V. Ultramontanism and Christianity

I TOOK up Mr. Stephen's article on Caesarism and Ultramontanism with a full hope of finding all that could be said for the former, and against the latter, urged with the close reasoning of which I have always be lieved the author to be a master. I laid it down with a feeling of disappointment. The case argued is not mine. The whole issue has been changed. The title ought to have been ' Faith and Doubt.' This is the sum of the argument. ' Ultramontanism is untenable, because Christianity cannot be proved to be true;' or, again, ' Ultramontanism cannot be proved to be true, because we cannot be certain of the existence of God.' The whole article is a profuse verification of a sentence in the essay under attack, in which I said: ' No man can deny that the authority of the Church is separate from all civil powers, and within its own spiritual sphere supreme, without renouncing his Christian name, or the coherence of his reason.' In this the article before us is not incoherent, and Mr. Stephen admits that, granting Christianity to be a Divine Revelation, and the Church to be a Divine institution, he does not see how he could stop short of my conclusions (p. 510).

He then proceeds to say that, so far from Christianity being proved to be true, even the existence of God is not certain: that the arguments of Locke, Clarke, Butler, Pascal, and Dr. Newman fail to prove it. He says: ' We have all great want of light and know ledge about the nature of the world in which we live, and what is to follow it. We are all impelled to dwell upon the questions — What? Whence? Whither?' (p. 503.) He says ' that the existence of God is probable enough to supply to men a motive to a virtuous life, but is not so established as to serve as a foundation for inferences about any particular event or institution' (p. 504). He then proceeds thus: ' What is necessary for me to say is, that the truth of the history of Jesus Christ is not proved beyond all reasonable doubt as against ordinary men of the world, on whom the clergy are trying to force their yoke on the strength of it' (p. 510). Mr. Stephen then goes on to consider the evidence of the truth 'of the history of Jesus Christ as given in the Apostles' Creed.' He believes, ' supposing the universe to be the work of a Being having consciousness, will, and power, that such a Being would be able to raise the dead;' also, ' assuming that Jesus Christ did actually live, die, rise, and ascend into heaven after working miracles, it would be rational to believe Him;' and that it would be ' probable that He would know more about God and a future state than other people' (p. 511); that he can imagine ' evidence which would put these things beyond reasonable doubt.' But he adds that of the witnesses of these facts, ' most were not original witnesses' (p. 514); that they had only ' hearsay;' that the vision on the way to Damascus is not easily distinguishable from the delusions of sunstroke' (p. 515); that as to the four Gospels, ' the state of things is as if in the year 3800, the principal authorities as to the life of Napoleon Bonaparte were four popular biographies written in English somewhere about the present time, and quoting no authorities' (p. 515). Much more of the same kind on the articles of the Apostles' Creed I gladly pass over, and come to the conclusion.. Mr. Stephen proceeds: ' Upon the whole it appears to me that ordinary men of the world both may and ought to say to Archbishop Manning, as I do, " You have entirely failed to make out any sort of claim to be my spiritual master.... The fundamental principle upon which your whole system depends is based upon arguments which the limitation of human knowledge considerably weakens. The history which you next appeal to rests upon hearsay evidence which can no longer be tested, though innumerable points in it show the necessity of further inquiry or of continued doubt'" (pp. 525, 526). I _ have here collected what may be called the serious argument of the article, for I cannot believe that Mr. Stephen's excursions to Bellarmine and the Arabian Nights, the Limbus Patrum and the imaginary jury, the black man and the fishes, winding up with the wit of undergraduates about Moses and the whale, were intended for argument. When a writer has declared that Christianity is not yet proved to be true, and that the existence of God is doubtful, I think I may postpone my answer as to what I believe of infants dying without baptism. My answer cannot appreciably affect the thesis before us. I have, indeed, very explicitly given my answer to this question, publicly and in print, but to repeat it here and now would break the line of what I have to say. I fully acknowledge that I cannot render Ultramontanism credible to any mind that does not be lieve the articles of the Apostles' Creed; nor can I hope to render Christianity credible to any mind that is not convinced of the existence of God. The article before us is of great value. It reveals the position of a small number of minds among us. They are convinced that what they think is the opinion of their age. The more confidently they believe it themselves, the more confidently they believe others must think as they do.

This comes out somewhat amusingly in two sen tences. ' The Church is simply a collective name for a number of not very ivise laymen, superintended by cler gymen who differ from the ordinary Anglican clergy principally in the colour of their spiritual veneering' (p. 526). Ten lines lower we read, 'I am entitled to appeal to the general conduct of the lay world as a plain proof that mine are the views usually entertained by laymen.' The lay world is thus divided into ' not very wise laymen,' and 'laymen who hold my views.' They, if not very wise, at least are wise. Sapiunt quia sentiunt mecum. This does not seem to me powerful or consecutive as reasoning. And when I recall to mind the belief of Englishmen in the Christian Kevelation, and in the existence of God, it does not seem to me to be a true estimate of the laymen of the Church of England, or of the Established Kirk or of the Free Kirk of Scotland, or of the Nonconformists in either country. I hope I have said nothing disrespectful to

Mr. Stephen, for whom I entertain a true regard. It will not, I hope, give him pain if I add how well I am aware that to him Ultramontanism must be foolishness if, indeed, I am right in affirming Ultramontanism to be Christianity.

Although I cannot think that I shall be expected to enter upon the question whether God exists or no, as a necessary condition to the discussion of Ultramontanism, I cannot refrain from making certain remarks on Mr. Stephen's argument.

First, I am glad to see that he justly and truly appreciates the nature of the evidence which is to be expected or required for proving the existence of God. He says, ' I should not require a mathematical demonstration' (p. 503). It was probably, therefore, a slip of the pen when he wrote that I am not entitled to affirm the existence of God unless I affirm it as I would the proposition, ' two straight lines cannot enclose a space' (p. 504).

