The whole is a tissue of cobwebs, which a stroke of the pen can sweep away. The Holy See is not accustomed to condemn suddenly and by the wholesale the probable opinions of grave and learned theologians, much less the doctrines of great and long-established schools. In the Problems of the Age, we have been careful to follow in the wake of theologians of established repute, and not to lay down propositions whose tenability is doubtful or suspected. It is possible that some definitions or decrees may be made hereafter which may require us to modify some of our opinions in theology or philosophy, and we shall undoubtedly submit at once to any such decisions. But there is no probability that we shall ever be called upon to change radically and essentially that system of theology which we have derived from the best and most esteemed Catholic authors. There is certainly no reason to think that the tenets distinguishing the Dominican from the Augustinian school will ever be condemned in a mass. Those which distinguish the Jesuit school from either or both of these have been through a severe ordeal of accusation and trial long ago, and have come out unscathed. The same is true of the doctrines of Cardinal Sfondrati. Suarez, St. Alphonsus, Perrone, and Archbishop Kenrick are certainly respectable authority, and a good guarantee of the orthodoxy of opinions sustained by their judgment. Perrone, whom we have followed more closely than any other author in treating of the most delicate and difficult questions, has taught and published his theology at Rome. It has passed through thirty seven editions, and is more popular as a text-book than any other. He is a consultor of the Sacred Congregations of the Council and the Index, Prefect of Studies in the Roman College, and, together with Fathers Schrader and Franzlin, eminent theologians of the same Jesuit school, a member of the Commission of Dogmatic Theology, which is preparing the points for decision in the coming Council of the Vatican. The doctrines advanced in the Problems of the Age in opposition to Calvinism, in accordance with the theological exposition of Perrone, cannot, therefore, be qualified as peculiar or curious opinions of the author, as pseudo-Catholic or Americo-Roman theories, or as liable to any theological censure of unsoundness.
Nevertheless, we have not, as the critic asserts, set forth these or other opinions indiscriminately, and in so far as they vary from the opinions of other approved Catholic authors, as being exclusively the Catholic doctrine. We have used extreme care and conscientiousness in this respect, although our critic is incapable of appreciating it, from his lack of all thorough knowledge of the controversy he has unadvisedly meddled with. We do not qualify as Catholic doctrine, in a strict sense, anything which is not de fide obligante, or admitted by the generality of theologians, without opposition from any respectable authority, as morally certain. We censure no really probable opinion as contrary to Catholic doctrine, and are disposed to allow the utmost latitude of movement to every individual mind competent to reason on theological subjects, between the opposite extremes condemned by the church. It does not follow from this, however, that our doctrine is mere hypothesis, and that we are forbidden or unable to come to any positive conclusions beyond the formal definitions of the church. The substance and essential constituents of the doctrine are certainly Catholic, and common to all schools. The Council of Trent condemned the heresies of Calvin and Luther, and the Holy See, the whole church concurring, has condemned the heresies of Jansenius and Baius. We know, also, what was the theology of the men who framed and enacted the decrees condemning those errors, or affirming the opposite truths, what was the spirit animating the church at that time, and continuing in it until the present; and we have in the episcopate, but especially in the Holy See, the living, authentic teacher and interpreter of the doctrine contained in the written decrees. There is, therefore, a solid and common basis upon which all Catholics stand, and upon which it is possible and allowable to construct theological theories or systems. Learning, logic, the intuitive power of genius, and the special gifts imparted by the Holy Spirit to certain favored men, have their full scope in carrying on this work. Through their activity, conclusions, deductions, expositions, elucidations, may be attained, which have a value varying all the way from plausible conjecture and hypothesis up through the different degrees of probability, to moral certainty. For ourselves, we have always studied to find in the most approved authors those opinions which approach as nearly as possible to moral certainty; or, in default of such, those which are admitted to be probable, and to our mind appear intrinsically more probable than their opposites. We write and speak, therefore, not with an economy, or as presenting opinions likely to captivate our readers, but with an interior conviction, in accordance with that which we believe to be really the revealed and rational truth; or else we indicate that we are speaking under a reserve of doubt and suspended judgment. As for the insinuation that we are concerned in any artful scheme for palming off a plausible pseudo-Catholicity in lieu of the Catholicity of the Pope, the Roman Church, and of the faithful people of Ireland, we repudiate it as false, groundless, and injurious. We hold unreservedly to the Pope and all his doctrinal decisions; to the genuine, thorough, uncompromising Catholicity of Rome and the universal church; to the faith for which the martyred people of Ireland have dared and suffered all. Nothing could be more opposed to that astuteness for which Catholic ecclesiastics generally obtain extensive credit, than to attempt such a foolish scheme in this country and age of the world as some persons attribute to us for the purpose of nullifying the effect of our influence and arguments upon the minds of candid inquirers after truth. For what purpose or end could we desire to propagate the Catholic religion in this country, unless we are convinced that it is the only true religion