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DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
First Letter, to the Very Rev. J. H. Neivman, D. D. By the Rev.
E. B. Pusey, D..D. James Parker A Co. 1869.
Is Healthful Reunion Impossible ? A Second Letter to the Very
Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D. By the Rev. E. B. Pvsey, D.D.
James Parker & Co. 1870.
The Reunion of'Christeniom. By'HENRY Edward, Archbishop of
Westminster. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1866.
Essays an the Reunion of Christendom. With an Introductory Essay
by tA'e’ Rev. E. B. Pt^Y^D.i), J. T. Hayes. 1867.
A. Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on his recent Eirenicon.
By.jjjOHN Henry JEewman, D.D. Longmans, Green, & Co.
1866.
Peace Through the Truth. By the Rev. T. Harper, S.J. Longmans,
& Cte., 1866.
Le Mouvement Catholique dans VAnglicanisme.—Revue du Monde
. Catholique. Eevrier et Mars. 1866.
^PHE peace between Rome and England is not yet concluded.
Earnest, simple-hearted Da^ Pusey continue his “ Eirenicon.”
He speaks of peace, and he is answered;,-—What hastAou to do with
peace ? His words, they say, are very swords. The voice is Jacob’s
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Dr. Pusey is regarded
by Roman Catholics as a Jehu, at/the gate| of Jeareel, a Zimri who
slew his master ; yea^he has < even been called an incarnation of the
arch-fiend who has taken upon him tike office of the accuser who
accuses the brethren day^and night. ,-Jesus said, “ Blessed are the
peace-makers; ” but Rome’s blessing is “ anathema sit.”
Dr. Pusey, however^s undaunted,. To use his own words, he is
not to be 11 discouraged by censures, disheartened by mistakes,
sickened by the supercilious tone of some in high station, or cowed
by rebuffs.” There is such a thing as faith, and men whose convic-
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. 7LYA CONTEMPORAR Y RE VIE W
tions are firm, and who act upon them, certainly do great things in
this world. Faith “laughs at impossibilities.” The greatest revo
lutions that have taken place among men have been brought about
by faith. It is not necessary to suppose anything supernatural in
this, for faith leads to action, energy, and sacrifice.
But, whether Dr. Pusey succeeds or fails, the movement in which
he has borne so conspicuous a part will ever be regarded as one of
the greatest events in the history of Christianity. The multitude of
men may despise it. They may laugh at the certainly ludicrous
imitation of Catholicism to which it has given rise. Sorrow and
anger may alternate in their breasts, as they seem to be deprived of
the Protestant heritage of their forefathers, won for them at the
stake and the scaffold. But even granting that all this is just, yet the
“ Catholic revival ” is a great event in the religious history, not
merely of England, but of the world. It has pressed the demand for
an answer to two urgent questions, which, strange as it may appear,
have never yet been fully answered,—What is Protestantism ? and,
What is Catholicism ?
The reunion question is the most recent phase of “AngloCatholicism.” We can scarcely be wrong in saying that Dr. Pusey’s
“ Eirenicon ” is founded on Tract XC., written by Dr. Newman, who
soon after found himself at rest in the Church of Rome. Dr. Newman
had been led to embrace some doctrines that had been rejected by
the Reformers of the Church of England. He was anxious to recon
cile these doctrines with the formularies of the Church of which he
was a minister. The Prayer-Book, from its very nature, was found
not to have many difficulties; but the Thirty-nine Articles, which
defined the doctrines of the Church, were seriously in the way.
They were, in a great measure, taken from the confessions of the
Reformed Churches abroad. The men who compiled them were
known to have had intimate relations with the Reformers of these
Churches. The Articles themselves abounded in negative propo
sitions, and these were almost entirely aimed at what was understood
to be the doctrine of the Church of Rome. Yea, even the affirmative
parts were mostly counter-statements of what was called Roman
teaching. At first sight the Articles appeared to be, what the
Reformers really intended them to be, a moat and a fortification to
defend the Church of England in prospect of the Roman enemy.
But Dr. Newman had an intellect of marvellous ingenuity, yet, so
far as intention went, perfectly honest. He could not ignore the fact
that the Articles were Protestant—the product of a Protestant age ;
but he thought that a “ Catholic ” meaning might be put upon them,
so that they might be subscribed by those who believed the contrary of
what the compilers intended. It was admitted that they condemned,
�MpA>. PTTSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
599
■not merely the dominant errors of the time when they were written,
but also the “ authoritative teaching of the Church of Rome.” They
■were, however, supposed to be compatible with what was called
F “Catholic” or “primitive truth.” Dr. Newman was at last con
vinced that they were not. The result is known.
Dr. Pusey, while admitting that he does not take the Articles in
the sense of those who wrote them, yet maintains that, without
violence to their literal and grammatical meaning, they may be inter
preted so as to agree with the decrees of the Co until of Trent. Here
then is a basis for reunion, foundfed on the cifieds of the two Churches.
Of course the Tridentine ereed has also to be’i^&£Wd. But in the
natural uncertainty of human words, and the remarkable uncer
tainty of what is Roman Catholic doctrinfi, it is even easier to find
a serviceable interpretation of the decrees off Trent than of the
English Articles.
At the Reformation the greatest dofetiAal ■question between the
Reformers and the Church of Rome concerned the sacrament of the
tord’s Supper. Archbishop Granmer said! that it was with this
sacrament that “ the devil had craftily-’juggled.” The Church of
Rome taught that, by an act of omnipotence great^J dhan the act of
creation, by means of fihe blessing of the priest, fele bread and wine
were changed into the actual body and blood off CAris^1 This was,
and is, the central doctrine of the Romain system. It is called
Transubstantiation. Article XXVIII. o’fi 1th®ChurOh W England says
that it “ cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but’.is repugnant to the
plain words of Scripture, overthroweth th er nature of a sacrament,
and hath given occasion to many superstitions.” Here, surely, is a
sufficiently distinct renunciation of the Roman s doctrine. But it
happens that substance is just one of the thing’s off which, we know
nothing. We only know accidents or qualities. Theuinderlying essence
or substratum cannot be defined. In fact^sits exigence, apart from
these accidents, cannot be demonstrated. What is We meaning then
of a change of szibstarice ? Is it a change off#W®B®ts, or of this
unknown quantity ? The authorized Roman 'tdachfeg -is that the
accidents remain* The 'body and blood of Christ exist under the
species of bread and wine. Butrthere was also a;popular doctrine, or
“ dominant error,” that Christ’s body; with its accideiitscwas present,
and that it was eaten as the men of Capernaum understood the
discourse about eating His flesh. The Article isevidently directed
against the authorized doctrine, and d farti'ori agaiflst the “ dominant
error.” But then the change is an unknown change of something
unknown. Perhaps the matter or
off’ the philosophers is only an
illusion. Perhaps the substratum of all things is spirit. The Church
of England admits a spiritual presence. The Roman doctrine at the
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THE CONTEMPORAR Y RE VIE W.
most is an invisible presence, under the accidents or species of the
bread and wine. Dr. Pusey says that the Schoolmen taught that the
bread and wine in the Eucharist lost their qualities of supporting
and nourishing. But the Council of Trent declared that the “ bread
retains the quality natural to bread.” The presence of Christ then
is the presence of a spiritual substance, so that the Roman Church
agrees with the Anglican in teaching a spiritual and not a carnal
presence.
Connected with this doctrine was the sacrifice of the mass. The
Reformers called the Church of Rome “the Upas tree of super
stition.” They determined to cut it to pieces, root and branch. Article
XXXI. says—“The sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly
said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have
remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous
deceits.” In all ages of the Church of England, in all controversies,
by all theologians since the Reformation to the days of Dr. Newman,
this Article was understood to condemn the sacrifice of the mass in
the Church of Rome. The counterpart of the phraseology is found
in Bishop Ridley, who calls the mass “ a new blasphemous kind of
sacrifice to satisfy and pay the price of sins both of the dead and of
the quick.” To this correspond the words of Archbishop Cranmer a
“ The Romish Antichrist, to deface this great benefit of Christ, hath
taught that His sacrifice upon the cross is not sufficient hereunto
without another sacrifice devised by him, and made by the priest.”
As Cranmer and Ridley lived before the Council of Trent, it is
possible that they may not have known the authorized doctrine of the
Church of Rome. They may have spoken of the mass as they had
themselves learned it, and as it was generally taught and understood
by the priests and people of that time. Gardiner and the defendants
of Catholicism denied the inference that the sacrifice of the mass
interfered with the one sacrifice of Christ. Yet the deliberate judg
ment of the Reformers clearly was that the mass is a blasphemous
fable and a dangerous deceit. But the Article does not say so. It
only speaks of “ masses.” It may, therefore, be understood as
referring to a custom prevalent at the time of buying and selling
masses, which was afterwards condemned by the Council of Trent.
These questions, with many others in debate between the Re
formers and the Church of Rome, ran up into the higher questions
which related to the authority of the Church and the place of the
Scriptures in reference to the Church. Article XX. says—“The
Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies and authority in
controversies of faith.” This clause was not in the Articles in 1552
nor m 1562, when they were subscribed by both Houses of Convoca
tion ; but it effected a surreptitious entrance before the Articles
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
601
received the assent of the Crown. It first appeared in the Latin
edition of 1563 ; but it was not in the English edition ratified by
Parliament that same year. The second clause of the Article is
usually understood to limit, if not to neutralize, the authority claimed
in the first. It says—“Yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain
anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so
expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another.”
Nevertheless, the clause remains, declaring that the Church has
“ authority in controversies of faiths” This?, Dr. Pussy says, is a Divine
authority. It must be if the Church hasj power to decide in matters
of faith. It implies the necessary preservation ofothe Church as a
whole from error. It is the fulfilment of, the promise,. “ Lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the wwldJ’^* The Church tells
us what is the Catholic faith, and what mustsbe believed as necessary
to salvation. The Church must net contradict Scripture nor herself.
The Fathers of the later Councils Began by expressing their assent to
the earlier. It is not open to individuals to^riticizC^by their private
judgment, the “ Catholic truth,;” which has been agreed on by the
whole Church. This,; of course^ is a long way short @f the claim of
the Church of Pome to speak infallibly on any controversy that may
arise. But then the infallibility of the Church of Rome is something
afloat.
Nobody knows exactly where it is or what it is. Two
things so indefinite as the authority of the Catholic Church and the
infallibility of the Roman Church may> meet, semewhere and touch
each other at some point.
Article VI. says—“ Holy Scripture.containeth all things necessary
to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man -that it should be
believed as an article of the faith, dr he thdught necessary or requi
site to salvation.” Then follows' a list; ®f the books which are
“ Scripture,” that is, Scripture to be usedhlbr establishing doctrine.
From this list the Apocryphal writings are excluded, It is not said
who is to decide whether or not any doctrine has been “proved ” by
Scripture. The Article^ in its-obvious meaningj-sseems to imply the
Protestant doctrine of the right of private judgments But if con
nected with the clause in Article* XX.,,rfabout * the?- authority of
the Church in controversies of - faith, it may be understood to have
another meaning. We cannot adoptothe doctriUe bfithe infallibility
of General Councils, for Article XXI. says, that “ they may err, and
sometimes have erred, in thongs pertaining ito God;” but we have
the “ Catholic Church,” with traditional creeds, dootrines, and inter
pretations. Some General Councils may have erred, but all have
not. Those which have not erred are Catholic. That they have not
erred is the test of their Catholicity or (Ecumenicity. Who is to
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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW
decide which General Councils have erred and which have not, is
still in dehate between Dr. Pusey and the Church of Pome. But
the apparent Protestantism of Article VI. is removed. The right of
private judgment is denied. The meaning of the Scriptures is to be
learned from the traditional interpretations of the “ Catholic ” Church.
It is assumed by Dr. Pusey and his party that the Church of
England was not reformed according to the Scriptures alone, but
according to the Scriptures as understood by the Fathers. It can
scarcely be a mistake to say at once that, in the sense intended, this is a
supposition without any foundation. It is a principle never announced
in the writings of the Reformers. Cranmer and Ridley, considering
the great ignorance of the common people, decided, as a matter of
policy, that the changes in the services of the Church should be as
few as possible consistently with the entire elimination of Roman
doctrine. It is a matter of history that in this they had not the
agreement of Hooper, and were but partially favoured by LatimerJ
The principle of the English Reformation, stated expressly by Bishop
Jewel, is, that the appeal is made to the Scriptures alone. Then
followed the question as to the Fathers, which simply was, that they
are on the side of the Church of England rather than on that of Rome.
