fiscated. (") They are to be subjected to corporal punishment, to exile, and imprisonment. () And then, to complete the work, in case they shall remain obstinate, and not heed the warnings of the Church, they are to be dealt with as John Huss and Jerome were under a decree of the Council of Constance- that is, they shall suffer death. Let not the Protestant reader be alarmed; this is only the law of the papacy, which the infallible pope with his hierarchical auxiliaries is trying to enforce here, and which they would enforce if the world could be carried back by them into the gloom and superstition of the Middle Ages. See, however, the emphatic and plain language in which this death penalty is recorded in question and answer:

"Are heretics rightly punished with death? St. Thomas answers, Yes, because forgers of money, or other disturbers of the State, are justly punished with death; therefore also heretics, who are forgers of the faith, and experience being the witness, grievously disturb the State."(5)

It must not be supposed that the baptized heretics who are thus to be dealt with are only those who have been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. The class is much larger, and includes all baptized Protestants as well, provided the ceremony has been performed with reference to the ordinary essentials. These are not required to be rebaptized upon reception into the Roman Church; and are, therefore, proper subjects of excommunication and punishment. Since the time of St. Augustine, more than fourteen centuries ago, the doctrine on this subject has been as laid down by him, as follows: "For in all points in which they [heretics] think with us [Catholics] they are also in communion with us-are severed from us only in those points

(*) “Bona eorum temporalia sunt ipso jure confiscata.”—DENS, vol. ii., No. 56, p. 88.

(55) Denique aliis pœnis etiam corporalibus, ut exilio, carcere, etc., merito afficiuntur."-Ibid., p. 89.

(5) “An hæretici recte puniuntur morte? Respondet S. Thomas, 2, 2, quæst. 11, art. 3, in 'Corp.' affirmativè: quia falsarii pecuniæ, vel alii Rempublicam turbantes, justè morte puniuntur: ergo etiam hæretici, qui sunt falsarii fidei, et experientia teste, Rempublicam graviter perturbant."— DENS, p. 89.

JURISDICTION OVER PROTESTANTS.

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in which they dissent from us. What they have retained of the teaching of the Church, they do not lose by severance from her; hence, the power of conferring baptism may be found outside the Church. Moreover, it is Christ himself who baptizes. The grace of the Sacrament is wholly independent of the qualification of him who administers it."("")

Thus it is manifest that all Protestants who have been baptized are held to be in "communion" with the Roman Church for the purpose of punishment for the crime of heresy, and, consequently, they are now, in the papal view, under sentence of death-the executioner merely waiting for sufficient power to enforce the decree, which has stood unrevoked and unchanged since the Lateran Council of Innocent III. provided for the extermination of the Albigenses. Founded upon this enlarged and extraordinary jurisdiction and the subtle reasoning employed to maintain it, the law of the Church distinctly lays down the power of the pope to compel obedience from us all, from the millions of Protestant people in the United States who have vainly supposed themselves to be outside of his jurisdiction. It says: "Baptized infidels, such as heretics and apostates usually are, also baptized schismatics, may be compelled, even by corporal punishment, to return to the Catholic faith and the unity of the Church. The reason is, because these by baptism have become subject to the Church; and therefore the Church has jurisdiction over them, and the power of compelling them through appointed means to obedience, and to fulfill the obligations contracted in baptism."("")

It is easy now to understand what the pope, in his Syllabus, and Archbishop Manning, in his pastoral, mean by the right of the Roman Church to employ force to coerce obedience to its decrees. With them the jurisdiction of the pa

($7) Alzog, p. 424.

(58) Infidelis baptizati, quales esse solent Hæretici et Apostate, item Schismatici baptizati cogi possunt, etiam pœnis corporalibus, ut revertantur ad Fidem Catholicam, et unitatem Ecclesiæ.

"Ratio est, quod isti per Baptismum subditi facti sint Ecclesiæ: adeoque Ecclesia in eos jurisdictionem habet et potestatem eos compellendi per media ordinata ad obedientiam, et ad implendas obligationes in Baptismo contractas."—DENS, vol. ii., No. 51, p. 80.

pacy is limited only by the boundaries of the world, and professing Christians of every creed are brought within the sweep of the pontifical sabre, by a system of ecclesiastical law and ethics, which, built up in ages of superstition and ignorance, they are now seeking to revive. They admit no compromise and practice no moderation. Whatsoever stands in the way of their success is visited with the pontifical wrath; and anathemas and curses, in the name of God, are scattered broadcast over the world, as if God did not delight to exhibit himself more in the sunshine than in the lightning and the storm. How many of the multitude of criminals upon whom the sentence of condemnation has been already pronounced are destined to pay the penalty of their disobedience, and how many shall escape, are matters concealed in the womb of the future. It is no trifling and idle thing for nations and peoples to find themselves thus plotted against. Nor is it a trifling and idle thing for the people of the United States to find such an enemy, with drilled and disciplined troops, in the very midst of their peaceful institutions. Heretofore they have not failed to meet the necessities of every crisis to which this country has been subjected, and it seems impossible that they can remain listless and indifferent with so formidable and dangerous an adversary at their very doors.

