.- . 
 
Qfarttell Hmuerattjj ICihtacg 
 
 3tljara, New Work 
 
 LIBRARY OF 
 
 LEWIS BINGLEY WYNNE 
 
 A. B., A.M.. COLUMBIAN COLLEGE. '71 .'73 
 WASHINGTON. D. C. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MRS. MARY A. WYNNE 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN H. WYNNE 
 
 CORNELL '98 
 1922 
 
olln 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029411166 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON CERTAIN 
 
 DIFFICULTIES FELT BY ANGLICANS 
 
 IN SUBMITTING 
 TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 
 
 PRIEST OP THE ORATORY OF ST. PHILIP NERI. 
 
 ' DEFICIENT PUERI ET LABORABUNT, ET TDVENES IN INFIRMITATE 
 
 OaDKiVT; am atitkm gPE"*MT T IV P"MIH?. MPTftBUNT 
 
 IBS 
 
 (From the Second London Edition.) 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 OKF10E OP THEN, Y. TREKMAn's JOJDBNAIi, 
 556 BBOADWAY. 
 
 1861. 
 
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 The gratification and interest with which our edition of the 
 Discourses before Mixi.d Congregations, by the illustrious 
 Anglican convert, was received by the Catholic community of 
 New York, is our sufficient warrant for presenting this second 
 volume, containing a learned review of the Oxford movement 
 which ended in the conversion of so large a number of distin- 
 guished men, and giving in addition a most eloquent answer to 
 various objections that are made to the Catholic Church by her 
 enemies. 
 
 We feel nothing farther as necessary for us to say than that 
 tk&J^mejiEan jyjtion jg.aj^^^ 
 publication undeJ|K^jrjgction.gfjhg. dXsJin^jsljsd_author. 
 " TsTewYorkTMay 17th, 1EB1. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE . PAGE 
 
 1. On the relation of the National Church 
 
 to the Nation . . . 1 
 
 II. The Movement of 1833 jiacougenial -to 
 
 th^JSsj^nniLGUareh ... 34 
 
 III. Life in the Movement of 1833 ngjjxam 
 
 tbjgJ^atitiJiaJ.„Cii.urch . . .68 
 
 IV. The Providential Direction of the Move- 
 
 ment of 1833 notjtojsaxdii^ihe -Na- 
 tional Ch urch . . .97 
 V. The Providential Direction of the Move- 
 ment of 1833 noj^J&wards^a, JJpjty 
 inJib^JiajinjialjDhjiEch . "".'" . 126 
 VI. The Providential Direction of the Move- 
 ment of 1833 njit^towards^ji_^fansh 
 
 Church , 164 
 
 VII. The Providential Direction of the Move- 
 
 , ment of 1833 Bftt. togatda a , jgfiqt . 199 
 VIII. Political State of Catholic Countries no 
 Prejudice to the Sanctity of the 
 
 Church 230 
 
 IX. The Religious Character of— Catholic 
 Com triesjno, gr^ujjice tgjihejgftnciifcy 
 tfjbPjQIunll • • -260 
 
 X. Djfe6ni).es_jirnong Cattolics nojicsju- 
 
 diue^Jpjhft Unity of theChureh .293 
 XI. Heretical and Schismatical Bodies no 
 Prejudice to the Catholicity of the 
 
 Church 326 
 
 XII. Christian History no Prejudice to the 
 
 Apostolicity of the Church . . 359 
 
P&EtfACi). 
 
 It may occur to some persons to feel surprise, that 
 the Author of the following Lectures, instead of 
 occupying himself on the direct proof of Catholicism, 
 should have professed no more than to remove diffi- 
 culties from the path of those who have already ad" 
 mitted the arguments in its favor. But, in the first 
 place, he really does not think that there is any call 
 just now for an Apology in behalf of the divine 
 origin of the Catholic Church. ShjeJhears hfijcua-' 
 earthly character on^hgr, brow, as her. enemies QonfesSj | 
 Bytrnputing .her.miracles to Beel&elmb. There is an 
 instinctive jfeeling of. piirjjjsity,„jnterest, anxiety, and 
 a^fe^mingled together in various proportions, accord- 
 ing to the tempers and opinions of individuals, when 
 she makes her appearance in any neighborhood, rich 
 or poor, in the person of her missioners or h,er reli- 
 gious communities. Bo what they will, denounce 
 her as they may, hej_..enejHueA-.canaQt.. quench this, 
 emotion in the breasts at, others, or in their own* 
 It is their involuntary homage to the J&pjtea,. of the 
 CJjurch 5 it is their sgontanepus recognition of her 
 royal descent and her imperial claim ; it is a specific 
 feeling, which no other religion tends to excite. Ju- 
 daism, Mahometanism, Anglicanism, Methodism, old 
 
religions and young, romantic and common-place, 
 have not the spell. The presence of the Church 
 creates a discomposure and restlessness, or a thrill 
 of exultation, wherever she comes. Meetings are held, 
 denunciations launched, calumnies spread abroad, 
 - and hearts beat secretly the while. The b&bfi.kapfi 
 i^n^Elizabetb^. 8 . wom b>j? , t i tb.e v °i° e 0I " ner i° whom is 
 wjhrined ajnjijves t£e,.Incarnatc Word. Her priests 
 appealTreely to the consciences of all comers, to say 
 "whether they have not a superhuman gift, and the 
 multitude by silence gives consent. They look like 
 other men ; they may have the failings of other men ; 
 they may have as little worldly advantages as the 
 preachers of dissent; they may lack the popular 
 talents, the oratorical power, the imposing presence, 
 which are found elsewhere; but tJyjjjnjgjjjgBjgngJt- 
 dence, or at least reverence, by their very word. 
 Those who come to jeer and scoft, remain to pray. 
 
 Tfiere needs no treatise then on the Notes of.the 
 Church, till this her mysterious influence is accounted 
 for"5n"tt destroyed ; "still less is it necessary just at 
 this time, when the^wjjtJEgl an<i the.praceedip.gs of.a 
 school of divines in the„!E.stabh^hjn4nt i have, against 
 their will and intention, .dpne.t^is^ very work for her 
 as regards 'the convictions of a multitude of men. 
 What treatise indeed can be so conclusive in this day 
 as a teaching which has been simple and intelligible 
 in its principles ; imbibed and mastered in|the course 
 of years ; gradually developed, improved, correated, 
 adjusted, and enlarged ; which is converging in many 
 minds at once to one resolution as its limit, and which 
 in a number of instances has been completed already 
 by acts which, more powerfully than any words, at- 
 f'e's't the.force and the issue of the argument which 
 it involves ? Feeling, then, that an exhibition of 
 
Vll 
 
 the direct Evidences for Catholicism is not the want 
 of the moment, the Author has had no thoughts of 
 addressing himself to a work, which could not be 
 executed by any who undertook it, except in leisure 
 and with great deliberation. At present the thinking 
 portion of society, is either very near the Catholic 
 Church, or very far from her. The first duty of 
 Catholics is to house those in, who are near their 
 doors ; it will be time afterwards to see how things 
 lie on the extended field of philosophy and religion, 
 when this has been done, and into what new position 
 the controversy has fallen : as yet the old arguments 
 suffice. To attempt a formal dissertation on the 
 Notes of the Church at this moment, would be run- 
 ning the risk of constructing what none would need 
 now, and none could use then. 
 
 Those surely who are advancing towards the 
 Church, would not have advanced so far as they 
 have, had they not had sufficient arguments to bring 
 them forward. What retards their progress, is not 
 any weakness in those arguments, but the force of 
 opposite considerations, speculative or practical, 
 which are urged, sometimes against the Church, 
 sometimes against their submitting to her authority. 
 They would have no doubt about their duty, but for 
 the charges brought against her, or the remonstrances 
 addressed to themselves ; charges and remonstrances 
 which, whatever their intrinsic cogency, are abun- 
 dantly sufficient for their purpose, where there are 
 so many inducements, whether from wrong feeling, 
 or itjfirmity, or even error of conscience, to listen to 
 them. Such persons, then, have a claim on us to be 
 fortified in their true perceptions and their religious 
 resolutions, against the calumnies, prejudices, mis- 
 takes, and ignorance of their friends and of the 
 
tin 
 
 World, against the undue influence exerted on their 
 minds by the real difficulties which unavoidably suf- 
 round a religion so deep and manifold in philosophy, 
 and occupying so vast a place in the history of na- 
 tions. It would be wonderful indeed, if a teaching 
 which embraces all spiritual and moral truth, from 
 the highest to the minutest, should present no mys- 
 teries or apparent inconsistencies ; wonderful, if in 
 the lapse of eighteen hundred years, and in the range 
 of three-fourths of the globe, and in the profession 
 of thousands of millions of souls, it had not afforded 
 innumerable points of plausible attack; wonderful, 
 if it could assail the pride and sensuality which are 
 common to the whole race, without rousing the 
 hatred, malice, jealousy, and obstinate opposition of 
 ' the natural man ; wonderful, if it could be the object 
 of the jealous and unwearied scrutiny of ten thou- 
 sand adversaries, of the coalition of wit and wisdom, 
 of minds acute, far-seeing, comprehensive, original, 
 and possessed of the deepest and most varied 
 knowledge, yet without some sort of case being 
 made out against it ; and wonderful, moreover, if 
 the vast multitude of objections, great and small, 
 resulting from its exposure to circumstances such as 
 these, acting on the timidity, scrupulousness, inex- 
 perience, intellectual fastidiousness, love of the 
 world, or self-dependence of individuals, had not 
 been sufficient to keep many a one from the Church, 
 who had, in spite of them, good and satisfactory rea- 
 sons for joining her communion. Here is the plain 
 reason why so many are brought near the Church, 
 and go back, or are so slow in submitting to her. 
 
 Now, as has been implied above, where there is 
 detachment from the world, a k,een apprehension of 
 the unseen, and a simple determination to do the 
 
divine will, such difficulties will not commonly avail, 
 if men have had sufficient opportunity of acquainting 
 themselves with the Notes or Evidences of the 
 Church. In matter of fact they do not avail, as we 
 see daily, to deter those whose hearts are right, or 
 whose minds are incapable of extended investiga- 
 tions, from recognizing the Church's Notes and acting 
 upon them. They do not avail with the poor, the 
 uneducated, the simple-minded, the resolute, and the 
 fervent ; but they are formidable, when there are 
 motives in the back-ground, amiable or unworthy, to 
 bias their will. Every one is obliged, by the law of 
 his nature, to act by reason ; yet no one likfs to 
 make a great sacrifice unnecessarily ; such difficul- 
 ties, then, just avail to turn the scale, and to detain 
 men in Protestantism, who are open to the influence 
 of tenderness towards friends, reliance on superiors, 
 fondness for their position, dread of present incon- 
 venience, indolence, love of independence, fear of the 
 future, regard to reputation, desire of consistency, 
 attachment to cherished notions, pride of reason, or 
 reluctance to go to school again. ■ No one likes to 
 take an awful step, 'all by himself, without feeling 
 sure he is right]; no one likes to remain long in doubt 
 whother he should take it or not; he wishes to be 
 settled, and he readily catches at objections, or 
 listens to dissuasives, which allow of his giving over 
 fie inquiry, or postponing it sine die. Yet those 
 very same persons who would willingly hide the 
 truth from their eyes by objections and difficulties, 
 nevertheless, if actually forced to look it in the face, 
 and brought under the direct power of the Catholic 
 i rguments, would often have strength and courage 
 enough to take the dreaded step, and would find 
 
themselves, almost before they knew what they had 
 done, in the haven of peace. 
 
 T^ese were some of the reasons for the particular 
 line of argument which the Author has selected ; 
 and in what he has said in explanation, he must not 
 be supposed to forget that faith is the result of the 
 will, not of a process of reasoning, and that con- 
 version is a simple work of divine grace. He aims 
 at nothing more than to remove impediments to the 
 due action of the conscience, by removing those 
 perplexities in the proof, which keep the intellect 
 from being touched by its cogency, and give the 
 heart an excuse for trifling with it. The absence of 
 temptation or of other moral disadvantage, though 
 not the direct cause of virtuous conduct, still is a 
 great help towards it; and, in like manner, to clear 
 away from the path of an inquirer objections to 
 Catholic truth, is to subserve bis conversion by 
 making way for the due and efficacious operation of 
 divine grace. Rdigious persons indeed do what is 
 right in spite of temptation ; persons of sensitive 
 and fervent minds go on to believe in spite of diffi- 
 culty ; but where the desire of truth is languid, and 
 the religious purpose weak, such difficulty suffices to 
 prevent conviction, and faith will not be created in 
 the mind though there are abundant reasons for its 
 creation. In those circumstances it is quite as much 
 an act of charity to attempt the removal of such 
 objections to the truth, as, without excusing, are 
 made the excuse for unbelief, as to remove the oc- 
 casion of sin in any other department of duty. 
 
 It is plain, he is rather describing what his Lec- 
 tures were intended to be, t*han what they have 
 turned out. He found it impossible to fulfil what 
 
XI 
 
 he contemplated within the limits imposed upon him 
 by the circumstances under which they were written. 
 The very first objection which he took on starting, 
 the alleged connexion of the Movement of 1833 
 with the National Church, has afforded matter for 
 the greater part of the course ; and, before he had 
 well finished the discussion of it, it was getting time 
 to think of concluding, and that, in any way which 
 would give a character of completeness to the whole. 
 Else, after the seventh Lecture, it had been his in- 
 tention to proceed to the consideration of the alleged 
 claim of the National Church on the allegiance of 
 its members ; of the alleged duty of our remaining 
 in the communion in which we were born ; of the 
 alleged danger of trusting to reason ; of the alleged 
 right of the National Church to forbid doubt about 
 its claims ; of the alleged uncertainty which neces- 
 sarily attends the claims of any religion whatever ; 
 of the tests of certainty ; of the relation of faith to 
 reason ; of the legitimate force of objections ; and 
 of the matter of Catholic evidence. He is ashamed 
 to continue the list further, lest he should seem to 
 have been contemplating what was evidently im- 
 practicable ; all he can say in extenuation is, that he 
 never aimed at going more fully into any of the 
 subjects of which he was to treat, than he, has done 
 in the sketches which he now presents to the reader. 
 Lastly, he had proposed to end his course with a 
 notice of the objections made by Protestants to 
 particular doctrines, as Purgatory, Intercession of 
 Saints, and the like. 
 
 Incomplete however as the Lectures may be with 
 reference to the idea with which they were com- 
 menced, or compared with what might be said upon 
 each subject successively treated, of course he makes 
 
uo apology for the actual matter of tbem ; else lie 
 should not have delivered or published them. It 
 has not been his practice to engage in controversy 
 with those who have felt it their duty to criticise 
 what at any time he has written ; but that will not 
 preclude him, under present circumstances, from 
 elucidating what is deficient in them by further ob- 
 servations, should questions be asked which, either 
 from the quarter whence tbey proceed, or from their 
 intrinsic weight, have, according to his judgment, a 
 claim upon his attention. 
 
 Birmingham, 
 In feat. S. Bonaventure, 
 1850. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 ON THE RELATION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH TO THE 
 NATION. 
 
 There are those, my brethren, who may think it 
 strange, and even shocking, that, at this moment, 
 when the liberalism of the age, after many previous 
 attempts, is apparently at length about to get pos- 
 session of the Church and Universities of the na- 
 tion, any one like myself, who is a zejlojag. uphgjder 
 aL£he_dagraatiaprinciple. in,all its bearings, should 
 be doing what little in him lies to- weaken, even in- 
 dicectly v „LT^jJijitioas,„wIiic]i, with whatever s.hort- 
 cojninga or errors, are the only political bulwarks of 
 that principle left to us by the changes of the six- 
 teenth century. For what is it to help forward 
 members of the Established Church towards Catho- 
 licism, as I propose to do in these Lectures, but, so 
 far, to co-operate with a levelling party ^who^arejhe 
 engtnies ..of, God, and. truth, and virtual. The Insti- 
 tutions in question, it may be said, uphold what is 
 1 
 
right and what is holy as far as they go, and, more- 
 over, the duty of upholding it ; they do not in their 
 genuine workings harm the Church; they do but 
 oppose themselves to dissent, freethinking, infidelity, 
 and lawlessness. They are her natural, however 
 covert, allies ; they are the faithful nurses and con- 
 servators of her spirit ; they are glad, and proud, as 
 far as they are allowed to do so, to throw her mantle 
 over them, and they do her homage by attempting a 
 mimic Catholicism. They have preserved through 
 bad times our old churches, our forms, our rites, our 
 customs, in a measure our Creed ; they are taunted 
 by our enemies as Catholics or Papists ; and many 
 of those who are submitted to their teaching, look 
 wistfully to us, in their forlorn struggle with those 
 enemies, for encouragement and sympathy. Cer- 
 tainly, reviewing the history of the last three cen- 
 turies, we cannot deny that those Institutions have 
 uniformly repressed the extravagance, and diluted 
 the virulence, of Protestantism. To the divines, to 
 whom they have given birth, our country is indebted 
 for apologies for various of the great doctrines of 
 the faith : to Bull for a J>efenoe of the Creed of 
 Nicsea, nay, in a measure, of the true doctrine of 
 justification, such as the most accomplished Catholic 
 theologians of this day, as well as of his own, trc at 
 with great consideration ; to Pearson for a powerful 
 argument in behalf of the Apostolieal origin tf 
 Episcopacy ; to "Wall for a proof of the primitive 
 
use of Infant Baptism ; to Hooker for a vindication 
 of the great principle of religious order and worship ; 
 to Butler for a profound investigation into the con- 
 nexion of natural with revealed religion ; to Paley 
 and others for a series of elaborate evidences of the 
 divinity of Christianity. It is cruel, it i3 impolitic 
 to cast off, if not altogether friends, yet at least those 
 who are not our worst foes ; nor can we afford to do 
 so. If they usurp our name, yet they proclaim it in 
 the ears of heretics all about ; they have kept much 
 error out of the country, if they have let much in ; 
 and if Platonism, though false, is more honorable 
 than the philosophy of the academy or of the gar- 
 den, by the same rule surely, we ought, compara- 
 tively with other sects, to give our countenance to 
 the Anglican Church, to compassionate her in her 
 hour of peril, " and spare the meek usurper's hoary 
 head." 
 
 Well, and I do not know what natural inducement 
 there is to urge me to be harsh with her in this her 
 hour : I have only pleasant associations of those 
 many years when I was within her pale ; I have no 
 theory to put forward, nor position to maintain ; and 
 I am come to a time of life, when men desire to be 
 quiet and at peace ; — moreover, I am in a communion 
 which satisfies its members, and draws, them into 
 itself, and, by the objects which it presents to faith, 
 and the influ^ncis which it exerts over the heart, 
 leads them to forget the external world, and look 
 
forward more steadily to the future. No, my dear 
 brethren, there is but one thing forces me to speak, 
 — and it is my intimate sense that the Catholic 
 Church is the one ark of salvation, and my love for 
 your souls ; it is my fear lest you ought to submit 
 yourselves to her, and do not ; my fear lest I may 
 perchance be able to persuade you, and not use my 
 talent. It will be a miserable thing for you and for 
 me, if I have been instrumental in bringing you but 
 half way, if I have co-operated in removing your 
 invincible ignorance, but am able to do no more. 
 It is this keen feeling- that my life is wearing away, 
 which overcomes the lassitude which possesses me, 
 which scatters the excuses which I might plausibly 
 urge to myself for not meddling with what I have 
 left for ever, which subdues the recollections of past 
 times, and which makes me do my best, with what- 
 ever success, to bring you to land from off your 
 wreck, who have thrown yourselves from it upon the 
 waves, or are clinging to its rigging, or are sitting in 
 heaviness and despair upon its side. For this is the 
 truth : the Establishment, whatever it be in the eyes 
 of men, whatever its temporal greatness and its secu- 
 lar prospects, in the eyes of faith is a mere wreck. 
 We must not indulge our imagination, we must not 
 dream : we must look at things as they are ; we must 
 not confound the past with the present, or what is 
 substantive with what is Ihe accident of a period. 
 Bidding our minds of these illusions, we shall see 
 
that the Established Church has no claims whatever' 
 on ' us, whether in memory' or in hope ; that they 
 only have claims upon our commiseration and our 
 charity whom she holds in bondage, separated from 
 that faith and that Church in which alone is salva- 
 tion. If I' can do aught towards breaking their 
 chains, and bringing them into the truth, it will be an 
 act of love towards their souls, and of piety towards 
 God. 
 
 I have said, we must not' indulge our imagination 
 in the view we take of the National Establishment. 
 If we dress it up in an ideal form as if it were some- 
 thing real,' with an independent and a continuous 
 existence; and a proper history, as if it were in deed 
 and not only in name a Church, then indeed we may 
 feel interest in it; and reverence towards it, and affec- 
 tion for it, as men have fallen in love with pictures, 
 or knights in romance do battle for high dames 
 whom they have never seen. Thus it is that stu- 
 dents of ; the Fathers, antiquarians, and poets, begin 
 by assuming that the body to which they belong is 
 that of which they read in time past, and then pro- 
 ceed to decorate it with that majesty and beauty of 
 which history tells, or which their genius creates. 
 Nor is it an easy process or a light effort by which 
 their miflds are disabused of this error. It is an 
 error for many reasons too dear to them to be readily 
 relinquished; But at length, either the force of cir- 
 cumstances or some unexpected accident dissipates 
 
it ; and, as in fairy tales, the magic castle vanishes 
 when the spell is broken, and nothing is seen but the 
 wild heath, the barren rock, and the forlorn sheep- 
 walk : so is it with us as regards the Church of Eng- 
 land, when we look in amazement on that we thought 
 so unearthly, and find so common-place or worthless. 
 Then we perceive that aforetime we have not been 
 guided by reason ; but • biassed by education, and 
 swayed by affection. We see in the English Church, 
 I will not merely say no descent from the first ages, 
 and no relationship to the Church in other lands, 
 but we see no body politic of any kind ; we see 
 nothing more or less than an establishment, a depart- 
 ment of government, or a function or operation of 
 the state, — without a substance, — a mere collection 
 of officials, depending on and living -in the supreme 
 civil power. Its unity and personality are gone, and 
 with them its power of exciting feelings of any kind. 
 It is easier to love or hate an abstraction, than so 
 tangible a frame-work or machinery. We regard it 
 neither with anger, nor with aversion, nor with con- 
 tempt, any more than with respect or interest. It 
 is but one aspect of the state, or mode of civil 
 governance ; it is responsible for nothing ; it can 
 appropriate neither praise nor blame ; but, whatever 
 feeling it raises, is, by the nature of the case, to be 
 referred on to the Supreme Power whom it repre- 
 sents, and whose will is its breath. And hence it 
 has no identity of existence in distinct periods, unless 
 
the present Legislature or Court can affect to be the 
 offspring and disciple of its predecessor. Nor can 
 it in consequence be said to have any antecedents, 
 or any future; or to live, except in the passing 
 moment. As a thing without a soul, it does not 
 contemplate itself, define its intrinsic constitution, or 
 ascertain its position. It has no traditions ; it can- 
 not be said to think ; it does not know what it holds, 
 and what it does not ;* it is not even conscious of 
 its own existence. It has no love for its members, 
 or what are sometimes called its children, nor any 
 instinct whatever, unless attachment to its master, 
 or love of its place, may be so called. Its fruits, as 
 far as they are good, are to be made much of while 
 they are present ; for they are transient, and without 
 succession ; its former champions of orthodoxy are 
 no earnest of orthodoxy now ; they died, and there 
 was no reason why they should be reproduced. 
 
 * The fact is strikingly brought out in Archbishop Sumner's 
 correspondence with Mr. Maskell. " You ask me," he says, 
 " whether you are to conclude that you ought not to teach, and 
 have not authority of the Church to teach any of the doctrines 
 spoken of in your fire former questions, in the dogmatical terms 
 there stated?" To which I reply, " Are they contained in the 
 Word cf God? St. Paul says, ' Preach the word.' . . . . 
 Now, whether the doctrines concerning which you inquire are 
 contained in the Word of God, and can be proved thereby, you 
 have the same means of discovering as myself, and I have no 
 special authority to declare." The Archbishop at least would 
 quite allow what I have said in the text, even though he might 
 express himself differently. 
 
8 
 
 Bishop is not like Bishop, more than king is like 
 king, or ministry like' ministry ; its Prayer Book is 
 an act of Parliament of two centuries ago, and its 
 cathedrals and its chapter-houses are th'.- spoi - of 
 Catholicism. 
 
 I have said all this, my brethren, not in declama- 
 tion, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot 
 feel interest of any kind in the National Church, nor 
 put any trust in it at all, from its past history, as 
 being, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of or- 
 thodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did 
 formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former 
 numbers, except as it is bound by the Law ; and 
 while it is" upheld by the Law, it will not be weak- 
 ened**lsSy the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified 
 by their continuance. Its life is an act of Parlia- 
 ment. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabel- 
 lian or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or 
 Waterland resisted them a century or two before ; 
 nor will it be unable to resist them, though its more 
 orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It 
 will be able to resist them while the State gives tie 
 word ; it would be unable, when the State forbids 
 it. Elizabeth boasted that she " tuned its pulpils ;" 
 Charles forbade discussions on predestination ; 
 George, on the Holy Trinity ; Victoria allows dif- 
 ferences on Holy Baptism. While the nation wishes 
 an Establishment, it will remain, whatever individuals 
 are for it or against it ; and that which determines 
 
9 
 
 its existence, will determine its voice. Of course 
 the presence or departure of individuals will be one 
 out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or 
 accelerate by a certain number of years a change in 
 its teaching : but, after all, the change depends on 
 events broader and deeper than these ; it depends 
 on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its 
 political, so may it change its religious views ; the 
 causes which carried the Reform Bill and Free 
 Trade may make short work with orthodoxy. 
 
 The most simple proof of the truth of this asser- 
 tion will be found in considering what and how much 
 has been hitherto done by the ecclesiastical move- 
 ment of 1833, towards heightening the tone of the 
 Established Church — by a movement extending over 
 seventeen years and more, and carried on with great 
 energy, (and as far as concerns the conversion of 
 individuals) with surprising success. Opinions 
 which, twenty years ago, were not held by any but 
 Catholics, or at most only in isolated portions by 
 isolated persons, are now the profession of thousands. 
 Such success ought to have acted on the Establish- 
 ment itself; has it done sol or rather, is not that 
 success simply and entirely in expectation and in 
 hope, as the conversion of heathen nations by the 
 various Evangelical societies? The Fathers have 
 catholicized the Protestant Church at home, pretty 
 much as the Bible has evangelized the Mahometan 
 or Hindoo religions abroad. There have been re- 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 curring vaticinations and promises of good; but 
 little or no actual fulfilment. Look back year after 
 year, count up the exploits of the movement party, 
 and consider whether it has had any effect at all on 
 the religious judgment of the nation, as represented 
 by the Establishment. The more clear and striking 
 is the growth of its adherents and well-wishers, the 
 more pregnant a fact is it, that the Establishment 
 has steadily gone on its own way," eating, drinking, 
 sleeping, and working, fulfilling its nature and its 
 destiny, as if that movement had not been ; or at 
 least with no greater consciousness of its presence, 
 than any internal disarrangement or disorder inflicts 
 on a man who has a work to do, and is busy at it. 
 The movement has formed but a party within its 
 pale, and the Church of the nation has pursued the 
 nation's objects, and executed the nation's will, in 
 spite of it. The movement could not prevent the 
 Ecclesiastical commission, nor the Episcopal mis- 
 . management of it. Its zeal, principle, and clearness 
 of view, backed by a union of parties, did not pre- 
 vent the royal appointment of ti theological Profes- 
 sor, whose sentiments were the expression of the 
 national idea of religion. Nor did its protest even 
 succeed in preventing his subsequent elevation to 
 the Episcopal bench. Nor did it succeed in pre- 
 venting the establishment of a sort of Anglo- Prussian, 
 half- episcopal, half- Lutheran see at Jerusalem ; nor 
 the selection of two individuals of heretical opinionB 
 
11 
 
 to fill it in succession. Nor did it prevent the in» 
 trusion of the Establishment on the Maltese terri* 
 tory ; nor has it prevented the systematic promotion 
 at home of men heterodox, or fiercely latitudinarian, 
 in their religious views, or professedly ignorant of 
 theology, and glorying in their ignorance. Nor did 
 the movement prevent the promotion of Bishops and 
 others who deny or explain away the grace of Bap» 
 tism. Nor has it hindered the two Archbishops of 
 England concurring in the royal decision that with- 
 in the national communien baptismal regeneration 
 is an open question. It has not heightened the 
 theology of the Universities or of the Christian 
 Knowledge Society, nor afforded any defence in its 
 hour of need to the National Society for Education. 
 What has it done for the cause it undertook ? It 
 has preserved the Universities to the Established 
 Church for fifteen years ; perhaps it prevented cer- 
 tain alterations in the Prayer Book ; it has secured 
 at Oxford the continuance of the Oath of Supremacy 
 against Catholics for a like period ; it has hindered 
 the promotion of high-minded liberals, like the late 
 Dr. Arnold, at the price of the advancement of 
 second-rate men who have shared his opinions. It 
 has built Churches and Colleges, and endowed sees, 
 of which its enemies in the Establishment have 
 gladly taken or are taking possession 5 it has found* 
 ed sisterhoods or elicited confessions, the fruits of 
 which are yet to b@ sees. On the other hand it has 
 
12 
 
 given a hundred educated men to the Catholic 
 Church; yet the huge creature, from which tbey 
 went forth, showed no consciousness of its loss, but 
 shook itself, and went about its work as of old time, 
 — as all parties, even the associates they had left, 
 united, and even gloried, in witnessing. And lastly, 
 the present momentous event, to which 1 have al- 
 ready alluded, which is creating such disturbance in 
 the country, has happened altogether independent of 
 the movement, and is unaffected by it. Those per- 
 sons who went forward to Catholicism have not 
 caused it ; those who have stayed neither could pre- 
 vent it, nor can remedy it. It relates to a question 
 previous to any of those doctrines which it has been 
 the main object of the movement to maintain. It is 
 ' caused, rather it is willed, by the national mind ; 
 and, till the grace of God touches and converts that 
 mind, it will remain a fact done and over, a precedent 
 and a principle in the Establishment. 
 
 Such is the true state of the case : no one can 
 exaggerate the vis inertia, the life, of a national es- 
 tablishment, of whatever kind ; it is, in other words, 
 the strength of the world ; nothing is stronger than 
 the world, except God and the devil ; and the evil 
 spirit may, if God so allow, destroy what be has 
 hitherto used, in' order to bring in a more awful 
 form of heresy and unbelief. The Eternal God too, 
 at His merciful pleasure, may fight with it, and 
 humble and subdue it, as He has done of old time ; 
 
m 
 
 and in such oases His Holy Churclus the instrument 
 of His purposes. It is the duty of the Catholic 
 Church, wherever she is found, and it is her gift, to 
 confront, to encounter, and to beat back the spirit 
 of the age. This has been especially felt by those 
 who began, and those who continued, the movement 
 in the Establishment. Tbey keenly felt this truth ; 
 they acted upon it ; and they failed, because they 
 mistook an Establishment for the Church, because 
 they fancied a work of man the work of God. The 
 Church alone is immortal and unalterable ; but time 
 and chance, which are the instruments of man's 
 creations, are the instruments also of their modifi- 
 cation and their change. 
 
 This is the true explanation of what is going on 
 before our eyes, as seen whether in the decision of. 
 th6 Privy Council, or in the respective conduct of 
 the two parties in the Establishment with relation to 
 it. It may seem strange, at first sight, that the 
 Evangelican section should presume so boldly to 
 contravene the distinct and categorical teaching of 
 the national formularies on the subject of baptism ; 
 strange, till it is understood that the true interpreter 
 of their sense is the nation itself, and that that sec- 
 tion in the Establishment speaks with the confidence 
 of men who know that they have the nation on their 
 side. Let me here refer to the just and manly ad- 
 missions on this subject of a high-principled writer, 
 which have lately been giver* to the public : — 
 
14 
 
 " There is" a ." consideration," he says, " which, 
 for some time, has pressed heavily and painfully 
 upon me. As a fact, the Evangelical party plainly, 
 openly, and fully declare their opinions upon the 
 doctrines which they contend the Church of Eng- 
 land holds ; they tell their people continually, what 
 they ought, as a matter of duty towards God and 
 towards themselves, both to believe and practisei 
 Can it be pretended that we, as a party, anxious to 
 teach the truth, are equally open, plain, and unre- 
 served ? . . . And it is not to be alleged, that only 
 the less important duties and doctrines are so re- 
 served : as if it would be an easy thing to distin- 
 guish and draw a line of division between them. . . . 
 We do reserve vital and essential truths ; we often 
 .hesitate and fear to teach our people many duties, 
 not all necessary, perhaps, in every case or to every 
 person, but eminently practical, and sure to increase 
 the growth of. the inner, spiritual life ; we differ, in 
 short, as widely from the Evangelical party in the 
 manner and openness, as in the ma ter and details 
 of our doctrine. . . . All this seems to me to be, 
 day by day and hour by hour, more and more hard 
 "to be reconciled with the real spirit, mind, and pur* 
 pose of the English Reformation, and of the modern 
 English Church, shown by the experience of three 
 hundred years. . . . People often say, it is wrong 
 to use such terms as ' the spirit of the Reformed 
 English Church ;' or ' its intention,' < purpose,' and 
 
15 
 
 the like. And is it really so ? was the Reformation 
 nothing ? did it effect nothing, change nothing, re- 
 move nothing? .... No doubt the Reformed 
 Church of England claims to be a portion of the 
 Holy Catholic Church ; and it has been common. for 
 many of our own opinions, to add also the assertion, 
 that she rejects and condemns, as being out of the 
 Church Catholic, the reformed Churches abroad, 
 Lutheran, Genevan, and others, together with the 
 Kirk of Scotland, or the'Dissenters at home. Upon 
 our principles, nay, on any consistent Church prin- 
 ciple at all, such a corollary must follow. But there 
 is a strangeness in it ; it commends itself perhaps to 
 our intellect, but not to the eye or ear ; nor, it may 
 be, to the heart or conscience."* 
 
 These remarks are as true, as they are* candid | 
 and it is, I hope, no disrespect to the Author, if, 
 taking them from their context, I use them for my 
 own argument, which is not indeed divergent, though 
 it is distinct from his own. Whether, then, they 
 prove that the Evangelical party is as much at home 
 in the national Prayer Book as the Anglican, I will 
 not pronounce ; but at least they prove that that 
 party is far more at home in the national Establish- 
 ment ; that it is in cordial and intimate sympathy 
 with the Sovereign Lord and Master of the Prayer 
 Book, its composer and interpreter, the Nation 
 
 * Maskell's Second Letter, pp. 57, 69. 
 
16 
 
 itself,— on the best terms with Queen, and states- 
 men, and practical men, and country gentlemen, 
 and respectable tradesmen, fathers and mothers, 
 schoolmastersj churchwardens, vestries, public so- 
 cieties, newspapers, and their readers in the lower, 
 classes. The Evangelical Ministers of the Esta- 
 blishment have, in comparison with their Anglican 
 rivals, the spirit of the age with them ; they are 
 congenial with the age ; they glide forward rapidly 
 and proudly down the stream ; and i is thiB fact, 
 and their consciousness of it, which carries them 
 over all difficulties. Jewell was triumphant over 
 Harding, and Wake over Atterbury or Leslie, with 
 the terrors or the bribes of a sovereign to back 
 them, and their successors in this day have, in like 
 manner, the strength of public opinion on their side. 
 The letter of enactments, pristine customs, ancient 
 rights, are no match for the momentum with which 
 they rush along upon the flood of public opinion, 
 which makes every conclusion seem absurd, and 
 every argument sophistical, and every maxim untrue, 
 except such as it recognises itself. 
 
 How different has it been with the opposite party ! 
 Confident, indeed, and with reason, of the truth of 
 its great principles, having a perception and cer- 
 tainty of its main tenets, which is like the evidence 
 of sense compared with the feeble, flitting, and un- 
 real views of doctrine held by the Evangelical body, 
 still, as to their application, their adaptation, their 
 
17 
 
 combination, their development, it has been misera- 
 bly conscious that it has had nothing to guide it but 
 its own private and unaided judgment. Dreading 
 its own interpretation of Scripture and -the Fathers, 
 feeling its need of an infallible guide, yet having 
 none; looking up' to its own Mother, as it called 
 her, and finding her silent, ambiguous, unsympa- 
 thetic, sullen, and even hostile to it'; with ritual 
 mutilated, sacraments defective, precedents incon- 
 sistent, articles equivocal, canons obsolete, courts 
 Protestant, and synods suspended ; scouted by the 
 laity, scorned by men of the world, hated and black- 
 ened by its opponents; and moreover at variance 
 with itself, hardly two of its members taking up the 
 same position, nay, all of them shifting their own 
 ground as time went on, and obliged to confess that 
 they were in progress ; is it wonderful, in the words 
 of the pamphlet already referred to, that these men 
 have exhibited " a conduct and a rule of religious 
 life" "full of shifts, and compromises, and evasions, 
 a rule of life based upon the acceptance of half one 
 doctrine, all the next, and none of the third, upon 
 the belief entirely of another, but not daring to say 
 so?" Afte/'all, they have not been near so guilty 
 "of shifts, and compromises, and evasions," as the 
 national formularies themselves ; but they have had 
 none to support them, or, if I mav use a familiar 
 ■word, to act the bully for them under the imputa- 
 tion. There was no one with confident air and loud 
 voice, to retort upon their opponents the charges 
 
18 
 
 urged against them, and no publio to applaud, though 
 there had been. Whether they looked above or 
 below, behind or before, they found nothing indeed 
 to shake or blunt their faith in Christ, in His estab- 
 lishment of a Church, in its visibility, continuance, 
 catholicity, and gifts, and in the necessity of belong- 
 ing to it they despised the hollowness of their oppo- 
 nents, the inconsequence of their arguments, the 
 shallowness of their views, their disrelish of princi- 
 ple, and their carelessness about truth, but their 
 heart sunk within them under the impossibility of 
 their carrying on their faith* into practice, there, 
 where they found themselves, and of realising their 
 ideas in fact, and the duty notwithstanding, as they 
 were taught it, of making the best of the circum- 
 stances in which they were placed. Such were they ; 
 I trust they are so still : I will not allow myself to 
 fancy that secret doubts on one hand, that self-will, 
 disregard of authority, an unmanly disingenuous 
 bearing, and the spirit of party on the other, have 
 deformed a body of persons whom once I loved, re- 
 vered, and sympathised with. I speak of those many 
 persons whom I admired ; who, like the hero in the 
 epic, did not want courage, but encouragement ; who 
 looked out'in vain for the approbation of authority ; 
 who felt their own power, but shrank from the omen 
 of evil, the hateful raven, which flapped its wings over 
 them ; who seemed to say with the poet : 
 
 Non me tua fervida terrent 
 
 Dicta, ferox ; Dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis . 
 
19 
 
 Bat their very desire of realities, and their fear 
 of deceiving themselves with dreams, was their in- 
 surmountable difficulty here. They could not make 
 the Establishment what it was not, and this was 
 forced on them day after day. 
 
 It is a principle, in some sense acknowledged by 
 Catholic theologians, that the spirit of an age mo- 
 difies its inherited professions. Moralists lay down, 
 that a law loses its authority which the lawgiver 
 knowingly allows to be infringed and put aside; 
 whatever, then, be the abstract claims of the Angli- 
 can cause, the living community to which they are 
 attached, has for centuries ignored and annulled 
 them; It was a principle parallel to this which fur- 
 nished one of the reasons on which the judges of 
 the Queen's Bench the other day acted, when they 
 refused to prohibit the execution of the Royal de- 
 cision, in the appeal from the Bishop of Exeter. 
 His counsel urged certain provisions in statutes of 
 the reign of Henry VIII., which had not been dis- 
 cussed in the pleadings. " Were the language of 
 25 Henry VIII., c. 9, obscure instead of clear," 
 observed the Chief Justice, " we should not be jus- 
 tified in differing from the construction put upon it 
 by contemporaneous and long continued usage. 
 There would be no safety for property or liberty if 
 it could be successfully contended, that all lawyers 
 and statesmen have been mistaken for centuries as 
 to the true meaning of the Act of Parliament." 
 
20 
 
 Whatever becomes of the general question, this'at 
 least is the language of reason and common sense ; 
 as physical life assimilates to itself, or casts 1 off, 
 whatever it encounters, allowing no interference with 
 the supremacy of its own principle, so is it 'with 
 social and civil. When a body politic grows, takes 
 definite shape, and matures, it slights, though it may 
 endure, the vestiges and tokens of its rude begin- 
 nings. It may cherish them as curiosities, but it 
 abjures them as precedents. They may hang about 
 it, as the shrivelled blossom about the formed fruit ; 
 but they are dead, and will be sure to disappear, as 
 soon as they are felt to be troublesome. Common 
 sense tells us they do not apply to things as they are; 
 and, if individuals attempted insist on them, they 
 will but bring on themselves the just imputation of 
 vexatiousness and extravagance. So it is with the 
 Anglican formularies ; they are but the expression 
 of the national sentiment, and therefore are neces- 
 sarily modified by it. Did the nation grow into 
 Catholicity, they might easily be made to assume a 
 Catholic demeanor; but as it has matured in its 
 Protestantism, they must take", day by day, a more 
 Evangelical and liberal aspect. Of course, I am 
 not saying this by way of justifying individuals in 
 professing and using doctrinal and devotional forms 
 from which they dissent; nor am I denying that 
 words have, or at least ought to have, a definite 
 meaning which must not be explained away; I am 
 
21 
 
 merely stating what takes pla.ee in matter of faet, 
 allowably in some cases, wrongly in others, according 
 to the strength on the one hand, of the wording of 
 the formulary, and of the diverging opinion on the 
 other. I say, that a , nation's, laws are a nation's 
 property, and have their life in the national life, and 
 their interpretation in the nation's sentiment: and 
 where that living intelligence does not shine through 
 them, they become "worthless and are put aside, 
 whether formally or on an understanding. Now 
 Protestantism is, as it has been for centuries, the 
 nation's religion : and since the semi-patristical 
 Church, which was set up for the nation at the Re- 
 formation, is the organ of that religion, it must, live 
 for the nation ; it must hide its Catholic aspirations 
 in folios, or in college cloisters; it must call itself 
 Protestant, when it gets into the pulpit ; it must ab- 
 jure antiquity ; for woe to it, if it attempt to thrust 
 the wording of its own documents in its master's 
 path, if it rely on a passage in its Visitation for the 
 Sick, or on an Article of the Creed, or on the tone 
 of its Collects, or on a catena of its divines, when 
 the age has determined on a theology more in keep- 
 ing with the progress of knowledge ! The anti- 
 quarian, the reader of history, the theologian, the 
 philosopher, the Biblical student may make his pro- 
 test ; he may quote St. Austin, or appeal to the 
 canons, or argue from the nature of the case ; but 
 la Seine le veut ; the English" people, is sufficient 
 
22 
 
 for itself; it wills to be Protestant and progressive ; 
 and Fathers, councils, schoolmen, Scriptures, saints, 
 angels, and what is above them, must give Way. 
 What are they to it? It thinks, acts, and is con- 
 tented, according to its own practical, intelligible) 
 shallow religion ; and of that religion its Bishops 
 and its divines, will they or will they not, must be 
 exponents.* 
 
 In this way, I say, we are to explain, but in this 
 way most naturally and satisfactorily, what otherwise 
 would be startling, the late Koyal decision to which 
 I have several times referred. The great legal au- 
 thorities, on whose re/port it was made, have not only 
 pronounced, that, as a matter of fact, persons who 
 have denied the grace of Baptism, had held the 
 highest preferments in the National Church, but they 
 felt themselves authorized actually to interpret its 
 ritual and its doctrine, and to report to Her Majesty, 
 that the dogma of baptismal regeneration is not part 
 
 * " It is not the practice for Judges to take up points of their 
 own, and, without argument, to decide a case upon them. 
 Lord Eldon used to say, that oftentimes hearing an arsument 
 in support of an opinion he had so taken up, convinced him he 
 had been wrong — a great authority in favor of the good sense 
 of the practice, which the Queen's Bench have disregarded in 
 this case. In the 'Hampden case, the whole practice of the 
 Court for two hundred and fifty years was set at nought by Lord 
 L enman. In this case a course has been taken which has never 
 hitherto been followed in questions of a mandamus to a railway, 
 or a criminal information against a newspaper. And both are 
 Church cases."— Guardian, May 1, 1850. 
 
23 
 
 and parcel of the national religion. They felt them- 
 selves strong enough, in their position, to pronounce 
 " that the doctrine held by" the Protestant clergy- 
 man, who brought the matter before them, " was 
 not contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine 
 of the Church of England as by law established. " 
 The question was not whether it was true or not, as 
 they most justly remarked, whether from heaven or 
 from hell ; they were too sober to meddle with what 
 they had no means of determining ; they " abstained 
 from expressing any opinion of their own upon the 
 theological correctness or error of the doctrine" 
 propounded : the question was, jiot what God had 
 said, but what the English nation had willed and 
 allowed ; and though it must be granted that they 
 aimed at a critical examination of the letter of the 
 documents, yet it must be granted, on the other 
 hand, that their criticism was of a very national 
 cast, and that the national sentiment was of great 
 use to them in helping them to their conclusions. 
 What was it to the nation or its lawyers whether 
 Hooker used the word " charity" or " piety," in 
 the extract which they adduced from his works, and 
 that " piety" gave one sense to the passage, and 
 " charity" another ? Hooker must speak as the 
 existing nation, if he is to be a national authority. 
 What though the ritual categorically deposes to the 
 regeneration of the infant baptized ? The Evan- 
 gelical party, which had had the nerve years before 
 
24 
 
 to fix the charge of dishonesty on the explanations 
 of the Thirty-nine Articles, . put forth by its oppo- 
 nents, could all the while be cherishing in its breast 
 an interpretation of the Baptismal Service, simply 
 contradictory of its most luminous declarations. 
 Inexplicable proceeding, if it were professing to 
 handle the document in the letter; but not dis- 
 honorable nor dishonest, not hypocritical, but natural 
 and obvious, on the condition or understanding that 
 the nation, which imposes the document, imposes 
 its sense ; that by the breath of its mouth it had, as 
 a god, made Establishment, Articles, Prayer Book, 
 and all that is therein, and could by the breath of its 
 mouth as easily and absolutely unmake them again, 
 whenever it was disposed ! 
 
 Counsel then and pamphleteers may put forth 
 unanswerable arguments in behalf of the Catholic 
 interpretation of the Baptismal Service ; a loug 
 succession of Bishops, an unbroken tradition of wri- 
 ters, may have faithfully and anxiously guarded it. 
 In vain has the Caroline school honored it by ritual 
 observance ; in vain has the restoration illustrated it 
 by varied learning ; in vain did the Revolution retain 
 it as the price for othef concessions ; in vain did the 
 eighteenth century use it as a sort of watchword 
 against Wesley; in vain has it been persuasively 
 developed and fearlessly proclaimed by the move- 
 ment of 1833 ; all this is foreign to the matter be- 
 fore us. We have not to inquire what is the dogma 
 
25 
 
 of a collegiate, antiquarian religion, but what, in the 
 Words of the Prime Minister, will give " general 
 satisfaction ;" what -is the religion of Britons. May 
 not the free-born, self-dependent, animal mind of 
 the Englishman, choose his religion for himself? and 
 have lawyers more to do than to state, as a matter 
 of fact and history, what that religion is, and for 
 three centuries has been? are we to obtrude the 
 mysteries of an external, of a dogmatic, of a re- 
 vealed system, on a nation which intimately feels 
 and has established, that each individual is to be his 
 own judge of truth and falsehood in matters of the 
 Unseen world ? How is it possible that the National 
 Church, forsooth, should be allowed to dogmatise on 
 the point which so immediately affects the nation 
 itself? Why, half the country is unbaptized ; it is 
 difficult to say for certain who are baptized ; shall 
 the country unchristianize itself? it has not yet ad- 
 vanced to indifference on such a matter. Shall it, 
 by a suicidal act, use its own Church against itself, 
 as its instrument to cut itself off from the hope of 
 another life ? Shall it confine the Christian promise 
 within limits, and put restrictions upoti grace, when 
 it has thrown open trade, removed disabilities, 
 abolished monopolies, taken off agricultural protec- 
 tion, and enlarged the franchise ? — What a day for 
 the defenders of the dogmas in past times, if those 
 times had anything to do with the present ! What a 
 day for Bishop Lavington, who, gazing on Wesley 
 2 
 
26 
 
 preaching the new birth at Exeter, pronounced Me- 
 thodism as bad as " Popery !" What a portentous 
 day for Bampton Lecturers and divinity Professors ! 
 What a day for Bishop Mant, and Archbishop Law- 
 rence, and Bishop Van Mildert, and Archbishop 
 Sutton, and, as we may trust, what a day had it been 
 for Archbishop ■ Howley, taken away on its very 
 dawning! The giant ocean has suddenly swelled 
 and heaved, and majestically, yet masterfully snaps 
 the cables of the small craft which lie upon its 
 bosom, and strands them upon the beach. Hooker, 
 Taylor, Bull, Pearson, Barrow, Tillotson, Warbur- 
 ton, and Home, names mighty in their generation, 
 are broken and wrecked before the power of a na- 
 tion's will. One vessel alone can ride those waves, 
 the boat of Peter, the ark of God. 
 
 And now, my brethren, it is plain that this doc- 
 trine does not stand by itself; if the grace of Bap- 
 tism is not to be taught dogmatically in the National 
 Church, if it be not a heresy to deny it, if to hold it 
 and not to hold it be but matters of opinion, what 
 other doctrine stands within its pale on a firmer or 
 more secure foundation ? The same popular voice 
 which has explained away the wording of the Office 
 for Baptism, may of course in a moment dispense 
 with the Athanasian Creed altogether. Who can 
 doubt, that, if that symbol is not similarly dealt 
 with in course of law in years to come, it is because 
 the present judgment will practically destroy its 
 
force as efficaciously, and with less trouble to the 
 lawyers ■' No individual will dare to act on views, 
 which he knows to a certainty would be over uled, 
 as soon as they are brought before a legal tribunal. 
 As to 'the document itself it will be obvious to allege 
 that the details of the Athanasian Creed were never 
 intended for reception by National believers; all 
 that was intended, (as has before now been avowed) 
 was to uphold a doctrine of a Trinity, and that, 
 provided we hold fist this " scriptural fact," it mat* 
 ters not whether we be Athanasians, Sabellims, 
 Tritheists, or Socinians, or rather we shall be neither 
 one nor the other of them. Precedents on the 
 ■other hand are easily adducible of Arian, Sabellian, 
 and Unitarian Bishops and dignitaries, and of divines 
 who professed that I'rinitarianism was a mere matter 
 of opin on, both in former times and now. Indeed 
 it may with much reason be maintained, were the 
 ■question before a court, that, looking at the matter 
 historically, Locke gave the death-blow to the Ca- 
 tholic phraseology On T;ha"t fundamental doctrir/e 
 among the Anglican clergy ; and it is surely unde- 
 niable, that such points as the Eternal generation of 
 the Son, the Homousion, and the Hypostatic Union, 
 ■have been silently discarded by the many, and but 
 ■anxiously and apolog tically put forward by "the few-. 
 With this existing disposition in the minds of Eng- 
 lish churchmen towards a denial of the Catholic 
 -doctrine of the Trinity, I Barely am not rash in say- 
 
28 
 
 ing, that the recent judgment has virtually removed 
 it from their authoritative teaching altogether. 
 
 Nor can eternal punishment be received as an 
 Anglican dogma, with so little for it in the national, 
 formularies, against the strong feeling of the age ; 
 nor original sin, in which that fe ling is countenanced 
 and defended by no less an authority of past times 
 than Bishop Jeremy Taylor. And much less the 
 in-piration of Scripture, and the existence of the 
 evil spirit, doct ines which are not mentioued in the 
 Thirty-nine Articles at all. Yet, plain though this 
 be, at this moment the Evangelical members of the 
 Establishment extol the recent judgment, and are 
 transported at the triumph it gives them, as if it 
 might not, or would not, in time to come, be turned 
 against themselves ; as if, while it directly affected 
 the doctrine of baptismal grace, it had no bearing 
 upon those of predestination, election, satisfaction, 
 justification and others, of which they consider them- 
 selves so especially jealous. Poor victims I do you 
 dream that the spirit of the age is working for you, 
 or are you secretly prepared to go further than you 
 avow ? Some of you at least are honest enough to 
 be praising the recent judgment for itself, and Wind 
 enough not to see what it involves ; and so you con- 
 tentedly and trustfully throw yourselves into the 
 arms of the age. But it is " to-day for me to- 
 morrow for thee 1" Do you really think the age is 
 stripping Laud or Bull of his authority, in order to 
 
29 
 
 set tip Calvin or Baxter ? or with what expedient 
 are you to elude a power, whose aid you have already 
 invoked against your enemies ?* 
 
 For us Catholics, my brethren, while we clearly 
 recognize how things are going, and while we would 
 not aecelerate the march of infidelity if. we could 
 help it, still, if we are blessed in converting any of 
 you, we are effecting a certain and substantial bene- 
 fit, which outweighs all points of expedience, — the 
 salvation of your souls. I do not undervalue at all 
 the advantage of institutions, which, though not 
 Catholic, keep out evils worse than themselves. 
 Some restraint is better than none : systems, which 
 do not inculcate Divine truth, serve nevertheless to 
 
 * The Oxford tutors are more sharp sighted ; understanding 
 the mental state of the junior portion of the University, they 
 see that a decision like that of the Privy Council's is fitted to 
 detfroy at once what little hold the old Anglican system was on 
 them, and to give entrance among ihem to a scepticism ' n all 
 points of religion. In a strong and spirited protest, they quote 
 against the Archbishop the very words he used on another oc- 
 casion, eight or nine years since. Yet his evasive interpretation 
 of the Baptismal service is not the fault ot the Archbishop, but 
 of the Reformers. iNomemberof the Istablishment can believe 
 in a system of theology of any kind, without doing violence to 
 the formu'aries. Those only go easi y along with them and the 
 Prayer Bonk, who do nut think. It is remarkable, the Arch- 
 b shop's book on Ap»>tolical Preaching first brought the present 
 writer to a belief in Baptismal regeneration in ' 824. He has 
 the copy still, with his objections marked on the side, aiven him 
 for the purpose of convincing him by a dignitary whom he has 
 ever loved, though he has much differed from. Dr. Hawkins. 
 
30 
 
 keep men from being utterly hardened against it, 
 when at length it comes near them ; tbey preserve 
 a certain number of revealed doctrines in the popu- 
 lar mind; they familiarise it to Christian ideas; 
 they create religious associations ; and thus, remotely 
 and negatively, they may even be said to prepare 
 and dispose the soul in a certain sense for those in- 
 spirations of grace, which, through the merits of 
 Christ, are freely given to all men for their salvation, 
 all over the earth. It is a plain duty then not to be 
 forward in destroying religious institutions, even 
 though not Catholic, if we cannot replace them with 
 what is better; but, from fear of injuring them, to> 
 shrink from saving the souls of the individuals who 
 live under them, would be worldly wisdom, treachery 
 to Christ, and uncharitahleness to His redeemed. 
 
 As to the Catholic Church herself, no vicissitude 
 of circumstances can hurt hrr which allows her %ir 
 play. It', indeed, from theuliimate resolution of all 
 heresies and errors into some one form of infidelity 
 or scepticism, the nation was strong enough to turn 
 upon her in persecution, then indeed she might be 
 expelled from our land, as she has been expelled 
 already. Then persecution would do its work, as it 
 did it three centuries ago. But this is an extreme 
 ease, which is not to be anticipated. Till the nation 
 becomes thus unanimous in uu belief, Catholics are 
 secured by the collision and balance of religious 
 parties, and are sheltered under that claim of tale- 
 
31 
 
 ration which each sect prefers for itself. But give 
 us as much as this, an open field, we ask no favor ; 
 every form of Protestantism turns to our advantage. 
 Its establishments of religion remind men of that 
 archetypal Church of which they are imitators ; its 
 Creeds contain portions of our teaching ; its quar- 
 rels and divisions serve to break up its traditions, 
 and disabuse it of its prejudices; its scepticism 
 makes it turn in admiration and in hope to her, who 
 alone is clear in her teaching and consistent in its 
 transmission ; its very abuse makes men inquire 
 about her. She fears nothing from political parties ; 
 she shrinks from none of them, she can coalesce 
 with any. She is not jealous of progress, nor im- 
 patient with conservatism, if either be the national 
 will. Nor is there anything to fear, except for the 
 moment and for individuals, in that movement to- 
 wards Pantheism,* which excites the special anxiety 
 of many ; for, in truth, there is something so repug- 
 nant to the feelings of man, in systems which deprive 
 God of his perfections, and reduce Him to a name, 
 which remove the Creator to an indefinite distance 
 from His creatures, under the pretence of bringing 
 them near to Him, and refuse Him the liberty of 
 sending mediators and ordaining instruments to con- 
 nect them with Him, which deny the existence of v 
 
 * I am aware that the name nf Pantheism is repudiated by 
 several writers of the school I allude to, but I think it will be 
 found to be the ultimate resolution of its principles. 
 
82 
 
 sin, the need of pardon, and the fact of punishment, 
 which maintain that man is happy here and sufficient 
 for himself, when he feels so keenly his own igno- 
 rance and desolateness, — and on the other hand, the 
 sects and parties round about us so utterly helpless 
 to remedy his evils, and to supply his need, — that 
 the preachers of these new ideas from Germany and 
 America are really, however much against their will, 
 like Caiaphas, prophesying for us. Surely they 
 will find no resting place any where, for their feet, 
 and the feet of their disciples, but will be tumbled 
 down from one depth of blasphemy to another, till 
 they arrive at sheer and naked atheism, the reductio 
 ad absurdwm of their initial principles. Logic is a 
 stern master ; they feel it, they protest against it ; 
 they profess to hate it, and would fain dispense with 
 it; but it is the law of their intellectual nature. 
 Struggling and shrieking, but in vain, will they 
 make the inevitable descent into that pit from which 
 there is no return, except through the almost mira- 
 culous grace of God, the grant of which in this life 
 is never hopeless. And Israel, without a fight, will 
 see their enemies dead upon the sea-shore. 
 
 I will but observe in conclusion, that, in explain- 
 ing the feeling under which I address myself to 
 members of the Anglican Church in these lectures, 
 *l have advanced one step towards fulfilling the ob- 
 ject with which I have undertaken them. For it is 
 a very common difficulty which urges them, when 
 
33 
 
 they contemplate submission to the Catholic Church, 
 that perhaps they shall thus be weakening the com- 
 munion they leave, which, with whatever defects, 
 they see in matter of fact to be a defence of Chris- 
 tianity against its enemies. No, my brethren, if the 
 National Church falls, this will be because it is 
 national ; because it left the centre of unity in the 
 sixteenth century, not because you leave it in the 
 present. Cranmer, Parker, Jewell, will complete 
 their own work ; they who made it, will be its de- 
 struction. 
 
 2* 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE MOVEMENT OF 1833 UNCONGENIAL TO THE 
 NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 My object in these Lectures, my brethren, is not 
 to construct any argument in favor of Catholicism, 
 for there is fio need. Arguments exist in abun- 
 dance, and of the highest cogency, and of the most 
 wonderful variety, provided severally by the merciful 
 wisdom of its Divine Author, for distinct casts of 
 mind ana character ; — so much so, that it is often a 
 mistake in controversy to cumulate reasons for what 
 is on many considerations so plain already, and the 
 evidence of which is only weakened to the individual 
 inquirer, if he is distracted by fresh proofs, consist- 
 ent indeed with those which have brought conviction 
 to him, but to him less convincing than his own, and 
 at least strange and unfamiliar. Every inquirer 
 may have enough of positive proof to convince him 
 that Catholicism is divine; it is owing to the force 
 of oounter-objectious that his conviction remains 
 
35 
 
 either defective or unpractical. I consider then that 
 I shall be ministering in my measure to the cause of 
 truth, if I do ever so little towards removing the 
 difficulties, or any of them, which beset the mind, 
 when it is urged to accept Catholicism as true. It 
 is with this view that I have insisted on the real 
 character of the Established Church, and its rela- 
 tion to the nation ; for, if it be mainly, as I have 
 represented it, a department of government under 
 the temporal sovereign, one at least is struck off 
 from the catalogue of your objections. You fear to 
 leave it lest you should, by your secession, throw it 
 into the hands of a latitudinarian party ; but it 
 never haB been in your hands, nor ever under your 
 influence. It is in the hands of the nation ; it is 
 mainly what the nation is : such is it, while you are 
 in it ; such would it be, if you left it. I do not 
 deny you may by your presence retard its downward 
 career, but you are not of the importance to it, 
 which you fancy. 
 
 Now, in the course of the argument I made a re- 
 mark, which I shall to-day pursue I spoke of the 
 movement which began in the Establishment in 1833, 
 or shortly before; and I dwelt on the remarkable 
 fact, that in nearly twenty years that movement, 
 though it had exerted great influence over the views 
 of individuals, yet had remained a mere party in the 
 National Church, having had as little real influence 
 as is conceivable over the National Church itself; 
 
36 
 
 and no wonder, if that Church be simply an organ 
 or department of the state, for in that case all ec- 
 clesiastical acts really proceeding from the supreme 
 civil government, to influence the Establishment is 
 nothing else than to influence the state, or even the 
 constitution. 
 
 Now I shall pursue the argument. I shall, by 
 means of one or two suggestions, try to bring home 
 to you the extreme want of congeniality which has 
 existed between the movement of 1833, and the 
 nation at large ; and then, assuming that you, my 
 brethren, owe your principles to that movement, and 
 that your first duty is to your principles, I shall 
 infer your own want of congeniality with the national 
 religion, however you may wish it* otherwise; or 
 that you have no concern with it, have no place in it, 
 have no reason for belonging to it, and have no re- 
 sponsibilities towards it. 
 
 I am then to point out to you, that, what is some- 
 times called, or rather what calls itself, the Anglo- 
 Catholic teaching, is not only a novelty in this age 
 (for to prove a thing new to the age, is not enough 
 in order to prove it uncongenial), but that while it 
 is a system adventitious and superadded to the na- 
 tional religion, it is moreover, not supplemental, or 
 
 complemental, or collateral, or correlative to it, 
 
 not implioitly involved in it, not developed from it, 
 
 nor combining with it, nor capable of absorption 
 into it ; but, on the contrary, most uncongenial, and 
 
37 
 
 heterogeneous, floating upon it, a foreign substance, 
 like oil upon the water. And my proof shall consist, 
 first, of what was augured of it, when it commen- 
 ced ; secondly, what has been fulfilled concerning it 
 during its course. 
 
 As to the auguries with which it started, we need 
 not go beyond the first agents of the movement, in 
 order to have a tolerably sufficient proof that it had 
 no lot, nor portion, nor parentage in the Established 
 Church ; for when those who first recommended to 
 her its principles and doctrines are found themselves 
 to have doubted how far they were congenial with 
 her, when the very physicians were anxious what 
 would come of their own medicines, who shall feel 
 confidence in them ? Such, however, was the case : 
 its originators confessed that they were forcing upon 
 the Establishment doctrines from which it recited, 
 doctrines with which it never had given signs of 
 coalescing, doctrines which tended they knew not 
 whither. This is what they felt, what with no un- 
 certain sound they publicly proclaimed. 
 
 For instance, one, who, if any, is the author of 
 the movement altogether, and whose writings were 
 published after his death, says in one of his letters, 
 " It seems agreed among the wise, that we must 
 begin by laying a foundation." Again, he writes to 
 a friend, " I am getting more and more to feel, what 
 you tell me, about the impracticability of making 
 sensible people," that is, the High Church party of 
 
38 
 
 the day, " enter into our ecclesiastical views ; and, 
 what is most discouraging, I hardly see how to set 
 about leading them to us." Elsewhere he asks, 
 "How is it we are so much in advance of our gene- 
 ration V And again, " The age is out of joint." 
 And again, " I shall write nothing on the subject 
 of Church grievances, till I have a tide to work 
 with." Further he calls the Establishment " an 
 incubus upon the country," and, " a upas tree :" 
 and, lastly, within three or four months of his death, 
 his theological view still expanding and diverging 
 from the existing state of things, he exclaims, 
 " How mistaken we may ourselves be on many 
 points, that are only gradually opening on us!"* 
 
 Avowals of a like character are made with the 
 utmost frankness in the very work which professed 
 formaWy to lay down and defend the new doctrines. 
 The writer begins by allowing and apologizing, that 
 he is " discussing, rather than teaching, what was 
 meant to be simply an article of faith," and that, on 
 the ground that " the teaching of the Apostles con- 
 cerning it, is, in a good measure, withdrawn," and 
 that, " we are, so far, left to make the best of our 
 way to the promised land by our natural resources." 
 The preaching of the doctrines of the movement, 
 are compared to the original preaching of Chris- 
 tianity ; and this only alleviation is suggested, if it 
 
 * Froude's R emains, vol. 1. 
 
89 
 
 be any, that those who are startled at them, could 
 not he more startled than " the outcasts to whom 
 the ApostleS preached in the beginning." Nay, it 
 is categorically stated, that " they are in one sense 
 as entirely new as Christianity when first preached." 
 He continues, " Protestantism and Popery," by 
 which he means the popular Catholic system, " are 
 real religions ; no one can doubt about them ; they 
 have furnished the mould in which nations have 
 been cast ; but the Via Media, viewed as an inte- 
 gral system, has scarcely had existence except on 
 paper." Presently he continues, " It still remains 
 to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catho- 
 licism, the religion of Audrejres, Laud, Hammond, 
 Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, 
 acted on, and 'maintained in a large sphere of action, 
 and through a sufficient period ; or whether it be a 
 mere modification or transition state, either of Ro- 
 manism or of popular Protestantism, according as 
 we view it." "It may be argued," he adds, and, 
 as~~he does not deny, argued with plausibility, " that 
 the Church of England, as established by law, and 
 existing in fact, has never represented a certain 
 doctrine, or been the development of a principle, 
 that it has been but a name, or a department of the 
 State, or a political party, in which religious opinion 
 was an accident, and therefore has been various." 
 And this prospectus, as it may be called, of a new 
 system, ends by stating that " it is proposed to offer 
 
40 
 
 helps towards the formation of a recognized Angli- 
 can theology in one of its departments." ..." We 
 require a recognized theology," he insists, " and, if 
 the present work, instead of being what it is meant 
 to be, a first approximation to the required solution, 
 in one department of a complicated problem, con- 
 tains, after all, but a series of illustrations demon- 
 strating our need, and supplying hints for its remo- 
 val ; such a result, it is evident, will be quite a 
 sufficient return for whatever anxiety it has cost the 
 writer to have employed his own judgment on so 
 Serious a subject."* 
 
 I must add, in justice to this writer, and it is not 
 much to say, that be did not entertain the presump- 
 tuous thought of creating, at this time of day, a 
 new theology himself; he considered that a theology, 
 true in itself, and necessary for the position of the 
 Anglican Church, was to be found in the writings of 
 Andrewes, Laud, Bramhall, Stillingfleet, Butler, and 
 other of its divines; but bad never been put to- 
 gether, as he expressly declares. Nor, in spito of 
 his misgivings, was he without a persuasion, that the 
 theological system, contained in those writers, and 
 derived, as he believed, from the primitive fathers, 
 not only ought to- be, but might be, and, as he hoped, 
 would be, acknowledged and acted upon by the Es- 
 tablishment. Yet on the other, I allow, of* course, 
 
 * Newman's Prophetical Office. 
 
