to forsake. different quarters to sift and, as it turns

out, to justify. Hence,

We differ from Dir. Shipley at least as widely, perhaps even we cannot help feeling a little doubt whether Mr. Shipley will more widely, than does his critic in the Times; but we entirely find it really easy to believe, on the authority of the Church, taken fail to see the extraordinary and morbid perversity attributed alone, anything to which he would not have been led by his " Catho- to this mode of exercising private judgment,—namely, in the lie instincts." If it be true that he only accepts the Roman Church's selection of an authority to which we intend thencefor- authority because his own mind had previously led him to all the con- ward to defer our private judgment, Do we not all of elusions she endorses, that is very much the same position as that of us habitually do this, for a shorter or longer time, for days, a man who has only adopted Mr. Freeman as his historical guide, not or months, or years, throughout our lives ? Suppose that we because Mr. Freeman's method and spirit were right, but because know very little of history, and have no large opportunities at Mr. Freeman had arrived separately at all his disciple's own conclu- ourdisposal of testing historical facts; but that we do know enough, sions. What would such a man think, if he found Mr. Freeman or think we know enough, to compare the method, and the can- asserting something quite contrary to one of his own conclusions ? dour, and the conscientiousness of one historian with those of the Would he not be inclined to doubt the authority, which as an others who have treated the same materials ; and that, having authority he had never really accepted, though be bad accepted it as made this comparison, we say to ourselves that for the future, confirming him in his own historical prepossessions? If " Catholic on any subject on which he professes to have examined the instincts" have led Mr. Shipley so far, why need he begin to dis- evidence with any care, and to have come to a clear con- trust them now, and exchange their guidance for an external elusion, we will always follow Mr. Freeman or Mr. Stubbs, rather authority ? Clearly, we hardly need a guide in a world which is than Mr. Froude ; or Mr. Fronde, rather than Mr. Freeman or within our own reach. If we can find our own way to all, or Mr. Stubbs. Is there anything in that resolve that need be almost all the results of a great teacher, we are not so much

insurgents] might be of great service." Among these officers otherwise than reasonable and wise ? Yet is it not an act of

private judgment iu one subject, imposing on ourselves the surrender of our private judgment on a different sub- ject to the guidance of another, who is more competent to judge such matters than we are by an act of private judg- ment? And so long as we go on accepting the conclusions of the historical authority we have thus deferred to, is not our surrender of private judgment in some sense perpetually re- newed, by renewed confidence in that net of private judgment which constituted its surrender ? Well, if there be nothing either illogical or unreasonable iu such a procedure,—if it be neither illogical nor unreasonable to say to ourselves that on many subjects we have no means of judging rightly for ourselves directly, though we have means of judging rightly for ourselves, indirectly, by whose authority it is heat for us to be guided,—why should it be necessarily unreasonable or illogical to say the same thing on the subject of religion ? Nay, if there be a subject on which we might THE " TIMES " AND MR. ORBY SHIPLEY. be apt to suppose, a priori, that right judgment would be likely THE Times has delivered a sort of clinical lecture on the intel- to be indirect rather than direct,—to be best exerted in choosing lectual disease from which Mr. Oiby Shipley is suffering. a guide for the way, rather than in finding the way for our- On Tuesday, Mr. Shipley wrote to that journal to explain the selves,—it might very well be a subject so much above the reason for his secession to the Church of Rome. It appears that grasp of ordinary understandings, and so bewildering to the while he had long held every Catholic belief, so far as the Church highest intellects, as the nature of the divine character and of of England did not directly condemn such belief, he had held the divine purposes for us. So far, then, as we can see, there these beliefs as a mere result of private judgment, and not, till he is nothing at all intrinsically unreasonable in Mr. Shipley's entered the Church of Rome, on what he now holds to be notion that in matters of so high a nature as religion, the due the only true ground, the principle of authority ; that is, the exercise of private judgment would rather be in the direction authority of a body claiming a direct commission from God, of choosing a proper guide, and resolving to follow that guide, than and " visibly exercising " the authority it claims. With this in that of exploring the way for ourselves. No man in his senses account of the patient's symptoms before it, the Times, stand- in a new country would prefer his own opinion of the right ing, as it were, at the patient's bed-side, explains the nature of direction, to the express statement of a sign-post. He would his malady to the world at large. He has, in a sense, it pro- exercise his private judgment best in deferring to the guidance flounces, followed the logic of what he is pleased to call his of the sign-post, even though it pointed in the direction which, "Catholic instincts " to their natural, logical outcome. Having for the first few yards of road, appeared to him the least likely of early wished to believe a number of assumptions to be true which all the alternative directions.

