compendium what is the actual teaching of the Roman Church upon the points in question: and he does so, naturally enough, by giving-in the words, as M. Dalbus shows, of St. Thomas-the then received (but mistaken) theory on the subject1; and all this, in order that he might succeed in making it perfectly clear for the future, for ever-not to the Roman but to the Armenian communities.

The authority however which affirmed the decree is, to M. Dalbus, overwhelming. Pope and Council had declared that 'porrectio' was the indispensable 'materia.' Henceforth nothing less than a similar authority could dispense with it 2.

Incidentally there is here another very curious point. The decretum Eugenii ad Armenos, whatever be its value, would certainly appear to be addressed, not to Romans as such, but to Armenians. Curiously enough, it appears to be maintained that its effect was to impose, as indispensable, a new 'materia' upon the whole Western, but not upon the Eastern3, Church. This, however, is by the way.

1 'Expedire judicavimus, ne ulla in futurum de fidei veritate apud ipsos Armenos haesitatio esse valeat, atque idem per omnia sapiant cum sede apostolica, unioque ipsa stabilis et perpetua sine ullo scrupulo perseveret, ut sub quodam brevi compendio orthodoxae fidei veritatem quam super praemissis Romana profitetur ecclesia, per hoc decretum, sacro hoc approbante Florentino concilio, ipsis oratoribus ad hoc etiam consentientibus, traderemus'; pp. 31, 32.

2 'Si le sens de ce décret est parfaitement clair, l'autorité n'en est pas contestable non plus'; p. 32.-'Pour les catholiques romains, l'autorité du Pape dans ce cas suffirait, mais nous avons, de plus, l'autorité du Concile de Florence qui se continuait.'-'Un concile a donc approuvé un décret dans lequel il est dit que la matière du sacrement de l'Ordre est la porrection des instruments'; p. 33.

3 Voilà donc approuvés deux rites sacramentels différents : une matière pour les Grecs, et une pour les Latins; une matière pour les dix ou douze premiers siècles, et une autre pour la suite des âges' (p. 33); and on p. 35 he quotes Billuart thus: Ecclesia itaque hac potestate sibi a Christo tradita utens, determinavit, seu saltem consensit, quod impositio manuum cum forma illi respondente pro ecclesia Graeca, et forte etiam in prioribus saeculis pro ecclesia Latina, esset signum legitimum utriusque potestatis traditae ad consecrandum et ad absolvendum. At postea determinavit pro ecclesia Latina quod porrectio instrumentorum cum his verbis, Accipe potestatem &c., esset signum legitimum potestatis consecrandi; impositio autem manuum cum his verbis, Accipe Spiritum sanctum &c., signum potestatis absolvendi : ita quod Graecus ordinatus ritu Latinorum aut Latinus ritu Graecorum sine dispensatione summi Pontificis invalide ordinaretur.'

What then the whole Church had solemnly ordained, at least for the West, could not be abrogated by any province, or kingdom, taken apart. Granting, then, even that the English Bishops had the most unimpeachably excellent intentions; granting that their one desire was to recover again primitive forms and apostolical usages; yet they could not, on these lines, establish an adequate rite; because they had no power to suppress a ceremony which, brought in by custom at first, had been decreed to be essential, in the West, by the authority of Eugenius IV., with the approval of the Council of Florence.

So the whole claim falls to the ground. The argument is summed up by M. Dalbus, in these words: 'Nous croyons avoir démontré: (1) que le rite de l'ordinal anglican, pris en lui-même, pourrait être suffisant; (2) que la consécration de Parker doit être regardée comme certaine quant au fait, mais qu'un doute subsiste au sujet de l'intention du consécrateur; (3) que, par le fait des altérations introduites dans les cérémonies de l'ordination des prêtres, les ordinations anglicanes sont nulles.'

In the Bulletin Critique of July 15, 1894, there appeared a short criticism of M. Dalbus' work by the Abbé Duchesne.

The first objection made to Anglican Orders-the doubt as to Barlow's sacramental orthodoxy-M. Duchesne puts quietly aside as irrelevant. The question is, he says, what the Church means by Ordination. The heterodox teaching of an individual bishop, or even, if it be so, of the Anglican Church collectively, would not invalidate their act, if by a rite adequate in itself they sought to confer the Orders of the Church: 'Il y a eu, en dehors de l'Angleterre, des évêques incrédules; n'oublions pas qu'une partie du clergé français dérive son ordination de M. de Talleyrand.' 'Le baptême peut être conféré validement par une personne qui sait seulement que c'est un rite sacré par lequel on devient chrétien. De même, les ordinations anglicanes ont toujours été célébrées par des personnes qui voulaient faire des évêques, des prêtres, et ainsi de suite. Il n'en faut pas demander davantage.'

Neither does he admit M. Dalbus' objection about Pope Eugenius and the Porrectio Instrumentorum to be admissible. Granting, in theory, that the Church has power to make a solemn alteration even in the essential 'materia' of a Sacrament, where is

the evidence, he asks, that she has ever determined so to do, or been conscious of so doing, at all1?

He adds that the objection, even if valid, would be valid only against ordinations to priesthood, and not against consecrations to episcopate. Inasmuch therefore as there are abundant historical instances of the consecration to episcopate of those who were not in priest's Orders, the argument, even if true, would make nothing against the recognition of the English episcopate.