41 
 
 and am not loth to allow, that, bad be seen clearly 
 that antiquity and the Establishment were iticom- 
 patible with each other, he would promptly have 
 given up the Establishment, rather than have re- 
 jected antiquity. Moreover, let It be observed, in 
 evidence of his misgivings on the point, that when 
 he gets to the end of his volume, instead of their 
 being removed, they return in a more definite form, 
 and he confesses that " the thought, with which we 
 entered upon the subject, is apt to recur, when the 
 excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weari- 
 ness has succeeded, that what has been said is but a 
 dream, the wanton exercise, rather than the prac- 
 tical conclusions, of the intellect." 
 
 These auguries speedily met with a response, 
 though in a less tranquil tone, in every part of the 
 Establishment, and by each of the schools of opinion 
 within it, — the High Church section, the Evangeli- 
 cal, and the Latitudinarian. They condemned, not 
 only the attempt, but the authors of it. The late 
 Dr. Arnold, a man who always spoke his miud, 
 avowed that his feelings towards a Roman Catholic 
 were quite different from his feelings to the author 
 of the above work. " I think the one," he con- 
 tinued, " a fair enemy, the other a treacherous one. 
 The one is the Frenchman in his own uniform, the 
 other is the Frenchman disguised in a redcoat. I 
 should honor the first, and hang the second." For 
 the Evangelical party, it is scarcely necessary to 
 
42 
 
 make the following extracts from the work of even 
 a cautions and careful writer : — " If," says the 
 writer of 'Essays on the Church,' " the grievances 
 and warfare of Dissenters against it have greatly 
 diminished in interest, a new and gigantic evil has 
 arisen up in their room. . . . Popery, not indeed of 
 the days of Hildebrand or Leo the Tenth, but Popery 
 as it first established itself in the seventh and eighth 
 centuries, is already among us. . . . Popery has 
 anew arisen up among us, in youthful vigor and in 
 her youthful attractions. Such is the chief, the 
 greatly preponderating peril, which besets the Church 
 of England at the present day. It has in it all the 
 essential features of Popery ; but, apart from this, 
 and were it never to prooeed beyond the perils to 
 which it has now reached, it is fraught with the 
 fearful evil of a withering parching, blighting ope- 
 ration, drying-up and banishing all spiritual life and 
 influence from the Church "* 
 
 Lastly, a theological professor of the High Church 
 section, in an attack which he delivered from the 
 pulpit, viewed the movement from another point of 
 view, yet with a perfect accordance of judgment 
 with the two writers who have been already cited : 
 "Instead of quietly acquiescing," he says, "in 
 what they cannot change, submitting in silence to 
 their imagined privations, and patiently enduring 
 
 * E says on the Church, by a Layman, 1838, pp. 270, 399. 300. 
 Ditto 1840, p. 401. 
 
43 
 
 this * meagreness of Protestantism,' by a species of 
 ' ecclesiastical agitation,' unexampl d in obtrusive- 
 ness and perseverance, they are unsettling the faith 
 of the weak, blinding the judgment of the sober- 
 minded, raising the hopes of the most inveterate 
 adversaries of our Reformed and Protestant Church, 
 and, as far as a small knot of malcontents can well 
 be supposed capable, they are compromising her 
 character and disturbing ber peace."* 
 
 Yet even at this date, in spite of the success 
 which for five years had attended him, the apologist 
 for Mr. Froude and his friends had felt no greater 
 confidence than before in his congeniality with the 
 National Church, and on occasion of the last-men- 
 tinned attack, scrupled not to avow the fact. " Sure 
 I am," said 'he, " that the more stir is made about 
 those opinions which you censure, the wider they 
 will spread. Whatever be the faults or mistakes of 
 their advocates, they have that root of truth in them, 
 which, as I do firmly believe, has a blessing with it. 
 I do not pretend to say they will ever become widely 
 popular, that is another matter : truth is never, or 
 at least never long popular ; nor do T say they will 
 ever gain that powerful external influence over the 
 many, which truth, vested in the few, cherished, 
 throned, energizing in the few, often has possessed ; 
 nor that they are not destined, as truth has often 
 
 Fnussett's Sermon, Preface to third edition. 
 
44 
 
 been destined, to be cast away, and at length trodden 
 under foot as an odious thing : but of this I am 
 sure, that, at tbis juncture, in proportion as they are 
 known, they will make their way through the com- 
 munity, picking out their own, seeking and obtaining 
 refuge in the hearts of Christians, high and low, 
 here and there, with this man and that, as the case 
 may be ; doing their work in their day, and raising 
 a memorial and a witness to this fallen generation of 
 what once has been, of what God would ever have, 
 of what one day shall be in perfection ; and that not 
 from what they are in themselves, because, viewed 
 in the concrete, they are mingled, as every thing 
 human must be, with error and infirmity, but by 
 reason of the spirit, the truth, the old Catholic life 
 and power which is in them."* 
 
 What was it, then, which the originators of the 
 movement in question desiderated or doubted, with 
 reference to it, in the communion for whose benefit 
 it was intended ? Why did they dread or doubt lest 
 the principles of St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose 
 should fail to take root in the minds of their breth- 
 ren, and to spread through the laity ? In truth, 
 when they feared that the good seed would fall, not 
 on a congenial soil, but on hard or stony or occupied 
 ground, they were fearing lest the National Church, 
 though they did not use the word, had not life , 
 
 * Newman's Letter to Faussett. 
 
46 
 
 Life consists or manifests itself in activity of prin- 
 ciple. There are various kinds of life, and each 
 kind is the influence or operation in a body, of those 
 .principles upon which the body is constituted. Each 
 kind of life is to be referred, and is congenial, to its 
 own principle. Principles, distinct from each other, 
 will not take root and flourish in bodies, to which 
 respectively they are foreign. One principle has not 
 the life of another. The life of a plant is not the 
 same as the life of an animated being ; and the life 
 of the body is not the same as the life of the intel- 
 lect ; nor is the life of the intellect the same in kind 
 as the life of grace ; nor is the life of the Church 
 the same as the life of the State. When then 
 these writers doubted whether Apostolical principles, 
 as they called them, would spread through the laity 
 of England, they were doubting whether that laity 
 lived, breathed, energized, in Apostolical principles ; 
 whether Apostolicpl principles were the just ex- 
 pression, and the element of the national sentiment; 
 whether the intellectual and moral life of the nation 
 was not distinct from the life of the Apostolical age ; 
 and, ' if the Establishment were professedly built 
 upon the principles and professedly partook of the 
 life of the Apostolical age, as they knew ought to be 
 the case, then tbey were doubting whether it was 
 what it professed to be. 
 
 There was no doubt at all, there is no doubt at 
 all, that the Establishment has some kind of life. 
 
46 
 
 No one ever doubted it ; and it is triuropbantly 
 proved by one of its dignitaries, in a passage which 
 I quote j —" Surely, my dear friend," says this ac- 
 complished writer, * with a reference to the present 
 controversy, '' it requires an inordinate faith in one's 
 own logical dreams, an idolizing worship of one's 
 own opinions, to believe that, the Church of England, 
 b'est as she has been by God lor so many genera- 
 tions, raised as she has been by Him to be the 
 m )ther of so many churches, with such a promise 
 shining upon her, and brightening every yfar, that 
 her daughters should spread round the earth, that 
 she, who has been chosen by God to be the instru- 
 ment of so many blessings, and the presence of the 
 Lord and His Spirit with whom was never more 
 manifest thin at this day, should forfeit her office 
 and authority, as a witness of the tiuth, should be 
 Cut off from the body of Christ's Church, and should 
 no longer b« able to dispense the grace of the sa- 
 craments, because her highest law court has not 
 condemned a proposition asserted by one of her 
 ministers, concerning a very obscure and perplexing 
 question of dogmatical tieology. Surely this would 
 be an extraordinary delusion . . . for, whatever the 
 dogmatical value of the opinion" in question " may 
 be, the error is not one which indicates any want of 
 personal faith and holiness, or any decay of Christian 
 life in the Church." 
 
 * Archdeacon Hare, in Record newspaper. 
 
4? 
 
 No, I grant it would be very difficult to the itna* 
 gination to receive it as a dogma, tbat there was no 
 " life" in the National Cbu eh, nor indeed "faith.'* 
 The simple question is, What is meant by " life" and 
 " faith V" Will the Archdeacon tell us whether he 
 does not mean by faith a something very vague and 
 comprehensive ? Does he mean, as he might say, 
 the faith of St. Austin, and of Peter the Hermit, 
 and of Luther, and of Kousseau, and of Washing- 
 ton, and of Napoleon Bonaparte 1 Faith has one 
 meaning to a. Catholic, another to a Protestant. 
 Aud life, — is it the religious "life'' of England, or 
 of Prussia, or is it Catholic life, that is, the life 
 which belongs to Catholic principles ? Else we 
 shall be arguing in a circle, if Protestants are to 
 prove that they have that life, which manifests "the 
 presence of the Spirit," because they have, as they 
 are sure to have, a life congenial and in conformity 
 to Protestant principles. If then " life" means 
 strength, activity, energy, and well-being of any 
 kind, in that case doubtless the national religion is 
 alive. It is a great power in the midst of us ; it 
 wields an enormous influence ; it represses a hundred 
 foes; it conducts a hundred undertakings. It at- 
 tracts men to it, uses them, rewards them ; it baa 
 thousands of beautiful homes up and down the coun- 
 try, where quiet men may do its work and benefit its 
 people ; it collects vast sums in the shape of volun- 
 tary offerings, and with them it builds churches, 
 
48 
 
 prints and distributes innumerable Bibles, books, 
 and tracts, and sustains missionaries in all parts of 
 the earth. In all parts of the earth it opposes the 
 Catholic Church, denounces her as anti-cbristian, 
 bribes the world against her, obstructs her influence, 
 apes her authority, and confuses her evidence. In 
 all parts of the world it is the religion of gen- 
 tlemen, of scholars, of men of substance, and 
 men of no religion at all If this be life, — if it 
 be li'e to impart a tone to the court and houses 
 of parliament, to ministers of state, to law and 
 literature, to universities and schools, and to so- 
 ciety, — if it be life to be a principle of order in 
 the population, and an organ of benevolence and 
 almsgiving towards the poor,— if it be life to 
 make men decent, respectable, and sensible, to em- 
 bellish and refine the family circle, to deprive vice 
 of its grossness, and to shed a gloss over avarice and 
 ambition, — if indeed it is the life of religion to be 
 the first jewel in the queen's crown, and the highest 
 step of her throne, then doubtless the National 
 Church is replete, it overflows with life; but the 
 question has still to be answered, Life of what kind? 
 Heresy has its life, worldliness has its life. Is the 
 Establishment's life merely national life, or is it 
 something more ? Is it Catholic life as Well ? Is it 
 a supernatural life ? Is it congenial with, does it 
 proceed from, does it belong to the principles of apos- 
 tles, martyrs, evangelists, and doctors, the principles 
 
49 
 
 which the movement of 1833 thought to impose or 
 to graft upon it, or does it revolt from them ? If it 
 be Catholic and Apostolic, it will endure Catholic 
 and Apostolic principles ; no one doubts it can en- 
 dure Erastian ; no one doubts it can be patient of 
 Protestant ; this is the problem which was started by 
 the movement in question, the problem for which 
 surely there has been an abundance of tests in the 
 course of twenty years. 
 
 But the passage I have quoted suggests a second 
 observation. I have spoken of the tests, which the 
 last twenty years have furnished, of the real charac- 
 ter of the Establishment ; for I must not be supposed 
 to be enquiring whether the Establishment has been 
 unchurched during that period, but whether it has 
 been proved to be no Church already. The want of 
 congeniality which now exists between the sentiments 
 and ways, the moral life of the Anglican communion, 
 and the principles, doctrines, traditions of Catho- 
 licism, — I speak of this in order to prove something 
 done and over long ago, in order to show that the 
 movement of 1833 was from the first engaged in 
 propagating an unreality. The eloquent writer 
 just quoted, in ridicule of the protest made by twelve 
 very distinguished men, against the Queen's recent 
 decision concerning the sacrament of baptism, con- 
 trasts "logical dreams'' and "obscure and perplex- 
 ing questions of dogmatic theology" with " the 
 promise" in the Establishment of a large family * of 
 3 
 
50 
 
 daughters, spread round the earth, shining and 
 brightening every year." Now I grant that it has a 
 narrow and technical appearance to rest the Catho- 
 licity of a religious body on particular words, or 
 deeds, or measures, resulting from the temper of a 
 particular age, accidentally elicited, and accomplished 
 in minutes or in days. I allow it and feel it 5 that a 
 particular vote of parliament, endured or tacitly ac- 
 cepted by bishops and clergy, or by the Metropolitans, 
 or a particular appointment, or a particular omission, 
 or a particular statement of doctrine, should at once 
 change the spiritual character of the body, and ipso 
 facto cut it off from the centre of unity and the 
 source of grace, is almost incredible. In spite of 
 such acts, surely the Anglican Church might be to- 
 day what it was yesterday, with an internal power 
 and a supernatural virtue, provided it had not al- 
 ready forfeited them, and would go about its work as 
 of old time. It would be to-day pretty much what 
 it was yesterday, though in the course of the night it 
 had allowed an Anglo-Prussian see to be set up in 
 Jerusalem, and subscribed to a disavowal of the 
 Athanasian Creed. This is the common sense of the 
 matter, to which the mind recurs with satisfaction 
 after zeal and ingenuity have done their utmost to 
 prove the contrary. Of course 1 am not saying that 
 individual acts do not tend towards, and a succession 
 of acts does not issue in, the most serious spiritual 
 consequences ; but it is so difficult to determine the 
 
51 
 
 worth of each ecclesiastical act, and what its position 
 is relatively to acts and events before and after it, 
 that I haVe no intention of urging any argument 
 "deduced from such. A generation may not be long 
 ^enough for the completion of an act of schism or 
 heresy. Judgments admit of repeal or reversal; 
 enactments are liable to flaws and informalities ; laws 
 require promulgation^ documents admit of explana- 
 tion ; words must be interpreted either by context or 
 by circumstances ; majorities maybe analysed; re- 
 sponsibilities may be shifted. I admit the remark of 
 another writer in the present controversy, 'though I 
 do not accept his conclusion : " The Church's 
 motion," he says, " is not that of a machine, to be 
 calculated with accuracy, and predicted beforehand ; 
 where one serious injury will disturb all regularity, 
 •and finally put a stop to action. It is that of a living 
 body, whose motions will be irregular, incapable 
 of being exactly arranged and foretold, and where it 
 is nearly impossible to £ay how milch health "may 'co- 
 exist with how much disease." And he speaks of 
 the line of reasoning which he is opposing, as being 
 "too logical to be real. Men," he observes, " do 
 not in the practical affairs of life act on such clear, 
 sharp, definite theories. Such reasoning can never 
 be the -cause of any one leaving the Church of Eng» 
 land. But it looks well on paper, and therefore may 
 perhaps be put forward as a theoretical argument 'by 
 
52 
 
 those who, from some other feeling, or fancy, of" pre* 
 judice, or honest conviction, think fit to leave us."* 
 
 Truly said, except in the imputation conveyed in 
 the concluding words. I will grant that it is by life 
 without us, by life within us, by the work of grace 
 in our Communion and in ourselves, that we are all 
 of us accustomed practically to judge whether that 
 communion be Catholic or not ; not by this or that 
 formal- act, or historical event. I will grant it, 
 though of eourseit. requires some teaching, and some 
 discernment, and some prayer, to understand what 
 spiritual life is, and what is the working of grace. 
 However, at amy rate, let the proposition pass-; 
 transeat ; I will here allow it, at least for argument's 
 sake, for, my brethren, I am nut here going to look 
 out, in the last twenty years, for dates when, and 
 ways in which, the Establishment fell from Catholic 
 unity, and lost its divine privileges. No ; the ques- 
 tion before us is nothing narrow or technical ; it has 
 no cut and dried premises, and peremptory conclu- 
 sions ; it is not whether this or that statute or canon 
 at the time of the Reformation, this or that " fur- 
 ther and further encroachment" of the State, this 
 or that "Act of William IV." constituted the Es- 
 tablishment's formal separation from the Church; 
 not whether the Queen's recent decision binds it to 
 
 * Neale'a Few Words of Hope, pp. 11, 12. 
 
53 
 
 lieresy; but, whether these acts, and abundant 
 others, are not one and all evidences, in one out of a 
 hundred heads of evidence, that whatever were the 
 acts which constitute, or the moment which com- 
 pleted the schism, or rather the utter disorganisation, 
 of the National Church, cut off and disorganised it 
 is. No sober man, I suppose, dreams of denying, 
 that if that Church be impure and un-apostolical 
 now, it has had no claim to be called " pure and 
 apostolical" last year, or twenty years back, or for 
 any part of the period sinee the Reformation. 
 
 We have, theu, this simple question before us, 
 What evidence is there, that the doctrines and prin- 
 ciples proclaimed to the world in 1833 had, then or 
 now, any congeniality with thg Establishment in 
 which they were propagated, or can live ia that Es- 
 tablishment ; whether they can move and work, 
 whether they can breathe and live in it, better than 
 a being with lungs in an exhausted receiver ? It 
 was doubted, as we have seen, by their first preach- 
 ers ; how has it been determined by the event ? 
 Now then, to give one or two specimens and illus- 
 trations of a fact too certain, as I think, to need 
 much dwelling on. 
 
 We know that it is the propsrty of life to be im- 
 patient of any foreign substance in the body to which' 
 it belongs. It will be sovereign in its own domain, 
 and it conflicts with what it cannot assimilate into 
 
54 
 
 itself, and is irritated and disordered till it has ex- 
 polled it. Such expulsion, then, is, emphatically, a 
 test of uncongeniality, for it shows that the sub- 
 stance ejected, not only is not one with the body 
 that rejects it, but cannot be made one with it ; that 
 its introduction is not only useless, or superfluous, 
 or adventitious, but that it is intolerable. For in- 
 stance, it is usual for High Churchmen to speak of 
 the Establishment as patient, in matter of fact, both 
 of Catholic and Protestant principles ; — most true 
 as regards Protestant, and it will illustrate my point 
 to give instances of it. No one can doubt, then,, 
 that neither Lutheranism nor Calvauism is the exact 
 doctrine of the Church of England, yet either 
 heresy can readily coalesce with it in matter of fact. 
 Persons of Lutheran and Calvinistic, and Luthero- 
 Calvinist bodies, are and have been chosen without 
 scruple by the English people for husbands and 
 wives, for sponsors, for missionaries, for deans and 
 canons, without any formal transition from com- 
 munion to communion. The Anglican Prelates. 
 write complimentary letters to what they call the 
 foreign Protestant Churches, and they attend, with 
 their clergy and laity, Protestant places of worship 
 abroad. William III. was called to the throne, 
 though a Calvinist, and George I., though a Luther- 
 an, and that in order to exclude a family who ad- 
 hered to the religion of Borne. The national re- 
 
55 
 
 ligion then has a congeniality with Lutheranism and 
 Calvinism, which it has not, for instance, with the 
 Greek' religion, or the Jewish. Religions, as they 
 come, whatever they be, are not indifferent to it ; it 
 takes up one, it precipitates another; it, as every 
 religion, has a life, a spirit, a genius of its own, in 
 which doctrines lie implicit, out of which they are 
 developed, and by which they are attracted into it 
 from without, and assimilated to it. 
 
 There is a passage in Moehler's celebrated work 
 on Symbolism, so much to the point here, that I 
 will quote it : " Each nation," he says, " is endowed 
 with a peculiar character, stamped on the deepest, 
 most hidden parts of its being, which distinguishes 
 it from ' all other nations, and manifests its pecu- 
 liarity in public and domestic life, in art and science, 
 in short, in every relation. In every general act of 
 a people, the national spirit is infallibly expressed ; 
 and should contests, should selfish tactions occur, the 
 element destructive to the vital principle of the 
 whole will most certainly be detected in them, and 
 the commotion, excited by an alien spirit, either 
 miscarries, or is expelled ; as long as the community 
 preserves its self- consciousness, as long as its pecu- 
 liar genius yet lives, and works within it. . . . Let 
 us contemplate the religious sect founded by Luther 
 himself. The developed doctrines of his Church, 
 consigned as they are in the. symbolical books, re- 
 
56 
 
 tain, on the whole, so much of his spirit, that, at the 
 first view, they must be recognized by the observer 
 as genuine productions of Luther. With a sure 
 vital instinct, the opinions of the Majorists, the 
 Synergists, and others, were rejected as deadly, and 
 indeed (from Luther's point of view) as untrue, by 
 that community whose soul, whose living principle, 
 he was."* 
 
 We have the most vivid and impressive illustra- 
 tions of the truth of these remarks in the history of 
 the Church. The religious life of a people is of a 
 certain quality and direction, and these are tested 
 by the mode in which it encounters the various 
 opinions, customs, and institutions which are sub- 
 mitted to it. Drive a stake into a river's bed, and 
 you will at once ascertain which way it is running, 
 and at what speed ; throw up even a straw upon the 
 air, and you will see which way the wind blows ; 
 submit your heretical and your Catholic principle to 
 the action of the multitude, and you will be able to 
 pronounce at once whether it is imbued with Catho- 
 lic truth, or with heretical falsehood. Take, for 
 example, a passage in the history of the fourth cen- 
 tury ; let the place be Milan ; the date, the Lent of 
 384, 385 ; the reigning powers Justina and her son 
 Valentinian, and St. Ambrose the Archbishop. 
 
 • Robertson's TransL vol. ii„ pp. 86, 39. 
 
57 
 
 The city is in an uproar ; there is a mob before the 
 imperial residence ; the soldiery interferes in vain, 
 and Ambrose is despatched by the court to disperse 
 the people. A month elapses ; Palm Sunday is 
 come ; the Archbishop is expounding the Creed to 
 the catechumens, when he is told that the people 
 are again in commotion. A second message comes, 
 that they have seized one of the empress' priests. 
 The court makes reprisals on the tradesmen, some 
 of whom are fined, some thrown into prison, while 
 men of higher rank are threatened. We are arrived 
 at the middle of Holy Week, and we find soldiers 
 posted before one of the churches, and Ambrose has 
 menaced them with excommunication. His threat 
 overcomes them, and they join the congregation to 
 whom he is preaching. The court gives way, the 
 guards are withdrawn to their quarters, and the fines 
 are remitted. What does all this mean.? There 
 evidently has been a quarrel between the court and 
 the Archbishop, and the Archbishop, aided by the 
 popular enthusiasm, has conquered. A year passes, 
 and there is a second and more serious disturbance. 
 Soldiers have surrounded the same church ; yet, 
 dreading an excommunication, they let the people 
 enter, but refuse to let them pass out. Still the 
 people keep entering ; they fill the church, the court- 
 yard, the priests' lodgings; and there they remain 
 with the Archbishop for two or three days, singing 
 psalms, till the soldiers, overcome by the music, 
 3* 
 
58 
 
 sing psalms too, and the blockade melts away, no 
 one knows how. And now, what was the cause of 
 so enthusiastic, so dogged an opposition to the court, 
 on the ■pjttt of the population of MiLtn 1 The ans- 
 wer is plain; it was because they loved Christ so 
 well, and were so sensitive of the dsctrine of His 
 divinity, that they would not allow the reigning 
 powers to take a Church from them, and bestow it 
 on the Arians. I conceive, then, that Catholicism 
 was emphatically the religion of Milan, or that the 
 life of the Milanese Church was a Catholic life. 
 
 And so, in like manner, when in St. Giles's 
 Church, Edinburgh, in July, 1635, the dean of the 
 city opened the service-book, in the presence of 
 Bishop and privy council, and " a muliitude of the 
 meanest sort, most of them women," clapped their 
 hands, cursed him, cried out, " A pope I a pope ! 
 antichrist! stone him;"* and one fluug a stool at 
 the Bishop, and others threw stones at doors and 
 windows, and at Privy-seal and Bishop on their re- 
 turn, and this became the beginning of a movement 
 which ended in obtaining the objects at which it 
 aimed, — this, I consider, shows clearly enough that 
 the religious life at Edinburgh at that day was not 
 Catholic, not Anglican, but Presbyterian arid Puri- 
 tan. 
 
 And, to take one more instance, when the seven 
 
 * Hume, Charles the First. 
 
59 
 
 Bishops were committed to the Tower, and were 
 proceeding " down the river to their place of con- 
 finement, the banks were covered with spectators, 
 who, while they knelt and asked their blessing, 
 prayed themselves for a blessing on them and their 
 cause. The very soldiers who guarded them, and 
 some even of the officers to whose charge they were 
 committed, knelt in like manner before them, and 
 besought their benediction." When they were 
 brought before the Court of' King's Bench, they 
 " passed through a line of people, who kissed their 
 hands and their garments, and begged their bless- 
 ing ;" and when they were admitted to bail, " bon- 
 fires were made in the streets, and healths drunk to 
 the Seven Champions of the Church." Lastly, 
 when they were acquitted, the verdict " was re- 
 ceived with a shout which seemed to shake the 
 hall. . . . All the churches were filled with people ; 
 the bells rang from every tower, every house was 
 illuminated, and bonfires were kindled in every 
 street. Medals were struck in honor of the event, 
 and portraits hastily published and eagerly pur- 
 chased, of men who were compared to the seven 
 golden candlesticks, and called the seven stars of the 
 Protestant Church."* Now here are signs of life, 
 religious life doubtless, but they have nothing to do 
 with Catholicism ; they are indubitable, unequivoca- 
 
 * Southey's Book of the Church. 
 
CO 
 
 ble tokens, what the national religion was and is, 
 affording a clear illustration of the congeniality ex- 
 isting between the spirit or genius of a system and 
 its own principles, and not with their opposites. 
 
 Let a people then, Catholic or not, be in ignorance 
 of doctrine — let them be a practical busy people, 
 full of their secular matters — let them have no keen 
 analytical view of the principles which govern them, 
 yet they will be spontaneously attracted by those 
 principles, and irritated by their contraries so, as 
 they can be attracted or irritated by no other. Their 
 own principles or their contraries, when once sounded 
 in their ears, thrill through them with a vibration, 
 pleasant or painful, with sweet harmony or with 
 grating discord; under which they cannot' rest 
 quiet; but relieve their feelings by gestures and 
 cries, and startings to and fro, and expressions of 
 sympathy or antipathy towards others, and at length 
 by combination, and party, and vigorous action. 
 When then the note of Catholicism, as it may be 
 called, was struck seventeen years since, and while 
 it has sounded louder and louder in the national ear, 
 what has been the response of the national senti- 
 ment ? It had many things surely in its favor ; it 
 sounded from a centre which commanded attention 1 — 
 it sounded strong and full ; nor was it intermitted 
 or checked or lowered by the opposition, nor drowned 
 by the olamor which it occasioned, while, at length, 
 it was re-echoed and repeated from other centres 
 
61 
 
 with zeal and energy and sincerity and effect, as 
 great as any cause could even desire or could ask 
 for. So far, no movement could have more advan- 
 tage with it than it had ; and, as it proceeded, it did 
 not content itself with propagating an abstract theo- 
 logy, but it took a part in the public events of the 
 day ; it interfered with court, with ministers, with 
 university matters, and with counter-movements of 
 whatever kind. 
 
 And, moreover, which is much to the purpose, it 
 appealed to the people, and that on the very ground 
 that it was Apostolical in its nature. It made the 
 experiment of this appeal the very test of its Apos- 
 tolicity. " I shall offend many men," said one of 
 its organs, " when I say, we must look to the people ; 
 but let them give me a hearing. Well can I under- 
 stand their feelings. Who, at first sight, does not 
 dislike the thoughts of gentlemen and clergymen 
 depending for their maintenance and thoir reputa- 
 tion on their flocks 1 of their strength, as a visible 
 power, lying, not in their birth, the patronage of the 
 great, or the endowments of the Church, as hitherto, 
 but in the homage of a multitude 1 But, in truth, 
 the prospect is not so bad as it seems at first sight. 
 The chief and obv'ous objection to the clergy being 
 thrown on the people, lies in the probable lowering 
 of Christian views, and the adulation of the vulgar, 
 which would be its consequence ; and the state of 
 dissenters is appealed to as an evidence of the dan- 
 
62 
 
 ger. But let us recollect that we are an Apostolical 
 body ; we were not made, nor can be unmade, by 
 our flocks ; and, if our influence is to depend on 
 them, yet the Sacraments reside with us. We have 
 that with us, which none but ourselves possess, the 
 mantle of the Apostles ; and this, properly under- 
 stood and cherished, will ever keep us from being 
 the creatures of a population."* 
 
 Here then was a challenge to the nation to decide 
 between the movement and its opponents ; and how 
 did the nation meet it ? When clergymen of Lati- 
 tudinarian theology were promoted to dignities, did 
 the faithful of the diocese, or of the episcopal city, 
 rise in insurrection ? Did parishioners blockade a 
 church's doors to keep out a new incumbent, who 
 refused to read the Athanasian Creed ? Did vestries 
 feel an instinctive reverence for the altar, as soon as 
 that reverence was preached? Did the organs of 
 public opinion pursue with their invectives those who 
 became dissenters or Irvingites ? Was it a subject 
 of popular indignation, discussed and denounced in 
 railway trains and omnibusses and steamboats, in 
 clubs and shops, in episcopal charges, and at visita- 
 tion dinners, if a clergyman explained away the bap- 
 tismal service, or professed his intention to leave out 
 portions of it in ministration ? Did . it rouse the 
 guards or the artillery to find that the Bishop where 
 
 * Church of the Fathers. 
 
6S 
 
 they were stationed was a Sabellian ? Was it, a sub- 
 ject for public meetings if a recognition was at- 
 tempted of foreign Protestant ordinations? Did 
 animosity to heretics of the day go so far as to lead 
 speakers to ridicule their persons and their features, 
 amid the cheers of sympathetic hearers ? Did pe- 
 titions load the tables of the Commons from the 
 mothers of England or young men's associations, 
 because the Queen went to a Presbyterian service, 
 or a high minister of state was an infidel ? Did the 
 Bishops cry out and stop their ears on hearing that 
 one of their body denied original sin or the grace of 
 ordination? Was there nothing in the course of the 
 controversy to show what the nation thought of the 
 controversy ? . . . . Yes, I hear a cry from an 
 episcopal city ; I have before my eyes one scene, 
 and it is a type and earnest of many more. Once 
 in a way, there were those among the authorities of 
 the Establishment who made certain recommenda- 
 tions concerning the mode of conducting Divine 
 worship : simple these in themselves, and perfectly 
 innocuous, but they looked like the breath, the 
 shadow of the movement, they seemed an* omen of 
 something more to come ; they were the symptoms 
 of some sort of ecclesiastical favor bestowed on its 
 adherents. The newspapers, the organs of the po- 
 litical, mammon-loving community, of those vast 
 multitudes in all ranks, who are allowed by the 
 Anglican Church to do nearly what they will for six, 
 
64 
 
 if not seven days in the week, who, in spite of the 
 theological controversies rolling over their heads, 
 could buy and sell and manufacture and trade at 
 their pleasure ; who might be unconcerned, if they 
 would, and go their own way, and " live and let 
 live," the organs, I say, of these multitudes, kindle 
 with indignation, and menace, and revile, and de- 
 nounce, because the Bishops in question suffer their 
 clergy to deliver their sermons, as well as the pray- 
 ers, in a surplice. It becomes a matter of popular 
 interest. There are mobs in the street, houses are 
 threatened, life is in danger, because only the gleam 
 of Apostolical principles, in their faintest, wannest 
 expression, is cast inside a building which is the 
 home of the national religion. The very moment 
 that Catholicism ventures out of books, and cloisters, 
 and studies, towards the national house of prayer, 
 when it lifts its, hand, or its very eyebrow towards 
 this people so tolerant of heresy, at once the dull 
 and earthly mass is on fire. It would be little or 
 nothing, though the minister baptized without water, 
 though he gave away the consecrated wine, though 
 he denounced fasting, though he laughed at virginity ~ 
 though he interchanged pulpits with a Wesleyan or 
 Baptist, though he defied his Bishop ; he might be 
 blamed, he might be disliked, he might be remon- 
 strated with ; but he would not touch the feelings 
 of men ; he would not inflame their minds ; but, 
 bring home to them the very thought of Catholicism, 
 
65 
 
 hold up a surplice, and the religious building is as 
 full of excitement and tumult as St. Victor's at 
 Milan, in the cause of orthodoxy, or St. Giles's, 
 Edinburgh, for the Kirk. 
 
 " The uproar commenced," says a contemporarj 
 account, " with a general coughing down - ; several 
 persons then moved to the door, making a great 
 noise in their progress ; a young woman went off in 
 a fit of hysterics, uttering loud shrieks, whilst a mob 
 outside besieged the doors of the building. A cry 
 of ' fire' was raised, followed by an announcement 
 that the church doors were closed, and a rush was 
 made to burst them open. Some cried out, ' Turn 
 him out,' 'pull it off him.' Tn the galleiies the 
 uproar was at its height, whistling, cat calls, hurrah- 
 ing and such cries as are heard in theatres, echoed 
 throughout the edifice. The preacher stil) persisted 
 to read his text, but was quite inaudible ; and the 
 row increased, some of the congregation waving 
 their hats, standing on the seats, jumping over 
 them, bawling, roaring, and gesticulating, like a mob 
 at an election. The reverend gentleman, in the 
 midst of the confusion, despatched a message to the 
 mayor, requesting his assistance, when one of the 
 congregation addressed the people, and also request- 
 ed the preacher to remove the cause of the ill-feeling 
 which had been excited. Then another addressed 
 him in no measured terms, and insisted on his leaving 
 the pulpit. At length the mayor, the superintendent 
 
66 
 
 of the police, several constables, also the chancellor 
 and the archdeacon, arrived. The mayor enforced 
 silence, and, after admonishing the people, requested 
 the clergyman to leave the pulpit for a few minutes, 
 which he declined to do, — gave out his text, and 
 proceeded with his discourse. The damage done to 
 the interior of the church is said to be very con- 
 siderable." I believe I am right in supposing that 
 the surplice has vanished from that pulpit from that 
 day forward. Here at length certainly are signs of 
 life, but not the life of the Catholio Church. 
 
 And now to draw my conclusion from what I have 
 been following out, if I haye not sufficiently done so 
 already. If, my brethren, your reason, your faith, 
 your affections, are indissolubly bound up with the 
 holy principles which .you have been taught, if you 
 know they are true, if you know their life and their 
 power, if you know that nothing else is true ; surely 
 you have no portion or sympathy with systems which 
 reject them. Seek them in their true home. If 
 your Church rejects your principles, it rejects you ; 
 nor dream of indoctrinating it with them by remain- 
 ing ; everything has its own nature, and that nature 
 is its identity. You cannot change your Establish- 
 ment into a Church without a miracle. It is what 
 it is, and you have no means of acting upon it ; you 
 have not what Archimedes looked for when he would 
 move the world, the fulcrum of his lever, while you 
 are one with it. It.acts on you, while you act on it; 
 
6T 
 
 you cannot employ it against itself. If you would 
 make England Catholic, you must go forth on your 
 mission from the Catholic Church ; you have duties , 
 to the Establishment; it is the duty, not of owning 
 its rule, but of converting its members. my 
 brethren, life is short, waste it not in vanities ; 
 dream not ; halt not between two opinions ; wake 
 from a dream in which you are, not profiting your 
 neighbor, but imperilling your own souls. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 LIFE IN THE MOVEMENT OP 1833 NOT PROM THE 
 NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 I am proposing, my brethren, in these Lectures, 
 to answer several of the objections which are urged 
 against quitting the National Communion for the 
 Cat.hulic Church. It has been a very common and 
 natural idea of those who belong to the movement 
 of 1833, as it was the idea of its originators, that, 
 the Nation being' on its way to give up revealed 
 truth, all those who wished to receive that truth in 
 its fulness, and to resist its enemies, were called on 
 to make use of the National Church, to which they 
 belonged, whose formularies they received, as their 
 instrument for that purpose: I answer them, tbat 
 their attempt is hopeless, because the National 
 Church is strictly part of the Nation, in the same 
 way that the Law or the Parliament is part of the 
 Nation, and therefore, as the Nation changes, so will 
 
69 
 
 the National Church change. That Church, then", 
 cannot be used against the spirit of the age, except 
 as a drag on a wheel ; for nothing can really resist 
 the Nation, except what stands on an independent 
 basis. It must say and will say, just what the Na- 
 tion says, though it may be some time in saying it. 
 Next, having thus shown that the National Church 
 is absolutely one with the Nation, I proceeded fur- 
 ther to show that, ou the other hand, the National 
 Church is absolutely heterogeneous to the Apostoli- 
 cal or Anglo-Catholic party of 1833 ; so that, while 
 the National Church is part of the Nation, the 
 movement, on the contrary, has no part or place in 
 the National Church. To aim then at making the 
 Nation Catholic by means of the Church of England 
 was something like evangelizing Turkey by means 
 of Islamism ; and, as the Turks would feel serious 
 resentment at hearing the Gospel in the mouths of 
 their Muftis and Mollahs, so was, and is, the English 
 Nation provoked, not persuaded, by Catholic preach- 
 ing in the Establishment. 
 
 And I rest the proof of these two statements on 
 incontrovertible facts going on during the last twenty 
 years, and now before our eyes ; for, first, the Na- 
 tional Church has changed and is changing with the 
 Nation, and secondly, the Nation and Church have 
 been indignant, and are indignant, with the move- 
 ment of 1833. I conceive, that, except in imagi- 
 nation and in hope, there are no symptoms whatever 
 
of the National Church preventing those changes 
 of progress, as they are called, whether in the 
 Nation or in itself, though it may retard them ; nor 
 any symptoms whatever of its welcoming those 
 backward changes, to which it is invited under the 
 name of primitive apd Apostolical truth, The 
 National Church is the slave of the Nation and the 
 opponent of the movement, which has done no more 
 than form a party in the one to the annoyance of the 
 other. 
 
 And now I come to a second objection, which 
 shall be, my subject to-day. An inquirer then may 
 say, " This is a very unfair and one-sided view of 
 the matter. I grant, indeed, I cannot deny, that 
 the movement has but formed a party in the Na- 
 tional Church. I grant it has no hold on the 
 Church, that it does not coalesce with it, that it 
 hangs loose of it ; nay, I grant that this want of 
 congeniality comes out clearer and clearer year by 
 year, so that the Anglican party has never appeared 
 more distinct from the Establishment, and foreign to 
 it, than at this moJient, when State, and Bishops, 
 and people have cast it off, and its efforts, whether 
 to alter the constitution of the Establishment, or to 
 preserve its doctrine, have failed and are failing. I 
 grant all this ; lam forced in fairness to grant it, 
 or rather, it. will be taken for granted by all men 
 without my granting. But still, so far is undeniable, 
 that that movement of 1833 issued forth from the 
 
n 
 
 National Church ; tbis at least is an incontrovertible 
 fact : whatever light, life, or strength it has pos- 
 sessed, or possesses, from the National Church was 
 it derived. To the Sacraments, to the ordinances, 
 to the teaching of the National Church it owes its 
 being and its continuance; and, if it be its off- 
 spring, it belongs to it, it is cognate to it, and can- 
 not be really alien to it; and great sin and unduti- 
 fulness. ingratitude, presumption, and cruelty, there 
 must be in leaving it." This is a consideration 
 which is urged with great force against affectionate 
 and diffident minds, and becomes an insurmountable 
 difficulty in the way of their joining the Catholic 
 Church. It is pressed upon them :— " The National 
 Church is the Church of your baptism, and therefore 
 to leave it, is to abandon your Mother." Now then 
 let us examine what is the real state of the case. 
 
 "We see then certainly, a multitude of persons all 
 over the country, wno, in the, course of the last 
 twenty years, have been roused to a religious life by 
 the influence of principles, professing to fee those of 
 the Primitive Church* and put forth by the National 
 Clergy. Every year has added to their number ; 
 nor has it been a mere profession of opinion which 
 they took up, or an exercise of the intellect ; not a 
 fashion or taste of the hour, but a rule of life. 
 They have subjected their wills, they have chastened 
 their hearts, they have subdued their affections, 
 they have submitted their reason. Devotions, com' 
 
12 
 
 inumons, fastings, privations, almsgiving, pious 
 munificence, self- denying occupation's, have marked 
 the spread of the principles in question ; which have 
 moreover been adorned and recommended in those 
 who adopted them by a consistency, grace, and re- 
 finement of conduct, no where else to be found in 
 the National Church. Such are the characteristics 
 of the party in question ; and, moreover, its mem- 
 bers themselves expressly attribute thi ir advance- 
 ment in the religious life to the use of the ordi- 
 nances of their own communion. They have found, 
 they say, as a matter of fact, that, as they attended 
 them, they became more strong in obedience and 
 dutifulness, had more power over their passions, 
 and more love towards God and man. " If then," 
 they may urge, " you confront us with these ex- 
 ternal facts, which have formed the subjects of your 
 first and second Lectures, here are our internal 
 facts to meet them ; our own experience, serious, 
 sober, practical, outweighs a hundred-fold repre-. 
 sentations which may be logical, dazzling, irrefraga- 
 ble ; but which still, as we ourselves know better 
 than any one, whatever be the real explanation of 
 them, are fallacious and untrue." 
 
 Here then we are brought to the question of the 
 internal evidence, which is alleged in favor of a real, 
 however recondite, connexion of the (so-called) 
 Anglo- Catholic party with the National Church. 
 It is said, that, however you are to account for it, 
 
78 
 
 there is the faCt of a profound iutiinate relationship, 
 a spiritual bond, between the one and the other ; 
 that party has risen out of what seems so earthly, so 
 inconsistent, so feeble, and is sustained by it ; and, 
 in fact, does but illustrate the > great maxim of the 
 Gospel, that the weak shall be strong, and the de- 
 spised shall be glorious. Taking their stand in this 
 evangelical promise and principle, the persons of 
 whom 1 speak are quite careless of argument, which 
 silences without touching them. Their opponents 
 may triumph, if they will ; but, after all, there cer- 
 tainly must be some satisfactory explanation of the 
 difficulties of their position, if they knew what it 
 was. The question is deeper than argument, and it 
 is very easy to be captious and irreverent. It is not 
 to be handled by intellect and talent, or decided by 
 logic. They are in a very anomalous state of things, 
 a state of transition ; they must submit for a time 
 to be without a theory of the Church, without an 
 intellectual basis on which to plant themselves. It 
 would be an utter absurdity for them to leave the 
 Establishment, merely because they do not at the 
 moment see how to defend their staying. Such ac- 
 cidents will happen in large and complicated ques- 
 tions; they have light enough to guide them prac- 
 tically, first, because even though they wished to 
 move ever so much, they see no place to move into; 
 2nd, next, because, however it comes to pass, how- 
 ever contrary it may be to scientific rule, to Apos- 
 
 4 
 
ties, Scripture, Fathers, Saints, common sense, and 
 the simplest principles of reason, they are, in matter 
 of fact, abundantly blest where they are. Certainly 
 it is vexatious that the Privy Council should have 
 decided as it has done ; vexatious, not to know what 
 to say about the decision ; vexatious, inconvenient, 
 perplexing, but nothing more. It is not a real diffi- 
 culty, but only an annoyance, to be obliged to say 
 something to quiet their people, and not to have a 
 notion what. However, they must do their best ; 
 and, though it is true, they find that one of thsir 
 friends uses one argument, another another, and 
 these are inconsistent with one another, still that is 
 an accidental misery of their position, and it will not 
 last for ever. Brighter times are coming; mean- 
 while, they must, with resignation, suffer the shame, 
 scorn of man, and distrust of friends, which is their 
 present portion ; a little patience, and the night will 
 be over ; their Athanasius will come at length, to 
 defend and to explain the truth, and their present 
 constancy will be their future reward. 
 
 Now, as I have no desire td imitate a line of con- 
 duct which I cannot approve, I will not follow them 
 in leaving the question unsettled : I will not content 
 myself with insisting upon the external view of the 
 subject, which is against them, leaving them in pos- 
 session of that argument from the inward evidences 
 of grace, on which they especially rely. I have no. 
 intention at all of evading their position, — I mean 
 
n 
 
 to attack it. I feel intimately what is true in it, and 
 I feel where it halts ; so, to state tlmir arguments 
 fairly, I will not extemporize words of my own, but 
 I will express it in the language of a writer, whoj 
 when he used it, belonged to the Established Church. 
 " Surely," he says, " as the only true religion is 
 that which is seated within us, a matter, not of 
 words, but of things ; so the only satisfactory test of 
 religion is something within us. If religion be a 
 personal matter, its reasons also should be personal. 
 Wherever it is present, in the world or in the heart, 
 it produces an effect, and that effect is its evidence- 
 When we view it as set up in the world, it has its 
 external proofs, when as set up in our hearts, it has 
 its internal ; and that whether we are able to elicit 
 them ourselves, and put them into shape or not. 
 Nay, with some little limitation and explanation 
 it might be said, that the very fact of a religion 
 taking root within us, is a proof, so far, that it is 
 true. If it were not true it would not take root. 
 Beligious men have, in their own religiousness, an 
 evidence of the truth of their religion. That reli- 
 gion is true which has power, and so far as it has 
 power ; nothing but what is divine can renew the 
 heart. And this is the secret reason why religious 
 men believe, whether they are adequately conscious 
 of it or no, whether they can put it into words of 
 no; viz., their past experience that the doctrine 
 which they hold is a reality in their minds, not a 
 
76 
 
 mere opinion, and has come to them, ' not in word, 
 but in power.' And in this sense the presence of 
 religion in us is its own evidence."* 
 
 Again, — 
 
 " If, then, we are asked for ' a reason of the -hope 
 that is in us,' why we are content, or rather thank- 
 ful, to be in that Church, in which God's providence 
 has placed us, would not the reasons be some or 
 other of these, or rather all of them, and a number 
 of others besides, which these may suggest, deeper 
 than they ? 
 
 " 1. I suppose a religious man Is conscious that 
 God has been with him, and given him whatever he 
 has of good within him. He knows quite enough of 
 himself to know how fallen he is from original 
 righteousness, and he has a conviction, Which no- 
 thing can shake, that without the aid of his Lord 
 and Saviour, he can do nothing aright. I do not say 
 he need recollect any definite season when he turned 
 to God, and gave up the service of sin and Satan ; 
 but in one sense, every season, every year is such a 
 time of turning, I mean, he ever has experience, 
 just as if he had hitherto been living to the world, 
 of a continual conversion ; he is ever takiDg advan- 
 tage of holy seasons and new providences, and be- 
 ginning again. The elements of tin are still alive 
 within him; they still tempt and influence him, and 
 
 * Newman's Uermons of the Day, pp. 390, 391. 
 
77 
 
 threaten when they do no more ; and it is only by a 
 continual fight against them that he prevails ; and 
 what shall persuade him that his power to fight is his 
 own, and not from above ? And this conviction of 
 a divine presence with him is stronger, according to 
 the length of time during which he has served God, 
 and to his advance in holiness. The multitude of 
 men, nay, a great number of those who think them- 
 selves religious, do not aim at holiness, and do not 
 advance in holiness ; but consider what a great evi- 
 dence it is that God is with us, so far as we have it. 
 Keligious men, really such, cannot but recollect in 
 the course of years, that they have become very 
 different • from what they were. In the course of 
 years a religious person finds that a mysterious un- 
 seen influence has been upon him and changed him. 
 He is indeed very different from what he was. His 
 tastes, his views, his judgments are different. You 
 will say that time changes a man as a matter of 
 course ; advancing age, outward cireumstanees, trials, 
 experience of life. It is true; and yet I think a 
 religious man would feel it little less than sacrilege, 
 and almost blasphemy, to impute the improvement 
 in his heart and conduct, in his moral being, with 
 which he has been favored in a certain sufficient 
 period, to outward or merely natural causes. He 
 will he unable to force himself to do so ; that is to 
 say, he has a conviction, which it is a point of reli- 
 gion with him not to doubt, which it is a sin to deny, 
 
78 
 
 that God has been with him. And this is, of course, 
 a ground of hope to him that God will be with him 
 still ; and if he, at any time, fall into religious per- 
 plexity, it may serve to comfort him to think of it."* 
 
 And again, — 
 
 " I might go on to mention a still more solemn 
 subject, viz., the experience which, at least, certain 
 religious persons have of the awful sacredness of our 
 sacraments and other ordinances. If these are at- 
 tended by the presence of Christ, surely we have all 
 that a Church can have in the way of privilege and 
 blessing. The promise runs, ' Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world.' That is a 
 Church where Christ is present ; this is the very 
 definition of the Church. The question ssmetimes 
 asked is, Whether our services, our holy seasons, 
 our rites, our sacraments, our institutions, really 
 have with them the presence of Him who thus pro- 
 mised ? If so, we are part of the Church ; if not, 
 then we 'are but psrformers in a sort of scene or 
 pageant,, which may be religiously intended, and 
 which God in His merey may visit ; but if He visits, 
 will in visiting go beyund His own promise. But 
 observe, as if to answer to the challenge, and put 
 herself on trial, and to give us a test of her Catho- 
 licity, our Church boldly declares of her most solemn 
 ordinance, that he who profanes it incurs the danger 
 
 • Ibid, pp. 394, 396. 
 
79 
 
 of judgment. She seems, like Mosea, or the Pro- 
 phet from Judah, or Elijah, to put her claim to 
 issue, not so openly, yet as really, upon the fulfil- 
 ment of a certain specified sign. Now she does not 
 speak to scare away the timid, but to startle and 
 subdue the unbelieving, and withal to assure the 
 wavering and perplexed ; and I conceive that in such 
 measure as God wills, and as is known to God, these 
 effects follow. I mean, that we really have proofs 
 among us, though, for the most part, they will be 
 private and personal, from the nature of the case, 
 of clear punishment coming upon profanations of 
 the holy ordinance in question ; sometimes very 
 fearful instances, and such as serve, while they awe 
 beholders, to comfort them ; — to comfort them, for 
 it is plain, if God be with us for judgment, surely 
 He is with us for mercy ulso : if He punishes, why 
 is it but for profanation? And how can there be 
 profanation, if there is nothing to be profaned ? 
 Surely He docs not manifest [lis wrath, but where 
 He has first vouchsafed His grace."* 
 
 I might quote much more to the same purpose ; 
 if I do not, it is not that I fear the force of the ar- 
 gument, but the length to which it runs. 
 
 Now in this preference of internal evidences to 
 those which are simply outward, there is a great 
 principle of truth. It requires much guarding, in- 
 
 * Ibid, pp. 400, 401. 
 
80 
 
 deed, and explaining; but I suppose in matter of 
 fact, that the notes of the Church, as they are called, 
 are chiefly intended, as this writer says, as guides 
 and directions into the truth, for those who are as 
 yet external to it, and that those who are within it 
 have prima facie evidences of another and more 
 personal kind. I grant it, and I make use of my 
 admission ; for one inward evidence at least Catho- 
 lics have, which this writer had not — certainty ; I 
 do not say, of course, that what seems like certainty 
 is a sufficient evidence to an individual that he has 
 found the truth, for he may mistake obstinacy or 
 blindness for certainty ; but, at any rate, the absence 
 of certainty is a clear proof that a person has not 
 yet found it, — and at least a Catholic knows well, 
 even if he cannot urge it in argument, that the 
 Church is able to communicate to him that gift. 
 Now no one can read the series of arguments from 
 which I have quoted, without being struck by the 
 author's clear avowal of doubt, in spite of his own 
 reasoni«H, on the serious subject which is engaging 
 his attention. He longed to have faith in the Na- 
 tional Church, and he could not. " What want we," 
 he exclaims, " but faith in our Church ? With faith 
 we can do every thing; without faith we can do 
 nothing."* So all these inward notes which he 
 enumerates, whatever their prima facie force, did 
 
 * Ibid, p. 430. 
 
81 
 
 not react so far as to implant even conviction in his 
 own breast; they did not, after aU, prove to him 
 that connexion between the National Church and the 
 spiritual gifts which he recognised in his party, 
 which he fain would have established, and which 
 they would fain establish to whom I am now ad" 
 dressing myself. 
 
 But to come to the gifts themselves. You tell 
 me, my brethren, that you have the clear evidence 
 of the influences of grace in your hearts, by its 
 effects sensible at the moment or permanent in the 
 event. You tell me, that you have been converted 
 from sin to holiness, or that you have received great 
 support and comfort under trial, or that you have 
 been carried over very special temptations, though 
 you have not submitted yourselves to the Catholic 
 Church. More than this, you tell me of the peace, 
 and joy, and strength which you have experienced 
 in your own ordinances. You tell me, that when 
 you began to go weekly to communion, you found 
 yourselves wonderfully advanced in purity. You 
 tell me, that you went to confession, and you never 
 will believe that the hand of God was not over you 
 at the moment when you received absolution. You 
 Were ordained, and a fragrance breathed around 
 you; you hung over the dead, and you all but saw 
 the happy spirit of the departed. This is what you 
 say, and the like of this ; and I am not the person, 
 my dear brethren, to quarrel with the truth of what 
 4* 
 
you Say. I am not the person to be jealous of such 
 facts, nor to wish you to contradict your own memory 
 and your own nature ; nor am I so ungrateful to 
 God's former mercies to myself, to have the heart to 
 deny them in you. As to miracles indeed, if such 
 you mean, that of course is a matter which might 
 lead to dispute ; but, if you merely mean to say, 
 that the supernatural grace of God, as shown either 
 at the time or by consequent fruits, has over* 
 shadowed you at certain times, has been with you 
 whefi you Were taking part in the Anglican ordi* 
 nances, I have no Wish, and a Catholic haa no anx- 
 iety, to deny it. 
 
 Why should I deny to your memory what is sd 
 pleasant in mine ? Cannot I too look back on many 
 years past, and many events, in which I myself ex- 
 perienced what is now your confidence ? Can I 
 forget the happy life I have led all my days, with no 
 Cares, no anxieties Worth remembering ; without 
 desolateness, or fever Of thought, or gloom of mind, 
 Or doubt of God's loVe to me and providence over: 
 toe ? Can I forget, — I never can forget,-^the day 
 When in my youth I first bound myself to the ministry 
 of God in that old church of St. Frideswide, the 
 patroness of Oxford? Nor how I wept most abun* 
 dant, and most sWeet tears, when I thought what I 
 then had become ; though I looked on it then as no 
 sacramental rite, nor even to baptism ascribed any 
 eupe/natural virtue? Can I wipe out from my 
 
83 
 
 memory, or wish to wipe out, those happy Sunday 
 mornings, light or dark, year after year, when I 
 oelebrated your communion-rite in my own Church 
 of St. Mary's ; and in the pleasantness and joy of 
 it heard nothing of the strife of tongues which sur- 
 rounded its walls ? When, too, shall I not feel the 
 soothing recollection of those dear years which I 
 spent in retirement, in preparation for my delive- 
 rance from Egypt, asking for light, and by degrees 
 gaining it, with less of temptation in my heart, and 
 sin on my conscience, than ever before ? O, my 
 dear brethren, my Anglican friends, I give you 
 credit for what I have experienced myself. Pro- 
 vided you be in good faith, if you are not trifling 
 with your conscience, if you are resolved, to follow 
 whithersoever God shall lead, if the ray of convic- 
 tion has not fallen on you, and you have shut your 
 eyes to it i then, anxious as I am about you for the 
 future, and dread as I may till you are converted, 
 that perhaps, when conviction comes, it will oome in 
 vain ; yet still, looking back at the past years of 
 your life, I recognize what you say, and bear witness 
 to its truth. Yet what has this to do with the mat« 
 ter in hand? I admit your fact ; do you, my breth- 
 ren, admit, in turn, my explanation of it ? It is the 
 explanation ready provided by the Catholic Church, 
 provided in her general teaching, quite independently 
 of your particular case, not made for the occasion, 
 Only applied when it has arisen ; listen to it, and see 
 
84 
 
 Whether you admit it or not as true, if it be not 
 sufficiently probable, or possible if you will, to in- 
 validate the argument on which you so confidently 
 rely. 
 
 Surely you ought to know the Catholic teaching 
 on the subject of grace, in its bearing on your ar- 
 gument, without my insisting on it. Spiritus Do- 
 mini replevit orbem terrarum. Grace is given for 
 the merits of Christ all over the eai th ; there is no 
 corner, even of Paganism, where it is not present, 
 present in each heart of man in real sufficiency for 
 his ultimate salvation. Not that the grace presented 
 to each is such, as at once to bring him to heaven ; 
 but it is sufficient for a beginning. It is sufficient 
 to enable him to plead for other grace, and that 
 second grace is such as to impetrate a third grace ; 
 and thus the soul is led on from grace to grace, and 
 from strength to strength, till at length it is, so to 
 say, in very sight of heaven, if the gift of perse- 
 verance does but complete the work. Now here 
 observe, it is not certain that a soul which has the 
 first grace will have the second ; the grant of the 
 second depends on its use of the first. Again, it 
 may have the first and second, and yet not the tnird ; 
 or from the first on to the nineteenth, and not the 
 twentieth. We mount up by steps towards God, 
 and, alas ! it is possible that a soul may be coura- 
 geous and bear up for nineteen steps, and stop and 
 ftint at the twentieth. I^oy, further than this, a 
 
85 
 
 8oul may go forward till it arrives at the very grace 
 of contrition, a contrition so loving, so sin-renoun- 
 oing, as to bring it at once into a state of reconcilia- 
 tion, and clothe it in the vestment of justice ; and 
 yet it may yield to the further trials which beset it 
 and fall away. 
 
 N iw all this may. take place even outside the 
 Church, and consider what at once follows from it. 
 This follows in the first place, that men there may 
 be, not Catholics, really obeying God and rewarded 
 by Him, nay in His favor, with their sins forgiven 
 and with a secret union with that heavenly kingdom 
 to which they do not visibly belong, who are, through 
 their subsequent failure, never to reach it. There 
 may be those who are increasing in grace and 
 knowledge, and approaching nearer to the Catholic 
 Church every year, who are not in the Church, and 
 never will be. The highest gifts &nd graces are 
 compatible with ultimate reprobation. As regards 
 then the evidences of sanctity in members of the 
 National Establishment, on which you insisj, Catho- 
 lics are not called on to deny them. We think such 
 instances are few, nor so eminent as you are accus- 
 tomed to fa»cy ; but we do not wish to deny, nor 
 have any difficulty in admitting, such facts as you 
 have to adduce, whatever they be. We do not 
 think it necessary to carp at every instance of su- 
 pernatural excellence among Protestants when it 
 comes before us, or to explain it away ; all we know 
 
is, that the grace given them is intended ultimately 
 to bring them into the Church, and if it does not 
 tend to dp so, it will not ultimately profit them ; but 
 we as little deny its presence in their souls as Pro- 
 testants themselves, and as the fact is no perplexity 
 to us, it is no triumph to them. 
 
 And secondly, in like manner, whatever be the 
 comfort or the strength attendant upon the use of 
 the national ordinances in the case of this or that 
 person, a Catholic may admit it without scruple, for 
 it is no evidence to him in behalf of those ordinances 
 themselves. It is the • teaching of the Catholio 
 Church from time immemorial, and independent of 
 the present controversy, that grace is given in a 
 Sacred ordinance in two ways, viz., to use the scho- 
 lastic distinction, ex opere operantis and ex opere 
 operate Grace is given ex opere operato, when, the 
 proper dispositions being supposed in the recipient, it 
 is given through the ordinance ; it is given ex opere 
 operantis, when, whether there be outward sign or 
 no, the hiward energetic act of the recipient is the 
 instrument of it. Thus Protestants say that justi- 
 fication, for instance, is gained by faith as by an 
 instrument, ex opere operantis ; thus (j^tholics also 
 Commonly believe, that the benefit arising from the 
 use of holy water accrues, not ex opere operato, or 
 by means of the element itself, but -ex opere wperan* 
 tis f through the devout mental act of the person 
 using it, and the prayers of the Church. So again, 
 
8? 
 
 the Sacrifice of the Mass benefits the person foi 
 Whom it is offered ex opere operato, whatever be the 
 character of the celebrating Priest ; but it benefits 
 him more or less, ex opere operands, according to 
 the degree of sanctity which the Priest has attained, 
 and the earnestness with which he offers it, Again, 
 baptism, whether administered by man or woman, 
 saint or sinner, heretic or Catholic, regenerates an 
 infant ex opere operate ; on the other hand, in the 
 case of the baptism of blood, as it was called, that 
 is, the martyrdom of nnbaptised persons desiring the 
 Sacrament, but unable to obtain it, a discussion has 
 arisen, whether the martyr was justified ex opere 
 operato or ex opere operantis, that is, whether by 
 the physical act of his dying for the faith, considered 
 in itself, or by the mental act of supreme devotion 
 to God, which caused and attended it. So again, 
 Contrition of a certain kind is sufficient as a dispo- 
 sition, or condition, or matter for receiving absolu J 
 tion in Penance ex opere operato, or by virtue of 
 the sacrament; Iflit it may be heightened and puri- 
 fied into so intense an act of divine love, of hatred 
 and sorrow for sin, and of renunciation of it, as to 
 cleanse and justify the soul, without the sacrament 
 at all, ex opere operantis. It is plain from this 
 distinction, that, if we would determine whether the 
 Anglican ordinances are attended by divine grace, 
 we must first determine whether the effects which 
 accompany them arise ex opire operantis or ex opere 
 
ep&rato — whether out of the religious acts, the 
 prayers, aspirations, resolves of the recipient, or by 
 the direct power of the ceremonial act itself, a nice 
 and difficult question, not to be decided by means of 
 those effects themselves, whatever they be. 
 
 Let me grant to you then, that the reception of 
 your ordinances brings peace and joy to the soul ; 
 that it permanently influences or changes the cha- 
 racter of the recipient. Let me grant, on the other 
 hand, that their profanation, when men have been 
 taught to believe in them, and in profaning are 
 guilty of contempt of that God to whom they as- 
 cribe them, is attended by judgments; this properly 
 shows nothing more than that, by a general law, 
 lying, deceit, presumption, or hypocrisy are punished, 
 and prayer, faith, contrition, rewarded. There is 
 nothing to show that the effects would not have been 
 precisely the same under the same inward disposi- 
 tions, though another ordinance, a love-feast or a 
 washing the feet, with no pretence to the name of a 
 Sacrament, had in good faith been adopted. And 
 it is obvious to any one that, for a member of the 
 Establishment to bring himself to confession,' espe- 
 cially some years back, required dispositions of a 
 very special character, a special contrition and a 
 special desire of the Sacrament, which, as far as we 
 may judge by outward signs, were a special effect of 
 grace, and would fittingly receive from God's bounty 
 a special reward, some further and higher grace, or 
 
even remission of sins. And again, when a member 
 of the Establishment, surrounded by thosi who 
 scoffed at the doctrine, accepted God's word that 
 He would make Bread His- Body, and honored Him 
 by accepting it, is it wonderful, is it not suitable to 
 God's mercy, if He reward such a special faith with 
 a quasi sacramental grace, though he ignorantly 
 offered to a material substance that adoration which 
 he intended to pay to the present, but invisible, 
 Lamb of God? 
 
 But this is not all, my dear brethren ; I must 
 allow to others what T allow to you. If I let you 
 plead the sensible effects of supernatural grace, as 
 exemplified in yourselves, in proof that your religion 
 is true, I must allow the plea to others to whom by 
 your theory you are bound to deny it. Are you 
 willing to place yourselves on the same footing with 
 Wesley ans? yet what is the difference? or rather, 
 have they not more remarkable phenomena in their 
 history, symptomatic of the presence of grace among 
 them, than you can show in yours ? Which then is 
 the right explanation of your feelings and your ex- 
 perience, mine, which I have extracted from re- 
 ceived Catholic teaching, or yours, which is an 
 expedient for the occasion, and cannot be made to 
 tell for your own Apostolical authority without 
 telling for those who are rebels against it ? Survey 
 the rise of Methodism, and say candidly, whether 
 those who made light of your ordinances, abandoned 
 
90 
 
 them, or at least disbelieved their virtue, have not 
 had among them evidences of that very same grace 
 which you claim for yourselves, and think a proof 
 of your acceptance with God. Really I am obliged 
 in candor to allow, whatever part the evil spirit had 
 in the work, whatever gross admixture of earth pol- 
 luted it, whatever extravagance there was to: excite 
 ridicule or disgust, whether it was Christian virtue, 
 or the excellence of unaided man, whatever was the 
 spiritual state of the subjects of it, whatever their 
 end and their final account, yet there were higher 
 and nobler vestiges or semblances of grace and 
 truth in Methodism than there have been among 
 you. I give you credit for what you are, grave, 
 serious, earnest, modest, steady, self-denying, con- 
 sistent ; you have the praise of such virtues ; and 
 you have a clear perception of many of the truths, 
 or of portions of the truths, of revelation. In these 
 points you surpass the Wesleyans ; but if I wished 
 to find what was striking, extraordinary, suggestive 
 of Catholic heroism, of St. Martin, St. Francis, or 
 St. Ignatius, I should betake myself far sooner to 
 them than to you. " In our own times," says a 
 writer in a popular Review, speaking of the last 
 mentioned Saint and his companions, " in our own 
 times much indignation and much alarm are thrown 
 away on innovators of a very different stamp. From 
 the ascetics of, the common room, from men whose 
 courage rises high enough only to hint at their un- 
 
91 
 
 popular opinions, and whose billigerent passions soar 
 at nothing more daring than to worry some unfor- 
 tunate professor, it is almost ludicrous to fear any- 
 great movement on the theatre of human affairs. 
 When we see these dainty gentlemen in rags, and 
 hear of them from the snows of the Himalaya, we 
 may begin to tremble." Now such a diversion from 
 the course of his remarks upon St. Ignatius and his 
 companions, I must say was most uncalled for, in 
 this writer, and not a little ill-natured; for we had 
 never pretended to be heroes at all, and should have 
 been the first to laugh at any one who fancied us 
 such ; but they will serve to suggest the fact, which 
 is undeniable, that, even when Anglicans approach 
 in doctrine nearest to tft Catholic Church, still 
 heroism is not the line of their excellence. The 
 Established' Church may have preserved in the 
 country the idea of sacramental grace, and the 
 movement of 1833 have spread it; but if you wish 
 to find the shadow and the suggestion of the super- 
 natural qualities which make up the notion of a 
 Catholic Saint, to Wesley you must go, and such as 
 him. Personally, I do not like him, if it were 
 . merely for his deep self-reliance and self-conceit ; 
 still I am bound, in justice to him, to ask, and you 
 in consistency to answef, what historical personage 
 in the Establishment, during its whole three cen- 
 turies, has approximated in force and splendor of 
 conduct and achievements to one who began by 
 
92 
 
 innovating on your rules, and ended by contemning 
 your authorities? He and his companions, starting 
 amid ridicule at Oxford, with fasting and praying, 
 in the cold night air, then going about preaching, 
 reviled by the rich and educated, and pelted and 
 dragged to prison by the populace, and converting 
 their thousands from sin to God's service — were it 
 not for their pride and eccentricity, and fanatical 
 doctrine and untranquil devotion, they startle us, as 
 if the times of St. Vincent Ferrer or St. Francis: 
 Xavier were come again in a Protestant land. 
 
