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by virtue of them, but they accomplish their ends by virtue of her. In other words, the Catholic doctrine in regard to poverty, monastic establishments, and vows of celibacy on the part of the clergy and religious, if they could obtain out of the Church, would not, as parts of Protestantism, accomplish any thing good, and it is not they that give to Catholicity its power to remedy social evils, but it is it that gives to them their power and efficiency to that end. The Church is one, a unity, not a union, and its power and efficiency proceed from its centre, from the Holy Ghost who dwells in her, not from an aggregate of parts. When we say monastic establishments, vows of celibacy, &c., have this or that tendency, we must always bear in mind that it is not they that contribute so much power to the Church, but she that contributes their power for good to them.

There are several other points in Mr. Capes's work on which we should like to comment, and some few more inaccuracies of expression we should like to point out; but perhaps we have found fault enough, and have already said enough to incline many of our readers to think us far more ready to censure than to laud. Mr. Capes is an able man, a zealous Catholic, who cheerfully devotes his time, his talents, and his fortune to the cause of Catholicity. His errors arise from his retaining his Oxford philosophy, from his partiality for Mr. Newman's theory of development, his wish to write in a popular style, and from the low state of Catholic theology in Great Britain. From the latter proceeds his twaddle about conscientious Protestants, and wishy-washiness on the subject of exclusive salvation; both are uncalled for, and, if they do no harm, they do no good. We cannot understand why a Catholic writer should be exceedingly anxious to prove the worthlessness of his own religion, and give to those without assurances that they can be saved without embracing it. There is no reason in the world, that we can understand, why every popular scribbler on Catholic theology should be putting his gloss on the solemn definitions of the Church in her general councils. She has defined, that out of the Church no one can ever be saved, and why can we not be content to stop where she stops? Mr. Capes does not hesitate to call Anglicanism an absurdity, to deny it all religious character, or to assert, if he means what he says, the impossibility of faith out of the Church; how, then, can he concede the possibility of salvation out of the Church, since "without faith it is impossible to please God"? Suppose the gloss he

and others put upon the definition of the Church be allowable, it can be allowable in the case of no one who can know that it is allowable, for such a one has an opportunity to hear the Church, and cannot be in invincible ignorance. No man can be invincibly ignorant of what is necessary, necessitate medii, to salvation, for salvation is possible to all men. A man must have this, and faith is always in re, never in voto, before the plea of invincible ignorance can excuse him. But we will do Mr. Capes the justice to say, that he is on this point less latitudinarian than English Catholic writers generally, and shows evidently that he does not believe much in the alleged good faith and sanctity of Protestants. He seems to wish to drop the qualification so earnestly insisted upon by those kind souls, who are afraid that they may wound the feelings or alarm the consciences of "their separated brethren."

We are glad to find that Mr. Capes insists earnestly on the great fact, that faith is the gift of God, but we are not quite sure that he is right in calling this gift, received in baptism, a special faculty. It is not a It is not a faculty, but an infused habit, and imparts no new faculty to the soul, but simply elevates or supernaturalizes an existing faculty.

But enough of this. Notwithstanding the faults we have found, we place a high value on this work, and have read it with great interest and satisfaction. It will be widely read, and will have a good influence on the courage and tone of English and American Catholics. It is not as bold and energetic as we could wish it, but is far more so than the productions of English Catholics during the last century and the beginning of the present. We have, unhappily, been forced to find fault with nearly all the works that have reached us from the Oxford converts. Mr. Faber is the only one of the converts whose writings we are aware of having seen, whom we have had no occasion to criticize. What we have seen from him is written in a true Catholic spirit, is Catholic to the core. Nevertheless, we have found some noble tendencies in all these converts. They nearly all seem to be free from the common English distrust of the Papacy, and if they have any errors, they are not those of the school of Charles Butler. They do not appear to think Catholicity would be improved by being remodelled after the Anglican Establishment, nor are they afraid to say their beads, or ashamed to invoke the saints, and venerate sacred images and relics. They do not appear to think that Catholicity should be one thing for Englishmen and

another for Italians, and they appear to feel that their religion is really Catholic.

