[332] Burke's "Remarks on the Policy of the Allies" (Works, v. 26, 29, 30).
[333] Œuvres, i. 593, 595, ii. 717. Bossuet, in a passage of great beauty on the love of country, does not attain to the political definition of the word: "La société humaine demande qu'on aime la terre où l'on habite ensemble, ou la regarde comme une mère et une nourrice commune.... Les hommes en effet se sentent liés par quelque chose de fort, lorsqu'ils songent, que la même terre qui les a portés et nourris étant vivants, les recevra dans son sein quand ils seront morts" ("Politique tirée de l'Ecriture Sainte," Œuvres, x. 317).
X
DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER[334]
After half a year's delay, Dr. Döllinger has redeemed his promise to publish the text of those lectures which made so profound a sensation in the Catholic world.[335] We are sorry to find that the report which fell into our hands at the time, and from which we gave the account that appeared in our May Number, was both defective and incorrect; and we should further regret that we did not follow the example of those journals which abstained from comment so long as no authentic copy was accessible, if it did not appear that, although the argument of the lecturer was lost, his meaning was not, on the whole, seriously misrepresented. Excepting for the sake of the author, who became the object, and of those who unfortunately made themselves the organs, of so much calumny, it is impossible to lament the existence of the erroneous statements which have caused the present publication. Intending at first to prefix an introduction to the text of his lectures, the Professor has been led on by the gravity of the occasion, the extent of his subject, and the abundance of materials, to compose a book of 700 pages. Written with all the author's perspicuity of style, though without his usual compression; with the exhaustless information which never fails him, but with an economy of quotation suited to the general public for whom it is designed, it betrays the circumstances of its origin. Subjects are sometimes introduced out of their proper place and order; and there are occasional repetitions, which show that he had not at starting fixed the proportions of the different parts of his work. This does not, however, affect the logical sequence of the ideas, or the accuracy of the induction. No other book contains—no other writer probably could supply—so comprehensive and so suggestive a description of the state of the Protestant religion, or so impartial an account of the causes which have brought on the crisis of the temporal power.
The Symbolik of Möhler was suggested by the beginning of that movement of revival and resuscitation amongst the Protestants, of which Döllinger now surveys the fortunes and the result. The interval of thirty years has greatly altered the position of the Catholic divines towards their antagonists. Möhler had to deal with the ideas of the Reformation, the works of the Reformers, and the teaching of the confessions; he had to answer in the nineteenth century the theology of the sixteenth. The Protestantism for which he wrote was a complete system, antagonistic to the whole of Catholic theology, and he confuted the one by comparing it with the other, dogma for dogma. But that of which Döllinger treats has lost, for the most part, those distinctive doctrines, not by the growth of unbelief, but in consequence of the very efforts which its most zealous and religious professors have made to defend and to redeem it. The contradictions and errors of the Protestant belief were formerly the subject of controversy with its Catholic opponents, but now the controversy is anticipated and prevented by the undisguised admissions of its desponding friends. It stands no longer as a system consistent, complete, satisfying the judgment and commanding the unconditional allegiance of its followers, and fortified at all points against Catholicism; but disorganised as a church, its doctrines in a state of dissolution, despaired of by its divines, strong and compact only in its hostility to Rome, but with no positive principle of unity, no ground of resistance, nothing to have faith in but the determination to reject authority. This, therefore, is the point which Döllinger takes up. Reducing the chief phenomena of religious and social decline to the one head of failing authority, he founds on the state of Protestantism the apology of the Papacy. He abandons to the Protestant theology the destruction of the Protestant Church, and leaves its divines to confute and abjure its principles in detail, and to arrive by the exhaustion of the modes of error, through a painful but honourable process, at the gates of truth; he meets their arguments simply by a chapter of ecclesiastical history, of which experience teaches them the force; and he opposes to their theories, not the discussions of controversial theology, but the character of a single institution. The opportunity he has taken to do this, the assumed coincidence between the process of dissolution among the Protestants and the process of regeneration in the Court of Rome, is the characteristic peculiarity of the book. Before we proceed to give an analysis of its contents, we will give some extracts from the Preface, which explains the purpose of the whole, and which is alone one of the most important contributions to the religious discussions of the day.
