THE DIGNITY OF THE POPE.

66

E have heard much lately of the dignity of the Pope. Our woodcut is an engraving of a picture brought from Rome by the Rev. Dr Wilson, of Bombay, who bought it in a shop there. It represents the pomp of the Roman Antichrist, with prostrate and ignorant devotees bending before him. It presents as perfect a contrast as one can well imagine to the humble fishermen of Galilee. Still it does not, and cannot give a representation of the "spiritual" pretensions of the socalled vicar of Christ, especially with a blasphemous claim to infallibility. About this our Government have lately become very anxious. It is long since Wicliff said *" A prohibition of reading the sacred Scriptures, and a vanity of secular dominion, and a lusting after worldly appearances would seem to partake too much of a disposition towards the blasphemous advancement of Antichrist, especially while the truths of a scriptural faith are reputed tares, and said to be opposed to Christian truths by certain leaders, who arrogate that we must abide by their decision respecting every article of faith, notwithstanding they themselves are clearly ignorant of the faith of the Scriptures." Mr Thomson, of Banchory, † saw the host removed from its place, at the installation of Pius VIII., that this Pope might occupy its room, and he says, "I called the attention of several who were near to the fact, and quoted to them the passage in Thessalonians." "Never," he adds, "did I expect to see so literal a fulfilment of the apostle's prediction." This, however, is not all. During the ceremonies of what is called Holy Week, the Pope enters in triumphal procession the Sistine Chapel, which is at first barred against his entrance, but is opened at the loud knocking of an attendant, while the choir chant and sing, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is the king of glory?" &c. Mr Thomson, who witnessed this dreadful exhibition of human depravity, under the name of religion, says "It is not possible for me to describe a scene so fearfully blasphemous, without a feeling of horror."

MR GLADSTONE AND THE POPE. [THE following excellent letter is worth preserving :-]

SIR

To the Editor of the "Record."

IR,-Mr Gladstone's letter to Mr Dease, M.P., supplies topics for deep anxiety, inasmuch as it not only conveys the personal feelings of the Premier, but it asserts in an unqualified manner, first, that Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope, and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions, to be legitimate matter for their notice; and, secondly, it declares that the subjects thus adverted to will continue to have their careful attention. We have thus an assertion and a pledge on behalf of the present Government, given to us on the highest authority, namely, that of the Prime Minister himself.

It becomes the nation, therefore, which placed upon the throne the present Royal House, simply and solely because it rejected the spiritual power

* Life by Dr Vaughan, p. 220.

+"Facts from Rome; or, Popery at Headquarters:" Aberdeen. 1851.

of the Pope, to inquire if such a change has been effected in that power, as a spiritual power, as to render the Crown no longer antagonistic to it, and it no longer antagonistic to the Crown? Happily the answer to these inquiries is not to be sought in old archives liable to challenge, but in documents issued within the last few months, where the spiritual power claimed for the Pope has been explained and openly asserted before Christendom and the world. There can, therefore, be no mistake in saying what that power is, and what it claims for itself (which not only seeks for but has already obtained the moral support of Her Majesty's Government), and what duties it insists upon as resulting from those claims. And first, Personal Infallibility is claimed for the Pope as God's vicegerent on earth, and the infallible interpreter of His decrees. A dignity consonant with such claims must surely be the highest position on earth. And any human power which claims an independent position must be in antagonism with such claims. So far, then, from there being any change in the rela tive positions of the Queen and the Pope, the necessary result of the admitted spiritual power of the Pope must be that the allegiance of the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty is due to the forbearance of the Pope. On what, then, is based the legitimacy of the Pope's spiritual claims to the notice and careful attention of Her Majesty's Government? Legitimacy has its base on law. What law absolves Her Majesty's Government from a protest against claims like those of the Syllabus ? Does no oath bind its members to a jealous preservation of Her Majesty's claim to the throne, founded on a direct denial of the spiritual claims of the Pope? If no oath binds them, it behoves the Protestant subjects of Her Majesty to ask what safeguard have we for the allegiance of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, if Her Majesty's Government admit the spiritual claims of the Pope to be a legitimate matter for their notice with a view to their due maintenance?

Questions like these must arise in many minds, and on the answer given to them may depend the well-being of our nation.

It is a strange phenomenon that the first response given to the Pope's claims on the part of Her Majesty's Government should be given within a few weeks of the proclamation of the dogma of the Infallibility, and that the response should be the promise of their moral support in his claim to an adequate corresponding position of dignity and independence. It is perfectly true that his power to carry out his claims depends upon his influence over human governments; but this gives strength to our fears, inasmuch as it is our Government which is concerning itself sympathetically, not with the Pope's temporal, but with his spiritual power. As to the temporal power, some reasons of State might exist for the consideration of it; but as to the spiritual power, what concern of ours can that be except to watch it lest it should influence the allegiance of any of the subjects of the Crown? For the Government to desire the maintenance in dignity of a power necessarily antagonistic to a Protestant throne, unless that throne bows to its decrees, and thereby ceases its own protest for independence, is, I think, a subject for anxious thought on the part of the country; and, when Parliament meets, will be a subject for earnest inquiry.

Meanwhile it will be well for the nation to examine more accurately into the spiritual claims of the Pope as put forward in the Syllabus sealed by

the dogma of Infallibility. And should it be found that they are inconsistent with full allegiance to a Protestant crown, I cannot doubt which the nation will choose,-allegiance to the Throne, or allegiance to the Pope. -I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, December 19, 1870.

