"The lesson which we are intended to learn from the Church of the old covenant appears to be that a real religious authority admits of being so much misused as to become completely misleading."-CANON GORE.

XIV.

Purgatory-Roman Dogmatic Teaching

S we are now to consider the teaching of the

A Roman Church on the intermediate state, it is

necessary to distinguish clearly between what the Roman Church herself authoritatively teaches by her Councils and dogmatic decrees, and the large additions to this authoritative teaching made by her theologians.

The Roman Church may be said to provide a text which is the Roman dogmatic teaching, and upon this text the theologians raise up a doctrinal structure which practically becomes, in the common estimation, as authoritative as the text itself. These additions of the theologians form the Romish doctrine. There is, however, a very real distinction between dogma and the doctrine of theologians. The dogmatic teaching holds a place apart, and cannot be questioned by any orthodox Roman Catholic. To deny a doctrine that has been solemnly defined by the authority of their Church would be accounted heresy, while to deny what is not defined but only commonly taught by theologians, would, at the worst, not exceed the sin of "rashness." A doctrine that has been defined by

a Council is called a dogma of "Catholic faith"; the consent of theologians upon a point of doctrine is known as a common opinion."

This distinction is often ignored by those outside the Roman Church, who suppose that everything that is commonly taught in the Church of Rome is equally binding upon the faith of her members. Thus no distinction is made between the Roman teaching which is de fide and the Romish doctrine-concerning this official teaching-put forward by theologians. On the other hand, the distinction is often unduly exaggerated by Roman Catholic controversialists, who draw attention to the very little that the Roman Church teaches as de fide upon some matters of belief, and imply that no one is required to believe more. As a matter of fact no one is considered a "good Catholic" in the Church of Rome who limits his belief to the dogmatic faith as defined by the Councils. Such an one would not of course be considered a formal heretic, but he would be what is almost worse in the popular ecclesiastical mind-a "liberal" Catholic, and if he ventured to speak or write against the popular undefined belief fostered by the common consent of theologians, his attitude would be censured as "scandalous," and his writings and words as "rash, pernicious, injurious to the Church, leading into error, erroneous, favouring heresy, blasphemous, impious, and offensive to pious ears." Such are some of the official expressions reserved for those who depart-not from the faith but

-from the common opinions of the theologians, or, in other words, from the Romish doctrine.

While, therefore, it is quite necessary to note that there is a great distinction between the dogmatic faith of the Roman Church and the doctrine of the Romish theologians concerning the faith, yet it is equally important to remember that it is the Romish doctrine that is everywhere taught in the Church of Rome, and that this quasi authoritative teaching represents her doctrinal and practical system much more adequately than the more vague dogmatic decrees of the Councils. Consequently it is disingenuous for Roman controversialists to argue as if any who could accept the teaching of the Councils would find themselves at home in the Roman communion. When the Church of Rome is willing to reckon as good Catholics those who do not assent to more than her dogmatic creed, and when she really disowns the additions to her faith that form so large a part of what is everywhere taught in her pulpits and encouraged in her popular devotions, it will be time enough to discuss how far her dogmatic creed expresses the common faith of the whole state of Christ's Church. In the meantime we may remember that it has been very generally confessed that it was the practical abuses which were fostered by the Romish doctrine, that necessitated a reform in the sixteenth century, and even at the present day it is this practical system that is mainly objected to by those outside the Roman communion, and by not a few of those within.

And yet there is no sign of any willingness among the rulers of the Roman communion to effect any reform. Only lately Anglo-Roman bishops1 have insisted upon the acceptance of the Romish doctrinal and practical system as being quite essential. They write: "No one, calling himself a Catholic, can doubt the obligation of giving a firm

assent to all revealed universally held by the

doctrines that are defined or Church as of 'Catholic Faith,' and this under pain of heresy and being cut off from the Church and salvation. ... But it may be well to insist . . . that Catholics are bound to give their assent also to the decisions of the Church concerning matters appertaining to or affecting revelation, though these matters be not found, strictly speaking, within the deposit of Faith. Such matters are, for instance, the interpretation of Scripture; the canonization of Saints; . . . and the condemnation of false doctrines by the Holy See." The bishops go on to show that Roman Catholics are committed to even more than this, and must give "religious obedience" to teaching that "does not fall under the head of revealed truth, nor even under the endowment of her "—the Roman Church's "infallibility, but under the exercise of her ordinary authority to feed, teach and govern the flock of Christ." They then proceed to lay down principles that would involve, for instance, the tacit assent to such 1 "A joint pastoral letter on the Church and liberal Catholicism by the Cardinal Archbishop and the bishops of the province of Westminster," Dec. 29, 1900. The Pope has written his approval of this Pastoral in a special Encyclical Letter to Cardinal Vaughan.