ROMAN CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE n
sprevAros."1 SIR,—Give me half-a-dozen lines in reply to the legion of assailants. In Justinian's days all heresies were on the Trinity,—to be sound on that doctrine was to be a "Catholic."
Whether St. Ignatius ever wrote Christus ibi ecclesia " I cannot say, not having a theological library on board, but the statement is wholly incontrovertible. Surely your corre- spondent is not misquoting the famous doctrine of St. Cyprian, so often used by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, " Ubi Petrus ibi ecclesia." As I have already said, this is no question of theology, but of good manners. The Pooes spiritual subjects have had the exclusive use of the name " Catholics " by the common consent of the whole world for nearly two thousand years,—and that is enough. If PTO- testants were as. catholic as air, they would not. be "Catholics,"—any more than I should be a "Liberal" were I never so liberal-minded in the common sense of the word. If your correspondents will have the theological arf,rutuent, it is too simple for controversy. The Church, founded by Christ upon the rock and against which hell shall never prevail, is a visible body, or it is not. If visible, it can be none other-thAn that whose head is the Pope; for none other even claims to be such. The suggested triple partnership, repudiated by the two senior partners holding ninety-seven per cent, of the magi, is too childish for serious mention. If, on the other hand, the Church be invisible, then our relations with God are Wholly personal and subjective; and it becomes both an insolence and an impiety for one of us to address another on a subject wholly between him and his God.—I am, Sir, Yacht Leander,' Dartmouth. W. D. GATNSFORD. [Tim more you claim, the more you prove, appears to be Mr. Gainsford's view.—En. Spectator.]
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