A. KINNAIRD.

SIX LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE PROTESTANT EDUCATIONAL CLASSES OF LONDON.

By the Rev. ROBERT MAGUIRE, M.A., Vicar of Clerkenwell.

No. IV.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

Concluded from last Number.

AMONG the inconsistencies arising out of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, I must not omit to notice those very extreme and extravagant consequences which are adduced, and so strongly commented on, in Dr Pusey's Eirenicon, to one of which I have already referred in my third lecture, on the subject of Mariolatry (Bulwark, Dec. No., p. 148). The passage there quoted I repeat here, and shall then proceed, according to promise, to quote further testimonies to the same effect. Oswald, in his Dogmatique Mariologie, as quoted by Dr Pusey, states as follows:

"We maintain,” says Oswald, "a (co)presence of Mary in the Eucharist. This is a necessary inference from our Marian theory, and we shrink back from no consequence. We are much inclined to believe an essential copresence of Mary in her whole person, with body and soul, under the sacred species."*

Oswald is not singular in his views and "inferences;" for a still stronger testimony is rendered to the same effect by a distinguished Roman Catholic commentator, Cornelius à Lapide, who expresses himself in the following startling form :

"As this saying, 'Those who eat me, shall still hunger,' is literally true of Christ, whom we eat in the Eucharist, and again hunger for Him, and long again to eat Him; so can it in like way be said truly and literally of the Blessed Virgin. Wondrous is this, but true. For as often as we eat the flesh of Christ in the Eucharist, so often do we in it really eat the flesh of the Blessed Virgin. For the flesh of Christ is the flesh of the Blessed Virgin!" +

But a yet more startling and considerably more dangerous testimony, at least for English ears, is contained in an English work, written in bold and unmistakable English words, by the late Mr Faber of the Brompton Oratory, and made more plain by an illustration or example. The passage is as follows:

"There is some portion of the Precious Blood which once was Mary's own blood, and which remains still in our Blessed Lord, incredibly exalted by its union with His Divine Person, yet still the same. This portion of Himself, it is piously believed, has not been allowed to undergo the usual changes of human substance. At this moment, in heaven, He retains something which was once His Mother's, and which is, possibly, visible as such to the

*See Dr Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 169.

† Covn. à Lap. on Ecclus. xxiv. 29. See Dr Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 170.

saints and angels. He vouchsafed at Mass to show to St Ignatius the very part of the Host which had once belonged to the substance of Mary!

Is there not something exceedingly profane in these statements of Roman Catholic divines? Truly, the doctrine of Transubstantiation must be a prolific germ, thus naturally to bring forth such doctrines and statements of belief! There must surely be tens of thousands of Roman Catholics who have yet to learn to what dreadful issues their central dogma can lead them! And, indeed, these conclusions seem to be inevitable, seeing the exceedingly carnal manner in which the Council and Catechism of Trent express their definitions. And is there not something utterly revolting to a devout mind in the example adduced by Mr. Faber, in the legend of Ignatius? Such an illustration would be accepted as a fact by most of his readers, and would convey to their minds the carnal idea much more quickly than the more dogmatic statements of Oswald or Cornelius. Such views as these may well be designated as "strong delusions" (2 Thess. ii. 11).

And yet, after all, this is but the basis of a still larger superstructure; for it is on the doctrine of Transubstantiation that the sacrifice of the Mass is established. The doctrine of Transubstantiation professes to promise a present and very Christ; and the sacrifice of the Mass professes to be the offering up of that very Christ again, and oft, and daily, as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin! Thus on one grand error is another greater one erected. It is not enough that they should bring Christ down from above; but they must also subject Him to suffering and sacrifice again!

Thus, the Catechism of Trent, after insisting on the doctrine of Transsubstantiation, proceeds to enlarge upon the doctrine of the Mass, as in the following statement (Part II., c. iv., q. 74-76) :—

"We, therefore, acknowledge it to be, and it ought to be accounted, but one and the same Sacrament, which is done in the Mass, and which was offered on the Cross, even as it is one and the same Host, that is Christ our Lord, who once only offered Himself in His blood upon the Cross for the bloody and unbloody Host is not two Hosts, but one Host only; the sacrifice whereof is renewed daily in the Church, after that our Lord had commanded thus: 'Do this in commemoration of me (Q. 74).

Here is an identity of Person and of Sacrifice insisted on-the one great and all-sufficient sacrifice "of blood," accounted as a being equal to, and the same as, the oft-repeated sacrifice without blood! The sacrifice

once offered becomes a sacrifice ofttimes offered! The grand Divine original and the human copies accounted as being one and the same! The death of Christ on the cross, and the commemoration of that death, one and the self-same institution!

The Catechism of Trent proceeds to still further definition of her unscriptural positions, thus:

"And there is one and the same Priest, Christ the Lord; for the ministers that make this sacrifice, undergo in it not their own person, but the person of Christ, when they consecrate His body and blood. This is evident from the very words of the consecration; for the priest says not 'This is Christ's body,' but 'This is my body.' That is, bearing the person of Christ our

* "The Precious Blood," by Faber, pp. 29, 30. See Dr Pusey's Eirenicon,

171.