Secondly, I am not sure that I understand Mr. Stephen's comment on Bishop Butler's letter to Clarke, in reference to the book on the Demonstration of the Being of God. Does Mr. Stephen mean that Bishop Butler expressed himself to be in doubt as to the sufficiency of the proof for the existence of God? Butler says only that he cannot make up his mind to affirm that the proof is demonstrative. That he held the proof to be certain is beyond all question. He doubted only whether it reached the character of demonstration. We in England have affixed to the word demonstration a technical and second intention. We confine it to such proofs as science, properly so called, can afford. Clarke used the word in its larger sense, as other languages of Latin origin are wont to do; intending to affirm that the moral certainty of the existence of God amounts to demonstration. It does, indeed, amount to a certainty beyond all doubt. But it cannot be stated in terms which involve the intrinsic impossibility of conceiv ing its contradictory, as in the propositions that ' two parallel lines can never meet,' ' the whole is greater than a part,' and the like. It was of this only that I understand Bishop Butler to hesitate.

Thirdly, it seems to me that Mr. Stephen has failed to state correctly the method of proving the Divine origin of Christianity and the Divine foundation of the Church.

He has treated it as a question of evidence from Scripture. Surely it is a question of facts. The documents of the New Testament may be offered in proof at a certain stage of the argument; but assuredly not at the outset.

Again, Mr. Stephen writes as if the onus of proving Christianity to be true rests upon us who believe it. But surely at this time of day the onus of proving it to be false or to be doubtful rests upon those who refuse to believe it. Meanwhile, Securus judicat orbis terrarum. The Christian world is in possession. It is a fact which must be accounted for before Christianity can be rejected. It is a visible fact, as palpable as the British Empire. It' is a fact in history which can be traced up to its foundation. As the British Empire has its succession of sovereigns, its unwritten and written laws, its legislature and its tribunals, its customs and traditions of public and private life, its documents and records: so has the Christian Church, more widely known, more profuse in evidence, more open to every kind of test. Like the British Empire, the Church has a corporate identity and living consciousness which are traceable up to the time of its Founder. Its account of itself rests upon a history which cannot be rejected without shaking all evidence, except the personal eye-witness and ear-witness of each man for himself. If we were to believe nothing but what we have seen, heard, and touched, the human mind would dwell in a blank isolation. The Divine origin of the Christian Church rests upon a history which cannot be shaken without shaking the foundations of all moral certainty. It rests upon a legitimate authority of direct evidence, the most explicit and un interrupted to be found in all history. It claims our belief on the maximum of historical certainty. If its history is not to be believed, all history would be shaken.

S. Augustin says: ' Si auferatur hsec fides de rebus humanis, quis non attendat quanta rerum perturbatio, quam horrenda confusio subsequeretur' (De Fide, cap. 2, n. 4). -

And Grotius: ' Pro rerum diversitate, diversa quoque sunt probandi genera. Alia in mathematicis, alia de affectionibus corporum, alia circa deliberationes, alia ubi facti est qua3stio: in quo genere standum est nulla suspicione laborantibus testimoniis; quod nisi admittitur non modo omnis historic usus perit, medicinae quoque pars magna, sed et omnis quse inter parentes liberosque est pietas, ut quos baud aliter noscamus' (De Verit. Eelig. Christ, lib. ii. c. 29).

I use authority here, not in its official or jurisdictional sense, but in its etymological sense, for the motive of our belief or source of evidence. No witnesses bave authority but tbose who are competent and veracious. All incompetent and unveracious witnesses are excluded as illegitimate, because wanting in the properties necessary for evidence. But the common sense and common lot of mankind compel us to believe much upon authority.

The whole formation of the human mind, ante usum rationis, is by necessity on authority, which is legitimate both by parental duty and by competence of reason.

The scientific knowledge of almost all men is received on authority.

The whole practice of medicine and surgery exacts submission to authority.

The whole historical knowledge of men rests upon two authorities which do not corroborate each other: first, on the authority of historical monuments and documents; and next, upon the authority of the historical critic.

This is no small tax on our submission, or credulity; and if we were not free to disbelieve every word of it, and if the value of a halfpenny or the slightest civil privilege depended upon it, we should perhaps rise against it. And yet to reject the authority of human history would be an irrational act, unworthy of reasonable men.

But why? Because its authority is measured by its evidence: because if the writers who give testimony to facts of the past be competent and veracious, they have a claim to be believed: above all, if they were eye witnesses and ear- witnesses of the facts they relate. They have then the highest certainty of sense and rea son for what they record.

To affect to doubt the credibility of human history is the work of reckless or senseless men; it is to ruin the traditional basis of right, and law, and contracts, and moral obligations, and loyalty, and authority in the commonwealth and in human life.

For the truths of the natural order, which are the proper objects of moral and metaphysical philosophy, we have the legitimate authority of the monuments and documents of the old world; which testify to us the belief of mankind in the existence and nature of God, of the human soul, and of the primary distinctions of morality. This communis consensus is an authority sufficient to demand my attention. It is also a criterion whereby to distinguish these uniform and universal truths from the local partial idiosyncratic opinions of men or of ages. And yet though this be a rule, it is not the motive of my belief. I believe these truths on their own intrinsic evidence, which manifests them to my reason; and my reason reflecting on itself verifies the conformity of its own acts with these truths, and thereby generates in my reason a certainty which excludes the hesitations of probability and the entrance of doubt.

Again, the visible fact of the Christian world proposes to my reason the maximum of evidence for the events upon which it rests. That evidence is the evidence of eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses. It is a part of their autobiography; their testimony was an adequate motive of credibility to those who heard them; the expansion of that testimony throughout the world, and its continuity through all ages, if it has not added to the intrinsic certainty of the facts, has in no way lessened it. But it has proportionally increased the extrinsic evidence by way of corroboration and accumulation, reaching up to the moment of the facts alleged. I affirm, therefore, that this authority is both competent and veracious, and for that reason legitimate; and that its action upon the human intellect is not by way of imperious command, but of the proposition of evidence. It comes and speaks to us clothed with the evidence of its testimony.

