WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH?

OR,

Jjtfo Pain Reasons for Soinins tfjc

3&oman Catfjolic Communion.

BY

C F. B. A.

ST. AUGUSTINE, A.D. 400 " Ye:

(Donatists) are not in the mountains of Sion,
because you are not in the City seated on a hill, which has this sure mark, that it
cannot be hidden. It is, therefore, known to all nations now the party of Donatus
:

is unknown to many nations : it is not, therefore, that city." L. ii.. cont. Lit.
Petilian., n. 239 (al. 104).

ORIGEN, A.D. 210: "We are not to give heed to those who say, Behold, Jiere
is Christ, but show Him not in THE CHURCH, which is filled with brightness from
the East even unto the West ; which is filled with true light, is the pillar and
ground of the truth, in which as a whole is the whole advent of the Son of Man,
who saith to all men, throughout the universe, Behold, I am with you all the days
'

of life, even unto the consummation of the world.'" Tom. iii., Com. in Matt.,
Tract, xxx. n. 46.

(Efcftfon,

WITH AN ENLARGED APPENDIX AND ADDITIONAL NOTES.

EDINBURGH:
PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS.
iSSi.
 " In
ST. iRENyEUS, Bishop of Lyons, A.D. 178 : the Church God hath placed
Apostles, Prophet?, Doctors, and every other work of the Spirit, of which all they
are not partakers who do not hasten to the Church, but by their evil sentiment
and most flagrant conduct, defraud themselves of life. For where the Church is,

there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church
and every grace : but the Spirit is truth." Adv. Hccr., 1. iii. c. 24, n. 2.
" He who cause schisms ; men destitute of the love of
will judge all those

God, and who have in view their own interest and not the oneness of the Church ;

and who, on account of slight and exaggerated causes, rend and divide, and so far
as in them lies, destroy the great and glorious Body of Christ ; men who have

peace on their lips, but war in their actions ; who truly strain at a gnat, but
swallow a camel. But no reformation can be effected by them so great as is the
perniciousness of schism." /., 1. iv. c. 33, n. 7.
 PREFACE.

THE question which forms the title of this little work is one
that must admit of very easy solution, seeing that the object,
for which our Lord established His Church on earth, rendered
it necessary that the MARKS which were to distinguish her
in all ages as the Divinely commissioned TEACHER OF THE
NATIONS should be plain and simple, and easily recognis-
able by those for whom His Religion itself was specially
adapted and designed the poor and ignorant, who constitute
the great bulk of mankind.
Learned research, or anxious inquiry regarding the doctrines
taught by the various and conflicting Christian communities,
cannot be necessary for those who simply want to discover
that Church which is the one unerring TEACHER appointed by
God and the object of the following pages is to show, in as
;

simple and brief a manner as possible, that the principal marks

and characteristics of this Church, as plainly laid down in the
Scriptures received by Protestants themselves, are, by a refer-
ence to notorious and acknowledged facts, and by the testi-
monies of Protestant or other hostile historians, whose works
are accessible to all, so clearly shown to be recognisable in
the Roman Catholic Church, and in her alone, as entirely to
preclude the necessity for entering upon any of those irre-
levant, tedious, and interminable controversies into which
Protestant disputants are always desirous to draw off the
attention of their readers.
The texts of Scripture are generally quoted from the
Authorised Protestant Version and the historians (such as
;

HALLAM, MILMAN, FROUDE, RANKE, NEANDER, GUIZOT,

RENAN) or other authors, whose works have been freely cited
in the Notes or Appendix, are all so well known for their strong
Protestant or anti-Catholic sympathies, that whatever testi-
monies, at all favourable to the Catholic Church or religion in
the past, may be found in their writings, will be acknowledged
by all impartial persons to have a value, weight, and import-
ance peculiar to themselves, and such as the statements of few
other authors would in these days be likely to possess.
C. F. B. A.
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH?

I. THE Object, for which the Redeemer established His

Church or Kingdom on earth, was the conversion of the

world to Christianity, the preservation and propagation of His
One true Faith and Religion, Universally, in regard to Time
and Place: l
"I," He declared, "am the LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
r

. . . For this
cause came I into the world, that I should BEAR WITNESS UNTO THE
TRUTH" (John iii. 17, viii. 12, xviii. 37. Comp. Luke ii. 32 ;
Acts ii. 47,
xiii. 47, xvii. 30 ; I Tim. ii.
4).
"
Now is the judgment of this world : NOW SHALL THE PRINCE OF
THIS WORLD BE CAST OUT. 2 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, WILL
1
The truth of this proposition is admitted by the ablest Protestant writers,
by Bishop PEARSON, in his Commentary on the Apostles' Creed, Art. ix., and
e.g.,

by Bishop BUTLER, in his celebrated Analogy of Religion. The last-named writer

" In order to continue it and it on
says :
(Christianity), carry successively through-
out all ages, a VISIBLE CHURCH was established. Had Christ and His Apostles
only taught, and by miracles proved, religion to their contemporaries, the benefits
of their instructions would have reached but to a small part of mankind. Chris-
tianity must have been in a great degree sunken and forgotten in a very few ages.
To prevent this, appears to have been one reason why a Visible Church was insti-
tuted ; to be, like a city upon a hill, a standing memorial to the world of the duty
which we owe our Maker ; to call men continually, both by example and instruction,
to attend to it, and, by the form of religion ever before their eyes, remind them of
the reality ; to be the repository of the oracles of God ; to hold up the light of
revelation in aid to that of nature, and propagate it throughout all generations to
the end of the world" (Analogy, Part ii. chap. i. sect. 7). And again: "He
founded a Church, to be to mankind a standing memorial of religion and invita-
"
tion to it ; which He promised to be with always, even to the end (2b. chap. v.
sect. 6).

says the Anglican commentator BLOOMFIELD, "that now is the

2
"Meaning,"
Prince of this world . . about to be deposed from his rule, by the abolition of
.

idolatry and superstition, and the introduction of true religion" (Note in loc.).
"After the death of Christ the casting out began, and its first-fruits were the
coming in of the Gentiles into the Church." ALFORD (in loc.\ Comp.
Rev. xiv. 6-8.
 (
6 )

"
DRAW ALL MEN UNTO MYSELF (John xii. 31,32. Comp. Rom. xvi. 20 ;

Rev. xiv. 6-8).

"
MANY from the East and West, and from the North and
shall come,

South, and shalldown with Abraham, and

sit Isaac, and Jacob IN THE
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 1 But the children of the Kingdom [the uncon-
verted Jews] shall be cast out into outer darkness" (Matt. viii. u, 12 ;
Luke xiii. 29. Comp. Rom. ix. 6-8, 24, x. 20, 21, xi. 12, 15, 25).
" The
Kingdom of God is COME UNTO YOU [JEWS]. The Kingdom . . .

of God is [ALREADY] AMONG YOU The Kingdom of God shall

: . . .

be taken from you, and GIVEN TO A NATION BRINGING FORTH THE

FRUITS THEREOF" (Matt. xii. 28 Luke xvii. 21 Matt. xxi. 43.
; ;

Comp. Acts xiii. 46, 47, xxviii. 28; Rom. x. and xi. j Coloss. 6, 13; i.

Rom. iv. 13, 1 6).

" Think not that I am come to
destroy the Law or the Prophets I am :

not come to destroy, but TO FULFIL. The Law and the Prophets were
until John SINCE THAT TIME THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS PREACHED,
:

AND EVERY MAN PRESSETH INTO IT" (Matt. V. 17 Luke xvi. l6. Comp.
Matt. xi. n, 12).
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a GRAIN OF MUSTARD-SEED, 2
which a man took and sowed in his field : which indeed is the least of
all seeds ; but when it is grown, it
among herbs, and is the greatest
BECOMETH A TREE, AND SHOOTETH OUT GREAT BRANCHES SO THAT ;

THE BIRDS OF THE AIR COME AND LODGE UNDER THE SHADOW
THEREOF. . The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto
. .
LEAVEN, which a

Throughout the Gospels, the most common title given to the Visible Church
1
" " OF GOD "
of Christ is that of "THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN or ;
a Kingdom,
that is to say, "not of this zvartd" (John xviii. 36), in its Origin and Object, but

heavenly and divine. Besides the texts above quoted, see Matt. iii. 2 Mark i. 14 ; ;

Matt. iv. 17, 23; Luke viii. I ; Matt. x. 7; Lnke ix. 2, II, 27, x. 9, xi. 2O,
xvii. 21 ;
Matt.
xxv. I, xiii. n, 24, 41 ; John iii. 3, 5,
xxii. 2, c.
2 " His
Dr. TRENCH,
Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, says : comparison of
the growth of His Kingdom to that of a tree, must have been one with which
many of His hearers were already familiar from the Scriptures of the Old Tes-
tament. The growth of a worldly kingdom had been set forth under this
image (Dan. 10-12; Ezech. xxxi. 3-9), that also of the Kingdom of God,
iv.

(Ezech. xvii. 22-24 J PS Ixxx. 8). A mustard-seed is here chosen,

- not with . . .

reference to its ultimate greatness, but to the proportion between the smallness
of the seed and the greatness of the plant which unfolds itself therefrom. . . .

What He desired to set before His disciples, was not merely that His Kingdom
should be glorious, but that it should be glorious despite its weak, and slight, and
despised beginnings. ... In
the birds flocking to the boughs of the mustard-tree
when it had grown and there finding shelter and food, we are to recognise
great,
a prophecy of the refuge and defence that should be for all men in the Church :
how that multitudes should hither resort, finding there protection from worldly
oppression, as well as satisfaction for all the needs and wants of their souls" (On
the Parables, pp. 105, 109, 6th edit.).
On the Parables of the LEAVEN and the NET, Dr. TRENCH says: "The
'
Parable of the Leaven is concerning the] Kingdom of God, which cometh not
 ( 7 )

woman took, in three measures of meal, UNTIL THE WHOLE WAS

and hid
LEAVENED. The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a NET, that was
. . .

"
cast into the sea, and GATHERED OF EVERY KIND (Matt. xiii. 31-33, 47 ;

Mark iv. 31, 32 Luke xiii. 19, 21).

;

"This gospel of the Kingdom SHALL BE PREACHED IN ALL THE

"
WORLD, FOR A WITNESS UNTO ALL NATIONS [ FOR OBEDIENCE UNTO
THE FAITH IN ALL NATIONS," Rom. i. 5], and then shall the end come"
(Matt. xxiv. 14. Comp. Rom. xvi. 26; i Cor. xv. 24, 25).
"YE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD A CITY THAT : IS SET ON A
HILL CANNOT BE HID" (Matt. v. 14. Comp. Heb. xii. 22; Isai. Ix.

i, 3, 14).
"I have ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and
"
THAT YOUR FRUIT SHOULD REMAIN (John XV. 1 6. Comp. Acts xiii.
47, xxviii. 28 ; Rom. i.
13, xv. 9-19 Co loss. i. 6). ;

"THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH SHALL ABIDE WITH YOU FOR EVER: HE

SHALL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH" (John xiv. 17, xvi. 13).
"As THE FATHER HATH SENT ME, EVEN so SEND I You. 1 ALL . . .

POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH GO YE, THERE- :

FORE, AND TEACH (MAKE DISCIPLES OF) ALL NATIONS ; BAPTIZING

THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE
HOLY GHOST TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS WHAT-
:

SOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU AND LO I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, : !

EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD" (John XX. 21 Matt, xxviii. ;

1 8-20).
" Go THE WHOLE WORLD, and PREACH THE GOSPEL 2 TO
ye into
'
with observation ; this [of the mustard-seed] is concerning that same Kingdom,
as displays itself openly, and cannot be hid ; that declares the intensive, this
it

the extensive development of the gospel. . . . They have, indeed, this in

common, that they describe the small and slight beginnings, the gradiial progress,
and the final marvellotis increase of the CJmrch or how, to use another image,
the stone cut out without hands should become a great mountain, and fill the
whole earth (Dan. ii. 34, 35). ...
This parable [of the Net\ contains a pro-
phecy of the "wide reach and potent operation of the gospel. The kingdom of
heaven should henceforth be a net cast into the broad stream of the whole world,
and gathering or drawing together some out of every kindred, and tongue, and
"
people, and nation (On the Parables, pp. 104, 135).
1
None have a right to PREACH without a lawful MISSION. "How," says
St. Paul,"shall they preach, except they be sentV (Rom. x. 15). Those who
"assume this honour unto themselves " (Heb. v. 4) are guilty of the sin of Korah
(see Numb. xvi. 3 seq. ; Jude n. Comp. Jerem. xxiii. 21). Our Lord Himself
constantly appealed to His own Divine Mission (John vii. 16, 28, 29, xii. 44,
49, xvii. 3, &c.), which Mission He
imparted to the Apostles (Luke x. 16 ;
John xvii. 1 8, xx. 21), and the Apostles transmitted to their Successors the
whole Body of legitimate Pastors of the One true Church throughout all ages.
(See Acts xiii. 2-4, xx. 28; 2 Tim. i. 6, II, ii. 2; Titus i. 5; Ephes. iv.
H-I3-)
2
Thus was " the Prince of this world " to be deposed from his rule. He had
" seduced the whole world" into
idolatry (Rev. xii. 9 ) ; and therefore it was "into
 (
8 )

EVERY CREATURE. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ;

but he that believeth not, shall be condemned" (Mark xvi. 15, 16.

Comp. Rom. x. 14-18).

"
I will give UNTO THEE (PETER) THE KEYS " [the symbol of Supreme
"
Government. Comp.iii.
7] OF THE
Isai. xxii. 22, ix. 6 ;
Rev.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT BIND ON ;

EARTH, SHALL BE BOUND IN HEAVEN AND WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT ;

"
LOOSE ON EARTH, IT SHALL BE LOOSED ALSO IN HEAVEN {Matt.
xvi. 19).
"I
appoint unto YOU [My Apostles] a Kingdom, as My Father also
hath appointed unto ME ;
that ye may eat and drink at My table in My
Kingdom, and SIT ON THRONES, JUDGING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF
ISRAEL" 1 (Luke xxii. 29, 30).
" Whatsoever YE shall bind on
earth, shall be bound in heaven and ;

"
whatsoever YE shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven (Matt.
xviii. 1 8).

"
the whole world" that the CHURCH of Christ was commanded to "go; because
it was through the instrumentality of that preaching, "by which faith cometh"
"
(Rom. x. 14-17) that the Gentiles were to be turnedfrom darkness unto light,
from the power of Satan unto God" and to be "translated into the Kingdom of
His dear Son" (Acts xxvi. 18; Coloss. i. 13).
By "the world" the Empire of HEATHEN ROME (referred to by St. Luke as
co-extensive with "the whole world" Luke ii. i) was specially signified. In Rev.
xiii. 7, this Empire is spoken of as extending over "all kindreds, and tongues,

and nations" (
tl
peoples, and multitudest and nations, and tongues" Rev. xvii.

15 ); and upon its overthrow,

and the establishment of the Church of Christ in
"
its place, the Saints and Angels rejoice that the kingdoms of this world are
become the Kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ" (Rev. xi. 15). After this,
"
Satan is said to be bound for a thousand years ; i.e., his power as Prince of this
"
world has been broken by the fall of Paganism in the Roman Empire. He can
no longer seduce the nations by making them worship idols.
With the " Now shall the Prince this world be cast out" xii.
words, of (John
"
31), may be compared St. Paul's declaration to the Roman Church : The God
"
of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly (Rom. xvi. 20). Both pro-
mises evidently referred to the overthrow of Paganism, and the near-at-hand
conversion to Christianity of the great Heathen Empire of Rome (comp. Rev.
xiv. 6-8).
The Protestant reader may refer to PALEY'S Evidences of Christianity, part ii.
ch. ix. sect. I, for a short account of the rapid propagation of the Christian

faith, and the conversion of the Empire under Constantine in the fourth
century.
1 " The
twelve tribes of Israel" i.e., the spiritual Israel, the whole Church,

converted Gentiles as well as converted Jews the former being "grafted in ;

the and "all into one Body" (Rom. xi. 17 ; I Cor. xii.
among" latter, baptized
13 ;
Galat. iii. 27-29 ; Ephes. iii. 6). Hence
Paul calls the whole Christian
St.
" the Israel God" "the commonwealth of Israel"
Church of (Galat. vi. 16),
whether Jews or Gentiles who had been
"
(Ephes. ii. 12), declaring all bap-
tized into Christ" to be "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise"
 ( 9 )

" Not them also who shall believe on

for these only do I pray, but for
Me through their word THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE [BODY OR
:

SOCIETY], IN ORDER THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT THOU

HAST SENT ME ; . . . THAT THEY MAY BE MADE PERFECT IN OXE [iVa
&<nv TereXetay^j/ot els v THAT THEY MAY BE PERFECTLY UNITED IN OXE
BODY OR SOCIETY], AND THAT THE WORLD MAY [thereby] KNOW
THAT THOU HAST SENT ME" (John xvii. 21, 22).
"
He (Caiaphas) prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation ; and
not for that nation only but that also HE SHOULD GATHER TOGETHER ;

IN ONE [iVo, cwaydyg cis fr, THAT HE SHOULD COLLECT INTO ONE
PEOPLE OR KINGDOM] THE CHILDREN OF GOD THAT WERE SCATTERED
ABROAD " (John xi. 52).
"
Other sheep [the Gentiles] I have, which are not of this Fold : them
also must bring I [into it], and THEY SHALL HEAR MY VOICE ;
AND
"
THERE SHALL BE ONE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD (John x. l6.

Comp. Acts xiii. 47, xxviii. 28 Ephes. ii. 14 seq., iii. 6). ;

"
There is ONE BODY, and One Spirit, One Lord, ONE FAITH, . . .

One Baptism. And He gave some [to be] Apostles,

. . . and some . . .

Pastors and Teachers FOR THE PERFECTING OF THE SAINTS, FOR THE ;

WORK OF THE MINISTRY, FOR THE EDIFICATION OF THE BODY OF

CHRIST UNTIL WE ALL COME INTO THE UNITY OF THE FAITH, AND
;

OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD, UNTO A PERFECT MAN ;

. THAT HENCEFORTH WE BE NO MORE CHILDREN, TOSSED TO AND

. .

FRO, AND CARRIED ABOUT WITH EVERY WIND OF DOCTRINE, BY THE

SLEIGHT OF MEN, AND CUNNING CRAFTINESS, WHEREBY THEY LIE IN
WAIT TO DECEIVE BUT SPEAKING THE TRUTH [aXrjdevovres maintaining
and professing the true faith] IN CHARITY, MAY GROW UP INTO HIM
"
IN ALL THINGS, WHICH IS THE HEAD, EVEN CHRIST (EpJlCS. iv.
4,5, "-IS)-
" Christ is the Head of THE CHURCH and He is the Saviour of THE
;

BODY, . . . His BODY, WHICH is THE CHURCH" (Ephes. v. 23 ; Coloss.

i.
24).
"We are ALL BAPTIZED INTO ONE BODY/ whether Jews or Gentiles,

(Rom. ix. 8, 24, iv. II, 16 ; Galat. iii. 7, 9, 29). St. Peter, in like manner,
applies to the whole body of the faithful the very titles that had formerly been
"
given to the Jewish people ; calling them a Chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
an holy nation, a peculiar people ; that they should show forth the praises of Him
"
who had called them out of darkness into His marvellous light (Exod. xix. 5, 6 ;
I Pet. ii. 9. Comp. Ephes. ii. 19, 21 ;
Heb. xii. 22, 28).
1
That the Visible Church is signified title of "Body of Christ" is
under the
evident from the fact that, 1st, all THE BAPTIZED become members of it (i Cor.
members have a " necessary depend-
"
xii. 13. Comp. Acts\\. 41, 47) ; 2dlyt these
ence on one another and on the whole body ; they perform various outward and
visible functions (Rom. xii. 4-8), and hold external as well as internal communion ;
so that "when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, or one member
be honoured, all the members rejoice -with it" (i Cor. xii. 15-26). 3^/y, St. Paul
speaks of the reception of the EUCHARIST as a necessary bond and evidence of
whether bond or free
"
and " God hath tempered the Body together,
;

. . .THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO SCHISM IN THE BODY. For as . . .

the [natural] body is one, and hath many members, and all the members
of that one body, being many, are one body so also is Christ. Now ;
. . .

ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular MANY ; . . .

MEMBERS, YET BUT ONE BODY. IS CHRIST DIVIDED ?" (l Cor. xii. . . .

12, 13, 20, 24, 25, 27, i. 13. Comp. Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; Ephes. ii. 14, 15,
iii. 6, c.).
" THE
CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD [is] THE PILLAR AND FOUNDA-
TION OF THE TRUTH" 1 (i Tim. iii. 15).
" Unto Him be
glory IN THE CHURCH, by Jesus Christ, throughout
all ages, world without end" (Ephes. iii. 21).
" Thou art PETER
(Chipha), and UPON THIS ROCK (Chipha) I WILL
BUILD MY CHURCH, AND THE GATES OF HELL pitfXat '5ou the
Powers of Darkness, Satan and his hosts] SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST
IT. And unto thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,"
&c.(Matt. xvi. 17, 1 8).
"
YOU, HEARETH ME and he that despiseth YOU,
HE THAT HEARETH ;

despiseth ME, and he that despiseth ME, despiseth Him that sent ME"
(Luke x. 1 6).
" If he
neglect to HEAR THE CHURCH, let him be unto thee as an
heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you WHATSOEVER :

membership: "We, being many, are One Bread, One Body, because we all
partake of that One Bread" (i Cor. x. 17). Lastly, because the whole Body is
said to be "edified" or
" built
up" through the instrumentality of that visible
hierarchy and ministry which Christ has set over it for that express purpose.
1
See the notes on this text in the Greek Testaments edited by BLOOMFIELD and
ALFORD. The former says that the attempt made by some Protestant controver-
sialists to refer the words "pillar and foundation of the truth" to -whit follows

"lies open to insuperable objections, as stated by Poole, Benson, and Scott."

ALFORD says " If a sentence like this occurred in the Epistle, I should feel it
:

a weightier argument against its genuineness than any which its opponents have
yet adduced."
To the interpretation (devised by other Protestant controversialists) which refers
" To the sentence thus
the words to Timothy, Dean ALFORU says : arranged and
understood there are weighty and, I conceive, fatal objections." BLOOMFIELD
says: "The natural connection of the words is certainly not, as some imagine,
to Timothy for that would be an utter violation of the construction, and involve
;

somewhat of an incongruity. There can be no doubt but that the true refer-
. . .

ence is to 7?rts earlv eKK\-r]<rta ["which is the Church" c.], as was maintained by

almost all the ancient expositors and

many eminent Protestant commentators, as
Grotius, Bishop Hall, Calvin, Hammond, Gothofred, Weber, Schmid, Deyling,
Whitby, Macknight, and Bishop Van Mildert and of the recent expositors, Dr. ;

Peile and of the foreign, Wiesing, Huther, and Mack, who understand it of the
;

Church universal, administered tinder an external form of government, and which,

by maintaining the revelation of God and His religion, upholds it as a foundation
does a building, or as pillars support an edifice. . Any other mode of explana- . .

tion is, both pliilologically and otherwise, quite untenable" (note in loc.}.
 (
II )

YE shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven/' &c. (Matt, xviii. 17,
1 8).

