I PROPOSEhere in some introductory pages to consider, first, how far and with what argumentative force these Lectures, published just forty years since, bear upon the teaching in faith and morals of the Catholic Church, against which they were more or less directed; and next what satisfactory answer can be given in explanation of the main charges in which they issue. As to incidental objections and matters of detail, they shall be dealt with in bracketed notes, in loco, at the foot of the page, as they occur.
§ 1.
I have said that these Lectures are “more or less” directed against points in Catholic teaching, and that I should consider “how far,” because it must be borne in mind that the formal purpose of the Volume was, not an attack upon that teaching, but the establishment of a doctrine of its own, the Anglican Via Media. It only indirectly comes into collision with the theology of Rome. That theology lay in the very threshold of the author’s experiment; he came across it, whether he would or no, and, while he attacked it at considerable length in its details, he adopted its main principles and many of its conclusions; and, as obliterating thereby or ignoring the very rudiments of Protestantism, he acted far more as an assailant of the religion of the Reformation than of what he called “Popery.”
“The immediate reason,” he says in his Introduction, “for discussing the subject [of the Church] is this: In the present day such incidental notice of it, as Christian teachers are led to take in the course of their pastoral instructions, is sure to be charged with what is commonly called ‘Popery:’ and for this reason—that, Romanists having ever insisted upon it, and Protestants having neglected it, to speak of it at all, though it is mentioned in the Creed, is thought to savour of Romanism. Those then who feel its importance, and yet are not Romanists, are bound on several accounts to show why they are not Romanists, and how they differ from them,” infr. p. 5.
He continues: “This happens for another reason. After all, the main subject in discussion should be, not to refute error merely, but to establish truth … [Christians] have a demand on their teachers for the meaning of the article of the Creed, which binds them to faith ‘in the Holy Catholic Church.’ … To do this effectually, we must proceed on the plan of attacking Romanism, as the most convenient method of exhibiting our own views about it. It has pre-occupied the ground, and we cannot erect our own structure without partly breaking down, partly using what we find upon it. And thus for a second reason the following Lectures, as far as their very form goes, are chiefly written against Romanism, though their main object is not controversy, but edification,” pp. 6, 7.
Nay, still further, as a matter of duty, he made it a special point in the composition of his Volume to inflict upon his own people the intellectual force, nay the truth of the Roman teaching, viewed as a whole, in spite of large and serious errors in detail, in order to open Protestant eyes to the weakness of Protestant polemics, and to persuade Protestant divines to fall back and take up a safer position, giving up what they could not hope to retain, and maintaining by sound and clear argument what they could not religiously surrender. Hence, large portions of these Lectures are expositions, nay, recommendations of principles and doctrines, recognized in the Catholic Church, and in these portions, now that I take up the Volume afresh as a Catholic, I have nothing or little to alter.
2.
Such is good part of the first Lecture, which is on the subject of Tradition, and explains and professes Catholic teaching respecting it with very few statements which require correction or addition. The doctrine treated in the second Lecture is that of the cogency of Ancient Consent or of the testimony of Antiquity; and here again what Catholics hold is accurately expounded and affirmed, though at the same time various instances are adduced to show that Catholics in practice contradict the principle which they formally profess.
The third and fourth Lectures are anti-catholic from beginning to end, and constitute the special portion of the Volume which is antagonistic to the Roman Church. These two Lectures are mainly occupied in tracing the supposed evils which come of the doctrine of Infallibility, though in a later Lecture the author seems to consider that privilege as having been intended by Divine Providence for His Church, and as actually enjoyed by her for some centuries.
The fifth, on Private Judgment, is a delineation and defence of the Via Media, for which on the whole it is little more than an apology, confessing it to be, as a doctrine, wanting in simplicity, hard to master, indeterminate in its provisions, and without a substantive existence in any age or country.