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For two properties are continually recurring in Christian records, one of which may be called negative, the other affirmative. The force of the former is to expel from the circle of the one true Catholic Church all sects of heretics and Schismatics: of the latter, that this Church consist in one single communion and society, whose members cohere together by hierarchical subordination.

But is it true that both these points are so plainly and constantly inculcated? To remove all doubt we will quote the authors who most distinctly assert the one and the other. As to the first, there are ⁴⁵⁷Clement of Alexandria, ⁴⁵⁸Tertullian, ⁴⁵⁹Alexander of Alexandria, ⁴⁶⁰Celestine, ⁴⁶¹Leander, the Emperor Justinian;⁴⁶²then again the Councils of Nice,⁴⁶³ Sardica,⁴⁶⁴ and the third of ⁴⁶⁵Carthage; nay, the heretics⁴⁶⁶ themselves; and all these agree in asserting that there is one only ancient Catholic Church, outside of which the divine patience endures and bears with heresies, which are as thorns. Thus in language ecclesiastical and Christian nothing can be considered as more certainly proved than that the epithet of Catholic is distinctive, and shows the communion which rejects from its bosom all heresies and all schisms. It was with great reason, therefore, that⁴⁶⁷Pacian wrote what⁴⁶⁸Cyril of Jerusalem, and⁴⁶⁹Augustine very frequently repeated, "Our people is divided from the heretical name by this appellation, that it is called Catholic."

Moreover this unity, which we have said may be called negative, is necessary indeed to the understanding of the Church as Catholic, but is by no means sufficient to complete the idea of Catholicity. To it therefore must be added the affirmative unity, by which Catholicism is not only divided from heretics and schismatics, but becomes in itself a coherent body with members and articulations. It is to the assertion and maintenance of this unity, which is the soul of Catholicity, and without which it cannot even be conceived, that has reference what we so often read in the monuments of antiquity about the ⁴⁷⁰necessity of communion among the members of the Church and the ⁴⁷¹tokens and means of that communion. There are very distinct and innumerable testimonies about it in the ancient Fathers,⁴⁷² declaring its necessity, and setting forth its mode of composition and coherence.

For to set forth the mode of this is the plain drift of what ⁴⁷³Irenæus writes in confutation of heretics by the tradition of the Apostolical churches: "For since it would be very long in the compass of our present work to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, taking that Church which is the greatest, the most ancient, and well known to all, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, by indicating that tradition which it has from the Apostles, and the faith which it announces to men, which has reached even to us by the succession of bishops, we confound all those, who, in whatsoever manner, either through self-pleasing, or vain glory, or blindness and evil intention, ⁴⁷⁴gather otherwise than they ought. For to this church on account of its superior chiefship, it is necessary that every Church should come⁴⁷⁵ together, that is, the faithful who are everywhere; for in this Church the tradition which is from the Apostles has been ever preserved by those who are everywhere. …By this ordination and succession, the tradition and preaching of the truth, which is from the Apostles in the Church, has reached down to us. And this proof is most complete, that it is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved, and handed down in truth, in the Church from the Apostles to the present day."

The churches, therefore, which are everywhere diffused, derive that strength and harmony of parts, out of which the whole body of the Catholic Church is made up, from the fact of their agreeing in the unity of faith and preaching with that Church of Peter, which is the greatest, the chief, and the more powerful. It follows that the Primacy of Peter, and the authority inherent in it to effect unity, is that principle which Christ selected, that the Church which He had set up might be Catholic, and bear the note of Catholicity on its brow.

And Cyprian would set forth the same mode of communion, when he speaks of the coherence of bishops, by which both the Catholic episcopate is made one, and the Church one and Catholic. For as the several communities draw the unity of the body from the unity of the prelates to whom they are subject; so all prelates, and the communities subject to them, constitute one Catholic episcopate and one Catholic Church, because they cohere with the principal church, the root and matrix, which is the Church of Peter, upon whom the Lord founded the whole building, and whom He instituted to be the fountain and source of Catholic unity.⁴⁷⁶

These words are a clue to understand ⁴⁷⁷Tertullian's meaning, when, already become a Montanist, he called the Catholic Church, whose discipline he was attacking, the Church near to Peter– "Concerning your opinion, I now enquire whence you claim this right to the Church. If because the Lord said to Peter, 'Upon this rock I will build My Church,' 'to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' or 'whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven,' you, therefore, pretend that the power of binding and loosing is derived to you, that is, to all the Church near to Peter; how do you overthrow and change the manifest intention of the Lord in conferring this on Peter⁴⁷⁸ personally, 'Upon thee I will build My Church,' and 'I will give to thee the keys,' not to the Church, and 'whatsoever thou bindest or loosest,' not what they bind or loose." Now he used this mode of speaking because it was customary with Catholics, who were wont to exhibit nearness with Peter as the characteristic of the Church, and the necessary condition for sharing that power, whose plenitude and native source Christ had lodged in Peter.

