3

able condition of, all true growth in holiness, and, therefore, in blessedness' (p. 403). But this is a reductio ad impossibile; that the heaviest punishment should fall on those who, by God's mercy, have been brought into the closest union with Him, is a consequence which, if we are right in saying that it follows from this idea of what constitutes the punishment of the lost, is sufficient to condemn the idea. It is, it seems to us, far more true to regard the condition of the lost as that in which the capacity for good has been extinguished' by their own fault. They have done despite unto the Spirit of Grace,' 1 and their consciences (are) seared with a hot iron,' so that they cannot repent, not because an arbitrary decree prevents them from doing what they would wish, but because they have no wish to repent. Evil men and seducers,' we are told, 'shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.' 3 Having refused to retain God in their knowledge, they can but go further and further in the direction in which they have set their wills; He which is filthy, let him be filthy still.' 4 The condition of the lost is represented to us in Scripture as akin to that of the devils, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' 5 A moment's consideration of the case of the devils will show that the idea of the punishment of Hell consisting in remorse at the memory of past sin, is inapplicable to them. So far from there being any such remorse, there is rather a delight in sin, a loving of darkness rather than light, a hatred of righteousness, and of the God Who is Righteousness. To the devils the knowledge of the Presence of God is torment; their constant cry to our Lord is, 'Let us alone; what have we to do with Thee?' 'Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?' The hatred of God and of all that is good, coupled with the knowledge that that hatred is powerless against Him, 'incessantly raging against God, Whom it is nevertheless compelled to recognise as the Almighty Creator of all being,' turns the very bliss of Heaven itself, which is the knowledge of God, into Hell, as it is said of Milton's Satan:

7

'So never more in hell than when in heaven.'8

In the awful words of John Henry Newman (Parochial Sermons, vol. i. Sermon 1: 'Holiness necessary for future Blessedness,' p. 8):

1 Heb. x. 22. 2 I Tim. iv. 2.

5 S. Matt. xxv. 41.

3 2 Tim. iii. 13. 4 Rev. xxii. II. 6 S. Mark, i. 24; S. Matt. viii. 29.

7 Müller's Christian Doctrine of Sin, ii. p. 430; Spirits in Prison, p. 258. 8 Paradise Regained, i. 420.

'If we wished to imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater, than to summon it to Heaven. Heaven would be Hell to an irreligious man.'

And in an earlier paragraph of the same Sermon, p. 6,

'He would find no discourse but that which he had shunned on earth, no pursuits but those he had disliked or despised, nothing which bound him to aught else in the universe, and made him feel at home, nothing which he could enter into and rest upon.'

This is surely a truer and deeper idea of what constitutes the punishment of Hell than the other, and also one which shows clearly how, in the nature of the case, it must be eternal. So long as God is what He is, Righteousness itself, so long must sin be utterly alien to Him, so long must any being which clings to sin find His presence, and the knowledge of His being, insupportable and hateful. It is not He that changes; He is eternally the same, 'Whose mercy is over all His works' and 'Who hateth nothing that He hath made.' It is the relation of those, His creatures, to His unchangeable Goodness, and Righteousness, and Love, which has changed, and has made the things which should have been for their wealth into an occasion of falling,' turning the very light of God's Presence, which to those who love Him is eternal life, into darkness for themselves, by their hatred to It. Here it is that, as it seems to us, the picture drawn in the Letters from Hell of the continuance of earthly passions and sins, without the reality of the satisfaction of them, is terribly true. For the soul which has set its affections on things on the earth, which has rejected as hateful the knowledge of the Almighty, and finds its only delight in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, a condition in which these can find no gratification, in which the desire remains in all its fierceness, but the gratification of it is impossible, in which the knowledge of the truth, the holiness, the righteousness from which it has alienated itself is the only true happiness - such a condition cannot fail to be torture. The light of the sun, which brings life and health to all things which are capable of enjoying it, is to the eye which is inflamed and diseased, the acutest torture. In the forcible words of S. Augustine :

'Sicut enim oculus factus ad hanc lucem temporalem videndam, et quamvis cœlestem, tamen corpoream et conspicuam, non solum hominibus, sed etiam vilissimis animantibus (ad hoc enim factus est, ut hanc lucem videat); tamen si aliquid injectum fuerit, vel irruerit, unde turbetur, secluditur ab hâc luce; et quamvis eum sua præsentia circumfundat, ille tamen se avertit, atque absens est: non solum VOL. XXI.-NO. XLII.

D D

autem absens fit perturbatione sua a luce præsenti, sed etiam pœnalis illi est lux, ad quam videndam factus est: sic et oculus cordis perturbatus atque sauciatus avertit se a luce justitiæ, nec audet eam contemplari, nec valet.'1

The light which is in its nature good, and which it is a pleasant thing to see, becomes itself the instrument not of pleasure but of pain, not because there is any change in its own nature, but because that on which it shines is in such a condition that it prefers darkness to light. Is not this the state of the devils and of the lost? To quote once more the words of S. Augustine :

'Lumen quippe verum quod illuminat omnem hominem in hunc mundum venientem, Hoc illuminat et omnem angelum mundum, ut sit lux non in seipso, sed in Deo; a Quo si avertitur angelus, fit immundus, sicut sunt omnes qui vocantur immundi spiritus, nec jam lux in Domino, sed in seipsis tenebræ, privati participatione Lucis Æternæ.'