The solitary passage adduced by Newman and Pusey for their views
of the Patristic character of the English Reformation is from a canon
in the reign of Elizabeth. This canon enjoins that “preachers should
be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be religiously
held by the people except that which is agreeable to the doctrines of
the Old and New Testament, and which the Catholic Fathers and
ancient Bishops have collected from that very doctrine.” But there
is nothing to intimate that this canon meant more than Bishop
Jewel’s principle, that Roman doctrine was not to be found in the
Fathers. It was in the same reign that a Convocation gave a semi
official authority to Bullinger’s “ Decades,” commanding the less
educated clergy to find there the material for their sermons.
Article XXV. reduces the sacraments of the Gospel to two, rejecting
five of the Roman sacraments. With these five were connected many of
the superstitions which the Reformers had to remove. They declared
that they were not sacraments of “ like nature with Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony
ordained of God.” But the word sacrament has a very general meaning.
Whatever is a visible sign of the Divine goodness may be a sacraments
The rainbow is a sacrament. The flowers of spring are sacraments.
All nature is a sacrament. The Protestant meaning of the Article
was clear enough. The five rejected sacraments were regarded as
merely of ecclesiastical authority, and might, therefore, be either
retained or laid aside. Confirmation, orders, and matrimony were
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
603
retained: the first because it was an old and useful custom, the
lecond for the sake of order, and the third because no reformation
could abolish matrimony. Penance and extreme unction were closely
interwoven with the popular superstitions. The Prayer-Book recom
mends confession to those who are troubled in conscience, as a pre
paration for the Lord’s Supper. But penance, properly speaking, as
well as extreme unction, departed from the Church of England at the
Reformation.
Dr. Pusey passes in review these five rejected sacraments, lament
ing the loss of extreme unction, yet maintaining that in substance
the other four are still r-etained as sacraments. The mode of proof
is to have recourse to the Prayer-Book? and Homilies, connecting
together some stray passages, and interpreting them by the light of
what is called the “ Catholic ”1 Church. The j'principle by which
Dr. Pusey interprets the Articled is? to take them as they stand, and
see what the words may mean apart? from the history of the times
or the known sentiments of the BefoiiLdm. Bhdkwhile all external
light on the Protestant side is excluded, the Articles are to yield
to every “ Catholic ” phrase, and every overlooked remnant of the
old superstition that can be picked up’in any unswept corner of the
Homilies or the Prayer-Book. There.; is no Protestant who is un
willing to abide by the Homilies, and to subscribe to the words of
Article XXXV., that they contain a “ godly and wholesome doctrine
and necessary for these times.” But no man is required to subscribe
to every sentence in the Homilies; and Dr. Pusey, least of all men
living, would like to be bound even by their general teaching. They
were written by men whose sentiments differed widely; by the
“Catholic” Bishop Bonner and the Presbyterian Prebendary of
Canterbury, Thomas Becon, the judicious Archbishop Cranmer, and
the glory of the Elizabethan prelates, the learned Jewel. The
Homilies indeed contain a “ godly and a wholesome doctrine ;” but
they are full of blasphemy, both against the Popo and the devil.
When Dr. Newman applied his alembic to the Homilies, all the
“Catholic truth” he could distil out of themwas’a few unguarded
sentences chieflv from the Fathers, some general*- statements about
the primitive Church, the application of the Word “ Scripture ” to
the Apocryphal writings, and sometimes ordination or matrimony
called a sacrament. The exility of the evidence from the Homilies
was in strange contrast with the immensity of the conclusion.
It is naturally an important matter for Dr. Pusey’s object to be
able to prove that the Church of England has retained valid Orders.
Without this it would be idle to speak of the Church of England
being a part of the' Catholic Church, while the necessity of an
Episcopal succession is the first requisite of Catholicity. Now, what-
�604
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
ever Roman Catholics have to say against the validity of English
ordination, the historical fact cannot be denied that at the Reforma
tion the Episcopal succession was not broken. Dr. Pusey makes a
great matter of this. He finds the consecrators of Parker were
anxious to adhere to the ancient forms. They looked out for a
precedent, and found one in the case of Archbishop Chichele, who
was consecrated at a time when the intercourse between Rome and
England was interrupted. They used as the words of consecration,
“ Take the Holy Ghost,” which they had translated from the Exeter
Pontifical. To make sure work of it, all the four consecrating
bishops put their hands on the archbishop’s head, and all four
repeated the words of consecration. Hr. Pusey adds, “ Surely this
care to do what the Church had done is, in itself, evidence enough
of the intention required ! ” It is difficult to enter into men’s inten
tions, but it is not difficult to know that there were many reasons in
simple policy why the old forms of consecration should be retained.
We say nothing of the fact that the establishment of an Episcopal
Church at all was the will of the Queen rather than of the .men who
were made bishops. The Zurich Letters sufficiently reveal the
unepiscopal dispositions of Elizabeth’s first prelates. But to speak
only of the four consecrators of Parker. They were Barlow, Cover
dale, Scory, and Hodgskins. The last was only a suffragan. Of him
and Scory we know nothing, except it be that they preferred exile
rather than conformity under Mary. Miles Coverdale, all the world
knows, was a Puritan. He and Scory refused to wear Episcopal
robes at the consecration, and officiated in Geneva gowns. Cover
dale was never restored to his diocese. Conformity to the Church
was so little to his mind that the rest of his days were spent, for the
most part, in poverty and persecution. As to Barlow, his judgment of
the value of consecration is on record. He said in a sermon, that “ if
the king’s grace, being supreme head of the Church of England, did
choose, denominate, and elect any layman, being learned, to be a
bishop, he, so chosen, without mention being made of orders,
should be as good a bishop as I am, or the best in England.” This is
enough; but he adds, “ Wheresover two or three simple persons, as
cobblers or weavers, are in company, and elected in the name of God,
there is the true Church of God.” So far as Barlow was concerned,
the renowned Nag’s Head in Cheapside was as fit a place for the
consecration of an archbishop as the chapel at Lambeth Palace. We
cannot undertake to speak of his “ intention.” But we can scarcely
doubt that if William Barlow and Miles Coverdale had known the
use which Dr. Pusey was to make of their consecrating an archbishop,
they would sooner have put their hands into the fire than laid them
on the head of Matthew Parker.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
605
Dr. Pusey’s Church of England is something altogether different
From the old Church of England, of which we read in history, and
which we find in the writings of the old English divines. The
reunionists generally make an effort to reconcile the old Reformed
Church with their “ Catholic ” ideas. When they fail they usually
revenge themselves by a kick at the Reformers. The bishops of
whom Dr. Pusey speaks, as so anxious to preserve the “ Catholic ”
faith and order, are dismissed by one of the Reunion Essayists as
“ the whole tribe of Calvinistic prelates under Elizabeth.” They were
not able, he adds, “ to root out faith and love ” from the people, nor
to prevent them still “piously drawing the sign of the cross on
forehead and breast.” Beyond all controversy Elizabeth’s bishops
were Calvinists. They simply conformed to Episcopacy. There is
no evidence that one of them believed in the’ divine institution of
bishops. In fact, that doctrine was unknown in ffhe Church of
England till Bancroft, in 1588, preached his famous sermon at St.
Paul’s Cross. Whitgift was then archbishop, and, tired of his long
warfare with the Puritans, he wished that Bancroft’s doctrine were
true, for it would be a shqrt and easy method of dealing with the
Nonconformists. An ecclesiastical polity by'^divine right was first
maintained by the Presbyterians. It is almosfi theJsole subject of the
discourses of Thomas Cartwright. It was the essence of the railings
of Martin Marprelate. “ The Lord’s discipline ” was the Puritan’s
phrase for the polity of the Church as it ought to be.. The doctrine
continued among the Independents. It is traceable, for instance, in
the works of Thomas Goodwin, in the form of grace coming by the
appointed ministers as by a sori of material channels. The Stuart
divines took up the idea, and connected it with Episcopacy. After
the Restoration, when Presbyterians and Independents became
brothers in adversity, it was gradually obscured. In the practical,
common-sense eighteenth century it. was almost extinct. In the
Episcopal form it has turned up again in our own day. On whatever
authority it may rest its claims, it is as certain as any matter of
history that it was not the doctrine of the Reformers of the Church
of England.
Again, in Dr. Pusey’s two favourite doctrines, the Real Presence in
the Eucharist and Baptismal Regeneration, we could show that he is
not in agreement with the old Reformed Church of England. Cranmer,
while using the strongest language concerning the presence of Christ’s
body and blood in the sacrament of the Supper, takes care to explain
it as meaning only that the faithful feed upon Christ in the Eucharist
in the same way as they feed upon Him in every act of worship.
All the Reformers, even Calvin, Bucer, and Peter Martyr, were
anxious to retain the rhetorical language of the Fathers concerning this
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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
sacrament, and this caused them sometimes to speak as if they really
intended a transubstantiation. Then they had to explain themselves
by incomprehensible speeches, such as eating a body spiritually, and
feeding in the sacrament upon that which is really in heaven. This
was not peculiar to the Church of England. It passed into all the^
Eeformed Churches. Even the Westminster Assembly’s Confession
declares that the body and blood of Christ “ are as really but
spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the
elements themselves are to their outward senses.” Clear-headed men,
like John Hales of Eton and. Ralph Cudworth, rejected this way of
speaking as bordering upon nonsense. Even Bishop Jewel had
light enough. tojdeclare that the only use of the Supper was a com
memoration of Christ’s death.,. >and that all other uses are abuses.
But, while the language remained in the formularies, it is not remark
able that some took it literally. It suited the Stuart divines when
they tried to convert the Reformed Church of England into a
“ Catholic ” Church. They talked about altars and sacrifices, but it
was a long time before they, knew what they had to sacrifice.
Andrewes and Buckeridge gave the grotesque explanation that we offer
on the altar the elector mystical Church, which is the body of Christ.
The language .of the Baptismal service had a like origin. Calvinistic Reformers retained it, but in connection with their doctrine of
absolute predestination. It is found in all the Reformed Confessions
as strongly as in bur Prayer-Book. It really meant that every elect
child was regenerated in baptism. But as no man could distinguish
which children were elect, and which were not, it was charitably sup
posed that all were regenerated. This is the only explanation which
a Calvinist could put on. it if he believed the regeneration to be actual.
And it is the interpretation which the Calvinist divines of that age
did put upon it. Hooker, speaking of baptism in connection with
predestination, .says, that “ all do not receive the grace of the sacra
ment who receive the sacrament.” It is remarkable that, at the Savoy
Conference, the Puritans did not object to the baptismal regeneration
of the Baptismal service. They asked that the words “ remission of
sins by spiritual regeneration” might be changed into “may be
regenerated and receive remission of sins.” This was asked, not
because they objected to the doctrine, but because the words seem
to confound remission of isirih with regeneration. We have as little
desire as Dr. Pusey dan have to be bound by the meaning of the
service as understood by the “ Calvinistic prelates,” who made it part
of the Prayer-Book; and while the words are there, we are not
surprised that some persons will take them literally. They are
fairly capable of Dr. Pusey’s interpretation, but it will do no harm
to remember the truth and the whole truth concerning their history.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
607
g But the greatest of all difficulties in the way of reunion between
the Church of England and- the Church of Rome, are the two latest
(Roman dogmas. The infallibility of the Pope, if not already pro
claimed, will be, it is generally believed, before many days. This
must put an end to all hopes of the reunion of England in any other
Way than by penance and absolution. If the Pope is infallible, Eng
land is in the fearful pit of heresy and schism. The Immaculate Con
ception of the mother of Jesus has been a dogma since 1854. This
is the great cpm# to Anglicans. The Protestant doctrine that Christ
alone is without sin, and that He alone is the Mediator, displaced the
worship of the Virgin in all Protestant countries. In the Church of
England there is not a vestige of it to be found. .Mary is no more
worshipped than any other holy matron. It is peculiarly the doctrine
of English Christians that “Jesus is all.” In Him they see supremely
all that in man is great and noble, all that in woman is pure and
gentle. The first thing that strikes and repels a Protestant when
he goes into a Roman Catholic Church, is ’the supremacy that seems
everywhere given to Mary.
Apart from the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, there is a
cultus which has grown wild and luxuriant, sometimes checked by the
authorities, and sometimes encouraged, as the devotion best suited
to certain classes of people. The account which Dr. Pusey gives
of the extent of Mary-worship in some Roman Catholic countries, is
a very sad one. The passages he quotes “from Roman Catholic
authors, some authorized and some not,” drew even from Dr. Newman
the confession that he read them with sorrow and anger. Dr. Pusey
shows that Roman Catholics pray to Mary to have remission of sins,
to be led into the way of truth, to have grace, life, and glory.
