siastical authority; and even there the line of the sacred precinct is at least perfectly defined. But now we are introduced to a new code, dealing with the same high subject-matter, and possessed of the same transcendent prerogative of certain and unchanging truth; but what are chapters of that code, nobody knows except the Schola Theologorum. Is for example the private Christian less humbly desirous to know whether he is or is not to rely absolutely on the declarations of the Syllabus as to the many and great matters which it touches? No one can tell him. Bishop Fessler (approved by the Pope) says so. He admits that he for one does not know. It seems doubtful whether he thought that the Pope himself knew. For instead of asking the Pope, he promises that it shall be made the subject of long inquiry by the Schola Theologorum. "Ce sera tout d'abord à la science théologique que s'imposera le devoir de rechercher les diverses raisons qui militent en faveur des diverses opinions sur cette question." But when the inquiry has ended, and the result has been declared, is he much better off? I doubt it. For the declaration need not then be a final one. "Instances," says Dr. Newman, "frequently occur, when it is successfully maintained by some new writer, that the Pope's act does not imply what it has seemed to imply; and questions, which seemed to be closed, are after a course of years reopened." ** It does not appear

* 'Vraie et Fausse Infaillibilité des Papes,' p. 8. Angl.: "It will at once become the duty of theological science to examine into the various reasons which go to support each of the various opinions on that question."

** Dr. Newman, p. 121.

whether there is any limit to this "course of years." But whether there is or is not, one thing is clear: Between the solid ground, the terra firma of Infallibility, and the quaking, fluctuating mind of the individual, which seeks to find repose upon it, there is an interval over which he cannot cross. Decrees ex cathedrâ are infallible; but determinations what decrees are ex cathedrâ are fallible; so that the private person, after he has with all docility handed over his mind and its freedom to the Schola Theologorum, can never certainly know, never know with "divine faith," when he is on the rock of infallibility, when on the shifting quicksands of a merely human persuasion.

Dr. Newman will perhaps now be able to judge the reason which led me to say, "There is no established or accepted definition of the phrase ex cathedrâ.” By a definition I understand something calculated to bring the true nature of the thing defined nearer to the rational apprehension of those who seek to understand it; not a volume of words in themselves obscure, only pliable to the professional interest of Curialism, and certainly well calculated to find further employment for its leisure, and fresh means of holding in dependence on its will an unsuspecting laity.

But all that has been said is but a slight sample of the strange aspects and portentous results of the newly discovered articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiæ.

* Dr. Newman, p. 107.

CONCLUSION.

I HAVE now, at greater length than I could have wished, but I think with ample proof, justified the following assertions:

1. That the position of Roman Catholics has been altered by the Decrees of the Vatican on Papal Infallibility, and on obedience to the Pope.

2. That the extreme claims of the Middle Ages have been sanctioned, and have been revived without the warrant or excuse which might in those ages have been shown for them.

3. That the claims asserted by the Pope are such as to place civil allegiance at his mercy.

4. That the State and people of the United Kingdom had a right to rely on the assurances they had received, that Papal Infallibility was not, and could not become, an article of faith in the Roman Church, and that the obedience due to the Pope was limited by laws independent of his will.

I need not any more refer to others of my assertions, more general, or less essential to the main argument.

The appeal of the 'Dublin Review'* for union on the basis of common belief in resisting unbelief, which ought to be strong, is unhappily very weak. "Defend,” says the Reviewer, "the ark of salvation precious to us both, though you have an interest (so to speak) in

* For Jan. 1875, p. 173.

only a part of the cargo." But as the Reviewer himself is deck-loading the vessel in such a manner as to threaten her foundering, to stop his very active proceedings is not opposed to, nay, is part of, the duty of caring for the safety of the vessel. But weaker still, if possible, is the appeal which Archbishop Manning has made against my publication, as one which endeavours to create religious divisions among his flock, and instigate them to rise against the authority of the Church. For if the Church of England, of which I am a member, is, as she has never ceased to teach, the ancient, lawful, Catholic Church of this country, it is rather Archbishop Manning than I that may be charged with creating, for the last twenty years and more, religious divisions among our countrymen, and instigating them to rise against that ancient, lawful, and mild authority.

There may be, and probably are, great faults in my manner of conducting this argument. But the claim of Ultramontanism among us seems to amount to this: that there shall be no free, and therefore no effectual, examination of the Vatican Decrees, because they are the words of a Father, and sacred therefore in the eyes of his affectionate children.* It is deliberately held, by grave and serious men, that my construing the Decrees of the Vatican, not arbitrarily, but with argument and proof, in a manner which makes them adverse to civil duty, is an "insult" and an outrage to the Roman Catholic body, which I have nowhere charged with accepting them in that sense. Yet a far greater licence has been assumed by Arch

* 'Dublin Review,' Jan. 1875, p. 172.

bishop Manning, who, without any attempt at proof at all, suggests,* if he does not assert, that the allegiance of the masses of the English people is an inert conformity and a passive compliance, given really for wrath and not for conscience' sake. This opinion is, in my judgment, most untrue, most unjust; but to call even this an insult would be an act of folly, betokening, as I think, an unsound and unmanly habit of mind. Again, to call the unseen councillors of the Pope myrmidons, to speak of "aiders and abettors of the Papal chair," to call Rome "headquarters," these and like phrases amount, according to Archbishop Manning,** to "an indulgence of unchastened language rarely to be equalled." I frankly own that this is in my eyes irrational. Not that it is agreeable to me to employ even this far from immoderate liberty of controversial language. I would rather pay an unbroken reverence to all ministers of religion, and especially to one who fills the greatest See of Christendom, But I see this great personage, under ill advice, aiming heavy and, as far as he can make them so, deadly blows at the freedom of mankind, and therein not only at the structure of society, but at the very constitution of our nature, and the high designs of Providence for trying and training it. I cannot under the restraints of courtly phrase convey any adequate idea of such tremendous mischiefs; for, in proportion as the power is venerable, the abuse of it is pernicious. I am driven to the conclusion that this sensitiveness is at the best but morbid. The cause of it

* Archbishop Manning, p. 345.

** Ibid., p. 177.