cannot plausibly be held to be true without some venerable So far, then, from finding any incredible paradox in Mr. Shipley's authority behind them, he has now acknowledged such an authority statement that he was using his private judgment as to the authority, as the authority to which he is willing and anxious to surrender and surrendering his private judgment as to the substance of what the principle of private judgment. In other words, the principle that authority might teach, it seems to us, so far as it goes, a per- of private judgment attracted him to a number of opinions and fectly reasonable course ; though it does strike us as testifying to a rites for which collectively he could find no excuse so good as rather deep-rooted Protestantism in Mr. Shipley, that Ile has come the authority of Rome ; and now he accepts the authority to believe in this authority only after he had first, on independent of Rome, because it provides him with a better formal grounds, come to accept the convictions to which this authority justification than any other he could find for adhesion to that would lead him. This is like saying that you accept the guidance of miscellaneous collection of rites and views to which, as the sign-post only after you have travelled on your own feet to he confesses, " Catholic instincts " had previously guided him. the various places mentioned on it, and thus ascertained that On this history of the case, the Times remarks that if in one your sign-post is correct. Sign-posts, if only thus used, would sense Mr. Orby Shipley has been logical, in another he has been not be very efficient things ; nor does one see quite why,—if Mr. grossly illogical. It may be true that the logical result of his Shipley really had the means of coming legitimately to his thoughts and beliefs and religions habits of previous years is previous conclusions,—he should repent, as he seems to do, submission to Rome, but then that is only because the Catholic of having believed the truth only because he had convinced instincts were themselves utterly illogical, and adopted arbitrarily, himself independently of it, and should now account it by a kind of perverse preference. At any rate, says the Times, a much better way to believe it on the authority of a sign- the resignation of private judgment can never be the logical re- post the accuracy of which he had himself verified. If the verifica- stilt of the exercise of private judgment. You might as well talk of tion were a real verification, one does not see in what sense there a man " turning himself out of his own seat, in order to place was any " authority " left to submit to. So far as I have himself in it." In fact, if the first submission to authority be really tested the truth of a statement, I have rendered myself itself an act of private judgment, the permanent obedience to it is independent of the necessity of trusting the authority which made it a continuous renewal of that act of private judgment, a perpetual Indeed that is no longer trust, which accepts as true a declaration reiteration of it, so that the whole life of that obedience is watered which it has carefully verified. We cannot be said to trust Euclid, and fructified by the very principle which Mr. Shipley professes or to trust a witness whose evidence we have gone to a hundred

to forsake. different quarters to sift and, as it turns out, to justify. Hence,

We differ from Dir. Shipley at least as widely, perhaps even we cannot help feeling a little doubt whether Mr. Shipley will more widely, than does his critic in the Times; but we entirely find it really easy to believe, on the authority of the Church, taken fail to see the extraordinary and morbid perversity attributed alone, anything to which he would not have been led by his " Catho- to this mode of exercising private judgment,—namely, in the lie instincts." If it be true that he only accepts the Roman Church's selection of an authority to which we intend thencefor- authority because his own mind had previously led him to all the con- ward to defer our private judgment, Do we not all of elusions she endorses, that is very much the same position as that of us habitually do this, for a shorter or longer time, for days, a man who has only adopted Mr. Freeman as his historical guide, not or months, or years, throughout our lives ? Suppose that we because Mr. Freeman's method and spirit were right, but because know very little of history, and have no large opportunities at Mr. Freeman had arrived separately at all his disciple's own conclu- ourdisposal of testing historical facts; but that we do know enough, sions. What would such a man think, if he found Mr. Freeman or think we know enough, to compare the method, and the can- asserting something quite contrary to one of his own conclusions ? dour, and the conscientiousness of one historian with those of the Would he not be inclined to doubt the authority, which as an others who have treated the same materials ; and that, having authority he had never really accepted, though be bad accepted it as made this comparison, we say to ourselves that for the future, confirming him in his own historical prepossessions? If " Catholic on any subject on which he professes to have examined the instincts" have led Mr. Shipley so far, why need he begin to dis- evidence with any care, and to have come to a clear con- trust them now, and exchange their guidance for an external elusion, we will always follow Mr. Freeman or Mr. Stubbs, rather authority ? Clearly, we hardly need a guide in a world which is than Mr. Froude ; or Mr. Fronde, rather than Mr. Freeman or within our own reach. If we can find our own way to all, or Mr. Stubbs. Is there anything in that resolve that need be almost all the results of a great teacher, we are not so much

in need of his help as to justify the surrender of our judgment at all.

