6. No revealed doctrines or precepts may reasonably stand in the way of scientific conclusions. Therefore, e. g. Political Economy may reverse our Lord's declarations about poverty and riches, or a system of Ethics may teach that the highest condition of body is ordinarily essential to the highest state of mind. 7. Christianity is necessarily modified by the growth of civilization, and the exigencies of times. Therefore, e. g. the Catholic priesthood, though necessary in the Middle Ages, may be superseded now. 8. There is a system of religion more simply true than Christianity as it has ever been received. Therefore, e. g. we may advance that Christianity is the "corn of wheat" which has been dead for 1800 years, but at length will bear fruit; and that Mahometanism is the manly religion, and existing Christianity the womanish. 9. There is a right of Private Judgment: that is, there is no existing authority on earth competent to interfere with the liberty of individuals in reasoning and judging for themselves about the Bible and its contents, as they severally please. Therefore, e. g. religious establishments requiring subscription are Anti-christian. 10. There are rights of conscience such, that every one may lawfully advance a claim to profess and teach what is false and wrong in matters, religious, social, and moral, provided that to his private conscience it seems absolutely true and right. Therefore, e. g. individuals have a right to preach and practise fornication and polygamy. 11. There is no such thing as a national or state conscience. Therefore, e. g. no judgments can fall upon a sinful or infidel nation. 12. The civil power has no positive duty, in a normal state of things, to maintain religious truth. Therefore, e.g. blasphemy and sabbath-breaking are not rightly punishable by law. 13. Utility and expedience are the measure of political duty. Therefore, e. g. no punishment may be enacted, on the ground that God commands it: e. g. on the text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 14. The Civil Power may dispose of Church property without sacrilege. Therefore, e. g. Henry VIII. committed no sin in his spoliations. 15. The Civil Power has the right of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and administration. Therefore, e. g. Parliament may impose articles of faith on the Church or suppress Dioceses. 16. It is lawful to rise in arms against legitimate princes. Therefore, e. g. the Puritans in the 17th century, and the French in the 18th, were justifiable in their Rebellion and Revolution respectively. 17. The people are the legitimate source of power. Therefore, e. g. Universal Suffrage is among the natural rights of man. 18. Virtue is the child of knowledge, and vice of ignor ance. Therefore, e. g. education, periodical literature, railroad travelling, ventilation, drainage, and the arts of life, when fully carried out, serve to make a population moral and happy. All of these propositions, and many others too, were familiar to me thirty years ago, as in the number of the tenets of Liberalism, and, while I gave into none of them except No. 12, and perhaps No. 11, and partly No. 1, before I began to publish, so afterwards I wrote against . most of them in some part or other of my Anglican works. If it is necessary to refer to a work, not simply my own, but of the Tractarian school, which contains a similar protest, I should name the Lyra Apostolica. This volume, which by accident has been left unnoticed, except incidentally, in my Narrative, was collected together from the pages of the "British Magazine," in which its contents originally appeared, and published in a separate form, immediately after Hurrell Froude's death in 1836. Its signatures, a, ß, y, d, ε, %, denote respectively the authorship of Mr. Bowden, Mr. Hurrell Froude, Mr. Keble, myself, Mr. Robert Wilberforce, and Mr. Isaac Williams. There is one poem on "Liberalism," beginning "Ye cannot halve the Gospel of God's grace;" which bears out the account of Liberalism as above given. Another upon "the Age to come," defining from its own point of view the position and prospects of Liberalism, shall be quoted in extenso. When I would search the truths that in me burn, A hundred reasoners cried," Hast thou to learn Those dreams are scattered now, those fires are spent?" And, did I mount to simpler thoughts, and try Some theme of peace, 'twas still the same reply. Perplexed, I hoped my heart was pure of guile, And joy the Age to come will think of me; NOTE B. ON PAGE 23. ECCLESIASTICAL MIRACLES. THE writer, who gave occasion for the foregoing Narrative, was very severe with me for what I had said about Miracles in the Preface to the Life of St. Walburga. I observe therefore as follows: Catholics believe that miracles happen in any age of the Church, though not for the same purposes, in the same number, or with the same evidence, as in Apostolic times. The Apostles wrought them in evidence of their divine mission; and with this object they have been sometimes wrought by Evangelists of countries since, as even Protestants allow. Hence we hear of them in the history of St. Gregory in Pontus, and St. Martin in Gaul; and in their case, as in that of the Apostles, they were both numerous and clear. As they are granted to Evangelists, so are they granted, though in less measure and evidence, to other holy men; and as holy men are not found equally at all times and in all places, therefore miracles are in some places and times more than in others. And since, generally, they are granted to faith and prayer, therefore in a country in which faith and prayer abound, they will be more likely to occur, than where and when faith and prayer are not; so that their occurrence is irregular. And further, as faith and prayer obtain miracles, so still more commonly do they gain from above the ordinary interventions of Providence; and, as it is often very difficult to distinguish between a providence and a miracle, and there will be more providences than miracles, hence it will happen that many occurrences will be called miraculous, which, strictly speaking, are not such, that is, not more than providential mercies, or what are sometimes called "grazie" or "favours." Persons, who believe all this, in accordance with Catholic teaching, as I did and do, they, on the report of a miracle, will of necessity, the necessity of good logic, be led to say, first, "It may be," and secondly, "But I must have good evidence in order to believe it." 1. It may be, because miracles take place in all ages; it must be clearly proved, because perhaps after all it may be only a providential mercy, or an exaggeration, or a mistake, or an imposture. Well, this is precisely what I had said, which the writer, who has given occasion to this Volume, considered so irrational. I had said, as he quotes me, “In this day, and under our present circumstances, we can only reply, that there is no reason why they should not be." Surely this is good logic, provided that miracles do occur in all ages; and so again I am logical in saying, "There is nothing, prima facie, in the miraculous accounts in question, to repel a properly taught or religiously disposed mind." What is the matter with this statement? My assailant does not pretend to say what the matter is, and he cannot; but he expresses a rude, unmeaning astonishment. Accordingly, in the passage which he quotes, I observe, "Miracles are the kind of facts proper to ecclesiastical history, just as instances of sagacity or daring, personal prowess, or crime, are the facts proper to secular history." What is the harm of this? 2. But, though a miracle be conceivable, it has to be proved. What has to be proved? (1.) That the event occurred as stated, and is not a false report or an exaggeration. (2.) That it is clearly miraculous, and not a mere providence or answer to prayer within the order of nature. What is the fault of saying this? The inquiry is parallel to that which is made about some extraordinary |