The Edinburgh Review on Ultramontane Doubts

Brownson's Quarterly Review, October, 1851

Art. IV.  The Edinburgh Review No. CXC. Art. IX. Ultramontane Doubts. New York : Scott & Co. April, 1851.

The reputation of The Edinburgh Review for  ability, learning, and   criticism was  established  before  we   had learned our letters, and has been respectably sustained in spite of its formidable rival,  The London  Quarterly.    It has suffered in late years, but it is still the especial favorite with our countrymen, and it probably is more influential on this side the Atlantic than on the other.    It is in accordance with the prevailing tone of the great body of educated Americans, nominally Christian, moderately liberal, and really deistical.    It places the state before the Church, and loyalty above religion, but disowns the name of unbeliever, and condescends to patronize Christianity so long as it is content to serve in a subordinate sphere, and exhibits no symptoms of aspiring to independence.    It respects the clergy as useful parish constables, and offers no opposition to them so long as they keep entirely aloof from all secular affairs,  and interpose  no  obstacle to the  intrigues or ambition of Whig politicians.    It is wise, but its wisdom is not that which is from above, and therefore may be  regarded  as  an   admirable representative of English Whiggism, personified in Mr. Augustus Tomlinson, who with great prudence and success devotes himself to robbery and housebreaking, and to lectures on ethics and metaphysics.        

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The article in the number before us entitled Ultramontane Doubts is written with cleverness and tact, and with more intellectual power than we are accustomed to look for among Protestants. Protestantism is essentially an unintellectual religion, and in their best days Protestants made but a sorry figure at reasoning; but latterly they appear to have lost the little share of intelligence they originally carried with them from the Church, and to have become utterly unable to do any thing in the way of argument, except to vituperate, and invent, and circulate foolish and absurd stories about priests and religious. Anti-Popery lecturers and editors, in our times, and especially in our country, seldom seem able to rise above the poor old fishwoman falling into her dotage, and the fact that they are popular, and can attract crowds and rapturous applauses, is a sad commentary on the moral and intellectual culture of the Protestant community. It is, therefore, refreshing to meet even one Protestant who shows some signs of intellectual life, who has the courage to make some show of argument, and who, perhaps, has understanding enough of the matters on which he writes to be capable of being refuted. We had wellnigh despaired of ever meeting such a one, and now that he presents himself, we greet him cordially, and cherish him as a friend. We hope his courage will not fail him at his first onset, and that he will not, as soon as he receives the first blow, like our ordinary adversaries, disappear, to be seen or heard of no more for ever. Seriously, it gives us pleasure to meet a Protestant who has a beard on his face, and who has the strength to give and to take sturdy blows. We are tired of combating mere boys, or mere simulacra, or shadows as unsubstantial as the ghosts of superstition.

Let it not, however,, be imagined that we have really encountered one of the giants. The Reviewer is no giant, that is certain ; he is not above the medium size of the species, and is Titanic only in his disposition. He is great only in comparison with the ordinary herd of Protestant controversialists, as was Gulliver among the Liliputians. He brings forward no new argument, suggests no difficulty that has not been met and answered at least a thousand times ; but he has contrived with much art to obscure certain matters very plain in themselves, and to confuse certain questions so successfully, as to embarrass the uninformed Protestant mind, and to satisfy those already satisfied, that we Catholics are sad reasoners, and in the last analysis no better than Protestants themselves.

The purpose of the Reviewer is to check the speed of Catholicity in Great Britain, by a skilful appeal to the national and political prejudices of Englishmen. He begins by referring to the hope expressed by many Catholics, that England is on the eve of her return to the Church. He does not believe this hope has any solid foundation ; but conceding it for the sake of the argument, he wishes Roman Catholics charitably to assist him " to ascertain fairly and logically what will be our duty in reference to this realm and constitution of England, when that inevitable hour arrives in which our consciences shall compel us to return to their communion ; and to what extent our state and laws must be reformed and remodelled in the event of our national conversion."    This he contends is very important, for "not a few of his countrymen feel it impossible to conjecture how to comport themselves, on the adoption of any known theory of the infallibility and supremacy of the Roman Church, towards the institutions and laws of then-own country, and in relation to those doctrines of intellectual and religious freedom which at present are most' surely believed amongst us.' "    He concedes that the Catholic subjects of the queen, as a body, are truly loyal, but he thinks their loyalty is an inconsequence, not authorized by their religion, but preserved  and manifested in spite of it. The  theory of Catholicity adopted by such Catholics as the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Camoys, Lord Beaumont, Mr. Anstey, and, perhaps we should add, the Earl of Shrews-
ed, * would conscientiously feel compelled to adopt a much more Ultramontane position."    But here comes up the difficulty.    If we adopt the Ultramontane doctrine, then we must accept "principles to which loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe."    But if we do not adopt the Ultramontane doctrine, we render the seat of infallibility doubtful, which renders the infallibility itself, if not doubtful, at least of no value as a rule ; or if we  remove the doubt as to the seat of infallibility, and agree as to its or-^an, we must say the organ, whether Pope or Council, is sometimes infallible and sometimes not, for it is certain the or«ran,  take which  you will,   has uttered  « principles   to which loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe. But if the organ is sometimes infallible and sometimes fallible in its utterances, it is necessary to have some rale by which to determine when its utterances are infallible and when not, and no rule but that of private judgment is possible     That is, the Reviewer attempts to show that the Catholic cannot be consistently a Gallican, because Galli-canism pushed to its last consequences is simply 1 rotes-tantism ; that to be a consistent Catholic he must be an Ultramontane; but, if an Ultramontane, must hold "principles to which loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe."    This is the argument of the article.

The Reviewer's inquiry is, as it strikes us, quite superfluous ; for it relates solely to what may or may not be the duty of Englishmen towards civil government when they are compelled by their consciences to return to the Catholic communion, that is, after they have ceased to be Protestants and become Catholics. Whatever may be their duty, it is and can be of no interest to a Protestant, because, by the very terms of the supposition, there are to be no Protestants to be afFected by it. Moreover, it does not indicate a very high religious or even moral sense, after one has become conscientiously convinced that he ought to return to the Catholic Church, to stop and inquire how obedience to his conscience will affect his political or civil relations. If a man is convinced that he ought to become a Catholic, he is convinced that the Catholic Church is God's Church, and therefore infallible, and consequently that whatever she teaches him to believe must be true, and whatever she commands him to do must be just.
We must tell the Reviewer, in the very outset, that we deny the jurisdiction of the court in which he proposes to try us. He makes politics the standard of religion, and summons the Church to plead at the bar of the state. But he forgets that religion, if any thing, is the lex suprema, and that politics, loyalty, and patriotism are to be judged by her, not she by them. Loyalty is a virtue commanded, and therefore defined, by religion. Whatever docs not come within her definition, or whatever would conflict with her commands, is by that fact alone proved to be not the virtue of loyalty, not a virtue at all, but a crime against society, and a sin against God. So also of patriotism. It is a virtue as prescribed, and within the limits prescribed, by religion ; outside of these limits, and not subject to religion, it is a vice, a crime, or a sin. Politics are simply a branch of ethics, and ethics are nothing but moral theology, the application of religious principles and dogmas to practical life. Politics are, therefore, by their own nature, below religion, and subject to her authority. To attempt to judge her by them is worse than simply ridiculous. She herself is the standard, and if you mean to be religious at all, you must conform your politics to your religion, not your religion to your politics. This is simply a dictate of common sense.

