as authorised interpreters? Monsignor Capel proceeds to say: 'As to the necessity of the consecration of both species for the integrity of the sacrifice, all are at one with Rome. The commandment of our Lord was clear and absolute, and no power on earth can change it.' 'Drink 1 ye all of this' is a clear and absolute commandment as to reception, and was so held by the Apostles; and if so, Monsignor Capel holds that no power on earth can change it. But the Church of Rome, after waiting more than fourteen centuries, did change it; and the question is whether there is not, on that account, reason for doubt in the Church of Rome.

As to the second reason, that the Church of Rome invents new articles of faith unknown to the Apostles, Monsignor Capel admits that the words 'immaculate conception and Papal infallibility' are not to be found in Holy Scripture, but he holds that the Catholic cannot fail to see in the sacred pages the doctrine of which they are the expression and legitimate development. He gives, as instances in support of the Immaculate Conception, that Christ's mother is declared to be full of grace, and called blessed by all nations, and that the doctrine is no new thing in God's Church. He must know that it was long refused to be acknowledged in the Councils of the Church of Rome, and has only been accepted by the Church as an article of faith in the nineteenth century, and with no great favour by many zealous Romanists.

The ground on which this doctrine is contended for and maintained is that the Perfect Man must have had an immaculate mother. If so, it is surely most extraordinary that this necessity and the manner of the miracle should not have been communicated to us as fully and clearly as the conception of Christ. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. The supporters of her immaculate conception feel unable to give her the same conception, as it would have made her God and woman. The way, therefore, in which the Church of Rome considers the thing, is by declaring conception to be twofold-active, in which the parents by natural means form the body, and passive, when the soul is united to that body. Under this doctrine the immaculate conception of the Virgin is held to have commenced when her immaculate soul was passively united to her body previously conceived actively in the natural way. Her conception, consequently, according to this invention, was only partially immaculate, and Christ was conceived in

1 Monsignor Capel adds: By a strange contradiction the Communion Service in use among the Anglicans, who are so loud in their accusations of a mutilated sacrament, orders, in direct opposition to Christ's command, a new consecration under one kind only, in case either element should become short.' This is a misleading statement. If either bread or wine become short, that which is alone required is consecrated under the words specially used for that element, and, so consecrated, is taken and received by the communicant together with the other element already conse crated in like manner at the same service. M M

VOL. VII.-No. 37.

that part which, when conceived, was subject to original sin. As matters stand, the Church of Rome does not appear to give a satisfactory explanation of the doctrine.

In regard to Papal Infallibility, Monsignor Capel lays it down that the successors of St. Peter did not wait for the Vatican Council to declare them infallible, but have from the earliest times acted as men who believed themselves possessed of this great gift.' Why then was it not made an article of faith, if properly so, before the end of the nineteenth century; and why, if it was so, did it then require it? Monsignor Capel admits that the doctrine is not declared in Scripture, but holds that it can be legitimately developed from the words of Christ to St. Peter. The question as to the Pope being his successor has an important bearing on this argument; but, without entering into that inquiry, how does the matter stand? Was St. Peter himself infallible? There is positive evidence to the contrary. St. Paul tells us (Gal. ii. 11), When Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed, for that, before certain persons came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.' Here we find St. Peter acting in a manner which threw doubt on that most important doctrine that Christian Gentiles are as good men as Christian Jews, which had been moreover especially delivered to him. Was he infallible when he so acted? What can be more absurd than the idea of human infallibility?

These new articles of faith, Monsignor Capel admits, are not to be found declared as such in the Scriptures, and were not taught by the Apostles. St. Paul tells us that if any man or even an angel shall preach otherwise than what they did, he is accursed. Is there not therefore reason on this account for doubt in the Church of Rome? We have now to consider the third point on which doubts may arise, in that the Church of Rome refuses to accept what the Universal Church has decreed, and that, so long as she continues to do so, she renders Christian unity impossible, instancing what she has done in regard to the 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon.

Monsignor Capel admits that the Council was legally convened by Pope Leo, and that his four legates presided over it, and that he accepted all its decrees except the 28th Canon, which concerned discipline and not faith. I am glad to find that Monsignor Capel considers that the Church of Rome does not hold Papal supremacy a dogmatic article of faith, but only a matter of ecclesiastical discipline, as, if so, there may be less difficulty in dealing with it hereafter under a less bigoted Romanist than Pope Leo. But can any one reasonably contend that a question of church discipline was not a proper subject for a Council of the Universal Church in the fifth century to determine? Monsignor Capel tells us that the

Church is the sole guardian, the unerring teacher, the indefectible witness of the faith, and the ultimate judge in all controversies concerning it, and that its voice is divine and therefore infallible.' The Church can only speak through its Councils. What right, then, had Pope Leo to refuse to accept a canon which the Council insisted on, though opposed in the strongest way by his authority and that of his presiding legates? What right had he to consider that its voice was divine and infallible in all things except what concerned the proper extent of his own supremacy, or that, if its voice was divine, he was not bound to attend to it?