This certain and undoubting judgment of Catholics, Tertullian himself, before his error, had clearly expressed in his book, De Scorpiace, c. x., where he says, "For if you yet think the heaven shut, remember that the Lord here (Matt. xvi. 19) left its keys to Peter, and through him to the Church." Nearness, then, with Peter, and ⁴⁷⁹consanguinity of doctrine thence proceeding, are no less necessary to the Church, that it may be the Catholic Church which Christ founded and built upon Peter, than that it be partaker in those gifts which, again, He Himself granted only to unity, as it is effected in Peter and by Peter.

Now not only the most ancient Fathers, as Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, but the whole body of them, assign the origin of this to Peter. This they make the vivifying principle of agreement, society and unity, without which the Church can neither be intrinsically Catholic, nor the mind conceive it as such. It is so stated by ⁴⁸⁰Pacian, ⁴⁸¹Ambrose, the ⁴⁸²Fathers of Aquileia, ⁴⁸³ Optatus, ⁴⁸⁴Gregory Nazianzen, ⁴⁸⁵Jerome, ⁴⁸⁶Augustine, ⁴⁸⁷ Gelasius, ⁴⁸⁸Hormisdas, ⁴⁸⁹Agatho, ⁴⁹⁰Maximus Martyr, and, to shorten the list, by Leo⁴⁹¹ the Great. It is in setting forth the unity of the Catholic episcopate that he writes what ought never to be forgotten by Christian minds: "For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity weld us into an inseparable whole, because, as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. For it is the connection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connexion, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; since even among the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power, and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one, from which mould, or type, the distinction also between bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, but that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."

And, if I do not deceive myself, the direct drift of all this is to answer the question, whether the doctrine of Peter's Primacy, and its virtue, as the constituent of unity and Catholicity, is contained in the most solemn standard of faith, the creed. For although there are unimpeachable testimonies to prove that the creeds were not published and explained to Catechumens, in order to convey to them a full and complete Christian instruction; and though it be proved further to have been the purpose of the Church's ancient teachers to omit many points in the creeds which were to be set before the initiated at a more suitable season afterwards, it may nevertheless be said that the most commonly received articles of the creed may be regarded as so many most fruitful germs, from which the remaining doctrines would spontaneously spring. And so, to keep within our present point, what is more plain than that the sum of doctrine concerning Peter's Primacy, contained in the Bible, illustrated by the Fathers, and defined by Councils, is involved in that article of the creed in which we profess that the Church is one and Catholic? No doubt there nowhere occurs in the creeds, expressed in so many words, mention of Peter, or of the Primacy bestowed on him, or of hierarchical subordination; yet it is most distinctly stated that the Church is one and Catholic. What meaning, then, were the faithful to give to those epithets? What were they to intend in the words, I believe one Catholic Church? What but the meaning of the words themselves, which they received from the Church's teachers together with the creeds? But they could not form the conception of one Church and that Catholic, without thinking likewise of one Catholic principle of the Church; nor could they assign the dignity of that one Catholic principle to any other but Peter, whom alone they had invariably been taught to have been set over all. For what S.⁴⁹² Bernard wrote in mediæval times, "For this purpose the solicitude of all Churches rests on that one Apostolic See, that all may be united under it and in it, and it may be careful in behalf of all to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," must be considered nothing but a repetition of the faith which resounded through the whole world, from the very beginning of the Christian religion.

Unless, therefore, any can be found who prefer asserting either that true believers never understood what they believed, in professing the Church to be one and Catholic, or that they understood this otherwise than it had been universally and constantly explained by the Church's teachers; it must be admitted, that faith in Peter's Primacy, and in the power bestowed upon it for the purpose of making the visible kingdom of Christ one and Catholic, is coeval with that profession of the creeds which sets forth the Church as one and as Catholic.⁴⁹³

CHAPTER IX.
THE NATURE, MULTIPLICITY, AND FORCE OF PROOF FOR S. PETER'S PRIMACY

¹As the natural end of all proof is to give assurance, every kind of it must be considered a mean to persuade and determine the mind. Not but that there are different kinds, and that in great variety. If we refer these to their respective topics, some are internal and artificial, others external and inartificial; some belong to the philosopher, others to the theologian, the former having their source in nature, the latter in revelation; another sort, again, rests on witnesses, and another on documents. But if we consider their persuasive force, they may be conveniently ranged under the two classes of probable, and certain or demonstrative.