In whatever light we consider the Reviewer's inquiry, it is simply absurd.    He must either deny religion, or accept religion.    He cannot do both at once.    There is no possible way of reconciling two contradictories.    Do our best, and we cannot reconcile religion with the feelings, wishes, and notions of those who hold all religion to be false and mischievous ; for every religion, in that it claims to be religion, claims to be the supreme law, and to possess the right to demand unqualified obedience.    Religion is infallible truth and justice, or what  God, who is truth itselt, teaches men to believe, and what God, who is justice itself, commands them to do.    There can be no compromise between truth and falsehood, or between justice and injustice, any more than  between Christ and Belial, God and the Devil.    The Free  Kirk of Scotland, in asserting its independence of the civil authority, should have taught the Reviewer that religion is above the state, and he can hardly be unaware that a Parliamentary church, like the Anglican, is no religion at all, but a part of the general police establishment of the kingdom.    If he accepts religion he must accept it as religion, not as politics.    He can deny all re-licrion if he chooses, and is willing to take the responsibility oFdoing so, but he cannot accept it, and then object to it that it is religion.    He can allege that Catholicity is false, and, if he proves his allegation, reject her on that ground, which is of itself a sufficient ground for rejecting her ; but he cannot allege that she is false, because, if accepted, she would modify his politics, disturb his political convictions, or restrict his loyalty or his patriotism ; lor, if true religion, she has the Divine right to determine his politics, and to define his patriotism and his loyalty or his duty to the state.    Religion, therefore the Church, if true religion, has by its own essence authority over kings, emperors, princes, and states, and they are as much bound to obey her as are the meanest of their subjects.  The man who denies this has not as yet the most elementary religious conception.

The Reviewer thinks that Englishmen, were they to become Catholics, would feel bound in conscience to be Ultramontanes, for he thinks the Ultramontane doctrine that which is the most consistent with the general theory of the Church. On this point we have no dispute with him. We are ourselves ultra- Ultramontane, and have not the least sympathy in the world with what is called Gallicanism, though  we  have deep love and veneration for  Catholic
France. But if you adopt the Ultramontane doctrine, contends the Reviewer, you must concede that your Church has erred. Why so? Because " English Protestants are apt to feel suspicious that" she has asserted " principles to which loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe.'' This is a serious difficulty indeed, and one which proves that it is a mistake to suppose that the Protestant has nothing to say for himself. We cannot deny that English Protestants are apt to feel such suspicions, but, happily, in the present discussion, we have nothing to do with the suspicion of English Protestants, for the inquiry the Reviewer sets out with he himself restricts to Englishmen after their consciences compel them to return to the Catholic communion. We cannot deny, again, that the Church has asserted principles to which " loyal and patriotic Englishmen," even though professing to be Catholics, refuse or will refuse to subscribe, but this, perhaps, is not a conclusive argument against her infallibility. Englishmen are, no doubt, very respectable, at least as their own little insular world goes, but we do not recollect that they in their capacity of Englishmen, whether nominally Catholics or not, ever received a Divine commission to teach, or a promise of immunity from error. As we have read history, the Church of God existed some centuries before there were any Englishmen in existence, and we are pretty sure that not to them, as Englishmen, was it said, " Going,
teach all nations.....to  observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you, for behold I am with you all days unto the consummation of the world." With all deference to our cousins across the water, we must tell them frankly that we do not recognize them, however " loyal and patriotic," as the infallible Church of God, from whose decision there lies no appeal. The Church of God, whatever else she is, is Catholic, not national, and her prerogatives are those of no particular nation as such, not even of the Italians, as Gioberti, in his false and exaggerated patriotism, would persuade us. Here, again, we must deny the jurisdiction of the court, and cannot consent to plead at its bar. Who says " the Church of God" pronounces a higher word than he who says " patriotic and loyal Englishmen." That patriotic and loyal Englishmen cannot subscribe to the decisions of the Church may be a grievous misfortune for them, or an excellent reason for condemning them as heretics; but it is just no reason at all for saying the Church has erred. The Reviewer forgets that the Catholic Church is neither the Kirk of Scotland, nor the Anglican Establishment. It is only a church created by Englishmen, deriving its institution and its mission from their Queen and Parliament, and which they have made and can unmake, that can be tried by the national feelings, convictions, or prejudices of Englishmen. Englishmen, when compelled by their consciences to return to our communion, will most likely cease to be Anglicans.

But what are these principles, said to have been asserted by the Church, to which English Protestants are apt to feel suspicions that loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe.    According to the Reviewer, they are the claim by the Church of the'power by Divine right to depose temporal sovereigns, to absolve their subjects from their allegiance, and to persecute heretics.    Here our readers will perceive that the Reviewer holds that loyal and patriotic Englishmen must place loyalty before religion, the state before the Church, and heresy before orthodoxy.    If they can only provide for the state, for the temporal order, and secure immunity for heretics, they must be prepared to let the Church or orthodoxy shift for itself.    A true Christian would reverse this, and contend that in securing the Church he had secured the state, and that, if he secured orthodoxy, he need not be solicitous to secure to heretics the freedom to deny it, and thus destroy themselves.    But let this pass, as it is a consideration not likely to weigh with the Reviewer.

