Chapter I. Meaning and Effect of the Vatican Decrees.

I. In setting out to prove my first proposition—namely, 'that the Vatican Decrees have in no jot or tittle changed either the obligations or the conditions of Civil Allegiance'—I find myself undertaking to prove a negative. The onus of proving that the Vatican Decrees have made a change in our civil allegiance rests upon those who affirm it. Till they offer proof we might remain silent. It would be enough for us to answer that the Vatican Council in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church has simply affirmed the revealed doctrine of the Spiritual Primacy, and of the Infallibility of the Visible Head of the Christian Church; that the relations of this Primacy to the Civil Powers are in no way treated; and that the civil obedience of subjects is left precisely as and where it was before the Vatican Council was convened.

(1) However, I will first examine what proofs have been offered to show that the Vatican Council has made the alleged change; and I will then give positive evidence to show what the Vatican Council has done. From these things it will be seen that it has neither changed, nor added to, nor taken away anything from the doctrine and discipline of the Church, but has page 11 only defined what has been believed and practised from the beginning.

The arguments to prove a change are two.

First. Mr. Gladstone has argued from the third chapter of the Constitution on the Roman Pontiff, that his powers have received a great extension. Mr. Gladstone, so far as I am aware, is the first and only person who has ever ventured on this statement.

His argument is as follows:—

He dwells with no little amplification upon the 'introduction of the remarkable phrase,' 'ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ,' into the third chapter; that is, 'non solum in rebus quæ; ad fidem et mores pertinent, sed etiam in iis quæ ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiæ; per totum orbem diffusa; pertinent.' He says, 'Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the Pope, at the peril of salvation, not only in faith and in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church' (p. 41). Submission in faith and morals is 'abject' enough, but 'in discipline and government' too is intolerable. 'Why did the astute contrivers of this tangled scheme,' &c. . . . (p. 39). 'The work is now truly complete' (p. 40). This he calls 'the new version of the principles of the Papal Church.' When I read this, I asked, 'Is it possible that Mr. Gladstone should think this to be anything new? What does he conceive the Primacy of Rome to mean? With what eyes has he read history? page 12 Can he have read the tradition of the Catholic Church?' As one of 'the astute contrivers,' I will answer that these words were introduced because the Pontiffs and Councils of the Church have always so used them. They may be 'remarkable' and 'new' to Mr. Gladstone, but they are old as the Catholic Church. I give the first proofs which come to hand.

Nicholas I., in the year 863, in a Council at Rome, enacted: 'Si quis dogmata, man data, interdicta, sanctiones vel decreta pro Catholica fide, pro ecclesiastica disciplina, pro correctione fidelium, pro emendati-one sceleratorum, vel interdictione imminentium vel futurorum malorum, a Sedis Apostolicæ Præside salubriter promulgata contempserit: Anathema sit.'¹ This was an 'iron gripe' not less 'formidable' than the third chapter of the Vatican Constitution.

It may be said, perhaps, that this was only a Pontiff in his own cause; or only a Roman Council.

But this Canon was recognised in the Eighth General Council held at Constantinople in 869.²

Innocent III. may be no authority with Mr. Gladstone; but he says, what every Pontiff before him and after him has said, 'Nos qui sumus ad regimen Universalis Ecclesiæ, superna dispositione vocati.'³

Again, Sixtus IV., in 1471, Writes: 'Ad Universalis Ecclesiæ regimen divina disponente clementia vocatis,'¹&c.

If this be not enough, we have the Council of Florence, in 1442, defining of the Roman Pontiff that 'Ipsi in Beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi Universalem Ecclesiam a Domino nostro Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse.'²

Finally the Council of Trent says:—'Unde merito Pontifices Maximi pro Suprema potestate sibi in Ecclesia universa tradita,'³ &c.

I refrain from quoting Canonists and Theologians who use this language as to regimen and discipline. It needed no astuteness to transcribe the well-known traditional language of the Catholic Church. It is as universal in our law books as the forms of the Courts at Westminster. The Vatican Council has left the authority of the Pontiff precisely where it found it. The whole, therefore, of Mr. Gladstone's argument falls with the misapprehension on which it was based.

What, then, is there new in the Vatican Council? What is to be thought of the rhetorical description of 'Merovingian monarchs and Carlovingian mayors.' but that the distinguished author is out of his depth? The Pope had at all times the power to rule the whole Church not only in faith and morals, but also in all

¹ Corpus Juris Canon. Extrav. Comm. lib. i. tit. ix. cap. i.

