THE (ECUMENICAL COUNCIL.
THERE seems to us no doubt at all,—from whichever point of view we approach the question, the Romanist or our own,—that the (Ecumenical Council will form one of the great crises in the history of Christianity. Let us consider it, first, from the Romanist point of view. The gen nine Roman Catholic says to himself, and, as it seems to us, very justly, that if he has a really infallible guidance at all,in theology, he clearly has and must have a really infalli- ble guidance in the principles at least of every sphere of human action and human knowledge, and that it is mere impious extravagance and wastefulness to ignore the enormous advantage which he thus possesses over other Churches. Con- sequently the genuine Roman Catholic thanks God for every evidence that his infallible guide is disposed to extend the sphere of human certainty by expounding the bearing of Roman Catholic theology on the various spheres of political, social, and intellectual life, into relation with which events- have forced that theology. Hence he is thankful beyond measure for the promise of an (Ecumenical Council which promises to lay down ex cathedrd the relation of the only certain branch of knowledge to the uncertain, the relation of Catholic theology to the various schools of philosophy, the relation of Catholic theology to the novel aspects of physical science, the relation of Catholic theology to political axioms and political freedom, to social aspirations, to moral ideals, nay, to principles of art and taste, if it should but please the infallible organ of the Church to declare itself on subjects of comparative insignificance. It seems to us essential for Pro- testants to face the fact that Catholics really do look forward to any new declarations of their infallible Church with the same sort of feeling with which men of science grasp at a new extension of their knowledge of physical laws,—with eager hope of new light and progress. To the Roman Catholic the old declarations of the Church seem the only stable and un- changing grounds of certainty in a changeful and uncertain life, the points of departure from which to reason with confidence as men reason from facts, and not from theories ; —and the new declarations of the Church seem to them the chief new instruments of progress, the new forces by which God vouchsafes to them new advantages in clear- ing up their own personal difficulties and regenerating the external world. What a great astronomer feels in looking forward to a total eclipse of the sun as a new opportunity for discovering the nature of the chromosphere which enve- lopes it, or in anticipating the application of the principle of spectrum analysis to determine the nature of the "hydrogen cyclones" in the sun's spots, that the genuine Romanist feels when he looks forward to new dogmatic decisions of his Infallible Church on the relation of his theology to scientific theories, to politics, to ethics, to taste. He believes that he is about to advance a step, to get into a clearer and more definite world of thought ; that a problem or two of the highest difficulty, and hitherto of the most perplexing doubt, will be solved—that the solution of such problems will lay the foundations for the solution of more problems of the same sort—in a word that, so far from "losing freedom," which is our view of these advancing claims of the Holy See 'on human life, he will gain it in precisely the same manner, and for the same reasons for which we Protestants feel that we gain freedom when we discover (say) that cholera is due to the infiltration of our water with _certain decomposing animal or vegetable substances, a discovery which, in one sense, diminishes our freedom by rendering us reluctant to drink water which we had drunk without hesitation before, but which increases it so far as it gives us a larger power of voluntarily avoiding disease. Just so a Roman Catholic will say that a new decision of the Church on philosophical prineiples or polital Facticc: his freedom, indeed, so far as it forbids him to do what he might before have done without sin, but increases it by enlarging his power of avoiding sin, and enhancing the clearness and steadiness of his intellectual view. Thus, when the Roman Catholic hears that the (Ecumenical Council is very likely to deliberate and lay down the Catholic principle on such subjects as we are about to enumerate, he rejoices just as we should rejoice if we heard that a great intellectual philosopher had put a final end to the controversy as to the nature of conscience, or a great statesman had satisfied the reason of the country as to the justice of a great revolutionary measure, or a chemist determined satisfactorily the nature of the molecular laws involved in chemical affinities. The Church, it is said, on doubtful but apparently probable evidence, is likely to discuss and pronounce upon the issues raised in various controversies classified under the following heads :—" 1. Pantheism, Naturalism, and Abso- lute Rationalism. 2. Modified Rationalism. 3. Indif- erentism and Tolerance. 4. Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies, and Clerical Liberal Societies. 5. Errors with respect to the Church and her Rights. 6. Errors with respect to Civil Society in itself, and in its relation to the Church. 7. Errors with respect to Natural and Christian Morals. 8. With respect to Christian Marriage. 2. With respect to the Sovereignty of the Roman Pope. 10. With respect to Modern Liberalism." Who can wonder that the true Catholic should exult in the hope of getting what he believes will be new points of absolute certainty on such diffi- cult and complex questions as these ?
