many centuries later than the period to which we followed its growth. But by the time of Leo the Great the essential principle had been evolved, and what followed was a matter of time only. And although the evolution of the monarchical principle meant a breach with Greek-speaking Christendom, it is none the less true that it was with the Latin Church that the future lay, that it has been Latin or Western Christendom that has created the Christian thought and Christian life of modern times. What of it then? Is our result the affirmation or the denial of the Roman claim to supremacy as a truth of our religion? Certainly we see in it a product of development, and part of the providential order of events in the history of the world. But the providence of God extends to all human and Christian history, and is not limited to any one product of development. If the Papacy was inevitable, so have been the revolts against it, the protest of the northern nations, the protest of England, and the English Christianity of which we know perhaps only the beginnings. In the history of Old Testament religion, monarchy played a great and necessary part, and bequeathed many glorious ideals, many fruitful principles, which did their work when the actual institution had served its time and passed away. But the monarchy of Israel was adopted only at the cost of the surrender of a yet higher and more spiritual ideal; and was, moreover, while it lasted, the direct cause of a breach of corporate unity which although attended with evil was none the less the result of a divine impulse, and not destructive of true covenant relation with God in the separated Tribes 1. Monarchy in the Church, whether of the Old or the New Testament, has arisen in the providence of God, but it is no inherent or permanent principle of its constitution. We may frankly recognize its good, but must not allow ourselves to mistake the temporal for the eternal: God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. And if we see, as the facts of history surely tell us plainly, that the development of monarchy in the Christian Church was a process to which purely external causes gave an initial impulse; a process into which human love of power and pride of place have from time to 1 See a paper by the present writer in The Thinker for January, 1895. time entered as active causes, mixed indeed, as love of power and pride of place are often mixed, with the sense of inherited responsibilities and zeal for the kingdom of God;-if, I say, spiritual ideals and motives of human infirmity, spiritual forces and unscrupulous worldly methods, have combined to build up little by little the great fabric of papal claims, our practical conclusion is not doubtful. The Papacy is part of the externals of the Christian faith, not a product of its deeper inward life; part of the changing garb which the Church of God must wear in the changing ages of human history, not of the indestructible identity of the faith which overcometh the world," the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. "Velut amictum mutabis eos, et mutabuntur : Tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient. The Papacy has forgotten much that S. Paul knew and taught, has ignored many wholesome and true instincts which were alive and active in the early Church. But it has preserved much, and to what it has preserved it can still give energetic effect and expres 1 Heb. i. II, 12. sion. It has done much evil, but also much good; and it will doubtless live on for many centuries with much power for good, with a true mission to great portions of mankind. But not to all. Those elements of the faith which Rome has lost are not dead, but living, and will assert their own, and find vehicles for their effectual work among Christian men, independently of Rome. The Papacy is a great product of human history and of human nature, and judged as such attracts our interest, our respect, our admiration. But looked at as claiming to be the sole embodiment of the kingdom of Christ on earth and the will of God for man, it stands before us a great image, whose feet are iron mixed with clay. OXFORD: HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY. 259 Adrian VI, Pope, 192. INDEX. Alexander of Alexandria, 116, 161. Alexander III, Pope, 195. Alexandria, jurisdiction of, 240; Roman claims over, 234, 244. Ambrose, S., quoted, 173. Andrewes, Bp., quoted, 7; his controversy with Bellar- min, 33. Anicetus of Rome, 131, 225. Antioch, Synods of, 113 f., 156; the schism at, 251. Apiarius, case of, 248. Apollinaris of Hierapolis, quoted, 112. Appeals to Rome, growth of, 246 f. Arianism, rise of, 161, 238. Ariminium, Council of, 177, 185. Arles, Council of, 117, 160, 237; called plenary by S. Augustine, 176. Articles of Religion, Du Pin on the Sixth, 19; Twenty- Athanasius, S., on the Council of Nicaea, 167 n., 169 f.; Authority, its necessary limitations, 5f.; its different of the Church, 82; its reasonableness, 89 f.; the Authority (The) of General Councils-Summary, 144. T |