Catholic country the struggle between the rival systems was continued for two centuries after the Reformation; and the great name of Bossuet is not more illustrious for his eloquence than for his bold vindication of the national as opposed to the ultramontane theory of Catholicism.' There is a truth in this passage. Gallicanism is nationalism: that which the Gospel casts out; that which grew up again in mediæval Christendom. It is the Christian Judaism which strove to elect its own High Priest; the national factions which rent the Sacred College; the nationalism which set up two or three uncanonical Popes, and two or three national obediences; the spirit of egotism, worldliness, and avarice, which caused whole nations of Europe to apostatise from the Divine will, from the unity of the Church, and to erect Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism on the schismatical basis of national Churches. The same spirit in France tempted Louis XIV. and a handful of courtiers, ecclesiastical and civil, to the verge of schism, from which they were saved by the. authority of the Pontiff, by the Catholic fidelity of the majority of the French bishops, and by the Catholic instincts of the French people. The great name of Bossuet, as I will show, was darkened by his contact with this error, and might have incurred a censure which would have attached to it for ever. Much as we respect the memory of Bossuet, reverence for the Divine order of the Church constrains us not to praise him when his illustrious name is under a cloud.