 Or, to turn to other communions, whom have you 
 with the capabilities of greatness in them, which 
 show themselves in the benevolent zeal of Howard 
 the philanthropist, or Elabbeth Fry? Or consider 
 the almost miraculous conversion and subsequent 
 life of Col. Gardiner. Why, even old Bunyan, with 
 his vivid dreams when a child, his conversion, his 
 conflicts with Satan, his preachings and imprison- 
 ments, however inferior to you in discipline of mind 
 and knowledge of the truth, is, in the outline of his 
 history, more Apostolical than you. " Weep not 
 for me," were his last words, as if he had been a 
 saint, " but for yourselves.. I go to the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, who doubtless, through the 
 mediation of His Son, will receive me, though a 
 sinner, when we shall, ere long, meet, to sing the 
 new song, and be happy for ever." Consider the 
 death-beds of the thousands of those, in and out of 
 
9B 
 
 the Establishment, who, with scarcely one sentiment 
 of religion in common with you, die in confidence 
 of the truth of their doctrine, and of their personal 
 safety. Does the peace of their deaths testify to 
 the divinity of their creed or of their communion? 
 Does the extreme earnestness and •. eality of religious 
 feeling, exhibited in the sudden seizure and death of 
 one, who was as stern in his hatred of your opinions, 
 as in that earnestness of feeling, who one evening 
 protested against the sacramental principle, and next 
 morning died with the words of Holy Scripture in 
 his mouth — does it give any sanction to that hatred 
 and that protest 7* And there is another, a Calvin- 
 ist, one of whose special and continual prayers in his 
 last illness was for perseverance in graee, who cried, 
 " Lord, abhor me not, though I be abhorrible, 
 and abhor myself !" And who, five minutes before 
 his death, by the expression of his countenance, 
 changing from prayer to admiration and calm peace, 
 impressed upon the bystanders, that the veil had 
 been removed from his eyes, and that, like Stephen ( 
 he saw things invisible to sense ; — did h3, by the 
 circumstances of his death-bed, bear evidence to the 
 truth of what you, as well as I, hold to be an odious 
 baresy ?f " Mr Harvey resigned his meek soul 
 into the hands of his Kedeemer, saying, 'Lord, now 
 lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.' " " Mr. 
 
 * Dr. Arnold, 
 t Mr. Scott. 
 
94 
 
 Walker, before he expired, spoke nearly these words j 
 ' I have been on the wings of the cherubim ; heaven 
 has in a manner been opened to me, I shall be there 
 soon.' " "Mr. Whitfield rose at four o'clock on 
 the Sabbath day, went to his closet, and was un- 
 usually long in private ; laid himself on his bed for 
 about ten minutes ; then went on his knees and 
 prayed most fervently he might that day finish his 
 Master's work." Then he sent for a clergyman, 
 '• and before he could reach him, closed his eyes on 
 this world without a sigh or groan, and commenced 
 a Sabbath of everlasting rest."* Alas ! there was 
 another, who for three months " lingered," as he 
 said, "in the face of death." "0 my God," he 
 cried, " I know Thou dost not overlook any of Thy 
 creatures. Thou dost not overlook me. So much 
 torture ... to kill a worm I have mercy on me ! I 
 cry to Thee, knowing I cannot alter Thy ways. I 
 cannot, if I would, and I would not if I could. If 
 a word would remove these sufferings, I would not 
 utter it." " Just life enough to suffer," he con- 
 tinued, " but I submit, and not only submit bat 
 rejoice." One morning he woke up, " and with 
 firm voice and great sobriety of manner, spoke only 
 these words : ' Now I die!' He sat as one in the 
 attitude of expectation, and about two hours after- 
 wards, it was as he had said." And he was a pro- 
 
 Sidney's Life of Hill. 
 
95 
 
 teased infidel, and worse tban an infidel, — an apostate 
 priest 1 
 
 No, my dear brethren, these things are beyond us. 
 Nature can do so much, and go so far, can form such 
 rational notions of God and of duty, without grace 
 or merit, or a future hope ; good sense has such an 
 instinctive apprehension of what is fitting ; intellect, 
 imagination, and feeling can so take up, develope, 
 and illuminate what nature has originated ; education 
 and the communication uf ideas can so insinuate into 
 the mind what really does not belong to it ; grace, 
 not effectual, but inchoate, can so plead, and its 
 pleadings look so like its fruits ; and its mere visi- 
 tations may so easily be mistaken for its indwelling 
 presence ; and its vestiges, when it has departed, 
 may gleam so beautifully on the dead soul ; that it 
 is quite impossible for us to conclude, with any 
 fairness" of argument, that a certain opinion is true, 
 or a religious position safe, on account of the con- 
 fidence or apparent excellence of those who adopt it. 
 Of course we think as tenderly of them as we can ; 
 and may fairly hope that what we see, is in some 
 instances the work of grace, wrought on those who 
 are in invincible ignorance ; but the claim is un- 
 reasonable and exorbitant, if they expect their state 
 of mind is to be taken in evidence, not only of pro- 
 mise in the individual, but of truth in his creed. 
 
 And should this view of the subject unsettle and 
 depress you, as if it left you no means at all of as- 
 
96 
 
 certaining whether God loves you, or whether any- 
 thing is true, or anything to be trusted, then let this 
 feeling answer the purpose for which I have im- 
 pressed it on you. I wish to deprive you of your 
 undue confidence in self: I wish to dislodge you 
 from that centre in which you sit so self-possessed 
 and self-satisfied. Your fault has been to be satis- 
 fied with but a half evidence of your security ; you 
 have been too well contented with remaining where 
 you found yourselves, not to catch at a line of ar- 
 gument, so indulgent, yet so plausible. You have 
 thought that position impregnable ; and growing 
 confident, as time went on, you have presumed to 
 pronounce it blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to 
 doubt of your Chureh and of its ordinances. Learn, 
 my dear brethren, a more sober, a more cautious 
 tone of thought. Learn to fear for your souls. It 
 is something indeed to be peaceful within, but it is 
 not every thing. It may be the stillness of death. 
 The Catholic, and he alone, has within him that 
 union of external, with internal notes of God's 
 favor, which sheds the light of conviction over his 
 soul, and makes him both fearless in his faith, and 
 calm and thankful in his hope. 
 
LECTUKE IV. 
 
 THE PROVIDENTIAL DIRECTION OF THE MOVEMENT OF 
 1833 NOT TOWARDS THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to fancy that an event so 
 distinctive in its character as the rise of the so- 
 called Anglo- Catholic party in the course of the last 
 twenty years, should have no scope in the designs of 
 Divine Providence. From beginnings so small, from 
 elements of thought so fortuitous, with prospects so 
 unpromising, that in its germ it was looked upon 
 with contempt, if it was ever thought of at all, it 
 suddenly became a power in the National Church, 
 and an object of alarm to her rulers and friends. 
 Its originators would have found it difficult to say 
 what they aimed at of a practical kind ; rather they 
 put forth views and principles, for their own sake, 
 because they were true, as if they were obliged to 
 say them ; and though their object certainly was to 
 strengthen the Establishment, yet it would have 
 been very difficult for them to state precisely the 
 
 5 
 
98 
 
 intermediate process, or practical application, by 
 which, in matter of fact, their preaching was to ar- 
 rive at that result. And as they might be them- 
 selves surprised at their earnestness in uttering, they 
 had as great cause to be surprised at their success 
 in propagating, the doctrines which have charac- 
 terized their school. And, in fact, they could only 
 say that those doctrines were in the air ; that to 
 assert was to prove, and that to explain was to per- 
 suade ; and that the movement in which they were 
 taking part was the birth of a crisis rather than of 
 a place. I do not mean to say, that they did not 
 use arguments on the one hand, or attempt to coa- 
 lese with things as they were on the other ; but 
 that, after all, their doctrine went forth rather than 
 was sent, and spoke rather than was spoken, — that 
 it was a message rather than an argument, — that it 
 was the master not the creature of its proclaimers 
 and seemed to be said at random, because uttered 
 with so indistinct an aim ; and so, with no advantage 
 except that of position, which of course is not to be 
 undervalued, it spread and was taken up no one 
 knew how. In a very few years a school of opinion 
 was formed, fixed in its principles, indefinite and 
 progressive in their range ; and it extended into 
 every part of the country. If, turning from the 
 contemplation of it from within, we inquire what the 
 world thought of it, we have still more to raise our 
 wonder ; for, not to mention the excitement it caused 
 
99 
 
 in England, the movement and its partyrDamea were 
 known to the police of Italy and- the hack-woodsmen 
 of America. So it proceeded, getting stronger and 
 stronger every year, till it has come into collision 
 with the Nation and that Church of the Nation 
 which it began by professing especially to serve ; 
 and now its upholders and disciples have to look 
 about, and ask themselves where they are, and which 
 way they are to go, ami whither they are bound. 
 
 God does nothing in vain ; so much earnestness, 
 zeal, toil, thought, religious principle, success, as has 
 been expended or exhibited in the history of that 
 movement, must surely have a place in His scheme, 
 and in His dealings towards His Church in this 
 country, if we could discern what it was. He has 
 excited aspirations, matured good thoughts, and 
 prospered pious undertakings arising out of them : 
 not for nothing, surely, — then for what ? Wherefore ? 
 
 The movement certainly is one and the same to 
 all who have been influenced by it ; the principles 
 and circumstances, which have made them what they 
 are, are one and the same ; the history of one of you, 
 my brethren, is pretty much the history of another — 
 the history of all. Is it meant that you should each 
 of you end in his own way, if your beginnings have 
 been the same? The duty of one, is it not the duty 
 of another ? Are you not to act together 1 In 
 other words, may I not look at the movement as 
 one thing, and thus contemplate what is its bearing 
 
100 
 
 and its legitimate issue ; and may not, in conse- 
 quence, that direction and scope of the movement, 
 if such can be found, be taken as a suggestion to 
 you how you should act, distinct from and in addi- 
 tion to the intimations of God's will, which come 
 home to you personally and individually ? The 
 movement has affected us in a certain way; at one 
 time we have felt urged perhaps, with some of those 
 who took part in it, to go forward; at another, to 
 remain where we are; then, to retire into lay-com- 
 munion, if we were in the established ministry ; then 
 to collapse into a sect external to its pale. We have 
 tried to have faith in the sacraments of the National 
 Church ; for a time we have succeeded, and then we 
 have failed; we have felt ourselves drawn, we have 
 felt ourselves repelled by the Catholic Church — we 
 have felt difficulties in her faith, counter-difficulties 
 in rejecting it, complications of difficulty on difficulty, 
 concurrent or antagonist, till we could ascertain 
 neither their mutual relation nor their combined 
 issue, and could neither change nor remain where we 
 were without scruple. Under such a trial it would 
 be some guidance, a sort of token or note of the 
 course destined for us by Providence, if the move- 
 ment itself, whose principles we have drunk in, with 
 which we are so intimately one, had, from the nature 
 of the case, its own natural and necessary termina- 
 tion. Before now, when a Protestant, I have said, 
 more or less to others who were in anxiety, " Watch 
 
101 
 
 the movement ; it is made up of individuals, but it 
 has an objective being, proceeds on principles, is 
 governed by laws, and is swayed and directed by 
 external facts. We are apt to be attracted or driven 
 this way or that ; each thinks for himself and judges 
 differently from others ; each fears to decide : but 
 may we not ascertain and follow the legitimate and 
 divinely intended course of that, whose children we 
 are V A great Saint was accustomed to command 
 his sons, when they had to determine some point 
 relatively to themselves and their Society, in their 
 imagination, to throw themselves out of themselves, 
 and to look at the question externally, as if it were 
 not personal to them, and they were deciding for a 
 stranger. In like manner, it has been sometimes 
 recommended in the solution of public questions, to 
 look at them as they will show in history, and as 
 they will be judged of by posterity. Now in some 
 such way should I wish, at this moment, to regard 
 the movement of 1833, and to discover what is its 
 proper, suitable, legitimate termination. This, then, 
 is the question I shall consider in the present Lec- 
 ture ; — here is a great existing fact before our eyes, 
 the movement and its party. What is to become of 
 it ? What ought to become of it ? Is it to melt 
 away as if it had not been ? Is it merely to sub- 
 serve the purpose of the liberal party, in breaking 
 up establishments by weakening them, and in makiDg 
 dogmatism ridiculous by multiplying sects ? or is it 
 
102 
 
 of too positive a character, both in its principles and 
 its members, to anticipate for it so disappointing an 
 issue ? 
 
 I say, it has been definite in its principles, though 
 vague in their application and their scope. It has 
 been formed on one idea, which has developed into a 
 body of teaching, logical in the arrangement of its 
 portions, and consistent with the principles on which 
 it originally started. That idea, or first principle, 
 tvas ecclesiastical liberty ; the doctrine it especially 
 opposed was, in ecclesiastical language, the heresy 
 of Erastus, and, in political, the Eoyal Supremacy. 
 The object of its attack was the Establishment, 
 considered as such. 
 
 When I thus represent the idea of the movement, 
 of which I am speaking, I must not be supposed to 
 overlook or deny it its theological, or its ritual, or 
 its practical character ; but I am speaking of what 
 may be called its form. If I said that the one doc- 
 trine of Luther was justification by faith only, or 
 of Wesley, the doctrine of the new birth® I should 
 not be denying that they respectively taught many 
 others ; but merely should mean that their teaching 
 was cast in that particular shape which I have men- 
 tioned, each portion in detail being made subservient 
 to its inculcation. In like manner, the writers of 
 the Apostolical party of 1833, were earnest and 
 copious in their enforcement of, the high doctrines 
 of the faith, of dogmatism, of the sacramental prin- 
 
103 
 
 oiple, of tbe sacraments (as far as the Anglican 
 Prayer Book admitted them), of ceremonial obser- 
 vances, of practical duties, and of the counsels of 
 perfection ; but, considering all those great articles 
 of teaching to be protected and guaranteed by the 
 independence of the Church, and in that way alone, 
 they viewed sanctity, and sacramental grace, and 
 dogmatic fidelity, merely as subordinate to the mys- 
 tical body of Christ, and made them minister to her 
 sovereignty, that she might in turn protect them in 
 their prerogatives. Dogma would be maintained, 
 sacraments would be administered, religious perfec- 
 tion would be venerated and attempted, if the Church 
 were supreme in her spiritual power ; dogma would 
 be sacrificed to expedience, sacraments would be 
 rationalized, perfection would be ridiculed, if she 
 was made the slave of the State. Erastianism then 
 was the one heresy which practically cut at the root 
 of all revealed truth ; the man who held it would soon 
 fraternize with Unitarians, mistake the bustle of life 
 for religious obedience, and pronounce his butler as 
 able to give communion as bis priest. It destroyed 
 the supernatural altogether, by making most em- 
 phatically Christ's kingdom a kingdom of the world. 
 Such was the teaching of the movement of 1833. 
 The whole system of revealed truth was, according 
 to it, to be carried out upon the Anti-Erastian or 
 Apostolical basis. The independence of the Church 
 is almost the one Subject of three out of four vol- 
 
104 
 
 umes of Mr. Froude's Remains ; it is, in one shape 
 or other, the prevailing subject of the early numbers 
 of the " Tracts for the Times," as well as of other 
 publications which might be named. It was for 
 this that the writers of whom I speak had recourse 
 to Antiquity, insisted upon the Apostolical succession, 
 exalted the Episcopate, and appealed to the people, 
 not only because these things were true and right, 
 but to preserve them by uttering them ; in order to 
 their firmer reception, they introduced them in the 
 first instance as means towards the inculcation of the 
 idea of the Church, as constituent portions of that 
 great idea, which, when it once should be received, 
 was to convert the world. 
 
 " Our one tangible object," it was said, in a pas- 
 sage too long to be extracted at length, " is "to re- 
 store the connexion, at present broken, between 
 Bishops and people ; for in this everything is in- 
 volved, directly or indirectly, for which it is a duty 
 to contend. We wish to maintain the faith, and 
 bind men together in love. We are aiming, with 
 this view, at that commanding moral influence which 
 attended the early Church, which made it attractive 
 and persuasive, which manifested itself in a fascina- 
 tion, sufficient to elicit out of Paganism and draw 
 into itself all that was noblest and best from the 
 mass of mankind ; and which created an internal 
 system of such grace, beauty, and majesty, that 
 believers were moulded thereby into martyrs and 
 
105 
 
 evangelists. If master-minds are ever granted to 
 us, they must be persevering in insisting on the 
 Episcopal system, the Apostolical succession, the 
 ministerial commission, the power of the keys, the 
 duty and desirableness of Church discipline, the 
 saeredness of Church rites and ordinances. But, 
 you will say, how is all this to be made interesting 
 to the people ? I answer, that the topics themselves 
 which they are to preach, are of that warm and at- 
 tractive nature, which carries with it its own influ- 
 ence. The very notion that representatives of the 
 Apostles are now on earth, from whose communion 
 we may obtain grace, as the first Christians did from 
 the Apostles, is surely, when admitted, of a most 
 transporting and persuasive character. Clergymen 
 are at present subject to the painful experience of 
 losing the more religious portion of their flocks, 
 whom they have tutored and moulded as children, 
 but who, as they come into life, fall away to tho 
 Dissenters. Why is this? Tbey desire to be stricter 
 than the mass of Churchmen, and the Church gives 
 them no means ; they desire to be governed by sanc- 
 tions more constraining than those of mere argument, 
 and the Church keeps back those doctrines, which, 
 to the eye of faith, give a reality and substance to 
 religion. One who is told that the Church is the 
 treasure-house of spiritual gifts, comes for a definite, 
 privilege. Men know not of the legitimate priest- 
 hood, and, therefore, are condemned to hang upon 
 5* 
 
106 
 
 the judgment of individuals and self-authorized 
 preachers; they put up with legends of private 
 Christians, in the place of the men of God, the meek 
 martyrs, the saintly doctors, the wise and winning 
 teachers of the Catholic Church.''* 
 
 Passages such as this, which is but a portion of a 
 whole, show to me, my brethren, clearly enough, 
 that these men understood the nature of the Church 
 far better than they understood the nature of the 
 Establishment, which thoy sought to defend. They 
 saw in it, indeed, a contrariety to their Apostolical 
 principles, but they seem to have fancied that such 
 contrariety was an accident in its constitution, and 
 was capable of a cure. They did not understand 
 that the Establishment was set up in Erastianism, 
 that Erastianism was its essence, and that to destroy 
 Erastianism was to destroy the Establishment. The 
 movement, then, and the Establishment, were in 
 simple antagonism from the first, although neither 
 party knew it ; they were logical contradictories ; 
 they could not be true together ; what was the life 
 of the one, was the death of the other. The sole 
 ambition of the Establishment was to be the crea- 
 ture of the State ; the sole aspiration of the move- 
 ment was to force it to act for itself. The movement 
 went forth on the face of the country : it read, it 
 preaohed, it published ; it addressed itself to logic 
 
 * British Magazine, April, 1836. 
 
107 
 
 and to poetry : it was antiquarian and " architect, 
 only to do for the Establishment, what the Esta- 
 blishment considered the most intolerable of dis- 
 services : every breath, every sigh, every aspiration, 
 every effort of the movement was an affront or an 
 offence to the Establishment. In its very first 
 Tract, it could wish nothing better for the Bishops 
 of the Establishment than martyrdom, and, as the 
 very easiest escape, it augured for them the loss of 
 their temporal possessions. It was easy to foresee 
 what response the Establishment would make to its 
 officious defenders, as soon at it could recover from 
 its surprise ; but experience was necessary to teach 
 this to men who knew more of St. Athanasius than 
 of the Privy Council or the Court of Arches. 
 
 " Why should any man in Britain," asks a Tract, 
 " fear or hesitate boldly to assert the authority of the 
 Bishops and pastors of the Church on grounds 
 strictly evangelical and spiritual ?" " Reverend Sir," 
 answered the Primate, to a protest against a Bishop 
 elect, accused of heresy, "It is not within the bounds 
 of any authority possessed by me to give you an 
 opportunity of proving your objections; finding, 
 therefore, nothing in which I could act in compliance 
 with your remonstrance, I proceeded, in the execu- 
 tion of my office, to obey Her Majesty's mandate 
 for Dr. Hampden's consecration in the usual form." 
 
 " Are we contented," asks another Tract, " to be 
 accounted the mere creation of the State, as school- 
 
108 
 
 masters and teachers may be, as soldiers, or magis- 
 trates, or other public officers ? Did the State make 
 us? Can it unmake us? Can it send out mis- 
 sionaries?" Can it arrange dioceses? "William 
 the Fourth," answers the first magistrate of the 
 State, " by the grace of God, of the united kingdom 
 of Great Britain, and Ireland, king, defender of the 
 Faith, to all to whom these presents shall come, 
 greeting ; We, having great confidence in the learn- 
 ing, morals, and probity of our well-beloved and 
 venerable William Grant Broughton, do name and 
 appoint him to be Bishop and ordinary pastor'of the 
 see of Australia, so that he shall be and shall be 
 taken to be Bishop of the Bishop's see, and may, 
 by virtue of this our nomination and appointment, 
 enter into and possess the said Bishop's see as the 
 Bishop thereof, without any let or impediment of 
 us ; and we do hereby declare, that, if we, our heirs 
 and successors, shall think fit to recall or revoke the 
 appointment of the said Bishop of Australia, or his 
 successors, that every such Bishop shall, to all in- 
 tent and purposes, cease to be Bishop of Australia." 
 " Confirmation is an ordinance," says the Tract, 
 " in which the Bishop witnesses Christ. Our Lord 
 and Saviour confirms us with the Spirit of all good- 
 ness; the Bishop is His figure and likeness, when 
 he lays his hands on the heads of children. Then 
 Christ comes to them, to confirm in them the grace 
 of Baptism." " And we do hereby give and grant 
 
109 
 
 to the said Bishop of Australia," proceeds His 
 Majesty, " and his successors, Bishops of Australia, 
 full power and authority to confirm those that are 
 baptized and come to years of discretion, and to per- 
 form all other functions peculiar and appropriate to 
 the office of Bishop within the limits of the said 
 see of Australia." 
 
 " Moreover," says the Tract, " the Bishop .rules 
 the Church here below, as Christ rules it above ; 
 and is commissioned to make us clergymen God's 
 ministers. He is Christ's instrument." " And we 
 do by these presents give and grant to the said 
 Bishop and his successors, Bishops of Australia, full 
 power and authority to admit into the holy orders 
 of deacon and priest respectively any person whom 
 he shall deem duly qualified, and to punish and cor- 
 rect chaplains, ministers, priests, and deacons, ac- 
 cording to their demerits." 
 
 " The Bishop speaks in me," says the Tract, " as 
 Christ wrought in him, and as God sent Christ ; 
 thus the whole plan of salvation hangs together ; 
 Christ the true Mediator ; His servant, the Bishop, 
 His earthly likeness ; mankind, the subjects of His 
 teaching; God, the author of salvation." And 
 the Queen answers, " We do hereby signify to the 
 Most Beverend Father in God, William, Lord Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, our nomination of the said 
 Augustus, requiring, and, by the faith and love 
 whereby he is bound unto Us, commanding the said 
 
110 
 
 Most Kevcrend Father in God, to ordain and con- 
 secrate the said Augustus." And the consecrated 
 prelate echoes from across the ocean against the 
 Catholic pastor of the country, " Augustus, by the 
 grace of God and the favor of Queen Victoria, 
 Bishop." 
 
 " You will, in time to come," says the Tract, 
 " honor us with a purer honor, than many men do 
 now, as those who are intrusted with the keys of 
 heaven and hell, as the heralds of mercy, as the de- 
 nouncers of woe to wicked men, as intrusted with 
 the awful and mysterious privilege of dispensing 
 Christ's Body and Blood." And a first Episcopal 
 charge replies in the words of the homily, " Let us 
 diligently search the well of life, and not after the 
 stinking puddles of tradition, devised by man's 
 imagination." A second, " It is a subject of deep 
 concern that ■ any of our body should prepare men 
 of ardent feelings and warm imaginations for a r«- 
 turn to the Koman Mass-book." And a third, 
 " Already are the foundations of apostacy laid ; if 
 we once admit another Gospel, Antichrist is at the 
 door. I am full of fear : everything is at stake ; 
 there seems to be something judicial in the rapid 
 spread of these opinions." And a fourth, " It is 
 impossible not to remark upon the subtle wile of the 
 Adversary ; it has been signally and unexpectedly 
 exemplified in the present day by the revival of 
 errors which might have been supposed buried for 
 
Ill 
 
 ever." And a fifth, " Under the spurious pretence 
 of deference to antiquity and respect for primitive 
 models, the foundations of our Protestant Church 
 are undermined by men who dwell within her walls, 
 and those who sit in the Reformers' seat are tra- 
 ducing the Reformation." " Our glory is in jeo- 
 pardy," says a sixth. "Why all this tenderness 
 for the very centre and core of corruption?" asks a 
 seventh. "Among other marvels of the present 
 day," says an eighth, " may be accounted the irre- 
 verent and unbecoming language applied to the 
 chief promoters of the Reformation in this land. 
 The quick and extensive propagation of opinions, 
 tending to exalt the claims of the Church and of the 
 Clergy, can be no proof of their soundness." " Re- 
 union with Rome has been rendered impossible," 
 says a ninth, " yet I am not without hope that more 
 cordial union may, in time, be effected among all 
 Protestant Churches." " Most of the Bishops,'? 
 says a tenth, " have spoken in terms of disapproval 
 of the ' Tracts for the Times,' and I certainly be- 
 lieve the system to be most pernicious, and one 
 which is calculated to produce the most lamentable 
 schism in a Church already fearfully disunited." 
 " Up to this moment," says an eleventh, " the 
 movement is advancing, under just the same pacific 
 professions, and the same imputations are still cast 
 upon all who in any way impede its progress. Even 
 the English Bishops, who have officially expressed 
 
112 
 
 any disapprobation of the principles or proceedings 
 of the party, have not escaped such animadversions." 
 " Tractarianism is the masterpiece of Satan," says 
 a twelfth. 
 
 But there was a judgment more cruel still, be- 
 cause its apparent tendency lay the other way; but 
 it was the infelicity of the agents in the nfovement, 
 that, the National Church feeling as it did, their 
 doctrines could not be sheltered except at the ex- 
 pense of their principles. " A Bishop's lightest 
 word, ex Cathedra, is heavy," said a writer of the 
 " Tracts for the Times." " His judgment on a 
 book cannot be light. It is a rare occurrence." 
 .And an Archbishop answered, " Many persons look 
 with considerable interest to the declarations on such 
 matters that from time to time are put forth by 
 Bishops in their Charges, or on other occasions. 
 But on most of the points to which I have been al- 
 luding, a Bishop's declarations hava no more weight, 
 except what they derive from his personal character, 
 than any anonymous pamphlet would have. The 
 points are mostly such as he has no official power to 
 decide, even in reference to his own diocese ; and as 
 to legislation for the Church, or authoritative de- 
 clarations on many of the most important matters, 
 neither any one Bishop, nor all collectively, have 
 any more right of this kind, than the ordinary 
 magistrates have, to take on themselves the func- 
 tions of Parliament." 
 
113 
 
 It is hardly necessary to prolong the exhibition o! 
 the controversy, or to recall to your recollection the 
 tone of invective in which each party relieved the 
 keen and vehement feelings which its opponents ex- 
 cited ; how the originators of the movement called 
 Jewell " an irreverent Dissenter ;" were ever " think- 
 ing worse and worse of the Reformers;" "hated 
 the Reformation and the Reformers more andmore ;" 
 thought them the false prophet of the Apocalypse ; 
 described the National Church as having "blas- 
 phemed tradition and the Sacraments ;" were " more 
 and more indignant at the Protestant doctrine of 
 the Eucharist;" thought the principle on which it 
 was founded " as proud, irreverent, and foolish, as 
 that of any heresy, even Socinianism ;" and con- 
 sidered the Establishment their " upas-tree," " an 
 incubus on the country ;" and its reformed condition, 
 " a limb badly set, which must be broken before it 
 could be righted ;" — and how they were called in 
 turn " superstitious," " zealots," " mystical," " ma- 
 lignants," " Oxford heretics," " Jesuits is disguise," 
 " tamperers with Popish idolatry," " agents of Sa- 
 tan," " a synagogue of Satan," " snakes in the 
 grass," " walking about our beloved Church, pol- 
 luting the sacred edifice, and leaving their slime 
 about her altars;" "whose head," it was added, 
 " may God crush." 
 
 Is it not then abundantly plain, that, whatever be 
 the destiny of the movement of 1833, there is no 
 
114 
 
 providential tendency towards a coalition with the 
 Establishment ? It cannot strengthen it, it cannot 
 serve it, it cannot obey it. The party may be dis- 
 solved, the movement may die, — that is another 
 matter; but it and its idea cannot live, cannot 
 energize in the National Church. If St. Athanasius 
 could agree with Arius, St. Cyril with Nestorius, 
 St. Dominic with the Albigenses, or St. Ignatius 
 with Luther, then may two parties coalesce, in a 
 certain assignable time, or by certain felicitously 
 gradual approximations, or with dexterous limita- 
 tions and concessions, who mutually think light 
 darkness, and darkness light. " Delenda est Car- 
 thago ;" one or other must perish. Assuming then 
 that there is a scope and limit to the movement, we 
 certainly shall not find it in the dignities and offices 
 of the National Church. 
 
 If then this be not the providential direction of 
 the movement, let us ask in the next place, is it 
 intended to remain just what it is, not in power or 
 authority, but as a sort of principle or view of re- 
 ligion, found here and there, with greater or less 
 distinctness, with more or fewer followers, scattered 
 about or concentrated, up and down the Establish- 
 ment ; with no exact agreement between man and 
 man in matters of detail, or in theoretical basis, but 
 as an influence, sleeping or rousing, victorious or 
 defeated, from time to time, as the case may be ? 
 This state of things is certainly supposable, at least 
 
115 
 
 for a time, for' a generation ; and various arguments 
 may be adduced in its behalf. It may be urged, 
 that if you cannot do any positive good to the na- 
 tion, yet at least in this way you may prevent evil : 
 that to be a drag upon the career of unbelief, if you 
 are nothing else, is not a mission to be despised ; 
 moreover, if it be not an heroic course of action, or 
 look well in history, still so much the more does 
 such an office become those who are born in a fallen 
 time, and who wish to be humble. Moreover, 
 though it is good to be humble, still, on the other 
 hand, there is a chance, it may be whispered by 
 others, of a nobler and higher function opening on 
 you, if you are but patient and dutiful for a time. 
 This is the suggestion of those who cannot, will not, 
 look at things as they are ; who think objects feasi- 
 ble because they are desirable, and to be attempted 
 because they are tempting. These persons go on 
 dwelling upon the thought of the wonderful power 
 of the British people at this day all over the world, 
 till they turn to consider what may be the design of 
 Providence in raising it up. They feel it would be 
 a most powerful instrument of good, if it could be 
 directed aright; and then they argue that, if it is to 
 be influenced, what else ought naturally and ob- 
 viously to influence it but the National Church? 
 The National Church then is to be God's instrument 
 for the conversion of the world. But in order to 
 this, of course it is indispensable that the National 
 
116 
 
 Church should have a clear and sufficient hold of 
 Apostolical doctrine and usage; but again, who is to 
 instruct the National Church in these necessary- 
 matters, but that Apostolical movement to which 
 they belong? And thus, by a few intermediate 
 steps, they have attained the conclusion, that, be- 
 cause the nation is so powerful, the movement must 
 succeed. They bear then any degree of humiliation 
 and discomfiture, nay, any argumentative exposure, 
 any present stultification of their principles, any, 
 however chronic, disorganisation, with an immovable 
 resolve, as a matter of duty and merit, as being 
 sanguine about the future. They seem to feel that 
 the whole cause of truth, the reform of the Esta- 
 blishment, the catholicising of the nation, the con- 
 version of the world, depends at this moment on 
 their faithfulness to their position; on their own 
 steadfastness the interests of humanity are at stake, 
 and where they now are, there they will live and 
 die. They have taken their part, and to that part 
 they will be true. 
 
 Moreover, there are those among them who have 
 very little grasp of principle, even from the natural 
 tenor of their minds. They see that this thing is 
 beautiful, and that is in the Fathers, and ^ third is 
 expedient, and a fourth pious; but of their con- 
 nexion one with another, their hidden essence and 
 their life, and the bearing of external matters upon 
 each and upon all, they have no perception or even 
 
117 
 
 suspicion. They do not look at things as part of a 
 whole, and often will sacrifice the most important 
 and precious portions of their creed, or make irre- 
 mediable concessions in word or in deed, from mere 
 simplicity and want of apprehension.* This was in 
 one way singularly exemplified in the beginning of 
 the movement itself. I am not saying that every 
 word that was used in the " Tracts for the Times" 
 was matter of principle, or that the doctrines to be 
 enforced were not sometimes unnecessarily colored 
 by the vehemence of the writer; but still it not 
 seldom happened that leaders took statements, which 
 contained the very point of the argument, or the 
 very heart of the principle, to be mere intemperate 
 expressions, and suggested to the authors their re- 
 moval. " They went a great way with us, but they 
 really could not go so far. Why speak of the Apos- 
 tolic succession, instead of Evangelical truth and 
 Apostolical order ? It gave offence, it did no man- 
 ner of good. Why use the word ' altar,' if it dis- 
 pleased weak brethren ? The word ' sacrifice' was 
 doubtless a misprint for ' sacrament ;' and to talk 
 with Bishop Bull of 'making the Body of Christ,' 
 was a most extravagant unjustifiable way of descri- 
 bing the administration of the Lord's Supper." 
 
 * Since writing this, the author finds it necessary to add, that 
 he had no reference whatever in writing it, and should be pained 
 t o seem to have had, to particular passages in the controversy 
 now in progress. 
 
118 
 
 Things are changed now at the end of twenty years ; 
 but characters and intellects are the same. Such 
 persons at the present moment do not formally pro- 
 fess any intention of giving up any of the doctrines 
 of the movement, but they think it possible and 
 expedient to divide portion from portion, and are 
 rash and inconsistent in their advice and their con- 
 duet, from mere ignorance of what they are doing. 
 So, too, they think it a success, and are elated ac- 
 cordingly, if any measure whatever, which happens 
 to have been contemplated by the movement, is any 
 how conceded by the Establishment or by the State ; 
 heedless altogether whether such portion be capable 
 or not of coalescing with a foreign principle, and 
 whether, instead of modifying, it has not been 
 changed into that with which it has contended. For 
 instance, the movement succeeded in gaming an in- 
 creasa in the number of Episcopal sees at home and 
 abroad ; well, a triumph it certainly is, if any how 
 to succeed in a measure it has advocated is to be 
 called by that name. But be it recollected that 
 measures derive their character and their worth from 
 the principle which animates them ; they have little 
 meaning in themselves ; they are but material facts, 
 unless they include in them their scope and enforce 
 their object ; nay, they readily assume the animus 
 and drift, and are taken up into the form, of the 
 system by which they are adopted. If the Apos- 
 tolical movement desired to increase the Episcopate, 
 
119 
 
 it was with a view to its own Apostolical principles ; 
 it had no wish merely to increase the staff of Go- 
 vernment officers in England or in the colonies, the 
 patronage of a ministry, the erection of rural palaces, 
 and the Latitudinarian votes in Parliament. Has 
 it, for instance, done a great achievement at Man- 
 chester, if it has planted there a chair of liberalism, 
 and inaugurated an anti-Catholic tradition ? 
 
 A policy, then, resting on such a state of mind 
 as I have been describing, viz., to act as if the 
 course of events itself would, some way or other, 
 work for Apostolical truth, sooner or later, more or 
 less, to let things alone, to do nothing, to make light 
 of every triumph of the enemy from within or with- 
 out, to wave the question of ecclesiastical liberty, to 
 remain where you are, and go about your work in 
 your own place, either contented to retard the 
 course of events, or sanguine about an imaginary 
 future, is simply to abandon the cause of the move- 
 ment altogether. It is simply to say that there is 
 no providential destiny or object connected with it 
 at all. You may be right, my brethren ; this may 
 be the case; perhaps it is so. You have a right to 
 this opinion, but understand what you are doing. 
 Do not deceive yourselves by words ; it is not a 
 biding your time, as you may fancy, if you surren- 
 der the idea and the main principle of the move- 
 ment; it is the abandonment of your cause. You 
 remain, indeed, in your place, but it is no moral, no 
 
120 
 
 intellectual, but a mere secular, visible position 
 which you occupy. Great men in warfare, when 
 they are beaten back from the open country, retire 
 to the mountains and fortify them, in a territory 
 which is their own. You have no place of refuge 
 from the foe ; you have no place at all, no happy 
 diocese, or peaceful parish, where you can utter and „, 
 carry out securely those very things which you hold 
 to be most true. Your retreat is an evacuation. 
 You will remain in the Establishment in your per- 
 son, but your principles will be gone. 
 
 I know how it will be, — a course as undignified as 
 it will be ineffectual. A sensation and talk when- 
 ever something atrocious is to be done by the State 
 against the principles ,you profess : a meeting of 
 friends here or there, an attempt to obtain an archi- 
 diaconal meeting ; some spirited remarks in two or 
 three provincial newspapers ; an article in a review ; 
 a letter to some Bishop ; a protest signed respecta- 
 bly ; suddenly, the news that the anticipated blow 
 has fallen, and causa finita est. A pause, and then 
 the discovery that things are not so bad as they 
 seemed to be, and that your Apostolical Church has 
 come forth from the trial even stronger and more 
 beautiful than before. Still a secret dissatisfaction 
 and restlessness ; a strong sermon at a visitation ; 
 and a protest after dinner, when his lordship's 
 charge is to be printed ; a paragraph in a newspaper, 
 saying how that most offensive proceedings are taking 
 
i2i 
 
 place in such and such a parish or chapel ; how that 
 there were flowers on the table, or that the curate 
 has tonsured himself, or used oil and salt in bap- 
 tizing, or that in a benefit sermon the Rector un- 
 churched the Society of Friends, or that popery is 
 coming in amain upon our venerable Establishment, 
 because a parsonage has been built in shape like a 
 Trapp'ist monastery. And then some new signs of 
 life ; the consecration of a new church, with Clergy 
 walking in gowns, two and two, and the Bishop 
 preaching on the decent performance of Divine 
 Service, and the due decoration of the house of God. 
 Then a gathering in the Christian Knowledge 
 Rooms; a drawn battle, and a compromise. And 
 every now and then a learned theological work, doc- 
 trinal or historical, justifying the ecclesiastical prin- 
 ciples on which the Anglican Church is founded, 
 and refuting the novelties of Romanism. And 
 lastly, on occasion of a contested election or other 
 political struggle, theology mingled with politics; 
 the liberal candidate rejected by the aid of the High- 
 Church Clergy on some critical question of religious 
 policy ; the Government annoyed or embarrassed ; 
 and a sanguine hope entertained of a ministry more 
 Favorable to Apostolical truth. My brethren, the 
 National Church has had expedience of this, mutatis 
 mutandis, once before : I mean in the conduct of 
 the Tory Clergy at the end of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and beginning of the following. Their pro- 
 
 6 
 
122 
 
 ceedings in Convocation were a specimen of it ; their 
 principles were far better than those of their Bish- 
 ops ; yet the Bishops show to advantage, and the 
 Clergy look small and contemptible in the history of 
 that contest. Public opinion judged as it ever 
 judges, by such broad and insignificant indications 
 of right and wrong; the Government party tri- 
 umphed, and the meetings of the Convocation were 
 suspended. 
 
 It is impossible, in a sketch such as this, to com- 
 plete the view of every point which comes into 
 consideration ; yet I think I have said enough to 
 suggest the truth of what I have affirmed to those 
 who carefully turn the matter in their minds. Is 
 the influence of the movement to be maintained 
 adequately to its beginnings and its promise 1 Many, 
 indeed, will say, certainly many of those who hated 
 or disapproved of it, that it was a sudden ebullition 
 of feeling, or burst of fanaticism, or reaction from 
 opposite errors ; that it has had its day, and is over- 
 It may be so; but I am addressing those who, I 
 consider, are of another opinion ; and to them I ap- 
 peal, whether I have yet suggested any thing plau- 
 sible about the providential future of the movement- 
 It is surely not intended, either to rise into the high 
 places of the Establishment, or to sink into a vague, 
 amorphous faction, at the foot of it. It cannot 
 rise, and it ought not to sink. 
 
 And now I am in danger of exceeding the limits 
 
123 
 
 Which I have proposed to myself, though anothef 
 more important head of consideration lies, before me, 
 "could I hope to do justice to it. I have argued 
 that you will be most inconsistent, my brethren, 
 with, your principles and views, if you remain in the 
 Establishment ; I say with your principles and 
 views, for you may give them up, and, then you will 
 not be inconsistent. You may say, " I do not hold 
 them so strongly as to make them the basis and 
 starting-place of any course of action whatever. I 
 have believed in them, it is true ; but I have never 
 contemplated the liabilities you are urging upon me. 
 I cannot, under any supposition, contemplate an 
 abandonment of the National Church. I am not 
 that knight' errant to give up my position, which 
 surely is given me by God, on a theory. I am what 
 I am. I am where I am. My reason has followed 
 the teaching of the movement, and I have assented 
 to it ; so far I grant. But it is a new idea to me 
 quite, which I have never contemplated at starting) 
 which I cannot contemplate now, that possibly it 
 might involve the most awful, most utter of sacri- 
 fices. I have ten thousand claims upon me, urging 
 me to remain where I am. They are real, tangible, 
 habitual, immutable; nothing can shake or lessen 
 them from within. A distinct call of Grod from with- 
 out would of course overcome them, but nothing 
 short of it. Am I as sure of these Apostolical 
 principles which I have embraced, as I am of, these 
 claims ? And I am doing good in my parish and in 
 
124 
 
 toy place. The day passes as usual. Sunday 
 comes round once a week ; the bell rings, the con- 
 gregation is met, and service is performed. There 
 is the same round of parochial duties and charities ; 
 sick people to be visited, the school so be inspected. 
 The sun shines, and the rain falls, the garden 
 smiles, as it used to do ; and can some one definite, 
 external event have changed the position of this 
 happy scene, of which I am the centre ? Is not 
 that position a self-dependent, is it a mere relative 
 position ? What care I for the Privy Council or 
 the Archbishop, while I can preach and catechise 
 just as before ? I have my daily service and my 
 Saints' days' sermons, and I can tell my people 
 about the primitive Bishops and martyrs, and about 
 the grace of the Sacraments, and the power of the • 
 Church, how that it is Catholic, and Apostolic, and 
 Holy, and One, as if nothing had happened ; and I 
 can say my hours, or use my edition of Koman 
 Devotions, and observe the days of fasting, and 
 take confessions, if they are offered, in spite of all 
 gainsayers." 
 
 It is true, my dear brethren, you may knowingly 
 abandon altogether what you have once held, or you 
 may pretend to hold truths without being faithful to 
 them. "Well then, you are of those who think that 
 the movement has come to an end ; if you, in your 
 conscience, think so, that it was a mere phantom, 
 or deceit, or unreality, or dream, which has taken 
 you in, and from which you have awakened, I have 
 
125 
 
 not a word to say. If, however, as I trust is the 
 case, God has not in vain unrolled the pages of an- 
 tiquity before your eyes, but has stamped them upon 
 your hearts, if He has put into your minds that 
 perception of the truth which, once given, can sel- 
 dom be lost, once possessed will ever be recognized, 
 if you have by His grace been favored in any mea- 
 sure with the supernatural gift of faith,* then, my 
 brethren, I think too well of you, I hope too much 
 of you, to fancy that you can be untrue to convic- 
 tions so special and so commanding. No ; you are 
 under a destiny, the destiny of truth — truth is your 
 master, not you the master of truth — you must go 
 whither it leads. You can have no trust in the 
 Establishment or its Sacraments and ordinances. 
 Tou must leave it, you must secede ; you must turn 
 your back upon, you must renounce what has, — not 
 suddenly become, — but has now been proved to you 
 to have ever been, an imposture. You must take up 
 your cross, and you must go hence. But whither ? 
 That is the question which it follows to ask, could I 
 do justice to it. But you will rather do justice to 
 it in your own thoughts. You must betake your- 
 selves elsewhere, — and " to whom shall you go ?" 
 
 * Errantes invincibiliter circa aliquos articulos, et credentes 
 alios, non sunt formaliter haeretiei, sed habent (idem supematu- 
 ralem, qua credunt veros articulos, at que adeo ex ea possunt 
 procedere actus perfects contritionis, quibus justificemur et sal- 
 ventur, &c. — De Lugo de fide, xii. 3. SO. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE PROVIDENTIAL DIRECTION OB THE MOVEMENT 0* 
 1833 NOT TOWARDS A PARTY IN THE NATIONAL 
 CHURCH. 
 
 I know how very difficult it is to persuade others 
 of a point which to one's self may be so clear as to 
 require no argument at all ; and, therefore, I am 
 not at all sanguine, my brethren, that what I said 
 in my last Lecture has done as much as I wished it 
 to do. It is not an easy thing to prove to men that 
 their duty lies just in the reverse direction to that 
 in which they have hitherto placed it ; that all they 
 have hitherto learned, and taught; all their past 
 labors, hopes, and successes ; that their boyhood, 
 youth, and manhood ; that their position, their con- 
 nexions, and their influence, are, in a certain sense, 
 to go for nothing ; and that life is to begin with 
 them anew. It is not an easy thing to attain to the 
 conviction, that, with the Apostle, their greatest gain 
 
127 
 
 must be counted loss; and that their glory and 
 their peace must be found in what will make them 
 for a while the wonder and the scorn of the world. 
 It is true I may have shown you that you cannot 
 coalesce with the National Church ; that you can- 
 not wed yourselves to its principles and its routine, 
 and that it in turn has no confidence at all in you; — 
 and, again, that you eannot consistently hang about 
 what you neither love nor trust, cumbering with 
 your presence what you are not allowed to serve ; 
 but still you will cling to the past and present, and 
 will hope for the future against hope ; and your 
 forlorn hope is this, that it is, perhaps, possible to 
 remain as an actual party in the Establishment, nay, 
 an avowed party ; not, on the one hand, rising into 
 ecclesiastical power, yet not, on the other, disor- 
 ganized and contemptible ; but availing yourselves 
 of your respective positions in it, and developing, 
 with more consistency and caution, the principles 
 of 1833. You may say that I passed over this ob- 
 Vious course in my foregoing Lecture, and decided 
 it in the negative without fair examination ; and you 
 may argue that such a party is surely allowable in a 
 religious communion, which, as the Committee of 
 Privy Council implies, is based upon principles so 
 comprehensive, exercises so large a toleration, and is 
 so patient of speculatists and innovators, further 
 removed from its professed principles than your- 
 selves. 
 
123 
 
 Thus I am led to take one more survey of your 
 present position ; yet I own I cannot do so without 
 an apology to others, who may think that I am tri- 
 fling with a serious subject and a clear case, and 
 imagining objections in order to overthrow them. 
 Such persons certainly there may be ; and I would 
 have them consider, on the other hand, that my aim 
 is to bring before those I am addressing, really and 
 vividly, where they stand ; that this cannot be done 
 unless they try steadily to fix their minds upon it ; 
 that the discussion of imaginary cases brings out 
 principles which they cannot help feeling, when 
 presented to them, and the relation, moreover, of 
 those principles to their own circumstances and 
 duty ; and that even where a view of a subject is 
 imaginary, when taken as a whole and in its integral 
 perfection, yet portions of it may linger in the mind, 
 unknown to itself, and influence its practical de- 
 cisions. 
 
 With this apology for a proceeding which some 
 persons may feel tedious, I shall suppose you, my 
 brethren, to address me in the following strain : 
 " The movement has been, for nearly twenty years, 
 a party, and why should it not continue a party as 
 before ? It has avowedly opposed a contrary party 
 in the National Church ; it has had its principles, 
 its leaders, its usages, its party signs, its publications : 
 it may have them still. It was once, indeed, a point 
 of policy to deny our party character, or we tried 
 
129 
 
 to hide the truth from ourselves ; but a party we 
 were. The National Church admits of private 
 judgment, and where there is private judgment, 
 there must he parties. We are, of course, under a 
 disadvantage now, which then did not lie upon us ; 
 we have, at the present time, the highest ecclesias- 
 tical authorities in distinct and avowed opposition to 
 our doctrines and our doings ; but we knew their 
 feelings long ago. This misfortune is nothing new ; 
 we always reckoned on an uphill game ; it is better 
 that every one should speak out ; we now know the 
 worst ; we know now where to find our spiritual 
 rulers ; they are not more opposed to us than before, 
 but they have been obliged openly to commit them- 
 selves, which we always wished them to do, though, 
 of course, we should have preferred their committing 
 themselves on our side. But, any how, we cannot 
 be said to be in a worse case than before ; and if we 
 were allowably and hopefully a party before, we 
 surely have as much allowance to agitate, and not 
 less hope of success, now." You think, then, my 
 brethren, that to-day can be as yesterday, and that 
 your present position is your old one, and that you 
 can be faithful to the movement, yet continue just 
 what you were. My brethren, you do not bear in 
 mind that a movement is a thing that moves ; you 
 cannot be true to it and remain still. The single 
 question is, What is the limit or scope of that which 
 once had a beginning and now has a progress ? 
 6* 
 
130 
 
 Circumstances are not what they were. If yon 
 would be true to your principles, you must remove 
 from a position where it is not longer possible for you 
 to fulfil them. 
 
 Your movement started on the ground of main- 
 taining ecclesiastical authority, as opposed to the 
 Erastianism of the State. It exhibited the Church 
 as the one earthly object of religious loyalty and 
 veneration, the source of all spiritual power and 
 jurisdiction, and the channel of all grace. It repre- 
 sented it as the interest, as well as the duty, of 
 Churchmen, the bond of peace and the secret of 
 strength, to submit their judgment in all things to 
 her decision. And it taught that this divinely- 
 founded Church was realized and brought into effect 
 in our country in the National Establishment, which 
 was the outward form or development of a con- 
 tinuous dynasty and hereditary power which descend- 
 ed from the Apostles. It gave then to that Es- 
 tablishment, in its officers, its laws, its usages, and 
 worship, that devotion and obedience, which are 
 correlative to the very idea of the Church. It set 
 up on high the bench of Bishops and the Book of 
 Common Prayer, as the authority to which it was 
 itself to bow, with which it was to cow and over- 
 power an Erastian State. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to bring together passages 
 from the early numbers of the " Tracts for the 
 Times" in support of this statement. Each Tract, 
 
1S1 
 
 I may Bay, is directed, in one way or other, to the 
 defence of the existing documents or regulations of 
 the National Church. No abstract ground is taken 
 in these compositions ; conclusions are not worked 
 cut from philosophical premises, nor conjectures 
 recommended by poetical illustrations, nor a system 
 put together out of eclectic materials : but emphati- 
 cally and strenuously it is maintained, that whatever 
 is is right, and must be obeyed. If the Apostolic 
 succession is true, it is not simply because St. Ig- 
 natius and St Cyprian might affirm it, though 
 Fathers are adduced also, but because it is implied 
 in the Ordination Service. If the Church is inde- 
 pendent of the State in things spiritual, it is not 
 simply because Bishop Pearson has extolled her 
 powers in his Exposition of the Creed, though 
 divines are brought forward as authorities too ; bu£ 
 by reason of " the force of that article of our belief, 
 the one Catholic and Apostolic Church." If the 
 mysteriousness of the Episcopate is insisted on, it is 
 not merely as contained in Holy Scripture, though 
 Scripture is appealed to again and again; but as 
 implied in " that ineffable mystery, called in the 
 Creed, the Communion of Saints." Scripture was 
 Copiously quoted, the Fathers w«re boldly appealed 
 to, and Anglican divines were diligently consulted. 
 But the immediate, present, and, as the leaders of 
 me movement hoped, the living authority, on which 
 they based their theological system, was what was 
 
132 
 
 called the "Liturgy." This "Liturgy," as the 
 instrument of their teaching, was, on that account, 
 regarded as practically infallible. " Attempts are 
 making to get the Liturgy altered," says a Tract ; 
 " I beseech you consider with me, whether you ought 
 not to res'st the alteration of even one jot or tittle 
 of it." Then as to the Burial Service : " I frankly 
 own," says another Tract, " it is sometimes dis- 
 tressing to use it ; but this must ever be in the 
 nature of things, wherever you draw the line." 
 Again, " there was a growing feeling that the Ser- 
 vices were too long," and ought to be shortened ; 
 but it was to be " arrested" by " certain considera- 
 tions" offered in a Third. " There were persons 
 who wished certain Sunday Lessons removed from 
 the Service;" but, according to a Fourth, there was 
 reason the other way, in the very argument which 
 was "brought in favor of the change." Another 
 project afloat was that of leaving out " such and 
 such chapters of the Old Testament," and " as- 
 signing proper Lessons to every Sunday from the 
 New;" but it was temperately, and ingeniously 
 argued in a Fifth, that things were best just as they 
 were. And, as the Prayer Book, so too was the 
 Episcopate, invested with a sacred character, which 
 it was a crime to affront or impair. " Exalt our 
 Holy Fathers," said a Sixth Tract, " as the repre- 
 sentatives of the Apostles and the Angels of the 
 Churches." " They stand in the place of the 
 
1S3 
 
 Apostles," said a Seventh, " as far as the office of 
 "ruling is concerned ; and he that despiseth them, 
 despiseth the Apostles." 
 
 Now, why do I refer to these passages ? Not for 
 their own sake, but to show that the movement was 
 based on submission to a definite existing authority, 
 and that private judgment was practically excluded. 
 I do not mean to say that its originators thought the 
 Prayer Book inspired, any more than the Bishops 
 infallible, as if they had nothing to do but accept 
 and believe what was put into their hands. They 
 had too much, common sense to deny the necessary 
 exercise of private judgment, in one way or another. 
 They knew that the Catholic Church herself ad- 
 mitted it, though she directed and limited it to a 
 decision upon the organ of revelation ; and they 
 expressly recognized what they had no wish to deny. 
 " So far," they said, " all parties must be agreed, 
 that without private judgment there is no respon- 
 sibility .... even though an infallible guidance 
 be accorded, a man must have a choice of resisting 
 it or not."* But still, not denying it as an abstract 
 trutb, they were of opinion that, as regards the 
 teaching of the Liturgy, or the enunciations of the 
 Bishops, — which is the point immediately under our 
 consideration, — all differences existing between mem- 
 bers of the Establishment could be but minor ones; 
 
 * Newman's Proph. Off. p. 157. 
 
134 
 
 wliicli might profitably, and without effort, be sup-, 
 pressed ; that is, they were such as ought to be in- 
 wardly discredited and rejected, as less probable 
 than the received opinion, or at most must be enter- 
 tained at home, not published or defended. They 
 could not be more than matters of opinion, not of 
 doctrine. Thus, with respect to alterations in the 
 Prayer Book, the Tract says, " Though most of you 
 would wish some immaterial points altered, yet not 
 many of you agree in those points, and not many of 
 you agree what is and what is not immaterial. If 
 all your respective emendations are taken, the al- 
 terations in the Service will be extensive ; and, 
 though each will gain something he wishes, he will 
 lose more from those alterations which he did not 
 wish. How few would be pleased by any given 
 alteration, and how many pained !" Though, then, 
 the Prayer Book was not perfect, it had a sort of 
 practical perfection; and, though it was not un- 
 erring, it had a claim to be used as such, because 
 the evil of criticism was so very dangerous. "A 
 taste of criticism grows upon the mind. This un- 
 settling of the mind is a frightful thing, both for 
 ourselves, and more so for our flocks." The prin- 
 ciple, then, of these writers was this : An infallible 
 authority is necessary; we have it not; for the 
 Prayer Book is all we have got. But, since we 
 have nothing better, we must use it, as if infallible. 
 I am not justifying the logic of this proceeding, but, 
 
135 
 
 if it be deficient, much more clearly does it, for that 
 very reason, bring out the strength with which they 
 held the principle of authority itself, when they 
 would make so great an effort to find it a place in 
 the national religion, and would rather force a con- 
 clusion than give up their premiss. 
 
 The Prayer Book, then, according to the first 
 agents in the movement, was the arbiter, and limit, 
 and working rule of the ten thousand varying private 
 judgments of which the community was made up, 
 which could not all be satisfied, which could not all 
 be right ; which were^ every one of them, less likely 
 to be right than it. It was the immediate instru- 
 ment by means of which they professed to make 
 their way, the fulcrum by which they were to hoist 
 up the Establishment and set it down securely on 
 the basis of Apostolical Truth. And thus it was 
 accepted by the party, not only as essentially and 
 substantially true, but also as eminently expedient 
 and necessary for the time. 
 
 " To do any thing effectually," said a speaker in 
 a dialogue, who on the whole is meant to express the 
 feelings of the party, in answer to a Romanizing 
 friend, " we must stand upon recognized principles 
 and customs. Any other procedure stamps a person 
 as wrongheaded, ill-judging, or eccentric ; and 
 brings upon him the contempt and ridicule of those 
 sensible men, by whose opinions society is necessarily 
 governed. Putting aside the question of truth and 
 
136 
 
 falsehood (which, of course, is the main considera- 
 tion), even as aiming at success, we must be aware 
 of the great error of making changes on no more 
 definite basis than their abstract fitness, alleged* 
 scripturalness, or adoption by the ancients. Such 
 changes are rightly called innovations ; those which 
 spring from existing institutions, opinions, and feel- 
 ings, are called developments, and may be recom- 
 mended, without invidiousness, as improvements. I 
 adopt them, and claim as my own, that position of 
 yours, that ' we must take and use what is ready to 
 our hands.' To do otherwise is to act the doctrinaire, 
 and to provide for failure. For instance, if we would 
 enforce observance of the Lord's Day, we must not, 
 at the outset, rest it on any theory, however just, of 
 Church authority, but on the authority of Scripture. 
 If we would oppose the State's interference with the 
 distribution of Church property, we shall succeed, 
 not by urging any doctrine of Church independence, 
 or by citing decrees of general councils, but by 
 showing the contrariety of that measure to existing 
 constitutional and ecclesiastical precedents among 
 ourselves. Hildebrand found the Church provided 
 with certain existing means of power ; he vindicated 
 them, and was rewarded with the success which at- 
 tends, not on truth as such, but on this prudence 
 and tact in conduct. St. Paul observed the same 
 rule, whether in preaching at Athens or persuading 
 his countrymen. It was the gracious condescension 
 
137 
 
 of our Lord Himself, not to substitute Christianity 
 for Judaism by any violent revolution, but to develope 
 Judaism into Christianity, as the Jews might bear 
 it."* 
 
 Now all this was very well, if expedience was the 
 end, and not merely a reason, of their extolling the 
 Episcopate and the Prayer Book : but, if it was a 
 question of truth, and as such they certainly con- 
 sidered it, then it was undeniable, that Prayer Book 
 and Episcopate could not support themselves, but 
 required some intellectual basis ; and what was that 
 to be? Here again, as before, (and this is the point 
 to which all along I wish to direct your attention,) 
 these writers professed to go by authority, not by 
 private judgment ; for they fell back upon the di- 
 vines of the Anglican Church, as their means of 
 ascertaining both what it taught and why. It is 
 scarcely necessary to remind any, who have fol- 
 lowed the movement in its course, how careful and 
 anxious they were, as soon as they got (what may be 
 called) under weigh, at once to collect and arrange 
 catenas of Anglican authorities, on whom their own 
 teaching might be founded, and under whose name 
 it might be protected. Accordingly, the doctrines 
 especially of the Apostolical succession, of Baptismal 
 Regeneration, of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and of the 
 Rule of Faith, were made the subject ot elaborate 
 
 * British Magazine, April, 1836. 
 
138 
 
 collections of extracts from the divines of the Es- 
 tablishment. And so in like manner, when a formal 
 theory or idea was attempted of the Anglican sys- 
 tem, the writer told us that " he had endeavored, in 
 all important points of doctrine, to guide himself by 
 our standard divines; and, had space admitted, 
 would have selected passages from their writings in 
 evidence of it." Such a collection of testimonies is 
 almost a duty on the part of every author, who pro- 
 fesses, not to strike out new theories, but to build up 
 and fortify what has been committed to us. For 
 specimens of what is here alluded to, he refers to 
 the Catenae Patrum, published in the " Tracts for 
 the Times."* 
 
 But now a further question obviously rises ; by 
 what authority will you determine what divines are 
 authoritative, and what are not? for it is obvious, 
 unless you can adduce such, private judgment will 
 come in at last upon your ecclesiastical structure, in 
 spite of your hitherto success in keeping it out. 
 This answer was ready: — Scripture suggested to 
 them the rule they should follow, and it was a rule 
 external to themselves. They professed to take 
 simply those as authorities, whom " all the people 
 accounted as prophets."! As it was no private 
 
 * Proph.Off. p. vi. 
 
 t " Or take again those, whom by a natural instinct all the 
 people count as prophets, and will it not be found that either 
 altogether, or in those works which are most popular, those 
 
1S9 
 
 judgment, but tlie spontaneous sentiment of a whole 
 people, that canonized the Baptist, as the ancient 
 saints are raised over our altars by the acclamation 
 of a universal immemorial belief, so, according to 
 these writers, the popular voice was to be consulted, 
 and its decision simply recorded and obeyed, in the 
 selection of the divines, on whom their theology was 
 to be founded. They professed to put aside indi- 
 vidual liking ; they might admire Hooker, or think 
 him difficult; they might love Taylor, or feel a secret 
 repugnance to him ; they might delight in the vigor 
 of Bull, or be repelled by his homeliness and his 
 want of the supernatural element; these various 
 Feelings they had, but they did not wish to select 
 their authorities by any such private taste or reason, 
 in which they would differ from each other, but by 
 the voice of the community. For instance, Davenant 
 is a far abler writer than Hammond, but how few 
 have heard of him ? Home or Wilson is far infe- 
 rior in learning or originality to Warburton, yet their 
 
 writers are ruled by primitive and catholic principles 1 No man, 
 for instance, was an abler writer in the last century than War- 
 burton, or more famous in his day ; yet the glare is over, and now 
 Bishops Wilson and Home, men of far inferior powers, but of 
 catholic temper and principles, fill the doctor's chair in the eyes 
 of the many." iBritish Critic, Jan., 1840, p. 478. > 
 
 There was another obvious rule also, but still not a private 
 one. They had recourse to those Anglican divines who alone 
 contemplated, and professed to provide, an idea, theory or in- 
 tellectual position for their Church, as Laud and Sdllingfleet. 
 
140 
 
 works have a popularity which Warburton's have 
 not, and have, in consequence, a higher claim to the 
 formal title of Anglican divinity. Such was the 
 principle of selection on which the authors of the 
 movement proceeded; and if you say they were 
 untrue to their principles, and, after all, selected 
 partially, and on private judgment, so much the 
 more for my purpose. How clearly must the prin- 
 ciple of an ecclesiastical and authoritative, not a 
 private judgment, have been the principle of the 
 movement, when those who belonged to it were 
 obliged to own that principle, at the very time that 
 it was inconvenient to them, and when they were 
 driven, whether consciously or not, to misuse or 
 evade it ! 
 
 Such then was the principle on which they pro- 
 fessed to select the authorities they were to follow ; 
 nor was their anxiety in consulting less than their 
 caution in ascertaining them Here, again, I am 
 not going into the question whether they deceived 
 themselves in consulting, as well as in ascertaining 
 these divines ; whether they followed them where 
 they agreed with themselves, and where they stopped 
 short, went forward without them : I am not aware 
 that they did ; but, whether they did or no, they 
 tried not to do so ; they wished to make the An- 
 glican divines real vouchers and sanctions of their 
 own teaching, and they used their words rather than 
 their own. They shrank from seeming to speak 
 
141 
 
 Without warrant, even on matters which in no sensd 
 Were matters of faith, and I can adduce an instance 
 of it, which is more to the point, for the very reason 
 it was singularly misunderstood ; and, though it may 
 seem to require some apology that I should again 
 refer to an author from whom I have made several 
 extracts already, I have an excuse for doing so in 
 the circumstance, that I naturally know his works 
 better than those of others, and I can quote him 
 without misrepresenting him or hurting his feelings. 
 In a Retractation then, which was published in the 
 year 1843, of some strong statements made against 
 the Catholic Church, by one of the original writers, 
 these words occur :— " If you ask me how an indi* 
 vidual could venture, not simply to hold but to publish ~ 
 such views of a communion so ancient, so wide- 
 spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer that I said 
 to myself, ' I am not speaking my own words,' I 
 am but following almost a consensus of the divines 
 of my Church. They have ever used the strongest 
 language against Rome, even the most able and 
 learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their 
 system. While I say what they say, I am safe. 
 Such views, too, are necessary for our position." 
 Now this passage has been taken to mean that the 
 writer spoke from expediency, what he did not 
 believe ; but this is false in fact, and inaccurate in 
 criticism. He spoke what he felt, what he thought, 
 what at the time he held, and nothing but what he 
 
142 
 
 held, with an internal assent; but he would not 
 have dared to say it, he would have shrunk, as well 
 he might, from standing up, a sinner and a worm, an 
 accuser against the great Eoman communion, unless 
 in doing so he felt he had been doing simply what 
 his own Church required of him, and what was ne- 
 cessary for his Church's case, what all his Church's 
 divines had ever done before him. This being the 
 case, he " could venture, not simply to hold, but to 
 •publish ;" he was not " speaking his own words," 
 though he was expressing his own thoughts, and, 
 this being the case, he could " throw himself into," 
 he could shelter himself behind, a " system received 
 by his Church," as well as by himself. He felt 
 " safe," because he spoke after, and according to its 
 teaching and its teachers. It was one sin, the having 
 thought ill of the Catholic Church ; it was another 
 and greater, to have spoken what he thought ; and 
 there was just this alleviation of his second sin, that 
 he said what others had said before him. There is 
 nothing difficult or unnatural surely in this state of 
 mind; but it is not wonderful that to the mass of 
 Protestants, it was incomprehensible that any should 
 shrink from the exercise of that private judgment, 
 in which they so luxuriated themselves, should 
 apologize for what was simply a virtue, and should 
 lament over the use of a privilege. 
 
 But I have not yet arrived at the ultimate reso- 
 lution of faith, in the judgment of the theological 
 
143 
 
 patty of 1833 ; the Anglican divines were, it seemSj 
 to be followed, but, after all, were they inspired 
 more than the Prayer Book ? else, on what are we 
 to say that their authority depended in turn? 
 Again, the answer was ready; The Anglican di- 
 vines are sanctioned by that authority, to which 
 they themselves refer, the Fathers of the Church. 
 Thus spoke the party ; now at length you will say, 
 they are brought to a point, when private judgment 
 must necessarily be admitted ; for who shall ascer- 
 tain what is in the Fathers, and what is not, without 
 a most special and singular application of his own 
 powers of mind and his own personal attainments* 
 to the execution of so serious an undertaking ? But 
 not even here did they allow themselves committed 
 to the Protestant instrument of inquiry, though 
 this point will require some little explanation. It 
 must be observed then, that they were accustomed 
 to regard theology generally, much more upon its 
 Anti-Protestant side than upon its Anti-Roman; 
 and, from the circumstances in which they found 
 themselves, were far more solicitous to refute Lu- 
 ther and Calvin than Suarez and Bellarmine. Pro- 
 testantism was a present foe, Catholicism, or Ro- 
 manism, as they called it, was but a possible 
 adversary; "it was not likely," they said, "that 
 Romanism should ever again become formidable in 
 England ;" and they engaged with it accordingly, 
 not from any desire to do so, but because they could 
 
not form an ecclesiastical theory without its coming 
 in their way, and challenging their notice. It was 
 " necessary for their position" to dispose of Catho- 
 licism, but not as a task of which they acquitted 
 themselves with the zeal or interest which was so 
 evident in their assaults upon their Protestant 
 brethren. " Those who feel the importance" of that 
 article of the Creed, " the holy Catholic Church,'» 
 says a work several times quoted, " and yet are not 
 Romanists, are bound on several accounts to show 
 why they are not Romanists, and how they differ 
 from them. They are bound to do so, in order to 
 remove the prejudice, with which an article of the 
 Creed is at present encompassed. From the cir- 
 cumstances then of the moment, the following Lec- 
 tures are chiefly engaged in examining and exposing 
 certain tenets of Romanism."* His feeling then, 
 seems to have been, — I should have a perfect case 
 against this Protestantism, but for these incon- 
 
 * Proph. Office, p. 7. The writer is not unmindful of the 
 following " ground" for publishing the Translations of the Fa- 
 thers, contained in the Prospectus: — " II. The great danger in 
 which Romanists are of lapsing into seciet infidelity, not seeing 
 how to escape from the palpable errors of their own Church, 
 without falling into the opposite errors of ultra-Protestants. It 
 appeared an act of especial charity to point out to such of them 
 as are dissatisfied with the state of their own Church, a body of 
 ancient Catholic truth, free from the errors alike of modern 
 Rome, and of ultra-Protestantism." He has nothing to say in 
 explanation, but it does not, he considers, affect the argument. 
 
