"My Dear Sir,—We expect the Bishop of Lichfield here on the 25th January, and I have ventured to hope that I might be able to induce you to come here at that time, to meet him and stay the week. I hope so the more, as I think your conversation might induce him, as well as my father, to think more seriously on that awful subject on which we conversed when I had the great happiness of being introduced to you at Northampton. I assure you, a day has not passed without my offering up my unworthy prayers to Almighty God in your behalf; and I cannot refrain from again saying, that I hope one day we shall be united in the same faith of the One Holy and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. How great is the consolation to belong to that holy Church which alone Jesus Christ has founded, which alone He has illustrated with a never-failing succession of pastors and of miracles, from which all others have separated, and out of which I find in the Holy Scriptures no covenanted promise of salvation! The Catholic Church alone has converted those nations which have been brought to the faith of Christ; and as, on the one hand, no man could at this moment be a Protestant had not Luther and the other Reformers existed, so, on the other, neither Luther nor any succeeding Protestant could derive any knowledge of Christianity but from the Catholic Church. How sublime are the promises of Christ, 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.' .... 'Going, therefore, teach ye all nations.' .... 'And lo! I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world.' Now to what Church was this promise made (a promise which involves infallibility; for it would be blasphemy to say that the God of Truth could commission a Church to teach the world, if that Church could possibly teach error)? Certainly not to Churches (sects, I should say) which separated from the parent Church fifteen hundred years after the promise was given, and therefore came into existence fifteen hundred years too late to be the Church of Christ. And to what do the sects have recourse? To groundless accusations of the Church of God, involving the charge of idolatry; but this very charge condemns them, 'ex ore tuo judico te.' for, by saying that the Church fell into idolatry, and that that justifies their separation, they admit that there was a time when the Church was not guilty of idolatry. Now how are the promises of Christ verified, if His Church could ever become idolatrous? I find in no part of Scripture any prediction that the Church of Christ should ever become idolatrous, and that then it should be lawful to separate from her. Christ said simply, 'I am with you all days,' and 'he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned.' It is in vain to urge that St. Paul speaks of the 'man of sin,' and of 'a falling away,'—he speaks not of the Church; and the very expression 'a falling away' shows that it is not the Church, but sects, to which he alludes—for the Church never fell away from any previous Church,—this is matter of history; but all the sects, all schismatics, all heretics, fell away from the Catholic Church of Christ,—this is equally matter of history. No. St. Paul, the ever-glorious apostle and doctor of the Gentiles, spoke of Arius, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Henry VIII., and all other heresiarchs, all of whom did apostatize and 'fall away,' and have by their schisms and endless divisions, and the spirit of infidelity resulting from them, paved the way for the Man of Sin, the great Antichrist, who may perhaps shortly appear, the last development of Heresy and Liberalism. But how shall sectaries take refuge in the mysterious predictions of the Apocalypse? As well might that atrocious assassin who killed Henry IV. find some excuse in the hidden words of that volume. But I might pursue the question still further. What right have sects to the Bible? Jesus Christ gave it to us, and these men have stolen our book. If they say He did not give it to us, I reply, then they ought to cease to believe that Jesus Christ ever existed, for that is no more a matter of history, nor a more certain fact, than His commission to His Church to teach all nations all truth.
"But I must conclude. I have not written all this without some fear; but, my dear Mr. Spencer, I know it is a subject which is deeply interesting to you, and, therefore, however ill I may have said it, I have said it with the less hesitation. Will you write me a line to say if you can come here? I do hope you will. My father says he had the pleasure once of meeting you at Mr. Thornton's.
"Believe me, my dear Mr. Spencer,
"Most sincerely yours,
"Ambrose Lisle Phillipps.
"Clarendon Park, Loughbro',
"Dec. 30."
The letter in which Father Ignatius signified his acceptance of this invitation is still extant, and was lent by Mr. Phillipps to the Passionists for this "Life." It is interesting, as the last vibration of the needle to the pole of Catholic truth, as well as for the idea it gives of his state of mind at that time. We give it, therefore, in full. He wrote it from Althorp, where the family were assembled, as usual, for the Christmas holidays.
"Althorp, Jan. 4, 1830.