Authority is, therefore, not an imperious act substituting command for reason, Sic volo sic jubeo stet pro ratione voluntas: but it is reason and evidence speaking by a legitimate voice. Authority and evidence are thereby identical and convertible.

Bishop Butler has pointed out that the proof of Christianity does not rest wholly upon the probative force of particular evidences, but also upon the cumulus of a multitude of proofs and probabilities which amounts to moral certainty. He says: ' Thus the evidence of Christianity will be a long series of things reaching as it seems from the beginning of the world to the present time, of great variety and compass, taking in both the direct and also the collateral proofs, and making up all of them together one argument; the conviction arising from which kind of proof may be compared to what they call the effect in architecture or other works of art; a result from a great number of things so and so disposed, and taken into one view.'1

Again, he says: 'Admitting the fact that God has afforded to some no more than doubtful evidence of religion; the same account may be given of it, as of difficulties and temptations with regard to practice. But as it is not impossible, surely, that this alleged doubtfulness may be men's own fault, it deserves their most serious consideration whether it be not so. However, it is certain that doubting implies a degree of evidence for that of which we doubt; and that this degree of evidence as really lays us under obligation as demonstrative evidence.'2

Now though I have not called upon Mr. Stephen to admit my claim to be 'his spiritual master,' on the arguments offered in the essay on Cffisarism and Ultramontanism, I fully admit that I have bound my self to justify my assertions that the Church is separate from all civil powers, and within its own sphere supreme. This is my thesis, and this has been attacked. This I am in duty bound to defend, and with this only I have now to do. If the Lord Chief Justice had delayed judgment the other day until counsel had argued the Mosaic cosmogony, the lawful heir of the Tichborne estates would still be long kept out of his rights. I will not, then, be captured by the temptation to discuss even the

1 Analogy, part ii. chap. vii.

2 Ibid., conclusion.

existence of God, though I admit it to be fundamental, not only to Ultramontanism, hut to the civilisation of man; and that because in this present contention it is so remote as to he irrelevant.

I am addressing those who believe Christianity to be a Divine Revelation.

I will therefore dismiss from this contention the two first of Mr. Stephen's four theses, namely:

1. There is a God.

2. The historical statements of the Apostles' Creed are all true in fact, and amount to an account of the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

And I accept as a duty the maintenance of the third and fourth:

3. Jesus Christ established a Church with the constitution and powers which I claim for my Church.

4. My Church is the Church so established.

For the present I will confine myself to the third thesis.

And in proof of this I will offer in this article only the evidence of non-Catholic witnesses.

The point we have in hand is this, that the Church is separate and supreme.

I. The Established Church of England affirms to this day, in its whole ecclesiastical law and by the teaching of its highest authorities, that the Church of Jesus Christ is a society separate in its spiritual constitution from all civil powers, and within its own sphere of doctrine and discipline supreme. In making this assertion I shall not be misunderstood to mean that the Established Church has preserved its spiritual supremacy in doctrine and discipline. I may refer to the first essay in a volume lately published, in which I have expressly shown that the change effected by the 24 and 25 of Henry VIII. has reduced its spiritual powers to subjection. Nevertheless the spiritual supremacy in doctrine and discipline is in theory explicitly recog nised in the very statutes by which in practice it has been suspended. The claim pretended by constitutional lawyers from Lord Coke downwards, that the Acts of Henry VIII. did not create any new jurisdiction in the Crown, but only restored its ancient supremacy, is enough alone to prove this point. No man of ordinary knowledge will pretend that the Catholic Church in England prior to Henry VIII. was not in perfect communion of doctrine and discipline with the Church throughout the world; and no man will venture to say, with S. Gregory VII. and S. Thomas of Canterbury before his eyes, that the Catholic Church did not claim and vindicate to itself its spiritual supremacy in faith and morals. If anybody has doubts as to the independence and spiritual supremacy within its own sphere of the Church of England from its first foundation, I may refer to the essay already mentioned, and to such works as Spelman's Councils, Wilkins' Concilia, and the col lections of Mr. Haddan and Mr. Stubbs. The doctrine cannot be better summed up than in the following passages. Of the Anglican Councils, after speaking of the provincial and diocesan synods, &c., Mr. Wilkins says:

' Besides these councils in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, con-, vened for the affairs of the commonwealth, there met also synods VOL. II.

of the clergy, in which the bishops as ecclesiastical judges pre sided, and promulgated rules and statutes in matters purely ecclesiastical. And if at any time during the session of the civic councils there were any urgent necessity to treat of ecclesiastical questions, the bishops used to withdraw from the convention of the State to an ecclesiastical synod, to decide on points affecting the welfare of the Church; and their decrees sometimes received the assent of Parliament, and in this manner acquired the authority of the laws of the kingdom, in addition to their force as the canons of the Church.

To these synodical assemblies of the Saxon times we must add other ecclesiastical councils, which, so long as they had no civil character, were held at the summons of the archbishop, by the suffragan bishop and prelates. The kings with their nobles attended them Inj invitation; and such of their proceedings as they approved obtained the royal assent. If any ecclesiastical canons were made in synod in the king's absence, they were en joined on the whole Anglican clergy by the decree of the custos and nobles of the kingdom and the king's counsellors in the next convention. None of the determinations of the ecclesiastical councils were regarded as public statutes unless approved and confirmed by the supreme power of the sovereign.'