² Labbe, Concil. torn, xviii. p. 527, ed. Yen. 1732.

³ Sess. xiv. cap. vii.

page 14 things which pertain to discipline and government, and that whether infallibly or not.

Such is literally the only attempt made by Mr. Gladstone to justify his assertions. But what has this to do with Civil Allegiance? There is not a syllable on the subject, there is not a proposition which can be twisted or tortured into such a meaning. The government of the Church, as here spoken of, is purely and strictly the Spiritual government of souls, both pastors and people, as it was exercised in the first three hundred years before any Christian State existed.

But next, if the Vatican Council has not spoken of the Civil Powers, nevertheless it has defined that the Pope, speaking ex cathedra, is infallible: this definition, by retrospective action, makes all Pontifical acts infallible, the Bull Unam Sanctam included; and, by prospective action, will make all similar acts in future binding upon the conscience.

Certainly this is true. But what is there new in this? The Vatican Council did not make the Pope infallible. Was he not infallible before the Council? He is, therefore, not more infallible after it than before. If a handful of writers, here and there, denied his infallibility, the whole Church affirmed it. Proof of this shall be given in its place. For the present, I affirm that all acts ex cathedra, such as the Bull Unam Sanctam, the Bull Unigenitus, the Bull Auctorem Fidei, and the like, were held to be infallible as fully before the Vatican Council as now.

To this it will be said, 'Be it so; but nobody-was bound under Anathema to believe them.' I answer that it is not the Anathema that generates faith. The infallibility of the Head of the Church was a doctrine of Divine Faith before it was defined in 1870, and to deny it was held by grave authorities to be at least proximate to heresy, if not actually heretical.¹ The Vatican Council has put this beyond question; but it was never lawful to Catholics to deny the infallibility of a Pontifical act ex cathedra. It is from simple want of knowledge that men suppose every doctrine not defined to be an open question. The doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church has never been defined to this day. Will any man pretend that this is an open question among Catholics? The infallibility of the Pope was likewise never defined, but it was never an open question. Even the Jansenists did not venture to deny it, and the evasion of some of them, who gave 'obsequious silence' instead of internal assent to Pontifical acts, was condemned by Clement XI. The definition of the Vatican Council has made no change whatsoever except in the case of those who denied or doubted of this doctrine. No difference, therefore, whatsoever has been made in the state of those who believed it. If the integrity of their civil allegiance was unimpeded before 1870, it is unimpeded now. But Mr. Gladstone admits that it

¹ Petri Privilegium, part i. pp. 61-66, and notes.

page 16 was unimpeded before. His contention is that it is impeded now. But this is self-contradictory, for they believed the same doctrine of infallibility both then and now. If Mr. Gladstone means that the Vatican Council has made a difference for the few who denied the doctrine, and for the authors of Janus and Quirinus, and the professors of 'obsequious silence,' his contention is most true. But then he must change his whole position. The title of his pamphlet must be amended and stand. 'The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on the Civil Allegiance of those who before 1870 denied the Infallibility of the Pope.' But this would ruin his case; for he would have admitted the loyalty of Catholics who always believed it before the definition was made.

We are next told that there are some twelve theories of what is an act ex cathedra. We have been also told that there are twenty. But how is it that Mr. Gladstone did not see that by this the whole force of his argument is shaken? If the definition has left it so uncertain what acts are, and what acts are not, ex cathedra, who shall hold himself bound to obedience? Are the eighty condemnations indicated in the Syllabus ex cathedra? By this showing it is 12 to 1 that they may not be. It is an axiom in morals 'Lex dubia non obligat.' But if it be doubtful whether the Syllabus is ex cathedra, I am not bound to receive it with interior assent. Again, Mr. Gladstone thinks to aggravate the case by adding that page 17 the Pope is to be the ultimate judge of what acts are ex cathedra. And who else should be? Ejus est interpretari cujus est condere is a principle of all law. Mr. Gladstone has been acting upon it all his life. But, perhaps it may be said, why did not the Council put beyond doubt what acts are ex cathedra? Well, the Council has done so, as I hope to show; and has done it with as great precision as the subject matter will admit. It has given five tests, or conditions, by which an act ex cathedra may be distinguished.