Suppose the Church has claimed the power alleged, what then? If she is what she professes to be, she is infallible, and then, if she has claimed it, she infallibly has it, and you in objecting only condemn yourself. You must be able to prove infallibly that she does not possess it, before, from her having claimed it, you can conclude that she has erred. Are you able to do this ? The Church claims to be infallible, to teach and govern all nations by Divine authority, and the claim of infallible authority can never be set aside by an authority confessedly fallible. What infallible authority have you for denying that the Church possesses, by Divine right, any power she has ever claimed or claims? Do you say Englishmen cannot subscribe to it? But Englishmen are'not infallible, and may themselves be the party in the wrong.    Do you allege popular opinion ? Since when has popular opinion become an infallible criterion of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong ? Do you say the temporal authority denies it ? Is the temporal authority infallible ? Do you say yes ? Then you must prove it. No ? Then it may be mistaken, and its assertion counts for nothing. Then, again, who made the temporal authority the judge of the spiritual ? Who made its voice authoritative against the religious or spiritual authority ?
Do you, finally, say the power is intrinsically evil, and such as can never, by any one, be lawfully claimed and exercised ?    It is, then, malum in se, always and everywhere wrong to depose temporal sovereigns, to absolve their subjects from  their  allegiance, and   to   punish  heretics,  by whomsoever it may be done.    Are you prepared to take this ground ?     Then sing your palinode without delay. Call up your Scotch ancestors and sentence them for having made war on their king and having sold him to the English Parliament; let your righteous indignation break forth against the Long Parliament and Cromwell, for having not only deposed, but tried, condemned, and actually beheaded, Charles the First; draw up an indictment against your Whig progenitors for having called in Dutch William to expel James the Second, disown your " Glorious Revo-lution " of 1688, and declare Victoria the First an usurper. Why, the very essence of English and Scotch Whiggism is that kings may be deposed, and their subjects absolved from their allegiance, and the massacre of  Glencoe, the penal laws of England and Ireland, and the recent Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which has received the royal assent almost at the moment we are writing, prove that " loyal and patriotic Englishmen," especially if Whigs, hold it lawful to persecute, if not heretics, at least true believers.    Universal European Liberalism, the able organ of which the Edinburgh Review has been for nearly half a century, holds nothing to be more certain than that it is right to deposo temporal sovereigns, and   that subjects may not; only be absolved from their allegiance, but rise up in arms and depose them whenever they take it into their heads to do so. Ask Lord Palmerston, ask Lord Minto, ask the present Sir Robert Peel, ask Lord John Russell, the first minister of the crown, ask your friends,  Mazzini, Canino, Ledru-Rollin, Herr Hecker, Herr Struve, and the whole band of Red Republicans, who, in 1848, overturned or shook every throne in Europe, if it be not so.    If you happen to be an admirer of Washington, and the republic of the United States, read in the Declaration of Independence by the American Congress of 1775, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all   political   connection  between them and the  state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."    You cannot as Liberals, as Whigs, as Englishmen, nor even as Americans, living under governments founded either on the right of revolution, as is that of Great Britain, or on the principle that the tyranny of the prince forfeits his rights and absolves his subjects, as is ours, maintain that in no case and under no circumstances can temporal sovereigns be deposed and subjects absolved from their allegiance. Nay, no one can do it without asserting, with the Anglican ministers under the Stuarts, the Divine right of kings, the inamissibility of power, and passive obedience, a doctrine ably combated at the time by Cardinals Bellarmine and Du Perron, and   the Spanish  Jesuit Suarez,  and which would deprive the people of all hope of freedom, and make God himself the accomplice of the civil tyrant.    You cannot deny that civil power is amissible, that it may be forfeited, and then that temporal sovereigns may, under some circumstances, be justly deposed, and their subjects absolved from their allegiance.    Then you cannot conclude that the Church is fallible from the simple fact that she has claimed and exercised the power over temporal sovereigns and their subjects to which you object.
The difference, on the supposition that the Church has claimed and exercised the power in question, between the lleviewer and us is, that, while we claim it for the Church as commissioned by God to teach and govern all nations, he claims it for demagogues, conspirators, rebels, revolutionists, and the vague something called the people; that is, the mob, for the people acting without government and against government are a mob, and nothing else, whether in larger or smaller numbers. And what does he gain for loyalty and patriotism by denying the power to the Church, and claiming it for the mob ? If you deny it to the Church, you must claim it for the mob, since there is nothing else for which you can claim it; for being a right against the temporal sovereign, it of course cannot be claimed for him.

You must, then, either deny all right to resist the tyrant, and assert absolute civil despotism, or else concede the deposing and absolving power either to the mob or to the Church, that is, the spiritual authority; and can you ask us to spend time in proving, that, even on the score of human prudence, the Church is altogether the safer depositary of the power?    The English rebellion under the first Charles, the French revolutions of 1789, 1793, 1830, and 1848, and the Red Republican insurrections in Switzerland, in the Italian states, in the smaller German principalities, in Berlin, and in Vienna in the last-mentioned year, as well as the revolutions now fomented throughout Europe by the secret societies, and which are kept down only by immense standing armies and the most stringent police regulations, are a proof, that to concede this power to the mob is only to render freedom impracticable, and undermine all authority, and subvert all society.     Great Britain herself, who opens her arms so lovingly to the political refugees from all the Continental states, and permits them to organize on her own territory a conspiracy against all legal order and all social existence, has in her bosom a large and increasing body of Chartists, Socialists, and malecontents, who will at no distant day bring home even to her obtuse understanding the danger of asserting the sovereignty of the mob.    If we wish to maintain legal order, or even society at all, we must assert authority, and maintain that, in face of the subject, it is always and everywhere sacred and inviolable.   In face of the mob, authority must be presumed to be always right.     Then,  since constitutional  monarchies,  republics, and democracies, as we know from experience, can tyrannize as well as the most absolute  monarchies,  since it is impossible so to  organize power that it may not   be abused, and  most grievously abused,  nothing remains but hopeless tyranny and oppression, or the recognition in the religious or spiritual authority of an umpirage between sovereigns, and especially between sovereigns   and  their subjects.    For this umpirage the Catholic Church is peculiarly fitted.    She is in all nations, and therefore has an interest in and tenderness for each;   she is confined to no one, and is above all, with an equal regard for all, and for both sovereign and subject, and therefore is independent of the peculiar prejudices or policy of either, and prepared to be impartial and just in  her decisions.    Some such umpirage is felt even by our age to be necessary, as proved by your congresses of sovereigns, and by the congress of nations contended for by your peace fanatics, Cobden and Elihu  Burritt, and  human wisdom can devise none to be compared with that which  Providence has provided in the Catholic Church.    The history of the modern world since her umpirage, formerly recognized, has been generally rejected by European nations, the long and bloody wars that have since raged, the large standing armies that are kept up, the immense national debts   that  have  been contracted, the tremendous influence on politics and national movements exercised by Jewish  bankers, the present unsettled state of society, the high-handed measures of government, and the general poverty and surfering of the agricultural laboring class  throughout Europe, prove the absolute madness of these nations in attempting to proceed without the umpirage of the Church, and the absolute necessity of its restoration.    Nations without that umpirage are in the condition of a population without government.    They are as nations in a state of anarchy, and an anarchy as to their external relations necessarily superinduces anarchy or despotism as to their internal relations.    Right yields to might, and justice deserts the habitations of men.    Even humanly speaking, then, since the power must exist somewhere, and its exercise is necessary, the Church is its proper depositary.

The Reviewer cannot conclude against the Church from the supposed intrinsic wrong of the  power  in  question. He can  conclude  against  her only  on the ground that, though the power is good and just enough in itself considered, she  has it not by divine right, but has usurped it. But in order to take this ground he must unchurch her; for if she be the Church of God, the true spiritual authority, she must necessarily have this power by divine right, since it is inherent in the spiritual authority as such.    The Reviewer forgets this.    He quietly takes it for granted' that the temporal authority, if not absolutely supreme, is at least absolutely independent, and in no respect whatever subject to the control or supervision of the spiritual authority.   He proceeds as a politician, looks solely to the state, and is indifferent to religion so long as it touches no matters of interest to the secular power, but holds that the secular power has the right to repel it, if it does any thing of the sort. He understands by religious liberty freedom from religious obligation, the right of the state to have no religion, and to brush religion out of its way if it presumes to interfere between it and the realization of its plans, or the execution of its purposes. He in reality makes the state his religion, his church, and claims for it the rights and prerogatives which the Christian claims for the spiritual authority. This is the tendency of politicians in all ages, and in no age more than in our own. It is at bottom only the same general tendency of the flesh to rule the spirit which every Christian has to struggle against, and which causes all the confusion experienced in the bosom of the individual and of society. But religion is the lex suprema, and its perfect freedom, independence, is necessarily its supremacy. It is the supreme law or it is nothing; and if the supreme law, it is for states no less than for subjects, for princes are as much bound to obey the law of God as their subjects, and in their public as in their private relations.