After the Conquest, Wilkins says:

' When ecclesiastical matters were to be treated, the legate of the Pope, or the archbishop, with the consent, sometimes by the order, of the king, caused a mandate for the holding of a synod to be published, the meeting of which mostly coincided with the state assemblies or festivals, so that the king might be present to conduct the proceedings, and either restrain or confirm them. In the king's absence abroad, the archbishop had from him authority to convene the bishops and prelates, even when the great councils were not held' (Wilkins' Dissertatio de veteri et moderna Synodi Anglican^ constitutione, viii., prefixed to the Concilia].

Johnson's account is as follows:

' During the time of our Saxon and even Danish kings, the bishops were in full possession of the power of making as well as executing canons; nor does it appear that they ever abused it to the hurt of civil government. Our kings were so far from ap prehending any mischief from ecclesiastical synods, or from sending their prohibitions to them, that they often honoured these assemblies with the presence of themselves and their nobility, without interposing in their debates or giving any stop or impediment to their definitions. The Norman princes never at tempted to diminish or interrupt the archbishop's ancient right and practice of assembling synods, and making such canons and ecclesiastical provisions as were deemed necessary or seasonable. But after the Pope had set himself up for sovereign in temporals as well as spirituals, and in order to exercise this sovereignty had introduced his canon law into all nations that were in communion with him, and had a number of men in every country ready to execute his will and pleasure, in opposition to the civil government, and to its great detriment, our kings saw it necessary to check the arrogance of the Pope, and his creatures here in England, by sending prohibition to the bishops in their synods (that they might make no canons to the injury of the king's prerogative and of the civil constitution) and in their courts, that they might put no such canon in execution.... But still the authority of enacting canons and constitutions in matters merely spiritual, and the cognisance of such causes, remained untouched, entirely in the hands of the convocation as to the enactive part, and of the prelates as to the executive.

Though the Saxon bishops had an unlimited power of maldng canons, yet we have many laws relating to matters merely spiritual enacted by kings in their great councils or civil gemotes. This may seem to some to have been an intrenchment on the authority of the bishops. To this it has been answered that the bishops, without whom no great council was held, retired into a place by themselves in order to draw up and enact laws relating to religion, as was the practice in some neighbouring countries. And I will not deny that this might sometimes be done. Yet when I see here and there an ecclesiastical law interspersed among a great number of such as are purely temporal, at other times almost an equal number of ecclesiastical and civil laws mutually succeeding each other in the same system, at other times two or three ecclesiastical laws dropped into a set of temporal, and vice versa, temporal among ecclesiastical, — I am in clined to believe that both sorts of laws were made by an amicable conjunction of both powers. In truth the old Saxon laws and English statutes made in relation to the Church were in effect only civil sanctions of old canons or grants made to the Church of some civil privileges which she enjoyed not before, or a reinforcement of such grant with penalties annexed; and there could be no reason why the bishops and clergy should not accept the assistance of kings and great men for these purposes.... I. do not remember a single instance of a law (before the Conquest) but what any bishop upon the principles of that age might fairly consent to, and no law relating to the Church or religion but what may justly be thought to have been promoted, if not postulated, by the prelates. And I take the Articles of Clarendon (A.D. 1164) to be the first instance in our history of making laws that bishops did not care to sign' (Johnson's Ecclesiastical Laws, part i. Preface, xxiii. xxiv.).

I have given these quotations in full, because they will afford the best prelude and exposition of the celebrated Act of 24 Henry VIII., by which religion in England has been made to depend upon the civil power. We have seen that the Church in England was from the first recognised as a spiritual society of Divine foundation, invested with Divine authority, both legislative and judicial, independent of all civil powers, and in matters of doctrine and spiritual discipline supreme. The frequent violations of this Divine authority, and the royal customs which usurped upon this independence, are simple violations and usurpations, which in no way extinguish or annul the Divine rights and powers of the Church. The encroachments of the royal power were ever advancing from the Conquest to the reign of Henry VIII. In the reign of Henry II. they were checked and thrown back for a while by the martyrdom of S. Thomas of Canterbury. Afterwards they revived again and gathered strength, and at last grew to a head in the reign of Henry VIII., under the form and title of the Royal Supremacy. Nevertheless it will be found that in theory the Divine foundation, authority, rights, powers, and office of the Church both in doctrine and discipline were still recognised in the fatal statute which rent England from the Catholic faith and unity. The preamble of the 24 of Henry VIII. runs as follows:

' Whereby divers sundry and autlientick Histories and Chroni cles it is manifestly declared and expressed, that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme Head and King, having Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same: Unto whom a Body politick, compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporality, been bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience: He being also institute and furnished, by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God, with plenary whole and entire Power, Pre-eminence, Authority, Prerogative, and Jurisdiction, to render and yield Justice and final determination to all manner of folk, resiants or subjects within this his Realm, in all Causes, Matters, Debates and Contentions happening to occur, insurge or begin within the limits thereof, without restraint or provocation to any foreign Princes or Potentates of the World: The Body Spiritual whereof having power, when any cause of the Law Divine happened to come in question, or of Spiritual Learning, that it was declared, interpreted and shewed by that part of the Body politick called the Spirituality, now being usually called the English Church.' 3

The preamble affirms the following points:

1. That the realm of England has only one supreme head and king.

2. That the body politic subject to that supreme head is divided into spiritualty and temporalty.

3. That the body spiritual has power, when any cause of the law divine or of spiritual learning should come in question, to declare and interpret, and that part of the body politic called the spiritualty was called usually the English Church.

3 ' On the Spiritual Jurisdiction of the Church of England, 24 Henry VIII. cap. 12: For the Restraint of Appeals;' Gibson's Codex, ol. ii. p. 924 (Oxford, 1761).

