However confused in his ideas of catholicity and of historical authority the Archbishop had become, the struggle he had done something to occasion and to exasperate already began to awake him to the difference between an ordinary addition to the creed and that change of base which he was moving heaven and earth to procure—
There is a difference, also, between a definition of the infallibility of the Pope and that of any other Christian doctrine. In the latter case the authority of the Church may be sufficient to overcome any doubt. In the former it is this very authority, the principle and foundation of all certainty in faith, which is in question (p. 31).
These portentous words tell where Dr. Manning had placed himself—in pupilage to a power which, having left the divine "fountain of all certainty in faith," was disputing as to what cistern, of all the cisterns it had hewn out, was the one into which the true spring overflowed. Where will the dogma be found to conquer the history made by the Archbishop's own hand when he wrote those words—history proving that after he had been for years flourishing before Anglicans his Papal Society as affording absolute certainty in faith, he himself declared her to be in the throes of a combat as to "the principle and fountain of all certainty in faith"? Where will a dogma be found to conquer the history made at the moment when his Papal Society, in accordance with his wishes, adopted an unchangeable decree, which, if true, proves that for all the time of her existence, she had not only been fallible, but had indeed failed, and that right grievously—failed as to the doctrine of her head, by withholding from him the recognition of his attributes and rights? If from the beginning the Popes were infallible, the Church, which never consented to recognize them as such till 1870, had up to that year failed in the doctrine of her head, and failed in opposition to her head. If they were not from the beginning infallible, she in 1870 failed in the doctrine of her head, and failed in conjunction with her head. The decree of 1870 fixes her in the fork, and out of it she cannot wrestle: if the decree was true she had been in a fault of faith up to that day; if it was not true, she committed that day a fault in faith.
Archbishop Manning did not fail to hold out once more a warning to the governments. For some months past the tone of the Vatican Press had been that of men who felt that they now held the internal peace of many a nation at their mercy; being able to menace almost any government with serious unrest, and some with overthrow. The habit of insinuating such threats seems to be native to the bad air which Dr. Newman truly speaks of as hanging around the foot of the Pope's rock.[169] But the following is too close a copy of those revolutionary vaticinations for the banks of the Thames—
The Catholic Church now stands alone, as in the beginning, in its divine isolation and power. "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth." There is an abyss before you, into which thrones, and rights, and laws, and liberties may sink together. You have to choose between the Revolution and the Church of God. As you choose, so will your lot be. The General Council gives to the world one more witness for the truths, laws, and sanctities which include all that is pure, noble, just, venerable upon earth. It will be an evil day for any State in Europe if it engage in conflict with the Church of God. No weapon formed against it ever yet has prospered (p. 130).
The last words might be enough to account for Cardinal Manning's dislike of history. They flatly contradict it, and it flatly contradicts them; for by the Church of God is here meant the Church of the Pope. The weapons which have most prospered from the days of the Reformation to this day are those that have been turned against the Pope. The nations that have most prospered have been those that have declared him a pretender; and in these nations the reigns that have been distinguished for prosperity have been the most decidedly Protestant. England was long ago put to the choice between the Reformation and the Church of the Pope, and happily chose the good part, and as she chose, so, ever blessed be the God of nations, has been our lot. We will repeat the choice of our fathers, and the lot of our children shall be better and better. And they will have to pity, even more than we are called to pity, those who, having rejected reformation, have placed themselves under a continual terror and a liability to a periodical outburst of revolution.
Friedrich, in the Literaturblatt (v. p. 164), replied to the attack on the historical theologians of Munich. He said that the abuses of the middle ages had crept in through the total neglect of history. On the other hand, Protestant theology had risen up and had matured as a strictly historical theology. Baronius had attempted to win this weapon back to the service of Rome, and the Munich scholars had followed in his steps. If archives and original works were to be wrested out of their hands, it meant nothing more nor less than laying down their arms in the presence of their antagonists. Friedrich would not allow the ambiguous expression "the witness of the Church" to cover anything more than her infallible utterances.
He said that the Archbishop had a false idea of the way in which a Council should proceed, because he seemed to think that the Church might speak without first using all human means to ascertain the truth. If he thought so, he was under a delusion of which a careful study of the history of the Councils might cure him. The statement of Manning, "I have already said," that the proofs of Papal infallibility outweighed those of the infallibility of the Church without the Pope, provoked the remark that as the Archbishop had adduced only his own authority, "I have already said," we might still doubt the infallibility of the proofs until he had produced his credentials as one inspired. Friedrich says that while blaming others for attempting to influence the Council, Manning himself tried to impose his authority upon it, in such a manner that it might be fancied that the Council was not to utter the words of the Holy Ghost, but those of the Archbishop of Westminster. Thus he indignantly flings back in the face of the prelate the assertion that it was an attempt to interfere with the freedom of the Council when the Theological Faculty of Munich gave an opinion to the king of the country in answer to questions put by him. The Archbishop, he protests, has no title to deprive theologians of their calling, or of their right to investigate historical evidences or to give their views, so long as the Church has not spoken.
He reminds the Archbishop that, severe as he is against those who do not go as far as himself, even he does not go far enough, for his allies now begin to require people to say, that the Church may define dogmas without having any support in the Bible and tradition, and that indeed when nothing but apocryphal documents are in favour of the definition. And, moreover, that the authority of a General Council (as distinguished from that of the Pope) is only human authority. These innovations, says the sturdy German, we abhor; and then he leaves the Englishman to the care of his Jesuit allies with these words: "If what everybody here says" (he writes in Rome) "is true, that the Archbishop, at every opportunity, declares we have only one school to fear, the historical school, I grant to him and grant to his allies that they have the light of history to fear."
With various feelings the bishops now set forth to bear witness as to the faith of their respective Churches. This was the most dignified of the professed duties of a bishop in Councils as they used to be. It had some show of a foundation so long as the rule of "apostolic" tradition was adhered to. Of course, however, that became antiquated. So "ecclesiastical" tradition was set up side by side with apostolic, as what was so called had been set up side by side with the Word of God.