Religion is supreme over all men, of whatever rank or dignity, and in every department of life, individual or social, private or public, for no one in any rank or relation has any right to be irreligious; and to deny this is simply to deny religion itself. If then we suppose a church at all, that is,' a divinely instituted authority, commissioned to teach, to interpret, and declare the law of God, we must suppose it supreme, and in all cases paramount to the temporal power; that it is the church that prescribes the sphere of the temporal, within which it is free, and not the state that prescribes the sphere of the church. The spiritual by its own essential nature defines the temporal, and therefore the powers of the state, and at the same time its own powers. Consequently, in every case of a collision of the two authorities, the temporal, not the spiritual, must yield. We must obey God rather than men, and therefore in every case the spiritual authority rather than the temporal, for the temporal loses its divine right to command, and becomes a purely human authority, which is no authority at all, the moment it commands any thing contrary to the spiritual authority, commissioned to interpret and declare the law of God.

That this conclusion will not be subscribed to by " loyal and patriotic Englishmen " is very possible, but we cannot stultify ourselves in order to gain even their subscription. The fact is as we state it, in the very nature of things; and do not let us so besot ourselves as to suppose that we can hold religion as religion, and yet subject it to the state, or withdraw the state from its control.    Do let us be one thing or another.    Either pronounce all religion a cheat, an imposition, mere priestcraft, or else accept it as divine, and authorized by God himself to speak in his name, and therefore with the majesty of supreme authority.    It is either one or the other, and there is no medium.    Read  M. Proudhon. He will tell you, and prove to you too, with an invincible logic, with a terrible consistency, that we only betray our folly and cowardice when we   seek to  find some middle ground, a via media, and that you must deny all religion, the very sovereignty of God, or else concede the supremacy of religion, and recognize in the chair of St, Peter the plenitude of power asserted by St. Gregory the Seventh, Innocent the  Third, and Boniface the Eighth.    How the iron lode of this bold blasphemer puts to shame the timid and hesitating dialectics of the bravest Protestant.

The Reviewer, doubtless, is far better qualified to speak for loyal and patriotic Englishmen than we are; but, it he does not misrepresent them, they are extremely deficient in religious knowledge, and have not yet learned the first question and answer of the Catechism. The spiritual is not for the temporal; the temporal is for the spiritual, as the body to contend not the soul for the body. What absurdity that the soul transcend should govern the soul, or to allege law to the body and attempts to...its appetites and its propensities! Man's only destiny is eternal life, to see  and enjoy God in the beatific vision. For this and this alone the law of God commands him to live, and the temporal can be legitimate only as rendered subordinate and subservient to this end. Man has no temporal destiny, properly speaking, and his only destiny is spiritual, eternal. The temporal order, therefore, has and can have no temporal destiny, no destiny in the temporal; and consequently has its destiny or its end only in the spiritual order. Society, the whole secular order itself, has no secular end, and exists only in reference to the spiritual destiny of man, and is to be regarded only in so far as made subservient to the salvation of the soul. The state is instituted for the management of secular affairs, it is true, and it has no right to meddle with any others; but it is bound to manage these affairs under the spiritual law for the spiritual end, and
therefore under the law of which the spiritual authority is the interpreter, and for an end which God through that authority prescribes. Evidently, then, the spiritual authority, however constituted, to whose hands soever confided by Almighty God, is by its own nature supreme in regard to the whole secular order, because confessedly supreme in all that regards man's spiritual destiny, and therefore under God the sovereign of all temporal sovereigns, of all emperors, kings, princes, states, no less than of individuals employed in the immediate service of the sanctuary. The Church, then, if the true Church, if the divinely instituted spiritual authority, has, we do not say temporal authority, for that we do not claim for her, but plenary spiritual power over the whole temporal order, and necessarily possesses by divine right all the power over princes and their subjects she is alleged to have claimed and exercised. These powers are hers, not merely by an express grant of temporal authority, but because they are inherent in her as the spiritual authority. It is then supremely ridiculous to attempt to unchurch her by proving that she has claimed and exercised them. If what she claims to be, she cannot but possess them, and cannot but have the divine right to exercise them. You must, then, prove that she is not the Church of God, that she is not the divinely instituted spiritual (the text is here corrupted--eds. Orestes Brownson Society) before you can object either to her having (corruption) to her having claimed them.

We claim power of (corruption) for the Church only on the ground that (corruption) is what she professes to be, the true Church of God, representing the authority of God in its plenitude on earth.  We hold her   divinely commissioned to teach, interpret, and apply the law of God to all cases that can arise in any department of human life.  If she is not thus commissioned, she is a false church, an imposter, and we recognize in her no authority at all. You need not, then, be frightened at our ultramontanism.  If she is what she claims to be, she is infallible, and then all her decisions must be infallibly just and true.  Are you among those who fear justice and hate the truth?  Yes?  Then you condemn yourself.  No? Then what more do you want?  You have begun yourself by saying, that "none can be more convinced than ourselves of the truth of the declaration which we often find on the lips of Roman Catholics, that "there is no better rule than that of an infallible church."  This we think certain."    Do understand, then, that infallibility means infallibility, and that the decisions of an infallible church are infallible.    An infallible church can err in nothing  she  commands  the  faithful either to  believe or to do     What, then, do your loyal and patriotic Englishmen fear *    What can they fear, when they are conscientiously convinced that she is God's Church?    If she has .deposed temporal sovereigns, can you not see that it is infellible proof that they deserved to be deposed, and that she was iicrht in deposing them ? if she absolves subjects frorn their alliance, that they are absolved by the law of God, and she has the power to absolve them? and if she punishes heretics, that heretics deserve to be punished, and she has the ricrht to punish them ?    Do understand that the infallibility of the actor necessarily carries along with it the infallibility of the act.    If the Church is infallible, what more do you want?    Do you want an  independent guaranty that she will not abuse her infallibility ?    Is not the infallibility itself the best guaranty that you can have or desire Do you deny her infallibility ?    Then you are not concerned in the inquiry you raise, for you are inquiring only after the dutv of those whose consciences compel them to return to her "communion, and no man's conscience can compel him to do that unless he is convinced that she is what she professes to be, therefore infallible.    But deny her infallibility, if you choose, and prove that she is not what she professes to be' we will then concede you all you ask, and abandon her to your tender mercies, to be treated as you treat any one of your own sects.   But we deny that, from the simple fact of her having claimed and exercised the powers you object to, you can conclude that she has erred ; for il intal-lible, it is infallibly certain that she possesses them and has the right to claim and exercise them, and you in denying it are only  blaspheming  the  Immaculate  Spouse ot   God Supposing, then, as you allege, that the Church has asserted the principles to which you say "loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot subscribe," you must unchurch her, set aside her claim to  infallibility, before you can be permitted to allege this fact against  her.    The Reviewer will therefore perceive that we can easily escape from the dilemma which he has labored so hard and so skilfully to construct, and in which he supposes he has concluded us.

