BOOKS.
ARCHBISHOP MANNING'S REPLY TO MK GLADSTONE.* ARCHBISHOP MANNING has written a very straightforward, frank, and able reply to Mr. Gladstone, some parts of which, as was in- evitable in the case of any writer believing as profoundly in the Roman system as Archbishop Manning, only strengthen the theoretic case of the State against the Church, though the tend- ency of the whole is certainly to convince an unprejudiced reader that practically there is not more, but rather less, reason to fall into a panic about the demeanour of Rome towards the CiviF powers of the world just now, than there was before the Vatican Council met to decree the official doctrinal infallibility of the Pope.. Like Dr. Newman, Archbishop Manning often forgets to look at the subject he is discussing from his opponent's point of view, and therefore not unfrequently adduces as a reason why the' Roman Church ought to be let alone by the State, the very facts which make her appear most formidable. Let us take one in- stance. Probably Dr. Manning will concede that a State which does not believe in or recognise the divine " assistance " which, according to him, is granted to the Pope as the teacher of' the Church, will be morally bound to act upon its own highest ideal of public duty, even should that come into collision with the system which he thinks divinely ordered. This in- deed is implicitly admitted by him when he tells us (p. 50) that the Church would have no right to interfere with "the Sovereigir power of a heathen people, supposing that power were to make laws contrary to the laws of God, since the case would come under the principle laid down by the Apostle, 'What have I to do with thee?" That implies that whenever a State is non- Catholic, the right of the Church is limited to laying down the duty of those who acknowledge her authority, and does not include any right to condemn the non-Catholic State for making non-Catholic or even anti-Catholic laws, unless, of course, in doing so, the State be false to its own previously avowed principles. It this be granted, it is, no doubt, a point of mutual understanding gained as between the Roman Church and a Protestant State. The Pope and Archbishop Manning may censure England as much as they like for being false, in relation to Roman Catholics, to principles which Englishmen have acknowledged in relation. to Protestants, but they cannot censure English statesmen for. doing what injures the prospects of the Roman Catholic Church, if they do it on principles which they respect equally in relation, to other religious bodies. Now that being granted, the Arch- bishop must surely see that, theoretically at all events, the cen- tralised system of Rome makes a great difference in relation te the danger of hostile principles which may, we will not say at any time, but certainly under conceivable circumstances, come into collision with Civil order. He says, "If the sovereign levy war upon his people, have they the right of self-defence ?' Beyond all doubt. But at what point may they take up arms?: and what amount of oppression justifies 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." Now, the Archbishop might equally well have put the case the other way, and he would have put it the other way, if he had been thinking of the Protestant view of these matters ; and then he would have been obliged to tell us that a good Catholic would hardly hold himself at liberty to refuse to' take up arms if the Christian law, as explained "by those of whom he asks counsel in the salvation of his soul," had im- posed upon him the duty of this resistance. But this is precisely what makes the Roman Catholic Church, theoretically at least, se formidable a power to every State which does not accept her divine mission. Her system is a polity guided by one and the same thought. If Roman Catholics come to ask counsel of her in a time of trouble, she will give them all, or almost all; the same counsel on the same issue, and enforce it with very strong sanctions. Not so with Protestants. As the Archbishop says, we must either judge for ourselves on the point at issue or, what * The ratiecin Decrea in Their Scaring on Civil Allegiance. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London Longman&
comes to the same thing, we must judge for ourselves by whom we willbe guided. Hence the Roman Catholics resemble the bound- up faggot where we resemble the assortment of separate sticks. Their judgment is one and the same. Ours is at sixes and sevens. Of course, therefore, when the State fears resistance at all, it fears it much more from a body who act as the members of a single head than from a number of dissociated individuals. Though it be admitted that it is well, where it is possible, to leave the utmost liberty even to conscientious scruples inconsistent with obedience to the laws, it may well be possible to pass over the isolated and mutually-neutralising scruples of eccentric Churches, none of which agree together, even though it were not possible to pass over the organised resistance of a polity as powerful as the Roman Catholic Church. The very fact that there is one mind and one counsel in that Church makes it a perfectly tenable view, under given conditions of society, that a policy ought to be adopted for the safety of the State against such a Church as this, which it would not be necessary and still less wise to adopt against the isolated and comparatively feeble eccentricities of other Churches. If the Archbishop had looked at the case from his opponent's point of view, he would have seen that this argument of his has a double edge to it, and that one of those edges at least may tell against his own case.
