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Value of Concordats for us.

resented simply as an insult to the English sovereign, and the tumult was allayed by an unscrupulous politician, who promised to the people of England that the dignity of the Crown should be maintained in a way which he knew to be nugatory, and attempted to turn their indignation upon those who believe as myself. During the solemn farce of the debate on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, one could only look on with amazement, how intelligent men could maintain with so much earnestness an enactment, of which they must have known, from past experience, that at the moment it became part of the English law, it would also become a dead letter. It reminded one of Cicero's expression of wonder, how Augurs could look with a grave face at one another. But the more unreasonable and unreasoning the tumult was, the more it illustrated the strength of the underlying feeling, and the value of Concordats for our insular people, whenever other matters should be so arranged that there would be any scope for them.

But the graver and deeper question relates, not to "concessions" at all, but to explanations.

2) Yet "explanations," such as I stated that,

power vested in the Crown of England" being "shared with the Wesleyan Conference," since the Crown has no more authority over the Wesleyans than it has over English Roman Catholics. In the case of either, the civil courts would, if appealed to, adjudge as to any question of property, and unless appealed to by one who held himself aggrieved, the civil magistrate would equally interfere with neither.

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"Explanations" are not "concessions."

13

judging from eminent writers in the Roman Communion, I believe that you could give and we could receive, are not "concessions." To ask for "explanations" as to the meaning of terms, e. g. (as I have instanced), what is the meaning of the word substantia panis" in the Holy Eucharist; or to inquire whether this or that is involved in the terms of such or such a declaration of faith; or whether such or such a belief held dear among us, as the doctrine of justification for the merits of Christ Alone, be inconsistent with any Roman doctrinethis, though the multiplicity of such explanations may be even wearisome, is not to ask for "concessions." It is only to ask that terms, used by the Council of Trent, should be cleared up to us. It is, in truth, only to ask what it is which is proposed to our belief, when we are called upon to accept that Council as the condition of re-union. This, if there was any reasonable (or, I might say, any unreasonable) doubt, the charity of the Church would, I should have thought, at no time have refused.

The far-sighted Cardinal Wiseman himself suggested this, when, on occasion of your own most eventful tract, he laid down as a first principle, "We must explain to the utmost." With his remarkable foresight, he saw for your Tract XC. an office which you did not yourself contemplate. He called it "a demonstration that such an in

3 Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury.

14

Cardinal Wiseman and Bossuet,

terpretation may be given to the most difficult of the XXXIX Articles, as will strip them of all contradiction to the Tridentine Synod." He praised "the plan" (as he thought) "which the eventful Tract No. XC. has pursued," of "bringing their [our] doctrines into accordance with ours [yours] by explanation." Cardinal Wiseman also praised Bossuet's observation, that "Providence had allowed so much Catholic truth to be retained in the Augsburg Confession; that full advantage should be taken of the circumstance; that no retractation should be demanded, but an explanation of the Confession in accordance with Catholic doctrine." But "explanation" is almost necessarily mutual. For to say, that formularies, if explained to mean this or that, do not contravene the Tridentine Synod, is virtually to say, that the meaning thus accepted, is an adequate meaning of the terms of this Synod.

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Bossuet states (as he has been quoted), that Nothing will ever be done, either by the Roman Pontiff or by any Catholic whatever, by which the Tridentine decrees of faith can be shaken." But he immediately subjoins," There remains one way, that all things should be composed in the way of declaration." I may then, at least in the outline of what I have ventured to suggest, shelter myself under the shadow of that great name.

on value of explanations.

15

What he states to be impossible, I have admitted to be so. I have suggested only what Bossuet states to be "one way" which "remains,"-" declaration," viz. of the meaning of the Roman Church.

He sums up his acknowledgment about the Lutheran Confession, "It will be most convenient that scarcely any new decrees need be framed, but that, by that way of exposition and declaration, fit and consistent interpretations should be brought, so that the defenders of the Confession of Augsburg should seem of their own mind to have come to themselves, and to have explained their own constitutions."

This explanation Bossuet did not conceive of as simply interpreting the Lutheran formulæ in a Roman sense; he admitted also of the introduction of clauses which should limit popular Roman expressions.

Thus, on the crucial question of "the Invocation of saints," the Lutheran Abbot of Lokkum asked (in part in language whose inaccuracy Bossuet pointed out) for a recognition of the principle, which many of your writers have laid down, that, even when things are asked directly of the saints, nothing more is intended than by the simple "Ora pro nobis." He wished it to be stated, that whatever be the language employed, they are not asked as though it were in their own power to grant any

6

• De Profess. Conf. Aug. P. 3. art. 4, et ult. T. xxvi. p. 90.

16 Lutheran explanation of prayers to saints

thing, but only to pray our Lord with us, that He would grant it. The Lutheran's proposition was',

"If the Roman Catholics say publicly that they have no other trust toward the saints, than that which they feel towards the living, whose intercessions they implore; that they understand all and each of the prayers directed to them, in what words or forms soever conceived, no otherwise than intercessionally, as when they say 'Saneta Maria, libera me in hora. mortis,' the meaning is, 'Holy Mary, intercede for me with thy Son, that He free me in the hour of death,'-the peril alleged by Protestants as to the Invocation of Saints will cease. If, moreover, the Romans from time to time teach their people that the Invocation of Saints is not simply enjoined, but by the force of the Council of Trent is placed at every one's choice, whether he would direct his prayers to the saint or to God Himself; that the saints ought not to be invoked rashly and needlessly on every occasion, but then, when one, fearing the wrath of God for some atrocious sin, for humility dared not to raise his eyes or direct his prayers immediately to God; that prayer directed to God is much more efficacious, than those directed to departed saints; that that prayer is the most perfect of all, which, as far as may be, abstracts itself from every creature, and cleaves more profoundly to the Divine attributes."

To avoid misunderstanding, I would say more expressly, that I do not adopt all these wishes of the Lutheran. The last expression must have

'Cogitationes privatæ de methodo reunionis Ecclesiæ Protestantium cum Ecclesia Romano-Catholica, a Theologo quodam Augustanæ Confessioni sincerè addicto, citra cujusvis præjudicium in chartam conjectæ, et, superiorum suorum consensu, privatim communicatæ cum illustrissimo ac reverendissimo DD. Jacobo Benigno, S. R. E. Meldensi Episcopo; in Bossuet, Euvres, T. xxv. p. 304.