established by Jesus Christ, and necessary to the salvation of the human race? With this conviction, it would be the most supreme folly to preach any other doctrine but that genuine and sound Catholic doctrine which is sanctioned by the supreme authority in the church, and which we desire to propagate. Individuals may, no doubt, err, even with good intentions, in the attempt to discriminate between the permanent and the variable, the essential and the accidental, the universal and the local elements in Catholicity; and in the effort to adjust the relations between the doctrine and institutions of the church and new conditions of human science, or political and social order. But it is impossible for any individual or clique either to master or resist the general Catholic sentiment, and thus to cause the acceptance of any form of pseudo or neo-Catholicism as genuine Catholicity. Moreover, there is the vigilant eye and strong arm of ecclesiastical authority ready every moment to detect and restrain the aberrations of private judgment, and to condemn all opinions or schemes which cannot be tolerated without endangering either doctrine or discipline. The voice of the Holy Father is heard throughout the world, and the voice of the whole Catholic Church will reverberate to the uttermost parts of the earth from the approaching Ecumenical Council. All intelligent persons, more especially all inquisitive, shrewd, and cool-headed Americans, have the means of knowing what genuine Catholic doctrine is. Whoever should attempt to set forth a dilution of Catholicity with Grecism, Anglicanism, rationalism, or any other kind of individualism, as a lure to non-catholics, would, therefore, simply gain nothing, unless a little unenviable notoriety should seem to his vanity a gain worth purchasing by the betrayal of his trust. The people of this country want the genuine Catholicity, or nothing. They will not be deluded a second time by a counterfeit, and become followers of a man, a party, or a sect. Nor do we wish to deceive them. We desire to set before them the doctrine and law of the Catholic Church in their purity and integrity, that they may have the opportunity of embracing them for their temporal and eternal salvation. We have had this end in view in writing and publishing the Problems of the Age; and, knowing well the delicacy and difficulty of the task, we have spared no pains to study the decisions of councils and the Holy See, to compare and weigh the statements of the most approved theologians, and to make no explanations which we were not satisfied are tenable, according to the received criterion of orthodoxy. We do not desire, however, or exact that any of our statements should be taken upon trust by any one. We have written for thinking and educated persons, who have need of light upon certain dark points of Christian doctrine; who are in earnest, and willing to take the time and trouble necessary for learning the truth. Such persons, if they read only English, will find all that is requisite, in addition to the citations made in the Problems of the Age, in Möhler's Symbolism. Scholars and theologians may satisfy themselves more fully by the aid of the collection of dogmatic and doctrinal decrees contained in Denziger's Enchiridion, and of the theologies of Billuart, Perrone, and Kenrick, the first of whom is a strict Thomist, the second a Jesuit, and the third of no particular school. In the exposition of the more antique and technically Augustinian tenets, the works of Berti, Estius, Antoine, Cardinal Noris, and Cardinal Gotti can be consulted. There are many other books relating to the Jansenist controversy, in Latin, French, and English, from which the fullest information can be obtained in regard to the history of the desperate struggle which that pseudo-Augustinian heresy—so nearly allied to the more moderate Calvinism and to one form of Anglicanism—made to gain a foothold in the church, and its thorough and complete discomfiture by the learning and logic of the great Thomist and Jesuit theologians, and the authority of the Holy See.
There remains but one more point to be noticed, closely connected with the topic just now discussed, the charge of Pelagianism made by our critic against our own doctrines, and of semi-Pelagianism made by The Mercersburg Review, against the same, which the latter does not distinguish from the doctrine of the Roman Church. The learned Professor Emerson, of Andover, long since called the attention of his co-religionists to the fact that the designation of Pelagian is used in this country very much at random, and by persons who have no accurate notion of the tenets of Pelagius. Calvinism, Jansenism, and Baianism are heresies on one side of the line; Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism on the opposite. The Catholic doctrine is the truth which they all deny or pervert, exaggerate or diminish, by their false perspective. Therefore, each of them accuses the Catholic doctrine of the error opposite to its own error. This is no new thing, but was long ago complained of by St. Athanasius and St. Hilary. The Arians accused the Catholics of being Sabellians, and the Sabellians accused them of being Arians or Arianizers. We uphold both nature and grace, against Calvinists and Pelagians, therefore we are by turns accused of denying both. In the present instance, we are accused of denying or diminishing grace. The accusation is foolish, and shows a very slight knowledge of theology in those who make it. The Pelagian heresy asserts that human nature is capable of attaining the beatitude which the holy angels and saints possess with Jesus Christ in God, by its own intrinsic power, and is in the same state now as that in which Adam was originally constituted. The contrary doctrine is so clearly stated and so fully developed in the Problems of the Age, that it suffices to refer the reader to its pages. The semi-Pelagian heresy asserts that human nature is capable of the beginning of faith by its own efforts, and also of meriting grace by a merit of congruity. This heresy is unequivocally condemned by the church, and rejected by every school and every theologian. There is not a trace of it in a single line we have written.