But it may be said that doubts may still exist, and that doubts may still be raised as to this or that Pontifical act whether it be ex cathedra or not. Surely common sense would say, consult the authority which made the law; the legislator is always at hand, always ready to explain his own meaning, and to define the limits of his intention. If there be any thing unreasonable in this, all jurisprudence, including the British Constitution, labours under the same uncertainty, or rather the same inevitable imperfection.

I am surprised that Mr. Gladstone should have quoted the second paragraph of the chapter in the Vatican Constitution; and that he should have passed over the fourth paragraph, in which there are indeed the words 'potestatis sæcularis placito.' This is the only recognition of secular powers in the whole Constitution. In that paragraph two things are affirmed: page 18 the one that the free exercise of the supreme Spiritual power of the Head of the Christian Church may neither be intercepted, nor hindered, nor excluded from any part of the Church by any human authority; and, secondly, that all such acts of his Spiritual power are valid and complete in themselves, and need, for that end, no confirmation or placitum of any other authority. This independence is claimed for Christianity by everyone who believes in a revelation. Here is indeed a reference to Civil Powers; but, lest the Vatican Council should be held guilty of such innovations, I will add that such was the contention of St. Thomas of Canterbury against Henry II. in the case of the Constitutions of Clarendon, which were not 'cursed,' as Mr. Gladstone delicately expresses it, but condemned by Alexander III. in the year 1164. This, then, has not changed the Civil Allegiance of Catholics since 1870.

But I am not undertaking to prove a negative. I hope that I have shown that the evidence offered to prove that the Council has made the alleged change is nil. I affirm, then, once more that the Vatican Council has not touched the question of Civil Allegiance, that it has not by a jot or a tittle changed the relations in which the Church has ever stood to the Civil Powers; and that, therefore, the Civil Allegiance of Catholics is as full, perfect, and complete since the Council as it was before. These are affirma- page 19 tions capable of proof, and before I have done I hope to prove them. For the present it will be enough to give the reason why the Vatican Council did not touch the question of the relations of the Church to the Civil Powers. The reason is simple. It intended not to touch them, until it could treat them fully and as a whole. And it has carefully adhered to its intention. I will also give the reason why it has been so confidently asserted that the Council did touch the Civil Powers. It is because certain persons, a year before the Council met, resolved to say so. They wrote the book Janus to prove it; they published circulars and pamphlets before and during the Council to reassert it. They first prophesied that the Council would interfere with the Civil Powers, and now they write scientific history to prove that it has done so. I am not writing at random; I carefully collected at the time their books, pamphlets, and articles. I read them punctually, and bound them up into volumes, which are now before me. Mr. Gladstone has reproduced their arguments. But for this systematic agitation before the Council, no one, I am convinced, would have found a shadow of cause for it in its Decrees. Now, that I may not seem to write this as prompted by the events of the present moment, I will repeat what I published in the year 1869, before the Council assembled, and in the year 1870, after the Council was suspended.

(2) I will now state positively what the Council has defined on the subject of the Roman Pontiff. The history then of the Definition of the Infallibility is as follows:—

1. Two Schemata, as they were called, or treatises, had been prepared: the one on the nature of the Church; the other on its relations to the Civil State.

The first alone came before the Council; the second has never yet been so much as discussed.

In the schema on the nature of the Church, its Infallibility was treated; but the Infallibility of its Head was not so much as mentioned. His Primacy and authority alone were treated. In the end, the chapter relating to the Primacy and authority was taken out, and subdivided into four. The subject of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was then introduced.

The reasons for this change of order were given in 1870, as follows:—

In all theological treatises, excepting indeed one or two of great authority, it had been usual to treat of the Body of the Church before treating of its Head. The reason of this would appear to be that in the exposition of doctrine the logical order was the more obvious; and to the faithful, in the first formation of the Church, the Body of the Church was known before its Head. We might have expected that the Council would have followed the same method. It is, therefore, all the more remarkable that the Council inverted that order, and defined the prerogative of the Head before it treated of the constitution and endowments of the Body. And this, which was brought about by the pressure of special events, is not without significance. The schools of the Church have followed the logical order; but the Church in Council, when for the first time it began to treat of its own constitution and authority, changed the method, and, like the Divine Architect of the Church, began in the historical order, with the foundation and Head of the Church. Our page 25 Divine Lord first chose Cephas, and invested him with the primacy over the Apostles. Upon this rock all were built, and from him the whole unity and authority of the Church took its rise. To Peter alone first was given the plenitude of jurisdiction and of infallible authority. Afterwards, the gift of the Holy Ghost was shared with him by all the Apostles. From him and through him therefore all began. For which cause a clear and precise conception of his Primacy and privilege is necessary to a clear and precise conception of the Church. Unless it be first distinctly apprehended, the doctrine of the Church will be always proportionately obscure. The doctrine of the Church does not determine the doctrine of the Primacy, but the doctrine of the Primacy does precisely determine the doctrine of the Church. In beginning, therefore, with the Head, the Council has followed our Lord's example, both in teaching and in fact; and in this will be found one of the causes of the singular and luminous precision with which the Council of the Vatican has, in one brief Constitution, excluded the well-known errors on the Primacy and Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.