On the other hand, the hesitating Catholics, and the whole world of convinced Protestants, look forward to new "infallible" decisions on such subjects with either dismay or an exultation of a precisely opposite source from the exultation felt by the genuine Roman Catholic. The dismay is felt by those Roman Catholics who, like the German Catholic memorialists of Treves, retain their full belief,—or who think they retain their full belief,—in the infallibility of their Church in theology, but who feel uncomfortably that it might be much easier for them to lose their belief on that head than to gain a belief in the power of the Church to decide upon the principles of other closely related subjects ; and who look forward, there. fore, to any attempt to push the decisions of the Church into new spheres of thought, as far more likely to shake their trust in the decisions of the past than to increase their trust in the decisions of the future. These memorialists accordingly object to having the Syllabus promulgated dogmatically, to having the Pope's infallibility proclaimed by acclamation, and to having the assumption in the flesh of the Virgin Mary declared an article of faith. What the memorialists want is, on the contrary, rather a retreat of the Church into a more modest sphere, than an extension of her authoritative declarations. They seem to be favourable to separation between Church and State, re-estab- lishment of an independent and harmonious action between the laity and the clergy, a definite organization of the laity in relation to the ecclesiastical body, and a proper relationship between true believers and science. They would be glad to see diocesan, provincial, and national synods called with a view to the adjustment of such questions. But they definitely object to a General Council whose tendency, as they clearly see, would be to strain the faith of the Roman Catholic Church by demanding new acts of intellectual submission. The memo- rialists expressly call attention to the Index Librorum Pro-. nibitorum as an institution out of harmony with the age. They admit that the Church should guard the purity of her doc- trine, but not, they think, by this childish means. It is an institution of ecclesiastical infancy, they assert, not one of mature life. It stands in the way of scientific progress, and draws down ridicule on the Church. Here, then, we see the attitude of those who still believe that they believe in the Roman Catholic theology, but have no confidence that the infallible principles involved in that theology can win for them new fields of certainty in the border lands between" theology and the other regions of intellectual and moral life. They cannot believe that the Church is infallible as to its own infallibility. Infallible on theology it may be, but it is fallible as to the extent of its own infallibility. We should expect from these memorialists, that if the Church does advance, against their advice, into new fields of dogmatic decision, the effect upon them will be to shake their confidence in the infallibility of the old theology, rather than to increase it in the infallibility of the related philosophy and practice.
Finally, the genuine Protestants, who feel no belief at all in the theological infallibility of the Church, welcome the crucial experiment which the Church is, in their belief, about to make, no less than the genuine Roman Catholics. They hold that the greater the extension of the dogmatic assump- tions of the Church to science, politics, social principles, history, ethics, taste, the speedier will be the conversion of the Catholics to a disbelief in infallibility altogether. They agree with the Treves memorialists, but agree from the oppo- site point of view. They hold that the Church, if it did not condemn Galileo, at least dreaded and distrusted his speculations, and that every advance of physical science, from Galileo to Darwin, has been viewed with dismay by the Roman Catholic theologians, instead of with new confi- dence. They hold that its political system has notoriously broken down in Italy, and Spain, and Ireland, at least so far as earnestly discouraging all that is most characteristic of the last three centuries, and encouraging all that is most grudging towards the achievements of these centuries. They hold that in ethics the Roman Catholic Church has been formalist and legal, fettering spiritual liberty needlessly, and relaxing by its casuistry some of the highest re- straints of the divine law (in relation, for instance, to veracity). They believe that, judging by results, in ethics, politics, and science, it has proved alike a failure, and that it needs only full and free " development " to bring that failure home to the minds of candid Catholics, however Conservative. They would see the power of the Roman Catholic Church stretched with satisfaction, because they believe, with the genuine Romanists, that if that power be not from God, stretching it will hasten its final rupture, and they are anxious that Romanists and Protestants alike should judge for them- selves on so momentous a question. If the Church really gains by this enlargement of its assumptions in such an age as this,—well, that would be contrary to all their most intimate convictions, and would tend to prove their intimate convictions false. They are as hopeful as the earnest and logical Roman Catholic of the issue. What can be more promising to either side than a test of this magnitude in an age such as this? It is only the hesitating Roman Catholics, or the hesitating Protestants, who can dread the issue. The former apprehend, like the Catholic memorialists of Treves, that they may be driven from their old faith more easily than led into new light. The latter apprehend, like certain timorous Anglicans, that the Church may win so much by her audacity as to acquire a kind of absolute despotism over the whole of Roman Catholic life, and win a host of converts, if only by her courage. But those who heartily trust their own convictions on either side, do not believe that a miracle can be wrought except by God. If Romanism really wins by invading thus boldly the sphere of progress which science and freedom have conquered painfully from the Church during near four centuries of conflict, the genuine Catholic and the genuine Protestant alike will regard it as a miracle,—the former in his behalf, the latter for his confusion. If Romanism loses,--loses disastrously, as we all confidently expect,—by this attempt to strain an already cracking cord,—it is certain that all the hesitating Romish Catholics and many of the more candid of the unhesitating Roman Catholics will recognize their grave error in thus kicking against the pricks of a Pro- vidence far more conspicuous and sure than any grounds on which they can possibly base a fallible belief in infallibility. It is only the tremblers on either side who have anything to fear,—who have not very much indeed to hope.
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