Nevertheless, the Reviewer does not establish the fact that the Church has asserted the principles to which he contends Englishmen cannot subscribe. We are well aware of the passages he cites from St. Gregory the Seventh, Innocent the Third, and Boniface the Eighth ; but we must tell him that these passages do not sustain his allegation,  not, as he supposes, because we hold the utterances of the organ of infallibility are sometimes fallible, and sometimes not,* ^pr we hold no such thing; but because it does not appear that they are utterances of that organ at all. We do not, in saying this, abandon the Ultramontane ground. We accept the Papal infallibility; but that infallibility is not, even on Ultramontane principles, a personal prerogative of the Pope. It attaches to his office, not to himself personally, and therefore he is the organ of infallibility only when speaking in his official character, and officially deciding a point of faith or morals for the Church. We say faith or morals, because it is only in questions of faith or morals that any Catholic asserts the infallibility of the Church, whether speaking through the Sovereign Pontiff or a general council, or, in fine, through the body of her bishops teaching in communion with their chief, the successor of St. Peter, each in his own diocese. We concede to the Reviewer that the Pope is infallible in interpreting the Scriptures, and that the great Popes cited do support their claim of the deposing and absolving power by the sacred text; but as we assert the infallibility of the Pope only when deciding officially, ex cathedra, a question of faith or morals, we are obliged to hold the Pope infallible only in reference to the precise point before him to be decided. When the question before him is the interpretation of the sacred text, we concede his infallibility; but nothing obliges us to hold him infallible in interpreting it, when its interpretation is not, so to speak, the question before the court. The interpretation is then an obiter dictum, and, though deserving of great respect, is not a declaration of the law. The rule that obtains in the civil courts, and with which every lawyer is presumed to be familiar, is the rule that obtains here. Now, in the instances the Reviewer cites, the Popes were not defining the faith, nor judicially interpreting the sacred text, but simply arguing from it and theological reason in justification of their acts ; that is, they were reasoning, and not defining, and therefore their utterances cited were not the utterances of the organ of infallibility. This is evident from the fact that these utterances are not articles of faith, and are not insisted on as such by Ultramontanes, since, if they were, the Galileans, who do not accept them, would in the view oi Ultramontanes be held to be heretics, which is not the fact; for the Gallican is admitted to be a Catholic, and the dispute with him turns on a question confessedly not of faith. Whatever principles the Church has asserted or asserts are confessedly, in the view of all Catholics, of faith; but as these principles are conceded even by those who hold them not to be of faith, it follows that the Church has never asserted them.                                                          

We in this are far from saying that the principles set forth by the Popes referred to are not true, very iar from admitting that these great Popes erred in what they said. All we say is, that they did not define the matters involved, and therefore that what they said is not formally of faith, and if not formally of faith no Catholic can be held under pain of heresy to accept it, or obliged by his faith to assert the principles involved.    All that the Catholic is obliged on Ultramontane principles to maintain is the divine right of the Popes to do what in the cases alleged they did do, and to exercise the same  power in  all analogous cases. This much of course he must maintain.    But in taking the ground that the views presented by the Popes of their own powers are not to be regarded as definitions of faith, we   do  not  by   any  means, as  the  Reviewer imagines, render it doubtful to whose  hands the infallible authority is confided, within what limits the utterances  of the organ of infallibility are infallible, and what are the utterances themselves.    He says we render these three things doubtful, and thus destroy the infallible church as a rule, because we must settle them before we can use it, and we have and can have only private judgment with which to settle them.    We dispute hopelessly, he says, as to the- seat of infallibility. We are obliged, in order not to accuse infallibility of erring, to contend that the utterances of the or-cran of infallibility are sometimes infallible and sometimes not, and can never decide which of its utterances are to be received as infallible, and which are to be counted fallible. These preliminary difficulties are conclusive against the Church as an available rule, and render it more perplexing for a Catholic with his infallible Church to know what he ought to believe and do, than it is for a Protestant who makes no pretensions to an infallible church. The Reviewer is a man of a fertile fancy. Yet Protestants insist so often and so strenuously on this objection, here put in its strongest form, that we are sometimes inclined to believe that they do really persuade themselves that there is some force in it.

The Reviewer says we dispute hopelessly among ourselves as to the seat or organ of infallibility. We have, he alleges, four theories amongst us on this point, one that the Pope alone, a second that the council alone, a third that the Pope and council conjointly, and a fourth that the Universal Church diffusely, is the organ of infallibility. He evidently supposes, or wishes to insinuate, that these are four exclusive and mutually hostile theories, and that he who accepts any one of them must necessarily deny the others. He perhaps is not so well informed as he thinks. From these four theories we must strike the second, for nobody contends that the council alone is infallible, and for the excellent reason that there is no such thing as an oecumenical council without the Pope, and only oecumenical councils are ever held to be infallible. Then, of the remaining three, we must remind the Reviewer that they are not three theories as to the seat of infallibility, but three modes or respects in which the Church is held to be infallible, and the assertion of one involves no denial of the other two. The Pope and council conjointly is simply the council, neither more nor less, and all Catholics without a single exception hold the council infallible in all matters of faith and morals. " The Universal Church diffusely " means, we suppose, what our theologians term the Eccle-sia dispersa, or Church dispersed, in distinction from the Ecclesia congregate or Church assembled in general council. The Church in this sense, again, is held by all Catholics to be infallible, and what in this sense she teaches, to be of faith. The infallibility of the Church in these two respects, assembled and dispersed, is of faith, and no man can deny it and be a Catholic. In addition, all, except a few individuals,  now chiefly laymen, devoted to politics, ambitious of state or court favor, or desirous of introducing political changes which are repugnant either in themselves or in the manner of introducing them to Christian morals, and who are called Gallicans, although the Gallican hierarchy disowns them,hold that the Sovereign Pontiff alone, when defining officially, ex cathedra, a question of faith or morals, is also infallible.    Those who hold and those who deny the Pope's infallibility hold, be it remembered, the Church to be infallible in the other two respects mentioned.    All the dispute there is amongst us is then confined to the first-named   mode, that is, whether the Pope, loqiiens ex cathedra, be   or be not infallible.    But even here the dispute has little practical importance, for the Galilean holds that he is bound to receive the  Papal definitions and constitutions as infallible, unless there is a reclamation against them, and a reclamation  cannot be made, for the first bishop who should reclaim would be ipso facto excommunicated.    The Gallican is not permitted to dispute  any  definition   of the Pope when  it is actually made, and he never docs  it.    Bossuet, we  believe, concedes that there is no instance of an erroneous Papal definition recorded, and. there is never a question whether the Papal definitions actually made  are  or  are not of faith. The Gallican bishops accepted  at once, as the infallible voice of the Church, the Papal condemnation of the five propositions extracted from the book of Jansenius, and the Jansenists themselves acknowledged the authority of the Pope and the infallibility of his definition of the doctrine, and only objected that the Pope is not infallible in deciding a question of fact, such as whether the five propositions were contained or not in the  book  of Jansenius.    The propositions they agreed were to be condemned as heretical, but  as to the fact whether they were contained in Jansenius or not, they wished to maintain a respectful silence.    But the Gallican bishops rejected this distinction as a vain subterfuge, insisted that the Papal constitution was infallible, and as to the question of fact no less than as to the question of doctrine.    