"He that despiseth, despiseth NOT MAN, BUT GOD" (i Thess. iv. 8.

Comp. ch. ii.

13).
"WE are of God HE
THAT KNOWETH GOD, HEARETH us he that
: ;

is HEREBY KNOW WE THE SPIRIT OF

not of God, heareth us not.
TRUTH, AND THE SPIRIT OF ERROR" (l John iv. 6).
(See also Acts ii. 42, 47, xv. 6, 28, xvi. 4, xx. 28, 30; Rom. xvi. 17 ;

i Cor. i.
10, xi. 16 ; Heb. xiii. 7, 9, 17 ; Galat. i.
9 ;
i Tim. i.
3, 20 ; 2
Tim. ii. 17, 18 ; Titus i. 10, n, iii. 10, ii, &c.)

these declarations of our Lord and His Apostles

With
should be compared the following and similar prophecies of
the Old Testament :

" In ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED.

thee shall . . .

And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth and thou shalt spread ;

abroad to the West, and to the East, and to the North, and to the South ;
and IN THEE AND IN THY SEED SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE
EARTH BE BLESSED" (Gen. xii. 3, xxii. 1 8, xxviii. 14. Comp. Rom. iv.
11-17, ix. 8, 24; Galat. iii. 7-9, 26-29; Ephes. iii. 6; Matt. viii. ii ;

Luke xiii. 29.

" The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between
his feet, until SHILOH come, and UNTO HIM SHALL THE GATHERING OF
THE PEOPLE BE" (Gen. xlix. 10. Comp. John xi. 52, xii. 32).
" Yet have I set Ask of Me,
My King upon My holy hill of Zion. . . .

and I shall give thee THE HEATHEN FOR THY INHERITANCE, AND THE
UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH FOR THY POSSESSION. Thou shalt
break them with a rod of iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a ;
"
potter's vessel (Psalm ii. 6-9). This prophecy is applied to the MESSIAS
in Acts iv.25, xiii. 32, 33 ; Heb. i. 5, v. 5 ; Rev. ii. 27, xii. 5, xix. 15.
"He shall have DOMINION ALSO FROM SEA TO SEA, AND FROM THE
RIVER UNTO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. ALL KINGS SHALL FALL . . .

DOWN BEFORE HIM ALL NATIONS SHALL SERVE HIM " (Psalm Ixxii.
;

8, 9. Comp. Zech. ix. 9, 10 Matt. xxi. 41 seq.). See also Psalm ex. ;

(comp. Matt. xxii. 43-45 Acts ii. 34-36 ; ; i Cor. xv. 25 ; Heb. v. 6).
" And the STONE that smote the BECAME A GREAT MOUNTAIN,
image
AND FILLED THE WHOLE EARTH. And in the days of these kings . . .

[of the Roman Empire] shall the God of heaven set up A KINGDOM
WHICH SHALL NEVER BE DESTROYED AND ... IT SHALL STAND FOR :

EVER" (Dan. ii. 35, 44 Luke 33 Heb. xii. 28). ; i. ;

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, 1 that THE MOUNTAIN OF
THE LORD'S HOUSE SHALL BE ESTABLISHED IN THE TOP OF THE MOUN-

1 "
The last days" i.e., in the present Christian Dispensation. See Acts ii.

1 6,
17 ; Heb. i. 2 ; I Cor. x. II ; I Pet. i. 20.
Comp. Ephes. i. 10 ; Galat. iv. 4
(" the fulness of times").
TAINS, AND SHALL BE EXALTED ABOVE THE HILLS, AND ALL NATIONS
SHALL FLOW UNTO IT. And many people shall go and say, Come ye,
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of
Jacob and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths
: :

for out ofZion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem" (Isai. ii. 2, 3; Micah iv. I, 2). The early Fathers were
1

unanimous CHURCH of CHRIST, as

in interpreting these texts of the
also are the most learned Protestant commentators, such as Stanhope,
Mant, Michaelis, Lowth, Clarke, Scott, Patrick, Henderson, &c.
" The For
people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. . . .

unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall
be upon his shoulder ... OF THE INCREASE OF HIS GOVERNMENT:

AND PEACE THERE SHALL BE NO END," &C. (Isai. IX. 2, 6, 7. Comp.

Matt. iv. Luke 32, 33, 79, ii. 32).
14-17 ; i.

"AND THINE EYES SHALL SEE THY TEACHERS: AND THINE EARS
SHALL HEAR A VOICE BEHIND THEE SAYING, THIS IS THE WAY, WALK
YE IN IT, WHEN YE TURN TO THE RIGHT HAND, AND WHEN YE TURN TO
THE LEFT" (Isai. xxx. 21). See also Isai. xxxv. 4-8, xl. 3-11 (comp.
Matt. iii.
3 ; Liike i.
76, iii. 3-6) ; Isai. xlii. i seq. (comp. Matt. xii.

17-21).
"And He said, It is a light thing that thou [the MESSIAS] shouldest be
My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved
of IsraelI will also give thee for A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES, THAT
;

THOU MAYEST BE MY SALVATION UNTO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. . . .

Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. The children . . .

which thou [ZlON THE CHURCH] shall have shall say, The place is too
strait for me : that I may dwell.
give place to Thus saith the me . . .

Lord God, Behold up mine handIto thewill

GENTILES, and set up
lift

my standard to the people and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, :

and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. AND KINGS
SHALL BE THY NURSING FATHERS, AND THEIR QUEENS THY NURSING
MOTHERS THEY SHALL BOW DOWN TO THEE WITH THEIR FACE TOWARD
:

THE EARTH, AND LICK UP THE DUST OF THY FEET" (Isai. xlix. 6, 7, 2O-
23. Comp. Acts xiii. 47 Luke ii. 32 Rom. xi. 12, 15, 25, xv. 9, 12, 21).
; ;

See also Isai. Iii. i, 7, 10, 13-15. Comp. Rom. x. 15, xv. 21 Luke iii. 6). ;

" O 2
thou that didst not bear .... Enlarge the place of
Sing, barren,
" Out " "Zion" and "Jerusalem"
Comp. Luke
''*"*
of Zion &c. xxiv. 47. are,

however, the titles of the Christian Church. See Galat. iv. 26 ;

Heb. xii. 22. To
the objection that peace so vividly described in Isai. ii. 4, has not existed in the
ti\e

present dispensation, it may be replied, 1st, that the language

is highly figurative ;

zdly, that still stronger expressions are

used to describe the "peace" spoken of in
ch. xi. 6-10, as existing under the Messias (comp. Acts xiii. 23 ; Rom. xv. 12) ;
" with
and, as HENDERSON admits, regard to the application of this prophecy to
than in
the Messiah, a greater degree of unanimity obtains among interpreters
reference to almost any other."
2
In most of the ancient prophecies which refer to the Christian Church or
Dispensation, the Messias is spoken of as continuing and prolonging the Old
thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations :
spare not lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes
; For THOU :

SHALT BREAK FORTH ON THE RIGHT HAND AND ON THE LEF*T ; AND
THY SEED SHALL INHERIT THE GENTILES, AND MAKE THE DESOLATE
CITIES TO BE INHABITED. AS I HAVE SWORN THAT THE WATERS OF . . .

NOAH SHOULD NO MORE GO OVER THE EARTH so HAVE I SWORN THAT ;

I WOULD NOT BE WROTH WITH THEE, NOR REBUKE THEE. FOR THE
MOUNTAINS SHALL DEPART, AND THE HILLS BE REMOVED BUT THY ;

KINDNESS SHALL NOT DEPART FROM THEE, NEITHER SHALL THE COVE-
NANT OF MY PEACE BE REMOVED, SAITH THE LORD THAT HATH
MERCY ON THEE. ALL THY CHILDREN SHALL BE TAUGHT OF THE
. . .

LORD, AND GREAT SHALL BE THE PEACE OF THY CHILDREN. NO . . .

WEAPON THAT IS FORMED AGAINST THEE SHALL PROSPER AND EVERY ;

TONGUE THAT SHALL ARISE IN JUDGMENT AGAINST THEE, THOU SHALT

CONDEMN" (Isai. liv. i, 2, 3, 9, 10, 17). This prophecy is expressly
applied to the Christian Church by St. Paul in Galat. iv. 22-31. Comp.
Rom. ix. 24-26.
"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion. ... As for Me, this is MY
COVENANT THAT is UPON THEE,
with them, saith the Lord : MY SPIRIT
AND MY WORDS WHICH I HAVE PUT IN THY MOUTH, SHALL NOT DEPART
OUT OF THY MOUTH, NOR OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THY SEED, NOR OUT
OF THE MOUTH OF THY SEED'S SEED, SAITH THE LORD, FROM HENCE-
FORTH AND FOR EVER" (Isai. lix. 2O, 21. Comp. Jerem. xxxi. 31-34;
cited by St. Paul in Heb. 7-13). viii.
" The
GENTILES shall come
to thy light, and kings to the brightness of
thy rising : . . . the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee,
come unto thee.
the forces of the Gentiles shall THY GATES SHALL . . .

BE OPEN CONTINUALLY THEY SHALL NOT BE SHUT DAY NOR NIGHT ; ;

THAT MEN MAY BRING UNTO THEE THE FORCES OF THE GENTILES, AND

Economy ; the Christian Polity being described, not as something antagonistic to

or different from that which then existed, viz., the Jewish, but rather as its
transformation, perfection, and development. The future Church of the Gentiles
is identified with the Jewish Church then existing; and the
prophecies relating to
the establishment and increase of the Church of the Messias are addressed to her
in her imperfect, "barren," and and limited as she
undeveloped state, confined
then was to one small nation and people.
Many of these prophecies were declared by our Lord or His Apostles to have
received, or to be about to receive, their fulfilment by the establishment or
increase of the Christian or Gentile Church (see Matt. iii. 2, 3, iv. 16, 17,
v. 17, viii. u, xi. 3, 4, 12-14, xii - 17-21, 28, xxi. 4-15, 43 ; Luke ii. 32,
iv. 18-21, vii. 27, 28, xi. 20, xvi. 16, xvii. 21 ;
Acts ii. 16-36, xiii. 23, 32,
33, 47, xv. 14-17 ;
Rom. iv. 16, ix. 8, 24, 25, x. 20, xi. 12, 15, 25, xv. 9, 12,
21, xvi. 26; Galat. iii. 7, 9, 14, 16, 26-29, i v - 26-31 ; Ephes. ii. 12, iii. 6;
Heb. 6-12, x. 16, xii. 22, 28, &c.)
viii. and, from the earliest ages, all the ;

great Christian Apologists unhesitatingly appealed to their actual fulfilment in the

present Dispensation, as being one of the most luminous evidences of the Divine
mission of Christ and of the Church which He established.
 ( 14 )

THAT THEIR KINGS MAY BE BROUGHT. FOR THE NATION AND KING-
DOM THAT WILL NOT SERVE THEE SHALL PERISH. The sons also of . . .

them come bending unto thee and all they that

that afflicted thee shall ;

despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet and ;

they shall call thee, THE CITY OF THE LORD, THE ZION OF THE HOLY
ONE OF ISRAEL" (Isai. lx. 3, 5, n, 14. Comp. vers. i, 2, with Matt.
iv. 16, 17 ; ver. 14 with Heb. xii. 22, Matt. v. 14 and ver.
; 5 seq. with
Rom. xi. 12, 15, 25, &c). See also Isai. Ixi. (Comp. Litke iv. 17-21) ;

Isai. Ixii. 1-7, n, (Comp. Rom. x. 20, ix. 24, 30.)

12, Ixv. i seq.
" FROM THE RISING OF THE
SUN, EVEN TO THE GOING DOWN OF THE
SAME, MY NAME SHALL BE GREAT AMONG THE GENTILES, and IN EVERY
PLACE incense shall be offered to My name, and a pure offering for My ;

name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts " (Mai.
i. ii. Comp. Rom. xv. 16).

II. From the passages of Scripture above cited it is also

evident that, in order to secure and effect the unfailing pre-
servation and world-wide propagation of His true Faith and
Religion, that CHURCH or TEACHING BODY, which the
Redeemer appointed to be the Organ and Instrument of its

preservation and extension, must, among the characteristics

and prerogatives which are essential to it, possess
PERPETUAL VISIBILITY;
(i.)
APOSTOLICITY the ORDERS AND MISSION OF ITS
(2.)

PASTORS, as well as its DOCTRINE and WHOLE POLITY,

being transmitted through continuous and legitimate SUC-
CESSION FROM THE APOSTLES ;

CATHOLICITY or UNIVERSALITY as to TIME (or

(3.)

DURATION), PLACE (or EXTENT), and DOCTRINE ;

in its FAITH, SACRAMENTS, PUBLIC WOR-

(4.) UNITY

SHIP, and GOVERNMENT ;

(5.)
INFALLIBILITY or INERRANCY IN ITS TEACHING;
which five marks and prerogatives of the true Church may,
for the purpose of this argument, be mainly reduced to two

only, viz., CATHOLICITY and UNITY; it being sufficient to

observe that the Church must have been endowed, in the first
place, with a THREEFOLD CATHOLICITY
(i.) of TIME or DURATION,
(2.) of PLACE or EXTENT,
(3.) of DOCTRINE,
 ( 15 )

in order to fulfil the great Commission given to her by her

Divine Founder, TEACH viz., to

(l.) "ALWAYS, TO THE END OF THE WORLD," or " UNTIL

WE ALL COME -INTO THE UNITY OF THE FAITH " (Catholicity
of TIME) ;

(2.)ALL NATIONS," and " EVERY CREATURE " (Catho-

To "

l
licity of PLACE, or EXTENT) ;

(3.) "ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER" her Lord had "COM-

" "
MANDED," ALL TRUTH (Catholicity of DOCTRINE) ;

and, in the second place, that this Church must be so essen-

tially and organically "
ONE " (" ONE FOLD,"
"
ONE BODY,"
" " "
ONE KINGDOM," CITY," or HOUSE," that CANNOT BE
"DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF 5

');
2
and, throughout her whole
domain, and in every age, must so visibly manifest her
Divinely-secured Unity
(i.) of FAITH, or DOCTRINAL TEACHING and BELIEF,
(2.) of COMMUNION,
(3.) of REGIMEN or GOVERNMENT,
When St. Paul, in his Epistle to the ROMANS, speaks of the Church as
1

receiving "THE FULNESS OF THE GENTILES," and causing the reconciliation of

"THE WORLD" by her preaching of the Gospel (see Rom. 5, 8, x. 14-17, i.

xi. 12, 15, 25, xv. 12, 1 8,

any doubt that the fulfilment of
xvi. 26, &c.), could
such prophecies as Isai. liv., lx., Mai. i. n, was shortly to be effected through
her instrumentality ? Or, when again writing to the same Church of Rome, he
said that God "WOULD BRUISE SATAN UNDER THEIR FEET SHORTLY" (Rbm.
" the Seed the woman
xvi. 20) evidently referring to the ancient prophecy that of
should bruise the Serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15), and to our Lord's declaration that
He was about to "cast out the Prince of this world, and to draw all men unto
Himself' could he have meant anything else than that that great City, which
was then the head and centre of Pagan idolatry "the mother of harlots and
"
abominations of the earth (Rev. xvii. 5) should shortly become the head and
centre of the true religion, the mother of all Churches, and
mainspring of the
propagation of Christianity through the entire world ?
2
The very titles of "KINGDOM," " CITY," and " HOUSE," so often given to
the Church in Scripture (see the texts above quoted ; especially Isai. ii. 2, lx. 14,
Ixii. 12; Dan. ii. 44; Hcb. xii. 28; Matt. v.
14; Ephes. ii. 21; Coloss. i. 13;
I Tim. iii.
15 ; 2 Tim. ii. 20 Hcb. iii. 6, x. 21, xii. 22 ; i Pet. ii. 5, iv. 17, &c.),
;

when taken in connection with the promises of her perpetuity, necessarily imply
her absolute and organic UNITY "
for Every Kingdom, divided against itself, is
:

brought to desolation ; and every city or house, divided against itself, will not stand"
(Matt. xii. 25). On ONE ROCK was this Church built ; to ONE were the " Keys "
the symbol of supreme power, the
mastership over the Lord's House, the
guardianship of the Lord's City committed to ONE was the Pastorship of the ;

whole Flock delegated (John xxi. 15-17); in order that the UNITY of the same
might be both manifested and secured.
as not only to present to the unbelieving " WORLD " (John
xvii. 21,23; Rom. i. 8, xi. 15; Coloss. i. 6) a plain token
and evidence of the Divine Mission of her Founder, but also
to guarantee to her own faithful children, and to all seekers
after -the Truth, entire exemption from and security against
the vain and ever-varying speculations of all mere human
teachers and heretical innovators.
III. Hence it necessarily follows that no Church or
:

body of professing Christians can claim or pretend to be

THE TRUE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST, which cannot prove
itself

(i.) To have had a VISIBLE EXISTENCE IN ALL AGES FROM

THE TIME OF CHRIST ;

(2.) To have been CONTINUALLY ENGAGED IN FULFILLING,

"
through a Ministry duly ordained and sent" the Commission
given to it by Christ, by "DISCIPLING AND BAPTIZING,"
and thus progressively extending her dominion over "ALL
"
NATIONS of the world ;

Teaching them the WHOLE Revelation of Jesus

1
(3.) Christ,
1
But not, of course, always and everywhere with the same explicitness and
fulness (see I Cor. iii. i, 2; Heb. v. 11-14). It is well known that, during
several centuries, the Canon of Scripture itself remained undetermined ; and Pro-
testants themselves will hardly deny that the Nicene Creed contained a develop-
ment of the doctrine contained in that of the Apostles, or that the Athanasian
Creed contained a still further development or explication of the Christian Faith
regarding the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.
" There has ever
been," says Dr. W. TODD, "and there is still, a gradual and
very striking growth of Christian doctrine in the Church. Truths which were once
held in their naked simplicity have unfolded, by a necessary development, more and
more of the profound mysteries contained within each of them. As time goes on,
the Christian intellect, leaning upon the support of the Church, is enabled to see
more clearly the bearing of one doctrine upon another, its relation to truths that
flow out of its
place in the analogy of the faith, its full scope and significance.
it,

Dogmas, some sense new, spring out of more general truths, new because
in
hitherto only faintly perceived, though in germ and in substance they have always
been in the revelation of Christ. All theologians admit a progression of doctrine
in the Church and unless Christianity be nothing more than a bare and dry code
;

of laws, there must be some such progression. Every truth that comes from God
must contain within itself unsearchable treasures of wisdom: It is like a seed
sown in the earth, which grows and spreads into a large tree. But this growth is
only in the Church. Outside, truth is questioned, doubted, torn in pieces, tossed
about by every vain blast. Within, there is a consistent and true growth. And
the
everything favours this growth the meditations of the devout, the inquiries of
learned, nay, the very contradictions of the heretics. For the greater part of the
 ( '7 )

and instructing them in "ALL" His Doctrines, Precepts, and

Ordinances ;

(4.)Always and everywhere so manifesting herself as

"
ONE," in her Faith, Public Worship, Sacraments, and
Government, as to present to the whole world a proof of her
Divine Origin, and of her being in possession of an unerring
Teaching Authority, such as must at all times bring those
who submit to it to " meet in the unity of the faith!' and pre-
serve them from being carried about by the various blasts
of false doctrine, to which those outside the pale of the true
Church are continually exposed.
IV. Now, no PROTESTANT Church i.e., no Church out
of communion with, or teaching doctrines opposed to, the
Roman Catholic Church was, or ever pretended to have
been, thus VISIBLE, APOSTOLIC, CATHOLIC, and ONE,
either before or subsequently to the time of the so-called
"
Reformation."
It was not by any such Church, 1 it was not by any of

decrees of Councils and decisions of the Holy See have originated in the neces-
opinions put forth by those who are
sity of guarding the faithful against the false
separated from the Church. In this way, even the attempt to sow discord and to
bring in false doctrine has only tended to the completion and perfection of
Catholic doctrine" (Lect. on the Inspiration and Interpretation of Holy Scripture,
1863, p. 66). See also The Written Word, by the Rev. W. HUMPHREY, 1877,
Cardinal NEWMAN'S remark, that
'

pp. 199-206. the growth or development

in the Church's teaching proceeds on fixed laws, under the safeguard of her infalli-

bility, vvhich secures her from whatever is abnormal or unhealthy," is alone enough
to showthe futility of the ordinary Protestant objections in regard to it.
Theprinciple of development of Christian doctrine is admitted by the Anglican
Bishop BUTLER, who remarks that "it is not at all incredible that a book [the
Bible], which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many
truths as yet undiscovered," and that
"
possibly it might be intended that events
as they come to pass should open and ascertain the meaning of several parts of
"
Scripture (Analogy, pt. ii. ch. iii. sect. 9).
1
Some Protestants are still fond of referring to the miserable hole-and-corner
sects of the Middle Ages, the ALBIGENSES, WALDENSES, CATHARISTS, c.,

as having promulgated in their day some doctrines akin to those of modern

sectaries ; but the true history of the origin, doctrines, and principles of those

"precursors of the Reformation" has been thoroughly exposed during the last
half-centuryby candid Protestant writers, such as HALLAM (Middle Ages, ch.
ix.),MAITLAND (Facts and Documents illustrative of the History, Doctrines, and
Rites of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldcnses, 1832 ; and Letter to Dr. Mill, con-

taining Strictures on Mr. Fabers Work, &>c., 1839^ andToDD (Discourses on the
B
 (
'8 )

the sects of Protestantism, either separately or collectively,

" "
it was not by any of their
"
Bible or " Missionary societies
that the Commission given by Christ to "DISCIPLE AND
BAPTIZE ALL NATIONS," was in every or in any former age

Prophecies relating to Antichrist, Donnellan Lectures in Trin. Coll., Dublin,

1840, notes, pp. See also NEANDER'S Church Hist., Bonn's edit.,
399-453.
vol. viii. pp. 283 seq. 295-331, 350 seq. ; BLUNT'S Diet, of Sects, &c. ; and a
t

valuable work entitled Origines Protestanticfs, or Suggestions for an Historical

Inquiry into the Origin of the Protestant Religion, Longhurst, Lond., 1877) and ;

what Protestants are really called upon to do is to show, if they can, some other
Church than the Catholic which has fulfilled Christ's commission by "-teaching
and baptizing all nations" some other Church which has been in all ages "the
Light of the world," "the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth" "the City set
on a hill which could not be hid" According to all Protestant accounts, the
growth or development of the Christian Church resembled, at the best, that of a
miserable tapeworm whereas, according to the teaching of the Gospels, it was
;

a tree " shooting otit great branches

"
to be like that of a TREE, {Mark iv. 32),
" "
and giving shelter and protection to all nations of the world.
Of the schismatical GREEK Church little need here be said, ist, because in
all the Articles of Faith controverted by Protestants (with the exception of that of
the Pope's Supremacy distinctly acknowledged by the Greek Church itself in
the great Councils of EPHESUS and CHALCEDON ; see Father Gallwey's Lectures on
Ritualism, Nos. 7 and 8), that Church has always been at one with the Catholic
Church ; and, zdly, because the Eastern Church, since its separation from the rest
of Christendom, has never been in any sense a Missionary Church ; and could
make no pretensions to the possession of those essential marks of the true Church
above referred to, viz., Catholicity, Unity, &c. (see DE MAISTRE on The Pope,
Eng. trans., pp. 308-340).
" At the extinction of
Dr. MILMAN Dean of St. Paul's)
(late says :
Paganism,
Greek, or, as it may now be called, in
opposition to the West, Eastern Chris-
tianity, had almost ceased to be aggressive or creative. Except the contested
conversion of the Bulgarians, later of the Russians, and a few wild tribes, it
achieved no conquests. . . . hierarchy had now [a few centuries
The Greek
later] lost their unity of action, the Bishop of Constantinople was the passive
. . .

victim, the humble slave, or the factious adversary of the Byzantine Emperor. . . .