145 
 
 Venient " Romanists," whose claims I do not admit 
 indeed, but who, controversially, stand in my way. 
 But now as to the point before us ; the conse- 
 quence of this state of mind was, that they were 
 not very solicitous (if I dare speak for others) how 
 far the Fathers seemed to tell for the Church of 
 Rome or not ; on the whole, they were sure they did 
 not tell materially for her ; but it was no matter, 
 though they partially seemed to do so; for their 
 great and deadly foe, their scorn, and their laughing- 
 stock, was that imbecile, inconsistent thing called 
 Protestantism ; and there could not be a more tho- 
 rough refutation of its foundation and superstructure 
 than was to be found in the volumes of the Fathers. 
 There was no mistaking that the principles professed, 
 and doctrines taught by those holy men, were utterly 
 Anti-Protestant ; and, being satisfied of this, which 
 was their principal consideration, it did not occur to 
 them accurately to determine the range and bounds 
 of the teaching of the early Church, or to reflect 
 that perhaps they had a clearer view of what it did 
 sanction, than of what it did not. They saw then, 
 that there simply was no opportunity at all of pri- 
 vate judgment, if one wished to exercise it, as re- 
 gards the Anti-Protestantism of the Fathers ; it was 
 a patent fact, open to all, written on the face of their 
 works ; you might defer to them, you might reject 
 them, but you could as little deny that they were 
 essentially Anti-Protestant, as you could deny that 
 
 7 
 
146 
 
 those whom they called Romanists were Anti-Pro- 
 testant. It was a matter of fact, a matter of sense ; 
 and here, in this public and undeniable fact, we have 
 arrived at what the movement considered the ulti- 
 mate resolution of their faith. It was argued, for 
 instance, " A private Christian may put what mean- 
 ing he pleases on many parts of Scripture, and no 
 one can hinder him. If interfered with, he can 
 promptly answer, that it is his own opinion, and may 
 appeal to his right of private judgment. But he 
 cannot so deal with antiquity : history is a record of 
 facts ; and facts, according to the proverb, are stub- 
 born things."* And, accordingly, these writers ap- 
 parently represented the Catholic Church as having 
 no power whatever over the faith ; her Creed was 
 simply a public matter of fact, which needed as 
 little explanation as the fact of her own existence. 
 Hence it was said, " The humblest and meanest 
 among Christians may defend the faith against the 
 whole Church, if the need arise. He has as much 
 stake in it, and as much right to it, as Bishop or 
 Archbishop ; ... all that learning has to do for 
 him, is to ascertain the fact, what is the meaning of 
 the Creed in particular points, since matter of opi- 
 nion it is not, any more than the history of the rise 
 and spread of Christianity itself, "f 
 Accordingly, as their first act, when they were 
 
 * Pioph. Office, p. 45. 
 t p. 292. 
 
m 
 
 tmce set off, had been to publish Catenas of the An» 
 glican aivines, so their second was to publish trans* 
 lations of the Fathers ; viz., in order to put the mat- 
 ter out of their own hands, and throw the decision 
 upon the private judgment of no one, but on the 
 ^common judgment of the whole community, Angli- 
 cans and Protestants, at once. They considered 
 that the Fathers had hitherto been monopolized by 
 controversialists, who treated them merely as maga- 
 zines of passages which might be brought forward in 
 argument, mutilated and garbled, for the occasion ; 
 and that the greatest service to their own cause was 
 simply to publish them.* " A main reason," it was 
 said, " of the jealousy with which Christians of this 
 age and country maintain the notion that truth of 
 "doctrine can be gained from Scripture by individuals 
 is this, that they are unwilling, as they say, to be 
 led by others blindfold. They can possess and read 
 the Scriptures ; whereas, of traditions they are no 
 adequate judges, and they dread priestcraft. I am 
 not here to enter into the discussion of this feeling, 
 whether praiseworthy or the contrary. However 
 this be, it does seem a reason for putting before 
 them, if possible, the principal works of the Fathers, 
 translated as Scripture is ; that they may have, by 
 them, what, whether used or not, will at least act as 
 a check upon the growth of an undue dependence 
 
 * See this brought out in an article on the Apostolical Fathers, 
 in the " British Critic" of Jan., 1839. 
 
148 
 
 on the word of individual teachers, and will be a 
 something to consult, if they have reason to doubt 
 the Catholic character of any tenet to which they 
 are invited to accede."* 
 
 By way then of rescuing the faith from private 
 teaching on the one hand, and private judgment on 
 the other, it was proposed to publish a Library of 
 the Fathers translated into English. And, let it be 
 observed, in pursuance of this object, the Transla- 
 tions were to be presented to the general reader 
 without note or comment. It was distinctly stated 
 in the Prospectus, that " the notes shall be li- 
 mited to the explanation of obscure passages, or 
 the removal of any misapprehension which might 
 not improbably arise." And this was so strictly 
 adhered to at first, that the translation of St. Cyril's 
 Catechetical Lectures was criticised, on its first pub- 
 lication, on this very ground ;f and it was asked why 
 his account of the Holy Eucharist was not reconciled 
 by the Editor with the Anglican formularies, when 
 the very idea of the latter had been to bring out 
 facts, and leave the result to a judgment more au- 
 thoritative than his own, and favorable on the whole, 
 
 * Proph. Office, p. 203. This passage, moreover, negatives 
 the charge, sometimes advanced against the agents in the move- 
 ment, that they wished every individual Christian to gain his 
 faith for himself by study of the Fathers. They have enough to 
 bear without our imagining absurdities. 
 
 t The rule of publishing without note or comment was, in con- 
 sequence of such objections, soon abandoned. 
 
149 
 
 as he hoped, in the event, to the Church to which he 
 belonged. " We can no more," he had said in the 
 Preface, " than have patience, and recommend pa- 
 tience to others ; and, with the racer in the Tragedy> 
 look forward steadily and hopefully to the event, ' in 
 the end relying,' when, as we trust, all that is in- 
 harmonious and anomalous in the details, will at 
 length be practically smoothed."* 
 
 Such, then, was the clear unvarying line of 
 thought, as I believed it to be, on which the move- 
 ment of 1833 commenced and proceeded, as regards 
 the questions of Church authority and private judg- 
 ment. It was fancied that no opportunity could 
 arise for the exercise of private judgment, in any 
 public or important matter. The Church declared, 
 whether by Prayer Book or Episcopal authority, 
 what was to be said or done ; and private judgment 
 either had no objection to make, or only on those 
 minor matters where there was a propriety in its 
 yielding to authority. And the Church declared 
 what her divines declared ; and her divines declared 
 what the Fathers declared ; and what the Fathers 
 declared was no matter of private judgment at all, 
 but a matter of fact, cognizable by all who chose to 
 read their writings. Their testimony was as decisive 
 and clear as Pope's Bull, or Definition of Council, 
 or catechisings or direction of any individual parish 
 
 * Page xi. 
 
150 
 
 priest. There was no room for two opinions on the 
 subject ; and, as Catholics consider that the truth is 
 brought home to the soul supernaturally, so that the 
 soul sees it and no longer reasons it out ; so in some 
 parallel way it was supposed that that truth, as con- 
 tained in the Fathers, was a natural fact, recognized 
 by the natural and ordinary intelligence of mankind, 
 as soon as it was directed towards it. 
 
 The idea then of the so-called Anglo -Catholic 
 divines was simply and absolutely submission to an 
 external authority ; to it they appealed, to it they 
 betook themselves; there they found a haven of 
 rest; thence they looked out upon the troubled 
 surge of human opinion, and upon the crazy vessels 
 which were laboring, without chart or compass, upon 
 it. Judge then of their dismay, when, according to 
 the Arabian tale, on their striking their anchors into 
 the supposed soil, lighting their fires on it, and fixing 
 in it the poles of their tents, suddenly their island 
 began to move, to heave, to splash, to frisk to and 
 fro, to dive, and at last to swim away, spouting out 
 inhospitable jets of water upon the credulous mari- 
 ners who had made it their home. And such, I 
 suppose, was the undeniable fact ; I mean, the time 
 at length came, when, first of all turning their minds 
 (some of them, at least) more carefully to the doc- 
 trinal controversies of the early Church, they saw 
 distinctly that in the reasonings of the Fathers, 
 elicited by means of them, and in the decisions of 
 
151 
 
 authority, in which they issued, were contained the 
 rudiments at least, the anticipations, the justification 
 of what they had been accustomed to consider the 
 corruptions of Eome. And if only one, or a few of 
 them, were visited with this conviction, still one was 
 sufficient, of course, to destroy that cardinal point 
 of their whole system, the objective perspicuity and 
 distinctness of the teaching of the Fathers. But 
 time went on, and there was no mistaking or denying 
 the misfortune which was impending over them. 
 They had reared a goodly house, but their founda- 
 tions were falling in. The soil and the masonry 
 both were bad. The Fathers would protect " Ro- 
 manists" as well as extinguish Dissenters. The 
 Anglican divines would misquote the Fathers, and 
 shrink from the very doctors to whom they appealed. 
 The Bishops of the seventeenth century were shy 
 of the Bishops of the fourth ; and the Bishops of 
 the nineteenth were shy of the Bishops of the se- 
 venteenth. The ecclesiastical courts upheld the 
 sixteenth century against the seventeenth, and, un- 
 conscious of the flagrant irregularities of Protestant 
 clergymen, chastised the mild misdemeanors of An- 
 glo-Catholic. Soon the living rulers of the Esta- 
 blishment began to move. There are those who, 
 reversing the Roman's maxim,* are wont to shrink 
 
 . * "Parceresubjectis, etdebellare superbos.'' It may be right 
 here to say, that the author never can forget the great kindness 
 which Dr. Bagot, at that time Bishop of Oxford, showed him on 
 
152 
 
 from the contumacious, and to. be valiant towards 
 the submissive ; and the authorities in question 
 gladly availed themselves of the power conferred on 
 them by the movement against the movement itself. 
 They fearlessly handselled their Apostolical weapons 
 upon the Apostolical party. One after another, in 
 long succession, they took up their song and their 
 parable against it. It was a solemn war-dance, 
 which they executed round victims, who by their 
 very principles were bound hand and foot, and could 
 only eye, with disgust and perplexity, this most un- 
 accountable movement, on the part of their " holy 
 Fathers, the representatives of the Apostles, and 
 the Angels of the Churches." It was the beginning 
 of the end. 
 
 My brethren, when it was discovered that the 
 Fathers looked coldly upon the National Church, 
 and that the instruments of the movement went be- 
 yond its divines, when Bishops spoke against them, 
 and Bishop's courts sentenced them, and Universities 
 degraded them, and the people rose against them, 
 from that day their "occupation was gone." Their 
 initial principle, their basis, external authority, was 
 cut from under them ; they had " set their fortunes 
 on a cast ;" they had lost ; henceforward they had 
 nothing left for them but to shut up their school, 
 
 several occasions. He also has to notice the courtesy of Dr. 
 Thirlwall's language, a prelate he has never had the honor of 
 knowing. 
 
153 
 
 and retire into the country. Nothing else was left 
 for them, unless indeed they took up some other 
 theory, unless they changed their ground, unless 
 they ceased to be what they were, and became what 
 they were not ; unless they belied their own prin- 
 ciples, and strangely forgot their own luminous 
 and most keen convictions ; unless they vindi- 
 dicated the right of private judgment, took up some 
 fancy religion, retailed the fathers, and jobbed 
 theology. They had but a choice of doing nothing 
 at all, and looking out for truth and peace elsewhere. 
 And now, at length, I am in a condition to answer 
 the question, which you have proposed for my con- 
 sideration. You ask me whether you cannot con- 
 tinue what you were. No, my brethren, it is im- 
 possible ; you cannot recall the past ; you cannot 
 surround yourselves with the circumstances which 
 have simply ceased to be. In the beginning of the 
 movement you disowned private judgment, but 
 now, if you would remain a party, you must, with 
 whatever inconsistency, profess it ; — then, you were 
 a party only externally, that is, not in your wishes 
 and feelings, but merely because you were seen to 
 differ from others in matter of fact, when the world 
 looked at you, whether you would or no ; but now 
 you will be a party knowingly and on principle, and 
 will be erected on a party basis. You cannot be what 
 you were. You will no longer be Anglo-Catholie, 
 but Patristico-Protestants. You will be obliged to 
 7* 
 
1&4 
 
 frame a religion for yourselves, and then to maintain 
 it is that very truth, pure and celestial, which the 
 Apostles promulgated. You will be induced of ne- 
 cessity to put together some speculation of your owd, 
 and then to fancy it of importance enough to din it 
 into the ears of your neighbors, to plague the world 
 with it, and, if you have success, to convulse your 
 own communion with the imperious inculcation of 
 doctrines which you can never engraft upon it. 
 
 For me, my dear brethren, did I know myself 
 well, I should doubtless find I was open to the temp- 
 tation, as well as others, to take a line of my own, 
 or, what is called, to set up for myself; but what- 
 ever might be my real infirmity in this matter, I 
 should, from mere common sense and common deli- 
 cacy, hide it from myself, and give it some good 
 name in order to make it palatable. I never could 
 get myself to say, "Listen to me, for I have some- 
 thing great to tell you, which no one else knows, but 
 of which there is no manner of doubt." I should 
 bo kept from such extravagance from an intense 
 sense of the intellectual absurdity, which, in my 
 feelings, such a claim would involve ; which would 
 ghame me as keenly, and humble me in my own sight 
 as utterly, as some moral impropriety or degradation. 
 I should feel I was simply making a fool of myself, 
 and taking on myself in figure that penance, of 
 which we read in the Lives of Saints, of playing 
 antics and making faces in the market place. Not 
 
185 
 
 religious principle, but even worldly pride, would 
 keep me from so unworthy an exhibition. I can 
 understand, my brethren, I can sympathise with 
 those old-world thinkers, whose commentators are 
 Mant and D'Oyly, whose theologian is Tomlin, 
 whose ritualist is Wheatly, and whose canonist is 
 Burns ; who are fond of their Jewels and their 
 Ghillingworths, whose works they have never opened, 
 and toast Cranmer and Ridley, and 'William of 
 Orange, as the founders of their religion. In these 
 times three hundred years is a respectable antiquity ; 
 and traditions, recognized in law courts, and built 
 into the structure of society, may without violence 
 be considered as immemorial. Those also I can 
 understand, who take their stand upon the Prayer 
 Book ; or who honestly profess to follow the con- 
 sensus of Anglican divines, as the voice of authority 
 and the standard of faith. Moreover, I can quite 
 enter into the sentiment, with which members of the 
 liberal and infidel school investigate the history and 
 the documents of the early Church. They profess 
 a view of Christianity, truer than the world has 
 ever had ; nor, on the assumption of their princi- 
 ples, is there anything shocking to good sense in this 
 profession. They look upon the Christian religion 
 as something simply human ; and there is no reason 
 at all, why a phenomenon of the kind should not be 
 better understood, in its origin and nature, as years 
 proceed. It is indeed an intolerable paradox to as- 
 
156 
 
 sert, that a revelation, given from God to man, 
 should lie unknown or mistaken for eighteen cen- 
 turies, and now at length should be suddenly decy- 
 phered by individuals ; but it is quite intelligible to 
 assert, and plausible to argue, that a human fact 
 should be more philosophically explained than it was 
 eighteen hundred years ago, and more exactly as-' 
 certained than it was a thousand. History is at 
 this day undergoing a process of revolution; the 
 science of criticism, the disinterment of antiquities, 
 the unrolling of manuscripts, the interpretation of 
 inscriptijns, have thrown us into a new world of 
 thought; characters and events come forth trans- 
 formed in the process ; romance, prejudice, local 
 tradition, party bias, are no longer accepted as gua- 
 rantees of truth ; the order and mutual relation of 
 events are re-adjusted ; the springs and the scope 
 of actions are reversed. Were Christianity a mere 
 work of man, it too might turn out something differ- 
 ent from what it has hitherto been considered ; its 
 history might require re-writing, as the history of 
 Borne, or of the earth's strata, or of languages, or 
 of chemical action. A Catholic neither deprecates 
 nor fears such inquiry, though he abhors the spirit 
 'in which it is conducted. He is willing that infi- 
 delity should do its work against the Church, know- 
 ing that she will be found just where she was, when 
 the assault is over. It is nothing to him, though her 
 enemies put themselves to the trouble of denying 
 
157 
 
 everything that has hitherto been taught, and begin 
 with constructing her history all oyer again, being 
 quite sure they will end at lergtH with a compulsory 
 admission of vrhat at first they so wantonly dis- 
 carded. But w&aj be would feel so prodigious is 
 this, — that such as "you, my brethren, should con- 
 sider Christianity given from heaven once for all, 
 should protest against private judgment, should pro- 
 fess to transmit what you,' have received, and yet, 
 from diligent study of the Fathers, from your tho- 
 
 rough knowledge of St. .Basil and St. Chrysostom, 
 from living, as you saw in the atmosphere of an- 
 tiquity, should come fojrth into open day with your 
 new edition of the Catpolic faith, different from that 
 held in any existing body of Christians, which not 
 half a dozen men all over the world would honor 
 with their imprimatur ; and then, withal, should 
 be as^jSositive in practice about its truth in every 
 part, as if the voice of mankind were with you in- 
 stead of against you. You are a body of yesterday ; 
 you are a drop in the ocean of professing Christians : 
 yet you would give the law to priest and prophet ; 
 and you fancy it a humble office forsooth, suited to 
 humble men, to testify the very truth of revelation 
 to a fallen generation, or rather to almost a bi-mil- 
 lenary, which has been in unintermittent traditionary 
 error. You have a mission to teach the National 
 Church, which is to teach the British empire, which 
 is to teach the world ; you are more learned than 
 
158 
 
 Greece-;- you are purer than Rome ; you know better 
 
 than St. Bernard ;, you judge how far St. Thomas 
 
 was right, and where tie is to be read with caution, 
 
 or held up to blame. You can bring to light juster 
 
 views of grace, or of penance, or of invocation of 
 
 saints, than St. Gregory or St. Augustine. 
 
 " qualia vincunt, 
 Fythagoren, Anytique reura, doetumque Platona." 
 
 This is what you can do ; yes, and when you have 
 done all, to what have you attained 'i to do just what 
 heretics have done before you, and have thereby in- 
 curred the anathema of Holy Church. Such was 
 Jansenius ; for of him we are told, " From the 
 commencement of his theological studies, when he 
 began to read, with the schoolmen, the holy Fathers, 
 and especially Augustine, he at once saw, as he con- 
 fessed, that most of the schoolmen w&nfcfer astray 
 from that holy Doctor's view, in that capitaKarticle 
 of grace and free will. He sometimes owned to his 
 friends, that he had read over more than ten times 
 the entire works of Augustine, with lively attention, 
 and diligent annotation, and his books against the 
 Pelagians at least thirty times from beginning to 
 end. He said that no mind, whether Aristotle or 
 Archimedes, or any other under the heavens, was 
 equal to Augustine. . . I have heard him say more 
 than once, that life would be most delightful to him, 
 though on some ocean-isle or rock, apart from all 
 human society, had he but his Augustine with him. 
 
159 
 
 In a word, after God and Holy Scripture, Augustine 
 was his all in all. However, for many years he had 
 to struggle with his old opinions, before he put them 
 all off, and arrived at the intimate sense of St. Au- 
 gustine. . . . For this work, he often said, he was 
 specially born ; and that, when he had finished it, 
 he should be most ready to die."* Such was an- 
 other nearer home, on whom Burnet bestows this 
 panegyric : — " Cranmer," says he, " was at great 
 pains to collect the sense of ancient writers upon all 
 the heads of religion, by which he might be directed 
 in such an important matter. I have seen two vol- 
 umes in folio, written with his own hand, containing, 
 upon all the heads of religion, a vast heap of places 
 of Scripture, and quotations out of ancient Fathers, 
 and later doctors and schoolmen, by which he go- 
 verned himself in that work." 
 
 And now, my brethren, will it not be so, as I have 
 said, of simple necessity, if you attempt at this time 
 to perpetuate in the National Church a form of 
 opinion which the National Church disowns ? You 
 do not follow its Bishops ; you disown its existing 
 traditions ; you are discontented with its divines ; you 
 protest against its law-courts ; you shrink from its 
 laity ; you outstrip its Prayer Book. You have in 
 all respects an eclectic or an original religion of your 
 own. You dare not stand or fall by Andrewes, or 
 
 * Synops. Vit.ap.Opp. 1643. 
 
160 
 
 by Laud, or by Hammond, or by Bull, or by Thorn- 
 dike, or by all of them together. There is a con- 
 sensus of divines, stronger than for Baptismal 
 Regeneration or the Apostolical succession, that 
 Rome is, strictly and literally, an anti- Christian 
 power ; — liberals and High Churchmen in your com- 
 munion in this agree with Evangelicals; you put it 
 aside. There is a consensus against Transubstan- 
 tiation, besides the declaration of the Article ; yet 
 many of you hold it notwithstanding. Nearly all 
 your divines, if not all, call themselves Protestants, 
 and you anathematize the name. Who makes the 
 concessions to Catholics which you do, yet remains 
 separate from them 7 Who, among Anglican au- 
 thorities, would speak of Penance as a sacrament, 
 as you do ? Who of them encourages, much less 
 insists upon, auricular confession, as you ? or makes 
 fasting an obligation ? or uses the crucifix and the 
 rosary ? or reserves the consecrated bread ? or be- 
 lieves in miracles as existing in your communion ? or 
 administers, as I believe you do, Extreme Unction ? 
 In some points you prefer Rome, in others Greece, 
 in others England, in others Scotland ; and of that 
 preference your own private judgment is the ultimate 
 sanction. 
 
 What am I to say in answer to conduct so pre- 
 posterous 1 Say you go by any authority whatever, 
 and I shall know where to find you, and I shall 
 respect you. Swear by any school of religion, 
 
161 
 
 old or modern, by Kongo's Church, or the Evan- 
 gelical Alliance, nay, by yourselves, and I shall 
 know what you mean, and will listen to you. 
 But do not come to me with the latest fashion of 
 opinion whioh the world has seen, and protest to me 
 that it is the oldest. Do not come to me at this 
 time of day with views palpably new, isolated, ori- 
 ginal, sui generis, warranted old neither by Christian 
 nor unbeliever, and challenge me to answer what I 
 really have not the patience to read. Life is not 
 long enough for such trifles. Go elsewhere, not to 
 me, if you wish to make a proselyte. Your incon- 
 sistency, my dear brethren, is on your very front. 
 Nor pretend that you are but executing the sa- 
 cred duty of defending your own communion. Your 
 Church does not thank you for a defence, which she 
 has no dream of appropriating. You innovate on 
 her professions of doctrine, and then you bid us love 
 her for your innovations. You cling to her for what 
 she denounces ; and you almost anathematize us for 
 taking a step which you would please her best by 
 taking also. You call it restless, impatient, undu- 
 tiful in us, to do what she would have us do ; and 
 you think it a loving and confiding course to believe, 
 not her, but you. She is to teach, and we to hear, 
 only according to your private researches into St. 
 Chrysostom and St. Augustine. " I began myself 
 with doubting and inquiring," you seem to say; " I 
 departed from the teaching I received ; I was edu- 
 
162 
 
 cated in some older type of Anglicanism ; in the 
 school of Newton, Cecil, and Scott, or in the Bart- 
 lett's Buildings School; or in the Liberal Whig 
 School. I was a Dissenter, or a Wesleyan, and by 
 study and thought I became an Anglo-CathoKc. 
 And then I read the Fathers, and I have determined 
 what works are genuine, and what are not ; which 
 of them apply to all times, which are occasional ; 
 which historical, and which doctrinal ; what opinions 
 are private, what authoritative ; what they only 
 seem to hold, what they ought to hold ; what are 
 fundamental, what ornamental. Having thus mea- 
 sured and cut and put together my creed by my own 
 proper intellect, by my own lucubrations, and differ- 
 ing from the whole world ia my results, I distinctly 
 bid you, I solemnly warn you, not to do as I have 
 done, but to take what I have found, to revere it, to 
 use it, to believe it, for it is the teaching of the old 
 Fathers, and of your Mother the Church of England. 
 Take my word for it, that this is the very truth of 
 Christ ; deny your own reason, for I know better 
 than you, and it is as clear as day that some moral 
 fault in you is the cause of your differing from me. 
 It is pride, or vanity, or self-reliance, or fulness of 
 bread. Tou require some medicine for your soul; 
 you must fast ; you must make a general confession ; 
 and look very sharp to yourself, for you are already 
 next door to a rationalist or an infidel." 
 
 Surely I have not exaggerated, my brethren, what 
 
163 
 
 you will be obliged to say, if you take the course 
 which you are projecting ; but the point immediately 
 before us is something short of this ; it is, whether 
 a party in the Establishment, formed on such prin- 
 ciples, (and as things are now it can be formed on no 
 other,) can in any sense be called a genuine con- 
 tinuation of the Apostolical party of twenty years 
 ago? The basis of that party was the professed 
 abnegation of private judgment ; your basis is the 
 professed exercise of it. If you are really children 
 of it as in 1833, you must have nothing to say to it 
 in 1850. 
 
LECTUKE VI. 
 
 THE PROVIDENTIAL DIRECTION OF THE MOVEMENT OP 
 1833 NOT TOWARDS A BRANCH CHURCH. 
 
 There are persons who may think that the line of 
 thought, which I pursued in my last two Lectures, 
 had somewhat of a secular and political cast, and 
 was deficient in that simplicity which becomes an 
 inquiry after religious truth. We are inquiring, you 
 may say, whether the National Church is in posses- 
 sion of the Sacraments, whether we can obtain the 
 grace of Christ, necessary for our salvation, at its 
 hands ? On this great question depends our leaving 
 its communion, or not ; but you answer us by simply 
 bidding us consider which course of action will look 
 best, what the world expects of us, how posterity 
 will judge of us, what termination is most logically 
 consistent with our commencement, what are to be 
 the historical fortunes in prospect, of a large body 
 of men, variously circumstanced, and subject to a 
 variety of influences from without and within. It 
 
165 
 
 is a personal, an individual question to each inquirer ; 
 but you would have me view it as a political game, 
 in which each side makes moves, and just now it is 
 our turn, and not as a matter of religious conviction, 
 duty, and responsibDity. 
 
 But thus to speak is mistaking the argument al- 
 together. First, I am not addressing those who 
 have no doubt whatever about the divine origin of 
 the Established Church. I am not attempting to 
 rouse, or, as some would call it, unsettle them. If 
 there be such, — for, to tell the truth, I almost doubt 
 their existence, — I pass them by. I am contem- 
 plating that not inconsiderable number, who are, in 
 a true sense, though in Various degrees, and but in 
 various modes, inquirers : who, on the one hand, 
 have no doubt at all of the great Apostolical prin- 
 ciples which are stamped upon the face of the early 
 Church, and were the life of the movement of 1833 ; 
 and who, on the other hand, are not without doubt 
 about those principles being the property and the 
 life of the National Church ; who have fears, grave 
 anxieties, or vague misgivings, as the case may be, 
 lest that communion be not a treasure-house and 
 fount of grace ; and then again, all at once are 
 afraid that, after all, perhaps it is, and that it is 
 their own fault that they are blind to the fact, and 
 that it is undutifulness in them to question it ; who, 
 after even their most violent doubts, have seasons of 
 relenting and compunction ; and who at length are 
 
166 
 
 So perplexed by reason of the clear light pouring in 
 on them from above, yet by the secret whisper the 
 While, that they ought to doubt their own percep- 
 tions, because (as they are told) they are impatient, 
 or self-willed, or excited, or dreaming, and have lost 
 the faculty of looking at things in a natural, straight* 
 forward way, that at length they do not know what 
 they hold and what they do not hold, or where they 
 stand, and are in conflict within, and almost in a 
 state of anarchy and recklessness. Now, to persons 
 in this cruel strife of thought, I offer the considera- 
 tion on which I have been dwelling, as a sort of 
 diversion to their harassed minds ; as an argument 
 of fact, external to themselves, and over which they 
 have no power, which is of a nature to arbitrate and 
 decide for them between their antagonist judgments. 
 You wish to know whether the Establishment is 
 what you began by assuming it to be, — the grace- 
 giving Church of God. If it be, you and your prin i 
 ciples will surely find your position there and your 
 home. When you proclaim it to be Apostolical, it 
 will smile on you ; when you kneel down and ask its 
 blessing, it will stretch its hands over you ; when 
 you would strike at heresy, it will arm you for the 
 fight ; when you wind your dangerous way with 
 steady tread between Sabellius, Nestorius, and 
 Eutyches, between Pelagius and Calvin, it will fol- 
 low you with anxious eyes and a beating heart; 
 when you proclaim its relationship to Rome and 
 
16? 
 
 Greece, it will in transport embrace you as its own 
 dear children ; you will sink happily into its arms, 
 you will repose upon its breast, you will recognize 
 your mother, and be at peace. If, however, on the 
 contrary, you find that the more those great princi- 
 ples, which you have imbibed from St. Athanasius 
 and St. Augustine, and which have become the life 
 and the form of your moral and intellectual being, 
 vegetate and expand within you, the more awkward 
 and unnatural you find your position there, and the 
 more difficult its explanation; if there is no lying, 
 or standing, or sitting, or kneeling, or stooping there, 
 in any possible attitude, but, ■ as if in the tyrant's 
 cage, when you would rest your head, your legs are 
 forced out between the Articles* and when you would 
 relieve your back, your head strikes against the 
 Prayer Book ; when, place yourselves as you will, 
 on the right side or the left, and try to keep as still 
 as you can, your flesh is ever being punctured and 
 probed by Episcopate, laity, and nine-tenths of the 
 Clergy ; is it not as plain as day that the Establish- 
 ment is not your place, since it is no place for your 
 principles 1 They are not there professed, they are 
 not there realized. That mystical sacramental sys- 
 tem, on which your thoughts live, which was once 
 in the world, as you know well, and therefore must 
 be always, is not the inheritance of Anglicanism, 
 but must have been left to others ; it must be sought 
 elsewhere. You have doubts on the point already ; 
 
168 
 
 Well, here is the confirmation of them. I have no 
 wish, then, to substitute an external and political 
 view for your personal serious inquiry. I am but 
 assisting you in that inquiry ; I am deciding existing 
 doubts, which belong to yourselves, by an external 
 fact, which is as admissible, surely, in such a matter, 
 as the allegation of miracles would be, or any other 
 evidence of the kind ; for the same God who works 
 in you individually, is Working in the public and 
 historical course of things also. 
 
 I think, then, that in my last Lectures I have 
 proved, not adequately, for it would take many words 
 to do justice to a proof so abundant in materials, 
 but as far as time allowed, and as was necessary for 
 those who would pursue the thought, that the move- 
 ment to which you and I belong, looks away from 
 the Establishment, that " Let us go hence," is its 
 motto. I cannot doubt you would agree with me in 
 this, did you not belong to it, did you disbelieve its 
 principles, were you merely disinterested, dispassion- 
 ate lookers-on: judge then as disbelieving, act as 
 believing them. If the movement be a providential 
 work, it has a providential scope ; if that scope be 
 not a coalition with, or a party in, the Establishment, 
 as I have been proving, what is it? Is it towards 
 Greece, or is it towards America, or is it towards 
 Scotland, or is it towards Rome ? This is the sub- 
 ject which has next to be considered, and to which, 
 in part, I shall address myself to-day. 
 
169 
 
 But, first, there is a point to be cleared up. 
 Either the movement is not from God, or the Es- 
 tablishment is not : we must abjure our principles, 
 or abandon our communion. If we abandon our 
 communion, we do so as denying that it is from God ; 
 if we continue in it, we do so as not denying it. We 
 leave the Establishment as a something human 
 which has been imposed upon us as something di- 
 vine. We leave the Establishment in order to gain 
 elsewhere that grace and that salvation which we 
 cannot find there. This being considered, it is a 
 confusion of thought to reason and to determine on 
 the subject, as many men have done before now. 
 Some years ago, when certain members of the Es- 
 tablishment were contemplating a submission to the 
 Holy See, the Anglican prints suggested to them, 
 that in that ease their becoming course was, to quit 
 the country for ever, and not to embarrass their 
 friends with their presence. It was supposed to be 
 their duty to be content with saving their own souls, 
 and then to get out of the way, and not to contem- 
 plate the souls of others, however dear to them ; 
 and, as if they still acknowledged the Establishment, 
 which they were leaving, to be the Catholic Church, 
 to retire to some region where, without offending 
 others, their taste could be gratified by a Christianity, 
 not truer, indeed, nor safer, but more to their mind. 
 But, my dear brethren, such a view arises from a 
 
 simple insensibility to a truth, as obvious as it is 
 
 8 
 
170 
 
 solemn, that the choice of a religion is a question of 
 salvation. It is not a question of mere historical 
 fact, as whether St. Joseph came to Glastonbury, or 
 Paul IV. was severe with Elizabeth ; or of archi- 
 tecture, as whether the arch should be round or 
 pointed, and altars of stone or of wood ; or of an- 
 tiquities, as whether primitive baptism was by im- 
 mersion ; or of taste, as whether the sign of the cross 
 should be made from left to right, or from right to 
 left, or prayers should be said fast or slow : but it is 
 a question of Church or no Church, of sacraments 
 or not, of life or death, of duty or sin. The very 
 fact of leaving the Establishment is a denial that 
 there is anything to leave ; it is an ignoring of its 
 presence. What, then, has leaving the Establish- 
 ment to do with leaving the country ? How can I 
 recognize what I ignore ? How can I defer to what 
 I denounce 1 How can that exist on my leaving it, 
 which, when I purposed leaving it, existed not? 
 How can its extinction be its revival ? Again, how 
 can I think it cast out from God's countenance, yet 
 a fit nurse of His children ? How can I think it a 
 fraud, yet a pious one ? How can I leave it myself, 
 without wishing all others to do as I ? How can I 
 retire abroad, when I might do work at home ? How 
 can I live in peace, when I might be a soldier of 
 Christ? Persons wonder that converts should be 
 what they call bitter against the Establishment, and 
 think it a credit to them to treat it with considera- 
 
171 
 
 tion. Certainly it is ■wrong to be bitier, but it is 
 wrong also to call evil good, and to countenance 
 error. If the Establishment be true, remain in it ; 
 if it be false, confront it. Do not give place to it ; 
 do not leave it in possession of its usurped territory ; 
 do not imply by your conduct that, in fact, the 
 Catholic Church cannot be in England : the Catholic 
 Church is everywhere, and as soon as you come to 
 see that the Establishment is not the Catholic Church 
 in England, that moment you are sure that some 
 other body is. 
 
 Therefore, my brethren, if so it is that you have 
 followed me in my last Lectures in the conclusion to 
 which I came, that the principles of 1833 have no 
 home in the National Church, I relieve you from all 
 fears of expatriation as its consequence. Your first 
 step is secession, your second need not be exile ; you 
 will have to make sacrifices enough, but this is not 
 one of them. Such a notion is the reasoning of the 
 inconsistent, or the judgment of the unreal. You 
 need not settle in Rome, or in Paris, or in Siberia, " 
 or in Greece, or iu Scotland, or in the United States 
 of America. You may remain where you are ; as 
 far as schism goes, you are at liberty to introduce, 
 you are free to join, any priesthood you will. You 
 may remain at home, and be a Jansenist, or a Rus- 
 sian, or a Greek, or an Arminian, or a Chaldee, or a 
 Copt, or what you call a Roman Catholic. It is a 
 question of doctrine and of sacramental grace which 
 
172 
 
 you have to decide, and nothing else. You cannot 
 affront the Establishment more emphatically than by 
 your act of abjuring it; you have done your all; 
 you have pronounced it dead, — bury it. 
 
 But now, before you go on to select, out of all the 
 rival claimants upon your notice, the particular suc- 
 cession and priesthood which you are to introduce 
 into England, I am going to offer you a suggestion 
 which, if it approves itself to you, will do away with 
 the opportunity, or the possibility, of choice alto- 
 gether. It will reduce the claimants to one. Be- 
 fore considering, then, whither you shall betake your- 
 selves, and what you shall be, bear with me while I 
 give you one piece of advice ; it is this : — Have 
 nothing to do with a " Branch Church." You have 
 had enough experience of branch churches already, 
 and you know very well what they are. Depend 
 upon it, such as is one, such is another. They may 
 differ in accidents certainly ; but, after all, a branch 
 is a branch, and no branch is a tree. Depend on it, 
 my brethren, it is not worth while leaving one branch 
 for another. While you are doing so great a work, 
 do it thoroughly ; do it once for all ; change for the 
 better. Rather than go to another branch, remain 
 where you are ; do not put yourselves to trouble for 
 nothing ; do not sacrifice this world, without gaining 
 the next. Now let us consider this point attentively. 
 
 By a Branch Church is meant, I suppose, if we 
 interpret the metaphor, a church separate from ita 
 
173 
 
 stem; and if we ask what is meant by the stem, I 
 suppose it means the " Universal Church," as you 
 are accustomed to call it The Catholic Church 
 indeed is one kingdom or society, divisible into parts, 
 each of which is in intercommunion with each other 
 and Tgith the whole, as the members of a human 
 body. This Catholic Church, I suppose you would 
 say, has ceased to exist, or at least is in deliquium, 
 for you will not. give the name to us, nor do you take 
 it yourselves, and scarcely ever use the phrase at all, 
 except in the Creed ; but the " Universal Church" 
 is the name you give to the whole body of professing 
 Christians all over the world, whatever their faith, 
 origin, and traditions, provided they lay claim to an 
 Apostolical succession ; which whole is divisible into 
 portions or branches, each of them independent of 
 the whole, discordant one with another in doctrine 
 and ritual, destitute of mutual intercommunion, and 
 more frequently in actual warfare, portion with por- 
 tion, than in a state of neutrality. Such is pretty 
 nearly what you mean by a Branch, allowing for 
 differences of opinion on the subject; such, for in- 
 stance, is the Russian Branch, which denounces the 
 Pope as a usurper ; such the Papal, which anathe- 
 matizes the Protestantism of the Anglican ; such the 
 Anglican, which reprobates the devotions and scorns 
 the rites of the Russian; such the Scotch, which 
 has changed the Eucharistic service of the Anglican; 
 such the American, which has put aside its Athana- 
 -sian Creed. 
 
174 
 
 Such, I say, is a Branch Church, and it is vir- 
 tually synonymous with a National; for though it 
 may be in fact but one out of many communions in 
 a nation, it is intended, by its very mission, as 
 preacher and evangelist, to spread through the na- 
 tion ; nor has it done its duty till it has so spread, 
 for it must be supposed to have the promise of suc- 
 cess as well as the mission. On the other hand, it 
 cannot flow out beyond the nation, for the very prin- 
 ciple of demarcation between Branch and Branch is 
 the distinction of Nation or State; to the Nation 
 then or State is it limited, and beyond the nation's 
 boundaries it cannot properly pass. Thus it is the 
 normal condition of a Branch Church to be a Na- 
 tional Church ; it tends to nationality as its perfect 
 idea ; till it is national it is defective, and when it is 
 national it is all it' can be, or was meant to be. 
 Since then to understand what any being is, we must 
 contemplate it, not in its rudiments or commence- 
 ments, any more than in its decline, but in its ma- 
 turity and its perfection, it follows that, if we would 
 know what a Branch Church is, we must view it as 
 a National Church, and we shall form but an erro- 
 neous estimate of its nature and its characteristics, 
 unless we investigate its national form. 
 
 Recollect then that a Branch Church is a National 
 Church, and the reason why I warn you against 
 getting your orders from such a Church, or joining 
 such a Church, is this : that a National Church ever 
 will be and must be what you have found the Esta- 
 
175 
 
 blishment to be, — an Erastian body. You are going 
 to starlf afresh. Well, then, I assert, that if you do 
 not get beyond the idea of Nationalism in this your 
 new beginning, you spring from Brastianism, and to 
 Erastianism you tend. That heresy, which is the 
 fruitful mother of all heresies, is your first and your 
 last ; the source of your orders and the fruit of your 
 aggrandizement; that heresy, I say, which is the 
 very badge of Anglicanism, and the very detestation 
 of that theological movement from which you spring. 
 
 I assert, then, that a Branch or National Church 
 is necessarily Erastian, and cannot be otherwise, till 
 the nature of man is other than it is ; and I shall 
 show this from the state of the case, and from the 
 course of history, and from the confession, or rather 
 avowal, of its defenders. The English Establish- 
 ment is nothing extraordinary in this respect ; the 
 Russian Church is Erastian, so is the Greek ; such 
 was the Nestorian ; such would be the Scotch Epis- 
 copal or the Anglo-American, if ever they became 
 commensurate with the nation. 
 
 You hold, and rightly hold, that the Church is a 
 sovereign and self-sustaining power, in the same 
 sense in which any temporal state is such. She is 
 sufficient for herself; she is absolutely independent 
 in her own sphere ; she has irresponsible control 
 over her subjects in religious matters; she makes 
 laws for them of her own authority, and enforces obe- 
 dience on them as the tenure of their membership in 
 
176 
 
 her communion. And you know, in the next place, 
 that the very people, who are her subjects^ and in 
 another relation the State's subjects, and that those 
 very matters which in one aspect are spiritual, in 
 another are secular. The very same persons and 
 the very same things belong to two supreme juris- 
 dictions at once, so that the Church cannot issue any 
 order but it affects the persons and the things of the 
 State ; nor can the State issue any order, without its 
 affecting the persons and the things of the Church. 
 Moreover, though there is a general coincidence be- 
 tween the principles on which civil and ecclesiastical 
 welfare respectively depend, as proceeding from one 
 and the same God, who has given power to the 
 Magistrate as well as to the Priest, yet there is no 
 necessary coincidence in their particular application 
 and resulting details, just as the good of the soul is 
 not always the good of the body ; and much more is 
 this the case, considering there is no divine direction 
 promised to the State, to preserve it from human 
 passion and human selfishness. Under these circum- 
 stances it is morally impossible that there should not 
 be continual collision, or chance of collision, between 
 the State and the Church; and, considering the 
 State has the power of the sword, and the Church 
 has no arms but such as are spiritual, the problem to 
 be considered by us is, how the Church may be able 
 to do her divinely appointed work without molesta- 
 tion or seduction from the State. 
 
177 
 
 And a difficulty surely it is, and a difficulty which 
 Christianity for the most part brought into the world. 
 It can scarcely be said to have existed before ; for, 
 if not altogether in Judaism, yet certainly in the 
 heathen polities, the care of public worship, and 
 morals, and education, was mainly committed, as 
 well as secular matters, to the civil magistrate. 
 There was no independent jurisdiction in religion ; 
 but, when our Lord came, it was with the express 
 object of introducing a new kingdom, distinct and 
 different from the kingdoms of the world, and He 
 was sought after by Herod, and condemned by Pi- 
 late, on the very apprehension that His claims to 
 royalty were inconsistent with their prerogatives. 
 Such was the Church when first introduced into the 
 world, and her subsequent history has been after the 
 pattern of her commencement ; the State has ever 
 been jealous of her, and persecuted her from without, 
 and has bribed her from within. 
 
 I repeat, the great principles of the State are 
 those of the Church, and, if the State would but 
 keep within its own province, it would find the 
 Church its truest ally and best benefactor. She 
 upholds obedience to the magistrate ; she recognizes 
 his office as from Cod ; she is the preacher of peace, 
 the sanction of law, the first element of order, and 
 the safeguard of morality, and that without possible 
 vacillation or failure ; she may be fully trusted ; she 
 is a sure friend, for she is indefectible and undying. 
 8* 
 
178 
 
 But it is not enough for the State that things should 
 be done, unless it has the doing of them ; it abhors 
 a double jurisdiction, and what it calls a divided 
 allegiance ; cmt Ccesar aut nuMus, is its motto', nor 
 does it willingly accept of any compromise. All 
 power is founded, as it is often said, on public opi- 
 nion ; to allow the existence of a collateral and rival 
 authority, is to weaken its own; and though that 
 authority never showed its presence by collision, 
 but ever concurred and co-operated in the acts of 
 the State, yet the divinity with which the State 
 would fain hedge itself, would, in the minds of men, 
 be concentrated on that Ordinance of God which haa 
 the higher claim to it. 
 
 Such being the difficulty which ever has attended, 
 and ever will attend, the claims and the position of 
 the Catholic Church in this proud and ambitious 
 World, let us see how, as a matter of history, Pro- 
 vidence has practically solved or alleviated it. He 
 has done so by means of the very circumstance that 
 the Church is Catholic, that she is one organized 
 body, expanded over the whole earth, and in active 
 intercommunion part with part, so that no one part 
 acts without acting on and with every other. A 
 large community necessarily moves slowly ; and this 
 will particularly be the case when it is subject to 
 distinct temporal rulers, exposed to various political 
 interests and prepossessions, and embarrassed by 
 euch impediments to communication, physical or 
 
179 
 
 moral, mountains and seas, languages and laws > as 
 national distinctions involve. Added to this, the 
 Church is composed of a vast number of ranks and 
 offices, so that there is scarcely any of her acts that 
 belongs to one individual will, or is elaborated by one 
 intellect, or that is not rather the joint result of many 
 co-operating agents, each in his own place and at his 
 appointed moment. Moreover, so fertile an idea as 
 the Christian faith, so happy a mother as the Catho- 
 lic Church, is necessarily developed and multiplied 
 into a thousand various powers and functions ; she 
 has her Clergy and laity, her seculars and regulars, 
 her Episcopate and Prelacy, her diversified orders, 
 congregations, confraternities, communities, each in- 
 deed intimately one with the whole, yet with its own 
 characteristics, its own work, its own traditions, its 
 graceful rivalry, or its disgraceful jealousies, and 
 sensitive, on its own ground and its own sphere, of 
 whatever takes place any where else. And then 
 again, there is the ever-varying action of the ten 
 thousand influences, political, national, local, muni- 
 cipal, rural, scholastic, all bearing upon her; the 
 clashing of temporal interests, the apprehension of 
 danger to the whole or its parts, the necessity of 
 conciliation, and the duty of temporizing. Further, 
 she has no material weapons of attack or defenoe, 
 and is at any moment susceptible of apparent defeat 
 from local suffering or personal misadventure. More- 
 over, her oentre is one, and, from this very oirouia- 
 
180 
 
 etanoe, sheltered from secular inquisitfoteness ; shel- 
 tered, moreover, in consequence of the antiquated 
 character of its traditions, the peculiarity of its 
 modes of acting, the tranquillity and deliberateness 
 of its operations, as well as the mysteriousness thrown 
 about it both from its picturesque and imposing 
 ceremonial, and the popular opinion of its sanctity. 
 And further still, she has the sacred obligation on 
 her of long-suffering, patience, charity, of regard for 
 the souls of her children, and of an anxious antici- 
 pation of the consequences of her measures. Hence, 
 though her course is consistent, determinate, and 
 simple, when viewed in history, yet to those who 
 accompany the stages of its evolution from day to 
 day as they occur, it is confused and disappointing. 
 How different is the bearing of the temporal 
 power ! Its promptitude, decisiveness, keenness, 
 and force are well represented in the military array 
 which is its instrument. Punctual 'n its movements i 
 precise in its operations, imposing in its equipments, 
 with its spirits high, and its step firm, with its 
 haughty clarion and its black artillery, behold, the 
 mighty world is gone forth to war, with what ? with 
 an unknown something, which it feels but cannot 
 see; which flits around it, which flaps against its 
 cheek, with the air, with the wind. It charges, and 
 it slashes, and it fires its volleys, and it bayonets, and 
 it is mocked by a foe who dwells in another sphere, 
 and is far beyond the force of its analysis or the 
 
181 
 
 capacities of its calculus. The air gives way, and it 
 returns again ; it exerts a gentle but constant pres- 
 sure on every side ; moreover, it is of vital necessity 
 to the very power which is attacking it. Whom 
 have you gone out against ? a few old men, with red 
 hats and stockings, or a hundred pale students, with 
 eyes on the ground and beads in their girdle ; they 
 are as stubble ; destroy them ; — then there will be 
 other old men and other pale students instead of 
 them. But we will direct our rage against one : he 
 flees ; what is to be done with him ? Cast him out 
 upon the wide world? But nothing can go on 
 without him. Then bring him back : but he will 
 give us no guarantee for the future. Then leave 
 him alone ; his power is gone, he is at an end, or he 
 will take a new course of himself; he will take part 
 with the world. Meanwhile, the multitude of influ- 
 ences all over the great Catholic body; rise up all 
 around, and hide heaven and earth from the eyes of 
 the spectators of the combat ; and unreal judgments 
 are hazarded, and rash predictions, till the mist 
 clears away, and then the old man is found in hie 
 own place, as before, saying Mass over the tomb of 
 the Apostles. Resentment and animosity succeed 
 in the minds of the many, when they find their 
 worldly wisdom quite at fault. But, in truth, it is 
 her very vastness, her manifold constituents, her 
 complicated structure, which give the Church this 
 semblance, whenever she wears it, of feebleness, 
 
182 
 
 vacillation, subtleness, or dissimulation. She ad- 
 vances, retires, goes to and fro, passes to the right 
 or left, bides her time, by a spontaneous, not a de- 
 liberate, action. It is the divinely-intended method 
 of her coping with the world's power. Even in the 
 brute creation, each animal which God has made 
 has its own instincts for securing its subsistence, and 
 guarding against its foes; and when He sent out 
 His own into the world, as sheep among wolves, 
 over and above the gifts of harmlessness and wis- 
 dom, He lodged the security of His truth in the 
 very fact of its Catholicity. The Church triumphs 
 over the world's jurisdiction everywhere, because, 
 though everywhere, she is, for that very reason, in 
 the fulness of her jurisdiction, no where. Ten 
 thousand subordinate authorities have been planted 
 round, or have issued from, that venerable chair 
 where sits the plenitude of Apostolical power. 
 Hence, when she would act, the blow is broken, and 
 concussion avoided, by the innumerable springs, if I 
 may use the word, on which the celestial machinery 
 is hung. By an inevitable law of the system, and 
 by the nature of the case, there are inquiries, and 
 remonstrances, and threatenings, and first decisions, 
 and appeals, and reversals, and conferences, and long 
 delays, and arbitrations, before the final steps are 
 taken, if they cannot be avoided, and before the 
 proper authority of the Church shows itself, whether 
 in definition, or bull, or anathema, or interdict, or 
 
183 
 
 Other spiritual instrument; and then if, after all, 
 persuasion has failed, and compromise with the civil 
 power is impossible, the world is prepared for the 
 event; and even in that case the Holy See is spared 
 any direct collision with it, for it is no subject in 
 matters temporal of the State with which it is at 
 variance, whatever it be, being temporal Sovereign 
 in its own home, and treating with the States of the 
 earth only through its representatives and ministers. 
 The remarks I have been making are well illus- 
 trated by the history of our own great St. Thomas, 
 in his contest with King Henry II. Deserted by 
 his suffragans, and threatened with assassination, be 
 is forced to escape, as he can, to the Continent. 
 He puts his cause before the Pope, but with no im- 
 mediate result, for the Pope is in contest with the 
 Emperor, who has taken part with a pretender to 
 the Apostolic see. For two years nothing is done ; 
 then the Pope begins to move, but mediates between 
 Archbishop and King, instead of taking the part of 
 the former. The King of France comes forward on 
 the Saint's side, and his friends attempt to gain the 
 Empress Matilda also. Strengthened by these de- 
 monstrations, St. Thomas excommunicates some of 
 the King's party, and threatens the King himself, 
 not to say his realm, with an interdict. Then there 
 are appeals to Eome on the part of the King's 
 Bishops, alarmed at the prospect of such extremities, 
 while the Pope gives a more distinct countenance to 
 
184 
 
 the Saint's cause. Suddenly, the face of things is 
 overcast ; the Pope has anathematized the Emperor, 
 and has his hands full of his own matters ; Henry's 
 agents at Rome obtain a Lega'tine Commission, 
 under the Presidency of a Cardinal favorable to his 
 cause. 
 
 The quarrel lingers on; two years more have 
 passed, and then the Commission fails. Then St. 
 Thomas rouses himself again, and is proceeding 
 with the interdict, when news comes that the King 
 has overreached the Pope, and the Archbishop's 
 powers are altogether suspended for a set time. 
 The artifice is detected by the good offices of the 
 French Bishops, the Pope sends comminatory letters 
 to the King, but then again does not carry them out. 
 There is a reconciliation between the Kings of Eng- 
 land and France, at the expense of St. Thomas ; 
 but, by this time, the suspension is over, and the 
 Saint excommunicates the Bishop of London. In 
 consequence, he receives a rebuke from the Pope, 
 who, after absolving the Bishop, takes the matter 
 into his own hands, himself excommunicates the 
 Bishop, and himself threatens the kingdom with an 
 interdict. Then St. Thomas returns, and is mar- 
 tyred, winning the day by suffering, not by striking. 
 
 Seven years are consumed in these transactions 
 from first to last, and they afford a sufficient illus- 
 tration of the subject before us. If I add the re- 
 marks made on. them by the editor of the Saint's 
 
185 
 
 letters, in Mr. Froude's " Remains," it is for the 
 sake of his general statement, which is as just as it 
 is apposite to my purpose, but not as if I approved 
 of the tone and drift of it. . Speaking of St. Tho- 
 mas, he says, " His notions, both as regarded the 
 justice and the policy to be pursued in the treatment 
 of Henry, had suggested this course [the interdict] 
 to him from the first opening of the contest ; and he 
 seems always to have had such a measure before 
 him, only the interruptions occasioned by embassies 
 from Rome, and appeals to Rome, and other tem- 
 porary suspensions of his ecclesiastical powers, had 
 prevented him from putting his purpose into effect ; 
 these having, in fact, taken up almost the whole of 
 the time. For an embassy, it must be observed, 
 from the first day of its appointment, suspended the 
 Archbishop's movements, who could do nothing 
 while special and higher judges were in office. . . . 
 In this way, there being so much time, both before 
 and after the actual holding of the conferences, 
 during which the Archbishop's hands were tied, he 
 may be said to have been almost under one sentence 
 of suspension from the first, only rendered more 
 harassing and vexatious from the promise afforded by 
 his short intervals of liberty, and the alterations, in 
 consequence, of expectation and disappointment. 
 It was a state of confinement, which was always 
 approaching its termination, and never realizing it. 
 With a clear line of action before him from the first, 
 
186 
 
 and with resolution and ability to carry it out, the 
 Archbishop was compelled to keep pace, step by 
 step, with a court that was absolutely deficient in 
 both these respects; and found himself reduced 
 throughout to a situation of simple passiveness and 
 endurance."* Of course; — a Branch Church, with 
 the Catholic dogma and with Saints in it, cannot 
 be ; but, supposing the English Church had been 
 such at the time of that contest, it would, humanly 
 speaking, have inevitably been shattered to pieces, 
 or else its Saints got rid of, its Erastianizing Bishops 
 made its masters, and ultimately its dogma corrupted, 
 and the times of Henry VIII. anticipated; — this 
 would have been, but for its intercommunion with 
 the rest of Christendom and the supremacy of Kome. 
 This, however, is what has been going on, in one 
 way or another, for the whole eighteen centuries of 
 Christian history. For even in the ante-Nicene 
 period, the heretic patriarch of Antioch was pro- 
 tected by the local sovereignty against the Catholics, 
 and was dispossessed by the. authority and influence 
 of Rome. And since that time, again and again 
 would the civil power, humanly speaking, have taken 
 captive and corrupted each portion of Christendom 
 in turn, but for its union with the rest, and the noble 
 championship of the Holy See. Our ears ring with 
 the oft-told tale, how the temporal sovereign perse- 
 
 * Froude's Remains, vol. iv. p. H9. 
 
187 
 
 cuted, or attempted, or gained the local Episcopate, 
 and how the many or the few faithful fell back on 
 Rome. So was it with the Arians in the East, and 
 St. Athanasius ; so with the Byzantine Empress 
 and St Chrysostom ; so with the Vandal Hunnerio 
 and the Africans ; so with the 130 Monophysite 
 Bishops at' Ephesus and St. Flavian ; so was it in 
 the instance of the 500 Bishops, who, by the influ- 
 ence of Basilicus, signed a declaration against the 
 tome of St. Leo ; so in the instance of the Henoticon 
 of Zeno ; and in the controversies both of the Mo- 
 nothelites and of the Iconoclasts. Nay, in some of 
 those few instances which are brought in controversy, 
 as derogatory to the constancy of the Boman See, 
 the vacillation, whatever it was, was owing to what, 
 as I have shown, is ordinarily avoided, — the imme- 
 diate and direct pressure of the temporal power. 
 As, among a hundred Martyr and Confessor Popes, 
 St. Peter and St. Marcellinus, for an hour or a day 
 denied their Lord, so, if Liberius and Vigilius gave 
 a momentary scandal to the cause of orthodoxy, it 
 was when they were no longer in their proper place, 
 as the keystone of a great system, and as the cor- 
 relative of a thousand ministering authorities, but 
 mere individuals, torn from their see, and prostrated 
 before Cassar. 
 
 In later and modern times we see the same truth 
 irresistibly brought out ; not only, for instance, in 
 St. Thomas's history, but in St. Anselm's, nay, in 
 
188 
 
 the whole course of English ecclesiastical affairs, 
 from the Conquest to the sixteenth century, and, not 
 with least significaucy, in the primacy of Oranmer. 
 Moreover, we see it in the tendency of the Galli- 
 canism of Louis XIV., and the Josephism of Aus- 
 tria. Such, too, is the lesson taught us in the recent 
 policy of the Czar towards the United Greeks, and 
 in the present bearing of the English Government 
 towards the Church of Ireland. In all these in- 
 stances, it is a struggle between the Holy See and 
 some local, perhaps distant, Government, the liberty 
 and orthodoxy of its faithful people being the matter 
 in dispute ; and while the temporal power is on the 
 spot, and eager, and cogent, and persuasive, and 
 dangerous, the strength of the assailed party lies in 
 its fidelity to the rest of Christendom and to the 
 Holy See. 
 
 "Well, this is intelligible ; we see why it should be 
 so, and we see it in historical fact ; but how is it 
 possible, and where are the instances in proof, that 
 a Church can cast off Catholic intercommunion 
 without falling under the power of the State ? Could 
 an isolated Church do now, what, humanly speaking, 
 it could not have done in the twelfth century, 
 though a Saint was its champion ? Do you hope to 
 do, my brethren, what was beyond St. Thomas of 
 Canterbury? Truly is it then called a Branch 
 Church ; for, as a branch cannot live of itself, in 
 consequence, when lopped off the Body of Christ, it 
 
189 
 
 is straightway grafted upon the civil constitution, if 
 it is to preserve life of any kind. Indeed, who 
 could ever entertain such a dream, as that a circum- 
 scribed religious society, without the awfulness of a 
 divine origin, the sacredness of immemorial custom, 
 or the prestige of many previous successes, while 
 standing on its own ground, and simply subject in 
 its constituent members to the civil power, should be 
 able to assert ecclesiastical claims, which are to im- 
 pede the free action of that same sovereign power, 
 and to insult its majesty? — a native hierarchy, 
 growing out of its very soil, challenging it, standing 
 breast to breast against it, breathing defiance into its 
 very face, striking at it full and straight, — why, as 
 men are constituted, such a nuisance, as they would 
 call it, would be intolerable. The rigid, unelastio, 
 wooden contrivance would be shivered into bits by 
 the very recoil and jar of the first blow it was rash 
 enough to venture. But matters would not go so 
 far; the blandishments, the alliances, the bribes, 
 the strong arm of the world, would bring it to its 
 senses, and humble it in its own sight, ere it had 
 opportunity to be so valiant. The world would sim- 
 ply overmaster the presumptuous claimant to divine 
 authority, and would use for its own purposes the 
 slave whom it had dishonored. It would set her to 
 sweep its courts, or keep the line of its triumphant 
 march, who had thought to reign among the stars of 
 heaven. 
 
190 
 
 fror, it is evident, a National Church can be of the 
 highest service to the State, if properly under con- 
 trol. The State wishes to make its subjects peaceful 
 and obedient ; and there is nothing more fitted to 
 effect this object than religion. It wishes them to 
 have some teaching about the next world, but not 
 too much ; just as much as is important and bene- 
 ficial to the interests of the present. Decency, 
 order, industry, patience, sobriety* and as much of 
 purity as can be expected from human nature, — 
 this is its list of requisites ; not dogma, for it creates 
 the odium theologicum ; not mystery, for it only 
 serves to exalt the priesthood. Useful, sensible 
 preaching, activity in benevolent schemes, the care 
 of schools, the superintendence of charities, good 
 advice for the thoughtless and idle, and spiritual 
 consolation for the dying, — these are the duties of a 
 National or Branch Church. The parochial clergy 
 are to be a moral poliee ; as to the Bishops, they 
 are to be officers of a State-religion, not shepherds 
 of a people ; not mixing in the crowd, but coming 
 forward on solemn occasions to crown, or to marry 
 or baptize royalty, or to read prayers to the nobles 
 of the realm, or to consecrate churches, or to ordain 
 and confirm, or to preach for charities, and but little 
 seen in public in any other way. Synods are un- 
 necessary and dangerous, for they convey the im- 
 pression that the Establishment is a distinct body, 
 
191 
 
 and has rights of its own. So is discipline, or any 
 practical separation of Churchmen and Dissenters ; 
 for nationality is the real bond, andChurchmansbip 
 but the accident of an Englishman. Churches and 
 churchyards are national property, and open to all, 
 whatever their denomination, for marriage and for 
 burial, when they will. Nor must the Establishment 
 be in the eye of the law a corporation, even though 
 its separate incumbents and chapters be such, lest 
 it be looked upon as politically more than a name, 
 or a function of State. 3 
 
 Now, in order to show that this is no exaggera- 
 tion, I will, in conclusion, refer in evidence to the 
 celebrated work of a celebrated man, in defence of 
 the Establishment ; a work, -too, which disowns 
 Erastianism, and, in a certain sense, is written against 
 it, and which, moreover, is in*point of doctrine, be- 
 hind what would be maintained or taken for granted 
 now. For all these reasons, I could not take^a work, 
 in illustration of what I have said, fairer to the 
 National Church, than " The Alliance of Church and 
 State," of Bishop Warburton. A few extracts will 
 be sufficient for my purpose. 
 
 In this treatise he tells us, that the object of the 
 State is, not the propagation of the truth, but the 
 well-being of society. " The true end," he says, 
 " for which religion is established" by the State, 
 " is not to provide for the true faith, but for civil 
 
192 - 
 
 utility."* This is "the key," he observes, "to 
 open the whole mystery of this controversy, and to 
 lead" a man " safe through all the intricacies, wind- 
 ings, and perplexities in which it has been involved." 
 Next, religion is to be used in order to benefit that 
 which, it seems, does not in any true sense provide 
 for religion. " This use of religion to the State," 
 he says, " was seen by the learned, and felt by all 
 men of every age and nation. The ancient world 
 particularly was so firmly convinced of this truth, 
 that the greatest secret of the sublime art of legis- 
 lation consisted in this — how best religion might be 
 applied to serve society." - ) - 
 
 Well, so far we might tolerate him ; such state- 
 ments, if not true, are not absolutely unheard of or 
 paradoxical ; but next he makes a startling step in 
 advance. "Public utility. and truth coincide, "J he 
 says; nay, further still, he distinctly calls public 
 utility, " a sure rule and measure of truth ;"§ so 
 that, he continues, by means of it, the State " will 
 be much better enabled to find out truth than any 
 speculative inquirer, with all the aid of the philoso- 
 phy of the schools. "|| "From whence it appears," 
 
 * Bp. Warburton's " Alliance of Church and State," p. H8, 
 ed. 1741. 
 t Ibid, p. 18. 
 t Ibid, p. 147. 
 4 Ibid, p. 135. 
 II Ibid. 
 
193 
 
 he continues, " that while a State, in union with the 
 Church, hath so great an interest and concern wi h 
 true religion, and so great a capacity for discovering 
 what is true, religion is likely to thrive much better 
 than when left to itself." The State then, it would 
 appear, out of compassion to religion, takes it out 
 of the schools, and adapts it to its own purposes to 
 keep it pure and make it perfect. 
 
 He does not scruple to bring out this very senti- 
 ment in the most explicit statement, that there may 
 be no mistake about his meaning. He considers 
 conformity to objects of State the simple test of 
 truth, purity, exaggeration, excess, perversity, or 
 dangerousness in doctrinal teaching. " Of what- 
 ever use," he says, " an alliance may be thought 
 for preserving the being of religion, the necessity of 
 
 it for preserving its purity is most evident 
 
 Let us consider the danger religion runs, when left 
 in its natural state to itself, of deviating from truth. 
 In those circumstances, the men who have the 
 greatest credit in the Church are such as are famed 
 for greatest sanctity. Now Church sanctity has 
 been generally understood to be then most perfect, 
 when most estranged from the world and all its 
 habitudes and relations. But this being only to be 
 acquired by secession and retirement from human 
 affairs, and that secession rendering man ignorant 
 of civil society and its rights and interests, in place 
 of which will succeed, according to his natural tem- 
 
 9 
 
194 
 
 per, all the follies of superstition or fanaticism, we 
 must needs conclude, that religion, under such 
 directors and reformers, (and God knows these are 
 generally its lot,) will deviate from truth, and con- 
 sequently from a capacity, in proportion, of serving 
 civil society. . . . Such societies we have seen, 
 whose religious doctrines are so little serviceable to 
 civil society, that they can prosper only on the ruin 
 and destruction of it. Such are those who preach 
 up the sanctity of celibacy, ascetism, the sinfulness 
 of defensive war, of capital punishments, and even 
 of civil magistracy itself. On the other hand, when 
 religion is in alliance with the State, as it then comes 
 under the magistrate's direction, (those holy leaders 
 having now neither credit nor power to do mischief,) 
 its purity must needs be reasonably well supported 
 and preserved. For, truth and public utility coinci- 
 ding, the civil magistrate, as such, will see it for his 
 interest to seek after and promote the truth in reli- 
 gion ; and, by means of public utility, which his 
 office enables him so well to understand, he will 
 never be at a loss to know where such truth is to be 
 found."* 
 
 He takes delight in this view of the subject, and 
 enforces it as follows ; — " The means of attaining 
 man's happiness here," he says, " is civil society ; 
 the means of his happiness hereafter is contempla- 
 
 * Ibid, p. 58. 
 
195 
 
 tion. If then opinions, the result of contemplation, 
 •Obstruct tha eff. cts of civil society, it follows that 
 they must be restrained. Accordingly, the ancient 
 misters of wisdom, who, from these considerations, 
 taught that man was born for action, not for con- 
 templation, universally concurred to establish it as a 
 maxim, founded on the nature of things, that opin- 
 ions should always give way to civil peace."* And 
 he proceeds to defend it as follows: "God so dis- 
 posed things, that the means of attaining the hap- 
 piness of one state [of existence] should not cross 
 or obstruct the means of attaining the happiness of 
 the other. From whence we must conclude, that 
 Where the supposed means of each, viz., opinions 
 and civil peace, do clash, there one of them is not 
 the true means of happiness. But the means of 
 attaining the happiness peculiar to that state in 
 which the man at present exists, being perfectly and 
 infallibly known by man, and the means of the hap- 
 piness of his future existence, as far as relates to the 
 discovery of truth, but very imperfectly known by 
 him, it necessarily follows that, wherever opinions 
 •clash with civil peace, those opinions are no means 
 of future happiness, or, in other words, are either no 
 truths, or truths of no importance." Behold the 
 principle of the reasonings of the Committee of 
 Privy Council, and the philosophy of the Premier's 
 
 * Ibid, p. 126. 
 
