(3) The Roman statement that the faith had never been changed by the Roman Church.

The chief point was what was meant by the infallibility of the Church. The ground was very different from that of the Puritan contention. It was admitted by both sides that there is a continual and visible Church: but the meaning of its infallibility was in question.

First, there was the familiar Roman claim that the Fathers recognised the Roman Church as infallible. Here it is little more than a question of translation. St. Cyprian and St. Jerome and St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Cyril and Rufinus— what did they mean in some passages quoted? Laud had no difficulty, we should say, in showing that none of them thought of any permanent infallibility in the Roman Church or bishops. And to that point he returns when the arguments are summed up at the end of the controversy. There is no Scriptural or primitive warrant for an infallible pope. A Jesuit attacking Laud's book some years later appears to have conceded this point, for he says, "Catholic faith (in this particular) only obliges us to maintain that the pope is infallible when he defines with a general council."

From a general denial of the pope's infallibility Laud passed to a particular assertion of the errors of the Roman

"That

Church and bishops in special points-in the The errors "worship of images, and in altering Christ's inof Rome. stitution in the Blessed Sacrament, by taking away the cup from the people, and divers other particulars." But first he examined the position of the Greek Church as a permanent witness against the exclusive claim of Rome. "They [the Greeks] continue a true Church in the main substance to and at this day." The Filioque controversy is discussed with a clearness and accuracy that is none too common. divers learned men were of opinion that a Filio et per Filium, in the sense of the Greek Church, was but a question in modo loquendi, "in manner of speech, and therefore not fundamental, is evident." "You," he says, turning to his Jesuit antagonist, "You may make them no Church (as Bellarmine doth), and so deny them salvation, which cannot be had out of the true Church; but I for my part dare not do So. And Rome in this particular should be more moderate,

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if it be but because this article, Filioque, was added to the Creed by herself. And it is hard to add and anathematise too. It ought to be no easy thing to condemn a man in foundation of faith; much less a Church; least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek, especially so as to make them no Church. Heaven's gates were not so easily shut against multitudes, when St. Peter wore the keys at his own girdle." Here again Laud showed his keen insight into really vital points: the permanence of the Orthodox Eastern Church is a standing refutation of the exclusive claim of Rome. From this arose a discussion as to what were fundamentals of the faith: Laud said "the Articles of the Creed." Here occurs the curious passage in which Laud appears to maintain the actual descent of our Blessed Lord mentals of into "the lowest pit of hell and place of the damned," and not merely into the limbus patrum, or into Hadesappears only, for it cannot be said that he clearly states the opinion, since he declares that "the Church of England takes the words as they are in the Creed, and believes them without further dispute, and in that sense which the ancient primitive Fathers of the Church agreed in." And this leads naturally to the discussion of the liberty which the Church allows. Here England, says Laud, stands boldly free and tolerant, where Rome is rigid and bitter.

The funda

the faith.

"She comes far short of the Church of Rome's severity, whose anathemas are not only for Thirty-nine Articles but for very many more-above one hundred in matter of doctrineand that in many points as far remote from the foundation; though to the far greater rack of men's consciences, they must be all made fundamental, if that Church have once determined them whereas the Church of England never declared that every one of her Articles are fundamental in the faith. For it is one thing to say, No one of them is superstitious or erroneous; and quite another to say, Every one of them is fundamental, and that in every part of it, to all men's belief. Besides, the Church of England prescribes only to her own children, and by those Articles provides but for her own peaceable consent in those doctrines of truth. But the Church of Rome severely imposes her doctrine upon the whole world, under pain of damnation."

The positive Articles of the English Church claim all to be founded on Holy Scripture-the negative to be refutations of doctrines not so founded. But how, says the The position of Holy Jesuit, do you know Scripture to be Scripture? Scripture. Laud will not answer solely by the tradition of the Church," but rather-(1) the unanimous and constant witness of the Church; (2) the internal light and testimony which Scripture gives to itself; (3) the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the souls of men; (4) natural reason considering the books. These together give evidence which may commend itself to any thoughtful and earnest inquirer. Reason, indeed, is the bulwark not the slave of religion. 'For though I set the mysteries of faith above reason, which is their proper place, yet I would have no man think they contradict reason or the principles thereof. No, sure: for reason by her own light can discover how firmly the principles of religion are true; but all the light she hath will never be able to find them false."