Catholicism, it is said, does not flourish in England, because English
Catholics do not give sufficient worship to Mary. “ Here in England,”
says a pious Roman Catholic writer, “Mary is not half enough
preached : devotion to her is low and thin. It is frightened out of
its wits by the sneers of heresy. It is always inviting human respect
and carnal prudence, wishing to make Mary so little of a Mary, that
Protestants may feel at ease about her. Jesus is obscured, because
Mary is kept in the back-ground. Thousands of souls perish because
Nary is withheld from them.” Italian priests have lamented by the
death-beds of their English converts, that they were but half con
verted, for when dying they put their trust in Jesus, and never
littered a prayer to Mary. Dr. Pusey has often been told that before
he can expect to be converted he must learn to pray to Mary. In
the Church of Rome, Mary is all in all. She is the “ Queen of
heaven, and Mistress of the world,” “the Great One Herself,” “the
Holy Mother of God,” “ Companion of the Redeemer,” “ Co-redempl VOL. XTV.
SS
�6o8
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
tress,” li Authoress of eternal salvation,” “ the Destroyer of heresies
throughout the world,” “ the King in the chain of creatures,” “ the
Mediatress not of men only, but of angels,” “the Complement of the
Trinity.” One Catholic writer says, that in the Eucharist they eat
and drink not only the flesh and blood of Christ, but the flesh and
blood of the virgin Maryland that there is present in the sacrament,
not only the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the
virgin milk of His virgin mother. Another writer says that the
regenerate are born not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man,
but of God md Mary.
It is sometimes very projvoking to have the plain truth told. Of
course this well-evidenced charge of Mariolatry implied that
“ the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their manner of living
and ceremonies, but. also in matters of faith.” Dr. Pusey’s pro
posals for reunion were met wifh a howl of indignation. The autho
rities at Rome put his book in the Index of books forbidden, along
with two others which, Dr. Pusey says, contain “ blasphemies against
our Lord’s All-Holiness.” The Church of Rome crucified Dr. Pusey,
nailing him to the back of the door of St. Peter’s along with two
malefactors, who only received the just reward of their deeds. Dr.
Pusey did not relish the socmfy of his two companions in tribula
tion. He did not. sne that “ Ecce Homo ” was really an “ Eirenicon,”
that its brilliant pages portrayed the human life of Him who even in
His humanity was divine., and thereby drew all men unto Him. And
did not the Either book also jS-peak peace ? Was it not an Eirenicon,
and with no “sword wreathed in myrtle ?” Did it not appeal to the
Catholic reason of mankind to find in that reason a basis for the
essential doctrines of the religion of Jesus Christ, and so to unite all
men into one Church wide as the human race, and Catholic as God’s
universe ? The Dublin Review complains that there are some things
which they “ cannot hammer into Dr. Pusey’s head.”*
Of the two great parties into which the Church of Rome is
divided it was from one only that Dr. Pusey could expect even a
patient hearing, and that party is not the one which rules the
Church of Rome. It only exists on sufferance. Taking it as repre
sented by such Catholics as Dr. Dollinger there is scarcely a doctrine
or ceremony on which they could not come easily to at least a tem
porary agreement with Dr. Pusey. But they meet each other only
by accident. Like travellers lodging at the “ Three Taverns,” they
are within a day’s journey of Rome. But while Dr. Pusey has set
his face as if he would go to the great city, Dr. Dollinger and his
' * In. the Essays on. Reunion Dr. Pusey complains bitterly of the treatment he had
received at Pome. He adds afterwards, in a note, that he has received reliable informa
tion that his book escaped the Index.
�DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES.
friends have been there already, and have no wish to return.
them it is not like
609
To
“ A little heaven below.”
The intimate relations that have long existed between Dr. Pusey
and Dr. Newman give a peculiar human interest to this controversy.
We say controversy, for such it has really become. Dr. Newman’s con
version to Roman Catholicism will never have any other significance
than that of a curious study for the psychologist. A great reasoner
adopts some principles which have no foundation in reason. He reasons
upon them till he becomes troubled with the incongruities between his
reason and what he believes. To get peace and to save his soul he at
last abandons reason, and clings only to authority. He wants to be
delivered from thetresponsibility of reason. So he joins the Church of
Rome because it makes the oldest and the boldest claim to speak in
fallibly in the name of God. There is an acknowledged principle in
physiology that a well-developed organ often has its strength at the ex
pense of some other organ or organs. The same principle is probably
applicable to the faculties of the mind, and explains the co-existence of
strength and weakness in the same man. Dr. Newman actually speaks
of “ saving his soul ” by leaving the Church of England for the
Church of Rome, and the principle is the one of being on the safe side
after a reckoning of probabilities. The turning-point of the con
version of this great master of reasoning was a rhetorical sentence
in the very illogical St. Augustine. “Securus judicat orbis ter
rarum ! ” cried the Bishop of Hippo, in his controversy with the
Donatists. The world must be right against* a sect that exists only
in the north of Africa. The world mustibe right, echoed Dr. New
man, against Anglicans who exist only in England. It is always
an argument that a man is in the wrong when the whole world is
against him. But what was St. Augustine’s “orbis terrarum?”
The great saint really believed that thes Roman empire embraced the
world, and that the whole world was converted to Christianity. What
was Dr. Newman’s world whose universal judgment was to overrule
his reason ? It was not the eight or nine hundred millions that people
the globe. It was not the judgment of the wise men of all ages which
he sought. It was not even the judgment of the learned men of
Europe. It was only, we may say, the judgment of the Council of Trent
received by Roman Catholics, not as the conclusion of their reason,
but as the evidence of their submission to the authority of a Church.
Dr. Pusey’s first letter to Newman, which we take to form Part II.
of the “ Eirenicon,” is entirely devoted to the Immaculate Conception.
This was the subject on which Dr. Newman had undertaken to
enlighten his “ deal’ Pusey,” whom he congratulates with a superb
piece of the most delicate sarcasm on his seeing his way to lay down
■s s 2
�6iO
,’AAT THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
definite proposals as a basis of corporate reunion. Dr. Pusey is
here told that the Church of England is fundamentally in error, and
that he must come to the Catholic Church in the spirit of obedience,
not reserving to himself so much private judgment as whether or
not he shall kiss a crucifix. Immaculate conception is explained as
simply meaning that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary
had a superadded fulness of .grace, which put her in a state of inno
cence corresponding to'that of Eve.
St. Augustine explained
original sin as birth by concupiscence. And in this sense Mary was
not without it. Her birth was not supernatural, like that of Jesus.
But she had supernatural graces added. She did not fall, as Eve
did, but merited to become the mother of the Redeemer. In this
sense, she too is a Saviour. Dr. Newman justifies to a great extent
the popular Mariolatry. The silly things which devout people say
in their devotions to Mary are compared to the silly things that fall
from lovers’ lips, to be whispered only in lovers’ ears. Dr. Pusey
naturally asks the question, If this worship of Mary was in the
primitive Church ? He applies the old rule of Catholicism, laid
down by Vincentius Lirinensis—“ What was believed by all, always,
and everywhere.” Dr. Newman answers from his theory of “ Deve
lopment,” that it existed in germ. Mr. Harper illustrates the process
by development in nature. We do not look for vertebrates in the
earliest geological strata; yet we find germs or rudiments of the
organisms that now exist. This means, we imagine, that if Mr. Dar
win had proved that men are developed from fishes, it would therefore
be right to say that fishes'.aye men, because men are developed from
fishes. In this way the unity of li Catholic truth ” is preserved.
The passages which Dr; Newman quotes from the Fathers in
support of Mary-worship are such as the words of St. Jerome,—
<l Death by Eve, life by Mary,” or this of Tertullian, Mary “ blotted
out ” Eve’s fault, and brought back “ the female sex,” or 11 the
human race ” to salvation.. The old Fathers had a great fondness
for contrasts. St. Paul’s illustration of the first and second man
may have suggested that of the first and second woman. The lan
guage, indeed, of the Fathers is not to be justified, but it is unfair
to take their fanciful parallels, and convert them into doctrines. If
this were done only by Roman Catholics we might have a word to
say for Dr. Pusey ; but Dr. Newman argues, we think justly, that
from Dr. Pusey’s own doctrine concerning the mother of Jesus, he
ought not to be offended by some of the titles used in the Church of
Rome. Dr. Pusey delights to call Mary the “ Mother of God.”
This is a title which to modern ears sounds like blasphemy. Taken
literally, it is destructive of the “ Catholic faith,” for even the creed
of St. Athanasius does not say that the man Jesus was God, but ex-
�fDR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. :6n
pressly the contrary, that He was “man, of the substance of His
mother.” A General Council decreed that Mary was Theotocos
Deipara, or Mother of God. It must then be received as an article
of the faith by all who believe in the infallibility of Councils. It
originated in the fond fancies of such Fathers as St. Ignatius, who
gays “ Our God was carried in the womb of Mary,” and of St. Chry
sostom, who speaks of the “ Everlasting ” as born of a woman. It
is continued by Dr. Newman, who does not scruple to say that
ii Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal.” Even with Dr.
Pusey she is “ Our Lady.”
“ Eirenicon,” Part III., or the second letter to Dr. Newman, is a
defence of the original positions of the “ Eirenicon.” It still maintains
that reunion is possible if we can treat with the Church, of Rome on
the Gallican principles as expounded by* Bossuet. This leads Dr.
Pusey to repeat the well-known arguments and facts against Papal
infallibility. But the repetition of them is an offence to the very
party which rules the Church of Rome.
For the spirit and claims of that party we must turn to Dr. Man
ning’s Pastoral. Some Roman Catholics and some Anglo-Catholics
had formed an association, and agreed to pray together for the
reunion of Christendom. The Roman Catholic! bishops in England
submitted the constitution of-the “association” to the judgment of
the “ Congregation of the Holy Office ” at Rome. The association
was condemned, and “Catholics” were*', forbidden to pray with
Anglicans for any such object. The grounds of the condemnation
involved the condemnation of the principles on; which the Anglicans
proposed reunion. The “ Congregation ” said that there were not
three Churches of Christ—-the Greek, the'Roman, and the Anglican
—but only one Church, which was that <rf Rome. Christ’s Church
had never lost its unity, and never could lose it. Diider pain of eter
nal death, it was declared to be the duty of every man to enter the only
Church of Christ, which was that presided oyer by the Bishop of Rome.
Dr. Manning described the scheme of union as based, not on the Thirtynine Articles as understood by Englishmen, nor* on the Council of
Trent as understood by Catholics, but in a sensevknown neither to the
Church of England nor the Church of Rome. He declares it to be as
impossible to be saved out of the “ on© fold,” which is that of Rome,
as it is to be regenerated without baptism. The Church of England is
the “ Anglican separation,” the Greek Church 'is. the “ Greek schism.”
To call these Churches parts of the Church Catholic is to destroy
the boundaries of truth and falsehood. If these Churches are Catho
lic, then the infallibility and oecumenicity of Trent must be denied.
Dr. Manning says that if Anglicans appeal to Bossuet, they must
believe with Bossuet. The infallibility of the Pope may be denied,
�612
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
but there remains the infallibility of the Church. Bossuet lived in
Catholic unity, Anglicans are in separation. It is not enough to
accept the decrees of Trent because we agree with them. This is
mere private judgment. They must be accepted because the Council
spoke with authority. To decide, because of evidence, to agree with
the Church in doctrine, through an exercise of private judgment,
does not make a man a Catholic. That requires submission and
obedience. It is the Church which interprets both antiquity and the
Scriptures. Its office is to assert, not to argue; to declare, not to
give reasons. It is no sign of humility, Dr. Manning says, and no
evidence of faith, to appeal from the Pope to a General Council of
Greeks, Anglicans, and Romans, *who shall put down Ultramontanism,
declare the Pope fallible, and restore the Immaculate Conception
to the region of pious opinions. True faith is obedience to the
Church of Rome; “other foundation can no man lay.”
Of the same tone and character is Mr. Harper’s elaborate work,
“Peace through the Truth.” The Church, that is, the Church of
Rome, is the visible kingdom of Christ, “His Incarnation.” It is a
supernatural institutiontaand lives a supernatural life. A religious
society, like the Church of England, outside of the “ true Church,”
has no rights. The question is between “the Incarnate Word” and
“ a body of men.” To say that the Church has erred for twelve
centuries is (to say that the Holy Ghost has failed in His mission.