196 
 
 satisfaction thereupon ! Baptismal regeneration is 
 made true or not true, not by the text of Scripture, 
 the testimony of the Fathers, the tradition of the 
 Church, nay, not by Prayer Book, Articles, Jewell, 
 Usher, Carleton, or Bullinger, but by its tendency 
 to minister to the peace and repose of the commu- 
 nity, to the convenience and comfort of Downing 
 Street, Lambeth, and Exeter Hall. 
 
 If the Bishop makes doctrine depend upon po- 
 litical expedience, it is not wonderful that he should 
 take the same measure of the Sacraments and orders 
 of his Church. " Hence," he says, " may be seen 
 the folly of those Christian sects, which, under pre- 
 tence that Christianity is a spiritual religion, fancy 
 it cannot have rites, ceremonies, public worship, a 
 ministry or ecclesiastical policy. Not reflecting that 
 without these it could never have become national, 
 and consequently could not have done that service 
 to the State that it, of all religions, is most capable 
 of performing."* And then in a note, on occasion 
 of Burnet's statement, that " Sidney's notion of 
 Christianity was, that it was like a divine philosophy 
 in the mind, without public worship or anything that 
 looked like a Church," he adds, " that an ignorant 
 monk, who had seen no further than his cell, or a mad 
 fanatic, who had thrown aside his reason, should 
 talk thus is nothing ; but that the great Sidney, a 
 
 Ibid, p. 104. 
 
197 
 
 man so superlatively skilled in the science of human 
 nature and civil policy, and who so well Jcnew what 
 religion was capable of doing for the State, should 
 fall into this extravagant error, is indeed very sur- 
 prising." 
 
 Accordingly he mentions some of the details in 
 which ecclesiastical ceremonies are serviceable to the 
 State ; and in quoting his list and reasons of them I 
 shall conclude my extracts from his very instructive 
 volume., "There are peculiar junctures," he says, 
 " when the influence of religion is more than ordinary 
 serviceable to the State, and these the civil magis- 
 trate only knows. Now,; while a Church is in its 
 natural state of independency, it is not in his power 
 to improve these conjunctures to the advantage of 
 the State by a proper application of religion ; but 
 when the alliance is made, and consequently the 
 Church under his direction, he has the authority to 
 prescribe such publie exercises of religion, as days 
 of humiliation, fasts, festivals, exhortations and de- 
 hortations, thanksgivings and deprecations, and in 
 such a manner as he finds the exigencies of State 
 require."* 
 
 And now I think I have shown you, my brethren, 
 as far as I could hope to do so in the course of a 
 Lecture, that if your first principle be, as it was the 
 first principle of the movement of 1833, that the 
 
 * Ibid, p. 63. 
 
198 
 
 Church should have absolute power over her faith, 
 worship, and teaching, you must not be contempla- 
 ting au ecclesiastical body, local and isolated like the 
 Jewish, or what you have been accustomed to call a 
 Branch Church. The fable of 'the bundle of sticks 
 especially applies to those who have no weapons of 
 flesh and blood, to an unarmed hierarchy, who have 
 to contend with the pride of intellect and the power 
 of the sword. Look abroad, my brethren, and see 
 whether this union of many members, divided 1 in 
 place and circumstances, but one in heart, is not 
 most visibly the very strength of the Catholift 
 Church at this very time. Then only can you resist 
 the world, if you belong to a communion which ex- 
 ists under many governments, not one ; or, should it 
 ever be under some empire commensurate with itself, 
 which is not conceivable, has at length an immovable 
 centre to fall back upon. But if this be so, if you 
 must leave the existing Establishment, yet not seek 
 or form a Branch Church instead of it ; I have' 
 brought you by a short, but I hope not an abrupt or 
 unsafe path, to the conclusion that you must cease 
 to be an Anglican by beooming a Catholic. Indeed, 
 if the movement, of which you are the children, had 
 any providential scope at all', I do not see how you 
 can disguise from yourselves that Catholicism is it. 
 The Catholic Church, and she alone, is proof against 
 Erastianism. 
 
LECTUKE VII. . 
 
 THE PROVIDENTIAL DIRECTION OF THE MOVEMENT OF 
 1833 NOT TOWARDS A SECT. 
 
 It was my object yesterday to show that such 
 persons as were led by the principles of the move- 
 ment of 1833 to quit the Establishment, necessarily 
 proceeded, as by one and the same act, to join the 
 Catholic Church ; that the case was not supposable 
 in reason, of their quitting the one without their 
 joining the other ; that certain projects, which have 
 been thrown out, of getting orders from Greece or 
 America, or of migrating to Scotland, were simply 
 unmeaning and inconsistent, if Erastianism was the 
 evil to be shunned ; for no communion was secure 
 against Erastianism, but the Church founded on 
 Peter. I argued out this point at some length; 
 yet, in doing so, I felt I was combating what the 
 common sense of men condemned without argument. 
 I really do not believe that any one contemplates, in 
 fact, such a plan as the erection of a Free Church, 
 
200 
 
 as it may be called, in England ; and, even if there 
 were individuals who contemplated leaving their 
 native country for Scotland or America, they never 
 could mean that this is the providential course of the 
 movement of 1833 ; for the expatriation of a large 
 number of persons of both sexes, and of all ages, 
 voluntarily, not by persecution, yet for conscience- 
 sake, is as irrational as it would be impracticable. 
 If, then, I have dwelt on the notion, and if I am 
 going still to dwell on it, of a termination of the 
 movement, external to the National Communion, yet 
 not so far as the Catholic Church, it is not so much 
 for its own sate, as because I hope thereby to realize 
 and bring home to you, my brethren, the state of the 
 case, and your position ; and because it enables me 
 to suggest principles and views which may, facilitate 
 to you, that resolution of your perplexities which, I 
 am sure, is the only consistent one. This must be 
 my apology, as it has been already, if any one 
 thinks, that to continue the subject is actum agere. 
 I am now, then, going to set before you a second 
 view of the subject, which will bring us to the same 
 conclusion as the argument of yesterday. What is 
 meant by a " Church," is a religious body which 
 has jurisdiction over its members, or which governs 
 itself; whereas, according to the doctrine of Erastus, 
 it has no such jurisdiction, really is not a body, but 
 is simply governed by the State, and is a department 
 of its operations. Now, what I wish to show is, 
 
201 
 
 that if you will not accept of the Catholic Church, 
 and submit yourselves to her authority, your only 
 consistent course is to become Brastians at once ; 
 that is, to give up the principles on which you set 
 out. 
 
 I would have you recollect, then, that the civil 
 power is a divine ordinance ; no one doubts it. It 
 is prior to ecclesiastical power. The Jewish law- 
 givers, judges, prophets, kings, had some sort of 
 jurisdiction over the priesthood, though the priest- 
 hood had its distinct powers and duties. The Jewish 
 Church was no body distinct from the State. In a 
 certain sense the civil magistrate is what divines 
 call, " in possession ;" the onus prohandi lies with 
 those who. would encroach upon his power. He was 
 in possession in the age when Christ came ; he is in 
 possession now in the minds of men, and in the 
 prima facie view of human society. He is in pos- 
 session, because the benefits he confers on mankind 
 are tangible, and obvious to the world at large. 
 And he is recognized and sanctioned in Scripture in 
 the most solemn way ; nay the very instrument of 
 his power, by which he is strong, the carnal weapon 
 itself, is formally committed to him. " Let every 
 soul," says St. Paul, " be subject to higher powers ; 
 for there is no power but from God ; and those that 
 are," the powers that be, " are ordained of God. 
 Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the 
 ordinance of God ; and they that resist, purchase to 
 9* 
 
202 
 
 themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror 
 to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, 
 not be afraid of the power K Do that which is good, 
 and thou shalt have praise from the same. For he 
 is God's minister to thee for good. But if thou do 
 that which is evil, fear ; for he beareth not the 
 sword in vain. For he is God's minister, an avenger 
 to execute wrath upon him that doth evil." It is 
 difficult to find a passage in Scripture more solemn 
 and distinct than this, — distinct in the duty laid 
 down, and the sin of transgressing it, and solemn in 
 the reasons on which the duty is enforced. The 
 civil magistrate is a minister, or, in a certain sense, 
 a priest of the Most High ; for, as is well known, 
 the word in the original Greek is one which commonly 
 is appropriated to denote the sacerdotal office and 
 function. He is, moreover, " an avenger to execute 
 wrath;" he is the representative and image on earth 
 of that awful attribute of God, His justice, as fathers 
 are types and intimations of His tenderness and 
 providence towards His creatures. Nor is this a 
 solitary reooguition of the divine origin and the 
 dignity of the civil power : — when Wisdom, in the 
 book of Proverbs, would enlarge upon her great 
 works on the earth, she finds one principal and 
 special instance of them to consist in her presence 
 and operation in the rulers of the people. " By 
 me," she says, " kings reign, and lawgivers deoree 
 just things : by me princes rule, and the mighty 
 
203 
 
 decree justice." And let it be observed, that the 
 function here ascribed to the civil magistrate, and 
 requiring a peculiar gift, is one of those which es- 
 pecially enters into the idea of the times of the 
 promised Messias. " Behold," says the Prophet, 
 " a king shall reign in justice, and princes shall rule 
 in judgment." " He shall judge the poor with 
 justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek 
 of the earth ; and he shall strike the earth with the 
 rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he 
 shall slay the wicked. And justice shall be the 
 girdle of his loins, and faith the girdle of his reins." 
 Such is the civil power, the representative, and 
 oracle, and instrument, of the eternal law of G-od, 
 with the power of life and death, the awful power 
 of continuing or cutting short the probation of beings 
 destined to live eternally. To it are committed all 
 things under heaven ; it is the sovereign lord of the 
 wide earth and its various fruits, and of men who 
 till it or traverse it ; and it allots, and distributes, 
 and maintains, the one for the benefit of the other. 
 And as it is sacred in its origin, so may it be con- 
 sidered irresponsible in its acts, and treason against 
 jt, in some sort, rebellion against the Most High. 
 
 Now, such being the office of the temporal power, 
 and considering the manifold temporal blessings of 
 which it is the source and channel, the cruelty of 
 disturbing the settled order of society, and the mad- 
 ness of the attempt, surely a man has to think 
 
204 
 
 twice, and ought to be quite sure what he is doing, 
 and to have a clear case to produce in his behalf, 
 before he sets up any rival society to embarrass and 
 endanger it. Pause before you decide on such a 
 step, and make sure of your ground. Surely it is 
 not likely that God should undo His own work for 
 nothing. He does not revoke His ordinances except 
 they have failed of their mission. He does not 
 supersede them or innovate on them, except when 
 He is about to commence a higher work than He 
 has committed to them. Judaism was supplanted 
 by Christianity, because its law was unprofitable, and 
 because the Gospel was a definite revelation and 
 doctrine from above, which required a more perfect 
 organ for its promulgation. A new institution was 
 formed, and to it was transferred a portion of that 
 authority which hitherto had centered in the State, 
 and independedce was bestowed on it, but surely 
 because it was able to do something which ancient 
 philosophy and statesmanship had not dreamed of. 
 Had not the duties of the Church been different, or 
 had they been but partially different, from the duties 
 of the State, it is obvious to ask, for what con- 
 ceivable reason should two societies be set up to do 
 the work of one ? Is it likely that Almighty Wis- 
 dom would have set up a second without recalling 
 the first? would have continued the commission to 
 the first, yet sent forth a second upon the same 
 field? Such a course would have been simply 
 
205 
 
 adapted to kindle perpetual strife, and, to judge by 
 appearances, to defeat the very purposes for which 
 the civil power was appointed, and therefore is, in 
 the highest degree improbable, prior to some very 
 clear proof to the contrary. This surely approves 
 itself to the common sense of mankind. Either no 
 Church has been set up in the world, or it is not set 
 up for nothing ; it must have a mission and a mes- 
 sage of its own. Everything is defined, or made 
 specific by its object; if the duties of the Church, 
 its functions, its teaching, its working, be not spe- 
 cially distinct from those of the State, why, it will 
 be impossible to resist, the conclusion, that it was 
 meant to amalgamate with the State, to join on to it, 
 to be a part of it, to be subordinate to it. We do 
 not form two guilds for the same trade. Either 
 assign to the Church its own craft, or do not ask 
 that it should be chartered. Its object is its claim. 
 This consideration is a sufficient exposure of the 
 theory of alliance between Church and State, of 
 which I was led to speak yesterday. Warburton 
 maintains that each power, the Church and the 
 State, does substantially just one and the same 
 thing ; the Church preaches truth, the State pursues 
 expediency; but Christian truth is measured by 
 political expediency. There is no possible thesis 
 which a preacher can put forth, or a synod could 
 define, but is infallibly determined (" infallible" is 
 his word) by the political expedience and experience 
 
206 
 
 of the State. ■ But if this be really so, what is the 
 use of this second Society, which you put forth as 
 naturally independent of the State, and as so high 
 and mighty an ally of it ? I do not say that to 
 preach is not a function different from speaking in 
 Parliament, or reading prayers to a congregation 
 from sitting in a police court; the functions are dif- 
 ferent, and the functionaries will be different. But 
 in like manner the function of a police magistrate ia 
 different from the function of a speaker in Parlia- 
 ment ; but you do not have a distinct society, divine 
 in its origin, independent in its constitution, to 
 exercise jurisdiction over Parliament or Police. I 
 repeat, unless the Church has something to say and 
 something to do, very different from what the State 
 says and does, Erastianism is the doctrine of common 
 sense, and must be very clearly negatived in Scrip- 
 ture to be discarded. 
 
 I will refer to another author in illustration. 
 There was an anonymous work published, apparently 
 in the character of a Scotch Episcopalian, some 
 years before the movement of 1833; which, on 
 supposed principles of Scripture, advocated a Branch 
 or National Church, though the author would, I 
 suppose, have preferred the words, " free," " inde- 
 pendent," or "unestablished." Judging from the 
 internal evidence, the world identified him with a 
 vigorous and original thinker, whom none could ap- 
 proach without being set thinking also, whether with 
 
20? 
 
 him or contrary to him, and who has gitice risen to 
 the very highest rank of the Anglican hierarchy; 
 He wrote, partly in answer to Warburton, and partly 
 to exhibit a counter-view of his own ; but he is an 
 instance of the same unreality and inconsistency 
 which I have just been imputing to Warburton 
 himself. 
 
 " The supreme head on earth," he says, " of each 
 branch of Christ's Church, should evidently be some 
 spiritual officer or body, Whether the governor of 
 the English Church Were the primate, or the convo- 
 cation, or both conjointly, or any other man or body 
 of men, holding ecclesiastical authority, not attached 
 to any civil office, nor in the gift of any civil gover- 
 nor, in either case the non-secular character of 
 Christ's kingdom would be preserved. The kingj 
 in conjunction with the other branches of the legis- 
 lature, ought to have a distinctly defined temporal 
 authority over every one of his subjects, of whatever 
 persuasion ; and, of consequence, over the ministers 
 and all other members, both of the Church of Eng- 
 land and of every other religious community, Chris- 
 tian, Jewish, or Pagan, within his dominions ; but 
 neither he, nor any other civil power, should inter- 
 fere with articles of faith, liturgy, Church discipline, 
 or any other spiritual matters. The kingdom of 
 Heaven has no king but Christ ; and He delegated 
 His authority to Apostles, and through them to 
 Bishops and Presbyters ; not to any secular magis- 
 
208 
 
 trates. These therefore ought not, by virtue of their 
 civil offices, to claim the appointment to any offices 
 in the Church."* You see, my brethren, what 
 clear views this anonymous writer has of the juris- 
 diction of the Church ; they are identical with your 
 own, or rather they go beyond you. 
 
 In consequence he speaks of its " degrading" the 
 sacred character of Articles and Liturgy, " that 
 they should stand upon the foundation of acts of 
 Parliament; that the spiritual rulers cannot alter 
 them when they may need it; and that the secular 
 power can, whether they need it or not. And ac- 
 cordingly," he continues, " it is almost a proverbial 
 reproach, that yours is a. ' parliamentary religion ;' 
 that you worship the Almighty as the act directs ; 
 and that you are bound to seek for salvation ' ac- 
 cording to the law in that case made and provided,' 
 by king, lords, and commons ; under the directions 
 of the ministers of State; of persons," he adds 
 with a prophetic eye towards 1850, " who may be 
 eminently well fitted for their civil offices, and who 
 may indeed chance to be not only exemplary Chris- 
 tians, but sound divines, but who certainly are not 
 appointed to their respective offices with any sort of 
 view to their spiritual functions, who cannot even 
 pretend that any sort of qualification for the good 
 regulation of the Church is implied by their holding 
 
 * Letters on the Church, p. 181, Longmans, 1826. 
 
209 
 
 such stations as they do. Can this possibly be 
 agreeable to the des'gns and institutions of Christ 
 and His Apostles ? If any one will seriously answer 
 in the affirmative, he is beyond my powers of argu- 
 mentation."* 
 
 Presently he observes, " The English Govern- 
 ment seems to have a delight and a pride, in not 
 only making the Clergy do as much as possible in 
 return for the protection they enjoy, but in enforcing 
 their services in the most harsh and mortifying way. 
 Like the ancient Persian soldiers, they are brought 
 into the field under the lash of perpetual penalties, 
 which serve to keep your ministers in a state of 
 degradation as well as of dependence on the State, 
 which I defy you to parallel in any other Christian 
 Church that ever existed."")" He then compares 
 certain of the clergy to the dog in the fable', who 
 mistook the clog round his neck for a badge of 
 honorable distinction. He continues, " Altogether 
 indeed, I cannot but say, if I must speak out, there 
 is another fable respecting a dog, of which the con- 
 dition of your Church strongly reminds me. Your 
 American brethren, for instance, and some others, 
 might say to you, as the lean and hungry wolf did 
 to the well-fed mastiff, ' You are fat and sleek in- 
 deed, while I am gaunt and half-famished, but what 
 means that mark round your neck ?' You must do 
 
 * p. 119. 
 t p. 125. 
 
210 
 
 this, under a penalty ; and you must not do that, 
 under a penalty ; you must comply with the rubric, 
 and yet, at the same time, you must not comply 
 
 with the rubric In short, you are fettered 
 
 and crippled and disabled in every joint, by your 
 alliance with a body of a different character, which 
 could not, even with the best intentions, fail to 
 weaken instead of aiding you ; but which, in fact , 
 - aims chiefly at making a tool of you. But some of 
 you seem so habituated to this dependence of the 
 Church on the State, and so fond of it, as to have 
 even solicited interference in a case which could not 
 concern the civil community, and which the secular 
 magistrate was likely to care about as little as Gallic 
 An English bishop did not dare to ordain an Ameri- 
 can to officiate in a country not under British do- 
 minion, without asking and obtaining permission of 
 his government, which had just as much to do with 
 the business as the government of Abyssinia."* 
 
 Now, all this is very ably put, and very true ; but 
 the question comes upon the reader, What is the 
 meaning and object of the sweeping ecclesiastical 
 changes which are advocated by this author ? We 
 must not take to pieces the constitution and re-write 
 the law for nothing. What would be gained by his 
 recommendations practically ? And what are they 
 intended to accomplish or secure ? Is it a gymnas- 
 
 * p. 129. 
 
211 
 
 tical display or " agonism," as the heathen author 
 calls it, from the academy or the garden, or a clever 
 piece of irony which he presents to our perusal, or 
 is it the grave and earnest sermon of one who would 
 practise what he preaches, and would not partake in 
 what he condemns ? Now I will do the writer the 
 justice to confess, that he does not agree with War- 
 burton in considering that truth is measured by 
 political expediency. He is too honest, too gene- 
 rous, too high-minded, too sensible, for so miserable 
 a paradox ; but, considering the far higher views he 
 takes of the position of the Church, how he frets 
 under her humiliation, how nobly zealous he is for 
 her liberty, certainly he will be guilty of a different 
 indeed, but a not less startling paradox himself, if 
 he has such exalted notions of the Church, and yet 
 gives her nothing to do. Warburton recognizes the 
 Church in order to destroy it ; he thinks it never 
 has existed, or rather never ought to have existed in 
 its proper natuxe, but, from its first moment of crea- 
 tion, ought to have been dissolved into the consti- 
 tution of the State. But our author makes much 
 ado about ecclesiastical rights and privileges, which 
 he considers divinely bestowed, and, therefore, in- 
 defeasible. He thinks the Church so pure and 
 celestial, as to be insulted, defiled, by any communion 
 with things simply secular. " My kingdom is not of 
 this world," said our Lord, and, therefore, it seems, 
 no Ecclesiastical person must, as such, have a seat 
 
212 
 
 in Parliament, and, on the other hand, neither king 
 nor Parliament, as such, must he able to appoint a 
 last day. " It was,"" he says, " Satan who first 
 proposed an alliance between the Christian Church 
 and the State, by offering temporal advantages in 
 exchange for giving up some of the ' things that be 
 God's,' and which we ought to ' render unto God,' 
 for not ' serving Him only,' whom only we ought to 
 serve. The next, I am inclined to think, who pro- _ 
 posed to himself this scheme,, and endeavored to 
 bring it about, was Judas Iscariot."* 
 
 Well, then, if the Church be a kingdom, or go- 
 vernment, not of this world, I do trust you have 
 provided for her a message, a function, not of this 
 world, something distinct, something special, some- 
 thing which the world cannot do, which " eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived." 
 It is not enough to give her morality to preach 
 about; why a heaven-appointed society for that? 
 With the Bible in his hands, if that be all, I do not 
 see why one man, if properly educated, should not 
 preach as well as another, without any disturbance 
 of the rights of the magistrate or the order of civil 
 society. It is sometimes said in bitterness that the 
 Church's work is priestcraft; I have already ac- 
 cepted the word ; it is a craft ; a craft in the same 
 sense that goldsmiths' work, or architecture, or legal 
 
 * p. 97. 
 
213 
 
 Science is a craft; it must have its teaching, its 
 intellectual and moral habits, its long experience, its 
 precedents, its traditions ; nay, it must have all 
 these in a much higher sense than crafts of this 
 world, if it is to claim to come from above. The 
 more certainly the Church is a kingdom of heaven, 
 and, as the author is so fond of saying, " not of this 
 world," the more certain is it that she must have 
 Bimply a heavenly work also, which the world cannot 
 do for itself. 
 
 Now, I fear, I must say, I see no symptoms at all 
 of the writer in question intending to make his pat- 
 tern-Church answer to this most reasonable expec- 
 tation. There is nothing in his book to show that 
 he entrusts his Church with any special doctrine or 
 work of any kind. Whatever he may say, there is 
 nothing to show why a lawyer not in full business, or 
 a physician, or a scientific professor, or a country 
 gentleman, or any one who had his evenings to him- 
 self, and was of an active turn, should not do every 
 thing which he ascribes to his heaven-born society. 
 If, for instance, religion had its mysteries, if it had 
 its fertile dogmas and their varied ramifications, if 
 . it had its theology, if it had its long line of mo- 
 mentous controversies, careful ventilation of ques- 
 tions, and satisfactory and definitive solutions; if, 
 moreover, it had its special work, its substantial 
 presence in the midst of us, its daily gifts from 
 heaven, and its necessary ministries thence arising, 
 
214 
 
 then We should see the meaning, we should adore 
 the wisdom, of the Divine G-overnor of all, in having 
 done a new thing upon the earth when Christ came, 
 in having limited the jurisdiction He had given to 
 the State, and bestowed it on a special ordinance 
 created for a special purpose. But in proportion as 
 this author comes short of this just anticipation, and 
 disappoints the common sense of mankind, if he has 
 nothing better to tell us than that one man's opinion 
 is as good as another's ; that Fathers and School- 
 men, and the greater number of Anglican divines, 
 are puzzled-headed or dishonest ; that heretics have 
 at least this good about them, that they are in earnest, 
 and do not take doctrines for granted ', that religion 
 is simple, and theologians have made it hard ; that 
 controversy is on the whole a logomachy ; that we 
 must worship in spirit and in truth ; that we ought 
 to love truth ; that few people love truth for its own 
 sake ; that we ought to be candid and dispassionate ; 
 to avoid extremes ; to eschew party spirit ; to take 
 a rational satisfaction in contemplating the works of 
 nature ; and not to speculate about things unseen ; 
 that our Lord came to teach us all this, and to gain 
 us immortality by His death, and the promise of 
 spiritual assistance, and that this is pretty nearly the 
 whole of theology ; and that at least all is in the 
 Bible, which every one may read for himself (and I 
 see no evidence whatever of his going much beyond 
 this round of teaching) ; then, I say, if the work and 
 
215 
 
 mission of Christianity be so level in its exercise to 
 the capacities of the State, surely its ministry also 
 is within tfie State's jurisdiction. I cannot believe 
 that Bishops, and clergymen, and councils, and con- 
 vocations have been divinely sent into the world, to 
 broach opinions, to discuss theories, to talk literature, 
 to display the results of their own speculations on 
 the text of Scripture, to create a brilliant, ephemeral, 
 ever-varying theology, to say in one generation what 
 the next will unsay; else, why were not our debating 
 clubs and our scientific societies ennobled with a 
 divine charter also ? God surely did not create the 
 visible Church for the protection of private judg- 
 ment: private judgment is quite able to take care 
 of itself. This is no day for what are popularly 
 called " shams." Many as are its errors, it is 
 aiming at the destruction of shadows and the attain- 
 ment of what is either sensibly or intellectually tan- 
 gible. Why, then, should we have so much bustle 
 and turmoil about " supremacy," and " protection," 
 and " alliance," and " authority," and " indefeasible 
 rights," and " encroachments," and " usurpations," 
 after the manner of this writer, if the effort and 
 elaboration are to be in their result but a mountain 
 in labor, bringing forth nothing ? 
 
 The State claims the allegiance of its subjects on 
 the ground of the tangible benefits of which it is the 
 instrument towards them. Its strength lies in this 
 undeniable fact, and they endure and they maintain 
 
216 
 
 its coercion and its laws, because the certainty of 
 this fact is ever present to their minds. What mean 
 the array and the pomp which surround the Sove- 
 reign 1 The strict ceremonial, the minute etiquette, 
 the almost unsleeping watchfulness which eyes her 
 every motion, which follows her into her garden and 
 her chamber, which notes down every shade of her 
 countenance and every variation of her pulse? 
 Why do her soldiers hover about her, and officials 
 line her ante-rooms, and cannon and illumination 
 carry forward the tiding of her progresses among 
 her people 1 Is this all a mockery ? Is it done for 
 nothing ? Surely hot ; in her is centered the order, 
 the security, the happiness of a great people. And, 
 in like manner, the Church must Be the guardian of 
 a fact ; she must have something to produce ; she 
 must have something to do. It is not enough to be 
 keeper of even an inspired book : for there is nothing 
 to show that her protection of it is necessary at this' 
 day. The State might fairly commit its custody to 
 the art of printing, and dissolve an institution whose 
 occupation was no more. She must do that, in 
 order to have a meaning, which otherwise cannot be 
 done; which she alone can do. She must have a 
 benefit to bestow, in order to be worth her existence ; 
 and the benefit must be a fact which no one can 
 doubt about. It must not be an opinion, or matter 
 of opinion, but a something which is like a first 
 principle, which may be taken for granted, a foun- 
 
217 
 
 elation indubitable and irresistible. In other words, 
 she must have a dogma and Sacraments ; it is a 
 dogma and Sacraments, and nothing else, which can 
 give meaning to a Church, or sustain her against the 
 State ; for by these are meant certain facts or acts 
 which are special instruments of spiritual good to 
 those who receive them. As we do not gain the 
 benefits of civil society unless we submit to its laws 
 and customs, so we do not gain the spiritual blessings 
 which the Church has to bestow upon us, unless we 
 receive Her dogmas and Her Sacraments. 
 
 This, you know, is understood- by every fanatic 
 who would collect followers and form a sect. Who 
 would ever dream of collecting a congregation and 
 having nothing to say to them ? No ; they think 
 they have that to offer to the world which cannot 
 otherwise be obtained. They do not bring forward 
 mere opinions; they do not preach a disputable 
 doctrine ; but they assert, boldly and simply, that 
 he who believes them will be saved. They announce, 
 for instance, that every one must undergo the new 
 birth, and for this they organize their society ; viz., 
 in order to preach and to testify, to realize and to 
 perpetuate in the world this great and necessary 
 fact, the new birth of the soul. Or, again, they 
 have a commission to do miracles, or they can pro- 
 phesy, or they are sent to declare the end of the 
 world. Something or other they do, which the ex- 
 10 
 
218 
 
 isting establishments of Church and State do not, 
 and cannot do. 
 
 This being the state of the ease, consider how 
 entirely the reasonable anticipation of our minds is 
 fulfilled in the professions of the Catholic Church. 
 A Protestant wanders into one of our chapels ; he 
 sees a priest kneeling, and bowing, and throwing up 
 a thurible, and boys in oottas going in and out, and 
 a whole choir and people singing amain all the time, 
 and he has nothing to suggest to him what it is all 
 about ; and he calls it mummery, and he walks out 
 again. And would it not, indeed, be so, my brethren, 
 if this were all ? But will he think it mummery 
 when he learns and seriously apprehends the fact, 
 that, aocording to the belief of a Catholic, the Im- 
 maculate Lamb, the Second Person of the Eternal 
 Trinity, is there bodily present, — hidden, indeed, 
 from our senses, but in no other way withheld from 
 us 1 He may reject what we believe ; he will not 
 wonder at what we do. And so again, open the 
 Missal, read the minute directions as to the celebra- 
 tion of Mass ; what is the fit disposition under which 
 the Priest prepares for it, how he is to arrange his 
 every action, movement, gesture, accent, during the 
 course of it, and what is to be done in case of a 
 variety of supposable acoidents. What a mockery 
 would all this be, if the rite meant nothing ! But 
 if it be a fact that God the Son is there offered up 
 in human flesh and blood by the hands of man, why 
 
it is plain that no anxious and elaborate rite is equal 
 to the depth of the overwhelming thoughts which are 
 borne in upon the mind. Thus the usages and 
 ordinances of the Church do not exist for their own 
 sake ; they do not stand of themselves ; they are 
 not sufficient for themselves ; they do not fight 
 against the State their own battle; they are not 
 appointed as ultimate ends ; but they are dependent 
 x>n an inward substance ; they protect a mystery ; 
 they defend a dogma ; they represent an idea ; they 
 preaeh good tidings ; they are the channels of graee. 
 They are the outward shape of an inward reality or 
 fact, which no Catholic doubts, which is assumed as 
 a first principle, which is not an inference of reason, 
 but the object of a spiritual sense. Herein is the 
 strength of the Church ; herein she differs from all 
 Protestant mockeries of her. She professes to be 
 built upon facts, not opinions ; on objective truths, 
 not on variable sentiments ; on immemorial testi- 
 mony, not on private judgment ; on convictions of 
 discernments, not on conclusions. None else but 
 she can make this profession. She makes high 
 claims against the temporal power, but she has that 
 within her which justifies them. She merely acts 
 out what she says she is. She does no more than 
 she reasonably should do. If G-od has given her a 
 work of her own, no wonder she is not under the 
 r civil magistrate in matters of revelation. If her 
 Clergy be Priests, if they can forgive sins, and bring 
 
220 
 
 the Son of God upon her altars, it is obvious they 
 eannot hold of the State. If they were not, the 
 sooner they were put under a minister of public 
 instruction and the Episcopate abolished, the better. 
 She has not disturbed the world for nothing. Her 
 precision and peremptoriness, all that is laid to her 
 charge as intolerance and exclusiveness, her claim 
 entirely to understand and to be able to deal with 
 her own deposit and her own functions ; her claim 
 to reveal the unknown and to communicate the in- 
 visible, is, in the eye of reason, (so far from being 
 an objection to her coming from above,) the very 
 tenure of her high mission, just what she would be 
 sure to assert, if she did. She cannot be conceived 
 without her message and her gifts. She is the organ 
 and oracle, and nothing else, of a supernatural 
 doctrine, which is independent of individuals, given 
 once for all, coming down from the first ages, and so 
 deeply and intimately embosomed in her, that it 
 cannot be clean torn out of her, even if you would 
 try ; but gradually and majestically comes forth into 
 dogmatic shape, as time goes on, and need requires, 
 still by no private judgment, but at the will of its 
 Giver, and by the infallible elaboration of the whole 
 body ; and which is simply necessary for the salva- 
 tion of the soul. It is not a philosophy, or litera- 
 ture, cognizable and attainable at once by those who 
 cast their eyes that way ; but it is a sacred deposit 
 and tradition, a mystery or secret, as Scripture calls 
 
221 
 
 it, sufficient to arrest and occupy the whole intellect, 
 and unlike anything else ; and hence requiring, from 
 the nature of the case, organs special to itself, made 
 for the purpose, whether for entering into its fulness, 
 or carrying it out in deed. 
 
 And now, my brethren, you may have been some time 
 asking yourselves, how all this bears upon the parti- 
 cular subject, on which these Lectures are engaged ; 
 and yet I think it bears upon it very elosely and 
 significantly. You may have said, in answer to my 
 Lecture of yesterday : — " We do not aim at forming 
 a Branch Church ; we put before us a really humble 
 work. We have no ambition, no expectation, of 
 spreading through the nation, or of spreading at all. 
 We do but mean to preserve for future times what 
 we hold to be the truth. As books are consigned to 
 some large library, with a single view to their se- 
 curity, not let out to the world, and apparently 
 useless, but yet with a definite object and benefit, — 
 'though for no other cause, yet for this,' as Hooker 
 says, ' that posterity may know we have not loosely 
 through silence permitted things to pass away as in 
 a dream,' — so, we care not to be successful in our 
 day ; we are willing to be despised ; we do but aim 
 at transmitting Catholic doctrine in its purest and 
 most primitive form to posterity. We are willing 
 to look like a small sect at the gate of the National 
 Church, when really we are the heirs of the Apostles. 
 We do not boast of this ; we do not wish to inflict 
 
222 
 
 it upon the world ; leave us to ourselves quietly and 
 unostentatiously to transmit our burden to posterity 
 in our own way." 
 
 I say in reply, my brethren, that so far you are 
 right, that you profess to have something to trans- 
 mit ; but be sure you have it, and know' what it is. 
 It will not do to have only a vague idea of it, if it 
 is to form the basis of a sect ; you must be at home 
 with it, and must have surveyed it in its various 
 aspects, and must be clear about it, and be prepared 
 to state decisively to all inquirers its ground, its 
 details, and its consequences, and must be able to 
 say, unequivocally, that it comes from heaven ; — or 
 it will not serve your purpose. I am not sanguine 
 that you will be able to do this even as regards the 
 Sacrament of Baptism; differences have already 
 arisen among you as to the relative importance, at 
 least under circumstances, of separate parts of the 
 doctrine ; and when you come to define the conse- 
 quences of sin after it, and the remedies, your varia- 
 tions and uncertainties will be greater still. And 
 much more of other doctrines ; there is hardly one, 
 of which you will be able to take a clear and com- 
 plete view. I say, then, Do not set up a sect, till 
 you are quite sure what it will have to teach. 
 
 In the commencement of the movement of 1833', 
 much interest was felt in the Non-jurors. It was 
 natural, that inquirers who had drawn their princi- 
 ples from the Primitive Church, should be attracted' 
 
223 
 
 by the exhibition of any portion of those principles 
 any where in, or about, an Establishment which was 
 so emphatically opposed to them. Therefore, in 
 their need, they fixed their eyes on a body of men 
 who were not only sufferers for conscience sake, but 
 held, in connexion with their political principles, a 
 certain portion of Catholic truth. But, after all, 
 what is, in a word, the history of the Non-jurors, 
 for it does not take long to tell it ? A party, com- 
 posed of seven Bishops and some hundred Clergy, 
 virtuous and learned, and, as regards their leaders, 
 even popular, for political services lately rendered to 
 the nation, is hardly formed but it begins to dissolve 
 and come to nought, and that, simply because it had 
 no sufficient object, represented no idea, and pro- 
 claimed no dogma. What should keep it together '1 
 why should it exist ? To form an association is to 
 go out of the way, and ever requires an excuse or 
 an account of the proceeding. Such were the ancient 
 apologies put forward for the Church in her first 
 age ; such the apologies of the Anglican Jewell, and 
 the Quaker Barclay. What was the apology of the 
 Non-jurors ? Now their secession, properly speak- 
 ing, was based on no theological truth at all ; it 
 arose simply because, as their name signifies, certain 
 Bishops and Clergy could not take the oaths to a 
 new King. There is something very venerable and 
 winning in Bishop Ken ; but this arises in part from 
 the very fact that he was so little disposed to defend 
 
2'24 
 
 any position, or oppose things as they were. He 
 could not take the oaths, and was dispossessed ; but 
 he had nothing special to say for himself; he had no 
 message to deliver ; and he was unwilling that the 
 Non-juring Succession should be continued. It was 
 against his judgment to perpetuate his own com- 
 munion. But look at the body in its more theolo- 
 gical aspect, and its negative and external character 
 is brought out even more strikingly. Its members 
 had much more to say against the Catholic Church, 
 like Protestants in general, than for themselves. 
 They are considered especially high in their doctrine 
 of the Holy Eucharist ; jet I do not know anything 
 in Dr. Brett's whole Treatise on the Ancient Litur- 
 gies, which fixes itself so vividly on the reader's 
 mind, as his assertion, that the rubrics of the Soman 
 Missal are " corrupt, dangerous, superstitious, abo- 
 minably idolatrous, theatrical, and utterly unworthy 
 the gravity of so sacred an institution." The Non- 
 jurors were far less certain what they did hold, than 
 what they did not. They were great champions of 
 the Sacrifice, and wished to restore the ancient 
 Liturgies ; yet they could not raise their minds to 
 anything higher than the sacrifice of the material 
 bread and wine, as representatives of One, who was 
 not literally present but absent, as symbols of His 
 Body and Blood, not in truth and fact, but in power 
 and effect. Yet, while they had such insufficient 
 notions of the heavenly gift committed to the ordi- 
 
225 
 
 nance, they could, as I have said, be very jealous of 
 its outward formalities, and laid the greatest stress 
 on a point, important certainly in its place, but not 
 when separated from that which gave it meaning 
 and life, the mixing of the water with the wine ; and 
 upon this, and other questions, of higher moment 
 indeed, but not of a character specifically different, 
 they soon divided into two communions. They 
 broke into pieces, not from external causes, not 
 from the hostility or the allurements of a court, but 
 simply because they had no common heart and life 
 in them. They were safe from the civil sword, from 
 their insignificancy ; they had no need of falling 
 back on a distant centre, had they been united to 
 One ; all they needed was an idea, an object, a work, 
 to make them one. 
 
 But I have another remark to make on the Non- 
 jurors. You recollect, my brethren, that they are 
 the continuation and heirs of the traditions, so to 
 call them, of the High- Church divines of the seven- 
 teenth century. Now, how high and imposing do 
 the names sound of Andrewes, Laud, Taylor, Jack- 
 son, Pearson, Oosin, rnd their fellows ? — I am not 
 speaking against them as individuals, but viewing 
 them as theological authorities. — How great and 
 mysterious are the doctrines which they teach ! and 
 how proudly they appeal to primitive times, and 
 claim the ancient Fathers! Surely, as some one 
 says " in Laud is our Cyprian, and in Taylor is our 
 10* 
 
->226 
 
 Chrysostom, and all we want is our Athanasius." 
 Look, my brethren, at the history of the Non-jurors, 
 and you will see what these divines were worth. 
 There you will see that it was simply their position, 
 their temporal possessions, their civil dignities, as 
 standing round a King's throne, or seated in his 
 great council, and not their principles, which made 
 them what they were. Their genius, learning, faith, 
 whatever it was, could not have stood by themselves ; 
 these qualities had no substance, for, when the State 
 abandoned them, they shrank at once, and collapsed, 
 and ceased to be. These qualities were not the 
 stuff out of which a Church is made, though they 
 looked well and bravely upon the Establishment. 
 Yet, I say, they did not, in the event, wear better in 
 the Establishment than out of it ; for since, at the 
 Revolution, the Establishment had changed its make 
 and altered its position, the old vestments would not 
 fit it, and fell out of fashion. The Nation and the 
 National Church had got new ideas, and the language 
 of the aneient Fathers could not express them. 
 There were those, who, at the era in question, took 
 the oaths ; they could secure thoir positions, could 
 they secure their creed? The event answers the 
 question. There is some story of Bull and Beve- 
 ridge, who were two of the number, meeting toge- 
 ther, I think in the House of Lords, and Ikourning 
 together over the degeneracy of the times. The 
 times certainly were degenerate ; and if learning 
 could have restored them, there was enough in those 
 
227 
 
 two intellects and memories to have done the work 
 of Athanasius, Leo, and the seventh- Gregory ; but 
 learning never made a body live. The High Church 
 party died out -within the Establishment, as well as 
 out of it, for it had neither dogma to rest upon, nor 
 object to pursue. 
 
 All this is your warning, by brethren ; you too, 
 when it comes to the point, will have nothing to 
 profess, to teach, to transmit. At present you do 
 not know your own weakness. "Sou have the life 
 of the Establishment in you, and you fancy it is 
 your own life; you fancy that the accidental con- 
 geries of opinions, which forms your creed, has that 
 unity, individuality, and consistency, which allows 
 of its developing into a system, and perpetuating a 
 sohool. Look into the matter more steadily; it is 
 very pleasant to decorate your chapels, oratories, 
 and studies now ; but you cannot be doing this for 
 ever. It is pleasant to adopt a habit or a vestment; 
 to use your office book or your beads ; but it is like 
 feeding on flowers, unless you have that objective 
 vision in your faith, and that satisfaction in your 
 reason, of which devotional exercises and ecclesias- 
 tical appointments are the suitable expression. 
 They will not last on the long run, unless commanded 
 and rewarded on divine authority ; they cannot be 
 made to rest on the influence of individuals. It is 
 well to have rich architecture, curious works of art, 
 and splendid vestments, when you have a present 
 God ; but ! what a mockery, if you have not ! 
 
228 
 
 If your externals surpass what is within, you are, 
 so far, as hollow as your evangelical opponents who 
 baptize, yet expect no grace ; or, as the latitudina- 
 rian writer I have been reviewing, who would make 
 Christ's kingdom not of this world, in order to do 
 little more than a worldly work. Thus your Church 
 becomes, not a home, but a sepulchre ; like those 
 high cathedrals, once Catholic, which you do not 
 know what t6 do with, which you shut up, and make 
 monuments of, sacred to the memory of what has 
 passed away. 
 
 Therefore I say now, as I have said years ago, 
 when others have wished to uphold their party, when 
 their arguments had broken under them, — Find out 
 first of all where you stand, take your position, write 
 down your creed, draw up your catechism. Tell me 
 why you form your party, under what conditions, 
 how long it is to last, what are your relations to the 
 Establishment, and to the other branches (as you 
 speak) of the Universal Church, how you stand 
 relatively to antiquity, what is antiquity, whether 
 you "accept the via media, whether you are zealous 
 for " Apostolical order," what is your rule of faith, 
 how do you prove it, and what are your doctrines. 
 It is easy for a while, to be doing merely what you 
 do at present; to remain where you are, till it is 
 proved to you that you must go ; to refuse to say 
 what you hold and what you do not, and to act only 
 on the offensive ; but you cannot do this for ever. 
 The time is coming, or is come, when you must act 
 
229 
 
 in some way or other for yourselves, unless you would 
 drift to some form of infidelity, or give up principle 
 altogether, or believe or not believe by accident. 
 The onus probandi will be on your side then. Now 
 you are content to be negative and fragmentary in 
 doctrine ; you aim at nothing higher than smart 
 articles in newspapers and magazines, at clever hits, 
 spirited attacks, raillery, satire, skirmishing on posts 
 of your own selecting, fastening on weak points, or 
 what you think so, in Dissenters or Catholics ; in- 
 venting ingenious retorts, evading dangerous ques- 
 tions; parading this or that isolated doctrine as 
 essential, and praising this or that Catholic practice 
 or Catholic saint, to make up for abuse, and to show 
 your impartiality; and taking all along a high, 
 eclectic, patronizing, indifferent tone ; this has been 
 for some time past your line, and it will not suffice; 
 it excites no respect, it creates no confidence, it 
 inspires no hope. 
 
 And when, at length, you have one and all agreed 
 upon your creed, and developed it doctrinally, 
 morally, and polemically, then find for it some safe 
 foundation, deeper.and firmer than private judgment, 
 which may ensure its transmission and continuance 
 to generations to come. And, when you have done 
 all this, then, last of all, persuade others and your- 
 selves, that the foundation you have formed is surer 
 and more trustworthy than Erastianism on the one 
 hand, and of immemorial and uninterrupted tradition 
 on the other. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 POLITICAL STATE OS CATHOLIC COUNTRIES NO PRE- 
 JUDICE TO THE SANCTITY OP THE CHUECH. 
 
 I have been engaged in many Lectures in showing 
 that your place, my brethren, if you own the prin- 
 ciples of the movement of 1833,, is no where else 
 but the Catholic Church. To this you may answer, 
 that, even though I had been unanswerable, I had 
 not done much, for my argument has, on the whole, 
 been a negative one ; that there are difficulties on 
 both sides of the controversy; that I have been 
 enlarging on the Protestant difficulty, but there are 
 not a few Catholic difficulties also ; that, to be sure, 
 you are not very happy in the Establishment, but 
 you have serious misgivings whether you would be 
 happier with us. Moreover, you might mention the 
 following objection, in particular, as prominent and 
 very practical, which weighs with you a great deal, 
 and warns you off the ground whither I am trying 
 
231 
 
 to lead you. You are much offended, you. say, with 
 the bad state of Catholics abroad, and their unin- 
 teresting character every where, compared with 
 Protestants. Those countries, you say, which have 
 retained Catholicism, are notoriously behind the 
 age; — they have not kept up with the march of 
 civilization ; they are ignorant, and, in a measure, 
 barbarous ; they have the faults of barbarians ; they 
 have no self-command ; they cannot be trusted. 
 They must be treated as slaves, or they rebel ; they 
 emerge out of their superstitions in order to turn 
 infidels. They cannot combine and coalesce in 
 social institutions ; they want the very faculty of 
 citizenship. The sword, not the law, is their ruler. 
 They are spectacles of idleness, slovenliness, want 
 of spirit, disorder, dirt, and dishonesty. There 
 must then be something in their religion to account 
 for this ; it keeps them children, and then, being 
 children, they keep to it. No man in his senses, 
 certainly no English gentleman, would abandon the 
 high station which his country both occupies and 
 bestows on him, in the eyes of man, to make himself 
 the co-religionist of such slaves, and the creature 
 of such a Creed. 
 
 I propose to make a suggestion in answer to this 
 objection ; and, in making it, I shall consider you, 
 my brethren, not infidels, who are careless whether 
 this objection strikes at Christianity or no ; nor 
 Protestants proper, who have no concern, so to ex- 
 
232 
 
 press themselves, as not to compromise the first 
 centuries of the Church ; hut as those who feel that 
 the Catholic Church is from God ; that the Esta- 
 blishment is not the Catholic Church ; that nothing 
 but the Church of Rome can be ; for this is what I 
 have been proving in my preceding Lectures. 
 What, then, you are saying comes, in fact, to this : 
 We would rather deny our principles, than accept 
 such a development of them ; we would rather be- 
 lieve Erastianism, and all its train of consequences, 
 to be from God, than the religion of such countries 
 as France, Spain, and Italy. This is what you must 
 mean to say, and nothing short of it. 
 
 I simply deny the justice of your argument, my 
 brethren ; and, to show you that I am not framing a 
 view for the occasion, and, moreover, in order to 
 start with a principle, which, perhaps, you yourselves 
 have before now admitted, I will quote words which 
 I used myself twelve years ago : — " If we were 
 asked what was the object of Christian preaching, 
 teaching, and instruction; what the office of the 
 Church, considered as the dispenser of the word of 
 God, I suppose we should not all return the same 
 answer. Perhaps we might say that the objeot of 
 Revelation was to enlighten and enlarge the mind, 
 to make us act by reason, and to expand and 
 strengthen our powers : or to impart knowledge 
 about religious truth, knowledge being power di- 
 rectly it is given, and enabling us forthwith to think, 
 
233 
 
 judge, and act for ourselves ; or to make us good 
 members of the community, loyal subjects, orderly 
 and useful in our station, whatever it be ; or to se- 
 cure, what otherwise would be hopeless, our leading 
 a religious life ; the reason why persons go wrong, 
 throw themselves away, follow bad courses, and lose 
 their character, being, that they have had no educa- 
 tion, that they are ignorant. These and other 
 answers might be given; some beside, and some 
 short of the mark. It may be useful, then, to con- 
 sider with what end, with what expectation, we 
 preach, teach, instruct, discuss, bear witness, praise, 
 and blame ; what fruit the Church is right in an- 
 ticipating as the result of her ministerial labors. 
 St. Paul gives us a reason .... different from any 
 of those which I have mentioned. He labors more 
 than all the Apostles. And why ? Not to civilize 
 the world, not to smoothe the face of society, not to 
 facilitate the movements of civil government, not to 
 spread abroad knowledge, not to cultivate the rea- 
 son, not for any great worldly object, but 'for the 
 elect's sake.' .... And such is the office of the 
 Church in every nation where she sojourns ; she at- 
 tempts much ; she expects and promises little."* 
 
 I do not, of course, deny that the Church does a 
 great deal more than she promises ; she fulfils a 
 number of secondary ends, and is the means of num- 
 
 Paroch. Serm. vol.iv. 
 
^34 
 
 berless temporal blessings to any country which 
 receives her. I only say, she is not to be estimated 
 and measured by such effects ; and if you think she 
 is, my brethren, then I must rank you with such 
 Erastians as Warburton, who, as 1 have shown you 
 in a former Lecture, considered political convenience 
 to be the test and standard of truth. 
 
 I have now begun with a consideration whioh I 
 fully recognized before I was a Catholic ; and now 
 I proceed to another, which has been forced on me, 
 as a matter of fact and experience, most powerfully 
 ever since, as it must be forced on every Catholic; 
 and therefore, like the former, has not at all origi- 
 nated in the need, or is put forth for the occasion 
 to meet a difficulty. 
 
 The Church, you know, is in warfare ; her life 
 here below is one long battle. But with whom is 
 she fighting ? For till we know her enemy we shall 
 not be able to estimate the skill of her tactics, the 
 object of her evolutions, or the success of her move- 
 ments. We shall be like civilians, contemplating 
 a field of battle, and seeing much dust, and smoke, 
 and motion, much defiling, charging, and manoeuv- 
 ring, but quite at a loss to tell the meaning of it all, 
 or which party is getting the better. And, if we 
 actually mistake the foe, we should criticise when we 
 should praise, and think that all is a defeat, when 
 every blow is telling. In all undertakings we must 
 ascertain the end proposed, before we can predicate 
 
235 
 
 their success or failure;, and, therefore, before we so 
 freely speak against the state of Catholic countries) 
 and reflect upon the Church herself in consequence, 
 we must have a clear view what it was the Church 
 has proposed to do with them and' for them. We 
 have, indeed, a right to blame and) dissent from the 
 end which she sets before her; we may quarrel with 
 the mission she professes to have received from 
 above; we may, dispense with Scripture, Fathers, 
 and the continuous tradition of 1800 years. That 
 is another matter ; then, at least, we have nothing 
 to do with the theological movement which has 
 given occasion to these Lectures ; then we are not 
 in the way to join the Catholic Church ; we must be 
 met on our own ground : but I am speaking to those 
 who go a great way with me ; who admit my prin- 
 ciples, who almost admit my conclusion ; who are all 
 but ready to submit to the Church, but who are 
 frightened by the present state of Catholic coun- 
 tries ; — to such I say, Judge of her fruit by her 
 principles and her object, which you yourselves also 
 admit; not by those of her enemies, which you 
 renounce. 
 
 The world believes in the world's ends as the 
 greatest of goods ; it wishes society to be governed 
 simply and entirely for the sake of this world. 
 Provided it could gain one little islet in the main, 
 one foot upon the coast, if it could cheapen tea by 
 sixpence a pound, or make its flag respected among 
 
236 
 
 the Esquimaux or Otaheitans, at the cost of a hun- 
 dred lives and a hundred souls, it would think it a 
 very good bargain. What does it know of hell ? it 
 disbelieves it ; it spits upon, it abominates, it curses, 
 its very name and notion. Next, as to the devil, it 
 does not believe in him either. We next come to 
 the flesh, and it is free to confess that it does not 
 think there is any great harm in following the in- 
 stincts of that nature which, perhaps it goes on to 
 say, Grod has given. How could it be otherwise ? 
 who ever heard of the world fighting with the flesh 
 and the devil? Well, then, what is its notion of 
 evil ? Evil, says the world, is whatever is an offence 
 to me, whatever obscures my majesty, whatever 
 disturbs my peace. Order, peace, tranquillity, 
 popular contentment, plenty, prosperity, advance in 
 arts and sciences, literature, refinement, splendor, 
 this is my millennium, or rather my elysium, my 
 swerga ; I acknowledge no whole, no individuality, 
 but my own ; the units which compose me are but 
 parts of me ; they have no perfection in themselves, 
 no end but in me ; in my glory is their bliss, and in 
 the hidings of my countenance they come to nought. 
 Such is the philosophy and practice of the 
 world ; — now the Church looks and moves in a 
 simply opposite direction. It contemplates, not the 
 whole, but the parts ; not a nation, but the men who 
 form it ; not society in the first place, but in the 
 second place, and in the first place individuals ; it 
 
23? 
 
 loots, beyond the outward act, on and into the) 
 thought, the motive, the intention, and the will ; it 
 looks beyond the world, and detects and moves 
 against the devil, who is sitting in ambush behind it. 
 It has, then, a foe in view, nay, it has a battle field, 
 to which the world is blind ; its proper battle field is 
 the heart of the individual, and its true foe is Satan. 
 My dear brethren, do not think I am declaiming, 
 or translating the pages of some primitive homily ; — 
 as I have already said, I bear my own testimony to 
 What has been brought home to me so closely and 
 vividly since I have been a Catholic ; viz., that that 
 mighty world-wide Church, like her Divine Author, 
 regards, consults, labors for the individual soul ; she 
 looks at the souls for whom Christ died, and who are 
 made over to her, and her one object, for which 
 everything is sacrificed, — appearances, reputation, 
 worldly triumph, — is to acquit herself well of this 
 most awful responsibility. Her one duty is to bring 
 forward the elect to salvation ; — to take offences out 
 of their path, to warn them of sin, to rescue them 
 from evil, to convert them, to teach them, to feed 
 them, to protect them, and to perfect them. most 
 tender loving Mother, ill-judged by the world, which 
 thinks she is, like itself, always minding the main 
 chance; on the contrary, it is her keen view of 
 things spiritual, and her love for the soul, which 
 hampers her in her negotiations and her measures, 
 on this hard cold earth, which is her place of so* 
 
238 
 
 journing! How easy would her course be, at least 
 for a while, could she give up this or that point of 
 faith, or connive at some innovation or irregularity 
 in the administration of the Sacraments! How 
 much would Gregory have gained from Russia) 
 could he have abandoned the United Greeks ! how 
 secure had Pius been upon his throne, could he have 
 allowed himself to fire on his people ! 
 
 No, my dear brethren, it is this supernatural sight 
 and supernatural aim, which is folly and feebleness 
 in the eyes of the world, and would be failure, but 
 for the Providence of God. The Church overlooks 
 everything in comparison of the immortal souL 
 Good and evil to her are not lights and shades 
 passing over the surface of society, but living powers, 
 springing from the depths of the heart. Actions 
 are not mere outward deeds and words, committed 
 by hand or tongue, and manifested in effects over a 
 range of influence wider Or narrower, as the case 
 may be ; but they are the thoughts, the desires, the 
 purposes, of the solitary spirit. She knows nothing 
 of space or time, except as secondary to will; she 
 knows no evil but sin, and sin is a something per* 
 sonal, conscious, voluntary ; she knows no good but 
 grace, and grace again is something personal, private, 
 special, lodged in the soul of the individual. She 
 has one and one only aim,— to purify the heart ; she 
 recollects who it is who has turned ou»- thoughts 
 from the external crime to the inward imagination ; 
 
239 
 
 who said, that " unless our justice abounded more 
 than that of Scribes and Pharisees, we should not 
 enter into the kingdom of Heaven ;" and that " out 
 of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul* 
 teries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blas- 
 phemies. These are the things that defile a man." 
 Now I would have you take up the sermons of any 
 preacher, or any writer on moral theology, who has 
 a name ambng Catholics, and see if what I have 
 said is not strictly fulfilled, however little you fancy 
 so before you make trial. Protestants, I say, think 
 that the Church aims at appearance and effect ; she 
 must be splendid, and majestic, and influential ; fine 
 services, music, lights, vestments, and then again, in 
 her dealings with others, courtesy, smoothness, cun- 
 ning, dexterity, intrigue, management, — these, it 
 seems, are the ends of the Catholic Church. Well, 
 my brethren, she cannot help succeeding, she cannot 
 help being strong, she cannot help being beautiful ; 
 it is her gift ; as she moves, the many wonder and 
 adore ; — " Et vera incessu patuit Dea." It cannot 
 be otherwise, certainly ; but it is not her aim ; she 
 goes forth on the one errand, as I have said, of 
 healing the diseases of the soul. Look, I say, into 
 any book of moral theology you will ; there is much 
 there which may startle you ; you will find principles 
 hard to digest; explanations which seem to you 
 subtle; details which distress you; you will find 
 abundance of what will make excellent matter of 
 
240 
 
 attack at Exeter Hall ; but you will find from first 
 to last this one idea, — nay, that very matter of attack 
 is occasioned by her keeping it in view ; she would 
 be saved the odium, she would not have thus bared 
 her side to the sword, but for her fidelity to it ; — the 
 one idea that sin is the enemy of the soul; and sin 
 especially consists, not in overt acts, but in the 
 thoughts of the heart. 
 
 This, then, is the point I insist upon, in answer to 
 the objection which you have to-day urged against 
 me. The Church aims, not at making a show, but 
 at doing a work. She regards this world, and all 
 that is in it, as a mere shade, as dust and ashes, 
 compared with the value of one single soul. She 
 holds that, unless she can, in her own way, do good 
 to souls, it is no use her doing anything ; she holds 
 that it were better for sun and moon to drop from 
 heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many 
 millions who are upon it to die of starvation in ex- 
 tremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, 
 than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, 
 but should commit one single venial sin, should tell 
 one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal 
 one poor farthing without excuse. She considers 
 the aotion of this world and the action of the soul 
 simply incommensurate, viewed in their respective 
 spheres ; she would rather save the soul of one single 
 wild bandit of Calabria, or whining beggar of Paler- 
 mo, than draw a hundred lines of railroad through 
 
241 
 
 the length of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform, 
 in its fullest details, in every city of Sicily, except 
 so far as these great national works tended to soma 
 spiritual good beyond them. 
 
 Such is the Church, ye men of the world, and 
 now you know her. Such she is, such she will be, 
 and though she aims at your good, it is in her own 
 way, — and if you oppose her, she defies you. She 
 has her mission, and do it she will, whether she be 
 in rags, or in fine linen ; whether with awkward or 
 with refined carriage ; whether by means of uncul- 
 tivated intellects, or with the grace of accomplish- 
 ments. Not that, in fact, she is not the source of 
 numberless temporal and moral blessings to you 
 also ; the history of ages testifies it ; but she makes 
 no promises ; she is sent to seek the lost ; — that is 
 her first object, and she will fulfil it, whatever comes 
 of it. 
 
 And now in saying this, I think I have gone a 
 great way towards suggesting one main solution of 
 the difficulty which I proposed to consider. The 
 question was this : — How is it, that at this time 
 Catholic countries happen to be behind Protestants 
 in civilization ? In answer,~I do not determine how 
 far the fact is so, or what explanation there may be 
 of the appearance of it ; but any how the fact is 
 surely no objection to Catholicism, unless Catholicism 
 has professed, or ought to have professed, directly to 
 promote mere civilization ; — on the other hand, it 
 11 
 
242 
 
 has a work of its own, and this work, I have said or 
 implied, is, first, different from that of the world ; 
 next, difficult of attainment, compared with that of 
 the world ; arid lastly, secret' from the world in its 
 parts and consequences. If, then, Spain or Italy be 
 deficient in secular progress, if the national mind in 
 those countries be but partially formed, if it be 
 unable to develope into civil institutions, if it have 
 no moral instinct of deference to a policeman, if the 
 national finances be in disorder, if the people be 
 excitable, and open to deception from political pre- 
 tenders, if it know little or nothing of arts, sciences, 
 and literature ; — I repeat I do not admit all this, 
 except hypothetically ; I think it an exaggeration ; — ■ 
 then all I can say, is, that it is not wonderful that 
 civil institutions, which profess these objects, should 
 succeed better than the Church, which does not. 
 Not till the State is blamed for not making saints, 
 may it fairly be laid to the fault of the Church that 
 she cannot invent a steam-engine or construct a 
 tariff. It is in truth merely because she has often 
 done so much more than she professes, it is really in 
 consequence of her very exuberance of benefit to 
 the world, that the world is disappointed that she 
 does not display that exuberance always, — like some 
 hangers-on of the great, who come at length to think 
 they have a claim on their bounty. 
 
 Now let me try to bring out what I mean more in 
 detail ; and, in doing so, I hope to be pardoned, my 
 
243 
 
 brethren, if my language be now and then of a more 
 directly religious cast than I willingly would admit 
 into disquisitions such as the present. In religious 
 language, then, the one object of the Church, to 
 which every other object is second, is that of recon- 
 ciling the soul to Grod. She cannot disguise from 
 herself, that, with whatever advantages her children 
 commence their course, in spite of their baptism, in 
 Bpite of their most careful education and training, 
 still the great multitude of them require her present 
 and continual succor to keep them or rescue them 
 From a state of mortal sin. Taking human nature 
 as it is, she knows well, that, left to themselves, they 
 Would relapse into the state of those who are not 
 Catholics, whatever latent principle of truth and 
 goodness might remain in them, and whatever con- 
 sequent hope of a future revival. They may be full 
 of ability and energy, they may be men of geniusj 
 men of literature and taste, poets and painter^ 
 musicians and architects ; they may be statesmen or 
 soldiers ; they may be in professions or in trade ; 
 they may be skilled in the mechanical arts ; they 
 may be a hard-working, money-making community 3 
 they may have great political influence ; they may 
 pour out a flood of population on every side ; they 
 may have a talent for colonization ; or, on the other 
 hand, they may be members of a country once 
 glorious, whose day is passed; where luxury, ot 
 civil diseord, or want of mental force, or other mord 
 
244 
 
 subtle cause, is the insuperable bar in the way of any 
 national demonstration ; or they may be half re- 1 
 claimed from barbarism ; or they may be a simple 
 rural population ; they may be in the cold north, or 
 the beautiful south ; but, whatever and wherever 
 they are, the Church knows well, that those vast 
 masses of population, as viewed in the individual 
 units of which they are composed, are in a state of 
 continual lapse from the Centre of sanctity and 
 love, ever falling under His displeasure, and tending 
 to a state ef habitual alienation from Him. Her 
 one work towards these many millions, is, year after 
 year, day after day, to be raising them out of the 
 mire, and when they sink again to raise them again, 
 and so to keep them afloat, as she best may, on the 
 surface of that stream, which is carrying them down 
 to eternity. Of course, through God's mercy, there 
 are numbers who are exceptions to this statement, 
 who are living in obedience and peace, or going on 
 to perfection ; but the word of Christ, " Many are 
 called, few are chosen," is fulfilled in any extensive 
 field of operation which the Church is called to su- 
 perintend. Her one object, through her ten thou- 
 sand organs, by preachers and by confessors, by 
 parish priests and by religious communities, in mis- 
 sions and in retreats, at Christmas and at Easter, by 
 fasts and by feasts, by devotions and by indulgences, 
 is this unwearied ever-patient reconciliation of the 
 soul to God and obliteration of sin. Thus, in tho 
 
245 
 
 -words of Scripture, most emphatically, she know* 
 nought else, hut " Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 
 It is her ordinary toil, into which her other labors 
 resolve themselves, or towards which they are di- 
 rected. Does she send out her missionaries ? Does 
 she summon her doctors ? Does she enlarge or 
 diversify her worship? does she multiply her reli- 
 gious bodies? It is all to gain souls to Christ. 
 And if she encourages other enterprises, studies, or 
 pursuits, as she does, or the arts of civilization 
 generally, it is either from their indirect bearing 
 upon her great object, or from the spontaneous 
 energy which great ideas exert, and the irresistible 
 influence which they exercise, in matters and in 
 provinces not really their own. 
 
 Moreover, as sins are of unequal gravity in Cod's 
 judgment, though all of whatever kind are offensive 
 to Him, and incur their measure of punishment, the 
 Church's great object is to discriminate between sin 
 and sin, and to secure in individuals that renuncia- 
 tion of evil, which is implied in the idea of a sub- 
 stantial and unfeigned conversion. She has no 
 warrant, and she has no encouragement, to enforce 
 upon men ingeneral more than those habits of virtue, 
 the absence of which would be tantamount to their 
 separation from God ; and she thinks she has done 
 a great deal, and exults in her success, does she 
 proceed so far ; and she bears as she may, what re- 
 mains still to be done, in the conviction that, did she 
 
246 
 
 attempt more, she might lose all. There are sins 
 which are simply imeompatible with contrition and 
 absolution under any circumstances ; there are others 
 which are disorders and disfigurements of the soul. 
 She exhorts men against the second, she directs her 
 efforts against the first. 
 
 Now here at once the Church and the world part 
 company ; for the world too, as is necessary, has its 
 scale of offences as well as the Church ; but, refer- 
 ring them to a contrary object, it classifies them on 
 quite a contrary principle ; so that what is heinous 
 in the world may be regarded patiently by the 
 Church, and what is horrible and ruinous in the 
 judgment of the Church may fail to exclude a man 
 from the best society of the world. And, this being 
 so, when the world contemplates the training of the 
 Church and its results, then, judging by its own 
 standard, it cannot avoid, from the nature of the 
 case, if for no other reason, thinking very contemp- 
 tuously of fruits, which are so different from those 
 which it makes the standard and token of moral 
 excellence. 
 
 I may say the Church aims at three special vir- 
 tues, which reconcile and unite the soul to its 
 Maker; — faith, purity, and charity; — for two of 
 which the world cares little or nothing. The world, 
 on the other hand, puts in the first place, in some 
 states of society, certain heroic qualities ; in others, 
 certain virtues of a political or mercantile character. 
 
247 
 
 In ruder ages, it is personal courage, strength of 
 purpose, magnanimity ; in more civilized, honesty, 
 fairness, honor, truth, and benevolence : — virtues, all 
 of which, of course, the teaching of the Church 
 comprehends, all of which she expects in their de- 
 gree in all her consistent children, and all of which 
 she exacts in their fulness in her saints : but which, 
 sifter all, most beautiful as they are, are really the 
 fruit of nature as well as of grace ; which do not 
 necessarily imply grace at all : which do not reach 
 so far as sanctity, or unite the soul by any super- 
 natural process to the source of supernatural per- 
 fection and supernatural blessedness. Again, as I 
 have already said, the Church contemplates virtue 
 and vice in their first elements, as conceived and 
 existing in thought, desire, and will, and holds that 
 the one or the other may be as complete and mature, 
 without passing forth from the home of the secret 
 heart, as if it had ranged forth in profession and in 
 deed all over the earth. Thus, in a certain sense, 
 she ignores bodies politic, and society, and temporal 
 interests : whereas the world talks of religion being 
 a matter of private concern, too personal, too sacred t 
 for it to have any opinion about it : it praises 
 public men, if they are useful to itself, but simply 
 ridicules inquiry into their motives, thinks it imper- 
 tinent in others to attempt it, and out of taste in 
 themselves to invite it. All public men it thinks 
 pretty much the same at bottom ; but what matter 
 
248 
 
 to it, if they do its work ? It offers high pay, and 
 it expects faithful service; but as to its agents, 
 overseers, men of business, operatives, journeymen, 
 figure-servants, and laborers, what they are per- 
 sonally, what their principles and aims, what their 
 creed, what their conversation is, where they live, 
 how they spend their leisure time, whither they are 
 going, how they die, — I am stating a simple matter 
 of fact, I am not here praising or blaming, I am but 
 contrasting, — I say, all questions implying the ex- 
 istence of the soul, are as much beyond the circuit 
 of the world's imagination, as they are intimately 
 and primarily presenc to the apprehension of the 
 Church. 
 
