Forbes on Article XXXIX: Of a Christian man's Oath

AN oath is a tacit or expressed invocation of the Deity, as of the first and infallible Truth, in testimony of anything. It is a religious asseveration, made with the intention of swearing to the truth of anything, God being called in as witness and avenger. It is divided into the oath assertory, and the oath promis-

sory. Again, into the oath simple, and the oath so lemn, such as homages and professions of faith.

Again, it is divided into the oath of attestation, the oath of execration, the oath of threatening.

Three conditions, as the Article quotes from Jere miah (chap, iv.), are requisite to a legitimate oath — justice, judgment, and truth; justice, that the thing be lawful and honest, and so the Name of the holy God be not adduced in confirmation of injustice or sin; judgment, in that the oath be not taken without necessity or grave cause, or manifest advantage, with prudent consideration of the mind, and pure and re verent affection of the will ; and truth, that the thing be true, or at least on reasonable grounds and bond fide believed to be true; so that the holy Name be not brought forward to testify to a lie, which were perjury and a great sin.

An oath so taken, is not only no sin, but a religious act. “Thou shalt fear the Lord, and swear by His Name a.”

But the habit of swearing without a cause, indis creetly and inadvertently, whether the thing be true or false, is a mortal sin ; so that such a consuetudinary sinner, neglecting to amend his ways, sins grievously by the force of the retention of such custom, as often as he so swears. Being in proximate peril of mortal sin from the habit, he sins also in not attempting to cure himself.

The habit of swearing has very much gone out

a Deut. x. 20.

among the upper classes, partly from the censure of society, partly, it is to be feared, from the materialistic and unbelieving frame of mind into which uninter rupted prosperity, fulness of bread, and an unsuper- natural mind, throw the soul. Men will not swear by God, unless they realize His hand in all things. It is not simple good, that has caused the abandonment of this disgusting vice.

Among all people b, and from the most ancient times, very great has been the power of an oath. Our an cestors, saith Cicero, esteemed no bond of faith stronger than this. Hence it has always been believed that some heavy punishment hangs over the head of a per jured person, and even posterity paid for the sins of their forefathers in this kind. Even the will, without the actual deed, drew punishment along with it, as in the story of Glaucus, as told by Herodotus.

To a valid oath, sanity of mind and deliberation of purpose are required. Next, what is so sworn as the mind of the swearer conceives it must be done, must be kept. They perjure themselves, who, while saving the words, disappoint the expectation of those to whom they have sworn.

As to oaths deceitfully procured, if it be certain that he who sweareth supposeth something done, which indeed is not so, and that, unless he had believed it, he would not have sworn, the oath will not bind. But if it be doubtful whether he would not, even

b Grotius de Jure, lib. ii. c. 13, vol. iii. p. I, ed. Laus., 1751.

without that, have sworn the same, he must stand to his word, because the greatest simplicity there can be agrees to an oath.

Yet the signification of an oath is not to be ex tended beyond the received custom of speech, as it is one thing to give, it is another thing not to require that which is taken away.

Above all things, an oath binds nothing made of unlawful matter. A sworn promise to do what is either naturally, or by the interdict of God, unlawful, does not hold good. It is sometimes against duty to perform a promise, or to keep an oath. If one’s faith be pledged to commit a sin, it is strange to call it faith.

Also, an oath that hinders a greater moral good does not hold. We owe to God progress in good, and so may not take away from ourselves the liberty of so doing. A man who swears never to do another a good turn would not be bound.

No man, also, is held to fulfil what is impossible.

Next, as to the form of oaths. These may vary, but all agree in fact. The calling in God to be witness and avenger underlies the idea of every oath. Every oath terminates in imprecation upon the perjurer. Other names and things, as one’s country, one’s head, one’s children, sometimes were associated with God, but pleonastically.

The effect of an oath is the settlement of contro versies, as the greatest assurance among men. Some authorities maintain that even a forced oath is to be

kept, out of reverence to God. The Hebrew kings were reproved by the prophets, because they kept not faith with the Babylonian conquerors. And the per son alone to whom we swear is not to be respected, but He by whom we swear, God. This suffices to create an obligation ; and therefore oaths to tyrants, and pirates, and other common enemies, are valid. In such bad cases, however, the heir of a man would not be bound.

An oath to another, being a solemn promise, the person who makes it is released from that oath, if he to whom it is made refuses to accept the advantage so promised. Neither is a man bound, if the quality under which he hath sworn to any, ceaseth ; as, if a magistrate cease to be a magistrate. When a man resigns a place, the oath is voided by the loss of the place.

As to whether that which is done against an oath is unlawful only, or also void, in law, one must say that if one’s faith only be engaged, an act done against an oath is valid, in law, e.g. a will, or a sale: it is not valid, if the oath be so conceived, that withal it con tains a full abdication of the power to act.

The acts of superiors cannot so far prevail, that an oath, so far as it is truly obligatory, is not to be performed ; for that it is of natural and divine right. But a superior may forbid the taking of oaths, or pre vent their fulfilment.

Or a mixed case may be, where the superior ordains that the oath shall be of force, if approved by him.