The lower clergy sank downward into the common ignorance, and yielded to that
"
worst barbarism a worn-out civilisation (Hist, of Latin Christianity, Introduce.,
ed. 1867)
" The and hopeless East"
vol. i. effete (Ib. vol. ii.
p. 413).
NEANDER, the German (Protestant) Church historian, says that "in the Greek
Church ... all true intellectual progress had long since been suppressed by a
politicaland spiritual despotism " (Hist, of the Church, Bohn's edit., vol. v.
p. 233) and that " the healthful and free evolution of the Church and of theo-
;

logy among the Greeks was hindered by two causes the despotism of the civil
government, before which everything crouched the Bishops themselves not
seldom consenting to act as its humble instruments ; and the extinction of the
sense of truth, the spirit of insincerity, already a predominant trait which had
stamped itself on the entire life of the people" (Ib. vol. vi. p. 261). And again :

" under such a variety

In comparison with the fulness of life, manifesting itself
 ( '9 )

fulfilled (in fact, it is notorious that NO SINGLE NATION OF

THE EARTH WAS EVER YET CONVERTED FROM HEATHENISM
i;v PROTESTANT AGENCY OR TO THE PROFESSION OF PRO-

TESTANT CHRISTIANITY); nor can it be pretended that,

before the sixteenth century, there existed throughout the
world any body of PROTESTANT "Pastors and Teachers"
which had been provided by God "for the perfecting of the
Saints, for the work of the Ministry, for the edifying of the
Body of Christ;" and for bringing all men to "meet in the
nnity of the faith" and so preserving them therein, that they
were no longer liable to be " tossed to and fro, and carried
about by the blasts of false and heretical doctrine" (EpJics. iv.
11-15). I n fact, no Protestant can for a moment admit that
" "
the nations were, during many centuries preceding the
"
pretended Reformation, taught to observe all things what-
soever Christ had commanded" or that that Church, which
did, in point of fact, "teach" them, was "THE PILLAR AND
FOUNDATION OF THE TRUTH," and "GUIDED INTO ALL
TRUTH BY THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH," when she did SO. 1
of forms, and moving in such various directions, in the Church of the
West, the
Greek Church presents a melancholy spectacle of stiff and
torpid uniformity.
While the ecclesiastical monarchy of the West could lead onward the mental
development of the nations to the age of majority, could permit and promote
freedom and variety within certain limits the brute force of Byzantine
despotism,
on the other hand, stifled and checked every free movement " vol. viii.
(Ib.
p. 244).
MARSDEN says :"Buried beneath the ruins of a fallen empire, the Eastern
Church drags on a lingering existence. . .In tracing the expiring form of this
.

decayed fabric we search in vain for those striking features which mark her ambitions
,

rival ofthe West" (Diet, of Christian Churches and

Sects, London, 1855).
HALLAM declares his conviction that "the Greek Church, notwithstanding the
leniency with which Protestant writers have treated it, was always more corrupt
and intolerant than the Latin " (Middle Ages, ch. ix. part ii. note).
Compare Dr.
ISAAC TAYLOR'S Ancient Christianity, vol. ii. pp. 173, 192,
205, 213, 214, &c. ;

and Professor J. H. TODD'S Discourses on the Prophecies

relating to Antichrist,
PP- 330, 342, 351.
1
The HOMILY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, On Peril of Idolatry, part iii.,
declares that "clergy and laity, learned
and unlearned, ALL AGES, SECTS, AND
DEGREES OF MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, OF WHOLE CHRISTENDOM, HAVE
BEEN AT ONCE DROWNED IN DAMNABLE IDOLATRY, AND THAT BY THE SPACE
OF EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS AND MORE."
CHILLINGWORTH says that "ALL THE VISIBLE CHURCHES IN THE WORLD
had degenerated from the purity of the Gospel," and that the Church was
 (
20 )

Even during the few centuries of the existence of Protes-

tantism, notwithstanding the immense advantages and faci-
lities which the invention of printing, and a remarkable com-

bination of favourable circumstances literary, commercial,

and political have placed in the hands of its missionaries

(enabling them to scatter abroad, as they themselves boast,

hundreds of millions of copies of Bibles, New Testaments, and
other books, translated into the languages of all known coun-
tries of the world), it is certain that the most signal failure
has attended^ all their efforts to convert heathen nations l ;

"CORRUPTED UNIVERSALLY" (Religion of Protestants, chap. v. sects. 13 and

27).
PERKINS " We FOR THE SPACE OF
Dr. :
say that before the days of Luther,
MANY HUNDRED AN UNIVERSAL APOSTASY OVERSPREAD THE WHOLE
YEARS,
FACE OF THE EARTH, AND THAT OUR CHURCH WAS NOT THEN VISIBLE TO THE
"
WORLD (On the Creed, p. 400).
Dr. ISAAC not only admits, but proves at length, the " UNIVERSALITY"
TAYLOR
of the distinctive doctrines and practices of the " Romish" and Greek Churches
" " of
even in the fourth century. Scarcely a writer, if there be one," he says,
the NICENE Church Eastern or Western would withhold his contributions to
the mass [of evidence producible] and alas what a volume would Augustine
: !

alone furnish !" (Ancient Christianity, vol. ii.

p. 213).
1
This is proved very fully and elaborately in MARSHALL'S great work Chris-
tian Missions, their Agents, their Method, and their Resiilts (2 vols., 2d edit.,
Longmans & Co.) in which hundreds of testimonies are collected from Protestant
authors, "of all classes and creeds English and American, German and French,
Swedish and Dutch ; historians and naturalists, civil and military officials, tourists
"
and merchants, chaplains and missionaries a host of careful and accurate
"
observers, who, as Mr. M. remarks, may be regarded as witnesses employed by
Divine Providence, without their knowledge or concurrence, to detect and expose
to the world a fact which the eager passions and prejudices of men would other-
wise combine to conceal." By the acknowledgments made by them stand clearly
revealed, on the one hand, the utter and universal failure of Protestant missions
in all parts of the world, notwithstanding the incredibly large sums that, during
the present century, have been annually expended upon them ; and, on the other,
the marvellous results which, during the last three centuries and a half, as in all
former ages, have everywhere attended the labours of the Catholic missionaries,
and this generally under circumstances the most discouraging and disadvantageous
from a worldly point of view.
Reviewing this work of Marshall's, the NORTH BRITISH REVIEW, edited by
Dr. HANNA, a well-known Presbyterian divine, said :

"
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Romish Church girded the
globe with her missions, planting the Cross from beyond the Wall of China
to the

Peruvian Cordilleras. Nor is itbe denied that her missionaries in those years
to
were men abounding in Christian heroism and sacrifices. Of monetary means at
her disposal, she had not so much as any one of our Protestant societies. But she
and so from the professors of Protestantism presenting,
far
either at home amongst
themselves, or to the heathen to
whom they send missionaries abroad, a spectacle of RELI-
GIOUS UNITY" ONE FOLD," "ONE BODY,"
"
ONE FAITH,"

had, what, alas ! we so often fail to get, abundance of large-hearted men, ready to
do and suffer everything for the faith." And " This
again interesting inquiry,"
:

as to the wonderful success of the Catholic, as contrasted with the signal failure
of the Protestant missions,
" is one the solution of which calls for
deeper thought
and greater fairness than polemical divines have yet allowed it ; for the student of
history will not be satisfied without some theory or law adequate to account for THE
UNDENIABLE FACT THAT HITHERTO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY AMONGST
THE HEATHEN HAS CHIEFLY BEEN CARRIED ON BY ROMANISM, AND ONLY IN A
"
SLIGHT MANNER AS YET BY A CONSISTENT AND SCRIPTURAL PROTESTANTISM
(North British Review May 1864, p. 433).
,

With Archdeacon PALEY'S reflections on the " little progress " and " inconsider-
"
able effect of PROTESTANT missions, up to the time when he wrote his Evidences
of Christianity (see part ii. ch. ix. sect. 3), it is instructive to contrast the account
given by another Protestant, the German historian RANKE, of the wonderful
success of the CATHOLIC missions about the end of the sixteenth and beginning
of the seventeenth centuries :

"In the beginning of the seventeenth century," he says, "we find the proud
fabric of the Catholic Church completely erected in SOUTH AMERICA. It pos-
sessed five archbishoprics, twenty-seven bishoprics, four hundred monasteries,
'
with parish churches and doctrinas innumerable. Magnificent cathedrals had
'

been reared, the most gorgeous of all, perhaps, being that of Los Angeles. The
Jesuits taught grammar and the liberal arts ; they had also a theological seminary
attached to their college of San Ildefonso in Mexico. In the universities of Mexico
and Lima all the branches of theology were studied. . . . Christianity was, mean-

while, in course of gradual and regular diffusion throughout South America, the
mendicant Orders being more particularly active. The conquests had become
changed into a seat of missions, and the missions were rapidly proclaiming civili-
sation." . . .

"
A similar process was at the same time in action through EAST INDIA, so far as
the rule of the Portuguese extended. Catholicism obtained a central position of
great value in Goa. Thousands were converted every year ; even as early as 1565,
300,000 of these newly-made Christians were computed to be in and around Goa,
in the mountains of Cochin, and at Cape Com^.rin. . . . In the year 1609, Father
Nobili had already converted seventy Brahmins" . . .
" The labours undertaken at the
same time in the court of the EMPEROR AKBAR
were no less remarkable. ... In the year 1599, Christmas was celebrated at
Lahore with the utmost solemnity. The Christians made great progress.
. . .

After the death of Akbar, three princes of the blood-royal were solemnly
baptized. .
Christianity seemed gradually to acquire a position of fixed char-
. .

acter, although with certain vicissitudes. In 1621 a college was founded in

. . .

Agra and a station was established at Patna. In 1624 there were hopes that
the Emperor Jehanguhe would himself become a convert." . . .

" The
Jesuits had made their way in CHINA at the same period. . . In 1611
the first church in Nankin was consecrated, and in 1616 Christian churches are
 (
22 )

&c. it is but too notorious that their profound religious

discords and dissensions all arising from that first and funda-

mental principle of their religion, " THE LIBERTY OF PRIVATE

JUDGMENT," and resulting in the formation of innumerable
1
Sects, hopelessly divided against one another in Faith and
Communion have been, almost from the first year of its
existence, and in every country where Protestantism has

described as existing in five different provinces of the empire. There passed . . .

no year that they did not convert thousands, while those who opposed them
gradually became extinct." . . .

" In
the year 1577, 300,000 Christians were computed to have received baptism
in JAPAN. Father Velignano, who died in 1606, . . . was himself the founder
of three hundred churches, and thirty houses for Jesuits in Japan. . . After the .

year 1612, they were subjected to fearful persecutions. But they maintained their
ground with great steadiness. Their proselytes invoked the death of the martyr,
and they had established a fraternity of martyrs, the members of which mutually
encouraged each other to the endurance of every possible infliction they dis- :

tinguished those years as the &ra Martyr-urn. But despite the increasing violence
of the persecutions, their historians affirm that even at that dangerous period new
converts were continually added to their numbers. They give the exact amount
of 239,339 as that of the converts to Christianity among the Japanese from 1603
to 1622." . . .

"
In all these countries ... the Jesuits made progress beyond all that they could
have hoped for, and succeeded in conquering, at least partially, the resistance of
the national forms of religion that were paramount in the East " (RANKE's Hist,
of the Popes, Bonn's edit., vol. ii. pp. 228-235).
Lord MACAULAY thus contrasts the Catholic and Protestant Churches during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries :

"
As the Catholics in zeal and union had a great advantage over the Protestants,
so had they also an infinitely s^<per^or organisation. In truth, PROTESTANTISM FOR
AGGRESSIVE PURPOSES HAD NO ORGANISATION AT ALL. The Reformed Churches
were mere national Churches. The Church of England existed for England alone.
It was an institution as purely local as the Court of Common Pleas, and was

utterly without any machinery for foreign operations. The Church of Scotland in
like manner existed for Scotland alone. THE OPERATIONS OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH, ON THE OTHER HAND, TOOK IN THE WHOLE WORLD" (Essays, vol.
iii. p. 236).

During the present century, as already observed, Protestants have expended

" Missions to the Heathen "
annually enormous sums on ; but, as regards resiills,
"
the CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER declared in 1859, that iv<> should not allow a

few isolated instances of success here and there to blind tis to what we must call, to
'

speak plainly, the faihire of missionary efforts in modern times" (Christ. Remembr.,
v l- 37? P- 69) ; and similar admissions are made by later Protestant writers. (See
MARSHALL'S Christ. Miss, passim).
1
STAPHYLUS and Cardinal Hosius reckoned 270 Sects of Protestants before
the end of the sixteenth century. HALLAM reckons " the growing dissensions and
"
"virulence of the Protestants among the causes which powerfully tended to make
shown itself, an opprobrium and disgrace to the very name
of Christianity. 1
V. Hence it inevitably follows, that no Protestant Sect or
conglomeration of Sects can constitute or represent that
One, True, and Original Church, founded by Christ for the
propagation and extension of His One true Faith and Religion
throughout the whole world, and for the preservation of that
same Faith and Religion throughout all ages and to which, ;

in the performance and execution of the commission assigned

to it, He had guaranteed the most perfect success, and exemp-
tion from all liability to failure or error, by the promise of
His own perpetual and efficacious assistance, and the infal-
lible guidance of the Spirit of Truth :

"
GO, TEACH ALL NATIONS AND LO I AM WITH YOU ;
!

'

ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE WORLD." 2

the learned GROTIUS seek refuge in the Catholic Communion (Hist, of Litera-
" Lutherans and
ture, vol. ii.
p. 409, ed. 1860). RANKE, "stood
Calvinists," says
opposed to each other with a feeling of mutual hatred ; Episcopalians and . . .

"
Puritans, Arminians and Gomarists, attacked each other with the fiercest hate
(Hist,of the Popes, B. vii. ch. ii. sect. i).
1
See BALMEZ'S European Civilisation Catholicism and Protestantism Com-
" The tiniversal
pared; especially chap. xlv. :
progress of Christianity impeded
by Protestantism /" also MARSHALL'S Christian Missions, passim.
2
"ALWAYS, TO THE END OF THE WORLD," e'ws TTJS ffwreXetas TOV aluvos.
This phrase occurs elsewhere in the Gospels (Matt. xiii. 39, 40, 49, xxiv. 3, &c.), and,
as BLOOMFIELD says, is "always employed in this sense, of THE WORLD'S END."
"
With regardto the pronoun "you ("lo I am with you," &c.), it is hardly
!

necessary to observe, that the use of it no more limits either the Commission or
the Promise to the Apostles personally, than did the use of the pronoun in "we"
I Cor. xv. 51, I Thess. iv. 17, imply that St. Paul, and those to whom he was
writing, would themselves be living on the earth until the Day of Judgment.
Christ addressed the Apostles as a BODY CORPORATE ; and, according to the com-
mon saying, "a Body Corporate never dies." The " LIGHT OF THE WORLD"
was not to be diminished through the death or defection of particular members of
the Teaching Body ; and it should be observed, that the promise given to this
latter, of Christ's perpetual presence and assistance in the execution of the Com-
mission assigned to it, was given to it not for its own sake or benefit, but for
the good of those ("all nations ") whom it was to " disciple," and as a perpetual

provision and security for their being unerringly instructed in "all things what-
soever He had commanded"
sending "the eleven Apostles" to execute His
It is evident, therefore, that in

commission, Christ sent the whole Body of Pastors, who should derive their mission
from Himself, through the Apostles and their legitimate Successors, to the end of
time. His words, therefore, may be thus paraphrased In commanding you (My :

Apostles), I command the whole Body of Pastors succeeding you, to "teach all
 ( 24 )

"THE TRUTH SHALL ABIDE WITH YOU FOR

SPIRIT OF
EVER HE SHALL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH."
:

"
Not for these only do I pray, but for them also who shall
believe on Me through their word THAT THEY ALL MAY :

BE ONE, IN ORDER THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT

THOU HAST SENT ME."
VI. On the other hand, it follows no less certainly, that
that Church which alone has had a Visible Existence in all
nations" command them, to "baptize all nations.," In
In commanding you, I
promising to be with you, promise to be with them in the execution of My com-
I
" And beJiold I am with
mission, and in the work of the ministry. you always,
even to the end of the world."
CHRIST intended His CHURCH to be propagated in ALL nations, and to exist in
ALL ages ; and for the securing of this end, " He ordained that there should be a
race and succession of Apostolic Ministers, teaching His Doctrines, administering
His Sacraments, and enforcing the observance of His Precepts, in all nations and
ages for it was by the introduction of the DOCTRINES of Christ, of the SACRA-
;

MENTS of Christ, and of the PRECEPTS and INSTITUTIONS of Christ, into all
nations, that THE CHURCH of Christ was to be established in all nations, by the
"
ministry of those to whom He gave this commission (Poynter}.
The promise, " I am with you always" is equivalent to that in John xiv. 16,
and xvi. 12 " The Spirit of Truth shall abide with you for ever; He shall guide
:

you into all truth ;" and its force becomes more apparent by a comparison with
other passages in Scripture, where, after giving a COMMISSION of peculiar diffi-
" / will be with
culty to man, God adds the promise, you" as a guarantee and
security of the possibility and certainty of its fulfilment. See especially Gen. xxxi.
3, xlvi. 3, 4 Exod. iii. n, 12 ; Jer. i. 17, 19. See also Gen. xxvi. 3, 24; Deiit.
;

xxxi. 23 Josh. i.
; 5, 9, iii. 7; Judges vi. 15, 16 ; 2 Kings vii. 9 Isai. xli. 10, xliii.
;

2 5
> > J er xv 2O
' -
)
xlii- 1 1 ; Acts xviii. 9, 10 ; &c. (Compare Gen. xxi. 22, xxviii.
20, xxxix. 2, 3, 21, 23; Deut. ii. 7, xxxi. 8 ; Josh. xiv. 12 ;
I Kings iii. 19, x. 7 ;

2 Kings v. 10 ; i Chron. xxviii. 20 ; Ps. xxiii. 4, 5 ; Jer. xx. II ; Luke'\. 28, 66 ;

John iii. 2, viii. 29; Acts x. 38, xi. 21 ; c.) From these passages it appears that
when a promise or assurance is given that God " would be with "
any person, it is

always signified that God so protected and aided that person by His special provi-
dence, that whatsoever he undertook should infallibly succeed ; but this conclusion is
of course most obvious when as in the first passages referred to the promise is
given with special reference to the difficulty of some undertaking, or in connection
with a Commission (such as that in Matt, xxviii.) incapable of accomplishment by
any merely human means.
When, therefore, our Lord promised to "be with" the Teaching Body, in the
execution of the Commission assigned to it, "always to the end of the world" that
promise implied, and was a guarantee, 1st, that the Teaching Body should exist
indefectibly to the end of the world ; and zdly, that throughout the whole course of
its existence it should be divinely guarded and assisted in fulfilling the Commission
given to it, viz., in instructing the nations in "all things whatsoever Christ has
" GUIDE AND
commanded j
in other words, that it should be their INFALLIBLE
TEACHER.
 "
ages from the time of Christ, which can unroll the cata-
logue of her Bishops" (TERTULLIAN, De Prescript. Hczret.,
c. 32), and prove their continuous succession from the Apostles

of Christ; which has fulfilled, or been always engaged in

" dis-
fulfilling, the Commission which He gave to her, by

cipling" and receiving into her communion by Baptism "all

the nations" of the earth; that Church whose exhibition
of perfect and supernatural Unity did lead an unbelieving
" world "
to recognise the Divine Mission of her Founder ;

and which alone possesses and alone claims to possess that

Divinely-established TEACHING AUTHORITY, by means of
which that Unity was and is secured it follows, I say, that ;

that Church must be the alone True and Original One, which
He Himself founded, and to which the Promises were made.
VII. But, as is most clearly demonstrable, it is of THE
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH/ and of her ALONE, that all this
can be truly said.
" "
SHE ALONE has discipled and baptized all those nations
of the world which have ever yet received the Christian
Faith, including all those which now profess Protestantism,
and which in the sixteenth century apostatised from that
faith towhich they had originally been converted from their
2
heathenism, and that Church by which, and into which, they
1
By the term Roman Catholic Church is meant the Catholic Church in com-
munion with the See of Rome. St. Peter's first See was that of Antioch, where
" the were first "
disciples called Christians (Acts xi. 26) ;
but the Primatial Chair
was subsequently transferred to ther Imperial City, which thus, as St. LEO
by him
the Great remarks, became the Head of the world in a
spiritual sense "ruling
more widely by divine religion than by earthly empire " (Serin. Si). From an
early date the Faith of the Roman Church was "renowned in all the world"
(Rom. i. 8, xvi. 19, 20) ; and, as the French sceptic M. RKXAN remarks, it was
" The
through the Papacy that the Christian Church really became Catholic :

Pope of Rome" he says, "has made Christianity the religion of the world"
(Hibbert Lectures, 1880, Eng. trans., p. 122).
2
Dean MILMAN says : "All these conquests of Christianity were, in a certain
sense, the conquests of the Roman See. Reverence for Rome penetrated ivith
. . .

the Gospel to the remotest parts.

Germany was converted to Latin Christianity.
Rome was the source, the centre, the regulating authority recognised by the
English apostles of the Teutons. The clergy -were constantly visiting Rome as the
religious capital of the world, . . . and bishops from the remotest parts of the
Empire, and of regions never penetrated by the Roman arms, looked to Rome as the
parent of their faith if not to an infallible, at least to the highest authority in
 (
26 )

had been baptized. SHE ALONE has been in all ages " the
"
Light of the world" a City set on a hill, that could not be
hid;" SHE ALONE "the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth,"
rendering it conspicuous, and the knowledge of it attainable
to all mankind SHE ALONE that Heavenly Kingdom, the
;

Christendom " (B. iv. ch. vi. vol. ii.

p. 307) ;
" The
Metropolis of Christianity
"

(Ib. ch. v. p. 299).