We have heretofore spoken of the freer and bolder tone that is beginning to be assumed by English Catholics; there is decidedly less namby-pambyism among them, less of that truckling and servile spirit, so incompatible with the freedom and dignity of our faith, and less of that striving to conciliate and to avoid displeasing heretics, lest our goods should be confiscated or our throats cut, hardly to be expected in the members of a Church that teaches men that in dying they may conquer the world; and we attribute this, under God, in some degree, to the accession of converts from Anglicanism, but mainly to the influx of Irish Catholics. The Church in England, as in this country, increases by emigration from Ireland, and it is from this source that English Catholicity has derived chiefly its courage to speak in bolder tones and stronger language. And this not only because a large portion of the Catholic population are Irish, but poor Irish. Your Catholic aristocracy, save individual exceptions, have too many worldly relations, and too many connections with the dominant heretical society, to permit the missionary to rely upon them with much confidence, and they will always, in consideration of their rank and large possessions, be disposed to temporize, and to give up all of their religion that can possibly be given up without giving up the whole. We regard it as a very great blessing to our own country, that at the present moment the great majority of our Catholic population are poor, and poor Irish. Irish. Our Catholicity will thus have a healthier tone, and rest on a far more solid basis, humanly speaking, than if it prevailed only among the native-born population, and the wealthier and more distinguished families. What might at first view seem against us is really in our favor, and we really feel more joy, other things being equal, in the conversion of a poor man or a poor woman, than in that of a rich man or a fine lady. The poor, they who have but few ties that bind them to the world, are more devoted to the truth, love their religion more for its own sake, care less for appearances, and are less afraid of having the plain truth told to their heretical neighbours. The Irish have their faults, no man pretends to deny it, and who has not faults? But Almighty God seems to have reserved to them the special mission of restoring to the faith the nations that speak the English language, and they seem to us to be peculiarly fitted for its performance. If, then, we mark a decided improvement in

the tone and feelings of Catholics in England and in this country during the last half-century, let us, who are of the old English stock, not forget to give the honor where, under God, it is due, to the piety, the zeal, and the steadfastness of the poor Irish emigrants. And let it console them in some measure for the sufferings of poor, oppressed Ireland, that they are, by Divine Providence, made the instrument of building up the Church in England and the United States, and of the salvation of millions of souls.

ART. IV. The Mercersburg Review. Mercersburg, Pa. May, 1850.

In his number for May, the Mercersburg Reviewer attempts to defend his doctrine from the charges we preferred against it in our Review for April last. He asserts that the pantheistic consequences we drew from his premises are not warranted, and repeats his main objection to what he improperly, and in very bad taste, terms Romanism, that is, Catholicity.

We expected as much; for we did not flatter ourselves that he would at once submit to the Church, and we did not doubt his sincere intention to be a Christian, which, of course, he could not be, if his doctrine involved the consequences we alleged. But the simple denial of those consequences is not enough; he must show that he can so interpret his doctrine as to escape them, and that, when he so interprets it, he is able to distinguish it from, and oppose it to, Catholic faith and theology. He himself, in his January number, reduced the whole controversy between the Church and all classes of her opponents to the question between her and his specific form of Protestantism, and virtually conceded, that, if his specific form of Protestantism is untenable, her claims as the infallible Church of God, out of which there is no salvation, must be admitted. Since the presumption is always in favor of the Church, as prior occupant, his business was to prove his doctrine, and to prove it, not only in so far as coincident with hers, but in so far as distinguished from and opposed to hers. If he has not done this, he has done nothing to his purpose, and we are free, by his own concession, to conclude the Church against him. In our reply to the Reviewer, as our readers will remember,

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we analyzed his doctrine, and found that it teaches, among other things, 1. The supernatural object of faith is in the subject, not out of it; 2. The supernatural does not wholly transcend the natural; and, 3. Faith is the immediate apprehension of the truth of the matter believed. If he holds these principles, we contended, -1. He necessarily denies the object of faith, for whatever is in the subject, not out of it, is subject, not object, and therefore he denies faith itself; for where there is no object to be believed, there can be no act of believing. 2. He denies the proper supernatural, and therefore Christianity as a supernatural revelation, and then Christianity itself; for it is a contradiction in terms to call that supernatural which does not wholly transcend the sphere of the natural. And 3. He denies faith itself, again, by confounding faith with science; for the immediate apprehension of the truth of the object or intrinsic truth of a proposition is knowledge, not faith. The three principles, or rather the first two, for he is silent as to the last, the Reviewer reaffirms in his answer; but he denies the consequences we drew from them. He might, as it seems to us, just as well deny that two and two are four.

The reasoning by which the Reviewer attempts to escape these fatal consequences is to us not very clear, or easy to comprehend. The author has apparently a great aversion to clear, distinct, and definite statements, and follows a species of logic which is more convenient than conclusive, and which allows him to conclude any proposition he chooses, if he only contrives to assert somewhere, on some subject, something which is not false. But we shall do our best to understand him, and to reply fairly and pertinently to his real thought.

The first charge against the Reviewer is, that, by placing the object in the subject, and denying it to be real, save as concreted in the thinking and willing of single minds," as he expresses himself, he denies the object itself, because if in the subject, it is not object at all. To this he replies, "We still say, however, that there is no truth or law in the world of mind under a purely objective form." (p. 317.) In the world of mind, that is, in private thought and will, as existing in them, agreed; but that is a mere truism, and not the question. The question is, Do you, or do you not, admit any purely objective reality, any object really existing, a parte rei, independent of our thinking and willing? Intelligence and will are needed to make room for such existence, and to bring it actually to pass." (Ibid.) Room for its existence "in the world of mind,"

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