On this ground is defended the power of dispensation in the Church.

Our Lord and St. James do not forbid the ” as- sertory” oath, of which there are some instances in St. Paul, but the oath promissory of a future uncer tain thing. “It is best and most profitable, and to the rational creature most convenient, to abstain from swearing, and so to accustom oneself to truthfulness, that one’s word may be taken for an oath c.”

The most advanced schools of modern jurisprudence are more than doubtful as to the policy of using oaths in judicial processes. When a man determines to tell the truth, he will do so without an oath ; when he has determined to lie, an oath will not hinder him. This is true ; but, on the other hand, so illogical is the action of the human conscience, that there are many who will be deterred by an oath from stating what they would state without that sanction. In the popular mind there is a great gulph between a lie and a perjury, and be sides the fact that perjury is punishable at law, an oath gives a further guarantee for the enunciation of the truth.

c Grotius.

JIic liber antedictorum Articulorum jam denuo appro- batus est, per assensum et consensum Serenissimce Re- ffinae Elizabeth® Dominie nostrce, Dei gratia Anglice, Francia, et Hibernia, Regina, Defensoris fidei, fyc., retinendm, et per totum regnum Anglice exequendus. Qui Articuli, et lecti sunt, et denuo confirmati, sub- scriptione D. Archiepiscopi et Episcoporum superioris domus, et totius Cleri inferioris domus, in Convocations Anno Domini, 1571.

” The Ratification.

” THIS Book of Articles before rehearsed, is again approved, and allowed to be holden and executed within the realm, by the assent and consent of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, of England, France, and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c. Which Articles were deliberately read and confirmed again by the subscription of the hands of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Upper House, and by the subscription of the whole Clergy of the Nether House in their Convocation, in the year of our Lord 1571.”

THE Articles are primarily a State document, made ecclesiastical by the acceptance of the two Convoca-

tions in 1562 and 1571. This fact weighs much in a moral point of view in respect to our subjective treatment of them. One treats them very differently from the decrees of a Provincial Synod of the Church of England. Convocation, though by some said to be legally the Church of England by representation, is only so in the sense of certain civil results. It is not a Council in the strictly ecclesiastical sense. Its de crees do not bind the conscience from any intrinsic authority in themselves, or in the documents put out by it. It only binds the conscience as a result of subscription. It is immoral and wicked in itself, to deny the decree of a Council accepted by the Church. It is not immoral or wicked in itself to deny an Article, e.g. that the Homilies have certain qualities. It only becomes immoral and wicked, when a man has signed what he does not believe, or when a man denies what he has subscribed to.

A result of this will be that a very different degree of reverence will attach to the body of the document, and specially to the inferences to be drawn from it. In dealing with the language of a Council, emanating from the Holy Ghost, we speak with bated breath in discussing it, and we respect inferences that may be certainly gathered from it, though not expressed; but in dealing with a document of the nature of the Ar tides, we are under no such moral obligation. The plain literal and grammatical sense, interpreted by the hardest legal head, is all that we have to do with in accepting the text; and as regards the inferences, we have nothing whatever to do with them.

Lastly, they are not of eternal obligation. The offspring of a controversial age, they bear on their surface the evidence of their paternity. That age has passed away, and the questions then unsolved have received the fullest consideration, and much that then looked like actual opposition has been found to be mere logomachy. New enemies to the faith have sprung up since those days, of which they take no cognizance, and, in resistance to these, all parties in the sixteenth century would have united as against a common foe. Two camps are arraying themselves in battle against each other. Communities and men are taking their sides. All conscious misbelief is gra vitating towards unbelief; all imperfect but sincere conviction tending to the Catholic Faith. As then be lievers, in opposition to infidels and miscreants, come to make common cause, that common cause will lead to common faith, and under such common faith there will be no need for such declarations as the Thirty- nine Articles ; they will have done their work, so, having done their work, they will take their place among the things of the past.

And to this consummation, to this common cause and common faith, we have to ask ourselves, what course of events will tend. How is the present state of confusion in the Church of Christ to be remedied? What can be done to heal the divisions in the Body of the Lord ? There has been but one answer in all ages of confusion. At the beginning of the troubles in Henry the Eighth’s time, just after Wolsey’s death, when the matter of the division had thrown everything into

confusion, Sir Thomas More said that he desired three things, and one of these things was the Convocation of a Free General Council. It was the recognised means of healing the wounds of the Church desired by those enlightened men, who, while they recognised and deplored the existence of scandals and corruptions, clung earnestly to the old faith a. Nor was this confined to them alone b. The reformers, such as Me- lanchthon and Archbishop Herman of Cologne, main tamed their reforms to be provisional until a Gene ral Council6.

