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by schismatics and heretics. For if these seek the truth in sincerity, they will not be repelled, but, on the contrary, drawn towards us, when they see on what foundations the unity and strength of the Catholic Church chiefly repose. But should any leave the Church in consequence of the true doctrine being defined by the Ecumenical Council, these will be few in number, and such as have already suffered shipwreck in the faith; such as are only seeking a pretext to abandon that Church by an overt act, which they plainly show they have deserted already in heart. These are they who have never shrunk from disturbing our Catholic people; and from the snares of such men the Council of the Vatican ought to protect the faithful children of the Church. For all true Catholics, taught and accustomed to render the fullest obedience both of thought and word to the Apostolic decrees of the Roman Pontiff, will receive with joyful and devoted hearts the definition of the Council of the Vatican concerning his supreme and infallible authority.

APPENDIX.

DECISIONS OF PROVINCIAL SYNODS RECENTLY HELD, SHOWING THE COMMON OPINION OF BISHOPS CONCERNING THE SUPREME AND INFALLIBLE AUTHORITY OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF IN MATTERS OF FAITH AND MORALS.

1. The Provincial Council held at Cologne in 1860, to which, in addition to his Eminence Cardinal Geissel, Archbishop of Cologne, five bishops subscribed,' expressly declares: 'He (the Roman Pontiff) is the father and teacher of all Christians, whose judgment in questions of faith is "per se" unalterable.'

2. The bishops assembled in the Provincial Council, held at Utrecht in 1865, most openly assert: We unhesitatingly hold that the judgment of the Roman Pontiff in matters which refer to faith and morals is infallible.'

3. The Provincial Council of Prague in 1860, to which his Eminence Cardinal Archbishop Frederic de Schwarzenberg and four other bishops subscribed, under the heading, 'On the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff,' decreed as follows: 'We reject, moreover, the error of those who pretend that the Church can exist anywhere without being joined in bonds of union with the Church of Rome, in which the tradition which has been handed down by the apostles has been preserved by those who are in every part.' 2

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'We know that no one who is not joined to the head can be considered as a member of the body of the Church which Christ founded on Peter and established on his authority. Let all then prefer to confess with us and with the multitude of orthodox believers spread over the whole world, the headship of the Roman Church and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff; let them, as is fitting, with us, reverence and honour with dutiful affection our Most Holy Father Pius IX., God's Providence Pope, the lawful successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ on earth, the chief teacher of faith, and pilot of the ship of Christ, to whom the most exact obedience and internal assent is due from all who wish to belong to the fold of Christ. We declare and teach, that this authority of the Roman Pontiff comes from Christ our Lord, and that consequently it is dependent upon no power or favour of men, and remains unimpaired in all times, even in the most bitter persecutions which the Church of Rome has suffered, as was the case during the imprisonment and martyrdom of blessed Peter.'

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4. The Provincial Council of Kalocza, held in 1860, declared: 'That as Peter the irrefutable teacher of the doctrines of faith, for whom the Lord Himself prayed that his faith might not fail, so his legitimate successors seated aloft on the Chair of Rome . . preserve the deposit of faith with supreme and irrefutable powers of declaring the truth. . . . Wherefore we also reject, proscribe, and forbid all the faithful of this province to read or maintain, and much more to

2 S. Irenæus, Adv. Hær. 1. 3, c. 3, n. 2.

teach, the propositions published by the Gallican clergy in 1682, which have already been censured this same year by the Archbishop of Gran, of pious memory, and by the other bishops of Hungary.'

5. The Plenary Council of Baltimore, which met in 1866 and to which 44 archbishops and bishops subscribed, says: "The living and infallible authority flourishes in that Church alone which was built by Christ upon Peter, who is the head, leader, and pastor of the whole Church, whose faith Christ promised should never fail; which ever had legitimate Pontiffs, dating their origin in unbroken line from Peter himself, being seated in his Chair, and being the inheritors and defenders of the like doctrine, dignity, office, and power. And because, where Peter is, there also is the Church, and because Peter speaks in the person of the Roman Pontiff, ever lives in his successors, passes judgment and makes known the truths of faith to those who seek them, therefore are the Divine declarations to be received in that sense in which they have been and are held by this Roman See of blessed Peter, that mother and teacher of all Churches, which has ever preserved whole and entire the teaching delivered by Christ, and which has taught it to the faithful, showing to all men the paths of salvation and the doctrine of everlasting truth.'

