Chambers. Rome. person here, and every son of England, to join with Sir Thomas me in rejoicing that the two armies are now at all events drawn up face to face. In a great conflict. like this it is very advantageous that our foes should be unanimous and drawn up in array against us, and that our friends should be unanimous and drawn up in array for us. As the Dean of Canterbury said. and most truly, these claims are no new claims, The claims of and this controversy is no new controversy. When I was asked to support a resolution at this Meeting, it was suggested to me confidentially, that, as I am a lawyer, I might give something like a history of the statute law on the subject. I meditated on that suggestion, but when I came to look into the books, and found that for more than five hundred years in the history of this country, there is not a single reign in which attacks from the Vatican were not met by new Frequent legislation to repel the encroachments of Rome, I the Vatican. thought, and I still think, that if I had attempted the merest abstract of the statutory history of this controversy, I should have wearied the Meeting rather than enlightened them. It had been a conflict. hundreds of years before the Reformation in this country, and we held our own only by maintaining that conflict with unflinching courage. Our very territory-the very soil upon which we stand, was retained for us only by passing statute after statute to prevent that soil from passing into mortmain; attacks from Chambers. Effects of Papal power. Sir Thomas that is, into hands which could render no military service under the feudal system; in other words, into the hands of the clergy. Probably one-third of the soil had so passed, and the remainder was rapidly passing from the possession of the people to the possession of the priests, when Parliament interposed to check the disastrous process. Our very jurisdiction-government being set up in all countries for the express purpose of administering justice, it having no other object in the main than the administration of justice-the protection by law of the rights, freedom, happiness and property of the people. Our very jurisdiction, I say, has been kept from the grasp of Rome only by the interference of the legislature. For, not priests only, not bishops only, not the hierarchy of the Church of Rome only, were forbidden by Rome to plead in any of the Civil Courts of the realm, but in a vast variety of matters, even the lay subjects of the Crown were withdrawn from the Civil Courts and made to appear and plead in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Rights of the The very rights of the Crown itself have been per Crown in jeopardy. petually in jeopardy, and for a hundred years before religion was reformed, we were struggling, with the Pope, although the word Ultramontane was not then invented, and we only kept our rights by the most vigorous and untiring efforts. Although it is true that all these claims are very old, it is equally true that when, forty-five years ago, it Chambers. Catholic emancipa became exceedingly important to ascertain whether Sir Thomas or not these claims existed and were to be pressed on the part of the Church of Rome—when after a long and anxious controversy we were disposed to grant Roman Catholic emancipation if it could be done with Roman safety to our institutions, the Crown issued a Com-ion mission for the purpose of investigating these very points, when evidence of the greatest importance was given on them from the very highest authorities to be found in this country. I will read you a brief extract or two from the testimony that was then given. The two points are, first, the temporal power of the Popehis power in civil matters over Christendom, and incidentally connected with that but intimately touching it, the infallibility of the Pope. Dr. Anglade says: Dr. Anglade 'St. Peter and his successors, Vicars of Jesus Christ, poral power and the whole Church itself, have received no power from God, but over things spiritual and concerning salvation, and not over temporal and civil affairs. We accordingly declare that kings and sovereigns are not subject to any ecclesiastical power by the commands of God in temporal concerns.' Nothing can be plainer. The object of the Commission was to ascertain the truth in relation to these matters. Again, by the Commissioners of 1827, it is asked, 'Do you hold it to be possible that it can ever be stated by the Church. to be an article of faith that the Pope has civil or temporal power?' The answer is 'No.' Alas for the on the tem of the Pope. Chambers. Sir Thomas fallibility of the Roman Catholic professor! He is further pressed upon that point in a manner which we should call cross-examination. It is suggested to the witness that, although it may not be formally an article of faith, yet it may nevertheless be the generally received trust of the Roman Catholic Church. He is therefore asked, 'What do you say about the conviction and belief of Roman Catholics on this point?' His answer is, 'The Roman Catholic Church throughout Europe, now and for centuries, has positively rejected the doctrine that the Pope has civil or temporal power. In general they do; it is the general doctrine of the Catholic Church.' Now Dr. Anglade undoubtedly believed what he said when he made that statement. But it is not easy to find what the Catholic infallible Church does hold. We have another Professor of Maynooth examined before the Commission. The Dr. Slevin on Rev. Dr. Slevin is asked the following question, 'In bility of the the oath of allegiance prescribed for Roman Catholics by the statutes of George III. there are these words, "I also declare that it is not an article of Catholic faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible;" is it not your conception that that also has uniformly been the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that its members should not be bound to believe that the Pope is infallible?" 'It has always been the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Pope's infallibility has never been con the infalli Pope. Chambers. views respect Pope's infa! sidered an article of Catholic faith. I can declare Sir Thomas as my firm opinion that the greater part of Catholics do not consider that the Pope is infallible. No person can believe it is an article of faith, because it is not one.' But it is now an article of faith. Every Roman Catholic that holds the opinion that the Pope speaking ex cathedrâ is infallible, must consider it impossible that he ever could dictate to the Universal Church a false doctrine, and therefore he must also hold it to be impossible that he ever could propose to the Church the doctrine of temporal power which he holds to be false.' It is exceedingly curious to observe with what marvellous facility impossibilities come to Change of be true. That was the evidence given when the ing the whole controversy turned on these points, when libility. the passing of the Act of 1829 was made to hinge on the question, 'Do you claim for the Pope temporal and civil power over the nations of Christendom and over all the baptized? because if you do, that includes the whole authority of government—that is, the whole sphere of government, civil as well as ecclesiastical.'-That was in 1827. Now let us see what is said on these subjects in 1865. This is a part of the present Pope's letter: 'Therefore by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all and singular the evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in the letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of E |