And again :
"
With all the Teutonic part of Latin Christendom, the belief in
the supremacy of the Pope was coeval with their Christianity; it was an article of
their original creed as much as the Redemption ; their apostles were commissioned

by the Pope ; to him they humbly looked for instruction and encouragement,
even almost for permission to advance upon their sacred adventure. Augustine,
Boniface, Ebbo, Anschar, had been papal missionaries" (B. vii. ch. i. vol. iv.

p. 4).
VENERABLE BEDE, speaking of the conversion of our own country by Augus-
tineand his monks, sent by Pope Gregory the Great, says " And whereas he :

[Pope Gregory] bore the Pontifical power over all the world, and was placed over
the Churches already reduced to the faith of truth, Jie made our nation, till tlicn

given tip to idols, the Church of Christ" (Hist. Eccles., lib. ii. c. i). Compare
Dean MILMAN'S chapter on the Conversion of England (B. iv. ch. iii. vol. ii.
p.
224 seq.); NEANDER (vol. v. p. of [European
13 seq.) ;
and GUIZOT (Hist,
Civilisation, Bonn's Eng. trans., vol. ii. p. 173, 174). MILMAN further remarks,
that "a native clergy seems to have grown up more rapidly in Britain than in

any other of the Teutonic kingdoms. But they were in general the admiring
pupils of the Roman clergy. To them Rome was the centre and sotirce of the
faith" &c. (loc. cit. p. 249).
"
RANKE, the German Protestant historian, also says, that together with the
doctrines of Christianity, a veneration for Rome and for the Holy See, such as
"
had never before existed in any nation, found place among the Germanic Britons
(Hist, of the Popes, Bonn's edit., vol. i.
p. n).
On St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and the conversion of that country to
the faith of Rome, see NEANDER
(vol. v. pp. 62, 65, 66, 69, 75, 87, 88, 98, &c.),
and MILMAN (B. iv. ch. v. vol. ii.
p. 295 seq.}. NEANDER gives Boniface's oath
of obedience to the Pope (loc. cit. p. 66).
RANKE says: "Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, was an Anglo-Saxon ;

this missionary, largely sharing in the veneration professed by his nation for St.
Peter and his successors, had from the beginning voluntarily pledged himself to
abide faithfully by all the regulations of the Roman See: to this promise he most
religiously adhered. On all the German Churches founded by him was imposed
an extraordinary obligation to obedience. Every Bishop was required expressly
to promise that his whole life should be passed in unlimited obedience to the
Romish Church, to St. Peter and his representatives" (op. cit. p. 12).
M. GUIZOT says that "for him [Boniface] Rome is the centre, the Pope is the
chief of Christianity" (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 175). He gives his oath of submission
to the Pope, and his account of the first German Council, held under his presi-
" Of a submit
dency in 742, and adds surety, it is impossible more formally to
:

the new Church, the new Christian nations, to the Papal power" (Ib. p. 177).
MILMAN, after describing his^" wonderful successes," says: "Boniface had
 ( 27 )

"mustard-seed" of the Parable, which, from a very small

germ, quickly grew and increased until it "became a great
tree" overshadowing the earth, and giving shelter and protec-
tion to "the fowls of the air;" SHE ALONE the "net" which,
"
cast into the sea of the world, has "gathered of every kind ;
SHE ALONE " the leaven" x which, " hid in the three measures
of meal" (the three parts, then known, of the world), has
effected a change and spiritual revolution throughout the
earth and will not cease to do so " until the whole be leavened"
;

i.e., and her Spiritual Dominion shall

until the Faith of Christ
have been propagated and extended throughout every part
and corner of the world. 2
new empire to Christianity, and was placed over it as spiritual sovereign

by the respectful gratitude of the Pope. He received the pall of a Metropolitan,

and was empowered as primate to erect bishoprics throughout Germany. Again
he visited Rome, and was invested by Gregory III., the new Pope, with full
"
powers as representative of the Apostolic See (loc. tit. p. 300).
For an account of the conversion to Christianity of Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
and other Northern countries (now Protestant), by missionaries sent by the Popes,
in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the Protestant reader can refer to
NEANDER (vol. v. pp. 373-477), or Dean JOSEPH MILNER'S Church History
(cent. viii. ch. v., cent. ix. ch. v. &c.).
1
Regarding the prophetic significance of these three parables of the mustard-
seed, the net, and the leaven see the notes from TRENCH On the Parables (sup.
pp. 6, 7) ; also GRESWELL On the Parables (vol. ii. pp. 175 seq., 259, 261, 265).
Several Protestant writers, despairing of finding any non- Catholic Church to
which these parables could be applied, have actually dared to maintain that they
were prophetic of the universality of the kingdom of Antichrist or of Satan, and
of the universal corruption of Christianity, through the spread of "Popery" and
the "dominion of a proud world-hierarchy;" thus exactly fulfilling our Lord's
"
prediction If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, much more
:

them of His household'' (Matt. x. 25, and xii. 24-28). Dr. TRENCH speaks of the
1

holders of this opinion as being " little bands of modern Separatists, whose motive
of course is obvious" (p. 112); yet he takes the trouble to refute them at some
length.
-
For copious information (chiefly in the form of Protestant testimonies) regard-
ing Catholic Missions in modern times, the reader should consult Mr. MARSHALL'S
work above mentioned. The Anglican CHURCH TIMES of January 23, iSSo,
" Missions to the heathen have
says :
always been a strong point in the Roman
Church. Her organisation for these enterprises is on so vast and complete a
scale compared with any other branch of the Church ;
the training of her ministers
for distant spheres of labour is so directly
pointed to the end to be attained ; their
zeal and self-sacrifice causing them to exhibit the Church before the heathen as a

body called to suffer for Christ's sake ;

their entire freedom from earthly ties ; the
implicitand unquestioning obedience which is required of them to the powers
above them ; and last, and not least, the peculiar knack which Rome has with
 This CATHOLIC CHURCH of which the See of Peter was
ever the acknowledged Centre and Head 1 ALONE was 2
(as
few exceptions exercised, of
putting the right man in the right place, have all
conduced to attract and win the
sympathies of heathen hearts. And while we
acknowledge and admire the earnest zeal, and self-devotion, and perseverance
which have characterised the missionaries themselves, we also a
may recognise
spirit of discretion in much
of the instrumentality that is provided ; the numerous
bodies sent out together, the establishment of sanctuaries and
religious houses for
the reception of catechumens and the education of
orphans and native children,
the preparation of elementary forms of
instruction, such as those of Francis
Xavier, for the use of the catechists in India, the community of living and
austerity of habits invariably adopted, have doubtless contributed to the success
which, however much exaggerated in many cases, and however ephemeral in
others, has on the whole attended the missionary efforts of the Roman Communion
in all parts of the globe."
1
See CATHEDRA PETRI, 2d ed., Burns Gates.
2 " The " "
phrase 'Catholic Church,' says M. RENAN, speaking of the second
century, "breaks upon us from all sides at once, as the name of THE GREAT
COMMUNION WHICH IS DESTINED THENCEFORTH TO COME DOWN THE AGES IN
UNBROKEN UNITY" (Hibbert Lectures, 1880, Eng. trans., p. 164).
"'The Clergy," says Dean MILMAN, "including the Monks and Friars, were
ONE throughout Latin Christendom; and through them, to a great extent, the
Latin Church was ONE. . . . The Pope's awful powers heldin check the constant
inevitable tendency to rebellion and contumacy, which was usually that of indi-
vidual Prelates or small factions. ... On the whole, the Order of the Clergy was
ONE FROM THE UTMOST EAST TO THE FARTHER WEST, FROM THE NORTH
TO THE SOUTH " (Hist, of Lat. Christ., B. xiv. ch. i. vol. ix. pp. 25, 27). And
" Latin
again Christendom, or rather universal Christendom, was ONE (except-
:

ing those who were self-outlawed, or outlawed by the dominant authority from
the Christian Monarchy), not only in the organisation of the all-ruling Hierarchy,
and the admission of Monkhood it was ONE IN THE GREAT SYSTEM OF BELIEF.
;

. .The whole world was ONE IN THE POPULAR RELIGION " (Ib. ch. ii. pp. 53,
.

54). M. GUIZOT, also, remarks that this great fact of "the UNITY of the Church,
the UNITY of the Christian' society, despite all the diversities ,of time, place,
domination, language, or origin," one "which dominates over all, which char-
is

acterises the Christian Church in general, and has, as it were, decided her destiny."
" " is a
This," he adds, great and glorious fact, and one which, from the fifth to
the thirteenth century, has rendered immense services to humanity. The mere
fact of the unity of the Church maintained some tie between countries and nations
that everything else tended to separate under its influence, some general notions,
;

some sentiments of a vast sympathy continued to be developed and from the ;

very heart of the most frightful political confusion that the world has ever known
arose, perhaps, the most extensive and the purest idea that has ever rallied man-
kind the idea of spiritual society; for that is the philosophical name of the
"
Church, the type which she wished to realise (Hist, of European Civilisation,
Bonn's Eng. trans., vol. ii. pp. 19, 20).
Protestants often ask triumphantly "Where was the Unity of the Catholic
Church at the time of the great PAPAL (A.D. 1378-1417), during which
SCHISM
"
the nations of Europe were divided in their allegiance to three contending Popes ?
 ( 29 )

she still is One Fold under One Shepherd" that great

1
), the/'
and illustriousor Society of Christians, whose exhibi-
Body
tion of supernatural and majestic Unity struck "the World"
with awe and amazement, causing it to recognise the Divine
"
Mission of her Founder and Head, so that the kingdoms
To which objection it may be replied 1st, That the Church's Unity of Faith,
:

Public Worship, and Sacraments, remained intact during that whole period ; 2dly,
that what may be called the interregnum in the Church, caused by the controversy

regarding the validity of the election of the claimants to the Papacy, was abnormal
in its character and transient in its effects; and that the Church all along re-

tained and ultimately exercised the power of determining who was or should
be her validly elected Head. It was not promised to the Church that she should
not be assaulted by the gates of hell (the Powers of Darkness), but that she should
always prove victorious against them.
1
Lord MACAULAY, in a well-known passage, says The Papacy remains, :
"
not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The
Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world mission-
who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still confronting
aries as zealous as those
hostilekings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The
number of her children is greater than in any former age. . . . She saw the
commencement of all the Governments and of ail the ecclesiastical institutions that
are now in the and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see
world ;

the end of them She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot
all.

on Britain, before the Frank had crossed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still
flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca.
And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New
Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of
"
London Bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's (Essay on Ranke's Lives of the
Popes].
As farther illustrating and corroborating what has been said above, regarding
that spectacle of UNIVERSALITY and of MAJESTIC UNITY which the Catholic
Church presents to the world at large, the following extracts from the leading
articles and special correspondence of the chief English journals, at the time of
the opening of the (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, may perhaps be of interest
to the reader :

STANDARD (December loth, 1869) : "

In historic importance, in traditional
dignity, in the splendour of the associations that gather round its name, no
Assembly in the world, past or present, can pretend to compare with the great
Parliament of the Latin Church. The unbroken continuity of the history of that
Church, its undeniable and uninterrupted descent from the Church founded
by
the Apostles, renders this Council the immediate successor and representa-
. . .

tive, in a sense in which no other Council can rival its claims, of the Council of
Niccea, not of the Council of Jerusalem. Nor is its actual power and conse-
if

quence unworthy of its traditional heritage. ... It is the representative assembly,

the omnipotent legislature of a compact and coherent body of Christians, whose
number approaches more nearly to two than one hundred millions," &c.
After referring to the attempts made by the enemies of the Pope and of the
Church to hinder the assembling of the Council, the special correspondent
(STANDARD, Dec. nth) says "Nevertheless, all has been in vain; and the
:

dispassionate observer is compelled to confess that the spectacle of so many

 ( 30 )

of this world became tJie Kingdom of our Lord and of His

Christ" (Rev. xi. 15). SHE ALONE possesses and alone
claims to possess that supreme and unerring Teaching

Authority, without which no such Unity could be guaranteed

or preserved. 1 In and by HER ALONE have all those

hundreds of Bishops, coming from the farthest quarters of the earth at the beck of
an old man, powerless in all but spiritual thunderbolts, is one that, occurring in
the nineteenth century, and especially at this period of it, is calculated to strike
the believing with a pious admiration, and even the incredulous, like ourselves,
with irrepressible astonishment."
The DAILY NEWS (Dec. I4th) " It must be admitted
:
that, weak as is the

temporal power of the Pope, no other Prince could have assembled such a body
as met to-day in the Council-hall of St. Peter's, and no other could have provided
them with such a magnificent temple. From the remotest quarters of the globe
from a land that was but just heard of when the Council of Trent sat, from a
land that was then wholly unknown, from Palestine and Syria, the cradles of
Christianity ; from Persia, from China, from India, from Africa, from the Western
Isles, as well as from the countries washed by the Mediterranean, men of various

tongues and of diverse origin, men of great learning and of great age, have come
together to this famous city, in obedience voluntary and spiritual obedience
to the Pastor who claims to be the Successor of Peter, and the Vicegerent of God

upon earth."
" Seven hundred
The TIMES (Dec. l6th) :
Bishops, more or less, representing
all Christendom, were seen gathered round one altar and one throne, partaking of
the same Divine Mystery, and rendering homage, by turns, to the same spiritual
authority and power. As they put on their mitres or took them off, and as they
came to the steps of the altar or the foot of the common Spiritual Father, it was
IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO FEEL THE UNITY AND THE POWER OF THE CHURCH WHICH
THEY REPRESENTED."
1
"In the Catholic Church," says a writer in the UNION REVIEW (May
1875), "it was always an article of faith that our Lord, by the assistance and
guidance of His Holy Spirit, preserved the whole Church, in her collective capa-
city, from falling into error in her dogmatic teaching. But it was also a point of
belief, which may be traced up to the Apostolic age, that in the administration of
this teaching authority, the See of St. Peter held a supreme office ; that it was the
centre of ecclesiastical operations, if we may use such a term ; that apart from it
there would be no genuine orthodoxy, no true Catholicity; and that in all the
great controversies which from time to time divided the Christian world, the most
crucial test of truth was the adherence to any dogma by the See of Peter."

"Though a few distinguished voices have been lifted up against the dogma
of Papal Infallibility, they have indeed been, and continue to be, few and far-
between. We believe there is but one Bishop out of the whole Romish
Hierarchy who is not now inculcating the dogma, and that solitary one does not
go beyond a passive resistance. Rome, under the guidance of Pius IX., at
. . .

least knows its own mind, which is more than can be said of perhaps any other
influential branch of the Christian Church at the present moment. Were . . .

Pius IX. to die to-morrow, he would leave the Roman Church far more powerful
than he found it, and endowed with a far higher vitality" (STANDARD, June
I9th, 1872).
 ( 31 )

Prophecies been fulfilled that were uttered regarding the

CHURCH OF CHRIST the KINGDOM OF THE MESSIAS; e.g.,
that " Kings should nursing fathers, and queens her
be her

nursing' mothers ; they sJwuld bovv down before her with their
"
face toivard the earth, and lick up the dust of her feet ; that
"
tJie Gentiles should come to Jier light, and kings to the bright-

ness of her rising / her gates should be open continually ;

. . .

tliey should not be shut day nor night ; that men might bring
unto her the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings might
be brought: for the nation and kingdom that vvould not serve
"
Jiershould perish ; that " no weapon formed against her
should prosper, and every tongue that should arise in judgment
" "
against her she should condemn ; that God's Spirit that
should be upon her, and His ivords which He would put in Jier
mouth, should not depart out of her mouth, nor out of the mouth
of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed's seed, from Jience-
"
forth and for ever j that "from tJie rising of the sun, even
to the going down of the same, God's name should be great
among the Gentiles, and in every place incense sliould be offered
"
to His name, and a pnre offering; that the Messias should
be "for a light to the Gentiles, and for salvation unto the ends

of the earth;" He "should have the. Gentiles for His inheri-

tance, and tJie uttermost parts of the eartJi for His possession ;
He sJiould rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the
ends of the earth, all nations falling down before Him, all
nations serving Him ; "and, finally, that, in this Church of
"
the Messias, the Lord God -would set up a
Kingdom which
should never be destroyed" and "against which the Gates of
Hell should never prevail!'
We conclude, therefore, that the ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH and she ALONE true Catholic and
is the One
Apostolic Church of Christ, the Church which He Himself
founded, and with which, in the performance of her great
office as Teacher of the nations, He Himself "//rt? Way, the

Truth, and the Life" promised to abide "always, even to the

end of the world;" and, consequently, that it is from HER
voice and teaching alone that we can with certainty and
security learn the entire Faith and body of Doctrines which
He has revealed, "all things whatsoever He has commanded
her to teach to all nations."
>'
"The universal aptness of a religious system for all stages of civilisation, and
for all sortsand conditions of men, well befits its claim of divine origin. She is
of all nations and of all times, that wonderful Church of Rome." KINGLAKE'S
ofhen, chap. xi.

" Protestantism
was the work of man ; and it appears in no other light even in
the history which its own disciples have drawn of its origin." SCHLEGEL'S Philo-
sophy of History, Bonn's 7th Eng. edit., p. 411.

" man
Notwithstanding all his attempts to deface the work of God, cannot blot
out the eternal characters which distinguish truth from error." BALMEZ, Euro-
pean Civilisation, Protestantism and Catholicity Compared, Eng. trans., p. 45.
 APPENDIX.

Some Testimonies of Protestant and non-Christian Historians regarding

the beneficial Action and
Influence of the Catholic Church during
the Early a?id Middle Ages, the early and providential Develop-
ment of the Papal Power, &c., &c.

M. ERNEST RENAN, the well-known French savant and sceptic, in the

Hibbert Lectures, delivered in London in 1880, speaks as follows :

"The origins of Christianity form the most heroic episode of the

history of humanity. This extraordinary movement, with which no
. . .

other can be compared, came out of the heart of Judaism. But it is

doubtful whether Judaism alone would have conquered the world. For
this it was . above all needful that the new movement should transfer
. .

itself to the Greek and Latin world, and there awaiting the barbarians,
should become as it were a leaven in the midst of those European races
*
by means of which humanity accomplishes its destiny." (pp. 8, 9). . . .

" In order that

Judea might make a religious conquest of the world, it
was necessary that she should be blotted out from the roll of nations. . . .

The victory of Rome was complete. . . . The

national existence of the

Jewish people was irretrievably lost ; but this was a piece of good fortune.
The true glory of Judaism was the Christianity then in act of birth. And
for Christianity, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was an advan-

tage above all other. The Romans thought that in tearing away the
. . .

root they were at the same time tearing away the sucker but the sucker ;

had already become a tree, with an independent life of its own" (pp. 104,
115, 116).
" in
After showing that proportion as the Church of Jerusalem falls the
"
Church of Rome rises," and that while the Pope of Jerusalem would
have smothered Christianity at the end of a century or two, the Pope of
Rome has made it the religion of the world" (p. 122), he says :

"The truth of what I have said is illustrated in a very important

personage, who appears to have been at the head of the Roman Church
1
M. KENAN'S remarks furnish a remarkable commentary on the words of St.
"
PAUL :
If the fall of them [the Jews] be the riches of the -world, and the dinii-
mition of them the riches of the Gentiles ; ... if the casting away of them be the
reconciling of the world" &c. {Rom. xi. 12, 15, 20).
C
 ( 34 )

in the last years of the first century. ... I mean Clement of Rome. . . .

The high rank which he held in the purely spiritual hierarchy of the
Church of his times, and the unequalled credit which he enjoyed, are

beyond doubt. His approval was a law in itself (Pseudo-Hermas,

vis. ii. 4). All parties claimed his leadership, and desired to shelter
themselves beneath his authority. He is the first type of Pope which
. . .

Church history presents to us. His lofty personality, which legend makes
more lofty still, was, after that of Peter, the holiest figure of primitive
Christian Rome. Succeeding ages looked upon his venerable face as
that of a mild and grave legislator, a perpetual homily of submission
and respect.
"
Already the idea of a certain primacy belonging to his Church was
beginning to make its way to the light. The right of warning other
Churches and of composing their differences was conceded to it.
Similar privileges so at least it was believed had been accorded to
Peter by the other disciples (Luke xxii. 32). Thus a bond which
gradually grew closer was established between Peter and Rome. Grave
dissensions tore in pieces the Church of Corinth (Hegesip. in Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. iii. 16, iv. 22). The Roman Church, consulted as to these
troubles, replied in a letter which is still extant. It is anonymous, but
"
a very ancient tradition assigns the composition of it to Clement

(pp. 124, 125).

" The Roman Church was henceforth the Church of order, of rule, of
subordination. fundamental principle was that humility and submis-
Its
sion were of more account than the sublimest gifts. Its letter to the
Corinthians is the first manifesto of the principle of authority made
within the Christian Church" (p. 127).
" In the
primitive Christian community, the importance of Churches
was in proportion to their apostolic nobility. The guarantee of ortho-
doxy was the diadoche, the Episcopal succession by which the great
Churches were connected with the Apostles. A direct succession was
a very strong warrant of agreement in doctrine the greatest possible
;

importance was attached to it. But what shall we say of a Church

founded both by Peter and Paul? It is clear that such a Church would
be regarded as having a real superiority over all others. To have suc-
ceeded in establishing this belief was the masterpiece of that cleverness
which characterised the Church of Rome. By the time of Antoninus Pius
[A.D. 138] almost everybody
had come to believe that Peter and Paul had
in perfect agreement founded Christianity at Rome, and had sealed the
work with their blood. The ecclesiastical destiny of Rome was thence-
forth fixed. When her part in the profane world was played out, this
extraordinary city was destined to play another and a sacred part, a part
"
like that of Jerusalem (p. 148).
After mentioning the attempt of Valentinus to establish a Gnostic
school in Rome, and his excommunication by Pope Hyginus, he says :

" The centre

of a future Catholic orthodoxy was plainly here. Pius,
who succeeded Hyginus, showed the same firmness in defending the
 ( 35 )

purity of the faith. Cerdo, Marcion, Valentinus, Marcellinus, are

removed from the Church by the sentence of Pius. In the reign of
Antoninus [A.D. 138 seq.\ the germ of the Papacy already exists in a
very definite form. The Church of Rome shows itself increasingly
indifferent to those visionary speculations which were the delight of
minds full of the intellectual activity of the Greeks, but, at the same
time, corrupted by the dreams of the East. The organisation of
Christian society was the chief work pursued at Rome. That wonder-
ful city brought to this task the exclusively practical genius and the

powerful moral energy which she has applied in so many different

ways. Almost careless of speculation, decisively hostile to novelties in
doctrine, she presided, as a mistress already practised in the art, over
allthe changes which took place in the discipline and the hierarchy of
the Church."
" What was in
process of development in the Christian Church about
the year 120 or 130 was the Episcopate. Now the creation of the
Episcopate was evidently the work of Rome" (pp. 148-151). After . . .