6. The first Provincial Council of Westminster, held in 1852, states: 'When our Blessed Lord exhorts us, saying, "Look to the rock whence you are hewn; look to Abraham your father," it is fitting that we who have received our faith, our priesthood, and the true religion, directly from the Apostolic See, should more than others be attached to it by the bonds of love and fidelity. Therefore do we maintain that foundation of truth and orthodoxy which Jesus Christ willed should be maintained unshaken; namely, the See of Peter, the teacher and mother of the whole world, the Holy Roman Church. Whatever is once defined by it, for that very reason alone we consider to be fixed and certain; when we look at its traditions, rites, pious customs, discipline, and all its Apostolic Constitutions, we follow and cherish them with all the affection of our hearts. In fine, we of set purpose publicly declare our obedience and respect for the Pope as Christ's Vicar, and we remain united to him in the closest bonds of Catholic unity.'

7. Nearly five hundred of the bishops assembled in Rome to celebrate the Centenary of the Martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, in the year 1867, had no hesitation in addressing Pius the Ninth in the following terms: 'Believing that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius, whatever has been said, confirmed, and decreed by you to preserve the deposit of faith, we also repeat, confirm, and profess, and with one mind and heart we reject all that you have judged it necessary to reprove and condemn as contrary to divine faith, to the salvation of souls, and to the good of society. For what the fathers of Florence defined in their Decree of Union is firmly and deeply impressed in our minds-that the Roman Pontiff is the Vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all Christians.'

The bishops of Italy and the Order of S. Francis sent in petitions of their own to the same effect.

14. On the 9th of February the Pontifical Commission of Postulates was summoned to decide whether this petition should be laid before the Pope. With hardly any dissent the decision was affirmative; and on the 7th of March an additional chapter was distributed to the Council, entitled: Chapter to be added to the Decree on the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff: That the Roman Pontiff, in defining matters of faith and morals, cannot err.'

Eighteen days were given to the bishops to study this schema, and to send in their amendments in writing before it would be proposed for discussion..

15. And here we will for a time leave the subject of the infallibility, and examine the first Constitution on Catholic Faith, which, as we have seen, was unanimously passed by 667 fathers of the Council in the third Public Session. Thus far we have followed the historical narrative of events. We must now shortly examine the subjectmatter of the first Constitution.

The following statement is a brief paraphrase of the first Constitution on Catholic Faith:

It begins in its preface or introduction by enumerating the evils which, since the Council of Trent, have sprung up in the world, and by infection have threatened also the Church. The first cause of all these evils the Council affirms to be the rejection of the divine, and therefore infallible, authority of the Church. The inevitable consequence of this rejection was to leave all matters of religion to be decided by the judgment of individuals; from this again has followed the multiplication of sects conflicting with each other, whereby the faith of many in Christianity has been wrecked. The Holy Scriptures were asserted three hundred years ago to be the sole fountain of Christian faith; but the Holy Scriptures are now rejected by many as myths. From this abandonment of divine authority and of revealed truth two main principles of error come: the one, Rationalism, which makes the human reason to be the test, the measure, or the source of all truth to itself; the other, Naturalism, which denies altogether the existence of a supernatural order of grace and truth. The legitimate offspring of Rationalism and of Naturalism are Pantheism, Atheism, and Materialism. These, in the order of the human mind, destroy even natural theism-that is, the belief of the existence of God and of the soul-and in the order of politics have brought in the lawless spirit of revolution, which is now undermining the foundations of human society. Such is the description given in the schema of the intellectual aberrations of the world outside the Church. But it goes on to say that many Catholics also, by contact with these errors, have lost, if not faith, at least piety and the Catholic instinct which is the legitimate antagonist of indifferentism. From which cause erroneous interpretations of the doctrines of the Church have been introduced, and the orders of nature and of grace, of human science and of divine faith, have been mixed and confounded together. The Constitution then proceeds to treat in four chapters of (1) God, the Creator of all things; (2) of revelation; (3) of faith; (4) of the relation of faith

and reason.

