for in- stance, should we say to a comparative anatomist, who not only exercised his science in his own line and for its own ends, but should profess to write an account ot man, and then should talk much of man's animality and materiality, of his relation to the beasts of the field, of the processes of nutrition, digestion, disease, and dis- solution, and should boast of his having steered clear of all mention of the soul, should waive the question of the moral sense, should deprecate the inquiry into a future life, leave the debate upon responsibility to the schools, and all this with the air of one who was no common man, but was breathing the pure, elevated, and serene atmosphere of philosophy t Yet such as this in the eyes of all serious men will be an author who speaks of an)' inquiry into the doctrines of Christianity as a sort of condescension, and looks upon its outward and secular aspect as its glory. We- cannot exempt Mr. Milman from the force of this comparison. For instance, he speaks in the first extract above given, as not being able " altogether " to " decline the exami- nation of the religious doctrines, their development, and their variations," though " his leading object " is to trace the effect of Christianity on the individual and social happiness of man, its influence on the polity, laws, and VOL. II. 14 2IO Milman' s View of Christianity. institutions, the opinions, the manners . . . the arts and literature of the Christian world." He implies that his survey is to be "candid and dispassionate" and says that though mainly relating to what is temporal, intellectual, and social, it will be of high importance and interest " eveji to the religious inquirer," and will be of a nature to act upon " the general mass at least of the reading and intelligent part of the community," in forming their religious opinions, and in their " speculative or practical belief" of Christianity. He goes on to congratulate himself that, as regards the sceptical and infidel writers of Germany, for so we understand him, he " shall not be be accused of that narrow jealotisy, and, in his opinion, unworthy and timid suspicion, with which the writers of that country are proscribed by many." — P. viii. He com- pliments them on " their profound research and phih- sophical tone of thought." He celebrates St. Thomas the Apostle as " remarkable for his coolness and reflectmg temper of mind." — P. 226. As to the points at present in controversy in our Church, including, let it be ob- served, baptismal regeneration and other doctrines not less important, " though of course," he says, " I cannot be, yet I have written as if, in total ignorance of the existence of such discussions." — P. ix. This ought to mean, we suppose, — I have my definite opinion, but I will not controvert ; but it sounds very like, — I hold a great and a calm view, and all others are partizans and zealots. He continues : " / have delivered without fear and without partiality what / have conscientiously be- lieved to be the truth. / write for the general readers rather than for the members of my own profession ;"~^ and now let us attend to the reason of this great resolve f " as I cannot understand why such subjects of universal interest should be secluded, as the peculiar objects of MilmarCs View of Christianity. 21 1 study to one class or order alone." In other words,— My own profession cannot be brought to take an ex- ternal view of Christianity ; but I write for the world, which does. He further tells us that — " As Christian History, surveyed in a wise and candid spirit, cannot but be a usefiil school for the promotion of Christian faith ; so no study can tend more directly to, or more imperatively enforce on all unprejudiced and dispassionate minds, mutual forbearance, enlightened toleration, and the greatest even of Christian virtues. Christian Charity." — P. xi. In the second of the extracts with which we com- menced, he repeats his hope of attaining a " calm, im- partial, and dispassionate tone ; " that is, the calmness and dispassionateness, we suppose, which can bring a man comfortably through an assimilation of the later Jewish prophets to Zoroaster, and Christianity to Bud- dhism. Moreover, he tells us, that "his disposition in- clines" to labour even more, "to show the good as well as the evil of each phasis of Christianity." — Vol. i., p. 49. We have further light what Mr. Milman means by "calmness and dispassionateness" by the tone in which he speaks of any show of zealous feeling in others. He contrasts it with his own state of mind. For instance, in one place he disavows, though he excuses, the " isolation of the history of Christ in a kind of sacred seclusion," though, he proceeds, it " has no doubt a beneficial effect on the piety of the Christian, which delights in Contem- plating the Saviour undisturbed and uncontaminated by less holy associations." — Vol. i., p. 52. Now is not this unreal .' Mr. Milman surely himself is contemplating, not " the Saviour," but his Saviour ; and the question with the Christian is, not what effect it has upon his piety — as if he cherished reverent thoughts of Christ- 212 MilmarCs View of Christianity. from a mere calculation of the benefit such reverence will do to his own mind — but " How can I, indepen- dently of a call of duty, forget, or speak as if I forgot, who and what He is ?" Mr. Milman's language cer- tainly implies that calmness and dispassionateness and an absence of prejudice are shown in being able to hear and to repeat, without wincing, as regards our great Benefactor, the profane things which infidels and scorn- ers say of Him. We know he cannot mean this ; yet his language implies it, and in consequence we cannot wonder at his exciting a clamour. Presently he speaks of a departure " from the evangelical simpHcity in the relation of facts," such as he has adopted, offending "the reverential feelings of the reader ;" why not of the writer } However, we should" be unfair unless we added that there are occasions when he can respond personally to the calls of reverence made upon him by the subject on which he is employed. For instance, of the last scenes of our Lord's life, he writes, with imposing effect, " As we approach the appalling close, we tremble lest the colder process of explanation should deaden the solemn and har- rowing impression of the scene, or weaken the contrast be- tween the wild and tumultuous uproar of the triumphant enemies and executioners of the Son of Man with the deep and unutterable misery of the few faithful adherents who still followed His footsteps." — Vol. i., p. 359. 6. Our object hitherto has been, to the best of our ability, to analyze the view, with which Mr. Milman apparently starts, of his position and office, freely to censure it, but at the same time to vindicate him from any sinister intentions in assuming it. That view involves, as we have inciden- MihnarC s View of Christianity . 213 tally shown, a great error in judgment ; it necessarily lays the author open to misrepresentation, as if he held or countenanced what he disapproves ; and it could not avoid paining many excellent persons, whom so kindly- tempered a man as Mr. Milman would be very unwilling to perplex or alarm. We should have said thus much, had Mr. Milman adhered ever so rigidly, were that pos- sible, to what seems to us his original design of merely stating \h^ facts of Christianity, without notice, good or bad, of the principles which are their life. But such an adherence was impossible ; as in fact he confesses when he speaks of " not altogether declining" theological subjects. He does make a theory of the facts which he records, and such a theory as unhappily implies that they belong mainly to that external system of things of which he writes, and must be directly referred to visible causes and measured by intelligible principles. His mode of writing does not merely pass over, but actually denies the existence and presence among us of that higher and invisible system of which we have spoken above. Not content with claiming for the historical facts of Christi- anity a place in the course of this world, which they have, he disallows that supernatural world, in which they have a place also. As anatomists might treat man simply according to their science and become material- ists, as physical experimentalists might teach pantheism or atheism, as political economists might make wealth the measure of all things and deny the social uses of religion, as the professors of any science may deny the existence of any world of thought but their own, and refer all facts which meet them to it, so Mr. Milman, viewing Christianity as an external political fact, has gone very far indeed towards viewing it as nothing more ; deny- ing in one or two places, in so many words, the great truth. 214 MilmarCs View of Christianity. which we have been employed above in drawing out, that it is in two worlds at once, and that the same occurrences, persons, and actions seem to be natural consequences of what is seen, and yet really have as natural a place in a system which is not seen. The effects of this denial upon Mr. Milman's history are now to be shown. We have candidly said where we think he is open to unfair misrepresentation ; we shall as candidly say where we think he has given just cause of offence and dissatisfaction to all Churchmen. Just one word, however, first on the author's evident inconsistency, unavoidable as it is under his circumstances, in professing to keep to fact, and yet insinuating a theory. He promised us in his Preface a political and social his- tory — he disclaimed theology. Presently he deprecated polemics. Had we not otherwise been sure of the line he was taking, that protestation alone would have been equivalent, in our judgment, to a declaration of war. As liberajs are the bitterest persecutors, so denouncers o£. controversy are sure to proceed upon the mosfstartling, imtating, blistering methods which the practice of their age furnishes. We never knew of any oije of them who set about charming and lulling the spirit of bigotry with- out joining " Conjuro te, scelestissima," to " good Mrs. ' Margaret Merrilies." Further evidence how matters stood would have been afforded us, had we fallen upoil his concluding pages, in which he tells us that a " clergy^ man who in a credulous or enthusiastic aee dares to be rationally pious, is a phenomenon of moral courage!' — Vol. iii., p. S3S. These signs of conflict,'before and after, have abundant accomplishment in the body of his work. It is quite impossible in the few pages which we are devoting to it (in which we think it best to confine our- selves to one subject), to give an idea of the rarige and MihnarCs View of Christianity. 215 variety of dogmatic thought and statement in which he has allowed himself. To take a few instances which come first to hand :— he tells us, for instance, that the millennium is a " fable of Jewish dotage " — vol. i., p. 79, note ; that " among the vulgar there is a passionate attachment to religious tyranny " — p. 292 ; that a kind of latent Judaism has constantly lurked within the bosom of the Church" — p. 456 ; that " the sacerdotal and the sectarian spirit had an equal tendency to disparage the ' perfection of piety' and ' sublimity of virtue ' " — p. 457 ; that " sacerdotal domination is altogether alien to genuine Christianity;" yet that "an hostility to every kind of priesthood," is a sign of a "vitiated" mind — pp. 10, 11, note; that "the sole difference" in a church from a synagogue was, " that God was worshipped in it through the mediation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth" — vol. ii., p. 2 ; that Christianity is " grounded on the abro- gation of all local claims to peculiar sanctity" — vol i., p. 319; that the Almighty's "pure and essential spiri- tuality" does not under the Gospel "attach itself to, or exhibit itself under, any form " — p. 22 ; that " God is power in the old religion, love under the new" — ibid.; that " Christian morality" is, " strictly speaking, no law," but "the establishment of certain principles" — p. 206; that St. Paul "could scarcely be entirely dead to or ignorant " of the " elevating associations " of Athens — vol. ii., p. 16 ; that the age when Christ came was in an "advanced state of intellectual culture" — vol. i., pp. 8, 36, and " enlightened " — p. 41 ; and that, because of its " reasoning spirit " — p. 37, Christianity has "accommodated itself to the spirit of successive ages" — p. 47 ; that it " will advance with the advancement of human nature," and that " intellectual culture is that advancement " — p. 50 ; and that " the development of a 2i6 MilmarC s View of Christianity. rational and intellectual religion" is "perhaps not yet complete, certainly not general " — p. 49. These are some of the enunciations of doctrine, true or false, peremptorily advanced by Mr. Milman, and yet he tells us that he writes " as an historian rather than as a religious instructor " — he only does " not decline " theo- logical subjects, writes " as if in total ignorance of the existence" of pending controversies, and " entirely dis- cards all polemic views." Such is Mr. Milman's mode of keeping the peace ; and he observes, we suppose, partly with reference to it, that " he himself fully appreciates the difficulty" of his undertaking. — P. 47. All this is so very strange, that we can only suppose that he considers it to be among the rights of philosophy to profess opinions without incurring their responsibilities, to have a sort of lasciar passare, which enables it to introduce bag and baggage free of examination ; or that it lives on some high cliff, or some remote watch-tower, and is able thence to contemplate with the poet the sea of human opinion, " alterius spectare laborem ;" and in a pure ethereal region to discern Christianity abstracted from all religion, and to gauge it without molestation by principles simply incom- mensurable with its own. But now to the business in hand. 7- We will begin with citing a passage at the end of his volumes, in which he describes and condemns the pecu- liar religious sentiments of the Middle Age, sentiments which are in fact based upon the very principles which we have above advocated as primitive and true. In doing this, we are fair to Mr. Milman, for it is beautifully written. " The Christian of these days lived in a supernatural world, or in a world under the constant and felt and discernible interference of Milman^s View of Christianity. ' 217 supernatural power. God was not only present, but asserting His presence at every instant, not merely on signal occasions and for important purposes, but on the most insignificant acts and persons. The course of nature was beheld, not as one great uniform and majestic miracle, but a succession of small, insulated, sometimes trivial, sometimes contradictory interpositions, often utterly incon- sistent with the moral and Christian attributes of God. The divine power and goodness were not spreading abroad like a genial and equable sunlight, enlightening, cheering, vivifying, but breaking out in partial and visible flashes of influence ; each incident was a special miracle, the ordinary emotion of the heart was divine inspi- ration. Each individual had not merely his portion in the common diffusion of religious and moral knowledge or feeling, but looked for his peculiar and especial share in the divine blessing. His dreams came direct from heaven ; a new system of Christian omens succeeded the old ; witchcraft merely invoked Beelzebub or Satan instead of Hecate ; hallowed places only changed their tutelary nymph or genius for a saint or martyr. . . . God had been brought down, or had condescended to mingle himself with the affairs of men. But where should that faith, which could not but receive these high and consolatory and reasonable truths, set limits to the agency of this beneficent power ? How should it discriminate between that which in its apparent discrepancy with the laws of nature (and of those laws how little was known !) was miraculous, and that which, to more accurate observation, was only strange or wonderful, or perhaps the result of ordinary but dimly-seen causes ? How still more in the mysterious world of the human mind, of which the laws are still, we will not say in their primitive, but, in comparison with those of external nature, in profound obscurity? If the understanding of man was too much dazzled to see clearly even material objects ; if just awakening from a deep trance, it beheld everything floating before it in a mist of wonder, how much more was the mind disqualified to judge of its own emotions, of the origin, suggestion, and powers of those thoughts and emotions which still perplex and baffle our deepest metaphysics." — Vol. iii., PP- 532—534- No one can deny that this is a very eloquent and striking passage, and, to complete our admissions, we must candidly add that it is a view of the medieval reli- 2i8 ' MilmarC s View of Christianity, gion in which a number of persons, not friends of Mr. Milman, will concur, and which others again, with greater reason, will consider partly true, and partly false : — now let us see what comes of it, as Mr. Milman uses it. For instance, two kinds of miracles are recorded in Scripture, public and sensible, and private ; — those which many saw, and which had for their object some- thing material ; and those which one person, or no one saw, or which belonged to the world of spirits. Our Saviour's cures, which were subjected to the scrutiny of the senses, are instances of the former class ; the Annunciation and Transfiguration, of the latter. The former form part of the evidences, the latter of the matter or mode of Revelation. The former are facts of this world, and have their place in the political course of things, as fully as facts which are not miraculous ; the latter have no such place, but belong solely to the spiritual system. Now Mr. Milman inclines, to say the least, to deny the reality of the latter. Speaking of " the more imaginative incidents of the early Evangelic History " (by which he especially means " the angelic appearances, the revelations of the Deity addressed to the senses of man," in the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke), he observes that "these passages in general are not the vital and essentials truths of Chris- tianity, but the vehicle, by which these truths were com- municated, a kind of language by which opinions were conveyed, and sentiments infused, and the general belief in Christianity implanted, confirmed, and strengthened." — Vol. i., p. 130. He continues : ■ ,| " Whether then these were actual appearances, or impressionsn produced on the mind of those who witnessed them, is of digW\ importance. In either case they are real historical facts; they ; partake of poetry in their form, and, in a certain sense, in their MilmarC s View of Christianity. 219 groundwork ; but they are imaginative, not fictitious ; true as re- lating that which appeared to the minds of the relators exactly as it did appear. . . . The incidents were so ordered that they should thus live in the thoughts of men. . . . Could, it may be inquired, a purely rational or metaphysical creed have survived for any length of time during such stages of human civilization?" That is, he considers, that when St. Luke says, " In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to » Virgin," etc., first, that there are reasons /ur the Blessed Virgin's having an impression that there was an Angel Gabriel, and that he was sent to her ; and, secondly, that there are reasons against the occurrence being a real fact external to her mind. That she should think she saw an Angel, is important, he observes, because a religion with such poetical incidents is more influential and long-lived than one that has them not. Well, then, if so, why should not the incidents have really been vouchsafed .' has Almighty God no Angels 1 why should He not have done what He is said to have done, since there is so good a reason for His doing it ] Mr. Milman proceeds to give us the reason on the other side, " the purely rational and metaphysical " reason ; viz., that according I to a certain class of writers, (followers of Hume and and Bentham we suppose,) " these incidents, being irre- concilable with our actual experience, and rendered sus- picious by a multitude of later fictions, which are rejected in the mass by most Protestant Christians, cannot accord with the more subtle and fastidious intelli- gence of the present times. Some writers go so far as to assert that it is impossible that an inquiring and rea- ;soning age should receive these^ supernatural facts as historical verities."^P. 130. And for the sake of theae persons Mr. Milman proposes an intermediate view, as a sort of irenicon or peace-offering, to reconcile the faith 220 Milman's View of Christianity. of eighteen centuries and the infideHty of the nineteenth; on the one hand suggesting that St. Mary's imagination may have been deceived, or that her " reminiscences " were dim and indistinct, and, on the other, defending her veracity and that of her contemporaries. The circum- stances recorded "are too slight," he says, "and wanting in particularity, to give the idea of invention ; they seem lilce a few scattered fragments preserved from oral tradi- tion." — P. I "32. On the whole, then, it seems that Mr.^ Milman inclines to think that God will never do any- thing which to philosophers is difficult to receive, and ■ that the Blessed Virgin is more likely to have been mis- taken than unbelievers to be irrational. Again, he thus glances at the true explanation of the Angel's appearance to Zacharias : — " Almost the most important [function of the officiating course] was the watching and supplying with incense the great brazen altar, which stood within the building of the temple, in the first or Holy Place. Into this, at the sound of a small bell, which gave notice to the worshippers at a distance, the ministering priest entered alone ; and in the sacred chamber, into which the light of day never pene- trated, but where the dim fires of the altar, and the chandeliers which were never extinguished, gave a solemn and, uncertain light, still more bedimmed by the clouds of smoke arising from the newly fed altar of incense, no doubt (!), in Xhe pious mind, the sense of the more immediate presence of the Deity, only separated by the veil, which divided the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, would con- stantly have awakened the most profound emotions. . , . In the vision of Zachariah, he had beheld an Angel standing on the right side of the altar," etc. — Vol. i., pp. 90, 91. Again, of the miracle attendant on our Lord's Bap- tism, Mr. Milman says, " Neander represents it as a symbolic vision." — P. 151. And he refers to the pas- sages of the Fathers, not happily, as we think, to show that the " explanation of voices from heaven, as a mental Milman's View of Christianity. 221 perception, not as real articulate sounds, but as inward impressions, is by no means modern, or what passes under the unpopular name of Rationalism." Possibly not ; but let us for argument's sake grant it ; yet what do we gain by such a view of the subject ? this, — we tend to rid ourselves of the unseen world, of the belief that the things which we see have relations to, and are parts of, a system of things which ordinarily does not disclose itself to us. Th is does not seem to be any great achievement.* Again, when Mr. Milman comes to our Lord's Temp- tation, after an announcement, with much circumstance but obvious drift, that "on the interpretation of no incident in the Gospels do those who insist on the literal accepta- tion of the Evangelists'.language, and those who consider , that even in the New Testament much allowance is to be made for the essentially allegoric character of oriental narrative, depart so far asunder," he adds, in a note, " this is one of those points which will be differently understood according to the turn and cast of mind of different individuals. I would therefore deprecate the making either interpretation an article of faith, or deciding with .dogmatic certainty on so perplexing -a. passage." — P. 153. Afterwards he says, that whether we believe Christ i * Mr. Milman says of the pool of Bethesda, that it " was supposed to possess remarkable properties for healing diseases. At certain periods there was a strong commotion in the waters, which probably bubbled up from some chemical cause connected with their medicinal effects. Popular belief, or rather perhaps popular language, attributed this agitation of the surface to the descent of an Angel." — Vol. i., p. 215. On the other hand, the Evangelist says expressly, *'an Angel wejit down at a certain season into the pool." Mr. Milman adds in a note, that " the verse relating to the Angel is rejected as spurious by many critics, and is wanting in some manuscripts." That is a fair argument against it ; if the verse cannot be Supported on external evidence, let it be rejected ; but let it not be kept, and explained away on a theory. 222 MilmarCs View of Christianity. tempted by Satan, or by the High Priest, or by His own feehngs, "the moral purport of the scene remains the same, the intimation that the strongest and most Hvely impressions were made upon the mind of Jesus to with- draw Him," etc. — P. 156. Here is a writer admitting, without "perplexity," the great invisible miracle that the Son of God took on Him a human soul and body, yet finding a difficulty in receiving literally the narrative of His being tempted in that body and soul by the Evil One in person, and " deprecating " the necessity of doing so. The principles, which the above extracts have been illustrating, make it impossible for Mr. Milman to believe in the reality of demoniacal possession. All the pheno- mena which demoniacs exhibit can be referred to the laws of pathology ; therefore they cannot also have rela- tion to an unseen state of things, and be caused by evil spirits. He says, " I have no scruple in avowing my opinion on the subject of the demoniacs to be that of Joseph Mede, Lardner, Dr. Mead, Paley, and all the learned modern writers. It was a kind of insanity, not unlikely to be prevalent among a people peculiarly subject to the leprosy and other cutaneous diseases ; and nothing was more pro- bable than that lunacy should take the turn and speak the language of the prevailing superstition of the times. As the belief in witch- craft made people fancy themselves witches, so the belief in posses- . sion made men of distempered minds fancy themselves possessed."— — Vol. i., p. 234, note. ^ ■ None of us can go a little way with a theory ; when it once possesses us, we are no longer our own masters. It makes us speak its words, and do violence to our own nature. Would it be believed that Mr. Milman's zeaj against the reality of possessions as a preternatural phe- nomenon, actually carries him on here to the denial of MilmarC s View of Christianity. 223 external and visible fact, which is the very basis on which he has rested his opinion that they were not preternatural ? It is obvious that the miracle of the swine interferes with his theory; accordingly he hints at an explanation, which seriously compromises the outward historical fact at- tendant upon the miracle ; that is, first he denies demoni- acal possession, because the recorded phenomena of its visitation tipon man do not necessarily involve its reality; next he denies the recorded phenomena of its visitation on the swine, which do involve its reality, because there is no such thing as demoniacal possession. How too does this hold with what he assures us elsewhere, that his doubts about invisible or private miracles would not entrench upon sensible or public ones ? He told us, that such doubting, " of course, does not apply to facts which must have been either historical events or direct fictions," such as the Resurrection of Jesus. — ^Vol.i., p. 1 3 1 . And he promised that he would " strictly maintain this important distinction" between them and " the more imaginative incidents of the history." Now for the per- formance of his engagement. " The moral difficulty of this transaction has always appeared to me greater than that of reconciling it with the more rational view of demoniacism. Both are much diminished, if not entirely re- moved, by the theory of Kuinoel, who attributes to the lunatics the -whole of the conversation with Jesus, and supposes tliat their driving the herd of swine down the precipice was the last paroxysm in which their insanity exhausted itself." — P. 238, note. Would it be a much greater violence to the history than this, to say, with some unbelievers, that our Lord 'was taken down from the Cross alive, and showed Him- self again without a Resurrection .■" For after all, as Mr. Milman said just now, would not " the moral purport of the scene remain the same .■'" What limits are we to put 224 MilmarC s View of Christianity. to this denial of historical truth ? Where is theory to stop, if it is once allowed ? Again, we read in the Acts a narrative of an evil spirit answering, "Jesus, I know," etc., but Mr. Milman para- phrases it to the effect that the possessed party " had pro- bably before been strofigly impressed with the teaching of Paul, and the religion which he preached ; and irritated by the interference of persons whom he might know to be hostile to the Christian party, assaulted them with great violence" etc. — vol. ii., p. 28 ; that is, what Scripture calls an evil spirit, he calls a Christian convert. How long will this interpretation stand } How many will receive it } Will Mr. Milman himself this time next year? Now let us proceed to some further, though hardly more violent practisings, upon the Christian documents and facts, which these volumes exhibit. The following is curious as a rediictio ad absurdum of Mr. Milman's beau ideal of the Christian temper. He observes that James and John, who " received the remarkable name of Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder ... do not appear remarkable among their brethren either for energy or vehemence : " and he adds, that accordingly " it is not easy to trace" its "exact force ;" and that "the peculiar gentleness of" St. John " both in character and in the style of his writings, would lead us to doubt the correct- ness of the interpretation generally assigned to the appellation." — Vol. i., p. 225. Strange to say, his only idea of St. John's, as of our Lord's character, as seen in Scripture, is gentleness ; and then, strong in this most gratuitous assumption, he finds a difficulty in the received interpretation of a plain passage. ■? In the same way, in another place, he "would reject, MilmarC s View of Christianity. 225 as the offspring of a more angry and controversial age, the story of St. John's " flying in fear and indignation from a bath polluted by the presence of the heretic Cerinthus." — Vol. ii., p. 62. Did not our author recollect certain "angry and controversial" words ascribed to St. John in Scripture .' " If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not itito your house, neither bid him Godspeed^ Striking too is the contrast between the clear, keen, majestic, and awful language of the Evangelists and Mr. Milman's circuitous, inadequate, and (we must add) feeble version of it. St. Luke says of Herod, " imme- diately the Angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory;" Mr. Milman explains away both the fact and the reason. " In [the] terrific and repulsive circumstances" of his death, he says, " the Christians could not but behold the hand of their protecting God," — vol. I, p. 410 ; whereas the remarkable thing is that it is not represented in Scripture as an interposition in behalf of the Church at all. Again, " Whosoever sinneth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come," is turned into "an offence which argued such total obtuseness of moral perception, such utter incapacity of feeling or comprehending the beauty either of the conduct or the doctrine of Jesus, as to leave no hope that they would ever be reclaimed from their ran- corous hostility to His religion, or be qualified for admis- sion into the pale and to the benefits of the new faith." —Vol. i., p. 235. Forgiveness of sins, the one subject of our Lord's announcement in this passage, is literally obliterated from it by Mr. Milman ; — whence this strange aversion to mention sin and the forgiveness of sin } Again : of the passage which speaks of " the unclean VOL. II. IS 2 26 Milmati's View 0/ Christianity. spirit going out of a man," etc., he observes that Christ " reverts in language of more than usual energy" (that is, not " gentle " language, we presume,) " to the incapacity of the age and nation to discern the real and intrinsic superiority of His religion." — P. 236. In our Lord's slowly granting the request of the Syro- phoenician, who wished for the crumbs that were the dog's portion, with the words, " O woman, great is thy faith" Mr. Milman discerns but a condescension to the prejudices" of the Jews and His Apostles, by which "Jesus was enabled to display His own benevolence without awakening, or confirming if already awakened, the quick suspicion of His followers." — ^P. 253. In the same spirit he elsewhere observes that the Apostles, "with cautious deference to Jewish feeling, were forbidded to proceed beyond the borders of the Holy Land." — P. 238. The words, "Ye are of your father- the devil," (words which Mr. Milman apparently feels to be inconsistent with what he considers our Lord's " gentle- ness,") become " the spirit of evil, in whose darkest and most bloody temper they were ready to act, was rather the parent of men with dispositions so diabolic." — P. 268. The discourse in the Synagogue of Capernaum, after the miracle of the loaves, related by St. John, ch. vi., is explained to mean merely " the improvement of the moral and spiritual condition of man, described under the strong but not unusual figure of nourishment administered to the soul." — P. 243. How can an earnest mind, contemplating our Lord's most mysterious words, thus satisfy itself.' Further, Mr. Milman tells us that in the rite of the Lord's Supper there really are "allusions to the breaking of His body and for the pouring forth of His blood." — P. 329. He says respecting the incident in John xii., that what " the unbelieving part of the multitude heard only as an Milman's View of Christianity . 227 accidental burst of thunder, to others . . seemed an audible, a distinct, — or, according to those who adhere to the strict letter, — the " — (it avails not to delay, out with it !) — " the articulate voice of an Angel." — P. 306. Yes, the real articulate voice ; how painful to our " subtle and fastidious intelligence " ! As to the power of binding and loosing, promised first to St. Peter, then to all the Apostles, then afterwards bestowed, the subject is too formidable, we suppose, to approach siccis oadis. Mr. Milman thus hurries by : "the Apostle" St. Peter, "is commended in language so strong that the pre-eminence of Peter over the rest of the Twelve has been mainly supported by the words of Jesus employed on this occasion." — P. 256. What } do these memorable words, in substance thrice uttered, only ac- count for a certain interpretation of them .'' do they determine but a relative question .' do they decide no- thing at all positive about all the Apostles .■• It is quite perplexing what satisfaction a man of Mr. Milman's religious character can have in explaining away the supernatural accompaniments of our Lord's last con- flict ; and yet he certainly does seem to think it even more philosophical to make the Resurrection an isolated miracle. " This spake he," says the Evangelist, of Caiaphas, " not of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied:" "his language," says Mr. Milman, "was afterwards treasured in the memory of the Chris- tians as inadvertently prophetic."— P. 286. He says that Pilate's wife's dream was in "her morning slumbers, when visions were supposed to be more than ordinarily true." — P. 355. The impenitent thief is " infected " with a " fanatical Judaism ; " his companion is " of milder dis- position ; " and " iticlines to believe in Jesus," who, "speaking in the current language, promises him an im- 2 28 Milman's View of Christianity. mediate reward."— P. 361. As to the resurrection of " many bodies of the saints that slept," Mr. Milman is of opinion that the earthquake opened the tombs and ex- posed the dead to pubhc view. He adds, " To tJie awe- struck and depressed minds of the followers of Jesus, no doubt, were confined those visionary appearances of the spirits of their deceased brethren, which are obscurely intimated in the rapid narratives of the Evangelists."— P. 365. What antecedent objection does the "intelli- gence " of this age find to the resurrection of the bodies of these saints which will not apply also to the resurrec- tion at the last day } They must rise some time ; why should they not have risen then .' because, Mr. Milman seems to answer, there is no system going on in the world now, except the visible, political, temporal system which our eyes and ears experience. Again : to the minds of the women he says "highly excited and bewildered with as- tonishment, with terror, and with grief, appeared what is described by the Evangelist as a ' vision of angels.' One or more beings in human form seated in the shadowy twilight within the sepulchre." — P. 378. One circumstance, however, we cheerfully acknow^ ledge, — that Mr. Milman does not, with some writers of latter times, in violence to our Lord's words, explain away the guilt, or what he calls "the extraordinary con- duct," of Judas. He candidly says, "Much ingenuity has been displayed by some recent writers in attempting to palliate, or rather account for, this extraordinary con- duct of Judas ; but the language in which Jesus spoke of the crime appears to confirm the common opinion of its enormity." — P. 326. As to his remorse, he considers that there were quite circumstances enough to " drive him to desperation, little short of itisaitity." — P. 329. This, we suppose, is to show that he need not have a verdict of felo de se recorded against him. Milman^ s View of Christianity. 229 9. We have now seen how Mr. Milman's theory operates upon the facts and documents of Christianity ; now let us observe what it does for its fundamental and essential doctrines, which, even without taking it into account, have, as we have already seen, fared very harHly from his mere negative method of historical composition. In doing this, however, we do not make Mr. Milman respon- sible for our account of his views. Principles have a life and power independent of their authors, and make their way in spite of them ; — this at least is our philosophy. Mr. Milman may in his own instance limit or modify what nevertheless has its mission, and, whether he like it or not, will be sure to tell its tale to an end, before it has done. By others, then, it must be viewed, not shackled, and as it were muzzled, according to any Careful direc- tions which this or that writer may deliver, but in itself We are sure that Mr. Milman does not see the tendency of the line of thought of which both his present and a . former work give such anxious evidence ; and therefore, while we need not, we clearly could not, if we tried, deli- neate the principles which are contained in them, as they are held by himself personally ; — he would be sure to say we were unfair. The very inconsistency which, in a former place, we pointed out, between the design and the execution of his work, is an intelligible warning to us what a false position we should be taking up, if we were to attempt to draw out for ourselves his doctrinal notion of Christianity. We disclaim such an intention altogether. No writer likes to accept his opinions in the wording of an opponent. We shall use Mr. Milman's volumes, therefore, only in illustration of those momen- tous principles, which he has adopted indeed, but which are outside of him, and will not be his slaves. 230 Milmat'C s View of Christianity. As regards then the settlement of Christian doctrine, Mr. Mihnan's External Theory seems to us to result or manifest itself in the following canon : — That nothing belongs to the Gospel but what originated in it ; and that whatever, professing to belong to it, is found in anterior or collateral systems, may be put out of it as a foreign element. Such a maxim easily follows upon that denial of the supernatural system, which we have above imputed in large measure to Mr. Milman. They who consider with him that there was, for instance, no spiritual agency in what is called demoniacal possession, on the ground that the facts of the case may be satisfac- torily referred to physical causes, are bound, or at least are easily persuaded, to deny for the same reason any doctrine to come from Christ, which they can trace to the schools of men. Such persons cannot enter into tKe possibility of a visible and an invisible course of things going on at once, whether co-extensive or not, acting on each other more or less, and sometimes even to. the cognizance of our senses. Were the electric fluid aseer- tained to be adequate to the phenomena of hfe, they would think it bad philosophy to believe in the presence of a soul ; and, sooner than believe that Angels now minister to us unseen, they deny that they were ever seen in their ministrations. No wonder then that in like manner as regards the articles of the Creed, they deny that what is historically human can be doctrinally divine, confuse the 'outward process with the secret providence, and argue as if instruments in nature preclude the opera- tions of grace. When they once arrive at a cause or source in the secular course of things, it is enough ; and thus, while Angels melt into impressions. Catholic truths are resolved into the dogmas of Plato or Zoroaster. A theory does not prove itself; it makes itself pro- MilmarC s View of Chidstianity. 