But if it be asked what sort of proof we have hitherto used, and drawn out to the best of our ability, we must distinguish between the principal and prevailing proof, and this in form is inartificial, theological, and drawn from the inspired documents; and the proofs occasionally inserted and confirmatory of the principal: these, it will be evident, are sometimes artificial and internal, such as those drawn from analogy, and the harmonious coherence of doctrines, from the unity and Catholicity of the Church, and the institution of bishops to rule particular flocks; and sometimes derived from witnesses, for such we may deem the ancient Fathers, whose importance and force, as testimonies, no prudent mind will reject. To embrace, then, the full extent of our proof, it ranges over all forms and modes, is artificial and inartificial, and rests not only on documents, but on witnesses. Now two things follow from this mixed and manifold character of our proof, of too great importance to be passed over in silence.

The first of these is, the standard and criterion of resistance which our proof presents to opponents. For consisting, as it does, of so many elements, confirmed, as it is, by the absolute harmony of so many various parts, that only can be a satisfactory answer, which meets at once every particular proof, and the whole sum of it. For it would be to small purpose to give another sense, with some speciousness, to one or two points, if the great mass of matter and argument remain untouched. The only valid answer would be to reject and deny the Primacy of supreme authority, presenting at the same time a sufficient cause for all those results of which the proof consists. For so long as the institution of the Primacy is necessary to supply a sufficient cause for these results, so long the force of our proof remains untouched, and the institution of the Primacy unquestionable. We can therefore demand of our opponents this alternative, either to acquiesce in our proof, or, rejecting the Primacy, to find, and when they have found to establish, an hypothesis equal to the explanation of all that is contained in our arguments artificial and inartificial, in our documents and our witnesses.

The second point is one which all will admit. The proof we have given is such that unless it be deceptive, the institution of the Primacy is demonstrated to be not only true, but also revealed, not only tenable, but matter of faith. For although we have interwoven testimonies and artificial arguments, this was to confirm what was already demonstrated, and to shed fresh light on what was already clear; but the proper source from which we have drawn our proofs, was the documents of the Holy Scriptures themselves. Now what is thence drawn is ²revealed, and enters into the number of things which, being revealed, are matter of faith.

These two points are clear, but a third may be somewhat less so. Many will ask, what is the force of the proof, its power to persuade, and whether it carry complete certitude, or be defective. Now to this we shall reply, that the proof which we have presented is not only probable, but altogether decisive. It wants nothing to produce the fullest assurance. This is a subject which I have judged fit for special and separate investigation, as due both to myself, my readers, and the cause which I am defending. For it is not a happiness of our nature to catch the whole and the pure truth at a single glance. This requires repeated acts of the mind; we have to make the effort again and again, and only terminate our examination when we have submitted our supposed discovery to reiterated reflection. Thus it is that truth comes out in full light, imposition is detected, the line drawn between doubt and certainty, and every point located in its due place. This enquiry, then, into the proof itself I consider due not only to myself and my readers, but to a cause, which requires the utmost attention as being of the highest importance, and the source of the deepest dissensions; for it is not too much to say that the origin of all those divisions which we see and lament in the Christian name, may be referred to the reception or the denial of this doctrine concerning the Primacy.

Now we shall best reach the subject by first considering the inherent force of the proof in itself, and absolutely, and then comparatively with those arguments to which the most distinguished Protestant sects ascribe a full and complete demonstrative power.

I. First, then, as to the force of proof absolutely. We must reflect that two conditions complete a proof derived from documents; first, the authenticity of the document; secondly, either the immediate and unquestionable evidence of the testimonies quoted from it, or their meaning being rendered certain by argument. If these two conspire, nothing is wanting to produce assurance. Now, as to the documents, whence our proof is derived, no Christian doubts their authenticity; and as to the testimonies drawn from them, part³ belong to a class of such evidence as to admit of no doubt; and part,⁴ being equally clear, and marked in themselves, have had to be defended from false interpretations. Accordingly, our proof is peremptory in both particulars.