 The Church, then, considers the momentary, 
 fleeting act of the will, in the three subject matters 
 I have mentioned, to be capable of guiltiness of the 
 deadliest character, or of the most efficacious and 
 triumphant merit. She holds that a soul laden with 
 the most enormous offence in deed as well as thought, 
 a savage tyrant, who delighted in cruelty, an habitual 
 adulterer, a murderer, a blasphemer, who has scoffed 
 at religion through a long life, and corrupted every 
 soul which he could bring within his influence, who 
 has loathed the Sacred Name, and cursed his 
 Saviour, — that such a man can, in a moment, by one 
 thought of the heart, by one true act of contrition, 
 reconcile himself to Almighty God, (through His 
 secret grace,) without Sacrament, without Priest, 
 
249 
 
 and be as clean, and fair, and lovely, as if he had 
 never sinned. Again, she considers that in a mo- 
 ment also, with eyes shut and arms folded, a man 
 may cut himself off from the Almighty by a deli- 
 berate act of the will, and cast himself into per- 
 dition. With the world it is the reverse ; a member 
 of society may go as near the line of evil, as the 
 world draws it, as he will ; but, till he has passed it, 
 he is safe. Again, when he has once transgressed 
 it, recovery is impossible; let honor of man or 
 woman be sullied, and to restore its splendor is 
 simply to undo the past ; it is impossible. 
 
 Such being the extreme difference between the 
 Church and the world, both as to the measure and 
 the scale of moral good and evil, we may be pre- 
 pared for those vast differences in matters of detail,' 
 which I hardly like to mention, lest they should be 
 out of keeping with the gravity of the subject, as 
 contemplated in its broad principle. For instance, 
 the Church pronounces the momentary wish, if con- 
 scious and deliberate, that another should meet with 
 his death, or suffer any grievous misfortune, as a 
 blacker sin than a passionate, unpremeditated at- 
 tempt on the life of the Sovereign. She considers 
 consent, though as quick as thought, to a single 
 unchaste wish as indefinitely more heinous than any 
 lie which can possibly be fancied, that is, when 
 viewed, of course, in itself, and apart . from its 
 ■causes, motives, and consequences. Take a mere 
 11* 
 
250 
 
 beggar-woman, lazy, ragged, filthy, and not over 
 scrupulous of truth, — (I do not say she has arrived 
 at perfection,) — but if she is chaste, and sober, and 
 cheerful, and goes to her religious duties, (and I am 
 supposing not at all an impossible case,) she will, 
 in the eyes of the Church, have a prospect of heaven, 
 quite closed and refused to the State's pattern-man, 
 the just, the upright, the generous, the honorable, 
 the conscientious, if he be all this, not from a super- 
 natural power, — (I do not determine whether this is 
 likely to be the faet, but I am contrasting views and 
 principles,) — not from a supernatural power, but 
 from mere natural virtue. Polished delicate-minded 
 ladies, with little of temptation around them, and 
 no self-denial to practise, in spite of their refinement 
 and taste, if they be nothing more, are objects of 
 less interest to her than many a poor outcast who 
 sins, repents, and is with difficulty kept just within 
 the territory of grace. Again , excess in drinking 
 is one of the world's most disgraceful offences ; 
 odious it ever is in the eyes of the Church, but if it 
 does not proceed to the loss of reason, she thinks it 
 a far less sin than one deliberate act of detraction, 
 though the matter of it be truth. And again, not 
 unfrequently does a Priest hear a confession of 
 thefts, which he knows would sentence the penitent 
 to transportation, if brought into a court of justice, 
 but whjch he knows too, in the judgment of the 
 Church, might be pardoned on the man's private 
 
251 
 
 contrition, without any confession at all. Once 
 more, the State has the guardianship of property, 
 as the Church is the guardian of the faith ; in the 
 middle ages the Church put to death for heresy, and 
 even in our own times the State has put to death 
 for forgery, nay, I suppose, for sheep-stealing. 
 
 Now, my brethren, you may think it impolitic in 
 me thus candidly to state what may be so strange 
 in the eyes of the world ; but not so, my dear 
 brethren, just the contrary. The world already 
 knows quite enough of our difference of judgment 
 from it on the whole ; it knows that difference also 
 in its .results; it does not know that it is based on 
 principle ; it taunts the Church with that difference, 
 as if nothing could be said for her, as if it were not, 
 as it is, a mere question of a balance of evils, as if 
 the Church had nothing to show for herself, were 
 simply ashamed of her evident helplessness, and 
 pleaded guilty to the charge of her inferiority to the 
 world in the moral effects of her teaching. The 
 world points to the children of the Church, and asks 
 if she acknowledges them as her own. It dreams 
 not that the contrast arises out of a difference of 
 principle, and that she claims to recognise a principle 
 higher than the world's. Principle is always re- 
 spectable ; even a bad man is more respected, though 
 he may be more hated, if he owns 'and justifies his 
 actions, than if he is wicked by accident ; now the 
 Church professes to judge after the judgment of the 
 
252 
 
 Almighty ; and it cannot be imprudent or impolitical 
 to bring this out clearly and boldly. His judgment 
 is not as man's : " I judge not according to the look 
 of man," He says ; " for man seeth those things 
 which appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart." 
 The Church aims at realities, the world at decencies ; 
 she dispenses with a complete work, so she can but 
 make a thorough one. Provided she can do for the 
 soul what is necessary, if she can but pull the brands 
 out of the burning, if she can but extract the poison- 
 ous root which is the death of the soul, and expel 
 the disease, she is content, though she leaves in it 
 secondary maladies, little as she sympathizes with 
 them. 
 
 Now, were it to my present purpose to attack the 
 principles and proceedings of the world, of course it 
 would be obvious for me to retort upon the cold, 
 cruel, selfish system, which this supreme worship of 
 comfort, decency, and social order, necessarily intro- 
 duces ; to show you how the many are sacrificed to 
 the few, the poor to the wealthy, how an oligarchical 
 monopoly of enjoyment is established far and wide, 
 and the claims of want, and pain, and sorrow, and 
 affliction, and guilt, and misery, are practically for- 
 gotten. But I will not have recourse to the com- 
 mon-places of controversy, when I am on the 
 defensive. All I would say to the world is, — Keep 
 your theories to yourself, do not inflict them upon 
 the sons of Adam everywhere; do not measure 
 
253 
 
 heaven and earth by views which are in a great de- 
 gree insular, and never can be philosophical and 
 catholic. You do your work perhaps in a more 
 business-like way, compared with ourselves, but we 
 are immeasurably more tender, and gentle, and 
 angelic. "We come to poor human nature as the 
 angels of God, and you as policemen. Look at your 
 poor-houses, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and prisons ; 
 how perfect are their externals ! what skill and in- 
 genuity appear in their structure, economy, and 
 administration ! they are as decent and bright and 
 calm, as what our Lord seems to name them, — dead 
 men's sepulchres. Yes ! they have all the world 
 can give, all but life ; all but a heart. Yes ! you 
 can hammer up a coffin, you can plaster a tomb ; 
 you are nature's undertakers ; you cannot build it a 
 home. You cannot feed it, or heal it ; it lies, like 
 Lazarus, at your gate, full of sores. You see it 
 gasping and panting with privations and penalties ; 
 and you sing to it, you dance to it, you show it your 
 picture-books, you let off your fireworks, you open 
 your menageries. Shallow philosophers! is this 
 mode of going on so winning and persuasive, that 
 we should imitate it ? 
 
 Look at your conduct towards criminals, and 
 honestly say, whether you expect a power, which 
 claims to be divine, to turn copyist of you ? You 
 have the power of life»and death committed to you 
 by heaven ; and some wretched being is sentenced 
 
254 
 
 to fall under it for some deed of treachery and 
 blood. It is a righteous sentence, re-echoed by a 
 whole people; and you have a feeling that the 
 criminal himself ought to concur in it, and sentence 
 himself. There is an universal feeling that he ought 
 to resign himself to your act, and, as it were, take 
 part in it ; in other words, there is a sort of instinct 
 among you that he should make confession, and you 
 are not content without his doing so. So far the 
 Church goes along with you ; so far, but no farther. 
 To whom is he to confess 1 To me, says the Priest, 
 for he has injured the Almighty. To me, says the 
 world, for he has injured me. Forgetting that the 
 power to sentence is simply from God, and that the 
 sentence, if just, is God's sentence, the world is 
 peremptory that no confession shall be made by him 
 to God, without its being in the secret. It is right, 
 doubtless, that he should make reparation to man as 
 well as to God ; but it is not right that the world 
 should insist on having precedence of its Maker, or 
 should prescribe that its Maker should have no 
 secrets apart from itself, or that no divine ministra- 
 tion should relieve a laden breast without its med- 
 dling in the act. Yet the world rules it, that what- 
 ever is said to a minister of religion in religious 
 confidence, is its own property. It considers a 
 clergyman who attends upon the culprit to be its 
 own servant, and by its boards of magistrates, and 
 by its literary organs, it insists on his revealing to 
 
265 
 
 its judgment-seat what was uttered before the 
 judgment-seat of God. What wonder, then, if such 
 forlorn wretches, when thus plainly told that the 
 world is their only god, and knowiDg that they are 
 quitting the presence of that high potentate for ever, 
 steel themselves with obduracy, encounter it with 
 defiance, baffle its curiosity, and inflict on its im- 
 patience such poor revenge as is in its power? 
 They come forth into the light, and look up into the 
 face of day for the last time, and, amid the jests 
 and blasphemies of myriads, they pass from a world 
 which they hate into a world which they deny. 
 Small mercies, indeed, has this world shown them, 
 and they make no trial of the mercies of another I 
 Oh, how contrary is the look, the bearing of the 
 Catholic Church to these poor outcasts of mankind I 
 There was a time, when one who denied his Lord, 
 was brought to repentance by a glance ; and such is 
 the method which His Church teaches to those 
 nations who, acknowledge her authority and her 
 sway. The civil magistrate, stern of necessity, in 
 his function, and inexorable in his resolve, at her 
 bidding, gladly puts on a paternal countenance, and 
 takes on him an office of mercy towards the victim . 
 of his wrath. He infuses the ministry of life into 
 the ministry of death ; he afflicts the body for the 
 good of the soul, and converts the penalty of human 
 law into an instrument of everlasting bliss. It is 
 good for human beings to die as infants, before they 
 
256 
 
 have known good or evil, if they have but received 
 the baptism of the Church ; but next to these, who 
 are the happiest, who are the safest, for whose de- 
 parture have we more cause to rejoice, and be thank- 
 ful, than for theirs, who, if they live on, are so likely 
 to relapse into old habits of sin, but who are taken 
 out of this miserable world in the flower of their 
 contrition, and in the freshness of their prepara- 
 tion ; — just at the very moment when they have 
 perfected themselves in good dispositions, and from 
 their heart have put off sin, and have come humbly 
 for pardon, and have received the grace of abso- 
 lution, and have been fed with the bread of Angels, 
 and thus, amid the prayers of all men, have departed 
 to their Maker and their Judge? I say "the 
 prayers of all :" for oh the difference, in this respect, 
 in the execution of the extreme sentence of the law, 
 between a Catholic State and another ! We have 
 all heard of the scene of impiety and profaneness 
 which attends on the execution of a criminal in 
 England ; so much so, that benevolent and thought- 
 ful men are perplexed between the evil of privacy 
 and the outrages which publicity occasions. Well, 
 England surpasses Berne in ten thousand matters 
 of this world, but never would the Holy City tolerate 
 an enormity which powerful England cannot hinder. 
 An arch confraternity was instituted there at the 
 close of the fifteenth century, under the invocation 
 of San Giovanni Decollato, the Holy Baptist, who 
 
257 
 
 lost his head by a king's sentence, though an unjust 
 one ; and it exercises its pious offices towards con- 
 demned criminals even now. When a culprit is to 
 be executed, the night preceding the fatal day, two 
 priests of the brotherhood, who sometimes happen 
 to be Bishops or persons of high authority in the 
 city, remain with him in prayer, attend him on the 
 scaffold the next morning, and assist him through 
 every step of the terrible ceremonial of which he is . 
 the subject. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed in 
 all the churches all over the city, that the faithful 
 may assist a sinner about to make a compulsory 
 appearance before his Judge. The crowd about the 
 scaffold is occupied in but one thought, whether he 
 has shown signs of contrition. Various reports are 
 in circulation, that he is obdurate, that he has 
 yielded, that he is obdurate still. The women cry 
 out that it is impossible ; Jesus and Mary will see 
 to it ; they will not believe that it is so ; they are 
 sure that he will submit himself to his God before 
 he enters into His presence. However, it is perhaps 
 confirmed that the unhappy man is still wrestling 
 with his pride ; and though he has that illumination 
 of faith which a Catholic cannot but possess, yet he 
 cannot bring himself to hate and abhor sins which, 
 except in their awful consequences, are, as far as 
 their enjoyment, gone from him for ever. He cannot 
 taste again the pleasure of revenge or of forbidden 
 indulgence, yet he cannot get himself to give it up, 
 
258 
 
 though the world is passing from him. The excite- 
 ment of the crowd is at its height ; an hour passes ; 
 the suspense is intolerable, when the news is brought 
 of a change ; that, before the crucifix, in the solitude 
 of his cell, at length the, not unhappy any longer, 
 the happy criminal has subdued himself; has prayed 
 with real self-abasement ; has expressed, has felt, a 
 charitable, a tender thought towards those he has 
 hated ; has resigned himself lovingly to his destiny ; 
 has blessed the hand that smites him ; has suppli- 
 cated pardon ; has confessed with all his heart, and 
 placed himself at the disposal of his Priest, to make 
 such amends as he can make in his last hour to God 
 and man ; has desired to submit here to indignity, to 
 pain, to which he is not sentenced; has resigned 
 himself to aqy length of purgatory hereafter, if 
 thereby he may, through God's mercy, show his 
 sincerity, and his desire of pardon and of gaining 
 the lowest place in the kingdom of heaven. The 
 news comes ; it is communicated through the vast 
 multitude all at once; and, I have heard from those 
 who have been present, never shall they forget the 
 instantaneous shout of joy which burst forth from 
 every tongue, and formed itself into one concordant 
 Ave of thanksgiving, in acknowledgment of the 
 grace vouchsafed to one so near eternity. 
 
 It is not wonderful then to find the holy men, who 
 from time to time have done the pious office of pre- 
 paring such criminals for death, so confident of their 
 
259 
 
 salvation. " So well convinced was father Claver 
 of the eternal happiness of almost all those whom 
 he assisted," says this saintly missionary's biogra- 
 pher, "that, speaking once of some persons who 
 had delivered a criminal into the hands of justice, 
 he said, ' God forgive them ; but they have secured 
 the salvation of this man at the probable risk of 
 their own.' Most of the criminals considered it a 
 grace to die in the hands of this holy man. As 
 soon as he spake to them the most savage and in- 
 domitable became gentle as lambs ; and, in place of 
 their ordinary imprecations, nothing was heard but 
 sighs, and the sound of bloody disciplines, which 
 they took before leaving the prison for execution." 
 But I must come to an end. I do not consider, 
 my brethren, I have said all that might be said in 
 answer to the difficulty which has come under our 
 consideration ; nor have I proposed to do so. Such 
 an undertaking does not fall within the scope of 
 these Lectures ; it is an inquiry into facts. It is 
 enough if I have suggested to you one thought 
 which may most materially invalidate it. You tell 
 me, that the political and civil state of Catholic coun- 
 tries is below that of Protestant : I answer, that, 
 even though you prove the fact, you have to prove 
 something besides, if it is to be an argument, viz. 
 that the standard of civil prosperity or political 
 aggrandizement is the truest test of grace and the 
 greatest measure of salvation. 
 
LECTTJKE IX. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OP CATHOLIC COUNTRIES, 
 WO PREJUDICE TO THE SANCTITY OP THE CHURCH. 
 
 I considered, in the preceding Lecture, the ob- 
 jection brought in this day against the Catholic 
 Church, from the state of the countries which beloDg 
 to her. It is urged, that they are so far behind the 
 rest of the world in the arts and comforts of life, in 
 power of political combination, in civil economy, 
 and the social virtues, in a word, in all that tends to 
 make this world pleasant, and the loss of it painful, 
 that their religion cannot come from above. I an- 
 swered, that, before the argument could be made to 
 tell, it must be proved, not only that the fact was as 
 stated, (and I think it should be very closely ex- 
 amined,) but especially that there is that essential 
 connexion in the nature of things between true re- 
 ligion and temporal prosperity, which the objection 
 took for granted. That there is a natural and ordi- 
 
261 
 
 Dary connexion between them no one would deny i 
 but it is one thing to say that prosperity ought to 
 follow from religion, quite another to say that it 
 must follow from it. Thus, health, for instance, 
 may be expected from a habit of regular exercise; 
 but no one would positively deny the fact that exer- 
 cise had been taken in a particular case, merely 
 because the patient gave signs of an infirm or sickly 
 state of body. And, indeed, there may be particular 
 and most wise reasons in the scheme of Divine Pro- 
 vidence, whatever be the legitimate tendency of the 
 Catholic faith, for its being left, from time to time, 
 without any striking manifestations of its beneficial 
 action upon the temporal interests of mankind, 
 without the influence of wealth, learning, civil talent, 
 or political sagacity ; nay, as in the days of St. 
 Cyprian and St. Angustin, with the actual reproach 
 of impairing the material resources and the social 
 greatness of the nations which embrace it : viz., in 
 order to remind the Church, and to teach the world, 
 that she needs no temporal recommendations who 
 has a heavenly Protector, but can make her way (as 
 they say) against wind and tide. 
 
 This, then, was the subject I selected for my last 
 Lecture, and I said there were three reasons, why 
 the world is no fit judge of the work, or the kind of 
 work, really done by the Church in any age : — first, 
 because the world's measure of good and scope . of 
 action are so different from those of the Church, that 
 
262 
 
 it judges as unfairly and as narrowly of the fruits of 
 Catholicism and their value, as a soldier might judge 
 of the use and the influence of literature, or rather 
 indefinitely more so. The Church, though she em- 
 braces all conceivable virtues in her teaching, and 
 every kind of good, temporal as well as spiritual, in 
 her exertions, does not survey them from the same 
 point of view, or classify them in the same order as 
 the world. She makes secondary, what the world 
 considers indispensable ; she places first what the 
 world does not even recognise, or undervalues, or 
 dislikes, or thinks impossible ; and not being able$ 
 taking mankind as it is found, to do everything, she 
 is often obliged to give up altogether what she thinks 
 of but secondary moment, in a particular age, or a 
 particular country, instead of effecting at all risks 
 that extirpation of social evils, which, in the world's 
 eyes, is so necessary, that ifc thinks nothing really is 
 done, till it is secured. Her base of operations, 
 from the difficulties of the season or period, is some- 
 times not broad enough to enable her to advance 
 against crime as well as against sin, and to destroy 
 barbarism as well as irreligion. The world, in con- 
 sequence, thinks, that, because she has not done the 
 world's work, she has not fulfilled her Master's pur* 
 pose ; and imputes to her the enormity of having 
 put eternity before time. 
 
 And next, let it be observed that she has under- 
 taken the more difficult work ; it is difficult certainly 
 
26l 
 
 to enlighten the savage, to make him peaceable, 
 orderly, and self-denying; to persuade him to dress 
 like a European, to make him prefer a feather-bed 
 to the heather or the cave, and to appreciate the 
 comforts of the fire-side and the tea-table : but it is 
 indefinitely more difficult, even with the supernatural 
 powers given to the Church, to make the most re- 
 fined, accomplished, amiable of men, chaste or 
 humble ; to bring, not only his outward actions, but 
 his thoughts, imaginations, and aims, into conformity 
 to a law which is naturally distasteful to him. It is 
 not wonderful then, if the Church does not do so 
 much in the Church's way, as the world does in the 
 world's way. The world has nature as an ally, and 
 the Church, on the whole, has it as an enemy. 
 
 And lastly, as I have implied, her best fruit is 
 rfecessarily secret : she fights with the heart of man 5 
 her perpetual conflict is against the pride, the im- 
 purity, the covetousness, the envy, the animosity, 
 which never gets so far as to come to light ; which 
 she succeeds in strangling in its birth. BVom the 
 nature of the case, she ever will do more in repres- 
 sing evil, than in creating good 5 moreover, virtue 
 and sanctity, even where realized, are also in great 
 measure secret possessions, known only to God and 
 good angels ; for these then and other reasons the 
 power and the triumphs of the Church must be hid 
 from the world, unless the doors of the Confessional 
 could be flung open, and its whispers carried abroad 
 
264 
 
 on the voices of the winds. Nor indeed would this 
 be enough for the due comparison of the Church 
 with religions which aim at no personal self-govern- 
 ment, and disown on principle examination of con- 
 science and confession of sin ; but for its execution 
 we must wait for that day, when the books shall be 
 opened and the secrets of hearts shall be disclosed. 
 For all these reasons then, from the peculiarity, and 
 the arduousness, and the secrecy of the mission 
 given to the Church, it comes to pass that the world 
 may, at particular periods, think very slightingly of 
 her influence on society, and vastly prefer its own 
 methods and its own achievements. 
 
 So much I suggested towards the consideration of 
 a subject, to which justice could not really be done 
 except in a very lengthened disquisition, and by an 
 examination of matters which lie beyond the range 
 of these Lectures. If then to-day I make a second 
 remark upon it, I do so with the object I have kept 
 before me all along, of merely smoothing the way 
 into the Catholic Church of those who are already 
 very near the gate ; who have reasons enough, taken 
 by themselves, for believing her claims, but are 
 perplexed and stopped by the counter arguments 
 which are urged against her, or at least against joining 
 her. 
 
 To-day, then, I shall fancy an objector to reply to 
 what I have said in the following manner: viz., I 
 shall suppose him to say, that "the reproach of 
 
265 
 
 Catholicism is, not what it does not do, so much as 
 what it does ; that its teaching and its training do 
 produce a certain very definite character on a nation 
 and on individuals ; and that character, so far from 
 being too religious or too spiritual, is just the re- 
 verse, very like the World's ; that religion is a sacred, 
 awful, mysterious, solemn matter ; that it should be 
 approached with fear, and named, as it were, sotlo 
 voce : whereas Catholics, whether in the North or 
 the South, in the middle ages or in modern times, 
 exhibit the combined and contrary faults of profane - 
 ness and superstition. There is a bold, shallow, 
 hard, indelicate way among them of speaking of 
 even points of faith, which is, to use studiously mild 
 language, utterly out of taste, and indescribably 
 offensive to any person of ordinary refinement. 
 They are rude where they should be reverent, jocose 
 where they should be grave, and loquacious where 
 they should be silent. The most sacred feelings, 
 the most august doctrines, are glibly enunciated in 
 the shape of some short and smart theological for- 
 mula ; purgatory, hell, and the evil spirit, are a sort 
 of household words upon their tongue ; the most 
 solemn duties, such as confession, or saying office, 
 whether as spoken of or as performed, have a busi- 
 ness-like air and a mechanical action, about them, 
 quite inconsistent with their real nature. Religion 
 is made both free and easy, and yet formal. Su- 
 perstitions and false miracles are at once preached t 
 12 
 
266 
 
 assented to, and kughed at, till one really does not 
 know what is believed and what is not, or whether 
 anything is believed at all. The saints are lauded 
 yet affronted. Take medieval England or France, 
 or modern Belgium or Italy, it is all the same ; yoi* 
 have your boy-bishop at Salisbury, your lord of 
 misrule at Kheims, and at Sens your feast of asses* 
 Whether in the South now, or in the North formerly, 
 you have the excesses of your Carnival. Legends, 
 such as that of St. Dunstan's fight with the author 
 of evil at Glastonbury, are popular in Germany, in 
 Spain, in Scotland, and in Italy ; While in Naples or 
 in Seville your populations rise in periodical fury 
 against the celestial patrons whom they ordinarily 
 worship. These are but siDgle instances of a wide- 
 spread and momentous phenomenon, to which you 
 ought not to shut your eyes, and to which we can 
 never be reconciled ; a phenomenon in which we see 
 a plain prov'dential indication, that, in spite of our 
 eertainty, — first, that there is a Catholic Church* 
 next, that it is not the religious communion domi- 
 nant in England, or Russia, or Greece, or Prussia, 
 or Holland ; in short, that it is nothing else than the 
 communion of Borne, — still it is our bounden duty 
 to have nothiDg to do with the Pope, the Holy See, 
 or the Church of which it is the centre." Such is 
 the charge, my brethren, brought against the Catho- 
 lic Church, both by the Evangelical section of the 
 Establishment and by your own. 
 
267 
 
 Mow I grant to ydu, that to no national differences 
 can be attributed a character of religion so specific 
 atld peculiar ; it is too uniform, too universal to be 1 
 ascribed to anything short of the genius of Catho- 
 licism itself; that is, its principles and influence 
 acting upon human nature, such as it is everywhere 1 
 found. Such must be the fact, and I accept it ; I 
 accept it, I repeat in general terms what you have 
 said ; but I would add to it, and turn a fact into a 
 general, a philosophical truth. I say, then, that 
 such is the very phenomenon, which must necessarily 
 result from a revelation of divine truth falling upon 
 the human mind in its existing state of ignorance 1 
 and moral feebleness. 
 
 The wonder and the offence which Protestants 
 feel, arise, in no small measure, from the fact that 
 they hold the opinions of Protestants. They have 
 been taught a religion, and imbibed ideas and feel- 
 ings, and are suffering under disadvantages, which 
 Create the difficulty of which they complain ; and$ 
 to remove it, I shall be obliged, as on some former 
 Occasions, against my will to explain a point of doc- 
 trine. Protestants then consider, that faith and love 
 are insepat able i where there is faith, there, they 
 think, is love and obedience ; and in proportion to 
 the«trength and degree of the former; is the strength 
 and degree of the latter. They do not think the 
 inconsistency possible of really believing without 
 Obeying ; and, where they see disobedience, the f 
 
288 
 
 cannot Imagine the existence of true faith. Catho- 
 lics, on the other hand, hold that faith and love i 
 faith and obedience, faith and works, are simply 
 separable, and ordinarily separated in fact ; that faith 
 does not imply love, obedience, or works; that the 
 firmest faith, so as to move mountains, may exist 
 without love, that is, (rue faith, as truly faith in the 
 strict sense of the word as the faith of a martyr or 
 a doctor. In fact, it contemplates a gift which 
 Protestantism does not imagine. Faith is a spiritual 
 sight of the unseen, and Protestantism has not this 
 sight; it does not see the unseen ;this habit, this act 
 of the mind is foreign to it j so, since it keeps the 
 word " faith," it is obliged to find some other mean- 
 ing for it ; and its common, perhaps its commonest, 
 idea is, that faith is substantially the same as obe*- 
 dience : that it is the impulse, the motive of obedience, 
 or the fervor and heartiness which attend good works. 
 In a word, that faith is hope or love, or a mixture of 
 the two. It does not contemplate faith in its Catho- 
 lic sense ; for it has been taught by flesh and blood, 
 not by grace. 
 
 Now faith, in a Catholic's creed, is a certainty of 
 things not seen, but revealed ; a certainty, preceded 
 indeed in many cases by particular exercises of the 
 intellect, as conditions, by reflection, prayer, stu ly, 
 argument, or the like, and ordinarily, by the instru- 
 mental sacrament of Baptism, but caused directly, 
 by a supernatural influence on the mind from above. 
 
269 
 
 It is thus a spiritual sight ; and the nearest parallel 
 by which it can be illustrated is the moral sense. 
 As nature has impressed upon our mind a faculty of 
 recognising certain moral truths, when they are pre- 
 sented to us from without, so that we are quite sure 
 that veracity, for instance, benevolence and purity, 
 are right arid good, and that their contraries involve 
 guilt, in a somewhat similar way,' grace impresses 
 upon us inwardly that revelation which comes to us 
 sensibly by the ear or eye ; similarly, yet more vividly 
 and distinctly, because the moral perception consists 
 in sentiments, but the grace of faith carries the mind 
 on to objects. This certainty, or spiritual sight, 
 which is included in the idea of faith, is, according 
 to Catholic teaching, perfectly distinct in its own 
 nature from the desire, intention, and power of acting 
 agreeably to it. As men may know perfectly welt 
 that they ought not to steal, and yet may deliberately 
 take and appropriate what is not theirs ; so may they 
 be gifted with a simple, undoubting, cloudless belief, 
 that, for instance, Christ is in the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, and yet commit the sacrilege of breaking open 
 the tabernacle, and carrying off the consecrated 
 parti eles for the sake of the precious vessel con- 
 taining them. It is said in Scripture, that the evil 
 spirits " believe and tremble ;" and reckless men, . 
 in like manner, may, in the very sight of hell, de» 
 liberately sin for the sake of some temporary grati- 
 fication. Under these circumstances, even though 
 
270 
 
 I did not assume the Catholic view of the subject to 
 be true, which in the present state of the argument 
 I fairly may do (for I conceive that I have led you, 
 my brethren, to the very threshold of the Catholio 
 Church, and am viewing objections, not exactly in 
 themselves, but as a Catholic accounts for them, and 
 disposes of them, in order to show that they are no 
 bar in the way of your existing arguments for Ca- 
 tholicism carrying you on to conviction) 5 and though 
 I took this Catholic doctrine of faith and works 
 merely as an hypothesis, since it is so probable and 
 so philosophical, I would beg you to consider whether 
 H does not- suffice to solve the difficulty which is 
 created in your minds by the aspect of Catholic 
 countries. This, too, at least I may say ; if it shall 
 turn out that the aspect of Catholic countries is ac- 
 counted for by Catholic doctrine, at least that aspeot 
 will be no difficulty to you when once you join the 
 Catholic Church : for, in joining the Church, you 
 will be accepting the doctrine. Walk forward then 
 into the Catholic Churoh, and the difficulty, like a 
 phantom, will disappear. Now I am going to show 
 this connexion between the doctrine and the fact. 
 
 The case with most men is this ; certainly it is the 
 case of any such large and various masses of men as 
 constitute a nation, that they grow up more or less 
 in practical neglact of their Maker and their duties 
 to Him. Nature tends to iireligion and vice, and, 
 jn matter of fact, tb,at tendency is developed and 
 
271 
 
 fulfilled in any multitude of men, according to the 
 sayingof the old Greek, that " the many are bad," 
 or according to the Scripture testimony, that the 
 world is the enemy of its Creator, The state of the 
 gase is not altered, when a nation has been baptized; 
 still, in matter of fact, nature gets the better of 
 grace, and the population falls into a state of guilt 
 and disadvantage in one point of view worse than 
 that from which it has been rescued. This is the 
 matter of fact, as Scripture prophesied it should be s 
 "Many are called, few are chosen ;" " The king- 
 dom of heaven is like unto a net, gathering together 
 of every kind." But still, this being granted, a 
 Catholic people is far from being in the same state 
 in all respects as one which is not Catholic, as theo- 
 logians teach us. A soul which has received the 
 grace of baptism, receives with it the germ or power 
 of all supernatural virtues whatever, — faith, hope, 
 charity, meekness, patience, sobriety, and every 
 other that can be named ; and if it commits mortal 
 sin, it falls out of grace, and forfeits these super- 
 natural powers. It is no longer what it was, and is, 
 so far, in the feeble and frightful condition of those 
 who were never baptized. But there are certain 
 remarkable limitations and alleviations in its punish- 
 ment, and one is this : that the faculty or power of 
 faith remains to it. Of course it may go on to resist 
 and destroy this supernatural faculty also ; it may, 
 by an act of the will, rid itself of its faith, as it has 
 
272 
 
 stripped itself of grace and love ; or it may gradually 
 decay in its faith till it becomes a simple infidel ; 
 but this is not the common state of a Catholic 
 people. What commonly happens is this, that they 
 fall under the temptations to vice or covetousness, 
 which naturally and urgently beset them, but faith is 
 left to them. Thus the many are in a condition 
 which is absolutely novel and strange in the ideas 
 of a Protestant ; they have a vivid perception, like 
 sense, of things unseen, yet have no desire at all, or 
 affection, towards them ; they have knowledge with-> 
 out love. Such is the state of the many; the 
 Church at the same time ever laboring with all her 
 might to bring them back again to their Maker ; and 
 in fact is ever bringing back vast multitudes one by 
 one, though one by one they are ever relapsing from 
 her. The necessity of yearly confession, the Easter 
 communion, the stated seasons of indulgence, the 
 high festivals, Lent, days of obligation, with their 
 Masses and preaching, — these ordinary and routine 
 observances ; and the extraordinary methods of misr> 
 sions, pilgrimages, jubilees, and the like, aro tho 
 means by which the powers of the world unseen are 
 ever acting upon tho corrupt mass, of which a nation 
 is composed, and breaking up and reversing tho 
 dreadful phenomenon which fact and Scripture coni 
 spire to place before us. 
 
 Nor is this all : good and bad are mixed together, 
 a,nd the good is ever influencing and mitigating the 
 
273 
 
 bad. In the same family one or two holy souls may 
 shed a light around, and raise the religious tone of 
 the rest. la large and profligate towns there will 
 be planted here and there communities of religious 
 men and women, whose example, whose appearance, 
 whose churches, whose ceremonies, whose devo- 
 tions, — to say nothing of their sacerdotal functions, 
 or their charitable ministrations, — will ever be coun- 
 teracting the intensity of the poison. Again, you 
 •will have vast multitudes neither good nor bad ; you 
 will have many scandals ; you will have, it may be} 
 partieulai monasteries in a state of relaxation ; rich 
 communities breaking their rule, and living in com- 
 fort and refinement, and individuals among them 
 lapsing into sin ; cathedrals sheltering a host of offi- 
 cials, many of whom are a dishonor to the sacred 
 place : and in country districts priests, who set a bad 
 example to their flock, and are the cause of anxiety 
 and grief to their bishops. And besides, you will 
 have all sorts of dispositions and intellects, as plen- 
 tifu ly of course as in a Protestant land : there are 
 the weak and the strong-minded, the sharp and the 
 dull, the passionate and the phlegmatic, the generous 
 and the selfish, the idle, the proud, the sceptical, 
 the dry-minded, the scheming, the enthusiastic, the 
 self-conceited, the strange, the eccentric; all of 
 whom grace leaves in their respective natural cast or 
 tendency of mind. Thus we have before us a con- 
 fused and motley scene, as the world presents gene« 
 12* 
 
274 
 
 rally ; good and evil mingled together in all conceiva- 
 ble measures of combination and varieties of result ; 
 a perpetual vicissitude ; the prospect brightening, 
 and then overcast again ; luminous spots, tracts of 
 splendor, patches of darkness, twilight regions, and 
 the glimmer of day : but, in spite of this moral 
 confusion, in one and all a clear intellectual appre- 
 hension of the truth. 
 
 Now as to this conflict of good and evil, you will 
 say that it is seen in a Protestant country in just the 
 same way : that is not the point; but this, — that on 
 the mixed multitude, and on each of them, good or 
 bad, is written, is stamped deep, this same wonderful 
 knowledge. Just as in England, the whole com- 
 munity, whatever the moral state of individuals, 
 knows about railroads and electric telegraphs; and 
 about the Court, and men in power, and proceedings 
 in Parliament; and about religious controversies, 
 and about foreign affairs, and about all that is going 
 on around and beyond them ; so, in a Catholic coun- 
 try, the ideas of heaven and hell, Christ and the 
 evil spirit, saints, angels, souls in purgatory, grace, 
 the blessed Sacrament, the sacrifice of the Mass, 
 absolution, indulgences, the virtue of relics, of holy 
 images, of holy watar, and of other holy things, are 
 facts, by good and bad, by young and old, by rich 
 and pnor, to be taken for granted. They are facts 
 brought home to them by faith ; substantially the 
 same to all, though colored by their respective minds, 
 
275 
 
 according as they are religious or not, and according 
 to the degree of their religion. Religious men use 
 them well, the irreligious use them ill, the incon- 
 sistent vary in their use of them, but ali use them. 
 As the idea of God is before the minds of all men 
 in a community not Catholic, so, but more vividly, 
 these revealed ideas confront the minds of a Catholic 
 people, whatever be the moral state of that people, 
 taken one by one, They are facts attested by each 
 to all, and by all to each, common property, primary 
 points of thought, and landmarks, as it were, upon 
 the territory of knowledge. 
 
 Now, this being considered, you will see how many 
 things take place of necessity, which to Protestants 
 seem shocking, and which could not bo avoided, 
 unless it bad been promised that the Church should 
 consist of none but the predestinate ; nay, unless it 
 consisted of none but the educated and refined. It 
 is the spectacle of supernatural faith acting upon 
 the multitudinous mind of a nation ; of a divine 
 principle dwelling in the myriad of characters, good, 
 bad, and intermediate, into which the old stock of 
 Adam grafted into Christ has developed. If a man 
 sins grossly in a Protestant country, he is at once 
 exposed to the temptation of disbelief; and be is 
 irritated when he is threatened with judgment to 
 come. Men are ever irritated with conclusions and 
 inferences ; Protestants hold that there is a hell, as 
 the conclusion of a syllogism ; they prove it from 
 
276 
 
 Scripture ; it is from first to last a point of contro- 
 versy, and an opinion ; and a vicious man is angry 
 with those who hold opinions condemnatory of him- 
 self, because those opinions are the creation of the 
 holders, and seem to reflect personally upon him. 
 Nothing is so irritating to others as private judg- 
 ment. But men are not commonly irritated by facts ; 
 it would be irrational to be so, as it is in children, 
 who beat the ground when they fall down. A bad 
 Catholic does not deny hell, for it is to him an incon- 
 testable fact, brought home to him by that superna- 
 tural faith, with which he assents to the Divine 
 Word speaking through Holy Church ; he is not 
 angry with others for holding it, for it is no private 
 decision of their own. His thoughts take a different 
 turn ; he looks up to our Blessed Lady ; he knows 
 by supernatural faith her power and her goodness ; 
 he turns the truth to his own purpose, his bad pur- 
 pose, and he makes her his patroness and protectress 
 against the penalty of sins which he does not mean 
 to abandon. 
 
 Hence the strange stories of highwaymen and 
 brigands devout to the Madonna. And, their 
 wishes leading to the belief, they begin to circulate 
 stories of her much-desired compassion towards 
 impenitent offenders ; and these stories, fostered by 
 the circumstances of the day, and confused with 
 others similar, but not impossible, for a time are in 
 repute. Thus the Blessed Virgin has been reported 
 
277 
 
 to deliver the reprobate from hell, and to transfer 
 them to purgatory; and absolutely to secure from 
 perdition all who are devout to her, repentance not 
 being contemplated as the means. Or men have 
 thought, by means of some sacred relic, to be se- 
 cured from death in their perilous and guilty expe- 
 ditions. So, in the middle ages, great men could 
 not go out to hunt without hearing Mass, but were 
 content that the priest should mutilate it, and worse, 
 to bring it within limits. Similar phenomena occur 
 in the history of chivalry : the tournaments were 
 held in defiance of the excommunications of the 
 Church, yet were conducted with a show of devotion ; 
 ordeals again were even religious rites, yet in like 
 manner undergone in spite of the Church's prohibi- 
 tion. We know the dissolute character of the knights 
 of chivalry and of the troubadours ; yet that disso- 
 luteness, which would lead Protestant poets and 
 travellers to scuff at religion, led them not to deny 
 revealed truth, but to combine it with their own 
 •wild and lawless profession. The knight swore 
 before Almighty God, His Blessed Mother, and the 
 ladies : the troubadour offered tapers, and paid for 
 Masses, for the success of his earthly attachment ; 
 and she in turn painted her votary under the figure 
 of some saint. Just as a heathen phraseology is 
 now in esteem, and " hymeneals" are spoken of, and 
 the trump of fame, and the trident of Britannia, 
 and a royal cradle is ornamented with figures of Nox 
 
278 
 
 and Somnus ; so in a Catholic age or country, the 
 Blessed Saints will be invoked by virtuous and 
 vicious in every undertaking, and will have their 
 place in every room of palace or of cottage. Vice 
 does not involve a neglect of the external duties of 
 religion. The Crusaders had faith sufficient to bind 
 them to a perilous pilgrimage and warfare ; they 
 kept the Friday's abstinence, and planted the tents 
 of their mistresses within the shadow of the pavilion 
 of the glorious St. Louis. There are other pilgri- 
 mages besides military ones, and other religious 
 journeys besides the march upon Jerusalem ; but 
 the character of all of them is pretty much the 
 same, as St. Jerome and St. Gregory Nyssen bear 
 witness in the first age of the Church. It is a 
 mixed multitude, some most holy, perhaps even 
 saints; others penitent sinners ; but others, again, a 
 mixture of pilgrim and beggar, or pilgrim and rob- 
 ber, or half gipsy, or three-quarters boon companion, 
 or at least, with nothing saintly, and little religious 
 about them. They Vill let you wash their feet, and 
 serve them at table, and the hosts have more merit 
 for their ministry than the guests for their weariness. 
 Yet, one and all, saints and sinners, have faith in 
 things invisible, which each uses in his own way. 
 
 Listen to their conversation ; listen to the con- 
 versation of any multitude, or any private party : 
 what strange oaths mingle with it! God's heart, 
 and God's eyes, and God's wounds, and God's 
 
279 
 
 blood: you cry out, "How profane!" Doubtless; 
 but do you not see, that the special profaneness 
 above Protestant oaths lies, not in the words, but 
 simply in the speaker, and is the necessary result of 
 that insight into the invisible world, which you have 
 not ? You use the vague words " Providence," or 
 " the Deity," or "good luck," or " nature ;" when 
 we, whether now or of old, realize the Creator in His 
 living works, instruments, and personal manifesta- 
 tions, and speak of the " Sacred Heart," or " the 
 Mother of mercies," or " our Lady of Walsingham," 
 or " St. George, for merry England," or loving "St. 
 Francis," or dear " St. Philip." Your people would 
 be as varied and fertile in their adjurations and in- 
 vocations as a Catholic populace, if they believed as 
 we. Again, listen how freely the name of the evil 
 spirit issues &om the mouth even of the better sort 
 of men. What is meant by this very off-hand men- 
 tion of the most horrible object in creation, of one, 
 who, if allowed, could reduce us to ashes by the 
 very hideousness of his countenance, or the odor of 
 his breath ? I suppose they act upon the advice 
 of the great St. Anthony : he, in the lonely wilder- 
 ness, had conflicts enough with the enemy, and he 
 has given us the result of his long experience. la 
 the sermon which his saintly biographer puts into 
 his mouth, he teaches his hearers that the devil and 
 his host are not to be feared by those who are within 
 tho fold, for the Good Shepherd has put the wolf to 
 
280 
 
 flight. Henceforth lie coulddo no more than frighten 
 them with empty noises, except by some particular 
 permission of G-od, and pretend to do what was now 
 beyond his power. The experience of a saint is 
 imprudently acted on by sinners ; not as if Satan's 
 malice were not equal to any assault upon body or 
 soul, but faith accepts the word that his rule is 
 broken, and that any child or peasant may ordinarily 
 make sport of him and put him to ridiculous flight 
 by the use of the " Hail, Mary !" or holy water, or 
 the sign of the cross. 
 
 Once more, listen to the stories, songs, and ballads 
 of the populace; their rude and boisterous merri- 
 ment still runs upon the great invisible subjects 
 which possess their imagination. Their ideas, of 
 whatever sort, good, bad, and indifferent, rise out 
 of the next world. Hence if they # would have 
 plays, the subjects are sacred ; if they would have 
 games and sports, these fall, as it were, into pro- 
 cession, and are formed upon the model of sacred 
 rites and sacred persons. If they sing and jest, the 
 Madonna, and the Bambino, or St. Peter, or some 
 other saint is introduced, not from irreverence, but 
 because these are the ideas which absorb them. 
 There is a festival in the streets ; you look about : 
 what is it you see ? What it would be impossible 
 to do in London. Set up a large crucifix at Charing 
 Cross ; the police would think you simply insane. 
 Insane, and truly ; but why V why dare you not do 
 
28J 
 
 it? why must you not? because you are averse to 
 the sacred sign ? Not so ; you have it in your 
 chamber. A Catholic again would scarcely dare to 
 do so, more than another. It is true that awful, 
 touching, winning Form has before now converted 
 the very savage who gazed on it ; he has wondered, 
 has asked what it meant, has broken into tears, and 
 been converted ere he knew that he believed. The 
 manifestation of love has been the incentive to faith. 
 I cannot certainly predict what would take place, if 
 a saint appealed to the guilty consciences of those 
 thousand passers-by, through the instrumentality of 
 the Divine Sign. But such occurrences are not of 
 every day ; what you would too securely and con- 
 fidently foretell, my brethren, were such an exhi- 
 bition made, would be, that it would but excite the 
 scorn, the rage, the blasphemy, of the out-pouring 
 flocking multitude, a multitude who in their hearts 
 are unbelievers. There is no idea in the national 
 mind, supernaturally implanted, which the crucifix 
 embodies. Let a Catholic mob be as profligate in 
 conduct as an English, still it cannot withstand, it 
 cannot disown, it can but worship the crucifix ; it is 
 the external representation of a fact, of which one 
 and all are conscious to themselves and to each 
 other. And hence, I say, in their fairs and places 
 of amusement, in the booths, upon the stalls, upon 
 the doors of wine-shops, will be paintings of the 
 Blessed Virgin, or St. Michael, or the souls in pur^ 
 
282 
 
 gatory, or of some Scripture subject. Innocence, 
 guilt, and what is between the two, all range them- 
 selves under the same banners ; for even the resorts 
 of sin will be made doubly frightful by the blasphe- 
 mous introduction of some sainted patron. 
 
 You enter into one of the churches close upon the 
 scene of festivity, and you turn your eyes to a con? 
 fessional. The penitents arc crowding for admission, 
 and they seem to have no shame, or solemnity, or 
 reserve about the errand on which they are come ; 
 till at length, on a penitent's turning from the grate, 
 one tall woman, bolder than a score of men, darts 
 forward from a distance into the place he has vacated, 
 to the disappointment of the many who have waited 
 longer than she. You almost groan under the 
 weight of your imagination that such a soul, so 
 selfish, so unrecollected, must surely be in 'very ill 
 dispositions for so awful a sacrament. You look at 
 the priest, and he has on his face a look almost of 
 impatience, or of good-natured compassion, at the 
 voluble and superfluous matter which is the staple 
 of her confession. The priests, you think, are no 
 better than the people. My dear brethren, be not 
 so uncharitable, so unphilosophical. Things we 
 thoroughly believe, things we see, things which occur 
 to us every day, we treat as things which do occur 
 and are seen daily, bo they of this world or be tbey 
 of the next. Even Bishop Butler should have 
 taught you that " practical habits arc strengthened 
 
283 
 
 by repeated acts, and passive impressions grow 
 weaker by being repeated upon us." It is not by 
 frames of mind, it is not by emotions, that we must 
 judge of real religion ; it is the having a will and a 
 heart set towards those things unseen ; and, though 
 impatience and rudeness are to be subdued, and are 
 faulty even in their minutest exhibitions, yet do not 
 argue from them the absence of faith,. nor yet of 
 ove or of contrition. You turn away half satisfied, 
 and what do ycu see ? There is a feeble old woman, 
 who first genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament, 
 and then steals her neighbor's handkerchief or 
 prayer book, who is intent on his devotions. Here 
 at last, you say, is a thing absolutely indefensible 
 and inexcusable. Doubtless ; but what does it 
 prove? Does England bear no thieves? or do you 
 think this poor creature an unbeliever ? or do ycu 
 exclaim against Catholicism, which has made her so 
 profane? But why? Faith is illuminative, not 
 operative ; it does not force obedience, though it 
 increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, it does 
 not prevent sin ; the will is the source of action, not 
 an influence from without, acting mechanically on 
 the feelings. She worships and she sins ; she kneels 
 because she believes, she steals because she does not 
 love ; she may be out of God's grace, she is not 
 altogether out of- His sight. 
 
 You come out again and mix in the idle and dissi- 
 pated throng, and you fall in with a man in a palmer's 
 
284 
 
 dress selling false relies, and a credulous circle of 
 customers buying them as greedily as though they 
 were the supposed French laces and India silks of a 
 pedler's basket. One simple soul has bought of hira 
 a cure for the rheumatism or ague, which might form 
 a case of conscience. It is said to be a relic of St, 
 Cuthbert, but only has virtue at sunrise, and when 
 applied with three crosses to the head, arms, and 
 feet. You pass on, and encounter a rude son of the 
 Church, more like a showman than a religious, re- 
 counting to the gaping multitude some tale of a 
 vision of the invisible world, seen by Brother Au- 
 gustine of the Friars Minors, or by a holy Jesuit 
 preacher who died in the odour of sanctity, and 
 sending round his bag to collect pence for the souls 
 in purgatory ; and of some appearance of our Lady 
 (the like of which has really been before and since), 
 but on no authority except popular report, and 
 in no shape but that which popular caprice has given 
 it. You go forward, and you find preparations 
 proceeding for a great pageant or mystery ; it is a 
 high festival, and the incorporated trades have each 
 undertaken their special religious celebration, The 
 plumbers and glaziers are to play the Creation ; the 
 barbers the Call of Abraham ; and at night is to be 
 the grandest performance of all, the Resurrection 
 and Last Judgment, played by the carpenters, ma- 
 sons, and blacksmiths. Heaven and hell are repre- 
 sented, — saints, devils, aod living men; and the 
 
285 
 
 chef cPceuvre of the exhibition is the display of fire- 
 works to be let off as the finale. " How unutterably 
 profane !" again you cry. Yes, profane to you, my 
 .dear brother — profane to a population which only 
 half believes ; not profane to those who believe 
 wholly, who, one and all, have a vision within, which 
 corresponds with what they see, which resolves itself 
 into, or rather takes up into itself, the external 
 pageant, whatever be the moral condition of each 
 individual composing the mass. They gaze, and, in 
 drinking in the" exhibition with their eyes, they are 
 making one continuous and intense act of faith. 
 
 You turn to go home, and, in your way, you pass 
 through a retired quarter of the city. Look up at 
 those sacred windows; they belong to the convent 
 of the Perpetual Adoration, or to the poor Clares, 
 or to the Carmelites of the reform of St. Theresa, 
 or to the nuns of the Visitation. Seclusion, silence, 
 watching, adoration, is their life day and night. 
 The immaculate Lamb of God is ever before the 
 eyes of the worshippers; or at least the invisible 
 mysteries of faith ever stand out, as if in bodily 
 shape, before their mental gaze. Where will you 
 find such a realized heaven upon earth ? Yet that 
 very sight has acted otherwise on the mind of a weak 
 sister ; and the very keenness of her faith and wild 
 desire of approaching the object of it, has led her 
 to fancy or to feign that she has received that sin- 
 gular favor vouchsafed only to a few elect souls ; and 
 
286 
 
 she points to God's wounds, as imprinted on her 
 hands, and feet, and side, though she herself has 
 been instrumental in their formation. 
 
 In these and a thousand other ways it may ba 
 shown, that that special character of a Catholic 
 country, which offends you, my brethren so much, 
 that mixture of seriousness and levity, that familiar 
 handling of sacred things, in word and deed, by good 
 and bad, that publication of religious thoughts and 
 practices, so far as it is found, is the necessary con- 
 sequence of its being Catholic. It is the conse* 
 quence of mixed multitudes all having faith; for 
 faith impresses the mind with supernatural truths, 
 as if it were sight, and the faith of this man, and 
 the faith of that, is one and the same, and creates 
 one and the same impression. The truths of religion 
 then stand in the place of facts, and public ones. 
 Sin does not obliterate the impression 3 and did it 
 begin to do so in particular cases, the consistent 
 testimony of all around would bring back the mind 
 to itself, and prevent the incipient evil. Ordinarily 
 speaking, once faith, always faith. Byes once 
 opened to good, as to evil, are not closed again; 
 and, if men reject the truth, it is, in most cases, a 
 question whether they have ever possessed it. It is 
 just the reverse among a Protestant people 5 — private 
 judgment does but create opinions, and nothing 
 more ; and these opinions are peculiar to each indi- 
 vidual, and different from those of any one else. 
 
287 
 
 Hence it leads men to keep their feelings to them- 
 selves, because the avowal of them only causes irri- 
 tation or ridicule in others. Since, too, they have 
 no certainty of the doctrines they profess, they do 
 but feel that they ought to believe them, and they 
 try to believe them, and they nurse the offspring of 
 their reason, as a sickly child, bringing it out of 
 doors only on fine days. They feel very clear and 
 quite satisfied, while they are very still ; but if they 
 turn about their head, or change their posture ever 
 So little, the vision of the Unseen, like a mirage, is 
 gone from them. So they keep the exhibition of 
 their faith for high days and great occasions, when it 
 comes forth with sufficient pomp and gravity of lan- 
 guage, and ceremonial of manner. Truths slowly 
 totter out with Scripture tests at their elbow, as 
 unable to walk alone. Moreover they know, if such 
 and such things be true, what ought to be the voice, 
 the tone, the gesture, and the carriage attendant 
 upon them ; thus reason, which is the substance of 
 their faith, supplies the rubric's, as 1 may call them^ 
 of their behavior. This, some of you, my brethren; 
 Call reverence ; though I am obliged to say, it is as 
 much a mannerism, and an unpleasant mannerism, as 
 that of the Evangelical party, which they have 
 hitherto condemned. They condemn Catholics, be- 
 cause, however religious, they are natural, unaffected^ 
 easy and oheerful, in 'their mention of sacred things; 
 and they think themselves never so real as when 
 they aro solemn > 
 
288 
 
 And now, my brethren, I will only observe, in 
 conclusion, how merciful a providence it haa been, 
 that faith and love are separable, as the Catholio 
 creed teaches. I suppose it might be, as Luther 
 said it was, had God so willed it, — that faith and 
 love were so intimately one, that the abandonment 
 of the latter was the forfeiture of the former. Now 
 did sin not only throw the soul out of God's favor, 
 but at once empty it of every supernatural principle, 
 we should see in Catholics, what is, alas ! so common 
 among Protestants, souls brought back to a sense of 
 guilt, frightened at their state, yet having no re- 
 source, and nothing to build upon. Again and 
 again it happens, that, after committing some sin 
 greater than usual, or being roused after a course of 
 sin, or frightened by sickness, a Protestant wishes 
 to repent ; but what is he to fall back Upon ? whither 
 is he to go? what is he to do? He has to dig and 
 plant his foundation. Every step has to be learned, 
 and all is in the dark ; he is to search and labor, and 
 after all for an opinion. And then, supposing him 
 to have made some progress, perhaps he is overcome 
 again by temptation, he falls, and all is undone 
 again. His doctrinal views vanish, and it can hardly 
 be said that he believes anything. But the Catholio 
 knows just where he is, and what he has to do ; no 
 time is lost, when compunction comes upon him ; 
 but, while his feelings are fresh and keen, he can 
 betake himself to the appointed means of cure. He 
 may be -ever falling, but his faith is a continual in- 
 
289 
 
 vitation and persuasive to repent. The poor Pro- 
 testant adds sin to sin, and bis best aspirations come 
 to nothing ; the Catholic wipes off his guilt again 
 and again ; and thus, even if his repentance does 
 n it endure, and he has not strength to persevere, in 
 a certain sense he is never getting worse, but ever 
 beginning afresh. Nor does the apparent easiness 
 of pardon operate as an encouragement to Bin ; un- 
 less repentance be easy, and the grace of repentance 
 to be expected, when it has already been quenched, 
 or unless past repentance avail, when it is not per- 
 severed in. 
 
 And, above all, let death come suddenly upon him, 
 and let him have the preparation of a poor hour ; 
 what is the Protestant to do ? He has nothing but 
 sights of this world around him ; wife, and children, 
 and friends, and worldly interests : the Catholic has 
 these also, but the Protestant has nought but these. 
 He may, indeed, in particular cases, have got firm 
 hold of his party's view of justification or regenera- 
 tion ; or it may be, he has a real apprehension of 
 our Lord's divinity, which comes from divine grace. 
 B'lt I am speaking, not of the more serious portion 
 of the community, but of the popular religion ; and 
 I wish you to take a man at random in one of our 
 vast towns, and tell me, has he any supernatural 
 idea before his mind at all ? The minutes hasten 
 on ; and, having to learn everything, supposing him 
 desirous of learning, he can practise nothing. His 
 13 
 
230 
 
 thoughts rise up in some vague desire of mercy, 
 which neither he nor the bystanders can analyze. 
 He asks for some chapter of the Bible to be read to 
 him, but rather as the expression of his horror and 
 bewilderment, than as the token of his faitb ; and 
 then his intellect becomes clouded, and ho dies. 
 How different is it with the Catholic! He has 
 within him almost a principle of recovery, certainly 
 an instrument of it. Ho may have spoken lightly of 
 the Almighty, but he has ever believed in Him ; he 
 has sung jocose songs about the Blessed Virgin and 
 Saints, and told good stories about the evil spirit, 
 but in levity, not in contempt ; he has been angry 
 with his heavenly patrons when things went ill with 
 him, but with the waywardness of a child who is 
 cross with his parents. They were ever before him, 
 even when he was in the mire of mortal sin, and in 
 the wrath of the Almighty, as lights burning in the 
 firmament of his intellect, though he had no part 
 with them, as he perfectly knew. He has absented 
 himself from his Easter duties years out of number, 
 hut he never denied he was a Catholic. He has 
 laughed at priests, and formed rash judgments of 
 them, and slandered them to others, but not as 
 doubting the divinity of their function and the virtue 
 of their ministrations. He has attended Mass care- 
 lessly and heartlessly, but he was ever aware what 
 was before his eyes, under the veil of material sym- 
 bols, iu that august and adorable action. So, when 
 
291 
 
 the news comes to him that he is to die, and he can- 
 not gee a priest, and the ray of God's grace pierces 
 his heart, and he yearns after Him whom he has 
 neglected, it is with no inarticulate confused emotion, 
 •which does but oppress him, and which bas no means 
 of relief. His thoughts at once take shape and 
 order ; they mount up, each in its due place, to the 
 great objects of faitb, which are as surely in his 
 mind as they are in heaven. He addresses himself 
 to his crucifix ; he interests the Blessed Virgin in 
 his behalf; he betakes himself to his patron Saints ; 
 he calls his good angel to his side ; he professed his 
 desire of that sacramental absolution which for cir- 
 cumstances he cannot obtain ; he exercises himself 
 in acts of faith, hope, charity, contrition, resignation, 
 and other virtues suitable to his extremity. True, 
 he is going into the unseen world ; but true also, 
 that that unseen world has already been with him 
 here. True, he is going to a foreign, but not to a 
 strange place ; judgment and purgatory are familiar 
 ideas to him, more fully realized within him even 
 than death. He has had a much deeper perception 
 of purgatory, though it be a supernatural object, 
 than of death, though a natural one. The enemy 
 rushes on him, to overthrow the faith on which he 
 is built ; but the whole tenor of his past life, his 
 very jesting, and his very oaths, have been overruled, 
 to create in him a habit of faith, girding round and 
 protecting the supernatural principle. And thus 
 
292 
 
 even one who has been a bad Catholic may have a 
 hope in his death, to which the most virtuous of 
 Protestants, nay, my dear brethren, the most correct 
 and most thoughtful among yourselves, however able, 
 or learned, or sagacious, if you have lived, not by 
 faith, but by private judgment, are necessarily 
 strangers. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 DIFFERENCES AMONG CATHOLICS NO PREJUDICE TO 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 I am going to-day to take notice of an objection 
 to the claims of that great communion, into whieh, 
 my brethren, I am inviting you, which to me sounds 
 so feeble and unworthy, that I am loth to take it 
 for my subject; for an answer, if corresponding, 
 must be trifling and uninteresting also, and, if care- 
 ful and exact, will be but a waste of effort. I there- 
 fore do not know what to do with it : treat it with 
 respect I cannot; yet since it is frequently, nay 
 triumphantly, urged by those who wish to make the 
 most of such difficulties as they can bring together 
 against our ,claims, I do not like to pass it over. 
 Bear with me then, my brethren, nay, I may say, 
 sympathize with me, if you find that the subject is 
 not one which is very fertile in profitable reflection. 
 
 When then the variations of Protestantism, or the 
 divisions in the Establishment, are urged as a reason 
 
294 
 
 for your distrusting the communion in which thej 
 are found, it is answered, that divisions as serious 
 and as decided are to be fuuud in the Catholic 
 Church. It is a well-known point in controversy, 
 to say that the Catholic Church has not real uuity 
 any more than Protestantism ; for if Lutherans are 
 divided in creed from Calvinists, and both from 
 Anglicans, and the various denominations of Dis- 
 senters each has its own doctrine and its own inter- 
 pretation, yet Dominicans and Franciscans, Jesuits 
 and Jansenists, have had their quarrels too. Nay, 
 that at this moment the greatest alienation, rivalry, 
 and difference of opinion exist in the Catholic priest- 
 hood, so that the Church is but nominally one, and 
 her pretended unity resolves itself into nothing more 
 Specious than an awkward and imperfect uniformity. 
 This is what is said ; and, I repeat, my answer to it 
 cannot contain anything either new or important, or 
 even satisfactory to myself. However, since I must 
 enter upon the subject, I must make the best of it ; 
 so let me begin with an extract from Jewel's Apo- 
 logy, in which the objection is to be found. 
 
 " Who are these," he says, " that find fault with 
 dissensions among us ? Are they all agreed among 
 themselves ? Hath every one of them determined, 
 to his own satisfaction, what he should follow 1 Have 
 there been no differences, no disputes amongst them ? 
 Then why do not the Scotists and the Thomists 
 come to a more perfect agreement touching merit of 
 
295 
 
 teongruity and condignity, touching original sin in 
 the blessed Virgin, and the obligations of simple and 
 solemn vows ? Why do the Canonists affirm auri- 
 cular confession to be of human and positive, and 
 the Schoolmen, on the contrary, maintain that it is 
 •of divine right? Why does Albertus Pighius differ 
 from Cajetan, Thomas Aquinas from Peter Lom- 
 bard, Seotus from Thomas Aquinas, Oecham from 
 Scotus, Peter D'Ailly from Occhagi, the Nominalists 
 from the Realists ? And, not to mention the infinite 
 dissensions of the friars and monks, (how some of 
 them place their holiness in the eating of fish, others 
 in herbs ; some in wearing of shoes, others in san- 
 dals ; some in linen garments, others in woollen ; 
 some go in white, some in black ; some are shaveH 
 broader, same narrower; some shod, seme barefoot-; 
 some girded, others ungirded,) they should remember 
 that some of their own adherents say, that the body 
 <of Christ is in the Lord's Supper naturally; that 
 •others again, of their own party, teach the very 
 reverse; that there are some who affirm that the 
 body of Christ in the Holy Communion is torn and 
 ground with our teeth ; others again there are who 
 ■deny it : that there are some who say that the body 
 ■of Christ in the Eucharist hath quantity ; and others 
 again deny it : that there are some who say that 
 Christ consecrated the bread and wine by the espe- 
 cial putting forth of His divine power ; others, that 
 He consecrated in the benediction: seme, by the 
 
296 
 
 conceiving the five words in His mind ; others, by 
 His uttering them : others there are who, in these 
 five words, refer the demonstrative pronoun ' this' 
 to the wheaten bread ; others, to what they call an 
 individuum vagum : some there are who affirm that 
 dogs and mice ean verily and truly eat the body of 
 Christ; others there are who do not hesitate to deny 
 it : some there are who say that the very accidents 
 of the bread and, wine give nourishment ; others, 
 that the substance of bread and wine returns after 
 consecration. And why should we br'mg forward 
 more ? It would be only tedious and burdensome 
 to- enumerate them all ; so unsettled and disputed is 
 yet , the whole form of these men's religion and 
 doctrine, even among themselves, from whom it 
 sprang and proceeded. For scarcely ever are they 
 agreed together, unless, as of old, the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees were, or Herod and Pilate, against 
 Christ." 
 
 It is equally common to insist upon the breaches 
 of charity which are to be found among the members 
 of the Catholic Church. For instance, Leslie says> 
 " If you have not unity in faith, nor in those prin- 
 ciples and practices which are no less neoessary to 
 salvation, nor in that love and charity which Christ 
 has made the characteristic of Christians, and without 
 which no man can know who are His disciples ; hut, 
 instead of that, if you have envyings and strife 
 among you, among your several religious orders^, 
 
297 
 
 betwixt National and National Church, concerning 
 the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope, and of 
 his power to depose princes, upon which the peace 
 and unity of the world and our eternal salvation 
 does depend ; and, in short, if you have no unity 
 concerning your rule of faith itself, or of your 
 practice, what will the unity of outward communion 
 do, upon which you lay the whole stress ?"* Such 
 is the retort, by which Protestants would shelter 
 from our attack their own mutual differences and 
 variations in matters of faith. They answer, that 
 differences of religious opinion and that dissensions 
 are found within the Catholic Church. 
 
 Now I would have you observe, my brethren, that 
 the very idea of the Catholic Church, as an instru- 
 ment of supernatural grace, is that of an institution 
 which innovates upon, or rather superadds to nature. 
 She does something for nature, above, beyond, or 
 against nature. When, then, it is said that she 
 makes her members one, this implies that by nature 
 they are not one, and would not be one. Viewed in 
 themselves, the children of the Church are not of a 
 different nature from the Protestants around them ; 
 they are of the very same nature. What Protes- 
 tants are, such would they be, but for the Church 
 which brings them together forcibly, and binds them 
 into one by her authority. Left to himself, each 
 
 * Works, 1832, vol. iii. p. 171. 
 
 13* 
 
298 
 
 Catholic likes and would maintain his own opinion 
 and his private judgment just as much as a Protes- 
 tant ; and he has it, and maintains it, just so far as 
 the Church does not, hy the authority of revelation, 
 supersede it. The very moment the Church ceases 
 to speak, at the very point at which she, that is, God 
 who speaks hy her, circumscribes her range of teach- 
 ing, there private judgment of necessity starts up ; 
 there is nothing to hinder it. The intellect of man 
 is active and independent ; he forms opinions about 
 everything ; he feels no deference for another's 
 opinion, except in proportion as he thinks that that 
 other is more likely than he to be right ; and he 
 never absolutely sacrifices his own opinion, except 
 when he is sure that that other knows for certain. 
 He is sure that Q-od knows ; therefore he sacrifices 
 his opinion to God speaking through His Church. 
 But, from the nature of the case, there is nothing 
 to hinder his having his own opinion, and expressing 
 it, whenever the Church, the oracle of revelation, 
 does not speak. But again, human nature likes, 
 not only its own opinion, but its own way, and will 
 have it whenever it can, except when hindered by 
 physical or moral restraint. So far forth then, as 
 the Church does not compel her children to do one 
 and the same thing, (as, for instance, to abstain from 
 Work on Sunday and from flesh on Friday,) they will 
 do different things; and still more so when she 
 actually allows or commissions them to act for them- 
 
299 
 
 selves, gives to certain persons or bodies privileges 
 and immunities, and recognizes them as centres of 
 ■combination, under her authority and within her 
 pale. And further still, in all subjects and respects 
 Whatever, whether in that range of opinion and of 
 action which the Church has claimed to herself, and 
 where she has superseded what is private and indi- 
 vidual, or, on the other hand, in those larger regions 
 of thought and of conduct, as to which she has not 
 spoken, though she might speak, the natural tendency 
 •of the children of the Church, as men, is to resist 
 her authority. Each mind naturally is self-willed, 
 self-dependent, self-opiniatedj and, except so far as 
 grace has subdued it, its first impulse is one of re- 
 bellion. Now this tendency, through the influence 
 of grace, is not often exhibited in matters of faith -j 
 for it would be incipient heresy, and would be con- 
 trary, if knowingly indulged, to the first element of 
 Catholic duty ; but in matters of conduct, of ritual^ 
 «f discipline, of politics, of social life, in the ten 
 thousand questions which the Church has not for- 
 mally answered, even though she has intimated her 
 judgment, there is a constant rising of the human 
 mind against the authority of the Church and cf 
 superiors, and that, in proportion as each individual 
 is removed from perfection. For all these reasons^ 
 there ever has been, and ever will be, a vast exercke 
 and realized product, partly praiseworthy, partly 
 barely lawful, of private judgment within the Catho<- 
 
30ff 
 
 lie Church. The freedom of the human mind » 
 " in possession," and it meddles with everj question, 
 and wanders over heaven and earth, except so far 
 as the authority of the divine word, as a superin- 
 cumbent weight, presses it down, and restrains it 
 within limits. 
 
