from its own faith and teaching. They do so, as we understand, first, on historical grounds. The work which the Council undertook to decide was primarily of a historical character. Such is to some extent the work of every Council, but was especially such in the late Vatican Council. They came together to investigate what have always been the faith and teaching of the Church on this subject. The necessary conditions for such an investigation are that the necessary historical documents or material should be present, and that full freedom should be allowed in the Council to sift and consider it. For, even allowing that an ecumenical Council is guided infallibly by the Spirit into the truth, yet the Spirit cannot be supposed to provide the conditions of right knowledge in the case miraculously. The Holy Spirit did not do this even for the inspired writers of the New Testament Scripture. So far as they recorded historical facts, it is presupposed that they had access to these facts, as we know they had, without a miracle to supply them with the facts.

Now it is urged by the Old Catholics that the historical material at hand in the Council was not sufficient to establish the conclusion to which they arrived, and that some of the material on which they based their conclusion was spurious. This their best historians assert, as for instance Dr. Döllinger.* The insufficiency of history to establish the fact that the Church has always believed infallibility to reside in the Pope, and the contradiction involved by such a declaration was pointed out by "Janus" before and during the meeting of the Vatican Council. The eminent scholars among the Old Catholics have not failed to point out the same thing since the meeting of that Council.

Besides it is maintained that the Council was not free during its meetings, that it did not allow free discussion and the free expression of opinion by all its members. The current reports from Rome, and instances of coercion given and substantiated

Döllinger's Reply to the Archbishop of Munich.

† See "The Pope and the Council." By Janus. 1869.

by individual members themselves, sufficiently establish this. Indeed the Jesuit position that the Council was not called to decide upon the truth, but only to confirm what the Pope had already decided for them, was maintained. From their standpoint it would seem that "the only business of Bishops at a Council must be to inform the Pope of the condition of their dioceses, to give him their advice, and form a picturesque background for the solemn promulgation of his decrees," and so far as the giving of advice was concerned, it must be an echo of the syllabus to be supported and maintained.

The Old Catholics, moreover, take issue in regard to the consequences that must result from the enactment of the decree of papal infallibility. These, too, were foretold by "Janus." "If this desire is accomplished, a new principle of immeasurable importance, both retrospective and prospective, will be established-a principle which, when once irrevocably fixed, will extend its dominion over men's minds more and more, till it has coerced them into subjection to every Papal pronouncement in matters of religion, morals, politics and social science. For it will be idle to talk any more of the Pope's encroaching on a foreign domain; he, and he alone, as being infallible, will have the right of determining the limits of his teaching and action at his own good pleasure, and every such determination will bear the stamp of infallibility. When once the narrow adherence of many Catholic theologians to the ancient tradition and the Church of the first six centuries is happily broken through, and the pedantic horror of new dogmas completely got rid of, and the well-known canon of St. Vincent, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' which is still respected here and there, set aside then every Pope, however ignorant of theology, will be free to make what use he likes of his power of dogmatic creativeness, and to erect his own thoughts into the common belief, binding on the whole Church."

The consequences, in regard to conscience, of the Vatican decrees are also pointed out. This point is brought out forcibly and eloquently in the address of Prof. Reinkens at the Cologne Congress, and published in the January number of

this Review. Attempts to bind the conscience appear to have occurred before. Popes had issued bulls such as the one against the Jansenists, where it was enjoined that the faithful not only believe that the errors condemned are contrary to the true faith, but equally that they must believe that the errors condemned were contained in the work of Jansenius, thus rendering the Pope's judgment of the meaning of a book, as a matter of fact, binding on the conscience, as well as upon a matter of doctrine. But in the light of the Councils of Constance and Basel, and in the absence of any decree of the infallibility of the Pope, Catholics, while submitting to the order of the Pope, could still save their conscience. Now, however, the case is different. There can be no such reservation. Those who do not believe that the Pope is infallible, as heartily and truly as they believe in the divinity of Christ, for instance, are excommunicate here and eternally damned hereafter.

