English Dissenters and others. 173 'or, rather, they have to accommodate their preaching to the 'views and expectations of their congregations, and especially of 'the more opulent and influential members. In order to main'tain their position they must continually keep their finger on 'the mental pulse of their hearers, and see that their lectures 'are in harmony with it.' We dare not say that this has never been done, and should be ashamed to avail ourselves in answer to it of the tu quoque evasion; but we do say, and say most emphatically, that the general impression which such a statement is calculated to convey is, on the whole, completely unjust and contrary to the facts. This, however, is happily not a matter upon which we have any occasion to dwell. The answer is no less obvious to our readers than it is to ourselves. In his observations on the Baptists the author is still briefer, and we observe with pleasure that he does them the somewhat unusual justice of saying, and saying explicitly, that they 'never 'formed any connection with the Mennonites of Holland and "Germany.' He notes that in 1851, the date of the last Census available for his purposes, the Particular Baptists, who are "the chief party,' numbered 1,947 congregations. Other Dissenting sects described by Dr. Döllinger are the Quakers, the Moravians, the Irvingites, and the Plymouth Brethren. He writes more fully of the Church of Scotland, and comments on various parts of it which it is not uncommon in England to regard as its defects, and especially on the poverty of its ritual. Other Churches included in the author's survey are the Church of the Patriarchite of Constantinople, the Russian Church, the Churches in Holland, the Protestant Churches in France and Switzerland, the Protestant Denominations (not Churches) in the United States, the Lutheran Church in Scandinavian countries, and the Protestant Churches in Germany. In all these sketches Dr. Döllinger appears to himself to make strong points in favour of Catholicism. There occur in the course of his observations several things which he has, in one way or other, represented in a manner to which we should object, but which we are wholly without space to investigate or expose. We shall not even criticise his failure in endeavouring to make use of the assumed, and seemingly proved, unfavourable effects of the Reformation upon civil freedom; but shall say that, in the whole of this panoramic survey, there are everywhere present sundry fundamental misconceptions vitiating the whole. They are briefly these:-1. That it is an injury to Christianity and to mankind not to have one visible, universal Church, instead of a variety of Churches; and 2. That Roman Catholicism possesses, and alone possesses, all the essentials of such a visible and universal Church, and ought, therefore, to become universal in fact as well as in theory. We believe that both these assumptions are utterly ungrounded. We may rest assured that, the constitution of man and the Divine government of the world remaining as they are, one visible, universal Church (in any such sense as that in which Churchmen use the expression) is not attainable, and cannot, therefore, be safely pronounced desirable. But were it otherwise, we should still demur most strongly to Dr. Döllinger's second assumption. To us it appears that his own Church is quite as obnoxious as is any other Church to the charge of not teaching 'pure doctrine,' of not making a 'right use of the 'Sacraments,' and of not maintaining discipline.' The value of these as signs and criteria of a 'true Church' it is no business of ours at present to discuss. Their value is almost universally assumed, and granting, for the sake of argument, that the assumption is just, we say that even by this test the Roman Catholic Church is found wanting. We know that the criterion upon which she chiefly relies, and of which she most frequently boasts, is not included in this test; but judged even by her claims to a direct Apostolical succession, the verdict on her pretensions remains unchanged. She can stand by the last test no better than by the first, for succession alone is no establishment of title. We have read Dr. Döllinger's most elaborate and very eloquent and able book with conscientious attention and care, and having done so, we find one question which we are forced to ask again and again. It is this: What is the real object of the work considered as a whole? Its primary object, as we have already stated, was explanation of misunderstood opinions, and self-vindication. This, however, might easily enough have been attained in a tenth part of the space, and may on various accounts be declared without hesitation not to be the author's whole aim. He criticises the Reformation and the Protestant religion, and places in strong and glowing contrast to the latter the assumed perfections of Catholicism. He takes an almost exhaustive survey of the Churches, and speaks with rare candour on the abuses which have obtained in the government of the Papal States. A considerable portion of the work is occupied with a review of the condition of those States as it was in the happier times of the Papacy, and as it has been since. We have also a defence of the Protest against the Peace of Westphalia, and repeated discussions on Justification by Faith. It is obvious, then, that there are several parts of the work which have no necessary connection with each other, which cannot even be What the meaning of the book? 175 pronounced manifestly homogeneous, and which must have some bond of connection, something uniting them (if not in their native similarity, then in their common subservience to something apart from and beyond them), if they are not to be called clearly heterogeneous. What we want to know is, what this bond of connection can be? what is the design according to which this diversity of materials has been piled up? Is there, in fact, any such design at all? What is the unity of the book? What its formative and governing idea? If it be answered that the author's object was to exhibit the relation of the Temporal Power, as a part of the Papacy, to the Papacy as a whole, our difficulty remains where it was, because we cannot in any way see what the doctrine of Justification by Faith has to do with such object, while we shall be more in the dark than ever as to the elaborate disquisitions on Anglicanism in particular, and on Protestantism in general. If, on the other hand, Dr. Döllinger's aim was simply to show how much more nearly the ideal of a true Church is approached by Catholicism than by Protestantism, why does he burden himself with the peace of Westphalia and the incorrigible mal-administration of the Papal States? Try as we may, we cannot reconcile into unity the several parts of the author's performance. They are radically inconsistent with each other, are a merely local association of things which have