Again, the Archbishop says very happily,—it is one of his strongest points against Mr. Gladstone,—that the Vatican decrees had no bearing, even from Mr. Gladstone's point of view, on the civil allegiance of any one who held the infallibility of the Pope's official definitions before 1870, just as now, and that these are the nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand Roman Catholics. Hence, says the Archbishop, Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet should have been entitled, "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on the Civil Allegiance of those who before 1870 denied the Infal- libility of the Pope." But, adds the Archbishop, "this would ruin his case ; for he would have admitted the loyalty of Catholics who always believed it before the definition was made." That is very happy, and on the whole, no doubt very weighty. For our own parts, we do not think that as regards genuine Catholics any considerable immediate change has been or could have been made in their attitude towards the State, because whatever they believe now they believed before, and what they believed before they believe now. But the Archbishop himself supplies evidence that, to some extent, at all events, if not the belief, the area occupied by the belief, and the weight attaching to it, has been really altered by the definition and the controversy about it ; and we do not think he can deny that the change is of a kind which might very well affect essentially the future relations of Roman Catholics to Protestant States. For example, he himself admits that to deny the infallibility of the Pope could only be said, before 1870, to be "proximate to heresy," while it is absolute heresy now. He declares, by the way, that it is heretical to deny some doctrines which have never been defined at all, and he instances the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church itself. But that is hardly in point. If A declares that B struck him, he implicitly declares that there is such a person as B. And so if the Church declares that any particular doctrine is heresy, it declares that there is such a thing as heresy, and that it knows what that thing is ;- but the two assertions together imply logically the existence of the Church's infallibility at least on that point. Thus every anathema which the Church of Rome has formally issued has asserted her infallibility on a fresh point. But no one can say that the Pope's infallibility has been the logical premiss involved in every anathema fulminated. Hence we think it clear that the Archbishop cannot go so far as to deny that a considerable step has been taken,—namely, the step from a denial of the Pope's infallibility, being "proximate to heresy" to its being actual heresy. That makes a great difference in many ways. Now the region of doubt and debate is removed a step onwards, and the Archbishop tells us plainly enough what that step is. The Church, he says, has not yet laid down the limits of its own infallibility except by its acts, but according to his own view, the infallibility of the Church ex- tends "indirectly to all truths which, though not revealed, are in such contact with revelation that the deposit of faith and morals cannot be guarded, expounded, and defended without an infallible discernment of such unrevealed truths." And he goes on to say that "this extension of the infallibility of the Church is, by the unanimous teaching of all theologians, at least theologically certain ; and in the judgment of the majority of theologians, certain by the certainty of faith." Here we have, then, the next dogma, the outer shell, of which the one just defined is the inner shell. All good Catholics, instead of anticipating, as before 1870, the Church's declaration of the in- fallibility of the Pope, on subjects of faith and morals, will now anticipate the declaration of his infallibility on all "preservative additions" to faith and morals, as Dr. Newman once termed the outer circle of beliefs which spring up by way of natural outworks to existing beliefs. This pushing-forward of the horizon of infalli- bility must surely involve a gradual, and may at any time imply a great change. What good Catholic in future will deny the Church's right to decide what is a "preservative addition" to some re- vealed doctrine ? The very essence of Dr. Manning's teaching is that the Church is infallible as to the range of her own infallibility. At any time some semi-political doctrine of very great importance might be defined as an essential "preservative addition" to her ethical or spiritual doctrine ; and all good Catholics must now hold themselves ready to accept any such definition ex animo. Surely it is impossible to doubt that this advance of the border- line of genuine Catholic obedience, from belief in the infallibility of the Pope on faith and morals to the belief in his infallibility in an indefinite borderland of questions only proximate to questions of faith and morals, does involve a very real change of attitude, and tends not only to centralise the power of the Church, but to extend the region within which that power is exerted. Of course, to those who think the Church really infallible on all these points, all this is so much gain of light. Equally, of course, to all States who think the Church not only not infallible, but em- barked in a voyage which leads in the wrong direction, all this is so much loss. It makes it really more difficult for States to rule according to their own best light, without coming into sharp collision with a very powerful and highly centralised Church.
So much for the points on which the Archbishop seems to us to have ignored too completely the point of view of the non-Catholic State. For the rest, he has made out ably enough that there is no practical ground for fresh panic ; that the Pope does not claim any direct temporal power at all ; that his spiritual power can by all the traditions of his office be exerted only over the minds of Roman Catholics, and even in relation to Catholic Princes only indirectly over their temporal affairs, through his right to judge their moral conduct. He has shown, what, indeed, no sane observer doubts, that in Germany the attack was levelled by the State against the Church, and not by the Church against the State ; and that the same is true of Italy, though there the attack was directed against the civil misrule due to the Church ; and of course, no Protest- ant will admit that any respect for the rights of conscience or religious liberty ought to prevent the State from asserting its own right to put order in the place of disorder, and popular liberty in the place of an unpopular despotism. Still, whether the Church of Rome has had the rights of conscience on her side, as in Germany, or only the rights of prescription, which are often no rights, as in Italy, it can hardly be denied, we think, that the phenomena of the last five years have exhibited her uniformly in the attitude of self-defence against the civil powers of Europe, not in that of attack upon them. We observe with much satisfaction that the Archbishop's tone in relation to Italy is not nearly as bitter as we might have expected, and indeed appears to poineat the possibility of establishing a modus vivendi between the Pope and the Italian Government..
In fine, we agree with the general conclusion of the Archbishop that, looking to what is happening in Germany, Mr. Gladstone chose a most unfortunate time for his onslaught,—a time when sound Protestant principles rather demanded that we should stand up for defending, on behalf of the Roman Catholics of Germany and Switzerland, the liberty we insist upon for the Protestants of all countries, than that we should draw alarmist pictures of possible collisions in the future between Roman Catholic principles and the claims of civil allegiance to non-Catholic States. The Archbishop's style is throughout calm and dignified. And though be does not and cannot enter into the point of view from which we contemplate the steadily advancing tide of the speculative claims of Rome, be makes out sufficiently, we think, that there is no sort of reason for any immediate panic on the part of Protestants, and that those who encourage any- such panic are doing far more to endanger the principles of civil and religious liberty than to sustain them.
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