23 1 bable so far as it falls in with our preconceived notions, as it acc;ounts for the phenomena it treats of, as it is internally consistent, and as it excels or excludes rival theories. We should leave Mr. Milman's undisturbed, and proceed at once, as we proposed, merely to give instances of its operation, except that it might seem to be allowing to that theory, as it were, possession of- the field, when, in truth, there is another far more .Catholic philosophy upon which the facts of the case, as Mr. Milman states them, may be solved. Now, the phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this : — that great portion of what is gene- rally received as Christian truth, is in its rudiments or in its separate parts to be found in heathen philosophies and religions. ' For instance, the doctrine of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West ; so is the cere- mony of washing ; so is the rite of sacrifice. The doc- trine of the Divine Word is Platonic ; the doctrine of the Incarnation is Indian ; of a divine kingdom is Judaic ; of Angels and demons is Magian ; the connexion of sin with the body is Gnostic ; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin ; a sacerdotal order is Egyptian ; the idea of a new birth is Chinese and Eleusinian ; belief in sacra- mental virtue is Pythagorean ; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is the general nature of the fact before us ; Mr. Milman argues from it, — " These things are in heathenism, therefore they are not Christian:" we, on the contrary, prefer to say, " these things are in Chris- tianity, therefore they are not heathen." That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide over its extent ; that these have variously taken root, and grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living ; and hence that, as the inferior animals have 232 MilmarCs Vim of Christianity. tokens of an immaterial principle in them, yet have not ^souls, so the philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools of the world ; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, noting and visiting the doctrines she found there. She began in Chaldea, and then sojourned among the Canaanites, and went down into Egypt, and thence passed into Arabia, till she rested in her own land. Next she encountered the merchants of Tyre, and the • wisdom of the East country, and the luxury of Sheba. Then she was carried away to Babylon, and wandered to the schools of Greece. And wherever she went, in trouble or in triumph, still she was a living spirit, the mind and voice of the Most High ; " sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them ques- tions ;" claiming to herself what they said rightly, cor- recting their errors, supplying their defects, completing their beginnings, expanding their surmises, and thus gradually by means of them enlarging the range and refining the sense of her own teaching. So far then from her creed being of doubtful credit because it resembles foreign theologies, we even hold that one special way in which Providence has imparted divine knowledge to us has been by enabling her to draw and collect it together-, out of the world, and, in this sense, as in others, to " suck the milk of the Gentiles and to suck the breast of kings." How far in fact this process has gone, is a question of history ; and we believe it has before now been grossly, exaggerated and misrepresented by those who, like Mr. Milman, have thought that its existence told against MilmarC s View of Christianity. 233 Catholic doctrine ; but so little antecedent difficulty- have we in the matter, that we could readily grant, unless it were a question of fact not of theory, that Balaam was an Eastern sage, or a Sibyl was inspired, or Solomon learnt of the sons of Mahol, or Moses was a scholar of the Egyptian hierophants. We are not dis- tressed to be told that the doctrine of the angelic host came from Babylon, while we know that they did sing at the Nativity ; nor that the vision of a Mediator is in Philo, if in very deed He died for us on Calvary. Nor are we afraid to allow, that, even after His coming, the Church has been a treasure-house, giving forth things old and new, casting the gold of fresh tributaries into her refiner's fire, or stamping upon her own, as time required it, a deeper impress of her Master's image. The distinction between these two theories is broad and obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, ifitroducing a certain message ; whereas we, who main- tain the other, consider that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of nature would lead us to expect, " at sundry times and in divers manners," various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of it- self. We consider the Christian doctrine, when ana- lyzed, to appear, like the human frame, " fearfully and wonderfully made ; " but they think it some one tenet or certain principles given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual accretion before Christ's coming or elucidation afterwards. They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen ; we conceive that the Church, like Aaron's rod, devours the serpents of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a fabulous pri- mitive simplicity ; we repose in Catholic fulness. They seek what never has been found ; we accept and use 234 Milman! s View of Christianity. what even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to maintain, on their part, that the Church's doctrine was never pure ; we say that it never can be corrupt. We consider that a divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal corruption ; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear. 10. Which of these theories is the true, this is not the place for discussing ; our business here, to which we now address ourselves, is to trace out some of the applica- tions of the one on which Mr. Milman proceeds, as his volumes enable us to do, and to inquire how much will be left of Christianity at the end of the process. He states then, that in her first ages the Church separately encountered Judaism, Orientalism, and Paganism ; and again, that her system resembles all three. From the encounter, he would argue the probability of their in- fluencing her ; from the resemblance the fact. He says : "As a universal religion aspiring to the complete moral con- quest of the world, Christianity had to encounter three antagonists, Judaism, Paganism, and Orientalism. It is our design successively ; to exhibit the conflict with these opposing forces, its final triumph, not without detrifnent to its own native purity a7id its divine sim- plicity, from the interworking of the yet unsubdued elements of the former systems into the Christian mind ; until each, at successive ■ periods, and in different parts of the world, formed a modification of Christianity equally removed from its unmingled and unsullied original ; the Judso-Christianity of Palestine, of which the Ebionites appear to have been the last representatives ; the Platonic Christia- nity of Alexandria, as, at least at this early period, the new religion could coalesce only with the sublime and more philosophical prin- ciples of Paganism ; and, lastly, the Gnostic Christianity of the East." — Vol. i., p. 413. Mihnan' s View of Christianity. 235 In like manner he speaks elsewhere of an " inveterate Judaism," which "has perpetually revived in the Christian Church in days of excitement." — P. 148. " The Grecian philosophy," he says, "and, at a later period, influences still more adverse to that of Judaism, mingled with the prevailing Christianity. A kind of latent Judaism has, however, constantly lurked within the bosom of the Church." — P. 456. Again, " Asiatic influences have ■worked more completely into the body and essence of Christianity than any other foreign elements." — Vol. ii., p. 82. Such, we say, is the theory ; now to apply it. To begin with the hierarchy of Angels, to which we have already referred. Speaking of Simon Magus's doctrine on that subject, Mr. Milman says : " This peopling of the universe with a regular descending succes- sion of beings was common to the whole East, perhaps in great part to the West. The later Jewish doctrines of angels and devils ap- proached nearly to itj it lurked in Platonism, and assumed a higher form in the Eastern cosmogonies."— Vol. ii., p. loi. And more strongly in an earher passage : " It is generally admitted that the Jewish notions about the angels, one great subject of dispute in their synagogues, and what may be called their demonology, received a strong foreign tinge during their residence in Babylonia. ... In apparent allusion to or coincidence with this system, the visions of Daniel represent Michael, the titular angel or intelligence of the Jewish people, in opposition to the four angels of the great monarchies ; and even our Saviour seems to condescend to the popular language when He represents the parental care of the Almighty over children under the significant and beautiful image, ' for in heaven,' " etc. — Vol. i., p. 70. It seems, then, the angelic hierarchy is not a doctrine of divine truth, because it was taught in the Zenda- vesta ; and further, what is still more observable, even our Lord's teaching it does not make it so. This illus- 236 MihnarCs View of Christianity. trates forcibly the view given above of Mr. Milman's canon for ascertaining what is matter of Revelation. Our Lord cannot say a thing in earnest, which heathen sages taught or surmised before Him. Next, Mr. Milman tells us that " the Jew concurred with the worshipper of O.rmusd in expecting a final restoration of all things through the agency of a Divine Intelligence."' — Vol. i., p. TJ. The words of St. Peter might come into the reader's mind, about the time of refreshing, when " He shall send Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things ; " but Mr. Milman overturns the authority of the whole passage, observing that it seems " as if even yet Peter himself was not diseficumbered of that Jewish' notio7t of an immediate re-appearance of Christ." — Vol. i., p. 391. " The disciple is not better than his Lord ; " if not Christ's, much less are St. Peter's words, though spoken after a miracle, matter of Divine Revelation, provided they betray any resemblance to a doctrine of Zoroaster. Speaking of the Resurrection, he says, " It appears .... in its more perfect development, soon after the return from the captivity. As early as the revolt of the Maccabees, it was so deeply rooted in the public mind, that we find a solemn ceremony performed for the dead. ... In the Zoroastrian religion, a resurrection holds a place no less prominent than in the later Jewish belief" —Vol. i., p. 75. In spite of this, Mr. Milman of course insists, though we see not with what consistency, on the doctrine of the Resurrection as proper to Christianity ; however, soon after the above passages, speaking of the " Oriental colouring " which the Jews adopted, he says, " even the doctrine of the Resurrection was singularly harmonized with their exclusive nationality. At least Milman's View of Christianity. 237 the first Resurrection was to be their separate portion ; it was to summon them, if not all, at least tire more righteous, from Paradise, from the abode of departed spirits ; and under their triumphant king they were to enjoy a thousand years of glory and bliss upon the recreated and renovated earth." — P. 78. Is not this "colouring," as Mr. Milman calls it, very like St. John's language in the Apocalypse .' Is that language to fare as the words of our Lord and St. Peter ">. or is it, on the other hand, to be considered as Eastern tradition which is appropriated and guaranteed by St. John "> But there are instances in which Mr. Milman recoils from his own theory. For example, he tells us, that "the practice of the external washing of the body, as emblematic of the inward purification of the soul, is almost universal. The sacred Ganges cleanses all moral pollution from the Indian; among the Greeks and Romans, even the murderer might, it was supposed, wash the blood clean from his hands. . . . The perpetual similitude and connexion between the uncleanness of the body and of the soul, which run through the Mosaic law . . . must have familiarized the inind with the mysterious effects attributed to such a rite." — P. 142. True; but then why might not Orientalism in like manner "familiarize" the mind with the religious ob- servance of celibacy, instead of throwing discredit on its divine authority .'' Again, concerning the doctrine of a Mediator, Mr. Milman says : " Wherever any approximation had been made to the sublime tnith of the one great First Cause, either awful religious reverence or philosophic abstraction had removed the primal deity entirely beyond the sphere of human sense, and supposed that the inter- course of the Divinity with man, the moral government, and even 238 MilmarC s View of Christianity. the original creation, had been carried on by the intermediate agency, .either in Oriental language of an emanation, or in tlie Platonic, of the wisdom, reason, or intelligence of the one Supreme. This Being was more or less distinctly impersonated according to the more popular or more philosophic, the more material or more abstract notions of the age or people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the shores of the. Yellow Sea to the Ilissus ; it was the fundamental principle of the Indian religion and Indiaij philosophy ; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism, it was pure Plato- nism, it was the Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school. Many fine passages might be quoted from Philo, on the impossibility that the first self-existing Being should become cognizable to the sense of man." — Vol. i., pp. 72, 73. Now, here again, as before, the principle which Mr. Milman elsewhere applies, is too much for him : and since he will not admit that this universal belief is from tradition or secret suggestion, (as we would maintain,) and of course dare not take the alternative, which in consistency he ought to take, of denying that what is found outside of Christianity is part of Christianity, he is obliged to have recourse to the following expedient by way of accounting for the fact : " From this remarkable uniformity of conception and coincidence of language," he says, " has sometimes been assumed a common tradition, generally disseminated throughout the race of man. I should be content with receiving it as the general acquies- cence of the human mind in the necessity of some medi- ation between the pure spiritual nature of the Deity and the intellectual and moral being of man." — P. 74. "Content," means "too happy, thus to turn my back upon my own theory ; " however, supposing others are not content > all minds have not equal piety ; they are carried away by reason ; they are run off with by a principle ; what is to hinder a writer less religious- minded than Mr. Milman, proceeding to infer concerning the doctrine of mediation what he himself does infer con- MilmarC s View of Christianity. 239 cerning the angelic host ? Is not mediation proved to be an Orientalism ? and may not the " moral effect " of its idea be the same on the vulgar, even though the "refined intelligence" of the educated, who do not need it, should decline it ? And again, if the universality of the doctrine of mediation is to be accounted for on an instinct, why may not the doctrine of celibacy also ? In like manner all the divine and regal titles of Christ had been anticipated in one quarter or another ; why are they not to be rejected as Oriental, Jewish, or Alexan- drian ? Mr. Milman tells us — " Each region, each rank, each sect, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Palestinian, the Samaritan, the Pharisee, the lawyer, the zealot, anrayed the Messiah in those attributes which suited his own tem- perament. Of that which was more methodically taught in the synagogue of the adjacent school, the populace caught up whatever made the deeper impression. The enthusiasm took an active or contemplative, an ambitious or a religious, an earthly or a heavenly ■ tone, according to the education, habits, or station of the believer ; and to different men the Messiah was man or angel, or more than angel ; he was king, conqueror, or moral reformer ; a more victo- rious Joshua, a more magnificent Herod, a wider-ruling Cassar, a wiser Moses, a holier Abraham ; an angel, the angel of the Cove- nant, the Metatron, the Mediator between God and man ; Michael, the great tutelar archangel of the nation, who appears by some to have been identified with the mysterious Being who led them forth from Egypt ; he was the word of God ; an emanation from the Deity, himself partaking of the Divine nature." — Vol. i., pp. 82, 83. Or, to take another passage : "/« all the systems a binary, in most a triple, modification of the Deity was admitted. The Logos, the divine word or reason, might differ in the various schemes, in its relation to the parental divinity, and to the universe ; but it had this distinctive and ineffaceable character, that it was the mediator, the connecting hnk between I the unseen and unapproachable world and that of man. This Pla- tonism, if it may be so called, was universal. It had gradually absorbed all the more intellectual class ; it hovered over, as it 240 Milmaii s View of Christianity. were, and gathered under its wings all the religions of the world. It had already modified Judaism; it had allied itself with the Syrian and Mithraic worship of the Sun, the visible Mediator, the emblem of the word ; it was part of the general Nature wor- ship ; it was attempting to renew Paganism, and was the recog- nized and leading tenet in the higher mysteries." — Vol. ii., p. 427-8. Where then are we to stop .' What will be left to us of Christianity, if we assume that nothing is of its essence which is found elsewhere .'' Will even its pre- cepts remain ? " If we were to glean," says Mr. Milman, " from the later Jewish writings, from the beautiful aphorisms of other Oriental nations, which we cannot fairly trace to Christian sources, and from the Platonic and Stoic philosophy, their more striking precepts, we might find perhaps a counterpart to almost all the moral sayings of Jesus. But the same truth is of differ- ent importance as an unconnected aphorism, and as the groundwork of a complete system." — Vol. i., p. 207. Most true ; but we suspect the same distinction will be found to hold concerning some other Catholic doctrines and observances, which Mr. Milman would reject as Oriental or Judaic. It will hold too, in a remarkable manner, of a doctrine, which, as we have shown above, Mr. Milman so strangely passes over, but which surely is the practical basis of the whole Revelation, the forgiveness of sins. However, there are two doctrines, which Mr. Milman seems to admit as especially proper to Christianity, which therefore ought to be especially considered of the essence of the Revelation ; we suspect, however, that, characteristic as they are, they are not of that liberal and enlarged sort, which will please the " fastidious intelli- gence " of this age. The two to which we allude, are the principle of dogmatism, and the doctrine of ecclesiastical : liberty. This is remarkable. MilmarC s View of Christianity, 241 As to the former of the two, the principle of maintain- ing the faith, Mr. Milman says, speaking of the times of Athanasius : " How singular an illustration of the change already wrought in the mind of man by the introduction of Christianity. . . . This controversy related to a purely speculative tenet. The disputants of either party . . . appear to have dwelt little, if at all, on the practical effects of conflicting opinions. In morals, in manners, in habits, in usages, in Church government, in religious ceremonial, there was no distinction between the parties which divided Chris- tendom. . . . The Arians and Athanasians first divided the world on a pure question of faith. . . . Religion was become the one dominant passion of the whole Christian world ; and everything allied to it, or rather, in this case, which seemed to concern its very essence, could no longer be agitated with tranquillity or debated with indifference." — Vol. ii., pp. 423 — 432. The other principle was that of ecclesiastical liberty : "It is curious," observes Mr. Milman, "to observe this new element of freedom, however at present working in a concealed, irregular, and perhaps still guarded manner, mingling itself up with, and partially upheaving, the general prostration of the human mind. The Christian, or in some respects it might be more justly said, the hierarchical principle, was entering into the constitution of human society, as an lantagonist power to that of the civil sove- reign."— Vol. iii., p. 34. II. Instances, however, such as these, deserving as they are of notice, scarcely do more than illustrate the rule to which they are exceptions. We repeat, then, in perfect sincerity and much anxiety, our inquiry, — What tenet of Christianity will escape proscription, if the principle is once admitted, that a sufficient account is given of an Qpinion, and a sufficient ground for making light of it, as soon as it is historically referred to some human origin ? VOL. II. 16 242 MilmafCs View of Christianity. What will be our Christianity ? What shall we have to believe ? What will be left to us ? Will more remain than a caput mortuum, with no claim on our profession or devotion ? Will the Gospel be a substance ? Will Revelation have done more than introduce a quality into our moral life world, not anything that can be contem- plated by itself, obeyed and perpetuated ? This we do verily believe to be the end of the speculations, of which Mr. Milman's volumes at least serve as an illustration. If we indulge them, Christianity will melt away in our hands like snow ; we shall be unbelievers before we at all suspect where we are. With a sigh we shall suddenly detect the real state of the case. We shall look on Christianity, not as a religion, but as a past event which exerted a great influence on the course of the world, when it happened, and gave a tone and direction to religion, government, philosophy, literature, manners ; an idea which developed itself in various directions strongly, which was indeed from the first materialized into a system or a church, and is still upheld as such by numbers, but by an error ; a great boon to the world, bestowed by the Giver of all good, as the discovery of printing may be, or the steam-engine, but as incapable of continuity, except in its effects, as the shock of an earthquake, or the impulsive force which commenced the motions of the planets. It is impossible that a thoughtful man like Mr. Milman should not feel this difficulty even as a matter of logical consistency, not to speak of it as a deep practical ques- tion. Accordingly he has attempted, though, as we think, most arbitrarily and unsuccessfully, to set bounds to his own principle, and to shut the door on innovation, when he has let in as much of it as suited his taste. Some incidental symptoms of his anxiety have appeared MilmarC s View of Christianity. 243 in the course of passages lately quoted ; but it is else- where embodied in protests, cautions, and attempts at explanation. Early in his work he begins by a protest ; — after speaking of the successive changes which have taken place in the form of Christianity, he proceeds : " While, however, Christianity necessarily submitted to all these modifications, / strongly protest against the opinion, that the origin of the religion can be attributed, according to a theory adopted by many foreign writers, to the gradual and spontaneous development of the human mind. Christ is as much beyond His own age, as His own age is beyond the darkest barbarism." — Vol. i., P- so- Doubtless, no principle of Mr. Milman's book is in- consistent with the proof of our Lord's divine mission concisely stated by him in the last sentence ; but proof in behalf of His mission does not tend to determine His doctrine. The question is, whether Mr. Milman has not taken up a position which puts him out of reach of all means of ascertaining or proving what Christ came to tell the world .■' For instance, he himself seems to be contented to retreat back as far as the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and there to take his stand. Now this is confessedly not a new doctrine, first proposed by Christianity ; let us see then whether he can so state his case in its favour, as not at the same time to suggest proof in behalf of other doctrines which he rejects. He thus defends it from the objection in question : "Henceforward that great truth begins to assume a new cha- racter, and to obtain an influence over the political and social, as well as over the individual, happiness of man, unknown in the former ages of the world. It is no longer a feeble and uncertain instinct, nor a remote speculative opinion, obscured by the more pressing necessities and cares of the present life, but the universal ' predominant sentiment, constantly present to the thoughts, en- • woven with the usages, and pervading the whole moral being of ■ 244 Milmmi's View of Christianity. man. The dim and scattered rays, either of traditionary belief, of intuitive feeling, or of philosophic reasoning, were brought as it were to a focus, condensed and poured with an immeasurably stronger, an expanding, an all-permeating light upon the human soul. Whatever its origin, whether in human nature, or the aspira- tions of high-thoughted individuals, propagated through their fol- lowers, or in former revelation, it received such an im[ ulse, and was so deeply and universally moulded up with the popular mind in all orders, that from this period may be dated the true era of its dominion. If by no means new in its elementary principle, it was new in the degree and the extent to which it began to operate in the affairs of men." — Vol. i., pp. 371, 372. A very good argument indeed, as we should say, in favour of the doctrine of the soul's immortality as a part of the special Gospel message. Yet, strange to say, hardly has Mr. Milman uttered it, but he is obliged in a note to make the following most remarkable, though indirect, confession, that the rationalizing principles which he has adopted do not necessarily secure even to this doctrine a place in the idea of Christianity ; and that, in the judgment, not of any mere paradoxical minds, but of one of the most profound thinkers, as fame goes, of his age. Mr. Milman says : " The most remarkable evidence of the extent to which German speculation has wandered aimay from the first principles of Chris- tianity, is this, that one of the most religious writers, the one who has endeavoured with the most earnest sincerity to reconnect reli- gious belief with the philosophy of the times, has actually repre- sented Christianity without, or almost without, the immortality of the soul J and this the ardent and eloquent translator of Plato ! Copious and full on the moral regeneration effected by Christ in this world, with the loftiest sentiments of the emancipation of the human soul from the bondage of sin by the Gospel, Schleiermacher is silent, or almost silent, on the redemption from death. He beholds Christ distinctly as bringing life, only vaguely and re- motely, as bringing immortality to light." — Vol. i., p. 372, note. Christianity did not even bring the immortality of the Mihnan^s View of Christianity. 245 soul to light ; where then, after all, and what is Chris- tianity ? However, Mr. Milman's expedient for limiting his own principles is, as we have seen, this, — to assert that a broad line must be drawn between the starting and the continuance of the religion. Divine Providence watching over it for its purity in the first age in a way in which it did not in the second ; and then, as if by way of make- up to the second and following ages for this implied charge of corruption against them, to console them with the concession that perhaps their corruptions tended to ^t permanence of Christianity. But the champions of the ages in question, with all due acknowledgments for the compliment, will not allow him thus delicately to tiptoe over the difficulty. His words are these : " On a wide and comprehensive survey of the whole history of Christianity, and considering it as left altogether to its own native force and impulse, it is difficult to estimate how far the admission, even the predominance, of these foreign elements, by which it was enabled to maintain its hold on different ages and races, may not have contributed both to its original success and its final perma- nence. If it lost in purity, it gained in power, perhaps in per- manence. No doubt in its first contest with Orientalism, were sown those seeds which grew up at a later period into Monasticism; it rejected the tenets, but admitted the more insidious principle of Gnosticism ; yet there can be little doubt that in the dark ages the monastic spirit was among the great conservative and influential elements of Christianity." — Vol. ii., pp. 94, 95. We neither thank Mr. Milman for granting to us that the monastic spirit has been " conservative," nor will we grant to him in turn that " no doubt " it sprang from the "insidious principle of Gnosticism." It will be observed that, throughout the foregoing remarks on Mr. Milman's volumes, we have been grant- ing generally the existence of a resemblance between 246 MilmarCs View of Christianity. Christianity and certain doctrines and practices scattered to and fro in the heathen philosophies and religions. Our purpose was to show that the genuineness of the Catholic creed, ethics, and ritual was unaffected by this fact ; their being an existing Catholic theory on which the fact could stand without detriment to Catholicism, as well as a popular and liberalistic theory according to which the fact would throw discredit upon it. But the professed fact itself needs careful looking after, for it has been before now, and is continually, shamefully mis- stated. We had intended in this place to have added some words upon it, but our limits forbid. There is another question which obviously arises out of the fact under consideration, viz., as to its effect upon the authority of Revealed Religion. It may be objected, that originality is necessaiy, if not for truth of doctrine, at least for evidence of divinity ; and, though there is nothing very profound in the remark, it ought to be answered ; and we mention it, that we may be seen not to have forgotten it. 12. And now, in bringing our remarks on this able work to an end, we must confess the mixed feeling with which lye have made them. We have felt it to be an impera- tive duty to take that view of Mr. Milman's volumes which first presents itself to a Churchman. It is also their prominent aspect, and such as is likely to arrest the attention of the general reader, as well as of those whose habit of mind it is to associate the visible world with the invisible. The second aspect in which we should regard them, is as being a serviceable collection, or com- monplace-book, of the worst which can be said by a MilmarCs View of Christianity. 247 candid enemy against the theory of Catholicism. The third remark we make upon them, and we make it with great sincerity and much pleasure, only wishing it could come first instead of third, is in their praise as a work of unusual learning and thought, containing a large mass of information, valuable to the students of ecclesiastical history. The author's method has its good side as well as its bad. He treats Catholic persons, proceedings, and events, in a large and tolerant spirit. His sketches of the great bishops of the fourth century are particularly interesting, though defaced, of course, by the peculiarities of his religious theory. With the same drawback, we can express great satisfaction in many of his discussions on particular points, of which we especially notice the chapters called " Christianity and Orientalism," and " Christianity and the Fine Arts." It is indeed most painful, independently of all personal feehngs which a scholar and poet so early distinguished as Mr. Milman must excite in the minds of his brethren, that a work so elaborate and so important should be com- posed upon principles which are calculated to turn all kindly feeling into mere antipathy and disgust. Indeed there is so much to shock people, that there is compara- tively little to injure. To one set of persons only is he likely to do much mischief, those who just at this mo- ment are so ready to use his main principle for the demolition of Catholic views, without seeing that it apphes to the New Testament History and teaching just as well. He will assist such persons in carrying out their principle. We observe that a publication, prominent in this warfare, cautions its readers against Mr. Milman's most dangerous and insidious work. We beg to join this publication and all other similar ones in its sage and seasonable warning. Let all who carp at 248 Milmaris View of Christianity. the Fathers and deny Tradition, who argue against sacra- mental influence, who refer cehbacy to Gnosticism, and episcopal power to Judaism, who declaim against mys- ticism, and scoff at the miracles of the Church, while at the same time they uphold what is called orthodox Pro- testantism, steadily abstain from Mr. Milman's volumes. On their controversial principles his reasonings and conclusions are irresistible. January, 1841. 249 XII. REFORMATION OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. PERHAPS the greatest of the wants under which our rehgious literature labours at this day is that of an ecclesiastical history. It is inconvenient enough to have no good commentary on Scripture, and so little of sys- tematic^ theology ; but the Creed tells us the principal points of doctrine, and Scripture is to the pious mind, in some sense, its own interpreter. But the providences of God towards His Church during eighteen centuries, though contained in outline in pr^hecy, are consigned to no formula or document, clear enough to convey its own meaning, and minute enough to impress its pecu- liarities upon the private Christian. Not even the wildest advocate for the right of Private Judgment ever professed to apprehend past facts, as he might think he discovered revealed doctrines, without the assistance of books or teachers. Rather such an one will commonly be found to depreciate, instead of pretending to, historical know- ledge: he will apply the Caliph Omar's argument to the events of 1800 years, and say that except for the first and three last centuries they are not to be studied at all, as being little or nothing better than the times of pre- dicted evil. He shuts up God's dealings with His 250 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. Church under a formula, and is contented with symbols which neither he nor any one else can put into plain English. ; It is difficult justly to estimate the injury done to our ■ whole view of Gospel truth by our ignorance of ecclesias- tical history. Every department of theology acts upon ' the rest, and if one is neglected the others suffer. Our view of doctrine affects our view of history, and our view of history our view of doctrine ; and our view of doctrine the sense we put upon Scripture : and our interpretation of Scripture our ethics, and our ethics our interpretation of Scripture. And, moreover, the history of the past ends in the present ; and the present is our scene of trial ; and to behave ourselves towards its various pheno- mena duly and religiously, we must understand them ; ' and to understand them, we must have recourse to those^ past events which led to them. Thus the present is a text, and the past its interpretation. To a child there is no difference between one fact and another in the ^ religious world. He does not understand their mutual relations or their respective bearings. He has, when an infant in arms, learned to classify and dispose of objects of sense ; he knows that the church spire is not so near, him as his nose or his hand, and that leaves are parts of^ the tree, and not of the sky or the earth, with which they are conterminous. But he cannot learn without the assistance of others the meaning of moral facts ; and, as^ things are, he commonly grows up and lives and dies as ignorant of those of an ecclesiastical character as he was when he first had the faculty of thought. " What is the difference between a Methodist and a Roman Catholic? and " Why are we not all Quakers ?" are the questions which a thoughtful child of five years old may ask ; and it is not at all clear whether he is likely to have taken Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 251 any real steps towards the solution of them by the time he is fifty. This of course is witnessed in the case of political and social facts quite as much as in ecclesias- tical. What a different meaning, for instance, has the so-called " Catholic Relief Bill," or the Reform Bill, to men of twenty and of thirty ! How differently has the character of the Duke of Wellington come out to the present generation since the publication of his dispatches! How differently appear our present relations with Russia to those who know and those who are ignorant of the history of the last century ! Men enter into life, and take what they find there, and put their own interpreta- tion upon it, if their imaginations are not pre-occupied with the one true historical comment. This is why there is such difficulty in rousing the public mind to understand the importance of certain measures, proposed or resisted : to the public they are facts without meaning. What virtue is there in a name to those who are dead to it ? Why should not Brutus stir a spirit as soon as Caesar } It is the association which is everything ; but to those | who know not the true history of that to which the name belongs, there are no associations with it, or wrong ones. ■ The case is the same as regards words written or spoken. Take an orator and he shall make a speech, or an author and he shall write a pamphlet, or a preacher and he shall; deliver a sermon ; and then let it be considered howl differently the speech, or the pamphlet, or the sermon,! in each case seems to persons who know him well and' those who do not. Very different for better and for worse ; let him be a man of pomp and parade, or of smoothness and artifice, and strangers will be taken in, and admire the very words, turns of speech and gestures, which make those who know him well only cry out, " How like jso-and-so !" On the other hand, the deep feehng and 252 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. /eality of another sort of man go clean over the heads of those who do not know him, while friends are pierced by every word. Let the very same speech or sentiment come from two persons, and it has quite a different meaning, according to the speaker, and takes a different form in our minds. We always judge of what meets us by what we know already. There is no such thing in nature as a naked text without note or comment. It is a curious fact, that these remarks even apply to the case of personal appearance, as is sometimes proved by the test of portraits. Let a likeness, taken twenty years ago, be put before two persons, now for the first time, one of whom knew the subject of it at the time, and the other did not, and the former will think it like him as he is now, and the latter will deny the likeness. We colour our ocular vision with the hues of the imagination : as - reason is said to deceive our eyes in the phenomenon of the horizontal moon, so memory is a gloss upon them here. Our friend has grown fat, or his temples are higher, or his face is broader, or lines have come to view along his cheek, or across his forehead, and yet in certain cases we shall be heard to say, that such a one has not altered at all since the day we first knew him. To us his youth is stamped upon his maturity, and he lives in our eye, as well as in our mind, as when we first gave him our affection. We are surprised on going into the world to hea'r him called a middle-aged man. In such a case, to be sure, we have an instance of an abuse of the important instrument which has been above insisted on. But we adduce it to prove the extent of the influence which the knowledge of the past has on the present ; — that it may become excessive and out of place, that we may become mere antiquarians and pedants, that we may bury ourselves in the illusions of Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 253 history, when we should .be contemplating things as they are before us, is very certain : but the danger at this day rather is, lest, from tQtaj_ig^norance of history, we should be obliged to determine every action and every principle by the only test which will practically be left us, the test of visible expediency. And late ecclesiastical occur- rences supply some melancholy instances in point. This will be the certain consequence of treating history as an old almanac, whatever persons of some station in the Church may say to the contrary. And, again, it must be recollected that men will form their theories and write books on religious subjects, whether or not they have the facts, which alone can enable them to do so justly. To assign causes, to draw out relations, is ftatural to man ; and he will do it on a theory, rather than not at all. A number of answers can be given to the question, What is the Church 1 We are far from saying that in so complicated a question only one, or perhaps that any one, is right and true ; but whatever is right, whatever wrong, surely we must go to history for the information. If we are content merely to look round us to catch up certain peculiarities which meet our eye, listen to what is said in parliament or the ^newspapers, or in some fashionable chapel, and then iproceed to form our theory, we shall probably approach about as near the truth as the clever Oriental who de- fined the English as a nation who live on the sea, and make penknives. This is a remark which applies in a measure even to writers of a deeper tone of thought : we are just now becoming rich in treatises on ecclesiastical politics and doctrine : let us take good care that our ^a,rbitrary views do not get ahead of our knowledge. r We have now given some of the reasons why we are lespecially obliged to Mr. Bowden for the life of Hilde- 254 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. brand, known in history as Pope Gregory VII., which he has lately given to the world. No one can write without opinions : we are far from saying that Mr. Bowden has not his own, and that of a very decided character ; but what we principally thank him -for is his narrative of facts ; he has drawn out the facfjs of a momentous and wonderful period of history with great distinctness and perspicuity, and we are sure that no one will rise from the perusal of his volumes without re- spectful feelings towards their author for the information and instruction he has provided. We do not intend to make this article a panegyric on Mr. Bowden ; but- to convey to the reader by means of it some account of his subjects. Yet, before proceeding to business, it is but justice to him to say, that he has given us at once a very learned and very well -arranged histon v. To have read the original sources diligently and to report them accu- ^rately is one great praise ; but a far more difficult task is the combination and adjustment of materials. To bring out the course of events so that a reader may go away with a definite impression upon his mind of what has passed through it, is a very difficult art. We are not perhaps quite satisfied with Mr. Bowden's style ; but we eulogize his composition. He is a very neat and skilful artist, a clear and forcible narrator ; makes a great many points, and every one of them tells. But now let us proceed to his work itself. It is the history of the commencement of that great reformation of the Church in the middle ages, which Providence conducted through the instrumentality, partly divine, partly human, of the Papal Monarchy. It is usual to Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 255 call the times in which it occurred the dark ages ; but, properly speaking, that title applies to the centuries which preceded it. No exaggeration is possible of the demoralized state into which the Christian world, and especially the Church of Rome, had fallen in the years that followed the extinction of the Carlovingian line (A.D. 887). The tenth century is even known among Protestants par excellence as the SECulum obscurum, and Baronius expresses its portentous corruption in the vivid remark that Christ was as if asleep in the vessel of the Church. " The infamies prevalent among the clergy of the time," says Mr. Bowden, " as denounced by Damiani and others, are to be alluded to, not detailed." — Vol i., p. 144. When Hildebrand was appointed to the monas- tery of St. Paul at Rome, he found the offices of devotion systematically neglected, the house of prayer defiled by the sheep and cattle who found their way in and out through its broken doors, and the monks, contrary to all monastic rule, attended in their refectory by women. The excuse for these irregularities was the destitution to which the holy house was reduced by the predatory bands of Campagna ; but when the monastic bodies were rich, as was the case in Germany, matters were worse instead of better. Unworthy brethren of the conventual orders, Mr. Bowden tells us, incessantly beset the ears of princes and great people, who had the presentation to abbeys and benefices, offering sums so large in purchase that secular competitors were excluded. The world wondered, says an historian of the times, himself a monk, from what springs such rivers of wealth could flow ; and understood not how the riches of Croesus or Tantalus could be amassed by men who had taken on them the L scandal of the Cross and the profession of poverty. Adelbert, Archbishop of Bremen, though himself a man 256 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. of pure life and austere practice in an age of general dissoluteness, conceived a plan, by means of the imperial influence which he enjoyed, of making Hamburg the seat of his power, and establishing a sort of papacy in the North. With this purpose in view, he was tempted to grasp at every method of increasing his revenues, and disgraced his rule by a wide-spread system of corruption and plunder. Associating himself with a profligate favourite of the Emperor, he despoiled without shame the lands and revenues of the less powerful religious communities, and put up to sale every office, civil or ecclesiastical, which fell to his disposal. On an archbishop in France, who had contrived to bribe to silence the prin- cipal evidences against him of simony, at length being brought to confess his guilt and being deposed, no less "Hhan forty-five bishops and twenty-seven other dignitaries or governors of churches came forward to confess the criminal mode by which they had obtained their bene^ fices, and retired from stations which they had no valid right to retain. In Lombardy, the Archbishop Guide in the eleventh century was said to have invariably demanded a price for the favour of admission into holy orders ; his clergy were in their own way as deeply in- volved in the guilt of simony as himself, till their very flocks learned to treat them with open manifestations of contempt, reviled them in the house of God itself, and hooted them along the streets. In the times of St. Romauld, who died in 1027, the practice of emperors selling bishoprics, bishops their preferments, and laymen their benefices, was so recognized and ordinary, that wjhen the saint had spoken even to religious persons of simony as a sin, he seemed to them to inculcate over- strained and fanciful notions. Even two centuries earlier than this, when, as appears Reformation of the Eleventh Cetitury. 257 on the face of the facts, the corruption was not so general, a Council of Paris had complained that many of the clergy were so occupied in the pursuit of gain and other worldly avocations that they suffered many infants to die without baptism. A Council of Aix-la-Chapelle of the same "date prohibits extortion and intemperance in bishops, and protests against their non-residence. A Synod of Pavia a little later prohibits the clergy the practice of sumptuous banquets and the use of dogs and hawks. Hincmar judged it expedient to issue a decree against the pawning by the clergy of the vestments and the communion plate. In S29, the prelates assembled in council at Paris found it necessary to urge Louis the Debonair to use all his influence in extirpating simony, "this heresy so detestable, this pest so hateful to God," from the Church. The Synod of Meaux, in 845, renewed the warning. And Leo IV., in or about 847, denounced it in an epistle to the Bishops of Britanny as a crime condemned by many Councils. The nobles secured the ordination of their younger sons or relatives for the sole purpose of qualifying them for the acceptance of lucrative benefices ; giving them, while they did so, the same mihtary training and secular habits with the rest of the family. Others procured admission to the priesthood for dependants whom they intended to retain in subordinate stations in their household. " Such," says Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, " is the disgrace of our times, that there is scarcely one to be found who aspires to any degree of honour or temporal distinction who has not his domestic priest ; and this, not that he may obey him, but that he may command his obedience alike in things lawful and things unlawful ; in things human and , things divine ; so that these chaplains are constantly to be found serving the tables, mixing the strained wine, VOL. II. 17 258 Reformation of tJu Eleventh Century. leading out the dogs, managing the ladies' horses, or looking after the lands." Mr. Bowden shall inform us of a scene which took place during the minority of the Emperor Henry the Fourth : " At the commencement of vespers before the king and court at Goslar, at the Solemn season of Christmas, 1062, a dispute arose between the servants of the Bishop of Hildesheim and those of the Abbot of Fulda, with regard to the position of the seats of their respective masters. The abbot, by ancient usage, was entitled to sit next to the metropolitan ; but the bishop, indignant that any should take this place, within his own diocese, in preference to him- self, had commanded his domestics to place the chairs accordingly. The dispute soon led to blows, and but for the interference of Otho of Bavaria, would have terminated in bloodshed. This noble asserted the rights of the abbot, and the bishop was consequently foiled. He looked forward however to a renewal of the contest under more favourable auspices ; and at the feast of Pentecost fol- lowing, previously to the entrance of the king and prelates into the Church, he secreted behind the high altar Count Ecbert and some well-armed soldiers. As the contending prelates proceeded to their seats, the affray between the servants began again; when the count suddenly springing from his ambush, rushed with his followers upon the astonished men of Fulda, and drove them with blows and menaces from the church. But they too had made preparations for a violent struggle, and had friends and arms at hand. In a body they rushed once more into the sacred building, and engaging their enemies with swords in the midst of the choir, confusedly mingled with the choristers. Fiercely was the combat waged : ' throughout the church,' says Lambert of Aschaffenburgh, ' resounded, instead Of hymns and spiritual songs, the shouts of the combatants and the screams of the dying ; ill-omened victims were slaughtered upon the altar of God; while through the building ran rivers of blood, poured forth, not by the legal religion of other days, but by the mutual cruelty of enemies.' The Bishop of Hildesheim, rushing to a pulpit ot some Other conspicuous position, exhorted his followers, accord- ing to the Same writer, as with the sound of a trumpet, to persevere in the fray, and encouraged them by hi-s authority, and by the promise of absolution, to disregard the sanctity of the place. The young Reformation of Ike Eleventh Century. 259 monarch called in vain on his subjects to reverence his royal dignity; all ears were deaf to his vociferated commands and entreaties ; and, at length, urged by those around him to consult his own safety, he escaped with difficulty from the thickening tumult, and made his way to his palace. The men of Fulda by the efforts of Count Ecbert, were at length repulsed, and the doors of the church closed against them ; upon which, ranging themselves before the building, they prepared to assault their enemies again, as soon as they should issue from it ; and there remained until the approach of night induced them to retire." — Vol. i., pp. 235 — 237. Miserable as are the above specimens of those truly " dark ages," yet they are decency itself compared with the atrocities which in the same era disgraced the see of Rome. At the close of the ninth century, Stephen VI. dragged the body of an obnoxious predecessor from "Sie~ grave, and, after subjecting it to a mock trial, cut off its head and three fingers, and threw it into the Tiber. He himself was subsequently deposed, and strangled in prison. In the years that followed, the power of electing to the popedom fell into the hands of the intriguing and licentious Theodora, and her equally unprincipled daughters, Theodora and Marozia. These women, mem- bers of a patrician family, by their arts and beauty, obtained an unbounded influence over the aristocratic tyrants of the city. One of the Theodoras advanced a lover, and Marozia a son, to the popedom. The grand- son of the latter, Octavian, succeeding to her power, as well as to the civil government of the city, elevated himself, on the death of the then Pope, to the apostolic chair, at the age of eighteen, under the title of John XII. (A.D. 956.). His career was in keeping with such a commencement. "The Lateran palace," says Mr. Bowden, "was disgraced by becoming a receptacle for courtezans : and decent females were terrified from pilgrimages to the threshold of the Apostles by the reports which were spread abroad 2 6o Reformation of the Eleventh Century. of the lawless impurity and violence of their representa- tive and successor."— Vol. i., p. 83. At length he v/as carried off by a rapid illness, or by the consequences of a blow received in the prosecution of his intrigues. Boniface VII. (A.D. 974), in the space of a few weeks after his elevation, plundered the treasury and basilica of St. Peter of all he could conveniently carry off, and fled to Constantinople. John XVI 1 1. (A.D. 1003) expressed his readiness, for a sum of money from the Emperor Basil, to recognize the right of the Greek Patriarch to the title of ecumenical or universal bishop, and the con- sequeht degradation of his own see ; and was only pre- vented by the general indignation excited by the report of his intention. Benedict IX. (A.D. 1033) was conse- crated Pope, according to some authorities, at the age of ten or twelve years, and became notorious for adulteries and murders. At length he resolved on marrying his first cousin ; and, when her father would not assent except on the condition of his resigning the popedom, he sold it for a large sum, and consecrated the purchaser as his successor. Such are a few of the most prominent features of the ecclesiastical history of these dreadful times, when, in the words of St. Bruno, " the world lay in wickedness, holiness had disappeared, justice had perished, and truth had been buried ; Simon Magus lording it over the Church, whose bishops and priests were given to luxury and fornication." 2. Had we lived in such deplorable times as have been above described, when Satan seemed to have been let loose at the end of his thousand years, and had we been , blessed with any portion of divine light to understand, , and of love to desire better things, we might have asked ; Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 261 whether it was conceivable that the Church should ever recover itself from the abyss into which it was sunk. Where was the motive principle — where the fulcrum, by which it was to be righted ? What was left but for matters to become worse and worse, till the last ray of truth and righteousness died away, and the last saint was gathered in, and the end of all things came, and the Judge with it ? One thing we should have felt for cer- tain, that if it was possible to retrieve the Church, it must be by some external power ; she was helpless and resourceless ; and the civil power must interfere, or there was no hope. So thought the young and zealous em- peror, Henry III. (A.D. 1039), who, though unhappily far^ from a perfect character, yet deeply felt the shame to which the Immaculate Bride was exposed, and deter- mined with his own right hand to work her deliverance. In one respect, indeed, he was plainly unequal for so high a mission, had he had other credentials of it ; he who was not possessed of the grace of personal purity, could not hope to remove the more flagrant scandals with which the clergy of the day were laden ; but this good thing had he, that, with all his ecclesiastical pre- rogatives and possessions, he had in no single instance incurred the guilt of simony ; he had the most awful im- pression and the most acute feelings of its heinousness ; and thus, if he could not animadvert upon one of the two chief sins of the day, he might aspire to be a censor of the other. And so much is undeniable, that, though he cannot be considered as regularly called to the work, and though a movement had already begun, as we shall presently see, in the Church itself, which, humanly speaking, would have effected it without him, yet in matter of fact, this well-meaning prince did begin that reformation which ended in the purification and monar- 262 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. chical estate of the Church. He held a Council of his bishops in 1047 ; in it he passed a decree that "Who- soever should make any office or station in the Church a subject of purchase or sale, should suffer deprivation and be visited with excommunication;" at the same time, with regard to his own future conduct, he solemn- ly pledged himself as follows : — " As God has freely of His mere mercy bestowed upon me the crown of the empire, so will I give freely and without price all things that pertain unto His rehgion." This was his first act ; but he was aware that the work of reform, to be thoroughly executed, must proceed from Rome, as the centre of the ecclesiastical commonwealth, and he determined, upon those imperial precedents and feudal principles which Charlemagne had introduced, himself to appoint a Pope, who should be the instrument of his general reformation. The reigning Pope at this time was Gregory VI., and he introduces us to so curious a history that we shall devote some sentences to it. Gregory was the identical personage who had bought the papal office of the pro- fligate Benedict IX. for a large sum, and was conse- crated by him, and yet he was far from a bad sort of man after all. As to his traffic in holy things, he seems to have viewed it in the light of the worthy persons in our own days, whose advertisements concerning the sale or purchase of advowsons or presentations figure in the newspapers ; and he really does seem to have com- mitted his act of simony with the very best intentions, which he did in fact carry out, so far as his bargain was made good to him. He had been known in the world as John Gratianus ; and at the time of his promotion was arch-priest of Rome. " He was considered," says Mr. Bowden, " in those bad times more than ordinarily re- Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 263 ligious ; he had lived free from the gross vices by which the clergy were too generally disgraced." He is de- scribed as "idiota et mirs simplicitatis," and, what per- haps is included in this account of him, he was un- lettered. He could not be quite said to have come into actual possession of his purchase ; for Benedict, his pre- decessor, who sold it to him, being disappointed in his intended bride, returned to Rome after an absence of three months, and resumed his pontifical station, while the party of his intended father-in-law had had sufficient influence to create a Pope of their own, John, Bishop of Sabina, who paid a high price for his elevation, and took the title of Sylvester HI. And thus there were three self-styled Popes at once in the Holy City, Bene- ' diet performing his sacred functions at the Lateran, Gregory at St. Peter's, and Sylvester at Santa Maria Maggiore. Gregory, however, after a time, seemed to preponderate over his antagonists ; he maintained a body of troops, and with these he suppressed the sub- urban robbers who molested the pilgrims. Expelling them from the sacred limits of St. Peter's, he carried his. arms further, till he had cleared the neighbouring towns and roads of these marauders. On an outcry being raised at the unclerical character of such perform- ances, brilliant as they were, he associated with him Lorenzo, Archbishop of Amalfi, who was an exile at Rome, as his coadjutor, and, while the latter undertook the direct duties of the papal office and government, he devoted himself to that police department in which he seemed so much to excel. This was the point of time at which the Imperial Reformer made his visitation of the Church and See of the Apostles. He came into Italy in the autumn of 1046, and held a Council at Sutri, a town about thirty 264 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. miles to the north of Rome. Gregory was allowed to preside ; and, when under his auspices the abdication of Benedict had been recorded, and Sylvester had been stripped of his sacerdotal rank and shut up in a monas- tery for life, Gregory's own turn came, and, as there was no one competent to judge the highest ecclesiastical authority upon earth, as he was admitted really to be, the following device was taken to get rid of him : " His (Henry's) bishops, the cases of Gregory's rivals having been disposed of, requested the pontiff to state, for their information, the circumstances of his own election to the Papal office ; and, when they had thus drawn from him an admission of the unholy traffic by which that transaction had been accomplished, they brought before him the impropriety of his conduct in a manner so glaring, that the confounded Pontiff at length exclaimed, ' I call God to witness that, in doing what I did, I hoped to obtain the forgiveness of my sins and the grace of God. But now that I see the snare into which the enemy has entrapped me, tell me what I must do ?' The bishops having thus obtained their point, replied, ' Judge thyself — condemn thyself with thine own mouth ; better will it be for thee to live, like the holy Peter, poor in this world and to be blest in another, than like the magician Simon, whose example misled thee, to shine in riches here, and to receive hereafter the sentence of condemnation.' And the penitent Gregory, in obedience to the suggestion spoke as > follows : ' I, Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, pro- nounce that, on account of the shameful trafficking, the heretical simony, which took place at my election, I am deprived of the Roman See. Do you agree,' he concluded, 'to this ?' ' We acquiesce,' was the reply, 'in your decision ;' and the ex-Pope at once divested himself of the insignia of pontifical authority." — Vol. i., p. 119. The new Pope whom the Emperor gave to the Church instead of Gregory VI., Clement II., a man of excellent character, died within the year. DamasusII. also, who was his second nomination, died in three or four weeks after his formal assumption of his pontifical duties. Bruno, Bishop of Toul, was his third choice ; he was a relation Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 265 of Henry's, mild and unambitious in character, fervent in his devotion, courteous and popular in his manners, and possessed, if not of commanding talents, of con- siderable energy and activity of mind. He was far from desiring his elevation ; when the proposal was first made to him, he requested three days to consider of it ; at the end of which he made a confession of his faults before the assembled Council, with the hope of gaining their permission to decline it. But they overruled his objections, and he found himself compelled on the spot to assume the style and honours of a pontiff (A.D. 1049). Such was the person, and such the manner of his pro- motion, who is now known as St. Leo, the ninth of that name. L^d tK- 3- And now we are arrived at the moment when the State reformer struck his foot against the hidden rock, and found to his surprise that, in that apparently dis- organized and lifeless frame, which he was attempting to new-make, there was a soul and a power of self- action adequate both to its recovery and to its resist- ance against foreign interference. He had chosen a Pope, but " quis custodial ipsos custodes " .-' What was to keep fast that Pope in that very view of the relation of the State to the Church, that plausible Erastianism, as it has since been called, which he adopted himself.'' What is to secure the Pope from the influences of some Hildebrand at his elbow, who, a young man himself, shall rehearse, in the person of his superior, that part which he is one day to play in his own, as Gregory yn. >. Such was the very fact ; Hildebrand was with Leo, and thus Commences the ecclesiastical career of that wonderful man, to whose history Mr. Bowden has 266 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. devoted his reading. Hildebrand was at this time from thirty to forty years of age, having been born between ^Oio and 1020; his birthplace, as it is supposed, Soana, in Tuscany ; his father a carpenter. He had been soon removed from home to the care of an uncle, the Abbot of St. Mary's on the Aventine, who is supposed to be the same with that Lorenzo, Archbishop of Amalfi, whom Gregory VI. had made his coadjutor, and whose assertion of ecclesiastical power had previously led to his banishment from his own diocese by Guaimar, prince of the city. Such a man was a happy master for the champion of the Church ; and under his auspices Hilda- brand had rapidly acquired a knowledge of the seven liberal sciences, while he exhibited from his earliest years the rudiments of that devotional temperament, which in after-life so strikingly characterized him. He was, says one of his annalists, a monk from his boy- hood ; his life, from its very commencement, was one of abstinence, mortification, and self-command. Arrived at man's estate, he had undertaken a journey across the Alps, and resided for some time in the cele- brated monastery of Cluni in Burgundy, the strictness of which formed an acceptable contrast, in the eyes of the austere youth, with the laxity of manners which pre- vailed at Rome. The Abbot Odilo, himself an eminent saint, was equally pleased with Hildebrand, applying to him prophetically the words, used by the Angel of the commissioned Reformer who went before the first Ad- vent, " He shall be great in the sight of the Lord." On his return to Rome, disgusted with the prevalent corrup- tions, Hildebrand would have quitted the city again and for good, but was fixed in a resolution to stay after an occurrence not unlike, in character and termination (if we may compare together such opposite fortunes as Reformation of the Elevetith Century. 267 those of a Pope and a Lord Mayor), the "turn-again" passage in the history of Whittington. He afterwards served under the unfortunate Gregory VI. On Gre- gory's downfall, Hildebrand was carried by Henry across the Alps with Gregory himself ; and thus he was at hand, when Leo, on his appointment to the papacy, invited his assistance. Such was Hildebrand, and such his previous history ; and now what advice will he give to the mild and unassuming Bruno .'' Mr. Bowden shall tell us. "Bruno knew and respected his zeal and ability, and, as he hap- pened to be at Worms during the session of the Council, the newly- chosen pontiff sent for him, and requested him to be the companion of his intended journey to Rome. ' I cannot,' said Hildebrand, 'accompany you;' and, when pressed to declare the reason of this, probably unexpected, refusal, he said, ' Because you go to occupy the government of the Roman Church, not in virtue of a regular and canonical institution to it, but as appointed to it by secular and kingly power.' This led to a discussion, in which Bruno, gentle and candid by nature, and already, perhaps, inclined in his heart to favour the principles which Hildebrand now advocated before him, permitted himself to be convinced that the legitimate electors of the See of St. Peter were the Roman clergy and the people ; and he pre- pared to shape his course accordingly. Returning to Toul, to make the necessary preparations, and to take a farewell of his diocese, he set out thence in a style very different from that which had usually been adopted by the nominees of Teutonic sovereigns in their inau- gural journeys to the papal city. Instead of the rich pontifical attire which they were wont, from the day of their nomination, to assume^ he clothed himself in the simple habit of a pilgrim, thus publicly testifying to the world that, notwithstanding the act of the German Henry and his Council, he considered that his real election was yet to come. Leaving Toul on the third day from the festival of Christ- mas, he halted on his way, at the monastery of Cluni, and from hence, if not from Toul itself, was accompanied by Hildebrand, in his unostentatious progress to the papal city. At that city, bare- footed, and clad in the humble guise which he had thus assumed, Bnrno arrived in the early part of February, 1049 ; and as he found 268 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. the clergy and people assembled, and uttering hymns of thanks- giving and shouts of joy in honour of his arrival, he at once addressed them, and having announced to them the mode of his election in Germany, entreating them fully and freely to declare their sentiments on the subject. Their election, he said, was of paramount authority to every other ; and if vifhat had been done beyond the Alps did not meet with their general approval, he was ready to return — a pilgrim as he had come — and to shake off the burden of a responsibility, which he had only upon compulsion undertaken. His discourse was responded to by an unanimous shout of approval ; and Bruno, installed without delay in his office, assumed thenceforward the name of Leo IX."— Pp. 137—139. It seems, then, there is a hidden power in the Church struggling with Henry in the person of his own nomi- nees, and that, as regards the very point through which the system of Charlemagne introduced corruption into it. The State appointment to the Church offices, which was the result of the Carlovingian changes, implied the secular character of offices held by virtue of such an ap- pointment ; and that presumed secular character led to their being treated as secular, that is, to simony in ob- taining them, and to a worldly use of them. Henry's reform then was conducted on a principle which involved and perpetuated the very evils which it was intended to remove ; if the Church was under secular jurisdiction, it was fairly open to secular use. This feeling it was, the perception of this axiomatic truth, which the Church's instinct, or divine sense, seemed to be travailing with and bringing into effect at the era before us ; and now let us, under Mr. Bowden's guidance, inquire into the history of the momentous doctrines, which it eventually succeeded in establishing. When Christians have but a partial confidence in their own principles, there is a great temptation, when Church matters go wrong, to give up God's way, and take what- Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 269 ever is recommended by the expediency of the moment. The ancient and true methods of proceeding appear quite out of date and place ; the old materials, instru- ments, centres, and laws, on which the Church once moved, are apparently worn out by use ; and what remains but to take up whatever comes to hand ? We need not go to past ages for illustrations of this remark. In all times, weeds and scum, and all that is worthless, float on the surface, and precious gems lie at the bottom of the deep ; and where there is neither faith to accept nor penetration to apprehend, what does not obtrude itself upon the senses, men are very ready to put up with what they see, in despair of meeting with what may be more to their purpose. Thus in Hildebrand's age, it might be plausibly argued that ecclesiastical affairs had, in the changes of society, devolved to the, civil power ; that the State was their natural adminis- trator ; that it had the means, and none but it, of re- forming the Church. It might be urged that the old high spirit, beautiful as it had been, was no more; that there was no place within the Church on which a re- former could place himself, who desired to operate upon it ; that whether he attempted pastors or flock, regulars or seculars, the ground would give way under him. The necessity of the case then formed the vindication of the Emperor's conduct, were there no other plea in its be- half; and yet in matter of fact, out of that hopeless chaos rose, and upon it found a seat, the broadest and most sovereign rule which the Christian world has seen. In truth, taking the corruptions of that day at the worst, they were principally on the s urfa ce of the Church. Scandals are petulant and press into view, and they are exaggerated from the shock they communicate to beholders. Friends exaggerate through indignation, foes 2 70 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. % through malevolence. In the worst of times there is always a remnant of holy men, out of sight, scanty perhaps in numbers, but great in moral strength, and there is always even in the multitude an acknow^, ledgment of truths which they do not themselvds practise. Among all men, educated and unlettered^ there is a tacit recognition of certain principles as the cardinal points of society, which very rarely come dis- tinctly into view, and of which the mind is the less conscious because of their being intimately near to it. Such there were in Hildebrand's day, and the secret of his success lay in his having the genius or the faith to appeal to them. We should rather say the faith ; for this is remarkably the case, and is exemplified in our own day ; that what is commonly admired as com- manding talent is far more rightly to be regarded as * a firm realizing grasp of some great principleT^nd that i power of developing it in all directions, and that nerve to abide faithful to it, which is involved in such a true] apprehension. ' The fundamental notion of the Hildebrandine period was the ecumenical power of the Pope, which had been matured by a variety of circumstances, and remained in the European mind even in the most scandalous and trying times. Mr. Bowden has struck off some of these operative causes with great power. In the first place, i Rome was the only apostolical see in the West, and thereby had a natural claim to the homage of those sees which were less distinguished. This pre-eminence was heightened by her inflexible orthodoxy amid the doc- trinal controversies in which the Eastern sees had suc- cessively erred, and by the office of arbitrator and | referee, which she held, amid their rivalries and quarrels. Further, when the descent of the barbarians had over- ^ Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 271 fvhelmed or exterminated the nations and churches of the Empire, Christian Rome became the instrument of the conversion of the heathen population, and the patri- irchal centre of the new world which it created. And when the seat of temporal power had been removed to Constantinople, or re-founded in France or Germany, the Roman See came into a position of independence and sovereignty which could not be the lot of Churches living under the immediate shadow of the imperial throne. It became the rival of the eastern Caesars and the viceroy of the western. Moreover, in the age of feudalism, when monarchy was the only form of civil polity, there would be at once a tendency in the eccle- siastical state to imitate it, and an expediency in doing so in order to meet and counteract its aggressions. And, amid national changes and the rise and fall of dynasties, it was^ natural for struggling leaders to seek support from a settltd power like Rome, and to recognize that power by asking for its exercise. And it must be con- sidered too that power has always a tendency to increase itself, and that, independently, as it would seem, of the"" wishes or efforts of its possessors. To these historical causes, doctrinal sanctions, true or pretended, lent their aid. From the first, indeed, prero- gatives were attached to the Church of Rome which belonged to no other but her ; but these were extrava- gantly increased by certain well-known forgeries, of which Mr. Bowden gives us an interesting account. The chief of these were the pretended Decrgtals, a variety of letters, decrees, and other documents, purporting to be the work of bishops of Rome from the very earliest times. This celebrated forgery made its appearance between the years ^O and_85P, and what is remarkable did not proceed from R^ome, but from the North, from Mentz;, 272 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. being, as would appear, the work of a deacon of that city of the name of Benedicts Under all circumstances it is natural for the weaker portion of the community to desire the means of appeal from the arbitrary will of their rulers, and that to a power safe from the local influ- ences of those against whom they themselves desire pro- tection ; and this operated in an especial way in disposing the German bishops towards Rome, passing over their own metrop.olitans, at a time when the civil power was in the hands of tyrants but partially reclaimed from barba- rism. The Churches then of Germany naturally looked to Rome for protection against their secular governors ; and the forgery in question was the expression of their previous wishes, as well as the formal basis in justification of them in time to come. The spurious series, says Mr. Bowden, is throughout consistent with itself, and is occupied throughout in asserting the Church's independence from every species of secular dominion or jurisdiction ; and " the bishop of the holy and universal Church" is declared to be the Pope. To him all cases of importance are to be referred ; he is the head and cardinal point of all Churches, and by him they are all to be governed.* Such was the combination of circumstances under which the supremacy of the Pope over other bishops had been established, both in fact and in public opinion ; and in this connexion we are led to quote the following just and important remark of our author : " The pontiffs," he says, " did not so much claim new privileges * [Mr. Bowden says that, before the appearance of the forgery, " the theory of pa£alsu££^acy already existed in its great, but yet unconnected, elements," though the forgery of course consolidated it ; and that "the immediate effect of it was rather to make and consolidate relations already existing between the different orders in the Christian hierarchy than to in- troduce new ones."] — Vol. i., pp. 52, 56. Vid. Note on this Essay, infra. Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 273 for themselves as deprive their episcopal brethren of privileges originally common to the hierarchy. Even the title by which these autocratical prelates, in the plentitude of their power, delighted to style themselves, ' Summus Sacerdos,' ' Pontifex Maximus,' ' Vica- rius Christi,' ' Papa ' itself, had, nearer to the primitive times, been the honourable appellations of every bishop ; as ' Sedes Apostolica ' had been the designation of every bishop's throne. The ascription of these titles therefore to the Pope only gave to the terms a new force, because that ascription became exclusive ; because, that is, the bishops in general were stripped of honours to which their claims were as well founded as those of their Roman brother :, who became, by the change, not so strictly universal, as sole, bishop. The degradation of the collective hierarchy, as involved in such a rela- tive exaltation of one of its members, was seen and resisted by one not likely to entertain unreasonable or exaggerated views of the dangers to be expected from Roman aggrandizement, the truly great and good Pope Gregory I. ' I beseech your Holiness,' said this pontiff to the Patriarch of Alexandria, who had addressed him, cantrary to his previously expressed desire, by the title of Papa Universalis, ' to do so no more ; for that is taken from you which is bestowed, in an unreasonable degree, upon another. ... I don ot reckon that to be honour, in which I see their due honour taken from my brethren ; for my honour is the honour of the Universal Church, the solid strength of my brethren : I then am truly honoured when the proper share of honour is assigned to each and to all. But if your Holiness styles me " Universal Pope," you renounce that dignity for yourself which you ascribe universally to me. But let this be done no more. . . . My predecessors have endeavoured, by cherishing the honour of all members of the priesthood through- out the world, to preserve their own in the sight of the Almighty.' "And even at a much more mature stage of the growth of papal pretensions, in the eleventh century itself, we find the pontiff Leo IX., in an epistle to the Grecian Patriarch, Michael Cerularius, repeating the assertion, made by Gregory in the above epistle, tha; his predecessor and namesake, Leo the Great, to whom the title of Ecumenical Patriarch had been offered by the Council of Chalcedon, had repudiated the proud appellation, by the ascription of which to one prelate an affront would be offered to the equal dignity of alL" —Vol. i., pp. 64 — 66. The causes we have been enumerating had effected VOL. IL 18 2 74 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. the introduction of papal supremacy, even before the dark times to which the Hildebrandine period succeeded; and it is observable that, even amid the moral and poli- tical degradation of the Roman See in the ninth and tenth centuries, the theory still maintained its hold upon the public mind. We find Dietrich, Archbishop of Treves in 969, soliciting and obtaining from John XIII. for himself and his successors that precedence among the archbishops of Germany, which the office of legate was considered to confer. Stephen of Hungary, a secu- lar prince, at the end of the tenth century, with a view of strenthening his authority over his half-converted sub- jects, had obtained from Sylvester II. the permission to combine his regal title with that of Apostolic Legate. Gregory V., the immediate predecessor of Sylvester, when he excommunicated the son of Hugh Capet for an illegal marriage, excommunicated also the Arch- bishop of Treves, who had solemnized it, and the other bishops who had countenanced it with their presence ; and on that prince defying the sentence, had put his kingdom under an interdict, with such effect that he was deserted by his whole court and household, and even the two domestics who remained with him, avoiding his touch as infected, threw every plate and vessel out of which he had eaten and drunk into the fire. And, to take another specimen of prerogative, John XV. about the same date, had begun the practice of canonization, acting, as he expressed it, " by the au- thority of the blessed Peter, prince of Apostles," from whom he claimed to be the one visible head of the com- munity of the faithful, the " bishop of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church." It cannot be denied then, that in spite of the dreadful demoralization of the Church and popedom in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Reformation of the Eleverith Century. 275 there was laid in the temper of the age and the feelings of society a deep and firm groundwork, if men could be~ found who had the heart to appeal to it, for reforming and purifying the Church by an internal effort, and without recurring to the temporal power, which seemed at first sight the obvious, or rather the only resource. Here then was the point of battle between the Church and the State. The State said to the Church, " I am the only power which can reform you ; you hold of me, and your dignities and offices are in my gift." The Church said to the State, " She who wields the power even of smiting kings, cannot be a king's creature ; and if you attempt to reform her, you will be planting the root of corruption by the same hand which cuts oft its branches." The struggle between the parties began from the com- mencement of Hildebrand's political history. Before his intimacy with Leo IX., he had, as we have seen, been connected with the unfortunate Gregory VI. ; yet, even he, guilty as he was of a crime to which Hildebrand so earnestly opposed himself from first to last, committed it with the object of asserting, against the aristocracy, the dormant right of the Roman clergy and people to elect their own bishops. After this time Hildebrand seems to have been the chief spring in ecclesiastical movements in the papal city, for a space of twenty-four years, till the time of his own elevation. During that period he served the Popes Leo IX., Victor II., Stephen IX., Nicholas II., and Alexander II., — all of them virtuous or even austere persons, — steadily developing and realizing by successive acts the purification of the Church and the theory of her independence and sovereignty. For 276 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. the interesting history of this period, we must refer to Mr. Bowden's second book, on which our hmits will not allow us to enter, but from which, as a specimen of its contents, we will extract two or three passages from the history of two saints, 'I^eo, whom we have already in- troduced to the reader, and Peter Daniiani. The pontificate of Leo IX. supplies an illustration of that mixture of catholic truth with wild romance, which pervades the history of the times. In his own personhewas a model of that reform which he had in view for the whole Church. His "hours of sleep," says Mr. Bowden, "were systematically abridged by his devotions : when at Rome, it was his wont, thrice in the week, to walk barefoot at midnight from the palace of the Lateran to the church of St. Peter (from one extremity, that is, of Rome to the other) accompanied by two or three only of his clergy, for the purposes of praise and prayer : a spectacle which might well strike those with astonishment, who were accustomed to the scenes of infamy and riot, by which the palace in question, and the papal city in general, had been disgraced under the licentious pontiifs of the pre- ceding age." — Vol. i., p. 152. Yet this pure and holy man is next presented to us as leading a military expe- dition against the Normans, which he seems to have thought to be as little out of character with his pontifical office, as a rector of a parish among ourselves in being a magistrate and reading the riot act, or a clergyman serv- ing the office of proctor in our Universities. It was now about fifty years since the Normans had first become known to the inhabitants of Calabria and Apulia, whither they had at first come as pilgrims, then done battle as ^ champions of the faith, then served as mercenaries, and at length spread devastation as marauders. The pagan,'' to whom they had opposed themselves, was the Saracen, | Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 277 wht) from time to time made descents upon the coast, though his power was on the decline ; and Mr. Bowden gives the following account of the first collision between young faith and degenerate misbelief : " In or about the year 1002, a petty flotilla appeared before Salerno, and a body of Saracens, landing under the walls of the place, demanded, with the customary menaces, a pecuniary contribution. , Guaimar III., Prince of Salerno, and his timid subjects, felt that they had no course to adopt but submission ; and their surprise was great, when about forty pilgrims from a distant land, who happened to be at the moment within their walls, requested of the prince arms, horses, and permission to chastise these insolent marauders. The request was readily complied with : the pilgrim warriors, accoutred in haste, galloped eagerly forth through the gates of Salerno ; the Saracens, confounded and dismayed, fled tumultuously from the onset of this unexpected foe ; and esteemed themselves happy when their retreating barks bore them out of reach of the swords of the victorious Normans. " The delighted Guaimar would willingly have been prodigal in his bounty towards his gallant deliverers ; but he experienced a second surprise when the costly presents, which he laid before them, were firmly, though courteously, rejected. ' For the love of God, and of the Christian faith,' said the chivalrous pilgrims, ' we have done what we have done ; and we may neither accept of wages for such service, nor delay our return to our homes.' " — Vol. i., pp. 156, 157- " They departed accordingly," adds Mr. Bowden, "but not unaccompanied. Guaimar sent with them, to their native land, envoys laden with presents, such as might best tempt the countrymen of these hardy and disin- terested warriors to enlist in his service. Specimens of southern fruits, superb vestments, golden bits, and mag- nificent horse-trappings, attracted and dazzled the eyes of the population of Normandy, and produced on the enterprising youth of the province their natural effect." This was 'the commencement of their connexion with southern Italy ; but it was not for ever of so edifying a 278 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. character. They returned in the capacity of soldiers in the pay of its petty princes, and, with the duties, they practised the vices and excesses of their profession. They were a people of warm religious feelings ; but a young nation has the waywardness and uncertainty of children, and every now and then these soldiers of for- tune, turning to plunder, were tempted to rifle, for the sake of gain, the holy shrines in which, on their first ap- pearance, they had come to worship. Tidings of their sacrilegious acts reached the ears of Leo. " And when," Mr. Bowden tells us, " he saw that the insulters of the Church were also the ruthless oppressors of their fellow- creatures, when he beheld the southern gates of Rome daily thronged by the wretched inhabitants of Apulia, who, destitute, blinded, and horribly mutilated, were seeking a refuge from further tyranny behind the shel- tering walls of the papal city, the pitying pontiff yielded himself entirely to the impulses of his benevolent na- ture," and led an army in person against the Normans. With that object he crossed the Alps and gained of the Emperor 500 Germans, most of them volunteers ; then returning, he raised the banner of St. Peter in Italy, and a motley company from Apulia, Campania, and Ancona flocked around it. It is not known whether Hildebrand sanctioned this measure. Benno " his embittered ad- versary," as Mr. Bowden calls him, charges him with doing so ; but " the statement," he continues, " appears to be unsupported by. other contemporaneous authority ; and the work of Benno is filled with so many palpable calumnies against Hildebrand, that nothing in the na- ture of an accusation can be worthy of credit which rests upon his evidence alone." It is undeniable, however, that Hildebrand, when Pope, himself entertained a some- what similar project. On the other hand, Hildebrand's Reformation of the Eleve7-ith Century. 279 intimate friend, and the principal organ of his party, Peter Damiani, has left on record his protest against the assumption, on the part of the successor of St. Peter, of that earthly sword, which our Lord Himself denied to the Apostle. Anyhow, it was unprecedented in that age, considering Leo was Pope, and the enemy a Chris- tian people ; though bishops were in the habit of accom- panying their retainers to the field, and Pope John X., somewhat more than a century before, had engaged Mahomedans in battle. "It was on the 1 8th of June, 1053, that Leo's troops confronted those of the enemy near the town of Civitella. The Normans, when aware of his intentions, had made all preparations in their power to ward off the coming blow. William Ironarm was no more ; but his brothers, Humphrey and Robert, — the latter of whom, subsequently surnamed Guiscard, had recently arrived in Apulia with a considerable reinforcement to the Norman forces, — succeeded to the command of his intrepid warriors ; and Richard, Count of Aversa, the chief of a smaller, but independent, Norman colony in Italy, brought all the force he coilld muster to the defence of the common cause. But the Normans were dispirited : rumour had magnified among them the scale of the papal preparations, and they were awed by the sacred character of him in whom, even while he was their enemy, they recognized their spiritual parent. The heralds, therefore, who approached Leo while he was yet within the walls of Civitella, assumed an humble tone ; they deprecated his hostility, and informed him that the Norman princes, though they declined to abandon possessions which they had won, were ready to hold their conquests thenceforth by his grant, and do suit and service for them to him, as to their lord paramount. But the tall, bulky Germans, by whom the pontiff was surrounded, smiled in scorn when they beheld the diminutive though active forms of their adversaries ; and Leo, inspired by their confidence, as well as by his conviction of the goodness of his cause, rejected the overtures of the Norman leaders, and demanded the total abandonment of the lands which they had recently usurped from St. Peter. This the Normans declined to concede, and therefore, feeling that no other alternative lay before them, they gave the signal for battle, before 28o Reformation of the Eleventh Century. Leo had issued from the gates of Civitella. The result of the action which now took place, falsified alike the confident anticipations of the one party and the desponding auguries of the other. The impetuous charge of the Norman chivalry at once unmanned the timid Italians who composed the bulk of Leo's army, and who fled in every possible direction. Werner and his German band met the shock with the calm courage of their country ; but the Normans, unresisted elsewhere, turned their flanks, and hemmed them in on every side ; until this gallant troop, contending valiantly to the last, covered with their corpses the ground which they had occupied. But for their resistance, — so sudden was the flight, so rapid the dis- persion of Leo's army, — the business of the day might seem rather to deserve the name of a slaughter than of a battle. "The conquering chiefs pushed on without delay, through the streets of Civitella, into the presence 6f Leo. But they no sooner beheld the venerable pontiff, than, exchanging the fierceness of the warrior for the subdued tone of the penitent, they fell at his feet, and in abasement and tears besought the absolution and the blessing of their vanquished enemy. Moved by this conduct, and induced by the exigency of his position, Leo revoked the sentence of anathema which he had pronounced against them ; and they then escorted him with all reverence and honour to the city of Benevento. Here the humbled pontiff remained nine months, during which time, at the request of his captors, he consented to grant them, in the name of St. Peter, the investiture of all their conquests, made or to be made, in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily ; which they were thenceforward to hold as fiefs of the Holy See." — Vol i., pp. 162 — 165. By this turn of events, Leo's defeat and captivity involved more favourable results than could have been reaped from the most brilliant victory. The Pope ac- quired a claim on the services of the Normans, as of vassals ; and, moreover, recognition of his power to con- fer the investiture, as lord paramount, of extensive do- . mains, over which they had held no previous sway. ! What was more to the immediate purpose of the war, ] the presence of the mild old man succeeded in subdu- ing the fierceness and cruelty with which the proceed- ings of the Normans had hitherto been attended ; an, ; Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 281 effect, moreover, which would be naturally promoted by their admission, in consequence of the compact, into thfe circle of recognized sovereigns and the responsibilities of legitimate power. However, Leo did not at the time find all this consolation in the issue of his military exploits. He considered the failure of his arms to be a sign of the divine displeasure that he had taken them up. He gave himself over to acts of penance. Though his health was declining, a carpet on the bare earth was his ordinary couc)i, a stone his pillow, and a hair shirt his garment. " Under such austerities," says Mr. Bow- den, " aided as they were in their effect by the sorrows and anxieties of his mind, his constitution gradually sank ; and when he at length left Benevento, and re- turned, in March, 1054, to the papal city, it was only to breathe his last there on the 19th of the following April, after having committed to his beloved friend Hildebrand the provisional government of the Roman Church, until a new pontiff should be appointed to the Apostolic See." — Vol. i., pp. 166, 167. St. Peter Damiani, Bishop of Ostia, who has already been incidentally mentioned, is another personage of this period, whom the course of the history brings be- fore us, and to whom, we think, that Mr. Bowden, as regards one passage of his life, is hardly fair, though he treats him always with that respect and honour which is his due. He speaks of him "as a man of sincere and deep devotion, of extraordinary talents, and of a monastic austerity ; of too ardent a temperament to be uniformly judicious in his proceedings ;" while "his faith was of a description which led him to receive, without question, a host of legends of the most absurd descrip- tion." " But," he continues, " there shone forth in him a singleness and purity of character, which, in connexion 282 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. with his abihties, procured him the universal respect and admiration of his contemporaries." He had devoted himself to a monastic life, and he resisted his elevation to the episcopate with ail his might. " He feared," says Mr. Bowden, "to be drawn from the unremitting aus- terities of his retirement ; and it w,as not until he was threatened by Stephen and his Council with excommu- nication, that he consented to change the life of seclu- sion and self-denial which he lived for the activity and notoriety of a more responsible situation." — Vol. i., pp. 189, 190. After a time, he was sent to Milan, as legate, to set right the disorders existing in those parts which the Milanese clergy attempted to shield from reform under colour of the dignity and independence of the Church over which St. Ambrose had presided. Another point on which reform was demanded was their assertion that they had a right to marry, by virtue of a privilege granted them by the same Saint. In this business he was associated with Anselm da Badagio, Bishop of Lucca, afterwards Pope Alexander II. " Making their appearance in the long-disturbed city, these envoys found the archbishop and his clergy, however hostile in secret to their coming, prepared to acknowledge their authority, and to re- ceive them with eveiy outward mark and sign of deference. But the populace, moved perhaps by the secret instigations of their pastors, soon showed, disposed as they might be themselves to ridicule or revile these careless guides, that they were keenly jealous of the assumed independence of their native Church, and viewed with suspicion any papal interference with the proceedings of its governors. In tumultuous throngs they filled the streets, and entered the building in which the legates had convened the clerical body of the place. . . . The discontent at length broke out in open tumult. . . . The clergy, eager to augment the fray, rang the alarm-bell in the various churches of the city ; the confusion increased, and even the hfe of Damiani was apparently in danger. But that bold and Reformation of the Eleventh Centujy. 283 high-spirited man was equal to the crisis ; ascending a pulpit, he showed himself prepared to address the tumultuous multitude. His dauntless bearing awed them to silence, and he was heard with at- tention, while with dignity, and all the eloquence which distinguished him, he set forth the claims which the mother Church of Rome possessed on the dutiful obedience of her daughter, the Church of Milan. He cited instances in which St. Ambrose himself had ap- pealed to the protection of the Roman prelate, and acknowledged his pre-eminence. ' Search,' he concluded, ' your own records, and if ye find not there that what we say is the truth, expose dur false- hood. But if ye find us true, resist not the truth, resist not unduti- fiilly the voice of your mother ; but from her, from whom ye first drew in the milk of apostolic faith, receive with gratitude the more solid food of heavenly doctrine.' "This appeal, and the legate's fearless demeanour, produced a sudden turn in the feelings of his hearers . . . and the clergy offered no further opposition to the legatine authority. On Peter's demand, their whole body, with the archbishop at their "head, agreed to pledge thehiselves with a solemn vow against shnony and clerical marriage ; . . . and Peter, thus successful in his mission, pronounced m his official character the reconciliation of Milan to the Apostolic See." —Vol. i., pp. 208 — 210. Shortly after this, Damiani resolved on resigning his bishopric and retiring back .to his beloved cloister, from which he had been with such difficulty separated. Here it is that we think Mr. Bowden is rather hard upon him, unless, as is certainly possible, he has reasons which do not appear in his work. He calls him "singular-minded," and he speaks of " his morbid craving after ascetic re- tirement." Now surely there is nothing strange in his desiring quiet, and as to whether he ought to have indulged that desire, that is a question which no one could determine but himself Supposing he found him- self falling back in self-control and divine love, would not that be a reason for doubt and deliberation what it was his duty to do .' Gibbon speaks ironically of un- willing monks torn out of their retreats and seated on 284 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. bishops' thrones, but no one could know but themselves how great a blessing the cloister was, and what a great ' Sacrifice to relinquish it. The ten thousand trivial acci- dents of the day in a secular life which exert a troublous influence upon the soul, dimming its fair surface with many a spot of dust and damp, these give place to a divine stillness, which, to those who can bear it, is the nearest approach to heaven. A sharp word, or a light remark, or a tone, or an expression of countenance, or a report, or an unwelcome face, or an association, ruffles the mind, and keeps it from fixing itself upon its true good. "One day," says Pope St. Gregory I, "when I was oppressed with the excessive trouble of secular affairs, I sought a retired place, friendly to grief, where whatever displeased me of my engagements might show itself openly, and all that was accustomed to inflict pain might be seen at one view." There 'he was surprised by " his most dear son Peter the deacon," whom he had made his intimate from the time that the latter was a young man. He opens his grief to Peter in words which are so _ much to our purpose, that with the reader's indulgence we will digress to quote them. " My sad mind," he says, , "labouring under the soreness of its engagements, re- members how it went with me formerly in my monastery, how all perishable things were beneath it, how it was superior to all that was transitory ; that it was wont to think of nought but things of heaven ; that, though still in the body, it went out beyond the very prison of the flesh in contemplation ; that it even loved death, which is nearly to all a punishment, as the entrance of life and a reward of its labour. But now, in consequence of the pastoral charge, it undergoes the occupation of secular men, and for that fair beauty of its quiet, is dishonoured with the dust of earthly work. And after dissipating ; Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 285 itself on outward things to serve the many, even when it seeks what is inward, it comes home indeed, but is no more equal to itself." — Dial. i. i. Such would be the bitter experience of a mind like Damiani's ; and it depends on a number of minute cir- cumstances, whether it was not as much his duty to decline the pastoral charge, as Gregory's to retain it. Mr. Bowden allows, too, that " from his retirement he continued to watch with an attentive eye the fortunes of the Church ; by his epistles he still interfered with her concerns and influenced her destiny, nor was he backward when called on, to devote himself on special occasions to active service in her cause." And we find in the after- history, of his going, in his extreme age, as Alexander's legate, to the young King Henry, and preventing him from the scandalous step of divorcing an innocent wife against whom he had no charge except that he did not like her. Mr. Bowden notices, however, that his retire- ment, at a time when the Church had such need of his services in his episcopate, was never forgiven by Hilde- brand ; and he adds his own suspicion that some per- sonal feelings towards Hildebrand influenced him in retiring from his post. 5- But it is time to return to Hildebrand himself, in whom all the interest of his times centres. A decree of a Lateran Council had been passed under Nicholas H., in 1059, vesting the election of Pope in the College of Cardinals, with the concurrence and ratification of the Emperor ; a decree which opened the way to a still greater innovation, upon the first vacancy in the Holy See. The imperial court resisted the appointment of Alex- ander who was the choice of the Sacred College, and 286 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. named an antipope, Cadalous ; but the contest was terminated in favour of the papalists in 1067, at a Council held in Mantua, in which the Emperor gave up Cadalous and acknowledged Alexander II. Six years afterwards Alexander died. Hildebrand had already on a former occasion been put forward for the papal chair, but he had resisted the proposal, it is said, " with many tears and supplications ; " now, however, the following scene took place : "Alexander II. had no sooner breathed his last, than his arch- deacon, in concert with the other leading ecclesiastics of the city, directed that the three following days should be devoted to fasting, to deeds of charity, and to prayer ; after which the proper authori- ties were to proceed, in the hope of the divine blessing upon their counsels, to the election of a successor. But long before the period thus prescribed had elapsed, that election was decided. " On the day following that of Alexander's decease, the dignified clergy of the Roman Church stood, with the archdeacon, round the, bier of the departed pontiff, in the patriarchal church of the Lateral. The funeral rites were in progress, and Hildebrand, it is probable, was taking a part in the celebration of these solemn ceremonies. But suddenly, from the body of the building, which had been filled to overflowing by the lower clergy and people, burst forth the cry of ' Hildebrand.' A thousand voices instantly swelled the sound 'Hil- debrand shall be Pope.' ' St. Peter chooses our Archdeacon Hilde- brand.' These, and cries like these, rang wildly along the church ; the ceremonies were interrupted, and the officiating clergy paused in suspense. The subject of this tumult, recovering from a momen- tary stupor, rushed into a pulpit, and thence, while his gestures implored silence, attempted to address the agitated assembly." The attempt was vain ; the uproar continued, and it was not until the cardinal presbyter, Hugo Candidus, coming forward, declared Hildebrand to be the unani- mous choice of the cardinals, that the multitude suffered their cries to subside. " Then the joyous cries of the populace arose anew. The cardinal, Reformation of the Elevznth Century. 287 bishops, and clergy approached the object of their choice to lead him towards the apostoUc throne. ' We choose,' they cried to the people, ' for our pastor and pontiff, a devout man ; a man skilled in interpreting the Scriptures ; a distinguished lover of equity and justice ; a man firm in adversity, and temperate in prosperity ; a man, according to the saying of the Apostle, of good behaviour, blameless, modest, sober, chaste, given to hospitality, and one that ruleth well in his own house. A man from his childhood gene- rously brought up_ in the bosom of this mother Church, and for the merit of his life already raised to the archidiaconal dignity. We choose, namely, our archdeacon Hildebrand, to be Pope and suc- cessor to the Apostle, and to bear henceforward and for ever the name of Gregory.' The Pope elect, upon this, was forthwith invested by eager hands with the scarlet vestment and tiara of pon- tifical dignity, and placed, notwithstanding his^gestures of reluct- ance, and even his tears, upon the throne of the Apostle. The cardinals approached him with obeisance, and the people, with shouts yet louder and more joyous than before, repeated the desig- nation of their new pontiff, and tumultuously testified their appro- bation."— Vol. i., pp. 314 — 317. Considering tiie unparalleled character, or, as we may say, the madness of the plans to which Hildebrand was pledged, and which his spirit within him told him he must attempt at all risks, it is not wonderful at all that he should both have shrunk from the pontificate before- hand, and have been overcome with the burden when it was first put upon him. Power or wealth is pleasant to us when unattended with conditions ; but did they in- volve the necessity of losing limbs, or resigning friends, or risking popularity or good name, they would lose much of their attraction and many of their aspirants. Now Hildebrand was thus circumstanced : while he Was a subordinate, he might promote the plans of others, even though short of the best and largest ; but when " a dis- pensation of the Gospel" was committed to him, "neces- ■ sity was laid on him" to go through all and leave nothing 288 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. undone. Mr. Bowden tells us, that his election, at the moment unquestionably unexpected by himself, seems to have overwhelmed for a while even his intrepid spirit. In letters written from his couch, he speaks of it in terms of terror, using the language of the Psalms, " I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me," im- ploring the intercessions of his friends in his behalf,* and expressing a hope that their prayers, though they had not sufiiced to prevent his being called to that post of danger, might nevertheless avail to defend him when placed there. He wrote a letter shortly after his elevation to Lanfranc, i to whom he unbosomed himself more entirely than to! others, and from this Mr. Bowden gives us some extracts. ] "The greater," he says, "the peril in which we are placed, the greater our need of the prayers of all good men. For we, if we would escape the sentence of the Divine wrath, must arise against many, and must incense them against our own soul. And thy prudence will alike see, how fearful it must be for us to abstain from opposing such persons, and how difiicult for us to oppose them." Such were his feelings, and that they were replete with faith and conscientiousness there can be no doubt, or that he viewed the course which lay before him with awe. Well he might : we shall confine ourselves to two of the projects which he conceived and carried out, — the chief but not the only acts of his pontificate, and amply suf- ficient in themselves to exemplify the force of will and fortitude of spirit, which has made his name so memo- , rable in Church history. The first was no less than the obliging the clergy either to separate from their wives or 5 resign their preferments. The second was the abasement ol the temporal below the spiritual power. And first of his enforcement of clerical celibacy : — Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 289 6. We have already noticed that simony and licentious- ness were the two crying sins of the clergy ; nor did their practice of taking wives at all diminish the latter. Rather it led to it ; for, since they knew that in marrying i,they were transgressing their duty, they were easily led on, from the recklessness which follows upon the wilful yiolation of conscience in any matter, from a first sin to a second. The prohibitory rule was one of long stand- ing, and Mr. Bowden, waving the discussion of its abstract propriety, has drawn up a succinct account of it from the time of Pope Nicholas I. (A.D. 858), to the date of Hilde- brand, a period of two hundred years. Direct condem- nations of the practice are found in Nicholas's reply to the Bulgarians, 860 ; in the Synod of Worms, 868 ; in Leo VII.'s epistle to the Gauls and Germans, 938 ; in the decrees of Augsburg, 952 ; and in Benedict VIII. 's speech, and the decrees passed at Pavia, about 1020. Hincmar of Rheims in 845, Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, in 750, Councils at Mentz and Metz in 888, and at Nantes at the end of the same century, had confirmed the rule with additional circumstances of strictness. And the association in the case of the clergy between marriage and concubinage, nay, of general laxity of morals, was unhappily so deeply seated, that neither did it occur to the reformers to question their necessary connexion ; nor, had they done so, could they have overcome the popular feeling on the subject. Under the circumstances, as Mr. Bowden observes, " the battle which they under- took against their less strict contemporaries, was unques- tionably that of purity against impurity, that of holiness against corruption. Seizing the means in their power, they set themselves to achieve, and did achieve, a most important reformation ; and we may not think lightly, VOL. II. 19 290 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. either of their principles or of their labours, because that reformation was imperfect." We have already stated what Gregory's proceeding was, and it was carried into effect under circumstances as shocking, as the resolve was ruthless. With a single and severe determination, putting before him the honour of< Christ, and the welfare of the Church, like Ezra, the great reformer of Judah, he "said to his father and to his mother, I have not seen him ; neither did he acknow- ledge his brethren, nor knew his own children." Ezra learned, to his deep dismay, that his people had taken to themselves wives of the heathen ; "so that the holy seed had mingled themselves with the people of those lands, yea, the hand of the princes and rulers had been chief in this trespass." Upon this he tells us, that he rent his garments and mantle, and plucked off the hair of his head and of his beard, and sat down astonished. So he sat till the evening sacrifice ; when he rose from his heavi- ness, deliberately rent his garment and mantle, fell on his knees, spread out his hands towards heaven, and con- fessed the sin of his people, and interceded for their for- giveness. One thing only could be done, and Shechaniah, the son of Jehiel, exhorted him to it : to make the people " put away all the wives, and such as were born of them," and added, "Arise, for this matter belongeth unto iliee ; we also will be with thee ; be of good courage, and do it." Such a voice seemed to sound in Gregory's ears ; and, in the strength of a pure conscience, he bade those of his brethren, who against their conscience had taken wives, to make the only reparation which could be made by them for their sin. But it was not so easy to accomplish as to command ; he had, as might be supposed, an opposition to encounter, to which no nerve but his could have been equal. Reformation of the Ekventli Century. 291 "Vehement was the indignation of the German clergy, when first the intelligence of this obnoxious enactment reached their ears, and when they found that the great moral power, which the papacy had within the last few years attained, was to be wielded in enforcing, as realities, those principles of austere reformation, which, when promulged as they had been by Gregory's prede- 'cessors, a few years before, had probably seemed like theoretical notions, based upon views unsuited to the state of things actually existing in the world. The Pope, the clergy exclaimed aloud, was a heretic, and his decree that of a madman. The execution of it was a childish, an impossible notion. Human nature being what it was, the rigour of his laws, the attempt to make men live like angels, would only plunge the clergy, by a necessary reaction, into habits more dissolute than ever. And the letter of holy Scripture, the plain teaching as well of our Lord Himself, as of His inspired Apostle, was directly at variance with this wild, this extravagant enactment. But they defied him to proceed to such an extremity as to enforce its general adoption ; and protested that, sooner than resign their domestic enjoyments, they would relinquish the priest- hood ; and, when he had expelled them, for no other reason than that they were men, he might seek where he could for angels, to minister in the churches in their stead. " And long, and violently, did this tumult rage. Several bishops, among whom was Otho, of Constance, openly put themselves a^ the head of the clergy opposed to Gregory's authority. And pre- lates, who, taking a different course, attempted to promulgate the papal edict in their respective dioceses, were assailed by the refrac- tory members of their churches with insolence and outrage. But Gregory, ever watchful of their proceedings, prevented their zeal from flagging by repeated messages of warning, exhortation, and encouragement. And most especially was he urgent with Siegfried, to assume, on the occasion, the determined tone which became him, as primate of Germany, and to enforce the observance of the mandates of the Church, with the full weight of his authority." — VoL ii., pp. 20 — 22. Siegfried was a most unworthy successor of St. Boni- face. He had at an earlier date committed himself to an attempt to introduce a tithe payment among the Thuringians, which he prosecuted at all seasons, with 292 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. a pertinacity not at all inferior to that of the worthy Trapbois, for his miserable piece of gold. With the hope of effecting this through the royal power, he had even consented to advocate the project of the royal divorce, and summoned a Council for that purpose in his metro- politan city ; when Damiani appeared as the Pope's legate and stopped the infamous proceeding, as was mentioned above. The year following he was summoned by Alexander II. to Rome, to defend himself against a charge of simoniacal practices. Roused to a momentary remorse by the remonstrance of the Pope, he expressed a wish to resign his station, and retire to a life of peni- tence and seclusion. This proposal, however, was stre- nuously resisted by Alexander and others ; and he returned to Germany, to lose his serious thoughts, and to relapse into his former secularity. At the present crisis, he gave his clergy six months to deliberate on Gregory's injunction, and then summoned a Council, in which he put before them the alternative of renouncing either their wives or those offices which they had accepted I on the condition of celibacy. The clergy, after hearing his address, quitted the place of assembly, as if for the purpose of private deliberation, and then resolved at once to set out for home, without his leave. Siegfried, however, pacified them, and persuaded them to return, and then temporized with them ; but it all ended in his bringing forward, before a mixed assembly of clergy and laity, the old question of his pretensions to the Thurin- ■ gian tithes, which had already been settled by treaty in ' favour of the Thuringians. A tumult ensued ; the Council " was broken up in confusion, the archbishop with difficulty ~^ escaped with his life, and betaking himself to Heili- ^ genstadt, he continued there during the remainder of i the year, repeating, but in vain, on every festival, his * Refoymation of the ElcvciitJi Century. 293 summons to the disturbers of the Council to do penance for the crime, under pain of excommunication. Such were Gregory's proceedings, and such his success with the high prelacy ; but he had a new and formidable and, we must add, unjustifiable weapon in his arsenal, whicli he now brought into the contest. The measure which he was enforcing was founded on four Canons lately passed at Rome in Council, the fourth of which was to the effect that the laity should refuse the minis- trations both of simoniacal and of married or licentious clergy. This Canon seemed to oppose the advice of Nicholas I. to the newly converted Bulgarians, who, on asking whether they should receive and honour married priests, had received for answer, that such priests might be in themselves fit subjects for censure, but it was not for them as laymen to pronounce a censure which lay with their bishops only. Gregory, however, seems to have understood that the aversion to a married priest- hood, which he felt himself, was shared largely by the •multitude, especially as they saw marriage commonly associated with general laxity of life. Another feeling which he had on his side was of a far less defensible character — the opposition to authority, and especially ecclesiastical authority, which is so congenial to human nature. He urged then this canon upon the Germans, and the consequences were dreadful : " By the last of the four canons above quoted, the laity were thrown into the position, — if not of judges of the priesthood, — at' least of punishers of its irregularities. And such invitation, thus made, was of course readily and generally attended to. The occa- sion seemed, — to the selfish, the irreverent, and the profane, — to legalize the gratification of all the bad feelings with which per- sons of those dispositions must ever regard the Church and her ministry; and priests, whose disobedience to the papal authority furnished any excuse for such conduct, were openly beaten, abused. 