The effect, therefore, of this statute was, as its title declares, to restrain appeals by excluding all authority of the Holy See. As regards, indeed, the universal Church, this statute violates both unity and faith: but as regards the constitution of the local Church in Eng land it made no organic change. The two provinces of Canterbury and York, with their spiritual jurisdiction, tribunals, and judges for doctrine and for discipline, re mained as before. They were, however, paralysed and annulled by the erection of an appellate jurisdiction higher than the Court of the Metropolitan, and vested in the Crown. Against this it was, among other things, that S. Thomas of Canterbury contended to the death. One of the Constitutions of Clarendon runs as follows: <Ab archidiacono debebit procedi ad episcopum, ab episcopo, ad archiepiscopum, et si archiepiscopus defuerit in justicia exhibenda ad Dominum Begem perveniendum est postremo.' The jurisdiction and tribunals of Archdeacons, Bishops, and Archbishops in both cases were left intact, though they might be annulled in the last resort; but even in this case, as we shall see hereafter, it has been done, not by denying the spiritual rights and powers of the Church, but under the plea of reviewing and correcting the forms of procedure. Throughout the whole of the Tudor legislation, notwithstanding the encroachments of the Crown and Parliament, and the actual violations of liberties and office of the Church, its Divine constitution, rights and powers, synods and tribunals, for doctrine and for discipline, were always explicitly recognised and professedly respected. I can hardly think it necessary to load this article with quotations in proof of this assertion. The members of the Anglican Church will certainly not re quire it, excepting those only who represent the small Erastian school, which has always existed in it. It may nevertheless he as well to show in what language the highest authorities of the Anglican Church have spoken in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, on the Divine authority of the Church, its unbroken succession, the powers of the keys and of ordination, the deposit of the faith, and the teaching and judicial office of the Church.

Bishop Bilson says, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth:

' The Apostles' charge to teach, baptise, and administer the Lord's Supper, to bind and loose sinners in heaven and in earth, to impose hands for the ordaining pastors and elders: these parts of the apostolic function and charge are not decayed and cannot be wanting in the Church of God. There must either be no Church, or else these must remain; for without these no Church can continue.' 4

In the same manner Hooker says:

' In that they are Christ's ambassadors and His labourers, who should give them their commission, but He whose most in ward affairs they manage? Is not God alone the Father of spirits? Are not souls the purchase of Jesus Christ? What angel in heaven could have said to man, as our Lord did unto Peter, Feed My sheep; preach; baptise; do this in remembrance of Me; whose sins ye retain they are retained, and their offences in heaven pardoned whose faults you shall on earth forgive?'5

Jeremy Taylor says: ' If Antichrist shall exalt himself above all that is called God,

4 Bilson, Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, chap. ix. p. 156, Oxford edition, 1842.

5 Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. sect. 77.

and in Scripture none but kings and priests are such — Dii vocati, Diifacti — I think we have great reason to be suspicious that he that divests both of their power... does the work of Anti christ for him... especially... if the discipline or government which Christ hath instituted is that kingdom by which He governs all Christendom... when they... throw Christ out of His kingdom.' 6

Bishop Beveridge, speaking of the succession of Bishops, says: ' By which means the same Spirit which was breathed by our Lord into His Apostles is together with their office transmitted to their lawful suc cessors the pastors and governors of our Church at this time; and acts, moves, and assists at the administration of the several parts of the Apostolic office in our days as much as ever.'7

Almost any amount of quotations might he added from Andrewes, Hall, Laud, Bramhall, Hammond, Pearson, and a host of others. I will, however, add but one more witness, and that because his language is identical with that which is to be found in ' Caesarism and Ultramontanism.' In the midst of the controversy between Atterbury and Wake and Kennet, on the subject of the Royal Supremacy and the independence of the Church, Leslie, one of the best defenders of the Church of England, writes thus:

' I intend not to interpose in this dispute; only this use I have to make of it, that both parties do now happily agree in the original and inherent rights of the Church as a society distinct from and independent upon the State, even when the State is Christian. This Dr. Kennet does frankly declare to be the chief end that moved him to write his book, viz. " to assert the nature of the Christian Church as a society endowed with fundamental

6 Taylor on Episcopacy, Introduction.

7 Beveridge, Sermon on Christ's Presence.

rights to preserve its own being; and among these a right for the governors to assemble and agree upon the common measures of faith and unity as at first independent on the heathen, so even now on the Christian magistrate, when the necessities of desertion or persecution so require." The Christian Church was en dowed as a society, with a Divine right of preserving the faith and securing the discipline that should be necessary to hinder the gates of hell from prevailing against her. In order to this end the Church governors had authority to meet and consult upon all urgent affairs.'

Leslie says that Kennet quarrels with Atterbury, because

' He claims no Divine right; he quotes not one text for the Divine right of councils... he proposes no one reason for the necessity of such an inherent and original power in the Church: he does not labour to prove that Christian magistrates cannot retract nor a national clergy recede from antecedent rights; he waives the Christian, and acts only the Englishman. I am sorry the Church of England has come to that pass, that to assert her only rights is to waive the Christian. Have not our laws confirmed to her all the rights belonging to a Christian Church? if not, sure they should be mended.'

I may say that Leslie's whole work, from beginning to end, affirms as the doctrine of the Established Church of England, that the Christian Church, and the Church of England as a part of it, is a society separate from all civil powers, and in the exercise of its spiritual office in doctrine and discipline independent and supreme. I will therefore add only a few more passages:

' If the independence of the Church not only on heathen but Christian magistrates be an original, inherent, and Divine right, with which Christ has invested her, it ought always to be main tained; good princes will be most willing to allow it, but if granted to them others will not part with it; nor will they endure to have their encroachments on the rights of the Church called either persecution or desertion; and they will always find timeservers and flatterers to support them in it.'

He says it is the duty of bishops and priests

' To tell them [civil rulers], and not to fear they will be displeased at it, that Christ is above them, and His Church too, and independent on them: that they themselves are part of her flock, and so subject to her discipline, and in that capacity as well as any other, though entirely and without reserve, subject to them in all temporals.'