Luther himself at one time used it as a weapon of offence against the Pope d. In this very volume we have seen that Queen Elizabeth appealed to a free synod to arbitrate on the Anglican position. If Bi shop Jewel in so many words does not go so far6, it is at least the legitimate outcome of his Apology. He

a In 1536 Convocation, in protesting against the Pope holding a Council ” without the express consent, assent, and agreement of the re sidue of Christian Princes,” says, ” We, taught by long experience, do perfectly know, that there never was, or is, anything devised, invented or instituted, by our forefathers, more expedient, or more necessary, for the establishment of our faith, for the extirpation of heresies, and the abolishing of sects and schisms; and, finally, for reducing Christ’s people into one perfect unity and concord of religion, than the having of General Councils.” (Burnet, Ref., vol. i. App. b. iii. No. 5.)

b e.g. Erasmus, Epist., lib. xxviii. 8. c Hardwick’s Manual of

Ref., p. 9, ed. 1856. d Ibid., p. 62, note.

[…]

gives many reasons for not attending at Trent, but all the reasons presuppose the supreme authority of a Council really (Ecumenical. The theology of King James I., which was really able, and which, from the moral deficiencies of its author, has not received the respect it intellectually deserves, was in harmony with the same notion. Isaac Casaubon in his dedication to James I. (chap, v.) says, ” Et tamen adhuc illis tempori- bus stabat suum jus, et in ecclesia summa auctoritas con- ciliis universalibus : quae etsi cogi semper non poterant, semper tamen fas fuit pus hominibus spe saltern con- solari sese ejus remedii, quod solum ad componendas controversies et haereses auctoritate ecclesise debel- landas cum Scripturse docuerunt turn prisci patres ag- noverunt atque usurparunt.”

Hooker f says, “The urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our unity … maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth, have her laws of spiritual commerce between Chris tian nations ; laws, by virtue whereof all Churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend, religious, and sacred consultations, which are termed Councils General. A thing, whereof God’s own blessed Spirit was the author, a thing practised by the Apostles themselves, a thing always afterward kept and ob served throughout the world, a thing never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny, began by factious and vile endeavours

f E. P., lib. i. ch. x. 14, ed. Keble, p. 252.

to abuse that divine invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes.”

If the appeal to a Council, under certain possible circumstances, was in the minds of the divines of the time of King Henry and Queen Elizabeth, it as sumed a still more prominent place in what may be termed the Constructive Epoch of Anglicanism. The great High Church school, in seeking to find a Ca tholic basis for their teaching, had of necessity to appeal to this.

Thus Archbishop Bramhall^, in his replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon, after stating, “I submit myself and my poor endeavours to the judgment of the Catholic (Ecumenical essential Church,” continues, ” Likewise I submit myself to the Representative Church, that is, a free General Council, or so general as may be procured ; and until then, to the Church of England, wherein I was baptized, or to a national English Synod.”

In his just vindication of the Church of England from the unjust aspersion of criminal schism, in his propositions for re-union, in speaking of the ” neces sary explications” to be made in view of that blessed object, lie says they must “be made by the authority of a General Council, or one so general as can be con- vocated11.” He moreover says, “To rebel against the Catholic Church, and its representative a General Council, which is the last visible judge of contro-

versies, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court, either is gross schism, or there is no such thing as schis- matical pravity in the world *.”

So Archbishop LaudJ says, “Therefore according to A. C.’s own argument, there will be some busi ness also found (is not the settling of the divisions of Christendom one of them?) which can never be well settled but in a General Council; and particularly the making of Canons, which must bind all particu lar Christians and Churches, cannot be concluded and established but there/’

So Bishop Overalk, “And if in those troublesome times the peace of the Church were thus preserved, how much more now under Christian magistrates may it be strengthened, upheld, and maintained without the Pope, not only within their separate kingdoms, but likewise throughout (in effect) all these western parts of the world, if Christian Kings and Sovereign Princes would agree together for a General Council, to the end that all these heresies, errors, impostures, and presumptions, wherewith the Church of Christ has been long and is now miserably shaken and dis turbed, might be at the last utterly suppressed and extinguished V

A profound distrust of the motives of the Roman Catholic Church runs through the appeals to a Council on the part of the Elizabethan divines; it was felt

vol. ii. p. 234, Anglo-Cath. ed. k Conv. Book. * Wordsworth’s

Christian Institutes, vol. iv. p. 146.

that under such auspices it could not be free. Re course, therefore, was had to a theory of interference on the part of Christian kings, such as had actually been brought to act in the case of the early (Ecumeni cal Synods ; and later at Constance and Basle.

That appeal can no longer be made. Christian Europe (as representing the thought, civilization, and religion of the world) is no longer at one on the most important of all points. The Latin Communion is now represented (to speak broadly) by France, Spain, Austria, Bavaria, Portugal, Belgium. Italy as a na tion is in semi-schism. Russia has been admitted as a potent factor into the politics of the West. Greece is a non-Latin kingdom, and the Provinces already possessed of a passionate nationality, are aspiring to their place in the royal houses of Europe. Prussia, for the moment the most powerful state in Europe, and uniting the force of all the vast north of Europe, is Protestant ; so are the three Scandinavian kingdoms and Switzerland. It is obvious that not one of these possesses the adequate authority to move in the direc tion of the Convocation of an (Ecumenical Synod. From the political side, such a conference is impossible.

Again, all modern theories of government are tend ing to treat religion only as a matter of police. The preservation of morals now concerns the civil magis trate, only so far as offences against them tend to breaches of the peace. The whole class of wrongs, which were in fact sins, are ceasing to be recognised as crimes. Above all, religious belief is being freed.