The Reviewer says that the theory which ascribes infallibility to "the Universal Church diffusely" is unintelligible. " The Universal Church resembles some gas, enormously voluminous and elastic; it has no visible dimensions, no tangible solidity. It is a nebulous matter, of which the orb of truth may be a making', for aught we know, but of which it has never yet been made." No man appears to advantage who writes on what he does not understand.    The Universal Church, as the Reviewer understands it, may, if he will pardon the bull, be unintelligible; but as a Catholic understands it, it is very intelligible.    It consists of the whole body of pastors or bishops in communion with the Pope, their visible head and visible centre of unity.    A body with a visible centre and a visible head cannot, except in Scotch metaphysics, be destitute of visible dimensions or tangible  solidity.     The  Church dispersed, of which we predicate infallibility, is composed of these bishops or pastors teaching in communion with the successor of St. Peter, each in his own diocese.   This is the ordinary way in which the Church teaches, and it is only when errors arise, and there  are  heresies to be anathematized, that she ever teaches in any other way.    To know what she   teaches in   this way is always an easy matter.    By virtue of the Papacy, the episcopacy is held by the bishops in solkloy each standing for all and all for each.    All must respectively agree with  the  Pope, and if all respectively agree with him, all, by a well-known mathematical axiom, must respectively agree with one another.    To know, then, what the Universal Church teaches, you have only to consult the first bishop you meet, we care not if a Gallican bishop, in communion with the Pope, or your parish priest approved by his  bishop.     All  the talk, then, about the doubtfulness of the seat of infallibility amounts to nothing. The Gallican is, no doubt, more or less inconsequent, that is, not a good reasoner, but he can always learn without difficulty what the Church commands him either to believe or to do; and the Ultramontane, though asserting the Papal infallibility, asserts nothing to be of faith which the Gallican does not also assert; for he does not assert the Papal infallibility as an article of faith, or hold it to be of faith in such a sense that  speculative denial of it must subject one to canonical censure for heresy.

The second difficulty we have already resolved. The utterances of the organ of infallibility, whether the Pope, the Council, or the Church dispersed, are infallible without any limitation; but the Pope, although infallible when that organ, is not always it, or does not always speak as it, and what he says in any other character is not necessarily the voice of the Church. Doubtless, we must use reason to determine when he is defining a question of faith or morals, or is only arguing or acting in regard to matters on which no Catholic claims infallibility for the Church ; but this does not concede that we are forced to rely on private judgment to say when the utterances of the organ are infallible and when not.    Not every exercise of reason is a private judgment. The proper exercise of reason on those matters to which reason is competent is in no respect a private judgment, because it is not a judgment of reason as peculiar to this or that individual, but as common to all men.   Private judgment is only when the matters judged lie out of the range of reason, and its principle is not the common reason of mankind, nor a catholic or public authority, but the fancy, the caprice, the prejudice, or the idiosyncrasy of the individual forming it.   Catholicity does not supersede, it presupposes, reason; and no Catholic so understands the rule of an infallible church as to suppose it can be adopted and made available, or applied, without any use of reason. The Church addresses herself to men as creatures endowed with reason, and as using their reason and using it reasonably.   The point in the case before us for reason to decide is, not whether this or that utterance of the organ of infallibility is infallible, but is this or that an utterance of the recognized organ of infallibility.    The former is out of the province of reasdn, and, if we were obliged to decide it by natural reason alone, we should be obliged to rely on private judgment; but the latter is within the competency of reason, and indecision by reason is not an act of private judgment.    The case, moreover, presents no difficulty, for the definitions of the Church or of the Pope are always rendered in clear and precise language, and bear on their very face the unmistakable marks of their real character.    The documents which we must consult are official documents, which speak for themselves, and are as easily distinguished as the enactments of a legislature, the edicts of a king, or the judicial decisions of civil courts.    It is 6nly those that come in an ollicial form that we are obliged to receive as authoritative, and therefore as infallible.    Consequently, there is no inquiry as to within what limits the utterances are infallible, and no difficulty in determining what are the utterances of the infallible organ.

It follows from what we have said, that we can take either horn of the Reviewer's dilemma without any grave inconvenience. If we say the Church has asserted " principles to which  loyal   and  patriotic Englishmen cannot
subscribe," nothing obliges us to concede that she has erred, because the inability of Englishmen to subscribe may be their own fault, and can weigh nothing against the Church, and because the principles in question are evidently inherent in the spiritual power. If we choose to deny that those principles are of faith, we can do so without denying the Papal infallibility, because the Pope has never defined them to be of faith. If, again, we choose to go farther, and deny, with the Gallican, that the Pope possesses by divine right the deposing and absolving power, we can do so without being forced to rely on private judgment, with the Protestant, or losing the infallible Church as the rule of faith.

We have said we are bound to hold that the Pope had the right to depose temporal sovereigns, and to absolve their subjects from their allegiance. Thus far all Catholics are agreed. We hold with Ultramontanes that he possessed the power he claimed and exercised by divine right; Galli-cans, as well as we, hold that he had the power, but contend that he held it, jure humano, by the will of the people, or the concession of Catholic sovereigns. The Catholic people and sovereigns, of course, consented to the exercise of the power, or else the Pope could not have exercised it, at least with any effect; but we do not believe that the right to exercise it was conferred by them, for it appears to us plainly inherent in the spiritual authority as such, and Saint Gregory the Seventh, Innocent the Third, and Boniface the Eighth manifestly claim it, not as a temporal, but as a spiritual power. The Gallican view, though not contrary to the faith, seems to us to be a questionable expedient for relieving the apprehensions of the temporal authority, conciliating civil tyrants, and retaining court favor, and fitted to pave the way for withdrawing the state from its subjection to the law of God, or, what is the same thing, permitting it to interpret and declare that law for itself. But it may be well to examine the cases in which the deposing and absolving power has been exercised.

