APPENDIX, No. I.

THE authority given to the opinions of the Six Universities, in 1789, has always surprised me'. At the best, they were the opinions of learned men in learned bodies, on the construction of the rights claimed by another party, who had not submitted himself to them. To me they appear like the opinions of counsel on a question of ordinary law, or of the construction of a statute, which never settle the judgment of an adverse party; and which, in fact, must be confirmed either by a competent court, or by a declaratory statute, before they can be binding on any one.

This reasoning would apply to the opinions of all the universities in all parts of Europe, if all had been agreed: but, even in that case, it might be asked, who gave to any, or to all of them collectively, any authority to decide on the rights of the Pope and the Church of Rome? The authority which promulgated the claim must, and alone can, dispose of it. It will be recollected, that this is not the first instance in which an abstract proposition indirectly involving British interests, was submitted to Foreign Universities: more than five times the number consulted by Mr. Pitt, were consulted by Henry VIII. upon the matter of his divorce; and, in acting upon their answers, he acted, as all the rest of Europe knew, in direct oppo

1 Mr. Southey, to whom, above all others of this age, the Church of England is indebted in the controversy with the Church of Rome, and who in his "Vindicia" has, from the stores of richest study which his memory and his genius guard, supplied the most varied authorities on every point of the question, and has thus filled up the only deficiency which could be found in his own "Book of the Church," has well used this argument in reference to the sanction given by the same universities of Salamanca and Louvain, to the legend of the Life of the Virgin Mary, dictated by herself!

Vindiciæ p. 10.

Those, who take the opinions of the universities as authoritative upon one point, must take them as equally authoritative upon the other.

sition to the declared will and authority of the Church of Rome. Does not this weaken the assumption, that the opinions of the Six Universities, in 1789, ought to be regarded as the unanswerable and avowed opinions of that Church?

So much for the general authority of the Oracle, now for the particular subject of the Responses. It will be recollected, that the question put to them had reference to the limits of the claims of Popes to temporal power. If the parties answering, and they only, had been his subjects, their own estimate of the degree of obedience due to him, would have been of some value: but as all history admits, that, in times past, the Popes had claimed to exercise, and had in fact exercised, temporal authority in other States-in States not subject to the sole, immediate, and acknowledged rule of the Papal See,-the most obvious course, in order to ascertain the mind of the Church of Rome, at the time, and upon the point in question, would have been to obtain from the reigning Pontiff an explicit disclaimer of any such power in himself individually, or, so far as he could give it, in the Church which he represented :—at any rate, the questions ought to have been addressed not only to the cismontane Universities, but to those in Italy, more directly and locally the depositories of the animus of the See of Rome.

The more important fact, which, so far as I have seen, has not hitherto been adverted to, is, that the University of Louvain, (to which, by Sir Francis Burdett and by Mr. Gally Knight, so much deference is attached,) quote as authorities for their opinion as to the rights of the Church of Rome,-very impartially, indeed, but, as against that Church, not, as I should think, very conclusively-the opinion of a Protestant Prince, King James the First; and even when they come to the writings of men of their own communion, they quote as full and

sufficient representatives of the Church of Rome, nine authors, seven of whom at the least, [I suspect the other two also,] are nominatim rejected by that very Church, as not only not possessing her confidence, but as fit for nothing but the inquisition. The seven specifically condemned, are De Marca, the two Barclays (Robert and John,) Goldastus, Pithou, Widdrington, and King James I.

It is curious that one of the highest Protestant authorities whom I know in favour of Emancipation-the anonymous, but well-known author of the "Answer to Two great Arguments, 1810." p. 62.-should quote Fleury as an evidence of the views of the Church of Rome.-Fleury, aş Pope said of his own pastorals compared with those of Phillipps, may be better than a Papist, but he is not a Papist. He is not, as an expositor of the mind of the Church of Rome, of any value at all; for he was expressly disclaimed by Innocent XII. (Decr. 21 Apr. 1693,) by Benedict XIII. (Decr. 13 Feb. 1725, et 1 Apr. 1728,) and by Benedict XIV. (Decr, 22 Maii, 1745,) and was by the last Pontiff, Pius VII. confirmed in his place in the Index of prohibited books.

APPENDIX, No. II.

IT is remarkable that almost all the works to which the Committee of 1816 have referred, as proving the rights of the Sovereign in different States over his ecclesiastical subjects as such, and as illustrating the nature of their relations with the Church of Rome, are among the books which that Church disavows and denounces.

The liberties claimed by the HELVETIC CHURCH are denied by the Pope; and the authority for them, the work "De Helvetiorum Juribus circa Sacra, 1768," quoted by

6

the Avoyer of Lucerne 1, in the papers before the House, is condemned in the Index.

The nature and antiquity of the Regium Exequatur, as exercised at NAPLES, are very fully explained by Giannone, in his "History of the Kingdom of Naples," of which the Committee, accordingly, quote four chapters: this work is also condemned in the Index.

Among the works approved by the ecclesiastical censors, and authorized by the Government, the first, as laying down the ecclesiastical law of PORTUGAL, and contending for the prerogatives of the crown, is "Pereira Tentamen Theologicum." This work is likewise condemned in the Index.

The liberties claimed by the Church in AUSTRIA, as laid down by Rechberger in his Enchiridion, and by Van Espen in his Tractatus, are, in the persons of those authors, upon whom the Committee of 1816 rely, in the same manner, condemned in the Index.

APPENDIX, No. III.

If it be said, that practically after all I prove too much, when I allege the inherent spirit of encroachment which animates the Roman Catholic Church, as it may be collected from her Decrees, since she never disturbs the continental nations, and allows her Members in Prussia or in Russia to submit without jealousy to a heretic Sovereign; and therefore that the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Ireland might be subjected in the same manner to the temporal authority as the hierarchy of Austria is to the Emperor I answer first, it is not so clear that she never does attempt to disturb the authority of the temporal

Supp. Papers, p. 22. So also is Ruchat's work, quoted by the Committee, p. 34. entitled "Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse."

Sovereign even in stronger States, as I will shew in the case of Austria, and of Spain. Secondly, it is the policy of the Papacy to attack the weaker States, as I might shew in the case of Parma, and of Naples. And, thirdly, whether the Pope may, or may not, permit the hierarchy of Spain, or of Austria, or of Naples, to be subject in ecclesiastical, as well as in temporal things, to their own lay Sovereign, and to receive their appointments from him, one thing is clear, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland have repeatedly declared, that THEY will not concede, even when the Pope's Representative authorised the point required, viz. that the heretic on the throne of England should hold over them the same authority, which the heretics on the throne of Russia or of Prussia claim and exercise, over the Roman Catholic Church in their several dominions.

In respect to the first point, I quote from the Commit→ tee of 1816 the following abstract:-" Joseph II. on the 12th Oct. 1785, addressed a Rescript to the Four Archbishops, declaring that, in his character of Chief of the Empire, he was determined to acquit his duty, by maintaining the authority of the Bishops in their dioceses, and to do all in his power to restore the ancient discipline of the Church and that he would notify immediately to the Court of Rome, that he would not in future acknowledge the Nuncios, otherwise than merely as political Envoys of the Pope, without allowing them any rule or jurisdiction 1."

"It does not appear," I quote the very next words of the Committee," that THIS DETERMINATION HAD ANY WEIGHT WITH THE COURT OF ROME, as a Nuncio was soon afterwards sent to Munich with the faculties of a Legate à latere." Four years before, a Nuncio of the Pope had, at Vienna itself, communicated to some Bishops and

1 See the pieces justitatives, p. 146-156.

2 Report, p. 11.