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THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE.

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CHAPTER XX.

Infallibility formerly in General Councils and the Popes conjointly.-Efforts made to prove this in England and the United States.-Books published on the Subject in both Countries.-Extracts from Several of Them.— Doctrine of French Christians on that Subject.-They deny the Infallibility of the Pope. -Proceedings in England to obtain Catholic Emancipation. The Doctrine denied both in England and Ireland. -The Pope's Infallibility a new Doctrine.-Denied in the Catechism.-Distinction between the Church and the Papacy.—Infallibility in the Church during the Early Times.-The Greeks never admitted the Infallibility of the Pope.The First Seven Councils mainly Greek.-They concede Primacy of Honor, not Jurisdiction, to the Pope.-The Council of Nice.-The First Council of Constantinople.-The Council of Ephesus.-The Council of Chalcedon. The Second Council of Constantinople. -The Third Council of Constantinople.-The Second Council of Nice.-The Fourth Council of Constantinople. Subsequent Councils held by the Latins.-The First Lateran Council.-The Second Lateran Council.-The Third Lateran Council. The Introduction of Papal Constitutions.-Adding them to Decrees of Councils.-More Effort to make Law for the Church by the Force of Precedent.-The Fourth Lateran Council.-Blindly obedient to Innocent III.-The Primacy of the Church, not of the Pope, established.— Constitutions of Heretical Princes not Binding.-Part of the Canon Law. -The First Council of Lyons. The Second Council of Lyons.-The Council of Vienne.-None of these Councils declare the Pope Infallible.

It ought not to be considered as asking too much of those who support the absolutism of the papacy, when we insist that they shall address themselves to our consciences in furnishing a solution of the problem involved in the claim of the pope's infallibility. It concerns the present age of the world too much, to let it rest upon the mere assertion that because it has been dogmatically avowed by a number of popes, therefore it is true. Such persons as have been trained in the school of submission, and accept whatsoever is told them by their superiors, may be satisfied with this; but to those who recognize no obligation of this nature, something more is due if they are expected to acquiesce in it. "No

man," said Archbishop Tillotson, "can be under an obligation to believe any thing who hath not sufficient means whereby he may be assured that such a thing is true."

Yet, when the objection is urged that this dogma places the papacy in direct antagonism to the domestic policy of the progressive nations, we are told-as if it were a complete answer that there is nothing new in this; that it is a part of the ancient faith, descending from Peter, and which has known no variation from the beginning. Thus the whole question is rested; and we are required to give our assent, or remain under the pontifical curse if we do not. (')

It has been elsewhere asserted that before the late council the infallibility of the Church was generally recognized by its lay members, especially in the United States, as lodged in the whole body of the Church, acting, according to the unvarying custom, through general councils and the popes conjointly. Even if the hierarchy thought otherwise, they studiously avoided any open declaration to that effect, leaving those to whom it was their duty to teach the whole truth in ignorance and delusion. There were even some of them who were not only guilty of this unpardonable sin of omission, but actually misled their flocks into the acceptance of a fatal error. And others, who did not go so far, silently acqui

esced in the imposture.

About twenty years ago there was published and extensively circulated in the United States a work devoted to the discussion of the question of "Church authority "the precise question involved in the dogma of papal infallibility. It was written by a former clergyman of the English Church, who had gone over to the Roman, as an explanation of his reasons for so doing. Starting out by defining the word ec clesia to mean any combination of men, he insists that in that sense the Church was established by Christ with the office of deciding what is human and what divine, and of interpret

(') The whole substance of Archbishop Manning's reply to Mr. Gladstone is centred in his second and third propositions, set forth in his letter to the editor of the New York Herald, to wit, "that the Vatican Council announced no new dogma, but simply declared an old truth," and that the civil allegiance of Roman Catholics, " since the council, is precisely what it was before."-New York Tablet, December 21st, 1874, p. 405.

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