That the Popes have, in certain cases, deposed temporal sovereigns, and absolved their subjects from their allegiance, is undoubtedly true; and that they have a right to do so, in all analogous cases, we suppose must be conceded, whether we adopt Ultramontane or Gallican doctrines. But they have done so in no case that need   alarm the delicate loyalty and patriotism of either a Catholic or a Protestant Englishman.    The power has never been exercised over an infidel prince, or one who was not a spiritual subject of the Pope, and bound by his profession, the tenure of iiis crown, and the constitution and laws of his realm, to protect and defend the Catholic religion.   Such was the case with Henry the Fourth of Germany, and such was the case with the Albigensian Counts of Thoulouse.   Such, too, was the case with Elizabeth of England, a case, perhaps, as favorable to the Reviewer as can be selected.   She was excommunicated by Saint  Pius the Fifth, deposed, and her subjects absolved from their allegiance.    But she had  personally professed the  Catholic religion, had  succeeded to the crown as a Catholic, when the Catholic constitution of England was still in force, and the Catholic religion was part and parcel of the law of the land.   She was  bound by her   profession, her   coronation  oath, the tenure of  her crown, and the laws of her realm, to be a Catholic, and to protect and defend the Catholic religion. When she turned heretic, violated the constitution ot  her kingdom, oppressed   her   subjects,  abolished   Catholicity, expelled the Catholic bishops from their sees, set up a new hierarchy of her own creation, and persecuted, exiled, imprisoned, hung, and beheaded Catholics for adhering to their religion, she deserved excommunication for her heresy and wickedness, and deposition for her intolerable tyranny. The Protestants of England themselves would instantly depose their present amiable and popular queen were she to become a Catholic, and they would contend that they have the ricrht to do so, because she holds her crown only inasmuch a? she is a Protestant, and is bound by her coronation oath to protect and defend the  Protestant religion as by law established. What they hold it compatible with their loyalty and patriotism to do to their queen for embracing the true faith and seeking a heavenly crown, the Pope could well do to Elizabeth for abolishing the true faith, establishing heresy, and   persecuting true believers;   and if the Pope permitted the king of Spain to attempt to drive her from her throne, they have nothing to say, for they count  it o-loriously loyal and patriotic to have called in Dutch William to expel  his father-in-law, the Catholic James the Second.   Loyal and patriotic Englishmen cannot complain of the Church for having done, in favor of the constitution, the laws, and the religion of England, what Protestants glory in having done against them.

It is evident from an analysis of all the cases of deposition that can be cited, that the Popes have always respect to the  constitution of the civil power, and that, when they interpose against the sovereign, it is always to vindicate the rights of the nation invaded by the prince. Where a sovereign has made no war on the constitution and laws of his realm, where he has been faithful to his obligations, and has preserved the tenure of his crown, and ruled justly, according to the constitution and laws, the Pope has never claimed the power to depose him, or to absolve his subjects.    It is clear, then, that the present queen of Great Britain, in case she does not persecute Catholics, and deny them the freedom of their religion, does not come within the category of any of those cases in which the Popes have asserted the deposing and absolving power.   She is a Protestant, it is true; but she has violated no law of her kingdom in being one, and breaks no obligation which as queen she has taken  by remaining one.    There is no principle ever asserted by the Church on which, were her subjects to become Catholics, she could be deposed.  Her Catholic subjects now owe her allegiance, and are bound by the Church to obey her in all things not repugnant to the law of God, and the fact of the rest of her subjects becoming Catholics could work no change in her rights, or in their obligations to her as temporal sovereign.   To say that Catholics cannot be bound to obey an heretical prince is not true.    Belgium is a Catholic nation, and yet the prince is Protestant.   The Pope  has not absolved them from their allegiance.   The Catholic subjects of Prussia are held to owe allegiance to their sovereign, as much as are the subjects of Austria to their pious young emperor.    The Apostle, speaking by the Holy Ghost, commands believers to obey even the heathen emperors of Rome, and heresy, when there is nothing in the constitution of the state against it, obviously can no more work   a forfeiture of the rights of sovereigns than paganism or infidelity.   Doubtless, the Church would claim to decide for Catholics what things are contrary to the law of God, and what are not; but this she does now for those subjects of Queen Victoria who have the happiness to be Catholics.   Obviously, the rights of the queen to her throne, and the duties of her subjects, in case they should become Catholics, would remain unaffected.

There is nothing in the Catholic religion at war with loyalty and  patriotism, bo long  as   loyalty and  patriotism  are  confined within   the  bounds  of  virtue, and   are not made pretexts for encroaching on the freedom of the spiritual authority in all things spiritual.    Doubtless, such loyalty and patriotism as  that  of the  Duke of Norfolk and Lord Beaumont are not compatible with our duty as Catholics, nor even as enlightened and upright statesmen. Every good Catholic must, of course, place God before the king, the   Church before  the state ;   but this only makes him the more loyal as a subject, and the more worthy as a citizen.    Loyal and patriotic  Englishmen may object to this, and insist that the state shall be independent of the law of God; but we cannot assert religion at all without asserting it, and not to assert it would be only to leave open the door to absolute civil despotism.    We know no way of reconciling Catholicity with atheistical politics, no way  of rendering   religion   acceptable   to   infidel   politicians, and we shall not attempt to do it.
In direct reply, then, to the Reviewer's question, as to what will be the duty of Englishmen to the constitution and realm of England when their consciences compel them to return to our communion, we answer that it will be, 1. To expunge from the constitution and laws all those provisions which are directed against the Catholic religion, to free the queen from the obligation imposed by Parliament to remain a Protestant, and to give her liberty, if she chooses, to become a Catholic and aspire to a heavenly crown, without forfeiting her earthly crown ; and 2. To preserve inviolate, in all other respects, the constitution and laws of the realm, and loyally to obey the sovereign in all things not repugnant to the law of God, as interpreted, declared, and administered  by the  Church through her proper organs. This reply is clear and distinct; and in strict logical and historical harmony with the principles which the Church has asserted and acted on for eighteen hundred years, and is repugned by no principle the Church or the Popes have ever asserted.     Nothing  is  more certain, than  that  the Church recognizes the civil power as distinct from herself, and autonomous in its own sphere.    The supremacy she claims is not a temporal, but a spiritual supremacy; and consists not in the claim to exercise civil power, but in the right to prescribe under God the morality of the state, to
prescribe the end for which civil society exists, and as to their morality the means by which that end is to be gained. She denies to the. state all competency in spirituals, and asserts that it is bound to observe in all its acts the law of God, of which she is the divinely commissioned guardian and judge. So long as the state respects her authority as this guardian and judge, and faithfully seeks by lawful means the true end of civil government, she leaves it free to pursue its own course, and commands her children to be loyal and obedient to it.

The Church, in fact, treats the civil government, as far as the nature of the case admits, precisely as she does the individual. If the individual is simply a Catholic layman, with no other obligations to her than those contracted in his baptismal vows, she demands of him only the fulfilment of those vows; but if he has contracted special obligations towards her, or has received from her special trusts, she demands the fulfilment of them; and if he refuses, she revokes the trusts, and punishes him for his breach of faith. So, if a sovereign contracts special obligations to her, and holds his authority on condition of fulfilling them, she demands their fulfilment; and, if she judges it meet, she deposes him, if he obstinately persists in violating them. This is all just and reasonable, if we admit any church or spiritual authority at all. Queen Victoria has contracted no special obligations to the Church, and is not bound to perform any special duties towards her. The England of former times was Catholic, had a Catholic constitution, and its special duties to the Catholic religion; but the England of our times is Protestant, and its conversion to the Catholic religion will not revive the England that was, and the old relations between its government and the Holy See. It will be the conversion to the faith of a new kingdom, and the special relations between it and the Holy See will depend on the arrangements that may be mutually determined upon. In the mean time, the relations of Catholic Englishmen to the civil power come under the general rule, and in that there is nothing to absolve them from their allegiance to their queen, so long as she does not persecute the Catholic religion, and so long as she rules justly, according to the constitution and laws of her realm.