' Again, if bishops will not exercise that power which Christ has given them, they are accountable to their Lord for it: but they cannot give it away neither from themselves nor from their successors, for it is theirs only to use, not to part with.'...

' This makes short work with the submission: let lawyers, therefore, look to it, how they can reconcile it with this great and fundamental truth; if not, then down it must come. The bishops are no ways concerned: let them try whether any judge in Westminster Hall will hold up an Act of Parliament against the Gospel, or say that they are more proper judges of the Gospel than the bishops. Let Erastus show his face without a vizard; it is the only way to overthrow him effectually. You need not be afraid that any Christian will fall in love with him. But if the bishops will submit themselves to his yoke, who can speak in their defence? Some would let them go, if religion did not go with them; and that is the reason why others would have them gone. They find the keys of their discipline hung at the belt of Erastus; and some would persuade them that it is best so, lest Pharaoh increase their burdens; and that to think of a deliverance is to put a sword in his hand to slay us!'8

There is nothing contained in the essay of ' Caesarism and Ultramontanism' more explicit than these passages. They assert the Divine foundation, the Divine authority, the Divine office of the Church in doctrine and discipline, its judicial office by the power of the keys, its independence of the State, and its ultimate and supreme power in the sphere of spiritual things over all civil powers, as abundantly and as precisely as I have done. The re-

8 Leslie, ' Preface to the Case of the Regale and Pontificale;' Works, vol. iii. (Oxford, 1832).

lation of the Established Church to the Crown and civil power has always been justified in the following, or in similar terms. They have said:

' 1. It is an article of our Baptismal Faith that the Church of Christ is a Divine Kingdom; in this world, but not of it; governed by its Divine Head through the Pastors whom He has lineally commissioned to feed His flock; that to His Church He intrusted the custody of the Faith and Holy Sacraments — or, as we say, of doctrine and discipline — with full spiritual power to administer and to rule in all things pertaining to the salvation of souls, by His authority and in His Name. For the perpetuity of the Church, and for the preservation of the truth, He has pledged His own perpetual presence and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

' From all which revealed promises and principles of His Divine Kingdom it follows that the Church, in all things relating to the custody of doctrine and discipline, possesses a sole, supreme, and final power, under the guidance of its Divine Head, and responsible to Him only.

1 2. And further, we believe that the Church in Eng land, as a member or province of this Divine Kingdom, possesses in solidum, by inherence and participation in the whole Church, the inheritance of the Divine tradition of faith, with a share in this full and supreme custody of doctrine and power of discipline, partaking for support and perpetuity, in its measure and sphere, the same guidance as the whole Church at large, of which, by our Baptism, we have been made members.

' 3. The Church in England, then, being thus an integral whole, possesses within itself the fountain of doctrine and discipline, and has no need to go beyond itself for succession, orders, mission, jurisdiction, and the office to declare to its own members, in matters of faith, the intention of the Catholic Church. On this ground alone the present relation of the Church in England to the Church of the East and of the West can be justified. We trust that the spiritual organisation of the Church, which, through Saxon, Norman, and English periods of our history, has united this great Christian people, surviving through all perils and mutilations, contains still within itself the whole doctrine and discipline, the faith and power descending from its Divine Head.

' So far from exalting the insular position of the Church in England into a normal state, we lament the unhappy suspension of communion which divides the visible Church of Christ. But we trust that as, in the period of the great Western schism, the Churches of Spain, France, Germany, and many others were com pelled to fall back within their own limits, and to rest upon the full and integral power wiiich by succession they possessed for their own internal government; so the Church in England has continued to be a perfect member of this Divine Kingdom, endowed with all that is of necessity to the valid ministry of the Faith and Sacraments of Christ.¹

' 4. By this we see at once what is the office and relation of the civil power towards the Church at large, and in England in particular, namely, to protect, up hold, confirm, and further this, its sole, supreme, and final office, in all matters of doctrine and discipline. The joint hut independent action of the spiritual and civil powers from our earliest history may be traced through the succession of our Councils and Parliaments — the king expressing and exercising the sum of the civil power, the archhishop of the spiritual,9 of which joint action the celebrated preamble of the 24th of Henry VIII. 12 is a recital and proof.

' 5. The Koyal Supremacy is, therefore, strictly and simply a civil or temporal power over all persons and causes in temporal things, and over ecclesiastical persons and causes in the temporal and civil accidents attaching to them. It is in itself in no sense spiritual or ecclesiastical— understanding the word ecclesiastical to mean anything beyond a civil power accidentally applied to ecclesiastical persons or causes.

' An Anglican would further add, that he knows of no supremacy in ecclesiastical matters inherent in the civil power or prince, but either (1) such power as all princes, Christian or heathen, alike possess; or (2) such as has been received by delegation from the Church itself.

' As to the first or original prerogative, Constantine, before his conversion, had as full a supremacy as after it; Julian, after his apostasy, had no less. S. Augustin says: " Qui Augusto imperium dedit ipse et Neroni

9 Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Cases, vol. ii. p. 91.

... qui Constantino Christiano ipse Apostatse Juliano."10 The supremacy was simply a supreme dominion of power and coercion by the civil sword.

'As to the derived or delegated supremacy, it amounts to no more than a supreme power over all the forms and processes in which the coercive jurisdiction of the Church in Christian States has been clothed. It is neither legislative nor judicial by way of discretion or determination11 in any matter relating to the faith or discipline of the Church.'