The reasons which prevailed to bring about this change of method were not only those which demonstrated generally the opportuneness of defining the doctrine, but those also which showed specially the necessity of bringing on the question while as yet the Council was in the fulness of its numbers. page 26 It was obvious that the length of time consumed in the discussion, reformation, and voting of the Schemata was such that, unless the Constitution De Romano Pontifice were brought on immediately after Easter, it could not be finished before the setting in of summer should compel the bishops to disperse. Once dispersed, it was obvious they could never again reassemble in so large a number. Many who with great earnestness desired to share the blessing and the grace of extinguishing the most dangerous error which for two centuries had disturbed and harassed the faithful, would have been compelled to go back to their distant sees and missions, never to return. It was obviously of the first moment that such a question should be discussed and decided, not, as we should have been told, in holes and corners, or by a handful of bishops, or by a faction, or by a clique, but by the largest possible assembly of the Catholic Episcopate. All other questions, on which little divergence of opinion existed, might well be left to a smaller number of bishops; but a doctrine which for so long had vexed both pastors and people, the defining, not the truth, of which was contested by a numerous and organised opposition, needed to be treated and affirmed by the most extensive deliberation of the bishops of the Catholic Church. Add to this the many perils which hung over the continuance of the Council, of which I need but give one example. The outbreak of a war might have rendered the definition impossible. And page 27 in fact the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was defined on the eighteenth of July, and war was officially declared on the following day.

With these and many other contingencies fully before them, those who believed that the definition was, not only opportune, but necessary for the unity of the Church and of the Faith, urged its immediate discussion. Events justified their foresight. The debate was prolonged into the heats of July, when, by mutual consent, the opposing sides withdrew from a further prolonging of the contest, and closed the discussion. If it had not been already protracted beyond all limits of reasonable debate—for not less than a hundred fathers in the general and special discussions had spoken chiefly, if not alone, of Infallibility—it could not so have ended. Both sides were convinced that the matter was exhausted.¹

2. In order to demonstrate, if possible, more abundantly that the Vatican Council has not so much as touched the relations of the Church to the Civil Power, I will give a brief analysis of its Definitions in what is called the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ.

It is, as I have said, a portion of the Schema or treatise on the Church, taken out and enlarged into a Constitution by itself. There would have been only one Constitution treating of both the Body and the

¹ Petri Privilegium, part iii. pp. 51-54.

page 28 Head of the Church. Now there are two. The first, treating of the Head, has been completed; the second, treating of the Body, yet remains.

Now of the First Constitution there are four chapters.

The first treats of the Institution of the Apostolic Primacy in Saint Peter. The sum of it is that Our Lord appointed Peter to be Head of the whole Church, and gave him immediately a Primacy, not of honour only, but of jurisdiction. There is here not a word of anything but the Pastoral or Spiritual power.

The second declares the Primacy to be perpetual. It affirms two things: the one that Peter has a perpetual line of successors, and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter in that Primacy.

The third affirms the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff to be full and supreme in all things of faith and morals, and also in discipline and government of the Church; and that this jurisdiction ordinary and immediate over all Churches and persons.

The fourth chapter treats of the Infallibility of the Magisterium, or the teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff. This chapter affirms that a Divine assistance was given to Peter, and in Peter to his successors for the discharge of their supreme office. It affirms also that this is a tradition received from the beginning of the Christian Faith. They, therefore, who tell us that the Vatican Council has brought in a new doctrine show that they do not know what the page 29 Vatican Council has said, and what it is that they must refute before their charge of innovation can be listened to.