 Now, the most obvious instance of this liberty or 
 licence in the Church is that of nationality ; and I 
 do not understand why it has not been urged in the 
 controversy more prominently than the mere rivalry 
 and party-spirit of monastic bodies. Yet what a 
 vast assemblage of private feeling, judgment, taste, 
 and tradition goes to make up the idea of nation- 
 ality ! yet there it exists in the Church, because the 
 Church has not been divinely instructed to forbid it, 
 and it fights against the Church and the Church's 
 objects, except where the Church authoritatively 
 repels it. The Church is a preacher of p 'aee, and 
 nationality is the fruitful cause of quarrels far more 
 sinful and destructive than the paper wars arid 
 rivalry of customs or precedents, which alone can 
 possibly exist between religious bodies. The Church 
 grants to the magistrate the power of the sword, and 
 the right of makiDg war in a lawful quarrel, and 
 nations abuse this prerogative to break up that unity 
 of love which ought to exist in the baptized servants 
 of a common Master, and to put to death by whole- 
 sale those whom they expect to live with for. ever in 
 heaven. This, I say, might bo urged in controversy 
 
301 
 
 against Catholicism, as an extreme instance of tie 
 want of unity in the Church ; and yet, when pro- 
 perly considered, it is rather a special instance, I do 
 not say of her unity, but of her uniting power. 
 She fights the battle of unity, and she wins. Look 
 through her history, and you cannot deny but she is 
 the one great principle of unity and concord which 
 the world has seen. In this day, I grant, scientific 
 unions, free trade, railroads, and industrial exhibi- 
 tions are put forward as a substitute for her influ- 
 ence ; with what success posterity will be able to 
 judge ; but, as far as the course of history has yet 
 proceeded, the Church is the only power that has 
 wrestled, as with the concupiscence, so with the 
 pride, irritability, selfishness, and self-love of human 
 nature. Her annals present a series of victories' 
 over that human nature, which is the subject-matter 
 of her operations ; and to object to her that she has 
 an enemy to overcome surely would be a most per- 
 verse view of the case, and a most sophistical argu- 
 ment in controversy. The barbarian invaders of the 
 empire were the enemies of the human race and of 
 each other ; and to subdue and unite them, and to 
 harness them, as it were, to her triumphal chariot by 
 her look and by her voice, was an exploit of moral 
 power, such as the world has never seen elsewhere. 
 Such, too, was her continual arbitration between the 
 fierce feudal monarchs of the middle ages ; which, 
 though not always successful to the extent of hev 
 
302 
 
 desire, exhibits her most signally in that her great 
 and heavenly character of peacemaker, and vindi- 
 cates for her the attribute, given her in the Creed, 
 and envied her by her enemies, of being one. 
 
 And here I cannot but allude to the subject which 
 employed our attention yesterday ; for, be it for good 
 or for bad, we then seemed to feel beyond contra- 
 diction, that one and the same character was to be 
 found in all Catholic nations, in north and south, in 
 the middle age and now. I repeat, I am not assu- 
 ming that this common character is admirable and 
 beautiful, or denying, (as far as this argument goes,) 
 that it is despicable and offensive ; I only remind 
 you that its identity everywhere was taken for 
 granted ; and what was granted by us to our own 
 prejudice then, must be conceded to us in our favor 
 now. Considering the wide differences in nations 
 and in times, it surely is very remarkable that the 
 religious character, which the Catholic Church forms 
 in her populations, is so identical as it is found to be. 
 Can, indeed, there be a more marvellous, or even 
 awful, instance of her real internal unity, than that 
 modern Naples should be like medieval England ? 
 and if we do not see the same character more than 
 partially developed in Ireland at this moment, is not 
 this the plain reason, that the nation has been worn 
 down by oppression, not allowed to be joyous, not 
 allowed to be natural, as little capable of exhibiting 
 human nature in a Catholic medium, as primitive 
 Christianity while it lived in the catacombs ? 
 
SOS 
 
 After considerations such as these, I own I can 
 scarcely treat seriously the earnestness with which 
 Protestant controversialists would call me back to 
 contemplate the quarrels and jealousies of seculars 
 and regulars, among themselves or with each other;, 
 as if the human mind were not at all times, so far 
 as it is left to itself, selfish and exclusive, and es- 
 pecially in the various circumstances under which it 
 is found in a far- spreading polity or association. 
 When Catholics in any country are poor or few, 
 each religious body, each college, each priest, is 
 tempted to do his utmost for himself, at the expense 
 of every one_ else ; I do not mean for his temporal 
 interests, for he has not the temptation, but for the 
 interests of his own mission and place, and of his 
 own people. He has to build his cbapel, to support 
 his school, to feed his poor ; and if his next-door 
 neighbor gets the start of him, no means will be 
 left for himself. Or if he is of a mendicant order, 
 he feels he has a claim on the alms of the faithful, 
 prior to a religious body which lives on endowments 
 or has other property ; but the latter has lately come 
 to the country, and thinks it very fair, on its first 
 start, once for all to make a general appeal, without 
 which it never will be able to get afloat. All par- 
 ties, then, are naturally led to look out for them- 
 selves in the first instance ; and this state of mind 
 may easily degenerate into a jealousy of the good 
 fortune or prosperity of others. And then again, 
 
304 
 
 some men, or races of men, are more sudden in their 
 tempers than others, or individuals may be deficient 
 in moral training or refinement, and strangers maj 
 mistake for a real dissension what is nothing more 
 than momentary and transitory collision. 
 
 Or again, let the country be Catholic, and the 
 Church rich ; then, what so natural, so inevitable, 
 taking men as they are, as that large and widely- 
 spread and powerful congregations or orders, high in 
 repute, commanding in station, famous in historical 
 memories, rich in saints, proud of their doctors and 
 of schools founded on their tradition, should be ex- 
 posed to the various infirmities of party-spirit, 
 adhere sensitively and obstinately to the privileges 
 they possess, or to the doctrines which have been 
 their watchwords, disparage others and wish to over- 
 bear them, and provoke the interposition of authority 
 to put an end to the disputes which they have ex- 
 cited? I should be curious to know whether there 
 ever was a case when two Protestant seots or parties 
 found any umpire at all in a question of opinion, 
 except, indeed, the strong arm of the law. And, in 
 saying all this, I am not determining the fact of 
 such quarrels among Catholics, or the degree to 
 which they proceed ; for, as in former Lectures, I 
 am not concerned with the investigation of facts ; I 
 am taking for granted what is alleged by our oppo- 
 nents, and is antecedently probable, taking human 
 nature as it is. But, in truth, you might far better 
 
SOS 
 
 allude to the esprit de corps and rivalries of separate 
 colleges in the national seats of learning as a proof 
 of disunion between them, and assert that the uni- 
 versity is not one, and does not act as one, because 
 its colleges differ, than assert it of any of those re- 
 ligious bodies, established and sanctioned by the 
 Catholic Chureh. The very same parties, who have 
 their domestic feuds with one another, will defend 
 their common faith or common Mother against an 
 external foe; but when did the Bishops ' of the Es- 
 tablishment ever stand by the Friends or the Inde- 
 pendents, or tbe Wesleyans by the Baptists, on any 
 one point of doctrine, with a unity of opinion, in- 
 telligent, positive, and exact 1 You recollect the 
 popular story, which is intended to exemplify the 
 supremacy of the instinct of benevolence over re- 
 ligious opinion. It is supposed to be one o'clock on 
 Sunday, and a number of congregations are pouring 
 out, their devotions being over, from their respective 
 chapels and meeting-bouses, when a woman is taken 
 ill in the street. The sight of this physical cala- 
 mity is sufficient, to supersede all other considerations: 
 in the minds of the beholders, and to bind together 
 for the moment the most bitter opponents in the 
 common work of Christian charity. The argument 
 is based upon the assumption, and a very reasonable 
 one, that the differences which exist between man 
 and man in religious matters, far from disproving, do 
 but illustrate and confirm the fact of the participa- 
 
§06 
 
 tion of all men in a certain natural sentiment ; and 
 surely the case is the same as regards the differences 
 and the unanimity of the religious bodies in the 
 Catholic Church. Augustinians, Dominicans, Fran- 
 ciscans, Jesuits, and Carmelites have indeed their 
 respective homes and schools ; but they have, in 
 spite of that, a common school and a common home 
 in their Mother's voice and their Mother's bosom ; 
 " omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est;" 
 but Protestants can but " agree to differ " Quar- 
 rels, stopping short of division, do but prove the 
 strength of the principle of combination ; they are 
 a token nut of the langor but of the vigor of its 
 life. Surely this is what wo see and say daily as 
 regards the working of the British constitution. 
 
 But we have not yet got to the real point of tho 
 question which lies before us : you allege these dif- 
 ferences in the Catholic Church, my brethren, as a 
 reason for not submitting to her authority. Now, 
 in order to ascertain their forco in this point of view, 
 let it be considered that the primary question, with, 
 every serious inquirer, is the question of salvation. 
 I am speaking to those who feel this to be so ; not 
 to those who make religion a sort of literature or 
 philosophy, but to those who desire, both in their 
 creed and in their conduct, to approve themselves 
 to their Maker and to save their souls. This being 
 taken for granted, it immediately follows to ask, 
 "What must I do to be saved?" and "who is to 
 
sot 
 
 hack me?'* and next, can Protestantism, can the 
 National Church teach me ? No, is the answer of 
 common sense, for this simple reason, because of the 
 variations and discordances in teaching of both the 
 one and the other. The National Church is no guide 
 into the truth, because no one knows what it holds 
 and what it commands : one party says this, and a 
 second party says that, and a third says neither this 
 nor that. I must geek the truth then elsewhere ; 
 and then the question follows, Shall I seek it in the 
 communion of Kome? In answer, this objection is 
 instantly made, " You cannot find the truth in 
 Rome, for there are as many divisions there as in 
 the national communion." Who would not suppose 
 the objection to mean, that these divisions were such 
 as to make it difficult or impossible to ascertain what 
 it was that the Roman communion taught? Who 
 would not suppose that there was within it a dif- 
 ference of creed and of dogmatic teaching? whereas 
 the state of the case is just the reverse. No one 
 can pretend that the quarrels in the Catholic Church 
 are questions of faith, or have tended in any way to 
 obscure or impair what she declares to be such, and 
 what is acknowledged to be such by the very parties 
 in those quarrels. That Dominicans and Francis- 
 cans have been zealous respectively for certain 
 doctrinal views, over and above the declared faith 
 of the Church, throws no doubt upon that faith ; 
 how does it follow that they differ in questions of 
 
308 
 
 faith, because they differ in questions not of faith ? 
 Kather, I would say, if a number of parties, distinct 
 from each other, give the same testimony, their dif- 
 ferences do but strengthen the evidence for the 
 truth of those matters in which they all are agreed ; 
 and the greater the difference the more remarkable 
 is the unanimity. The question is, " Where can I 
 be taught, who cannot be taught by the national 
 communion, because it does not teach V" and the 
 Protestant warning runs, " Not in the Catholic 
 Church, because she, in spite of all subordinate 
 differences among her members, does teach." 
 
 In truth, she not only teaches in spite of those 
 differences, but she has ever taught by means of 
 them. Those very differences on further points have 
 themselves implied and brought out their absolute 
 faith in the doctrines which are previous to them. 
 The doctrines of faith are the common basis of the 
 combatants, the ground on which they contend, their 
 ultimate authority, and their arbitrating rule. They 
 are assumed, and introduced, and commented on, and 
 enforced, in every stage of the alternate disputation ; 
 and I will venture to say, that, if you wish to get a 
 good view of the unity, consistency, solidity, and 
 reality of Catholic teaching, your best way is to get 
 up the controversy on Grace, or on the Immaculate 
 Conception. No one can do so without acquiring a 
 mass of theological knowledge, and sinking in his 
 intellect a foundation of dogmatic truth, which is 
 
309 
 
 simply antecedent; and common to the rival schools, 
 and which they do but exhibit and elucidate. To 
 suppose that they perplex an inquirer or a convert 
 is to fancy that litigation destroys the principles and 
 the science of law, or that spelling out words of five 
 syllables makes a child forget his alphabet. On the 
 other hand, place your unfortunate inquirer between 
 Luther and Calvin, if the Holy Eucharist is his 
 subject ; or, if he is determining the rule of faith, 
 between Bramhall and Chillingworth, Bull and 
 Hoadley, and what residuum will be left, when you 
 have eliminated the contrarieties ? 
 
 It is imprudent in opponents to the Catholic re- 
 ligion to choose for their attack the very point in 
 which it is strong. As truth is tried by error, virtue 
 by temptation, courage by opposition, so is indi- 
 viduality and life by disturbance and disorder ; and 
 its trial is its evidence The long history of Catho- 
 licism is but a co-ordinate proof of its essential 
 unity. I suppose, then, that Protestants must be 
 considered as turning to bay upon their pursuers, 
 when they would retort upon us the argument availa- 
 ble against them from their religious variations. 
 " The Romanist must admit," it has been urged, 
 " that the state, whether of the Church Catholic or 
 of the Roman Church, at periods before or during 
 the middle ages, was such as to bear a very strong 
 resemblance to the picture he draws of our own. I 
 do not speak of corruptions in life and morals merely, 
 
310 
 
 or errors of individuals, however highly exalted, but 
 of the general disorganized and schismatical state 
 of the Church, her practical abandonment of her 
 spiritual pretensions, the tyranny exercised over her 
 by the civil power, and the intimate adherence of 
 the worst passions, and of circumstantial irregu- 
 larities to those acts which are vital portions of her 
 system."* Such is the imputation ; but yet, to tell 
 the truth, I do not know any passages in her history 
 which supply so awful an evidence of her unity and 
 self-dependence, or so luminous a contrast to An- 
 glicanism or other Protestantism, as these very 
 anomalies in the rule and tenor of her course, as I 
 have already observed, and shall presently show by 
 examples. 
 
 Two years back, when European society was 
 shaken to its basis, the question which came before 
 us was, not whether this or that nation was great, 
 and powerful, and able, in case of necessity, to go to 
 war with vigor and effect, but whether it could hold 
 together, whether it possessed that internal consis- 
 tency, reality, and life, which made it one. This 
 was the question asked even about England ; it was 
 a problem, debated before it could be tried, settled 
 distinctly in the affirmative, when a trial was granted. 
 Much as we might have confided in the steadiness of 
 character, good sense, reverence for law, content- 
 
 * Proph.Off.p.408. 
 
311 
 
 ment, and political discipline of our people, we shall 
 admit that there was an evidence laid before the 
 world of our national stability, after April, 1848, to 
 which no mere anticipation was equivalent. No one 
 can deny, that, fully as we may be impressed with 
 the security of Russia, still we have not that vivid 
 impression on onr mind, almost on our senses, of the 
 fact, crea'ted by the threat and the failure of a po- 
 litical rising in England at the date I have men- 
 tioned. And sometimes the longer is the trial, and 
 the more critical the contest, as in the instance of 
 the civil discords of ancient Rome, the greater vigor 
 and the more obstinate life is exhibited by the nation 
 and state, when once it is undeniably victorious. 
 As external enemies do not prove a state to be weak 
 till they prevail over it, so. rebellions from within 
 may but prove its strength, if they are smitten down 
 and extinguished. Now the disorders which had 
 afflicted the Church have just had this office assigned 
 them in the designs of Providence, and teach us this 
 lesson. They have but assayed what may be called 
 the active unity and integrating virtue to the see of 
 St. Peter, in contrast to such counterfeits. as the 
 Anglican Church, which, set up in unconditional 
 surrender to the nation, has never been able to resist 
 the tyranny or caprice of the national wilL The 
 Establishment, having no internal principle of in- 
 dividuality, except what it borrows from the nation, 
 can neither expel what is foreign to it, nor heal its 
 
812 
 
 wounds ; the Church, a living body, when she be- 
 comes the st'at of a malady or disord. r, tends from 
 the first to the eradication of it, which is but a mat- 
 ter of time. This great tact, continually occuriing 
 in her history, I will briefly illustrate by two exam- 
 ples, which will be the fairest to take, from the 
 extraordinary obstinacy of the evil, and its occa- 
 sional promise of victory; — the history of the here- 
 sies concerning the Incarnation, and the history of 
 Jansenism. Each controversy had reference to a 
 great mystery of the faith ; in each every inch of 
 the ground was contested, and the enemy retired 
 step by step, or at least from post to post : the for- 
 mer of the two lasted for between four and five 
 hundred years, and the latter nearly two hundred. 
 As to the doctrine of the Incarnation, the mind 
 of man is naturally impatient of whatever it cannot 
 reduce to thb system of order and of causation to 
 which it subjects all its knowledge ; that is, of what- 
 ever is mystarious and incomprehensible : no wonder, 
 then, that it was discontented with a doctrine so 
 utterly impossible to fathom as that the Almighty 
 and Eternal became man. As private judgment is 
 ever rising up against revelation, as the irascible or 
 the concupiscible principle is ever insurgent against 
 reason, so there was a most determined effort, and 
 (to use a familiar word) set against this capital and 
 vital article of faith, age after age, on the part of 
 various schools of opinion all over Christendom. 
 
313 
 
 They differed, and indeed" were almost indifferent, 
 how the mystery was to be disposed of; they took 
 up opposite theories ; they were antagonists to each 
 other : but go it must. The attack came upon the 
 Church, not on this side or that, but from all quarters 
 at once, or successively, whether in the field of spe- 
 culation or in the territory of the Church, and 
 circled round the Holy See, rallying and forming 
 again and again in very various positions, though 
 beaten back' for a time, and apparently brought 
 under. It was a very difficult fight ; and, till the 
 end appeared, which was not till after many genera- 
 tions, it had been easy to indulge misgivings whether 
 it would ever have an ending. Let us fancy an 
 erudite Nestorian of the day living in Seleucia, be- 
 yond the limits of the Roman empire, and looking 
 out over the Euphrates upon the battle which was 
 waging between the See of St. Peter and the subtle 
 heresy of the Monophysites, through so protracted 
 a period ; and let him write a defence of his own 
 Communion for the use of theological students. 
 Doubtless he would have used that long contest as a 
 decisive argument against the unity and purity of the 
 Catholic Church, and would have anticipated the 
 triumphant words of a learned Anglican divine, 
 rashly uttered in 1838, and prudently recalled in 
 1842, with reference to that Jansenistic controversy, 
 which I reserve for my second example. " This 
 very [Monophysite] heresy," he would have said, 
 14 
 
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315 ,. 
 
 extended along Asia Minor, to Greece and Constant 
 tinbple ; ancj then there was a pause. Suddenly it 
 broke out in an apparently dissimilar shape, and 
 
 . r i'i ... . l i!j ... .■ , I'.-i .■!'; JI. , 11,1. > I 1 
 
 with a new beginning, in the. imperial city; sum- 
 moned its adherents, confederates, and partisans 
 from North to South, ca.me in^b collision with the 
 Holy See, arid convulsed the Catholic world. , Sub- 
 dued for a while, it returned to what was very like 
 its original fprirt and features, and reared its head in, 
 Egypt with'a, far more nlausible,' phraseology, and in ., 
 
 ?':■ • i "U-I.n. -P..TT.. .JV-l&l -■-■■■■li nil-C'r,.. ;, -;,b 
 
 a tar more promising position. J here, andm oyria, „ 
 
 , ,i.,l *_ muui.. ■iii.l.'KL 'i.t(H. ■(,!!! J«:: ,.;. -ii.fno^ 1o 
 
 and thence through the whole of the East, supported 
 
 , !,,, ,■ ,1 li:?tpi l/auH j.iIlIli iL'lIi. '[ r .*!:iicij rrf 
 
 by the emperors, and atterwards by the Mahometans, 
 ./ i .... . . y.rii .lui> i;U--w i-.fi,!.- 7 . -i st^iiif, 
 
 it sustained itself with great, ingenuity, inventins 
 
 V.Ji i;.v.h.:[ii-i l >i i ;ii ini^.l^inw.' . . J A y < '■ ' f!iti> 
 evasion after evasion, and throwing itself into more 
 
 -'.hi.iu.-- , is-ilp Will H-yiru-r >,li ° ... ... •^• J j ■ ■■? 
 
 and more, subtle formulas. Tor the space of near 
 
 three' hundred'y'ears. Lastly, it suddenly appeared 
 
 in a , new shape and in a Baal effopt, four hundred 
 
 years from"th'e"iime o'f its first rise, in the extreme 
 
 West n pi , "Europe^ among the. theologians of Spain ';' " 
 
 and formed, matter of controversy for our own 
 
 Aleuirii'tTie scholar of'' St.' Be'de, for the interposition 
 
 of 'Charlemagne,' and the labors ot ^tiie great Council 
 
 of Frankfort. It is impossible, I am sure, , for any 
 
 one' patiently to read the history; of this series of" 
 
 controversies, whatever may be Kis personal opinions, 
 
 without being intimately convinced of the oneness or ' ' 
 
 identity' of the 'mind which lived in the Catholic 
 
 Church through that long period ; which baffled the 
 
316 
 
 artifices and sophistries of the subtlest intellects, 
 was proof against fear, despondency, and temporal 
 expedience, and succeeded in establishing irrevocably 
 and for ever those points of faith with which she 
 started in the contest. " Any one false step," it 
 has been said, " would have thrown the whole theory 
 of the doctrine into irretrievable confusion ; but it 
 was as if some one individual and perspicacious in- 
 tellect, to speak humanly, ruled the theological 
 discussion from first to last. That in the long course 
 of centuries, and in spite of the ' apparent' failure, 
 in points of detail, of the most gifted fathers and 
 saints, the Church thus wrought out the one and 
 only consistent theory which can be formed on the 
 great doctrine in dispute, proves how clear, simple, . 
 and exact her vision of that doctrine was."* Now 
 I leave the retrospect of this long struggle with two 
 remarks ; — first, that it was never doubtful to the 
 world, for any long time, what was the decision of 
 authority on each successive question as it came into 
 consideration ; next, that the series of doctrinal 
 errors which was evolved, tended from the first to 
 an utter overthrow, each deoision of authority being 
 a new and further victory over it, which was never 
 undone. It was all along in visible course of ex- 
 pulsion from the Catholic fold. Contrast this with 
 the denial of baptismal grace, viewed as a heresy 
 
 * Essay on Development, p. 448. 
 
SI? 
 
 Within the Anglican Church ; has the sentiment of 
 authority against it always been unquestionable ? 
 Has there been a series of victories over it ? Is it 
 in visible course of expulsion ? Is It ever tending 
 to be expelled? Are the influence and the pi os- 
 pects of the heresy less formidable now than in the 
 age of Wesley, or of Calamy, or of Baxter, or of 
 Abbot, or of Cart-wright, or of the Beformers ? 
 
 The second controversy Which I shall mention is 
 one not so remarkable in itself, not so wide in its 
 field of conflict, nor so terrible in its events, but more 
 interesting perhaps to us, as relating almost to our 
 own times, and as used as an argument against the 
 Church's unity and power of enforcing her decisions, 
 by such writers as the theologian, of whose words I 
 have already availed myself. For the better part of 
 two centuries Jansenism has troubled the greater 
 part of Catholic Europe, has had great successes, 
 and has expected greater still; yet, somehow or 
 other, such is the fact, as a looker-on would be 
 obliged to say, whatever be its internal reasons, of 
 which he would not be a judge, at the end of the 
 time you look for it and it is gone. As fire among 
 the stubble threatens great things, but suddenly is 
 quenched in the very fulness of its blaze, so has it 
 been with the heresy in question. One might have 
 ihought that an age like this had been especially 
 favorable for the development of many of its pecu- 
 liarities ; one never should be surprised if it developed 
 
SIS 
 
 ( . them. The heresy almost arose with Protestantism, 
 and kept pace 'with it; it extended -k'ncTflpu visaed 
 in those Catholic countries on which PrqtflsWiwsm 
 r had made its greatest inroads, and it ijrew arid grew 
 by tlio side of Protestantism ; when suddenly it is 
 'found'dead in Prance,'and it receives .its 'deatli -blow 
 in Austria, in the very generation,' at. ffie very hour, 
 .when Protestantism is a'tSlerigHii getting acknowledged 
 
 possession oF'tne'far'-i'amed'cb'mmutilon of Laud and 
 
 ?;lirji]i , Ic.'i ,'Mj-Ji 'ii •■ "■■! .I iio-i <;» tciij (i no 
 
 Hammond. 
 
 There was a time 'when nearly' all that was most 
 'gifted, learned, and earnest in France, seemed cor- 
 rupted by 'the heresy ; which,' though condemned 
 again and' again by the Holy See, 'discovered new 
 
 , subterfuges, and gained 'to itself fresh' patrons and 
 protectors, to shelter it from the Apostolic ban. 
 What circle of names can bo produced, comparable 
 in their times for the combination of ability arid 
 virtue, of depth of thought, of controversial dex- 
 
 ' tei'ity, of poetical talent, of extensive learning, and 
 of religious profession, with those of Launoy, Pascal, 
 Nicole, Ai-nauld, Raciue,' Tillcmont, Quesn'el, and 
 their co-religionists, admirable in every point, bui in 
 their deficiency in the primary grace of a creature, 
 humility ? What shall we say to the prospects 'of a 
 
 "school of opinion, which was influencing so "many 'of 
 
 ^ tli'e most''distinguished Congregations of the day; 
 
 * : and which, though nobly withstood by the Society 
 of Jesiis and the Sulpicians, yet at length found an 
 
L '%9 
 
 " "Vintrailee' a'moiiif the learned ' Benedictines of St. 
 Maar, and'had already sapped the faith of various 
 ■members of 1 'another, body, 'as ' erudite and as gifted 
 '"'as they? 'S'or hTteen years a Ca'rdmal' Avchbisn'op 
 9 of Parts \Vas' its 'protector' arid leader, and this at. a 
 ' 'distance of sixty years after its 'formal condemnation. 
 First,'' the; boot itself of Jansenka had' been con- 
 '"derhhe'd; afnd then^'M 'O'onsecjuehee' of "an eVasion, 
 '"the sbnse of the book ; : and then' a controversy "arose 
 whether the 'Church could decide such a 1 matter of 
 ' fact as that 'a booh' Rdcl a' particular' 'sense.' 11 ' And 
 "then 1 The 1 furthe'r question "came into discussion, whe- 
 ther f the s^n'se *astb'be'condemned''\>rith'tac' : m'ire 
 intention' of an external obedience, 'or tvith ah'in- 
 ' terrial assent: ' ' lEt'evcri' bishops' ' o'f Fianceinterposed 
 "vnth the" Pope 'to' prevent the' condemnation $ there 
 ""fteffe four who' required 'nothing more Of their clergy 
 tlian'a'resp&etiful swerice 1 on 1 the ! subject in contro- 
 versy';' and' "nineteen Vffote' to 'the Pope 1 ifr favor -of 
 k%hes% r fbur? li! B f efbfe ■ these"' "difficulties liad been set- 
 - tied, l a fresh preacher Of the Sime doctrines' appeared 
 '"iii- the 1 persott'bf Quesn'e^' aiifl titfthi' Pbpe 7 s r c6ii- 
 '''demhihg'his 'crpitribns in "the "famous 1 bull tfiTigihitus, 
 "teix-btshops refused' 1 td ' publish it, and fourteen' f3r- 
 '"' inally "Opposed' it ; atid' then-' sixteen! 'suspended' ^he 
 effects of it. Three universities took p"afT~'With 
 "them and tbe'JsSrliaitfeidte'of Various towns banished 
 their Archbishops, Bishops, or '^Pr'iests',' ! ahd'"co ! nfis- 
 
220 
 
 eated their goods, either for taking part against the 
 Jansenists or refusing them the Sacraments.* 
 
 As time went on, the evil spread wider and grew 
 more intense, instead of being relieved. In the 
 middle of last century, a hundred years after the 
 condemnation of the heresy at Rome, it was em- 
 bodied in the person of a far more efficacious dis- 
 putant than Jansenius or Quesnel. The Emperor 
 Joseph developed the apparently harmless theories 
 of a theological school in the practical form of Eras- 
 tianism. He prohibited the reception of the famous 
 hull Tfnigerritus in his dominions ; subjected all bulls, 
 rescripts, and briefs from Rome to an imperial su- 
 pervision ; forbade religious orders to obey foreign 
 superiors ; " suppressed confraternities, abolished 
 the processions, retrenched festivals, prescribed the 
 order of offices, regulated the ceremonies, the num- 
 ber of masses, the manner of giving benediction, 
 nay the number of waxlights."| He seized the 
 revenues of the bishops, destroyed their sees, and 
 even for a time forbade them to confer orders. He 
 permitted divorce in certain cases, and removed 
 images from the churches. The new Reformation 
 reached as far as Belgium on the one hand, and 
 down to Naples on the other. The whole of the 
 
 * Vide Memoires pour servir, &c. and Palmer on the Church. 
 t Memoires pour aervir, &c 
 
S2i 
 
 Empire and its alliances were apparently on thS 
 point of disowning their dependence on the Apostolid 
 See. The wewhip- of the saints, anrieular confess 
 sion, indulgences, and other Catholic doctrines, were 
 openly written against or disputed by bishops and 
 professors. The Archduke of Tuscany, imitating 
 the Emperor, sent catechisms to the bishops, and 
 instructed them in his Circulars Or charges j while a 
 Neapolitan prelate, instead of his ordinary title of 
 '• Bishop by the grace of the Holy Apostolic See,'* 
 Styled himself " Bishop by the grace of the king " 
 "Who would not have thought that Henry of England 
 had risen from his place, and was at once in Vienna, 
 Belgium, Tuscany, and Naples? The reforming 
 views had spread into* Portugal ; and, to complete 
 the crisis, the great antagonist of Protestantism, 
 which was born with it in one day, and had ever 1 
 since been the best champion of the Holy See, the 
 Society of Jesus itself, by the inscrutable fiat of 
 Providence, is, in that hour of need, to avoid worse 
 evils, by that very See suppressed. Surely the, holy 
 Boman Church is at length in the agonies of disso- 
 lution. The Catholic powers, Germany, Franeej 
 Portugal, and Naples, all have turned against her; 
 Who is to defend her? The mystery of Protes- 
 tantism is unravelled ; the day of Luther is come 3 
 the Catholics send Up a cry, and their enemies a 
 shout of joy. 
 Fret not thyself. Is it not written in the book of 
 14* 
 
' 322 
 
 'truth, i'liat the ungodly shall spread abrOaoT Itke a 
 greeri ^ay-tree, 'arid then shall Wither? 'that 'th6" ad- 
 versary roaches outhis hand towards' his prey, Arid 
 n then is smitten ? " "Yet a little while, arid' the* wicked 
 • shall 1 not bo'i 1 I passed by, ''and lb ! he was- hot; I 
 ^ sough t'hiflj,' aud his place was not found. H ' BettetTis 
 k a little to the just than the great riches of ''He 
 ® wicked ;' for the arms' of the wicked'sh'allbe Mbketi, 
 ' but' 'the Ltird strengtheneth the" justJ" a,, So'WaS it 
 with the' great Arian heresy, Which the civil power 
 would fain have forced upon the Church 1 , and it fell 
 ; ' to pieces, arid the Church rerhairied o'no: "S8 Was it 
 '^witri 'NeStbHus, "with Eutycbi-s,''' with the Tmage- 
 Jibrtakert, with Mariiche^s, With Lollards, with Prb- 
 "testants, Into whom the' St'afe would flut lffe7'b%t 
 ■ vrhol 'title arid all, refused to live'.- So is*it ! witrHhe 
 cotornuuion of Cratinier and Parker; Which is a fept 
 '•'together ti'nly "Tiy tihe heavylrari'd 'Of ' ! th<5' State, Sttd 
 -'Carirlot-aspire t6 be free without ceasing 1 to %e one. 
 One pdwef alone" on earth has the gift and destiny 
 X of' ever being one. It has been so of old time; 
 Stfrely so will it be now. ~, TMan's necessity iff God's 
 » opportunity. - Mf Noli amidari, "Be not jealous!" 
 '.'I : It is towards the end of the ceritdry "J'Htikt 
 shall be' ere 'that end arrive?'! ".' ■'. " ! feudde^y thtire 
 s' iS heard a rtisbing noise, borne rio'rth arid South upon 
 '' the' wing's of the Wind. T0 Is it a deluge to Sweep over 
 the earth, and to bear up the ark of CTdd^up^tf^ftB 
 ' bosom?' or is it the *fife~ which ! is rava'gibg"'to ; and 
 
6Zo 
 
 a-juia yssv 
 
 'fro, to try every pan's work weal it Is, and - to dis- 
 
 criminate between what is of earth .and what is r of 
 
 neaven? Wow we spall see what can live and what 
 
 1 must, die^ now shall we have the proof of Janseij- 
 
 B fsm: nOw shall we see whether the Catholic Chuftjh 
 
 tnrtn ot the Tout elements,' a /being of chance and 
 ^WeumsUnce, made np 6? parts, but with no inte- 
 ! g¥ity or immaterial principle stamped upon it. Ihe 
 
 Breath of the Lord is gone far and' wide 'upon the 
 "fece of the "Garth) the' very foundations^ of society 
 ' are melting in the fiery flood which it hag- kindlecl ; 
 "and "we shall see 1 whether the three children, wul pe 
 "'lable'towalk In the 1 "midst of the furnace,', ji'na will 
 '"come "forth with their hair* uh9inged, v their"garmehts 
 j ' Whole", ihd their skin untainted by the smell of ''fire. 
 """So closed' the last .century 'upon the woridering 
 '"Vrld, and for years it wenderdd 6n ; wondered wtiat 
 ~ should tje the issue of the awful portent which it 
 'witnessed, and what'riew state of things was to rise 
 
 'out of the old. f^lftf Church disappeared before its 
 
 eye's as u, by' a yawning eaTthWlte* and men said it 
 'was a fnffflm^nt of 'the propi'ecie^r'a'nd they sang^a 
 s hyain, and went to their" lmtg'^flep/eonten^'and 
 
 ^wrth a Nunc DiMiitis in; their' moutTssY for now ! at 
 
 3 length had ati' 6U superstition been wiped off from 
 
 'the earth, and the Pope had gone his way.' ' And 
 
 ^h^'jjfowers, king's, and'thelike, disappeared too, 
 
 ''and nothing was' to'be seen. 
 
#24 
 
 Fifty years have passed away since the time of 
 those wonders, and we, my brethren, behold in pur 
 degree the issue of what our fathers eould but 
 imagine. Great changes surely have been wrought, 
 but not those which they anticipated. The German 
 Emperor has ceased to be ; he persecuted the 
 Church, and he has lost his place of pre-eminence. 
 The Gallioan Church, too, with its much -prized* 
 liberties, and its fostered heresy, was also swept 
 away, and its time-honored establishment dissolved. 
 Jansenism is no morr. The Church lives, the 
 Apostolic See rules. That See has greater ac- 
 knowledged power in the Church than ever before,- 
 and that Church has a wider liberty than she has 
 had since the days of the Apostles. The faith is 
 extending in the great Anglo-Saxon race, its recent 
 enemy, the lord of the world, with a steadiness and 
 energy, which that proud people fears, yet cannot 
 resist. Out of the ashes of the ancient Church of 
 France has sprung a new hierarchy, worthy of the 
 name and the history of that great nation, as fervent 
 as their St. Bernard, and as tender as their St. 
 Francis, and as enterprising as their St. Louis, and 
 as loyal to the Holy See as their Charlemagne. Thar 
 Umpire has rescinded the impious regulations of the 
 Emperor Joseph, and has commenced the emanci- 
 pation of the Church. The idea and the genius of 
 Catholicism has triumphed within its own pale with 
 a power and a completeness which the world has 
 never seen before. Never was the whole body of 
 
326 
 
 the faithful so united to each other and to thei? 
 head. Never was there a time when there was less 
 of error, heresy, and scbisraatical perverseneea 
 among them. Of course the time will never be in 
 this world, when trials and persecutions shall be at 
 an end; and doubtless such are to come, even though 
 they be below the horizon. But we may be thank- 
 ful and joyful for what is already granted us, and 
 nothing which is to be can destroy the mercies which 
 have been. 
 
 " So let all Thy enemies perish, Lord ; but let 
 them that love Thee, shine, as the sun shineth in his 
 rising 1" 
 
JiElCTtrilE XL 
 
 TO THE CATHOLICITY OB THE CHURCIT. S lUiin 
 
 There is no objection made at this time to the 
 claims of the Catholic Church more imposing to the 
 imagination, jet less tenable in the judgment of 
 reason, than that which is grounded on there being 
 at present so many nations and races, which have 
 kept the name of Christian, yet given up Catholi- 
 cism. If fecundity has ever been considered one of 
 the formal notes or tokens of the Mother of souls, 
 it is fair to look out for it now ; and, if it has told 
 in favor of the communion of Rome in former times, 
 so now it must surely be allowed to tell against it. 
 It would seem as if in this age of the world the 
 whole number of anti- Catholics were nearly equal 
 to the number of Catholics, at least so our oppo- 
 nents say ; and I am willing, for argument's sake, 
 to grant it, though I am very far from thinking the 
 
" ; S27 
 
 lik is :c so lt %^eIf. ,n Sutlet itT'be "''So* v o^ 'iniiffik 
 
 Words, let' 'it 'be assumed' tftat' scarcely ''more" than 
 " h'slf of Chris tgri'dorii subjects ^itself ' to 'the Catholic 
 i tjBurcH. "'Is it not preposterous;' then," 'it'is aSfiid 
 ''of iis,' " to clam tti be tbl^WHole, when yob are but 
 ' a inoiety? 'And.' Wfth what * "countenance "cah^you 
 
 tFenriand fhat We should Unhesitatingly and without 
 d! May leave 1 out 1 6Wn communion for "yours," 1 WVen 
 ' ifhete is so little to slow at 'firOT s%y H^at you 'have 
 l! lfibr$pre 1 t<!nsions to tfie diris^iauBMe than 1 ' 'we 1 4" 
 .B-iTfijtyj^^ ^ '^1^"^^' 'piie'in its; 'broadest, 1 ;siffipleU 
 ' Bhajie, aM you, J my brethren," Would likVto''aviil 
 " youS&vef "ibf^ft just'a^ f tove'stated it,'' if ymrcriuld. 
 
 But you cannot ; for it puts together all ' creeds and 
 fidpi&iSft8,'"-dl t ef^ifldni§tts , ,'' T #batevef !r tbeir origin and 
 i^ffistMf, "abcfc'adid'Sfllp'the 1 number 6fJ their* 'm^WHers 
 aiafi^ivsirf ttf'tMM of th« Gbu¥eh's ! 'cnildren. 3ii ¥ou 
 1ow«tfld*$dl so if you could, as your J forefath'ers c did 
 'f ,i ib#fote ,; y(&i j two 'centuries ago "Archbishop UrM^kll 
 "did 36"; aiid you nave every 'good' -Wish to Sopy^lfim, 
 'Iks in 'hiSJ' other representations, so^ri'this;'"" "Wo 
 AeM'wn^lraion;" be isay^; sneaking of tb'edbWch 
 
 of Iriglftnd 1 in contrast 1 with those 1 wh'otn-he 1 wWuld 
 -cosfllM Soibitiiatsi : ' *' With' thrice ' So maty- Ga*ffitiiie 
 a^Mfeftkns fl^ney^do; that is.lbe easter 1 *]/ st&flgln 
 Sattd^'oMeftf' 'Christians, ; b'esfde , B^Prm^en"ts?«* 
 «'* DiviiJe'-CtiTist^dom iotf 'five ^r^n^ 'fM % 
 
 * Vol.i. p. 628. Ed. 1842. 
 
them they hate very little or nothing to do. Per- 
 haps they have here a monastery, or there a small 
 handful of proselytes ; but what are five or sis per- 
 sons to so many millions of Christian souls, that 
 they should be Catholics, and not all the others ?"* 
 This being the case, as he views the matter, it of 
 course follows that we are but successors of the 
 ancient Donatists, a mere fraction of the Church 
 excommunicating all the rest. " The Donatists," 
 he says, " separated the whole Catholic Church 
 from their communion, and substituted themselves, 
 being but a small part of the Christian World, in the 
 place of the Catholic Church ; just as the Romanists 
 do at this day."t 
 
 This certainly was turning the tables against his 
 opponents, who had been accustomed to consider 
 that the Church of England, granting it was a 
 Church, was in the very position of the followers of 
 Donatus ; but let us observe what he is forced to do 
 to make his argument good. First, of course, he 
 throws himself into communion, whether they will 
 have him or not, not only with the Greek Churcbj 
 but with the various heretical bodies all over the 
 East; the Nestorians of Chaldsea, the Copts of 
 Egypt, the Jacobites of Syria, and the Eutychians 
 of Armenia, whose heresy in consequence he finds 
 it most expedient to doubt. " Those Churches," he 
 
 * 7 bid, p. 258. 
 t Ibid, p. 106, 
 
323 
 
 says, speaking of the East, " do agree better, both 
 among thtmselves and with other Churches, than 
 the' Roman Church itself; both in profession of 
 faith, for they and we do generally acknowledge the 
 same ancient creeds, and no other ; and in inferior 
 questions, being free from the intricate and perplexed 
 
 difficulties of the Roman schools How are 
 
 they 'heretical' Churches? Some of them are 
 called Nestorians ; but most injuriously, who hare 
 nothing of Nestorians but the name. Others have 
 been suspected of Eutychianism, and yet in truth 
 
 orthodox enough It is no new thing for 
 
 great quarrels to arise from mere mistakes."* Else- 
 where he says, " It is true that some few Eastern 
 Christians, in comparison of those innumerable 
 multitudes, are called Nestorians, and some others, 
 by reason of some unusual expressions, suspected 
 of Eutychianism, but both most wrongfully. Is 
 this the requital vhat he," that is, his Catholic op- 
 ponent, " makes to so many of these poor Christians, 
 for maintaining their religion inviolated so many 
 ages under Mahometan princes ?"•{■ 
 
 Admitting, as he does, these ancient and distant 
 sectaries to have a portion in the Catholic faith and 
 communion, it is not surprising that he extends a 
 like privilege to the recently-formed Protestant 
 communities in his own neighborhood. " Because I 
 
 * Ibid, p. 260. 
 t Ibid, p. 328. 
 
'•' 330 
 
 ! "esteem 1 these-Churches' hot completely formed.^'be 
 "'says, " do'I therefore 'exclude themffbm 1 aU'hbtfffof 
 salvation?' or esteem them aliens and strangers from 
 f3n 'thfe f: cortinioBwealth' 'of Israel f l3 6r account 1 them 
 71 formal : schismatics ? ' No" such' 'thing 1 ."* '■' " I know 
 ; no 'reason why we should hot admit' Greets and 
 ' Lutherans to our communion ; and (if he," that 'is, 
 8 Lis opponent/"'' had added them% Armenians Abys- 
 ,? setae's, Muscovites.'! Y' . ''. For- the ; Lutherans,' 'he 
 'does them egregious "wrong. *' Throughout the'kitig- 
 r dotns of -Denmark l: and Sweden they have their 
 bishops, name and" thing; 'and' throughout Germany 
 they have' their superi'ntendentS. , 'J' '" ; " : f 1E3T '-' 
 n '''Such was the"'lihe ; ''of argument" Whicli tlie| de- 
 fenders of the National Church adopted tWocen- 
 \" t'uries Tbaick ';' and 6'f course it J was much stronger in 
 ^tne 1 way of 'argument -th'an' anything which' is at" 
 ' u tempted how. "' Ntiw the' Protestants' are given up: 
 ■'■we hear 'lit'tSe'oif' nothing of "Churches not'eom- 
 'jSiefely formed';"" hot much' account is taken of ihe 
 ^ '■"'supeHntenaehts" 'of Germany ;' ; arid ' as 1 "to 'the 
 
 episcopacy of Denmark and Sweden, the thing 1 ,' if 
 
 i : i ' ■ ' ■ i ' i, •iii'iriua «^aii1 a mli i - , ^r '■■:•>■.£ 
 
 hi; IS •! J(,iJ p "VO. !l1 '-* 5f ' ! ''* llOJJllHj 8 S7;1[f ol •! ihii.lo IK 
 
 ,<• ^f'He adds :i "and. all those. 'who do-professjthe.>Aipoitoncal 
 
 i, , p^jped, paj it is expounded iri llje first. ^our gen,erAl:ccjunciIs, under 
 
 the primitive djscipljiie." , These words are riot quofed above, 
 
 ' because they are' ider^irrly^ThrJi^u'6ris. i - il Bririi'Ha)l does' ribtky 
 
 " all those who do subscribe the decrees of the first four genera 
 
 councils." -.',' '.' r1 ,' ^ t l . 
 
 t Ibid, p. 584. -'--•.i,^» r 
 
331 
 
 not the name, is simply gone. JSTbr ^buid any ad • 
 
 berent of the theological party, whom I ana address- 
 
 ' ing, think with much respect either oOne'j^estorians 
 
 "or Monophy sites of Asia and Africa." ^The anti- 
 
 ''Catholic bodies, which are made the present basis of 
 
 ". tbe argument against usj are maioly or solely the 
 
 Greek and the Anglican communities ;' and,, as the 
 
 "antiquity, prescriptive authority, orders, and dpc- 
 
 " trine or Anglicanism, are the/very s'unj'ecij is dispute, 
 
 it is usual to simplify the argument by resting it 
 
 v upon grounds which it is spppoped we c|inn.op. deny; 
 
 * Viz'-j' 'the pretensions of the ' G'reeK Church', whose 
 
 ^apostolical"' descent is unquestionable,' aha whose 
 
 faith aunost unquestioned. 
 
 The argument,' then, which I have to consider, is 
 ah appeal to the J imaginaMori r cf the following kihjd : 
 The Russian' Church, ' according to the statistical 
 
 tables of" 183'5", includes 39 t S&$%7# souls' within its 
 pale;* the .Byzantine, 1 or what is qommonly cajled 
 
 J the Greek Church, is said to nuhxb'er about three 
 
 ' millions ;^ so that, excluding the heretical 'bodies, 
 
 we may place the whole Greek'' com ra union ^ from 
 
 north to south, at about, forty- three millions,! with 
 
 *' such increase of populatipn' as' in the 'last "fifteen 
 
 -■ -'■ .. '■ 'In SI' ■ ■•' A'fA'ft :' 7f)l:!>!> ■.• • Illl'HJot; 
 
 'ho * iTtewleii'L'EgUse Russe, 1846i. ii v1 : 'tiir> !):'•'.' li'-sii 
 t Conder, View of Religions. 
 
 ' ~''f In controversial writings, the nvtmbers of the' Greek 1 br- 
 n ^hbdosti communion are pot at 'seventy- or even ninety millions ; 
 
 i? : .d,ow ntH.anpsar on, ; what datai„ Cond r #>h{s ,them ,at fifty 
 
 millions. 
 
S3-2 
 
 years it has gained. On tbe other hand, the whole 
 number of Catholics, which has been placed by some 
 as low as one hundred and sixteen millions, is con* 
 sidered by Catholics at present to reach two hun* 
 dred. But, whatever be the proportion between the 
 Greeks and ourselves, any how so vast a communion 
 as one of forty-three million souls, is a difficulty, it 
 is said, too positive for us to overcome. It seems 
 incredible that we can have exclusive claims to be 
 Christ's heritage, if those claims issue in the exclu- 
 sion of such immense populations from it ; it is in- 
 oredible that we should be tbe Catholic Church, if 
 we have not the power to take them up into our 
 system, but let them lie in their own place. " If 
 the Greeks are separate from the See of Rome," it 
 is said, " as we see they are, we too may without 
 hazard be separate also. They are too powerful too 
 numerous, to be subjects of a schism, they are too 
 large a limb to admit of amputation ; they enter into 
 the Church's life and essence ; in ejecting them from 
 her bosom, she is tearing out herself; in excom- 
 municating them, you rather excommunicate your- 
 selves ; you are affording us a plain reductio ad 
 absurdum of your Catholicity And there is a 
 second consideration which urges us, and that is, the 
 frightful cruelty of denying to such multitudes of 
 men, and to so great an extent of territory, a place 
 in the Church, claiming it as they do from generation 
 to generation, and fully believing their own posses- 
 
333 
 
 sion of it. Charity, still more than the necessities 
 of controversy, obliges you to acknowledge them as 
 a portion of the fold of Christ." 
 
 This is the objection which I am to examine, and 
 you will observe that I am to examine it only as an 
 objection ; that is to say, I am supposing it proved 
 sufficiently on other grounds that the communion of 
 Borne is the Catholic Church, for to this the move- 
 ment of 1833 has already been supposed to lead ; 
 and then, with the fact sufficiently proved, this ob- 
 jection is brought as an obstacle to our surrendering 
 ourselves to the conviction which follows. What I 
 have to do, then, is to show, that the proof of our 
 Catholicity is not affected by the phenomenon in 
 question; or that there are ways of accounting for 
 it, sufficient to quiet our imagination, and to lead us 
 to acquiesce in the difficulty, whatever it is, on the 
 assumption which I claim to make, that the Church 
 of Rome and Catholicism are synonymous terms. 
 
 I observe, then, that it is but one instance of a 
 great phenomenon, which has ever been on earth, 
 that truth should be opposed by some pretence 
 which is of a character to deceive men at first sight, 
 and to confuse the evidence of what alone is divine 
 and trustworthy. Thus, if I must begin from the 
 very beginning, the enemy of man did not overcome 
 him in Paradise, except by pretending to be a pro- 
 phet, and, as it were, preaching against his Maker. 
 " Ye shall not die the death," he said ; " ye shall 
 
331 .. 
 
 be^sgods, knowing good and.ejil," t Again, w^en 
 Moses displayed his miracles before Pharaoh, Jannes-, 
 and Mambres were allowed to imitate them, in order, 
 so to speak, to give the Jung a pretext, if he wfl^f 
 perverse enough to take it, for rejecting the divine 
 message. When the same great .prophet had. led,' 
 out the chosen people towards the promised land,' 
 
 '■■' ,-!■., ■_ ■■ *jg. ' , . B).ii,i,n-i -rsrfin no i m ,/ ,if(m 
 
 their enemies made the .attempt., to, sat up. a rival ... 
 
 ■V ar,! . '■Vi . ' : i .iliniidrVfulfirlHi;* 'jfli - ■■■ "i"..K 
 prophet in Balaam, though it was overr,uled,.,as id 
 
 other cases, by their almighty Jrratectpr, When a 
 
 prophet denounced the schism of Jeroboam, there 
 
 ,-■ ■ ■< i v ■ '••■ ■ •" ;-i ■•'■!•■ v> , , . , o-Lii ft!,..- .'p[ 
 was an old deceiver who seduced him by the claim, 
 
 "I also am a prophet like unto thee." The f Tempte " 
 
 had not loog been built before a rival shrine arose 
 
 on Mount G-e'rizim, with the very object of per- 
 
 plexinj£tbe inquirer. " Our fathers adored in this '' 
 
 mountain," says the feamantan woman to our Lord, 
 "and ye say that at Jerusalem is the place where 
 men must adore." ' And He warns us of false 
 Christs and Antichrists, 'who were to mislead the 
 many with the imitation of His claims; arid His 
 Apostles were resisted, and in a manner thwarted, 
 by' Simon Magus, and others who set up against 
 them.' !M The'y themselves 'distinctly prophesied this " 
 delusion as something which was to be," and ap- 
 parently to endure till the end of all things;' so 
 much so, that, were such imposing phenomena as the 
 Greek Church taken out of the way, it will he diffi- 
 cult to'say how the state of things would correspond 
 
336 
 
 *° .the^ppstojie aqticipatioDS of it, and one neve? . 
 sh 9^ ^ surpriseji to' find its rhetorical effect W-'" 1 
 C0 ™ e , r m?!" I e I P r actic^l ! 5f urgent and visibly influential'' 
 than it has been. ' '' After nW departure," says St.' 
 ■""i* „^ venous wolves .will enter in among you, 
 n °t s panng the flock. And,of your own selves will 
 ns ?p^P.ffi?, n i s P eakln S,P erverse tninsrs, to draw away 
 dls ?, 1 J ) es , ; after them,". And in .his .parting words he 
 
 H<rt.i,-i(J,T(J.- . .1 .1, . ! 1)118 S'lUlil ti;W „,. I?W , ,i ,)., 
 
 warns us, that ," in thalast days shalf come danger- 
 ous.trtnes^ for men shall^e lovers of themselves'. . . 
 having ^an _appearapce. indeed of piety,", that is, of" 
 orthodoxy, "bu^denying the power thereof.*' ' "'Evil" 
 me P, an< * seducers shall gr^w worse 'apd.'worBe.'erring '} 
 and , driving jnto''error." 'And '"there shall" be' a '' ' 
 Mm? when they will' not feear sound cToctririe, 'but' \ [ 
 according to th^r^'owa'desires'th'e'y will ' heap'lo " ' 
 themselves' teachers having ' rtch'ing er rs. "I nee d' ' w 
 not remind ^ou^that St. John and St, Jude."bear' a ' ' 
 
 — ■- J, i *{ ^^* w^"- iuu Avi uj-ic i^iuop X filial JittUlc IU.1™ 
 
 fiWent offfeir warning, t ^ouid^p^ , H'o , 'Ma ! aoi no 
 metamsm, wnich'is a far ipoV'sulo'tle 'crat^'nce"'^ " 
 
 the enemy; th ; an'we are apt % eonsife.'" In'ihe'Mrs^^ 
 place, i't ^erp^exes' ttie evirfeV^e' ,l oi' , '0&ri'sAanity jii's4; lT 
 in that point ia wtie'h' 'it is' mosl original! andWikingT"* 
 I me an, it processes' the propagation of'a religiori'"'" 
 through' the world, which'I suppose was quite a new '''' 
 idea wjieh Christianity ""appeared. In the event '" 
 
336 
 
 indeed, it did but illustrate the divinity of Chris- 
 tianity by the contrast ; for while the Catholic 
 Church is a proselyting power, as her enemies con- 
 fess, at the end of eighteen centuries, Mahometanism 
 soon got tired of its own undertaking, and when the 
 novelty and excitement of conversion were over, it 
 relapsed into a sort of conservative, local, national 
 religion, such as the Greek and Latin polytheisms 
 before it, and Protestantism since. And next, it 
 acted over again, as if in mockery, the part which 
 Christianity had taken towards Judaism; viz., it 
 professed to be an improvement on the Gospel, as 
 the Gospel had been upon the Law ; and just as 
 Christianity dealt with Judaism, it pointed to the 
 Christian prophecies in evidence of its own claims, 
 which it affected' to interpret better than Christians 
 themselves. Moreover, it swept away a considerable 
 portion of the Christian heritage ; and there it re- 
 mains to this day in the countries which it seized 
 upon, lying over against us, and for this reason only 
 not interfering with the clearness of a Protestant's 
 conviction of the divine origin of Christianity, that 
 England lies north and Islamism is in the south. 
 Then again, I cannot help thinking that Judaism is 
 somewhat of a difficulty of the same kind ; not as if 
 any one were likely to prefer it, any more than 
 Mahometanism, to Christianity; that is another 
 matter altogether ; nor, in like manner, do I think 
 that any of you, my brethren, would turn Greek 
 
337 
 
 rather than become Catholic ; but I mean, that as 
 the fact of the Greek Church impairs the simplicity 
 of the Catholic argument, by the preferment of a 
 counter authority, so does the existence of Judaism ; 
 for, compared with it, Christianity is a novelty ; and 
 it may be said, Do not stand midway, but either go 
 on to some newer novelty, such as first Montanus, 
 then Manes, and then Mahomet introduced, and 
 others since, or else go back to the mother of all 
 religions, the Jewish Law, which, as you yourselves 
 allow, once was a prophet of God. On the other 
 hand, even if we became Jews, as considering Juda- 
 ism to be the permanent religion which God has 
 given, still this would not get rid of the difficulty I 
 am describing ; for the proper claims of Christianity 
 would remain; then, as now, you would have two 
 rival prophets, one true, and one not true, though 
 you would have changed your mind, as to which was 
 true and which was false. Looking, then, at the 
 world as it is, taking facts as they are, you cannot 
 rid yourselves of difficulties in the evidence of reli- 
 gion, arising from the existence of bold, plausible, 
 imposing counter-claims on the part of error, such 
 as the Greek communion makes against Catholicism • 
 and you must reconcile yourselves to them, unless 
 you are content to believe nothing, and give up the 
 pretension of faith altogether. 
 
 But we need not go to Judaism or Mabometanism 
 for parallels to the Greek Church ; look at the his- 
 15 
 
338 
 
 tory of the Christian Church herself, and you will 
 find precedents in former times, more exact and 
 apposite than any which can be brought against her 
 from without. It may be observed that the Apostle, 
 in the passage already quoted, speaks of the sects 
 and persuasions, whom by implication he condemns, 
 not merely as collateral and independent creations, 
 but as born in the Catholic body, and going out 
 from it. " Of your own selves shall men arise ;" 
 and St. John says, " They went out from us, but 
 they were not of us ; for, if they had been of us, 
 they would no doubt have continued with us." If 
 this was not fulfilled in the very .days of the Apos- 
 tles, on the extensive scale on which it was after- 
 wards, this was simply because large national 
 conversions and serious schisms are not the growth 
 of a day; but, as far as it could exist in the first 
 ages, it has existed from the very first, and far more 
 strikingly in the succeeding centuries of the Church. 
 From the first, the Church was but one communion 
 among many which bore the name of Christian, some 
 of them more learned, and others affecting a greater 
 strictness than herself; till at length her note of 
 Catholicity was for a while gathered up and fulfilled 
 simply in the name of Catholic, rather than was a 
 property visibly peculiar to herself and none but 
 her. Honco the famous advice of the Fathers, that 
 if one of the faithful went to a strange city, he 
 should not ask for the " Church," for there were so 
 
339 
 
 many churches belonging to different denominations, 
 that he would be sure to be perplexed and mistake, 
 but for the Catholic Church. " If ever thou art 
 sojourning in any city," says St. Cyril, "inquire not 
 simply where the Lord's House is, for the sects also 
 make an attempt to call their own conventicles 
 houses of the Lord, not merely where the Church is, 
 but where is the Catholic Church." St. Cyril 
 wrote in Palestine ; but St. Austin in Africa, and 
 St. Pacian in Spain, say the same thing. The pre- 
 sent Greek Church is at best but a local form of 
 religion, and does not pretend to occupy the earth ; 
 but some of the early heretical bodies might almost 
 have disputed with the See of St. Peter the pre- 
 rogative of Catholicity. The stern discipline of the 
 Novatians extended from Borne to Scythia, to Asia 
 Minor, to Alexandria, to Africa, and to Spain ; 
 while, at an earlier date, the families of Gnosticism 
 had gone forth over the face of the world from Italy 
 to Persia and Egypt on the east, to Africa on the 
 south, to Spain on the west, and to Caul on the 
 north. 
 
 But you will say, there were, in those times, no 
 national heresies or schisms, which alone, can be 
 considered parallel to the case of the Greek Church, 
 supposing it schismatical ; — turn then to the history 
 of the Gothic race. This great people, in all its 
 separate tribes, received Christianity from Arian 
 preachers; and before it took possession of the 
 
340 
 
 empire, Maesogoths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Alani, 
 Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians, had all learned to 
 deny the divinity of Christ. Suddenly Fiance, 
 Spain, Portugal, Africa, and Italy found themselves 
 buried under tbe weight of heretical establishments 
 and populations. This state of things lasted for eighty 
 years in Prance, for a hundred in Italy and Africa, 
 and for a hundred and eighty in Spain, extending 
 through a space of two centuries. It should be 
 added that these Gothic hordes, which took posses- 
 sion of the Empire, had little of the character of 
 barbarism, except the vice of cruelty; they were 
 chaste, temperate, just, and devout, and some of 
 their princes were men of ability, and patrons of 
 learning. Did you live in that day, my brethren, 
 you would perhaps be looking with admiration at 
 these Arians, as now at the Greeks; not fr"m love 
 of their heresy, but, your imagination being affected 
 by their number, power, and nobleness, you would 
 try to make out that they really did hold the ortho- 
 dox faith, or at least that it was not at all certain 
 they did not, though certainly they denied the 
 Nicene Creed, against which they had been preju- 
 diced, and anathematized Athanasius, from defective 
 knowledge of history. You would have used the 
 words of Bramhall, quoted above, when speaking 
 of later families of heretics : — " How are they 
 heretical Churches ? some of them are called Arians ; 
 but most injuriously, who have nothing of Arius, but 
 
341 
 
 the name ; others have been suspected of Maeedo- 
 nianism, and yet in truth orthodox enough. It is 
 no new thing for great quarrels to arise from mere 
 mistakes " Bulk, not symmetry, vastness, not 
 order, show, not principle— I fear I must say it, my 
 dear brethren — these are your tests of truth. A 
 century earlier than the Goths, you would have been 
 enlarging on the importance of the Donatists. " Four 
 hundred sees !" you would have said ; " a whole 
 four hundred ! why it is a fifth of the Episcopate of 
 Christendom. Unchurch them! impossible! we 
 shall excommunicate ourselves in the attempt." 
 . Still, it may be said, I have produced nothing yet 
 to match the venerable antiquity and the authorita- 
 tive traditions of the Greek Church, which is coeval 
 with the Apostles, and for near a thousand years has 
 been in its present theological position, and which, 
 since its separation from the Holy See, has been 
 able, as is alleged, to expand itself in a vast heathen 
 country, which it has converted to the faith. Such 
 is the objection ; and, as to the facts on which it is 
 built, as before, I will take them for granted, for 
 argument's sake, for any how they are not sufficient 
 to make it sound. For in truth, whether the facts 
 be as represented or not, you will find them all, and 
 more than them all, in the remarkable history of the 
 Nestorians. The tenet on which these religionists 
 separated from the See of Rome is traceable to 
 Antioch, the very birth-place of the Christian name ; 
 
342 
 
 and it was taken up and maintained by Churehes 
 which were among the oldest in Christendom. 
 Driven by the Roman power over the boundaries of 
 the Empire, it placed itself, as early as the fifth 
 century, under the protection of Persia, and laid the 
 foundations of a schismatical communion, the most 
 wonderful that the world has seen. It propagated 
 itself, both among Christians and pagans, from 
 Cyprus to China ; it was the Christianity of Bac- 
 trians, Huns, Medes, and Indians, of the coast of 
 Malabar and Ceylon on the south, and of Tartary on 
 the north. This ecclesiastical dominion lasted for 
 eight centuries and more, into the depth of the mid- 
 dle ages, — beyond the Pontificate of Innocent III. 
 It was administered by as many as twenty-five 
 archbishoprics; and, though there is perhaps no 
 record of the number of its people, yet it is said 
 that, together with the opposite sect of the Mono- 
 physites in Syria and Egypt, at one time they sur- 
 passed in populousness the whole Catholic Church 
 in its Greek and Latin divisions. And it is to be 
 observed, which is much to the purpose, that it oc- 
 cupied a portion of the world, with which, as far as 
 I am aware, the Catholic Church, daring those many 
 centuries, interfered very little. It had the further 
 Asia all to itself, from Mesopotamia to China ; far 
 more so, than the Greek Church has at this time 
 possession of Russia and Greece. 
 
 With this prominent example before our eyes, 
 
§48 
 
 during so large a portion of the history of Chris- 
 tianity, I do not see how the present existence of 
 the Greek Church can form any valid objection to 
 the Catholicity we claim for the communion of Rome. 
 Nestorianism came from Antiocb, the original Apos- 
 tolic see; Photianism, as it has been called, from 
 Constantinople, a younger metropolis. Nestorianism 
 had its Apostolical succession, as Photianism, and a 
 formed hierarchy. If its principal seat was new and 
 foreign, in Chaldsea, not at Antioch, so the principal 
 seat of Photianism is foreign too, being Russia ; and 
 from Russia it has sent out missions and made conver- 
 sions, so did Nestorianism, and much more so, from 
 Chaldsea. You will, perhaps, object that Nesto- 
 rianism was a heresy ; therein lies the force of my 
 argument, viz., that large, organized, flourishing, 
 imposing communions, which strike the imagination 
 as necessary portions of the heritage of Christ, may 
 nevertheless in fact be implicated in some heresy, 
 which, in the judgment of reason, invalidates their 
 claim. If the Nestorian, enormous as it was, was 
 yet external to the Church, why must the Greek 
 communion be within it, merely because, supposing 
 the fact so, it has some portion of the activity and 
 success which were so conspicuous in the Nestorian 
 Kiissioners ? Do not, then, think to overcome us 
 with descriptions of the multitude, antiquity, and 
 continuance of the Greek Churches, dismiss the 
 vision of their rites, their processions, or their vest- 
 
344 
 
 ffirents, spare yourselves the recital of the splendof 
 of their churches, or the venerable aspect of their 
 bishops ; Nestorianism had them all : — the question 
 lies deeper. 
 
 It lies, for what we know, and to all appearance-, 
 ill the Very constitution of the human mind ; cor- 
 ruptions of the Gospel being as necessary and ordi- 
 nary a phenomenon, taking men as they are, as its 
 rejection. Why do you not bring against us the 
 vast unreclaimed populations of paganism, or the 
 political power of the British colonial empire, in 
 proof that we are not a Catholic Church? is mis- 
 belief a greater marvel than unbelief? or do not the 
 same intellectual and moral principles, which leadi 
 men to accept nothing, lead them also to accept half, 
 of revealed truth? Both effects are simple mani- 
 festations of private judgment in the bad sense of 
 the phrase, that is, of the use of one's own reason 
 against the authority of God. If He has made it a 
 duty to submit to the supreme authority of the Holy 
 See, (and of this I am assuming there is fair proof,) 
 and if there is a constant rising of the human mind 
 against authority, as such, however legitimate, the 
 necessary consequence will be the very state of 
 things we see before our eyes, — not individuals 
 merely, casting off the Roman supremacy, (for in- 
 dividuals, as being of less account, have less temp- 
 tation, or even opportunity, to rebel, than collections- 
 of men,) but, much more, the powerful and the 
 
345 
 
 great, the wealthy and the flourishing, kings and 
 states, cities and races, falling back upon their own 
 resources and their own connexions, making their: 
 home their castle, and refusing any longer to be de- 
 pendent on a distant centre, or to regulate their 
 internal affairs by a foreign tribunal. Assuming 
 then that there is a supreme See, divinely appointed; 
 in the midst of Christendom, to which all ought to 
 submit and be united, such phenomena, as the 
 Greek Church presents at this day, and the Nesto- 
 rian in the middle ages, are its infallible correlatives, 
 as human nature is constituted ! it would require a 
 miracle to make it otherwise. It is but an exempli- 
 fication of the words of the Apostle, " The law 
 entered in, that sin might abound ;" and again, 
 " There must be heresies, that they also who are 
 proved, may be made manifest among you." A 
 command is both the occasion of transgression and 
 the test of obedience. All depends on the fact of 
 the supremacy of Eome; I assume this fact; I 
 admit the contrary fact of the Arian, Nestorian, and 
 the Greek communions ; and strong in the one, I 
 feel no difficulty in the other. Neither Arian, nor 
 Nestorian, nor Greek insubordination is any true 
 objection to the fact of such supremacy ; unless the 
 divine foresight of such a necessary result can be 
 supposed to hare dissuaded the divine wisdom from 
 giving occasion to it. 
 