The Church being,i*aiS -it were, the body of Christ, not by a figure, but
in reality, from Him, through the hierarchy, flows a never-ceasing
stream of supernatural grace; but it flows only through those in
union with the body. The Anglican priesthood are, therefore, but
“high and dry” channels, without even a globule of sacramental
grace. In Dr. Pusey’s objections to the extravagances of Roman
devotion Mr. Harper only sees hatred to the practical life of the
Church. The “dominant errors,” against which Dr. Newman said
our Articles were chiefly directed, are regarded as the “ perfected
consciousness ” of the Church. It cannot, we think, be denied that
Mr. Harper has here caught the spirit by which the Church of Rome
lives. This accords with the claims of an infallible Church. The con
sistency of the ideal is preserved. Our Reformers agreed with Mr.
Harper that the popular superstitions were a part of the consciousness
of the Church of Rome, and just on that account they did not trouble
themselves to distinguish between authorized dogma and what was
commonly believed. And this is really the vital question. It is
not whether a harmony can be effected between the creeds of the two
Churches, but whether the two Churches can have one life, one con
sciousness. All Protestants have felt instinctively, as Mr. Harper
feels, that between the Church of England and the Church of Rome
�THE ULTRAMONTANES. 613
there is “ a great gulf.” On which side are the companions of Dives
or Lazarus will be a matter of difference. But Mr. Harper is con
sistent with himself when he says, that but for the Deformation in
England “ thousands now in hell might have been eternally saved.”
He denies that there is one well authenticated case of a Pope
falling into error. The Anglican doctrine of the “ Heal Presence,”
even as explained by Dr. Pusey, is decld&ed to be in direct contradic
tion to that of the Council of Trent, while the1 history of the “Black
Rubric” determines, with historical certainty, that Dr. Pusey’s doc
trine is not that of the Church of England. Mr. Harper announces a
“ Second Series ” of Essays, and Dr. Pusey advertises a reply to Mr.
Harper.
,
Of all the answers to Dr. Pusey, W'e know of none to be compared
with that in the Revue du Mond'e Catholique. It consists of three
articles by a Jesuit Father, written with a fascin&tin'g precision, with
a penetrating insight into the minutest bearings of‘the question, and
with a delicate raillery worthy of the happiest moments of Voltaire.
The literary and theological value of the “ ESfenfeofflf” is estimated at
about nothing. The arguments are simply thteAhttV'ata^d thirty years
ago by Father Newman, and by the 's’ame Farther afterwards solidly
refuted. The Anglicans reject the natne of Protestant, and take upon
them that of Anglo-Catholics, “ or even Catholics.” Of all the Pro
testant sects the Anglican is- the most inconsequent, precisely because
it is that which has preserved most Catfrdlic truth while revolting
against the Catholic Church. It professes tb follow antiquity, and
yet there is nothing in antiquity more clea'H^y proclaimed by the first
Councils, or more energetically demonstrated by the Fathers, than
the supremacy of the Homan See. When Cardinal Wiseihan got the
Anglicans upon antiquity, he crushed them under the weight of
decisive texts. Anglicans rest on Episcopacy because of the privi
leges which the Fathers say are possessed by the bishops; but these
same Fathers show that the first condition of enjoying these privi
leges is legitimate appointment. Catholics have always denied the
validity of the consecration of the Anglican bishops under Elizabeth.
With only one exception they had all been vwlently introduced into
their sees by the royal authority, and contrary to the holy canons.
From the Fathers the Anglicans learned Some vague ideas about the
necessity of the unity of the Church. On the strength of this they
pronounced a severe sentence against the Dissenters. They even
called John Wesley a heresiarch. More than that, their simplicity
was such that they charged Catholics with quitting the great unity
of the Christian world. Anglicans saw the necessity of an authority,
but they could not determine where it was to be found. Article
XX. gives the Church a right to propose decisions, but not to impose
�614
THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW^
them. The Church has some authority in appearance, but none in
reality.
In the early days of “ Anglo-Catholicism,” Newman and Oakley,
simply maintained that the Thirty-nine Articles could bear a
Catholic sense; but now Dr. Pusey says this is their real sense.
But to make Dr. Pusey a Catholic one thing is lacking. With!
out that one thing he will be a Protestant all the days of his
life. He wants that which in itself constitutes orthodoxy. He
wants submission to the authority of the Church. He must believe
the doctrines of the Church, not because of their agreement
with Scripture and tradition, but because the Church declare!
them. It is true he believes the Church, but then it is the Church
of another age.—a Church which speaks by documents of which.
Dr. Pusey remains the sole^judge. Like other Protestants, he still
exercises his private judgment. The only difference is that they
interpret the Bible only, while Dr. Pusey interprets decrees of
Councils and writings of Fathers. But in both cases there is private
judgment and an equal absence of true faith, which is submission.
The Church of the first centuries was infallible, according to Dr.
Pusey. That is to say, Christ’s promise to His Church was only
kept till the Cl^rrch was invaded by heresy and schism. The guides
of the Church now are to be the writings of the Fathers. But does
Dr. Pusey know the meaning of the Fathers? Their writings may
be understood in many senses. Moreover, if Christianity can only be
learned from the Fathers, what is to become of the multitude of
people who have no time to read either Fathers or decrees of Coun
cils ? Did Jesus Christ place His truth within the reach of Oxford
doctors only, and not also of infants and little children ? There is
nothing, the French writer says, peaceful in Dr. Pusey’s book except
its title. It is “a sad book.” It proposes to unite “Anglicans’!
and “ Catholics,” by converting both into “Puseyites.”
The Reunion Essays, published by Mr. Hayes, are in their way
curiosities. AVe might have given the volume a word of commendation, but for the utter inanity of three or four of the
essays about the middle and towards the end of the book. One
writer proposes nothing less than to un-Protestantize and to
Catholicize England. Another speaks of the restoration of the
“ Daily Sacrifice,” One charges the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge with “ an overt act of heresy,” in striking out of all
its books, at the instigation of a late Archbishop of Canterbury,
without a protest from a single bishop, the expression “ Mother of
God.
Another bemoans the infidelity of the age, which has almost
ceased to believe that there is “material fire” in hell. But the
gem of the collection is the Essay by “ A Priest of the Archdiocese of
�^DR. PUSEY AND THE ULTRAMONTANES. 615
Bofftantinople,” who tells the Anglicans, in the spirit of Mr. Harper,
that they and the Roman Catholics tl must hear the words of truthful
warning from the unvarying lips of orthodoxy; that il the truth
which the orthodox hold must be affirmed ” by all, and that “ ortho1 doxy is ready and willing to explain when the uninformed are
prepared to be taught.”
With the Greek Church reunion is more probable than with the
Roman ; but the great interest of the question turns on the relation
of Rome to separated or national Churches. The claim which Rome
makes is peculiar, and as generations pass, that claim is increasingly
urged. The events of the passing hour take away all hope that
those who rule the Church of Rome will ever make even a sign to
Hr. Pusey and his friends, till, on bended knees, they receive from
the “ Holy Father ” that blessing which will purify them from the
birth-sin of heresy. Nor in one sense do we blame Rome.
If it really is what it professes to be, it is right in making no sur
render. But, on the other hand, if it is not what it professes to be,
then Protestants are justified in the severest things that they have
said against, it. If Mr. Harper’s view of the Church of Rome
really is the correct one, it either is what he calls it, an “ incarna
tion” of Christ, or it is Antichrist. In the latter case the claim
to infallibility will be its destruction, and Protestants may say,
“ Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone.”
We might urge this on “ Anglo-Catholics,” but we are too con
scious that their position is not one reached by reason. It is simply
due to a certain tendency of mind. The same men who are “ AngloCatholics ” in the Church of England would be Ultramontanes in the
Church of Rome. There are two tendencies in all Churches. One
is the disposition to rely on authority ; the other is to mental inde
pendence. We sometimes see Roman Catholics claiming the right
to reason for themselves, and Protestants rejoicing in the renun
ciation of reason. Dr. Pusey, in the nineteenth century, still looks
for grace coming through a hierarchy, as through a material channel.
Bishop Jewel, three centuries ago, was able to say that divine grace
K is not given to sees and successions, but to them, that fear God.
John Hunt.
�
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Z'K/V
•
VATICAN DECREES
AND
THE “EXPOSTULATION.”
BY
ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD,
Minister of the Free Christian Church, Wellesley Road, Croydon; formerly
Apostolic Missionary and Prefect of the “Guard of Honour;"
Author of several Pamphlets in this Series.
PUBLISHED
BY
TEUBNER AND
CO.,
57 AND 59 LUDGATE HILL ; AND
THOMAS SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1874.
Price Sixpence.
•’V
�■t
f
LONDON:
PRINTED
BY C. W. REYNELL, 16 LITTLE PULTENEY STREB'
HAYMARKET, W.
�PREFACE.
Since the appearance of Mr. Gladstone’s “ Expos
tulation,” I have been repeatedly asked to express my
opinions as to the political bearing of the Vatican
decrees. The subject is of an extent and complication
beyond the limits of a pamphlet; but as some friends
are partial enough to urge me to make known, at
least in a general way, something of the result of my
thoughts and experience, I can no longer consistently
maintain the silence which I should prefer. Though
after the thoughtful and accurate statements which
have emanated from Mr. Gladstone, Lord Acton,
Lord Camoys, the Right Rev. Monsignore Capel, the
Very Rev. Monsignore Patterson, and the able com
ments upon the same in our leading periodicals, I
have little to add beyond the expression of my per
sonal experience ; the quotations, which at the request
of the same parties are appended to this brochure,
will explain to strangers my profound personal inte
rest in a question which has so intimately affected
my own life.
��THE VATICAN DEGREES
AND
THE “EXPOSTULATION.”
EOPLE cannot be allowed the pleasure of at the
same time affirming and denying a conviction.
The Neo-Catholics, headed by the Pope, and in
England by Archbishop Manning, declare the Vatican
decrees to be an undoubted expression of the Divine
will. The Old Catholics, represented by such men
as Bishop Reinkins, Dr. Dollinger, and Lord Acton,
declare them to be merely the utterances of what
Dr. Newman designated “ an aggressive and insolent
faction.” The Vatican Council is either ecumenic or
schismatic. Skilful men can find reasons on either
side, and consistent men may act out either conclu
sion. The Old Catholics deny the infallibility of
the Vatican Council. The Neo-Catholics affirm its
infallibility. Learning has ranged itself on the side
of the “ Old ” Catholics; diplomacy on the side of the
“ New.” The Roman Catholic Church has disappeared;
the Vatican Church has supplanted it. We have
too much appreciation of the learning of the “ Old ”
Catholics, and the diplomatic ambition of the ecclesi
astical rulers of the “ New,” to be able to regard as a
nonentity that momentous revolution. When men
the wealth of whose virtues and learning had enriched
the Papal cause could, in advanced years, sorrow
fully permit the Pope and some millions of adherents
to leave them, at once warning and anathematized—
P
�4
^he Vatican Decrees
warning those who leave, anathematized by those
who have left;—when acute diplomatists like Dr. Man
ning urge on a revolution with all the ardour
inspired by ambition, and in presence of the sorrow
ful laments and pathetic warnings of men who had
grown old in the service of a cause then about to
die,—surely a nonentity was just the last event
contemplated by anyone. The Old Catholics and
New Catholics alike beheld in that revolution the
inauguration of a new era of individual absolutism,
to be established as the embodiment of the Divine
will; and in the name of religion, of liberty, of
humanity, the Old Catholics raised their protest. In
the name of Pius IX. and of possession, the New
Catholics raised the war cry, which died off into
a perpetual anathema. Those men who contended
on the battle-field of thought, of history, of diplo
macy, until the fatal victory of July, 1870, were not
children contending for baubles : they were men who
entered the lists. Some contended for truth, others
fought for power. The triumphant faction being in
possession of the Vatican, in possession of the
Episcopal Sees, in the possession of the ecclesiastical
edifices, retained easily power over the masses. What
they sought, they have obtained. Whenever their
chief ruler issues any declaration which he means to
be infallible, it is infallible. Should any voice,
retaining a ring of the accents of liberty, dare to say,
“The subject on which you have decreed is out of
- the range of faith and morals, so you only therein
.decree as a man;” the Ruler replies, “You have
; accepted as Divine the Vatican decrees; you therein
-declared that you will be accursed, and forfeit your
eternal salvation, unless you inwardly believe and
heartily accept, and outwardly in practice conform to
that belief, that the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff
is over all the Faithful individually and collectively;
that his authority compels your entire and unreserved
�and the “Expostulation.”
5
obedience, not only in matters appertaining to faith
and morals, but also in all those that.appertain to the
discipline and government of the Church. You
have declared your internal assent to the Divine
decree, whereby you learn that this power is from
God, represents God, is full and supreme, and not
merely of inspection and direction; that it is superior
to all other power, extends everywhere, must never
be controlled, must always enjoy free and immediate
communication with its subjects wherever they may
be; that its judgments may never be reviewed, appealed
against, or disregarded; that to it alone it apper
tains to declare what belongs to its jurisdiction and
what domains of thought and of action (if any) are
exempt from its infallible utterances.”