" "
pronouncing this to be a complete transformation in the government
of the Church, 1 he says :

"
Nevertheless, this transformation was the essential condition of the
energy of Christianity. And a concentration of powers became at once
necessary when these Churches grew up to be tolerably numerous the :

relations between these little pious societies were possible only so long
as they had acknowledged representatives entitled to act for them. It is
besides indisputable that, without the Episcopate, Churches brought into
union for a moment by the recollection of Jesus would soon have been
scattered. Divergencies of doctrine, differences in turn of mind, above
all, rivalries, unsatisfied self-appreciations, would have produced their
"
characteristic result of disunion and disintegration without end (p. 158).
"Thanks to the Church of Rome, 2 the religion of Jesus thus acquired
a certain solidity and consistency. The great danger of Gnosticism,
which threatened to divide Christendom into innumerable sects, was
averted. The phrase Catholic Church breaks upon us from all sides
' '

at once, as the name of the great communion which is destined thence-

forth to come down the ages in unbroken unity. And the character of
this Catholicity is already sufficiently visible. The Montanists are
regarded as sectaries ; the Marcionites are convicted of falsifying apos-
tolical doctrine ; more and more repelled
the different Gnostic schools are
from the bosom of the general Church. There is, then, something which
is neither Montanism, nor Marcionism, nor Gnosticism unsectarian
1
It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to observe, that M. KENAN'S expression of
erroneous opinions, on this and some other points, does not detract from the
general value of his testimony regarding the predominant authority of the Church
of Rome at this early period.
2
Mr. PALMER of Oxford also says: "We
find that the Roman Church was
zealous to maintain the true faith from the earliest period, condemning and
expelling the Gnostics, Artemonites, &c. ; and during the Arian mania it was
the bulwark of the Catholic Faith" (On the Church, vol. ii. pt. vi. ch. 3).
 ( 36 )

Christianity, the Christianity of the majority of Bishops, resisting and

using all the sects, having, if you will, none but negative characteristics,
but by those negative characteristics preserved from pietistic aberrations
and dissolvent rationalism" (pp. 164, 165).
After giving a sketch of the formation of Christendom, and remarking
that " the as it were, the mould in which the new religion
Empire was,
took shape the inner framework, the limits, the hierarchical divisions
:

of the Church were those of the Empire

"
and that " under Marcus ;

"
Aurelius the Episcopate is completely ripe : the Papacy exists in germ
(p. 169), he continues :

"ROME was the place in which this great idea of Catholicity was
worked out. More and more every day it became the capital of Chris-
tianity^ and took the place of Jeriisalem as the religions centre of
humanity. Its Church claimed a precedence over all others which was
generally recognised (Iren. iii. 3; Tertull. Prescript. 21, 36 ; Cyprian,
Epist. 52, 55, 67, 71, 75 ; Firmilian). All the doubtful questions which
agitated the Christian conscience came to Rome to ask for arbitration,
if not decision. Men argued, certainly not in a very logical way, that as
Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of His Church, the privilege
ought to be inherited by his successors. The Bishop of Rome . . .

became the Bishop of bishops, he who admonished all others. Rome

proclaims her right a dangerous right of excommunicating those who
do not walk step by step with her. ... At the end of the second century
we can already recognise, by signs which it is impossible to mistake, the
spirit which in 1870 will proclaim the infallibility of the Pope. The
writing of which the fragment known as the Canon of Muratori formed a
part, and which was produced at Rome about the year 1 80 A.D., shows
us Rome already defining the Canon of Scripture, alleging the martyrdom
of Peter as the foundation of Catholicity, repudiating Montanism and
Gnosticism alike. Irenasus (Lib. iii. 3) refutes all heresies by reference to
the belief of this Church, the greatest, the oldest, the most illustrious,
'

which possesses, an unbroken succession, the true tradition

in virtue of
of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and to which, because of its Primacy,
all the rest of the Church ought to have recourse'" (pp. 172-174).
" This of the Church of Rome became more marked
precedence only
in the third century. The Bishops Rome showed
a rare ability in
of

avoiding theological questions, while they kept themselves to the front

in all matters of organisation and administration. The tradition of the
Roman Church passes for the most ancient of all (Origen, in Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. vi. 14). Cornelius takes the first place in the affair of Nova-
tianism we see him, in especial, depriving Italian Bishops and nomi-
:

nating their successors (Letter of Cornelius in Euseb. vi. 43). Rome

was also the central authority of the African Churches (Tertull. Frees. 21 ;
J
Cyprian. Epist. 52, 55, 71, 75)" (P- 76).
After speaking of the injury done to the City of Rome by the Emperor
Constantine's transference of the seat of government to Constantinople,
and by the invasions of barbarians that followed, he says :
 ( 37 )

" is taken in the gravity and depth of her organ-

Rome's first revenge
ising spirit. What men are St. Sylvester, St. Damasus, St. Gregory the
Great ! With admirable courage Rome labours for the conversion of
the barbarians she attaches them to herself ; she makes them her clients,
;

her subjects. The masterpiece of her policy was her alliance with the
Carolingian House, and the bold stroke by which she revived in that
family the Empire which had been dead for 300 years. The Church of
Rome then lifts herself up more powerful than ever, and again, for eight
"
centuries more, becomes the centre of all Western politics (pp. 198, 199)
'Rms AX'S Hibbert Lectures on the Influence of the Institutions, Thought ',

and Culture of Rome on Christianity and the Development of the Catholic

Church, Eng. trans., 1880).

M. GuiZOT, the Protestant historian of France, speaking of the fifth

century, when the Roman Empire was in the agonies of dissolution, and
the whole of Europe was inundated by hordes of barbarians, 1 says :

" I do not think that I

say more than the truth in affirming that
it ivas the Christian Church which saved Christianity ; it was the
Church with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power that vigorously
resisted both the internal dissolution of the Empire and barbarism ;
which conquered the barbarians, and became the bond, the medium, and
the principle of civilisation between the Roman and barbarian worlds.
... In the midst of that deluge of material force which at this period
overwhelmed society, there was an immense benefit in the presence of a
moral influence, a moral power, a power which derived all its force from
convictions, from belief, from moral sentiments. Had there been no
Christian Church, the whole world would have been abandoned to mere
material force. The Church alone exercised a moral power" (Guizox's
Hist. Gen. de la Civilisation en Europe, 3d ed., Paris, 1840, 2^me Lecon).
"
The Church was a regularly organised society, having its principles,
its rules, its discipline, and animated with an ardent desire of extending
2 of conquering its conquerors.
its influence, Among the Christians of
this period, among the Christian clergy, there were men who had thought

a " Let us reflect for a " on the character of the

moment," says M. GOSSELIN,
barbarous hordes which, after the close of the fourth century, partitioned among
themselves the members of the Roman Empire in the West. Completely ignorant
of the arts and sciences and of civilisation, they knew no other occupation but
hunting and war no law;
but force ; no glory but conquest ; and, far from feeling
the inconveniences and disorder of this savage state, they professed a sovereign
contempt for a mode of life more refined. The Christian religion, which they all
embraced, softened by degrees their ferocious manners ; but this inestimable
effect of their conversion was slow and insensible ; the majority of them long
retained their ancient habits that is, their inconstant, violent, and ungovernable
temper their passionate taste for hunting and war ; their profound contempt for
;

the arts and sciences ; and especially the spirit of insubordination and independ-
ence, which seemed to be the most deeply marked trait in their character"
(The Power of the Popes during the Middle Ages, Eng. trans., vol. ii. p. 40).
2
"After the fifth century, Papacy took the lead in the conversion of the
"
Pagans (Guizoi's Hist, of Civilisation in France, Bonn's Eng. trans., vol. ii.
P- 173).
 ( 38 )

upon all moral and who had decided opinions and

political questions,
energetic sentiments upon and a vivid desire to propagate
all subjects,
and give them empire. No society ever made more vigorous efforts to
make her influence felt, and to mould to her own form the world around
her, than the Christian Church from the fifth to the tenth century. She
had, in a manner, assailed barbarism on all points, to civilise by subduing
"
it (Ib. 3eme Legon, p. 86).
"
modern society [municipal government, the
All the civil elements of
feudal system and royalty] were either in their infancy or in decrepitude.
The Church alone was young and organised ; she alone had acquired a
settled form, and retained all the vigour of her prime ; she alone had
both activity and order, energy and a system, that is, the two great
means of influence. The Church had, moreover, agitated all the
. . .

great questions which concern man ; she was solicitous about all the
problems of his nature, about all the chances of his destiny. Hence, her
influence on modern civilisation has been immense, greater perhaps than
has ever been imagined by her most ardent adversaries or her most
zealous advocates. Absorbed either in her defence or in aggression, they
considered her only in a polemical point of view, and they have failed,
I am convinced, in judging her with fairness, and in measuring her in all

her dimensions" (Ib. 5eme Legon, p. 132).

The Rev. H. MlLMAN, D.D. (late Dean of St. Paul's), says :

" in its Latin form, which for centuries was to be its

Christianity,
most powerful, enduring, and prolific development, wanted, for her
stability and unity of influence, a capital and a centre and Rome might ;

seem deserted by her Emperors for the express purpose of allowing the
spiritual grow up without any dangerous collision against
monarchy to
the civil government. The Emperors had long withdrawn from Rome as
the royal residence. Of those who bore the title, one ruled in Constan-
tinople, and, more and more absorbed in the cares and calamities of the
Eastern sovereignty, became gradually estranged from the affairs of the
West. The Western Emperor lingered for a time in inglorious
. . .

obscurity among the marshes of Ravenna, till at length the faint shadow
of monarchy melted away, and a barbarian assumed the power and the
appellation of Sovereign of Italy. Still, of the barbarian kings, not one
ventured to fix himself in the ancient capital, or to inhabit'the mouldering

palaces of the older Caesars. . . .

" It
was not solely as a Christian Bishop, and Bishop of that city
which was still, according to the prevailing feeling, the capital of the
world, but as the successor of St. Peter, of him who was now acknow-
ledged to be the head of the Apostolic body, that the Roman Pontiff
commanded the veneration of Rome and of Christendom. ... At the
commencement of the fifth century, the lineal descent of the Pope from
St. Peter was an accredited tenet of Christianity. . . .

"
Everything tended to confirm, nothing to impede or to weaken, the
gradual condensation of the supreme ecclesiastical power in the Supreme
 ( 39 )

Bishop. The majesty of the notion of one all-powerful ruler, to which

the world had been so long familiarised in the Emperors ; the discord
and emulation among the other prelates, both of the East and West, and
the manifold advantage of a supreme arbiter ; the unity of the visible
Church, which was becoming or had indeed become the dominant
idea of Christendom all seemed to demand, or, at least, had a strong
;

tendency to promote and to maintain, the necessity of one Supreme

Head. . . .

" In the
West, throughout Latin Christendom, the Roman See, in anti-
quity, in dignity, in the more regular succession of its prelates, stood alone
and unapproachable. In the great Eastern bishoprics the holy lineage
had been already broken and confused by the claims of rival prelates,
by the usurpation of Bishops accounted heretical, at the present period
Arians or Macedonians or Apollinarians, later Nestorians or Mono-
physites" (MiLMAN's Hist, of Latin Christianity, Book ii. ch. i. vol. i.
1

p. 104 seq., ed. 1867).

Speaking of the fall of Rome under Alaric, A.D. 410, he says "That :

which might have appeared the most fatal blow to Roman greatness, as
dissolving the spell of Roman empire, the capture, the conflagration,
the plunder, the depopulation of Rome by the barbarian Goths, tended
directly to establish and strengthen the spiritual supremacy of Rome.
It was pagan Rome, the Babylon of sensuality, pride, and idolatry,
which fell before the triumphant Alaric the Goths were the instruments
;

of Divine vengeance against paganism, which lingered in this its last

stronghold. Christianity hastened to disclaim all interest, all sympathy,
' " '
in the fate of the harlot that sat on the seven hills (Id. p. 120).
"However the first appalling intelligence of this event shook the
Roman world to its centre,and the fearful scene of pillage, violation, and
destruction by fire and sword was imagined to surpass in its horrors
everything recorded in profane or sacred history, yet the shock passed
away, and Rome quietly assumed her second, her Christian empire. . . .

Innocent [the Pope] returned to a city, if in some parts ruined and deso-
late, now entirely Christian the ancient religion was buried under the
:

ruins. .
Babylon has fallen, and fallen
. . for ever ;
the City of God, at
least the centre and stronghold of the City of God, is in Christian Rome"
(/. pp. 130, 136, 138).
"
The Pontificate of Leo the Great [A.D. 440] is one of the epochs in
the history of Latin, or rather of universal Christianity. Christendom,
wherever mindful of its Divine origin and of its proper humanising and
hallowing influence, might turn away in shame from these melancholy and
disgraceful [religious] contests in the East. On the throne of Rome alone,

1 " In the
East, religion ceased more and more to be an affair of pure religion.
It was mingled up with all the
intrigues of the Imperial Court, with all the furies
of faction in the great cities. . . . The rivalry of the Sees darkened into the
fiercest personal hostility. . . . The anarchy and
deeper the East was sunk in
confusion, the: more*" commanding the stately superiority of Rome" (Ib. ch. iii.

PP- 177-195).
 ( 4 )

of all the greater Sees, did religion maintain its majesty, its sanctity its ',

piety; and, if it demanded undue deference ; the world would not be

inclined rigidly to question pretensions supported as well by such con-
scious power as by such singular and unimpeachable virtue ; and by
such inestimable benefits conferred on Rome, on the Empire, on civili-
sation. .Supremacy^ held by so firm and vigorous a hand as that
. .

"
of Leo, might seem almost necessary to Christendom (Ib. ch. iv. pp.
228, 254).
Speaking of the close of the sixth century of Christianity, when
"
anarchy threatened the whole West of Europe, and had already almost
" Now was
enveloped Italy in ruin and destruction," Milman says :

the crisis in which THE PAPACY must reawaken its obscured and
suspended life. It was the only power which lay not entirely and abso-
lutely prostrate before the disasters of the times a power which had an
inherent strength, and might resiime its majesty. It was this power
which was most imperatively required to preserve all which was to
survive out of the crumbling wreck of Roman civilisation. To Western
Christianity was absolutely necessary a centre, standing alone, strong in
traditionary reverence and in acknowledged claims to supremacy. Even
the perfect organisation of the Christian hierarchy might in all human
probability have fallen to pieces in perpetual conflict ; it might have
degenerated into a half-secular feudal caste, with hereditary benefices,
more and more entirely subservient to the civil authority, a priesthood of
each nation or each tribe, gradually sinking to the intellectual or religious
level of the nation or tribe. ON THE RISE OF A POWER BOTH CONTROL-
LING AND CONSERVATIVE HUNG, HUMANLY SPEAKING, THE LIFE AND
DEATH OF CHRISTIANITY OF CHRISTIANITY AS A PERMANENT,
AGGRESSIVE, EXPANSIVE, AND, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, UNIFORM SYS-
TEM. There must be a counterbalance to barbaric force, to the unavoid-
able anarchy of Teutonism, with its tribal, or at the utmost national,
independence, forming a host of small, conflicting, antagonistic kingdoms.
. . . It is impossible to conceive what had been the confusion, the lawless-

ness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the mediaeval Papacy ;
"
and of the mediaeval Papacy the real father is Gregory the Great (Id.
Book iii. ch. vii. vol. ii. pp. 100-102).
"
Speaking of the seventh century, he says It was Christianity alone
:

which maintained some kind of combination among the crumbling frag-

ments of the Roman Empire. Christianity alone was a bond of
. . .

union, strong and enduring. The Teutonic kingdoms acknowledged their

allegiance to the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome : Rome was the centre
and capital of Western Christendom" (Ib. Book iv. ch. iii. vol. ii. p. 225),
" The
Metropolis of Christianity" (ch. v. p. 299).
After giving an account of the conversion of England, Germany, and
other countries by the Missionaries sent by the Popes in the seventh and
"
eighth centuries, he says All these conquests of Christianity were, in
:

a certain sense, the conquests of the Roman See . reverence for

; . .

Rome penetrated with the gospel to the remotest parts. Germany was
converted to Latin Christianity. Rome was the source, the centre, the
regulating authority recognised by the English apostles of the Teutons.
The clergy were constantly visiting Rome as the religious capital of the
world, to do homage to the head of Western Christendom, to visit the
shrines of the Apostles, the more devout to obtain reliques, the more
"
intellectual, knowledge, letters, arts (Ib, ch. vi. p. 307).
"
Such was the power of religion in those times, that not merely did it
enable the clergy to dictate their policy to armed and powerful sovereigns,
to arrest barbarian invasion, and to snatch, as it were, conquests already
in their rapacious hands ; in every quarter of Western Europe kings were
seen abdicating their thrones, placing themselves at the feet of the Pope
as humble penitents, casting off their pomp, and submitting to the
privations and the discipline of monks" (Ib. Book iv. ch. xi. vol. iii.

P- 6).
Speaking of the causes of the degradation of the Papacy in the tenth
" In the tenth
century, he says :
century the few reflecting minds might
not without reason apprehend the approaching dissolution of the world.
A vast anarchy seemed to spread over Western Christendom. It is

perhaps the darkest period in the history of every country in Europe.

The Pagan Magyars, more terrible even than the Islamite Saracens and
the Pagan Northmen, now burst upon Europe. The Magyars, or . . .

Hungarians, seemed as hordes of savages or of wild beasts let loose upon

mankind. They burst unexpectedly upon Christendom in swarms of
which the source seemed unknown and inexhaustible. Indiscriminate
massacre seemed their only war law ; they were bound by no treaties,
respected no boundaries. Civilisation, Christianity, withered before their
hosts. .
They rushed down the Alps ; Italy lay open before them.
. .

Splendid Pavia, with its forty-three churches, was in ashes. Rome . . .

beheld at no great distance the flame of*their devastation ; they spread

to the very extremity of the peninsula. l . . . The anarchy of Italy
led to the degradation of the Papacy" (Book v. ch. xi. vol. iii.
pp.
279-282).
" The devout 2
indignation of Baronius as to these times arose no
doubt in great part from the severe but honest asceticism of his
character, and his horror at this violation of his high notions of sacer-
dotal sanctity by what appeared to him far more unseemly and unpar-
donable criminality than arrogance, avarice, or cruelty. His fears, too,
lest he should be accused of an immoral partiality by the slightest

extenuation, or even by a dispassionate examination of such vices "(of

1 " The for half a century were the common terror of Christendom,
Hungarians
from their irruption about A.D. 884 to A.D. 936, the date of the first great
first

victory of Henry the Fowler. Gradually the Magyars settled down within the
limits of modern Hungary. At the beginning of the next century Christianity had
entirely subdued them, and with a kind of prophetic instinct had arrayed this valiant
nation as a future outguard against the Mohammedan Turks ; their King Stephen
was a Saint" (MiLMAN, loc. cit., p. 280).
"
Milman is here referring to the very dark picture drawn* by Cardinal BARONIUS
of the condition of the Papacy in the tenth century.
 ( 42 )

some of the Popes of that age), " has led him to exaggerate rather than
soften the monstrous enormities of these times. And the happy thought,
happy in a thoroughgoing controversialist, that the deeper the degrada-
tion of the Papacy, the more wonderful, and therefore the more mani-
festly of God, its restoration to power, removed every remaining repug-
nance to his abandonment of the Popes during the tenth century to
all
historical infamy. . . .
Luitprand is the chief, the only authority on
which Baronius rests" 1
(Ib. Book v. ch. xi. p. 288, note).
Of Pope Leo IX. " Leo came forth to
ic>54)Milman says
(A.D. Europe, :

not only with the power and dignity, but with the austere holiness, the
indefatigable religious activity, the majestic virtue, which became the
Head of Christendom. ... In this single spiritual campaign [his reli-
gious visitation of Europe], by the calm dignity of his holiness, by his
appeal to the strong religious reverence of Christendom, he had restored
the Papacy to all its former authority over the minds of men " (Id. Book
vi. ch. i. vol. iii.
pp. 373, 382).

NEANDER, theGerman (Protestant) Church historian, speaking of the

conflict of the Church with the Empire under Pope Gregory VII. (Hilde-
brand), says :

1
This fact is important, inasmuch as the learned MURATORI ("whose accu-
racy," says HALLAM, "is in general almost implicitly to be trusted, and whose
plain integrity speaks in all his writings," Middle Ages, ch. iii. p. I, note) charges
"
Luitprand with having given credit to all the pasquinades and defamatory libels
of the times" (Anna!, v. ii. 16, 36, 43, &c.).
"The scandals given by some occupants of the Papal Chair," says a Catholic
" are a fruitful theme of
writer, reproach, on which Protestants delight to
expatiate ; yet if we consider the turbulence of the times, the total disorganisation
of society, the temporary ascendancy obtained at Rome by some petty potentates,
the national partialities which favoured some intruders through jealousy of
German influence, we shall not be astonished that in the tenth and eleventh
centuries some instances occurred of wicked and ambitious men who seized on
the reins of government." In regard to the charges made against various Popes
in the same or following centuries, this author observes
" The character of
:

several Popes has suffered unjustly from the interested misrepresentations of

rivals or their partisans, as also of the adherents of schismatical emperors and
kings. National jealousies led the Italians to satirise the French Popes who sat
at Avignon, while the French viewed with no partiality several who sat at Rome.
The civil relations of the Pontiff to his subjects have often cast odium on the
exercise of his ecclesiastical authority, and his political associations with various
princes have contributed in no slight degree to excite the rancour and provoke the
animadversions of writers of other nations. Certain historians assume the air of
candour by reciting the very words of some contemporary who has recorded his
view of the personal character or public acts of an individual Pope, without
reflecting that he may have mistaken rumour for facts, and followed the bias of
partisanship to the prejudice of truth and justice. I feel it unnecessary to enter
into a detailed vindication of the various Pontiffs whose character is more gener-
ally the object of attack ; but I fearlessly say, that considering the long succes-
sion of Popes, the convulsions of society, the vicissitudes of Rome, and the end-
less variety of circumstances in which the Popes have been placed, it is nothing
short of a miracle that, in general, their character has been pure and exalted,
whilst their succession has been inviolably maintained."
 ( 43 )

" whether the system of the Church

The great question was . . .

theocracy, the spiritual universal monarchy, should come off victorious

in the contest with a rude secular power, or should be laid prostrate
at its feet. . . . The corruption of the Church, threatening its utter
secularisation, had now reached its highest pitch, and that very cir-
cumstance had called forth a reformatory reaction on the part of the
Church. Such a reaction could, however, under the existing conditions,
ONLY proceed'from the side of this Church Theocracy?- since those who were
most zealous against the abuses that had crept in were governed by this
spiritual tendency. Gregory was certainly inspired with some higher
. . .

motive than seltish ambition, a selfish love of domination. . There

. .

were men animated by a warm zeal for the welfare of the Church, and
against the deep-rooted abuses of the times, who expected from this
imperial sovereignty of the Church, wielded by the Popes, the correction
of all evils. . . .

"
was by the degeneracy of the clergy, and the confusion existing in
It
all parts of the Church constitution, that the reforming tendencies of the

Hildebrandian epoch had been called forth. A part of the abuses which
had crept in, those which the rude arbitrary proceedings of monarchs had
introduced, were thoroughly counteracted by the triumph of the Hilde-
brandian system; a great zealfor the reformation of the clergy and of the
Church life, after the pattern of the primitive Apostolical Church, as it
presented itself to the imagination of the men of this period, commenced
from this epoch. A bond of union was here presented between all the
opponents of the reigning corruption, all men in all Churches who were
zealous for a strict severity of morals among the clergy, and the worthy
celebration of the offices of worship. . The Hildebrandian epoch of
. .

reform was accompanied with the outpouring of a spirit of compunction

and repentance on the Western nations" (NEANDER'S Hist, of the Church,
2
Eng. trans., Bohn's edit., vol. vii. pp. in, 112, 284, 322).

