time therefore, it follows necessarily (in F. Newman's mind) from what is shown on the very surface of ecclesiastical history, that this dogma is truly Catholic, and included in the Deposit. And F. Newman's historical ground then being so impregnable, what can be more inept and irrelevant than Mr. Gladstone's warning, against "narrow, sterile, wilful textualism"?

Undoubtedly, however, F. Newman places the historical evidence, which was adducible for Papal Infallibility before 1870, at a much lower point, than that at which it is placed by the large majority of Catholic theologians. See e.g. pp. 26-28; 106,7; 110. Now here he is encountered by a certain difficulty. The Church has defined, that Papal Infallibility is not merely a truth, but a revealed truth; an integral portion (explicit or implicit) of the Deposit. But, according to universally admitted Catholic principles-F. Newman states these principles very clearly in pp. 116, 7-the Church of later times has no such "inspiration" as the Apostles had; * she receives no direct and cognizable communication from God; and consequently her judgment, that a certain verity is part of the Apostolic Deposit, can only be based, either on direct evidence of what the Apostles taught, or on some kind of ratiocination deducible therefrom. Now, for ourselves, we follow the large majority of Catholic theologians, in holding that there is a superabundance of direct historical evidence for Papal infallibility, quite independently of the Vatican Definition. F. Newman, however, takes a different view. No living man, certainly, has fuller right to an opinion of his own on such a subject; nor do we see that any Catholic has not complete liberty to hold the same: but this view requires him to explain how it is-since the historical evidence was not in itself sufficient that the Church came to know the Apostolic origin of the dogma. His reply (as we understand him) is substantially this. First, he lays down a principle which, we think, is substantially true and highly important, though (as we have just said) to our mind he somewhat overstates it.

For myself, I would simply confess that no doctrine of the Church can be rigorously proved by historical evidence; but at the same time that no doctrine can be simply disproved by it. Historical evidence reaches a certain way, more or less, towards a proof of the Catholic doctrines; often nearly the whole way; sometimes it goes only so far as to point in their direction;

*In p. 117 F. Newman gives what is perhaps the best illustration we ever saw of the "assistentia" given to Popes and Councils. It is a "mere external guardianship," he says; as a man's Guardian Angel, without enabling him to walk, might on a night journey keep him from pitfalls."

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sometimes there is only an absence of evidence for a conclusion contrary to them; nay, sometimes there is an apparent leaning of the evidence to a contrary conclusion, which has to be explained ;-in all cases there is a margin left for the exercise of faith in the word of the Church. He who believes the dogmas of the Church only because he has reasoned them out of History, is scarcely a Catholic. It is the Church's use of History in which the Catholic believes and she uses other informants also; Scripture, Tradition, the ecclesiastical sense or øpóvnμa, and a subtle ratiocinative power, which in its origin is a divine gift. There is nothing of bondage or ' renunciation of mental freedom" in this view, any more than in the converts of the Apostles believing what the Apostles might preach to them or teach them out of Scripture (p. 105).

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The ratiocination then, by which the Church deduces the conclusion that Papal infallibility was always part of the Deposit, need not be rigorous and logical. There is no need, we say, of this; because the Church possesses an "ecclesiastical sense" and "subtle ratiocinative power," which enable her to deduce from revealed premisses-and from premisses directly testified by history-conclusions, that are but latently therein contained; and to decide infallibly on the legitimacy of her own deduction. Now no one, ever so slightly acquainted with F. Newman's writings, will understand him to mean (in p. 110) that there are no revealed premisses and no direct historical evidence whatever, available to this purpose in the present case, except the three texts he mentions. But we do understand him to say-and we are disposed entirely to agree with him-that even if those texts stood alone, they would afford the Church a sufficient foundation, whereon to base the exercise of her infallible judgment. And his argument itself is one out of many instances which might be adduced, as showing how large is the scope which he ascribes to the Church's great prerogative of infallibility, and to the Holy Ghost's agency within her bosom.

It seems to us then, that there are three different exhibitions of gross unfairness in Mr. Gladstone's argument. Firstly, he speaks as though, in F. Newman's view, Catholics have to rest their belief in Papal infallibility on an exercise of private judgment concerning the sense of three certain texts; whereas (in his view) they rest it of course on their firm belief in the guidance promised and secured for the Church by the Holy Ghost. Secondly, he speaks as though F. Newman confessed that the Definition rests on no solid historical ground; whereas in F. Newman's view, no less than in that of all other Catholics, its truth, from the moment of its Definition, has rested on historical grounds the most impregnable. Thirdly, Mr. Gladstone's words produce the impression, that Catholics in general VOL. XXIV.-NO. XLVIII. [New Series.]

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agree with F. Newman, in considering the historical evidence to have been inadequate at an earlier period; whereas the great majority of Catholics by no means agree with F. Newman in this opinion,

The vast majority, then, of Catholic theologians hold a far stronger opinion than F. Newman does, on the amount of historical evidence which, before the Vatican Definition, was adducible for the dogma we are defending. Indeed they maintain-and we heartily follow them-that hardly any other historical conclusion can be mentioned, more irrefragably established. It can be no part of our business here to analyze the arguments and citations of such writers as Orsi, Muzzarelli, Ballerini; because Mr. Gladstone has not said one word in reply to them, and does not even seem to have heard of their labours. We will add however, that the series of facts which they adduce is but one portion of the historical argument implied by them: an argument which may be stated, as a whole, somewhat as follows. It is manifest on the surface (as we said a few pages back) that, according to the Fathers' unanimous view, the Church is, by divine irrevocable appointment, one corporate body, governed by the Catholic Bishops, and secured by their teaching from all doctrinal corruption. Now if the Bishops were by divine law united, there must have been some divinely appointed centre or bond of union; and if by divine promise they were infallible in their united teaching, that divinely appointed centre of union must itself have been some infallible authority. But there is a large amount of evidence accumulated by these controversialists, tending to show that the Holy See is this infallible centre of unity; whereas there is no other centre of unity which any one can, with so much as the faintest plausibility, allege as patristically recognized. Therefore it follows as an irrefragable historical conclusion, that the Holy See was appointed from the first as the infallible centre of unity. We set forth this whole argument ourselves in detail as well as we could, during our controversy with Dr. Pusey (July, 1867, pp. 1-15); and (if we may use a legal phrase) we beg here to put those pages in, as part of our case.

