rather than idly knock each other's brains out to please a Thiers or a Paris mob. The philosopher looks on war with horror; it is to him the eclipse of science; it is the breaking up of all those bands of social intercourse among the enlightened of all nations, which tend to the improvement of possibly even the universe. And assuredly if the few men that have wit and good feeling in the world, could be combined, and their votes taken, they would be unanimously for the cessation of this scourge of nations, this source of barbarism, this extinction of all organization in chaos and endless night.

ART. IX. Du Catholicisme du Protestantisme et de la Philosophie en France. Par Francisque Bouvet, en Réponse à M. Guizot. Paris, 1840.

THERE are few subjects on which, however deep the interest expressed in some directions, more real ignorance exists than ou the great constituents of pure Catholicism. The three great Church communions, the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant, are all, in the mass of their members, in a happy ignorance of what their constituent principles really are; the Dissenting bodies are still more palpably in error in establishing dissent as a bond of union; they, however the others may unite in the great feeling of Catholicism, until they repudiate that principle, can never approach to the description of a Christian church. In the Greek communion, though more eastern in tone than the others, intelligence and rational devotion are at an extremely low ebb. The Roman possesses far weightier material, much learning, deep devotedness, and large world-abstractiveness, which, however mistaken in its application, is a genuine Catholic principle, and as such ought to be respected. The Protestant is superior to the Roman or Greek in the rationality of her devotion, in fixing her authorities on the Bible, and not independent of the Bible; but has possibly a tendency to rationalize too far, though this is checking on her part, but still she is embarrassed in the application of her distinctive appellation, which embraces the Lutheran denier of episcopacy equally with its firm Anglican supporter. The confession of Augsburg, the noblest document of Catholic confession on earth, independent of the church's creeds, is, we regret to say, little understood by most who call themselves Protestants; and their great embodied statement in England, in the thirty-nine articles, is equally unknown to them. The writer of the present article was in conversation, some time since, with a

lady, well connected, whose minister had been preaching a series of discourses on the thirty-nine articles; and she put to him, with the greatest simplicity, the following question, "Where are the thirty-nine articles to be found?" To which, he replied, in your Prayer Book, and if you give it me I will show them to you. They were then pointed out; and the exclamation was, " How strange that I never looked in that part of the book before." Great ignorance then demonstrably prevails among the most rational body of Christians, as to the great constituent principles of Catholicism. The Dissenter, a very wide term of course, too wide to admit of description here, throwing out the Unitarians in company with the Deists, talks largely about religious liberty, but admits very little of it into practice in his own community; and wherever, as in the case of the pilgrim fathers, or the covenanters, he forms a distinct religious body, lays down principles far more stringent than any of those against which he has denounced his Maranatha. In looking at these bodies, at the first glance one should be apt to consider that Catholicism were extinct; but still three out of them retain an affinity that is hourly strengthening in resemblance to their lost parent. The Greek Church will obviously follow in the wake of the Romish, whatever direction that may take; for though the Patriarch may resist the Pope in any temporal assumptions, or interference with his spiritual authority, yet Rome, the mistress of the world no more, with scarce sufficient power to preserve her Italian states, and with the principles of the Popedom hourly weakening in the most Roman Catholic country next to Spain, having now no established church there, will grow gentler and gentler still in her Asiatic elements of power, since she is wisely contending for rule amid the European, and trusts again to establish herself at the centre of intelligence. The Greek Church is also grossly venal; all its offices are matters of sale, metropolitans, archbishops or bishops. The Patriarch of Constantinople is its head; the celibacy of the clergy is prohibited, and the priests marry before ordination. It contains a most ignorant class of ecclesiastics; they deny purgatory, and yet their liturgy seems expressly to imply that Christ endured the pains of Hades; their communion is in both kinds, similar to the Protestant. This church, that of the voluptuous Greek, the Levantine, and the Russian, boasts no adherents likely to influence highly the coming events that are now culminating in their

ascent.

The battle for the souls of the world, for the dominion ove the regions of spirits, for mastery in a strife that involves all the elements of political, mental, and spiritual power, lies in consequence between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant; the

Dissenter being hors de combat, for in his communion there can be no fixity; and the challenge has been fairly thrown down by an English prelate, and has never yet been met, to point out any Dissenting denomination that has remained unchanged in doctrine for one hundred years. The mighty principles then of Catholic verity are before us, to determine on between the two great leading religious communities. And among the first great questions to be arranged is the precise element of spiritual power.