Moreover, our proof was not restricted to one or two passages of holy Scripture, but extended over a great series, all tending to support and consolidate the argument. We have set forth, not a naked institution of the Primacy, but multifold foreshadowings and promises of it, its daily operation and notoriety. From its first anticipation we went on to its progressively clearer expression, its promise, its institution, its exercise, and the everywhere diffused knowledge of it in the primitive Church. So far, then, as I see, nothing more can, with reason, be asked, to remove all doubt as to Peter's prerogative of Primacy; for, when the bestowal of certain privileges can be proved by documents, all question as to their existence is terminated. But here we find in documents, not their bestowal merely, but antecedents and consequences, a beginning, a progress, and a manifold explanation, which stand to the Primacy as signs to the thing signified.

Accordingly, the demonstration which we have given of the Primacy, considered in itself, and absolutely, needs nothing to challenge assent.

For, suppose it disputed whether Cæsar surpassed the other Roman Senators in honour and power. Could it be proved by undoubted records, that he so conducted himself as gradually to smooth his path to the supreme power; that he next gained from the senate and Roman people, the title of Emperor and Prince; that he exercised these powers at home and abroad, and received universal testimony to the dignity he had acquired; in such case the judgment would be unanimous that he was emperor, and head of the Roman Senators. Now, substitute Peter for Cæsar, the Apostles for the Senators; Christ, the Evangelists, Luke and Paul, for the senate and people; and you will see all the proofs enumerated for Cæsar, to square exactly with Peter. For we learn from Scripture the steps by which he rose to the Primacy, the time when he received it, how he exercised it, and the lucid testimonies to it which he received from Christ, the Evangelists, the Apostolic Church, and Paul. Accordingly, his Primacy and supreme authority among the Apostles rests on a proof which gives complete assurance, and challenges assent. It is a consequence deduced, not from a single, but from manifold inference; not merely drawn from results, but foreseen in its causes; declared not merely in the words of institution, but in the very acts of its exercise; supported not only by sundry texts, but by a cloud of conspiring witnesses; proved by an interpretation, not obscure, and far-fetched, but clear and obvious. A thing of such a nature it is folly to deny and temerity to doubt.