1
Comp. GUIZOT, Lect. vi. "There was within the whole Church but one
:

force adequate to it, and that was the Court of Rome, the Papacy."
"
That the outpouring of a very different spirit accompanied the Lutheran epoch
of " reform," will appear from the testimonies hereafter cited.
NEANDER elsewhere speaks of the immense good done by the Monastic Orders,
and especially by those monks "who travelled about as preachers of repentance,
and who sided with the Popes in combating the prevailing corruption of manners
and the vicious clergy "(/<?. vol. vii. p. 133. See pp. 330, 331, 339, 341 seq.,
349 seq., 372-399, &c.). In short, he considers that "to the epochs that mark
the commencement of a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit may be reckoned the
opening of the twelfth century ; and the after effects of the religious awakening,
which then began among the Christian nations of the West, extend far into the
period now before us. . . . The religious life was continually receiving a fresh
impulse from influences of various kinds from the vigorous measures of Gregory
:

VII. to promote a reform in the whole Church ; from the impressions produced
on the multitude by the preaching of the Crusades; from the effects wrought by
distinguished preachers of the clerical, and more especially of the monastic order,
who itinerated through the countries, exhorting men to repentance ; from the
founding of the two Orders of mendicant friars, &c." (Ib. p. 406. See also pp.
483, 484, 492).
 ( 44 )

Colonel MITCHELL observes "Deep and indelible is the debt 'which

:

religionand civilisation owe to the early Roman Pontiffs and to the

Church of Rome. They strove long and nobly to forward the cause of
human improvement, and it is difficult to say what other power could
have exercised so beneficial an influence over the fierce and fiery nations
who established themselves on the ruins of the Roman Empire, after
rooting out all that remained of ancient art and ancient knowledge. Nor
were their efforts confined within these territorial limits monks and :

missionaries, disregarding personal danger, penetrated into the forests of

Germany and into the distant regions of the North, and, unappalled by
the deaths of torture to which so many holy men had fallen victims,

preached to heathens and barbarians the mild doctrines of Christianity,

which only sprung up in Europe watered by the blood of saints and
martyrs. Even the efforts of the Church to interpose its spiritual power
in the direction of temporal affairs, and to control the conduct of kings
and princes, were beneficial in an age when the clergy alone possessed
whatever learning and knowledge were extant ; and the uniformity of
belief which rendered all the Western Churches dependent on the autho-

rity of the Pope an authority so greatly enlightened, when contrasted

with the general darkness of the times became a principal cause of the
progress and prosperity of the Catholic world" (MITCHELL'S Life of
Wallenstein, pp. 4, 5, edit. 1837).

M. ANCILLON, a French Calvinist, says "During the Middle Ages,

:

when there was no social order, the Papacy alone perhaps saved Europe
from litter barbarism. It created bonds of connection between the most
distant nations it was a common centre, a rallying-point for isolated
;

states. was a supreme tribunal established in the midst of universal

It

anarchy and its decrees were sometimes as respectable as they were

;

respected it prevented and arrested the despotism of the Emperors and

;

diminished the evils of the feudal system" (Tableau des Revolutions du

Systeme Politique de V Europe, vol. i. Introduct., pp. 133, 157).

The German Protestant Church historian STAUDLEIN says :

"The Papacy was productive of many beneficial effects. ... It

united in one common bond
the different European nations, furthered
their mutual intercourse, and became a channel for the communication
of the arts and sciences, and without it the fine arts, doubtless, would not
have attained to so high a degree of perfection. The Papal power restrained
political despotism, and from the rude multitude kept off many of the
"
vices of barbarism (Universal Church History, Hanover, 1806, p. 203).

HERDER, another eminent Protestant writer, says :

"
It is doubtless true that the Roman
hierarchy was a necessary power,
without which there would have been no cheek upon the untutored nations
of the Middle Ages. Without it, Europe would have fallen under the
power of a despot, would have become the theatre of interminable con-
 ( 45 )

"
flicts, and have been converted into a Mongolian desert (Ideas on the
History of Mankind, Part iv. p. 303. Cf. p. 194 seq.}

JOHN VON MULLER, the historian of Switzerland, says :

"
All the enlightenment of the present day, whereof the daring spirit of
Europe will not allow us to forecast the ultimate consequences, either to
ourselves or to the other nations of the world, came originally from that
HIERARCHY which, when the Roman Empire fell to pieces, sustained
and directed the human race. It imparted, so to speak, to the mind of
Northern Europe, which as yet possessed neither elevation nor grasp of
thought, a stirring, an energising, and a life-giving impulse, under the im-
pact of which it was carried forward, retarded indeed by many ad-
verse, and accelerated by some favourable circumstances, till it finally
"
achieved the triumphs that are now before the world (Hist, of Switzer-
land, Book iii. ch. i.).

The Rev. E. CUTTS, D.D., in a work published by the Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge, says :

" In
the Middle Ages the Church was a great popular institution. . . .

One reason, no doubt, of the popularity of the Mediaeval Church was that
it had always been the champion of the people and the friend of the poor.

In politics the Church was always on the side of the liberties of the people
against the tyranny of the feudal lords. In the eye of the nobles the
labouring population were beings of an inferior caste ; in the eye of the
law they were chattels ; in the eye of the Church they were brethren in
Christ, souls to be won and trained and fitted for heaven. In social life
the Church was an easy landlord and a kind master. . On the whole, . .

with many drawbacks, the Mediaeval Church did its duty according to
its own light to the people. It was the great cultivator of learning and

art, and it did its best to educate the people. It had vast political influ-

ence, and used it on the side of the liberties of the people. By means . .

of its painting and sculpture in the churches, its mystery plays, its reli-
gious festivals, its catechising and its preaching, it is probable that the
chief facts of the Gospel history and the doctrines of the Creeds were
more universally known and more vividly realised than among the masses
"
of our present population (Turning-Points of English Church History,
1874, pp. 161-165).

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, the historian, says :

"Never in all their history, in ancient times or modern, never that

we know of, have mankind thrown out of themselves anything so
grand, so useful, so beautiful as the CATHOLIC CHURCH once was. In
these times of ours, well-regulated selfishness is the recognised rule of
action every one of us is expected to look out for first himself, and take
care of his own interests. At the time I speak of, the Church ruled
the authority of a conscience ; and self-interest, as
State with the
a motive of action, 'was only named to be abhorred. The Bishops
 ( 46 )

and clergy were regarded freely and simply as the immediate minis-
ters of the Almighty ; and they seem to me to have really deserved
that high estimate of their character. It was not for the doctrines which

they taught, only or chiefly, that they were held in honour. Brave men
do not fall down before their fellow-mortals for the words which they
speak, or for the rites which they perform. Wisdom, justice, self-denial,
nobleness, purity, high-mindedness these are the qualities before which
the free-born races of Europe have been contented to bow and in
;

no order of men were such qualities to be found as they were found six
hundred years ago in the clergy of the Catholic Church. They called
themselves the Successors of the Apostles. They claimed, in their
Master's name, universal spiritual authority, but they made good their
pretensions by the holiness of their own lives. They were allowed to rule
because they deserved to rule, and in the fulness of reverence kings and
nobles bent before a power which was nearer to God than their own.
Over prince and subject, chieftain and serf, a body of unarmed defence-
less men reigned supreme by the magic of sanctity. They tamed the
fiery Northern warriors, who had broken in pieces the Roman Empire.
They taught them they brought them really and truly to believe that
they had immortal souls, and that they would one day stand at the awful
judgment-bar and give account for their lives there. With the brave, the
honest, and the good, with those who had not oppressed the poor nor
removed their neighbour's landmark, with those who had been just in all
their dealings, with those who had fought against evil, and had tried
valiantly to do their Master's will, at that great day it would be well.
For cowards, for profligates, for those who lived for luxury and pleasure
and self-indulgence, there was the blackness of eternal death.
" An awful conviction of this tremendous kind the
clergy had effectually
instilled into the mind of Europe. It was not a PERHAPS it was a cer-
;

tainty. It was not a form of words repeated once a week at church ; it

was an assurance entertained on all days and in all places, without any
particle of doubt. And the effect of such a belief on life and conscience
was simply immeasurable.
" I do not
pretend that the clergy were perfect. They were very far
from perfect at the best of times, and the European nations were never
completely submissive to them. . .
They could not prevent kings from
.

quarrelling with each other. They could not hinder disputed successions,
and civil feuds, and wars, and political conspiracies. What they did was
to shelter the weak from the strong. In the eyes of the clergy the serf
and his lord stood on the common level of sinful humanity. Into their
ranks high birth was no passport. They were themselves, for the most
part, children of the people;
and the son of the artisan or peasant rose to
the mitre or the triple crown, just as nowadays the railsplitter and the
tailor become Presidents of the Republic of the West. The Church was
essentially democratic while at the same time it had the monopoly of
learning ; and all the secular power fell to it which learning, combined
with sanctity and assisted by superstition, can bestow. . . .
 ( 47 )

" You have only to look from a distance at any old-fashioned cathedral
city, and you will see in a moment the mediaeval relations between Church
and State. The is the city.
cathedral The first object you catch sight
of as the spire tapering into the sky, or the huge towers
you approach is

holding possession of the centre of the landscape majestically beautiful

imposing by mere size amidst the large forms of Nature herself. As
you go nearer, the vastness of the building impresses you more and more.
The puny dwelling-places of the citizens creep at its feet, the pinnacles
are glittering in the tints of the sunset, when down below among the
streets and lanes the twilight is darkening. And even now, when the
towns are thrice their ancient size, and the houses have stretched upwards
from two stories to five when the great chimneys are vomiting their
;

smoke among the clouds, and the temples of modern industry the work-
shops and the factories spread their long fronts before the eye, the
cathedral is still the governing form in the picture the one object which
possesses the imagination and refuses to be eclipsed. As that cathedral
was to the old town, so was the Church of the Middle Ages to the secular
institutions of the world. Its very neighbourhood was sacred and its ;

"
shadow, like the shadow of the Apostles, was a sanctuary (FROUDE's
Short Studies on Great Subjects, vol. i. 2d ed., 1867, pp. 33-37).

Speaking of one of the great Religious Orders of the Church, that of

ST. BENEDICT, a writer in the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE says:
" It is a remarkable
fact in. the history of Christianity, that in its earliest

stage the first phase of its existence its tendency was to elevate pea-
sants to the dignity of Apostles ; but in its second stage it reversed its
operations, and brought kings from their thrones to the seclusion of the
cloister humbled the great ones of the earth to the dust of penitential
humility. Up to the fourth century, Christianity was a terrible struggle
against principalities and powers then a time came when principalities
:

and powers humbled themselves at the foot of that Cross whose followers
they had so cruelly persecuted. The innumerable martyrdoms of the first
four centuries ofits career were followed by a long succession of royal
1
humiliations, for during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries,
in addition to what took place as regards other Orders, no less than ten
emperors and twenty kings resigned their crowns and became monks of the
Benedictine Order alone. Adding to these their subsequent acquisi-
. . .

tions, the Benedictines claim, up to the fourteenth century, the honour of

enrolling amongst their number twenty emperors and forty-seven kings,
twenty sons of emperors and forty-eight sons of kings. As nuns of . . .

their Order they have had no less than ten empresses andfifty-seve?i queens.
In the wake of these crowned heads follow more than one hundred prin-
cesses,da2tghters of kings and emperors. The Benedictines produced . . .

. .seven thousand Archbishops, fifteen thousand Bishops,

. fifteen . . .

thousand Abbots, four thousand Saints. They established in different

countries altogether thirty-seven thousand monasteries, which sent out
1
The reader will remember the prophecy in Isai. xlix. 23, &c.
 ( 48 )

into the worldupwards of fifteen thousand seven hundred monks, all of

whom attained distinction as authors of books or scientific inventors," &c.
(Dub. Univ. Mag., Jan. 1866).

"Western Monasticism, in its general character," says Dean MILMAX,

"
was not the barren, idly laborious, or dreamy quietude of the East. It
was industrious and productive it settled colonies, preserved arts and
;

1
letters, built
splendid edifices, fertilised deserts. If it rent from the world
the most powerful minds, having trained them by its stern discipline, it
sent them back to rule the world. It continually, as it were, renewed its

youth, and kept up a constant infusion of vigorous life, now quickening

into enthusiasm, now darkening into fanaticism and, by its perpetual
;

rivalry, stimulating the zeal or supplying the deficiencies of the secular

clergy. In successive ages it adapted itself to the state of the human
mind. At first a missionary to barbarous nations, it built abbeys, hewed

down forests, cultivated swamps, enclosed domains, retrieved or won for

which had fallen to waste or had never known culture.
civilisation tracts
With St. Dominic it turned its missionary zeal upon Christianity itself,
and spread as a preaching Order throughout Christendom with St. ;

Francis it became even more popular, and lowered itself to the very
humblest of mankind" (Hist, of Lat. Christ., vol. i., Introduct., pp. 7, 8). 2

D'lSRAELl (the elder) writes:

1 " Latin "
Christianity," says the same writer, during a period of from ten to
twelve centuries, had covered the whole of Western Europe with its still multiply-
ing churches and religious buildings. From the southern shores of Sicily to the
Hebrides and the Scandinavian kingdoms, from the doubtful borders of Christian
Spain to Hungary, Poland, Prussia, not a city was without its cathedral, sur-
rounded by its succursal churches, its monasteries, and convents, each with its
separate church or chapel. There was not a town but above the lowly houses,
almost entirely of wood, rose the churches, of stone or some other solid material,
in their superior dignity, strength, dimensions, and height ; not a village was
without its sacred edifice ; no wayside without its humbler chapel or oratory.
Not a river but in its course reflected the towers and pinnacles of many abbeys ;
not a forest but above its lofty oaks or piner appeared the long-ridged roof or the
countless turrets of the conventual church and buildings. Even now, after periods
in some countries of rude religious fanaticism, . after the total suppression or
. .

great reduction of monastic institutions, the secularisation of their wealth, and the
abandonment of their buildings to decay and ruin our awe and wonder are still
;

commanded, and seem as if they would be commanded for centuries, by the un-
shaken solidity, spaciousness, height, majesty, and noble harmony of the cathedrals
and churches throughout Western Europe. We are amazed at the imagination
displayed in every design, at the enormous human power displayed in their crea-
tion ; at the wealth which commanded, the consummate science which guided that
power ; at the profound religious zeal which devoted that power, wealth, and
science to these high purposes. ... It is impossible to follow out to their utmost
extent, or to appreciate too highly the ennobling, liberalising, humanising, Chris-
"
tianising effects of Church architecture during the Middle Ages (Book xiv.
ch. viii. pp. 268, 289, vol. ix.).
2 The
reader should consult MONTALEMBERT'S splendid work The Monks of
the West, Eng. trans., 7 vols. 8vo. Comp. the Protestant NEANDER'S Hist, of
the Church, vol. vii., Bonn's ed., pp. 322 seq. t 352 seq. t 372 seq. t 387, 388, 398,
399, 406, 407.
 ( 49 )

" It is
certainly to the solitary monks that we owe the preservation of
the precious remains of ancient literature. We
must consider their silent
mansions as having afforded the only retreats to science and literature in
ages when a universal ignorance threatened to banish from Europe every
species of learning. The labour of transcribing books, which then formed
one of the chief occupations of the monks, always continued with them,
tillthe discovery of the admirable art of printing. It is thus that all

impartial historians dispense only bare justice to the ancient monks, by

acknowledging that it is to their cares and to their labours that we owe
the valuable remains of antiquity, as well sacred as profane" (Curiosities
of Literature, 1st series, vol. ii.
p. 345 seg.).

Dr. FARRAR, Canon of Westminster, and Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the

Queen, says :

"
What was it that had preserved the best elements of Christianity in
the fourth century? The self-sacrifice of the HERMITS. What was it
which saved the principles of law, and order, and civilisation ? What
rescued the wreck of ancient literature from the universal conflagration ?
What restrained, what converted the inrushing Teutonic races ? What
kept alive the dying embers of science ? What fanned into a flame the
white ashes of art ? What reclaimed waste lands, cleared forests, drained
fens, protected miserable populations, encouraged free labour, equalised
widely separated ranks ? What was the sole witness for the cause of
charity, the sole preservative of even partial education, the sole rampart
against intolerable oppression ? What force was left which could alone
humble the haughty by the courage which is inspired by superiority to
those things which most men desire, and elevate the poor by the spectacle
of a poverty at once voluntary and powerful ? What weak and unarmed
power alone retained the strength and the determination to dash down
the mailed hand of the baron when it was uplifted against his serf, to
proclaim a truce of God between warring violences, and to make insolen
wickedness tremble by asserting the inherent supremacy of goodness over
transgression, of knowledge over ignorance, of quiet righteousness over
brute force ? You will say the Church ; you will say Christianity. Yes,
but for many a long century the. very bulwarks and ramparts of the
Church were the monasteries, and the one invincible force of the Church
lay in the self-sacrifice, the holiness, the courage of the MONKS " (Saintly
Workers, pp. 82, 83, ed. 1878).
" From the fifth to the thirteenth century,'"' says the same writer, " the
Church was engaged in elaborating the most splendid organisation which
the world has ever seen. Starting with the separation of the spiritual
from the temporal power, and the mutual independence of each in its own
sphere, Catholicismworked hand in hand with feudalism for the amelio-
ration of mankind. Under the influence of feudalism slavery became
serfdom, and aggressive was modified into defensive war.
1
Under the
1
M. GUIZOT says : "There can be no doubt that the Church struggled reso-
lutely against the great vices of the -social state, against slavery, for instance ;
D
 ( 50 )

influence of Catholicism the monasteries preserved learning and main-

tained the sense of the unity of Christendom. Under the combined influ-
ence of both grew up the lovely ideal of chivalry, moulding generous
instincts into gallant institutions, making the body vigorous and the soul
pure, and wedding the Christian virtues of humility and tenderness to the
natural graces of courtesy and strength. During this period the Church
was the one mighty 'witness for light in an age of darkness, for order in
an age of lawlessness, for personal holiness in an epoch of licentious rage.
Amid the despotism of kings and the turbulence of aristocracies, it was
an inestimable blessing that there should be a power which, by the un-
armed majesty of simple goodness, made the haughtiest and the boldest
respect the interests of justice, and tremble at the thought of temperance,
righteousness, and the judgment to come" (Farrar's Huhean Lectures
for 1870, p. 115, Lect. iii., The Victories of Christianity).
"
Once more, consider what the Church did for Education. Her ten
thousand monasteries kept alive and transmitted that torch of learning
which otherwise would have been extinguished long before. A religious
education, incomparably superior to the mere athleticism of the noble's
hall, was extended to the meanest serf who wished for it. This fact alone,
by proclaiming the dignity of the Individual, elevated the entire hopes and
destinies of the race. The humanising machinery of Schools and Uni-
versities, the civilising propaganda of missionary zeal, were they not due
to her ? And, more than this, her very existence was a living education ;

it showed that the successive ages were not sporadic and accidental
scenes, but were continuous and coherent acts in the one great drama.
In Christendom the yearnings of the past were fulfilled, the direction of
the future determined. In dim but magnificent procession, 'the giant
forms of empires on their way to ruin' had each ceded to her their
sceptres, bequeathed to her their gifts. Life became one broad rejoic-
. . .

ing river, whose tributaries, once severed, were now united, and whose
majestic stream, without one break in its continuity, flowed on, under the
common sunlight, from its Source beneath the Throne of God " (Ib. p.
1 86, Lect. v., Christianity and the Race).

Mr. LECKY observes that :

" The Catholic Church was the

very heart of Christendom, and the
all the relations of life, and
spirit that radiated from her penetrated into
coloured the institutions it did not create. ... A certain unity of type
was then manifested, which has never been restored. This ascendancy . . .

was gained by mediaeval Catholicity more completely than by any other

. . .
Lastly, she strove by all sorts of means to restrain violence and continued
warfare in society. Every one knows what was the Truce of God, and numerous
measures of a similar kind, by which the Church struggled against the employ-
ment of force, and strove to introduce more order and gentleness into society.
"
These facts are so well known that it is needless for me'to enter into details (Hist,
of Civilisat., Lect. vi.). Comp. BALMEZ, Etiropean Civilisat,, Eng. trans., p. 66
et seq.
system before or since, and the stage of civilisation that resulted from it
was one of the most important in the evolutions of society. By con-
solidating the heterogeneous and anarchical elements that succeeded the
downfall of the Roman Empire, by infusing into Christendom the concep-
tion of abond of unity that is superior to the divisions of nationhood, and
of a moral tie that is superior to force, by softening slavery into serfdom
and preparing the way for the ultimate emancipation of labour, Catholicism
laid the very foundations of modern civilisation. Herself the most
admirable of all organisations, there were formed beneath her influence a
vast network of organisations, political, municipal, and social, which
supplied a large proportion of the materials of almost every modern
structure. ... In the transition from slavery to serfdom, and in the
transition from serfdom to liberty, she was the most zealous, the most
"
unwearied, and the most efficient agent (Hist, of Rationalism, vol. ii.

PP- 36, 37, 209).

Dr. MAITLAND declares that :

u At the darkest
periods the Christian Church was the source and
spring of civilisation, the dispenser of what little comfort and security
there was in the things of this world, and the quiet scriptural asserter of
"
the rights of man (Essays on the Dark Ages, p. 393).
Regarding the charges of ignorance and corruption of morals, alleged
against the mediaeval clergy and monks, he says :

"
There were in the dark ages (as well as at other times) two sets of
persons, from whose writings it is easy to cull passages describing 'the
'

clergy as less learned and religious than they were bound to be ; and
each set tempted to detail, and perhaps to exaggerate, the vices of
ecclesiastics. First, there were those who hated the religion which the
clergy maintained, and who envied
the property, privileges, and influence
which they enjoyed, 1 and which (whatever the personal character of
some of them might be) they generally employed to check the licentious-
ness of others. Among these there have perhaps always been facetious
persons who have considered religion and its ministers as fit subjects for
their drollery, and who have delighted to represent the clergy as a vile
race of knaves and fools, characterised only by pride, sensuality, avarice,
and ambition, except where all these, and all that was better, was kept
under by idiot superstition. The second set of writers to whom I have
. . .

alluded are those who, either under pretence, or with the real object, of
producing reformation, have been vigilant to spy out, and forward to
2
publish, the vices of Churchmen. . From both these sets of writers
. .