agree

The British Church has for centuries affirmed the great principle, that ecclesiastics are subject to the crown, a principle that even Spain never conceded to Rome. There can be no harm, as far as we can see, in all these churches meeting together, and ing among them to elect an universal head. This might be arranged by a rota of elections, leaving it in Rome, Greece, or Britain; but to expect that an Italian sovereign is to lord it over other states than his own, is to anticipate an absolute impossibility. An evil fraught with such vast mischief over the past centuries, that it may be said to have been the dead weight on the progress of Christendom for ages. But this ecclesiastical primate of earth must have a power purely spiritual, and must also himself be amenable to civil obedience and to temporal rule. Here, then, is one great question disposed of, which preserves as much immunity from the secular power as is desirable, and keeps the spiritual intact. The sovereign of a land, then, must be the head of the Church in that land; he must rule her in temporalities, she him in spiritualities. As to the question of an infallible head, this is only a vast absurdity. The intelligent Romanist, when closely questioned, seems to fight off the discussion; one ascribing it to the Pope, another to a general council, some to both, all denying it on matters not spiritual, and the whole question fairly resolves into that great fundamental doctrine of every existing Church, that the true Church has in fundamentals never been wrong, that she has always possessed light enough to guide her to salvation, though in some communities in a distant, dangerous and darkened route. To this extent only can the infallibility of any Church be pleaded, and to this extent it may be fairly carried. It is evident, that the line of the glorified must be continuous throughout all ages, as well as the revelation, and it were ill for the Protestant to deny the excellency of a Gregory or a Xavier. But there is one subject connected with this question, of such vastly important results, that it is only fitting to enter upon it fully, and this is the authority of the Church. In illustration of this point we shall recount the following anecdote.

Some time since, a Protestant minister was requested to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to a sick and aged

lady, which he accordingly did, and she received the holy elements with her sister. After the sacrament was concluded, the sister of the invalid said that she was a Catholic, and she hoped she had not done wrong in receiving it in two kinds; the minister told her that she had assuredly not done wrong, for that her reception of it was in the ancient Catholic usage. He then showed her the passage in the 1st Epist. Cor. "As often as ye do eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he come." The same minister was afterwards in conversation with the Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolical depute, and narrated the anecdote. "Yes," said Dr. ——, "but you seem to forget that in that you evinced great ignorance of the MSS., the generality read or, and not xas and, in the passage, thus making it a matter of indifference whichever be administered." The Protestant replied that he was a minister with a large cure of souls, a humble parish priest, but still he had contrived to retain some ancient scholarship, and having had means of collating every MS. in the world on that passage, knew he could not be mistaken. "It matters not," was the reply, "the authority of the Church is sufficient for us." "But do you mean to say that the authority of the Church is to obtain against the authority of all the MSS.?" This was simply answered by a repetition of the authority of the Church. "Well, then, if it must be so, I take you on your own principle: St. Paul knew the practice of the Church in his day, he would not have contradicted that of the other apostles, yet St. Paul administered it in both kinds. St. Paul is a fair representation of the Church in his day, and St. Paul obviously administered the sacrament, in both kinds, to the laity." "But how weak your Church stands in the question of authority." "On the contrary, it is stronger than your own, for your Church authority is distinct from the Bible, while our Church authority is of the essence of the Bible. We claim a power for the Church on the Bible declarations of it, you claim that power simply on your own." "But the right of private judgment then is claimed by you!" "Only so far as the Bible does not enlighten us, only in things foreign to the Bible; on all in the Bible we are agreed, and also to obey what the Bible defines to be the true authority of the Church." Now, any principle like that, maintained in this anecdote by the Romanist, of a Church authority, not based on the Bible, was shown to be untenable at the Reformation. The right of private judgment is no more allowed to the Protestant than the Romanist. But the Protestant sees his Church in the Bible, and the Romanist out of the Bible. The Word reproves and informs the Protestant, but the will of the Romanist is blindly submissive to dicta on Church

authority, independent of Bible authority. Now the proof of the two dispensations is shown in their relative position to the world at large. Germany, Sweden, and England are in a greater state of worldly splendour, and of intellectual might than any countries opposed to them. The monarchy of one German state, Prussia, has gone through a severe struggle, but the ultimate triumph of the Agenda principle is safe. The feeling also throughout that country, and the wish to secure a clear apostolical succession is extremely strong. Amid all the conflicting notions of theology, this principle has been adding growth to growth. Sweden may be fairly adduced also as a nation in a high commercial prosperity, and with a nobility of strain about all her acts, that indicates the glorious untrammelled liberty transmitted by the great Gustavus. England had always her ancient British Church of the remotest antiquity, and the catholicity of that Church begins, as we have stated, to deeply influence the world.

It will be urged she is dividing, and that the Oxford Tract party is an approach to Rome. But Rome herself does not labour under this impression; nor do the Oxford Tract men themselves at all participate in this sentiment: men of high acquirements as they are, though they have credit for vastly more extensive resources than they possess, evincing a tendency to learning beyond piety, to rites beyond their object, to saints obscuring a Saviour, to substitute religiousness for Religion. Many of their practices are worthy of no graver censure than laughter, but their affected follies in acts of devotion, of which the following anecdote may serve as a specimen, deserve something graver. "A short time since the minister of a large parish in town accepted the offer of the services of a gentleman of this religious tendency to read the prayers: To his astonishment and dismay, instead of reading the prayers as usual with his face to the congregation, as directed in the Rubric, this individual turned his back on them, and no person save the minister of the church, seated at the altar, could in consequence hear the service. At the conclusion the minister of the church stated, that the congregation, he regretted to say, were not greatly benefited by the exertions of the reverend gentleman." To which the reply was, "It was very unimportant; they performed the act of worship." "I hope, sir," was the retort, "you will at least allow they did not render a reasonable service." The same Oxford Tract gentleman had on various occasions given his diocesan no small trouble; and at the

"He that readeth so standing and turning himself, as he may best be heard of all such as are present."