His practical conclusion is that English ordinations 2 might be recognized as valid. The contrary opinion prevalent in Rome is accounted for by the necessity which Rome is under to be very tender to the scruples of Catholic consciences. As things stand, there are few who would accept the Sacraments from a Priest who had only been ordained as an Anglican: 'En ces matières, il est naturel de multiplier les garanties.'

The fact that public prejudice is as it is, is, he says, an inheritance from the sixteenth century, when scholastic (but erroneous) views about the 'porrectio' were in possession; and the prejudice was fostered and maintained by the 'legends' published about the consecrations of Parker and of Barlow.

Some day, he concludes, it is possible that the feeling may improve, and the present attitude of authority on the subject may be changed: 'Rien n'empêche de croire que, par la suite des temps, cette opinion se corrige, et que l'autorité ecclésiastique elle-même n'en vienne à modifier son attitude.'

Now it may be said that to reopen the details of this controversy is to go back to things which belong already to a remote past. In a sense, perhaps, they do. But this past, if already remote, is certainly pregnant with instruction.

No one will deny that the two gentlemen whose writings have been quoted are eminent among Roman ecclesiastics, for their large-minded effort to be fair. Assuming this, I must ask for a little further attention to the intellectual difficulty in which they found themselves placed. M. Dalbus had disposed of all 1 'Où est (1) l'acte officiel, public, explicite, par lequel l'Eglise s'est reconnu le droit dont on parle? (2) l'acte officiel, public, explicite, par lequel elle a déclaré user de ce droit pour les rites essentiels de l'ordination? J'ajouterai que l'on pourrait demander aussi dans quel intérêt elle aurait introduit un changement aussi considérable.'

2Peuvent être considérées comme valides.'

the natural presumptions against the Anglican Ordinal. Yet he disallowed it upon considerations (1) of intention, and (2) of the overruling authority of an utterance (generally supposed to have been an exceptionally unfortunate one) of a Roman pontiff. Now what did he really mean by the difficulty of intention? It is hard to believe that he ever really supposed that the private heterodoxy of an individual bishop would invalidate his pontifical actions, or that he would have felt his objection fully met by the reference which Duchesne made to M. de Talleyrand. But if the gist of his objection never really lay in the greater or less probability that Barlow, individually, performed a sacramental act with an unsacramental conception of what he was doing, wherein did it lie? Must not the underlying suggestion be this-that Barlow not only, whilst consecrating, individually held, but that, in and by the very method and (taken with all its surroundings) admitted significance of his consecrating, he did officially and representatively express, an inadequate doctrine of what priesthood and episcopate were? I am not suggesting that this gloss would make his charge of inadequate intention effectual; but at least it would make it more intelligible. But if it is Barlow representatively and publicly, rather than Barlow individually and privately, whereby is that which Barlow represented to be judged? His own writings may, under the circumstances, be an item in the evidence; but only so far as he and his writings may, under the circumstances, be supposed to be representative of reformed Anglican doctrine. It is reformed Anglican doctrine that is really in question-not the vagueness of mind of an individual bishop1. But if this is true, then the doubt which really underlay and was disguised by this complaint about intention was really a doubt not how far Barlow's own 'unsacramentalism' may privately have gone, but how far that corporate doctrine, which Barlow may be supposed for the moment to have personified, was or was not adequately 'sacramental.' By the time we get as far as this, it is plain that what the question will come to, on analysis, will be, whether 'sacramental' in an Anglican context is, or is not, all that 'sacramental' from a Roman standpoint may be required to mean. It becomes,

1 This suggestion is somewhat fortified by M. Dalbus' reference in this connection to Gasparri. For the passage quoted from Gasparri, see below, p. 322.

though indirectly, an instance of testing Anglican meanings by their coincidence with Roman.

But if this is, as I believe, indirectly true of what M. Dalbus says of defective intention, there can be no doubt that it is true quite directly of his argument about Pope Eugenius and the 'porrectio.' This is nothing but an invoking of the supreme authority of the Roman pontiff. The argument depends upon the assumption that Rome always was, and always must have been, right. Suppose for a moment that Roman theology may have fallen into disproportion, or made a mistake; and the argument would be no argument at all. It depends, in other words, on the assumption that, Rome being absolutely right, everything in Anglicanism must be wrong, if, or just so far as, it definitely differs from Rome. But, as I have urged already, as long as Roman infallibility has to stand in the major premiss, the most learned and large-minded efforts made on the Roman side, to do justice to the Anglican standpoint, are made necessarily in vain. It can hardly be said too plainly that if the Roman Church has, at every point, been right, then the Anglican Church has been, of necessity, wrong. We have condemned the proportions and altered the expressions of her doctrine. The question is, which is right? It might be held indeed, without any defect of logic, that whilst each was in many points right-perhaps even right in the main-yet each had made mistakes and was in some points open to correction : but if either is absolutely right, it follows, by inexorable consequence, that the other-just so far as she really differs-must be absolutely wrong. Neither can really argue with the other so long as her own infallibility is a postulate in the argument.

When we turn from M. Dalbus to M. Duchesne, the fetters which forbid free discussion are not removed. It is difficult to see how a loyal Roman Catholic could really go further than M. Duchesne went. Every argument against Anglican Orders was set aside. There remained in the field not one. But what was the resulting position? That the Orders might be acknowledged as valid, if Rome chose to acknowledge them. Perhaps Roman prejudice might die away; perhaps Roman authority might pronounce their validity. Nothing was really lacking but the will. If on one side this may look like the extreme of con