must be equally legitimate against the Church of Rome; and that, therefore, he could not deny its conclusiveness.

"The moment he read it he laughed heartily but good-humouredly at me, and said the Church of Rome did claim infallibility; and expressed surprise at my minor, containing a statement so palpably incorrect, and, therefore, so easily confuted. His companion joined him in his merriment, and they both seemed to rejoice in a victory so easily and so completely gained.

"I was in no other degree affected by this, than to feel thankful that it gave me a little space to collect myself, and to express my argument with precision; I therefore calmly reminded my friends, that the Church of Rome had never, on any occasion, asserted her own infallibility; that some of her members, and some of her advocates, some of her individual divines had, without any authority from her, claimed and asserted it for her, and in her name; but that she had never, in any form whatever, either claimed or asserted it herself."—pp. 140-146.

The result was, that when the two professors were at length brought to give their proofs for the assumption that their Church asserted her own infallibility, they entirely broke down, and the honours of the day remained with their opponent.

Now, we have no doubt, that many of our readers will share the astonishment of the two Jesuits in finding any man bold enough to say that the Church of Rome does not authoritatively teach the doctrine of the existence of an infallible tribunal. We hear so much of infallibility; it is so regularly made the turning point in controversy between members of one communion and the other-so much is made to depend upon it by all Romanists whom we have to do with, that we are inclined to look upon it as an absurd paradox to dispute whether the Church of Rome asserts such a privilege. We might share in this feeling, had it not been our fortune many years since to be led to investigate very carefully this very point; and we can assure the reader that if the question is to be decided by an appeal to any of the authorized formularies of the Church of Rome-any of those formularies which they hold binding on them, the Church of Rome herself does not make the claim. There is nothing about it in the Canons or Decrees of Trent, or in the Creed of Pope Pius, or in the decrees of any general synod, or in any definition of faith made by the Pope, and received unanimously by the Roman Catholic Episcopate. It is merely the assertion of their divines and controversialists.

We cannot sufficiently testify our sense of the ability displayed by Mr. Seymour in this disputation. One such point as he has here made, is enough to confer value on his work. It is, in our opinion, a work of distinguished merit.

We must just produce one more passage in which the attempts to establish the position denied by Mr. Seymour are described.

"After some moments' pause, he said he could produce several instances, and named the Council of Constance, the Council of Basil, the Council of Florence, and several other lesser authorities. I knew each of the decrees to which he referred; and therefore when he said that one asserted the supremacy of the Church of Rome, as the mother and mistress of all Churches; and that another held that every soul was subject to the Roman Pontiff at the peril of his salvation; and that others still asserted, that every man must be obedient, and owed obedience to the successor of St. Peter; and others, again, that it belonged to the Church of Rome to interpret Holy Scripture: when he said all this, I reminded him that all this was beside the real question, was nothing to the real point before us; that my assertion was, that no received decree or bull, or other authoritative document of the Church of Rome, claimed infallibility; and that he answered me only by producing some which claimed supremacy and authority.

"He said that supremacy and authority implied infallibility. I answered by an emphatic-No! I said, that in England we felt that the law of the land was supreme and authoritative; that we often felt that a specified law was a bad law;—a mischievous law, a law that ought never to have been enacted, and ought immediately to be repealed; . but, though we ascribe to the law, and to the legislative power of the nation, a supremacy and authority, we prove, by our efforts to repeal the obnoxious law, that we do not ascribe infallibility to it. I then said, that all the decrees, bulls, canons, &c., to which he referred me, only asserted such a supremacy and authority as demanded the subjection and obedience of men to the Church of Rome, or to the Pope as its head; but not one of them claimed or asserted infallibility for any party. "My opponent here did not deny the principle I had thus laid down; but he seemed puzzled and perplexed, at finding that all his documents failed in the precise point of asserting infallibility. He referred to several others which he had not already named; but in a moment gave them up as inadequate."-pp. 147, 148.

The Professor of Canon Law, on this, asked with much warmth, whether Protestants were not always in the habit of finding fault with the Church of Rome for assuming infallibility, and whether this alone was not a sufficient proof that she really did claim infallibility ? To this Mr. Seymour replied, that he had never taken that ground-that he believed she had, as a Church, never advanced the claim-that her advocates did so for her; but that they were not the Church; that if he was wrong in this statement, his opponents could produce the canon or authoritative document which contained that claim,-that by the terms of the conference nothing was to be imputed to a Church except what was contained in its authoritative documents; that, as they had been

unable to produce the authority for their statement, he had a right to argue on their principles, that the Church of Rome, not · claiming to be infallible, was no part of the Church of Christ.

Duns Scotus himself could not have argued more acutely than this. It is really admirable; and we can well imagine the utter confusion of the two Jesuits. They could not possibly have been prepared for such a turn of the argument, which is perfectly original. And it is based on undeniable facts. In this instance we see the extreme importance of not making unnecessary concessions. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have been so inconsiderate as to concede at once that the Church of England admits herself to be fallible; but when it comes to strict reasoning and clear statement, it is impossible to find any such position in the Articles and other authoritative documents of the Church. And when the question was restricted to these, the Romanist entirely failed in his argument, because Mr. Seymour understood his ground exactly. And the excellent point made about the Romish claim to infallibility is another instance of the importance of weighing well the concessions that are made. If Mr. Seymour had not detected the errors and fallacy involved in these positions, he could have been at once defeated.