1
The untenability or utter falsity of most of the charges made against the
Religious Houses of this country in the reign of Henry VIII. has been recently
more fully exposed by Dr. DIXON, Protestant Canon of Carlisle, in vol. i. of his
Hist, of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction.
In work many of Mr. FROUDE'S statements are refuted.
this
2
The Spanish historian BALMEZ, after admitting " that lamentable abuses had
crept in during the course of the Middle Ages, that the corruption of morals had
 ( 52 )

very strong statements may be extracted, and the testimony which they
apparently give will seem, to the young student of ecclesiastical history,
to be confirmed by the proceedings of Councils and the tenor of their
canons, as well as by a good deal of what he will find in the works of
secular historians, even supposing that he does go to the original sources.
He must, however, remember that sin, in some shape or other, is the
great staple of history and the sole object of law ; and he must expect,
from both the historian and the legislator, to hear more of one turbulent
prelate, or one set of factious or licentious monks, than of a hundred
societies or a thousand scattered clergy living in the quiet decency suited
"
to their profession (Ib. p. 33).

Mr. EDMUND FFOULKES, writes :

" As little can

be denied that the glories of the thirteenth century
it

were due to the vigorous reforms inaugurated by St. Gregory VII. and his
successors, as that the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a very
extensive declension of manners and
discipline, though by no means of
civilisation. Even on the former head, were I writing a Church history,
there would be some extenuating circumstances to be produced in behalf
1
of a period during which upwards of fifty Universities were founded in

been great, and that consequent reform was required ; " and after showing that
these abuses were to be attributed to "
the evils of the time alone," continues :

" But were the

spirit and ardent desire of reforming abuses ever wanting in the
Church ? It can be shown that they were not. I will not mention the Saints
whom she did not cease to produce during these unhappy periods history proves ;

their number and their virtues, which, so vividly contrasting with the corruption
of the age, show that the divine flames which descended on the Apostles had not
been extinguished in the bosom of the Catholic Church. This fact proves much ;

but there is another still more remarkable a fact less subject to dispute, and
which we cannot be accused of 'exaggerating a fact which is not limited to
individuals, but which is, on the contrary, the most complete expression of the
spirit by which the whole body of the Church was animated ; I mean, the constant
meeting of Councils, in which abuses were reproved and condemned, and in which
sanctity of morals and the observance of discipline were continually inculcated.
Happily this consoling fact is indisputable ; it is open to every eye and to be ;

aware of it one only needs consult a volume of ecclesiastical history on the pro-
ceedings of Councils. Simony and incontinence were the prevailing vices
. . . :

if you open the canons of Councils, you will find them everywhere anathema-

tised. ..." (See BALMEZ on European Civilisation, Protestantism and Catho-

licity Compared, 3d Eng. edit., p.

8 seq. and p. 400).
1
The German historian ALZOG says that "sixty-six Universities, of which
"
sixteen belonged to Germany, existed in Europe before the year 1517 (Universal
Church Hist., Eng. trans., ed. Gill, Dublin, 1880, vol. iii.
p. 179). The principal
of these were the Universities of Paris, Bologna, and Salerno (see the Prot.
Church historian MOSHEIM, Maclaine's edit., vol. iii. p. 28 et seq.}. complete A
list of them, with the dates of their foundation, given by ALZOG (vol. ii. p. 523
is

note}. The number in Italy was sixteen ;

in France, thirteen; in Portugal and
 ( 53 )

allparts of Europe gorgeous Cathedrals of the stamp of Orvieto, Sienna,

;

Milan, Strasbunr, Winchester (as restored by William of Wykeham),

Toledo, and Seville erected professorial chairs for the study of Hebrew
;

and Chaldee, Greek and Arabic, ordained by a General Council for Rome,
Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. No less than twenty printed
editions of the Bible were brought out in High or Low Germany alone 1
between A.D. 1460 and the age of Luther upwards of 1200 books issued ;

from the printing presses of Italy alone between A.D. 1471-80.2 For
commentators on the Bible, it could boast of Tostatus and Nicholas of
Lyra for masters of the inner life, John Tauler and Thomas a Kempis
; ;

for ideal artists, Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo. It was not behind-
hand in men and women of the saintly graces of St. Catherine of Sienna,
St. Bridget, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Vincent Ferrier, and St. John
Cantius ; of the ardent philanthropy of Bartholomew de las Casas ; of
the splendid abilities of Cardinal Ximenes, or the splendid munificence of
William of Wykeham and Wainflete " (Christendom's Divisions, vol. i.
p. 130).

HALLAM says
Regarding the Council of Trent, :

"
usual for Protestant writers to inveigh against the Tridentine
It is

Fathers. I do not assent to their decisions, which is not to the pur-

pose ; . . but I must presume to say, that reading their proceedings in

.

the pages of that very able and not very lenient historian to whom we
have generally recourse, an adversary as decided as any that could have
come from the Reformed Churches, 3 I find proofs of much ability, con-
sidering the embarrassments with which they had to struggle, and of an
honest desire of reformation a large body as to those matters which
among
in their be reformed" (Hist, of Literal, of Europe,
judgment ought to
" No
part i. ch. vi. sect. 25 note vol. i. p. 376, ed. 1860). And again
;
:

General Council ever contained so many persons of eminent learning and

ability as that of Trent nor is there ground for believing that any other
;

ever investigated the questions before it with so much patience, acuteness.

Spain, eleven; in England, two; in Scotland, three; in Burgundy, one; in

Brabant, one ; in Germany, sixteen ; in Bohemia, one ; in Poland, one ; in Den-
mark, one ; in Sweden, one ; in Hungary, three ; in Ireland, one.
1
See ALZOG, vol. iii. p. 142 (he is speaking of Bibles in the German lan-
guage).
"
2
HALLAM The books printed in Italy during these ten years amount,
says :

according which 234 are editions of ancient classical authors.

to Panzer, to 1297, of
Books without date are of course not included ; and the list must not be reckoned
complete as to others" (Hist, of Literature of Europe, part i. ch. iii. n. 44).
Sarpi's Hist, of the Council of Trent HALLAM elsewhere says
3
Of Paul :

" It became the text-book of Protestantism on the subject. . . . It appears to me

quite out of doubt . . that he was entirely hostile to the Church, in the usual
.

sense, as well as to the Court of Rome, sympathising in affection and concurring

"
generally in opinion ivith the Reformed denomination (Hist, of Literat., part iii. ch.
ii. sect. 3;
vol.
p. 398). ii.
Sarpi's errors and misrepresentations were exposed
by Cardinal PALLAVICINO in his authentic History of the Council of Trent.
 ( 54 )

temper, and desire of truth" (Ib. part ii. ch. ii. sect. 18 note; vol. ii. p.
71 note}. Regarding the labours of the Popes and of the Catholic Church
at this period for the reformation of morals, c., see also RANKE'S Hist,

of the Popes, Bohn's edit., vol. i.

pp. no, 214, 233, 249, 264, 265, c.

Comp. vol. ii.

pp. 160, 179, 182 seq.

"Ancient Christianity"
Dr. ISAAC TAYLOR, a well-known Protestant writer, says :

"No reader of Church history can require it to be proved that the

various rites and usages on account of which the Romish and Greek
Churches are usually impugned as idolatrous by Protestants, were openly
practised and were authorised by the heads of the Church in the age of
Gregory I. But when did these superstitions first make their appearance ?
It is superfluous to produce evidence of their existence and prevalence in
the times immediately preceding those of Pope Gregory. Gregory of
Tours, Leo I., Evagrius, Sozomen, Socrates, Theodoret, Isidore, Cyril of
Alexandria, and many others, forbid the supposition that they, or any of
their contemporaries, had been the authors of the opinions or the usages
now in question. The men of that period did indeed give their supersti-
tions a more distinct expression, and in various instances they amplified
particular rites ; yet only as a man clears, and plants, and beautifies an
"
inheritance on which his ancestors had toiled in like manner {Ancient
Christianity, vol. ii.
p. 173, 1842).
In p. 92 he speaks of " i. Chrysostom's personal and cordial approval
of demonolatrous [Saint and Martyr] worship. 2. The UNIVERSALITY

of these superstitions, or the fact that the Christianised people of the

fourth century practised, in these respects, whatever is now characteristic
of the Greek and Romish communions. 3. These practices were not then
1
of recent origin?
After filling about forty pages of his work with citations from Basil,
Ephraem Syrus, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Asterius, and others,
he says :

"Not a fiftieth part of what might deserve to be called the evidence

bearing upon our subject has been produced. Scarcely a writer, if there
be one, of the Nicene Church Eastern or Western woicld withhold his
contributions to the mass ; and alas ! what a volume would Aitgustine
alone furnish ! The few passages that have been cited will, I think,
. . .

be enough to satisfy every honest and intelligent reader as to the broad

fact assumed viz., that the direct invocation of Saints and Martyrs, and
an idolatrous veneration of their symbols and relics, were carried to as
cidpable an extreme in the Nicene Church as they have at any time
since
been carried in the Romish Church ; and that in whatever terms we may
choose to express our disapprobation of those superstitions as practised
1 Dr. LITTLEDALE has the assurance to affirm that "we find the
first germs
of the practice (of the Invocation of Saints) at the dose of the fourth century ;"
and he refers to St. Chrysostom as being opposed to the same (Plain Reasons y !

&c., 3d edit., p. 34).

 ( 55 )

by the latter, they cannot, with any colour of reason, be retracted when
we have to speak of the same as attaching to the former " (Ib. pp. 213, 214)-
With respect to St. Ambrose, he says "A Romanist might proceed to
:

argue Most distinctly does he recognise and authenticate Prayers for

:

the dead Prayers to the dead the merit of Penance the Supremacy of
the Bishop of Rome and that opinion of the miraculous property of the
Eucharistic elements which Protestants deny. Is it equitable, then, in

argument, to quote this Father against Romanists, when in truth his testi-

mony, taken as a whole, bears most decisively against Protestantism ?

Such a reply can by no means be rebutted (Supplement, p. 19). " In
'
1 1

almost every instance in which Protestants and Romanists are at issue,

Ambrose may properly be appealed to by the latter, and not the former"
"
(Id. p. 37). Augustine allows and recommends all that the Church of
Rome formally sanctions or, at the least, he authorises that which all
;

Protestants utterly condemn" (Ib. p. 25).

The Bible in the Church.

The Rev. E. CUTTS, D.D., in a work published by the Society

for

Promoting Christian Knowledge, says :

" There is a
good deal of popular misapprehension about the way in
which the Bible was regarded in the Middle Ages. Some people think
that it was very little read, even by the clergy whereas the fact is that ;

the sermons of the mediaeval preachers are more full of Scripture quota-
tions and allusions than any sermons in these days and the writers on ;

other subjects are so full of Scriptural allusion, that it is evident their

minds were saturated with Scriptural diction. . Another common error . .

is, that the clergy were unwilling that the laity should read
the Bible for
themselves, and carefully kept it in an unknown tongue, that the people
might not be able to read it. The truth is, that most people who could
read at all could read Latin, and would certainly prefer to read the
authorised Vulgate to any vernacular version. But it is also true that
translations into the vernacular were made. . . . We have the authority
of Sir Thomas More whole Bible was, long before
for saying that 'the

Wycliffe's days, by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into the

English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and sober-
ness well and reverently read.' .
Again, on another occasion, he says
. . :

The clergy keep no Bibles from the laity but such translations as be
'

either not yet approved for good, or such as be already reproved for
naught (bad), as Wycliffe's was. For as for old ones that were before
"
Wycliffe's days, they remain lawful, and be in some folk's hands
'

(Turn-
ing-Points of English Church History 1874, pp. 200, 201).
',

The QUARTERLY REVIEW (October 1879) sa 5 >'

:
~
"
The notion that people in the Middle Ages did not read their Bibles
is probably exploded, except among the more ignorant of controversialists.
But a glance at this volume (Dean Goulburn's Life of Bishop Herbert de
Losingd) is enough to show that the notion is not simply a mistake that
 ( 56 )

// is one of the most ludicrous and

grotesque of blunders. If having the
Bible at their finger? ends cottld have saved the Middle Age teachersfrom
abuses and false doctrine, they were certainly well equipped* They were
not merely accomplished textuaries. They had their minds as saturated
with the language and associations of the sacred text as the Puritans of
the seventeenth century." (See also MAITLAND'S Dark Ages, pp. 220, 221,
470.)

Early Printed Catholic Versions of the Bible.

I. LATIN BIBLES. The Protestant essayist on " THE DARK AGES,"
when "
refuting D'Aubigne^s absurd statement that the Bible was a rare
book, unknown in those days" when Luther " discovered " a copy of a
Latin Bible in the monastery at Erfurt, says u To
say nothing of parts
:

of the Bible, or of books whose place is uncertain, we know of, at least,

twenty different editions of the whole Latin Bible, printed in Germany
"
only before Luther was born" In addition to these Before Luther
:

was born the Bible had been printed in Rome, Naples, Florence, and
"
Placenza, and Venice alone had furnished eleven editions." No doubt,"
he adds, " we should be within the truth if we were to say that beside the
multitude of manuscript copies, not yet fallen into disuse, the press had
issued fifty different editions of the whole Latin Bible, to say nothing of
"
Psalters, New Testaments, and other parts (MAITLAND'S Essays on the
Dark Ages, p. 469).
This estimate is, however, very far within the truth. REUSS, a leading
Rationalist ofGermany, says that "no book was so frequently published
immediately after the first invention of printing as the Latin Bible, more
than one hundred editions of it being struck off before the year 1520"
(Ed. Reuss, Die Geschichte der heiligen schriften,N. T., Brunswick, 1853,
p. 458). HAIN, in his Repertorium Bibliographicuvi, printed at Tubingen,
reckons consecutively ninety-eight distinct editions before the year 1500,
independently of twelve other editions, which, together with the Latin
text, presented the Glossa Ordinaria, or the Postillas of Lyranus. From
the year 1475, when the first Venetian edition appeared, to the close of
the century, that city yielded no fewer than twenty-two complete editions
of the Latin Bible, besides some others with the notes of Lyranus. (See
Irish Ecclesiast. Record, vol. i.
p. 255.)
II. GERMANBIBLES. 1 The first German printed Bible, bearing the
arms of Frederick III., issued from the Mentz press about 1462. Another
version appeared in 1466, two copies of which are still preserved in the
1
The CHURCH TIMES of July 26, 1878, speaking of the List cf Bibles in the
Caxton Exhibition (South Kensington, 1877), published by H. Stevens, says :

" This
catalogue will be very useful for one thing, at any rate, as disproving the
popular lie about Luther's finding the Bible for the first time at Erfurt about
1507. Not only
are there very many editions of the Latin Vulgate long ante-
but there were actually nine GERMAN editions of the Bible in the
rior to that time,
Caxton Exhibition earlier than 1483, the year of Luther s birth, and at least three
more before the end of the century."
 ( 57 )

Senatorial Library at Leipsic. Other versions were published in rapid

III. ITALIAN BIBLES. Three editions of the Bible in the Italian

tongue appeared in the year 1471, one being a translation by Nicholas
Malermi, a Camaldolese monk, and the two others by writers of the
fourteenth century. No fewer than eleven complete editions of these
several versions appeared before the year 1500, and were reprinted eight
times more before the year 1567, with the express permission of the " Holy
Office" More than forty editions are reckoned before the appearance of
tne first Protestant version in Italian. An
entirely new translation was
made by Sanctes Marmoschini and was reprinted in 1546.
in 1538,
Another by Bruccioli of Venice in 1532, from which date to 1552, twelve
editions of this version appeared but though remarkable for its Tuscan
;

dialect, it was'inaccurate in many passages, and for this reason was con-
demned by the ecclesiastical authorities. The first Protestant Italian
Bible was printed at Geneva in 1562, and was little more than a reprint
of Bruccioli's version.

IV. SPANISH BIBLES. In Spain the whole Bible, which had been
translated into the vernacular tongue by Boniface Ferrier in 1405, was
printed in 1478, and reprinted in 1515, with the formal consent of the
Spanish Inquisition. In 1512, the Gospels and Epistles were translated
by Ambrosio Montesma, and this work was republished at Antwerp in
1544; at Barcelona in 1601 and 1608 ; and at Madrid in 1603 and 1615.
CARRANZA, the celebrated Archbishop of Toledo, says in the Prologue
" Before the heresies of Luther
to his Commentaries :
appeared, I do
not know Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue were anywhere
that the
forbidden. In Spain, the Bible was translated into it by order of the
Catholic sovereigns, at the time when the Moors and Jews were allowed
to live among the Christians according to their own law." He then pro-
ceeds to show why the indiscriminate circulation of the same (from which
so much evil naturally resulted) was subsequently prohibited in Spain.
(See BALMEZ On European Civilisat., ch. xxxvi., Eng. trans., p. 192.)
V. FRENCH BIBLES. A French translation of the New Testament, by
two Augustinian friars, Julian Macho and Pierre Farget, was published at
Lyons in 1478. A copy of this version is preserved in the public library
of Leipsic. The version of De Moulins appeared soon afterwards in a
1
They appeared as follows : At Mayence in 1467 ; Nuremburg, 1477, 1483,
1490, 1518; Augsburg, 1477, 1480, 1483, 1487, 1490, 1494, I57, 1518, 1524;
Strasburg, 1485. Fust's edition was printed in 1472. Seckendorf speaks of
three other distinct versions of the German Bible, printed at Wittemberg in 1470,
1483, and 1490 (Comment, in Lutheran., lib. i. sect. 51). Versions in other
<iialectsappeared at Lubeck in 1494, at Halberstadt in 1522, at Cologne
between 1470 and 1480, at Delft in 1477, at Gouda in 14/9, at Louvain in
1518. (See PANZER'S List of all the Bibles Printed in Old German. Nuremburg,
1774, and the New History of Catholic German Bibles, Nuremburg, 1784.)
 ( 53 )

quarto edition, and a new edition, carefully revised by Jean de Rely, was
published in Paris under the auspices of Charles VIII. in 1487. It passed
through fourteen other editions in Paris and Lyons alone, before the year
1546. Menaud's version was published in 1484, and that of James le
Fevre in 1512. This last, corrected by the Louvain divines, became so
popular that it passed through more than forty editions before the year
1700. Another French Catholic translation, by Nicholas de Leuse, was
printed at Antwerp in 1534. The first Protestant version was printed at
Neufchatel in 1535.

VI. OTHER VERSIONS. Amongst these may be mentioned particularly

the FLEMISH translation made by Jacobus Merland, cir. A.D. 1210, which
was printed at Cologne in 1475, and passed through seven editions before
the year 1530, and of which the Antwerp edition was republished eight
times in the space of seventeen years the Flemish translation of the
;

New Testament by Cornelius Kendrick, 1524, of which ten editions were

published at Antwerp alone within thirty years ; a BOHEMIAN version
published at Prague in 1488, at Cutra in 1498, and at Venice in 1506
and 1511 a SCLAVONIAN at Cracow; and an ETHIOPIC Bible at Rome
;

in 1548, &c.

Complete lists of the various Catholic translations of the Bible will be

found in LE LONG'S Bibliotheca Sacra, 2 vols. fol., Paris, 1723 and in ;

the Bibliotheque Curieuse of the Calvinist writer, DAVID CLEMENT, 9

vols. 4to, Gottingen, 1750. See also the first seven vols. of Panzer's
Annalcs Typographic* (Nuremburg, 1791-1803), the Dublin Review,
vol.i.,
and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol. i.
Of the celebrated " COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT" of Cardinal Ximenes
(published in 6 vols. fol., 1515), and of the early Catholic editions of the
HEBREW and GREEK Scriptures, it is unnecessary here to speak.

The English and Foreign "Reformation" Its early Effects on Chris-

tian Faith and Morals,as described by the Reformers themselves
and by later Protestant Historians,

I. ITS EFFECTS ON CHRISTIAN BELIEF.

" It is of
CALVIN, writing to Melanchthon, says great importance
:

that the divisions which subsist amongst us should not be known to

future ages ; for nothing can be more ridiculous than that we, who have
been obliged to separate from the whole world (a toto mundo disces-
sionem facere coacti sumus), should have agreed so ill among ourselves
from the very beginning of the Reformation" (Epist. 141).
"
BEZA writes to Dudith I have also been long and greatly tormented
:

by the same thoughts which you describe to me. I see our people wander
at the mercy of every wind of doctrine, and after having been raised up,

fall, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. What they
 ( 59 )

think of religion to-day you may know what they will think of it to-
;

morrow you cannot affirm. On what point of religion are the Churches
which have declared war against the Pope agreed amongst themselves ?
Examine all, from beginning to the end; you will hardly find one thing
affirmed by the one which the other does not directly cry out against as
"
impiety (In quo tandem religionis capite congruunt inter se ecclesia?,
qua? Romano Pontifici bellum indixerunt ? A capite ad calcem si per-
curras omnia, nihil propemodum reperias ab uno affirmari, quod alter
statim non impium esse clamitet. Epist ad And. Dudit., ap. BALMEZ,
European Civilisat., p. 402).

MELANCHTHON declared that "the Elbe with all its waters could not
furnish tears enough to weep over the miseries of the distracted Refor-
mation " (Epis. 202, lib. ii.). See also BOSSUET'S Hist, of the Varia-
tions of the Protestant Churches, bk. v. ch. iv., and bk. ii. ch. xliii.

HALLAM says "We ought to reckon among the principal causes of

:

this change [the decline of Protestantism and the Catholic reaction in the
latter half of the sixteenth century] those perpetual disputes, those irre-
concilable animosities, that bigotry above all, and persecuting spirit,
which were exhibited in the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches " (Hist,
of Literature of Europe, part ii. ch. ii. sect. 20 vol. ii. ed. 1860, p. ;

"
73). Thus, in the second period of the Reformation, those ominous
symptoms which had appeared in its earlier stage, disunion, virulence,
bigotry, intolerance, far from yielding to any benignant influence, grew
more inveterate and incurable " (Ib. sect. 29, p. 80).
" The
Speaking of the learned Protestant GROTIUS, he says ill-usage :

he sustained at the hands of those who boasted their independence of Papal

tyranny, the caresses of the Gallican clergy after he had fixed his residence
in Paris, the growing dissensions and virulence of the Protestants, the
choice that seemed alone to be left in their communion between fanatical
anarchy, disintegrating everything like a Church, on the one hand, and
a domination of vulgar and bigoted ecclesiastics on the other, made him
gradually less and less averse to the COMPREHENSIVE AND MAJESTIC
UNITY OF THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY, and more and more disposed to
concede some point of uncertain doctrine or some form of ambiguous
expression" (Ib. part iii. ch. ii. sect. 13 ; vol. ii.
p. 409).

For a full account of the ANGLICAN SCHISM, and of the variations in

doctrine of the " Church as by Law Established," the reader may be
referred to the Rev. W. WATERWORTH'S Orgin and Development ofAngli-
canism (Burns & Gates) and he may also advantageously consult the
;

History of the Church of England, from the Abolition of the Roman

Jurisdiction, by Dr. DixON, Protestant Canon of Carlisle.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, Dr. WALTON, the editor
of the celebrated Polyglot Bible, in six volumes folio, and afterwards
Bishop of Chester, writes "Aristarchus formerly could hardly find
:
 ( 60 )

seven wise men in Greece but amongst us [English] are hardly to be

;

found so many ignorant persons; for all are teachers, all divinely instructed.
There is no fanatic or clown, from the lowest dregs of the people, who
does not give you his own dreams for the word of God. For the bottomless
pit seems to have been set open, from whence a smoke has risen which
has obscured the heavens and the stars, and locusts are come out with
stings, a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have renewed all
the old heresies, and invented monstrous opinions of their own. These
have filled our cities, villages, camps, houses nay, our churches and ;

pulpits too, and lead the poor deluded people with them to the pit of
perdition" (Pref. ad Proleg. in Bibl. Polyglotta, ed. Cambridge, 1828).