If disputants and controversialists had read and mastered these five conditions, we should have been spared much senseless clamour.

3. Lastly, it is to be observed that the Council has not defined the limit of the phrase 'faith and morals.' This well-known formula is plain and intelligible. The deposit committed to the Church is the Revelation of Divine Truth, and of the Divine Law. The Church is the guardian and witness, the interpreter and the expositor, of the Truth and of the Law of God. Such is the meaning of 'faith and morals.' It is a formula well known, perfectly clear, sufficiently precise for our spiritual and moral life. If questions may be raised about the limits of faith and morals, it is because questions may be raised about anything; and questions will always be raised by those who love contention against the Catholic Church more than page 30 they love either faith or morals. All argument against the Vatican Council as to the limits or extent of this formula is so much labour lost. It has not so much as touched the extent or the limits.

Such, then, is the whole of the first Constitution De Ecclesia Christi. It does not contain a syllable of the relation of this Primacy to the Civil or Political State, except to say that no human authority is needed for the validity of its acts, nor may any human power hinder their exercise. But these are truths as old as the day when St. Peter said before the council in Jerusalem, 'If it be just, in the sight of God, to hear you rather than God, judge ye.'¹ I hope, then, I have justified my assertion that the Vatican Council has not changed by a jot or a tittle the civil allegiance of Catholics. It is as free and perfect now as it was before.

As I have affirmed that the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Head of the Church was a doctrine of Divine Faith before the Council, and that the denial of it was confined to a small school of writers, I might be expected here to offer the historical proof of this assertion.

But I have already done so in the year 1869, before the Council assembled. I would therefore refer to the second part of 'Petri Privilegium'² for, as I believe, a sufficient proof. I will, however, in few words give the outline of what was then said.

It is acknowledged by the adversaries of the doctrine that from the Council of Constance in 1414 to this day the doctrine has been the predominant belief of the Church. I gave evidence of its existence from the Council of Constance upwards to the Council of Chalcedon in 445.

Next I traced the history of the growth of the opinions adverse to the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff from the Council of Constance to the year 1682, when it was, for the first time, reduced to formula by an assembly of French ecclesiastics under the influence of Louis XIV.

Lastly, I showed how this formula was no sooner published than it was condemned in every Catholic country by bishops and universities, and by the Holy See. The sum of the evidence for the first period was then given as follows:—

Gallicanism is no more than a transient and modern opinion, which arose in France, without warrant or antecedents in the ancient theological schools of the French Church; a royal theology, as suddenly developed and as parenthetical as the Thirty-nine Articles, affirmed only by a small number out of the numerous Episcopate of France, indignantly rejected by many of them; condemned in succession by three Pontiffs; declared by the Universities of Louvain and Douai to be erroneous; retracted by the bishops of France; condemned by Spain, Hungary, and other countries; and condemned over again in the Bull Auctorem Fidei.

But Gallicanism was the only formal interruption of the universal belief of the Church in the Infallibility of its Head. The Vatican Council extinguished this modern error.

II. Having thus far offered proof of the first proposition in my first letter, I will now go on to the second.

I there affirmed that the Civil Allegiance of Catholics is as undivided as that of all Christians, and of all men who recognise a divine or natural moral law.

Mr. Gladstone requires of us 'solid and undivided allegiance.'¹

I must confess to some surprise at this demand. The allegiance of every moral being is 'divided,' that is, twofold; not, indeed, in the same matter nor on the same plane, but in two spheres, and on a higher and a lower level, so that no collision is possible, except by some deviation or excess. Every moral being is under two authorities—human and divine. The child is under the authority of parents, and the authority of God; the subject is under the authority of the Civil State, and the Divine authority of natural or revealed religion. Unless we claim Infallibility for the State, its acts must be liable to revision, and to resistance by natural conscience. An unlimited obedience to parents or to States would generate a race of unlimited monsters. Surely these are truisms. Our Lord Himself taught this division when He said, 'Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's.' But this all men admit when they think. Unfortunately, when they attack the Catholic Church or the Vatican Council they seldom think much.