Obviously the Vatican faction could not regard as
meaningless and powerless such expressions, cau
tiously worded and decreed after mature deliberation.
Their promulgation was enjoined. The Vatican party
must not be surprised if those who protested against
their formation desire their promulgation. What can
be done, what was meant to be done, what will be
done, we want all men to know I Vatican diplomacy,
having obtained the weapons, would rather that the
Faithful alone, and they but gradually, should realise
the weight of the sceptre which they have forged and
feebly yielded to an Italian priest. But we would
rather know and feel the metal of the weapon pre
pared for us. A sword sheathed in velvet is still a
sword. Chains concealed in the intentions of a pre
late, still are chains. They are meant for us, and we
should like to handle them. We have been recently
somewhat naively told that they will be “ convenient.”
Doubtless ; therefore the more that is known about
them the better. In a docile school the boys collect
the birch rods, and with wondering fear feel their
substance, and speculate on their effects. If the scholars
become too frightened, should panic threaten an in
�6
Hhe Vatican Decrees
convenient outbreak, the master and ushers will pru
dently explain that the rods will be hardly ever used;
that they are merely symbols of authority, quite
harmless, almost pleasant; that obviously it can make
no difference whether the rods are in the school-room
or on the trees ; they were only gathered at the urgent
request of the boys. All very good ; but still a boy
might like to know that they are there, are meant to
be used, and will be used.
In former times we English people knew what the
Popes could effect amongst those who revered in him
a Divine primacy, but not a Divine individual, irre
sponsible infallibility. What is prepared for ns now,
when the Papal authority is declared to be absolute,
immediate, personal—when his utterances must be
believed as well as obeyed ? Now that a circle of hell
fire is drawn around the Papal subject, he must either,
like the Salamander, kill his mental liberty, or live for
ever in the flames. People have said, Why in this
country, at a time of profound peace, when all the
Vatican Catholics are living in undoubted loyalty—
why call attention to the Vatican decrees when they
are consoling Roman prelates and harming no one ?
We reply, It is just the time when we should examine
the weapons forged for emergencies. If the English
people were in times of excitement to realise the mag
nitude of the triumphant revolution, we cannot tell to
what excesses some amongst them might be driven.
Those principles of religious equality which we have
been slowly conquering by the patient energy of men
whose passion is for justice might have been pushed
back for generations into the dregs of a cowardly and
insane persecution. All men, of whatever creed,
Roman or the opposite, ought to rejoice that this sub
ject should have been brought to the front and can
vassed at a moment when it appeals to no triumphant
bigotries. I am convinced that nothing can better
secure our Roman countrymen in England than what
�and the “Expostulation.”
7
is now taking place. Let all men realise what must
and ought to be the line of action of a consistent sup
porter of the Vatican Church, as contrasted with the
position of the Old Catholics; let all men, having rea
lised it, know what to expect; let all then renew within
their minds the intense conviction that under no cir
cumstances whatsoever must opinions be punished;
that the State has only to deal with actions, and
amongst actions only with those which obviously
affect the commonwealth ; then we shall be strong to
resist and to suppress that hurricane of anti-Roman
indignation which will soener or later arise, and which
might carry away many of our great principles of
liberty, if we were not prepared to meet it by a recog
nition of the causes exciting it.
No controversialist could have caught the public
ear and instructed the public mind. The foremost
man in England alone could do it; the statesman,
rich in scholarship and in thought, representing in
his own person whatever is the highest in culture,
the most illustrious in our national traditions, the
most reverent, religious, and tolerant in character;
he, the near relative of one Roman Catholic, the inti
mate friend of many, was, above all others, the man
to speak. Judging by the standard of expediency,
his words may politically injure him; judging by the
standard of rectitude, his Expostulation ” will be
recorded amongst the most honourable deeds of an
honourable career. Many will have cause to rejoice
at it; but, above all, must we, the disciples of Reli
gious Equality, rejoice that the people of England
should have been instructed in the words and bearing
of the Vatican Decrees when that instruction could
be received quietly, take its place in the public mind
harmlessly and prepare us against contingencies
wisely.
As to explanations, there are none to give.
Some Roman Catholics, like Sir George Bowyer,
�8
The Vatican Decrees
may not as yet understand the Decrees, and may,
in consequence of their known spirit of submission,
be allowed to write condemned propositions publicly,
trusting to their private repentance in the Con
fessional. But the common sense of the people of
England will easily perceive that the question is not
whether now the Pope may be enforcing loyalty or
not, but what all consistent subjects of the Vatican
Church must do when the Pope may enforce another
course. Regarding that, there can be no question.
Catholics will divide between those who accept the
Vatican Decrees and those* who reject them; the
latter will practically be in the same position as all
the Episcopal Churches, independent of Rome, e.g.,
the Greek, Russian, English, American, and German.
In saying that, we can easily surmise the future
action of Neo-Catholics as to Papal Decrees hostile
to our national interests. I do not mean to state that
their constant obedience to the Pope can be always
depended upon by him. Men do not always act in
accordance with their convictions, even under pain of
certain eternal damnation. But we must not forget
that no Neo-Catholic can approach the Sacraments if
he be engaged in any line of action forbidden by the
Pope; and all Catholics deem the Sacraments essen
tial to salvation ; moreover, disobedience to the Pope
in a grave matter would be understood to be invariably
a mortal sin. A soldier dying in a forbidden service
knows that he perishes for ever in Hell. It may be
said, practically, the Pope will probably not frequently
interfere—that will depend—one fact let us remem
ber, the Pope does not show much interest in matters
of merely personal or public virtue—he seldom thinks
it worth his while to issue a Decree against drunk
enness and such like faults. When dignified eccle
siastics in this country have taken up such merely
moral questions, it has been well known that it has
been chiefly to prevent the cause falling into the
�and the “Expostulation”
9
exclusive hands of Protestants. But the questions
connected with Papal power have never been allowed
to sleep. During the last years, Boman Catholics have
felt as if all religion and morality depended upon the
success of Papal political schemes. All the action of
the Pope has been to concentrate power in himself,
and to make it daily felt. His chief representatives
in England and Ireland have been appointed by the
Pope, in defiance of the wishes of the Faithful and
their clergy, and without the concurrence of one single
national vote. Regulations of a most arbitrary cha
racter as to marriage and education have been insti
tuted and enforced, in opposition to the wishes, in
terests and customs of the Faithful concerned.
It rends one’s memories to think of the noblehearted Roman Catholics of England, representatives
of ancient traditions of religion and of loyalty, their
lives as blameless and as beautiful as the poetic
legends of their Faith—they truthfully, through their
vicars apostolic, disowned all those Papal claims
which though often advanced and often recognised,
were not those “ Of Faith ”—on the strength of their
honest disclaimer they were restored to rights which
they ought never to have lost, and all the Liberals of
England rejoiced on that day when, in the Palace of
Westminster, the Roman Catholic nobles re-entered
the ancient hall, on each side of which the peers arose
to greet, them, the bearers of historic names, the re
presentatives of great traditions,—a principle greater
than all traditions arose and bade them welcome—it
was the principle of Religious Equality 1 What have
those men done, to use the eloquent plaint of Dr.
Newman, that the hearts of the just should be made
sad ? Rome, ever reckless of honour when power can
be grasped 1 what was it to Rome, that these sons of
crusaders and of martyrs had, on the strength of her
silence, plighted a word higher than the word of any
creed—the word of an English gentleman—and by
�IO
The Vatican Decrees
that word disowned and denied all the usurped pre
tensions of Rome. When the convenient time
arrived, a power that has never kept its word, com
pelled English gentlemen to violate theirs, to recant
all that they had said—it was the very triumph of the
Priest over the Man I—like the tyrant general who
seduced the honour of a virgin, and then presented to
her dishonoured gaze the corpse of the father she had
fondly hoped to have saved. The Roman Catholic
gentlemen yielded their honour to save their Church
—the Pope has presented to them as a corpse the
Church for which they interceded.
It is idle to point to the deeds of English Roman
Catholics in the days of old. In July, 1870, Italian
Priests and their coadjutors slew the old Church, and
intoned over it the Requiem. You find that Requiem
in the Vatican Decrees. Formerly, in periods of
discord, many Roman Catholics always sided with
the Pope, because they revered the primacy of his
dignity, the sacredness of his origin, and recognised
him as the centre of the Church’s unity ; other Roman
Catholics disobeyed him, resisted him, besieged his
capital, and yet, approaching the Sacraments, lived
and died in union with the Roman Church and its
creed, but resisting as exaggerated, or criminal, or
unpatriotic, actions and commands of the Roman
Pontiff. All that is past. The Pope was not
satisfied with the willing service of the free—some
to obey, others to oppose—and yet all to be one
with him in Faith and Sacraments. Those mystic
rites, tokens of spiritual memories, must wait
upon diplomacy, and be subject to his temporal
ambitions. Have all, or none. No wonder that in
many an English Roman Catholic home—many an
old home of chivalry, faith,.and honour—a sorrowful
choice presented itself; accustomed to regard visible
unity with the Pope as essential to salvation, some
accepted the Papal Sacraments and slavery, others
�v^ppaF*' • .. A't^V^.’T*.
- • <f ’ '*..- ' »/??,
and the “Expostulation.”
•’.*\;'/"r 7£ W
11
sought Free Sacraments and personality, and in so
seeking they deemed the “ Free ” more Christian, more
Catholic than the “ Papal.” The men on each side
we honour, but let us not amidst our sentiments of
homage to conscientiousness—nay, may I add, to
memory and to affection—let us not forget that the
Catholics, divided now into the Vatican and the Old,
represent different principles, opposing positions.
The Vatican faction has triumphed, and has suc
ceeded in establishing all the principles the most
fatal to the development of the human mind, of
human society, of religion, -of morals, of science, of
rational liberty. There is no explaining away what
has been done—either embrace it or disown it. Mr.
Gladstone’s “ Expostulation ” may display to view a
few of those on either side. But the side taken is
really to be easily discovered by a more obvious test.
Who receives Sacraments from a Neo-Catholic priest ?
Who refuses so to do ? The statements in Mr. Glad
stone’s “ Expostulation ” are so cautiously accurate,
that I need only refer to them; but we must remem
ber that the Vatican Decree is retrospective. The
“ Encyclical ” has become a compendium of articles
of faith; and every cause dear to a patriot and a
man of justice is cursed by its inhuman decrees.
You mock us with Italian irony, when in the presence
of the civilised world you first solemnly anathematise
science, civilisation, progress, and equal rights, when
you refuse your Sacraments and paternal fellowship
to those who cannot mentally believe the truth or
justice of your anathemas. When you declare that
those who cannot worship with you have no right to
worship anywhere; have, in fact, no rights outside the
walls of a prison or the steps of a scaffold, to which
you declare that your Church has divine power to
commit them; and then, when we read your decrees
and your admonition to civil governors to aid their
execution, and we read your own solemn utterances
�12
The Vatican Decrees
and tremble for the liberties which may be subjected
to your keeping—the liberty of the individual, the
liberty of the family, the liberty of the State, the
liberty of education, of science, of conscience—and
deliberate how we can preserve our liberty and
honour without violating yours, you assume the air of
injured innocence and wonder that we should call
attention to what really meant nothing at all, but
that, as we seem annoyed, you will put your heads
together, give us a nice explanation—a pill so care
fully sugared that even a Cardinal could swallow it.
But we say, we have had your explanations, you
thought about them well enough, you have promul
gated them to the world, we will learn your mind
from the words which you say are inspired—the
words of your Encyclicals and Vatican Decrees—not
from words which you can repudiate as soon as they
have succeeded in blinding. The indignant mind of
Europe has caught you “in flagrante delicto,” and
you turn round with a surprised smile and tell us you
meant no harm; you have taken bigotry, and into
lerance, and arrogance into your counsels, and com
bined together in a conspiracy against humanity—we
detect you, and you say, “ be quiet—what have we
done ? ” You send over your prelates to this England
of ours, and they talk glibly about liberty of worship,
and liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech, and
liberty of the press, and liberty of education, and
liberty of investigation, when they know—and now we
know—that they mean liberty for their own worship,
conscience, speech, education and press, but ana
themas against any one who dares even to think that
such liberty ought to belong to others. You forget
that our passionate devotion to the liberties you
anathematise are alone the cause why the Liberals of
England, headed by their great Statesman, declare
—“ Your equal liberties shall remain inviolate, by
virtue of the very principles you declare to be
�and the “Expostulation?