nothing else in common. We do not wish, however, to comment with much severity on this absence of a single and specific aim, because it is just possible that something may be due to the comparative and unavoidable haste with which the work has been prepared. Yet, it still appears to us that the circumstance is truly notable, and for this reason,that Dr. Döllinger, as an able logician, a close and most vigorous thinker, could not possibly have fallen into this mistake (even had he prepared his answer in only as many hours as months), but for there being in his mind a constant, an unsuspected, and most radical confusion of thought on the whole subject. The Papacy, be it observed, is a total of which the two components are the Temporal Power and the Spiritual. Dr. Döllinger set out to investigate the relation of the former of these to the Papacy as a whole, and that, mirabile dictu, apparently without its having once occurred to him to investigate the relations of the two parts to each other, that is of the Temporal Power to the Spiritual. He has assumed the status quo-indefinite and complicated as it has now become-to be all that it should be, to need no investigation, to challenge no questions, to call for no inquiry. Hence the invincible errors of the book considered as an argumentative whole, hence its confusion and inextricable inconsistencies. Intimately connected with this-if not, indeed, but another aspect of the same confusion-is the author's misconception of what really constitutes a Church. He appears unable to do other than confound what is essential to it with what is only accidental, and this not from any innate incapacity or wrongheadedness, but simply in consequence of life-long habit. To him there can be no Church without visible corporeity and palpable corporate action. It would be only too easy to show the untenableness of such assumptions, the many contradictions and monstrosities they involve. But, very respectfully commending to the learned author an inquiry into the theoretical parts of these questions, we are still obliged to think it strange that such inquiry should not long since have been forced on him by his own studies, by his knowledge of the facts which have so strikingly illustrated the relation of Temporal Power to the Spiritual during the last eight centuries of Papal history. Putting aside the earliest period, of which our knowledge is so questionable, and on which we cannot balance the authorities, because they are all on one side, and are all of them interested, we find there is one observation uniformly true, and which, as being generalized from the whole of the instances, may be described as the law of the relation between the Temporal and the Spiritual Powers. It is this:-Whenever the Temporal Power has been least, or least exerted, or least cared for and cultivated, the Spiritual Power has been greatest, and vice versa. Wonders never cease. True; but that by no means diminishes our own wonder that it should not long since have been seen by the Romish Church that the Temporal Power was its greatest curse the one root of evil which has never ceased most potently to trouble it. That power was amassed and consolidated by crooked and dishonourable means; but the prayer of the Popes was answered when they gained it, and their souls have been lean ever since. It was Catholicism in its temporal relations which did so much to prepare the way for the French infidelity of the eighteenth century, and, by consequence, for the Revolution under which it ultimately and completely perished. And it is this same Temporal Power which has done more than prepare the way for the Italian infidelity of to-day. The men who believe in Garibaldi and swear fealty to Victor Emmanuel, are men who are willing enough to listen to exposures of the abuses of the Church, but who become unwilling hearers the moment you make what should be presumed an easy and natural transition from the Church to religion. They want none of it; they have had enough of it; they have seen it outside and inside; and they turn away incredulous, self Apology for our incredulity. 177 complacent, and smiling. As it is to-day so was it yesterday, so has it always been, so will it continue to be. We cannot bring into harmony things which are in their nature so essentially dissonant. It is impossible to serve at the same time God and Mammon, Christ and Belial. But if Dr. Döllinger has no consistent aim in his work, and though it is easy to us to see whence the confusion of his treatise has arisen, he still has a wish. What, then, would he have? This; that we should abandon the errors of Dissent, the divisions incidental to the freedom of the Protestant Religion, and choose the better part of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. To obviate some of our objections, we are assured that the power of the Pope is limited to moral agency, and can only be exerted in accordance with the decisions of councils and the canons of the Church. Heaven forgive us that we can think of nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing when we hear such discourse, especially when we hear a Pope Leo the Great so unctuously and benignantly assuring us, in the very face of the facts which a thousand times deny it, 'The mildness of the Church contents itself with the 'sacerdotal judgment, and desires no blood-stained vengeance.' We confess it is beyond us to write about such things. The Popes renounce every power they have ever claimed. Pius the Ninth assures us that he has no concernment with our civil laws, and has no desire to abridge the political liberty we enjoy. We are glad to hear it. He will have one source of disquietude the less, for assuredly he will never have the chance to meddle. Nay, to all these overtures of peace, these invitations to return, these warnings against schism, these assurances of the supreme and abiding glories of Catholicism, we count it a sufficient answer to remember the rather hard-mouthed wisdom :- We 'trusted you once, and you most cruelly deceived us; the fault 'was yours. If we trust you again, the fault will be ours.' No doubt some of these most specious promises would be keptkept after the fashion which has so long been known to the Vicars of Christ-kept, as Paul Sarpi's dagger-wound was given, more Romano. What that fashion has been, that it is. Potentates who can quote The Prince and the Gospels with equal facility must excuse us for not trusting them. A Church which blesses a Borgia, and curses a Savonarola, must not wonder that we prefer our own so-called schism to its so-called union. And an advocate who has an eloquent explanation and a voluminous excuse for such like things, should not think it unreasonable if we respect the logic of facts even more than the logic of his own glowing rhetoric. He is a better man than his cause, little as he is willing to think so. We shall not say outright that we dis NO. LXXI. N |