Put the objection in this form: 'We non-Catholics acknowledge two authorities as you Catholics do. Our allegiance to the civil law is revised and checked by our consciences, guided by the light of

¹ P. 44. D

page 34 nature and by the light of revelation. We refuse to receive religious doctrine or discipline from the State. We allow the Society of Friends, for conscience sake, to refuse to take an oath of allegiance, and even to fight for their country, for conscience sake; and yet these two are among the natural duties of subjects which the civil authority may most justly both require and enforce. We therefore leave every man free to refuse obedience to civil laws if his conscience so demands of him. But you Catholics put your conscience into the hands of the Pope. You are bound to follow his interpretation of the civil law; and he tells you when your conscience ought to refuse obedience whether you see it or not; worse than this, the Pope may wrongly interpret our civil laws, or he may even so interpret them as to serve his own interests; and then your moral and mental freedom is at the mercy of another. You must choose between your religion and your country.' I think I have not understated the argument of our adversaries.

To this the answer is twofold. First, that the non-Catholic doctrine is more dangerous to the Civil State than the Catholic. If any individual conscience may dispense itself from civil obedience, then almost all men will obey only 'for wrath' and not for 'conscience sake.'¹ And such, in fact, is the condition of millions of men. I could wish that the mental state of the

¹ Rom. xiii. 5.

page 35 masses were better known. I wish it were possible to ascertain, by letting down a thermometer into the deep sea of our population, what notions remain of loyalty or allegiance. No doubt, in an insular population like ours, the traditional custom of inert conformity with law maintains a passive compliance which passes for Civil Allegiance. But take the population of countries where the so-called rights of the political conscience of individuals have had their legitimate development. A law is a law so far as it is accepted; a man is bound by the law so far as he had a hand in making it. If you once admit that the ultimate decision as to civil obedience is in the individual, each political conscience is a law-giver and a law to itself. You cannot fly principles with a string as boys fly kites. Once enunciated they have nothing to control them. If every man has the ultimate right of refusing obedience to the law upon the dictates of his own conscience, then we are in a state of unlimited license, which is potentially a state of unlimited revolution. And such, in truth, since 1789 has been the state of the west of Europe. It is in a state of chronic instability and continuous change. More than forty revolutions have sprung from this essential lawlessness.

Secondly, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, the rights of individual conscience are secured not only against external coercion, but against its own aberrations. The obedience of Catholic subjects to their Civil Rulers is a positive precept of page 36 religion. The rising against legitimate authority is forbidden as the sin of rebellion. The Syllabus has condemned the propositions:—

'Authority is nothing else but the result of numerical superiority and material force.'—Prop. 60.

'It is allowable to refuse obedience to legitimate Princes, and also to rebel against them.'—Prop. 63.

The political conscience of Catholics is not left to the individual judgment alone. It is guided by the whole Christian morality, by the greatest system of ethical legislation the world has ever seen, the Canon Law and the Moral Theology of the Catholic Church. Not only all capricious and wilful resistances of the Civil Law, but all unreasonable and contentious disobedience is condemned by its authority. It is a doctrine of faith that legitimate sovereignty exists not only in the unity of the Church, but outside of the same; and not only among Christian nations, but also among the nations that are not Christian.¹ Moreover, that to all such legitimate sovereigns subjects are bound by the Divine Law² to render obedience in all lawful things. It is certain, therefore, that Catholics are bound to Civil Allegiance by every bond, natural and supernatural, as absolutely as their non-Catholic fellow-countrymen; and, I must add, more explicitly.

¹ Rom. xiii. 1-4.

² St. Peter ii. 13-15.

page 37 And further, that they can hardly be reduced to the necessity of using their private judgment as to the lawfulness of obeying any law. In all matters of ordinary civil and political life, the duty of Catholics is already defined by a whole code which enforces obedience for conscience sake. In the rare case of doubt which may arise in times of religious persecution, political revolution, civil wars, or wars of succession, Catholic and non-Catholic subjects are alike in this,—they are both compelled to choose their side. But the non-Catholic subject has hardly law or judge to aid his conscience: the Catholic has both. He has the whole traditional moral law of Christendom, which has formed and perpetuated the civil and political order of the modern world, and he has a multitude of principles, maxims, and precedents on which to form his own judgment. Finally, if he be unable so to do, he can seek for guidance from an authority which the whole Christian world once believed to be the highest judicial tribunal and the source of its civil order and stability. And is this to place 'his mental and moral freedom at the mercy of another?' As much as, and no more than, we place ourselves 'at the mercy' of the Christian Church for our salvation. Let us take an example. It is certain, by the natural and Divine Law, that every man may defend himself, and that every people has the right of self-defence. On this all defensive wars are justifiable. But if the Sovereign levy war upon his people, have they the page 38 right of self-defence? Beyond all doubt. But at what point may they take up arms? and what amount of oppression justifies recourse to resistance? For the non-Catholic there can only be these answers. 'He must go by the light of his own conscience, or he must be guided by the judgment of the greater number, or by the wiser heads of his nation.' But the greater number may not be the wiser; and to judge who are the wiser throws the judgment once more upon himself. The Catholic subject would use his own judgment, and the judgment of his countrymen, but he would not hold himself at liberty to take up arms unless the Christian law confirmed the justice of his judgment. But from whom is this judgment to be sought? He would ask it of all those of whom he asks counsel in the salvation of his soul. If this is to be at the mercy of another, we are all at the mercy of those whom we believe to be wiser than ourselves.