We must now pass on to a subsequent conversation on the subject of infallibility, which appears to us of considerable importance in showing the way of managing controversies of that kind. The conference referred to was held with the reverend Professor of Canon Law in the Collegio Romano, and a Jesuit of eminence. It was held with a view to inquire into the means or test by which an infallible bull or decree of the Pope could be distinguished from a fallible one-to distinguish a decision ex cathedrâ, from one non ex cathedra. The conversation began by reference to a former conversation with a third person, who had endeavoured to persuade Mr. Seymour to receive the doctrine of an infallible tribunal without proof or inquiry. Mr. Seymour remarked to the Professor, that supposing infallibility to exist either in a council or a pope, he was disposed to think that if it existed in either, the weight of argument seemed to preponderate in favour of the pope, because all the texts referred to in proof of infallibility have connexion with Peter, and therefore refer much more naturally to the popes, as the successors of Peter, than to councils, which are not in any way connected with these words.

This was a bait which the Jesuit swallowed with eagerness, being instantly under the impression that our author was in a fair way to become a convert. Mr. Seymour then proceeded to lay before him certain difficulties in respect to the question, on the hypothesis that infallibility resided in the papacy

-his difficulty was how to discern a fallible decision from an infallible one.

"I reminded the Professor that he was, of course, aware that the popes were not always-were not at all times, and under all circumstances, infallible-that Pope Liberius had avowed Arianism, and that Pope Honorius was a Monothelite."

The Professor attempted to defend these popes from the imputation of heresy; but ended by saying that if their decisions had been ex cathedrá, they would have been infallible.

"This at once conducted our conversation to the precise point which I felt most anxious to open, and I saw that there could be no difficulty in entering on it; but I desired much to do so, without any appearance of a controversial spirit on my part . . . . I said that supposing the pope to be infallible whenever he uttered a decision, or issued a bull ex cathedrá, it was still necessary to know how we are to ascertain a decision ex cathedrá from a decision non ex cathedrâ.

...

"He at once met the difficulty, and said that it was of very easy solution. He stated that there were certain requisites, certain essentials, which were characteristic of a bull ex cathedrá. . . . . He added that those requisites or essentials were seven in number, and that he feared to weary me by their detail, but that otherwise he would be happy to enter on them.”—pp. 161–164.

The conference then turned on the requisite conditions of a decision ex cathedrá—an infallible decision.

The first condition was that the pope should have opened a communication with the bishops before composing and publishing his bull, asking their prayers to God that he might be infallibly guided. By thus doing, the pope could obtain the prayers of his universal Church for his assistance before forming and publishing his decision.

"I asked him how, seeing that there was a necessity for this previous communication on the part of the pope with the bishops, how I was to inform myself, that this requisite or essential had been really borne in mind. He merely replied, that it was very easy to be ascertained, and then proceeded to the second particular.”—p. 165.

This is really almost too good. The coolness of the Jesuit in thus passing over this home thrust, is truly characteristic. It carries internal evidence of truth. . . . . Our author, however, did not press him on the point; but allowed the conversation to pass to the second condition.

This second condition was, that the pope before giving his decision should seek carefully all possible information on the

subject, especially he should seek information from persons residing in the district affected by the opinion in question.

"I asked, in reference to this, how I was to be assured that the pope was thus rightly and fully informed,—that he had sought and obtained the required information, and was thus capacitated for proceeding to issue the bull. He replied, as before, that there was not the least difficulty in ascertaining this, and so passed on to the other particular."-p. 166. It must have been one of the richest scenes in the world. We wonder most at Mr. Seymour's command of countenance. The next particular is also capital.

The Professor remarked, that there was a further requisitenamely, the bull should be formal and authoritative, and claim to be authoritative; that it should be issued not merely as a decision of the pope in his mere personal capacity, but in his official capacity, as the head of the Church,

"I remarked, that this requisite could be easily ascertained, as it must necessarily appear on the face of the bull; the only difficulty being to obtain a true copy of the bull."

The next condition-that the bull should be addressed to all the bishops of the universal Church, was also admitted as a test of easy application, inasmuch as the mere superscription of the bull would at once show whether this essential was forthcoming. The succeeding condition was, that the bull should be universally received, or accepted and promulgated by the bishops of the universal Church as an authoritative and infallible decision, or at least accepted tacitly and without opposition. The reply to this was, that this was a point very difficult to be ascertained; that some bulls are received in some Romish countries and not received in others, and contradictory assertions are made, that it would open out a great field of inquiry and disputation. The Professor again said, "there was not the least difficulty!"

The succeeding condition was, that the bull should be a decision on some question touching faith or morals; on which it was observed, that an opinion prevailed in England that the Church of Rome had strained faith and morality to include matters of fact, or even matters of history, and that this was practically illustrated in the case of the Jansenists and Jesuits, when the point at issue was a matter of fact.

"The final condition was, that the pope should be free, and under no external compulsion or influence.

"On this I remarked, quietly, that it would be very difficult for me, or for any one in England, to ascertain to any thing like moral certainty, whether the pope, at the issuing of any bull, was really under