It is no necessary part of our business however (as we have said), to draw out here the direct historical argument for Papal infallibility; what is an indispensable part of our business, is to answer the various historical or other objections, which have been raised by Mr. Gladstone against the dogma in various parts of his treatise. To that task, therefore, we now proceed.

(1.) He alleges (p. 97) "the total ignorance of S. Peter

himself respecting his monarchy" but surely this should have been shown and not merely alleged, considering that of course Catholics deny it. Mr. Gladstone should have explained e.g. what was S. Peter's own apprehension of his Christian name, so specially given him by our Lord, and so broadly distinguishing him from the other Apostles.

(2.) "The exercise of the defining office, not by him but by S. James, at the Council of Jerusalem." (ib.) In the article to which we have referred (July, 1867, pp. 20, 21) we have given reasons for entirely denying this. We maintain, that it was S. Peter who uttered the Definition of faith; and that what S. James enunciated was the Apostolic disciplinary Decree.

(3.) "The world-wide commission, specially and directly given to S. Paul." In our number for April, 1867, we discussed this matter at some length. There is no single statement (we said) contained in the Acts or in S. Paul's own Epistles, which even tends to be out of harmony with the doctrine, that in the exercise of his Apostolic office S. Paul, like the other Apostles, was dependent on S. Peter.

(4.) In the same article we carefully considered (and in our own humble judgment conclusively refuted) Mr. Gladstone's next argument, founded on "the correction of S. Peter by the Apostle of the Gentiles."

(5.) "The independent action of all the Apostles." As Catholics confidently deny that their action was independent, it was for Mr. Gladstone to have shown, and not merely assumed, that the fact was otherwise.

(6.) The twelve Apostles of the Lamb are spoken of in Scripture as the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem." No Pope would ever have denied this fact, which is simply irrelevant to Mr. Gladstone's purpose. The passage from the Apocalypse might as plausibly have been quoted to show, that our Blessed Lord is not the Church's One Foundation.

(7.) In the next objection we are to consider (pp. 104, 5), Mr. Gladstone lays the foundation of his argument in the statement that, according to the Vatican Definition, one condition of an ex cathedrâ pronouncement is that it be "addressed to the entire Church." He then proceeds to object, "that the early ages are believed to afford no example whatever of a Papal judgment addressed to the entire Church."

But his preliminary statement is inaccurate. The Vatican Definition does not require, as condition of an ex cathedra Act, that it be "addressed to the entire Church." What is required is, that the Pope define a doctrine "to be held by the whole Church"; or (as F. Newman excellently paraphrases it in p. 115) that he speak "with the purpose of binding every

member of the Church to accept and believe his decision." This was also the very expression used by Cardinal Manning, in the Pastoral which he published before going to Rome for the Council. So again F. Newman speaks in another place (p. 108): "teaching has no sacramental visible signs; it is mainly a question of intention." The real question then is, whether or no the early ages afford frequent instances, in which Popes have issued this or that decision, as one which every Catholic is under an obligation of accepting. Now here again we cannot be expected to analyze Orsi's, Muzzarelli's, and Ballerini's treatises: but a quotation from Muzzarelli will be much to the point. The italics are ours :

My whole argument is founded on two historical facts, which indubitably are placed beyond all controversy. First fact: It is manifest from ecclesiastical history that even from the earliest age the Roman Pontiffs often . . . set forth tracts (libellos) and professions of faith to be subscribed by all the Bishops, or issued decrees and constitutions concerning the Faith throughout the whole Church, with a precept of obedience directed to all the Bishops.*

And the following instance, given by Orsi, may stand as representing a large class. Pope Vigilius on one occasion addressed a Letter to the Greek Emperor. In this Letter, after having recited various Letters of his predecessors, S. Leo, S. Hormisdas, S. Agapetus, which had never been placed before any Ecumenical Council, the Pope thus proceeds :

:

With regard then to those things which have been defined concerning the Faith by the Fathers of the four holy Synods, and by the before-mentioned Letters of Pope Leo of happy memory, and the Constitutions of our venerable predecessors-condemning, by the authority of the Apostolic See, those who do not follow these in every particular (per omnia non sequentes), and who oppose their doctrines-we anathematize those who shall have attempted either perversely to dispute or faithlessly to doubt concerning the exposition or rectitude of that Faith; and we sever from the unity of the Catholic Faith persons who think against those things concerning the Faith which are contained in the most holy Synods of Nica, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, and in the above-mentioned Letters of our predecessor Leo of happy memory, or all those things which his authority sanctioned (lib. i. c. 19, art. 2).

Nor was this only a claim made by Vigilius: the claim was admitted. Orsi ("de Irreformabili, &c.," 1. i. c. 19, art. 2) draws attention to one particular part of Vigilius's "Constitutum." In this the Pontiff quotes a letter, addressed to him

"De Auctoritate Summi Pontificis," cap. xii. sec. 4.