roposition, and a controversy
ensues. It smoulders or burns in one place, no one interposing; Rome
simply lets it alone. Then it comes before a Bishop; or some priest, or
some professor in some other seat of learning takes it up; and then
there is a second stage of it. Then it comes before a University, and it
may be condemned by the theological faculty. So the controversy proceeds
year after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal perhaps is next
made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome; and then at last after a
long while it comes before the supreme power. Meanwhile, the question
has been ventilated and turned over and over again, and viewed on every
side of it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision, which
has already been arrived at by reason. But even then, perhaps the
supreme authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the
point for years: or so generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy
has to be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined. It is
manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to the
liberty, but to the courage, of the individual theologian or
controversialist. Many a man has ideas, which he hopes are true, and
useful for his day, but he is not confident about them, and wishes to
have them discussed, He is willing, or rather would be thankful, to give
them up, if they can be proved to be erroneous or dangerous, and by
means of controversy he obtains his end. He is answered, and he yields;
or on the contrary he finds that he is considered safe. He would not
dare to do this, if he knew an authority, which was supreme and final,
was watching every word he said, and made signs of assent or dissent to
each sentence, as he uttered it. Then indeed he would be fighting, as
the Persian soldiers, under the lash, and the freedom of his intellect
might truly be said to be beaten out of him. But this has not been
so:--I do not mean to say that, when controversies run high, in schools
or even in small portions of the Church, an interposition may not
advisably take place; and again, questions may be of that urgent nature,
that an appeal must, as a matter of duty, be made at once to the highest
authority in the Church; but if we look into the history of controversy,
we shall find, I think, the general run of things to be such as I have
represented it. Zosimus treated Pelagius and C[oe]lestius with extreme
forbearance; St. Gregory VII. was equally