But our own difference from Mr. Shipley goes deeper than this. We quite agree that on many subjects human judgment is better fitted to find the right guide, than to find the right way without

a guide. We quite agree that on the first glance, religion would seem to be one of the most important and conspicuous of those

subjects. But then we cannot decide matters so important as

these on a priori grounds at all. We must look at the facts, and ask a few questions of any guide who professes to be able to

guide us to conclusions of such vast importance. We should ask, for instance, whether it is not reasonable to suppose that a celes- tial guide in difficult intellectual matters should anticipate the chief characteristic difficulties of every age, and not be unprepared for them ; whether it should not know its own mind, before the world falls into perplexity on any point, and be ready to resolve its difficul-

ties; win ther, if the Church knows the truth, there ought to be in it

different schools, which hold almost diametrically opposite views on the subject of every difficulty; whether, for instance, it is reason- able to regard a Church as a perfect guide which puts forth, in an age like ours, such almost opposite doctrines as to the nature and terrors and scope of Hell, and the nature and infinitude and in- variability of the Divine Love, as we find put forth authoritatively by different schools in the Roman Church ; whether the extra- ordinary differences on the subjects of grace and free-will in differ- ent schools of the Roman Church, are to be reasonably expected in the utterance of an infallible guide ; whether it is not almost impossible to accept as an infallible guide—say, on the question of the inspiration of Scripture—a Church which delays its judgment till the world at large has been for a century discussing it in all its bearings, and which has never yet used its power to guide men through the troubled waters. The test of a guide is that he guides you to a right end, before you have had the agony of try- ing all the wrong paths, and painfully seeking your way back into the right one. But the guide chosen by Mr. Orby Shipley almost makes it her boast that she defers her judgment, till men have been wandering for centuries in all the mazes of error, and till she has gained the experience of those errors to guide her in coming to a right conclusion. Is that the natural policy of a celestial guide? Father Newman, in his very interesting preface to the new edi- tion of his book on the " Via Media,"gives us a curious illustration of this. He says that the doctrine of baptism which ultimately conquered in the Church,—namely, that baptism is effectual, even

if administered (in due form) by a mere heretic,—was debated in

the Catholic Church for a century or two, and that almost all the higher theological authorities, from the Apostolical Canons to Cyprian, Cyril, and Clement of Alexandria, were on the

wrong side, and even passionately on the wrong side ; but that "expediency,"—i.e., the interest of the Church in

relation to her extension,—was on the side of heretical baptism, and that expediency being "an argument which grows in urgency with the course of years," the Church became united at last on the validity of heretical baptism, though at one time Pope Stephen had maintained it "almost against the whole Christian world." But if you have to wait during a most critical century or two, before you know what your guide will say on one of the most important subjects to which the theologian can devote him- self, and if in the meantime the most spiritual and devout minds

in the Church are permitted to take the wrong path, for want of

guidance, would a reasonable man think that there was, during the period of these wanderings, any trustworthy and divinely com- missioned human guide on such matters at all ? The presumption in favour, then, of a final guide on matters of religious conviction fails on investigation, because on most important and disputed points,—and this for centuries together,—the guide to whom we are recommended withholds her judgment, and allows different schools within her precincts to pronounce quite opposite judgments ; and so we are thrown back on that cautious, indi- vidual groping of the intellect, the conscience, and the affections, in matters of religion, which, painful as it is, seems yet to have been the lot of prophets and apostles in the first ages of the Church, and of saints and fathers and theologians later on ; and than which, therefore, it is not easy to conceive that we, in our day, can find anything better. If, when a professedly divine authority presents itself, we find that it is involved in doubt and ambiguity and perplexity, just where we are ourselves most involved in doubt and ambiguity and perplexity ;—this is, we take it, a great evidence, to candid minds, that it is not the kind of authority to which we can safely defer at all.