294 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. and insulted by their rebellious flocks. Some were forced to fly with the loss of all that they possessed, some were deprived of limbs, and some, it is even said, put to death in lingering torments. And to lengths even more horrible than these did the popular vio- lence, thus unhappily, thus criminally sanctioned, proceed. Too many were delighted to find what they could consider a religious excuse for neglecting religion itself, for depriving their children of the inestimable gift conferred in the holy sacrament of baptism, or for making the solemn mysteries of the Church subjects for the most degrading mockery, or of the most atrocious profanation. Deeply is it to be regretted that a pontiff who desired, from the bottom of his heart, the purification of the Church ; whose whole life had been devoted to that high and holy cause .... should have evoked, in furtherance of his views, a spirit of so odious a character, as was that which showed itself in these dreadful trans- actions. But such had been the line marked out for him by those who had gone before him." — Vol. ii., pp. 25 — 27. In Fjarice the promulgation of Gregory's Canons was received by the clergy with a burst of indignation yet more vehement, if possible, than that which had followed them in Germany. A Council of Paris denounced them, and the only member of the assembly who ventured to defend them was seized, beaten, spit upon, and tumul- tuously dragged to prison. When the Archbishop of Rouen endeavoured to enforce them upon his clergy, he was pelted with stones and fled for his life. Mr. Bowden tells us that the system of clerical marriage had been so completely established in Normandy, that churches had become property heritable by the sons, and even by the daughters, of their possessors. This fact shows how the two canonical offences of clerical marriage and simony ran together. Indeed it seems that the French king, breaking a promise he had made to Gregory, was practising a simoniacal traffic in bishops and abbeys without remorse or shame ; while the holders of dignities thus obtained were not likely Reformation of the Eleventh Ceiitiiry. 295 to be more scrupulous, in their'turn, in their nomination to sucli inferior benefices and offices as thus fell under their control. In Spain, again, the papal legate was assailed by the clergy with menaces and outrages, when he attempted to enforce the observance of celibacy upon them. When the ill-treated prelates complained to Gregory, they got some such consolation as the fol- lowing : " Shall it not shame us," he asks, " while every soldier of the world daily hazards his life for his sove- reign, if we, priests of the Lord, shrink from the battle of our King, who made all things out of nothing, who scrupled not to lay down His life for us, and who has promised us eternal rewards." In Hungary, twenty years later, the rule had not made greater way than this, that a council under Ladislaus prohibited second marriages among the clergy, but allowed to married presbyters a time of indulgence, " on account of the bond of peace and the unity of the Holy Ghost, until the paternal authority of the Apostolic See should have been consulted on the subject." England, ruled at this time by the Conqueror, Gregory did not attempt ; with that judgment~and discrimination which he united to vigour, he waited for the influence of the precedent which he was introducing elsewhere. Yet even a few years after this the Council of Winchester enacted that no married persons should be admitted into Orders, though it passed a decree that parish priests who had wives already might retain them ; which showed what already was the silent and indirect effect of Gregory's energetic proceedings in the empire. Eventually, the Anglican, Church gave its adhesion to the principle of clericaLcelibacy even more completely than the Church ofFVange. But at the time Gregory seemed to have success in no 296 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. quarter, and not the least vexatious opposition was offered him in his own city. Guibert, who in the time of Alexander had been the Imperial Chancellor • of Italy, and the supporter of the intruder Cadalous, was at this time Archbishop of Ravenna, having been ap- pointed by the mediation of the Empress Agnes, just at the close of Alexander's life. Alexander himself had seen through the insincerity of his professed repentance, and was reluctant to consecrate him ; but Hildebrand, it is said, trusted him and pleaded for him. Upon this, Alexander, with a prescient spirit, said, " I indeed am about to be dissolved ; the time of my departure is at hand ; but thou shalt feel his bitterness." The prophecy was not long in finding its fulfilment, and he eventually became Anti-Pope in Gregory's later years. " He put himself at the head of that party in Rome," says Mr. Bowden, " who were either alarmed by Gregory's rigour, or conceived themselves aggrieved by his measures of reform ; attaching to himself the relatives and friends of the married clergy, as well as those many members of the sacerdotal body who had resigned their benefices in preference to adopting a life of celibacy." And there were other classes in Rome whose enormities were con- fronted by the reforming pontiff. To the Church of St. Peter belonged more than sixty officers of the class called ' Mansionarii.' They were married laymen, many of dissolute habits ; and it was their custom,- — such had been the disgraceful laxity of the times, — mitred and ^« dressed in sacerdotal vestments, to keep constant watch at all the altars of the church, excepting only the high altar itself, to proffer, as priests, their services to the simple laity, who came from distant parts of Italy, and to receive their oblations. Relieving each other, they occupied the church day and night, and, as though not Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 297 content with one description of sacrilege, they disgraced the holy place during the hours of darkness by robberies and licentiousness of the most infamous kind. Nor was it without great difficulty that Gregory, even in his own city, could put an end to this portentous abuse, and re- place at the altars these impious laymen by priests canonically ordained. Mr. Bowden adds that " the car- dinals themselves were wont, in the same church, to disgrace their office by celebrating the Holy Eucharist at irregular hours for the sake of gain ; and Gregory's interference, to put a stop to this abuse by wholesome regulations, is described as having excited against him much odium among certain classes of his flock." — Vol. ii., pp. 42, 43. Gregory was at this time about sixty years of age, and, tried by cares and by a life of rigid mortification from his boyhood, ■ he gave way in health, and it was -thought that he was dying. He recovered however ; a circumstance, he says himself, " rather for sorrow than for joy. For our soul was tending towards, and with all desire panting for, that country where He, who observes our labour and our sorrow, prepares for the weary re- freshment and repose. But we were yet reserved to our accustomed toils, our infinite anxieties ; reserved to suffer, as it were, each hour the pangs of travail, while we feel ourselves unable to save, by any steersmanship, the Church which seems almost foundering before our Well might Gregory say that he was reserved for something, for he had not yet reached his celebrated ' struggle with Henry, which Fox the martyrologist, if no one else, has made familiar to Protestant ears, and which is the last and longest passage of his history which we propose to trace. 298 Reformation of th^ Eleventh Century. 7- In 1074 he had waged his battle with the clergy ; that was enough for one year ; but in the very next spring lie opened his assault upon the Emperor. No wonder a mind of such incessant energy should complain of no- thing but weariness and disappointment ; and this seems to have been the habitual feeling under which he went to his work. " Often," he says, at this point of time, " have I implored the Lord, either to remove me from this pre- sent life, or to benefit, through me, our common Mother ; and yet has He not hitherto removed me from tribulation, nor, as I had hoped, made my life profitable to her in whose chains He has bound me. Vast is the grief, wide- spreading the affliction, which encompasses me. Con- templating east, south, north, I perceive scarcely any bishops lawfully admitted to their office, and leading lives conformable to their sacred character. Nor do I find among the secular princes any who prefer God's honour to their own, or righteousness to gain. Those nations among whom I dwell, the Romans, Lombards, and Normans, I conceive, as I often declare to them, to be in some sense worse than Jews or Pagans. And turning inwards, I find myself so laden with the burden of my own doings, that no hope of salvation remains to me but in the sole mercy of Christ. Did I not trust to attain to a better life and to do service to Holy Church, I would on no account remain in Rome ; in which city it has been by compulsion, God is my witness, that I have dwelt these tvyenty years. Whence it comes to pass, that, between this grief daily renewed in me, and the hope which, alas, is too long deferred, I live as it were in death, shaken by a thousand storms. And I await His coming who has bound me with His chains, led me back again to Rome against my will, and girt me Rsforinat'ion of the Eleventh Cenituy. 299 round with countless difficulties." Such were the feelines under which he got ready for his greatest exploit. It is hardly to our purpose to go into the Pope's quarrel with the Emperor in its early stages ; it turned princi- pally on Henr)''s profligate life, his sinao^niacal appoint- ments, and his cruelties and perfi.dies towards his subjects. Besides this, the Pope claimed the right of investiture, feeling that from its very form it was undeniably an ecclesiastical, not a secular act ; and that, when exercised by laymen, it was necessarily connected with simony, and involved the principle that the Church was the creature of the State. We will but say that Alex- ander II., at a Council held about two months before his death, had excommunicated five of Henry's profligate favourites, and had even, as some say, sent a message to Henry himself, to appear before the chair of St. Peter and defend himself against the charge of simony and other ofiences. On Gregory's accession, the new Pope made friendly overtures to him, and the young king, being in great difficulties with his subjects, accepted them with much profession of humility and repent- ance. " Smitten in some degree, through God's mercy, with compunction," he said, "and returning to ourselves, we confess our past transgressions, and throw ourselves on your paternal indulgence, hoping in the Lord to obtain the boon of absolution from your apostolical authority. Criminal we have been, and unhappy, partly through the alluring instincts of youth, partly through the licence of unbridled power, partly through the seductive guidance of others. We have not only invaded the property of churches, but have sold to persons infected with the gall of simony the churches themselves ; but now, unable without your authority to reform the abuses of the 300 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. churches, we implore alike your counsel and your aid, in this as in all things. Your command is, in all things, of authority." Subsequently to this, Henry's mother,., sent by Gregory, undertook a journey to him with the papal legate ; he complied with their demands, made open confession of his simony and other offences, assisted them in degrading the simoniacal bishops, and received absolution at their hands. But, shortly afterwards, his fortunes taking a favourable turn, he was released from the necessity of keeping terms with the Pope ; and, re- calling the excommunicated nobles to his court, he provided himself with counsellors whose personal feel- ings would encourage him in courses directly opposed to the wishes and the principles of Gregory. His tone and conduct, in consequence, underwent an entire change. He appointed bishops to the churches of Fermo and Spoleto without consulting Gregory, and, in spite of his promise, to that of Milan ; and the preponderance which he thus gave to the anti-papal party in northern Italy, was extended by Guibert of Ravenna into the south by a correspondence with Robert Guiscard, who happened at this time to be under papal ban. On the other hand, the Saxons, who, having been cruelly oppressed by Henr\-, had risen in arms and been reduced, appealed to Gregory for protection for their bishops, whom Henry had perfidiously seized, deposed, plundered, and imT- prisoned ; and Gregory, answering to their appeal, took the strong step of not only demanding the liberation -of the bishops, but, as Alexander is said to have done before him, of summoning Henry himself to appear be- fore the apostolic tribunal, to clear himself of the charges which had been brought against him. " All things are double, one against another." Every poiver, every form of government, every influence strong Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 301 as it may be, has its natural complement or match, by which it is prevented from doing all things at its will. In constitutional governments men appeal to the law ; in absolute monarchies they rise ; in military despotisms they assassinate. James the~Second is opposed by le^al forms ; Louis of France by jaqueries ; Paul of Russia is strangled. The only remedy for a reforming Pope was to_ carry him off aiidj^qdge him safeJji d_urajice. Guibert of Ravenna has the reputation of being conc'octer of a plot, with the privity of Henry and Robert Guiscard, which developed itself as follows : — Cencius was the instrument of it, a bold and profligate man, aniember of the powerful family which was in possession of the castle of St. Angelo, and which had been the main support of the anti-pope Cadalous in his struggle with Alexander. "The night of Christmas Eve, 1075, was gloomy and tempes- tuous; the torrents of rain, according to Paul of Bernreid, were such, as to present a lively image of the general deluge ; and although Gregory, according to custom, celebrated the Holy Eucha- rist at midnight, in the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, the building instead of being as usual thronged with worshippers, was compara- tively silent and deserted; few venturing to leave their homes in weather so inclement. " Gregory and his clergy had partaken of the holy elements, and were engaged in distributing them to the laity, when, on a sudden, Cencius-andhis.coafsderates burst in arms into.the church. Inter- rupting the holy ceremonial, they seized the pontiff at the altar; one of the ruffians aimed a blow with a sword at his head, inflicting a serious wound on his forehead ; and the rest then dragged him, afiiUlnsults and blows, from the precincts of the. sanctuary. He preserved a perfect composure, lifting up his eyes to heaven, but neither struggling nor speaking, while these abandoned wretches thus vented on him their fury. They stripped him of his pallium and chasuble, and then binding him, stificlad in his alb and stole, behind a ruffian on horsebacK7they hurried him to one of the towers, Already mentione3^"or~Ce^ius ; where preparations had been made forbearing him at once beyond the walls, of Rome. But the latter 302 Reformation of tlie Eleventh Century. part of this project the conspirators were not able to succeed in accomplishing. . . . And the first glimpse of dawn showed to the conspirators within it their enemies, provided with ladders, catapults and every species of engine then used in assaults, and preparing for an immediate and vigorous attack. The sister of Cencius, abandoned as her brother, reviled the illustrious prisoner in the most violent terms ; while one of her partizans, drawing a sword, threat- ened to strike off, on the instant, his head. But the scene was now to change. A lance, or dart, from without, pierced this wretch's throat, and laid him breathless on the ground The attack was, therefore, carried on with redoubled fury. The walls of the ^ower soon gave way before their exertions, and Gregory, borne in (triumph from amid the ruins to the church from which he had been torn, there concluded the holy Service in which he had been inter- rupted, amid the enthusiastic rejoicings of the people. Cencius, pursued by the execrations of his countrymen, with difficulty escaped from their fury, and fled with his principal confederates to Ger- many." — Vol. ii., pp. 8i — 85. This attempt then failed — but, meanwhile, the measures of Gregory proceeded. About the same time that Cen- cius was playing his part in Rome, the Pope's legates appeared before Henry with his summons jo appear, warning him at the same time, that, did ha not, a sen- tence of excommunication would issue against him. Henry dismissed them with ridicule and insult ; and since force had failed against their master, he resolved to attack him with his own weapons, and summoned in haste a Council of the German Church at Worms for Septuagesima Sunday, January" 24, with the view~of obtaining from it the condemnation and deposition of ] Gregory. It was attended by a numerous assemblage of bishops and abbots ; and when the session was opened, Hiigo^j.ndidus, who played a conspicuous part in Gre- gory's election,~ajad^ho had vacillated from side to side several times, stoooTorward as his accuse;-. He laid before the Council a variety of forged letters, purporting Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 303 to come from different archbishops and bishops, and from the cardinals, senate, and people of Rome, filled with com- plaints of Gregory's conduct, and with entreaties for his deprivation, and the appointment of a successor. Then, as thougli in explanation of these epistles, Hugo read a document (which seems to have been subsequently the foundation of Ben no's work) professing to give an ac- count of Gregory's life, and filled with the most unfounded and incredible calumnies. It insisted on the Ipw-aess of his origin, and described his whole life, before and after his^'election, which was stated to have been sinxoJiiac^I, as a ti^e_ of crime^, among which were enumerated murder, necromancy, the profanation of the Holy Eucha- ristj_and the worship of th,e_deyjl. In consequence, after two days'^consultation, without proposing even that Gre- gory should be heard in his defence, the Council decreed, by its own local act, that he was no longer Pope, and presented to each bishop the following formula for sub- scription : " I, N., bishop of the city of N., abjure frorriN this hour all subjection and obedience to Hildebrand^ and will never more account or style him Pope." All the bishops present seemed to have signed. Messengers were forthwith despatched into Lombardy with the news ; the Lombard bishops met forthwith in council at Pia- cenza, and not only subscribed, but bound themselves by a solemn oath upon the Gospels, to the act of Worms. Roland, a priest of the Church of Pariiia, viras charged with the perilous duty of bearing a copy of the acts of both Councils to Rome, where he arrived in the second week in Lent, just when the Council was assembled to which Henry had been summoned. Much as we have quoted from Mr. Bowden, we must here, as elsewhere, be allowed to prefer his vivid description to any words we could put together ourselves : 304 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. " The Council being assembled, and the echoes of the solemn strain, ' Veni Creator Spiritus,' having scarcely died away amid the holy aisles of the Lateran, Roland suddenly stepped forward before the pontiff and his prelates (p. 95). . . . Addressing his speech to Gregory, ' The king,' he said, ' and the united bishops, as well of Germany as of Italy, transmit thee this command, — Descend with- out delay from the throne of St. Peter, and abandon the usurped government of the Roman Church, for to such honours should none aspire, unsanctioned by their general choice, and by the approval of the Emperor.' And then, ere the assembled prelates and clefg-y had recovered their astonishment, the audacious envoy looked round upon them, and thus addressed them collectively : ' To you, brethren, it is commanded, that you do, at the fea,st of Pentecost, present yourselves before the king, my master, to receive a Pope and a father from his hands. The pretended pastor before you is detected to be a ravening wolf " ' Seize him !' cried John, Bishop of Oporto, a prelate of holy and exalted character, who could no longer contain his indignation. The prefect of the city rushed forward, attended by the guards and attendants of the Council. Swords were brandished, even in that holy place ; and the blood of Roland would, on the moment, have expiated his temerity, had not Gregory himself forced his way into the crowd, and restrained, though with difficulty, the fury of his adherents. Having at length succeeded in obtaining comparative tranquillity, the pontiff received from the prisoner the documents which he had been commissioned to deliver ; and then, imploring the continued silence of the assembly, he proceeded to read aloud, with his usual composure, the acts of the Councils of Worms and Piacenza, and the following imperial epistle : — " ' Henry, not by usurpation, but by the holy ordinance of God-, king, to Hildebrand, no longer the Pope, but the false monk. " ' A greeting like this hast thou for thy confusion deserved ; thou who hast left no Order of the Church untouched, but hast brought upon each confusion, not honour, — cursing, not blessing. To speak but of a few of thy most distinguished deeds, — the rulers of the holy Church, the archbishops, bishops, and presbyters, thou hast not only not feared, seeing that they are the Lord's anointed, to touch ; but, as though they were servants who know not what their Lord doeth,. thou hast trampled them under thy feet. Thou hast obtained favour with the vulgar by their humiliation ; and hast thought that they know nothing, and that thou alone knowest all things. Yet, this Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 305 knowledge of thine thou hast used for the purpose, not of edification, but of destruction, insomuch that we believe the blessed Gregory, whose name thou hast assumed, to have spoken prophetically of thee, when he said, " By the abundance of subjects, the mind of him who is set over them is puffed up, for he supposes that he excels all in knowledge, when he finds that he excels all in power." ' "'— Vol. ii., pp. 95—99- We wish we had room to continue this exciting scene, which ends in a majegtiG—address of J®ory to the '^hunr.il, and the enthusiastic acclamations of the pre- lates assembled in answer to it. The next day, in the presence of no prelates and of the Empress Agnes, whose sense of duty overcame the affections of a mother, he pronounced sentence in form V)on the German and Lombard bishops, and above all (upon Henry, whom he declared excommunicated from the Church and suspended from the exercise of his im- perial power. ^■^' 8. In these transactions, we see on both sides what we must account a confusion of the rights of Church and State, — the Emperor in council deposing the Pope, and^ the Pope deposing the Emperor. Mr. Bowden has some .just remarks on the subject, and traces it to the feu^Al- 'isin_.of the day, which acknowledged buLone standard ^gfjaaLJn the community, and forced all powers and offices to measure themselves by it. As in Russia, it is said, %at men are only recognized as soldiers, and the clergy take rank as colonels or captains, so in the eleventh century Gregory was forced to place himself in direct relation to the Emperor, and take precedence either above him or beneath him, and with this alter- native he put himself above him, as the nearest approxi- mation to the truth. And in like manner, the Emperor, VOL. II. 20 3o6 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. not the present Henry only, but his father before him, and Conrad his grandfather, not to say the Carlovin- gians, had placed themselves above the Church, because they were supreme in temporals, and had treated the Pope as one of their subjects, just as a naturalist of this day in despair ranks a whale among the mammalia. On the present occasion, Mr. Bowden considers it a cause of thankfulness that Gregory, with all the inci- dental defects of his theological system, was in the chair of St. Peter. He considers that the success of the Im- perialists would have been the immediate triumph of simony, licentiousness, and the other crying evils of the time, and would have tended to make that triumph perpetual. On the other hand, Gregory was not only engaged in vindicating what he considered his divine authority, but also an ecclesiastical principle essential'to the independence and well-being of the Church. The real question was, whether the Church was or was not ■ a creature of the State ? Whether she had or had not % temporal rights was an excrescence upon the main ques- tion ; and she needed a champion, such as, through God's providence, she found, who scorned either to be ' swayed by menaces, or to be bribed by the promise of a temporary peace, into the compromise of her essential principles. Thus the contest opened ; Gregory had on his side \ many of the leading nobles of Germany, the Saxons, to a certain extent the Swabians, the great mass of the regular and a considerable portion of the secular clergy. And Henry was supported by the Rhenish provinces, by j the large towns, as Worms, now rising into some degree of commercial opulence, by a certain number of the nobility, who had felt or feared the papal censures, and the vast body of anti-reforming clergy. It was a moment Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 307 of extreme excitement, when each of the contending parties had defied his antagonist, and waited to see how the defiance was received by Christendom at large, with whom eventually lay the decision. As to Henry himself, however, he seems to have thought he had done everything when he had secured the synodal acts of Worms and Piacenza, as if they were to work their effect as a matter of course ; he was astounded therefore at the intelligence that the old man, whom he was resisting, far from crouching, had vigo- rously smitten him in turn with the ban of the Church. For a moment the unfortunate prince seemed over- '|)owered with agitation ; then he treated the subject with apparent indifference ; then he gave orders that Gregory himself should be publicly excommunicated in turn. He committed this office to Pibo, Bishop of Toul ; but Pibo, together with another bishop, set off in the iiight and left the king to go to the cathedral by him- self, where the Bishop of the place (Utrecht) pronounced the sentence. The next thing he heard was, that the German prelates, who had been denounced by Gregory together with himself, were crossing the Alps to make their peace with him ; next, the secular princes, who had the charge of the Saxon nobles and bishops, whom Henry had faithlessly seized, having been al- ready shocked at Henry's proceedings in the Council of Worms, on hearing the papal sentence against him, let go their prisoners and sent them off to Saxony. On their arrival there, the Saxons rose in arms, appeared before the strongholds, which the king, in violation of his promise, ha'd rebuilt in their country, took them by assault or capitulation, and then proceeded to resume the lands which had been seized by the royal favourites. An event occurred which increased the dismay ; 3o8 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. William, Bishop of Utrecht, who has been mentioned above as excommunicating Gregory in the cathedral, repeated the sentence several, times the same Easter, (Calling the Pope a perjurer, an adulterer, and a false /apostle. A month had not passed before he was seized /with a violent illness, which carried him off in a few days. In his last moments he cried out that he had forfeited life both here and hereafter, and forbade his friends to pray for him after death, as one destined to perdition. These facts were exaggerated ; in addition, stories were circulated that, as he breathed his last sigh, his cathedral and his sovereign's palace were struck with lightning. Other deaths too in the king's party about the same time were interpreted in the light of William's. Henry appointed a diet at Worms for Whitsuntide ; not one of his chief nobles attended : he postponed it to St. Peter's Day at Mentz ; even then but a few obeye4 the summons. Udo, the venerated Archbishop of Treves, had gone to Rome and received absolution. On his re- turn he refused to hold any intercourse with the Arch- bishops of Mentz and Cologne. Henry he would only approach for the purpose of counselling ; he would not sit at table with him or join in prayer. The more reli- gious members of the king's household withdrew them- selves, and withstood Henry's most urgent entreaties to return. Henry next led a force against the Saxons, and was repelled with loss. At Gregory's suggestion his principal nobles held a solemn Diet of the empire at Worms in the autumn ; it was very numerously attended ; even Sieg- fried of Mentz obtained papal absolution and attended ; the Patriarch of Aquileia and Bishop of Padua appeared as legates from the Holy See. Henry sent the humblest Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 309 messages to the Diet in vain : at last they consented to treat with him on these conditions : first, that his con- tinuing to reign should be referred to the Pope ; next, that until he could procure reconciliation, he should live as a private individual, neither entering church nor exer- cising any royal functions; thirdly, that he should renounce the society of all excommunicate persons ; and lastly, that, if at the end of a year his own excommuni- cation was not reversed, his right to empire should be lost for ever. A Council was appointed for the begin- ning of January, to meet at Augsburgh, over which ■Gregory himself was to preside, and then Henry was to be reconciled. Henry wished to come to Italy, but ^.Gregory forbade him. . His anxiety for a release from the anathema inflicted on him increased ; he could not bear the suspense. Regardless therefore of Gregory's prohibition, of the season, which was unusually severe, and of the difficulty of crossing the Alps in the winter,_ he set out to find the Pope in Italy. Mr. Bowden shall set him forward on his journey : "The winter which closed the year 1076 was a season of unusual severity ; the Rhine being frozen over from Martinmas almost to the beginning of April, 1077. The difficulties, therefore, of a journey across the Alps, at the time of Henry's expedition, must, under any circumstances, have been great ; and the auspices under which the unfortunate monarch set forth were such as to render the undertaking in his case peculiarly arduous. Deprived of his friends and of his resources, it was not in his power to make any proper provision for the journey. Nor could he venture to prosecute his way along any of the more diredt tracts which led from his German dominions into ^ Italy; as Rudolf, Welf, and Berthold, who wished to retain him in Germany, sedulously watched the mountain passes of Swabia, Bavaria, and Carinthia. But H^nry felt too strongly the danger of furnishing his enemies with any new pretext for setting him aside, to think of giving up the attempt, desperate as it might be, to pro- cure a timely absolution. 3IO Reformation of the Eleventh Century. "A few days, therefore,. before the Christmas which closed the year 1076, the king put himself in motion from Spires. His wife and infant child accompanied his steps, and, whatever meaner fol- lowers may have formed his escort, it appears that only one person of gentle blood — and he not distinguished by rank or possessions — attended the fallen sovereign. ... He set forward, however, and taking his way through Burgundy, halted to observe the festival of Christmas at Besangon. And thence, passing the Jura, he proceeded to Vevay on the shore of the lake of Geneva. . . . Even the valleys of the Alps, when Henry began to wind his way among them, were white with snow and slippery with ice. Peasants of the country, whose services he had hired, went before him, and cleared, as best they might, a precipitous and rugged road for the advance of the royal party. As the travellers ascended towards the higher regions of the pass, the difficulties of this process increased, of course, with every step. Happily, however, no serious accident occurred : and after long toils, the monarch and his little train found themselves on the summit of a ridge, a descent from which would lead them into Italy. But this descent appeared in prospect more formidable than anything which they had previously accomplished. The whole of tlie precipitous mountain slope formed one sheet of ice, on which no foot, it seemed, could for a moment maintain its position. The descent, however, was necessarily attempted. Henry and the men of the party crawled carefully down on their hands and knees, placing their feet on whatever points of support they could find ; and he whose footing unfortunately failed him rolled far away into the snowfy depths below ; from which it was often a matter of great difficulty to extricate him. The queen, her child, and her female attendants, were, by the experienced peasants; lowered down the slope enveloped in skins of cattle ; and the whole party reached at length the bottom in safety ; though of their horses — which were either drawn down the descent with their legs tied together, or lowered on some rude kinds of machines constructed for the pur- pose — many died, and many more were rendered unfit for further service." — Vol. ii., pp. 161 — 164. Thus it was that Henry and the imperial family at last reached the plains of Lombardy. 9- In Italy the report was at once spread abroad that he Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 3 1 1 had come to take vengeance on the Pope. People recol- lected or had been told of Henry III.'s visitation of the Papal See thirty years before, when a Council was held at Sutri, and Gregory, the sixth of that name, was made to abdicate. Accordingly, nobles, prelates, and warriors thronged to greet him, and his crowded and brilliant court formed a strange contrast to the neglect, or rather aversion, which he had had to encounter on the other side of the Alps. But Henry was not so dazzled with the scenes, which now surrounded him, as to forget those which he had left. He asked where the Pope was, and finding he was at Canossa, a fortress of the Appennines, belonging to the Countess Matilda, (whither Gregory had taken refuge on the rumour of Henry's haying come at the head of a formidable force,) he betook himself thither. Matilda goes by the name of the Great-Countgss. She inherited Tuscany from her mother, and was the enthusiastic friend and servant of Gregory ; to him and to his principles her energies, her influence, and her trea- sures were dedicated. Her talents and learning were as remarkable as her rank and her devotion. Amid the various occupations which her extensive territories occa- sioned, she found time and opportunity to become the encourager, and, in some degree, the restorer, of ancient literature. She was acquainted with the more recent languages spoken in France and Germany, as well as in her own country. She was active and energetic in the enforcement of justice and the maintenance of her autho- rity ; nor was she unequal to the task of eliciting the military resources of her territory, and bringing well- disciplined armies into the field. She was munificently charitable to the poor ; systematically kind and hospi- table to the exile and to the stranger ; and the foundress 312 Reformation of the Eleventh Century.- or benefactress of a great number of churches and con- ventual institutions. Throughout her eventful life she, never suffered secular matters to interfere with the fre- quency or regularity of her exercises of devotion ; and in adversity, of which she was allotted her share, she found her consolation in the society of holy men and the perusal of Holy Scripture. " Such," says Mr. Bowden, " was the Great Countess ; such was she, who, too proud or too humble to recapitulate the roll of her titles, was wont to subscribe herself, — 'Matilda, by the grace of God what I am ; ' " and at the present moment she was especially fitted to undertake the mediation between Gregory and Henry, being a relative of Henry as well as the host of Gregory. " Towards Canossa, then, Henry bent his steps, accompanied by his recently formed train of Italian followers. His faithful German adherents, who had, in the preceding month, set out to cross the Alps by different paths, had encountered on the journey a variety of difficulties and sufferings. Dietrich, Bishop of Verdun, was cap- tured by Adelbert, Count of Calw, and plundered of the sums which he had, with much trouble, collected to meet the expenses of his journey. Rupert of Bamberg, being seized by Welf while traversing the Bavarian territory, was kept in strict ward from Christmas until the feast of St. Bartholomew in the following year. But the rest of, Henry's excommunicated supporters, having surmounted the dan- gers of their journey, and made good their way into Italy, appeared before Canossa, while the king himself was yet on his way, and humbly presented themselves before the Pope as supplicants for his. absolution. ' From those,' said Gregory, ' who rightly acknowledge and bewail their sin, forgiveness cannot be withheld. The peti- tioners must, however,' he continued, ' submit to the cauterizing process which is needful for the healing of their wounds, that they' may not, by too lightly obtaining absolution, be led too lightly to. regard the sin which they have committed by disobedience tO;, apostolical authority,' Prelates and lay-nobles alike professed their readiness to undergo whatever penance their spiritual father might think proper to impose ; and the former were, by his directions; Reformation of the Elevsnth Century. 313 confined in separate cells with scanty supplies of food, while to the latter penances were assigned of a severity proportioned to the age and strength of each individual. And, when he had thus tried them for several days, Gregory summoned them again before him, and ?fter mildly rebuking them for their past conduct, and admonishing them against such demeanour in future, declared them severally absolved, warning them at the same time, anxiously and repeatedly, against holding any communion with their imperial master until he also should have given satisfaction to the Apostolic See ; till that should happen they were to be permitted to hold colloquy with him only for the purpose of inducing him, by their persuasions, to aban- don the error of his ways. "At length the ptincigal offender appeared in person before Canossa, and pitched his camp without the walls of the fortress." — Vol. ii., pp. 167, 168. The humiliation to which Gregory put the king him- self has always been severely animadverted upon^ and has done his character much harm with posterity ; but Mr. Bowden bids us recollect that severer penances were not at all uncommon at that time, and that it is very unfair to measure them by the standard of drawing-room propriety, and the judgment of an age of kid gloves and Naples soap. It was a most uncomfortable thing to be kept shivering in the cold from morning to night, and likely to cause rheumatism, of which we have no inten- tion at all of speaking lightly ; but Henry III., the king's father, would habitually, before presenting himself in royal robes upon his throne, submit in private to a self- imposed scourging. The magnificent and luxurious Boniface of Tuscany, Matilda's father, submitted on one occasion to a similar discipline before the Altar of St. Mary's at Pomposa, at' the suggestion, if not at the hands, of his spiritual adviser, as a penance for some simoniacal transactions ; and Godfrey of Lorraine, Matilda's step- father, in remorse for the burning of the cathedral of Verdun in the course of his warlike operations, not only 314 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. contributed largely to its rebuilding, but caused himself to be scourged in public, and as publicly took part in the work of building, in the capacity of a common labourer. In the following century took place the well-known scourging of Henry II., by the monks of Canterbury, at the shrine of St. Thomas. Such facts as these must be recollected when we read the following extraordinary scene : " It was on the morning of the 25th of January, 1077, while the frost reigned in all its intensit)^, and the ground was white with snow, that the dejected Henry, barefooted, and clad in the usual garb of penance, a garment of whitelinen, ascended alone to the rocky fortress of Canossa, and entered its outer gate. The place was sur- rounded by three walls, within the two outer of which the imperial penitent was led, while the portals of the third or inner wall of the fortress were still closed against him. Here he stood, a miserable spectacle, exposed to cold and hunger throughout the day, vainly hoping, with each succeeding hour, that Gregory would consider the penance sufficient, and his fault atoned for. The evening, how- ever, came, and he retired, humbled and dispirited, to return to his station with the returning light. " On a second day, and on a third, the unhappy prince was still seen standing, starved and miserable, in the court of Canossa, from the morning until the evening. All in the castle, except the Pope, bewailed his condition, and with tears implored his forgiveness ; it was said, even in Gregory's presence, that his conduct was more like wanton tyranny than apostolic severity. But the austere pontiff continued obstinately deaf to all entreaties. At length Henry's patience failed him, and, taking refuge in the adjacent chapel dedi- cated to St. Nicholas, he there besought, with tears, the intercession ' of the aged abbot of Cluni ; Matilda, who was present, seconded the king's entreaty, but the abbot, turning to her, replied, ' It is thou alone who canst undertake this business.' And Henry, upon the word, fell upon his knees before his kinswoman, and besought her, in the most impassioned manner, once more to exert her potent ititer- cession. She promised to use her utmost endeavours, and returned into the castle ; and Gregory, feeling that he had now sufficiently vindicated his authority, relaxed at length his rigour, suffering the Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 315 ^kfortunate king, still barefooted, and in his linen garment, to be 1 brought into his presence, on the foarth day of his penance. ' \ -"■" " The scene, as the suppliant king approached the pontiff, must have been singularly striking. The youthful and vigorous Henry, of lofty stature and commanding features, thus humbling himself before the small, insignificant, and now probably withered, figure of Gregory VII., must have afforded a striking type of that abasement of physical before moral power, — of the sword. before the crosier, — which the great struggle then in progress was fated to accomplish." —Vol. ii., pp. 174 — 176. 