"My Dear Sir,—I received your kind invitation to Garendon on Saturday; but I thought it best to postpone answering it for a day or two, that I might consider what I had better do. If the visit which you propose to me had been an ordinary one, I suppose I should have declined it for the present, as I believe my father and mother will be at Althorp till about the 25th January, and I seldom go out when they are here. But as you invite me in the hope, and with a desire, that good may be done by my going, I believe I should be sorry afterwards if I refused. I therefore have told my father of my intention, and, if nothing happens to prevent me, I will be with you on Monday the 25th. As to the hour of my arrival, I cannot just now tell how the coaches run between Northampton and Loughborough; but I conclude I shall be with you in good time. And now that I have determined to go, I am really thankful that another opportunity of conversing with you is given me so soon; and I trust that our intercourse will be blessed for our own good and that of others. And if the step you have taken in becoming a Roman Catholic is correct, according to the will of Christ, I have no doubt that my conversation with you will be of use in drawing me nearer to the right point. If, as I still am convinced, there is some error in your views, let us agree in hoping that our intercourse may be likewise profitable to you. I have been confirmed, by every conversation which I have had with Roman Catholics, in the persuasion that there is something materially wrong in what we may call the Protestant system; and I have spoken my mind to this effect as often as occasion has been given me. But if our union with the Roman Catholic Church involves a declaration of my belief of all that she teaches, and a submission to all her authority, as their subjects are set forth in Bossuet's Exposition and Catechism, I am not as yet one of the body; and I am reduced to the conviction that somewhere or other there is an error among you. One thing I have learnt in the course of these inquiries is that the Scriptures of the New Testament are not, as I formerly used to regard them through want of consideration, the formal canon of the Christian faith. It is as clear to me as I suppose you could wish it to be, that the oral tradition of Christ to Peter and the other Apostles, and that of the Apostles to the Churches, is the rule of Christian doctrine, and with all my heart I seek for the knowledge of what they taught, and have been frequently struck with the desirableness of a clear and definite authority to which we might refer, when I have observed the mischief into which Christians have fallen by following each his own judgment. I do not see how I should be stopped from at once becoming Catholic, under this impression, if it was not that on comparing the state of the doctrine and discipline of the Roman Church with what the Scriptures plainly teach me of the state of the Apostolic Church, and the method of their doctrine, I see such an obvious and plain difference, and I cannot be convinced but that, between their time and that of the Council of Trent, improper use has been made of the Church's authority. I am waiting to learn what is the right way, which God knows and He alone; and I can only hope for His guidance of me into the right way by standing ready for conviction when the means of it are offered to me. I declare myself to be in doubt. But that doubt gives me no uneasiness, for my hope of salvation is simply founded on Jesus Christ crucified; whom I expect to meet, as one of His redeemed ones, when He returns. It is not any works of righteousness which I can do, nor any outward profession of doctrine which I can make, that can justify me. I am justified freely by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to whom I give myself, to learn of Him and follow Him whithersoever He leadeth. You will find me as open to instruction and conviction as you seemed to think me at Mr. Foley's; and I will weigh what you say, though you should decline to meet me on the same terms, and declare yourself determined to give your mind no more to inquiry. Yet, for your own sake and the sake of others, who will of course be more disposed to attend to you if they see you candid and still humble and doubtful of your own judgment, I wish you to resolve that you will meet me as I come to you, determined that we will, with the blessing of God, come to one mind, at the cost of all our respective prejudices. We should not meet as polemics determined on victory, but in the spirit of meekness and mutual forbearance. Then God, who sees the heart, if he sees us truly thus disposed, will know how to make his truth shine clearly to us both. Above all, let us pray for each other, and for all, but especially those who most nearly belong to us, and be encouraged by the promise, 'If any two of you shall agree as touching anything that ye shall ask, on earth it shall be done for them of My Father, who is in heaven.' Pray give my respectful compliments to your father, whom I remember well meeting once at Brock Hall, and of whom I have often heard the Thorntons speak with great regard; and to carry to him my best thanks for his kind permission to you to receive me in his house. Perhaps I shall write to the Bishop of Lichfield, to tell him that I expect to meet him there. I hope nothing will prevent his coming. And if we are allowed to have freedom of conversation with him on these things, which I pray to God may be given us, I must particularly interest you to hear and consider what he says with meekness and humility, though you may have the clearest conviction that he is in error. Surely his age and rank, and the work to which he has sincerely devoted himself, and his relation to you, make this a double duty; and, by acting so, you will not be hurt, for though you may be perplexed for awhile, God will not suffer you to lose one point of what is really good, but will finally establish you the more firmly for acting in this humble spirit.