Let us take an example. The Italian people have been for twenty years spectators of a revolution which has overthrown the Sovereigns of Naples and Tuscany. I will ask two questions. First, would any Italian place himself at the mercy of another, if he should ask of the head of his religion what course as a Christian he ought to pursue?

And, secondly, what has been the action of the Pope in respect to the Italian revolution? He has said that to co-operate in the Italian revolution is not page 39 lawful. Surely, if Italians are free to form their conscience on the doctrines of the revolution, they are equally free to form their conscience on the doctrines of their religion. To deny this is to have two weights and two measures. The non-Catholic theory tolls us that the conscience of subjects is the ultimate test. Be it so; my conscience tells me that it is right to obey my religion rather than the revolution. If this be a divided allegiance, then it is Christianity which has introduced it, and not the Church. It was our Lord Himself who, by instituting His Church, separated for ever the two powers, Civil and Spiritual, thereby redeeming the conscience and the religion of men from the dominion of princes, and conferring upon the Civil Power the consecration by which it is confirmed, and the higher law by which its sphere is defined. It is all this, and not¹ 'our old friend the deposing power alone,' which I have described as teaching obedience to subjects and moderation to princes.² In all conflicts between the Civil and Spiritual, the consciences of Christians will be decided by the Christian law.

I conclude, therefore, this part of the subject by reasserting:—

1.	That the relations of the Church to the State 1 Expostulation, p. 52. 2 Temporal Power of the Pope, pp. 44-46, second ed. 1862. page 40 were never so much as proposed for discussion in the Vatican Council.
2.	That in its Constitutions or Definitions it has in no way touched the subject.
3.	That the Definitions of the Council are 'declaratory' of doctrine already of Divine Faith, and that no new 'enactment' whatsoever was made.
4.	That the relations of the Church to the Civil Power were left by the Vatican Council as they were known and declared by the Council of Trent and all previous Councils.

I will therefore answer Mr. Gladstone's questions in page 44 of his 'Expostulation.' He tells us that 'what is not wanted is vague and general assertion of whatever kind, and howsoever sincere. What is wanted, and that in the most specific form and in the clearest terms, I take to be one of two things, that is to say, either—

'1.	A demonstration that neither in the name of faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the government or discipline of the Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim upon those who adhere to his communion of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their Civil allegiance; or else,page 41
'2.	That if, and when such claim is made, it will even, although resting on the definitions of the Vatican, be repelled and rejected.'1

I have shown that the Pope is not able, by the Vatican Council, to make any claim in the name of faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the government or discipline of the Church, which he was not able to make before the Vatican Council existed.

To Mr. Gladstone's first question, therefore, I answer, that neither in virtue of the Vatican Decrees, nor of any other decrees, nor of his supreme authority as Head of the Christian Church, can the Pope make any claim upon those who adhere to his communion of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their Civil Allegiance.

To his second question, therefore, the answer is already given. I have no need to declare myself ready to repel and reject that which the Pope cannot do. He cannot do an act contrary to the Divine Law; but to impair my Civil Allegiance would be contrary to the Law of God.

It is strange to me that so acute a reasoner should have begged the question, which is this: By whom are the limits of Civil Allegiance to be determined? If Mr. Gladstone should say by the State, I would

¹ The Vatican Decrees, p. 44.

page 42 ask—Does he mean that the State is infallible in morals? or that subjects have no conscience, or that the State may coerce their conscience, or that the State can create a morality which all consciences must obey? Some of these postulates are inevitably assumed in his question, if it has any meaning.

My reasons for saying this will be seen in the following chapter.