But, further, reflect on the other arguments which come in collaterally to support that from the Holy Scriptures. Then it will be found that our proof consists in the harmonious concurrence of these four sources, 1. the authentic scriptural documents distinctly setting forth the promises, the bestowal, the exercise, and the everywhere diffused knowledge of the Primacy: 2. witnesses the most ancient, well nigh coeval with the Apostles, of great number, renowned for their holiness, or their martyrdom, excellent in learning, far removed from each other in situation, faithful maintainers of the Apostolic teaching, who, with one mouth, acknowledge the Primacy: 3. the analogy of doctrines, for the Church, which we profess to be one, and Catholic, can neither exist, nor even be conceived as such, without the Primacy: 4. the facts of Christian history, which are so entwined with the institution of the Primacy, that they cannot be even contemplated without it. For there are no less than fourteen distinct classes of facts in Christian history, all of which bear witness to the Primacy, and which cannot be studied without coming across that power. Such are, 1. the history of heresies, where, in ancient times alone, consider the acts and statutes of Pope Dionysius, in the causes of Paul of Samosata, and Dionysius of Alexandria; of Popes Sylvester and Julius, in the cause of Arius; of Pope Damasus in that of Apollinarius; of Popes Innocent and Zosimus in that of Pelagius; of Pope Celestine in that of Nestorius; and of Pope Leo in that of Eutyches; so that Ferrandus⁵ of Carthage wrote in the sixth century, "If you desire to hear aught of truth, ask in the first place the prelate of the Apostolic See, whose sound doctrine is known by the judgment of truth, and grounded on the weight of authority." 2. The history of schisms, which have arisen in the Church, when we consider the unquestionable facts about Novatian, Fortunatus and Felicissimus, the Donatists, and Acacius of Constantinople, so that Bede, in our own country, wrote in the seventh century, commenting on Matt. xvi. 10, "All believers in the world understand, that whosoever, in any way separate themselves from the unity of the faith, or from the society of Peter, such can neither be absolved from the bonds of their sins, nor enter the threshold of the heavenly kingdom." 3. The history of the liturgy, as the contests about the paschal time, and what Eusebius, in the fifth book of his history, c. 22-5, says about Pope Victor. 4. The history of the summoning, the holding, and the confirming general councils, wherein the Acts of Synods, the letters of the supreme Pontiffs, and the writings of the Fathers, show the entire truth of what is stated by the ancient Greek historians, Socrates and Sozomen,⁶ that an ecclesiastical Canon had always been in force, "that the Churches should not pass Canons contrary to the decision of the bishop of Rome," which Pope Pelagius,⁷ in the sixth century thus expressed, "the right of calling councils is entrusted by a special power to the Apostolic See, nor do we read that a general council has been valid, which was not assembled or supported by its authority. This is attested by the authority of canons, corroborated by ecclesiastical history, and confirmed by the holy Fathers." And Ferrandus says, "Universal councils, more especially those to which the authority of the Roman Church has been given, hold the place of second authority after the canonical books."⁸ 5. The history of ecclesiastical laws, for the regulation of discipline, a summary of which, enacted by the successors of Peter from Victor I. to Gregory II., may be found in Zaccaria's Antifebronius, Tom. ii., p. 425, and his Antifebronius Vindicatus, Diss. vi., c. 1. 6. The history of judgments, specially the most remarkable in the Church, of which, if we are to believe history, we can only repeat what Pope Gelasius wrote at the end of the fifth century, to the Bishops of Dardania, "We must not omit that the Apostolic See has frequently, to use our Roman phrase, more majorum, even without any council preceding, had the power to absolve those whom a council had unjustly condemned, or to condemn, without any council, those who required condemnation: " and as he wrote to the Greek emperor, Anastasius, "that the authority of the Apostolic See has in all Christian ages been set over the Church universal, is established by the series of the canons of the Fathers, and by manifold tradition."⁹ 7. The history of references, which were wont to be made to the chair of Peter, in the greater causes of faith, and in those respecting Catholic unity. Thus, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, A. D. 500, said, "It is a rule of synodical laws, that, in matters relating to the state of the Church, if any doubt arises, we, as obedient members, recur to the priest of the Roman Church, who is the greatest, as to our head."¹⁰ To the same effect is the letter of Pope Innocent I., to S. Victrice, of Rouen, at the beginning of the fifth century, and again, the African Fathers to Pope Theodore; or again, S. Bernard, writing to Pope Innocent II., against the errors of Abelard, "All dangers and scandals emerging in the kingdom of God, specially those which concern faith, must be referred to your Apostolate: for I esteem it fitting that the injuries done to faith should be repaired there in particular, where faith cannot fail. That is the prerogative of this See." 8. The history of appeals, of which a vast number of remarkable instances exist. Take, as the key, the words of Pope Gelasius once more: "It is the canons themselves which have ordered the appeals of the whole Church to be carried to the examination of this See. But from it they have allowed of no appeal in any case; and, therefore, they enjoin that it should judge of the whole Church, but go itself before the judgment of none: nor do they allow of appeal from its sentence, but rather require obedience to its decrees."¹¹ And Pope Agatho, in the Roman Council, pronouncing on the appeal of our own S. Wilfrid, of York, the contemporary of Bede, A. D. 688, declares that "Wilfrid the bishop, beloved of God, knowing himself unjustly deposed from his bishopric, did not contumaciously resist by means of the secular power, but with humility of mind sought the canonical aid of our founder, blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and declared in his supplication that he would accept what by our mouth, blessed Peter, our founder, whose office we discharge, should determine."¹² 9. The history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,¹³ and of the rights possessed by certain episcopal Sees over others, of which we may take an instance in the grants of Pope Gregory the Great, and his successors, to the See of Canterbury, which alone made it a Primacy. For the bishops of Canterbury had no power whatever over the other bishops of this country, save what they derived from S. Peter's See. And the documents, and original letters conferring these powers still exist, giving the fullest proof that Pope Pius only did in 1850, what Pope Gregory did in 596. 10. The history of the universal propagation of the Christian religion.¹⁴ 11. The history of those tokens and pledges,¹⁵ such as letters of communion, whereby Catholic unity was exhibited and maintained. 12. The history of Christian archæology,¹⁶ inscriptions, paintings, and other monuments of this kind. 13. The history of the emperors, as, for instance, what Ammianus Marcellinus¹⁷ says of Constantius; the letter of the Emperor Marcian to Pope Leo, entreating him to confirm the council of Chalcedon; that of Galla Placidia, the 130th novel of Justinian, and the remarkable constitution of Valentinian III., A. D. 445. "Since the merit of S. Peter, who is the chief of the episcopal coronet, and the dignity of the Roman city, moreover, the authority of a sacred synod" (that of Sardica, A. D. 347) "have confirmed the Primacy of the Apostolic See, let presumption not endeavour to attempt anything unlawful, contrary to the authority of that See: for, then, at length, the peace of the Church will everywhere be preserved, if the whole (universitas) acknowledge its ruler." And, 14. lastly, the history of codes, in which is contained the legislation of Christian kingdoms, wherein we may refer to the capitulars of the Franks, and the laws of the Lombards.