II. ITS EFFECTS ON MORALS.

Protestant writers can gain nothing by exaggerating, as they commonly
do, the evils and corruption of morals that existed before the time of
the so-called Reformation, seeing that according to the unanimous testi-
mony of the Reformers themselves, and of all truthful historians, matters
became much worse wherever their new gospel was spread, and amongst
who embraced it.
the majority of those

LUTHER himself declared :

" The world grows worse from day to
day. Men are now much more covetous, malicious,and resentful, much
more unruly, shameless, and full of vice, than they were in the time of
"
Popery (Mundus in dies fit deterior. Sunt nunc homines magis vindictas
cupidi, magis avari, magis ab omni misericordia remoti, magis immodesti
et indisciplinati, multoque deteriores quam fuerint in Papatu. In Postill.
super Evang. Dominica prim<z Advent.}.
"
Formerly, when we were seduced by the Pope, men willingly followed
good works ; but now all their study is to get everything to themselves, by
"
exactions, pillage, theft, lying, and usury (Serm. Dom. impost Trinit.).
"
With regard to our Germany, it is evident, according to the great
light of the Gospel, that it is clean possessed by the devil. Our youths
are impudent and unruly, and will no longer submit to education the ;

oldmen are loaded with sins of avarice, usury, and many others that
may not be told" (Luth. in Gen. xxiii. 9, torn. p. 2451). i.

CALVIN says ." When so many thousand men, having thrown off the
:

Papal authority, eagerly enrolled themselves under the Gospel, how few,
think you, have repented of their vices ? Nay, what has the majority
shown to have been their desire, than that, having shaken off the yoke of
superstition, they might launch out the more freely into every
kind of
(Ut excusso superstitionum jugo, solutius in omnem
"
lasciviousness ?
lasciviam diffluerent. De Scandalis, torn. ix. p. 71, ed. Amstelod, 1667).
1 " O
WlLlBALD PiRCKHElMER, A.D. 1528 :
splendid Christianity! I

1
HALLAM says: "Munzer and Knipperdoling, with the whole brood of
Anabaptist fanatics, were the legitimate brood of Luther's early doctrine.
And
 ( 6i )

know, and it is the truth, that even unbelievers were not guilty of such
fraud and crime as these who call themselves ' Evangelicals.' For the
fact is evident to be seen, that there is now neither faith nor hope, no fear
of God, no love of one's neighbour ; but there is a rejection of mercy and
goodness, of art and of learning nor do they now think of aught save
;

the gratification of the body," &c. (Epist. to Tscherte, in Reliquien von

Albrecht Ditrer, Nuremberg, 1828, p. .168).

" "
BUCER, a prominent Reformer," also says : The greater part of
the people seem only to have embraced the gospel in order to shake off
the yoke of discipline and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c., which
lay upon them in Popery, and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lusts
and lawless appetites without control. Hence they lend a willing ear to
the doctrine that we are saved by faith alone, and not by works, having
no relish for them " (De Regno Christi, lib. c. 4). i.

"
ERASMUS wrote, after sufficient experience of the Reformation :
"-
" '
Look around on Evangelical people, and observe whether there
this
'

be less luxury, debauchery, and avarice amongst them than among those
you so hate. Show me any one whom that new gospel has changed
from a drunkard to a sober man, from a cruel to a gentle, from a greedy
to a liberal, from a malignant to an amiable, from an impure to a
chaste one. / will show you many who have become worse through
following it" (Circumspice populum ilium evangelicum et prefer ;
. . .

mihi quern istud evangelium ex commessatore sobrium, ex feroci man-

suetum, ex rapaci liberalem, ex maledico benedicum, ex impudico redid-
derit verecundum. Ego tibi multos ostendam qui facti sunt seipsis
deteriores. Epist. ad Vulturium Neocomnni).
"
Those whom I had once known to be chaste, sincere, and without
fraud, I found, after they had embraced this sect, to be licentious in their
conversation, gamblers, neglectful of prayer, passionate, vain, as spiteful
as serpents, and lost to the feelings of human nature. I speak from
"
experience (Ouos antea noveram puros, candidos, et fuci ignaros,
eosdem ubi sectae se dedissent, loqui ca?pissime de puellis, luisse
vidi,
alcam, abjecisse preces, impatientissimos omnis injurire, vanos, viperinos

even if we set these aside, it is certain that we find no testimonies to any reform of
manners in the countries that embraced it. . . . This great practical deficiency in
the Lutheran reformation is confessed by their own writers. And it is attested
by a remarkable letter of Wilibald Pirckheimer, announcing the death of Albert
Durer to a correspondent at Vienna in 1528. ... In this he takes occasion to
inveigh against the bad conduct of the Reformed party at Nuremberg, and seems
as indignant at the Lutherans as he had ever been against Popery, though without

losing his hatred for the latter. The witness he bears to the dishonest and
. . .

dissolute manners which had accompanied the introduction of Lutheranism is not

r
to be slightly regarded, considering the respectability of Pirckheimer, and his
"
known co-operation with the first reform (Hist, of Literat. of Europe, part i. ch.

iv. sect. 60 note, 6th ed.).

 (
62 )

in moribus, ac prorsus hominem exuisse. Expertus loquor. Epist. ad

Fratres Infer. Germanics, Colon., 1561).

"
The letters of Erasmus," says HALLAM, " are a perpetual commen-
tary on the mischiefs with which the Reformation, in his opinion, was
"
accompanied (Hist, of Literat. of Europe, pt. i. ch. vi. sect. 8, note ;
vol. i.
p. 361).

Mr. BARING GOULD (an Anglican) says " Even in Luther's time :

the proclamation of free justification by faith only led to grave disorders,

and frightened back into Catholicism many who wished the Reforma-
tion success. One instance alone will serve to show the results of the
doctrine of Solifidianism. In Ditmarchen, Neocorus tells us, chastity
and innocence were so remarkable, that the little principality went by the
name of the Land of Mary. In 1532 it was Lutheranised. Nine years
*
after, in 1541, the Reformer Nicholas Boje complained that fornica-
tion, adultery, and usury were practised in a way unusual even among
Jews and heathens, and had so gained the upper-hand that it was
impossible to supply any remedy by sermons.' . . .

" There is abundant evidence to show that wherever the Reformation

in Germany prevailed, the moral tone sank several degrees" (BARING
GOULD'S Germany Past and Present,
% vol. ii.
pp. 175-178, Lond.
1879).

As regards our own country, KING HENRY VIII. declared, in his last
"
speech to Parliament The Bible itself is turned into wretched
:

rhymes, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. I am sure that
charity was never so faint among ye, virtue never at a lower ebb, and
God Himself never less honoured or worse served in Christendom "
(Sxow's Annals, and COLLIER'S Ecclesiast. Hist., part ii. book iii.

p. 218).

Bishop LATIMER, in his seventh sermon before Edward VI., said :

" never saw, surely, so little discipline as is nowadays. Men will be

I

masters they will be masters and no disciples.

: Alas where is this !

discipline now in England? The people regard no discipline; they be

without all order. Where they should give place, they will not stir one inch:
... if a man say anything unto them, they regard it not. Men, the more
'
they know, the worse they be it is truly said Scientia inflat,' knowledge
:

maketh us proud, and causeth us to forget all, and set away discipline.
Siirely in Popery they had a reverence; but now we have none at all.
I

never saw the like ! What blasphemy do we daily commit what

. . . ;

" Parker
littleregard have we to Christ's blessed Passion !
(Serin, xiii.,
*
Society edit., Cambridge, 1844, P- 230).

1
In his " Sermon of the Plough," preached in 1548, Latimer says There is :

in London as much pride, covetousness, cruelty, oppression, and superstition as

ever there was in Nebo. . . . London was never so ill as it is noiu. In times fast
 BERNARD GILPIN declares that in Edward's (VI.) reign, " More blind
superstition, ignorance, and
were promulgated in England than
infidelity
ever were under the Bishop of Rome. The realm was in danger of be-
"
coming more barbarous than Scythia (Sermons on the Crymcs of the
Realm, ap. BURKE, Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty, vol. ii. p.
296).

BRADFORD says "All men may see that immorality in its foulest
:

forms, pride, dishonesty, unmercifulness, scoffing at religion and virtue,

and a desire to oppress and crush down the poor, far surpassed at this
time anything that ever before occurred in the realm" (On the Condition
of Public Morals and the People's Povertie]. And in a letter to Arch-
"
bishop Cranmer, the same author says A heavy curse seems to have
:

fallen on the people I know not what to think of it.

; Desolation over-
shadows this land of ours, that was once so prosperous and contented"
(ap. BURKE, p. 297).

STRYPE says : "About this time the nation grew infamous for the
crime of adultery. It began among the nobility and better classes, and so
spread at length among the inferior sort of people. Noblemen would
frequently put away their wives and marry others, if they liked another
woman better, or were like to obtain wealth by her. And they would
sometimes pretend their former wives to be false to them, and so be

divorced, and marry again those whom they might fancy. These . . .

adulteries and divorces increased very much yea, and marrying again
;

without any divorce at all, it became a great scandal to the realm and
to the religion professed in it. This state of morals gave much sorrow
and trouble to good men to see it, insomuch that they thought neces-
sary to move for an Act of Parliament to punish adultery with death.
This Latimer, in a sermon preached in the year 1550, signified to the
king
*
:For the love of God, take an order for marriage here in England " '

(STRYPE'S Memorials of Cranmer, vol. i. pp. 293, 294).

CAMDEN states that " sacrilegious avarice ravenously invaded Church

livings, colleges, chantries, hospitals, and places dedicated
to the poor,
as things superfluous. Ambition and emulation among the nobility, pre-
sumption and disobedience among the common people, grew so extravagant
that England seemed to be in a downrightfrenzy " ( Chronicle on Edward's
Reign, ap. BURKE, op. cit. p. 305).

men were full of pity and compassion ; but now there is no pity. In London their
brothermay lie in the streets for cold, and perish with hunger between stock and
stock. I know not what to call it. In time past, when a rich man died, they
were wont to help the poor scholars at the universities with exhibition they :

would bequeath great sums of money to the relief of the poor. In those days
they maintained Papists, and gave them livings. But now, when God's Word is
brought to light, none helpeth the scholar nor the poor "...
(ap. Dixox,
Hist, of the Church of Eng. from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction, vol. ii.
iSSi, p. 489).
 ( 64 )

Bishop BARLOW wrote in 1553 "Mark it substantially in cities and

:

towns where ye see the people the most rifest and most busy to prate of
the gospel, whether they be or be not as great usurers, deceivers of their
neighbours, blasphemous swearers, evil speakers, and given to all vices
as deeply as ever they were. This I am sure of, and dare boldly affirm,
that sith the time of this new contentious learning the dread of God is
greatly quenched, and charitable compassion sore abated" (A Dialogue on
the Lutheran Faccions, 1553).

PARKHURST "
writes to Bullinger in 1562: Religion is in the same
state among us as heretofore. .a Almost all are covetous, all love gifts.
.

There is no no liberality, no knowledge of God. Men have broken

truth,
forth to curse and to lie, and murder and steal, and commit adultery,''
c. (Zurich Letters, Parker Soc. edit., Let. xlvi.).

For copious proofs of the generally infamous character of the Protes-

tant clergy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, see Mr. BUCKLE'S article in
FRAZER'S MAGAZINE for August 1867. This writer remarks that " during
the 'whole of the sixteenth century the situation of the clergy went on
1

degenerating;''' and that "the proofs which are extant of the gross ignor-
ance of the clergy in the reign of Elizabeth are such as would stagger the
most incredulous, even if they were not confirmed
by every description of
historical testimony that has come down to us." x

Present Religious Condition of Germany and England.

Much
evidence on this subject has been accumulated by Mr. MARSHALL
in his Developments of Protestantism (Richardson, 1849), and in the last

chapter of his work on Christian Missions (2d edit., Longmans & Co.).

GERMANY. Mr. DEWAR, English chaplain at Hamburg, writes in 1844 :

"
Religious indifference has pervaded the mass of the people. It is a fact
which every traveller who has visited the shores "of Germany has remarked,
that there is no regard ordinances of religion. In Hamburg and
for the
its suburbs there are churches and two smaller churches.
five parish
The congregation attending all the services of all these never, I am told,
amount to 3000 in number, so that the remainder of the enormous popu-
lation, amounting to 150,000, pays no manner of worship to their God.
1
For the history of the " Reformation "
in this country (which Lord MACAULAY
" a mere
characterises as political job, commenced by Henry, the murderer of
his wives ; continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother ; and completed
"
by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest Essay on Hallam's Constitutional Hist ), .

the reader may be referred to the admirable Six Historical Lectures by the late
Dr. J. WATERWORTH, to vol. i. of the Clifton Tracts, and to Dr. F. G. LEES'
Church iinder Queen Elizabeth. The early vols. also of The History of tJie Eng-
lish Church from the Abolition of the Ro.man Jurisdiction, by Canon DIXON

(Protestant), and Mr. BURKE'S Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty (3 vols.
8vo), promise to exhibit the results of the latest and most exhaustive researches
into the history of that event.
 ( 65 )

. . . And Hamburg in these matters does not furnish a low standard when
compared with the rest of Germany. In Berlin, for instance, there is a
parish which contains 54,000 inhabitants, and the annual number of com-
municants is 1000 less than in the largest parish of Hamburg, while the
population is one-third larger" (German Protestantism, Oxford, 1844).

"
Mr. SAMUEL LAING, a Scotch Presbyterian, says : If the question
is reduced to what really are its terms in Germany l at present Catholi-
cism, with all its superstitions, errors, and idolatry, or to no religion at
all,that is to say, not avowed infidelity, but the most torpid apathy, indif-
ference, and neglect of all religion it may be doubted if the latter condi-

tion of a people is preferable. The Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches

in Germany and Switzerland are in reality extinct. The sense of reli-

gion, its influence on the habits, observances, and life of the people, is
"
alive only in the Roman Catholic population (Notes on the German
Catholic Church, Lond., 1845, P- I 45) Compare the same author's Notes
<

of a Traveller, ist series, chaps, ix. and xvii.

Dr. SCHWABE writes in 1870: "The ancient ties of the Protestant

Church are broken. Spirit and strength are lacking to replace them by
new ones. At no period has the Church commanded less and given less
satisfaction to man. Statistics show how far this alienation has pro-
ceeded. Of 630,000 Protestants, 11,900, viz., nearly 2 per cent., attend
church on the Sundays ; and amongst them 2225 go to the Dom, merely
for a musical treat. Religious indifference appears no less conspicuously
in the fact that ou't of 23,969 interments, 3777, or nearly 15 per cent.,

only, are attended by 'religious services" (Betrachtiingen iiber die Volk-

seele, Berlin, 1870).
The Churches provide accommodation for only 25,000 out of 800,000

1
It should be observed that infidelity in foreign countries whether Protestant
or Catholic is entirely the offspring of the English Deism of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. M. VILLEMAIN declares that the French philosophy of the

last century owed its origin to the English writers Herbert, Hobbes, Shaftes-
bury, Toland, Collins, Woolston, Bolingbroke, Hume, &c., and the same may be
said of the Rationalism and Pantheism of Germany. This is acknowledged by
Protestant writers. Thus, the QUARTERLY REVIEW (Jan. 1861, p. 288) speaks of
"our old English Deists, who were the true fathers of French Atheism and German
unbelief."
Dr. HAROLD BROWNE
says "In the latter half of the eighteenth century the
:

Deism which had been troubling England had passed through the alembic of
French scepticism, and now settled down in a shower of Rationalism on Germany.
The Rationalism ofPaulus, the Pantheism of Hegel, the historical myth of Strauss,
derive their pedigree from the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Toland,
Tindal, and other English Deists, .
through the school of Rousseau and
. .

Voltaire. ... It was this special principle [of the English Deists] which passed

through the various forms of French infidelity, German Rationalism and Pantheism,
and which has been brought back to us as the highest result of modern dis-
"
coveries in science and mental philosophy (Aids to Faith, pp. 295, 296).
E
 ( 66 )

souls in Berlin, yet they are all but empty on Sundays (Religous Thought
in Germany, reprinted from Times, 1870, p. 27).

Mr. BARING GOULD writes in 1879 "

Throughout Germany 14 out of
:

loo persons attend church on Sunday in the town of Darmstadt only

;

3.3 in a hundred in the towns of Mainz (among the Protestants), 5.1 ;

;

Giessen, 5.7 Worms, 6.3. In Darmstadt, out of 100 marriages, 34.5 per
;

cent., inOffenbach 48.6, in Worms 44, are celebrated before the registrar
alone, without religious service burial without religious service through-
;

out Germany in 29.6 out of 100 inhabitants in Darmstadt, 60 per cent." ;

(Germany, Past and Present, vol. ii. p. 164). See also the work entitled
Home Life in Germany.

ENGLAND. W. J. CONYBEARE, speaking of "the infidelity now so

generalamong the best-instructed portion of the labouring classes,"
" men who make
says : It is a melancholy fact that the our steam-
engines and railway carriages, our presses and telegraphs, the furniture
of our houses and the clothing of our persons, have now in a fearful pro-
portion renounced allfaith in Christianity. They regard the Scripture as
a forgery and religion as priestcraft, and are living without God in the
world. The revelations of the late census have shown that in England
alone there are more than five millions of persons who absent themselves
"
entirely from religious worship (CONYBEARE's Essays, Ecclesiastical
and Social, p. 99).

Canon MONEY, of Deptford, said at the Plymouth Church Congress in

5876: However the sections of the working class might differ in in-
all agreed in this
telligence, in sobriety, in honesty, they nearly they
were alienated from Christianity. Barely five per cent, attended public
worship?

The Rev. T. HUGO added, that "the masses of Lancashire and oj

London were as heathen as those of whom St. Paul drew a picture in
immortal though dreadful colours. ... He knew the mobs of London
and Lancashire well, and he gave them his word of honour as a Christian
priest, that there
was no difference between them and the people whom St.
Paul portrayed. Then, as a matter of course, they had to look at these
masses as simply heathen" (Church Times, Oct. 13, 1876).

The BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, in a sermon preached in the Chapel

Royal, St James's, laments
"that dense, and coarse, and almost brutal
ignorance, in which the toiling
masses of the people who have outgrown
the Church's are permitted to live and die, of all that touches their
grasp
salvationand explains their destiny. To hundreds of thousands of our
fellow-countrymen, Almighty God is practically
an unknown Being, except
as the substance of a hideous oath Jesus Christ, in His redeeming love
:

and human sympathy, as distant as a fixed star" (Good Words, Jan. 1880,
p. 61).
 WHITAKER'S ALMANACK gives the following LIST OF PROTESTANT
SECTS NOW EXISTING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Advent Christians. Covenanters.

Advents, The. Coventry Mission Band.
Apostolics. Danish Lutherans.
Arminian New Society. Disciples in Christ.
Baptists. Disciples of Jesus Christ.
Baptized Believers. Eastern Orthodox Greek Church.
Believers in Christ. Eclectics.

Believers in the Divine Visitation of Episcopalian Dissenters.

Joanna Southcote, Prophetess of Evangelical Free Church.
Exeter. Evangelical Mission.
Believers Meeting in the Name of the Evangelical Unionists.
Lord Jesus Christ. Followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bible Christians. Free Catholic Christian Church.
Bible Defence Association. Free Christians.
Brethren. Free Christian*Association.
Calvinists and Welsh Calvinists. Free Church (of Scotland).
Calvinistic Baptists. Free Church (Episcopal).
Catholic Apostolic Church [Irvingites]. Free Church of England.
Chapels of other Wesleyans than those Free Evangelical Christians.
enumerated. Free Grace Gospel Christians.
Christians Owning no Name but the Free Gospel and Christian Brethren.
Lord Jesus. Free Gospel Church.
Christians who object to be otherwise Free Gospellers.
designated. Free Methodists.
Christian Believers. Free Union Church.
Christian Brethren. General Baptist.
Christian Disciples. General Baptist New Connection.
Christian Eliasites. German Evangelical Community.
Christian Israelites. German Lutherans.
Christian Mission. German Roman Catholics.
Christian Teetotallers. Glassites.
Christian Temperance Men. Glory Band.
Christian Unionists. Greek Catholic.
Christadelphians. Halifax Psychological Society.
Church of England. 1 Hallelujah Band.
Church of Scotland. Hope Mission.
Church of Christ. Humanitarians.
Church of the People. Independents.
Church of Progress. Independent Methodists.
Congregational Temperance Free Independent Religious Reformers.
Church. Independent Unionists.
Countess of Huntingdon's Connection. Inghamites.

1
Lord MACAULAY well observed that the religion of the Church of England
itself "is in fact a bundle of religious systems without number, . a hundred
. .

sects battling within one Church''' (Essay on Church and State).

 ( 68 )

Israelites. Refuge Methodists.

Latter-Day Saints. Reform Free Church Wesleyan Me-
Lutherans. thodists.
Methodist Reform Union. Reformed Presbyterians.
Missionaries. Revivalists.
Modern Methodists. Revival Band.
Moravians. Salem Society.
Mormons. Sandemanians.
Newcastle Sailors' Society. Scottish Episcopal Church.
New Church. Scotch Baptists.
New Connection General Baptists. Second Advent Brethren.
New Connection Wesleyans. Secularists.
New Jerusalem Church. Separatists (Protestants).
New Methodist. Seven-Day Baptists.
Old Baptists. Society of the New Church.
Open Baptists. Spiritual Church.
Order of St. Austin, The Spiritualists.
Orthodox Eastern Church. Strict Baptists.
Particular Baptists. S vvedenborgians.
Peculiar People. Temperance Methodists.
Plymouth Brethren. Testimony Congregational Church.
Polish Society. Trinitarians.
Portsmouth Mission. Union Baptists.
Presbyterian Church in England. Union Churchmen.
Presbyterian Church of England. Union Congregationalists.
Presbyterian Baptists. Union Free Church.
Primitive Congregation. Unionists.
Primitive Free Qhurch. Unitarians.
Primitive Methodists. Unitarian Baptists.
Progressionists. Unitarian Christians.
Protestant Members of the Church of United Christian Church.
England. United Free Methodist Church.
Protestants adhering to Articles I to United Brethren or Moravians.
1 8, but rejecting Ritual. United Presbyterians.
Protestant Trinitarians. Universal Christians.
Protestant Union. Unsectarian.
Providence. Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.
Quakers. Welsh Free Presbyterians.
Ranters. Welsh Wesleyan Methodists.
Rational Christians. Wesleyans.
Reformers. Wesleyan Methodist Association.
Reformed Church of England. Wesleyan Reformers.
Reformed Episcopal Church. Wesleyan Reform Glory Band.
Reformed Presbyterians or Covenanters. Working Man's Evangelistic Mission
Recreative Religionists. Chapels.