As to the question of persecution raised by the Review, and the alleged duty of temporal princes to extirpate heresy from their dominions, we have only a word to say; for it will be time enough to discuss it at length when Protestants cease to persecute the Church.    It is not in reply to an English or Scotch Reviewer in 1850 or 1851, that we shall attempt to prove that ours is not a persecuting Church. The old penal laws against Catholics are not yet all wiped out from the English statute-books, and the recent Ecclesiastical Titles Act, which renders the exercise of the Catholic religion in Great Britain contrary to the civil law, shows what sort of friends of religious freedom English Protestants are.    No matter what the  pretences are, the recent law is an act of pure persecution, and as such it would make even Protestants ashamed, if shame they had, of calling themselves the friends of religious liberty.    The Reviewer's impudence in pretending to be the advocate of religious liberty while approving that law, is a little too great to permit us to treat him with that courtesy which we always wish to observe towards an opponent.    As for the  Church, she asserts  the freedom of religion, but she does not, that we are aware, assert the freedom either of heresy or of infidelity.    She does not profess liberality, nor boast toleration as one of her glories ; but she has never authorized the punishment of heretics with other than ecclesiastical censures, save when and where they have attacked the legally established order of things.    The Church is a kingdom, a spiritual society, and it is ridiculous to say that she has not as much right to defend and protect herself as any civil society has to protect itself.    When a class of heretics, like the Albigenses, arise and attack both her and civil society, not with spiritual weapons alone, but with fire and sword, burning her churches and convents, violating her re-ligipus, massacring her priests, and assassinating her cardinals and legates, she has the right, if she has the right to be at all, to call in the civil arm to protect her; nay, to call upon the princes whose subjects these enemies of religion and pests of society are, and who are bound by their oaths and the constitutions of their states to defend her, to extirpate them from their dominions; and to depose them, if, instead of doing it, they favor them.    This is the only sort of persecution the Church has authorized, and we shall not so insult good sense or outrage common justice as to apologize for it.     We should as soon think of apologizing for shutting up a thief in prison, or hanging a cold-blooded murderer. This is not persecution, it is only just punishment; nay, only necessary sell-defence. But where heretics demean themselves as good citizens, where they respect the peace of society and the freedom of religion, the Church never calls in the secular arm against them, or makes it the duty of sovereigns to extirpate them. She uses only spiritual arms against them. The charge of persecution, so confidently urged against her, is the thief crying out " Stop thief!" in-order to divert the pursuit from himself.

We have now replied to all in the article that has struck us as in any sense deserving of notice. We have spoken freely, frankly, plainly ; more so than we should have done, if we were not at times disgusted with the timidity and trimming of some English, as well as American Catholics. We may talk as we will, and trim as we please, but so long as we retain any thing really Catholic we shall not satisfy infidel, or even Protestant statesmen, who place politics above religion. The fact is, Catholicity cannot be made to please those who hate all religion, and whose affections are placed on this world alone. The carnal Jews crucified our Blessed Lord between two thieves ; and their spiritual descendants cannot be expected to do less to his Spouse. The world hated our Lord, for he was not of it, and it hates and will hate his Church, for she is not of the world. Her aims are not its aims, and her maxims are not its maxims. It was so in the beginning, is so now, and will be so to the end. " Ye cannot serve'God and Mammon," and it is in vain that ye try. There is no use in apologizing for serving God, or for remaining in all things faithful to his Church. In trying to prove that your Church favors the liberalism of the day, and offers no opposition to atheistical politics, seldom out of fashion, you do her and yourselves foul wrong, and conciliate no favor for either. You grieve your Church, you impede her free and energetic action, and render Catholicity, as far as depends on you, weak and languishing. We have a great respect for Lord Arundel ancf Surry ,"and we admit that he deserves great credit, considering who he is and what are his environments, but we should respect him more, and regard him as more likely to be a successful Catholic leader, if he assumed a higher tone, and asserted with more boldness the absolute supremacy of the spiritual order over the secular. The Church can be injured only by Catholics, and Catholics can receive harm only from themselves. If English Catholics had had a more filial affection for Rome, more of the spirit of St. Anselm and of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and less of that which dictated the Constitutions of Clarendon, if they had been as prompt to obey the Church as they have always been to sustain their princes in their encroachments upon her prerogatives, they would never have had the affliction of seeing their religion proscribed by law in their own country, and a false "religion established in its place. Nationalism has from the first been the curse of England, and till English Catholics learn that the Lord loves an Italian, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, as well as an Englishman, they need not hope for the return of their country to the Church. They have always been too ready to side with the secular order against the spiritual, and till they correct this fault, they may be sure the state will despise and trample on them.

We trust that we appreciate the delicate position of English Catholics, and we are far from disregarding the admonitions of prudence ; but in our times, and indeed in all times, the truest prudence is fidelity to God, and full confidence in his truth. We are too apt to forget that the Church does not stand in human policy or human wisdom, that she is under the special protection of Almighty God, and that he will bless no efforts to serve her, the glory of which will not redound to him. We rely too much on ourselves, and not enough on him, and take counsel of our own short-sighted wisdom rather than of the Holy Ghost. We must not be afraid to trust all to God. The truth will sustain itself, and is needed to sustain us, instead of our being needed to sustain it. We regard the free, frank, and energetic assertion of fhose great principles, which so many Catholics are afraid to avow, and are always seeking to explain away, as the most prudent course now to be adopted. The Church was founded by our Lord on Peter, and every attempt to lessen the power of the Holy See, to diminish respect for the Supreme Pontiff, is only an attempt to undermine the foundation of the Church. The Greek empire could not bear to acknowledge the supremacy of Peter; it withheld from Rome her due, and she fell into schism, and became the prey or the slave of the proud infidel barbarian. Northern Germany would separate between the Church and the Pope, and she has fallen
into schism, heresy, infidelity, and wellnigh lapsed into her old heathenism; England would distinguish between the Pope and the court of Rome, and has become a jest and a byword  among the nations.     Every nation  that has refused filial love and reverence to the chair of Peter has been hurled from the seat of its greatness, as France, Spain, and Portugal can bear witness.     The only true policy, the only true wisdom in our times, is in exalting the chair of Peter, and  energetically asserting the pontifical authority, and the universal supremacy of the spiritual order.    The salvation   of the world in more senses than one depends on the Holy See, and on a loyal submission and filial obedience in all things to  the successor of  St. Peter.    We confess, then, that we are grieved to see  distinguished Catholic statesmen searching history to find examples of resistance to the Papal authority by the temporal  power, and  concluding  from them that a man may be a Catholic and  also loyal to his temporal sovereign.    Let us, in God's name, have no more of this. Let us   dare assert  the  truth  in  the  face of the  lying world, and, instead of pleading for  our Church  at the bar of the state, summon the  state itself to plead at the bar of the Church, its divinely constituted judge.   The state may become enraged, may confiscate our goods, prohibit our worship, shut up our churches and religious houses, imprison, exile, or massacre us; but what then ?    Such things have been, but they have never been able, so long as Catholics retained their fervor, to injure the Church or retard her progress.    These things are powerful against us only when  our faith is weak,  and our love waxes cold. Who has God on his side has no occasion to fear men or devils.