Now from these concordant proofs thus slightly sketched, it follows that the institution of the Primacy belongs to that class of facts which is most certain, and which is absolutely demonstrated. For would it be possible to find a concurrence of proofs so various in case it had never been instituted? Is it possible to imagine so many various results of a cause which never existed? So many various tokens of reality in a fiction? What are the chances for letters thrown at random forming themselves into an eloquent speech? Or a beautiful portrait coming out from a mere assemblage of colours? Or a whole discourse in an unknown tongue being elegantly rendered by a guess? If these be sheer absurdities, although a few letters have sometimes tumbled at random into a word, or a single clause been decyphered, though in ignorance of the alphabet, then we may be sure that the Primacy, attested by so vast a variety of convergent results, can no more be untrue, than effects can exist without a cause, splendour without light, or vocal harmony without sound. Accordingly an institution established by such a union of proof, carries prisoner the assent. It may indeed be disregarded by a resolution of the will, but can neither be passed by, nor refuted, by a judgment of the reason.

And¹⁸ having on the one hand this vast amount of positive proof, from sources so various, in its behalf, so that without it the whole Christian history of eighteen centuries, in all its manifold blendings with secular history, becomes unintelligible, a snarl which it is impossible to arrange, when we come on the other hand to consider what its opponents allege of positive on their own side, we find nothing. They content themselves with objections to this or that detached point, with historical difficulties, and obscurations of the full proof, such, for instance, as the conduct of S. Cyprian in one controversy, the occasional resistance of a metropolitan, the secular instinct of an imperial government stirring up eastern bishops to revolt, and fostering an Erastian spirit in the Church, the ambition of thoroughly bad men, such as Acacius or Photius, and the like. But what we may fairly ask of opponents, and what we never find the most distant approach to in them is, if, as they say, S. Peter's Primacy be not legitimate, and instituted by Christ for the government of the Church, what counter system have they, which they can prove by ancient documents, and whereby they can solve the manifold facts of history? In all their arguments against the Primacy they are so absolutely negative, that the grand result, if they were successful, would be to reduce the Church to a heap of ruins, to show that she, who is entrusted with the authoritative teaching of the world, has no internal coherence either of government or doctrine, in fact, no message from God to deliver, and no power to enforce it when delivered. In the arguments of Greeks and Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists, and all the Protestant sects, the gates of hell have long ago prevailed against the Church, and the devil has built up at his ease a city of confusion on the rock which Christ chose for her foundation. If we listen to them, never has victory been more complete than that of the evil one over the Son of God: the promised unity he has scattered to the winds: the doctrine of truth he has utterly corrupted: the charity wherewith Christians loved one another he has turned into gall and wormwood. That is, the opponents of S. Peter's Primacy are one and all simply destructives; they inspire despair, and are the pioneers of infidelity, but are utterly powerless to build up. Ask the Anglican what is the source of spiritual jurisdiction, and the bond of the episcopate which he affects to defend? He makes no reply. All he can say is, it is not S. Peter. Ask the Greek, if bishops and patriarch disagree, and come to opposite judgments on the faith, or to schisms in communion, which party make the Church? He has no solution to offer, save that it is not the party which sides with S. Peter's successor. Ask the pure Protestant, who maintains the sole authority of the written word, if you disagree about the meaning of Scripture in points which you admit to touch salvation, who is to determine what is the true meaning of the word of God? He has nothing to reply, save that he is sure it is not the Pope. Contrast, then, on the one side, a complete coherent system, fully delineated and set forth in the Bible, attested by the Fathers, corroborated by analogy, and harmonising the history of eighteen hundred years in its infinitely numerous relations, with, on the other side, a mere heap of objections and denials, with shreds of truths held without cohesion, with analogy violated, history thrown into hopeless confusion, and to crown the whole, Holy Scripture incessantly appealed to, yet its plainest declarations recklessly disregarded, and its most consoling promises utterly evacuated. Choose, upon this, between within and without.