If I were to object to such an Anglican argument, that the Convocations and tribunals of the Established Church have been again and again violently overborne by the Crown and Parliament, or by the Crown in Council, as, for instance, in the decisions in the case of Mr. Gorham and in the case of the Essays and Revieics, it might be said that violence does not make law; and that though the Established Church suffers the intrusion of false doctrines, that does not alter its spiritual office; and, moreover, that the judges of the Privy Council recognise that spiritual office by expressly declaring that they are incompetent to judge as to the truth, of any doctrine, and use their jurisdiction only to inquire what doctrines may legally be held and taught by the clergy of the Established Church. It is not my purpose now to point out the reach and bearing of this answer in relation to Catholic truth and unity.

10 S. Aug., De Civit. Dei, lib. v. c. 21.

11 Beveridge, Synodicon Prolegomena, torn. i. p. 11: 'Leges chiles non prascedere debent sed sequi ecclesiasticas.'

I adduce it only to show that theoretically the law of England at this moment recognises the spiritual office of the Church, and its exclusive competence in deter mining the truth of doctrine, and therein of judging whether and when its spiritual office and its doctrines are invaded. It was therefore strictly accurate to say, as I have said, that the Established Church of England affirms as broadly as I did that the Christian Church is separate from all civil powers, and within its own spiritual sphere superior to them. It was, I believe, a profound consciousness of this truth which caused the conspicuous absence of the Anglican clergy from the late meetings at St. James's Hall and Exeter Hall. Self-respect made it impossible for them to take part in stirring up a No-Popery cry, and the consciousness that the Falck laws are a tyrannous violation of the Divine constitution and office of the Church, as they themselves believe it, restrained them both in conscience and in justice from countenancing the outrages and persecution of the Prussian Government.

In thus drawing out the historical and legal theory of the Established Church in its relations to the civil power, I do not forget that a large latitudinarian and rationalistic section of its members would in practice refuse its spiritual office and authority. I must, how ever, affirm that the still larger numbers of its clergy and of its members who hold the theory and principles I have here drawn out are the truer representatives of its history and of its legal rights. Still less do I forget the habitual violations of these rights at all times, and in all reigns, for three hundred years. No one in these days can forget for a moment the appeals to the Crown in Council, and the legalising of false doctrine within the Established Church. These very facts have brought out into greater relief and fuller light the theory and claims of the Established Church as it exists on paper. It has, moreover, spread throughout a large part of its clergy and people a desire of separation from the civil power as the only way of obtaining independence. And lastly, it has called forth from many of the highest and best minds in the Establishment an outspoken declaration that they do not and will not recognise the sen tences or judgments or condemnations of the Crown in Council, either as affecting the Anglican Establishment or as binding in any way upon their conscience. Such men, if consistent, may one day form a Free Kirk in England.

II. What has hitherto been proved from the documents of the Established Church in England may be even more easily proved from the documents of the Kirk of Scotland.

' Presbyter is but Priest writ large.'

In the first chapter of the Second Book of Discipline, under the title of ' The Kirkis Jurisdiction is of God, and is groundit on the Word,' we read:

' The Kirk... lias a certain power granted by God, according to the which it uses a proper jurisdiction and government exercised to the comfort of the whole Kirk. This power ecclesiastical is an authority granted by God the Father through the Mediator Jesus Christ unto His Kirk gathered, and having the ground in the Word of God to be put in execution by them, un to whom the spiritual government of the Kirk by lawful calling is committed.

' The policy of the Kirk flowing from this power is an order or form of spiritual government which is exercised by the mem bers appointed thereto by the Word of God, and therefore is given immediately to the office-bearers, by whom it is exercised to the weal of the whole body.'

Under the title ' The difference betwixt the spiritual and civil jurisdiction,' we read:

' This power and policy ecclesiastical is different and distinct in the own nature from that power and policy ecclesiastical which is called the civil power, and appertains to the civil government of the Commonwealth, albeit they be both of God

For this power ecclesiastical flows immediately from God and the Mediator Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth but only Christ, the only spiritual king and governor of His Kirk.

It is a title falsely usurped by Antichrist to call himself head of the Kirk, and ought not to be attributed to angel or man, of what estate that ever he be, saving to Christ, the only Head and Monarch of the Kirk.

Therefore this power and policy of the Kirk should lean up on the Word immediately as the only ground thereof, and should be taken from the pure fountains of the Scriptures, the Kirk hearing the voice of Christ, the only spiritual King, and being ruled by His laws.

Notwithstanding as the ministers and others of the ecclesiastical estate are subject to the magistrate civil, so ought the person of the magistrate be subject to the Kirk spiritually and ecclesiastical government. And the exercise of both these juris dictions cannot stand in one person ordinarily. The civil power is called the power of the sword, and the other the power of the keys.

The civil power should command the spiritual to exercise and do their office according to the Word of God: the spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to administer justice and punish vice, and to maintain the liberty and quietness of the Kirk within their bounds.

The magistrate handles external things only and actions done for men; but the spiritual ruler judges both inward affec tions and external actions in respect of conscience by the Word of God.

The magistrate neither ought to preach, minister the sacra-VOL. II. O ments, nor execute the censures of the Kirk, nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done.

Finally, as ministers are subject to the judgment and punishment of the magistrates in external things if they offend, so ought the magistrates to submit themselves to the discipline of the Church if they transgress in matters of conscience and religion.'

In the third chapter of the Second Book of Discipline is prescribed how persons are admitted to ecclesiastical office. Besides the inward calling of God is required the outward calling of the Kirk; and this has two parts — election and ordination. In the election must be the judgment of the eldership and the consent of the congregation. No intrusion contrary to these two conditions is valid.

In the tenth chapter, ' Of the Office of a Christian Magistrate in the Kirk/ Christian princes are said to he

' Holden to advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, to be nourishers of the Kirk, to maintain, foster, uphold, and defend it against all hurt.... Also to assist and maintain the discipline of the Kirk, and punish them civilly that will not obey the censure of the same, without confounding always the one jurisdiction with the other.... To make laws and constitutions agreeable to God's Word, for advancement of the Kirk and policy thereof; without usurping anything that pertains not to the civil sword, but belongs to the offices that are merely ecclesiastical, as is the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, using of ecclesiastical discipline and the spiritual execution thereof, or any part of the power of the spiritual keys which our Master gave to the Apostles and their true successors.'