A man may believe what he pleases in the eyes of the State, so long as his belief does not assault public order, does not injure property or person. It is no longer recognised as a duty of the Supreme Civil power “to maintain truth.” There is a re-action against the tyranny of the Reformation theory, which made over the consciences of the subject to the Crown.

Consequently, even if Civil Governments were at one as to the basis on which re-union was to be promoted, they could never consistently combine to call together a Council. The results of such a Council, if not a matter of indifference to them, would only become a subject of jealous dread, by the increase of power which it would give to the Catholic Church. The Elizabethan idea of such a convocation by the Christian princes, if it ever was more than an excuse for main taining a separate position, is, in view of the actual condition of the world, and of the modern theories of dominion, an utter impossibility.

What, then, remains to be done ? There is but one power on earth which is able to attempt this great work. Let the successor of St. Peter, Bramhall’s Prin- cipium Unitatis, the holder of that see whose potior principalitas was acknowledged by St. Irenseus, only rise above the miserable triumph of an immediate Ultramontane success ; let him accept the high des tiny which God has placed in his hand, of being, not as in past times the cause of disunion, but the principle of re-union in Christendom. Let him send forth his invitation, not merely to all the Bishops of his own

subjection, assembled to register foregone conclusions, to give pomp and dignity to his own individual utter ances ; but let him invite first his own to testify to tra dition arid to judge freely in matters submitted to him. Then let him invite the ancient Eastern hierarchies, not as “prudent persons exercising ecclesiastical func tions,” but as the successors, as in fact they are, of the Ancient Thrones of New Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Let him summon the Anglican prelates, not prejudging the doubts of their jurisdiction, but accepting them as they are historically, the occupants of the chairs of St. Austin and St. Paulinus. Let him call to himself all that is still sound in the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies, whether they will hear or whe ther they will forbear, — and then in free Council as sembled, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, let every question be discussed, every difficulty sifted. Let the fullest explanations be given of what has given offence and promoted disunion ; let the remain ing superstitions left untouched by the Council of Trent be honestly dealt with ; let the balancing and complementary truths that interpret the more start ling assertions of the Church be enunciated; let the most candid and generous construction be placed upon the utterances of all the separated limbs of the Body of Christ ; let a sound Catholic philosophy be sanctioned ; let the deep underlying distinctions of race be allowed for; let the demarcation between faith and opinion be drawn with a firm and tender hand, so shall the great cause of re-union be promoted, the rent vesture

of Christ repaired, the walls of partition broken down, and the reign of Christ the Lord over the world be inaugurated. “When in the day of His power, the people will offer Him free-will offerings with a holy worship m.” ” And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones; and all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children n.”

Ol TWV ai7OO~TO\O)V

[…]

m Ps. ex. 3. n Isa. liv. 12.

I/ENVOY TO THE FIRST EDITION,

I HAVE now come to the end of my task, and I submit my work to the judgment of the Church Avith a deep sense of the responsibility of my action. It is with the greatest diffidence that I have ventured to touch upon points, concerning which good men during more than three hundred years have come to such different conclusions. I can only say that I have tried to approach them in a candid, truth-loving, and con ciliatory spirit. I have endeavoured to cultivate the loving spirit of the author of the Consider at iones No- fiesta, who, by his profound learning, pacific temper, and sincere piety, has illustrated the name I bear. I am well aware that my work is likely to provoke much hostile criticism. The office of mediator is proverbially a thankless one. I shall be accused of insincerity by some, of timidity by others. I shall be blamed for casuistical fine-drawing. I shall be taunted with not pushing my premises to their legitimate conclusion. My consolation is that it has been my constant effort to state the truth in love, without regard to conse-

quences. On the one hand, I have never failed to exhibit the errors in speculation and practice which have from time to time prevailed, and to unfold the growth of those superstitions which have deformed the Christian religion ; on the other hand, I have endea voured to give due prominence to the statement and evolution of the true doctrine which underlies these errors, and the depravation of which has engendered those superstitions. Believing that there can be no sound Theological Science which has not its support in history, I have endeavoured to give its proper place to the argument from Antiquity, Universality, and Con sent; at the same time, I have recognised that the Church of God is a living Entity, and that God the Holy Ghost speaks within her. I have also not passed over the mysterious fact that the action of the depraved and infirm free-will of man has been permitted to cripple the teaching office of the Church, as it has marred so much of the beautiful Creation and Re creation of God.

In addition to the more general aid and revision of that dearest and most valued Friend to whom this attempt of mine is dedicated, which I have already acknowledged in the Preface, it is due that I should mention very large assistance in this present portion, in the extensive Patristic authorities with which Arti des XXII. and XXY. are enriched, where his rare familiarity with the Fathers of the Church has fur nished me with what else, the duties of my own calling leading me in other directions, I could only have but

slightly gone into ; and yet more in the labour so generously and ungrudgingly bestowed upon Articles XXXII. and XXXVII. , in both of which large and important additions are due to him. Those who with me can see, even at a distance, that Life of unwearied, unceasing toil, a Life whose whole existence is for others; his own long-cherished works put off from year to year, in humility and gentle trustfulness, as other duties come before him one by one, will with me gratefully receive the fruits of his toil.