10. Having brought our narrative to this critical point, we must break it off abruptly. What followed upon this, what an immediate triumph to the Pope, what subsequent rejigrses, what eventual success to his principles after his day ; how Henry lapsed^gain, and how Gregory was at length forced to abandon Rome and died an exile at Salemo, — for these and ^jmiltitude^of interesting details we must refer the reader to the work itself of which we are availing ourselves. As also for the account of the wonderfully large range olaction which Gregory's labours embraced, and the multitude of Churches and States with which he Jield negotiation, among which were Congtan- tiftgple, Hippo, Spavin, lEflgland, Denmark, Russia, and Hungary. On two occasions also we find him directing the attention of the Church to the project of a crusade tothe Holy Land, which was taken up in the next gene- ration. But all this we must omit ; and shall end our protracted yet incomplete narrative with Mr. Bowden's account of Gregory's death : "He moved, shortly after his final departure from Rome, to Salemo, where, under the efficient protection of Robert Guiscard, he was enabled to repose in security, and where, while he still kept a watchful eye upon the troublous scenes of the world around him, he sought a solace for its sorrows in assiduous devotion, and in con- 3 1 6 Reformation of the Eleventh Century. tinual meditation on the word of God. As early as in January, 1085, he perceived symptoms of the exhaustion of his powers ; the natural consequence of years, and of the arduous and unremitting labours and anxieties in which he had been so long engagenii During the succeeding months his debility increased, and in May it became evident to all around him that from the sick bed, on which he was laid, he was doomed never to rise again. Aware of his ap- proaching end, he summoned around him the cardinals.and bishops, who, faithful to his cause, or rather to his principles, had attended him to Salerno. He spoke to them of the events of his past life, and, while he disclaimed any right to glory in anything which he had done, he acknowledged the satisfaction which he derived from the thought that his course had been guided by'principle, by a zeal for the right, and by am abhorrence of evil. His auditors, plunged in sincere sorrow, expressed to him their melancholy antici- pations of the fate of the Church when deprived of his guiding hand. ' But I,' said he, with eyes and hands upraised to heaven, ' am mounting thitherward ; and with supplications the most fer- vent will I commend your cause to the goodness of the Almighty.' ' " Being solicited to express his opinion with respect to the choice of a successor, he mentioned the names of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino; of Otho, Bishop of Ostia; and of Hugo, Bishop of Lyons ; suggesting, as a reason for giving priority to the former of , the three, his presence at the moment in Italy. " Three days before his death, on the question being brought be- fore him of absolving the persons whom he had excommunicated, he replied, ' ■\Yith-the- exception of Henry, styled by his followers;; the king ; of Quibert, the usurping claimant of the Roman See ; and of those who, by advice or assistance, favour their evil and ungodly, , views, I absolve and bless all men who unfeignedly believe me to possess this power, as the representative of St. Peter and St. Paul.' And then, addressing those around him for some time, in the lan- guage of warning, he thus impressively concluded : ' In the name of the Almighty God, and by the power of His holy Apostles St Peter and St. Paul, I adjure you, recognize no one as my successor in the Roman See, who shall not have been duly elected and canoni- ^cally ordained by Apostolic authority.' "On the 25th of May, 1085, he peacefully closed his earthly career ; just rallying strength, amid the exhaustion of his powers, to utter, with his departing breath, the words, ' I have loved justice and hated iniquity ; and therefore I die in exile.' Reformation of the Eleventh Century. 317 "'In exile !' said a prelate who stood by his bed, ... in exile thou canst not die ! Vicar of Christ and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.' " — Vol. ii., pp. 322, 324. Gregory thought he had failed : so it is ; .often a cause seems to decline as its champion grows in years, and to die in his death ; but this is to judge hastily ; others are destined to complete what he began. No man is given to see his work through. " Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening," but the evening falls before it is done. There was One alone who began and finished and died. April, 1841. 3i8 Note on Essay XII. A SHORT memoir of Mr. Bowden, prefixed, under date of St. Bede's Day (May 27), 1845, to a posthumous pub- lication, his " Thoughts on the Work of the Six Days of Creation," may be fitly appended to the foregoing Essay, as a record of one whom to have known is to have loved and to hold in perpetual remembrance. After stating that the small volume in question "was the occupation and solace of the last illness of its author," and, both from its subject and the character of its com- position, a suitable memorial of a mind " at once active and serene, deeply interested in the histories both of nature and of man, apprehensive of the Divine Hand in all he found in them, and contemplating with an un- clouded faith the tokens they exhibit, and Divine Love and Wisdom," it proceeds to say ; "He was born in London on February 21, 1798; went to Harrow School in 1812 ; entered as a commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, in Lent term, 18 17; and, after obtaining mathematical honours in Michaelmas Term, 1820, proceeded in due course to the degrees of B.A. and M.A. " In the autumn of 1826 he received the appointment of Commissioner of Stamps, which he resigned in 1 840. For some years he was a member of the Geological Society of London. In June, 1828, he married. " In 1833, and following years, he engaged zealously in the revival which took place of the ecclesiastical prin- ciples of the seventeenth century, and was one of the Note on Essay XII. 319 earliest assistants and supports of a friend who at that time commenced the series called the Tracts for the Times. That most intimate friendship, which, begun with the first months of his residence at Oxford, showed itself also in the contributions to the Lyra Apostolica, which bear the signature of a, and in several Articles which he wrote in the British Critic between the years 1836 and 1 841. " The Articles referred to, are those upon the ' Rise of the Papal Power,' in July, 1836 ; on ' Gothic Archi- tecture,' in April, 1837; on the 'British Association,' in January, 1839; and on 'The Church in the Mediterra- nean,' in July, 1841. " In the spring of 1839, he had the first attack of the malady which ultimately proved fatal. On his apparent recovery in the autumn, he went abroad with his family for the winter, which he passed at Malta. On his return in the course of the ensuing spring, he put to press his 'Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII.,' which had been written in previous years, during his intervals of leisure from official duties. ■ "His complaint returned in the summer of 1843; throughout a long illness, the gifts of clearness and equability of mind, and of a gentle, cheerful, composed spirit, with which he had ever been blessed, were merci- fully increased to him. He died in the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1844, in undoubting com- munion with the Church of Andrewes and Laud. He was buried at Fulham, which had been the home of his childhood and youth. He lives still here, the light and •comfort of many hearts, who ask no happier, holier end than his." 320 Note on Essay XII. The foregoing account of Mr. Bowden's History of Gregory VII. calls for no remark here, except as relates to the subject of the forged Decretals. As public atten- tion has lately been drawn to them, I think it well to make the following extract concerning them, from the " Critique on Mr. Ffoulke's Letter, by H. I. D. Ryder, of the Oratory." I. The pseudo-decretals, A.D. 859, "were but indications of a current that had long been setting steadily in one direction. What claims did they really put forward on the Pope's behalf, that had not been made before.' Two points in particular have been marked as innovations : I. The reservation, independently of appeal, of all the criminal causes of all bishops to the Holy See. 2. The assertion of the nullity of any synod, convened without the authority of the Holy See. \ "I. As to the first, within the western Patriarchate, at least, it was no new claim ; see Pope Xystus HI, [A.D. 432 — 440,] Ep. 10, who reserves all such causes to him- self or to his vicar, Anastasius of Thessalonica. For the reservation of the causes of Metropolitans, see Greg. Magn. Ep. ad Episcopos Sardinice, and St. Leo L, Ep. 84. "As regards the Oriental Bishops, there was a pre-1 scriptive reservation to the Pope of the criminal causes of Patriarchs and Exarchs, as being autocephalous : see I the Epistle of Julius [A.D. 337 — 352] ad Euseb ; also the| Epistle of the Council of Ephesus [a.D. 481], which speaks of the reservation of the Pope of- the cause of John of Antioch. Again, as to the criminal causes of common Bishops, Pope Julius in the same Epistle, al- though he is speaking particularly of the case of Alex- , andria, insinuates that it is fitting that these causes also Note on Essay XII. 321 should come before him ; and Gelasius [a.d. 492 — 496], Ep. ad Orient, speaks of an ancient custom to this effect. " For the reservation of the ' causae majores ' to the Vicar of the Holy See, see Xystus III., Ep. 8 ad Syn. iTkessalonic. and Innocent I. [a.d. 402 — 417], Ep. ad Victric. Boniface I. [a.d. 418 — 422], Ep. 15, insists upon the invariable custom in the Eastern Church of sub- mitting their ' magna negotia ' to the Pope. . . . • "2. As to the second, so far as it establishes the nullity of a diocesan or provincial synod unsupported by the authority of the Pope, it is undoubtedly an inno- vation. But it is certain, says Blascus (Comment, in Pseud-Isid., ch. 9), that the popes never applied it, even within their own patriarchate, to any synod but such as pretended to be general, or to deal with the reserved causes of bishops. No writer, says the same authority, before the twelfth century applies this prohi- bition to synods generally ; and the Roman correctors of Gratian, Adnot. ad Can. 4, Hist. 17, limit it expressly to General Synods. " 3. Two other points have been sometimes regarded as novelties : the extension of the right of appeal to clerics generally, and the anticipation of judgment by an appeal to Rome, instead of appealing from the sentence, when pronounced. As regards the former. Dr. DoUinger remarks, (Church Hist, vol iiL, § 7,) that the appeal of simple priests to Rome was by no means uncommon, previous to the pseudo-decretals. As re- gards the latter, it is sufficient to observe that Hincmar, in his controversy with Nicholas I. concerning Rothad, Bishop of Soissons, whom he had deposed, justifies him- self solely on the ground that Rothad had withdrawn tile appeal, by which he had at first attempted to bar the proceedings of his judges. I think after this we VOL. II. 21 322 Note on Essay XII. may very contentedly acquiesce in Ballerini's moderate ■ and judicial summing-up, when he says, in his Essay on the Canons, part iii., cap. 6, § 3, that, when these decre- tals appeared, they represented- a discipline, which was already forming, particularly in those parts where they had their birth. " This judgment of Ballerini's is so amply borne out by two non-Catholic writers of different nationalities and different schools of thought, but like one another, at least, in their learning and their candour, that I can- not forbear quoting them. The first is Neander (Church History, vol. vi., p. 7, ed. Bohn). He says, ' He, the pseudo-Isidore, was at all events but the organ of a tendency of the religious and ecclesiastical spirit which prevailed with the great masses of the men amongst whom he lived. He had no idea of introducing a new code ; but only of presenting, in a connected form, the principles which must be recognized by every one as correct, and on which depended the well-being of the Church. ... In truth, even what had been said by Leo the Great [a.D. 440 — 461] concerning the Pope's primacy over the whole Church, involves the principle of all that is to be found in the decretals ; though Leo could not bring into effect, in his own age, those outlines of the ideal of a papacy which floated before his mind.' " The second is Mr. Bowden, who speaks thus in the Introduction to his Life of Gregory VII., p. 56 : ' The immediate effect of the forgery was rather to sanction and consolidate relations already existing between the different orders of the Christian hierarchy, than to intro- duce new ones ^ and, though the work, having once been received, undoubtedly did much towards handing down j in its completeness the system of Papal monarchy to , subsequent ages, it derived its own weight at the epoch Note on Essay XII. 323 of its origin, from the tendency which already existed in that system to perfect and extend itself.' " Even Dean Milman, in spite of a decided anti-papal bias, is obliged to admit (Latin Christ., vol. ii., p. 307) that it cannot be proved that the pseudo-decretals con- tain anything absolutely new, anything that had not been said before. . . . " If . . the Papal Monarchy be a usurpation, and de- structive of that economy which Christ meant should reign throughout His Church, at least it is undeniable that the Church from the beginning bore and fostered the germ within her. To the Bishop of Rome all may appeal, and from him none. He is the judge of all, ;whom none may judge. Every corner of the vineyard is open to him, who is its guardian, whenever the faith or peace of the Church is in danger. No canon avails without his sanction ; and it is for him to interpret the canons according to the exigencies of time and circum- stance. What the ancient Church does not claim for the Pope, she allows him to claim for himself. Restrictive laws seem to have been made for others, not for him. Patriarchs, the most ancient and the most august, . are keenly criticized and sharply rebuked, if they speak proud things, or interfere with even the humblest of their neighbours ; the Bishop of Rome alone, it seems, pannot exalt himself above his rightful place, or intrude where he is not due. If he is rebuked, it is by heretics like the Eusebians, whom he detects and punishes ; or if a Saint says a sharp word, the Church lets it fall to the ground, as if it knew not what he said. . . ." Here I interrupt the course of Mr. Ryder's argument to refer to my own Essay on the Development of Chris- tian Doctrine, in which I have been led to enumerate such testimonies in behalf of the authority of the Holy 324 Note on Essay XII. See, and the Roman Church, as occur in the first three centuries, and do not fall within the range of his survey of the history. " Faint they may be one by one," I say, " but at least they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof." For instance, to St. Clement, one of the first successors of St. Peter, the Corinthians have recourse in their domestic dissensions, and he, in the name of his Church, writes to them a letter of exhortation and advice ; while St. Ignatius, his contemporary, who gives his counsels freely to various churches of Asia, utters not one word of ad- 1 monition in writing to the Roman Church, and calls it , " the church which has the first seat " in its place. Again St. Polycarp of Smyrna, in the next generation, betakes himself to the Bishop of Rome on the^ues- tion of Easter ; the heretic Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, goes off to Rome ; and we read of Soter, as observing the custom of his church, when he sent alms to the churches of the empire, and as " affectionatelyl exhorting those who came to Rome," in the words of Eusebius, "as a father his children." To Rome the Mon- tanists came from Phrygia to gain the countenance of its bishop ; and Praxeas, also, in order to expose them ; , Pope Victor pronounces the Asian churches excommu- nicate, and Irenaeus, in his interposition, questions, not his right but the charity of his act. The same Saint speaks of Rome as the church in which the churches- from every side centre, and as being pre-eminently the , "principal" church. He says it was founded by St.. Peter and St. Paul, and he prefers its tradition to that; of other churches ; Tertullian, too, says that the Apostlesj poured out into it their whole doctrine ; and, after he'^ was a Montanist, acknowledges, while he complains, that. Note on Essay XII. 325 the Pope acted as a Pontifex Maximus and Bishop of bishops. Pope Dionysius entertains the accusation brought by Alexandrian priests against their Bishop in a matter of doctrine ; and forthwith asks of him an ex- planation, which the latter grants without any protest. Cyprian speaks of Rome as " the See of Peter and the principal church ;" and, when he and Firmilian withstood Pope Stephen who maintained the validity of heretical baptism, the Pope carries his point against the churches of Africa, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Basilides, deposed in Spain, betakes himself to Pope Stephen. Fortunatus and Felix, deposed by Cyprian, have recourse to Pope Cornelius. So much in the first three centuries. In the fourth. Pope Julius [A.D. 3,37 — 351], as we learn from Athanasius, remonstrates with the Arian party for "proceeding on their own authority," "for what we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I signify to you." "Julius wrote back," says Socrates, "that they acted against the canons, because they had not called him to a Council, the ecclesiastical canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make canons beside the judg- ment of the Bishop of Rome." Sozomen says, " It was a sacerdotal law, to declare invalid whatever was transacted beside the judgment of the Bishop of the Romans." The Arians themselves, whom the Pope was withstanding, were forced to confess that Rome was " the school of the Apostles, and the Metropolis of orthodoxy from the beginning." Pope Damasus [A.D. 366 — 386] calls the Eastern bishops his "sons " : " In that your charity pays the due reverence to the Apostolic See," he says, "ye profit most yourselves, most honoured sons ; " and he Speaks of himself as " placed in the See of that holy Church, in which the holy Apostle taught how be- comingly to direct the helm to which we have sue- 326 Note on Essay XII. ceeded." " I speak," says St. Jerome to the same Pope, " with the successor of the Fisherman and the disciple of the Cross. I, following no one as my chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. Whoso gathers not with thee, scatters." St. Basil entreats the same Pope to send per- sons to settle the troubles of Asia Minor; " we are asking- nothing new," he says, " for we know from tradition of- our fathers, and from writings preserved among us, that Dionysius," a Pope of the third century, " sent letters of visitation to our church of Cassarea, and of consolation, with ransomers of our brethren from captivity." Pope Siriciiis [A.D. 386 — 398] says : " We bear the burden of all who are laden, — yea, rather the blessed Apostle Peter beareth them in us, who, as we trust, in _ all things protects and defends us, the heirs of his government." " Diligently and congruously do ye con- sult the arcana^ of Apostolical dignity," says Pope Innocent [A.D. 402 — 417] to the African Bishops, "the dignity of him on whom, besides those things which are without, falls the care of all the churches, following the form of the ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has been preserved always by the whole world." And Pope Celestine to the Bishops of Illyria [A.D. 422 — 432], "About all men we especially have anxiety, we, on whom, in the holy Apostle Peter, Christ conferred the necessity of making all men our concern, when He gave him the keys of opening and shutting.* Mr. Ryder continues : — " Boniface I. (an. 422) Ep. xiv. ' To the Bishops of Thessaly,' ap. Const. Ep. Rom. Pont. p. 1037. ' The insti- tution of the Universal Church began in the honour granted to St. Peter, in whom the supremacy {regimen et summd) was eistablished. As religion prospered, from * Vid. "Development of Doctrine," pp. 22 and 172. Note on Essay XII. 327 him as from its source, ecclesiastical discipline flowed throughout all the churches. Nor do the canons of Nicaea testify otherwise ; inasmuch as they do not venture to add aught to him, seeing that nothing could be given above his deserts, and knowing that all things had been- given him by the words of Christ. It is certain, then, that this See stands, in relation to the churches spread throughout the world, as the head to its members ; from whom,- if any divide himself, he becomes an outcast from the religion of Christ, since he is ex- ternal to its organization.' And Ep. xv.. I.e., p. 1042: ' None ever raised his hand against that apostolic height whose judgment it is not lawful to retract; none has shown himself a rebel towards it, unless he would bring judgment upon himself "Xystus III. (an. 435) to the Synod of Thessalonica, I.e., p. 1263 : 'Let the Metropolitans of each province enjoy the rank which is their due, saving the privilege of him (the Papal Vicar) whom the most honourable might honour. Let them have the right of ordaining in their provinces, but let no one venture to ordain with- out his knowledge and goodwill, whom, in all cases of ordination {j.e. of bishops) we would have consulted.' " Gelasius (circa an. 480) to Faustus {Labbe, torn, v., p. 297) : ' The canons have decided that no one what- ever shall appeal from this See ; and so provide that it shall judge the whole Church, and itself be judged of none. . . . Timothy of Alexandria, Peter of Antioch, Peter, Paul, John, not one, but many, bearing the episcopal name, by the authority of this Apostolic See alone, were cast down. . . Therefore we are in no fear lest the Apostolic judgment be reversed, to which the voice of Christ, tradition, and the canons, have given the decision of controversy throughout the whole Church.' 328 Note on Essay XII. 2. " The second count . . . takes the form of a reflection upon the honesty of the Holy See. But if there is a point in the whole subject, upon which there is a con- sensus of writers, Protestant and Catholic, it is precisely this, that the Pope had nothing to do with the forgery of the pseudo-decretals ; and moreover that they were not forged in his interest. They were forged in Gaul, not in Rome ; and their immediate object was to relieve the bishops and the inferior clergy from the tyranny of the Metropolitans, who were but too frequently the tools of the secular power. . . . When they exalt the Pope, it is only to pull themselves out of the mire ; and it has been observed (see Blascus, I.e., c. lo, seq}), that these decretals, where the interests of the episcopate are not at stake, do not concern themselves to uphold even the well-established privileges of the Holy See, and in some cases (whether wittingly or not is uncertain) actually contravene them. . . .' "But ... 'if the Pope [St. Nicholas I.] be not the coiner, he is at least the conscious utterer of this false coin ; he had duplicates of all the genuine letters of his predecessors in his portfolio ; and, if he did not actually discover that these were forgeries, it was because he felt they were, or would not look.' .... This assumption is simply false. On the contrary, I maintain that the fact of the duplicate of a papal letter not being found in the Roman archives, not only did not prove it spurious, but in very many instances could not create any fair pre- sumption against it. It is true that the Popes, like other bishops, were in the way of laying up in their archives copies of the letters they wrote, and of the more im- portant letters which they received. We have frequent Note on Essay XII. 329 references and appeals, in the letters to and from the Holy See, to the contents of the Ronnan archives ; but it is impossible not to be struck with the short periods of time which these appeals cover. I think I am right in saying, that, with one exception, they do not extend beyond a century, and that most fall far short of it. I know of only one exception, and that was when, in 531, Theodore of Thessalonica produced from his archives Papal letters from Damasus downwards, a space of about 150 years, all extant and all genuine, and asked Boni- face II. to verify them from the Roman scrinia. Curiously enough, we do not know how far the Roman scrinia stood the trial, for the document (see Labbe, tom. v., p. 843) is imperfect. "I. Mabillon {de re Diplom. Supp. p. 5), enumerates the many dangers that beset the ancient archives. They were, moreover, peculiarly liable both to be neglected, and tampered with, owing to the fact that the notarii and scriniarii, who were alone capable of reading, trans- cribing, and classifying the manuscripts, were a small, and consequently irresponsible class. This was so much felt to be the case, but we find that, from time to time, custodes were appointed to watch over the honesty of the notarii, and keep them to their duty. The irresponsi- bility of the notarii VJdiS, of course, in direct ratio to, the want of culture of their time and country ; thus, in Italy, we may presuine they had things very much their own way during the latter half of the fifth and throughout the seventh and eighth centuries. So deplorable was the state of knowledge in Italy, and particularly in Rome, in the seventh century, owing to the repeated wars of barbarians that had swept over the face of the country, that we find Pope Agatho [a.d. 6jZ — 682], in his letter to the Emperor Constantine, thus excusing the rudeness 330 Note on Essay XII. of his legates Labbe, torn, vii., p. 655: "Among us, planted as we are in the midst of the Gentiles, and winning our daily bread most precariously by bodily toil, how should literary knowledge in its fulness be found, more than that we preserve, in simplicity of heart and undoubtingly, what has been canonically defined by our holy predecessors in the Apostolical See, and by five Holy Councils, of the faith delivered to us by our fathers ? " And again, in his Synodical Letter to the same Emperor, loc. cit., p. 707: 'As regards secular knowledge, I think there are not any in our times, who may boast of having reached its summit ; since, in our land, the wrath of contrary nations rages, fighting, over- running, and ravaging; and . . . the ancient revenue of the Church has gradually, under diverse misfortunes, melted away. But our faith remains our one support, with which to live is our glory, and for which to die is our eternal recompense.' " Under such circumstances, nothing is more natural than that the Roman archives should haVe sustained vast and frequent losses, and we are not surprised when Baronius (tom. v., an. 381, xxxi) points out to us that the Roman archives had evidently suffered a loss between the times of Damasus and Gregory I. [a.D. 366 and 590]. He quotes St. Gregory, lib. vi., Ep. 15 (ed. Ben. lib. vii., Ep. 34) to the effect that the Roman Church knew nothing of the condemnation of the Eudoxians, except from doubtful or corrupt sources, and remarks that, seeing that several of the ancient Fathers speak of Eudoxius as accused and convicted of frightful heresy, St. Gregory's words clearly show, 'jacturam passa esse Romana archivia.' I may observe that the letter of Liberius to Constantius (see Coustant., p. 423,) speaks of Eudoxius as having refused to condemn Arius, and, Note on Essay XII. 331 being therefore excommunicate ; and this letter must have been originally in the Roman archives. In this same letter Liberius testifies that he has got the letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Pope Silvester, concerning the Arian controversy, ' manent literas ;' and Coustant remarks that, of course, there were numbers of letters to and from Silvester on the same subject, though none have come down to us. " In the eighth century, St. Boniface of Mayence, Ep. 15, tells Nothelm of Canterbury that, as regarded the famous letter of St. Gregory to Augustine, the Roman scriniarii had looked in the archives of the Roman Church, and could not find it. " In 743, the Germans rested their right to marry ' in quarta generatione,' upon an indult of Pope Gregory II., which could not be discovered in the Roman archives ; but Pope Zachary did not on that account reject it as spurious. ... * Although we cannot find the document, we do not hesitate to believe it genuine' (see Blascus, /. c, cap. iv.) "We have only to look through Constant's volume, to see that numbers of the Papal letters do not come from the Roman archives, but from those of other Sees, par- ticularly Vercellse, and the famous Gallic Sees of Aries and Vienne. And the editor of the 'Bullarium Ro- ' manum, Rome 1739,' in his preface, after noticing the losses which the Roman archives had sustained, parti- cularly in Papal letters, from Leo I. to Innocent III. . [a.d. 440 to 1 198], observes, that numbers of these au- tographs, ' of which no longer any mention or trace remains in the Roman archives,' have been found intact in the archives of other cathedral towns and monasteries. " It has been said, that the fact that so many of the pseudo-decretals profess to be the letters of Popes of the 332 Note on Essay XII. times of persecution, should have awaked the Pope's suspicions. But it must be remembered, first, that there is great reason for supposing that St. Nicholas never saw more than certain portions of these decretals, with which he shows an acquaintance, although he nowhere formally quotes them ; secondly, that it is well known that the Popes, in the times of persecution, did write, and write frequently, — witness the genuine fragments of their writings in Eusebius, Hilary, and elsewhere. Moreover, the Fathers testify an acquaintance with other documents which are wholly lost. St. Augustine, for instance, Ep. 43 (olim 162) n. 16, shows that he knew, in extenio, the decree of Pope Melchiades [A.D. 310 — 314] condemning Donatus ; and St. Jerome speaks of the four letters written by St. Cornelius [A.D. 250 — 252] to Fabius, as extant in his time. " There was nothing, then, in these relics of the times of persecution, in that age, to awaken suspicion ; whilst , there was much to attract devotion. Men naturally welcomed their discovery with the same devotion, and certainly with no greater surprise, than they did the kindred discovery of the martyrs' bodies. St. Nicholas, in his letter to the Bishop of Gaul (Labbe, tom. x., p. 282), shows that idea was uppermost in his mind, when he refers to those decrees, of which he had seen something, and heard more, as the decrees of those ' quorum videmus Deo auctore Sanctam Ecclesiam aut roseo cruore floridam, aut rorifluis sudoribus et salubribus eloquiis adornatam.' " Again, it must be remembered that the Holy See received these decretals from the Gallic Church, upon whose learning it had been taught to depend in its con- troversies with the civil power and Greek heresy. " We find a remarkable instance of this dependence Note on Essay XII. 333 recorded by Paschasius Radbert, in his Life of Wala (ap. Mabillon Oct. S. Ord. Ben., ssc. iv., part i., p. 511). He relates that he and Wala (an. 833) showed Gregory IV. — then in France, engaged in the difficult and dangerous task of reconciling the king and his sons, — 'sundry documents, confirmed by the authority of the holy Fathers and his own predecessors, against which none might deny that he had the power (forsooth God's, the blessed Apostle Peter's, and his own,) to go and send unto all nations for the faith of Christ the peace of the Churches, the preaching of the Gospel, and the assertion of the truth ; and that in him resided the supreme authority and living powers of blessed Peter ; in virtue of which he might judge all, and himself be judged of none. Which documents he graciously received, and was exceedingly comforted.' "Some writers have thought that in this they dis- covered evidence of the pseudo-decretals ; but the idea is very generally abandoned. One strong argument against it appears to me to -be the fact, that Agobard, who belonged to the same party aS Wala and Radbert, in his letter to the king, which exactly coincides in time with his friends' mission to Gregory, and in which he has the same object in view with them, viz., the exal- tation of papal prerogative, grounds his argument ex- clusively on genuine documents. However this may be, the whole story is, a curious illustration of the influence of the French Church upon the Holy See. " But, not only did the Pope receive these documents from the French Bishops, but they themselves furnished him with what he might well regard as a crucial test of their genuineness. For, even when Hincmar, in his controversy with St. Nicholas, does his utmost to dis- prove their cogency as law, he never so much as suggests 334 -^^^ ^^ Essay XII. a doubt of their genuineness. It is true that, in his subsequent controversy with Adrian II., Hincmar uses rather different language ; but even then he hints at nothing worse than that they have been garbled and interpolated by his own nephew and others, to serve their private ends. " In the letter to the Bishops of Gaul, quoted above, the Pope clearly seems to indicate other sources of authentic decretals besides the archives ; when, in meet- ing Hincmar's attempt to restrict the legal cogency of decretals to those contained in the Codex of Adrian, he says, ' God forbid that we should not embrace the de- cretals, which the Roman Church, 'penes se in suis archivis et vetustis rite monumentis recondita vene- rantur.' The 'vetusta monumenta' no doubt included all such well-authorized collections as the pseudo- Isidorian professed to be. , 2. " Besides the fact of the frequent losses which the Roman archives had sustained, rendering their contents at any given time an unsafe criterion of genuineness, it was exceedingly difficult to make out what they did contain. For, as I have observed, only a very small, class, the scriiiiarii, were competent td engage in such a search. These were put upon their oath that they had produced all that they could find regarding the cause in hand, as we read in the Acts of the Sixth Council. And, for these experts, the search was doubtless ex- ceedingly difficult, when covering any considerable length of time, and when documents were wanted, that had not been previously arranged for controversial pur- poses. Often, indeed, it could have been little else than a wild hunt among boxes of manuscripts in various stages of decay, when the subject of any successful discovery might well be described as 'Deo revelante Note on Essay XII. 335 reperta ' (see Nicholas' Letter in Herard, Labbe, torn, x., p. 298). " Ballerini (St. Leo, torn, i., p. S 1 1), after remarking upon the number of St. Leo's letters that were lost, thus accounts for these and other losses : ' After the general collections of the Canons and Papal letters, originally compiled by private persons for private use, had got so generally into circulation that the Popes themselves took their predecessors' letters oftener from these private col- lections than from the Apostolic scrinia, it came about that the autographs of these same letters, which were in the Apostolic scrinia, gradually falling into neglect, as time went on, perished.' " This, then, is St. Nicholas' position. He is presented with portions of documents, for we have no proof that they were more, which accurately represent the ecclesias- tical spirit of the day, a recommendation, rather than a difficulty, in an uncritical age. Their genuineness is at- tested by the Church of Gaul, a church incomparably more learned than his own ; and attested, moreover, even ■against that church'^ interests. The genuineness of these documents was in no sense upon its trial ; it was undisputed. The presumption was strongly in favour of the genuineness of documents, containing doctrine so or- thodox and so apposite ; if any heresy had cropped up in them, then, indeed, it would have been another matter. But more than this, the Pope, even if a doubt of these had crossed his mind, which is in the highest degree im- possible, had not, in the Roman archives, any satisfactory test of their genuineness." 336 XIII. PRIVATE JUDGMENT. THERE is this obvious, undeniable difficulty in the attempt to form a theory of Private Judgment, in the choice of a religion, that Private Judgment leads dif-* ferent minds in such different directions. If, indeed, there be no religious truth, or at least no sufficient means of arriving at it, then the difficulty vanishes : for where there is nothing to find, there can be no rules for seeking, and contradiction in the result is but a reductio adabsurdum of the attempt. But such a conclusion is intolerable to those who search, else they would not search ; and therefore on them the obligation lies to explain, if they can, how it comes to pass, that Private Judgment is a duty, and an advantage, and a success, considering it leads the way not only to their own faith, whatever that may be, but to opinions which are diametrically opposite to it ; consider- ing it not only leads them right, but leads others wrong, landing them as it may be in the Church of Rome, or in the Wesleyan Connexion, or in the Society of Friends. . Are exercises of mind, which end so diversely, one and all pleasing to the Divine Author of faith ; or rather' must they not contain some inherent, or some incidental defect, since they manifest such divergence .■• Must private judgment in all cases be a good per se ; or is it a good Private yudgment. 