"Believe me, dear Sir,
"Yours most sincerely,
"George Spencer."
He relates, in the Account of his Conversion, the effects of this visit:—
"On Sunday, 24th January, 1830, I preached in my church, and in the evening took leave of my family for the week, intending to return on the Saturday following to my ordinary duties at home. But our Lord ordered better for me. During the week I spent on this visit I passed many hours daily in conversation with Phillipps, and was satisfied beyond all my expectations with the answers he gave to the different questions I proposed, about the principal tenets and practices of Catholics. During the week we were in company with several other Protestants, and among them some distinguished clergymen of the Church of England, who occasionally joined in our discussions. I was struck with observing how the advantage always appeared on his side in the arguments which took place between them, notwithstanding their superior age and experience; [Footnote 8] and I saw how weak was the cause in behalf of which I had hitherto been engaged; I felt ashamed of arguing any longer against what I began to see clearly could not be fairly disproved. I now openly declared myself completely shaken, and, though I determined to take no decided step until I was entirely convinced, I determined to give myself no rest till I was satisfied, and had little doubt now of what the result would be. But yet I thought not how soon God would make the truth clear to me. I was to return home, as I have said, on Saturday. Phillipps agreed to accompany me on the day previous to Leicester, where we might have further conversation with Father Caestryck, the Catholic missionary established in that place. I imagined that I might take some weeks longer for consideration, but Mr. Caestryck's conversation that afternoon overcame all my opposition. He explained to me, and made me see, that the way to come at the knowledge of the true religion is not to contend, as men are disposed to do, about each individual point, but to submit implicitly to the authority of Christ, and of those to whom He has committed the charge of His flock. He set before me the undeniable but wonderful fact of the agreement of the Catholic Church all over the world, in one faith, under one head; he showed me the assertions of Protestants, that the Catholic Church had altered her doctrines, were not supported by evidence; he pointed out the wonderful, unbroken chain of the Roman Pontiffs; he observed to me how in all ages the Church, under their guidance, had exercised an authority, undisputed by her children, of cutting off from her communion all who opposed her faith and disobeyed her discipline. I saw that her assumption of this power was consistent with Christ's commission to His Apostles to teach all men to the end of the world; and His declaration that those who would not hear the pastors of His Church rejected Him. What right, then, thought I, had Luther and his companions to set themselves against the united voice of the Church? I saw that he rebelled against the authority of God when he set himself up as an independent guide. He was bound to obey the Catholic Church—how then should I not be equally bound to return to it? And need I fear that I should be led into error by trusting to those guides to whom Christ himself thus directed me? No! I thought this impossible. Full of these impressions, I left Mr. Caestryck's house to go to my inn, whence I was to return home next morning. Phillipps accompanied me, and took this last occasion to impress on me the awful importance of the decision which I was called upon to make. At length I answered:—
[Footnote 8: Phillipps was then about 17 years of age.]
"'I am overcome. There is no doubt of the truth. One more Sunday I will preach to my congregation, and then put myself into Mr. Foley's hands, and conclude this business.'
"It may be thought with what joyful ardour he embraced this declaration, and warned me to declare my sentiments faithfully in these my last discourses. The next minute led me to the reflection,—Have I any right to stand in that pulpit, being once convinced that the Church is heretical to which it belongs? Am I safe in exposing myself to the danger which may attend one day's travelling, while I turn my back on the Church of God, which now calls me to unite myself to her for ever? I said to Phillipps: 'If this step is right for me to take next week, it is my duty to take it now. My resolution is made; to-morrow I will be received into the Church.' We lost no time in despatching a messenger to my father, to inform him of this unexpected event. As I was forming my last resolution, the thought of him came across me; will it not be said that I endanger his very life by so sudden and severe a shock? The words of our Lord rose before me, and answered all my doubts: 'He that hateth not father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and houses and lands, and his own life too, cannot be my disciple.' To the Lord, then, I trusted for the support and comfort of my dear father under the trial which, in obedience to His call, I was about to inflict upon him. I had no further anxiety to disturb me. God alone knows the peace and joy with which I laid me down that night to rest. The next day, at nine o'clock, the Church received me for her child."