12

The devils are darkness in themselves,' not because the light has changed towards them, but because they have changed towards it; loving darkness rather than light they hate the light, which yet is unchangeably what it has ever been. Looked at from the point of view of one who knows that the only true happiness is in the love of light, in awaking up after God's likeness and being satisfied with it, it may well be said of any man who brings himself into such a state, 'good were it for that man, if he had never been born.' But from his own point of view it may not be so. It may be, that it is the best that he is fitted for, that he has reduced himself to such a condition that this-torture and misery as it is, worse than death to a soul which knows wherein the true happiness consists-is nevertheless the highest happiness of which he is capable, preferable to non-existence for him, though to those who love God it must appear most truly the 'second death.'

1 Serm. lxxxviii. 5.

2 De Civ. Dei, xi. 9.

་་

ART. X.-MR. ST. GEORGE MIVART AND
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

1. Modern Catholics and Scientific Freedom. By ST. GEORGE MIVART. Nineteenth Century, July. (London, 1885.) 2. The Pontifical Decrees against the Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, and the Ultramontane Defence of them. By the REV. WILLIAM W. ROBERTS. (Oxford, 1885.)

IN the July number (1885) of the Nineteenth Century appeared an article by Mr. St. George Mivart, entitled Modern Catholics and Scientific Freedom, in which that distinguished writer and scientist assumes towards the authorities of his Church, what seems to us an attitude of rebellion, which is intensified rather than softened by his repeated claim to be considered, nevertheless, a 'loyal and consistent' Roman Catholic. Hitherto he has figured as the spokesman for Roman Catholics in this country, on questions between religion and science; and we have reason to believe that, whilst enjoying a very high reputation for his science, he has been regarded by his fellow Roman Catholics with the pride and esteem that are inspired by a doughty champion. The question at once arises whether, in this his most recent utterance, which has somewhat the challenging tone of a manifesto, or declaration of rights, he may still be regarded as the Roman Catholic spokesman. For if his view be not indeed definitively endorsed by authority, but only tolerated as tenable, then all, both within and without the Roman Communion, will find it necessary to adjust their minds to a new conception of Papal Infallibility. We are not aware that any Roman Catholic writer of equal note has come forward as publicly to support or combat this view, or that any ecclesiastical authority has sanctioned or condemned it. What have those lovers of religion and science quoted by Mr. Mivart—what have Father Perry, F.R.S., Father David, Father Klein, F.L.S., Father Hahn, the Rev. Dr. Barry, the Rev. Robert F. Clarke, F.L.S., the Rev. Gordon Thompson, to say about it? May we venture to ask, what has the first and chief authority in this country, Cardinal Manning, to say about it? And if he says nothing, what is the precise meaning of his silence?

Whether the question raised by Mr. Mivart be answered or not, and whatever the answer may be, two things are

sufficiently clear to us. 1. That the unity which Roman Catholics so loudly vaunt, and which so deeply impresses many without her pale, does not exist in fact; and such as does exist, is not of a kind to marvel at or respect still less to envy. 2. That Papal Infallibility, although demanding the internal assent of Roman Catholics as a dogma, does not, as a practical law, secure, or even claim, their unquestioning obedience. The papacy is beginning to feel the responsibility of being 'infallible.' The new dogma did not start de novo in 1870. The Pope found himself laden with the burden, not only of his own acts, but of those of some 1800 years before him. Every exercise of this prerogative is a quæstio stantis aut cadentis ecclesiæ. He is therefore chary of using it, and all kinds of precautions are taken, with the object, it is alleged, that we may certainly know when the Pope speaks 'infallibly'; a shrewd suspicion, however, is arising that they are all taken in order that we may not know, and men are beginning to ask, why an infallible authority should be afraid of committing itself. And, if there were, by the gift of God, an infallible voice upon earth, would not its first and chief characteristic, be the unmistakeable authority of its tone, the self-luminousness of its infallibility? Can the Pope choose to say when he speaks 'infallibly and when not--especially after the fact? Can he help speaking infalliblye. with all the infallibility he has whenever he speaks as Pope? Lastly, may not a Pope be infallible,' in his silence?

1

These matters may, however, be postponed while we try to answer for ourselves the question which Mr. Mivart has TO raised, but which the Roman authorities, we imagine, will prefer not to settle, at least coram populo. Be this as it may, let us hope that, if Mr. Mivart be, whether by persuasion or authority, privately induced to make his retractation and submission, he will in the one case instruct us in the reasons that convinced him, or, in the other, let us hear his whispered E pur si muove!' That his superiors will openly break with him we do not believe; for he has put them in an extremely awkward position, from which they will find it as difficult to repudiate as to admit his Church membership with them; and when' publicity will only add to the 'scandal,' it will be more politic and more in accordance with usage to hush the matter up. Either they must allow that open and defiant disregard of the most authoritative ecclesiastical decrees even of a Papal Bull addressed to the whole Church-is compatible with the most scrupulously loyal and consistent Roman Catholicism,' or they must allow that,