16. It may be asked why, in the nineteenth century of the Christian world, need an Ecumenical Council be convened to define these things? The answer is: Because these things are divine and vital truths, and because they have been denied. For three centuries these foundations of all truth have been undermined by systematic negations, which have now issued in a formal and widespread

rejection of all faith. They who ask the question can have little knowledge of the intellectual history or the intellectual state of the so-called Christian world. They are not likely indeed to have much knowledge of the acts of Pius the Ninth, who, through the whole of his pontificate, has been striving to rectify the intellectual aberrations of these later days. Every age has hitherto had its heresy. It may be said that the nineteenth century has no heresy, or rather that it has all heresies, because it is the century of unbelief. The intellect of man for three hundred years has broken loose from faith, and the heresy of the day is a heresy against the order of even natural truth; it is the assertion that reason is sufficient to itself. We, as compared with the men of the sixteenth century, have this great advantage. We see the whole intellectual movement which then began fully worked out to its legitimate conclusion. They saw only the first deviation from the path, which then was hardly appreciable. The reason of man either is, or is not, sufficient to itself. If it be, then Rationalism is its perfection. If it be not sufficient to itself, then somewhat higher than reason is needed. Or, in other words, reason is either its own teacher, or it needs a teacher higher than itself. The Christian world till the sixteenth century believed that the teacher of the reason of man is God, that the teaching of God is perpetual by the world and in the world, and that the reason of man is thereby related to Him as a disciple to a guide. The movement of the sixteenth century in its last analysis is the assertion that the reason of man is the critic and the measure of all truth to itself. The Reformation in all its diversities of national and personal character-German, Swiss, French, English, Scottish-is all one in its principle. It consisted in an appeal from the living authority of the Church to the inspired Scriptures, or to the Scriptures with the written records of Christianity, tested and interpreted by reason. All particular controversies against particular Catholic doctrines or practices were no more than accessories and accidents to the main debates. The essence of Reformation consisted in the rejection of the doctrinal authority of the Church. The Reformers denied it to be divine, and therefore unerring and certain. The history of the Reformed religion in Germany abundantly proves the truth of this assertion. It has had three periods. The first was a period of dogmatic rigour. The Lutheran doctrine was imposed and believed as the word of God. Men believed the Lutheran religion as they had before believed the Catholic, less only the principle. They had believed the Catholic doctrine to be the word of God; they now believed the Lutheran to be the word of God. They had believed the voice of the Church before; they believed the voice of the Bible now. It belonged to no individual to say what is the voice of the Church. But it was left for each to say what is the voice of the Bible. But this period could not last long.

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Its own incompleteness suggested doubts. The contentions and contradictions of the Reformers shook the authority of the Reformation. Men of consecutive minds then began to give up dogma, and to withdraw into a personal piety. The second period was one of pietism, with a diminishing definiteness of Christian doctrines. But pietism, unsustained by the positive objects of faith, could have no duration in itself. It is like the seed which, having no root, withers away. It soon passed into the third period, which was Rationalism. Pietism hid its eyes from doctrines which it was tempted to doubt; but Rationalism looked them steadily in the face, and searched beyond them into the reasons, evidences, and authorities on which they rested. The search was soon over. It terminated in a book, and the book rested upon human history. Book after book of the Holy Scriptures was tried by Rationalistic criticism, and rejected until the whole Bible was banished to the realm of myths, and the Lutheran Reformation was ruined at its base. The Rationalists of to-day in Germany are the legitimate sons of the Lutherans of three hundred years ago.

17. What has happened in religion has happened also in philosophy. Three hundred years ago the intellectual system of the world was represented by the philosophy of the Christian schools. Philosophy was the intellectual prelude or avenue to the scholastic theology, and beyond all doubt this philosophy is the most solid and subtle system which the human intellect has ever elaborated by its own unaided force. The Reformation revolted against both the scholastic theology and the scholastic philosophy. Precisely the same development of doubt, ending in scepticism, pantheism, atheism, and naturalism, has been the result. The line of philosophy from Leibnitz, Wolff, Kant, to Schleiermacher, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, and Strauss, exhibits the same steady advance to the rejection of all that is above the level of reason or of nature. And yet the later German philosophy regarded itself as a theology. But it taught that reason cannot prove the existence of God—that the argument from design will yield to us, not God, but only a being great enough to make the universe. It teaches also that God is the world, and the world God; that all things are manifestations or emanations of God, and that God by a necessity creates or manifests Himself for his own justification; that He cannot reveal Himself to men by outward revelation or through the senses; that all materials of reason are derived only through the external world; that religious belief and religious feeling are one and the same; that faith is founded in the feeling of the reality of the ideal; that nothing is to be believed, nor can be required of man to believe, which is not capable of demonstration. These propositions were textually before the minds of those who elaborated the first Constitution on Catholic Faith, for these and the like aberrations in philosophy had been spreading for generations through the

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