Bossuet, as the Royal Astronomers are to the Ptolemaic system. The world has moved onward, and the Church has released itself from the servitude of royal patrons. The voice which went forth from the whole French episcopate when Pius IX. called upon them to contend with him for the rights and liberties of the Chair of Peter, and again when he published to the world the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, is proof of the profound adherence of the bishops in France to the supreme prerogatives of the Vicar of Christ, which the world calls Ultramontanism.
And now, lest it should be thought that what has here been said is remote from our present needs and duty, I will add the reasons which prompted me to dwell upon these topics. The one is, that a full and perfect belief of the authority of the faith is essential to the mission of the Church, especially in England; the other is, that the convoking of a General Council makes this subject timely, for reasons I will endeavour to give hereafter.
It is certain that the action of Catholic truth upon England has been weakened by the Gallican opinions. Although it is both true and self-evident that Gallicans maintain the infallibility of the Church; nevertheless the inconsistency of their theories, their incompatibility with the whole action and attitude of the Holy See, and the divisions they have apparently introduced among Catholics, have hindered the full effect of the Catholic theology upon the public opinion of this country. False as it is, nevertheless