337 under circumstances, and with limitations ? Or is it a good, only when it is not an evil ? Or is it a good and evil at once, a good involving an evil ? Or is it an ab- solute and simple evil ? Questions of this sort rise in the mind on contemplating a principle which leads to more than the thirty-two points of the compass, and, in consequence, whatever we may here be able to doj in the way of giving plain rules for its exercise; be it greater or less-, will be so much gain. r. Now the first remark which occurs is an obvious one, and, we suppose, will be suffered to pass without much opposition, that whatever be the intrinsic merits of Private Judgment, yet, if it at all exerts itself in the direction of •|)roselytism and conversion, a certain onus probandi lies upon it, and it must show cause why it should be tole- rated, and not rather treated as a breach of the peace, and silenced instanter as a mere disturber of the existing constitution of things. Of course it may be safely exer- cised in defending what is established ; and we are far indeed from saying that it is never to advance in the direction of change or revolution, else the Gospel itself could never have been introduced ; but we consider that serious religious changes have a prima facie case against them ; they have something to get over, and have to prove their admissibility, before it can reasonably be allowed ; and their agents may be called upon to suffer, in order to prove their earnestness, and to pay the penalty of the trouble they are causing. Considering the special countenance given in Scripture to quiet, unanimity, and contentedness, and the warnings directed against dis- order, insubordination, changeableness, discord, and division ; considering the emphatic words of the Apostle, VOL. II. 22 338 Private Judgment. laid down by him as a general principle, and illustrated in detail, "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called ;" considering, in a word, that change is really the characteristic of error, and unalter- ableness the attribute of truth, of holiness, of Almighty God Himself, we consider that when Private Judgment moves in the direction of innovation, it may well be re- garded at first with suspicion and treated with severity. Nay, we confess even a satisfaction, when a penalty is attached to the expression of new doctrines, or to a change of communion. We repeat it, if any men have strong feelings, they should pay for them ; if they think it a duty to unsettle things established, they should show their earnestness by being willing to suffer. We shall be the last to complain of this kind of persecution, even though directed against what we consider the cause of ■ truth. Such disadvantages do no harm to that cause in the event, but they bring home to a man's mind his own responsibility ; they are a memento to him of a great moral law, and warn him that his private judgment, if not a duty, is a sin. A An act of private judgment is, in its very idea, an act of individual responsibility ; this is a consideration which will come with especial force on a conscientious , mind, when it is to have so fearful an issue as a change of religion. A religious man will say t<5 himself, "If I am in error at present, I am in error by a disposition of Providence, which has placed me where I am ; if I change into an error, this is my own act. It is much less fearful to be born at disadvantage, than to place \ myself at disadvantage." And if the voice of men in general is to weigh at allji in a matter of this kind, it does but corroborate these ; instinctive feelings. A convert is undeniably in favour j Private judgment. 335 with no party ; he is looked at with distrust, contempt, and aversion by all. His former friends think him a good riddance, and his new friends are cold and strange ; and as to the impartial public, their very first impulse is to impute the change to some eccentricity of character, or fickleness of mind, or tender attachment, or private interest. Their utmost praise is the reluctant confession that " doubtless he is very sincere." Churchmen and Dissenters, men of Rome and men of the Kirk, are equally subject to this remark. Not on extraordinary occasions only, but as a matter of course, whenever the news of a conversion to Romanism, or to Irvingism, or to the Plymouth sect, or to Unitarianism, is brought to us, we say, one and all of us, " No wonder, such a one has lived so long abroad ;" or, " he is of such a very ima- ginative turn ;" or, " he is so excitable and odd ;" or, " what could he do .' all his family turned ;" or, " it was a re-action in consequence of an injudicious education ;" or, " trade makes men cold," or " a little learning makes them shallow in their religion." If, then, the common voice of mankind goes for anything, must we not con- sider it to be the rule that men change their religion, not on reason, but for some extra-rational feeling or motive .' else, the world would not so speak. Now, for ourselves, we are not quarrelling with this testimony, — we are willing to resign ourselves to it ; but we think there are parties whom it concerns much to ponder it Surely it is a strong, and, as they ought to ieel, an alarming proof, that, for all the haranguing and protesting which goes on in Exeter and other halls, this great people is not such a conscientious supporter of the sacred right of Private Judgment as a good Pro- testant would desire. Why should we go out of our way, one and all of us, to impute personal motives or in 340 Private Judgment. explanation of the conversion of every individual con- vert, as he comes before us, if there were in us, the public, an adhesion to that absolute, and universal, and unalienable principle, as its titles are set forth in heral- dic style, high and broad, sacred and awful, the right, and the duty, and the possibility of Private Judgment? Why should we confess it in the general, yet promptly and pointedly deny it in every particular, if our hearts retained more than the " magni nominis umbra," when we preached up the Protestant principle ? Is it not sheer wantonness and cruelty in Baptist, Independent, Ir- vingite, Wesleyan, Establishment-man, Jumper, and Mormonite, to delight in trampling on and crushing these manifestations of their own pure and precious charter, instead of dutifully and reverently exalting, at Bethel, or at Dan, each instance of it, as it occurs, to the gaze of its professing votaries ? If a staunch Pro- testant's daughter turns Roman, and betakes herself to a convent, why does he not exult in the occurrence ? Why does he not give a public breakfast, or hold a meeting, or erect a memorial, or write a pamphlet in honour of her, and of the great undying principle she has so gloriously vindicated ? Why is he in this base, disloyal style muttering about priests, and Jesuits, and the horrors of nunneries, in solution of the phenomenon, when he has the fair and ample form of Private Judg- ment rising before his eyes, and pleading with him, and bidding him impute good motives, not bad, and in very charity ascribe to the influence of a high and holy prin- ciple, to a right and a duty of every member of the family of man, what his poor human instincts are fain to set down as a folly or a sin. All this would lead us to suspect that the doctrine of private judgment, in its simplicity, purity, and integrity, — private judgment, all Private judgment. 34.1 private judgment, and nothing but private judgment,— is held by very few persons indeed ; and that the great mass of the population are either stark unbelievers in it, or deplorably dark about it ; and that even the minority who are in a manner faithful to it, have glossed and corrupted the true sense of it by a miserably faulty reading, and hold, not the right of private judgment, but the private right of judgment ; in other words, their own private right, and no one's else. To us it seems as clear as day, that they consider that they themselves, indeed, individually can and do act on rea- son, and on nothing but reason ; that they have the gift of advancing, without bias or unsteadiness, throughout their search, from premiss to conclusion, from text to doctrine ; that they have sought aright, and no one else, who does not agree with them ; that they alone have found out the art of putting the salt upon the bird's tail, and have rescued themselves from being the slaves of circumstance and the creatures of impulse. It is unde- niable, then, if the popular feeling is to be our guide, that, high and mighty as the principle of private judg- ment is in religious inquiries, as we most fully grant it is, still it bears some similarity to Saul's armour which David rejected, or to edged tools which have a bad trick of chopping at our fingers, when we are but simply and in- nocently meaning them to make a dash forward at truth. Any tolerably serious man will feel this in his own case more vividly than in that of any one else. Who can know ever so little of himself without suspecting all kinds of imperfect and wrong motives in everything he attempts } And then there is the bias of education and of habit ; and, added to the difficulties thence resulting, those which arise from weakness of the reasoning faculty, ignorance or imperfect knowledge of the original Ian- 342 Private Judgment. guages of Scripture, and again, of history and antiquity. These things being considered, we lay it down as a truth, about which, we think, few ought to doubt, that Divine aid alone can carry any one safely and success- fully through an inquiry after religious truth. That there are certain very broad contrasts between one religion and another, in which no one would be at fault what to think and what to choose, is very certain ; but the problem proposed to private judgment, at this day, is of a rather mbre complicated nature. Taking things as they are, we all seem to be in Solomon's case, when he said, " I am but a little child ; I know not how to go out or come in ; and Thy servant is in the midst of a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give, therefore. Thy servant an under- standing heart, that I may discern between good and bad." It is useless, surely, attempting to inquire or judge, unless a Divine command enjoin the work upon us, and a Divine promise sustain us through it. Supposing, indeed, such a command and promise be given, then, of course, there is no difiSculty in the matter. Whatever be our personal infirmities. He whom we serve can overrule or supersede them. An act of duty must always be right ; and will be accepted, what- ever be its success, because done in obedience to His will. And He can bless the most unpromising circum- stances ; He can even lead us forward by means of our mistakes ; He can turn our mistakes into a revelation ; He can convert us, if He will, through the very ob- stinacy, or self-will, or superstition, which mixes itself up with our better feelings, and defiles, yet is sanctified by our sincerity. And much more can He shed upon our path supernatural light, if He so will, and give us an insight into the rheaning of Scripture, and a hold of the Private yudgment. 343 sense of Antiquity, to which our own unaided powers never could have attained. All this is certain ; He continually leads us forward in the midst of darkness ; and we live, not by bread only, but by His Word converting the hard rock or salt sea into nourishment. The simple question is, has He, in this particular case, commanded, has He promised } and how far .' If He has, and as far as He has, all is easy ; if He has not, all is, we will not say impossible, but what is worse, undutiful or presumptuous. Our business is to ask with St. Paul, when arrested in the midst of his frenzy, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" This is the simple question. He can bless our present state ; He can bless our change ; which is it His will to bless .' If Wesleyan or Independent has come over to us apart from this spirit, we do not much pride ourselves in our convert. If he joins us because he thinks he has a right to judge for himself, or because forms are of no consequence, or merely because sectari- anism has its errors and inconveniences, or because an established Church is an efficacious means of spreading religion, he plainly thinks that the choice of a com- munion is not a more serious matter than the choice of a neighbourhood or of an insurance office. In like manner, if members of our communion have left it for Rome, because of the asthetic beauty of the latter, and the grandeur of its pretensions, we are grieved, but, good luck to them, we can spare them. And if Roman Catholics join us or our " Dissenting brethren," because their own Church is behind the age, insists on Aristo- telic dogmas, and interferes with liberty of thought, such a conversion is no triumph over popery, but over St. Peter and St. Paul. Our only safety lies in obedience ; our only comfort in keeping it in view. 344 Private Judgment. If this be so, we have arrived at the following con- clusion : that it is our duty to betake ourselves to Scripture, and to observe how far the private search of a religion is there sanctioned, and under what circum- stances. This then is the next point which comes under consideration. 2. Now the first and most ordinary kind of Private Judg- ment, if it deserves the name, which is recognized in Scripture, is that in which we engage without conscious or deliberate purpose. While Lydia heard St. Paul preach, her heart was opened. She had it not in mind to exercise any supposed sacred right, she was not set- ting about the choice of a religion, but she was drawn on to accept the Gospel by a moral persuasion. "To him that hath more shall be given," not in the way of judging or choosing, but by an inward development met by external disclosures. Lydia's instance is* the type of a multitude of cases, differing very much from each other, some divinely ordered, others merely human, some which would commonly be called cases of private judgment, and others which certainly would not, but all agreeing in this, that the judgment exercised is not re- cognized and realized by the party exercising it, as the subject-matter of command, promise, duty, privilege, or anything else. It is but the spontaneous stirring of the affections within, or the passive acceptance of what is offered from without. St. Paul baptized Lydia's house- hold also ; it would seem then that he baptized servants or slaves, who had very little power of judging between a true religion and a false ; shall we say that they, like their mistress, accepted the Gospel on private judgment or not } Did the thousands baptized in national con- Private yudgment. 345 versions exercise their private judgment or not ? Do children when taught their catechism ? Most persons will reply in the negative ; yet it will be difficult to separate their case in principle from what Lydia's may have been, that is, the case of religious persons who are advancing forward into the truth, how they know not. Neither the one class nor the other have undertaken to inquire and judge, or have set about being converted, or have got their reasons all before them and together, to discharge at an enemy or passer-by on fit occasions. The difference between tliese two classes is in the state of their hearts ; the one party consist of unformed minds, or senseless and dead, or minds under temporary excite- ment, who are brought over by external or accidental influences, without any real sympathy for the Religion, which is taught them in order that they may learn sym- pathy with it, and who, as time goes on, fall away again if they are not happy enough to become embued ivith it ; and in the other party there is already a sympathy between the external Word and the heart within. The (Mie are proselytized by force, authority, or their mere feelings, the others through their habitual and abiding frame of mind and cast of opinion. But neither can be said, in the ordinary sense of the word, to inquire, reasoii, and decide about religion. And yet in a great number of these cases, — certainly where the persons in question are come to years of discretion and show them- selves consistent in their religious profession afterwards, —they would be commonly set forth by Protestant minds as instances of the due exercise of the right of private judgment. Such are the greater number perhaps of converts at this day, in whatever direction their conversion lies ; and their so-called exercise of private judgment is neither right 346 Pfivate Judgment. nor wrong in itself, it is a spontaneous act which they do not think about ; if it is anything, it is but a means of bringing out their moral characteristics one way or the other. Often, as in the case of very illiterate and unre- flecting persons, it proves nothing either way ; but in those who are not so, it is right or wrong, as their hearts are right or wrong ; it is an exercise not of reason but of heart. Take for instance, the case of a servant in a family ; she is baptized and educated in the Church of England, and is religiously disposed ; she goes into Scotland and conforms to the Kirk, to which her master and mistress belong. She is of course responsible for what she does, but no one would say that she had formed any purpose, or taken any deliberate step. In course of time, when perhaps taxed with the change, she would say in her defence that outward forms matter not, and that there are good men in Scotland as well as in England ; but this is an afterthought. Again, a care- less person, nominally a churchman, falls among serious- minded dissenters, and they reclaim him from vice or irreligion ; on this he joins their communion, and as time goes on boasts perhaps of his right of private judg- ment. At the time itself, however, no process of inquiry took place within him at all ; his heart was "opened," whether for good or for bad, whether by good influences or by good and bad mixed. He was not conscious of con*, vincing reasons, but he took what came to hand, he era- braced what was offered, he felt and he acted. Again, a man is brought up among Unitarians, or in the frigid and worldly school which got a footing in the Church during last century, and has been accustomed to view religion as a matter of reason and form, of obligation, to the exclusion of affectionateness and devotion. He falls among persons of what is called an Evangelical cast, Private Judgment. 347 and finds his heart interested, and great objects set before it. Such a man falls in with the sentiments he finds, rather than adopts them. He follows the leadings of his heart, perhaps of Divine grace, but certainly not any course of inquiry and proof. There is nothing of argument, discussion, or choice in the process of his con- version. He "has no systems to choose between, and no grounds to scrutinize. Now, in all such cases, the sort of private judgment exercised is right or wrong, not as private judgment, but according to its circumstances. It is either the attraction of a Divine Influence, such as the mind cannot master ; or it is a suggestion of reason, which the mind has yet to analyze, before it can bring it to the test of logic. If it is the former, it is above a private judgment, popularly so called ; if the latter, it is not yet so much as one. A second class of conversions on private judgment consists of those which take place upon the sight or the strong testimony of miracles. Such was the instance of Rahab, of Naaman, if he may be called a convert, and of Nebuchadnezzar; of the blind man in John ix., of St. Paul, of Cornelius, of Sergius Paulus, and many others. Here again the act of judgment is of a very peculiar character. It is not exactly an unconscious act, but yet it is hardly an act of judgment. Our belief in .external sensible facts cannot properly be called an act of private judgment ; yet since Protestants, we suppose, would say that the blind man or Sergius Paulus were converted on private judgment, let it even so be called, though it is of a very particular Ijind. Again, conviction after a miracle also implies the latent belief that such acts are signs of the Divine Presence, a belief which may be as generally recognized and maintained, and is as little a peculiar or private feeling as the impression on 348 Private Judgment. the senses of the miracle itself. And this leads to the, mention of a further instance of the sort of private judg- ments to which men are invited in Scripture, viz., the exercise of the moral sense. Our Creator has stamped certain great truths upon our minds, and there they remain in spite of the fall. St. Paul appeals to one of these at Lystra, calling on the worshippers of idols to turn from these vanities unto the Living God ; and at Athens, " not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone graven by art and man's device," but to worship " God who made the world, and all things therein." In the same tone he reminds the Thessalonians of their having "turned to God from idols to serve the Living and True God." In like manner doubtless other great principles also of religion and morals are rooted in the mind so deeply, that their denial by any Religion would be a justification of our quitting or rejecting it If a pagan found his ecclesiastical polity essentially founded on lying and cheating, or his ritual essentially impure, or his moral code essentially unjust or cruel, we conceive this would be a sufficient reason for his re- nouncing it for one which was free from these hateful characteristics. Such again is the kind of private judg- ment exercised, when maxims or principles, generally admitted by bodies of men, are acted upon by individuals who have been ever taught them, as a matter of course, without questioning them ; for instance, if a member of the English Church, who had always been taught that preaching is the great ordinance of the Gospel, to the disparagement of the Sacraments, thereupon placed himself under the ministry of a powerful Wesleyan preacher ; or if, from the common belief that nothing is essential but what is on the surface of Scripture, he forthwith attached himself to the Baptists, Independents, Private yudgment. 349 or Unitarians. Such men indeed often take their hne in consequence of some inward Hking for the religious system they adopt ; but we are speaking of their pro- ceeding as far as it professes to be an act of judgment. A third class of private judgments recorded in Scrip- ture, are those which are exercised at one and the same time by a great number ; if it be not a contradiction to call such judgments private. Yet here again we suppose staunch Protestants would maintain that the three thousand at Pentecost, and the five thousand after the miracle on the lame man, and the "great company of the priests," which shortly followed, did avail themselves, and do afford specimens, of the sacred right in question ; therefore let it be ruled so. Such, then, is the case of national conversions to which we have already alluded. Again, if the Lutheran Church of Germany with its many theologians, or our neighbour the Kirk, — General Assembly, Men of Strathbogie, Dr. Chalmers, and all, — came to a unanimous or quasi-unanimous resolve to sub- mit to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their patriarch, this doubtless would be an exercise of private judgment perfectly defensible on Scripture precedents. Now, before proceeding, let tis observe, that as yet nothing has been found in Scripture to justify the cases of private judgment which are exemplified in the popular religious biographies of the day. These generally con- tain instances of conversions made on the judgment, definite, deliberate, independent, isolated, of the parties, converted. The converts in these stories had not seen -miracles, nor had they developed their own existing prin- ciples or beliefs, nor had they changed their religion in company with others, nor had they received new truths, •they knew not how. Let us then turn to Scripture a second time, to see whether we can gain thence any 350 Private Judgment. clearer sanction of Private Judgment as now exercised among us, than our search into Scripture has hitherto furnished. 3- There certainly is another method of conversion upon private judgment described in Scripture, which is much more to our purpose* viz., by means of the study of Scrip- ture itself Thus our Lord says to the Jews, "Search the Scriptures ;" and the treasurer of Candace was reading the book of Isaiah when St. Philip met him ; and the men of Berea are said to be " more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." And it is added,. " therefore many of them believed." Here at length, it will be said, is a precedent for such acts of private judgment as are most frequently recommended and instanced in religious tales ; and indeed these texts commonly are understood to make it certain beyond dispute, that individuals ordinarily may find out the doctrines of the Gospel for themselves from the private study of Scripture. A little consideration, however, will convince us that even these are precedents for something else ; that they sanction, not an inquiry about Gospel doctrine, but about the Gospel teacher ; not what has God revealed, but whom has He commissioned .' And this is a very different thing. The context of the passage in which our Lord speaks of searching the Scriptures, shows plainly that their office is that of leading, not td a knowledge of the Gospel, but of Himself, its Author and Teacher. "Whom He hath sent," He says, " Him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me" He adds, that Private judgment. 351 they "will not come unto Him, that they may have life," and that " He is come in His Father's name, and they receive Him not." And again, " Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me." It is plain that in this passage our Lord does not send His hearers to the Old Testament to gain thence the knowledge of the doctrines of the Gospel by means of their private judgment, but to gain tests or notes by which to find out and receive Him who was the teacher of those doctrines ; and, though the treasurer of Candace appears in the narrative to be contemplating our Lord in prophecy, not as the teacher but the object of the Christian faith, yet still in confessing that he could not " understand " what he was reading, " unless some man should guide him," he lays down the principle broadly, which we desire here to maintain, that the private study of Scripture is not intended ordinarily as the means of gaining a knowledge of the Gospel. In like manner St Peter, on the day of Pentecost, refers to the book of Joel, by way of proving thence, not the Christian doc- trine, but the divine promise that new teachers were to be sent in due season, and the fact that it was fulfilled in himself and his brethren. "This is that," he says, " which was spoken by the prophet Joel, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" While, then, the conversions recorded in Scripture are brought about in a very marked way through a teacher, and not by means of private judgment, so again, if an appeal is made to private judgment, this is done in order to settle who the teacher is, and what are his notes or tokens, rather than to substantiate this or that religious opinion or practice. And if such instances bear upon our conduct at this day, as it is natural to think they do. 352 Private Judgment. then of course the practical question before us is, who is the teacher now, from whose mouth we are to seek the law, and what are his notes ? Now, in remarkable coincidence with this view, we find in both Testaments that teachers are promised under the dispensation of the Gospel, so that they, who like the noble Bereans, search the Scriptures daily, will be at little loss whither their private judgment should lead them in order to gain the knowledge of the truth. In the book of Isaiah we have the following express pro- mises : " Though the Lord give you the bread of ad- versity, and the waters of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a voice behind thee, saying. This is the way," etc. Several tests follow descriptive of the condition of things or the cir- cumstances in which these teachers are to be found. First, the absence of idolatry : " Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the orna- ments of thy molten images of gold ;" and next, the multitude of fellow-believers : " Then shall He give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal ; in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures!' Else- where the appointed teacher is noted as speaking with authority and judicially : as " Ever)' tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." And here again the promises or tests of extent and per- petuity appear : " Thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles ;" and " My kindness shall not depart from them, neither shall the covenant of My peace be re- moved." Elsewhere holiness is mentioned : " It shall be called. The way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it." One more promise shall be cited : "My Private Judgment, 353 Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed . . from henceforth and for ever." In the New Testament we have the same promises ^tated far more concisely indeed, but, what is much more apposite than a longer description, with the addition of the name of our promised teacher : " The Church of the living God," says St. Paul, " the pillar and groujid of the truth!' The simple question then for Private Judg- ment to exercise itself upon is, what and where is the Church .' Now let it be observed how exactly this view of the province of Private Judgment, where it is allowable, as being the discovery not of doctrine, but of the teacher of doctrine, harmonizes both with the nature of Religion and the state of human society as we find it. Religion is for practice, and that immediate. Now it is much easier to form a correct and rapid judgment of persons than of ] books or of doctrines. Every one, even a child, has an impression about new faces ; few persons have any real view about new propositions. There is something in the , sight of persons or of bodies of men, which speaks to ! us for approval or disapprobation with a distinctness to j which pen and ink are unequal. This is just the kind of • evidence which is needed for use, in cases in which private ! judgment is divinely intended to be the means of our j conversion. The multitude have neither the time, the ', patience, nor the clearness and exactness of thought, for processes of investigation and deduction. Reason is slow and abstract, cold and speculative ; but man is a being of feeling and action ; he is not resolvable into a dictum de omni et nulla, or a series of hypotheticals, or a critical diatribe, or an algebraical equation. And this VOL. II. 23 354 Private Judgment. obvious fact does, as far as it goes, make it probable that, if we are providentially obliged to exercise our private judgment, the point towards which we have to direct it, is the teacher rather than the doctrine. In corroboration, it may be observed, that Scripture seems always to imply the presence of teachers as the appointed ordinance by which men learn the truth ; and is principally engaged in giving cautions against false teachers, and tests for ascertaining the true. Thus our Lord bids us " beware of false prophets," not of false books ; and look to their fruits. And He says elsewhere that " the sheep know His voice," and that " they know not the voice of strangers." And He predicts false Christs and false prophets, who are to be nearly successful ' against even the elect. He does not give us tests of - false doctrines, but of certain visible peculiarities or notes applicable to persons or parties. " If they shall say, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth ; behold, he is in the secret chamber, believe it not." St. Paul insists on tokens of a similar kind : " Mark them which cause divisions, and avoid them ;" " is Christ divided .'" "beware of dogs, beware of evil-workers;" "be fol- lowers together of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample." Thus the New Testa^ ment equally with the Old, as far as it speaks of pri- vate examination into teaching professedly from heaven, makes the teacher the subject of that inquiry, and not the thing taught ; it bids us ask for his credentials, and avoid him if he is unholy, or idolatrous, or schismatical, or if he comes in his own name, or if he claims no au- thority, or is the growth of a particular spot or of par- ticular circumstances. If there are passages which at first sight seem to interfere with this statement, they admit of an easy ex- Private judgment. 355 planation. Either they will be found to appeal to those instinctive feelings of our nature already spoken of which supersede argument and proof in the judgments we form of persons or bodies ; as in St. Paul's reference to the idolatry of Athenian worship, or to the extreme moral corruption of heathenism generally. Or, again, the criterion of doctrine which they propose to the private judgment of the individual turns upon the ques- tion of its novelty or previous reception. When St. Paul would describe a false gospel, he calls it another gospel "than that ye have received;" and St. John bids us " try the spirits," gives us as the test of truth and error the " confessing that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," and warns us against receiving into our houses any one who "brings not this doctrine." We conceive then that on the whole the notion of gaining religious truth for ourselves by our private examination, whether by reading or thinking, whether by studying Scripture or other books, has no broad sanction in Scrip- ture, is neither impressed upon us by its general tone, nor enjoined in any of its commands. The great ques- tion which it puts before us for the eXercise of private judgment is, — Who is God's prophet, and where .-' Who is to be considered the voice of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church } A- Having carried our train of thought as far as this, it is time for us to proceed to the thesis in which it will be found to issue, viz., that, on the principles that have been laid down. Dissenters ought to abandon their own communion, but that members of the English Church ought not to abandon theirs. Such a position has often been treated as a paradox and inconsistency ; yet we 356 Private Judgment. hope to be able to recommend it favourably to the reader. Now that seceders, sectarians, independent thinkers, and the like, by whatever name they call themselves, whether " Wesleyans," " Dissenters," " professors of the national religion," " well-wishers of the Church," or even "Churchmen," are in grievous error, in their mode of exercising their private judgment, is plain as soon as stated, viz., because they ;^do not use it in looking out for a teacher at all. They who think they have, in con- sequence of their inquiries, found the teacher of truth, may be wrong in the result they have arrived at ; but those who despise the notion of a teacher altogether, are already wrong before they begin them. They do not start with their private judgment in that one special direction which Scripture allows or requires. Scripture speaks of a certain pillar or ground of truth, as set up to the world, and describes it by certain characteristics; dissenting teachers and bodies, so far from professing to be themselves this authority, or to contain among them this authority, assert there is no such authority to be found anywhere. When then we deny that they are the Church in our meaning of the word, they ought to take no offence at it, for we are not denying them anything to which they lay claim ; we are but denying them what they already put away from themselves as much as we can. They must not act like the dog in the fable, (if it be not too light a comparison,) who would neither use the manger himself, nor relinquish it to others : let them not grudge to others a manifest scriptural privilege which they disown themselves. Is an ordinance of Scripture to be fulfilled nowhere, be- cause it is not fulfilled in them .? By the Church we mean what Scripture means, " the pillar and ground of Private yudgment, 357 the truth ; " a power out of whose mouth the Word and the Spirit are never to fail, and whom whoso refuses to hear becomes thereupon to all his brethren a heathen man and a publican. Let the parties in question accept the Scripture definition, or else not assume the Scripture name ; or, rather, let them seek elsewhere what they are conscious is not among themselves. We hear much of Bible Christians, Bible Religion, Bible preaching ; it would be well if we heard a little of the Bible Church also ; we venture to say, that Dissenting Churches would vanish thereupon at once, for, since it is their 'fundamental principle that they are not a pillar or ground of truth, but voluntary societies, without au- thority and without gifts, the Bible Church they cannot be. If the serious persons who are in dissent would really imitate the simple-minded Ethiopian, or the noble Bereans, let them ask themselves, " Of whom speaketh" the Apostle, or the Prophet, such great things ? — Where is the " pillar and ground " .' — Who is it that is appointed to lead us to Christ .'' — Where are those teachers which were never to be removed into a corner any more, but which were ever to be before our eyes and in our eafs .' Whoever is right, or whoever is wrong, they cannot be right, vsrho profess not to have found, not to look out for, not to believe in, that Ordinance to which Apostles and prophets give their testimony. So much then for the Protestant side of the thesis. One half of it then is easily disposed of; but now we come to the other side of it, the Roman, which certainly has its intricacies. It is not difficult to know how we should act towards a religious body which does not even profess to come to us in the name of the Lord, or to be a pillar and ground of the truth ; but what shall we say when more than one society, or school, or party, lay 358 Private yudgment. claim to be the heaven-sent teacher, and are rivals one to the other, as are the Churches of England and Rome at this day ? How shall we discriminate between them ? Which are we to follow ? Are tests given us for that purpose ? Now if tests are given us, we must use them ; but if not, and so far as not, we must conclude that Pro- vidence foresaw that the difference between them would never be so great as to require of us to leave the one for the other. However, it is certain that much is said in Scripture about rival teachers, and that at least some of these rivals are so opposed to each other, that tests are given us, in order to our shunning the one party, and accept- ing the other. In such cases, the one teacher is repre- sented to be the minister of God, and the other the child and organ of evil. The one comes in God's name, the other professes to come simply in his own name. Such a contrast is presented to us in the conflict be- tween Moses and the magicians of Egypt ; all is light on the one side, all darkness on the other. Or again, in the trial between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. There is no doubt, in such a case, that it would be our imperative duty at once to leave the teaching of Satan-, and betake ourselves to the Law and the Prophets. And it will be observed that, to assist inquirers in doing so, the representatives of Almighty God have been enabled, in their contest with the enemy, to work mira- cles, as Moses was, for instance, and Elijah, in order to make it clear which way the true teaching lay. But now will any one say that the contrast between the Enghsh and the Roman, or again, the Greek, Churches, is of this nature >—\s any of the 'three a "monstrum nullA virtute redemptum" > Moreover, the magicians and the priests of Baal " came in their own Private Judgment. 359 name ; " is that the case with the Church, English, Roman or Greek ? Is it not certain, even at first sight, that each of these branches has many high gifts and much grace in her communion ? And, at any rate, as regards our controversy with Rome, if her champions would maintain that the Church of England is the false prophet, and she the true one, then let her work mira- cles, as Moses did in the presence of the magicians, in order to our conviction. Probably, however, it will be admitted that the con- trast between England and Rome is not of that nature ; for the English Church confessedly does not. come in her own name, nor can she reasonably be compared to the Egyptian magicians or the prophets of Baal ; is there any other type in Scripture into which the difference between her and the Church of Rome can be resolved ? We shall be referred, perhaps, to the case of the false prophets of Israel and Judah, who professed to come in the name of the Lord, yet did not preach the truth, and had no part or inheritance with God's prophets. This parallel is not happier than the former, for a. test was given to distinguish between them, which does not decide between the Church of Rome and ourselves. This test is the divine accomplishment of the prophet's message, or the divine blessing upon his teaching, or the eventual success of his work, as it may be variously stated ; a test under which neither Church, Roman or Anglican, will fail, and neither Is eminently the foremost. Each Church has had to endure trial, each has overcome it ; each has triumphed over enemies, each has had con- tinued signs of the divine favour upon it. The passages in Scripture to which we refer are such as the following. —Moses, for instance, has laid it down in the Book of Deuteronomy, that, "when a prophet speaketh in the 360 Pritate Judgment. name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously." To the same effect, in the Book of Ezekiel, the denunciation against the false prophet is, " Lo 1 when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it ? " And Gamaliel's advice to "refrain from these men, and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought," may be taken as an illustration of.the same rule of judgment. Hence Roman Catholics themselves are accustomed to consider, that eventual failure is the sure destiny of heresy and schism ; what then will they say to us .' the English Church has remained in its present state three hundred years, and at the end of the time is stronger than at the beginning. This does not look like an heretical or schismatical Church. However, when she does fall to pieces, then, it may be admitted, her children will have a reason for deserting her; till then, she has no symptom of being akin to the false prophets who professed the Lord's name, and deceived the simple and unlearned ; she has no symptom of being a traitor to the. faith. However, there is a third type of rival teaching men- tioned in Scripture, under which the dissension between Rome and England may be considered to fall, and which it may be well to notice. Let it be observed, then, that even in the Apostles' age very grave outward differences seem to have existed between Christian teachers, that is, the organs of the one Church, and yet those differences were not, in consequence, any call upon inquirers and beholders to quit one teacher and betake themselves to another. The state of the Corinthian Christians will exemplify what we mean : Paul, Cephas, and Apollos^ Private yudgment. 