Sexagesima Sunday, 1868.

AT the end of this treatise, an appeal has been made to the convocation of a general Council by him who, in the early Church, was recognised as the Principiitm Unitatis. Since that time, a Council professing to be (Ecumenical has been held by him, and the question now arises, Is the author, as an honest man, as a Ca tholic Christian, bound to submit to it, and to persuade others to do likewise ? The answer is not far to seek. Not one of the conditions which the author assumed as necessary to its recognition, as the great healing power for the wounds of Christ’s Body, have hitherto been found in the Vatican Council. The Pope has not risen ” above the miserable triumph of an immediate Ultramontane success.” He has not ” accepted the high destiny which God has placed in his hand, of being, not as in past times the cause of disunion, but the principle of reunion in Christendom;” he has not invited the bishops of his own subjection “to testify to tradition, and to judge freely in matters submitted to them;” he has not invited the ancient Eastern hierarchies as ” the successors of the ancient thrones ;” that is, in such terms as would have enabled them to be present consistently with self-respect ; he has not

I/ENVOY TO THE SECOND EDITION. 823

” summoned the Anglican prelates ;” lie has not ” called round him all that is still sound in the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies ;” no explanation of ” what has given offence or promoted disunion has yet been given ; ” ” the remaining superstitions left untouched by the Council of Trent have not been dealt with ;” ” no balancing or complementary truths that interpret the more startling assertions of the Church have been enunciated ;” “no candid and generous construction has been placed on the utterances of all the separated limbs of the Body of Christ.” The deep underlying distinctions of race have not been allowed for ; the demarcations between faith and opinion have not been drawn with firm and tender hand, but rather ob literated. With the exception of a condemnation of the false philosophy of the nineteenth century, for which we are deeply thankful, not one of the conditions of the author has been complied with. As an honest man, he is not bound to submit to the Council, or to persuade others to do so. There remains the question of his conduct as a Catholic Christian. If the Council fulfils the conditions of cecumenicity, he is bound to do both. This will be best answered by attention to the following facts.

The Council was summoned by a Bull to the Patri archs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, &c. — all members of the Church in communion with the See of Rome. Unless, then, we hold that the Roman obedience is con terminous with the Church Catholic, an opinion which Greeks and Anglicans deny, and which, as has been

shewn in the preceding work, Latins themselves have, from time to time — as in the Councils of Florence, Lyons, Pisa, and Ferrara — ignored or acted in an tagonism to, we must hold that so far as the sum mons is concerned, the Council cannot be regarded as oecumenical. Some fear of this seems to have actuated the minds of the promoters, for, subsequently to the Bull of Indiction, a letter, dated Sept. 8, 1868, was addressed to the Bishops of the Churches of the Ori ental Rite which are not in communion with the Apostolic See, praying, admonishing, and conjuring them to come to the general Council, as their fathers came to the second Council of Lyons, but in such terms that the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria cast it back in the writer’s teeth.

Moreover, another document was emitted, in which all Protestants and Acatholici were not invited to take part in the Council, but exhorted and besought to return to the one fold of Christ.

No notice whatever, in any of these documents, was taken of the great Anglican Communion as such. The Church of England was ignored, or mixed up with the mass of Protestants.

Now, when no summons is issued, no obedience can be expected. Under the circumstances, the Church of England had no power to appear. So far as she is concerned, the Council cannot be regarded as having complied with the antecedent conditions which would make its decrees binding upon England.

But not only do we assert that the cecumenicity of

the Vatican Synod has been destroyed by the absence of sufficient summons, but no sooner was the assem blage convoked, than it became evident that such freedom as was necessary to its true character as a representative assembly was denied it ; the greatest pressure was brought to bear upon the Oriental Bi shops of the Latin Rite ; regulations, protested against by many prelates in a formal document, were en acted, crippling the freedom of debate; the right of initiation, though formally conceded to them, was so hedged round by restrictions as to become a nullity ; privileges of discussion belonging to the Bishops by divine institution, and recognised at the Council of Trent, were disallowed, and every Italian art of threat ening, coaxing, and bribing, was employed to disarm the opponent, to win over the hesitating. The Pope himself unsparingly used his enormous influence in canvassing for support ; to the gentle he appealed by tenderness, ” Lovest thou me ?” One must draw a veil over the manner in which he treated the aged Chal dean patriarch.