There are some who still try to save themselves as Father Hyacinthe explains it, or at least he tries to save them, by making a distinction between "true truth and official truth." * They give in their adhesion to the decree of Papal infallibility by a coercion of the will, by a silencing of conscience, or whatever it may be called. "The world should not be misled into believing that because almost every one of the Catholic bishops have submitted to the decrees of the Vatican Council, they believe in them (and we cannot attempt here to show how that 'submission' has been exacted), and much less that they accept the present condition and government of the Church as wise and sanitary. We believe that every intelligent bishop in the Roman communion deplores the present state of affairs as inextricable for the Church, dangerous for governments, and fatal to the individual faith. We know of those who groan in silence, being conscience-bound; others who writhe under continuous torture of the conflict between earthly responsibilities and their interior convictions. Others there are given over to despair; but, thank Heaven, there are some who hope, because

Letter of Father Hyacinthe in the Independent, April, 1873.

they trust not in man, but in God." In proof of this state of mind and conscience in the Episcopate, he then gives extracts from letters from most worthy and eminent bishops in the Roman Church, which he obtained permission to publish.

Again the old Catholics protest against the Vatican decree, that it interferes with loyalty on the part of subjects to the State. Here also we come upon an old and vexed question which never came to any final historical solution in the Catholic Church. The relation of Church and State must be determined in a historical way, consistently with the claims and prerogatives of the Church as well as those of the State, just as the relation of the supernatural and natural, in general, must determine itself historically. We may, indeed, say the one is above the other, the spiritual over the temporal, but this is not defining or settling their historical relation to each other. The State has an authority from God in its sphere; the family has authority in its sphere, and neither has the right to assuine absolute control over the other. Our Saviour recognized the rights of both Church and State when he said, “Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." But the Church, while always maintaining the principles that where a clear case of conflict between divine and human authority occurs, we must obey God rather than man, yet has defined the relation of Church and State in different ways. It was the dream of Hildebrand to establish a universal theocracy, and from his time the Church began to encroach on the legitimate rights of the State. Examples need not be given where the Pope claimed the right, not only to put kings under the ban, but to absolve subjects from their allegiance (what our Saviour Himself did not do in regard to Cæsar), and authorize any power from other nations to come in and dispossess the king.* Now the figure of the two lights, the sun and the moon, was used to illustrate the relation of the two, and then again the figure of the two swords, as in the case of the Bull of Boniface VIII., called Unam

* Innocent III., in the case of King John of England, A. D. 1212.

Sanctam, to which Dr. Döllinger refers in his reply to the Archbishop of Munich. "Unam sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam et ipsam Apostolicam urgente fide credere cogimur et tenere. Igitur Ecclesiæ unius et unicæ unum corpus, unum caput, non duo capita, quasi monstrum, Christus videlicet et Christi Vicarius Petrus, Petrique successor. In hac ejusque potestate duos esse gladios, spiritualem et temporalem, Evangelicis dictis instruimur. Nam dicentibus Apostolis 'Ecce gladii duo hic,' in Ecclesia scilicet: cum Apostoli loquerentur, non respondit Dominus, nimis esse, sed satis. Uterque ergo est in potestate Ecclesiæ, spiritualis, scil. gladius, et materialis," etc. Must it be claimed that this interpretation of Scripture, of the instance of Peter's using the sword, is infallible? And that as a consequence the Church is authorized to hold and use two swords, a spiritual and a material one? This must follow from the decision on Papal infallibility. But Döllinger demurs. He will not be committed to the infallibility of Papal Bulls, for they may err.

This is an interesting question, and it is undergoing a new historical trial in the new conflict between Romanism, in this latest phase of its development, and some of the States of Europe. The Old Catholics are determined to maintain their loyalty to the king as well as to the Church. The new conditions under which the question is being tried particularly in Germany and Italy may lead to new revelations on this subject.

Some would have it that the only way out of this labyrinth is the adoption of the American theory. In this country Church and State are independent, it is usually said. Yet this must be qualified, for there are points on which they come. together even here, as for instance in the case of the oath, of marriage, of keeping the Christian Sabbath, and in the matter of education. In reference to this last we are just coming to face some of the difficulties involved in the question of Church and State. These difficulties cannot be overcome by the State taking under its control the matter of religious edu

* Gieseler, translated from the third edition, Vol. II. p. 246, note 25.