The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-06 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER
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At the anniversary of the dedication eghe
cathedral church at Belmont, near Hereford, on Tues-
day, Dr. Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster,
preached two sermons to large congregations. Pon-
tifical Mass was celebrated in the morning and Pon-
tical Vespers in the afternoon. At the morning
service Dr. Manning founded his discourse on
the words " The foolishucss of God is wiser than
men, and the foolishness of God is stronger than
men." Having briefly referred to the circumstances
connected with the words of the text, he at some
length applied them to the Order of St. Benedict,
the patron saint of the pro-cathedral, and then
dwelt upon the early history of the Roman Catho-
lic Church, and the spread of various forms of
heresy. 1k then spoke of the spread of the Roman
Catholic faith in all ages, and its iulissoluble unity,
remarking that these were not times of diminution
or of going backward, but were times of advance
and of conquest. The Church had ever gone forth
conquering and to conquer, and it was not only in
the expansion of its external unity, but in its interior
coherence and interior fertility that the Catholic
Church manifested itself more in these days than in
any other time. The schisms of 1,800 years had
tried themselves in vain upon its faith. The Church
of God had been manifested by those 1,800 centuries
in a supernatural and Divine triumph, against which
the wisdom and the strength of man cannot pre-
vail ; and with its unity, so with its fertility. If
there had been times when nations were gathered
in, as England and as Germany, so these were times
when the missionaries of the faith were penetrating
to the far East, into lands where, as yet, the name
of Jesus has not been heard. Throughout the whole
world the Church at this moment was spreading its
fertility by its orders of charity and of mercy-. Men
in their strength, and women in their feebleness,
but equal in courage, were penetrating into Chris-
tian and heathen lands, and the Church was putting
forth in her old age the tender leaf, the bud, and
the blossom, with an exuberance and a beauty with
which past ages, glorious as they were, bear no com-
parison. He did not deny that the age of infidelity
had set in ; but infidelity was like a pronounced
disease, which we knew how to treat and to handle.
Heresy was that latent fever which consumed the
life of man, circulated in his blood, and taints
its source. Far better was it to meet faco
to face faith and infidelity than to be mixed up
in those fragmentary Christianities. Far better
to know where error is, to know its
beginnings, its limits, and its end, than to be breath-
ing day by day an atmosphere and taking in as our
daily food those heretical doctrines which insinuate
themselves upon all professing Christian teachers.
When he said that the age of heresy was over, he
meant this—where now was the heresy of Nestorian-
ism or the heresy of Arianism? It might be found in
the far East, where some relics and remnants might
be found, or some cast-off fragments still survived ;
some Church here and there once in the unity of the
Catholic Church, and now lying, like fragments in
the wilderness, the bones of the dead. But heresy
had no vigour, no originality, no action ; it did not
intermingle with us ; it was a thing of the past ; it
was gone. Ancient heresies, he might say, were
extinct. Where was Lutheranism, the last master
heresy of these later centuries ? Where was it now ?
Search through Saxony, the cradle from which it
sprung. Search over all Germany, and find Lutheran
orthodoxy, if he might use contradictory words. It
was a thing of the past. Intellectual errors could not
hold themselves in one set error. They were perpetu-
ally in mutation, and perpetually in solution. They
rise, they culminate, and they pass away. So was it
with Protestantism. Protestanism was dead. Men
might rise up and say, " What audacity to use such
words in the face of the Protestantism of Eng-
land!" Not at all. Protestantism still existed as
a political power, as a form of diplomacy, as an
antipathy to the Catholic Church it was true; but
a Protestantism that could be- defined, that
could be stated in thirty-nine or forty Articles—a
Protestantism that could be made an intelligent be-
lief—a Protestantism that could be found to spread
uniformly over a multitude of men who could be -
agreed together—this was past. It was simply
transformed and metamorphosed, and changed until
its original teachers would know it no more. It
had congeners, human errors, and fragmentary
doctrines of faith picked here and there from tho
original faith, but as a teacher of faith it had no
existence. Men had now come to see that a frag-
mentary Christianity was impossible. Human
teachers were the blind leading the blind. Their devi-
ous and multitudinous paths convicted them of error.
There could be but one way in which the truth
leads men, and there must needs be a Divine teacher
to guide them in that path. Therefore, he said that
the age of heresy was over; but the age of rationalism
and the age of infidelity had set in indeed—a terrible
foe, but an open foe, and one with which they knew
how to deal. Another phenomenon of the present
times was the unity of the whole Church withtheholy
see of St. Peter, the infinite union of heart and soul,
of pastors and people, with the Vicar of Jesus Christ,
which was greater at this time than in any other age
of the history of the Church from the day of Pente-
cost until now. -He would boldly say that never was
there a moment when the Episcopate of the Universal
Church was united in the patriarchal bond, like the
heart of one man, more intimately than now. Na-
tionality, since Judaism was condemned and ex-
tinguished, was a heresy in the Church of God.
When nationalism mingled with doctrine and faith,
or the administration of discipline, or contended with
the Holy See, then it became a disease, and it had
been a disease. In England, it was the Reformation;
in France it was Gallicanism. Where now was the
Gallicanism of France ? Where now was England's
nationalism among Roman Catholics ? His Grace
then referred to the unity of the bishops of Italy in the
present state of affairs, and observed that he spoke in
words of measured truth when he said that there never
was a time when the Bishops of the Catholic Church
were more united, and there certainly never was a
time when they were more intimately united with
filial love, devotion, and submission to the Vicar of
Jesus Christ. This was a spiritual fact which bad
increased from age to age in the Church of God, and
gave promise of a future of which as yet they could
see only a distant beginning.
Passingof the temporal power of the Pope,
said he would be bold to assert that there never was
Dr. on
Manning to
speak
Christ e
lt the
s
a moment, from the begirminguntjesilnuosw, whn
was
more power of the Vicar of
ecoofg men recognised,
than o r
more clearly understood, more truly
had more influence upon the consciencesr
at this very moment. What was the temporarpower
of the Vicar of Jesus Christ ? Did it mean the pos-
session of wealth, of fleets, of armies, of domains like
those of the British glnPre ? No, none of those
things. it consisted chiefly in two Divine laws—first,
that the vicar of-the incarnate Son of God could
never be subject to any human power; he must be
independent ; he must be free. The acts of legisla-
tors and the mandates of princes had never been able,
and never would, to fetter the independence of the
Vicar of Jesus Christ. Free the Vicar of his Divine
Lord has ever been, and free he must be so long as
the Christian world exists. Roll the world back again
into heathenism, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ would
be free no more, but martyred. If the Church of God
was the Divine Teacher to which alone on earth the
conscience of man was subject, then no human power,
no prince, no potentate, no legislature could make
laws for the conscience of man in the matters of his
salvation ; and those great laws of their salvation
were summed up and carried on and perpetuated in
that which was called the freedom and independence
of the llead of the Church of God. There was also
committed to him the supreme guidance and direc-
tion over every soul on earth. He was the guardian
of the faith and the keeper of the law, and as such
he was its interpreter and its expositor. And these
two elements in what was called his temporal power
were not alien to his own personal freedom and his
supreme direction. Dr. Manning, in conclusion, ex-
horted his hearers not to be afraid at the bold words
of men or the threatening aspect of events, but to
take confidence from the present position of the
Church, and tolcarn never to compromise aprinciple
or to attempt to adjust the laws of God any more
f than the dogmas of the faith to the expediency of
I the moment and the wisdom of men.

---7- z-c_G-z-e--4,.,'

Dr. Manning on the Proapectsl
Catholic Church.