And, as might be expected under the circumstances, a Council so constituted and so manipulated, has ex ceeded that mighty power which Councils have hereto fore exercised. A Council cannot create new objects of faith ; it may proclaim what is an article of faith, but only in accordance with Holy Scripture and tra dition. Christianity must not be treated as a philo sophical idea. In its essence, it is a revelation given once for all. Bishops come together to declare what

is the tradition of their sees, and to testify to the universal reception of the old truth. Consequently, a point upon which opposite opinions have been long tolerated, can never possess that universality and con sent which is the test of Catholic truth. The very fact that an opinion has been long held and tolerated, (and be it remembered that an authoritative denial of Papal Infallibility was the price at which the English and Irish Roman Catholics obtained their emancipation,) is sufficient to forbid for ever that the opposite opinion can, by any power, be erected into dogma. Thereby, such doctrine can never be said to have been held semper, ubique, et ab omnibus. Another consequence is that no question in a Council, which involves so awful a matter as the erection of a pious opinion into an article of faith, the belief of which involves the salva tion or damnation of countless immortal souls, can be made by a majority of votes. It is impossible to be lieve that the mind of the Holy Ghost is ascertained by counting heads. Till now, in Councils, decisions have only been arrived at by a morally unanimous vote a.

Moreover, the actual doctrine which has been sought to be established by the recent Vatican Synod is at tended by special difficulties of its own. A Council dealing with Infallibility must either declare it or confer it. It must either declare that it is the essence of the Christian Faith from the beginning, that the

a Since this was written the greater mass of the Bishops of the minority are said to have succumbed. But this regrettable fact cannot alter the circumstances under which the decree was passed.

I/ENVOY TO THE SECOND EDITION. 827

successor of St. Peter, under certain conditions, is, and always has been, infallible; or being confessedly, as the organ of the Church Catholic, infallible itself, whereinsoever the decrees are accepted and confirmed by the whole Church throughout the world, of which it is the representative, it must confer this prerogative upon him. Both these positions are surrounded by difficulty. On the one hand, not only is there no ap pearance of a personal infallibility, as distinct from a solemn magisterial authority, being exercised by the Pope for a thousand years after Christ, but every cir cumstance of Church history militates against such a supposition. The very institution of Councils is utterly irreconcileable with the historical existence and exer cise of such a power as that of an infallible Pope. The treatment of the different heresies, which would natu rally have evoked its exhibition, emphatically negative its existence. Where was the infallible voice when the world groaned and found itself Arian ? when the Council of Chalcedon sat in judgment upon the tome of St. Leo ? when Zosimus overlooked plain heresy in Coelestius ? when the miserable Vigilius again and again contradicted himself? when Agatho confirmed the sixth Council which had anathematized his predecessor Honorius by name ? when Gregory II., speaking out of the authority of the Eoman See, allowed polygamy under certain circumstances ? when Stephen II. af firmed that baptism with wine was valid ? when Ser- gius III. and Stephen YI. annulled the indelible orders conferred by Formosus ?

Nay, further, we must ask where was the personal infallibility when we find Popes distinctly affirming their own liability to error ? If John XXII. expressly revoked on his deathbed whatever he had preached or written that was suspected of heresy ; if Gregory XI. protested that if he had said anything against the Catholic faith, he recalled the same ; if Pius IV., in a question of marriage, assumed that he and his pre decessors may have been mistaken, we must hold that they, at least, maintained with the entire mediaeval Church, that A POPE MIGHT FALL INTO HERESY.

But in the formula put forth by the Vatican Synod b, these historical difficulties are sought to be evaded by the phrase which confines Infallibility to, the con dition ” cum ex cathedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium Christianorum pastoris et doctoris munere fun gens pro suprema sua apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab universa ecclesia tenendum definit.” But who is to determine this ? Have not some of the most erroneous declarations of Popes been enunciated

b We subjoin the text of the actual definition : —

” REVELATIONE DOGMA ESSE DEFINTMUS :

” Romanum Pontificem cum ex Cathedra loquitur (id est, cum om nium Christianorum Pastoris et Doctoris munere fungens, pro suprema sua Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus et univer.-a ecclesia teuendam definit) per assertentiam divinam, ipsi in Beato Petro promissam, ea Infallibilitate pollere, qua D.vinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit, ideoque ejusrnodi Romani Pontificis Definitionis ex sese, non autem ex consensu eeclesia9, irreformabilis esse.

[…]

under circumstances of the greatest solemnity ? The argument cuts both ways. If the Popes did not enun ciate these errors under the requisite conditions, it was because, at that time, they did not recognise the high mission claimed for them. It is true that high pre tension and exorbitant claims were, from time to time, put forward by the Roman Pontiffs in early ages. But they never claimed infallibility. So that the cases of error just quoted cannot be alleged, as not coming under the limitation that, on these occasions, the Popes did cot speak as omnium Christianorum pastor is et doc- toris munere fung ens. As a matter of fact, history sup plies no instance of the fulfilment of these conditions, for a thousand years after Christ.