This question of evidence for the Scripture is argued at great length; Hooker is cited and defended, tradition is weighed, and the Roman claims for it all examined: yet Laud maintains his position, that the supremacy of the Bible rests upon cumulative not particular proof. "The key that lets men and faith. into the Scriptures, even to this knowledge of them, that they are the Word of God, is the tradition of the Church: but when they are in, they hear Christ Himself immediately speaking in Scripture to the faithful; and 'His sheep' do not only 'hear' but know 'His voice." " Perhaps

Evidence

in few parts of his treatise is Laud more clear and trenchant and rational than he is here, or more strictly theological. Faith and reason have never perhaps more clearly had their claims vindicated and their limits admitted. The terseness of the language is the fit symbol of the accuracy and condensation of the thought.

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'Though the evidence of these supernatural truths, which Divinity teaches, appears not so manifest as that of the natural; yet they are in themselves much more sure and infallible than they. For they proceed immediately from God Himself, that Heavenly Wisdom, which being the foundation of ours, must needs infinitely precede ours, both in nature and

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excellence. 'He that teacheth man knowledge shall not He know?' And therefore, though we reach not the order of their deductions, nor can in this life come to the vision of them, yet we yield as full and firm assent, not only to the articles, but to all the things rightly deduced from them, as we do to the most evident principles of natural reason. This assent is called faith; and 'faith being of things not seen,' would quite lose its honour, nay itself, if it met with sufficient grounds in natural reason whereon to stay itself. For faith is

a mixed act of the will and the understanding; and the will inclines the understanding to yield full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof. Not but that there is most full proof of them, but because the main grounds which prove them are concealed from our view and folded up in the unrevealed counsel of God; God in Christ resolving to bring mankind to their last happiness by faith and not by knowledge, that so the weakest among men may have their way to blessedness open."

Miracles, he very clearly asserts, even our Lord's and the Apostles' miracles, are not in themselves and by themselves "evident and convincing proofs."

And so the argument went on, till the Countess of Buckingham herself broached the question upon which all depended-Would the bishop grant the Roman Church to be the right Church?

The true
Church.

On this his answer developes the chief points on which his own position as an English churchman was based, and which he repeated in his history written in the Tower, as the only grounds on which the English Church can justify her separation from Rome.

There were errors in faith into which Rome had fallen which made it necessary for the Church of England to reform herself. This she did without departing from the Catholic faith once for all delivered to the saints. And she did not depart from the essential unity of which that faith is the bond, or from the Apostolic discipline and ministry which preserve

it. Thus Rome is a true Church, though erring-yet not the true Church. England also is a true Church. Errors there were in the reformers, as there were in the popes: and the work of reformation is admittedly a most difficult one. And

yet, through it all, the essence has been preserved, and the English protest against nothing but the errors of the Roman Communion.

The Jesuit on the other side repeats the claim to infallibility based on the Rock of Peter: and Laud denies that the rock was Peter's person, and asserts that it was his faith.

The Roman claim.

So

the English separation is not from the "General Church," but from the Church of Rome—and "even here the Protestants have not left the Church of Rome in her essence but in her errors; not in the things that constitute a church, but only in such abuses and corruptions as work toward the dissolution of a church."

How to be decided.

And who is to be the judge? A general council: it is Laud's appeal, and that of the whole English Church since the Reformation. And where that cannot be had we fall back on the Holy Scriptures; for the Council of Trent had no general assent of the Catholic Church, and the claim of the pope to continuous supremacy is contrary to historical fact. The Church in general cannot err in a fundamental point, having the perpetual presence of Christ. A particular Church can err, and particular Churches have erred. General councils may err, as that of Constance erred when it ordered that the Holy Eucharist should be received by laymen only under one kind, and made this rule a law which may not be refused." Such judgments, being contrary to the command of Christ, may be reversed. So again the debate turns back upon the pope's infallibility; and Laud declares that the doctrine of intention alone, as defined by the Council of Trent, refutes the claim. For he cannot be infallible unless he be pope, and the intention of conferring the Sacraments by which he has received his spiritual powers and privileges cannot be proved.

From this he comes to the errors that he saw in the practice of the Roman Church of his own day in the common teaching of transubstantiation, of communion in one kind, of invocation of saints, of adoration of images-errors all of them practical, but not all to be found in the avowed teaching of the Roman Church.

As the debate narrows, the Jesuit turns from particulars, which are hard to defend, to a general assertion which appeals