361 were all friends together, yet parties were formed round each separately/ which disagreed with each other, and made the Apostles themselves seem in disagreement. Is not this, at least in great measure, the state of the Churches of England and Rome ? Are they not one in faith, so far forth as they are viewed in their essential apostolical character ? are they not in discord, so far as their respective children and disciples have overlaid them with errors of their own individual minds ? It was a great fault, doubtless, that the followers of St. Paul should have divided from the followers of St. Peter, but would it have mended matters, had any individuals among them gone over to St. Peter ? was that the fitting remedy for the evil } Was not the remedy that of their putting aside partisanship altogether, and regarding St. Paul " not after the flesh," but simply as " the minister by whom they believed," the visible representative of the un- divided Christ, the one Catholic Church } And, in like manner, surely if party feelings and interests have sepa- rated us from the members of the Roman communion, this does not prove that our Church itself is divided from theirs, any more than that St. Paul was divided from St. Peter, nor is it our duty to leave our place and join them ; — nothing would be gained by so unnecessary a step ; — ^but our duty is, remaining where we are, to recognize in our own Church, not an establishment, not a party, not a mere Protestant denomination, but the Holy Church Catholic which the traditions of men have partially obscured, — to rid it of these traditions, to try to soften bitterness and animosity of feeling, and to re- press party spirit and promote peace as much as in us lies. Moreover, let it be observed, that St. Paul was evidently superior in gifts to ApoUos, yet this did not justify Christians attaching themselves to the former 362 Private yudgment. rather than the latter ; for, as the Apostle says, they both were but ministers of one and the same Lord, and nothing more. Comparison, then, is not allowed us between teacher and teacher, where each has on the whole the notes of a divine mission ; so that even could the Church of Rome be proved superior to our own (which we put merely as a hypothesis, and for argu- ment's sake), this would as little warrant our attaching ourselves to it instead of our own Church, as there was warrant for one of the converts of Apollos to call him- self by the name of Paul. Further, let it be observed, that the Apostle reproves those who attached themselves to St. Peter equally with the Paulines or with the disciples of Apollos ; is it possible he could have done so, were St. Peter the head and essence of the Church in a sense in which St. Paul was not .-' And, again, there was an occasion when not only their followers were at variance, but the Apostles themselves ; we refer to the dissimula- tion of St. Peter at Antioch, and the resistance of St. Paul to it : was this a reason why St. Peter's disciples should go over to St. Paul, or rather why they should correct their dissimulation ?* We are surely bound to prosecute this search after the promised Teacher of truth entirely as a practical matter, with reference to our duty and nothing else. The simple question which we have to ask ourselves is, Has the English Church sufficiently upon her the signs of an Apostle .' is she the divinely-appointed teacher to us ? If so, we need not go further ; we have no reason to break through the divine rule of " being content with such things as we have ; " we have no warrant to com- pare our own prophet with the prophet given to others. • [In answer to this whole argument, vid. supr., p. 103, and vol. I., p. 185.] Private yudgment, 363 Nor can we : tests are not given us for the purpose. We may believe that our own Church has certain im- perfections ; the Church of Rome certain corruptions : such a belief has no tendency to lead us to any deter- minate judgment as to which of the two on the whole is the better, or to induce or warrant us to leave the one communion for the other. S- One point remains, however, which is so often felt as a difficulty by members of our Church that we are tempted to say a few words upon it in conclusion, and to try to show what is the true practical mode of meet- ing it. And this perhaps will give us an opportunity of expressing our general meaning in a more definite and intelligible form. It cannot be denied, then, that a very plausible ground of attack may be taken up against the Church of England, from the circumstance that she is separated from the rest of Christendom ; and just such a ground as it would be allowable for private judgment to rest and act upon, supposing its office to be what we have described it to be. "As to the particular doctrines of Anglicanism, (it may be urged,) Scripture may, if so be, supply pri- vate judgment with little grounds for quarrelling with them ; but what can be said to explain away the Note of forfeiture, which attaches to us in consequence of our isolated state .' We are, in fact (it may be objected) cut off from the whole of the Christian world ; nay, far from denying that excommunication, in a certain sense we glory in it, and that under a notion, that we are so very pure that it must soil our fingers to touch any other ' Church whatever upon the earth, in north, east, or south. How is this reconcilable with St. Paul's clear announce- 364 Private Judgment. ment that there is but one body as well as one spirit ? or with our Lord's, that ' by this shall all men know', as by a Note obvious to the intelligence even of the illiterate and unreasoning, ' that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another ' ? or again, with His prayer that .His disciples might all be one, ' that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me ' ? Visible unity, then, would seem to be both the main evidence for Christianity, and the sign of our own participation in its benefits ; whereas we English despise the Greeks and hate the Romans, turn our backs on the Scotch Episcopalians, and do but smile distantly upon our American cousins. We throw ourselves into the arms of the State, and in that close embrace forget that the Church was meant to be Catholic ; or we call ourselves the Catholics, and the mere Church of Eng- land our Catholic Church ; as if, forsooth, by thus con- fining it all to ourselves, we did not ipso facto forfeit all claim to be considered Catholic at all." What increases the force of this argument is, that St. Augustine seems, at least at first sight, virtually to urge it against us in his controversy with the Donatists, whom he represents as condemned, simply because sepa- rate from the " orbis terrarum," and styles the point in question "quaestio facillima," and calls on individual Donatists to decide it by their private judgment* * Ego cum audio quenquam bono ingenio praeditum, doctrinisque libe- ralibus eruditum, quamquam non ibi salus animas constituta sit, tamen iii quastione facilHmd sentire aliud quam Veritas postulat, quo magis miror, eo magis exardesco nosse hominem et cum eo coUoqui ; vel si id non possim, saltern litteris quas longissime volant [to the nineteenth century ?] attingere mentem ejus atque ab eo vicissim attingi desidero. 'Sicut te esse audio talem virum, et ab Ecclesia Cathohca, quae sicut Sancto Spiritu pronunciata est, toto orbe diffunditur, discerptum doleo atque seclusum. — Ep. 87, vid. ep. 61. .Private yudgment. 365 Now this is an objection which we must honestly say- is deeply felt by many people, and not inconsiderable ones ; and the more it is openly avowed to be a difficulty the better ; for then there is the chance of its being ac- knowledged, and in the course of time obviated, as far as may be, by those who have the power. Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant ; and we are sanguine that the time is come when so great an evil, as this is, cannot stand its ground against the good feeling and common sense of religious persons. It is the very strength of Romanism against us ; and, unless the proper persons take it into their very serious con- sideration, they may look for certain to undergo the loss, as time goes on, of some whom they would least like to be lost to our Church. If private judgment can be exercised on any point, it is on a matter of the senses ; now our eyes and our ears are filled with the abuse poured out by members of our Church on her sister Churches in foreign lands. It is not that their corrupt practices are gravely and tenderly pointed out, as may be done by men who feel themselves also to be sinful and ignorant, and know that they have their own great imperfections, which their brethren abroad have not, — but we are apt not to acknowledge them as brethren at all ; we treat them in an arrogant John Bull way, as mere Frenchmen, or Spaniards, or Aus- trians, not as Christians. We act as if we could do without brethren ; as if our having brethren all over the world were not the very tenure on which we are Christians at all ; as if we did not cease to be Christians, if at any time we ceased to have brethren. Or again, when our thoughts turn to the East, instead of recol- lecting that there are sister Churches there, we leave it to the Russians to take care of the Greeks, and to the 366 Private judgment. French to take care of the Romans, and we content ourselves with erecting a Protestant Church at Jeru- salem, or with helping the Jews to rebuild their temple there, or with becoming the august protectors of Nes- torians, Monophysites, and all the heretics we can hear of, or with forming a league with the Mussulman against Greeks and Romans together. Can any one doubt that th'e British power is not considered a Church power by any country whatever into which it comes ? and if so, is it possible that the English Church, which is so closely connected with that power, can be said in any true sense to exert a CathoUc influence, or to deserve the Catholic name ? How can any Church be called CathoHc, which does not act beyond its own territory ? and when did the rulers of the English Church ever move one step beyond the precincts, or without the leave, of the imperial power? " pudet hasc opprobia nobis Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli." There is indeed no denying them ; and if certain per- sons are annoyed at the confession, as if we were thereby putting weapons into our enemies' hands, let- them be annoyed more by the fact, and let them alter the fact, and, they may take our word for it, the confession will cease of itself The world does not feel the fact the less for its not being confessed ; it is felt deeply by many, and is doing incalculable mischief to our cause, and is likely to hurt it more and more. In a word, this isolation is doing as much as any one thing can do to unchurch us, and it and our a'wakened claims to be Catholic and Apostolic cannot long stand together. This then' is the main difficulty which serious people feel in accepting the English Church as the promised prophet of truth, and we are far indeed from undervaluing it, as the above remarks show. Private Judgment. 367 But now taking the objection in a simply practical view, which is the only view in which it ought to concern or perplex any one, we consider that it can have legitimately no effect whatever in leading us from England to Rome. We do not say no legitimate tendency in itself to move us, but no legitimate influence with serious men, who wish to know how their duty lies. For this reason — -because if the note of schism on the one hand lies against England, an antagonist disgrace lies upon Rome, the Note of idolatry. Let us not be mistaken here : we are neither accusing Rome of being idolatrous nor ourselves of being schismatical, we think neither charge tenable ; but still the Roman Church practises what looks so very like idolatry, and the English glories in what looks so very hke schism, that, without deciding what is the duty of a Roman Catholic towards the Church of England in her present state, we do seriously think that members of the English Church have a providential direction given them, how to comport themselves towards the Church of Rome, while she is what she is. We are discussing the subject, not of decisive proofs, but of probable indications and of presumptive notes of the divine will. Few men have time to scrutinize ac- curately ; all men may have general impressions, and the general impressions of conscientious men are true ones. Providence has graciously met their need, and provided for them those very means of knowledge which they can use and turn to account. He has cast around the institutions and powers existing in the world marks of truth or falsehood, or, more properly, elements of attraction and repulsion, and notices for pursuit and avoidance, sufficient to determine the course of those who in the conduct of life desire to approve themselves to Him. Now, whether or no what we see in the Church ■368 Private yudgment. of Rome be sufficient to warrant a religious person to leave her (a question, we repeat, about which we have no need here to concern ourselves), we certainly think it sufficient to deter him from joining her ; and, whatever be the perplexity and distress of his position in a com- munion so isolated as the English, we do not think he would mend the matter by placing himself in a com- munion so superstitious as the Roman ; especially con^ sidering, agreeably to a remark we have already made, that even if he be schismatical at present, he is so by the act of Providence, whereas he would be entering into superstition by his own. Thus an Anglo-Catholic is kept at a distance from Rome, if not by our own excel- lences, at least by her errors. That this is the state of the Church of Rome, is, alas ! not fairly disputable. Dr. Wiseman has lately attempted to dispute it ; but if we may judge from the present state of the controversy, facts are too clear for him. It has lately been broadly put forward, as all know, that, what- ever may be said in defence of the authoritative documents of the faith of Rome, this imputation lies against her authorities, that they have countenanced and established doctrines and practices from which a Christian mind, not educated in them, shrinks ; and that in the number of these a worship of the creature which to most men will seem to be a quasi4dolatry is not the least prominent.* Dr. Wiseman, for whom we entertain most respectful feel- ings personally, and to whom we impute nothing but what is straightforward and candid, has written two pamphlets on the subject, towards which we should be very sorry to deal unfairly ; but he certainly seems to us in the for- • [This is an exaggeration ; I have reconsidered the whole subject in my essay on "Development of Doctrine "in 1845; and in my letter to Dr. Pusey in 1866,] Private yudgmeiit. 369 mer of them to deny the fact of these alleged additions in the formal profession of his Church, and then, in the second, to turn right round and maintain them. What account is to be given of self-contradiction such as this, but the fact, that he would deny the additions, if he could, and defends them, because he can't ? And that dilemma is no common one ; for, as if to show that what he holds in excess of our creed is in excess also of primi- tive usage, he has in his defence been forced upon citations from the writings of the Fathers, the chief of which, as Mr. Palmer has shown, are spurious ; thus setting before us vividly what he looks for in Antiquity, but what he cannot find there. However, it is not our intention to enter into a controversy which is in Mr. Palmer's hands ; nor need we do more than refer the reader to the various melancholy evidences, which that learned, though over- severe writer, and Dr. Pusey, and Mr. Ward adduce, in proof of the existence of this Note of dishonour in a sister or mother, towards whom we feel so tenderly and reve- rently, and whom nothing but some such urgent reason in conscience could make us withstand so resolutely. So much has been said on this point lately, as to in- crease our unwillingness to insist upon a subject in itself very ungrateful ; but a reference to it is unavoidable, if we would adequately show what is the legitimate use and duty of private judgment, in dealing with those notes of truth and error, by which Providence recommends to us or disowns the prophets that come in His name. What imparts an especial keenness to the grief which the teaching in question causes in minds kindly disposed towards the Church of Rome, is, that not only are we expressly told in Scripture that the Almighty will not give His glory to another, but it is predicted as His especial grace upon the Christian Church, " the idols He VOL. II. 4 370 Private yudgment. shall utterly abolish ;" so that, if Anglicans are almost unchurched by the Protestantism which has mixed itself up with their ecclesiastical proceedings, Romanists also are almost unchurched by their superstitions. Again and again in the Prophets is this promise given, " From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you;" "Neither shall they defile themselves anymore with their idols ;" "Ephraim shall say. What have I to do any more with idols ?" " I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land." And the warning in the New is as strong as the promise in the Old : " Little children, keep yourselves from idols ;" " Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels ;" and the Angel's answer, to whom St. John fell down in worship, was " See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant ; worship God."* It is then a Note of the Christian Church, as decisive as any, that she is not idolatrous ; and any semblance of idolatrous worship in the Church of Rome as plainly dis- suades a man of Catholic feelings from her communion, as the taint of a Protestant or schismatical spirit in our communion may tempt him to depart from us. This is the Via Media which we would maintain ; and thus with- out judging Rome on the one hand, or acquiescing in our own state on the other, we may use what we see, as a providential intimation to us, not to quit what is bad for what may be worse, but to learn resignation to what we inherit, nor seek to escape into a happier state by suicide. 6. And in such a state of things, certain though it be that St. Austin invites individual Donatists to the Church, on * This passage proves, on the one hand, that such worship as St. John offered is wrong ; on the other, that it does not unchurch, unless we can fancy St. John guilty of mortal sin. Private yudgment. 371 the simple ground that the larger body must be the true one, he is not, he cannot be, a guide of our conduct here. The Fathers are our teachers, but not our confessors or casuists ; they are the prophets of great truths, not the spiritual directors of individuals. How can they possibly be such, considering the subject-matter of conduct ? Who shall say that a point of practice which is right in one man, is right even in his next-door neighbour ? Do not the Fathers differ from each other in matters of teaching and action, yet what fair persons ever imputed inconsistency to them in consequence ? St. Augustine bids us stay in persecution, yet St. Dionysius takes to flight ; St. Cyprian at one time flees, at another time stays. One bishop adorns churches with paintings, another tears down a pictured veil ; one demolishes the heathen temples, another consecrates them to the true God. St. Augustine at one time speaks against the use of force in proselytizing, at another time he speaks for it. The Church at one time comes into General Council at the summons of the Emperor ; at another time she takes the mitiative. St. Cyprian re-baptizes heretics; St. Stephen accepts their baptism. The early ages administer, the later deny, the Holy Eucharist to children.* Who shall say that in such practical matters, and especially in points of casuistry, points of the when, and the where, and the by whomj and the how, words written in the fourth cen- tury are to be the rule of the nineteenth > We have not St. Austin to consult ; we cannot go to him with his works in our hand, and ask him whether they are to be taken to the letter under our altered cir- cumstances .'' We cannot explain to him that, as far as * [All these are merely points of discipline or conduct ; but whether 4ere is a visible Church, and whether it is visibly one, is a question whidh as it is answered affirmatiyely or negatively changes the essential idea and the entire structure of Christianity.] 372 Private Judgment. the appearance of things go, there are, besides our own, at least two Churches, one Greek, the other Roman ; and that they are both marked by a certain pecuharity which does not appear in his own times, or in his own writings, and which much resembles what Scripture condemns as idolatry. Nor can we remind him, that the Donatists had a Note of disquahfication upon them, which of itself would be sufficient to negative their claims to Catho- licity, in that they refused the name of Catholic to the rest of Christendom ; and moreover, in their bitter hatred and fanatical cruelty towards the rival communion in Africa. Moreover, St. Austin himself waives the question of the innocence or guilt of Caecilian, on the ground that the orbis terrarum could not be expected to have accurate knowledge of the facts of the casQ ;* and, if contemporary judgments might be deceived in regard to the merits of the African Succession, yet, without blame, much more may it be maintained, without any want of reverence to so great a saint, that private letters which he wrote four- teen hundred years ago, do not take into consideration the present circumstances of Anglo-Catholics. Are we sure, that had he known them, they would not have led to an additional chapter in his Retractions } And again, if ignorance would have been an excuse, in his judgment, for the Catholic v/orld's passing over the crime of the Traditors, had Ceecilian and his party been such, much more, in so nice a question as the Roman claim to the orUs terrarum at this day, in opposition to England and Greece, may we fairly consider that he who condemned the Donatists only in the case of " quaestio facillima," would excuse us, even if mistaken, from the notorious difficulties which lie in the way of a true judgment. Nor, moreover, would he, who so constantly sends us to Scripture for * Epp. 93, '44' Private judgment, 373 the Notes of the Church Catholic, condemn us for shun- ning communions, which had been so little sensitive of the charge made against them of idolatry. But even let us suppose him, after full cognizance of our case, to give judgment against us ; even then we shall have the verdict of St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, and others virtually in our favour, supporters and canonizers as they were of Mele- tius, Bishop of Antioch, who in St. Augustine's own day lived and died out of the communion of Rome and Alexandria.* We do not think then that St. Austin's teaching can he taken as a direction to us to quit our Church on account of its incidental Protestantism, unsatisfactory as it is to have such a Note lying against us. And it is pleasant to believe, that there are symptoms at this time of our improvement ; and we only wish we could see as much hope of a return to a healthier state in Rome, as is at present visible in our own communion. There is among us a growing feeling, that to be a mere Establish- ment is unworthy of the Catholic Church ; and that to be shut out from the rest of Christendom is not a subject of boasting. We seem to have embraced the idea of the desirableness of being on a good understanding with the Greek and Eastern Churches ; and we are aiming at sending out bishops to distant places, where they must come in contact with foreign communions ; and though the extreme vagueness, indecision, and confusion, in which our theological and ecclesiastical notions at present lie, will be almost sure to involve us in certain mistakes and extravagances, yet it would be unthankful to " de- spise the day of small things," and not to recognize in these movements a hopeful stirring of hearts, and a reli- * [As has been said above, this statement is too absolute ; at least, Atha- nasius was reconciled to Meletius.] 374 Private Judgment. gious yearning after something better than we have. But not to dwell unduly on these public manifestations of a Catholic tendency, we should all recollect that a restora- tion of intercommunion with other Churches is, in a cer- tain sense, in the power of individuals. Every one who desires unity, who prays for it, who endeavours to further it, who witnesses for it, who behaves Christianly towards the members of Churches alienated from us, who is at amity with them, (saving his duty to his own communion and to the truth itself,) who tries to edify them, while he edifies himself and his own people, may surely be con- sidered, as far as he himself is concerned, as breaking down the middle wall of division, and renewing the ancient bonds of unity and concord by the power of charity. Charity can do all things for us ; charity is at once a spirit of zeal and of peace ; by charity we shall faithfully protest against what our private judgment warrants us in condemning in others ; and by charity we have it in our own hands, let all men oppose us, to restore in our own circle the intercommunion of the Churches. There is only one quarter from which a cloud can come over us, and darken and bewilder our course. If, nefas dictu, our Church is by any formal acts rendered schismatical, while Greek and Roman idolatry remains not of the Church, but in it merely, denounced by Coun- cils, though admitted by authorities of the day, — if our own communion were to own itself Protestant, while foreign communions disclaimed the superstition of which they are too tolerant, — if the profession of Ancient Truth were to be persecuted in our Church, and its teaching forbidden, — then doubtless, for a season. Catholic minds among us would be unable to see their way. July, 1841. 375 XIV. JOHN DAVISON. THE author on whose character and writings we are now proposing to remark, Mr. Davison, may be con- sidered as an instance of the operation of a mysterious law which is often witnessed in the course of history. It is surely mysterious, considering what the world is, how it needs improvement, and moreover that this life is the appropriate time for action, or, what is empha- tically called in Scripture, work, that they who seem gifted for the definite purpose of influencing and edify- ing their brethren, should be allowed to do so much less than might be expected. For instance, no one certainly, it must be admitted, can pretend to measure the effect produced by as much as Mr. Davison has been ap- pointed to say and to do ; still, left to ourselves, we are apt to grudge that .the powers of such a mind as his have not had full range in his age and country, and that a promise of such high benefits, should, owing to circumstances beyond man's control, have been but partially accomplished. Here is one* of the /nost original thinkers of his day, deep, serious, reverential, various, suffered to end his course, as it may be called, prematurely.; absorbed moreover during the greater 376 yohn Davison, part of it in employments which, though sacred in their' nature and honoured by a special blessing, and zeal- ously fulfilled by him, yet apparently might have been left to those who had not his particular endowments ; and, as the consequence of those employments, stinted in his apprehension and possession of dogmatic know- ledge, so that what he has written is rather true in principle and admirable in sentiment, than complete in system. Here is a man of the cast of Hooker and Butler, fitted to be a doctor of the Church, yet confined pretty much to the contemplation of the first principles of Christian doctrine, and allowed but once or twice to give utterance to the truths on which he lived, and to manifest the flame which burned unceasingly within him. Of course in such cases we may rest quite secure that all is ordered according to the most perfect wisdom, though we do not understand it. But what deserves notice in the case before us is, that the bent and temper of Mr. Davison's own mind did but concur in and carry out this external disposition of things, which we have been noticing, as if within and without one Agent was present, or as if his inner man was instinctively resign- ing itself to his outward destination. At the time of his death, the common report was that he had ordered all his manuscripts to be destroyed ; and in the Preface to the present collection it is pointedly observed that "nothing hitherto unpublished appears in it." We also learn from the Preface that the same feeling has operated to the maintenance of an almost absolute silence about the author's history. It professes to give "the few brief notes of his life, which those who are entrusted with his Remains feel to be all that they are permitted here to set down. A Memoir greatly more detailed, and, Fellow of Oriel. 377 so far more satisfactory, might very easily have been compiled. But in this, and in many lil. How is such teaching dutiful towards it .-' The Ethiopian, on reading the prophet Isaiah, inquired, " Of whom speaketh the : prophet this .'' " and so the boy, the youth, the man, as he looks wider and further into the world, as he is gradually thrown upon his own thoughts, will surely ask with louder and louder voice where this teaching is to be found .'' whence it comes .'' which of the living English bishops or departed divines, and how many, which of the Anglican formularies, what part of the Prayer Book, which of the Articles, what obsolete canon,, or what ecclesiastical judge, sanctions, its doctrines ; and how far literal tangible facts bear out its statements .? — and next ^whether there are not existing bishops elsewhere, and divines, and decrees, and usages, which do bear it out Ifully, and offer him what he is seeking; whether, in 448 . John Keble, short, the author's comment is sanctioned by his text ; or belongs to some other text not his ? There i_s but one Church which has firmly, precisely, consistently, continually held and acted upon these doctrines of the Lyra Innocentium ; and, if holding them to be token of the true Church, one and only one Church is true. It must be recollected, too, that these doctrines are part of a system ; they lead to other doctrines ; they gradually and imperceptibly draw the mind into the reception of others, whether it will or no. At this very moment souls are being led into the Catholic Church on the most various and independent impulses, and from the most opposite directions. True it is, that such persons as have been taught from childhood certain principles are able without prejudice to them to admit other doc- trines which are their direct contradictories, and which in themselves tend inevitably to their destruction. An- glicans of forty years' standing may admit that St. Peter is the foundation of the Church, yet feel no misgivings in consequence that the Church of England is external to Catholic communion ; but the Lyra Innocentium is not addressed to grown men, but to children, whose hearts and heads have yet to be formed, and who, if " trained up " (as they will be) " in the way they should go," are not likely in the end to " depart from it." Is it not, indeed, by this time abundantly clear, that, as children of the Evangelical school of the last age have so often become Latitudinarians, so the young generation whose pious and serious parents are now teaching them to cross them- selves, to fast or abstain, to reverence celibacy, and to say the Ave Mary, should they grow up as serious and pious as their instructors, will end in being converts' to the Catholic Church } Well would it be, if the really honest holders of Fellow of Oriel. 449 Anglo-Catholic principles could be made to see this ; it would be the removal of a veil from their eyes ; they would at once perceive that they ought to be plain Catholics. Some of them, indeed, may hitherto have had thoughts of leavening the whole English Church with their doctrine ; they may have described that Church as what it ought to be and was not, in the hope thereby of tending to make it what it ought to be ; and now, though they see or suspect their own tendency to be towards Rome, they may put this suspicion aside, and remain where they are, in the confidence that, if they are but patient, they shall ultimately succeed in bringing over their whole communion to their own views. But such a confidence has Hot been the feeling of the author of the Christian Year, if we may judge from his writings. His imagination, creative as it is, has been under the control of too sober a judgment, as we cannot but surmise, to acquiesce in the notion that the English Church is the natural seat of Catholicism ; that you have but to preach the truth, and the heart of her mem- bers will recognize in that truth their own real senti- ments, and claim their lost inheritance ; that Erastianism in high places will ever become a mere matter of history ; that ecclesiastical courts, university authorities, mobs and vestries, will ever lose their keen scent for detecting popery, and their intense satisfaction in persecuting it. He seems to resign himself and his friends, as if it were BO " strange thing," to the prospect of unkind, unnatural treatment for ever, from her whom the word of prophecy has depicted as the mother of her children. He has some beautiful lines on a child's clinging to its mother's , gown who appears the while to disregard it, with a reference to the miracle wrought upon the issue of blood : and it is impossible not to see that he is all VOL. II. 29 45© John Keble, the while drawing himself and the English Church in a parable. " She did but touch with finger weak The border of His sacred vest, Nor did he turn, nor glance, nor speak. Yet found she health and rest. " Well may the Word sink deep in me, For I fuU many a fearful hour. Fast clinging, Mother dear, to thee, Have felt love's guardian power. " When looks were strange on every side. When, gazing round, I only saw Far-reaching ways unknown and wide, I could but nearer draw : " I could but nearer draw, and hold Thy garment's border as I might. This while I felt, my heart was bold. My step was free and light. " Thou haply on my path the while Didst seem unheeding me to fare. Scarce now and then, by word or smile. Owning a playmate there. " What matter ? well I know my place. Deep in my Mother's inmost heart : I feared but, in my childish race, I from her robe might part." — P. 147. We are ourselves reminded of a different image. We have somewhere seen some lines by Darwin, in which a mother is described as killed by a 'chance ball in a battle ; her children are found clinging to her in the persuasion that she is asleep ; — when she is discovered by those who know better, the poor babes say in sur- prise, " Why do you weep, mamma will soon awake ? " None other but that miraculous Voice, which used the same words over Jairus' daughter, can wake the dead. Fellow of Oriel. 45 1 There is one other issue, to which we have not yet drawn attention, to which Anglo-CathoHc writers may reduce the inquiring mind ; — they may throw it, by a reaction, into rationalism. When the opening heart and eager intellect find themselves led on by their teachers, as if by the hand, to the See of St. Peter, and then all of a sudden, without good reason assigned, are stopped in their course, bid stand still in some half position, on the middle of a steep, or in the depth of a forest, the natural reflection which such a command excites is, " This is a mockery ; I have come here for nothing ; if I do not go on, I must go back." Of course such a feeling, though the natural, will not, and ought not to be, the first feeling of the young. Reverent minds will at first rest on the word of their teachers by the instinct of their natures, and will either receive them without examination, or accept on faith what does not approve itself to their reason. But as time proceeds, and the intellect becomes more manly, and has a greater hold of the subjects of thought and the relations of those subjects to each other, it will at length come to feel that it must form its own judgment on the questions which perplex it, unless the authority, to which it has hitherto submitted, claims to be infallible. To an infallible authority it will submit ; but since no teacher of the Anglican Church, no, nor that Church itself, claims to have the power of absolutely determining the truth in religious matters, the moment must arrive when the young inquirer feels it right to have an opinion of his own, and then it is that a peremptory prohibition of his advancing onward, without sufficient reason assigned for it, will act as a violent temptation to recede. A for- 452 John Keble, lorn feeling comes over the mind, as if after all there was nothing real in orthodoxy — as if it were a matter of Words, about which nothing is known, nothing can be proved — as if one opinion were as good as another. The whole Roman faith it thinks it could receive ; but a half-and-half system, which both does and does not appeal to reason^ which argues as far as it thinks argu- ment tells in its favour, and denounces argument when it tells the other way — flies to authority, puts forward great names, and talks in a vague way of " reverence," "submission," "the Church of our baptism," "restless- ness," and the like, neither commands its faith nor wins its love. O that we could be sure about our author, that however he might think it his duty to treat the gentle and unlearned who depend on him, at least when men of independent minds, young or old, come to him in doubt — men of the world, or rising men of active minds, whose characters are yet undetermined, (we are speaking in entire ignorance whether he has knowledge of such cases,) what a blessing it would be to be able to think that, instead of placing an obstacle in the path of such, he felt himself at liberty to say to them as much as this: " Stay with us, if you do not risk your Christian faith and hope by staying ; but, little as I can countenance your departure to the Church of Rome, better do so than become a ratioilalist." This surely is not asking a very great deal. As to the author personally, we cannot help cherish- ing Che special trust, which we hope is not too sacred to put into Words. If there be one writer in the Anglicaii Church who has discovered a deep, tender, loyal devO^ tion to the BlesSed Mary^ it is the author of the Chris- tian Year. The itoage of the Virgin and Child seems to be the one Vision upon which both his heart and Fellow of Oriel. 453 intellect have been formed ; and those who knew Oxford twenty or thirty years ago, say that, while other college rooms were ornamented with pictures of Napoleon on horseback, or Apollo and the Graces, or Heads of Houses lounging in their easy chairs, there was one man, a young and rising one, in whose rooms, instead of these, might be seen the Madonna di Sisto or Do- menichino's St. John — fit augury of him who was in the event to do so much for the revival of Catholicism. We will never give up the hope, the humble belief, that that sweet and gracious Lady will not forget her ser- vant, but will recompense him, in royal wise, seven-fold, bringing him and his at length into the Church of the One Saviour, and into the communion of herself and all Saints whom He has redeemed. yune, 1846. THE END. WORKS BY J. H. NEWMAN, D.D SERMONS.— Parochial and Plain. 8 vols. ,, On Subjects of the Day. „ Before the University of Oxford. „ To Mixed Congregations. „ Occasional. On the Difficulties of Anglicans in becoming Catholics. On the State of Catholicism in England. On Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Letter to Dr. Pusey). On Justification. On Miracles. Essays, Critical and Historical. Two Volumes. On the Development of Christian Doctrine. On the Nature and Scope of University Education. On the Office and Work of Universities. On various University Subjects. On a Grammar of Assent. Annotated Translation on St. Athanasius. The Arians of the Fourth Century. Church of the Fathers. The History of the Turks. Apologia ; or, My Religious Opinions. Loss and Gain. Callista. Verses on Various Occasions. Shortly will be published, a Third Volume of Essays and Letters on Occasional Subjects. ■II :ni