But supposing that the facts of history are too clear for the belief that the personal Infallibility of the Pope is one of the principles of the Christian religion, a part of the primitive TrapafcaTaOrjKT], we may suppose, ad mitting the principle of development, that the Council may confer its own power on the Pope, and, infallible itself, make him infallible. Although this involves the absurdity of the existence of two separate infallible organs in the same Church, a notion almost as absurd as that of the possibility of there being two Almighty Beings, it would seem that something like this was in the minds of the promoters of the Council, else why go to the Council at all ? If the Pope was essentially infallible, he ought to have proclaimed it proprio motu, and not gone to the inferior authority for his title. But the common law of Christendom had always held

that a legitimate and approved Council was the highest tribunal in the Church, and therefore recourse was had to that. But a Council, although infallible, is not omnipotent; and the power and responsibility of in fallibility cannot be shifted at will from the corporate body to any individual. The gift was to the Body of Christ, a gift to be exercised, not delegated, not re signed. As the great Mohler says, in this becoming the advocate of the position which the Church of England is obliged to assume with reference to these determinations : ” To no individual, considered as such, doth infallibility belong : for the Catholic regards the individual only as a member of the whole ; as living and breathing in the Church. “When his feelings, thoughts, and will, are conformable to her spirit, then only can the individual attain to inerrability. Were the Church to conceive the relation of the individual to the whole in an opposite sense, [as the recent Council has done, by rejecting the formula nixus testimonio eccle- ziarum, and by asserting that the Pope’s definitions are irreformable ex sese non autem ex consensu ecclesiw,] and consider him as personally infallible, then she would destroy the very notion of community ; for com munity can only be conceived as necessary, when the true faith and pure and solid Christian life cannot be conceived in individualisation.” — (Mohler, Symbolikt vol. ii. p. 10, ed. Robertson.)

Our appeal, then, must still be to a Council. We have appealed before to a Council, really free, of one mind, declaring authoritatively what had, although not

formally enunciated, ever been the faith of the Church. German Catholics, too, have sought for redress against the late Council and its decisions, both as to the extent of the authority which it ascribes to the Bishop of Rome, and to the enunciation of Papal infallibility as an article of faith.

One important declaration of ” many German Pro fessors of Theology, Ecclesiastical Law and Philosophy” is as follows : — ” We are convinced that any longer silence in regard to the Papal decree published through the Bull Pastor ^Etermis, in consequence of the de cision of the majority of the assemblage of Bishops in the Vatican, of July 18, 1870, is neither becoming to us, nor can be for the benefit of the Church.

” In the third chapter of the Constitutio dogmatica prima de ecclesia C/iristi, it is set forth as de fide, that * the Roman Bishop has not only the office of super intendence and supreme guidance of the Church, but is inherently possessed of the whole fulness of power, and possesses over all Churches and each Church, over all who are over the Churches and each several indi vidual, and over each individual Christian, the ordi nary and immediate power/

“In the fourth chapter it is taught that ‘it is an article of faith revealed by God, that the Roman Bishop, as Teacher for the whole Church (ex Cathedra), possesses, in matters of faith and morals, the infalli bility promised by Christ to the Church, and that therefore such decisions are irreformable in themselves, not on ground of the agreement of the Church.’

” These positions we cannot acknowledge as the ex pressions of a truly (Ecumenical Council ; we reject them as new doctrines, never acknowledged by the Church. Of the grounds hereafter to be developed by strictest scientific method, we name the following : —

” 1. The doctrine of the Church on these points was never ascertained in the Council, in consequence of the concealment before its opening, as also of the pre vention of any full statement of testimonies, and of the free expression of opinion, through the premature close of the debate. Thereby the essential problem for an (Ecumenical Council was set on one side.

“2. That freedom from any sort of moral com pulsion, and from any influence through a higher power, which is of the essence of an (Ecumenical Council, was wanting in that assembly ; among other things,

” (a.) Because an order of proceeding, destructive of freedom, was, contrary to the practice of earlier Councils, imposed by the Pope, notwithstanding the Protest of a great number of Bishops, and was again subsequently modified without the consent of the assembly, and against a renewed protest.

” (b.) Because in a doctrine yet to be decided, and personally relating to the Pope, a moral oppression was practised towards its members through the most manifold means which stand at the command of the Pope.

” 3. Whereas heretofore it was ever held as a rule in the Church, that onlv what ’ was acknowledged,

ever, everywhere, and by all/ can be matter of faith of the Church. This principle was departed from in the Vatican assembly. A mere fraction of an assembly of Bishops has, against the persevering contradiction of a minority, important ’ for its number as well as for the dignity and extent of its Churches/ elevated to a matter of faith, a doctrine, in regard to which it is evident and notorious that none of the three conditions, the ever, or the everywhere, or the by all, belong to it. This proceeding practically involves a position, wholly new, that an opinion, the contrary of what has hitherto been freely taught, and in many dioceses believed, can be declared to be a doctrine revealed by God.

“4. In that this third chapter transfers to the Pope the ordinary jurisdiction in the several dioceses, which, according to Catholic doctrine, belongs to the Bishop, the nature and essence of the Episcopate, as a divine institution given in the Apostolate, and as an integral portion of the Church is, in reference thereto, whol^ annihilated.

“5. Through the declaration, that all doctrinal ex pressions of the Pope directed to the whole Church are infallible, those ecclesiastico-political positions and declarations of older or more modern indulgence, which teach the subjection of states, peoples, and princes in secular matters also to the power of the Pope ; and, in regard to the toleration of dissenters, and the rights of the clergy as an order, set up principles contrary to the present system of society, are declared to be in fallible rules of faith. Thereby the peaceable under-

standing between Church and State, between clergy and laity, between catholics and dissenters, is, for the future, shut out.

