apostolate, but subject to him in his primacy, so are the Bishops of the Catholic Church equal to the Roman Pontiff in their episcopate, but subject to him in his supreme pontificate. The episcopate is one in origin and nature and identity, but it is not one in extension of authority and jurisdiction. The episcopal order and character exists, after the manner of a whole, in each 1; but it exists in the Supreme Pontiff as in its origin and root and matrix.

The tract-writers therefore are correct when they state our doctrine as that 1. the Catholic world is his diocese, and 2. that he is spiritually and ecclesiastically sole and absolute monarch.

They are wrong 1. when they state that, from the date of the Vatican Council, he is 'to be' so. He has been so since the day of Pentecost; and this necessarily, as is shown in my Letter, from the very nature of the constitution of the Church.

They are wrong 2. when they say that this reduces the Bishops to being but his 'commissioned agents,' and that the government of the Church becomes in his hands an autocracy. There is a difference between an autocracy and an absolute monarchy.

It is somewhat disingenuous to refer in a foot-note to the Council's quotation from St. Gregory, as a passage cited with a curious perversion of its scope.' They do not venture to place the passage before their readers. I place it before mine, and leave them to judge. It is as follows: 'My honour is the honour of the universal Church. My honour is the solid vigour of my brethren. Then am I truly honoured, when the honour due to each is not denied.'

In a word, be it remembered that the Council did not make the Holy Father infallible. To do so would have been an act beyond their power; to declare to all men, in words that no man might mistake, a Pentecostal truth was within their power, and became their office.

II. The tract-writers go on to say:

That the words italicised by them in the clause of the definition which declares, 'Therefore such definitions by the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not in virtue of the consent of the Church, irreformable,' were put in, almost at the last moment, by the Ultramontane majority, expressly in order to deal a heavier blow at the minority, who had asked that the consent of the Church should be laid down as a requisite condition of doctrinal definitions.' 'The decree,' continue the tractwriters, 'therefore explicitly denies that the Church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church as a whole) contributes anything to the force of a Papal decree thus delivered. All is made to rest on the Pope's sole authority.'

The Catholic Faith touching on the points here in question is as follows:

1. That a General Council is a body, consisting of head and members-representative of the Church.

2. That a Council apart from and in opposition to the Supreme Pontiff would not be a General Council, inasmuch as it would be—not a body, but a headless trunk.

3. That therefore a large dissentient majority would not prevent the minority, in union with the Roman Pontiff, being a General Council, there being still head

and members, and therefore-a body. A General Council, in its nature and notion, follows that of the Church, of which it is representative. But the Church consists of the Supreme Pontiff and those in communion with, and subject to, him; and no majority of dissentients affects his and their being the Church, and possessing infallibility of belief and teaching. Therefore also no majority of dissentients in a Council affects the infallibility of the belief and teaching of the Supreme Pontiff and the minority in concord with him.

4. That when the Supreme Pontiff promulgates to the whole Church a definition in matters of faith and morals, even if he does so of his own accord, and without consulting the Bishops, yet he does so as in union with them, and not as severed from, and in opposition to them. There can be no severance in such wise as that he should be on one side, and the whole of his subjects on the other. This would be a severance of head and members, a decapitation, and so destruction of the Mystical Body, the indefectibility of whose existence is guaranteed by the promises of Christ.

5. That when the Supreme Pontiff and the Bishops in a General Council unite in a definition, that definition is the definition of the whole body, head and members, existing together in one perfect unity.

6. That therefore the Bishops, defining in union with him, are thus infallible; that apart from him they are not actively infallible; and that in severance from, and opposition to him they are schismatic and heretical.

In answer, therefore, to the objectors I remark:

1. That it is beside the question, as in no way affect

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ing the infallibility of the definition, whether this clause was put in, almost at the last moment, by the Ultramontane majority,' or not. It is not the method of arriving at the definition that is infallible; it is the definition itself. Had the insertion of the clause been the result of intrigue, it still remains that it was inserted; and it is the fact of its existence in the definition, confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff, which gives it infallibility.

To bring this truth into clearer light and sharper outline, I put an extreme case. Suppose, among the papers of a deceased Pontiff is found a note of authorities and the train of reasoning which led him to the theological conclusion which he embodied in a definition; and that all those authorities are transparently false, and all his syllogisms fallacious and unsound; it in no way affects the infallibility of the definition. Talent and science do not avail to give infallibility to a statement; and folly and ignorance in the individual do not detract from the infallibility of his definition as Supreme Pontiff. The principle of infallibility is the assistance of God the Holy Ghost informing the Mystical Body, as the Spirit of Truth, and guaranteed to its head to formulate and utter its belief.

I have put, I say, an extreme case, and one which cannot occur, since even the Pontiff's preparation of any dogma is under the special providence and direction of the Holy Ghost; but supposing it possible, it would not affect our thesis, which is the infallibility of the definition itself.

The ordinary method of the Pontiffs in arriving at the theological conclusions which are to form the

subject-matter of definitions, is to search the loci theologici or sources of theological doctrine, such as the Sacred Scriptures, the records of Councils, the works of theologians and canonists, and the like; to consult men learned in theological science; to take the opinions of the Bishops, either with or without calling them into council; and, doubtless, in any and all of those methods he has the aid and assistance of God the Holy Ghost, but neither of those methods is necessary. The question is, does he define? and the truth is, when he defines, he does so by the assistance of the Spirit of Truth, and so-infallibly.

A Council has its advantages as a method of arriving at his conclusion; and when those advantages counterbalance the necessary difficulties and drawbacks, he calls a Council. It is, moreover, a striking spectacle before the eyes of the world, and so adds an extrinsic authority to the definition: but intrinsic authority, and any real infallibility which the definition would otherwise lack, it does not and cannot give.

2. The statement that the insertion of the clause referred to was 'expressly in order to deal a heavier blow at the minority, who had asked that the consent of the Church should be laid down as a requisite condition of doctrinal definitions,' may or may not be true, according as it is understood. If it means that it was

expressly in order to deal a heavier blow' at Gallicanism and Febronianism, which hold that acceptation by the faithful throughout the world, instead of definition or confirmation by the Supreme Pontiff, gives infallibility, then I agree with the objectors.

3. Their notion that the 'decree explicitly denies