This leads us to notice a misapprehension into which the editor of The Religious Magazine of Boston has fallen. This Unitarian periodical is one which we esteem very much, on account of its excellent and truly devout spirit; and its contributors belong to a class of liberal Christians whose tendencies inspire us with much hope. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we recognize the candid and amicable tone of the notice which it has given of that which we have written especially for those whose intellectual direction is in the line which it follows. Our Unitarian critic has, however, made the great mistake of supposing that we use an orthodox phraseology, without any ideas behind it different from those of liberal Christians or rationalists. He says, "Setting aside what we cannot help calling theological technicalities, his account of man's moral being accords almost entirely with that which our liberal Christianity would give." "Perhaps the criticism upon our author must be, that he only retains in word and form much which he has abandoned in fact." The writer of this has been so accustomed to associate certain Catholic formulas and words with Calvinistic ideas, that they seem to him to mean nothing when dissociated from them. With him, the logical alternative of Calvinism is Unitarianism; and whoever agrees with him in rejecting the former, must substantially agree with him in holding the latter, however his language may vary from that which he himself uses. The reason of this is, that he fails to apprehend the Catholic idea of the supernatural order; that is, of the elevation of the rational creature to the immediate intuition of the divine essence in the beatific vision. We fear that in the last analysis it will be found that Unitarians have lost the distinct conception of the personality of God, and retain only a vague, confused notion of him as abstract being, and therefore not an object of direct vision. Hence, they conceive of the highest contemplation and beatitude of man in the future life as a mere evolution and extension of our natural intelligence and spontaneity. Or, if they do conceive of heaven as a state in which the soul attains to a direct, personal fellowship and converse with God as a friend, a father, a supreme, intelligent, living, and loving Spirit, with whom the human spirit comes into immediate relations, like those of man with man on earth, they still believe that we are capable of attaining to this by the mere development of our natural powers, and by purely natural acts. There is, therefore, a great chasm between the Unitarian and the Catholic doctrine. The latter teaches, in the mystery of the Trinity, the only real and possible conception of personal subsistence in the divine essence, and sets forth the concrete, living, active, impersonated God, in whom is infinite, self-sufficing beatitude, without any necessity to create for the sake of completing the reason, and relations, and end of his being. This infinite beatitude consisting in the contemplation and love of his own essence which is actuated in the Trinity, presents the idea of a beatitude infinitely superior to and distinct from any felicity to which we have any natural aptitude or impulse. Its cause and object is the divine essence, directly and immediately beheld by an intellectual vision, of which our corporeal vision of material objects is but a faint shadow. The Catholic doctrine teaches that human nature must be elevated by a supernatural gratuitous grace in order to attain to this vision of God; that in Christ it is so elevated, even to a hypostatic union with the second person of the Trinity; that in Adam it was elevated to a lesser or adoptive filiation; that the angelic nature is also elevated to a similar state; and that men, under the present dispensation; are subjects of the same grace. The church teaches, moreover, that this grace is granted to men, since the fall, only through the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross; that without divine grace they cannot even begin a supernatural life; that no merely natural virtue deserves this grace; and that it is by faith, which is the gift of God; by the sacraments, and by good works done in the state of grace, in the communion of the Catholic Church, that we can alone obtain everlasting life with Christ. There is as much difference between this doctrine and any form of Unitarianism as there is between the sun and the earth; the star-studded sky and a neat, well-kept flower-garden. Catholics may differ from each other in regard to certain questions concerning the state of human nature when destitute of grace; but we are all agreed in regard to the need of grace for attaining the end we are bound to strive after, the conditions of obtaining this grace, and the obligation of complying with them, as well as in regard to the insufficiency of all media for bringing the human race even to its acme of temporal progress and felicity, except the institutions and teaching of the Catholic Church.
Heremore-Brandon;
Or, The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.
Chapter IX.
When they arrived at the Wiltshire depot, Dick and Mary were still undecided what step to take next; for neither of them favored the idea of asking at once for Dr. Heremore, feeling certain that the probabilities of his being alive would vanish the moment that such an inquiry was proposed.