13
accursed.” Having said that, and meaning to act
upon it, and determined not to be driven from it by
any foreign or domestic influence, we have surely
proclaimed all that the very chivalry of principle can
demand. But you can expect no more.
If a body of Puritans had existed in Rome in the
days of the Papal sovereignty; if they had in solemn
conclave declared that they regarded the Pope as
anti-Christ, and all his followers accursed by God and
to be repudiated by man, that no Roman Catholic
ought to be allowed any religious educational liberty—
that the Puritan conclave had a Divine right to extir
pate all such liberties—that it was the duty of the
civil power to enforce whatever action the aforesaid
conclave deemed prudent to enact, with the view of
forcibly destroying the existence of the Roman
Catholic religion—that Roman Catholics possess no
rights, but may be tolerated when toleration becomes
a regretable necessity. Suppose these Puritans to
have received civil rights because the Pope imagined
their principles of hostility to have merged into merely
religious and theoretical difference, the Puritans de
claring such to be the case, and repudiating the state
ments attributed to them which had been subversive
of civil loyalty; supposing that a few years afterwards
these Roman Puritans met together, and declare that
all the opinions ever taught by their wildest divines
were part of the Gospel message; that they now
solemnly proclaim them as absolutely true, and held
firmly by all who join them ; that they have placed
themselves, for the protection of their principles,
under the control of the Emperor of Germany; that
at present they are perfectly satisfied with their posi
tion, and perfectly loyal. What would have been the
attitude of the Pope ? Prisons and scaffolds would
reply. But suppose the Pope to have been a secret
heretic, and, therefore, at liberty to follow the nobler
inspirations of conscience—suppose him to have an
unbounded confidence in the strength of his position
�14
’The Vatican Decrees
and the final, though often remote, triumph of the
Right; but suppose him also to be a man capable of
appreciating what is demanded by self-respect and by
regard to the feelings of the loyal. What then would
have been his policy ? Would he have invited to his
more secret counsels Puritans known to maintain
the entire and universal supremacy of the German
Emperor ? Would he have recognised the Puritan
emissaries appointed by the Emperor for the super
vision of his Roman subjects, especially if the Em
peror had publicly claimed him as his own subject ?
Would he invariably have taken the dictation of the
German emissary as to the chaplains for the Roman
army and Roman prisons P Would the citizens of
Rome have felt anxious to show special social con
sideration to the German emissary, whose chief func
tion it would be to keep the Puritans thoroughly
loyal to the Emperor, and ready to obey him when
ever occasion might demand ? If the Pope had so
acted in moments of weakness and romance, he would
have retraced his steps as soon as he recovered his selfrespect ; if a secret heretic, and so able to act nobly,
he would not begin to persecute the Puritans; he
would permit the Emperor to appoint his own emis
saries over the Puritan schools, Puritan institutions,
Puritan chapels, Puritan conclaves ; but he would not
permit the Emperor to appoint his own nominees to
public institutions, and then undertake to pay them ;
such refusal would not necessarily be the result of
fear, but of consistency and self-respect, and from a
conscientious desire not to encourage by favouritism the
further encroachments and pretensions of the German
Emperor. He would feel it due to his own subjects,
not to go out of his way to place in office of power
and of public trust those who continued obviously to
treat him as inferior to the Emperor. But if he
perceived other Puritans who maintained their inde
pendence of the decrees of the conclave, and though
�and the “Expostulation.”
15
sympathising with the Emperor on account of simi
larity of creed, yet obviously regretting his claims to
supremacy in all causes over the Emperor, the Pope
would treat such Puritans like any other of his
subjects, without adverting in public action to their
difference of creed.
Such, I presume, ought to be our line of action ,
as to the foreign potentate who has recently claimed.
Supremacy over all the baptised amongst our country
men. We ought to ignore utterly and entirely all the
Papal claims, and Papal emissaries, as such. A Papal
Archbishop should be to us simply an English citizen,
or, if a foreigner, a foreign visitor, and nothing more;
we ought not, on the ground of his being a Papal
prelate, to confer with him, and to arrange appoint
ments, or accept his appointments, and ask the wishes
of his foreign sovereign. To do so is contrary to
self-respect—to the national honour. If we had been
as anxious to consult the feelings and wishes of the
Irish people, and of the labouring classes of England,
as we have been anxious to defer to the wishes of an
Italian prelate, we should have but little discontent
in either country. Statesmen of large sympathies
have thought that they would be above all things
pleasing the English Roman Catholics and the Irish
people by finding out what would please the Pope,
and doing it. Oh, marvellous simplicity! Do not
the Irish remember full well that a Pope gave Ireland
to an English conqueror. That a Pope sent over a
Cardinal to help the English Government to suppress
national aspifations which were regarded with
apprehension at Rome ? Cardinal Cullen does not
enjoy the confidence of the Irish people; the prelate
they adore is the one who voted against the Papal
infallibility, an Archbishop whom the Pope would
depose if he dared. When he dies, he will probably
be succeeded by some docile canonist forawhom no
Irishman has voted. Dr. Cullen was appointed’by
�i6
The Vatican Decrees
Rome without the concurrence of the Irish clergy.
His objects are of a very matron-like character, and
not at all representative of the wishes of the Irish
people. If we want to legislate with a view to the
wishes and feelings and real living interests of the
Irish people, we must not ask the guidance of any
Roman Cardinal. The Irish ask for national equality,
and we offer them a “ concession ” about the normal
schools, or invite a Papal prelate to meet a Princess,
and give him precedence over whatever might have
represented the national aspirations. The Irish
people ask for liberty, and you give them chaplains.
The Irish ask for extension of the franchise, repeal
of penal enactments, a national militia, and a local
Parliament, and you say we cannot do those things
for you, but we will pay your chaplains, and confer
with your venerated Bishops as to any other conces
sion they may deem desirable. I do not venture on
this occasion an opinion whether or not the real
wishes of the Irish people can be accepted or not; I
merely, for my present purpose say, if you want to '
conciliate the Irish people you will not do so by fawn
ing upon the Pope and the clergy: they have their
objects; the Irish people have other objects. When
shall we give to nations the equal rights which we
more than give to the emissaries of a foreign power ?
Surely the loyalty of a nation is of more consequence
than the purchased conventional loyalty of a priest
hood.
But it may be said, anyhow in England, the way to
conciliate the gentry is to make much of the Papal
prelates. First of all I would say the English Roman
Catholic gentlemen needed no conciliation ; they were
loyal to the backbone; they had everything to lose
and nothing to gain by any change—any possible
change. When the Vatican Decrees were issued, about
two dozen men, distinguished by intellect, character,
and culture, refused submission, and thus virtually
�and the “Expostulation.”
*7
assumed the position of “ Old Catholics,” like, for
instance, Lord Acton, the best-read Catholic in Eng
land. But most of the Catholics adopted the new
dogma. Thus the Roman Catholics recognised by
Catholic emancipation are now represented by only
a few honoured names, but very small in number,
probably such as Lord Camoys, Lord Acton, Petre,
Trevelyan, Simeon, Riddell, Oxenham, Thynne,
Wetherall, Hernans, Blenherhasset, Maskell, Charlton,
and some others. The Catholics who have embraced
the new Catholicism are numerous and submissive;
they deserve our high personal admiration, for their
change, along with all their prelates, was most natural
to expect, and undoubtedly as conscientious on their
part as the action of the more learned of the laity who
remained “ Old Catholics.” But it must not be sup
posed that the New Catholics are, generally speaking,
grateful to Dr. Manning and the Papal faction for
the revolution brought, numerically, to so successful
an issue by their ecclesiastical tactics. English
Catholics have undoubtedly been more interested in
ecclesiastical matters than in political or national,
and thus they have been easily led over into the Papal
camp which their fathers renounced at the emancipa
tion ; but they inherit, along with all the old English
virtues, the old English contempt for Italian domina
tion. Our Government would have pleased English
Catholics better if there had been less courting of
ecclesiastics appointed by Rome, less seeking to carry
out mere ecclesiastical polity. Any one intimate with
the English Roman Catholic tone of thought must
be full well aware how bitterly English gentlemen
have bent beneath the yoke. It is worthy of note
that Dr. Manning was nominated Archbishop by the
Pope against the wish of the whole of the Diocesan
Chapter. Not one vote was given for him. The
English Roman Catholic families, grieved at his
appointment, knew what it meant, feared the results,
�i8
'Dhe Vatican Decrees
dreaded the priestly yoke and the papal absolutism ;
but, taught to submit, they did submit. It does not
follow that we need submit likewise. Truthfulness,
dignity, consistency, demand from us that we ignore
a Neo-Catholicism which we have never nationally
recognised. I am aware that for a time we may be
hampered by the grave political difficulty of being
bound to show special favour to the Episcopal Church
of England, and that the Neo-Catholics may
justly say, as you devote large sums of money to
promote worship and education, according to the
principles of Protestant or Ritualistic Anglicanism,
as the case may be, why should you not continue to pay
the Vicars Apostolic appointed by the Pope in some
of our colonies ? Why not continue the payment of
Neo-Catholic chaplains throughout India, in the Army,
and elsewhere ?—why not'perpetuatefor the promulga
tion of Neo-Catholicism the favour and the funds you
devoted for the Roman Catholicism which your Par
liament recognised ? Doubtless it is always difficult
to rise out of a false position; but unless these anoma
lies are rectified, dangers await us far more serious
than the transient unpopularity obtained by touching
existing abuses.
Protestants have not yet realised the momentous
character of the Revolution crowned at the Vatican.
No wonder; how could it be expected when intelli
gent Roman Catholics of lofty character and integrity,
like Lord Herries and Sir George Bowyer, do not
understand it ? I understand it, because as a Dominican
and theologian I studied the whole question during
the period of restless thought preceding the close of
the conflict in July, 1870. It was that study which
opened my eyes to the fallacy of the entire dogma of
infallibility. Heretofore, Roman Catholics were
only bound to bejieve in the infallibility of the
Church in union with the Pope and speaking through
the Pope. It was quite another question as to what
�and the 11Expostulation.”
19
was needed to constitute an ex cathedra decree.
Some affirmed that no decree was infallible unless
issued in presence of a general council and with its
concurrence; others affirmed that a decree was
proved to be ex cathedra when accepted by the
council dispersed; others affirmed that a decree was
ex cathedra if issued with great solemnity after
conferring with, and in union with, all the consul
tive congregations of the Roman Church. A Roman
Catholic vacillated amongst these views according to
the exigencies of history, conscience, common sense,
or controversy. The most opposing opinions could
be and were maintained by Bishops, scholars, and
laymen. But now the Vatican Decrees have declared
the Pope to be infallible whenever he intends to be
so, and on whatever subject he declares to fall within
the province of infallibility. Heretofore, the exercise
of the Papal power was limited in action as well as in
theory. National Churches and their Episcopate
disputed his decisions and refused to obey his
mandates. Those mandates could be only imposed
under peculiar circumstances, but the present Pope
has, during his long Pontificate, been concentrating
power in himself. He commenced by utilising the
prestige of his acknowledged position, and the
affection inspired by the kindness of his disposition :
but having attained an unprecedented power over all
National Churches through such means, he culminated
the strategy by first committing Bishops and the
Faithful everywhere to bombastic declarations as to
his divine and supreme prerogatives, and then taking
them at their word, and requiring the exaggerated
utterances of affectionate reverence to be formularised
into articles of faith. They were caught in the trap
they themselves had guilelessly fashioned. The Pope’s
well-known smile, half artful, half cheery, must have
welcomed the accomplishment of his long cherished
scheme. During the period of twenty years I was
�20
The Vatican Decrees
Apostolic Missioner throughout England and Ireland
I saw this power growing; we all dreaded it, for
we saw what an agency would be lodged in the
hands of a Pope abler than Pio Nono and less good,
yet what could we do ? The growing power was
not generally being used for criminal objects, it
was being exercised in England through eccle
siastics for the most part amiable and good. Thus
there was nothing suddenly done of a nature to
arouse and combine opposition; like the walls of the
Temple, the chains were forged amidst a silence only
disturbed by the reception of countless adulatory
addresses, and blessings, and indulgences prodigally
bestowed upon herds of people who listened to the
Holy Father as he repeated again and again the
story of his wrongs, his sufferings, his prerogatives,
and his similarity to Jesus Christ, after a fashion
which would have aroused the ludicrous in any minds
not sunk too low to be capable of appreciating the
ridiculous. But the result is far from being ludicrous.