And now let us examine the Canon and see whether the statement is not correct that the Church in the fifth century knew of no other right to the supremacy the Church of Rome claims than that given to her by the Fathers as the seat of imperial government. The words of the Canon are:

The fathers gave privileges to the ancient throne of Rome because that city had rule by right. Moved by the same consideration, we 150 most God-loving bishops have given the same privileges to the most sacred throne of New Rome (Constantinople), rightly ordering that a city which is honoured by imperial government and senate should enjoy the same privileges in ecclesiastical matters with the most ancient Queen Rome, and to be extolled and made great in the same manner, being the second in existence after her (secundam post illam existentem).

Do these words give any other reason for the exclusive supremacy in ecclesiastical matters till then enjoyed by Rome, than that that city had been the seat of temporal government to the same extent? Do they give any other reason for giving the same privileges to Constantinople, except that in like manner she had become an independent seat of temporal government over a portion of the Empire? Who so well, if not alone, qualified to determine what was expedient under such circumstances as a Council of the Universal Church? Pope Leo's objection to the Canon was in truth a personal one; he disliked giving up part of the supremacy he was enjoying, although the Church considered it had become necessary on account of the Empire having been divided in regard to temporal government, and he was not an impartial judge of what had become best for the Church on account of the change which had taken place.

6

There is much importance in the proper interpretation of the words in this Canon: secundam post illam existentem.' Monsignor Capel interprets them as declaring Constantinople' second in rank to Rome.' The proper interpretation appears to be that New Rome should enjoy equal privileges in ecclesiastical matters as the most ancient Queen Rome, 'being the second imperial city in existence after her' in the Christian world, thereby declaring that, if other cases of independent imperial authority should arise elsewhere, a third or fourth or more of such governments ought to have the same independent ecclesiastical privileges granted to them. Who can deny that

if the Church held it to be right to give ecclesiastical supremacy to the see of Constantinople over the portion of the Roman Empire under her civil government, the same principle must justly apply to other countries similarly independent?

What has been the result of the refusal of Rome to accept that decision? From that time no General Council of the Universal Church has been held, nor can one be held so long as Rome claims and insists on its universal supremacy and the right of the Pope to accept or refuse any canon agreed to by such Council. Consequently those Councils on which Rome relies for her special doctrines have not been Councils of the whole Church, but only of the Church of Rome, and have not therefore proper Catholic authority. Monsignor Capel cannot show that the Council of Trent or the last at the Vatican were Councils of the whole Christian Church.

Is there not then reason for doubt in the Church of Rome on this account?

REDESDALE.

RECENT SCIENCE.

(PROFESSOR HUXLEY has kindly read, and aided the Compilers and the Editor with his advice upon, the following article.)

THE year 1774 will always stand out as a memorable year in the annals of chemical science. It was then that Priestley made his capital discovery of oxygen. It was then, too, that a poor Pomeranian apothecary, who had settled in Sweden, obtained for the first time a curious yellowish vapour, which was destined to acquire an importance almost equal to that of oxygen itself. This yellowish vapourthe Chlorine of modern chemists-was regarded, for many years, as a chemical compound; but from the time when Sir Humphry Davy brought forward the evidence upon which he based his opinion that it must be viewed as an undecomposable form of matter, chlorine has held its place, with but little dispute in this country, in our list of elementary gases.

It is therefore with much surprise that chemists have lately heard of certain experiments, conducted in the Zurich Polytechnikum, which tend to shake their faith in the views which have been accepted for well-nigh seventy years. We are asked, in fact, to believe that chlorine may, after all, turn out to be a compound body-possibly an oxygen-compound. Viewed in connection with other recent researches and speculations on the constitution of the so-called elements,' these experiments, and the deductions therefrom, are just now of peculiar interest; and, unless the Swiss chemists are curiously in error, their investigations will rank among the most important which have been undertaken during the past year.

To understand the strange reversion to old views which seems likely to follow from these recent researches, it is necessary to look back upon the history of chlorine. The discoverer of this gas was Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a native of Stralsund in Pomerania, who in 1773 removed to Upsala in Sweden. His taste for research had attracted the attention of the great chemist Bergmann; but the discoveries of the young apothecary soon overshadowed those of his patron, and gave rise to the remark that 'the greatest of Bergmann's discoveries was the discovery of Scheele.''

See 'The Chemical Elements,' by J. Norman Lockyer. Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1879, p. 285.

The Chemical Essays of Charles William Scheele. London, 1786. Preface by Dr. Beddoes, of Edinburgh, p. vi.