 But another remark is in place here. Nothing is 
 15* 
 
346 
 
 fcnore to be expected in large populations of Chris* 
 tians, if left to themselves, than a material instead 
 of a formal faith. By a material faith, I mean that 
 sort of habitual belief, which persons possess in con- 
 sequence of having heard things said in this or that 
 Way from their childhood, being thoroughly familiar 
 with them, and never having had difficulty suggested 
 to them from without or within. Such is the sort 
 of belief which many Protestants have in the Bible ; 
 which they accept Without a doubt, till objections 
 occur to them. Such as this becomes the faith of 
 nations in process of time, where a clergy is negli' 
 gent ; it becomes simply material and hereditary, 
 the truth being received, but not on the authority 
 of God. That is, their faith is but material not 
 formal, and really has neither the character nor the 
 reward of that grace-implanted, grace-sustained 
 principle, which believes, not merely because it was 
 bo taught in the nursery, but because God ha3 
 spoken ; not because there is no temptation to doubt, 
 but because there is a duty to believe. And thus it 
 may easily happen, in the case of individuals, that 
 even the restless mind of a Protestant, who sets the 
 divine will before him in his thoughts and actions, 
 and wishes to be taught and wishes to believe, may 
 have more of grace in it, and be more acceptable in 
 the divine sight, than his, who only believes pas* 
 sively, and not as assenting to a divine oracle ; just 
 as one who is ever fighting successfully with temp- 
 
34? 
 
 Nations against purity has, so far, a claim of merit, 
 which they do not share, who from natural tempera- 
 ment have not the trial. Now, the faultiness of this 
 passive state of mind is detected, whenever a new 
 definition of doctrine is promulgated by the com- 
 petent authority. Its immediate tendency, as ex- 
 hibited in a population, will be to resist it, simply 
 because it is new, and they recognise nothing but 
 what is familiar to them ; whereas a ready and easy 
 acceptance of the apparent novelty, and a cordial 
 acquiescence in its promulgation, is the very evi- 
 dence of a mind, which has lived, not merely in 
 certain doctrines, but in those doctrines as revealed, 
 aot simply in a Creed, but in its Giver, or, in other 
 words, which has lived by real faith. 
 
 As, then, heathens are tried by the original 
 preaching of the Word, so are Christians by recur- 
 ring declarations of it ; and the same habit of mind, 
 which makes one man an infidel, when he was before 
 but a pagan, makes another a heretic, who before 
 was but an hereditary or national Christian. And 
 aurely we can fancy without difficulty the circum- 
 stances, in which a people, and their priesthood, who 
 ought to hinder it, may gradually fall into those 
 heavy and sluggish habits of mind, in which faith 
 is but material and obedience mechanical, and re- 
 ligion has become a superstition instead of a rea- 
 sonable service ; and then it is as certain that they 
 will become schismatics or heretics, should trial 
 
348 
 
 eome, as that infidel cities, which have no heart for 
 the truth, when it is for the first time preached to* 
 them, will remain in their infidelity. It is much to 
 be feared, from what travellers tell us of the Greek 
 priesthood and their flocks, that both in Russia and 
 in Greece Proper they are very much in this state, — 
 which may be called the proper disposition towards 
 heresy and schism ; I mean, that they rely on things 
 more than on- persons, and go through a round of 
 duties in one and the same way, because they are 
 used to them, and because in consequence they are 
 attached to them, not as having any intelligent faith 
 in a divine oracle which has ordered them ; and that 
 in consequence they would start in irritation, as they 
 have started, from such indications of that oracle's 
 existence as is necessarily implied in the promulga- 
 tion of a new definition of faith. 
 
 I am speaking of the mass of the population ',■ 
 and, at first sight, it is a very serious question, whe- 
 ther the population can be said to be simply gifted 
 with divine faith, any more than our own Protestant 
 people : yet I would as little dare to deny or to 
 limit exceptions to this remark, as I would deny 
 them or limit them among ourselves. Let there be 
 as many, as there can be found tokens of there 
 being ; and the more they are, to God the greater 
 praise ! In this point of view it is that we are able 
 to take comfort even from the contemplation of a 
 country which is given up whether to heresy or 
 
340 
 
 schism. Such a country is far from being in the 
 miserable state of a heathen population : it has por"* 
 tions of the truth remaining in it, it has some super- 
 natural channels of grace; and the results are such, 
 as can never be known till we have all passed out of 
 this ' visible scene of things, and the accounts of the 
 world are finally made up for' the last tremendous 
 day. While then I think it plain that the existence 
 of large anti-Catholic bodies professing Christianity 
 are as inevitable, from the nature of the case, as 
 b Mel races or «tates, except under some extraor- 
 dinary dispensation of divine grace, — while there 
 must ever be in the world false prophets and Anti- 
 ehrists by the side of the Catholic Church, — yet it 
 is consolatory to reiect how the schism or heresy, 
 which the self-will of a monarch or a generation has 
 eaused, does not suffice altogether to destroy the 
 work for which in some distant age Evangelists have 
 sacrificed their homes and martyrs haye shed their 
 blood. Thus, the blessing is inestimable to England, 
 so far as among us the Sacrament of Baptism is 
 validly administered to any portion of the popula- 
 tion. In Greece, where a far greater attention is 
 paid to ritual exactness, the whole population may 
 be considered regenerate ; half the children born 
 into the world pass from a sehismatical Church to 
 heaven, and in many of the rest it may be the foun- 
 dation of a supernatural life, which is gifted with 
 perseverance in the hour of death. There may be 
 
350 
 
 many, who being in invincible ignorance on those 
 points of religion on which their Church is wrong, 
 may have the divine and unclouded illumination of 
 faith on those numerous points on which it is right. 
 And further, since there is a true priesthood there, 
 and a true sacrifice, the benefits of Mass to those 
 who never had the means of knowing better, may 
 be almost the same as they are in the Catholic 
 Church. Humble souls who come in faith and love 
 to the heavenly rite, under whatever disadvantages 
 from the faulty discipline of their communion, may 
 obtain, as well as we, remission of such sins as the 
 Sacrifice directly effects, and that supernatural 
 charity which wipes out the most grievous. More" 
 over, when the Blessed Sacrament is lifted up, they 
 adore, as well as we, the true Immaculate Lamb of 
 God ; and, when they communicate, it is the True 
 Bread of Life, and nothing short of it, which they 
 receive for the eternal health of their souls. 
 
 And in like manner, I suppose, as regards this 
 country, as well as Greece and Bussia, we may en' 
 tertain most reasonable hopes that vast multitudes 
 are in a state of invincible ignorance ; so that those 
 among them who are living a life really religious and 
 conscientious may be looked upon with interest and 
 even pleasure, though a mournful pleasure, in the 
 midst of the pain which a Catholic feels at their 
 ignorant prejudices against what he knows to be true. 
 Among the most bitter railers against the Church in 
 
361 
 
 this country, may be found those who are influenced 
 by divine grace, and are at present travelling towards 
 heaven, whatever be their ultimate destiny. Among 
 the most irritable disputants against the Sacrifice of 
 the Mass or Transubstantiation, or the most im-* 
 patient listeners to the glories of Mary, may be those 
 for whom she is saying to her Son, what He said on 
 the cross to His Father, " Forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do." Nay, while such persons 
 think as at present, they are bound to act accord- 
 ingly, and only Bo far to connect themselves with Us 
 as their conscience allows. " When persons who 
 have been brought Up in heresy,*' says a Catholic 
 theologian, " are persuaded from their childhood 
 that we are the enemies of G-od's Word, are idolaters, 
 pestilent deceivers, and therefore, as pests, to be 
 avoided, they cannot, while this persuasion lasts, 
 hear us with a safe conscience, and they labor under 
 invincible ignorance, inasmuch as they doubt not 
 that they are in a good Way."* 
 
 Nor does it suffice, in order to throw them out of 
 this irresponsible state, and to make them guilty of 
 their ignorance, that there are means actually in 
 their power of getting rid of it. For instance, say 
 they have no conscientious feeling against frequent- 
 ing Catholic chapels, conversing with Catholics, of 
 reading their books ; and say they are thrown into 
 
 * Busenbaum, vol. i. p. 54. 
 
352 
 
 the neighborhood of the one or the company of the 
 other, and do not avail themselves of their oppor- 
 tunities ; yet they do not become responsible for 
 their present ignorace till such time as they actually 
 feel it, till a doubt crosses them upon the subject, 
 and the thought comes upon them, that inquiry is a 
 duty. And thus Protestants may be Jiving in the 
 midst of Catholic light, and laboring with the densest 
 and most stupid prejudices ; and yet we may be able 
 to view them with hope, though with anxiety, with 
 the hope that the question has never occurred to 
 them, strange as it may seem, whether we are not 
 fight and they wrong. Nay, I will say something 
 further still s they may be so circumstanced that it 
 is quite certain that, in course of time, this igno- 
 rance will be removed, and doubt will be suggested 
 to them, and the necessity of inquiry consequently 
 imposed ; and according to our best judgment, fal- 
 lible of course as it is, we may be quite certain too, 
 that, when that time comes, they will refuse to in- 
 quire and will quench the doubt ; yet should it so 
 happen that they are cut off by death before that 
 time has arrived, (I am putting an hypothetical'case,) 
 We may have as good hopes of their salvation as if 
 we had no such misgivings on our mind; for there is 
 nothing to show that they were not taken away on 
 purpose, in order that their ignorance might be their 
 excuse. 
 As to the prospect of those countless multitudes 
 
363 
 
 of a country lite this, who apparently have no su- 
 pernatural vision of the next world at all, and die 
 without fear because they die without thought, with 
 these, alas! I am not here concerned. But the re- 
 marks I have been making suggest much of com- 
 fort, when we look out into what is called the reli- 
 gious world m all its varieties, whether it be the High 
 Church section or the Evangelical, whether it be in 
 the Establishment, or in Methodism, or in Dissent, 
 so far as there seems to be real earnestness and in- 
 vincible prejudice. One cannot but hope that that 
 written Word of God, for which they desire to be 
 jealous, though exhibited to them in a mutilated 
 form and in a translation unsanctioned by holy 
 Church, is of incalculable blessing to their souls, 
 and may be, through God's grace, the divine instru- 
 ment of bringing many to contrition and to a happy 
 death who have received no sacrament since they 
 were baptized in their infancy. One cannot but 
 hope that the Anglican Prayer Book, with its 
 Psalter and Catholic prayers, even though in the 
 translation they have passed through heretical in- 
 tellects, may retain so much of its old virtue as to 
 co-operate with divine grace in the instruction and 
 salvation of a large remnant." In these and many 
 other ways, even in England, and much more in 
 Greece, the difficulty is softened which is presented 
 to the imagination by the view of such large popu- 
 lations called Christians, but not Catholic or ortho- 
 dox in creed. 
 
354 
 
 There is but one set of persons, indeed, who in- 
 spire the Catholic with special anxiety, as much so 
 as the open sinner, who is not peculiar to any com- 
 munion, Catholic or schismatic, and who does not 
 come into the present question. There is one set of 
 persons in whom every Catholic must feel intense 
 interest, about whom he must feel the gravest ap- 
 prehensions ; viz., those who have some rays of light 
 vouchsafed to them as to their heresy and as to their 
 schism, and who seem to be closing their eyes upon 
 it ; or those who have actually gained a clear view 
 of the nothingness of their own communion, and the 
 reality and divinity of the Catholic Church, yet 
 delay to act upon their knowledge. You, my dear 
 brethren, are in a very different state from those 
 around you. You are called by the inscrutable 
 grace of God to a great benefit, which to refuse is 
 to be lost. You cannot be as others : they pursue 
 their own way, they walk over this wide earth, and 
 see nothing wonderful or glorious in the sun, moon, 
 and stars of the spiritual heavens ; or they have an 
 intellectual sense of their beauty, but no feeling of 
 duty or of love towards them ; or they wish to love 
 them, but think they ought not, lest they should get 
 a distaste for the mire and foulness which is their 
 present portion. They have not yet had the call to 
 inquire, and to seek, and to pray for further gui- 
 dance, infused into their hearts by the gracious 
 Spirit of God; and they will be judged according 
 to what is given them, not by what is not. But on 
 
355 
 
 you the thought has dawned, that possibly Catholi- 
 cism may be true ; you have doubted the safety of 
 your present position, and the present pardon of 
 your sins, and the completeness of your present 
 faith. You, by means of that very system in which 
 you find yourselves, have been led to doubt that 
 system. If the Mosaic law, given from above, was 
 a schoolmaster to lead souls to Christ, much more is 
 it true that an heretical creed, when properly under- 
 stood, warns us against itself, and frightens us from 
 it, and is forced against its will to open for us with 
 its own hands its prison gates, and to show us the 
 way to a better country. So has it been with you. 
 You set out in simplicity and earnestness, intending 
 to serve it, and your very serving taught you to serve 
 another. You began to use its prayers and act upon 
 its rules, and they did but witness against it, and 
 made you love it, not more but less, and carried off 
 your affections to one whom you had not loved. 
 The more you gazed upon your own communion the 
 more unlike it you grew ; the more you tried to be 
 good Anglicans, the more you found yourselves 
 drawn in heart and spirit to the Catholic Church. 
 It was the destiny of the false prophetess that she 
 could not keep the little ones who devoted them- 
 selves to her ; and the more simply they gave up 
 their private judgment to her, the more sure they 
 were of being thrown off by her, against their will, 
 into the current of attraction which led straight to 
 
356 
 
 the true Mother of their souls. So month has gdne 
 on after month, and year after year ; and you have 
 again and again vowed obedience to your own 
 Church, and you have protested against those who 
 left her, and you have thought you found in them 
 what you liked not, and you have prophesied evil 
 about them and good about yourselves; and your 
 plans seemed prospering and your influence extend- 
 ing, and great things were to be ; and yet, strange 
 to say, at the end of the time you have found your- 
 selves steadily advanced in the direction which you 
 feared, and never were nearer to the promised land 
 than you are now. 
 
 O, look well to your footing that you slip not ; be 
 very much afraid lest the world should detain you ; 
 dare not in anything to fall short of God's grace, or 
 to lag behind when that grace goes forward. Walk 
 with it, co-operate with it, and I know how it will 
 end. You are not the first persons who have trodden 
 that path ; yet a little time, and, please God, the 
 bitter shall be sweet and the sweet bitter, and you 
 will have undergone the agony, and shall be lodged 
 safely in the true home of ypur souls and the valley 
 of peace. Yet but a little while, and you will look 
 out from your resting-place upon the wanderers 
 outside ; and wonder they do not see the way which 
 is now so plain to you, and be impatient with them 
 that they do not come on faster. And whereas you 
 now are so perplexed in mind that you seem to your- 
 
357 
 
 selves to believe nothing, then you will be so full of 
 faith, that you will almost see invisible mysteries, 
 and will touch the threshold of eternity. And you 
 will be so full of joy that you will wish all around 
 you partakers of it, as if for your own relief : and 
 you. will suddenly be filled with yearnings, deep and 
 passionate, for the salvation of those dear friends 
 whom you have outstripped; and you will not mind 
 their coolness, or stiffness, or distance, or constrained 
 gravity, for the love you bear to their souls. And 
 though they will not hear you, you will address your- 
 selves to those who will; I mean, you will weary 
 heaven with your novenas for them, and you will be 
 ever getting Masses for their conversion, and you 
 will go to communion for them, and you will not rest 
 till the bright morning comes^ and they are yours 
 once again. is it possible that there is a resur- 
 rection even upon earth ! 0, wonderful grace, that 
 there should be a joyful meeting, after parting, 
 before we get to heaven ! It was a weary time, that 
 long suspense, when with aching hearts we stood on 
 the brink of a change, and it was like death to wit- 
 ness and to undergo, when first one and then an- 
 other disappeared from the eyes of their fellows. 
 And then friends stood on different sides of a gulf, 
 and for years knew nothing of each other or their 
 welfare And then they fancied of each other what 
 was not, and there were misunderstandings and 
 jealousies; and each saw the other, as his ghost, 
 
358 
 
 only in imagination and in memory; and all was 
 suspense, and anxiety, and hope delayed, and ill- 
 required care. But now it is all over ; the morning 
 is come ; the separate shall unite. I see them, as 
 if in sight of me. Look at us, my brethren, from 
 our glorious land ; look on us radiant with the light 
 cast on us by the Saints and Angels who stand over 
 us ; gaze on us as you approach, and kindle as you 
 gaze. We died, you thought us dead, we live ; we 
 cannot return to you, you must come to us, — and 
 you are coming. Do not your hearts beat as you 
 approach us ? Do you not long for the hour which 
 makes us one ? Do not tears come into your eyes 
 at the thought of the superabundant mercy of your 
 God ? 
 
 " Sion, the city of our strength, a Saviour, a wall 
 and a bulwark shall be set therein. Open ye the 
 gates and let the just Nation that keepeth the truth 
 enter in ; the old error is passed away ; Thou wilt 
 keep peace, peace because we have hoped in Thee. 
 In the way of Thy judgments, Lord, we have 
 patiently waited for Thee. Thy Name and Thy 
 remembrance are the desire of the soul. Lord 
 our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion 
 over us ; but in Thee only may we remember Thy 
 Name. The dead, let them not live ; the giants, let 
 them not rise again ; therefore thou hast visited and 
 destroyed them, and hast destroyed all their memory." 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN HISTORY NO PREJUDICE TO THE 
 APOSTOLICITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Feeling, my dear brethren, I should be encroaching 
 on your patience if I extended this course of Lec- 
 tures beyond the length which it is now reaching, I 
 have been obliged, in order to give a character of 
 completeness to the whole, to omit the discussion of 
 subjects which I would fain have introduced, and to 
 anticipate others whioh I would rather have viewed 
 in another connexion. This must be my apology, 
 if in their number and selection I shall in any re- 
 spect disappoint those who have formed their ex- 
 pectations of what I was to do in these Lectures, 
 upon the profession contained in their general title. 
 I have done what my limits allowed me : if I have 
 not done more, it is not, I assure you, from having 
 nothing to say, — for there are many questions upon 
 which I have been anxious to enter, — but because I 
 
360 
 
 could neither expect you, my brethren, to give me 
 more of your time, nor could command my own. 
 
 As, then, I have already considered popular ob- 
 jections which are made respectively to the Sanctity 
 Unity, and Catholicity of the Church, now let me, 
 as far as I can do it in a single Lecture, direct your 
 attention to a difficulty felt, not by the world 
 at large, but by many of you in particular, in ad- 
 mitting her Apostolical pretensions. 
 
 I say " a difficulty not felt by the world at large ;" 
 for the world at large has-no such view of any con- 
 trariety between the Catholic Cburch of to-day and 
 the Catholic Church of fifteen hundred years ago, as 
 to be disposed on that account to deny our Apos- 
 tolical claims ; rather, it is the fashion of the mass 
 ot Protestants, who ever think on the subject, to 
 accuse the Church of the Fathers of what they call 
 Popish superstition and intolerance; and some have 
 evpn gone so far as to say, that in these respects 
 that early Church was more Popish than the Papists 
 themselves. But when, leaving this first look of the 
 subject, and the broad outline, and the general im- 
 pression, we come to inspect matters more narrowly, 
 and compare them exactly, point by point, together, 
 certainly it is not difficult to find various instances 
 of discrepancy, apparent or real, important or trivial, 
 between the modern and the ancient Church; and 
 though no candid person who has fairly examined 
 the Btate of the case can doubt that, if we differ 
 
S61 
 
 from the Fathers in a few things, Protestants differ 
 in all, and if we vary from them in accidentals they 
 contradi-jfc them in essentials, still, since att.aik is 
 much easier and pleasanter than defence, it has been 
 the way with certain disputants, especially of the 
 Anglican sehool, instead of accounting for their own 
 serious departures from the primitive dnetrine and 
 ritual, to call upon us to show why we differ at all 
 from our first Fathers, though partially and intel- 
 ligibly, in matters of discipline and in the tone of 
 our opinions Thus it is that Jewel tries to throw 
 dust in the eyes of the world, and does his best to 
 make an attack upon the Papacy and its elaims pass 
 for an Apology for the Church of England ; and 
 more writers have followed his example than it is 
 worth while, or indeed possible, to enumerate. And 
 they have been answered again and again ; and the 
 so called novelties of modern Catholicism have been 
 explained, if not so as to silence all opponents, 
 (which could not be expected,) yet at the very 
 lowest as far as this, (which is all that is incumbent 
 on us in controversy,) as far as. to show that we 
 have a case against them. I say, even though we 
 have not done enough for our proof, we have done 
 enough for-our argument, as the world will allow ; 
 for on our assailants, not on us, lies the burden of 
 proof, and they have done nothing till they have 
 actually made their charges good, and destroyed the 
 very tenableness of our positions and even the men? 
 16 
 
362 
 
 probability of our representations. However, into 
 the consideration, whether of these objections or of 
 their answers, I shall not be expected to enter ; and 
 especially, because each would form a separate sub- 
 ject in itself, and furnish matter for a separate 
 Lecture. How, for instance, would it be possible in 
 the course of an hour, and with such an exercise of 
 attention as might fairly be exacted of you, to em- 
 brace subjects as distinct from each other as the 
 primitive faith concerning the Blessed Virgin, and 
 the Apostolic See, and the Holy Eucharist, and the 
 worship of images? You would not expect it of 
 me, nor promise it for yourselves ; and the less so, 
 because, as you know, my profession all along has 
 been to confine myself, as far as I can, to general 
 considerations, and to appeal, in proof of what I 
 assert, rather to common sense and facts before our 
 eyes than to theology and history. 
 
 In thus opening the subject, my brethren, I have 
 been both explaining and apologising for what I am 
 proposing to do. For, if I am to say something, 
 not directly in answer to the particular objections 
 brought from Antiquity against the doctrine and 
 discipline of the present Catholic Church, but by 
 way of appeasing and allaying that general mis- 
 giving and perplexity which, those objections excite, 
 what can I do better than appeal to a fact, — though 
 I cannot do so without some indulgence on the part 
 of my hearers, — a fact connected with myself? And 
 
363 
 
 it is the less unfair to do so, because, as regards the 
 history of the early Church and the writings of the 
 Fathers, so many must go by the testimony of others, 
 and so few have opportunity to use their own expe- 
 rience. I say, then, that the writings of the Fathers 
 so far from prejudicing at least one man against the 
 modern Church, have been simply and solely the one 
 intellectual cause of his having renounced the reli- 
 gion in which he was born, and submitted himself to 
 her. What other causes there may be, not intel- 
 lectual, unknown, unsuspected by himself, though 
 freely imputed, on mere conjecture, by those who 
 would invalidate his testimony, it would be unbe- 
 coming and impertinent to discuss : for himself, if 
 he is asked why he became a Catholic, he can only 
 give that answer which experience and consciousness 
 bring home to him as the true one, viz., that he 
 joined the Catholic Church simply because he be- 
 lieved it, and it only, to be the Church of the 
 Fathers ; — because he believed that there was a 
 Church upon earth till the end of time, and one 
 Only ; and because, unless it was the communion of 
 Borne, and it only, there was none ; — because, to use 
 language purposely guarded, because it was the 
 language of controversy, " all parties will agree 
 that, of all existing systems, the present communion 
 of Rome is the nearest approximation in fact to the 
 Church of the Fathers ; possible though some may 
 think it, to be still nearer to it on paper ;" — because, 
 
364 
 
 " did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly 
 to life, it cannot be doubted what communion they 
 would mistake," not to say, recognize " for their 
 own;'" — because "all will agree that these Fathers, 
 with whatever differences of opinion, whatever pro- 
 tests if you will, would find themselves more at home 
 with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius 
 Loyola, or with the lonely priest in his lodgings, or 
 the holy sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered 
 crowd before the altar, than with the rulers or the 
 members of any other religious communities."* 
 
 This is the great, manifest, historical phenomenon 
 which converted me, to which all particular inquiries 
 converged. Christianity is not a matter of opinion, 
 but an external fact, entering into, carried out in, 
 indivisible from, the history of the world. It has a 
 bodily occupation of the world ; it is one continuous 
 fact or thing, the same from first to last ; distinct 
 from everything else : to be a Christian is to partake 
 of, to submit to, this thing; and the simple question 
 was, Where, what is this thing in this age, which in 
 the first age was the Catholic Church? The answer 
 was undeniable; the Church called Catholic now is 
 that very same thing in hereditary descent, in or- 
 ganization, in principles, in position, in external 
 relations, which was called the Catholic Church 
 then ; name and thing have ever gone together, by 
 
 * Eiffly on Development, p. 138. 
 
865 
 
 an uninterrupted connexion and succession, from 
 then till now. Whether it had been corrupted in 
 its teaching was, at best, a matter of opinion ; whe- 
 ther it had had a perpetuity was a matter of fact. 
 It was indefinitely more certain that it stood in the 
 place of the ancient Church, as its heir and repre- 
 sentative, than that certain peculiarities in its 
 teaching were really innovations and corruptions. 
 Say there is no Church at all, if you will, and at 
 least I shall understand you ; but do not meddle 
 with a fact attested by mankind. I am almost 
 ashamed to insist upon so plain a point, which in 
 many respects is axiomatically true, except that there 
 are persons who wish to deny it. There are and 
 have been such persons, and men of deep learning ; 
 but their adverse opinion does not interfere with my 
 present use of what I think so plain Observe, I 
 am not insisting on my own view of the matter as 
 an axiom, nor proving it as a conclusion, nor forcing 
 it on your acceptance as your reason for joining the 
 Catholic Church, as it was mine. Let every one 
 have his own reason for becoming a Catholic; for 
 reasons are in plenty, and there are enough for you 
 all, and moreover all are good ones and consistent 
 with each other. T am not assigning reasons why 
 you should be Catholics ; you have them already : 
 from first to last I am doing nothing more than re- 
 moving difficulties in your path, which obstruct the 
 legitimate effect of those reasons which have already 
 
convinced you. And to-day I am answering the 
 objection, so powerfully urged upon those who have 
 no means of examining it f < r themselves, that, as a 
 matter of fact, the modern Church has departed 
 from tin. teaching of the ancient. Now even one 
 man's contrary testimony avails to destroy this sup- 
 posed matter of fact, though it is not sufficient to 
 establish any opposite matter of fact of his own. I 
 say, then, the Catholicism of to-day cannot differ 
 very seriously from the Catholicism of Antiquity, 
 if its agreement, or rather its identity, with Anti- 
 quity forms the very reason on which even one edu- 
 cated and reflecting person is induced, much against 
 every natural inducement, to submit to its claims. 
 Antiquity cannot supply a very conclusive argument 
 against it, if it has furnished even one such person 
 with a conclusive argument in its favor. Let us 
 grant that the argument against it is not altogether 
 destroyed by this antagonist argument for it ; yet 
 surely it will be too much damaged and enfeebled by 
 the collision to do much towards resisting those in- 
 dependent reasons, personal to yourselves, which are 
 already leading you to it. 
 
 My testimony, then, is as follows. Even when I 
 was a boy, my thoughts were turned to the early 
 Church, and especially, to the early Fathers, by the 
 perusal of Milner's Church History, and I have 
 never lost, I never have suffered a suspension of the 
 impression, deep and most pleasurable, which his 
 
367 
 
 sketches of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine left ob 
 my mind. From that time the vision of the Fathers 
 was always, to ray imagination, I may say, a paradise 
 of delight, to the contemplation of which I directed 
 itty thoughts from time to time, whenever I was frett 
 from the engagements proper to my time of life.- 
 When I first began to read their works with atten- 
 tion and on system, I busied myself much in ana- 
 lyzing them, and in cataloguing their doctrines and 
 principles ; and, when I had thus proceeded very 
 carefully and minutely for some spaee of time, I 
 found, on looking back on what I had done, that I 
 bad scarcely done anything a-t all ; that I had gained 
 very little from them, and that the Fathers I had 
 foeen reading, which were exclusively those of the 
 aute-Nicene period, as far as my reading was con- 
 cerned, had very little in them. At the time I did 
 not discover the reason of this result, though, on the 
 retrospect, it was plain enough : I had read them 
 simply on Protestant ideas, analyzed and catalogued 
 them on Protestant principles of division, and hunted 
 for Protestant doctrines and usages in them. My 
 headings ran, " Justification by faith only," " Sanc- 
 tification," and the like. I knew not what to look 
 for in them ; I sought what was not there, I missed 
 what was there ; I labored through the night and 
 caught nothing. But I should make one important 
 exception * I rose from their perusal with a vivid 
 perception of the divine institution, the prerogatives, 
 
368 
 
 and the gifts of the Episcopate; that is, with an 
 implicit aversion to the Erastian principle. 
 
 Some years afterwards I took up the study of 
 them again, when I had occasion to employ mjself 
 on the history of Arianism. I read them with Bull's 
 Defensio as their key, as far as his subject extended ; 
 but I am not aware that I made any other special 
 doctrinal use of them at that time. 
 
 I had set myself the study of them, with almost 
 the single view of pursuing the series of controver- 
 sies connected with our Lord's peison ; and to the 
 examination of these controversies I devoted two 
 summers, with the interval of some years between 
 them. And now at length I was reading them for 
 myself; for no Anglican writer had specially and 
 minutely treated the subjects on which I was en- 
 gaged. On my first introduction to them 1 had 
 read them as a Protestant; and next, I had read 
 them pretty much as an Anglican, though it is ob- 
 servable that, whatever I gained on either visit I 
 paid them, over and above the' theory or system 
 with which I started, was in a Catholic direction. 
 In the former of the two summers I speak of, my 
 reading was almost entirely confined to strictly doc- 
 trinal subjects, to the exclusion of history, and I 
 believe it left me pretty much where I was on the 
 question of the Catholic Church ; but in the latter 
 of the two seasons, it was principally occupied, with 
 the public course of the Monophysite controveisy, 
 
m 
 
 and the circumstances and transactions of the Couti* 
 cii of Chalcedon, in the fifth century, and at once 
 and irrevocably 1 found my faith gone in the tena- 
 bleness of the fundamental principle of Anglicanism, 
 and a doubt of it implanted in my mind which never' 
 disappeared.* I thought I saw in the controversy 
 1 have named, and in the Ecumenical Council con- 
 nected with it, a dear interpretation of the present 
 state of Christendom, and a key to the different 
 parties and personages who have figured on the 
 Catholic or the Protestant side during the period of 
 the Reformation. During the autumn of the same 
 year, a paper I fell in with upon the schism of the 
 Donatists deepened the impression which the history 
 of the Monophysites had made ; and t felt dazzled 
 and excited by the new view of things which was 
 thus opened to me. Distrusting my judgment, and 
 that I might be a better judge of the subject, I 
 determined for a time to put it away from my mind j 
 nor did I return to it till I gave myself to the trans- 
 lation of the doctrinal Treatises of St. Athanasius. 
 This occupation brought up again before me the 
 whole question of the Arian controversy and the 
 Nicene Council ; and I clearly saw in that history, 
 What I had not perceived on the first study of it, 
 the same phenomenon which I had already found ill 
 the history of St. L.eo and the Monophysites. iVom 
 
 * This was some time before the publication cf No. 90 of th# 
 Ttacts for the Times. 
 
 16* 
 
§70 
 
 that time, what delayed my conviction of the claims 
 of the Catholic Church upon me, was not any con- 
 fidence in Anglicanism as a system of doctrine, but 
 particular objections which as yet I saw no way of 
 reducing, and the fear that, since I found others 
 against me, I might, in some way or other, be in- 
 volved in a delusion. 
 
 And now you will ask me, what it is I saw in the 
 history of primitive controversies and councils which 
 Was so fatal to the pretensions of the Anglican 
 Church? I saw that the general theory and posi- 
 tion of Anglicanism was no novelty in ancient his- 
 tory, but had a distinct place in it, and a series of 
 prototypes, and that these prototypes had ever been 
 heretics or the patrons of heresy, The very badge 
 of Anglicanism, as a system, is that it is a Via 
 Media ; this is its life ; it is this, or it is nothing s 
 deny this, and it forthwith dissolves into Catholicism 
 or Protestantism. This constitutes its only claim to 
 be recognised as a distinct form of Christianity ; it 
 is its recommendation to the world at large, and its 
 simple measuring-line for the whole field of theology. 
 The Via Media appeals to the good sense of man- 
 kind ; it says that the human mind is naturally 
 prone to excess, and that theological combatants in 
 particular are certain to run into extremes. Truth, 
 as virtue, lies in a mean ; whatever, then, is true or 
 not true, extremes certainly are false. And, whereas 
 truth is in a mean, for that very reason it is ever 
 
sn 
 
 moderate ; it can tolerate either extreme with great 
 patience, because it views neither with that keenness 
 of contrariety with which one extreme regards the 
 other. For the same reason it is comprehensive; 
 because, being in a certain sense in the centre of all 
 errors, though having no part. in any of them, it may 
 be said to rule and to temper them, to bring them 
 together, and to make them, as it were, converge 
 and conspire together in one under its own meek and 
 gracious sway. Dispassionateness, forbearance, in- 
 dulgence, toleration, and comprehension are thus alt 
 ■of them attributes of the Via Media, It is ob- 
 vious, moreover, that a doctrine like this will find 
 ■especial acceptance with the civil magistrate, fie- 
 figioQ he needs as an instrument of government ; 
 yet in religious opinion he sees nothing else but the 
 fertile cause of discord and confusion. Joyfully 
 then does he welcome a form of theology, whose 
 very mission it is to temper the violence of polemics', 
 to soften and to accommodate differences, and to 
 direct the energies of churchmen to the attainment 
 of tangible good instead of the discussion of mys- 
 teries. 
 
 This feeling is expressed in the following passage, 
 which I quote with shame and sorrow ; the more so, 
 because, however accurate an exponent it is of the 
 Anglican doctrine itself, it is certainly inconsistent 
 with the general teaching of the writer to whom it 
 belongs. " Though it is sot likely," he says, " that 
 
S72 
 
 Romanism should ever again become formidable in 
 England, yet it may be in a pos'tion to make - its 
 voice heard ; and, in proportion as it is able to do 
 bo, the Via Media will do important service of the 
 following kind. In the controversy which will 
 ensue, Rome will not fail to preach, far and wide, 
 the tenet which it never conceals, that there is no 
 salvation external to its own communion. On the 
 other hand, Protestantism, as it exists, will not be 
 behindhand in consigning to eternal ruin all who are 
 adherents of Roman doctrine. What a prospect is 
 this ! two widely-spread and powerful parties dealing 
 forth solemn anathemas upon each other, in the 
 Name of the Lord I Indifference and scepticism 
 must be, in such a case, the ordinary refuge of mea 
 of mild and peaceable minds, who revolt from such 
 presumption, and are deficient in clear views of the 
 truth. I cannot well exaggerate the misery of such 
 a state of things. Here the English theology would 
 come in with its characteristic calmness and caution, 
 clear and decided in its views, giving no encourage- 
 ment to lukewarmness and liberalism, but withholding 
 all absolute anathemas on errors of opinion, except 
 where the primitive Church sanctions the use of 
 them."* 
 
 Such, then, is the Anglican Church and its Via 
 Media, and such the practical application of it ; it 
 
 * Fraph. Off. p. 2fr. 
 
3?8 
 
 is an interposition or arbitration between the extreme 
 doctrines of Protestantism and the faith of Rome 
 whiob that heresy contradicts. And moreover, 
 though it may be unwilling to allow it, it is, from the- 
 nature of the case, but a particular form of Protes- 
 tantism. I do not say that in secondary principles 
 it may not agree with the Catholic Church ; but, its 
 essential idea being that she has gone too far, whereas 
 the essential idea of Catholicism is the Church's in- 
 fallibility, the Via Media is really nothing else than 
 Protestant. Not simply to submit to the Church is 
 to oppose her, and to side with the heretical party ; 
 for medium there is none. The Via Media assumes 
 that Protestantism is right in its protest against 
 Catholic doctrine, only that it needs correcting, 
 limiting, perfecting. This surely is but a matter of 
 fact; for it has adopted all the great Protestant 
 doctrines, as its most strenuous upholder and the 
 highest of Anglo-Catholics will be obliged to allow s 
 the mutilated canon, the defective Rule of Faith, 
 justification by faith only, putative righteousness, the 
 infection of nature in the regenerate, the denial of 
 the five Sacraments, the relation of faith to the 
 Sacramental Presence, and the like ; its aim being 
 nothing else than to moderate, with Melanchthon, 
 the extreme statements of Luther, to keep them 
 from shocking the feelings of human nature, to pro- 
 tect them from the criticism of common sense, and 
 from the pressure and urgency of controversial 
 
B74 
 
 attack. Thus we have three parties on the histori- 
 cal stage: the see and communion of Rome; the 
 original pure Protestant, violent, daring, offensive^ 
 fanatical in his doctrines ; and a cautious middle 
 party, quite as heretical in principle and in doctrinal 
 elements as Protestantism itself, but having an eye 
 to the necessities of controversy, sensible in its 
 ideas, sober in its tastes, safe in its statements, con* 
 s'ervative in its aims, and practical in its measures. 
 Such a Via Media, has been represented by the line 
 of Archbishops of Canterbury from Tillotson down* 
 Wards, as by Cranmer before them. Such in their 
 theology, though not in their persons or their his- 
 tories, Were Laud and Bull, Taylor and Hammond, 
 and I may say nearly all the great authorities of the 
 Established Church. This distinctive character has 
 often been noticed, especially by Mr. Alexander 
 Knox, and much might be said upon it ; and, as I 
 have already observed, it ever receives the special 
 countenance of the civil magistrate, who, if he could, 
 Would take up with a religion without any doctrines 
 whatever, as Warburton well understands, but who, 
 in the case of a necessary evil, admires the sobriety 
 of Tillotson, and the piety of Patrick, and the ele- 
 gance of Jortin, and the literary merits of Lowth, 
 and the shrewd sense of Paley, 
 
 Now this sketch of the relative positions of the 
 See of Rome, Protestantism, the Via Media, and 
 the State, which we see in the history of the last 
 
£?5 
 
 three centuries, is, I repeat, no novelty in history ; 
 it is almost its rule, certainly its rule during the long 
 period when relations existed between the Byzantine 
 Court and the Holy See ; and it is impossible to 
 resist the conclusion, which the actual inspection of 
 the history in detail forces upon us, that what the 
 See of Rome was then such is it now ; that what 
 Arius, Nestorius, or Eutyches were then, such are 
 Luther and CalVin now; what the Eusebians or 
 Monophysites then, such the Anglican hierarchy 
 now ; what the Byzantine Court then, such is now 
 the Government of England, and such would have 
 been many a Catholic Court, had it had its way. 
 That ancient history is not dead, it lives ; it pro- 
 phesies of what passes before our eyes ; it is founded 
 in "the nature of things; we see ourselves in it, as in 
 a glass, and, if the Via Media was heretical then, 
 it is heretical now. 
 
 I do not know how to convey this to others inone 
 or two paragraphs : it is the living picture which 
 history presents to us, which is the evidence of the 
 fact ; and to attempt a mere outline of it, or to de- 
 tach one or two groups from the finished compositionj 
 is to do injustice to its luminousness. Take, for 
 instance, the history of Arianism. Arius stood 
 almost by himself: bold, keen, stern, and violent, he 
 took his stand on two or three axiomatic statements, 
 as he considered them, appealed to Scripture, de- 
 spised authority and tradition, and carried out his 
 
$76 
 
 heretical doctrine to its furthest limits. He abso- 
 lutely maintained, without any reserve, that our 
 Lord was a creature, and had a beginning. He was 
 one of a number of able and distinguished menj 
 scattered over the East, united together by the bond 
 of a common master and a common school, who 
 might have been expected to stand by him on his 
 appealing to them; but who left him to his fate, or 
 at least but circuitously and indisectly served his 
 cause. High in station, ecclesiastical and civil, they 
 found it more consistent with their duties towards 
 themselves to fall back upon a more cautious phrase* 
 ology, and less assailable principles, to evade inquiry, 
 to explain away tests, and to profess a submission to 
 the voice of their forefathers and of the Catholic 
 world ; and they developed their formidable party in 
 that form of heresy which is commonly called Semi- 
 arianism or Eusebianism. They preached peace, 
 professed to agree with neither St. Athanasius nor 
 Arirfs, excited the jealousies of the Eastern world 
 against the West, were strong enough to insult the 
 Pope, and dexterous enough to gain the favor of 
 Constantine and the devoted attachment of his son 
 Constantius. The name of Eusebians they received 
 from their leader, the able and unscrupulous Bishop- 
 of Nicomedia, with whom was associated another 
 Eusebius, better known to posterity as the learned 
 historian of the Church, and one of the most ac- 
 complished and able of the Fathers. It will be to 
 
377 
 
 my purpose to quote one or two sentencps in descrip* 
 tion of the charact'r of this celebrated man, written 
 at a time when the Via Media had not been made 
 the subject of controversy, nor the bearing of the 
 Arian history upon it as yet surmised. " Ho sterns," 
 says the writer, "to have had the faults and the 
 virtues of the more man of letters; strongly excited 
 neither to good nor to evil, and careless at once of 
 the cause of truth and the priz "s of secular g:eat- 
 ness, in comparison of the comforts and decencies 
 of literary ease. In his writings, numerous as they 
 are, there is very little which fixes on Eusebius any 
 charge, beyond that of an attachment to the Platonic 
 phraseology. Had h'! not connected hirns If with 
 the Avian party, it would have" been unjust to have 
 suspected him of heresy. But his acts are his con- 
 fession. He openly sided with those whose blas- 
 phemies a true Christian would have abhorred ; and 
 he sanctioned and shared their deeds of violence and 
 injustice perpetrated on the Catholics. . . . The 
 grave accusation under which he lies is not that of 
 Aiianizing,* but of corrupting the simplicity of the 
 Gospel with an Eclectic spirit. While he held out 
 the ambiguous language of the schools as a refuge, 
 and the Alexandrian imitation of it as an argument, 
 against the pursuit of the orthodox, his conduct gave 
 countenance to the secular maxim, that difference in 
 
 * The author has now still less favorable views of Eusebius's 
 theology than he had when he wrote this in 1833. 
 
878 
 
 creeds is a matter of inferior moment, and that, 
 provided we confess as far as the very terms of 
 Scripture, we may speculate as philosophers and 
 live as the world. . . . The remark has been made, : 
 that throughout his Ecclesiastical History no in- 
 stance occurs of his expressing abhorrence of the 
 superstitions of paganism ; and that his custom is 
 either to praise, or not to blame, such heretical 
 writers as fall under his notice."* Much more 
 might be added in illustration of the resemblance or 
 this eminent writer to the divines of the Anglican 
 Via Media. 
 
 The Emperor Constantine has already been named ; 
 and, looking at him in his ecclesiastical character, 
 we find him committed to two remarkable steps : one 
 that he frankly surrendered himself to the intimate; 
 friendship of this latitudinarian theologian ; the 
 other, that, at the very first rumor of the Arian dis- 
 sensions, he promptly, and with the precision of an 
 instinct, interfered in the quarrel, and in a politician's 
 way pronounced it a logomachy, or at least a matter 
 of mere speculation, and bade bishops and heretics 
 embrace and make it up with each other at once. 
 This did he in a question no less solemn than that 
 of the divinity of our Lord, which, if any question, 
 could not, one would think, be other than most in- 
 fluential in a Christian's creed. But Constantine 
 was not a Christian as yet ; and this, while it partly 
 
 Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 231. 
 
379 
 
 explains the extravagance of his conduct, illustrates 
 the external and utilitarian character of a statesman's 
 religion. 
 
 I will present to you portions of the celebrated 
 letter which he addressed to the Bishop of Alexan- 
 dria and to Arius, as quoted in the history to which 
 I have already referred. " He professes therein two 
 motives as impelling him in his public conduct ; first, 
 the desire of effecting the reception, throughout his 
 dominions, of some one definite and complete form 
 of religious worship ; next, that of settling and in- 
 vigorating the civil institutions of the empire. De- 
 sirous of securing an unity of sentiment among all 
 the believers in the Deity, he professes first to have 
 directed his attention to the religious dissensions of 
 Africa, where he had hoped to have had the aid of 
 the Oriental Christians in his attempt to terminate 
 them. ' But, glorious and Divine Providence!' he 
 continues, ' how grievously were my ears, or rather 
 my heart wounded, by the report of a rising schism 
 among you far more acrimonious than the African 
 dissensions. . . . On investigation, I must say, that 
 the reasons for this eagerness on both sides appear to 
 me insignificant and worthless. ... As I under- 
 stand the matter, it seems that you, Alexander, were 
 asking the separate opinions of your clergy on some 
 passage of Scripture, or rather were inquiring about 
 some unedifying question, when you, Arius, moon- 
 s' derately committed yourself to statements, which 
 should either never have come into your mind, or 
 
380 
 
 have been at once repressed. On this a difference 
 ensued, Christian intercourse was suspended, the 
 siered flnck was divided into two, and the harmo- 
 nious oidor of the Church broken. . . . My advice 
 to you is, neither to ask nor answer questions, which, 
 instead of being Scriptural, are the mere sport of 
 idleness, or an exercise of ability ; at best, keep 
 them to yourselves, and do not publish them. . . , 
 You agree in fundamentals ; neither of you is intro- 
 ducing any novel mode of worship, so that it is in 
 your power to unite in one communioD. Even the 
 philosophers of one sect can agree together, though 
 differing in particulars. ... Is it right for brothers 
 to oppose brothers, for the sake of trifl'S? . . . 
 Such conduct might be expected from the multitude, 
 or from the intemperance of youth, but little befits 
 your sacred order and experience of the world. . . . 
 Give ms back my, days of calm, my nights of secu- 
 rity ; that I may experience henceforth the comfort 
 of the clear light, and the cheerfulness of tranquil- 
 lity. Otherwise I shall sigh and be dissolved in 
 tears. ... So great is my grief, that I put off my 
 journey to the East on the news of your dissension. 
 . . . Open for me that path towards you, which your 
 contentions have closed up. Let me see you and all 
 other cities in happiness, that I may offer du>; thanks- 
 givings to God above for the unanimity and free 
 intercourse which is seen among you.' "* 
 
 Ariana of the Fourth. Century, p. 267. 
 
381 
 
 Such was the position which the civil power as- 
 sumed in the very first days of its nativity. The 
 very moment the State enters into the Church, it 
 shows its nature and its propensities, and takes up a 
 position which it has never changed, and never will. 
 Kings and statesmen may be, and have been, saints ; 
 but, in being such, they have acted against the in-> 
 terests and traditions of kingcraft and statesmanship. 
 Constantine died, but his line of policy continued. 
 His son, Constantius, embraced the Via Media of 
 Eusebianism, on conviction as well as from expe- 
 diency. He sternly set himself against both ex- 
 tremes, as he considered them, banished the fanatical 
 successors of Arius, and tortured and put to death 
 the adherents to the Nicene Creed and the cause of 
 St. Athanasius. Thus the Via Media party was in 
 the ascendancy for about thirty years, till the death 
 of the generation by whom it had been^ formed and 
 protected; — with quarrels and defections among 
 themselves, restless attempts at stability in faith, 
 violent efforts after a definitive creed, fruitless pro- 
 jects of comprehension, when, towards the end of 
 their domination, a phenomenon showed itsslf which 
 claims our particular attention, as not without 
 parallel in ecclesiastical history, and as reminding 
 us of what is going on in a humbler way and on a 
 narrower stage before our eyes. In va.rinus di-triutft, 
 especially of Asia Minor, a considerable party bad 
 gradually been forming, and had exereised a con- 
 
S82 
 
 siderable influence in the ecclesiastical transactions 
 of the period, who, though called Semi-arians and 
 professing their symbols, had no sympathies with the 
 Eusebians, and indeed were ultimately disowned by 
 them. There seems to have been about a hundred 
 bishops who belonged to this party, and their leaders 
 were men of religious habits, and unblemished re- 
 pute, and approximated so nearly to orthodoxy in 
 their language, that saints appear among the number 
 of their friends, or have issued from their school. 
 They could not stand' as they were : every year 
 brought its event; Constantius died; parties were 
 broken up, — and this among the rest. It divided 
 into two ; as many as fifty-nine of its bishops sub- 
 scribed the orthodox formula, and submitted them- 
 selves to the Holy See. A body of thirty-four 
 persisted in their separation. from it, and afterwards 
 formed a new heresy of their own. 
 
 These are but a few of the main features of the 
 history of Arianism ; yet they may be sufficient to 
 illustrate the line of argument, which antiquity fur- 
 nishes against the theories, on which alone the move- 
 ment of 1833 had claim on the attention of Protes- 
 tants. That theory claimed to represent the 
 theological and the ecclesiastical system of the 
 Fathers ; and the Fathers, when interrogated, did 
 but pronounce it to be the offspring of eclecticism, 
 and the creature of the State. It could not main- 
 tain itself in its position without allying itself his- 
 
383 
 
 torically with that very Erastianism, as seen in 
 Antiquity, of which it had so intense a hatred. 
 What has been sketched from the Arian history 
 might be shown still more strikingly in the Mono- 
 physite. 
 
 Nor was it solely the conspicuous parallel which I 
 have been describing in outline, which, viewed in its 
 details, was so fatal a note of error against the An- 
 glican position. I soon found it to follow that the 
 grounds on which alone Anglicanism was defensible 
 formed an impregnable stronghold for the primitive 
 heresies, and that the justification of the primitive 
 councils was as cogent an apology for the Council 
 of Trent. Without going into the question here, 
 which would be out of place, it was difficult to make 
 out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were he- 
 retics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics 
 also j difficult to find arguments against the Triden- 
 tine Fathers which, did not tell against the Fathers 
 of Chalcedon ; difficult to condemn the Popes of the 
 sixteenth century without condemning the. Popes. of 
 the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat 
 of truth and error were ever one and the same. 
 The principles and proceedings of the, Church now 
 were those of the Church then ; the principles and 
 proceedings of heretics then were those of Protes- 
 tants now. I found it so, — almost fearfully ; there 
 was an awful similitude, more awful because so silent 
 and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the 
 
384 
 
 past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The 
 shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. 
 It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters 
 of the old world with the shape and lineaments of 
 the new. The Cmircu then, as now, might be 
 called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, 
 and relentless ; and heretics were shifting, changea- 
 ble, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting the civil 
 power, and never agreeing together, except by its 
 aid ; and the civil power was ever aiming at com- 
 prehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, 
 and to substitute expediency for faith. What was 
 the use of continuing the controversy, or defending 
 my position, if, after all, I was but forging arguments 
 for Alius or Eutyches, and turning devil's advocate 
 against the much-enduring Athanasius and the ma- 
 jestic Leo ? Be my soul with the saints ! and shall 
 I lift, up my hand against them ? Sooner may my 
 right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, 
 as his who once stretched it out aga'n.st a prophet of 
 God! perish sooner a whole trib;j of Crantneis, 
 Ridl ;ys, Latituors, ami Jowe's ! perish the nam s of 
 Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Siillinifleet, and Barrow, 
 from the face of the earth, ere I should do aught 
 but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose 
 image was continually bef>re niyeyts, arid whose 
 musical words were ever in my ia s and un my 
 tongue ! 
 
 This, too, is an observable fact, that the more 
 
385 
 
 learned Anglican writers seem aware of the state of 
 the case, and are obliged, by the necessities of their 
 position, to speak kindly of the heretical communi- 
 ties of ancient history, and at least obliquely to 
 censure the councils, which nevertheless they pro- 
 fess to receive. Thus Bramhall, as we saw yester- 
 day, strives to fraternize with the sectaries now 
 existing in the East; nor could he consistently do 
 otherwise with the Council of Trent and the Pro- 
 testants in the field of controversy ; it being difficult 
 indeed to show that the Eastern Churches in ques- 
 tion are to be accounted heretical, on any principles 
 which a Protestant is able to put forward. It is not 
 wonderful, then, that other great authorities in the 
 Established Church are of the same way of thinking. 
 "Jewel, Ussher, and Laud," says an Anglican 
 divine of this day, " are apparently of this opinion, 
 and Eield expressly maintains it."* 
 
 Jeremy Taylor goes further 1 still, that is, is still 
 more consistent ; for he not merely acquits of heresy 
 the existing communities of the East who dissent 
 from the third and fourth councils, but he is bold 
 enough to attack the first council of all, the Nicene. 
 He places the right of private judgment, or what he 
 calls " the liberty of prophesying" before all coun- 
 cils whatever. As to the Nicene, he says, " I am 
 much pleased with the enlarging of the Creed wnich 
 
 * Palmer on the Church, vol. i. p. 418. 
 17 
 
386 
 
 the Council of Nice made, because they enlarged 
 it in my sense ; but I am not sure that others were 
 satisfied with it."* " That faith is best which hath 
 greatest simplicity ; and ... it is better, in all 
 cases, humbly to submit, than curiously to inquire 
 and pry into the mystery under the cloud, and to 
 hazard our faith by improving our knowledge. If 
 the Nicene Fathers had done so . too, possibly the 
 Church would never have repented it."f " If the 
 article had been with more simplicity and less nicety 
 determined, charity would have gained more, and 
 faith would have lost nothing. "J And he not only 
 calls Eusebius, whom it is hard to acquit of heresy, 
 " the wisest of them all,"§ but actually praises the 
 letter of Constantine, which I have already cited, as 
 most true in its view and most pertinent to the oc- 
 casion. " The Epistle of Constantine to Alexander 
 and Arius," he says, " tells the truth, and chides 
 them both for commencing the question ; Alexander 
 for broaching it, Arius for taking it up. And al- 
 though this be true, that it had been better for the 
 Church it never had begun, yet, being begun, what 
 is to be done in it ? Of this also, in that admirable 
 epistle, we have the Emperor's judgment .... 
 for, first, he calls it a certain vain piece of a ques- 
 tion, ill begun and more unadvisedly published, . . . 
 
 * Vol.ru. p. 481. ed. 1828. 
 t Jeremy Taylor, ibid, p. 485. 
 X Ibid. * Ibid. 
 
387 
 
 a fruitless contention, the product of idle brains, a 
 matter so nice, so obscure, so intricate, that it was 
 neither to be explicated by the clergy, nor under- 
 stood by the people; a dispute of words. ... It 
 concerned not the substance of faith, or the worship 
 of God, nor any chief commandment of Scripture 
 .... the matter being of no great importance, but 
 vain, and a toy in respect of the excellent blessings 
 of peace and charity."* When we recollect that 
 the question confessedly in dispute was whether our 
 Lord is the Eternal G-ud or a creature, and that the 
 Nicene symbol against which he writes was confes- 
 sedly the sole test adequate to the definition of His 
 divinity, it is scarcely conceivable that a writer 
 should believe that divinity and thus express himself. 
 Taylor is no accident in the history of the Via 
 Media ; he does but speak plainer than Field and 
 Bramhall ; and soon others began to speak plainer 
 than he. The school of Laud gave birth to the 
 latitndinarians ;„Hj,les..an.d ChilUngworth, their first 
 masters,., were personal, friends of the Archbishop, 
 whose indignation J&ilk -them .only proves . his . JrtoI- 
 untary_sense. ojf.the tottering. jta^e_of_higJ)wii,.theo- 
 logical position,, Loxd.Falkknd .again, jjho„ thinks 
 that before the Nicene Council " the genesali^;. of 
 Christians h a A n Qt been always taught the contrary 
 to Arius's doctrine, but some one way, others. jthe 
 
 * P. 482. 
 
388 
 
 f'oi'her, most neither,"* was the admired friend of 
 Hammond ; and Grotius, whose subsequent influence 
 upon the. national divines has been so serious, was 
 introduced to their notice by Hammond and Bram- 
 4all. 
 
 Such has been the issue of the Via Media ; its 
 tendency in theory is towards latitudinal ianism ; its 
 position historically is one of heresy; in the National 
 Church it has fulfilled both its theoretical tendency 
 and its historical position. As this single. truth was 
 brought home to me, I felt that, if continuance in 
 the National Church was defensible, it must be on 
 other grounds than those of the Via Media. 
 
 Yet this was but one head of argument, which the 
 history of the early Church afforded ajainst the 
 National Establishment, and in favor of thn Roman 
 See. I have already alluded to the light which the 
 schism of the African Donati-ts casts nn the ques- 
 tion between the two parties in the controversy ; it is 
 clear, -strong, and decisive, but perfectly distinct 
 from the proof derivable from the Aiian, Nestorian, 
 and Monuphysite histories.f 
 
 Then again, after drawing out from antiquity the 
 outlines of the ecclesiastical stmcturc, and its rela- 
 tions to bodies and powers external to it, when we 
 go on, as it were, to color it with the thousand tints 
 
 * Hammond's Works, vol.ii p fi55. 
 
 •(■ Vide Dublin lieview, August, 1339. Art. "Aaglican Claim.' 
 
which are to be found in the same ancient records, 
 when we consider the ritual of the Church, the ce- 
 . remonial of religion, the devotions of private Chris- 
 tians, the opinions generally received, and the popular 
 modes of acting, what do we find but a third and 
 most striking proof of the identity between primitive 
 Christianity and modern Catholicism 1* No other 
 form of Christianity but it has a pretence to resem- 
 ble, even in the faintest shadows, the Christianity of 
 Antiquity, viewed as a living religion on the stage of 
 the world. This has ever attached me to such works >, 
 a*§JLlenry.!sjDhu£ck, History ; because, whatever may 
 be its incidental defects or mistakes, it brings before 
 thejreader jag vividly ^ the J3hurch .of the Fathers, as 
 a fact and reality, instead of speculating, after the 
 manner of most histories, on the principles, or of 
 making views upon the facts, or cataloguing the 
 heresies, rites, or writers, of those ancient times. 
 Yojj- may., make J_en thousand extracts from the 
 "^^S^iJiSA-sat -gst.jJe_eper_intQ,the state of their 
 times thanjihe paper you write upon ; to imbibe. into 
 the intellect the .ancient Churchy as a^factjig,. either/ 
 to be a Cathjjiijg or an infidel. 
 
 Recollect, my brethren, I am going into these 
 details, not as if I thought of convincing you on the 
 spot by a view of history which convinced me after 
 careful consideration, nor as if I called on you to be 
 
 * Ibid. Dec. 1813. Ait. " A Voice from Rome," 
 17* 
 
390 
 
 convinced by what convinced me at all (for the 
 jnethods_of conviction ,axe..nu!ei>exbss, and one man 
 approaches the Church by this road, another by 
 that), but merely uujider_.iQ. show you how- it, was 
 % a *^S*ii'i}&- instea^joiJeadiB^me-£^mjtjj6,Holy 
 See, as it leads many, on the pop.trjir.y .d.r.ew ;me. o,a.to 
 Submit to its claims. But,, even had I worked out 
 for you these various arguments ever so fully, I 
 should have brought before you but a secondary 
 portion of the testimony, which the ancient Church 
 seemed to me to supply to its identity with the 
 modern. What was far more striking to me than 
 the ecclesiastical phenomena which I have been 
 drawing out, remarkable as they are, is a subject of 
 investigation which is not of a nature to introduce 
 into a popular Lecture ; I mean, the history of the 
 doctrinal definitions of the Church. It is well known 
 that, though the creed of the Church has been one 
 and the same from the beginning, yet it has been so 
 deeply lodged in her bosom as to be held by indi- 
 viduals more or less implicitly, instead of being de- 
 livered from the first in those special statements, or 
 what are called definitions, under which it is now 
 presented to us, and which preclude mistake or ig- 
 norance. These definitions, which are but the ex- 
 pression of portions of the one dogma which has 
 ever been received by the Church, are the work of 
 time ; they have grown to their present shape and 
 number iu the course of eighteen centuries, under 
 
391 
 
 the exigency of successive events, such as heresies 
 and the like, and they may of course receive still 
 further additions as time goes on. Now this process 
 of doctrinal development, as you might suppose, is 
 not of an accidental or random character ; it is con- 
 ducted upon laws, as everything else which comes 
 from God ; and the study of its laws and of its ex- 
 hibition, or, in other words, the science and history 
 of the formation of theology, was a subject which 
 had interested me more than anything else from the 
 time I first began to read the Fathers, and which 
 had engaged my attention in a special way. Now it 
 was gradually brought home to m?, in the course of 
 my reading, so gradually, that I cannot trace the 
 steps of my conviction, that the decrees of later 
 Councils, or what Anglicans call the Roman cor- 
 ruptions, were but instances of that very same doc- 
 trinal law which was to be found in the history of the 
 early Church ; and that in the sense in which the 
 dogmatic truth of the prerogatives of the Blessed 
 Virgin may be said in the lapse of centuries to have 
 grown upon the consciousness of individuals, in that 
 same sense did in the first age the mystery of the 
 Blessed Trinity also gradually shine out and mani- 
 fest itself more and more completely before their 
 minds. Here was at once an answer to the objec- 
 tions urged by Anglicans against the present teach- 
 ing of Rome ; but not only an answer to objections, 
 but a positive argument in its favor ; for the immu- 
 
392 
 
 lability and uninterrupted action of the laws in 
 question throughout the course of Church history is 
 a plain note of identity between the Catholic Church 
 of the first ages and that which now goes by the 
 name ; — just as the argument from the analogy of 
 natural and revealed religion is at once an answer to 
 difficulties in the latter, and a direct proof that 
 Christianity has the same Author as the physical 
 and moral world. But the force of this, to me 
 ineffably cogent argument, I cannot hope to convey 
 to another. 
 
 And now, my dear brethren, what fit excuse can 
 I make to you for the many words I have used about 
 myself, and not in this Lecture only, but in others 
 before it ? This alone I can say, that it was the 
 apprehension, or rather the certainty that this would 
 be the case, which, among other reasons, made me so 
 unwilling as I was to begin this course of Lectures 
 at all. I foresaw that I could not address you on 
 the subjects which I proposed, without introducing 
 myself into the discussion ; I could not refer to the 
 past, without alluding to matters in which I had a 
 part ; I could not show that interest in your state 
 of mind and course of thought which I really feel, 
 without showing that I therefore understood it, be- 
 cause I had before now experienced it myself; and 
 I anticipated, what I fear has been the case, that in 
 drawing out the events of former years, and the 
 motives of past' transactions, and the operation of 
 
393 
 
 common principles, and the complexion of old habits 
 and opinions, I should be in no slight, degree con- 
 structing, what I have ever avoided, a defence of 
 m y self: 
 
 But I have had another apprehension, both before 
 and since beginning these Lectures, viz., lest it was, 
 to say the least, an impolitic proceeding to contem- 
 plate them at all. Things were proceeding in that 
 course in which I knew they must proceed ; I could 
 not foretel indeed that a decision would issue from 
 the Committee of Privy Council on the subject of 
 Baptism ; I oould not anticipate that this or that 
 external event would suddenly undo men's confidence 
 in the national Church ; but it required no gift of 
 prophecy to feel that falsehood, and pretence, and 
 unreality could hot forever enslave honest minds 
 sincerely seeking the truth. It needed no propheti- 
 cal gift to be sure, that others must take ultimately 
 the course which I had taken, though I could not 
 foretel the time or the occasion ; no gift to foresee 
 that those who did not choose to plunge into the 
 gulf of scepticism must at length fall back upon the 
 Catholic Church. Nor did it require in me much 
 faith in you, my dear brethren, much love for you, 
 to be sure that, though there were close around you 
 men who look like you but are not, that you, the 
 children of the movement, were too conscientious, 
 too much in earnest, not to be destined by that God, 
 who made you what you are, to greater things. 
 
394 
 
 Others may have scoffed at you, but I never ; others 
 may have made light of your principles, or your 
 sincerity, but never I ; others may have predicted 
 evil of you, I have only felt vexed at the prediction. 
 I have laughed indeed, I have scorned, and scorn 
 and laugh I must, when men set up an outside in- 
 stead of the inside of religion — when they affect 
 more than they can sustain — when they indulge in 
 pomp or in minutiae, which are only then becoming 
 when there is something to be proud of, something 
 to be anxious for. If I have been excessive bere, 
 if I have confused what is defective with what is 
 hollow, or have mistaken aspiration for pretence, or 
 have been severe upon infirmities, towards which 
 self-knowledge would have made me tender, I wish 
 it otherwise. Still, whatever my faults in this mat- 
 ter, I have ever been trustful in that true Catholic 
 spirit which has lived in the movement of which you 
 are partakers. I have been steady in my loyalty to 
 that supernatural influence among you, which made 
 me what I am, — which, in its good time, shall make 
 you what you shall be. You are born to be Catho- 
 lics ; refuse not the unmerited grace of your boun- 
 tiful God ; throw off for good and all the illusions 
 of your intellect, the chains on your affections, and 
 stand upright in that freedom which is your inheri- 
 tance. And my confidence that you will do so at 
 last, and that the bonds of this world will not hold 
 you for ever, is what has suggested the apprehension, 
 
395 
 
 to which I have alluded, whether I have done wisely 
 in deciding on addressing you at all. I have in 
 truth had anxious misgivings whether I should not 
 do better to let you alone, my own experience teach- 
 ing me, that even the most charitable attempts are 
 apt to fail, when their end is the conviction of the 
 intellect. It., is v$U!2S!ulL&J&BJto^^ 
 
 And, even when the intellect is convinced, a thousand 
 subtle influences interpose in arrest of what should 
 follow, carrying, as it were, an appeal into a higher 
 court, and claiming to have the matter settled before 
 some tribunal more sacred, and by pleadings more 
 recondite, than the operations _and.,.the_dj,oisjon of 
 the reason. The ISternal Grod deals with us one by 
 one, each in his own way ; and bystanders may pity 
 and compassionate the long throes of our travail, 
 but they cannot aid us except by their prayers. If, 
 then, I have erred in entering upon the subjects I 
 have brought before you, pardon me ; pardon me if 
 I have rudely taken on myself to thrust you for- 
 ward, and to anticipate by artificial means a divine 
 growth. If it be so, I will only hope that, though I 
 may have done you no good, yet my. attempt may 
 be blessed in some other, way; thatX may have 
 thrown light on the general subject whj,cb I have 
 discussed, have contributed to map out the field of 
 thought on which I have been engaged, and to as- 
 certain its lie and its characteristics ; and have fur- 
 
396 
 
 nished materials for what, in time to come, may be 
 the science and received principles of the whole 
 controversy, though I have failed in that which was 
 . my immediate object. 
 
 At all events, my dear brethren, I hope I may be 
 at least considered to bejihjjjKJtngjBy good wjll„»a& 
 kindness towards you, if nothing else, and my desire 
 to be of use to you. Alljs vanity but what is done 
 to the glory of God. It glitters and it fades away ; 
 it makes a noise and it is gone. If I shall not do 
 you or others good, I have done nothing. Yet a 
 little while and the end will come, and all will be 
 made manifest, and error will fail, and truth will 
 prevail. Yet a little while, and " the fire shall try 
 every man's work of what sort it is." May you 
 and I live in this prospect ; and may God, and His 
 Eyj^lejsedjtofcej^^ 
 
 and_ master, and the great ^Sgujj^Aj^jaaaSUia-and 
 Ambrose, and St, Leo, popajMd4yiafftsm»Js&&Jba?e 
 iUSagfei, m e thus f^r, be.i^.iuyjfi.^ajidJi«^»ajjd 
 rawaoL-af^you and me, all through t^js wp.a.ry life, 
 anjd_m the day of account, andjift.giox^fisfiilaaluig ! 
 

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