The Pope has established over the millions of adhe
rents of the Vatican Church a two-fold tyranny—
over every man, woman, and child, within his Church—
the absolutism of a teaching which may never be
even interiorly doubted; the absolutism of a rule
which may never be with impunity disobeyed. This
two-edged weapon hangs like the sword of Damocles
over every one who dares to think, to write, to act, to
rule, or to serve. At present, the Pope has only one
great object of anxiety—the recovery of his former
provinces—but hereafter other objects may arise.
But more than the political and national consequences
I do acutely mourn over the crushing mental and
moral effect of such an absolutism over all conscience,
all lifp, all energy, all thought. My intimate acquaint
ance with the personal excellence of English and
Irish Boman Catholics, lay, cleric, and conventual,
makes me deplore the more bitterly a despotism,
�ana the “Expostulation.
which must gradually destroy all the higher develop
ments of character, and turn the descendants of the
fine old English Catholic families into abject Jesuit
ical serfs. In the name of God, may such never be.
Anyhow, may the people of England not expedite
that fall by the imprudence and injustice of a per
secution which would speedily unite those who may
otherwise partially dissolve; or, on the other hand,
by the misleading encouragement of patronage and
compromise. We have no right to help minds and
consciences into a bondage which, when embraced,
separates the bondsman from humanity—the Church
with its theocracy on one side : Humanity with the
devil on the other side: such is the Papal concep
tion. And, alas ! the separation between the Papal
subject and Humanity is complete: the outward
tokens of courtesy or affection may be observed ; but
what love worth anything can exist between the
blessed and the accursed; what even are the ministra
tions of mercy, if they are so designed, as out of
men’s affections and afflictions to forge the rivets of
their servitude ?
When we cease the legislation of religious favourit
ism, and commence the legislation of religious equality
—when we treat all sects and institutions with justice,
and the members of all sects and institutions with
courtesy as well as justice—then shall we be in a
position to apply the principles of common sense to
conventual institutions. If the friends of conventual
institutions realised the wide-spread dislike engen
dered by the multiplication of institutions where a
two-fold absolutism is veiled in entire secresy, they
would be the first to seek a safeguard. The odious
system of direction which during the last few years
has been pervading the Roman Catholic laity, we are
powerless to touch. But the friends of religious
equality should warn any persons if they are carrying
on a secresy which could be remedied, but which if
�22
’The Vatican Decrees
continued will ere long lead to an outburst of indigna
tion, a panic, and a persecution. Why should not
gentlemen who have relations in convents and com
munities of men—why should not the superiors of
such institutions propose a plan calculated to meet
real and known inconveniences, and thus, moreover,
to calm the just susceptibilities of the public mind ?
There ought to be a register preserved in the guest
room of every religious house, in which the real names
of all inmates should be entered; inaccuracy of entry
should be punishable by a fine; any person who could
assign a rational reason should, under suitable restric
tions, be enabled to examine such register. All this
might be arranged so as not to cause any inconvenience
to a conventual institution, but, above all, so as not
to affix any stigma of dishonour or apparent suspicion.
Nearly all the unpleasant rumours against convents
would have been suppressed at once had a precaution
so simple and inoffensive been adopted ; and, without
dragging into print allusions to excellent communi
ties of innocent and good people, I may be allowed to
remark that occasionally there have been incidents,
such as imbecile inmates kept in durance and also
sometimes persons secreting themselves in conventual
houses, and so evading the law, which easily give
countenance to those countless suspicions which keep
aggregating till they descend like an avalanche. The
true friends of lasting religious equality must combine,
along with the maintenance of these great principles,
to abolish favouritism, and to adopt in a spirit of fair
ness and consideration, remedies demanded, not by
bigotry, but by good sesne.
Let me remark, in conclusion, that all my state
ments as to the Papal doctrines imposed on NeoCatholics are founded, as may be easily verified, on
direct quotations from the Decrees and the Encyclical.
Much more remains behind—unsaid.
�and the “Expostulation”
23'
NOTE.
The book formerly deemed the best for the diffusion
of Roman Catholic doctrines was Keenan’s ‘ Controver
sial Catechism.’ It was based on a French Catechism,
and very widely circulated in Great Britain, bearing
the imprimatur of all the Vicars Apostolic of Scot
land. In it appeared the following, until withdrawn
in the year 1869 :—
Q.—Must not Catholics believe the Pope himself
to be infallible ?
A.—This is a Protestant invention : it is no Article
of the Catholic Faith ; no decision of his can oblige,
under pain of heresy, unless it be received and
enforced by the teaching body—that is by the Bishops
of the Church.
ADDRESS.
The following is a quotation from an address
delivered by the Rev. James Martineau at Liverpool,
September 25th, 1871, fourteen months after my
secession from the Roman Catholic Church. In
gratefully mentioning that ever-honoured and beloved
name, may I be permitted to record that, trained as I
had been to lean on the authority of others, my know
ledge of the existence of such a spiritual character as
his, developed in the ranks of Christian Theism, pre
sented to my hopes an encouragement and a stimulus
which the gentle diffidence of his genius would
neither have desired or imagined -
�24
The Vatican Decrees
“ Another event has taken place recently with which
I have had in some degree the privilege of a personal
connection. A very eminent and remarkable man
has given up his adherence to the Catholic religion,
and has thrown himself among us as a preacher of pure
and spiritual religion. I allude to the Rev. Robert
Rodolph Suffield. Now, before Mr. Suffield’s name
was heard amongst us, at his own request I early paid
him a visit at his retreat in the country. I had inti
mate intercourse with him, and learned precisely his
state of thought before he had made up his mind to
the step he has now taken, and I was equally struck
with the problem which was presented to his religious
sense — what is the real essence and nature of
Catholicism ? Now, I found that the view Mr. Suffield
took of Catholicism was this. He said, ‘ I see in the
Catholic religion the only example in the world’s
history in which the great and fundamental principles
of all natural piety and of all natural conscience are
made the actuating principles of the life of multitudes
and of nations. The great doctrine of the moral
government of God, the great truth of the absolute
supremacy of conscience, the great hope of a future
and better life—these things have imbued the Catholic
mind, the mind even of the youngest children of the
Catholic Church that have any intelligence at all.
They are realities to the Catholic people. They speak
of them with the same simplicity and openness with
which they would speak of the work of their plough,
of their spade, of their shuttle; with which they would
speak of the concerns of their houses and their homes.
There is no shyness concerning them. They are ab
solute realities to them, and rule their lives. We
know that they control the passions of young people,
and, if they go astray, by appealing to these images
in their hearts we can recover them again. They are
truly a power in life. And now,’ said Mr. Suffield,
‘ what I want to know is, whether outside the Catholic
�and the “Expostulation”
25
Church those truths have the same power and reality,
whether they take their places among the facts of life
with the same certainty and with the same efficacy.’
He looked upon the Catholic religion simply as an
instrumentality for bringing home to men the simple
natural convictions of the human heart, and making
them live in their consciences and lives. Catholicism
thus was to him nothing but a great system of natural
religion supported by the most artificial and unnatural
of authorities and supports. That is the view he took
of it, and he said, ‘ What I want to know is, if I dare
to throw away these artificial supports, shall I find it
possible to administer this spiritual theism to man
kind, and get hold of the hearts of men ? Or am I
to believe that it is impossible for the weak mind of
humanity to grapple those truths, unless you have a
false mythology, and all sorts of pictures and images
connected with them ? Does the religion enter by
means of the false imagination, or may we fling away
the false imagination and trust to the spiritual power
of religion ?’ That was the problem he had to solve
for himself, and he said, ‘I fear if I were to profess
myself a Protestant I should be propping up these
eternal truths with just as false and entangled a ma
chinery as if I were to remain in the Catholic Church,
Por, if there is no infallibility in the Catholic Church,
neither is there in the Protestant Scriptures, and
whether I take the one or the other, I throw away
natural truths, and fling myself instead on an artificial
and unnatural support.’ Well, I believe myself that
Mr. Suffield here expressed a great truth ; and I think
the changes which are now taking place in the Pro
testant Churches are all of this kind. The tendency
is to fling away the false dependence upon artificial
authority, and to go back to the primitive rights of
religion in human nature and in human life. I said
to him I should feel it an impiety and infidelity—the
only thing I should venture to call infidelity at all—
�i6
The Vatican Decrees
to doubt that what God had made true could vindicate
and justify itself to the human heart without any
human lies to back it up and support it. If we once
found that a thing was a lie, and was false, or even if
it was precarious, it was at the peril of all veracity
and of all fidelity that we dared to place that as a
means of underpinning, as it were, and supporting
an eternal and all-important truth.”
RESULTS OF INFALLIBILITY.
Meanwhile there are already signs of a coming conflict in
quarters where they might hardly have been looked for.
There is probably no section of the Church, beyond the walls
of Rome itself, where the dominant spirit is so fiercely and
fervently Ultramontane as among the Roman Catholics of
England. Nor is the phenomenon difficult to account for.
They form a small body in the midst of an unfriendly popu
lation, and the old Catholic families are at once united toge
ther and inspired with zeal by the long tradition of privations
and persecutions patiently endured for their faith. And then,
at the moment when legal disabilities and social ostracism
were beginning to be relaxed, came the irruption of converts
who had sacrificed most of them all the associations, inte
rests, and affections of half a lifetime for their adopted creed,
and whose leaders, as one of themselves has observed, were
withone illustrious exception, “ Ultramontanes before they
were Catholics.” The late Cardinal Wiseman, whose earlier
policy was of a very different kind, was completely carried
away by the current; his successor has been throughout the
guiding spirit of the infallibilist bishops at the Council, and
all the younger generation of priests have been trained on
the convert model. One of them insisted not long ago,
from the pulpit of a well-known Roman Catholic church
in the metropolis, that it is not to believe the infallibility of
the Pope’s official judgments ; every opinion on whatever
subject he expresses in conversation is infallible. Yet a reso
lute opposition is beginning to manifest itself among both
the clergy and laity of the Roman Catholic Church in Eng
land. We have given several examples of this before now,
and we mentioned the other day that the infallibilist address
presented under strong pressure for the adoption of the Eng
lish clergy had been by no means unanimously signed. Dr.
�and the “Expostulation.”
2"]
Rymer, President of the diocesan Seminary of St. Edmund’s,
Ware, scandalised the Tablet by writing to express his em
phatic disapproval of it. But the tone and language of the
letter of refusal addressed to its promoters by Father Suf
field, and published apparently by his ^request in the West
minster Gazette, is so remarkable that it deserves record
here. The writer is the best known and one of the ablest
and most active of the English Dominicans—a Cambridge
man, though not, we believe, a convert; and it is hardly
likely, considering the stringent discipline of religious com
munities, that he would venture on so bold a protest unless
he felt, assured of the moral support of his Order; and such
an inference is strongly confirmed by the attitude of the
Dominican Cardinal Guidi. Father Suffield says :—
“Knowing with what earnest desire the enemies of our
religion, with taunting speech, at once urge us and defy us to
proclaim, after 1,800 years, the foundation of our Christianity;
knowing the deep repugnance with which, under the pressure
of ecclesiastical opinion and ecclesiastical prospects, canons,
priests, and bishops, have signed declarations pleasing to
ecclesiastical superiors, and repugnant to their private opinions ;
knowing with an intimate and sad knowledge that the moot
ing of this question has led to investigations, and then to
inquiries, which have paralysed the faith in the minds of
numbers of the clergy and of the intellectual laity, and with
not a few destroyed it, I must respectfully decline to sign a
document in which petitioners ask for a definition, the animus
and consequence of which few can be so thoughtless as not to
perceive.
“If we get a Pope vain, obstinate, and in his dotage, shall
we ask him to be confirmed in his powers of mischief ?
“Do we wish, by exalting the lessons of the encyclical, to
render political life impossible to every honest and consistent
Catholic, and to render the possession of political and religious
equality impracticable to any except those sort of Catholics
who would use the language of liberty when they beg, and
the precepts of the Pope when they refuse ? ”
x It is scarcely possible to misapprehend the pointed allusion
to the case of “ a Pope vain, obstinate, and in his dotage,”
and the majority of the Vatican Council has certainly done
what it can to “confirm him in his powers of mischief.”
Father Suffield must be presumed to speak from his own
knowledge when he refers to the numbers of clergy and
educated laity whose faith has been already paralysed or
destroyed by inquiries into Papal infallibility, and his testi
mony is borne out by others ; it is hardly wonderful that he
should look with serious alarm at the further consequences
�28
The Vatican Decrees
that may ensue. The wonder is that those who wish faith
to be maintained and strengthened should be so “ thoughtless ”
as to exult over the “mischief” they have helped to perpe
trate. It is rather late to remind them now of the homely
proverb that the last straw will break the camel’s back, and
this straw is a tolerably weighty one.—Saturday Review, of
July 30th, 1870.
FATHER SUFFIELD AND THE NEW DOGMA.