We have here in the amplest terms the separate existence of the spiritual power, its independence, its direct authority derived from its own Head, its supremacy within its own sphere over the civil State and civil rulers, its exclusive power to make spiritual laws, to pronounce spiritual judgments, to elect and ordain its own ministers, in absolute independence of all persons and powers of the civil State, and its right to invoke the secular arm to enforce by civil process the discipline and the judgments in which it admits neither of appeal nor review.

It would be waste of time to trace out the history of the Kirk since these decrees were made. It gave pretty good evidence of its independence and supremacy in the seventeenth century, when it bound kings in chains and nobles in links of iron. It vindicated these great laws of liberty of conscience by noble histories of suffering unto bonds and death under the persecutions of Charles II.

III. Direct and explicit as the evidence of the Kirk of Scotland is in proof of my assertion, the witness of the Free Kirk is still more decisive. Between the Established Kirk and the Free Kirk there is no particle of difference either in doctrine or discipline; the sole cause of the Disruption was the refusal of the Free Kirk to recognise the jurisdiction of any civil court in the call of ministers. They regarded the acquiescence of the Established Kirk in the claims of the civil courts to be at variance with their duty towards Christ, and fatal to the independence of His Church. On the 18th of May 1843, four hundred and seventy-four ministers, headed by Dr. Chalmers, accompanied by a great body of elders and multitudes of people, separated themselves from the Established Kirk. By that act they revived in all their precision and intensity the principles of spiritual independence and supremacy declared by the Second Book of Discipline.

IV. Lastly, it can hardly be necessary to trace the history of what are called the Free Churches of Eng land. They came into existence by a refusal of the Royal Supremacy in religious and ecclesiastical matters. This one principle of spiritual independence and liberty of conscience within the sphere of religion has created the Brownists, the Puritans, the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Baptists, and all Nonconformists of every name. For this one principle for two hundred and fifty years they suffered civil disfranchisement, penalties, imprisonment, capital punishment, exile, contempt, and every form of contumely and privation galling to upright and honourable men. In all these sufferings they had companions, who, though differing from them in the most sacred truths, nevertheless agreed with them in this, that the faith and the Church of Jesus Christ are ' neither of men nor by men, but by the Holy Ghost,' and that the authority of revealed truth is supreme over all civil powers. Nonconformists and Catholics lay bound in the same prisons and suffered on the same scaffold, and, notwithstanding their wide divergence of faith, in this point at least they suffered for the same cause.

It would be easy to go on multiplying historical evidence of what I have affirmed, but I think that enough has been already offered to justify the main assertion, which has caused the criticism of Mr. Stephen. I had said: ' All freedom of soul and conscience, in men, in families, and in States, comes from the limitation of the civil power; but the limitation of the civil power can only come from superior authority.

That superior authority is not in the order of material power, but of Divine right. The limitation which has changed Caesarism into Christian Monarchy is law; and that law the law of God, represented, expounded, applied upon earth by an authority of His own creation, and by judicial powers of His own delegation.' These words read like a quotation from the Second Book of Discipline, or from the Anglican Leslie. There is not a syllable which does not fall within the limits of the Free Kirk of Scotland.

I further affirmed what follows: ' Now what I have here asserted is Ultramontanism, but it is not Ultramontanism alone: it is Christianity as it has been held by all men in all ages, by Catholics and by Protestants alike, by Ultramontanes and Gallicans, by Anglicans and by Presbyterians, by the Free Churches of England, whose noble and pathetic history has just been written on the eve, as I fear, of their apostasy from the high and heroic spirit of their founders and fathers in patience and fidelity to the great law of Christian liberty in Jesus Christ.'

I then added: That Ultramontanism consists

1. In the separation of the two powers (spiritual and civil), and the vesting them in different persons;

2. In claiming for the Church the sole right to de fine doctrines of faith and morals; and

3. To fix the limits of its own jurisdiction in that sphere.

I affirm, then, once more that these three principles are held by Anglicans, by Presbyterians, by Noncon formists of every name; and, further, that they are of the substance of Christianity; that no man can deny any one of them without denying the office, and even the existence, of the Christian Church, or without affirming the preposterous and monstrous doctrine that the revelation of Divine truth is to be judged and disposed of by royal mandates, legislative enactments, and civil tribunals, which is the lowest and basest form of Erastianism. Citjus regio ejus religio. Surely this is a denial of Kevelation altogether. Why not say so at once?

I therefore affirm again that every Christian, who believes that Christianity is a Divine Revelation, must also believe that a Divine Revelation is independent of all civil authorities, and is dependent upon the authority of God alone, whether that Divine authority make itself known by its own action in the isolated conscience of each individual man, or in the assembly of each Christian sect, or in the congregation of a Presbytery, or by the acts of an Episcopate, or by the voice of the Visible Head of the Universal Church. The forms, indeed, are different; the principle is one and the same. The Revelation of God is sustained and promulgated to the world by the authority of God Himself, in independence of all civil authorities, and in supremacy over them all.

This is the claim I have, therefore, made for the Catholic Church, abstracting from all forms of visible order and external polity; and I submit that Mr. Stephen's third thesis is maintained explicitly by the Anglican Establishment, the Established Kirk, the Free Kirk of Scotland, and by all Nonconformists in both countries: namely, that ' Jesus Christ established a Church with the constitution (visible or invisible) and powers which I claim for my Church.' The answer, ' We ought to obey God rather than men,' carries the whole claim of Divine authority.

Footnotes

1. On these grounds our chief writers and canonists have rested the defence of the English Church, and it is of vital necessity that the principles of this defence should not be violated. ↩