“In view of the distraction, which, through these new doctrines, has already come into the Church, and which may be expected to increase hereafter, we look confidently to those Bishops who have opposed these doctrines, and who, through their conduct at the Assembly, have deserved the thanks of the Catholic world ; and, at the same time, we entreat them, duly weighing the necessities of the Church and the op pression of consciences, to use all the means at their command to obtain speedily a true, free (Ecumenical Council, which, to be such, must be held, not in Italy, but this side of the Alps.”

Another still more important document is as fol- lows : — ” In face of the official measures and announce ments of the German bishops in favour of the Vatican decrees, the undersigned consider it necessary to guard their position by the following declaration ; and, so far as in them lies, to meet that bewilderment of con sciences which is breaking in upon us.

” 1. True to the inviolable duty of every Catholic Christian — a duty not disputed by Pope or bishops — to hold fast to the ancient faith, and to repudiate every innovation, were it preached even by an angel from heaven, we persist in our rejection of the Yatican dogmas. That every Christian should have in the Pope, whether personally or represented by his legates and plenipotentiaries, an absolute lord and master to

whom he is directly and immediately subject, and whom, on pain of temporal and eternal perdition, he is bound unconditionally to obey in everything which relates to his religious belief and to the whole sphere of his moral conduct — this has never yet been the teaching of the Church, and has formed no part of the Catholic faith. Equally notorious is it that, up to this time, it has not been the teaching of the Church that infalli bility has ever been vouchsafed to any single man, the Pope for the time being, in his pronouncements to the Church on matters of faith, and on the duties and rights of men. These principles have hitherto been mere opinions, greatly favoured, indeed, by Home, and defended by every exercise of power at her disposal, but combated and rejected by the most eminent theo logians without their incurring any censure. It is well known — and if the German bishops do not know they ought to know — that these doctrines owe their origin to fraud and their propagation to violence. By these doctrines, as the Pope has proclaimed them in his Vatican decrees, the whole body of the faithful are robbed of their essential rights, their testimony is nullified, the weight of Church tradition is diminished, and the supreme maxim of the Catholic faith is de stroyed — namely, that the Christian is bound to accept that only which has been taught and believed always, everywhere, and by all. Since, however, the last pastoral of the German bishops maintains that it is Peter who has spoken by the mouth of the Pope, who declares himself infallible, we must simply reject the

statement as a blasphemy. Peter speaks to us clearly, and in a way which all may understand, in his acts and speeches as they are recorded in Holy Scripture, and in the epistles which he has addressed to us. But those acts, speeches, and epistles of the Apostle breathe a totally different spirit, and contain an entirely dif ferent doctrine, from that which is now attempted to be forced upon us. It has, indeed, been attempted to soften down these new doctrines, which, in their naked crudeness and almost incalculable import, wound every Christian feeling, and, to delude people with the notion that they are ancient, have always been believed, and are really harmless. As before, so in their last pas toral, the bishops have taken pains to represent the infallibility of which the decrees speak as if it were the prerogative of the teaching body, consisting jointly of popes and bishops. This, however, contradicts the plain language of the decree, according to which the Pope only, and he of himself, is infallible ; he alone receives the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and in his decisions is entirely independent of the judgment of the bishops, whose assent to every papal pronounce ment has now become matter of duty, and can no longer be refused. But since the German bishops maintain that the ’ plenitude of power’ which, accord ing to the Vatican decrees, belongs to the Pope, cannot be designated as absolute and universal, because the Pope is bound in his exercise of it to the teaching, ordinances, and principles of divine revelation, one might just as well say that there is no such thing as

absolute despotic power even among the Mahometans. For even the Sultan of Turkey or the Shah of Persia acknowledges the limitations of the Divine law and of the rules of the Koran. The Pope, by the new de crees, not only claims to dominate the whole sphere of morals ; he also alone determines, and with infallible authority, what belongs to that sphere, what is the law of God, and how it is to be interpreted and applied in individual cases. In the exercise of this power the Pope has nobody’s consent to ask for, is responsible to no one on earth, and no one can gainsay him ; every one, be he who he may, prince or day-labourer, bishop or layman, is bound to pay him unreserved obedience, and to fulfil every one of his commands without dis pute. If such a power is not to be called absolute and despotic, then there has never been an absolute and despotic power in the world.

” 2. We persevere in our firmly-grounded conviction that the Vatican decrees constitute a serious danger for States and for society; that they are absolutely incompatible with the laws and institutions of modern States; and that we, by accepting them, should be brought into hopeless conflict with our political duties and oaths. In vain do the bishops attempt partly to blot out, and partly by arbitrary explanation of papal bulls to set aside, the undeniable fact that these bulls and decisions subject all political authorities to the absolute control of the Papal See, and condemn with peculiar emphasis those laws which are the most in dispensable in the present social order. The bishops

Notes

• Vol. ii. p. 22, Anglo-Catli. k Part i. d. 2, vol. i. p. 270.
• Part i. d. 2, vol. i. p. 249. i Conf. with Fisher, Works,
• Hymn by Ephraim of Caria apud Pitra HymnograjoTiie de I’Eglise Grecque, p. Ixvii.