The newspapers inform us that Father Suffield, late of the
Dominican Order, has joined the Unitarian community; he
has not only renounced his obedience to the Church of Rome,
but has apparently renounced also his obedience to the
Catholic Faith. This is very sad, yet not unexpected after
reading his last published letters. The case is one that arrests
our attention, not only on account of the learning and abilities
of Father Suffield, but because it will form, we fear, only a
type of many such cases ; nor is this difficult to understand.
Brought up with the principle, instilled from earliest child
hood, that the Church of Rome is alone the Catholic Church,
excluding the Orthodox and the Anglican; that the supre
macy of the Pope over the whole Catholic world is the normal
idea of the Church, so completely that those who do not
acknowledge that supremacy are cut off from the promises and
privileges of the Church, even though, like Greeks and
Anglicans, they retain all else necessary to their continuing
portions of the Body of Christ; with these opinions so strongly
impressed on the mind, it is inevitable that there must be a
most violent reaction when the dogma of Infallibility is made
an article of Faith by what claims to be a General Council.
For this dogma is not only a new article of Faith, but it is one
which contradicts much that had been previously held as true ;
it virtually rejects the authority of General Councils as the
voice of the Church, and thus places the Church herself in a
new position. By removing the supreme authority from the
Body, and placing it in one man, who is supposed to be the
head, the original Charter as granted by her Divine Head is
abrogated, and a new one substituted for it. It is no longer,
“Tell it to the Church,” it is “Tell it to the Pope;” it is no
longer,” “If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto
thee as an heathen man and a publican; ” but, “ If he neglect
to hear the Pope ”—very naturally the Faith of those who
have been educated, as Father Suffield has been, by Do
minicans, will be violently shaken, and their minds thrown
off their balance, when they are called upon by the authority
�and the “ Expostulation.”
nt)
of the Church to accept the decree of the personal Infallibility
of the Pope. And this reaction is very liable to go to further
lengths than we at first anticipate ; we are apt to expect that
those who, like Father Suffield, repudiate the dogma, and con
sequently find their position as Priests in the Roman Church
untenable, will turn to the Anglican. We should rejoice to
think that the Anglican would form a safe home for those who
reject the dogma, but we fear it will not be so; we are far
more afraid that Father Suffield’s example will be followed
by larger numbers than those who seek refuge with us. We
do not sufficiently consider the habits of thought and mind
which are formed by Roman teaching. In that community
the whole Catholic Faith is wrapped up in, and becomes a part
of, the belief in the Papal Supremacy ; the very rudiments of
the Faith, the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity, the Sacraments,
are all tied up in the idea of the sole supremacy of the Church
of Rome, and the Pope at the head of it; the idea of the
Catholic Church or any part existing, except under the Roman
obedience, is entirely excluded as impossible. When, there
fore, a rude shock comes like this, which destroys all faith in
the Pope and the Roman Church, it destroys all faith in other
dogmas too.—Church Herald.
The dogma of Infallibility is producing its necessary fruit.
Not even Rome can altogether stop inquiry or fetter thought,
and spiritual absolutism finds its own subjects ready to ques
tion its decrees. Already there is a movement in Germany
which bears striking resemblance to that of the fifteenth cen
tury. A meeting of Roman Catholic professors at Nuremberg
has already agreed upon a protest against the spiritual despot
ism of the Pope, and the Cologne Gazette states that the
Bishop of Rothenberg, Dr. Hefele, has resolved not to accept
the Infallibility Dogma, and that his Chapter and the theo
logical faculty of the city of Tubingen support him in it.
Even in this country, where Roman Catholicism is more
Roman than Rome, the dogma is producing confusion and
distress in the minds of the faithful.
As the immediate result of the Council’s work, the secession
of Father Suffield from the Church of Rome is worthy of more
notice than is due to merely individual change of opinion.
Father Suffield is a man to whom the Roman Catholics of
England are willing to confess large obligations. He is said
to have revived the establishment of Peter’s Pence in this
country, to have done much in recruiting the regiment of
Papal Zouaves, and to have held the first public meeting of
sympathy for the Pope ever held in modern England. A
�3°
The Vatican Decrees
correspondent of the Westminster Gazette says, “it has been
impossible to have been much under Father Sumeld’s influence
without becoming intensely devoted to everything Catholic,”
and that “the Prayer-book connected with his name has pro
bably been more instrumental than any other popular manual
in spreading faith wherever English-speaking Catholics are to
be found. ” The Prior of the Dominican House in London, of
which order Father Suffield is a prominent member, speaks of
him as “ a brother of the same order, Whose personal friend
ship I enjoyed before either of us became Dominicans, and
whose zeal and apostolic spirit I have ever held in the greatest
admiration.”
But Father Suffield seems to have felt somewhat as Father
Newman felt, that though the Infallibility was a dogma to be
received as an act of devotion, it was not to be defended as an
article of the faith. “It becomes essential,” he says, “that
unless failure of reason be impossible to an aged Pope, there
should be some means at least of recognising when his decrees
are to be regarded as the acts of man, when as those of God.”
The shock of disagreement and difference which has been
caused by the proclamation of the Infallibility dogma has,
however, shaken the whole fabric of the eloquent Dominican’s
creed. “An incident, not regretted by me,” he says, “has
revealed, almost by accident, the hidden struggle of years.”
Of this struggle he says, “it has been the agony of years.”
His doubts have not risen from within, but have been forced
upon him from without. He “ sought solitude first in the
cloister, then solitude greater in a country village amidst
simple people and the children of his flock, that he might
dispel difficulties and doubts. If those difficulties and doubts
have been wrong, none but the highest rulers of the Church
have been responsible for them; they have not been a pleasure,
but an agony; not a pride, but a humiliation.” Father
Suffield has, therefore, been driven out of the Church by the
declaration of the Papal Infallibility. His case is simply one
of thousands, and is only rendered remarkable by his own
previous services to the Church. The Pope and his Council
have raised more doubts than they will solve, and in grasping
at the shadow of Infallibility they will miss the substance of
authority.—Daily News.
Father Suffield, the eloquent Dominican, whose protest
against the most memorable act of the Vatican Council has
excited some attention in this country, has gone a step beyond
the rejection of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. He has
quitted the Roman Communion. It would seem that as soon
�and the “Expostulation”
31
as the fact became known overtures were made to him with
the view of his joining the Anglican Church. He has declined
to do so. The Articles and the Athanasian Creed block the
way; indeed he “ questions alike the Infallibility of the Pope
and of the Scriptures.” He throws in his lot with “those
who are commonly called Unitarians, Free Christians or
Christian Theists,” and states, in effect, that he intends to
accept the office of a minister in a Free Christian Congrega
tion.—Manchester Guardian.
A. due following out of opinions curiously led Dr. Newman
to the Roman Church, and his brother, Professor Newman,
to pure Theism. In like manner the two Herberts—the one
the free-thinking Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the other the
sainted poet of the English Church : these men felt the philo
sophical impossibility of a middle position. We shall watch
Mr. Suffield’s career with high interest. He will not go in
with the company of Exeter Hall, but sets forth alone in
his quest of truth. There is something very touching, and
very manly too, in his statement of the sufferings of mind and
heart, “which his secession has involved.” Father Suffield
has taken the great leap from authority to freedom.—Dispatch.
FATHER SUFFIELD AND THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND.
August 22, 1870.
My Dear Sir,—Private communications are so very numer
ous at present, that I cannot conveniently add to my occupa
tions by contributing the literary help you do me the favour
of offering. Moreover that able periodical partakes somewhat
of a controversial character, and is regarded as anti-Catholic
in its position. I am peculiarly circumstanced, have resigned
all offices in the Catholic Church, and ceased the exercise of
priestly and Catholic rites : from the intimate manner in
which I have been interwoven in the Catholic body in England,
this act causes great pain to those whom the least I should
like to wound ; and I am anxious to do nothing but what is
demanded by the exigencies of circumstances or the require
ments of conscience, which could in the slightest degree
grieve those who have so many claims upon my affection,
gratitude, and reverence.
After long and deep thought, study, prayer, and counsel, I
decided that it would be impossible for me honestly to
continue to act as a priest. The infallibility of the Pope, and,
�32
The Vatican Decrees
of the Scriptures, alike, I question, and the dogmas resting
solely on either of those authorities, I am not able on that
account to admit.
It is my desire to unite with others, and to assist them in
the worship of God, and in the practice of the two-fold
precepts of charity, unfettered by adhesion on either side, to
anything, beyond those great fundamental principles as
presented to us by Jesus Christ.
Though relieved from all the obligations of my order, I do
not wish to consider myself as alienated from the Catholic
Church or from other Christian communities, by any personal
hostile act. I assume a position hostile to none—if one man
hurls an anathema, another man is not compelled either to
accept it, or to retaliate it.
Having understood that those who are commonly called Uni
tarians, Free Christians, or Christian Theists, thus agree in
the liberty inspired by self-diffidence, humility, and charity,
to carry on the worship of God, without sectarian requirements
or sectarian opposition; that they possess a simple but not
vulgar worship, a high standard of virtue, intelligence, and
integrity; and these after the Christian type, moulded by the
Christian traditions, and edified by the sacred Scriptures;
holding the spirit taught by Jesus Christ, and the great
thoughts by virtue of which he built up the ruins of the moral
world; and. yet not enforcing the reception of complicated
dogmas as a necessity, or accounting their rejection a crime :
a communion of Christian worshippers, bound loosely together,
and yet by the force of great principles enabled quietly to
maintain their position, to exercise an influence elevating and
not unimportant, and to present religion under an aspect which
thoughtful men can accept without latent scepticism, and
earnest men without the aberrations of superstition, or the
abjectness of mental servitude to another—such approved
itself to my judgment, and commended itself to my sympathy.
I intend adhering to the pursuits of the clergyman and of the
Christian teacher, and communications are in progress in
another part of England which may terminate in my accepting
thus a duty conformable to the habits of my life, and which
will not throw me into a position of hostility, or embarrassment
as to those honoured and loved Catholic friends with whom
so greatly I should prize, if it were possible to maintain kindly
intercourse, inasmuch as I am only externally severed from
them by my being unable to believe certain dogmas which a
Catholic is bound to regard as essential. Thus I hope I have
not only thanked you for your obliging offer, but adequately
explained my position, and showed that the future you were
commissioned to hold out to me in the Established Church
�and the “Expostulation.”
33
would not be deemed possible by the authorities who have
done me the honour and kindness to communicate in my
regard, as soon as they are made aware that the Articles and
the Athanasian creed would be amongst the insuperable
barriers to my entertaining such a proposal.
Many write to me evidently under a grievous misapprehen
sion. They anticipate from me reckless denunciations of that
vision of beauty which I have left, simply because, like a
vision, it had everything but reality. Allied as I am by
relationship with some of our ancient Catholic families, allied
by the ties of friendship with many more of them, I feel it is
a shame to myself that any stranger could suppose one word
of my lips, one thought of my mind, could cast moral reproach
on those beautiful and honoured homes where old traditions
received a lustre greater even than antiquity and suffering can
bestow—crowned with the aureola of charity, nobleness,
purity, and devotedness. Such memories print on my heart
their everlasting record. To cease to believe and to worship
with them was a martyrdom, which none but the Catholic can
understand.
I have ascended now to another stage of my life ; to rise to
it needed sufferings of the mind and of the heart, the sacrifice
of everything in the world I cared for;—but I perceive a work
to do, and, by the blessing of God, I shall strive to perform
it. Youth, strength, vigour, and hope return to me with the
expectation. Truth obtained by suffering is doubly dear to
the possessor.—Very sincerely yours,
Robert Rodolph Sutfield.
To the Rev.----- &c., &c.
N.B.—All the above paragraphs, from different periodicals,
are extracted from Church Opinion.
�ALSO,
By the Bev. B. B. SUFFIELD,
FIVE LETTERS ON CONVERSION TO ROMAN
CATHOLICISM......................................................... 3d.
IS JESUS GOD ?........................................................ 3d.
TRUBNER
and
CO., LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, E.C.
PRINTED BY C. W. BBYNBLL, LITTLE PULTENBY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The Vatican decrees and the "Expostulation"
Creator
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Suffield, Robert Rodolph
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Misc. Tracts 4. Other titles published by Trubner and Co. by the same author listed on back page. Includes a long quotation from an address delivered by the Rev. James Martineau at Liverpool, September 25th,1871.
Publisher
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Trubner and Co. ; Thomas Scott
Date
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1874
Identifier
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G4868
Subject
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Catholic Church
Papacy
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Vatican decrees and the "Expostulation"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Catholic Church-Doctrines
Popes-Infallibility