This book arose from two out of four lectures which were delivered in April this year. How I came to discuss the most difficult and complicated question of our time before a very mixed audience, and in a manner widely different from that usually adopted, I deem myself bound to explain. It was my intention, when I was first requested to lecture, only to speak of the present state of religion in general, with a comprehensive view extending over all mankind. It happened, however, that from those circles which had given the impulse to the lectures, the question was frequently put to me, how the position of the Holy See, the partly consummated, partly threatening, loss of its secular power is to be explained. What answer, I was repeatedly asked, is to be given to those out of the Church who point with triumphant scorn to the numerous Episcopal manifestoes, in which the States of the Church are declared essential and necessary to her existence although the events of the last thirty years appear with increasing distinctness to announce their downfall? I had found the hope often expressed in newspapers, books, and periodicals, that after the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes, the Church herself would not escape dissolution. At the same time, I was struck by finding in the memoirs of Chateaubriand that Cardinal Bernetti, Secretary of State to Leo XII., had said, that if he lived long, there was a chance of his beholding the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy. I had also read, in the letter of a well-informed and trustworthy correspondent from Paris, that the Archbishop of Rheims had related on his return from Rome that Pius IX. had said to him, "I am under no illusions, the temporal power must fall. Goyon will abandon me; I shall then disband my remaining troops. I shall excommunicate the king when he enters the city; and shall calmly await my death."
I thought already, in April, that I could perceive, what has become still more clear in October, that the enemies of the secular power of the Papacy are determined, united, predominant, and that there is nowhere a protecting power which possesses the will, and at the same time the means, of averting the catastrophe. I considered it therefore probable that an interruption of the temporal dominion would soon ensue—an interruption which, like others before it, would also come to an end, and would be followed by a restoration. I resolved, therefore, to take the opportunity, which the lectures gave me, to prepare the public for the coming events, which already cast their shadows upon us, and thus to prevent the scandals, the doubt, and the offence which must inevitably arise if the States of the Church should pass into other hands, although the pastorals of the Bishops had so energetically asserted that they belonged to the integrity of the Church. I meant, therefore, to say, the Church by her nature can very well exist, and did exist for seven centuries, without the territorial possessions of the Popes; afterwards this possession became necessary, and, in spite of great changes and vicissitudes, has discharged in most cases its function of serving as a foundation for the independence and freedom of the Popes. As long as the present state and arrangement of Europe endures, we can discover no other means to secure to the Holy See its freedom, and with it the confidence of all. But the knowledge and the power of God reach farther than ours, and we must not presume to set bounds to the Divine wisdom and omnipotence, or to say to it, In this way and no other! Should, nevertheless, the threatening consummation ensue, and should the Pope be robbed of his land, one of three eventualities will assuredly come to pass. Either the loss of the State is only temporary, and the territory will revert, after some intervening casualties, either whole or in part, to its legitimate sovereign; or Providence will bring about, by ways unknown to us, and combinations which we cannot divine, a state of things in which the object, namely, the independence and free action of the Holy See, will be attained without the means which have hitherto served; or else we are approaching great catastrophes in Europe, the doom of the whole edifice of the present social order,—events of which the ruin of the Roman State is only the precursor and the herald.
The reasons for which, of these three possibilities, I think the first the most probable, I have developed in this book. Concerning the second alternative, there is nothing to be said; it is an unknown, and therefore, indescribable, quantity. Only we must retain it against certain over-confident assertions which profess to know the secret things to come, and, trespassing on the divine domain, wish to subject the Future absolutely to the laws of the immediate Past. That the third possibility must also be admitted, few of those who studiously observe the signs of the time will dispute. One of the ablest historians and statesmen—Niebuhr—wrote on the 5th October 1830: "If God does not miraculously aid, a destruction is in store for us such as the Roman world underwent in the middle of the third century—destruction of prosperity, of freedom, of civilisation, and of literature." And we have proceeded much farther on the inclined plane since then. The European Powers have overturned, or have allowed to be overturned, the two pillars of their existence,—the principle of legitimacy, and the public law of nations. Those monarchs who have made themselves the slaves of the Revolution, to do its work, are the active agents in the historical drama; the others stand aside as quiet spectators, in expectation of inheriting something, like Prussia and Russia, or bestowing encouragement and assistance, like England; or as passive invalids, like Austria and the sinking empire of Turkey. But the Revolution is a permanent chronic disease, breaking out now in one place, now in another, sometimes seizing several members together. The Pentarchy is dissolved; the Holy Alliance, which, however defective or open to abuse, was one form of political order, is buried; the right of might prevails in Europe. Is it a process of renovation or a process of dissolution in which European society is plunged? I still think the former; but I must, as I have said, admit the possibility of the other alternative. If it occurs, then, when the powers of destruction have done their work, it will be the business of the Church at once to co-operate actively in the reconstruction of social order out of the ruins, both as a connecting civilising power, and as the preserver and dispenser of moral and religious tradition. And thus the Papacy, with or without territory, has its own function and its appointed mission.